In 1977 several former members of a group called the Levee Band, who had been playing as studio players in the Bayou located Studio in the Country and as backup for local artists like Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown and Clifton Chenier, signed a deal with Capitol Records as The Jeff Pollard Band. The band had just returned from touring the United States and Africa with Brown through an arrangement with the US State Department. Leon Medica, the band's producer and bassist, had presented a demo tape to Paul Tannen at Screen Gems-EMI while doing a session in Nashville and making trips to Colorado to contribute bass parts to a Nitty Gritty Dirt Band album at William McEuen's Aspen Recording Society studios. McEuen, Tannen and Attorney John Frankenheimer helped Medica secure the contract with Capitol.