Category Archives: Musical Appreciation

Me and Pink Floyd and Ivor Wynne Stadium ► Nostalgia Ain’t What It Used To Be

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What’s left of Ivor Wynne Stadium.

It was sad to note in today’s news that Hamilton’s storied Ivor Wynne Stadium, home to the Tiger Cats, is almost no more.

People who know me well, also know I don’t follow sports. So why would a rickety football stadium bring a figurative tear to my eye? Because I have fond memories of a single day at Ivor Wynne Stadium: June 28, 1975.

Coincidentally Hamilton was the last city in Canada in which I lived before moving back to ‘Merka to help take care of Pops after my Mom died. Before I ever moved to The Hammer, I had only visited The Hammer on two previous occasions.

In the early ‘70s, when I was still in college, some bonehead in the Ontario government of Premier Bill Davis invited me to put on my award-winning slide show at a post-secondary school educational conference. Instinctively, I knew whoever chose my slideshow for the conference had never seen it; they had been suckered by the title: “Is There Any Place You’d Rather Be?” which just so happened to be the tourism slogan of Ontario. Maybe they thought my slide show was a travelogue.

Let’s just say Ontario wasn’t much impressed by my slideshow, which included naked women rolling around in broken watermelons, among other, err, interesting images. When the lights came up I was an instant pariah, especially among representatives from the Ontario government. Pleased at the reaction, which was wholly expected, I went for a walk.

The government had rented out the Royal Connaught Hotel, so Gore Park was steps away. I sat in the beauty of this downtown park years before the Gore Park Chainsaw Massacre ruined it forever. A sign outside The Palace Theatre beaconed. The Palace was an Art Deco monument to the era before Multiplex Madness had cheapened the movie-going experience. The cheaply painted sign was one no self-respecting film student could resist: AUCTION TODAY – CONTENTS FOR SALE. It was all going, as they say, to the bare walls.

I could have bought anything because there were so few bidders. However, I was a student on a tight budget, so I could afford to buy almost nothing. However, when a beautiful glass-etched, Deco exit sign came up for bids, I decided to go for it. The frantic bidding went all the way up to $10, but I managed to snag it. Snag it? I didn’t realize I was bidding on a lot of 10. While $1.00 a sign was a great deal, what the hell was I going to do with 10 exit signs?

Wait! The car I came in was already full. How the hell was I going to get 10 exit signs back to Oakville? Eventually I cadged transport for them and, over the years, I gave most away, before an ex-wife finally trashed the last two. Today I have none left.

It was only a few years later, June 28, 1975 to be exact, when I made my second expedition to Hamilton.

By then I was out of college and toiling as Editor [and chief grunt] for Cheap Thrills, the house organ for CPI, Concert Productions International, Toronto’s largest concert promoter. CPI had an exclusive lock on Maple Leaf Gardens, which is how it became the city’s biggest concert promoter. [That’s a story worth telling in detail some day.] While Cheap Thrills was filled with record reviews, interviews, and
profiles readily consumed by the average Rock and Roll fan, Cheap
Thrills was merely a cheap [no pun intended] and clever way for CPI to promote its upcoming shows.

How would you like to see this from your front porch?

Early on the morning of June 28 I arrived early at the printer and loaded up bundles of the latest issue of Cheap Thrills. I was headed to Hamilton’s to distribute Cheap Thrills to fans going to the now-fabled Pink Floyd concert at Ivor Wynne Stadium. I arrived at dawn. It took less than an hour to distribute tens of thousands of copies of Cheap Thrills at all the entrances. Although my work was finished, I was also sporting an ALL ACCESS PASS to a Pink Floyd concert. You don’t really think I was going to turn around and go home, do you?

To kill time until the show – some 8 – 9 hours away – I wandered in and out of the stadium and I explored the immediate neighbourhood. I was astounded that Ivor Wynne was plopped right in the middle of a residential area, with houses facing it on most sides. It made no sense to me to have a stadium right there.

