50 Years Ago Today – Building a Career

Published by Rick on Tagged Uncategorized

On June 15, 1970, I left my parents’ home in Redlands, California, to pursue a very uncertain future, with the only certainty being that there was no future in Redlands except for constant fights with my dad. At 6:30 that morning as I was preparing to drive up to San Francisco, my dad got up to argue some more because I didn’t have an airtight game plan, and also because I’d dropped out of college to make this journey to be with my best friend Peter, who was already up there. My mom finally intervened by just saying, “Let him go, god dammit.” If my mom said god dammit, it meant someone had gone too far. So with $10.00 in my pocket, which was enough for two full tanks of gas (in my brother’s Fiat, which got 40 miles to the gallon), lunch, and with about $2.00 to spare, I was beginning adult life.

I only spent a couple days in SF before going down to Los Gatos, about 60 miles south, where I’d live for most of that summer. Peter decided we should check out the beach town of Santa Cruz just to find temporary work in a pleasant environment. We spent a whole day walking those streets looking for jobs, which turned out to be a total waste of time, and we looked at maybe spending the summer living in the woods.

The next day, we drove up to San Francisco to crash at the place of a friend I’d made the last couple months I lived in Redlands. That friend had left SoCal at the same time to resume studies at San Francisco State College, and unbeknownst to me at the time, she was to become my partner on stage for 15 years and offstage for nearly 5, but we’re getting ahead of ourselves. I had brought a guitar and Peter had brought a single snare drum. We weren’t sure if, when, where or how we would actually play, but we both had a fascination with 50’s rock & roll, so we entertained the idea of busking 50’s music for spare change.

I can’t remember exactly whose idea it was to go across the Bay the next day to ply our wares at U of Cal Berkeley’s Sproul Plaza, the site of many a demonstration in the previous few years, but we casually set up at a vantage point to sing for a few pennies. Don’t know what it was, maybe our sheer moxie, but from the first song, we attracted a crowd. Who knew that a crowd of mostly radical leftist hippies would so lose themselves in the innocence of 1950’s doo-wopp music that they unashamedly sang along with lyrics they’d apparently never forgotten? In the hour or maybe 90 minutes we sang, people had put more than $40.00 in our hat. In 1970, $40 was a month’s rent for someone my age and income level! (I was 19)

After treating ourselves to a massive lunch, we headed back to Los Gatos with a bit of inspiration. As a third friend of ours arrived from Redlands to join us, we decided to push this 50’s thing a bit more. The three of us even went back to Berkeley a couple weeks later, and made a similar amount of cash, but we also performed impromptu at a street party in Los Gatos that same week, and someone who had a night club hired us for an actual paying gig. Might have been $50, but it was certainly a confidence builder. We had to come up with a name, and came up with Rockin’ Ricky Zumbo and his Miracle Revival Band. Our other friend Rich (who the band was sort of named after) had a decent bass voice and played sax, so we had the basics of 50’s Rock right there.

The local gig was nice but we only played that room twice, and needed something more steady. We heard about a club near Palo Alto called The Cooperage, whose entertainment was a singer-guitarist who just played dinner background music. We went in one afternoon and did about 20 minutes for the club’s manager, who was enthusiastic enough that he said,”Hey look, guys, the owner is coming in in about a half hour and I’d like for him to see you. Are you hungry? I could make you some cheeseburgers.” Considering that the last really decent meal I’d had was probably that lunch after our Berkeley performance maybe three weeks before, we sat down to those cheeseburgers that probably had about a half pound of meat on them. The owner came in just as we were finishing up, we sang a few more songs, and presto, we had a steady gig, indefinite for Fridays/Saturdays.

Later in the summer, when I’d hitch hiked up to San Francisco to see my friend, Peter drove up later in the day to bring me back to Los Gatos. Upon seeing her that day he decided she should be in our band. I liked the idea too and felt like a dummy that I didn’t think of it. When we asked her a few days later, she quickly said yes, and having a female singer opened up lots of avenues for expansion. It’s a good thing she was a natural performer, even better when we became a couple. She took the name of Ruby, even though her real name was Monica, and would use that name on a regular basis for the next 15 years. The band broke up in June of 71, with Peter pursuing country music while Rich gave up show biz entirely to become a multi-millionaire in the world of pharmacy. I adapted Rich’s stage name, eventually shortening it from Ricky to Rick, and what came about in the next decade I’ve told numerous times.

Not everything in my career would come so easily, but it was great that I got the breaks I did when I did. By the end of summer, 1970, I was actually making a living doing what I wanted to do, going beyond anyone’s expectations. When I had left Redlands on that June 15th 50 years ago, my dad allowed me to go with one simple promise: He said that he would give me the summer to sort something out, and if nothing happened, I would come home to Redlands and go back to school. I agreed to that, but long story short, I never returned to Redlands other than to visit, though I also never got a college degree.

June 15th, 2020



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