A Bio In Story Form
Early Years
Robert Caleb Potter Jr. was born January 30th, 1947 in Oakdale, Long Island, NY. His initial introduction to music was through his father, Robert Sr. a drummer and band leader of a small trio that played at the local hotels, halls and country clubs to supplement income from his regular job on the Long Island Railroad. Robert Jr. naturally took to the drums and when old enough joined a local Drum and Bugle Corps where instructors taught him the complex rudiments of drumming. (paradiddles, the mama daddy roll, flam paradiddles, ratamacues, etc.) That period in the late fifties is now known as the 'Golden Age' of Drum and Bugle Corps competition and the National Championship was usually won by a corps from N.J., The Garfield Cadets and Hawthorne Caballeros’ come to mind.
It became apparent in school music classes which at that time consisted of passing out songbooks and singing songs such as 'Suwannee River', 'My Old Kentucky Home' and other Stephen C. Foster songs, that Bobby (preferred name) could carry a tune and also harmonize. He was often asked to get up in front of the class and sing solo. "'April Showers' and 'When The Red, Red Robin Comes Bob, Bob, Bobbin Along' were my favorites" says Bobby. Drums however remained his principal instrument.
While in high school, Bobby had a drumming audition with a group that was doing 'Ventures' tunes and other instrumentals. He showed up with his fathers old drum set and proceeded to set up. The 'audition' was over as soon as the three other band members saw the gaudy ballroom dancing scene on the front of the oversized bass drum head. None of the drums matched in color and a second snare drum with the snares turned off served as the only tom tom. The cymbals were paper thin and definitely not Ziljians. Showing up with that kind of drum set today makes you look authentic, but back then it was not yet 'cool'. "Sorry kid, not what we're looking for."
A few months later, auditions were being held in the High School auditorium for the annual Minstrel Show and High School Juniors Bobby and friend Curtis Francis decided to audition their locker room shower singing act. 'We used to go down there and sing on our lunch breaks" says Bobby. For the audition Curtis played full warm electric guitar chords from his fathers old tube amp and the two sang 'You Cheated, You Lied' in harmony. It was a minor sensation (nobody auditioned with rock and roll songs back then) and in the auditorium at the time was High School Senior Ritchie Robbins, one of the guys from the band that had previously turned him down for the drumming gig. "I didn't know you could sing like that!" he said. The drumming job was offered on the spot even though there were never any vocal numbers performed by the band.
The sudden appearance of The Beatles shook the nation and the world, and the little town of Mattituck was no exception. "Music had become quite boring, the song 'Hey Paul, Hey Paula' by (who would of thunk it) Paul and Paula comes to mind, and the three Bobby's, Vee, Vinton and Rydell. There were some exceptions, The Beach Boys, Dion and The Chiffons among them", says Bobby, "but the excitement had faded from Rock & Roll until the Beatles invaded."
Surfing, cars and drag racing were all the rage at the time (although there was little surfing going on in Mattituck inlet) and Classic 1955-1957 Chevys and Fords were being passed down to kids as if they were junk. Change was in the air as America seemed to finally shake out of it's post World War Two mode. JFK had replaced the dependable but old world Eisenhower, The USA had finally figured out how to launch rockets without them blowing up embarrassingly on the launch pad, and the third invasion by the British had finally succeeded. Only the Cuban Missile Crisis and the assassination of JFK intruded on the general air of energetic optimism and even that contributed an edginess to the overall mix. Bobby admits, " I wasn't aware that the world was changing. I was just trying to get through High School where I majored in 'Party' but somehow graduated in spite of it."
War and the Hippie Culture
After graduating High School in 1965, Bobby enlisted in the Marine Corps. Oddly enough, it was while serving in Viet Nam that he learned how to play the basic chords on the guitar. "There was a guy due to rotate back to the states and he kept a guitar in his hooch" Bobby says. "It was an old beat up thing and he would use communications wire for the two high strings because strings were almost impossible to get while there. We would gather around and sing folk songs in the evening whenever possible. I would ask him to let me fiddle with it and he showed me a few chords. On the day he left, he handed me the guitar and told me to hand it off to someone else when I left, which I did. I often wonder what ever became of that old guitar."