As I waited the for the concert to begin the crowd grew from a few curious stragglers to a literal crush at the gates. I decided that the safest place, when the gates opened and the running and pushing started for the General Seating, would be outside the stadium. So, that’s where I watched the madness from. When the crowd outside had dwindled to mostly late arrivals, I looked around sadly. The mob left behind mountains of litter. Among the pop cans and other convenience store trash I was horrified to see my name on most of it. Copies of Cheap Thrills were everywhere: over lawns and flowerbeds. On porches. Blowing at the corners. Covered with footprints closer to the stadium. Everywhere one looked you could see my small contribution to Hamilton lore.

Pink Floyd at Ivor Wynne Stadium

As for the concert itself: I’m not here to review the show. However, it was the last concert on that Pink Floyd tour, so the band decided to go out with a bang. Rather than pack and transport the pyrotechnics, the roadies decided it would be best to explode it all at the Hamilton concert. The resulting explosion blew up the scoreboard and broke windows all around the neighbourhood.

After that Hamilton banned all concerts at Ivor Wynne Stadium, citing complaints from neighbours over the trash with my name on it. The ban held with a few notable exceptions ever since.

A Musical Appreciation ► Rompin’ Ronnie Hawkins

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DATELINE January 10, 1935 – Ronald “Rompin’ Ronnie” Hawkins is born in Huntsville, Arkansas, just two days after Elvis Presley is born in Tupelo, Mississippi. Both carved out quite a niche in Rock and Roll, but Elvis’ story is better known. That’s a shame.

Ronnie Hawkins started his first band when he was studying Phys Ed at the University of Arkansas. Called The Hawks, it toured throughout several southern states. On the advice of Conway Twitty, who was one of the up and coming Rock and Rollers who played at a club Hawkins owned in Fayetteville, he began playing in Canada in 1958. The first place he played in Canada was the last place I lived in Canada: Hamilton, Ontario. Apparently he was a huge hit at the Golden Rail, near the corner of King and John Streets. It was this initial success that prompted Hawkins to move to Canada.

The Hawks were less thrilled with Canada and they all quit and went back to ‘Merka, except for Levon Helm, the good ol’ boy drummer. Ronnie Hawkins was forced to recruit a new set of Hawks. He found some good ol’ Ontario boys in Robbie Robertson, Rick Danko, Richard Manuel and Garth Hudson. This version of The Hawks was rehearsed within an inch of their lives by Hawkins, a notorious perfectionist. When, some 5 or 6 years later, this tight group of Hawks up and quit on Hawkins, they changed their name to The Band and worked with some barely known folk singer named Bob Dylan in a barely known town in upper New York named Woodstock.

This is why, in homage to their early mentor, Ronnie Hawkins appeared at The Last Waltz.



When the band called The Hawks quit to become The Band, Hawkins hired a new band, which he called “And Many Others.” When, some 4 years later, Hawkins fired “And Many Others” they took the name Crowbar. This was also in homage to Hawkins who told them as he sacked them, “You guys are so crazy, you could fuck up a crowbar in 3 seconds.”

Crowbar became one of Canada’s best-known bands, who had a huge hit in 1971 with “Oh, What A Feeling.”

John Lennon & friends bundled against the Canadian cold

I wasn’t as lucky as John Lennon, who hung out at Ronnie’s farm signing his Bag One lithographs while planning a peace festival. However, I was still fortunate enough to meet Ronnie Hawkins twice. Both times he had me laughing so hysterically, my sides hurt.

The first was soon after he appeared as a special guest vocalist on a spoken word LP by Xaviera Hollander, still in the flush of success following the publication of The Happy Hooker: My Own Story. Hawkins was helping her promote the GRT release and appeared on my show at Radio Sheridan, the college campus station. During the interview he swore more than I had ever heard anyone swear before, telling one obscene joke after another.

This was only a week after Xaviera Hollander simulated giving me fellatio under the table during her interview about the LP. As Station Manager I was called on the carpet for the “inappropriate” content of the Hollander interview. Now Ronnie Hawkins had me in stitches and he was being far more obscene than Xaviera had been. As I doubled over in side-splitting laughter, I couldn’t help but think the administration was going to revoke our license to operate. Luckily nothing happened. Either the admin didn’t get wind of it, or John Bromley decided we were a lost cause.

