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Magic City Nights. Andre Millard
Читать онлайн.Название Magic City Nights
Год выпуска 0
isbn 9780819576996
Автор произведения Andre Millard
Жанр Музыка, балет
Серия Music/Interview
Издательство Ingram
Phillips High School produced the Epics. Rick Hester played lead guitar, Terry Ryan played guitar and bass, Ross Gagliano was on the drums, and Joe Ardivino was the vocalist. Rick was the lead guitarist for the band, and Joe was the lead vocalist. The Churchkeys started around 1962 with a group of students from Ramsey High School: Tommy Allison on drums, Mike Easter on bass, Rob Hackney on guitar, Bert McTyer on sax, and Tommy DeBuiys on piano. After Bert and Tommy left, Charles Feldman and Chuck Butterworth joined and the band was renamed the Bassmen. Again, their name came from their equipment, in this case the name of a Fender amplifier. Ramsey High School produced the Ramblers around 1961. This was formed around the guitar-playing talents of Tommy and Eddie Terrell, Van Veenschoten (on lead guitar), and Chip Sanders, with Johnny Robinson on drums. True to form, the Ramblers practiced in Robinson’s garage. The Romans had members from Ramsey and Shades Valley Schools — this group was managed by Buddy Buie, who was to have some influence on southern rock ’n’ roll. The Counts were formed around 1962 in Robert Alexander’s basement. Robert and Ned Bibb played guitars and teamed up with Bobby Marlin on drums.
As with many other Birmingham teenagers, Ned Bibb’s introduction to rock ’n’ roll came from the movies: “My inspiration was Chuck Berry from when I was thirteen years old [in 1958]. I had gone downtown on the bus on a Saturday. I decided to go see a movie. I went in to see a rock ’n’ roll movie that had Chuck Berry playing the guitar [probably Go, Johnny Go!]. This was the first time that I had seen how music was made. During that time there was no television that had rock ’n’ roll … I decided that I wanted to play the guitar, but I didn’t have any idea how to play one. I didn’t even know how to tune one. I think the insurance guy came by the house one day and tuned it for me. I would just play the record and learn the notes … The first live band I saw was the Road Runners … We were going to the movies and the band played after the movie was over … I just flipped out over their music. They played mostly Little Richard and Buddy Holly songs. I saw them play at the West End Theatre. They were a very big influence on me. I moved to West End in 1959. I met up with Rob and Bobby and them. I was in high school in West End and they all went to Ensley High. My cousin had a boyfriend named Jack Kelley, who turned out to be a musician was well. Robert [Alexander] invited me to come over to his basement one day to play. I was the only one who could play lead guitar. I was really shy the first day. They wanted me to play a song. I asked them if they knew anything from Buddy Holly. They didn’t. They wanted to know what key it was in. I didn’t know, I just told them to start on a certain fret. I started to play the lead part, and they had never seen anybody do that. They thought I was fantastic! Robert Alexander was the spark plug. He was the one who wanted to have a band. We got rid of Jack because he wanted to play country music and didn’t like me playing the lead. We recruited Bobby Marlin on drums. We played a little show. Our first little gig was at Calico Corner. We played at the Southern Steak House on Bessemer Highway. We were not of drinking age, but that wasn’t a problem. They were not nearly as strict back then. The fraternity parties were a lot of fun. At first we played for high school parties and sororities. A year later, as our band progressed, we played at Tuscaloosa [University of Alabama] and at Auburn [University]. It was a very important market. Those were the good paying gigs.”
The Counts later added Jim Larusa, on bass. They started playing Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley songs and recruited young Henry Lovoy as vocalist: “As I grew older my interest in music grew even higher to higher expectations and I knew that entertaining would be my life … When I was fourteen I played football at Ensley High School. If we won, I would sing Bo Diddley on the football bus. One day a fellow player knew some guys who were putting a band together and needed a lead singer … My first job in a nightclub was when I was fourteen years old. I became a lead singer in a rock ’n’ roll band. I could also play drums too when the drummer was not around. The first group was called the Counts, and my first break came when we played for Duke Rumore’s record hop at Duke’s in Ensley. That is when we got radio time, and that was important for local bands. I played in and out of clubs for about five years while going to high school.”
Ned Bibb underlined the importance of gaining this powerful deejay’s support. “In order to get those gigs you had to have exposure. That is why Duke was such an important stepping stone. He had the armory shows in the late 1950s … At first it was called Duke’s in Dixieland and then just Duke’s. They had sock hops there: you would take your shoes off and dance in your socks. High school kids went there. That was the big time: if you could play Duke’s, the fraternities and sororities wanted you. Playing Duke’s for the first time was so important … Duke had a big influence on what bands learned. He controlled what people listened to. If Duke didn’t play it on the radio, nobody was interested in learning it. He had a show in the afternoon. It came on about 3 o’clock, when the kids were getting out of school. He played mostly black music and a lot of rhythm and blues. He played a lot of Jimmy Reed and Fats Domino. Birmingham was influenced a lot by New Orleans, Memphis, and other southern cities.”
Most of these electric guitarists were self-taught, but there were music education programs at Birmingham’s high schools that trained students in piano, saxophone, clarinet, and trumpet — instruments that could add a lot more to the standard lineup of lead, rhythm, and bass electric guitars along with drums. The Premiers, Bassmen, and Ramrods often used a piano rather than a guitar lead, and the Epics, Ramrods (after Ronnie Eades joined), and Bassmen employed a saxophone to supplement the lead guitar. The Torquays had a trumpet (Barry Bicknell) and a sax (Steve Salord) in addition to electric guitars and drums. The Epics were probably the first band to have a horn section, bringing in Jim Anderson on trumpet and Bob Sheehan on sax. Larry Wooten: “So doo-wop went out and then the Memphis sound came in with the horns. So we took on a saxophone player and then we took on two saxophone players. One of the saxophone players could play saxophone or trumpet. So we had that Memphis sound for a while, and then we got away from that because that went out and stuff came back in that featured a lot of instrumentals like Freddie King.”
The Garage Band Scene
The primary venue for bands made up of high school students was naturally the high school, whose extensive social events usually had live music. Doug Lee: “You knew you had a band when you got a paying gig. Yeah, once you got paid, you had a band, a real band … I can remember football games when I was a starter, a pretty good athlete, and immediately going back to the locker room, changing clothes and putting on my rock ’n’ roll duds and going to the gym and jumping on stage and my band was playing the dance after the football game!” The biggest draws were the lead-outs of the fraternities and sororities, and the shows staged at local armories. Each school had its home armory: high schoolers from West Birmingham went to the shows at Ensley Armory sponsored by Duke Rumore, those from East Birmingham went to Opporto Armory and Dave Roddy. Bunkie Anderson: “You go in, they drive the tanks out and they set the bands up, you would set up two little amps and you’d play, and it would take you fifteen minutes to break down and go home.” Frank Ranelli of the Things: “When I was a teenager and all, every weekend I wanted to go and hear some live music. It was just like the thing to do! The big deal was to go somewhere on a weekend and dance and hear music. Or go to the drive-ins and hang out. We used to go to the Oporto Armory. WSGN used to do it, and they had live music every Saturday, and it got for a while where they were doing it Friday and Saturday. That was a great place to go. You go out there to dance and meet girls or whatever. That is what we did. Of course we would try and play some music too.” The armory shows were squeaky-clean high school fun. Pat Thornton: “The kids picked up by parents at Duke’s, they always had