Mar24

#98 and 99 – Day Tripper

Posted on March 24, 2024 by The Classic Rocker

#98 & 99 – Day Tripper by The Beatles

I remember the supposed meltdown rock journalists and fans in competing cities suffered when Cleveland, Ohio was chosen to be the location for The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Wait… not New York, not Chicago, not Los Angeles, but… Cleveland? To make its case, there were legitimate reasons to choose this location on the U.S. north coast. It was where disc jockey Alan Freed first used the term “rock and roll” on the radio, though it’s been acknowledged those words emanated from a distant culture and had more to do with sounds made under the sheets, rather than what was heard from between the grooves of vinyl records Freed was spinning during his broadcasts.

A Cleveland suburb was also the first city north of the Mason-Dixon Line to host a concert by The King of Rock and Roll, Elvis Presley. Then again, the actual innovators of rock and roll were also from a distant culture and had nothing like Elvis in mind while developing their “three-chords and a beat” sound.

But the Port of Cleveland on Lake Erie and its inhabitants have much in common with the world’s most successful and best-loved rock and roll band, The Beatles, and their hometown of Liverpool. Both cities relied on major rivers, The Mersey in Liverpool and the Cuyahoga in Cleveland, and the shipping industries for much of their economy. Big ships with heavy loads kept the docks and waterways filled with commerce, while workers and families developed characteristics that seemed more worldly than might be found in isolated inland cities. Both the people of Liverpool and Cleveland shared a strong work ethic, a wicked sense of humor, and an ability to cut loose when the mood – and the music – was right.

In Cleveland this was true when Freed hosted the very first – ever – rock and roll concert on March 12, 1952. Dubbed The Moondog Coronation Ball, the crowd “cut loose” so much the police had to step in and shut down the event.

In 1964, the Beatles faced a similar Cleveland reaction. During their performance at Public Auditorium fans rushed the stage, and police shut it down. As a result, not only were the Beatles banned from returning to Cleveland, but also all rock and roll shows were banned. The reason given by the mayor was quite simple: “Little girls should not behave that way in public.”

And in case you need a reminder, the city is now home to The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

In 1966 the ban was lifted, and on August 14^th, only two weeks before their final concert in San Francisco, the Beatles performed at Cleveland Municipal Stadium. As a 13-year-old first-generation fan, meaning I was following John, Paul, George, and Ringo since their U.S. debut on The Ed Sullivan Show, I was there.

I was very fortunate to see the Beatles live. Since the release of my books, I’ve done many author presentations from junior high schools to retirement homes and have learned there is no shortage of Beatles fans. But there can be a shortage of eyewitnesses. When I’ve asked audience members to share their memories, more than a few first-generation fans are still upset at their parents for forbidding them to attend a Beatles concert. They were considered “long haired, rock and roll bad influences” by an older generation. However, my parents liked them and not only gave me permission to attend the concert, but they also went with me.

The entire experience was like a scene from A Hard Day’s Night on steroids. The excitement continuously built during the opening acts and almost reached a fever pitch when The Fab Four was introduced and walked onto the small stage, situated on the baseball stadium’s infield.

But wait… did I say almost? That’s because there were a few more notches of excitement to build up to full-blown Beatlemania, which reached its peak during their fourth song, Day Tripper.

In my mind as a Beatles fan, this song, especially the opening notes played by George Harrison, will forever be associated with this 1966 concert in Cleveland, Ohio. The fans “cut loose” in a big way, almost ending our Beatles experience with the same, show-ending finale suffered 14 years earlier at The Moondog Coronation Ball.

This was not the first city to feature fans rushing the stage to touch one of their heroes, but police and barriers often kept them from getting too close. That was not the case in Cleveland, where rock and roll has its own rules and standards. As I watched in both excitement and horror from our upper deck seats, within the first notes of Day Tripper, one fan jumped onto the field and was immediately followed by 3,000 others.

Knocking down a flimsy fence that someone in charge had considered sufficient to hold back a crowd, the fans were in a race to the stage, giving a slight head start to a contingent of surprised and overwhelmed police. With the stage only about shoulder high, the onslaught looked like a mass of uniforms and teenagers climbing for positions while the Beatles continued to play.

When the group finished Day Tripper, (yes, they completed the song) the stage was filled with police, fans – and Beatles. For everyone’s safety, the band was rushed into a house trailer that had originally been provided as their pre-show dressing room. It now became their Fortress of Solitude, (another nod to Cleveland where the comic book hero Superman was created in 1938).

Deejays pleaded with the crowd to return to their seats, or police would cancel the show. I remember sitting in anticipation, hoping the fans – at least for this one moment in their baby boomer teenage years – would follow the older generation’s advice and for the show to continue. After all, I did not attend a Beatles concert to watch a large crowd of overzealous fans on the stage. I came to see the Beatles.

Fortunately, my hopes came true, and the Beatles completed their concert. It was an unforgettable experience that inspired me to write a book about it forty years later. I guess that says a lot about what it meant to me. And as for Day Tripper, the first notes played by George never fail to bring back the excitement of Beatlemania. The music and the memories live on…

Day Tripper scored twice on this Dream Song List on August 31st and September 3rd. Of course I’ve owned copies since the original release and never wait too long to hear it. So, yes that’s right trippers – it’s on the recent memory page. And as for the concert… it was a long time ago, but still clear in my waking mind.

For a very cool video of The Beatles performing Day Tripper, check out this LINK. This is how I remember watching it on television – including the female go-go dancers – for the first time.

Thanks for reading and until next time – keep rockin’!

Dave Schwensen is the author of The Beatles At Shea Stadium, The Beatles In Cleveland, and others. What’s the number one song on The Dream Song List? Subscribe to The Classic Rocker as we continue the countdown.

Mar12

Interview with Eric Carmen

Posted on March 12, 2024 by The Classic Rocker

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May 27, 2000

INTERVIEW WITH ERIC CARMEN
How Much More Fun Can You Have?

By Dave Schwensen

As much as I’m a fan of comedy, I’m passionate about the music I listen to. There’s no other way to describe how I feel about certain songs that bring back memories or forge new ones with whatever I’m listening to as the soundtrack. And my taste in music could truly be called eclectic, because even I can’t predict what I’ll be into at any given moment. The daily soundtrack playing in my office might include everything from rock, soul and blues, to Broadway, classical and Indian, (sitar)

But if I had to choose – for instance, answering the old question of what CD’s I would want if I were stuck on a deserted island – the answer would be pop/rock. The Beatles and Rolling Stones would definitely be represented. Also on that list would be the true kings of early ‘70s power-rock/pop, The Raspberries.

If by some chance you’ve noticed my review of The Raspberries current reunion tour and think, “Oh, he’s just saying that because he just saw them” – then you’re wrong. “Go All The Way,” “I Wanna Be With You” and “Overnight Sensation” have been on my personal play list since they were released. And I’ve also followed Eric Carmen’s solo career with “All By Myself,” “That’s Rock’n Roll” and many others.

But I will admit it was a mind-jarring experience to see the original Raspberries reunite for this tour. The band was tight, and they rocked through one song after another that had been a soundtrack on my personal journey for years.

One of the highlights of my career as an entertainment writer was interviewing Eric Carmen. This was back in 2000 when he was on tour with Ringo Starr and his All-Starr Band. It was a thrill for my personal memory bank, especially since The Raspberries are from my home base of Cleveland. I remember seeing them at local clubs playing the soundtrack for my limited dancing ability when I was still in high school.

In celebration of The Raspberries reunion, I’ve decided to reprint my interview with Carmen. But instead of digging through my archives, (which is a pile of papers and computer disks in my basement), I lucked on another mind-jarring thrill. The interview was still posted on Carmen’s personal website!! It almost makes me feel important enough to call Ringo and ask for a spot in his next All-Starr Band.

The date was May 27, 2000 when the following ran in The Morning Journal Newspaper. It focuses mainly on Carmen’s involvement with Ringo and the All-Starr Band – but also touches on his solo career and The Raspberries. After all, how could it not – especially since it was written by a fan.

May 27, 2000

Cleveland has been a force in rock music long before the first cornerstone was placed at The Rock’n Roll Hall of Fame. If you know your history, Alan Freed coined the phrase on local airwaves and hosted shows by legends such as Elvis Presley and The Everly Brothers before they were international stars.

The North Coast has nurtured its share of performers, from doo-wop and country through garage bands, disco and rap, but one stands out among all the others. With a successful career spanning three decades, Eric Carmen is Cleveland’s very own hometown hero, music legend and international star.

A child prodigy on the piano who still holds the record as the youngest student, (age two and a half), to be accepted at Cleveland’s prestigious Institute of Music, he caught rock’n roll fever in the mid-60’s and never got over it. His Classical training allowed him to combine the two styles of music in a way no one had before, and after plugging in his first electric guitar he became a regular performer in the local club scene. Eventually Carmen formed one of the hottest bands of the 1970’s, The Raspberries.

After a string of hits including “Go All The Way,” “Tonight” and “I Wanna Be With You,” Carmen set out on a solo career that still continues to produce hits and top-selling albums. “All By Myself” is a much-recorded classic, along with “Hungry Eyes” and “Dirty Dancing.” His latest CD, “I Was Born To Love You,” promises the same high standards his fans have come to expect.

In what turned out to be a grand summer homecoming, Carmen put his solo projects on the back burner to have a little rock’n roll fun. Joining up with former Beatle Ringo Starr, he played some of his biggest hits, (along with many by his famous bandmates), when the All-Starr Band performed in Cleveland And in case you haven’t heard, his musical co-horts also included Jack Bruce, (Cream), Simon Kirk, (Bad Company), Dave Edmunds, (Dave Edmunds Band and RockPile), and Mark Rivera, (The Billy Joel Band).

I had a chance to speak with Carmen during a break in rehearsals as the All-Starr Band prepared for the opening of their tour. Just as excited as any Cleveland musician would be about performing with a Beatle, he talked about the band, his career, and hometown roots. It was like visiting with a North Coast neighbor, which is exactly how it turned out to be.

“Where are you?” he laughed over the phone. “Because you have the same area code as me. My hometown! I moved back in 1994 and I’ve been in my hometown ever since.”

“I’m looking out of my window at Lake Erie right now,” I answered.

“I hear you. It’s a lovely place. A beautiful sight.”

I decided to give his memory a quick test. “There was a club in North Ridgeville, (Ohio), in the early ’70’s called Cyrus Erie…”

“Wow, that’s going back a few years!” he answered. And just in case some of you aren’t up on your Eric Carmen/Raspberries history, Cyrus Erie was one of the many local dance clubs in northern Ohio where the band played long weekend sets in front of packed houses before “Go All The Way” hit the music charts. Since this reporter was part of the crowd to witness the excitement at that time, I asked if he was excited about performing again in the Cleveland area.