The next time I ran into Ronnie Hawkins was more than 15 years later. I was working at Citytv by then and heard a loud voice coming from a room that was normally locked and used for storage. I peeked inside and Ronnie Hawkins was pacing the room all by himself, rehearsing some words that he was expected to tape for MUCHMusic, which was broadcast out of the same building. He noticed me in the doorway and stopped, so I reintroduced myself to him and reminded him of the interview and how much I feared being called up in front of the administration for it, but it would have been worth it.

While not acknowledging whether he remembered me or not, he started off on a series of obscene one-liners that didn’t stop until he was fetched 15 minutes later for his close-up.

There are two stories I’ve heard about Ronnie Hawkins and I pray to the Flying Spaghetti Monster neither of them are apocryphal:

After Ronnie Hawkins had his first brush with fame, he decided he deserved a Rolls Royce. He went to the Rolls Royce dealer on Bay Street in Toronto looking like a Hippie and the saleman treated him like something that had stuck to the bottom of his shoe. He wouldn’t even let Hawkins have a test drive. Imagine that! Hawkins left and came back a short time later. He slapped — in cash — the asking price of a Rolls Royce on the hood of one and drove it out of the showroom.

The second story is from when Hawkins was hiring the [not yet] The Band to be The [replacement] Hawks. As incentive he apparently said, “Sign up with me boys and you’ll get more pussy than Frank Sinatra.”

Happy Birthday, Ronnie Hawkins!!!

Here’s a Ronnie Hawkins documentary for those who want to know more:

Me and Flo and Eddie and Mark and Howard ► A Musical Appreciation

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“I’d like to clean you boys up a bit and mold you.
I believe I could make you as big as The Turtles“
~~~~~Noted L.A. disc jockey

A mere 3 days ago I wrote about Frank Zappa, one of my musical heroes. Today I want to tell the story of how I met Flo & Eddie. 

I’m telling this story because I am sure Howard Kaylan left this chapter out of his forthcoming book, “Shell Shocked: My Life with the Turtles, Flo and Eddie, and Frank Zappa, etc.” That’s why it has been left to me to tell the unabridged story. Get comfortable, kiddies.

Three days ago, when writing about the Zappa LP Freak Out, I said: 

Not to brag, but I was there from the beginning. I discovered Frank
Zappa some time in 1966 when I first set eyes on the cover of Freak Out
at my local Kresge’s record department. As one descended on the
escalator into the basement, a gap opened in the wall revealing Kresge’s
2-rack record department. The farther one descended, more of the record
department was revealed in the expanding triangle of the record
department. As teens we’d crane our heads into that crack to see what
was new each week.

One day in 1966 my eyes spied what was the ugliest record cover I had ever seen. I had to own it.

Inside the gatefold cover of Freak Out was a quote — almost a throw-away line inside a cover jam-packed with words and collages — from a “Noted L.A. disc jockey” who said about The Mothers of Invention, “I’d like to clean you boys up a bit and mold you. I believe I could make you as big as The Turtles“.

Clearly Frank Zappa had other ideas about that. In less than 5 years, Zappa would co-opt The Turtles and hire Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan — the former-lead singers of The Turtles — as vocalists for the Mothers.

Unfortunately, Mark and Howard had signed the worst record contract in all of show biz, or so it seemed. Not only were they prevented by White Whale Records from using the name of their former-group, which no longer existed, they were also prevented from using their real names. That’s why, and how, Mark and Howard became The Phlorescent Leech and Eddie, which was shortened to Flo & Eddie. That name appealed to me because it’s a pun: A river can flow and eddy.

Flo & Eddie appeared for the first time on a Zappa LP with Chunga’s Revenge.

I want to take you all the way back to the mid-to-late ’70s, before the earth had cooled, or warmed, or the climate had changed, or something.

I no longer lived in Detroit. I now lived in Toronto and worked at the best record store in the city, Round Records on Bloor Street. I was still a Zappa fan, as the Mothers seemed to get uglier and uglier. I naturally followed the Zappa arc of LPs that started with Chunga’s Revenge and ended with the movie 200 Motels, all which featured Flo & Eddie on lead vocals. The entire theme of the Flo and Eddie Mothers’ Years is that “touring can make you crazy” and who would know that better than those two guys who had a hit single on the charts — WITH A BULLET!

Who knows how long Flo & Eddie might have stayed with Zappa had it not been for that disastrous 1971 European tour? After the episode that spawned the song “Smoke on the Water,” the band was stuck in Europe with several more concerts on the tour and all their equipment destroyed by fire. Frank took a vote and the band wanted to continue the tour, even if it meant on borrowed, inferior, equipment. At the very next gig, at the Rainbow, a deranged fan pulled Frank Zappa offstage into the orchestra pit. He sustained terrible injuries, which ended the tour and Flo & Eddie’s participation with Frank Zappa.

However, Flo & Eddie started to release records on their own, which were just as terrific as The Turtles or Mothers records. I started following Flo & Eddie and had several of their records, which is why, when Mark Volman & Howard Kaylan walked into Round Records, I turned to the rest of the staff and said, “They’re all mine!”

Round Records was the last real alternative record store (remember those
black things?) in Toronto. How Flo & Eddie had heard about us I
don’t know, but when they walked in the door I recognized them
immediately. I already knew the broad outline of their entire career up to that point.

So, I just acted cool behind the counter and gave Flo & Eddie about 15 or 20 minutes to browse. I watched them collect more and more records under their arms. The waiting was killing me! When they finally had about 15 or 20 LPs under their arms, I approached and asked if I could help them.

[Approximating and paraphrasing the conversation.]

“We’d like to take these records,” says Mark.

“Okay, I’ll ring them up.”

“No, you don’t understand.  We’d like to take these records.”

Wait!!! What???

They explain how they’ve been hired to give record reviews on a new Cee Bee Cee tee vee show, “90 Minutes Live,” with Peter Gzowski and just want to borrow the records for a day.

Peter Gzowski: A face for radio.

