Los Angeles, 1988
~ In His Own Words ~
I grew up in the Heights close to Arlington…on the 1100 block of Alexander St. which is 2 blocks east of N. Shepherd, right by Love Park.
I started playing trumpet at age 12 and guitar at age 14. I used to play stuff like the "Harlem Shuffle" by The Traits (they used to be Roy Head's back up band) & "Time Won't Let Me" by The Outsiders on the trumpet. I was a pretty good horn player but I wasn't real comfortable with kicking my legs to the left & then to the right during the H. Shuffle!! (I loved Herb Alpert too - but I leaned more towards Al Hirt stuff for tone.)
My mom bought me an almost new Stratocaster for my 15th birthday. (Fortunately I only had to suffer with the crappy acoustic guitar for only a year). I remember she paid $100 for it from a friend of mine at school. It was a 1961 Strat. I wish I still had it - it was stolen in a burglary of my home in The Heights in 1982. I've seen vintage 1961 Strats at guitar shows going for around $6500.00 nowadays!! I'm a guitar junkie - much to my wife's disapproval!! I now have a PRS, 2 Strats, and a Les Paul. But - I also have a pawn shop special that I got for $40 about 2 years ago just to play slide on. It has a brass nut which makes it rather appealing & different - terrific for slide playing (a very nasty tone). I think its a Japanese made guitar called a Memphis. It still looks pretty ugly, but it sounds great! I almost had to sand it down to get the pentagrams & heavy metal devil worship crap off of it though. My wife hates it when I say I'm going to a music store.
I saw the Beach Boys back in 66' & Brian Wilson didn't even appear with them. He was scared that since he was deaf in one ear, the loud music on stage would cause him to go deaf in the other ear. So in his place they had Glen Campbell playing guitar & singing Brian's parts on stage. I still have the program from the concert at the Houston Music Hall for that show. Buffalo Springfield (including members Stephen Stills, Neil Young, Ritchie Furray who formed Poco, & sometimes producer Jim Messina who was later of course with Loggins & Messina), and opening act was The Buckinghams (had about 3 or 4 hits and faded away). All for 5 bucks - what a deal! To this day "Don't Worry Baby" is still a big favorite of mine. Great harmonies, arrangement & production.
A couple more concert stories -----
I went to see Savoy Brown at The Music Hall in 69' & the opening act canceled. I forgot who it was to tell you the truth. But they came out & announced that if we wanted our money back it would be refunded at the box office. I saw about 10 people get up from their seat to head towards the box office, and then they announced the replacement act would be Little Richard. What a show that guy put on!! He was better than the headliner!!
Along those same lines I went to see The Steve Miller Band (real name Larry Miller) at Hofheinz Pavilion in 76' and the opening act canceled. They announced that the band that was booked across the street at The Continental Ballroom was kind enough to come play the opening. It was BB King. It was the 1st time I saw BB live. He stunned me --- I've seen him probably 8 or 9 times since, & I even got a chance to meet him at Rockefellers but that 1st time was a killer show!!
I went to see Jimi Hendrix at the Sam Houston Coliseum back in 66' or 67' & he came out & introduced the opening act himself. Even after he said their name no one knew who the hell he was talking about. A 8 piece band hit the stage and they all just started clicking sticks & percussion, this went on for about 3 or 4 minutes and then the bass player finally kicked into the tune. It was a new arrangement of an old Spencer Davis Group tune named "I'm A Man" originally sung by Stevie Winwood. By now I'm sure you know it was Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) -- later changed to just "Chicago". They put on a good show.
A very good friend of mine named Richard Blye (he's now my insurance agent), used to own The Mind Mart. It was a black light poster shop on Market Square in the late 60's & early 70's. We played in a classic rock band together for a year or so. He played with a band called "The Leaves" while he was living in LA back in the 60's. They were the the band that wrote & did the original recording of "Hey Joe", which was later redone by many artists including Hendrix. Richard was taught how to play the guitar by Hoyt Axton (Hoyt's mom wrote Heartbreak Hotel recorded by Elvis), & Hoyt lived with Richard's sister at the time. Richard's sister was/is an actress named Margaret (Maggie) Blye - she played the hooker in the Walking Tall movies & several other major starring roles. All of Richard's long red hair is gone (pretty much bald nowadays) and he makes a darned good living as a State Farm agent.