“Sure! And I’m playing with a Beatle. How much more fun can you have? He’s all full of personality and that sarcastic wit he’s got… And he’s a barrel of laughs.”

“How did you get involved with The All-Starr Band?”

“My manager from a long time ago asked me if I would be interested in doing this. And I said, ‘Let me think about that. Go out with a Beatle…? Sure!'” he answered, laughing that anyone would have to think about it. “I’d met John and Paul, but I had not met Ringo. So, I guess my name went into a hat with a bunch of keyboard players and Ringo called me for the job.”

“It sounds to me like he picked the right one,” I noted.

“I think so,” he agreed.

“Honestly, I don’t know where to actually start with this interview,” I admitted. “I mean, The Raspberries got me through college at Bowling Green, (State University, Ohio).”

“Half my high school went to Bowling Green,” he said.

“I knew all these guys from around Cleveland and they all acted like they knew you,” I continued, getting a big laugh from Carmen. “They were on a first-name basis with you all the time.”

“Half of them were my cousins!” he answered, laughing harder. “I had lots and lots of cousins.”

“When was the last time you played a show in Cleveland?” I asked. “It wasn’t that long ago…”

“I actually did a very, very small show at The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in March. It was for their educational department. It was about an hour-long interview, then I brought my band on to play about seven or eight songs. So, we did actually play fairly reasonably, but it wasn’t really kind of an ‘open to the public’ sort of show. Before that, probably the last time I played Cleveland was with the ‘Dirty Dancing Tour.’ We did Blossom (Music Center) in 1987 or ’88, or whatever that thing was.”

“I know you have a new album…,” I said.

“It just came out and I don’t think I’ll be doing anything from that, (with the All-Starr Band),” he answered. “Because the show is really about playing hits and that album hasn’t hit yet. All of the All-Starr’s are doing the things that people want to hear.”

Would Carmen give us a little preview? Which of his many songs will be featured?

“We’ll probably play ‘All By Myself’ and ‘Hungry Eyes,’ he answered. “And Raspberries fans won’t be disappointed either.”

“You mentioned that you’ve moved back to Ohio,” I said. “I thought you lived in Los Angeles.”

“No,” he stated. “I lived out there off and on for awhile and moved back in 1994.”

“Do you go out to Los Angeles to record?”

“Sometimes I go there,” he replied. “Sometimes I… You know, the world of recording is a digital world now. If you’ve got a Macintosh computer, you can do half of the stuff in your home. So, it just depends on what I’m doing and what I need. But I’ve got friends in Nashville and Los Angeles, and sometimes I just send them a tape.”

“I know your musical background is very much Classical,” I said. “As much as The Beatles, The Byrds, The Beach Boys and many others.”

“Um-hum (yes),” he answered, obviously waiting for me to say something we don’t both already know.

“You’re known for mixing the two musical styles. What do you listen to now? What’s your favorite kind of music?”

“That’s a darn good question… I still listen to Classical Music more than anything else. But it’s just whatever mood I’m in on that given day. I mean I could go from Sinatra one day to Rolling Stones or The Beatles the next, to Rachmaninoff the day after that… It just varies.”

“When you write, are you still trying to incorporate your Classical training into your music?” I asked.

“Well, I think I’ve used up most of the good melodies,” he answered with a big laugh. “They only wrote so many of those and there’s an old band leader from the ’50’s named Freddy Martin who got to a bunch of them before I did, unfortunately! And he nabbed them. And I got a couple of the good ones that were left, but I don’t know how many of them there are beyond the ones I found. If anyone comes up with some, let me know.”

“I was living in New York City when your solo albums started coming out,” making believe my former proximity would make me closer to the ‘scene.’ “You used to record on West 44th Street…”

“That’s right. The Record Plant,” he said.

“I used to run The Improv Comedy Club…”

“Wow, that was on 44th Street…,” he remembered, though it still didn’t actually place me at the ‘scene.’

“Your gold album with ‘All By Myself,’ ‘Never Gonna Fall In Love Again,’ and the next one, ‘Eric Carmen,’ with the songs ‘I Wanna Hear It From Your Lips’ and ‘I’m Through With Love,’ were…, well, great music for dating,” I admitted.

“Oh, thank you!” he laughed. “That’s very nice!! I’m glad to hear it!”

“What else can you tell us about the All-Starr Band,” I asked, quickly changing the subject.

“Well, you know who’s in it. Right? We’ve got Jack Bruce from Cream on bass. We’ve got Dave Edmunds of The Dave Edmunds Band and Rockpile on guitar. Got Simon Kirk of Bad Company and Free on drums. And Ringo! And Mark Rivera from Billy Joel’s band on sax. So…”

“Did you ever play with any of these guys before?”

“I actually hadn’t played with any of them,” he answered. “And I’m a fan of all their music. So, it’s a marvelous thing to walk in a room with these guys for the first time, which was a little over a week ago, and say, ‘Alright, let’s start learning our songs!’ The next thing I knew I’m singing ‘I Feel Free’ with Jack Bruce, and playing ‘All Right Now’ with Simon Kirk. And Ringo’s drumming on ‘All By Myself.’ How’bout that?! You know?”

“Are you playing both guitar and piano?”

“Guitar, piano and bass actually,” he said. “I play bass on Dave Edmunds’ things.”

“What have rehearsals been like?” I asked. “Did everyone gel immediately, or did it take a little bit of time?”

“It just kind’a…,” he answered, before taking a moment to think about it. “Ringo likes to have fun. Ringo does not like to beat things to death. So, his approach is, ‘Let’s just play the song.’ And I think he sort of expected everyone to pretty much know the songs before we walked in the door. Which we all did. We all got a CD with everyone else’s songs on it and had a chance to listen to it. Then it was just a matter of getting together and filling the song out and finding the little funny corners of the songs. The places that you don’t expect to find. Little problems. And it’s all just starting to really come together. Let’s see, we started rehearsing a week ago Monday and today is, what day – Wednesday? Monday we kind of had the day off and Tuesday was the first day that I think everything started to just gel. And all of a sudden, it’s, you know, we’re running the show and the songs are just kind of clicking and everybody knows what they’re suppose to be doing. Because, boy, it’s an awful lot of information to assimilate in a very short period of time.”

“Yeah,” I agreed, “with everything you have all done, what can you leave out? You can’t leave out anything!”

“Well, no. We’re going to do some of Dave’s songs, some of Simon’s songs, some of Jack’s songs and a bunch of Ringo songs. Some of my songs… So, you’re learning these songs and in the styles of all these different great bands. Which is great fun, but it’s also a lot of information,” he laughed. “There’s about 23 or 24 songs on our set list! So, we have a lot of editing to do between our first day of rehearsal and playing the first date about a week and a half later.”

“Let me ask more about your songs. You’re going back years and getting into your greatest hits. Are you finding these musicians are adding some things you hadn’t thought of before?”

“Sure!” he answered, with no hesitation. “Far be it from me to tell Jack Bruce what to play on the bass. The guy is one of the great bass players of all time. One of the best bass players in the cosmos! So, I just kind of turn it over to him, you know? And I’m thrilled with what I hear. He’s a brilliant, brilliant bass player, and he’s adding things that weren’t there on the records and that are wonderful.”

“So, it’s almost like reinventing your music a little bit…”

“Well, kind of what we’re doing is… One of the things I had done originally as I came into this thinking was Ringo…” Carmen began, then paused for a moment. “Here I’m this big Beatles fan and I know all the stuff that’s on the record and Ringo was kind of like, ‘You know, whatever we do we’re not gonna be The Beatles. So, we’re gonna do our versions of these songs.’ It’s not like we have to match the record exactly and I think that’s pretty much how we’ve approached everyone’s songs. We use the original as a jumping off point, but you let everybody do what they do. Simon Kirk is a marvelous drummer and Ringo is certainly a marvelous drummer, so I’m not going to tell them to play the same drum fills that were on ‘All By Myself.’ It’s like, ‘Well, you guys just have fun,” he laughed. “Just go for it and know they’re not letting me down.”

“I know you’re a big Beatle fan,” I said. “Do you feel a little bit like a Beatle now?”

“Well, I don’t know if I feel like I’m a Beatle,” he answered, after a big laugh. “But I’ll tell you what, it’s a pretty heady rush to look over my shoulder on the second song and I’m sitting there playing acoustic guitar on ‘Act Naturally,’ and there’s Ringo standing next to me singing!”

“That must be something,” I imagined out loud.

“Yeah!”

“Since we grew up in the same area, I wanted to ask you this question,” I said, continuing the Fab Four subject. “Did you see The Beatles when they played in Cleveland?”

“I didn’t. I did not see them,” he said.

“I thought you would’ve been the first in line!” I answered in disbelief.

“It was sort of before… Their concert happened sort of before I really arrived at all that. I think the first concert I saw was The Rolling Stones, and it was 1967 or something. I wish I had seen The Beatles, but I didn’t see them when they went through there!”

“I was there in 1966,” I said. “I haven’t seen Ringo in concert since.”

“Well you know, he looks great,” Carmen said, almost turning into the reporter for this story. “He looks great, and he really is Ringo. I mean, sometimes you meet someone and, you know, you meet them in person, and you think, ‘Oh, they look really old or they’re not anything like you imagined them to be.’ It’s totally…, Ringo is Ringo. This is the guy from ‘Help!’ Same sense of humor. He’s in Great shape. He’s a staunch vegetarian and…”

“So you’re having a great time working with him,” I interrupted.

“Yeah!” he laughed. “He’s a ball! He’s a funny guy!”

With the excitement of performing with The All-Starr Band and the release of his new album, I asked Carmen what his future plans were. Any solo shows in the works?

“Well, I have a six-week-old little girl at home,” he answered. “I had to leave when she was a month old, and I have a two and a half year old little boy so…”

“I miss my wife and my kids terribly!” he laughed. “So, the first thing I’m going to do is go home and just take some time off and just hang out at home with my family. And then we’ll kind of go from there. I think there’s actually some things, like maybe I’ll have my band do a show in Cleveland in August or September. So, we’ll see how that all develops. But we’re making our way through here with this tour, then we’ll kind of look at everything else after that.”

There are rumors of a Raspberries compilation CD coming out. Did he have any updates for us?

“Yeah, it was supposed to come out. There was some legal wranglings going on with a couple members of the band and Capital Records or something, so… It’s there. It’s ready to go and if they get it all sorted out it’ll come out.”