I have to explain this show for ‘Merkins. When CBC decided to launch a program to go up against Johnny Carson (really!) they chose Canada’s most respected RADIO broadcaster, Peter Gzowski. Peter’s radio show was a wonder. Altho’ broadcast across the nation, Gzowski had the warmth and empathy of a man sitting at your kitchen table, talking with the luminaries of the day. His show was a National Conversation, an institution. This Country in the Morning and, later, Morningside were a very big part of the fabric of Canadian society. Nothing like it exists in the U.S. of A.

When Cee Bee Cee tee vee turned to Gzowski to host 90 Minutes Live it turned, as the old joke goes, to someone who truly had a face for radio.  Not that he was ugly or anything, but no matter how much CBC cleaned Gzowski up for the camera, he still came across looking somewhat like a rumpled bed.  90 Minutes Live might have been a great show, if you closed your eyes.

Gzowski eventually went back to radio.

To recap: Flo & Eddie have this gig at The Cee Bee Cee and they want to borrow the records overnight. For some stupid reason I said I had to check with my boss, who was at lunch at the time. However, I guaranteed them that I’d have the records at the studio on Yonge Street by showtime.

My boss thought I was an idiot for not turning over $100.00 of records to Flo & Eddie on nobody’s say-so. No matter because, at the appointed time, I showed up at the CBC studio with a stack of records under my arm. My name was on a guest list. I handed over the LPs and I was shown a place just off-camera to watch the show.

I wish I could remember the records being reviewed. Some of the LPs were highly praised and some were trashed. I cringed as I watched those records that didn’t get the Flo & Eddie Seal of Approval™ get flung across the studio. YIKES! I have to try and sell those tomorrow! I do remember them as being very funny and not letting Peter get a word in edgewise.

At the end of the segment the albums were collected and handed back to me and none’s the wiser.

The show only lasted 2 years, but it became routine for me to take a stack of records to the Cee Bee Cee to get thrown around by Flo & Eddie. And that, kiddies, is how I met Flo & Eddie.

Frank Zappa ► A Musical Appreciation

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Dateline December 4 – On this day in 1971 Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention were on stage in Montreax, Switzerland when the casino caught fire. The night was immortalized in Deep Purple’s song “Smoke on the Water.” On the same date 22 years later Frank Zappa died of prostate cancer.

The ugliest LP cover I had ever seen.
I had to own it.

Not to brag, but I was there from the beginning. I discovered Frank Zappa some time in 1966 when I first set eyes on the cover of Freak Out at my local Kresge’s record department. As one descended on the escalator into the basement, a gap opened in the wall revealing Kresge’s 2-rack record department. The farther one descended, more of the record department was revealed in the expanding triangle of the record department. As teens we’d crane our heads into that crack to see what was new each week.

One day in 1966 my eyes spied what was the ugliest record cover I had ever seen. I had to own it.

It was a double-record set in a gatefold cover, among the first for a Rock and Roll LP. The music was also a revelation. One LP was all Doo Wop, but done in a slightly demented style, as opposed to straight up. The other LP contained longer songs and musical collages that were NOTHING like demented Doo Wop, but were demented all the same. I became an instant fan and followed Frank Zappa’s career, like a lemming follows whatever a lemming follows, ever since.

When I signed up I didn’t realize that by the time it was over I’d have collected some 90 albums, many of them double and triple sets, making Frank Zappa one of the most prolific artists/composers/Rock musicians of the 20th Century. However, I wasn’t a fan because he was prolific. I was a fan because he made great music. Here’s just a small taste of what Frank Zappa composed and released. Enjoy.

Musical Appreciation ► Thomas Edison Unveils First Phonograph

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Edison with the 2nd model
of his phonograph in 1878

He invented the stock ticker, a mechanical voting machine, batteries for electric cars, motion pictures, not to mention the electric light bulb and electric power distribution. However, nothing Thomas Alva Edison invented has brought more pleasure to more people than the phonograph.

Edison demonstrated his first phonograph, a word he also invented, on this day in 1877. Edison was not trying to invent a phonograph when he came upon the inspiration. He was trying to improve the high technology of his day, the telegraph transmitter. However, he noticed that when the paper tape was moved through the transmitter at high speed, it sounded a bit like human speech. This led him to begin experimenting with a hard needle to etch sound waves into a rotating cylinder covered with a thick tin foil. Voila! An invention is born.

An advertisement for Edison’s phonograph

