One might say that Gunnar Nelson was born to play the drums.

“I think I was drawn toward that because out of everyone on stage in my father’s show, the drummer had the most stuff,” said Nelson, who will be appearing with his brother, Matthew, and the rest of the Stone Canyon Band on Saturday in “Ricky Nelson Remembered” at Harrah’s Lake Tahoe.

“My first memory of my dad in show business was when I was sitting on an apple crate at the Good Time Theater at Knott’s Berry Farm for my dad’s show,” Gunnar said. “My dad was having a great time and the audience was having a great time, and I thought that looked like a pretty great thing to do. I thought everyone’s dad was a rock star. I didn’t know it was something unique.”

And as young boys are wont to do, Gunnar — all of 5 years old at the time — was drawn to the area of the stage with the most shiny and complicated equipment.
“My dad’s drummer (Steve Duncan) had this massive drum kit,” he said. “I was entranced. Steve gave me my first drum lesson not long after that, and dad got me a drum set and put it out in the barn, where I practiced every day.”

About the same time, Gunnar’s twin brother Matthew was practicing on his first guitar. By the time the boys were 10 they were writing and performing their own songs, and by 12 they were playing nightclubs as professional musicians.

“I was 6, and remember playing along to records that I liked,” Gunnar said. “Nick Gilder’s ‘Hot Child in the City,’ was one. Before long Matthew and I started playing in school productions and talent shows, and by age 12 we were playing nightclubs.”
Contrary to popular belief, this delighted their father, who never pushed his boys toward a show business career, but never inhibited them either.

“Dad loved it,” Gunnar said of his early musical efforts. “We found out later that he would tell all his friends about us, and would stand outside the club listening to us play, so that we wouldn’t know he was there.”

The Nelson brothers soldiered on in the music business, forming the band Strange Agents in the early 1980s, then getting a recording contract with Geffen Records as the glam rock band Nelson. Their debut album, 1990’s “After The Rain,” contained the No. 1 hit “(I Can't Live Without Your) Love and Affection,” making them the third generation of their family to have had a No. 1 hit (their grandfather, Ozzie Nelson, had a No. 1 hit with “And Then Some” in 1934, and Ricky Nelson, had top hits with “Poor Little Fool” in 1960 and “Travelin’ Man” in 1962).

Gunnar and Matthew co-founded the Stone Canyon Records label in 1995.
Their current tour, entitled “Ricky Nelson Remembered,” is a mixture of their father’s music and their own.

“It’s funny, because we never used to play (dad’s) tunes at all,” Gunnar said. “But we got involved with a project at Capitol Records, a boxed set of dad’s songs titled “Legacy,” where we did a lot of research on dad’s music. So we decided to work a couple of his songs into our act.”

The audience response was so strong that the brothers decided to start the tribute tour.

“We are so blessed,” Gunnar said. “We get people from 8 to 80 coming to our shows, and we get to carve a line through that with our music. Dad’s songs are like a little time machine where I get to go back and remember where I was and what I was feeling the first time I heard them.”

And it puts the brothers in touch with their father’s many fans.

“One of my favorite stories about my father was one I just learned last week,” Gunnar said. “We had just finished a show, and a man pulled Matt aside and told him the story about his daughter, who was mentally handicapped. She was a big fan of dad’s, and wanted to come to the show that night but couldn’t make it.

“So dad got this guy’s address, and later that night there’s this knock on the door, and dad is there. He just showed up at this guy’s house in the middle of suburbia, and stayed and visited with the family for four hours. And he never told anyone about it. When I heard that, it was the most connected to him that I’ve ever felt.” 
 

TheNelsonBrothers.com