“So nothing more definite on that?” I coaxed.

“I haven’t heard anything new on it.”

I mentioned hearing about new songs. Were there some tracks in the band’s vault that had never been released?

“The original Raspberries’ demos that we did in, God knows what year…,” he said. “Probably 1970 or ’71.”

“Looking back to when you were starting out in the Cleveland area…,” I started, looking for one more visit to the past. “Are those great memories for you? How do you look back on all that?”

“Yeah! They really are, actually. You know, it’s different when you’re first starting. As you become a little bit older and you understand this is a business, many times some of the joy goes out of it. And when you’re playing in those early days, I mean you’re just playing for the joy of playing. But one of the nicest things about this tour is Ringo’s really here to have fun. I mean, this isn’t about anything but having fun. He’s here because he really likes to do this, and he wants to put together a bunch of guys and just go out and play. So, in some ways, this is kind of the best of all possible worlds. Because I can really enjoy the original fun of just playing. But with this kind of group of musicians,” he laughed, “it’s pretty amazing!”

“It’s been a long ride for you,” I said. “But with something like this, it sounds like you’re really enjoying yourself.”

“Absolutely! You know, if somebody would’ve told me when I was a senior at Brush High School, ‘Well, you know in about 30 years or so you’ll be stepping on stage with Ringo Starr and Jack Bruce…,'” he answered, before breaking into another laughs. “I would’ve said, ‘Ah, I think you’re…,’ And they’ll be playing YOUR songs!’ Wow. Pinch me.”

“I think you’ve earned a big place in rock’n roll history with your music,” I said, stating the obvious. “You have classic stuff.”

“Well, thank you.”

“How do you see yourself fitting in?” I asked.

“I have no idea,” he admitted. “All I ever try to do is write some good songs. And I’ve been very fortunate in my career and that we’ve had some hit records and other people have liked my songs as well. I mean, counting the covers of ‘All By Myself’ alone have been pretty amazing. Sheryl Crow to Celine Dion to Frank Sinatra to Tom Jones to Henry Mancinni… I mean, every possible genre has covered this song and it’s a wonderful thing when that happens to a songwriter. Because it’s really what I wanted to do most, you know. And I’ve had successful songs in films, and it’s been a long and crazy ride, but I’m glad it took me to right here! I mean, how much more fun can you have? Walking up on stage with Ringo Starr, Jack Bruce, Simon Kirk… Dave Edmunds – the guy’s one of my heroes. And here I am. With them!”

“It’s a great feeling for all your hometown fans in Cleveland to see you resurface and keep coming out with new songs.”

“Yeah,” he answered. “Once every ten years I like to stick my ugly head up again.”

“Well it works!” I said, as we both laughed at the thought. “Anything else you’d like to tell our readers?”

“Just that I look forward to seeing everyone,” he answered. “And we’ll be there ready to play!”

Jan4

#100 and 101 – Please, Please, Please

Posted on January 4, 2024 by The Classic Rocker

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#100 & 101 – Please, Please, Please by James Brown

A song with so few words that say so much…

If you want to talk about soulful begging for lost love with a groove that will make your every movement sway in time with the tempo, this is the song. And I don’t consider that to be an overstatement since we’re also talking about The Godfather of Soul. It’s evident in his passionate, growling vocals that James Brown is not too proud to beg. It’s a heartbreaking and dynamic performance that will have you pulling for him to win back the woman he’s in the process of losing.

I wasn’t in a heartbreak mood – actually, far from it – on the mornings of November 5 and 22 when Please, Please, Please swayed through my waking mind. I’d been listening to it on my playlist, so it joins the recent memory category. But the pleading message didn’t influence any adventures in dreaming, at least from what I could recall. It was just a cool groove to start both days.

Later, it reminded me of losing something else. But it wasn’t the love of a woman. It was a city.

Anyone that grew up in the Top 40 radio era of the 1960’s was aware of James Brown. Even those of us that were dedicated to pop sounds of The British Invasion wouldn’t dare turn the dial when one of his hits danced through our tiny transistor radio speakers. It’s A Man’s Man’s Man’s World, Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag, and Cold Sweat opened our ears to a different world than the one ruled by British groups with mop top hair. It was urban and soulful.

It wasn’t Rubber Soul or Plastic Soul (the album title discarded in favor of the former). It was the real deal.

**The Hardest Working Man in Showbusiness**

But it wasn’t until after I moved to New York City in the late 1970’s that I bought a cassette tape of James Brown’s Greatest Hits at the Third Avenue Merchants Association (TAMA) Fair. I knew the earlier mentioned hits, but Please, Please, Please took me into a cold sweat. The song had been released in 1958 and since there was no such thing as an “oldies” station on AM channels during our transistor radio era, it was brand new to me.

Let’s groove ahead about fourteen years. I was still in New York City and a LOT had happened. It’s safe to say I was a winning survivor in the never-ending City That Never Sleeps, having done a pretty good job at establishing myself in the desired entertainment industry. That had been the goal from the beginning, even though I moved to NYC with no idea how to do it. But I’ve realized since, with all my moves to other cities (and there have been a few), that’s how I “roll.”

There are people that plan and prepare. There are others that throw caution to the wind and take a chance. Though I don’t know why, I seem to belong to that gambling group. I never needed a job or connections set up before moving somewhere. I just went with the confidence that “something will happen.” Fortunately, it always did.

By the end of 1989 I was getting a little burned-out. I’d had experiences none of the friends I had grown up with in Ohio could have ever predicted. Many of these adventures are remembered in past Classic Rocker ramblings, so no need to go into details again. But I will say the best included music, laughter, forever best friends, and intense relationships (that could still be friends if we hadn’t moved on). I had also been living the lifestyle of a night owl for too long working in clubs and theaters. The excitement, stress (try getting a taxi five nights a week in Times Square at 4 am) and general city living was cooling my desire to remain a Manhattan resident.

During a Thanksgiving dinner at a very groovy NYC diner, one of my best friends and I made a pact. If life didn’t kick up to another exciting level in the next year, it would be time to take a gamble and move to Los Angeles. With an ever-increasing diversion to cold and ice, Hollywood seemed like the tropics to me, and I started saving for suntan lotion.

But then, something else happened…

One of my intense relationships ended (and we weren’t being friends) and a recession was being felt in the city. I had heard, and learned since, a similar economic situation had hit the country in the 1980s, but we never experienced it. It seemed New York City was immune to that type of financial downturn. At least that was the case in my sheltered world of the entertainment biz.

But now, heading into the 1990’s and as manager and talent booker for the legendary, highly successful and popular Improv comedy club, it was obvious our audiences were shrinking. This was also true with other clubs throughout Manhattan. And to fill empty seats, performers (and it wasn’t just comedians because theaters and cabarets were hurting also), were out in force around Times Square handing out flyers and free ticket offers trying to convince tourists and locals to attend their shows.

There were also a couple nights (never weekends) where we had to cancel the show for lack of patrons. That had never happened before. The situation wasn’t looking too good, so I put my relocation plans fast forward. I called my buddy and told him I was California bound – a year early.

I wish it was as easy as that, but then came the process of moving. Let’s just say it was anything BUT an entertaining experience.

**134 East 22nd Street: My former apartment – 3rd floor, center terrace (I had the smaller terrace on the left)**

Wherever I’ve lived, my number one rule was to have a nice apartment. That’s a goal I’ve always achieved. But when you live in nice one for almost fourteen years, it’s inevitable you’re going to collect “stuff.” So even though the decision had been made, there was a lot of work to do before making it happen.

Behind my closet doors in storage boxes and on shelves, in the large drawers under my “captain’s bed,” in the entertainment unit and desk drawers was all my “stuff.” I refer to the process now as an “archeological dig.” Each layer unveiled another past year of photos, scrapbooks, news clippings and other memories. I sorted through each – throwing out most and saving the best.

I sublet my apartment to one of the servers at The Improv and her mother, (note: who better to have as a temporary tenant than someone with their mother to watch over everything?). That meant I could leave most of the furniture. But the items they didn’t want (they had some of their own) needed to go. There was a church across East 22^nd Street next to a city college that sometimes – not always – had few homeless people camped out on the stairs. This was never a dangerous situation and I always felt they were just down on their luck. So, late at night during my archeological digs, I would carry over extra pillows, my coffee table and other items and just leave them on the church steps. By morning they were always gone.

The packing and discarding process ended up taking months. And the work was never started until I came home after our shows at The Improv. This could be anywhere from 1 am to 4 am – followed by a couple hours of sorting, giving, and trashing. Most mornings the sun was up before I hit the bed. Then again, that had been my usual schedule for all the years I lived in Manhattan.

Finally, the day arrived for my relocation – sort of.

I finished my final Saturday night at The Improv (a warm goodbye from everyone and I can still feel the love). Then it was back to my apartment to pick up my cat Kokomo (inside tip for newer city dwellers – cats mean no mice or roaches in apartment buildings), grab the belongings I was taking to Los Angeles and hand-off the keys to my new subletters. Honestly, they couldn’t get me out of there fast enough. Even though it was well after 2 am following the shows, they had a carload of “stuff” outside ready to move in.

But then there was another kink in the travel plans.

I was sharing a ride with a manager from my gym who was an actor and following his dream to Hollywood. He had a car, and I was his cross-country passenger. But he couldn’t make the move until Tuesday morning. So, I ended up camping out in Tribeca with my Thanksgiving pact buddy who wouldn’t be joining me in LA for another three months. And since he was only renting a small room in a family house, I was relegated to spending my final three nights as a Manhattanite sleeping on his couch. Kokomo hid in the closet for three days, which was fine since he wasn’t allowed to have pets.

So, what’s the point in all this rambling and what does it have to do with Please, Please, Please?

Well, honestly – when it comes to Dream Songs, I don’t need to have a point to match the song. It’s just my excuse to tell another story. But when compared to James Brown begging his lover to stay, I didn’t get that response from New York City. It was a mutual break-up.

As we drove over the George Washington Bridge heading west, in a car loaded with “stuff” and a scaredy-cat in the backseat, my gym manager / driver asked if I wanted to take a final look at Manhattan as it disappeared in the rear-view mirror. I declined and said I’d had enough. The city would be embedded into my mind for the rest of my life, and it wasn’t begging me to “Please, Please, Please” come back. Instead, the west coast was promising me “a brand new bag.”

**Got any advice for an English rocker?**

Here’s a LINK to watch one of the most dramatic, grand finales in showbiz – not only soul, but also rock – from The Hardest Working Man In Showbusiness, Soul Brother Number One, James Brown. This performance of Please, Please, Please from the TAMI Show in 1964, witnessed off stage by Mick Jagger, was a groundbreaking influence on the music biz. Enjoy.