Eventually the tin foil gave way to wax cylinders, which eventually gave way to the gramophone, on which 10″ platters spun at 78 revolutions per minute, then at 45 RPM, and finally at 33 & 1/3 RPM. All of these forms of sound recreation were just variations of Edison’s original invention in which sound waves moved a diaphragm. The movement of the diaphragm made a needle quiver, which etched the sound into whatever medium was being used. The principle was reversed for playback: A needle was placed in a groove in which sound waves were already etched. The movement of the needle moved a diaphragm, which reproduced the sound through a horn. It was a totally mechanical process. Eventually electronics was added to the mix, but that still didn’t change how the sound was etched into the medium.

When the compact disc and digital recording came along, there was no more need for Edison’s great idea of a moving membrane etching and recreating the sound. Now sound waves are electronically converted into ones and zeros and encoded on computer equipment to be turned back into sound at the press of a button. This led to the invention of the ubiquitous MP3. Now one can put 10,000 songs on a device smaller than a pack of matches.

It’s also how I can share with my faithful readers a playlist of cover songs I have been collecting for many years.

Enjoy, and don’t forget to say a big THANK YOU to Thomas Edison, The Wizard of Menlo Park.

Musical Appreciation ► Happy Birthday, Berry Gordy, Jr.

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The Motown Museum in 2010, taken by author.

Dateline November 28, 1929 – Berry Gordy, Jr. is born in Detroit, Michigan, the city he would later rename Motown.

The broad contours of Gordy’s life are well-known: He was the 7th of 8 children born to Berry Gordy II and Bertha Fuller Gordy, who had come up to Detroit in the early ’20s to work in the car business. Berry dropped out of school and opted for a career as a boxer, which he abandoned when he was drafted for service in Korea. When he returned from the service, he started writing songs. His first hit was “Reet Petite” for Jackie Wilson, which started Gordy off in show biz. After a few more songwriting credits, which include the smash “Lonely Teardrops,” he decided to try his hand at producing. He found a Detroit Doo Wop group called The Matadors, renamed The Miracles, which started Gordy’s roster of artists.

The street sign in front of the Motown Museum

In 1959 Gordy borrowed $800 from his family and started up his own record label, Tamla Records. The first record issued on Tamla was “Come To Me,” by The Miracles and written by Marv Johnson, who later wrote “You Got What It Takes.” It wasn’t until the 3rd release, “Bad Girl” by The Miracles, that Motown was officially launched as a record label.

New artists and new hits followed: Barrett Strong‘s “Money (That’s What I Want),” and The Miracles‘ “Shop Around,” The Marvelettes‘ “Please Mr. Postman,” Mary Wells, The Supremes, Marvin Gaye, The Temptations, Jimmy Ruffin, The Contours, The Four Tops, Gladys Knight & the Pips, The Commodores, The Velvelettes, Martha and the Vandellas, Stevie Wonder, The Jackson 5, and many more.

Growing up in Detroit in the ’60s, it made one feel great to know the city had its own record label. When The Beatles started covering Motown tunes, we knew for sure that Motown had arrived worldwide.

However, the good times couldn’t last. In the early ’70s Gordy moved the Motown base of operations to Los Angeles, and things have never been the same since, for Detroit or the label.

However, it’s always been about the music. Here’s a Berry Gordy Jukebox for your listening pleasure. Get ready to sing and dance along, because you won’t be able to help yourself. And that, my friends, demonstrates the power of Motown.

Terry Knight and the Pack ► A Musical Appreciation

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First LP
Second LP

When I was a teenager one of my absolute favourite bands was Terry Knight and the Pack. I was an unsophisticated 14-year old when they released their only 2 LPs and they really spoke to my teenage angst. It didn’t hurt that Terry Knight and the Pack were a local band. (Who knew from Flint, Michigan?) I didn’t know (at the time) of Terry Knight’s history as a Detroit DJ, first on WJBK, then moving to The Big 8, CKLW in Windsor. All I knew is the music really embedded itself deeply into my psyche.

At the time I didn’t have the language, or understanding of why they appealed to me so greatly. However, in hindsight based on my collected knowledge of musical genres, I can see how Terry Knight wove in bits of Psychedelia, Vaudeville, Country, Blues, Folk, and Jazz and then infused it all with a Rock and Roll sensibility that at once made it sound familiar, yet different. All I knew at the time is that I would listen to these two LPs — from start to finish — and then do it all over again and again and again.

Terry Knight and the Pack were short-lived, recording just two LPs in its 2-year history. Again, as unsophisticated as I was at the time about music, I knew nothing about the individual members of the band. Terry Knight’s name was known because he led the band, but the rest of the players could have really been called The Pack, for all I cared.

