By Chip Lovitt
In my last column, I had the pleasure of writing about one of my favorite contemporary guitarists, Laurence Juber. In this column, I’m going to stroll down Memory Lane again and revisit one of my fondest concert memories.
And it’s not just about wallowing in nostalgia either. This is actually a story about how the ghosts of one’s rock ‘n’ roll past can sometimes meet up with one’s rock ‘n’ roll present. This is a true story. It happened to me
This show was a double bill consisting of the Byrds—of one of my favorite bands of the ‘60s—and NRBQ, a band whose music I’ve enjoyed for more than three decades.
The setting: The high school auditorium at Baldwin (NY) High School
The date: December 7, 1969, Pearl Harbor Day, a day that may “live in infamy,” in the history books, but it’s also a date that will live in my memory forever…or at least as long as I have a memory.
To have a legendary band like the Byrds play at a your high school was a very rare treat. Plus, the opening act for the Byrds was the first incarnation of NRBQ, a band that would go on to become one of rock’s great road bands.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
Where do I start? I guess with my best friend Matt–who I mentioned in an earlier column about classic Who concerts at the Fillmore East.
Matt was president of the General Organization, or G.O. at Baldwin High School, a typical Long Island, NY, suburban high school. Each fall, 2000 students at BHS paid five bucks for a G.O. card. The $10,000 the cards raised paid for after-school activities, sports equipment and the like. The card also got you into football and basketball games, school dances, and thanks to Matt, a concert or two. *
Matt, like me, was a rock fanatic. We were two 17-year-old seniors with a bad case of rock ‘n’ roll pneumonia and the boogie-woogie flu. Well, Matt got on the phone and called several New York City talent agents, and managed to book the Byrds and NRBQ for a show on our school stage that winter evening. The price was $800 for NRBQ. $2000 for the Byrds.
NRBQ was in its original quintet form, with Terry Adams on keyboards, guitarist Steve Ferguson, bassist Joey Spampinato, singer Frankie Gadler, and drummer Tom Staley. The Q was ripping and rocking through a high-energy set as 7:30 approached. That was supposedly the time when the Byrds were to take the stage. However, by 7 PM, there was still no sign of the Byrds.
When Matt worried out loud that the Byrds were late, the band’s road manager looked at him, and said with a half-smile, half-sneer, “Hey kid, these guys have been doing this since before you were born.”
Sure enough, the Byrds arrived shortly thereafter. The 1969 version of the Byrds consisted of Roger McGuinn on his trademark Rickenbacker 12-string, the versatile multi-instrumentalist Gene Parsons on drums, Skip Battin on bass, and Telecaster Master and bluegrass great, Clarence White, on lead guitar.
When most people think of the Byrds, they think of the first incarnation of the band—McGuinn, David Crosby, Gene Clark, Chris Hillman, etc. That was the classic lineup. The music that band made has no doubt become an important part of rock history.
But that first version of the Byrds never became a durable, long-lived road band.
The lineup of the Byrds that arrived at Baldwin High that night was the best and most durable touring version of the Byrds. And in the winter of 1969, the foursome was playing a steady stream of one-night stands up and down the East coast. Since it was a Sunday night, we got ‘em for a reduced fee.
I got to hang out backstage, watching as the Byrds tuned up and checked their equipment. When I took my seat and the music began, I was instantly mesmerized by the steady stream of classic songs, the jingle-jangle of McGuinn’s 12-string and Clarence White’s amazing guitar work.
White’s style was unique. He had taken his bluegrass roots, electrified them, and added some Buck Owens/Don Rich-influenced, Bakersfield twang. Then he combined those elements with a unique behind-the-beat syncopated style, and ended up a leading session guitarist in L.A. in the mid-to late 1960s. If producers couldn’t get James Burton, they often called Clarence White. Hired to add some lead guitar work to the Byrds’ 1967 LP, Younger than Yesterday, Clarence eventually joined the Byrds as a full-time member in 1968.
Listening to him play that night, he sounded like no other guitar player I’d ever heard. Only later would I learn he was playing a B-bender-equipped Tele. The Byrds rocked the auditorium with hits like “Mr. Tambourine Man,” “Turn, Turn, Turn,” “Eight Miles High,” and more. It might just have been the coolest day of my high school life.