Thanks for reading and until next time – keep rockin’!

Dec14

#102 and 103 – Brown Sugar

Posted on December 14, 2023 by The Classic Rocker

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#102 & 103 – Brown Sugar by The Rolling Stones

I’m trying to wrap my head around this. Brown Sugar is one of my all-time favorite rock and roll songs that never fails to land in the Top Three whenever I’m consciously thinking about this type of ranking. The word “consciously” is an important element of that statement. As you should realize by now, Dream Songs is anchored in the unconscious state of my waking mind where I have no control over where it lands on this list.

But still, I would have never dreamed it would rank below the Top 100. In a woke conversation it would consistently land in my Top Three. Of course, with The Classic Rocker, Top Three doesn’t necessarily mean only three songs:

Brown Sugar
Honky Tonk Women
Gimme Shelter
I Saw Her Standing There
Twist and Shout (Beatles version)

Okay, so five are in my Top Three, but what the heck. There are no rules when it comes to rock and roll. If there were, there wouldn’t be so many artists in The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. And if you missed the reference, that was a dig at some who are.

And speaking of woke, I’m very aware of the lyrics not being “PC – Politically Correct.” I understand this and know even The Rolling Stones, who stopped obeying laws and public opinions six decades ago, dropped the song from their concert performances. Times are different from when Brown Sugar was released in 1971 and Mick Jagger was becoming a father for the first time with model Marsha Hunt – the inspiration behind Brown Sugar.

In my defense, I’ve never been much of a lyrics guy. With me, the music comes first. It doesn’t mean I ignore the words. As a writer I truly love and appreciate great lyrics. But when “the feel” of a song can speak to me – whether an instrumental or in my case, when the lyrics blend into the music – the words can be secondary. For example, what is John Lennon trying to say in I Am The Walrus? I don’t know either, but I know the combination of words, music and “the feel” of the entire song makes it great.

Two more examples:

I listen to very eclectic song playlists. I’ll often put themes together like “boogie” (ZZ Top) or “disco” (The Village People) for power walks, hard rock with AC/DC and Guns N’ Roses for around the house head-banging, or Broadway showtunes for something different (and to give my head a break from banging).

Two songs that have been playlist additions lately are Sukiyaki, a worldwide 1963 hit sung in Japanese by Kyu Sakamoto, and Guantanamera by The Sandpipers, a big hit in 1966 with Spanish Lyrics. And since I took a huge dive in grade point average thanks to high school Spanish, even with the in-song English translation I still have no idea what they’re singing. They’re just cool for listening.

So, in many cases for me, lyrics are like musical notes in the song. They make a sound that either works or doesn’t. With Brown Sugar, the total package works. So, forgive me for sounding “un-woke” (I’m not) because it’s obvious the song is about the horrors of black slave trading and nonconsensual sex. I get it and there’s no defense for it, even with claims the world was a different place when it was released more than fifty years ago. But as mentioned earlier, this is an unconscious list of songs – compiled from dreams – and just like Brown Sugar is still released on compilations of Rolling Stones hits, it stays here.

If the Stones bring it back for future live shows, they can catch the heat. After all, they wrote it – not me. I only had it rocking through my waking mind, okay… twice, on March 30 and December 3. And since I hear it often for “the feel,” it falls into the recent memory category.

Brown Sugar is the opening song on the Sticky Fingers album, released just as I was graduating high school. It was the big “get on your feet and dance” incentive at every graduation party, or whenever hanging out for whatever reason. From the moment we heard the crunchy opening notes from Keith Richards’ guitar, everyone would start moving like Mick Jagger.

Other than taking me back to high school graduation and the final summer before my gang of friends took off – and spread out – for our college daze, the biggest memory of Brown Sugar was as the opening song of The Stones’ 1972 Exile On Main Street Tour. A group of us were among the sold-out crowd at the Akron (Ohio) Rubber Bowl for this major event. And yeah, it was a major, headline-making event at every stop of this tour. The Stones were at their biggest and baddest at that time and didn’t disappoint when it came to the music, performances, riots, and arrests. The rock scene hadn’t seen anything on this scale before and it was a concert many of us still use for bragging rights.

Brown Sugar has always been an adrenaline rush thanks to “the feel”. As mentioned earlier, it’s a song that gets everyone dancing and moving. The Rolling Stones knew this and even opened their most important – at the time – tour with it.

Think about this.

It was their most recent number one song. Tumbling Dice from the Exile on Main Street album was its most popular track and stalled at number five on the U.S. charts. But instead of saving Brown Sugar for the end of their live performances, which most bands would do as the climax or encore during a concert, the Stones OPENED with it!

First, it proves how many great songs they’d already had by 1972. And second, it’s difficult to think of a better song that would have fans on their feet right from the start (as most concerts do) and keep them standing (as many concerts don’t) until the end.

Two other memories come back…

As a frat boy in college, we would have Friday (late) afternoon “teas” with a different sorority most weeks. To be invited to tea, a fraternity would send an invitation, or a personal call to the sorority house by the fraternity’s social chairmen to secure a date. In the case of our fraternity, the social chairmen were me and best pal “Smiley.”

We all had aliases, as college guys tend to have. Mine was “Eddie,” but that’s another story…

We dressed in sport coats with ties to look respectable and worked our polite manners to get the hottest girls on campus to accept our invitation for tea at our animal house. And of course, “tea” was an alias for alcohol-fueled, out-of-control dancing and partying, which is another thing college guys tend to do.

On the afternoons of the tea parties, we have pledges – the guys that wanted to join the fraternity (and students we could pick on without repercussions) – clean and decorate our large in-house dining hall. They would also accompany us to carry the supplies we purchased during trips to the local liquor store for mass quantities of booze, and the grocery store for fruit juices, club soda, plastic cups, and fruit. All the ingredients would be mixed into a large, plastic bathtub (it was green) balanced on a stainless-steel food-serving cart with wheels. Smiley and I would be the chemist-chefs directing how the concoction should be mixed, stirred, iced, and topped with sliced fruit to give it a “tropical feel”.

The pledges would wheel it out for the party once the sorority girls arrived and with plastic cups for dipping, we would have “tea.” Another popular description would be Hairy Buffalo, but whatever you wanted to call it the party was on.

As a ritual before the girls would arrive, a few of my best buds would meet upstairs in my room for a Hairy Buffalo taste testing to get the adrenaline rushing. This would include a high-volume blast of rock and roll, always ending with Brown Sugar.

And the song never failed to kick the downstairs tea into high gear. As social chairmen, we made sure it was played more than a couple times, from the beginning of the party to the (often) sloppy ending.

One final college note.

The popular new game in every college town bar, before the era of video games, was pinball. The rock opera Tommy, by The Who, made the title character a wizard of the metal ball and we were better students at learning not to tilt the table, than we were at our college classes. Whenever it was my turn to prove my wizardry and Brown Sugar came on the jukebox, the others knew to wait. I wasn’t going to put the ball in play until the Bobby Keys’ saxophone solo started. When that blasted through the speakers it was game on.

To watch The Rolling Stones kick off a 1972 Exile on Main Street concert, check out this live video on YouTube.

Thanks for reading and until next time – keep rockin’!

Nov27

#104 and 105 – Shout Parts 1 and 2

Posted on November 27, 2023 by The Classic Rocker

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#104 & 105 – Shout Parts 1 and 2 by The Isley Brothers

The first time I heard this song it was from a different band of “brothers,” The Beatles. It was during a television special called Around The Beatles. I hadn’t seen any advertising or advance word about the show, so it came as a total surprise.

It was a Sunday afternoon, maybe a month or two since their February 1964 U.S. debut on The Ed Sullivan Show, and I was playing at a friend’s house. We were running down a hallway – probably chasing each other – and I dodged around a corner to escape capture. I found myself in a room with the Beatles playing on television.

Believe me, that got more of my attention than a couple friends chasing each other through a house.

There was no one else in the room, so the TV must have just been left on and this program was airing at that moment. I missed the beginning but remember Shout and Paul McCartney singing Long Tall Sally, which I always through was a highlight from the LP The Beatles’ Second Album.

As far as The Fab Four’s version of Shout if there could ever be a song from their entire catalogue that could be called “weak,” this would be it. I didn’t think that in 1964, especially since I had no opportunity to make that call for another thirty years, so it’s only with hindsight. Their version was never released until it appeared on Anthology 1 in 1995, but only seemed to be a filler track from that TV special. Especially since it’s their only performance that featured each of the four members singing a verse.

Compared to the Beatles version of the Isley Brothers classic Twist and Shout, it’s definitely a throw-away song. It’s understandable why they never released it in the 1960s.

The original version of Shout by The Isley Brothers, like Twist and Shout, is the perfect blend of rock, pop, soul, and gospel. It’s hard to stay seated from the beginning note to the last.

But the Isley Brother’s version didn’t score on my personal music charts until much later. First there was another cover by a group cast to perform the song in a movie. Then afterwards, they became a real group: Otis Day and The Knights.

The movie was National Lampoon’s Animal House and if you aren’t familiar with it, you’re missing out on one of the most politically incorrect, sleeziest, bad-taste comedy films of all time. In other words, funny as hell – especially if you had the mental capacity to deal with the frat boy stereotypes depicted in the film.

I was. But in a forever remembered cringe-worthy moment, my movie guests were not.

Animal House was a major hit when I first moved to New York City, and I had seen it with friends. So, there were no excuses for my cringe moment except a lack of political correctness on my part. My mom and dad were visiting from Ohio in 1978 and we had a few hours to fill while waiting to see a Broadway show. It might have been raining, or chilly – or whatever – and I suggested we see a movie. When they asked which one… well, I think you can guess.

Of course, I was laughing from the start, but the other two didn’t seem to be joining in. I’m pretty sure by the end of the film I had slid down in my theater seat as far as possible in total embarrassment. But don’t think my parents were insulted or even upset that I had them sit through Animal House. It just wasn’t their type of movie. And that fact is what made my dad laugh so hard as we walked out of the theater. It was the same when I took him and my sister to see the Mel Brooks’ film, Silent Movie. I had seen it before, thought it was hysterical, and thought they would too. But they didn’t – at all.

So, they laughed the hardest later when talking about how I thought it was so funny and they didn’t. Yeah, we laughed a lot in our family, but just not always at the same things.