When Terry Knight and the Pack broke up, Knight became a producer for Cameo-Parkway, the company that released TK&TP’s LPs. When the Beatles formed Apple he went to London to try and become a producer and/or recording artists. Knight was apparently present at the recording session for the ‘White Album’ at which Ringo Starr quit the band (before being cajoled back).

Knight bounced back to ‘Merka and became a staff producer for Capitol Records, getting into some trouble with his song “Saint Paul,” which included snatches of Beatles’ songs near the end. The Beatles’ publisher filed a cease and desist order and the single was pulled. Eventually it came back on the market in a truncated form, but with a credit to Maclen Music. Later, when the Paul is Dead rumour swept the world, parts of this song were used as clues in the hoax.

It wasn’t until Terry Knight’s next project came on the scene did I learned that at least 2 members of The Pack were named Mark Farner and Don Brewer. Knight put them together with Mel Schacher from another local Detroit group, and label-mates, ? and the Mysterians to form Grand Funk Railroad. Terry Knight became their producer and manager. Grand Funk Railroad went on to fill stadiums, firing Terry Knight with just three months left on his contract. Lawsuits flew.

Soon after that Knight was fired from Capitol and he started up his own indie label called Brown Bag Records, which released music by by Mom’s Apple Pie, John Hambrick, Wild Cherry and Faith. Nothing really hit and Knight retired from the music biz in 1973, becoming addicted to cocaine. He cleaned himself up in the ’80s and settled in Yuma, Arizona, putting his hard-driving Rock and Roll past behind him.

On November 1, 2004 Terry Knight was murdered by his daughter’s boyfriend when he stepped in to defend her during a fight. He was stabbed 17 times. A year later Donald A. Fair, who claimed he was hopped up on methamphetamine at the time, was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison. Terry Knight, born Richard Terrance Knapp 61 years earlier, was buried in a family plot in Lapeer, Michigan.

The first two Terry Knight and the Pack LPs were released on CD as a two-fer. Thanks to Spotify, you can listen to it here:

Long live Terry Knight and the Pack!!!

A Tribute to Ethel Waters ► Nostalgia Ain’t What It Used To Be

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Dateline October 31, 1896 – The incomparable Ethel Waters is born in Chester, Pennsylvania, the result of a rape of her mother, who was reportedly only 13 years old at the time. Waters was raised in extreme poverty and said of her own childhood, “I never was a child. I never was cuddled, or liked, or understood by my family.” Waters was married at the age of 13 to an abusive man, whom she soon left. For a time she worked as a maid, toiling in a Philadelphia hotel for $4.75 a week. On her 17th birthday she was cajoled into singing two songs at a party. From that ad hoc performance she was offered a job to sing professionally in Baltimore.

It still wasn’t easy. She toured the Vaudeville circuit for a time. She joined a carnival, traveling by freight cars. Of her experience working carnivals she said, “The roustabouts and the concessionaires were the kind of people I’d grown up with, rough, tough, full of larceny towards strangers, but sentimental and loyal to their friends and co-workers.” After a stint in Chicago, she found herself singing at the same Atlanta club as Bessie Smith, who demanded that Ethel Waters not compete with her by singing the Blues. Waters complied and sang only ballads and popular songs instead. This is ironic because today Waters is best known for singing the Blues. In 1919 she moved to Harlem just in time for the Harlem Renaissance, where she eventually found her fame.

In 1933 she was one of the stars of “As Thousands Cheer” the first Broadway show to give a Black person equal billing with a White cast. It was a topical revue with a book by Moss Hart and music and lyrics by Irving Berlin. “As Thousands Cheer” was a hit, running for 400 performances during the height of the depression. Each scene was based loosely on a news story or headline of the day. Aside from introducing “Heatwave” in the show, a song that’s become a classic, Irving Berlin wrote the song “Suppertime” specifically for Ethel Waters. She sang it to the ripped-from-a–newspaper headline “UNKNOWN NEGRO LYNCHED BY FRENZIED MOB.” The “negro” was not unknown to Ethel Waters’ character. It was her husband and the song became a show-stopper which had audiences crying openly because of the intensity of Waters’ performance.

Sadly we don’t have that performance, but 36 years later Ethel Waters recreated the song for an appearance on the Hollywood Palace hosted by Diana Ross and the Supremes. In 1969 it was probably considered too incendiary to show the original staging, but on Broadway Waters sang this song on an almost empty stage with a silhouette on the bare back wall of a lynched man. In this single song Ethel Waters was able to sum up the Black experiemce in ‘Merka. If your eyes are not tearing up after this AMAZING performance, check your heart. You might not have one.