At the time, however, I had no idea that someday Clarence White would become one of my Telecaster heroes. Tragically, he died in 1973 when a drunken driver slammed into him as he loaded equipment into a van after a bluegrass gig with The Kentucky Colonels.
I look back, and to this day, I regret I didn’t have the nerve to approach him and chat about Telecasters, and maybe get an autograph from him and McGuinn. But, hey, I was just a 17-year-old electric guitar wannabee, as opposed to my current status as a 50-plus electric guitar wannabee.
But to sit ten feet away from two of my favorite guitar players on my home turf was a thrilling experience, one I’ve never forgotten. The show was also influential in terms of my tastes in guitars. It’s no coincidence that my guitar collection includes a Rick 12-string and a Parsons-White B-bender-equipped Telecaster.
Now here’s where my rock and roll past meets up with my rock and roll present.
Cut to May, 2005.
As I said, NRBQ, in its original quintet form, opened that 1969 show and they delivered a great set. I became a devoted NRBQ fan that night, and would see the band a dozen times and buy a boatload of their albums. Little did I realize that 36 years later, I would have a chance to reminisce about the Byrds-NRBQ show with some of the members of the band.
In April, 2005, I read an Internet post that said NRBQ would be doing two special shows in May at the Calvin Theater in Northhampton, MA. The show promised to reunite all the members of the band, including the original quintet who played BHS back in 1969, plus “Big Al” Anderson, the Telecaster-wielding singer-songwriter who had contributed not only some great lead guitar to the band for two decades, but had written quite a few classic Q tunes. Anderson, currently an in-demand Nashville-based songwriter and solo recording artist, had agreed to take a break from his busy schedule to rejoin his old bandmates for the weekend.
It was an offer I couldn’t refuse either. I bought a ticket for the Saturday show and made a reservation at a local hotel.
The night of the show, as I drove out of the hotel parking lot, I noticed two guys walking out of the hotel carrying horn cases and walking toward the road to town. There had been a local high school prom at the hotel, so I assumed they were in the prom band. When I stopped to let them cross the street—I brake for musicians—they said thanks, and asked me for a ride into town.
As they got in, I asked them where they were going. They said the CalvinTheater. When I said I was heading there myself, they introduced themselves—Tyrone Hill (trombone) and Dave Gordon (trumpet). To my surprise and delight, they said they were part of NRBQ's horn section for the two shows.
I was going to drop them off, but as payback for my chauffeur duties, they invited me backstage, where I got to meet some of the band members, past and present. I got to talk with “Big Al” about Telecasters (although he was playing a Sadowsky Tele that night), chat with bassist and guitarist Joey and Johnny Spampinato, and the Q’s original guitarist and drummer, Steve Ferguson and Tom Staley. (I also got to meet former Lovin’ Spoonful front man, John Sebastian, who would also jam with the band that night.)
Drummer Tom Staley had left the band in 1976, but when I mentioned that NRBQ had played my high school nearly 36 years earlier, he remembered the gig clearly. “That was the only show we played with the Byrds,” Tom recalled. At that moment, I realized my rock ‘n’ roll past had just collided full-tilt with my rock present. For a rock fan like me, it just doesn’t get any cooler than that.
The vibe only got better as NRBQ delivered several hours of high-energy, hook-filled tunes, ranging from the wonderfully wacky early Q favorites like “Flat Foot Floozy” and “Howard Johnson’s Got His Hojo Working,” to later “hits” like “Me and the Boys,” and “Green Lights.”
It was a party start to finish and after the show, nearly all the band members came out to sign autographs, chat with the fans and reminisce about NRBQ gigs gone by. Nicest guys a fan could ever meet.
The two shows that weekend were filmed for a possible DVD release. Unfortunately, that has not materialized. That’s too bad, as it was the show of a lifetime for a band that’s been one of the hardest-working, most road-tested rock bands ever.
Well, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it. Till next time, keep on rocking in the free world.
Email Chip: [email protected]
* That spring Matt would also book the great ‘60s folksinger Phil Ochs for a show on the same stage.
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