But let’s get back to the originators, The Isley Brothers. Shout has been on my playlists for quite a while. It’s tough to take it off because it’s a classic. It’s always been divided between Part 1 and Part 2, since it was too long to fit on one side of a vinyl 45-RPM record. So original fans in 1959 had to pick up the disk and flip it over to side two to hear the complete song. In the movie Animal House, it was given that respect with a lengthy pause by Otis Day and The Knights and the Delta House brothers before kicking in to complete the song.

It shouted (sorry, I can’t help myself) its way into my waking mind on August 11 and October 4th. And since I’ve just confessed it appears frequently on my digital playlists, it goes into the recent memory category.

I’m not sure how many non-classic rockers know the Isley Brother’s version over the one that had everyone doing The Gator in Animal House. Not many songs released in 1959 appear on Classic Rock radio – or anywhere else much, for that matter. They might need to search this one out. But believe me, it’s worth the time and effort.

Speaking of time and effort, The Classic Rocker still relates this song to my college daze in the 1970s, thanks to the movie. It also reminds me of some hardcore truths about that time (and effort) in my life. To add a bit of humor to this, let’s go to the Honesty Box.

Say what?

Here’s a confession before another confession. The Honesty Box is a term borrowed from another television import, but from a different country. During the Covid pandemic in 2020, I’m guessing many of the television networks ran out of original programming, especially reality series. I’m not a big fan of many, but one that hit me hard – humor wise – was Married At First Sight Australia on the Lifetime Network. The accents, attitudes, tattoos, Botox (and other plastic body alterations), and the weekly possibilities of embarrassment brought on by the participants involved in this love mess made it “must watch” television. The Honesty Box was a segment where couples had to answer awkward questions truthfully and was one of the many highlights that had me in tears laughing. I’m sure even my dad and sister would have laughed at this one.

Anyway, “honestly” I look back at my college daze as a waste of time. There, I said it. I made lifelong friendships that I will always cherish and some of our adventures were Animal House worthy. But the education itself did nothing to prepare me for my future career.

I grew up with my family owning a business. Now, I had no interest in continuing in that business, but as a 17-year-old high school graduate, it was expected for me to go to college and major in (surprise) business. I wanted to move to New York City and get into showbusiness but was overruled. Everyone said I needed to have a back-up plan, earn a Business Degree, and go from there.

Honestly (box) nothing could have been farther from the truth. My only interests – ever – were in the arts and creativity. I’ve often said (in humor but underlying in truth) that I’m a genius because I passed college courses in accounting, economics, finance, Business Law, and math with no interest in any of those subjects. For free electives, I took classes in English and History because they were easy A’s for me and kept my grade point average up.

I took the LSAT exam, which was needed to get into law school. Yeah, I thought about it. And the funniest part about it was that I took the exam with three of my fraternity brothers who made it very clear they were smarter in their majors and would outscore me. When we received the results, I scored so far ahead they changed their minds about law school, while I was accepted into both schools I had applied to.

Also, in our senior year, there were business recruiters on campus, and everyone was scheduling interviews for jobs after graduation. I never went to one. And when my buddies asked what I had planned, I said it for the first time out loud: “I’m going to move to New York.”

Oh, and as far as law school went, I did visit one – Cleveland State University. I vaguely remember a meeting in Admissions and talk about what classes I needed to register for. But when I walked out, I turned and looked at the building and made another life-changing decision. Basically, it was, “screw this.” A year later I was living in Manhattan.

I was finally pursuing what I was really interested in: showbusiness. It would have been much more beneficial for me to have moved there four years earlier and skipping the college nonsense. Even today during programs I do for schools and others on communication skills and public speaking (nothing I ever learned about in college) I talk about how I scored my high-profile job as manager and talent booker for the legendary Improv comedy club. I explain it all happened because I was simply interested in getting my foot in the door at the club. So, I took a job as a Sunday night bartender. At the end of my first and only shift behind the bar, I counted out the money correctly – to the penny. The owner was impressed (maybe earlier bartenders couldn’t do that) and offered me the job as assistant manager. Two weeks later, I was manager, and on my way.

In truth, college had nothing to do with my success. As mentioned, my family had a business. When I was a kid, my grandmother taught me how to make change and count the bank and proceeds. We would have saved a lot in wasted college tuition if she could have only awarded me a degree.

So, like the Isley Brothers, I guess it was time for me to shout that out! My story is nothing to get you dancing, but it’s an honest “feel good” one for me. My advice is to follow your dreams and don’t waste any time in getting there.

And that’s exactly how the song Shout Parts 1 and 2 (the official title) makes me feel. Energetic, full-speed ahead and going for broke. You make me want to shout!

For a completely out of control video of the Isley Brothers performing Shout in 1959, check out this link on YouTube. It’s strange in which various historic clips are edited in (by mistake?) but watching the brothers’ high energy on stage is worth it. And yeah, it’s showbiz baby!

Thanks for reading and until next time – keep rockin’!

Nov22

#235 – I Never Came Home To Fight

Posted on November 22, 2023 by The Classic Rocker

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#235 – I Never Came Home To Fight by Metro

Top: Dave, Steve and Jeff Bottom: Ted and Tim

Chances are you’ve never heard of this song. I know because most haven’t. But it means a lot to me personally, and hopefully it helped more than a few people when it was released as a fund-raiser.

During the winter of 1984 in New York City my close friend and music conspirator Ted Bardy (now a well-known NYC acting coach) and I met a couple guys that were leaving FOX Entertainment to start their own company, Ambassador Group. One was a Vietnam veteran and after finding out what we did, asked if would get involved in a project that was very personal for him.

First, “what we did” was never actually defined by either of us at the time. We were friends, musicians, actors, comedians, writers and basically in our own minds, Renaissance men. We did a lot of different things and lived life to the fullest in The Big Apple. I feel it was obvious to people when meeting us for the first time that we had a lot of fun.

These two guys, Phil, and Joe must have sensed that.

I don’t quite remember where or exactly when we met them, but since we were always good for more than a few laughs, I’m sure they enjoyed hanging out with us. For instance, I remember one evening at the famous Tavern On The Green restaurant in Central Park when we met with the heads of this new Ambassador Group for cocktails. Ted rarely drank and I only consumed light beer, so we were never out of line. But laughter and loud conversations were never too far from our circle. One of their associates was a very well-known female casting director for movies and television. She was also bombed out of her mind. She ended up doing “suggestive” dancing among a few shocked elite patrons at the restaurant that had us laughing even harder. And from what I understand, she was too embarrassed the next day to work anymore with the new entertainment group. That evening didn’t seem to work in her favor.

Not long after, there was another meeting at a much smaller watering hole downtown where Phil and Joe discussed a fund-raising event, they were putting together to benefit homeless veterans of the Vietnam War. Phil was a vet and though he was doing well, he knew many were not. Admittedly, we were not the focus of this meeting. My girlfriend at the time was a beauty pageant titleholder and they wanted her to make a personal appearance to sign autographs.

Wait a minute… I know what you’re thinking. The Classic Rocker was dating a celebrity? Yeah, stranger things have happened. She was a former Miss New York Teen, representing the state at the national Miss Teen Competition – years before (I wasn’t dating a teenager). Currently she was Miss New York World and had gone through the competition to represent the U.S. in the Miss World Pageant. She didn’t win that prize, but still held the New York title. When she agreed to take part in the benefit, their attention turned to me.

The event was going to also be a rock concert and held in an outdoor space in upstate New York. In addition to Miss New York World, there would be cast members from the Broadway show Beatlemania, and a Penthouse Magazine Pet of the Month. Thankfully, my girlfriend would only be autographing photos where she was fully clothed.

Knowing I was a musician and had been playing in clubs and kicking around with a few bands in Manhattan, they asked if I would not only put together a group to perform, but also write and record a song with proceeds going toward building a halfway house for the veterans. This would earn us a recording contract with the new Ambassador Group Records and the concert would serve as a launching pad for this new band. I told them I’d talk it over with my collaborator and called Ted the next day.

We agreed to do the gig, write, and record the song, and put together a few hours of classic rock songs from the Vietnam War era to perform at the concert. With three other pals, Stevie Leighton, Tim Lacy, and Jeff Schaeffer – we booked time at studios and began rehearsals for the event that would happen in early September 1984. We called our band Metro, and the artists we would cover included The Doors, Creedence Clearwater Revival, The Rolling Stones, Steppenwolf, Motown and of course, The Beatles.

In the meantime, we needed an original song. The best description would be a “song for hire”, like a title song for a movie. It had to fit the theme, which would be the veterans it was meant to benefit.

We didn’t realize there was a deadline, but that’s when luck came through for us. Thinking we had weeks to run through ideas and concepts, it was kept on the back burner while we put together our concert sets. But for whatever reason, one Sunday evening while hanging around my apartment, I was inspired. I picked up a pad of paper and wrote these words:

Darling when you read this letter, I’m hoping that I’m already gone.

Things haven’t been too easy since I landed here in Vietnam.

And I know what goes on is crazy, you can read it all in black and white.

And I’m packing my bags for home now. And I’m never coming back to fight.

Now that I’m back your life has changed, while I try to pick up mine from before.

And people treat me now like I’m different, than before I went to fight in that war.

But I hope and I pray they would stay the way I remembered in my dreams every night.

And you want me to say I’m sorry, but I never came home to fight.

Darling when you read this letter, I’m hoping that I’m already gone.

It’s hard for me to live at home now. And it’s hard for me to talk about ‘Nam.

And the things that did and the way I lived, all seem so far from wrong or right.

And to stay here I’d have to be sorry. And I never came home to fight.

In all honesty, it took me about fifteen minutes to write. There were not a lot of changes or deep contemplation. The words just seemed to flow out, which was fortunate, because…

The same evening – not long after finishing the lyrics – my phone rang. It was Phil from Ambassador Group, along with Joe and a room full of potential backers for the concert. Phil had our call on speaker phone for everyone to hear. They needed an update on the song and wanted to know what we had to convince them to put up any money.

Talk about timing…

I read the just-written lyrics – saying them for the first time out loud. They loved it (I remember big cheers through the phone line). I was given the green light (again, I didn’t know there was a deadline) and all systems were “go.”

I put together some simple guitar chords, then Ted took over the arrangement and production duties. We set up his small state of the art (at the time) four track recording device in my living room and spent about a week cutting a demo of how we wanted it to sound. The next step was going into a recording studio to finish the song. Ted handled all the instruments, including a drum machine, while I did the vocal. We invited Stevie (the drummer in our newly formed band, Metro) to record the “screaming” lead guitar solo. If I remember correctly, he did it in one take.

