Leather and Lace (Eddie Roundtree)

Bang A Gong (Get It On)

"Well, you're windy and wild/You've got the blues in your shoes and your stockings/Get it on, bang a gong, get it on"

Layla Dunne was born in 1951 and grew up in Hazelwood, Pennsylvania. She is the younger sister of former musicians Billy and Graham Dunne (of The Six).

Layla Dunne: I can't believe you got everyone to agree to this. So, where do you want me to start?

Interviewer: Wherever you think is best. Where did it begin for you?

Layla: Well, I guess there's multiple beginnings for me depending on how you look at it. Music began with my dad's guitar, like it did for my brothers. I was four when my dad left. Billy was seven and Graham was five. He left behind a guitar that the boys would fight over but they wouldn't even let me into the fight. I had no chance of getting that guitar [shakes head]. And I have a bit of a competitive streak, so I didn't want to be counted out so early.

Billy Dunne: Layla wasn't really interested in the guitar when we were young...I don't think. She was a baby, you know, I figured she didn't care. I suppose she got into music as we got older.

Graham Dunne: I think Layla was annoyed we excluded her from learning to play the guitar on our dad's old one, but I don't think she really cared.

Layla: I was pissed. And it was only the beginning of things like that. I love my brothers but thinking outside of themselves wasn't exactly their strong suit. Anyway, I had always been interested in music. Just drawn to it. I loved everything about it and that only grew as I got more involved. So, I joined the church choir when I was six or seven and it took off from there. I got someone from that choir to teach me piano, another person to teach me guitar. As I got older I saved up all my babysitting money, dog-walking money, whatever I had. I bought a used acoustic guitar for cheap when I was thirteen. I was really proud of that, I didn't need my dad or my brothers [smiles].

Interviewer: When did you start thinking of leaving Hazelwood? Were you planning to leave and become a musician?

Layla: Oh God [laughs], well I think I had been planning to leave since I was born. And while the plan to become a musician, I mean a famous one, was always in me it was not a conscious thought, not in Hazelwood. [Pause] I guess high school is when I really started wanting to leave. In my town, as a woman, the options were to be a mill worker's wife or a soldier's wife, always somebody's wife. I just didn't want my life to end with a walk down the aisle and a cradle. I wanted to live first before I settled down, if I ever did.

Billy: Teenage Layla was [searching for the word] trouble. And she knew it. Got kicked out of church choir at fourteen or fifteen, I don't even remember for what. She was sneaking out, she'd hitch rides out of town to go to concerts, smoking pot, partying. I cared, you know as a big brother, I was protective over my baby sister, but she wouldn't be controlled. Not be me or anyone. That doesn't mean I didn't try, and we fought a lot because of it. We fought a lot about everything, but that's family.

Warren Rojas: Hazelwood didn't have girls like Layla, she was something special. Cool, wild, a bit of a hippie. She was fun, the coolest of the Dunnes, always was and always will be. Would get us into every party, every concert, whatever there was. Oh, and she was hot as hell!

Graham: God, she got up to trouble, and in a town like ours that isn't exactly easy. She's eleven months younger than me so we knew all the same people, and I was not cool in high school, I can admit that now. People were either surprised we were related or nice to me to get to her. But she was oblivious to all that, she didn't really care how everyone else viewed her. If they liked her, cool, if they didn't, that was cool too. So, naturally, everyone liked her.