"While I had possession of it I continued the practice of gathering with some of the guys in the platoon in the evening. We would sit around in a sandbagged foxhole and sing anything anyone knew the words to. I could usually figure out the simple chord progressions without difficulty. One of the guys had a small Panasonic cassette tape recorder and we would record tapes for the guys to send home to their sweethearts and family. I never thought to grab one of those tapes, probably because my own girlfriend had written me off by that time. I wish I had though. There was a lot of pot induced laughter and joking between the singing and a huge portion of desperate fun. I became known as the 'guitar player' and though at first not very proficient at it soon noticed that there were very few music critics in that particular part of Asia."
"I remember one time our company had to reinforce an artillery battery near Hue, it was around Ho Chi Minh's birthday and they were fearful of attack and sent us to bolster the base strength. I received a few looks while boarding the chopper, rifle in one hand, guitar in the other. One joker asked good naturedly, 'what are you gonna do, sing em to death?' A few nights later we were sitting around singing them to death and a few Katyusha 122mm rockets came screaming into the compound and exploded near us. (Maybe there were a few music critics after all) When we picked ourselves up off the ground one of the guys asked what happened to the guitar. In my best self preservation mode I must have just flung it while diving for cover. I found it twenty feet away from where we were sitting, undamaged and amazingly still in relative tune."
Armed Forces radio was way behind the rest of the world as far as their play list’s were concerned and Bobby claims to notice little change in music until a Marine replacement showed up with the Beatles album, Revolver. "We wore that record out, it really blew me away and I realized that something very different was going on out there in the world. When people talk about the sixties, they are really talking about 1966-72. That's when the Beatles really came out of their 'Fab Four' crouch and showed the world that music (and apparently everything else) no longer had limits and other bands were pushing the threshold on a daily basis."
Upon returning to the US after completing a thirteen month tour of duty in Viet Nam, Bobby would experience what was increasingly being termed 'Culture Shock'. "It was really no big deal but some things did seem different. My reintroduction to America occurred in San Diego, CA, I had some time to kill while waiting for a military standby flight to New York the next day and thought I would go downtown. I remember going into a bar and ordering a beer and being refused because I was not yet 21. I thought, wow, that's gratitude for you, I could drink all I wanted in Viet Nam but wasn't old enough to get one in my own country. I eventually did find a hungry looking bar that would serve me and while sitting there heard the song 'Light My Fire' by the Doors. Today it does not seem like a big contrast but back then that song and that sound was really different. Almost foreign and somewhat spooky to me at the time. I thought to myself, 'who are these Americans?'."
Robert was next stationed at Henderson Hall, Headquarters Marine Corps in Arlington Virginia in September of 1967. He was assigned to work in the JCS message center located in the basement of the Pentagon. While there, the huge anti war demonstration led by Jerry Ruben and Abbie Hoffman occurred on October 20-22. "I normally just walked the one block down the hill to go to work but now we all had to meet up on base and go by military convoy" said Bobby. "I did not sympathize with the protestors, after all they were making things more difficult for the guys I had just left behind in the war zone. The enemy was good at exploiting weakness and they started to realize that because of the protests' they could lose battles and still win politically. I remember two days after the demonstration there were still a few hippie stragglers hanging around. One of them asked me for a cigarette which I gave him. It's funny, two days earlier he would have spat on me and called me a 'baby killer' and now he's bumming smokes and calling me 'his brother'. It turns out, the movement paid to get him there from San Francisco and then left him to his own devices, of which he obviously had few."
In spite of those initial hippie confrontations, Bobby was eager to immerse himself in the night life when possible and discovered there was a good time to be had down in Georgetown at night on liberty. 'The hippies were doing some things right, partying being one of them. "The Jefferson Airplane tune 'White Rabbit' was everywhere and the Psychedelic music craze was in full swing. A few Marine buddies and I would get all spiffed up in our obviously square civilian clothes, you know, checkered short sleeve shirts, Marine Corps haircuts but wearing those silly 'love beads' that were popular at the time, as if the moment we put them on we were transformed and insulated from hippie insult. In that attire we'd present ourselves to the Sergeant pulling liberty card duty. He would look us up and down and then at the love beads with particular disgust and literally throw the liberty cards at us while telling us to get the f--k out of his barracks."
