WHAT I WAS DOING 50 YEARS AGO

Published by Rick on Tagged Uncategorized

In the mid-90s, when I was working freelance as a stage manager for various plays and one-man shows, I got in a conversation with one of the plays’ directors. I jokingly said, “I’ve worked with musicians, comedians, and actors, and I’m not sure who’s the most neurotic to work with.” He replied, “Well obviously you never worked with dancers.” I have worked with dancers since then, and understand where he was coming from, but in retrospect, I still think I had the biggest problems with musicians, particularly in my early days.

In early 1973, 50 years ago, Ruby and I had hired our first manager, who was good for us at that time, mostly because he seemed to believe in us. However, he mostly booked bands, so we agreed to get some backing musicians to augment our single guitar sound. We believed we could play bigger venues with a full band, but the pursuit of the right musicians became a four-year odyssey.

We began with a friend of mine, a college professor who played bass guitar, and he linked us up with a female keyboardist who was in a difficult relationship with an attorney who paid all the bills and felt he owned her. She had to quit after two rehearsals because her jealous partner kept having fits about her not being home to make his dinner. The one thing she accomplished before quitting was link us up with a guitarist and drummer, and we kept my bass player friend on. There was something that jelled in that first rehearsal, enough that we stayed with them through 1973, culminating with a mostly disastrous month in Alaska, after which we decided to look elsewhere.

We kept finding musicians who had never played outside their garage, yet suddenly when they’re getting paid real cash (sometimes as much as $25-30 a night!), they think they’re rock stars and developed the attitude to match. I managed to make it through three years of guys with atrocious attitudes who on multiple occasions wanted to kick my ass, but somehow no punches were thrown. On the other side of the spectrum there were really nice guys who either weren’t very good, had substance problems, lived in their cars, or were just out and out crazy. Sometimes all of the above.

One guy we worked with in 1974 was a never-was, already in his 30’s, and clearly bitter about the lost opportunities. He told us many of his hard luck stories, some of which had an air of truth. But like so many of us, he liked to exaggerate. He told of how he was due to hit it big in late 1963, but then John Kennedy was assassinated, and radio just played religious music for 90 days! I countered that The Beatles hit in America less than 60 days after JFK was killed, and the guy immediately backed off, saying, “Yeah, The Beatles saved us all.” I actually did find two of his 45 rpm singles in thrift stores. Both were on commercially successful record labels, and the voice on the records was clearly him. But it didn’t happen for him, and he had a major chip on his shoulder. He was a decent singer, but a really terrible keyboard player.

In late 1974, we got spoiled by linking up with two guys who were totally professional, just loved playing and didn’t get all hung up on money or ego issues. We worked some absolute shit gigs with them, getting ripped off by horrible exploitative bookers at almost every road gig, including one in which we all drove to Salt Lake City, Utah (about 800 miles) for a gig that it turned out didn’t exist, but they just chalked those things up to experience. We couldn’t work with them all the time either, because they led a band, The Hoodoo Rhythm Devils, that had made three albums and were signed to a high profile manager who at the time was managing The Pointer Sisters. At least when their manager wasn’t trying to make The Hoodoos famous, they were happy to gig with us.

We would continue to work with them when they were available, but were helped along by getting a gig for the two of us in Lake Tahoe beginning in late summer 1975, where we not only got a regular pay check, but our own room at the adjacent hotel, and a daily food allotment at their restaurant. We would do that on and off for two years, but whenever we returned to San Francisco, it was back to doing dance clubs where we needed to have a backup band, and some of the same nonsense with musicians being a pain in the ass. I dared to question the part one drummer was playing, and had to endure “How dare you! I’ve been playing for 15 years, and with some far better musicians than you!” He didn’t last long,

We decided by 1977 that we would only work with The Hoodoos guys when they were around, which wasn’t often, but otherwise not worry about those extra bodies. We had also decided earlier in 77 that, damn, we lived in San Francisco, we should WORK there. We got hired at a venue called The Palms on Polk Street, working sometimes with the Hoodoos (and also with members of The Tubes), where we’d get booked at least once a month. It was on one of those nights that a young man named Joshua Brody came up and asked if he could sit in with us some time on piano, as he really liked what we were doing. Seeing as how the club had an upright piano on the stage, I said, “How about next set?”

With Joshua, who we renamed Raoul, we found the perfect augmentation for what we wanted to do, and never had to deal with a full time band again.

February 9th, 2023



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