Ethel Waters died in 1977 at the age of 80. Luckily we have many records and movie performances to remember her by. There are so many outstanding performances, it was hard to narrow it down to just these. ENJOY!

With a very young Sammy David, Jr. in the movie “Rufus Jones For President”

Synchronicity Two

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The Rolling Stones at Altamont

Dateline October 24 – In a weird act of Flying Spaghetti Monster manifested Synchronicity, today is the birthday of both Bill Wyman (1936) and Meredith Hunter (1951). Although separated by 23 years, they will always be linked by a singular event in history: The Altamont Free Concert on December 6, 1969.

Bill Wyman

Bill Wyman was the second bass player for The Rolling Stones after the original bass player, Dick Taylor, decided to return to school. There are conflicting stories of how Wyman heard of the opening. One says early Stones drummer Tony Chapman told him; another report says he answered an advertisement. Both could be true. Either way, by December of 1962 Wyman was a Rolling Stone and stayed with the band until he quit the Stones in 1993.

Meredith Hunter

Meredith Hunter was an 18-year old from Berkley, California who went to Altamont Speedway (along with an estimated 300,000 other people) for a free concert which advertised appearances by The Rolling Stones, Santana, The Flying Burrito Brothers, Jefferson Airplane, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, and The Grateful Dead. In the end the Dead declined to play because of the violence.

The concert was a gift from The Rolling Stones to ‘Merka and had been hastily organized after many people criticized the band for the high price of tickets for their ‘Merkin tour. Originally the concert had been planned for San Jose State, then changed to Golden Gate Park, but they couldn’t get a permit. The next proposed venue was Sears Point Racetrack, which was owned by Filmways, Inc., the same company know for such tee vee hits as The Beverly Hillbillies, Petticoat Junction, and Green Acres. However, Filmways wanted $300,000 up front and the distribution rights to the resulting movie. This left slighly less than 2 days to find a new venue and the Altamont Speedway was hastily chosen.

One of the major complications of the venue change was the height of the stage. It was only a meter high. That would have suited the Sears Point Raceway, which would have placed it at the top of a hill. The location for the Altamont stage was at the bottom of a hill. To keep people from rushing the stage The Hells Angels, hired to provide security for a reported $500 in beer, surrounded the stage.

By now everyone knows what happened. The Hells Angels were out of control, as was the crowd. There were many fights, long before The Rolling Stones hit the stage. However, the one that everybody remembers is when Meredith Hunter, hopped up on methamphetamines, was stabbed to death by Hells Angel Alan Passaro. The horrifying act was caught on film directed by Albert and David Maysles and Charlotte Zwerin. The resulting movie was called Gimme Shelter and chronicled the entire ’69 tour, but culminated in the disater at Altamont, often called the deathnell of the Hippie movement.

Passaro was charged, tried and acquitted of murder after he claimed self-defense. The jury agreed after being shown some of the footage above. He later served time on unrelated charges and was found drowned in the Anderson Reservoir a year after he was released from jail.

Happy Birthday Bill Wyman and Meredith Hunter.

Musical Appreciation ► Bob Weir

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DATELINE October 16, 1947 – Robert Hall Weir is born in San Fransisco, California and grew up in nearby Atherton, on the other side of the bay, with his adopted parents. He picked up the guitar at the age of 13. Three years later, on a New Year’s Eve, he followed the sound of banjo playing to meet Jerry Garcia for the first time. After jamming all night they decided to form a band. At first they called themselves “Mother McCree’s Uptown Jug Champions,” which became “The Warlocks,” and finally “The Grateful Dead.”

There is no ‘Merkin band with the same storied romance between its fans and the group. Long before most people even knew about Bootleg recordings, The Grateful Dead would allow fans with tape machines to plug directly into the sound board. Dead Heads would follow the band around the country, and across the world, to take in as many shows as they could. An entire culture grew up outside Grateful Dead concerts, not to mention inside the shows.

While with The Dead, and after the death of Garcia in 1995, Weir also performed with such bands as Kingfish, Bobby and the Midnites, RatDog and his latest band Further, which is named after the bus used by Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters, where the Grateful Dead got their start, and the subject of The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, one of Tom Wolfe’s early books.

However, it will always be about the music.

ENJOY!!!