Two other major events took place during Bobby's tour of duty at Henderson Hall. First, Martin Luther King was assassinated. "Downtown D.C. was on fire. Our barracks parking lot bordered Arlington Cemetery. We were restricted to base for a week and we just sat there on the cemetery wall night after night and watched the smoke storm cover the entire city. There were black Marines in our barracks and things even grew a bit tense in there for awhile. And then Bobby Kennedy was assassinated and they virtually wheeled him into our backyard. I was starting to miss the orderly chaos of Viet Nam." Bobby was honorably discharged from active duty in February 1969.
Civilian Again
A Marine buddy, Steve Gilgoff had been discharged some months before Bobby and had communicated back that there would be a job waiting in New York if he wanted it. "Steve was from Long Beach, Long Island and we used to 'swoop' home on weekends occasionally and he called just before I was due to be discharged and told me about some job he had taken in Manhattan and that they would hire me on his say so. I had no real alternative plan so I accepted the offer. The job introduced Robert to Manhattan and Madison Avenue where he worked in an employment agency placing keypunch and computer operators. "I didn't know a damn thing about data processing but Steve said "just throw the words 'Fortran', Cobalt' and 'IBM 360' around alot and you'll do fine." I must have sounded like I knew what I was talking about because we placed alot of people in jobs."
Bobby also renewed a relationship with the girl he had been dating prior to going into the service. She had stopped writing while he was in Viet Nam. "You can't expect a young girl in high school not to want to go to the Prom and I really didn't expect her to hang around for me. Out of sight, out of mind is certainly the watchword for the young." After renewing their relationship and a short period of dating the idea of marriage suddenly seemed like the next logical step. Once again, not knowing what else to do, he took it. "At first I thought, why not? Isn't that what normal people do? But adjusting to civilian life again was nothing compared to adjusting to married life. It certainly wasn't very smart on my part. I was just twenty two years old, I hadn't done anything yet or been on my own and had never explored what it was I really wanted to do or who I wanted to be. I had no business getting married and we were both fortunate that I came to my senses before there were kids or houses involved. I had once mentioned during the marriage my desire to play music and write songs full time. Her response was a disinterested 'grow up' so I knew it wasn't going to happen if we stayed together. She was still young and attractive and would have no trouble moving on, which she did." The marriage ended two years after it had begun and when the divorce was finalized Bobby was living in Greenwich Village writing and performing songs at open mic's.
Greenwich Village
Bobby explains his introduction to Greenwich Village this way. "I had been in the Village for about a week when I walked into Gerdes Folk City. It happened to be on a Monday night and the place was full of people and every one of them had a guitar. It was what most clubs call open mic night but they called it a 'Hootenanny'. Whatever, it was like finding Mecca. I ran back to the apartment I was staying in and retrieved my cheap guitar and signed up to play. A comedian by the name of Gabe Kaplin (soon to do the t.v. show Welcome Back Kotter) was the MC that night. They had a system for determining the order in which people would perform that consisted of drawing a card from a frayed and well worn deck. There were numbers he had written on the cards from 1 to 54 (jokers included) and you played as your number came up. I drew an 8 of clubs, number 43. Needless to say, it was about 2:30 in the morning when I finally got on."
Greenwich Village in 1973 was a wonderful mix of cultures. Beat Poets, Hippies, Mafia Gentlemen, College Students, Rock Stars, Comedians, Businessmen, Folk Singers and tourists from all over the world congregated in the small clubs up and down MacDougal and Bleecker Streets. The clubs stayed open until four in the morning and to a young man from Eastern Long Island starting out as a singer/songwriter it seemed like Disneyland. "Greenwich Village had just been through two huge pop culture scenes in twenty years, first the bongo playing beatnik poets and artists' and then the Bob Dylan inspired folk scene, and you could still feel some of the energy from that. Many of the musicians who were now the 'Lords of Woodstock Nation' had congregated there and would still visit when they were in town and so musicians of all genres and from all parts of the country were coming to Greenwich Village trying to make their mark." As in any other field of the performing arts there is little room at the top and some would thrive but most would fail. And then there are those of us who just never had the good sense to give it up, probably because there is nothing else we'd rather do. We take our small successes and soldier on.
