I received a beautifully
crafted email Friday from my dear friend the photographer and writer Daryl
Black. Her compelling essay was prompted by the death of David Crosby at 81.
What followed was her heartfelt commentary on the importance of music in her
life and that of her husband Fred a master weaver and true renaissance man. Music
enhances their lives. It fills her office and accompanies the rhythm of Fred’s
work at the loom. It’s odd that as a former singer and musician of nominal
skill music does not surround me. I prefer quiet. I work without music. I drive
without the radio or CDs playing. I can’t explain it since I love music. I even
pick up the guitar once a year. At number 45 on my weekly 50 todos list is Learn
Blues Guitar. That’s just below learn video editing. Both require more tenacity
than I can muster.
Daryl recounts that Fred's musical claim to fame is when he was walking through the San Diego airport in his Navy blues and on his way to Southeast Asia. "He walked past a gentleman seated in the lounge, and realized it was David Crosby. He nodded and Fred nodded back. A passing, knowing glance" Oh, and Fred was carrying a banjo. Yet another Fred Black talent emerges. That encounter is the seed from which the following post grew.
I wrote
Daryl a response to her thought-provoking examination of music enriching life.
She made me wistful.
“Apparently,
David Crosby’s passing struck a chord with you and Fred. Me too. Your touching
essay may have prompted my blog subject today. When I look back to my folk
singing years, nominally 1958 through 1964, I observe that my zigzag path
brought me close to a bevy of folk luminaries. As a lesser light in the folk
music world I hovered on the periphery, just close enough to glimpse some of
the stars of the time. Those encounters were more numerous than I would have
remembered unprompted. Thanks for the stroll down memory lane.
This
email may become the skeleton of my post. Hell, it may be the post. I wish I
had photographs to memorialize the period.”
It went
something like this. In 1960 I dropped out of college to reach for the gold
ring in LA. My brief brush with the big time began in earnest. That spring my
singing partner John and I recorded our single Once Upon a Time at Audio
Recorders in Phoenix. It was the studio where Duane Eddy and his twangy
guitar recorded hits like Rebel Rouser and the theme for Peter Gun. Eddy sold
12 million records by 1963 and is still making music at 84.
When
John and I pitched Capitol Records in the summer of 1960 we spent the night at
their iconic studio in Hollywood thinking we’d be auditioning. Thanks to college
friend Pat Kanan whose father was a bigtime player we were signed by Jess Rand a
personal manager whose stable included Sam Cooke, Jackie Wilson, the
Lettermen and Bobby Gentry. It all came to naught since John and I had
signed a recording contract with Audio Recorders and Capitol bailed when Audio Recorders
asked for $5,000. That night in Hollywood we shared hellos with the Smothers
Brothers in the hall between Studio B and Studio C. I recall that we sang
in the chorus during a Ray Anthony session. But we didn’t get to sing for
Nick Venet who would have been our A&R man. He told us, “I don’t care
if you can sing. I can teach you how to sing.” Nick was the man behind the Beach
Boys. He was 26.
John
moved back to Tempe to be with Becky, his new love. I joined the Army Reserve
and took gap year of sorts. When I finished active duty. I moved to LA and made
a halfhearted effort to forge a path as a solo artist. Jess Rand referred me to
Monk Cohen, a well-known booking agent who got me a few gigs and two tickets to
see a young Joan Baez at the Santa Monica Civic Center. My friend Jerry
Roman and I sat in the first row. I had gone to the men’s room and was
returning to my seat as Baez walked across the stage to the microphone. She
looked at me and said, “I’d appreciate it if no one else leaves their seat
while I’m performing.”
When I
returned to school in the fall, I was on double secret probation. I applied
myself for the first time and became an A student. John and I split, and I began
performing solo. About that time, I auditioned to become the photo double of Bob
Shane, the Kingston Trio’s whiskey voiced lead singer, when they
were filming a pilot for a TV series Young Men in a Hurry. I got the gig, Shane
gave me career advice that came too late, and the series didn’t get picked up.
Most of
my college years of which there were eight I worked full time and picked up the
odd singing gig. I was was a singing waiter at the Lumbermill in Scottsdale. I
opened for John Denver before he became a thing. I’d do a short set,
grab a tray, and serve cocktails and brews to an audience that often included Waylon
Jennings and his entourage. Jennings was a loud-mouthed prick who didn’t
tip. Denver, on the other hand was a genuinely nice guy who treated me like a
peer. He had star written all over him. Soon he became the lead singer of the Michell
Trio whose founder Chad Mitchell had been busted for possession. Denver’s
arc is well chronicled. The last I knew Mitchell was manning a piano bar on a
Mississippi Riverboat.
At
Something Else, a coffee house in Phoenix John and I did an opening gig with Travis
Edmonson, who had become a solo act after breaking up with his partner Bud
Dashiell. Bud and Travis were the number two folk act in the country
from 1958 to 1962. Their tune On a Cloudy Summer afternoon made number four on
the Billboard top 100 in 1960. Edmonson told us our tight harmonies tilted
toward jazz. Sadly, Travis became to a local act and left the heights he’d
touched with Dashiell behind. Bud opened a guitar store in LA.
In the
spring of 1964, I left school again. My buddy Eric Drake and I hit the road for
Cambridge, Massachusetts where his brother Peter was attending Harvard. Our
first stop was in Salt Lake City where I wangled a one-nighter at a folk club
opening for Hoyt Axton who was riding high on the success of Greenback
Dollar which he wrote. I played my fingers bloody and was met by deafening
silence and calls of “Hoyt. We want Hoyt.”
Our next
stop was Aspen, Colorado after a treacherous climb over Independence Pass in a
blizzard. I thought we’d die. I not sure why we stopped in Aspen except that it
was more or less on the way east. Eric and I saw that Buffy St. Marie
was headlining at The Abby. That afternoon I knocked on the door of the club and
was met by the owner Tom Fleck. I asked if I could play for him and see if he
would have interest in booking me. I played. He listened politely and told me,
“That’s a nice set but we’re booked for the next nine years.”
Only Duane
Eddy, Buffy St. Marie and the Smothers Brothers remain from this roster of greats.
For the first time since 2006 my blog did not post on Monday morning though one called Errata did. I'm flummoxed. Errata dealt with errors of omission since corrected. In that light I'm reposting a heavily edited version of the post you should have gotten yesterday morning. If it's any solace on my end, this one's better.
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