We sent the master tape to Ambassador Group Records, and they cut it onto the 45 RPM vinyl records that would be sold at the concert and sent to radio stations in the area. For the B-side, which vinyl records had at the time, the band went into a studio in Queens and recorded a three-chord “Chuck Berry-ish” track called Turn Up The Radio, which was basically written on the spot. I remember writing one of the verses in the hallway, before stepping in front of a microphone to sing over the backing tracks Stevie, Ted, and I each sang a verse, while Jeff handled the chorus.

During the next couple of weeks, we continued rehearsals and did a group photo session outside the north gates of Gramercy Park in NYC. These were used for promotional posters, sent to area newspapers, and printed on t-shirts sold at the concert with proceeds going to the veterans.

The day before the Sunday afternoon concert, we took a rented van filled with our equipment, band members and Miss New York World to Hudson, New York. I was driving while our pageant titleholder was co-pilot with a map. After an hour drive in a big circle before realizing we were headed back into Manhattan, there was a lot of shouting and laughing before the two of us were relegated to the back of the van with Ted and Stevie driving us to our destination. We were put up in a nice hotel, fed and sat for a press conference with a local newspaper. Yeah, we were the Beatles… but not really.

On another note, our drummer didn’t have a drum set, so he borrowed a snare and a lone cymbal for the show. Since that wouldn’t do for the big sound we wanted, we stopped at a music store to rent a kit. Thinking he had better learn how to set it up before the show, that night Stevie and Tim put it together in their shared hotel room and practiced banging out some heavy beats. The guests on all sides took major noise offense, security showed up at their room and the impromptu drum jam session was shut down for the night.

The life of rock stars and hotels…

The weather that next afternoon was hot and humid, as it usually is in early September, and we probably did about four one-hour sets for a large audience spread out on the grounds in front of us. Miss New York World and the Penthouse Pet signed autographs and posed for photos, while “Paul McCartney” from Beatlemania played a couple solo acoustic sets between our rock performances.

But here’s some inside scoop…

While Ted and I were writing and recording I Never Came Home to Fight, the band didn’t have an opportunity to learn it. That was supposed to be the highlight of the show – the world premiere – and we couldn’t play it live.

So, we came up with an idea and luckily it worked.

We had the backing instrumental track from the studio recording on a cassette tape (remember, this was 1984). The sound engineer was in on the plan, but no one else. When it came time to perform the song – which we did twice that afternoon – the backing track was played out of the speakers while the band pretended to play. My microphone was live, so I sang along like it was a karaoke performance. Since this was before karaoke became a “thing” I wish I could say we invented it, but pop stars had been doing this on television for years.

It worked. No one caught on and the song was a big success. At least for that afternoon.

Months later, and I’m positive it was in February, there was a delivery at my apartment. When I opened the door, a UPS guy handed me about a dozen boxes filled with unsold copies of the record. I would guess at least a couple hundred and we joked they were our residual payments. For a few months we had the record in a few local bar jukeboxes, but also – because there were so many – used as drink coasters at parties.

Yeah, we were always good for a few laughs.

I still have more than a few as keepsakes, but no turntable to play them. Fortunately, the digital version is safe on my computer and posted with a few video clips of Metro on YouTube. If you’d like to check it out, the link is the photo below.

I Never Came Home To Fight still pops up in my mind occasionally, and one time happened to be while doing this Dream Song experiment on November 18. I’ll place it in the recent memory category because it was an unforgettable – and fun – life experience. The memories, friends and meaning that went into this project still mean a lot to me. I’m glad to have had this opportunity to share it all with you. Keep rockin’!

Thanks for reading and until next time – keep rockin’!

Oct25

#106 and 107 – Popsicle

Posted on October 25, 2023 by The Classic Rocker

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#106 & 107 – Popsicle by Jan & Dean

I’ll go ahead and brag by claiming to have a wealth of knowledge when it comes to mid-1960s pop music. I can go deep, which is proven by this relatively obscure track by the Southern California surf and car hit-making duo, Jan & Dean.

I hadn’t heard this song in decades. So, I was a bit surprised when this pop-flavored teenage anthem sent its fruit icy vibes through my waking mind on August 8 and October 15. The icy cool part was that I still remembered it word-for-word. I did a quick Spotify search, added it to my current playlist and sang along. But again, I hadn’t heard it in probably decades, so it still slid its way into the subliminal memory wrapper.

When I first got into music during The British Invasion, I considered The Beatles and The Rolling Stones to be rock ‘n’ roll acts. When you cover Chuck Berry and Little Richard and throw in a few originals with the same beat, it rocks. But most of the other acts that crossed the ocean could be considered “pop” and I enjoyed them (almost) as much.

In the U.S. The Beach Boys rocked and their Southern California peers – Jan & Dean – “popped.” But like The Boys of Summer, they also sang about classic teenage topics of the era: girls, cars, surf and… well, girls.

**If you want to keep cool it does the trick – and it comes on a stick!**

Though I wanted to surf, it was tough growing up on Lake Erie in Ohio. We’d head to the beach and body surf when the waves were big enough, but they were never the size where you’d buy a board, wax it down and paddle out to shoot the curl. Also, I was never into cars – which also seemed out of place growing up in Ohio.

My cousin Johnny was into all three: girls, cars, and surf. Which means he was also into Jan & Dean. And since we were also a tight duo, even though he was two years older than me, it meant I listened to a lot of Jan & Dean.

In turn, he learned to put up with my Beatles fandom.

We grew up together. Well, he had to bide his time for two years until I came on the scene – but after that, he was one of my closest family members. I didn’t have an older brother, so Johnny assumed the spot and became the designated influencer and instigator. We had countless memories, adventures and laughs together. I miss him a lot.

We always exchanged birthday and Christmas presents and before we morphed into our own pre-teen and teenaged personalities, the gift-buying was a designated duty of the older cousins, our mothers. But once the pop-rock phase hit us in 1964, we took over as the gift-giving influencers and instigators.

At our family Christmas and birthday parties, the gift receiver would anxiously tear away the wrapping paper hoping for the best. In Johnny’s case the disappointment was hard to conceal when he’d find his new album was one by The Beatles. In turn, I’d give a fake smile when I’d be holding a Jan & Dean album that – somehow – was supposed to fit in with my growing collection of British Invasion vinyl.

Okay, it wasn’t as bad as I’m making it seem. We just had semi-different musical tastes but learned to appreciate the “other side.” Johnny – who morphed into “John” as he got older, though I never dropped the younger version – attended the Beatles 1966 concert with me in Cleveland. He also discovered folk music that morphed into Bob Dylan and The Byrds.

I learned how to sidewalk surf, thanks to his Jan & Dean influence. One Christmas we were both gifted with the latest fad, skateboards. That night while the adults stayed warm inside at the family party, we took our new clay-wheeled boards outside in the freezing Northern Ohio weather and learned to “surf” around icy puddles and snow drifts.

We were cool. That is until a couple years later while surfing down a blacktop hill a third-party member on our team lost control after hitting a pebble (reason why clay wheels should have never been cool) and shot his board at about a million miles per hour into my ankle. A frantic call from a pay phone about a mile away brought my mother and a painful backseat ride to our doctor’s office where I was told if the impact had been another fraction of an inch, my leg might have been broken. I think every doctor has given that evaluation to daredevil kids at one time or another, just to make them feel lucky for only being in pain. It could have been worse.

On the plus side of this injury, I got out of junior high gym class for several weeks. That’s one way to look at the bright side of a potential disaster.

Johnny and I also decided we should be a pop (my influence) folk (his influence) duo. We each got acoustic guitars and would sit in his basement for hours learning songs that never had more than three chords or strayed too far from Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger. Did I ever have records by either? Nope. I’m not a folkie. But I loved to play and sing and that’s what this creative outlet was all about.

Eventually we went electric.

Both of our family’s owned businesses where we were given no choice about having jobs. So, we earned money. Johnny purchased an electric 12-string Gibson (The Byrds) while I bought a 6-string Hofner violin style (Paul McCartney with two extra strings). We even took a few guitar lessons together where we learned Journey To The Center of the Mind by The Amboy Dukes and Feel Like I’m Fixin’ To Die Rag by Country Joe and the Fish (without the F.I.S.H. cheer). But it didn’t go any farther than that. We never played a gig for anyone other than ourselves in his basement.

But we did make one recording.

During the summer of 1966, around the same time we saw The Beatles, we were spending a summer week vacation together on his family’s boat docked at the famous amusement park, Cedar Point on the Ohio shore of Lake Erie. It was one of the best summers – ever. As mentioned in another Classic Rocker rambling, Dick Clark was filming a pop music television special, and we were picked to ride go-carts with the British Invasion duo, Chad & Jeremy. In those days we were also allowed to wander around the park after closing since we were staying at the boat marina. One night in the dance hall above the arcade we heard live music. Someone told us it was The Byrds, but we were too young to go inside. But it was still cool.

The arcade was – and still is – what you would expect. It was filled with games to win prizes. But it also had one novelty: a recording booth. For one dollar you could stand inside the glass enclosure, which was about the size of a phone booth, and make a record. You had once “take” to sing, talk, or just make noises and it would be cut into a white plastic 45 rpm size record that you could take home.

Between the two of us, we had only one dollar to spare on this extravagance. Johnny used his two-year age advantage to assume the role of record producer and decides we’d sing a song called Riot In Cell Block Number 9.

“There’s a riot going on.”

As a newbie pop music fan, I wasn’t familiar with this one. It was first recorded by The Robins in 1954. Years later the lyrics were changed by The Beach Boys for Student Demonstration Time (Surf’s Up album). It was also covered by The Blues Brothers and closed out their self-titled movie being performed in… well, a cell block.

After getting the words down for one verse and the chorus, we crammed into the booth, put in our precious dollar bill, and waited for the “recording” light to come on. Then we did our best Jake and Elwood as an a cappella duo. When finished, our valuable white plastic record slid out and we delicately took it back to the safety of his boat until we could go home and listen to it.

Before playing, Johnny took a pen and on the white label wrote “John & Dave”. We were going to be the next Jan & Dean.

The recording only survived through a few plays on the turntable. I remember a faded and grainy sound of us singing, and me messing up on the newly learned lyrics – with a couple added laughs. Somehow it ended up in my possession, probably because of a big crack that made it completely unplayable. But I still have it – somewhere. I’ve run across the disk every couple of decades stored with other long-ago vinyl 45’s in a storage box I refuse to throw away.

It wasn’t as pop flavored as Popsicle, which started this whole journey down memory lane. And I still don’t know all the lyrics to Riot In Cell Block Number 9. But I can sing Jan & Dean’s classic – even in my sleep.

“Orange, lemon, cherry, and lime. Fudge, tutti-frutti and grape that’s fine. Buy one for me and one for my chick. A lot of good eatin’ on a popsicle stick.”