One singer/songwriter who certainly didn't fail was a guy named Hugh Prestwood. Hugh went on to write award winning hits for a variety of country music stars, Randy Travis (Hard Rock Bottom Of My Heart) , Crystal Gayle (The Sound Of Goodbye), and Trisha Yearwood (The Song Remembers When) to name a few but back then he was new in town from El Paso and was showing up at the Hootenanny’s and drawing his number like everybody else. "Hugh was one of the better songwriters even then and we would sit around and talk music while we waited our turn to sing. I would try to show up each week with at least one new song or at least one I hadn't played before and I was always interested in what Hugh thought of it. He would do the same. In a way it helped to push me a bit harder and my songwriting started to improve. My guitar chops were also improving and that opened up new possibilities where melody was concerned. After awhile Hugh and I started to rehearse and do gigs together calling the duo 'Ginger'. We would entice local guitar great Ronnie Renninger to accompany us whenever we could nail him down and we gave some well received performances."
When Gabe Kaplin left for Hollywood, Mike Porco the owner of Folk City asked Bobby if he would like to MC the Hootenanny’s. "Mike was a great guy, a real gentleman and friend of musicians. No matter how many times we played his club he always insisted on sitting us down and going over the rules. He would say in his Italian influenced English, 'first-a we-a take-a the percentage for the advertise. Then-a we-a take-a the percentage for the door' and so on. What a guy. Running the 'Hoot's' was well, a hoot, but I soon learned that there had to be a rigged deck. Let's be honest, there were some terrible act's and if too many were allowed to perform in a row during prime time it would drive the crowd out of the place. There was one guy who's act was to get up on stage and scream every filthy word he could think of. He called it poetry. But at some point even he must have wondered why he was always going on in the wee hours of the morning. I would arrange for the good acts to go on between the hours of 10:00 and midnight and when there was a good crowd. Of course, I suddenly started getting better time slots to perform in myself. What good is power if you are afraid to use it?."
Around this time Hugh had a friend in N.J. who had just bought a 4 track Teac tape recorder and offered to record the duo. Ronnie Renninger also made the session and four songs were recorded. The 'sound' success of that session persuaded Bobby to buy a Teac and a few more sessions ensued. "We produced a package consisting of cassette tape and intro letter and walked around Manhattan dropping them off at the major Record Companies. A few weeks later we got a call from a guy from MCA Music in NY and met for lunch. It all resulted in a trip to Nashville to meet with producer Jerry Crutchfield and recording sessions at Woodland Studio. Jerry Crutchfield had just produced the hit 'Please Come To Boston' by Dave Loggins but was also in the process of producing a record for Barbara Fairchild. During a meeting in his office he mentioned that he wanted her to record a song of mine called 'I Know'. You mean just like that? I don't have to pay you anything? This is why I gave up marriage and moved to the Village and now it almost seems too easy. 'I Know' was one of those songs that just seemed to fall together and I think I wrote it in twenty minutes and now almost as an after thought it's going to be recorded on a record. It's pretty heady stuff but I'm sure I tried to act like it happens every day."
There were two sessions at Woodland Studios in Nashville, one at night with studio musicians and one the next day with just Hugh and Bobby. "Jerry Crutchfield picked us up at Nashville airport and took us to a hotel and told us he would pick us up again at seven in the evening. I remember looking around while having dinner in the busy hotel restaurant and imagined that everyone else in the restaurant was talking music and negotiating big deals" said Bobby. "I thought that's all they did in Nashville."
All in all the sessions went well and some twenty songs were recorded. "I was nervous when I had to do my version of 'I Know' by myself because it was a song I had just written and Hugh and I had not worked it up together. I was not very good at finger picking and afraid I would claw at it and screw it up, not to mention the strings on the cheap guitar I had at the time seemed like they were a half inch off the neck. But it turned out alright and I still have a copy of those recordings. On the plane ride home Hugh was saying how 'bitchin' it was that I had gotten a cover. Again, don't feel too bad for old Hugh. He has since done very well and I have spent many years trying to get another."
