In the beginning...

Stray dog started as "APHRODITE", a trio based in Texas.
The line-up was:

William Garrett "Snuffy" Walden: Guitars/Vocals
Alan Roberts: Bass/Vocals
Randy Reeder: Drums

One night while playing in a club in Denver, Colorado (Where Alan was
from) GREG LAKE saw them playing. Greg was in town `cause ELP
were playing locally. He was so knocked out with their performance so
he offered them a record deal right there on the spot!

The deal was for the three of them to hop on a plane and fly back to England
with ELP the very next morning. Snuffy and Alan was in agreement, but
Randy (who later ended up in BLOODROCK) didn`t want to leave.
Snuffy and Alan flew to England. There, they auditioned drummers.
Leslie T.Sampson was the one!
He had previously played in "ROAD" NOEL REDDINGS band.
(In 1986/87 he replaced Geoff Britton and played with THE PIRATES.)

Anyway...
The first record was recorded in a few short weeks and Stray dog then
embarked on a tour with ELP. They toured in the states with ELP. But the album
went nowhere...

Timmy Dulaine joined...

Austin Godsey,staff engineer at the Record Plant L.A.
at that time,was producing a solo artist by the name of
Tim Harrison.Tim Harrison (a.k.a. Tim Dulaine ex-
BUCKWHEAT HONEY, TIMMY HARRISSON GROUP)
knew Snuffy from Texas (Austin believe that they
were from the same town, Baytown).
 Austin Godsey:
"Tim and I had been working together for probaly 8 months. Whenever there
was an open studio at The Record Plant (most of the time in the wee, very
"burnt out" hours after some marathon session. I would call Tim and we
would record until we got kicked or passed out.

Stray dog as a trio was in L.A. and Tim
asked the guys to play on a couple of tracks, "Calamity Jane" was one of them.

The tracks turned out pretty good and Tim was asked to join the band.
LUIS CABAZA, a local session keyboard/piano player became a fourth member
and Austin Godsey was asked to produce and engineer the album
"While you`re down there".

They did a few shows locally (L.A.), but nothing nationally (as far as
I know). Soon after, the band started to drift apart.

The album never charted ...much less sold much".

Click to enlarge
"Very well" is originally a song called "Circles" and Tim Harisson group
used to play it w. different lyrics and arrangements. Rufus&Chaka Khan has
recorded the song and it went triple platinum!

Timmy Dulaine says:
"This was a truely great band before I ever joined. This band would have been huge!!!!!!!!!
The first rolling stone review was along side the very first Queen review
and we were compared to them, me to Freddy Mercury Snuff to Brian May
..I played with Snuff in Texas in the late 60s and saw
Aphrodite later in The Cellar in Houston when I arrived back from one of my
NYC gigs I played in the same club. Snuffy came to see me in
Houston after that about joining and playing keys.
Nothing happened untill I got to LA I flew to Colorado and
jammed with them and that was it.
They all moved to California. Things were crazy then..."

Dana Madore says:
"I was there for the recording of some of it. It was a powerful hard rock record.
But for some reason they remixed it, and it was all "watered down". The sound
was very weak and Al`s bass was barely audible"

By this time Manticore was being distributed by MOTOWN. Motown
probably didn`t know how to market a band like Stray dog.

Stray dog never became a famous band or charted. It`s
more than 20 years ago from now but they`ll always
remain as LOUD `N`PROUD!

Source and 95% of text:
Dana Madore, Timmy Dulaine & Austin Godsey
ALL CREDITS TO THEM!