That’s a long-held influence instigated by my cousin Johnny and his favorite duo, Jan & Dean. But the story doesn’t quite end there.

I’ve been referring to decades in this story because there’s been more than few since. Johnny and I aways stayed close, though regular birthday and Christmas gift-giving went the way of most 1960’s pop duos.

In other words, only whenever there was an interest.

Johnny got into making mix tapes and gifted me with a few based on whatever theme we were into at that time. One was when I got married, and included a lot of songs about… well, getting married. There were also other tapes, and I was always impressed by the number of truly great obscure songs he would find as well as hits.

My best contribution?

During his mix tape making days he had made a comment about missing a song by a well-known British Invasion band. He had looked everywhere, but it wasn’t available at that time. Then, as luck would have it, in the late 1990’s there was a limited release of greatest hits by The Dave Clark Five. That was the band, and I knew how to get a copy.

When he opened the wrapping, his face reminded me of those long-ago gift exchanges of The Beatles for Jan & Dean. “Seriously?” he asked. “The Dave Clark Five?”

Yeah – this time I scored as the younger influencer and instigator dropping another British Invasion act on the Dylan influenced folkie. The next step would have been to suggest we grab our boards and go sidewalk surfing. But in the back of my mind and with the number of decades since our last clay wheeled ride down a blacktop wave, we’d have a better chance of winding up in a doctor’s office rather than as residents of Surf City. Plus, if one of us had gone that “extra inch”, there was no junior high gym class to sit out while mending a broken bone.

If you don’t know the song here’s link – be cool and grab a listen. It’s one of the only pop hits you’ll hear with a banjo playing the instrumental break.

Thanks for reading and until next time – keep rockin’!

Sep22

#108 and 109 – Good Golly Miss Molly

Posted on September 22, 2023 by The Classic Rocker

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#108 & 109 – Good Golly Miss Molly by Little Richard

The self-proclaimed innovator, architect and Crown Prince of Rock ‘n’ Roll is none other than Little Richard. If you don’t know who he is, you should. If you had ever seen him perform, you would never forget it. Especially if it was a surprise concert – which is where this story goes.

Good Golly Miss Molly is a classic staple of rock ‘n’ roll. A hard-hitting, three chord masterpiece that I feel every great rock ‘n’ roller at one time or another, triedto emulate. From Elvis to The Beatles to The Rolling Stones and beyond. Anyone that has ever dreamt of rock-pop stardom by banging on a piano, guitar or drum had at one time, or another strived for the unbridled mania of one of the most untamed talents that had ever sashayed across a concert stage.

Little Richard.

Yeah, I know there are countless other inspirations for both performers and musicians from Mick Jagger, Tina Turner, Freddie Mercury, Michael Jackson and beyond. But narrowing it all down to one source my GPS leads directly to Richard Penniman: aka – Little Richard.

My surprise concert tale will count-in in a moment, but first…

Good Golly Miss Molly joined this Dream Song list twice on November 14 and December 5. Had I heard it recently? Maybe, but not exactly. As mentioned, so many rock ‘n’ rollers were influenced by this song, as well as Tutti Frutti, Long Tall Sally, Lucille and so many other Little Richard hits, it’s rare for me to have a playlist that doesn’t include an original or a similar effort by someone else. So, it will remain a “recently heard” celebration of greatness.

It was December 1970 and like any 17-year-old guy with a girlfriend and a car – or in my case, my mother’s car – we were always cruising for excitement. The local concert promoter in our Rock City of Cleveland had been producing a Christmas Holiday show at Public Hall (the same venue the Beatles played in 1964 that caused all rock concerts to be banned in Cleveland for a couple years) that featured numerous semi-known bands and one name headliner. These special shows would start around 4 pm and run until everyone was burned out by midnight.

The closing act for this 1970 holiday extravaganza would be Mountain, best-known for the heavy-blasting Mississippi Queen. As far as the other acts, my memory is too faded to even guess who they were. It was the excitement of a “happening” that brought us to Public Hall.

My girlfriend and I had been attending a lot of concerts that year with one of my best friends and his girlfriend. It could be a fun foursome but to be honest, I was getting a little tired of the same old crew. Mainly, I felt his girlfriend was getting annoying. He must have felt the same about us because when I suggested we attend separately, there was no protest on his part.

So, it was surprising when we walked to our seats located on the floor (rather than the upper level), and my pal and his gal were seated next to us. It was funny and I must admit the “sameness” added to the party atmosphere. And since we were all underage when it came to buying alcohol – even the 3.2 % beer 18-year-olds were legally allowed in those days – my friend was always good at smuggling in a bottle of something that had a kick to it. That night’s selection might have been Boone’s Farm Apple Wine (the go-to at the time) and if I’m correct in how my girlfriend and I traveled at the time, we were able to contribute a bottle of cheap wine along with a few beers hidden in coat pockets and her large purse. In 1970 there were no metal detectors or security checking for any type of smuggled-in substances. Just show a ticket and you were in.

Since hippies were also the rockers in those days, I don’t remember any concerts that weren’t enhanced by a cloud of sweet-smelling marijuana filling the arena. I don’t remember a “contact high” but if it was possible, no one could avoid it. As usual we danced, laughed, cheered the bands, and had a blast. It was the beginning of a new decade, and our generation would be the driving force.

The stage was set for the final attraction. We stood and waited for Mountain, but instead we received an announcement that shocked everyone in attendance. We were told a major snowstorm was pounding Pittsburgh, where the band had performed the night before and there was no way they could make it to Cleveland. The sound of thousands booing cut through the cloud of marijuana smoke.

The announcer attempted to calm everyone down by saying they had found another performer to close the show. I still remember the boos of disappointment almost drowning him out because – really – who could they find at the last minute that could replace the one “name” act they had promised us?

“Ladies and gentlemen… Little Richard!”

Say what?? Holy…! Richard was a hero to many of us that knew where rock ‘n’ roll came from, and the thrill level shot higher than any amplifier volume Mountain could have dog-sledded in from Pittsburgh.

Standing on our chairs we watched his back-up band, The Upsetters, kick into a three-chord manic rhythm and The Innovator himself, The Crown Prince of Rock ‘n’ Roll sashayed onto the stage, posed for effects while taunting the audience with smiles and waves before sitting down behind a white baby grand piano. His fast fingers hit the keys in tempo with the band and we were launched into the stratosphere of Good Golly Miss Molly, “wop-bop-a-lulla, a- bop bam boom” and screaming stories of Lucille, Long Tall Sally, and instructions on how to Rip It Up!

Was I impressed? Let me put it this way. Would I have written such a glowing piece of excited memories over five decades later if I wasn’t? You figure it out.

Our foursome was dancing on chairs, singing, and screaming as loud as everyone else in Public Hall that night. Little Richard never let up except for the moments he told us how beautiful he was (he was) and how he was the architect of rock ‘n’ roll (he was).

The holiday bash ended with Little Richard standing on top of the baby grand and screaming lyrics over The Exciters never-slowing tempos while removing his clothes.

Say what?

For Little Richard fans, you already know that was his dynamic closer. He first took off one of his boots, stared into the crowd, waved for louder cheers – then launched it into the throbbing mass of now-dedicated fans. He did the same with his other boot, socks, shirt and finally his pants, waving each over his head like a seasoned burlesque dancer before tossing it out as another souvenir.

When finished, he was standing on the piano in his tighty-whities enjoying the waves of screams and adulation that confirmed he had “tore the house down.” He left the stage with no encore, possibly because he had only brought one change of clothes and needed at least his tighty-whities to brave the December Cleveland weather outside.

The concert was exhausting and a memorable highlight for any teenaged rock ‘n’ roller who would eventually grow into being a Classic Rocker. The foursome was another fun surprise and we continued to repeat it for future concerts until all going our separate ways. And as for my girlfriend… she’s still a girl and still a friend. And we’ll always have Little Richard.

hanks for reading and until next time – keep rockin’!

For a video of Little Richard rockin’ Good Golly Miss Molly live in 1972 (close to what we witnessed less than 2 years earlier) visit this YouTube LINK.

Jun27

#110 and 111 – (Shake, Shake, Shake) Shake Your Booty

Posted on June 27, 2023 by The Classic Rocker

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#110 & 111 – (Shake, Shake, Shake) Shake Your Booty by KC and the Sunshine Band

Wait a minute. Does this mean The Classic Rocker was once a disco-maniac? Nope. The only reason this song is appearing on the Dream Song List is because it’s a catchy tune that has burned its way into the crevices of my brain and sometimes bubbles out. If you have any embarrassing memories you’ve tried to forget but can’t, you’ll know what I mean.

During the disco craze of the 1970’s you couldn’t avoid this song or too many of the other big hits. If you were young, single, dating, just married – and wanted to either stay in your status or find ways to change it – dance clubs were part of your nightlife social scene. And during this era, KC and the Sunshine Band was one of the acts riding high on the playlists of most club deejays.

I don’t have any specific memories of this song, but I do of the times. The Disco Era. It started when I was in college and was in full dance mode when I moved to New York City.

If you don’t know, NYC is a hotbed for whatever type of music you could be into. I was the new kid in my neighborhood and lucky to make friends based on (now that I think of it) music. My first jobs involved working at Broadway shows and many of them were musicals. After the shows a buddy and I would take our acoustic guitars downtown to The Village and play in clubs along Bleeker Street. It was long past the folk music days of Bob Dylan, but our scene was closer to James Taylor than it was to The Ramones. The punks were stationed east of us in the Bowery (CBGBs) while the disco crowd stayed uptown in the vicinity of Studio 54.

But music choice didn’t mean anyone needed to be stuck in a stereotype. At least I didn’t feel that way. I remember trekking down to The Mudd Club where everyone looked like Keith Richards and Debbie Harry and hitting dance clubs where John Travolta and Saturday Night Fever still influenced the dress code and soundtrack.

Come to think of it, I guess my small posse could be described as chameleons.

When I played in The Village, the dress code was jeans (still bellbottoms in the 70’s) and a t-shirt or even flannel during the colder months. In lower Manhattan I wore a black leather jacket to hang out with the Keith Richards set, and when going Uptown…

Okay, I’ll admit right now I had a “disco scarf.”

I don’t know what else to call it. I’m pretty sure Vinny Barbarino had one draped around his neck to enhance the white suit look in Saturday Night Fever and it wasn’t an uncommon accessory for guys and girls. Mine had been a gift under the Christmas tree from my parents but had been hidden in a dresser drawer while I was still in college and not worn in public. But during my move to Manhattan, it found its way into a suitcase “just in case.”

