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Post by jon hynes on Oct 12, 2008 18:04:33 GMT -5
Jim: "There's a bit more meaning in folk music. Rock 'n' roll competition is sort of cut-throat. In folk music everybody's willing to learn from somebody else."I hadn’t thought of that. My piano would have been even more superfluous than it was becoming. I would have headed to blues, maybe? Hootenanny Pianos just never caught on. Too bad Dave. |
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Post by jon hynes on Oct 12, 2008 18:21:59 GMT -5
“ … an album which will include "On the Road" a Jack Kerouac inspired original written by Bob and Jim.”Do you think Willie Nelson stole their idea?  Willie gets most of his songs from Bob and Jim the Backarack Brothers. They go under various names though Bob & Tom or Bob & Ray. I'm getting very confused. |
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Post by jon hynes on Oct 12, 2008 18:27:49 GMT -5
Jim:” … stay in music as long as I can make a living in it." Hanna said. "Then I'll turn to printing and advertising, which is my major at MVCC."Must have been after I knew him; didn’t know he went to MVCC. Maybe nights. I do remember he was at RIT for a semester. He and I loved ink, that’s for sure. MVCC He sure did. He was there helping Al Gore invent the internet. |
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Post by jon hynes on Oct 12, 2008 18:33:34 GMT -5
“"There are also commercial considerations." Hanna noted.”Jimmy’s forte, actually. The nut doesn't fall far from the tree, unless it's carried away by a squirrel. |
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Post by kit on Oct 12, 2008 20:32:31 GMT -5
Clipper... good idea to give some history about 50s and 60s music. All I can do is tell my own story and maybe some of the folks I remember, your readers will remember also. There are a lot of blanks I need filled-in myself. Not sure where to begin, the memories are coming back a little here and a little there. Lets start from the beginning:
Sometime in the 50s I started playing a cheap old acoustic flattop guitar (known as the Stella), by ear. It was really cheap and sounded like hell so I bought a used electric guitar at Judson’s swap shop on one of the side streets just off either Lafayette St. or Columbia St. I can’t remember which. It was a 3/4 size Les Paul Melody Maker. Small, single pickup with a sunburst finish. I got to be pretty decent at copying the riffs and licks from the tunes of the day. Most any guitar player from that era remembers those tunes.
In 1959 my friend and I went to Dell Music Studio (George O’Dell) upstairs over Widrick Rubber Stamps on the east side of Genesee St. and ordered matching Les Paul, solid body, cherry red with double cutaway, 2 pickup guitars. The only difference is that I ordered a factory-installed Bigsby vibrato tailpiece. Our guitars are the exact sister of the Gibson bass that Fran Loucks used to play when he was with The Capri Three.
I’d taken drum lessons since 4th grade at school and had a small WW-II Ludwig & Ludwig trap set (95% wood). A good friend of mine was Gary Healy, also a drummer in the school band. The guy who ordered the matching guitar with me was Brian Kirkpatrick. His dad was the principal of the Sauquoit school. I had built what I’m told was the first echo chamber in this area, long before the Eccophonic or the Guild Echorec. So with Brian and me on guitars and Gary on the drums, and the echo chamber I formed my first band. It was called, strangely enough, The Echoes, and I painted that on the front of the bass drum head. My brother, who is 4 years older than me, had been going to Lebanon Hall in Utica listening to Li’l Ray Armstrong and The Blazers, a very polished and talented group. He knew the boss at Lebanon Hall and got us a gig to fill in for The Blazers one time when they were away. We did 2 other gigs then the band split up because Brian left the area to go to the Manlius Military Academy and Gary and I graduated from high school and did our separate things.
Kim’s Uncle Dave is a few years younger than me and while I was in high school, Dave and a friend of his wanted to learn how to play the guitar. They took some lessons from me and learned the basics. Dave went on to get into bands and the other guy eventually stopped playing the guitar. More about Dave later.
About this time, Dale Ryder was with The Nitecaps which included Dale on bass, Jim Gaylord on drums, Ken Aikin on guitar and Dick Stone on organ. Dale left to link up with Eric Thorngren as part of Eric and The Chessmen who were booking through Gene Kipper. So I went to the Hi Fi Music Shop in the New Hartford Shopping Center and bought a fairly inexpensive bass and played it through my Gibson amplifier. The 4 strings of the bass are tuned the same as the top 4 strings of a 6 string guitar, so I learned the bass fairly quickly. Our “bread and butter” job was being the house band on weekends at White’s Inn in Washington Mills which was owned by the Massoud family. It later became Massoud’s Lounge, and now is a church, but we’ll leave the story here for now and I’ll pick up on it again soon.
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Post by jon hynes on Oct 12, 2008 22:06:47 GMT -5
listening to Li’l Ray Armstrong and The Blazers I've been trying to remember that group's name for several months. Just finally remembered it about the time you signed on this forum. If I remember correctly they played at Parkway Gardens and had quite a few members, they were all airmen stationed at Griffiss Air Force Base. They had a real catchy song, I think it was called "Grasshopper" that had a lot of 2 beat triplets in it. Does any of this sound right to you? |
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Post by jon hynes on Oct 12, 2008 22:09:27 GMT -5
 I found this today. |
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Post by Clipper on Oct 12, 2008 22:19:08 GMT -5
Jon started the thread, and it has been an interesting and ongoing step back in time. I just thought in reading your posts about the bands in the "Kit Welcome" thread, that you could bring some of your music history here to this thread, and you and Jon and all the 50's and 60's musicians could trade stories and probably find common ground with people that you played with and gigs and venues that you all played. I look forward to opening this thread every day and reading the latest to see if I remember the names, and I always remember the places.