Greenwich Village Nights
"While running the Hootenanny’s I got to meet and hang out with a lot of other musicians. Hugh was not living in the Village at the time and so we were not playing as often. We were waiting to hear back from Jerry Crutchfield to see where he was going with the demo's we had made. One night these three guys came in and signed up for the hoot. They had just arrived from San Francisco and looked it but they were pretty good and played upbeat original songs with harmony. They called their group 'Spittune' and it consisted of Michael Packer and two guys I knew only as Curly and Golden Boy. I started to hang out and play music with them and we soon found ourselves meeting afternoons at Folk City or The Kettle of Fish on MacDougal St. The 'Kettle' was a comfortable little bar and at times it seemed as if the world ran through it. It possessed a good sounding juke box with old jazz and blues records on it. Fats Wallers' song 'Your Feets Too Big' is one I still have buzzing around my head. There were nooks and cranny’s to the place owing to a conveniently situated phone booth and six booth tables. We would duck into the restrooms, both men’s and woman’s, for a quick toke and one night a friend and comedian, Stanley Ullman and I shared a joint with John Belushi and Dan Akroid in there while Stanley tried out his routine on them. But I didn't inhale."
"Nicky the bartender took a liking to us and soon we were drinking for free. Often, all that was required was 'get in money', enough to buy the first drink. After that, long neck Heineken beer bottles and Martel brandy in pony glasses would suddenly appear in front of us as Nicky worked the bar packed with visitors from Sweden, Japan and other strange places like... Brooklyn."
"I was hanging out and sitting in with the San Francisco gang a lot when Michael said he knew a guy hibernating in Vermont who played bass and soon after that Sandy Allen arrived in town. Michael and Sandy were school chums from Pound Ridge, NY, and had played in the band 'Papa Nebo' together and had recorded an album for Atlantic Records two years before. Sandy and I virtually met on stage. There were suddenly five of us trying to find harmony parts and since Golden Boy did not play an instrument he was soon odd man out and was given a bus ticket back to San Francisco. Curly left soon after that and the group was down to three.
We were only playing open mic's and free shows but were starting to tighten up our songs and we soon started thinking about a paying gig. I knew Mike Porco would give us a weekend when we were ready and we soon booked one. We were hanging out with a group of folks that included Jack Hardy who had also recently arrived in town with his stand up bass player Toby Finney (who went by the name E. J. Truesdale) and we decided to share the billing for that first gig. We came up with the name 'Free Beer' simply trying to draw folks in off the streets and at first Mike Porco was horrified at the idea but he eventually went along with it."
"When we were not playing our typical Greenwich Village night would start at the Kettle in late afternoon or early evening and go from there. We were often broke but thanks to some great gals and gentle waitresses we usually got by. When we were desperately broke we would go to Central Park in the afternoon and play for food and beer money. Sandy and Michael would stroll in the Kettle if not already there and we would try to assess the mood. Sometimes we stayed there all night if nothing else was going on but often we would cruise to another club for awhile to check out the other musicians and also to hound club owners for gigs. If you are a regular at the bar you can eventually catch the club owner in the right mood and wear him down until he breaks out the date book and writes you in for a weekend gig. Pat Kenny from Kenny's Castaways was like that. I would describe him as somewhat like the Robert Shaw character Captain Quint from the movie Jaws. At times he could be ornery and there was absolutely no point in approaching him then but at other times we'd catch him in a mood reminiscent of Quint after a few drinks, singing humorously with a glazed look in his eye and more often than not he would come up behind you, squeeze your shoulders, buy you a drink and give you the gig."
"We didn't always hang out together and often went off solo out into the night and wherever it would lead. I remember coming out of Googies, a club on Sullivan St. late one night and directly in front of me weaving and wobbling through the sidewalk traffic on W. Third St. was Sandy and E. J. Truesdale. They were carrying a mattress, apparently one of them had decided that they had had enough of sleeping on hard floors. I was going the same way and so I followed them for a short distance unable to understand how they kept their feet in their inebriated state. It was funny but also a true snapshot of the day to day struggle musicians had to contend with just to be there."