This turned out to be a good move. Based on firsthand experience, the flannel and leather didn’t turn out to be magnets for female attention in the clubs where Shake 4x Your Booty was in high rotation. And since my pals and I were out to change our single status, we adapted. My move as a chameleon was a cloth jacket, silk shirt and white disco scarf.

Just call me Vinny… or I mean, Tony, and place me on the lighted dance floor in Saturday Night Fever.

Shake 4x Your Booty disco danced its way out of my waking mind and onto this list on October 12 and November 16. I must have been shaking up a storm in my dream state. I’ve never owned a copy and it’s never played on the Classic Rock stations I rely on for my daily fix. So, let’s bump this one into the subliminal category.

And speaking of The Bump, that was the name of a dance practiced by disco enthusiasts. A smooth move on the dance floor would be to bump hips with your partner in time to the music. It hasn’t aged well and might cause bruise marks just below hip-hugging bellbottom waistlines for baby boomer disco freaks that would still try the move today.

As a personal disco claim to fame, I can say I went to the legendary disco palace Studio 54 – twice.

Yeah, I know this can be somewhat impressive because the few times I’ve mentioned this during conversations with anyone even remotely interested in the disco era it’s earned a heartfelt, “Wow!” or “Seriously, wow!”

For some, it still has that legendary image – just like Saturday Night Fever.

Both times were as a guest of someone that needed a date for an invited event. I guess Tony Manero wasn’t available, so I filled in. It was the only way I could’ve gotten past the famous velvet rope outside that allowed stars and scene-makers into this den of high-status energy (not to mention the sex and drugs scene) and kept out the inferior wannabes. Even with my disco scarf I doubt I would have passed the scrutiny of the gatekeepers.

Studio 54 was dark and flashy at the same time. The music was loud, the bass was on overdrive, and the dance floor was packed. Everyone seemed compelled to be their own “scene” while still being part of the “beautiful people.” There also appeared to be more skin than disco scarves, but that was part making a chic fashion statement. I kept mine on.

There’s really nothing else to report. This is one of those, “been there, done that” moments. I had a few drinks, danced, and explored the notorious upper balcony seating area, but saw nothing surprising or even the decadence one would expect, based on tabloid stories that made “Studio” the place to be and be seen – if you were decadent.

Missing from my two experiences were sightings of Mick and Bianca Jagger, Michael Jackson, Truman Capote, Lisa Minelli, David Bowie and – yeah, I’ll even mention John Travolta. If they were the so-called “regulars” at Studio 54, I must have been there on their nights off. Maybe that’s the reason I got in with only a guest pass and disco scarf. There was extra space to fill.

Thanks for reading and until next time – keep rockin’!

For a video of KC and the Sunshine Band performing (Shake, Shake, Shake) Shake Your Booty, visit this YouTube LINK.

May19

#112 and 113 – Lucille

Posted on May 19, 2023 by The Classic Rocker

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#112 & 113 – Lucille by Kenny Rogers

One of two cowboy characters that could sing.

I have countless memories of living and working in New York City. Some of the best involve the many “characters” that became part of my world. And it wasn’t just the comedians (professional characters) I worked with at The Improv, but also the people that seemed to enter and exit through the revolving door of my everyday life.

Some characters are lifelong friends, while others have become legends still occupying a place in my mind. How I have any brain cells left for more memories is beyond me, because I’ve been operating on full for quite a while.

Two characters, one from each category, come into focus when hearing the song Lucille by Kenny Rogers. Kenny happens to be one, but I’ll introduce him later.

The song came out in 1977 and was in the “country” category. I heard it while channel surfing the radio and from juke boxes in clubs that weren’t consumed by disco, punk, or a newer category called “Classic Rock.”

It has a very catchy tune and is a great sing-along, especially when the characters you hang out with substitute the lyric “four hungry children” with “four hundred children.” I think there were also other blasts of comic relief from inebriated crooners as the hours became later and the voices got louder.

Lucille hit this list on July 4 and September 22. I haven’t heard it in a long time, so it falls into the subliminal category. I once owned a copy on a Kenny Rogers Greatest Hits compilation, which I only bought after an experience I had singing on stage – with Kenny Rogers.

But again, we’ll get to that later.

Before moving to my comedy adventures in the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood of Manhattan, I managed and bartended at a small bar and restaurant in Gramercy Park. I’ve covered that in past Classic Rocker’s, so no need to repeat myself. A brief description would be a Cheers atmosphere where everyone knew your name, your story, and fit the “character” category.

One of our regulars was a cowboy.

Maybe not horse riding, bronco busters like Roy Rogers or Gabby Hayes (classic cowboys), but nonetheless the closest you could find living and carousing in the Gramercy Park neighborhood. He was a slim, good-looking dude, with slicked-back hair who (I’m guessing) was pushing sixty years old at the time. He’d walk in usually around 8 pm on a Saturday night dressed in the classiest western wear you could find outside of Cheyanne, Wyoming, which is where he claimed to have been born.

His shirts and jackets often had fringes, pressed slacks with big belt buckles, polished cowboy boots and sometimes, a wide-brimmed Stetson hat. He’d slowly sit on a stool like he’d just climbed off a horse, lean across the bar, squint his eyes with an outlaw glare and demand, “Set’em up, bartender!”

Hence, his character name: Cowboy Don.

Gifted with an equal balance of humor and orneriness, the more he drank, the more he entertained with loud stories of his life’s adventures and (even funnier) mishaps.

For example:

He used to date the actress Julie Newmar in the 1950’s before she was famous (think Bat Woman on the TV show) and had the old black and white photos to prove it.

He liked to gamble, and craps (dice) was his favorite game. In 1960 he went to Las Vegas and was in a crap game with the singer Johnny Horton (The Battle of New Orleans and Sink the Bismark). Later that night Horton was killed in a car accident.

During another Las Vegas spree, the temperature was hot and so were the dice. Not wanting to miss a single roll to search out a way to combat the heat, he took a pair of scissors and cut his slacks into shorts. Standing on bare legs and cowboy boots, he played until he lost all his money and more. To pay off his debt he spent the next year in Vegas washing dishes.

And speaking of craps, he never went anywhere without a pair of dice in his pocket. The proof for that occurred during the restaurant’s “closed” Christmas party, where the “regulars” were invited to join in. He left with most of our cash bonuses and our vows to never shoot dice with Cowboy Don again.

It was a lesson learned the hard way.

Don’s favorite singers were, of course, cowboys. His personal king of the rodeo was Hank Williams and after a few beers (“If I’m thirsty I’ll drink water. If I wanna get drunk, I’ll drink beer, dammit!”) he had no problem serenading everyone within hearing distance with one of Hank’s greatest hits.

But Don’s favorite bar song was Lucille. And it didn’t matter whether you were a regular or first-timer who accidentally stumbled in on this big city country moment, most of us would join in on the chorus:

“Four hundred children and a crop in the field. You picked a fine time to leave me Lucille.”

Since this could be counted on as a regular Saturday night early show (Don was usually three sheets to the wind and gone hours before 4 am last call) my buddy and multi-talented instrumentalist Ted and I came up with a get rich quick scheme.

It was during this time that late night television featured commercials for “not sold in stores” record albums. The local New York networks had advertised vinyl (this was before CDs) by John Lennon and Willie Nelson, and were now featuring country yodeler, Slim Whitman.

We assumed sales earned him millions and no reason why we shouldn’t also jump on the money train. A character like Cowboy Don, with our genius for music production and promotion, would be our ticket to ride.

We hid a tape recorder beneath the bar where Cowboy Don usually occupied a stool and set the trap. After a few beers and a couple opening numbers by his man Hank, I hit the “record” button and captured his solo rendition of Lucille.

Ted worked some magic on his home four-track recorder (high tech at the time) and laid down a backing track to the song. But it was then that our money train came off the tracks. Cowboy Don really couldn’t sing in tune, stay in one key or keep time. But our effort was worth more than a few laughs when we played it for him the next week.

Slim Whitman might have made a few bucks, but Cowboy Don still had to pay for his own beers. “You picked a fine time to leave me Lucille.”

As for the other character in this story…

Many years and a few careers later, I was an entertainment columnist for a newspaper near Cleveland, Ohio. One of my weekly features was about the country music scene (how times had changed) and I scored two review tickets for a Kenny Rogers Christmas Show at a major downtown theater.

My wife (again, times had changed) was and still is a country music fan and Kenny was one of her kings of the rodeo. For Cowgirl Deb, this was going to be a big night out.

And it was.

Kenny Rogers was great singing Christmas classics and his greatest hits, including Lucille. But it was a different song that turned this show into an experience for The Classic Rocker character.

Talking to the audience, Kenny said he needed volunteers to help with his next song. Cowgirl Deb immediately grabbed my arm and held it high enough for him to pick me as one of the twelve he needed to join him on The Twelve Days of Christmas.

Here’s a disclosure.

I have no problem getting on a stage in front of an audience. My attitude is that we only go around once, so make the most of it. I’ve also been told I’m not a bad singer. Okay, maybe I’m the one that told it to myself, but it’s not too far from the truth.

Of course, the “joke” meant for the audience participation song was that the on-stage soloists – each with a line from The Twelve Days of Christmas – would sound off-key. Sort of like Cowboy Don after a few beers. And they lived up to expectations, until it was my turn.

I don’t remember my assigned solo, but it might have been, “Ten Lords A-Leaping.” I just know it was toward the end of the list after the audience – and Kenny – had been laughing as he rehearsed the other vocalists.

When he walked up to me with the microphone, I sang my line as if I were caroling in front of the judges on American Idol. In other words, I nailed it.

The audience rewarded me with cheers and (maybe) a few screams. Though I didn’t notice Kenny’s reaction, Cowgirl Deb still claims he appeared a bit shocked that another guy who could sing was now standing next to him on stage.

Though the joke had been aimed at me, I didn’t turn out to be the punchline. She also noted Kenny didn’t spend a lot of time with me after that, since he needed to focus on someone else for the laugh.

Could I match vocals with Kenny Rogers? Let’s put it this way. He was Slim Whitman, and I was Cowboy Don. But to claim my brief moment as a king of the rodeo, I can brag until the cows come home about singing with two legendary cowboy characters – without setting foot outside a big city. Yeehaw!

Thanks for reading and until next time – keep rockin’!

For a great video of Kenny Rogers performing Lucille, visit this YouTube LINK.

Dave Schwensen is the author of The Beatles At Shea Stadium, The Beatles In Cleveland, and others. What’s the number one song on The Dream Song List? Subscribe to The Classic Rocker as we continue the countdown.

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