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Post by jon hynes on Oct 12, 2008 23:15:11 GMT -5
About this time, Dale Ryder was with The Nitecaps which included Dale on bass, Jim Gaylord on drums, Ken Aikin on guitar and Dick Stone on organ. Dale left to link up with Eric Thorngren as part of Eric and The Chessmen who were booking through Gene Kipper. After Dale left the Nitecaps he went with The Bay Five along with Chicky Vennera on sax, Dave Tucci on guitar and Vinny Zamillio on drums for some length of time. I was playing with the Chessmen after the accident, along with Eric Thorngren, Norm Knapp and Wayne Bowling. At that time Dale and I traded places. He was then with Eric and the Chessmen and I was with Chicky. We then changed our name to Chicky and the Jumping Jacks, and played for a time. Later Chicky and I went to California together. He went to Passadina Playhouse and became a famous actor etc. |
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Post by jon hynes on Oct 12, 2008 23:35:52 GMT -5
I expect Jim Gaylord would have sat in with the Chessmen after Wayne died. Later Eric picked up 'Slivers' for his steady drummer. I played that last job at the Lake Shore with Eric, Freddy and Slivers (post #267 on page 18 The Mighty Chessmen). If I knew, I don't remember now, why Dale didn't play that job. Perhaps a death in the family?
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Post by Clipper on Oct 13, 2008 8:03:17 GMT -5
I have to post a correction to my last post. It was DAVE GRIFFIN that started the post on the CNY Forum, and brought it here to this forum. Sorry for the mistake Dave.
Jon has been instrumental in keeping it going and making it fun to read with all of his posters and photos. I hope it continues to go on, with more and more of the good old days coming back to mind. I am really enjoying the memories. Thanks Jon, Dave, and all who post to the thread.
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Post by kit on Oct 13, 2008 11:35:44 GMT -5
A quick addendum: I'm on a business phone with a slow dial-up modem so it costs me money to sit and type online. And believe it or not, I'm not independently wealthy (no matter what people say). Because of this, I do most of my typing offline and copy and paste it into the thread. The next installment on the thread will be soon, but in the meantime, here's a quick answer to your question:
Li'l Ray and The Blazers cut a 45 on the Empire record label (Grand Canyon Music, Inc.) that made it semi-big. It was called "Boom Boom." The lyrics went something like "Boom boom boom boom... I'm gonna shoot you right down... Boom boom boom boom... right down on the ground... Boom boom boom boom... and a Boom boom boom boom." Does that sound familiar? (Actually it's quite silly when you think of it, but hey... that was rock and roll). I have the record and "A-Time" is on the flip side.
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Post by jon hynes on Oct 13, 2008 11:53:27 GMT -5
It was DAVE GRIFFIN that started the post on the CNY Forum, and brought it here to this forum. Yes, I like the novel forum name but have to look up the spelling every time, so it sure wasn't me that started the thread. I found the CNY forum while trying Google searches, to look up band members I used to play with years ago, just to see what they might be doing years later. As a result of Dave's work I have been able to find and keep in touch with several 'Old' friends and meeting New friends along the way. Then too, many, many stories I've never heard, or haven't thought of for years. Yes. Thanks for the friends and memories, Dave! You included. Kudos Dave! |
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Post by jon hynes on Oct 13, 2008 12:51:33 GMT -5
Li'l Ray and The Blazers cut a 45 Boom Boom... and a Boom boom boom boom." Does that sound familiar? Sounds like 'The Animals' Boom Boom. But then again I'm not hearing the music. Do you know if they were Airmen from Griffiss AFB? |
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Post by kit on Oct 13, 2008 14:30:32 GMT -5
Re: Li’l Ray and The Blazers. My older brother Paul knew Li’l Ray and the group quite well. He’s the one who used to go to Lebanon Hall regularly and listen to them. (Actually, everyone in my group was just underage at the time and we weren’t supposed to be playing there, so don’t tell anybody. At 64, I don’t want to be arrested for underage drinking) So I’m not familiar with “Grasshopper” but wouldn’t doubt that it was in their repertoire. “Boom Boom” is the one I associate with them. And I'm not sure if they were airmen from the base or not.
Re: Gene Rice. I knew Gene and did a photo layout for him not long after he ordered and received his “Tabjaras guitar” from Brazil. The Martin Company can say whatever they want about the quality of their acoustic guitars (and rightly so) but this Tabajaras guitar rivaled, and in some respects, surpassed the Martins.
When he left George O’Dell’s place on the west side of Genesee St., Gene went to Nashville - I though to play guitar. But he was so good at recording engineering, that’s what he was really known for there. Big name groups and singles would come to Nashville to cut a CD and they’d say, “Get me Gene Rice! I don’t want anybody but Gene Rice!” The country group Alabama was one of them. I went to high school with Bob O’Donnell, knew the whole family, even did some wedding photography for them, including some folk-singing glossies for Bob and his sister Jeanne. Bob was what we call “a sleeper.” He had tremendous talent but was a bit too shy (unlike most of us) to promote himself any more than ‘just enough.’ In the right hands Bob would have been a star for sure. He just never had the confidence.
So sad that Gene and Bob are no longer with us, just like some of the others.
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