"We would often cruise between Folk City, Kenny’s Castaways, and The Other End, another club on Bleecker St. On our way past we would once again check in at the Kettle and usually end up there for last call. Often we would sit around and play at the Kettle, sort of a live rehearsal, and Nicky would send us drinks over to the table. We made some good friends there and had some great times."
Despite the excitement of Village nightlife and the struggle to survive, songs still had to be written and time set aside to work up new song arrangements with the group. "Often overlooked is the fact that there is work being done amid the chaos. Sometimes it's hard to find a little nook where you could go to work on a song that's buzzing around in your head" says Bobby. "We were all living in small apartments with other people and with friends stopping by all the time so when you found a moment alone to write it was seized. Sandy would often sit at the bar and scribble words on a napkin when he had a thought. I always needed a clean white sheet of paper and to be totally alone and often the apartment bathroom was the only place that guaranteed solitude. I wrote more than a few songs there."
The group continued to play the local Greenwich Village clubs as 'Free Beer' as well as the occasional gig 'uptown'. They were sometimes joined by Brendan Harkin, a friend and Papa Nebo band mate who was then playing guitar with the band 'Looking Glass' of 'Brandy' fame. "Brendan would show up when he was in town and add some electric color to what we were doing, all unrehearsed. He sat in and played the late set the night of our first gig. Not long after that he introduced us to a talented gal by the name of Patty Darcy and we would invite her to come up and sing harmony with us. Brendan was real laid back and he never tried to overplay. Michael usually played the lead parts acoustically when it was just the three of us but we were getting spoiled by the sustain and punch of the electric guitar and so we started to incorporate a lead player into the stage act whenever we could, but most of those early gigs it was just the three of us."
Some of the other performers around at the time were, 'The Greenbrier Boys' with John Herald and Frank Wakefield, 'Buzzy Linhart', 'David Peele and The East Side Band', 'The Roche Sisters' (who I first heard as a duo but a third sister had recently joined), 'Paul Seibel', 'Erik Frandsen', 'Jack Sonni', 'Elephants Memory', 'Mark Johnson', 'George Gerdes', 'Steve Forbert', 'Carolyn Ma's' and 'Lucinda Williams' and I'm sure I'm forgetting to mention many others.
Recording and Touring
Michael Packer and Sandy Allen knew Producer Alan Lorber from their recording experience with their band 'Papa Nebo' two years earlier. Alan had produced the bands 'Orpheus' and 'Ultimate Spinach' and had also worked with Neil Sedaka and other performers from the 'Brill Building' period. So it was just a matter of recording a new 'Free Beer' demo and presenting it to Alan. The demo was done in one session on Bobby's four track Teak at his apartment. "I only had two mic's and so I decided to just spread them out and try for an overall room sound instead of trying to individually mic vocals and acoustic guitars" says Bobby. "None of the Martin guitars were electrified but I plugged the bass in direct to the machine. That took three tracks and so Sandy and I added some harmony vocals or hand claps on the remaining fourth track and that was it. When the mixed down cassette tape was reviewed by Alan his reaction was, 'let's go in the studio and record'."
It was at this moment that Jerry Crutchfield informed Hugh and I that we were to meet with Clive Davis from Arista Records in New York. He had sent the demo tape to Bob Fieden, Arista's A & R guy and the meeting was booked. I suddenly had a decision to make. I could have waited, went to the meeting and then made a decision but instead thought I owed it to Hugh, Jerry, and also to Michael and Sandy to choose which way I would go. On the one hand there was a sure thing record deal with Free Beer and on the other a possible one with Hugh. I simply came down on the side of the committment I had made first and so just like that I was no longer in Free Beer, and they were going into the studio the next day to start recording.
"The meeting with Clive Davis was a joke. Jerry Crutchfield flew up from Nashville and we met at the Arista Records office. Ronnie Renninger was available to play with Hugh and I and the four of us went up and met briefly with Bob Fieden who told us that 'Lord Davis' would be with us in a few moments. We were then summoned into Clives office and asked to play. We thought Clive Davis had heard the demo recordings (why were we there?) and so we did not play some of our strongest material thinking he had already heard that stuff and played a few of our other songs instead. A classic case of 'failure to communicate' right there."
"After we played a few songs Clive puts a record on and says 'this is what I'm looking for'. The song was 'Old 55' by the Eagles. I felt like saying, 'yeah, you and everybody else in the record business is waiting for another 'Eagles' to walk into their office buddy'." Needless to say Hugh and I left in a totally depressed state and I, who had two possible record deals dangling in front of me now had none. I did the the only obvious thing I could think of and approached Michael and Sandy with hat in hand and after the prerequisite grovelling was admitted back into the band which had already recorded some studio tracks.
The first album 'Free Beer', was recorded at Bell Sound in NYC. in early 1975. Alan Lorber wanted it for release on his Southwind label but was to be distributed by Buddha/Kama Sutra. Alan was busy producing another artist at the time and so Brendan Harkin was brought in to produce the sessions.
"The studio can be monotonous at times as it takes hours for the sound engineer to get sounds that both he and the producer are happy with, especially drum sounds. The drummer would be out there hitting one drum at a time until each one's mic was set for volume, tone and other studio effects. Then the cymbals. Then the total drum kit overhead mic's. Then on to the other instruments. It's a time consuming process. Once set though the sessions move along quickly and we were soon laying down basic tracks consisting of our basic sound of acoustic guitars and bass, with drums and keyboards added. When doing basic tracks you want to do as many songs as you can in that mode and while the studio engineer has the studio 'tuned' for them. Some of the songs required other instruments such as harmonica, conga drums and other percussion, to be recorded along with the basic tracks. As producer, Brendan made the call as to what instrumentation each song required. A rough vocal track was all that was needed for context until the basic tracks were finished. Then we worked on lead vocals and harmonies. Lead guitar parts and other 'sweetening' sounds were added last."
Sessions were booked for a mixture of days and nights. "I preferred the night sessions, it fit our 'normal' schedule and felt more like doing a show. Just because we were recording did not mean that our late night Village escapades came to a screeching halt. As a consequence, one or two of the early day sessions were a bit difficult to make in tip top form to put it delicately but as luck would have it (or maybe because he knew us) Brendan had scheduled the instrumental overdubs played by the talented group of musicians who appeared on the album."
"It was cool having these great musicians in the studio lending their talents to songs we had written. Bernard 'Pretty' Purdie, the drummer who had played on so many of Aretha Franklin's great hit's, and Eric Weissberg, fresh from his success with 'Dueling Banjo's' and the movie 'Deliverance' as well as keyboardist, Ralph Schuckett, playing along with Michael Packer, Sandy Allen and little old me from Oakdale."
Horn players and percussionists were hired for some of the sessions, but many of the musicians that appeared on the album were friends and music acquaintances from the Village. "Jon Parris, Ronnie Renninger, Richard Harbert and Patti Darcy were there by personal invitation from either Michael, Sandy or I. Brendan added lead guitar tracks on most of the songs but I had a long relationship with Ronnie Renninger and wanted his guitar licks on a few of my songs, payback for the free sessions he had done with me at the house.'
"I remember one of the last sessions we had and Brendan was trying to blend a useable mix of my song 'Out On The Road'. It just wasn't cutting it, it needed something and it was getting too late in the process to call in any more musicians. At home with my Teac I had noticed that when you speed up an acoustic guitar track it sounds a bit like a mandolin and so I suggested it to Brendan. Of course in order to record the track the tape speed has to be slowed way down so that when played back at normal speed you have the mandolin effect. It's not easy to do because Brendan had to retune and play along with the song at the speed of smell but it turned out to add an element that was missing."
"All in all, the recording sessions had gone well. A booking contract had been signed with the Bob Schwaid management agency and we were starting to focus on putting a touring band together and hitting the road."
"As I remember it we went through quite a few lead guitar players trying to find one who we were comfortable with. One guy rehearsed with us and he was good but riding down on the elevator at the end of the rehearsal he decides to tell us that he's afraid of planes and won't fly. It wasn't until we met Dan Daley that the band started to solidify. He had just disbanded his own Buddha recording group 'Revival' where he had been lead guitarist/vocalist and was now free to tour with us. Dan had a staff writers deal with United Artist Music and would later write the Charlie Daniels hit 'Still In Saigon'. The great thing about Dan was that he played pedal steel and lead guitar equally well. That was perfect for the mixture of songs we were going out with. He also knew people and eventually brought lead guitarist Werner Fritzsching into the mix. Werner had played with the 'Vanilla Fudge' spin-off band 'Cactus' and we were lucky to get him. When it came time to record our second album we told Alan Lorber that we wanted Dan and Werner to do the studio work and would not take no for an answer. I think that album which was titled 'Highway Robbery' was the truest representation of how we sounded live on tour."
"Drummers are a separate breed and necessary evil" says Bobby, "and I ought to know cause I R one. We knew Phil Leone from Folk City and liked his steady tempo and experience and he never tried to overplay, a common disease among drummers. Phil played on quite a few of the tour dates. Another drummer we hired when Phil was unavailable was Paul Kimbarow who used to go by the name 'Gizmo Willy'. He was a good drummer and a real character. He would have himself paged at the airports and we would hear it, ('paging Gizmo Willy, Gizmo Willy, you're wanted at the information counter'), I guess he just enjoyed making someone in a serious official capacity say something silly for all to hear."
The touring concept that was adopted by those in charge of marketing was based on booking the band in markets where there was the most airplay. Promo copies of the album were sent to the major FM stations and 45 singles were sent to AM stations hoping for a bite. When the record was added to the playlist of a station the band would be booked to play several dates in that city. Appearances at the local record stores would be tied in to meet and greet customers and sign records. The record store would have a big display of 'Free Beer' records, photos and posters in front of the store while the band was in town (but which was all moved to the back of the store as soon as the band left to get ready for the next group coming in.) Radio stations were visited and live interviews conducted as well as a few live performances in the broadcast studio.
There were also promotional giveaways‘. The band was playing a lot in Texas and soon tied in with Lone Star Beer which of course is brewed in The Lone Star State. They would do some advertising on local radio and give away free beer and tee shirts at the clubs.
The 'Free Beer' entourage usually consisted of nine guys, six in the band, two roadies and a road manager. "We flew everywhere and rented vehicles when we got there. The road crew would usually get off the plane, rent a Ryder truck and take the amps and equipment directly to the club we were appearing at before even checking into the hotel. The rest of us would rent a few cars and go check in. Michael had a thing about ordering champagne as soon as we checked in, testing the power of the pen I suppose, and we would relax by the pool until it was time to do a sound check.
Most of the clubs had their own sound systems and person who ran the board but that often meant the band was at the mercy of individual taste and that changed from club to club. "Sound in the room is one thing but sound on stage is important too. It's tricky because the soundman does not know what you are hearing on stage. We would do sound checks before the show but sound checks in an empty club do not always hold up and have to be tweaked as the club fills up. It helped to have our own sound man with us. We were friends with Dennis Persich (Big D) who was Richie Havens' soundman, road manager and ran his rehearsal studio in the West Village on Perry Street. He knew our sound as well as anyone. We rehearsed at Richie's studio and often just hung out there with Dennis. We were able to get him out with us for some of the bigger shows and it always made a big difference in our stage sound."
"After the sound check we would all go eat dinner, usually at the hotel we were staying in cause we could just sign the check. And then it was time to play music."
Colleges, Clubs and Concerts
"On the road we played a mixture of Concert Halls, College Campuses, Music Clubs and bars. No sense going all the way to Dallas to play just one gig so although we were primarily in town to play say Willie Nelson's club 'Whiskey River' the booking agent would also book us into a few of the local music bars while in town. It's all a blur to me now and in some cases I don't even remember the name of the clubs we played but others have strong memories attached to them although I will never get the chronological order correct. For instance we played a big club in Atlanta but what I remember most about that trip was the fact that The Miss Teenage America contestants were also staying at the same hotel we were booked into and was overrun by young nubile's and their even more attractive mothers which made our normal poolside relaxation and happy hour much more interesting."
"Uncle Sams' in Macon Georgia was one of the first clubs we played on tour and it was a large music venue and sprawling bar and I remember being very conscious of the fact that we were in 'Allman Brothers' country but the band was well received and we had a good time there. I should probably put this to rest right now so I don't have to keep repeating it.....we pretty much had a 'good time' everywhere we played."
to be continued