Chuck Berry

During the years 1970-1974, as the Concert Chairman at my undergraduate school, Hofstra University, I produced a lot of really great shows: The Byrds, Procul Harum, The Allman Brothers Band, Stevie Wonder, Edgar Winter’s White Trash, Hot Tuna, The New Riders of the Purple Sage, The Grateful Dead, The Flying Burrito Brothers, Van Morrison, James Taylor, Foghat, Savoy Brown, Curtis Mayfield, Albert King, J Geils, Alice Cooper to name but a few.

Obviously there are a hundred stories in that naked city, and as my memory serves me, I’ll spin a few. But today I’d like to reminisce about the big daddy of rock n roll himself, Charles Edward Anderson Berry, or as we all know him, Chuck Berry. Chuck’s 86th birthday is coming up in just a few days. We all should know Chuck Berry’s story of how he was born the fourth child in a family of six children in St. Louis MO in 1926. He was arrested and convicted of armed robbery when he was a teenager, got married right out of prison, had a baby and had gigs as a janitor, automobile factory worker and was trained as a beautician and lead a pretty ordinary life.

But then on May 21, 1955 Chuck Berry did something extraordinary, he invented rock n roll. He recorded MAYBELLENE for Chess Records and the rest, as they say, is history.

I booked Chuck in 1973. I believe his fee at the time was $2500. Most contracts for recording artists had what was known as “riders” attached to a standard vanilla agreement. The “riders” were special instructions to the promoter to make sure that the promoter provided certain “amenities” that a performer wanted. For example, Joni Mitchell wanted her dressing room filled with roses, The Grateful Dead however wanted oriental rugs in theirs. Well, Chuck Berry wanted something that was a little strange, even for musicians of that era. Chuck Berry wanted his band to be provided by the promoter. Me.

You see, Chuck traveled by himself. Well, sorta by himself. On this night Chuck was to be playing at the Hofstra Playhouse, a sweet little acoustically perfect theater that sat 1120 people. The Playhouse was the pride and joy of Dr. Miriam Tulin, Hofstra’s very conservative, prissy, middle aged chairperson of the Drahmaaaaahhhh Department. Dr. Tulin HATED me, the long hair hippy that brought the devil’s music into her Shakespearean Globe like palace.

When I read the Chuck Berry “rider”, I knew exactly who to call. My friend Jaime Frazier and his brother Charlie had a great local rock n roll band that would fit the bill perfectly: guitar, piano, drums and bass. I think I paid them $350 for the evening… they were thrilled. To be playing with Chuck Berry, they probably would have paid me.

The show was a sellout ($3 a ticket). Chuck was to hit the stage at 8PM, sharp. The band had done their soundcheck, but still didn’t have the set list… they had no idea what songs they were going to play that night. Lighting, however was set and ready. Everything was go… except no Chuck and no set list.

At about 7:30PM a Cadillac Eldorado pulled in to the parking lot. A thin man got out of his car and opened the trunk. He pulled out two guitar cases and headed towards the entrance. It was Chuck Berry and I was there waiting for him, after all he went on in less than a half an hour.

I reached my hand out to shake his hand but Chuck said ” Where’s the box office?”

I offered to carry his guitars but he said no. We opened the door to the box office and Chuck placed one guitar on the floor and the other one on a long table. He started to open the guitar case on the table and I had no idea what was going on. He turned towards me revealing an empty case and said ” Twenty five hundred dollars, let’s count it, now “.

I then realized that he wanted all of the cash prior to taking the stage and that he wanted to personally count it and stash it in his empty guitar case. Well, counting $2500 in ones took awhile. Finally at about eight minutes to eight, Chuck closed and locked the case, went out to the Caddy and placed it in the trunk. Walking back into the box office, he picked up his “other” guitar and walked around the back of the Playhouse into his dressing room. He took of his coat, grabbed his Gibson ES 335 and stood in the wings, stage left.

Standing off stage, I announced “LADIES AND GENTLEMEN… CHUCK BERRY!”

Jaime Frazier’s band was pumped and ready to go. Chuck Berry sauntered out onto stage and the crowd went wild.

The lights came down and I could hear Jaime yell above the din of the crowd, “HEY MR BERRY, WHAT SONG ARE WE DOING?.
Chuck turned around, gave his big ol’signature smile and with a twinkle in his eyes, just as the lights came on, said:

“A CHUCK BERRY SONG”.

In some of my other posts over the last several years I’ve written about some of my adventures in Rock n Roll. I thought I would take a few untold stories and roll em up into one post.

John Lennon

It was the Spring of 1967, I was 15 years old, my friend Lloyd Hamoy and I went to go see Roger Corman’s THE TRIP in Manhattan. We walked around the city and of course decided to smoke a joint in Central Park. We wandered around until we found a secluded spot near Wollman’s skating rink. We sat at a park bench ready to fire up a big one… Panama Red as they called it back then. But, much to our surprise sitting at the base of a statue were two lovers, kissing. The woman was Asian and the man looked like John Lennon. Lloyd and I smoked our “reefer” but all along we argued about whether or not the fellow kissing the Asian woman was Lennon.

“What about Cynthia?”, Lloyd asked.

“But look at his tooth, it’s chipped just like John’s”, I replied.

For what seemed like hours ( though probably just minutes, after all, we were 15 and loaded), we parried back and forth… Was this a Beatle or not.

Finally, I got up the nerve and Lloyd and I approached the amorous couple.

“Excuse me, but are you John Lennon?”, I mumbled.

“No, I’m not”, the man said with an ever so slight British accent.

“See”, Lloyd said.

“Well, I guess I was wrong”, I replied “Let’s get outta here”.

It was only a short while later that we found out about Yoko.

Roy Orbison

As the President of One Pass, a video post facility in SF, I needed to travel to NYC every so often, to meet with Dan Rosen, President of Editel/NY, one of our sister companies. In the mid 80’s boutique hotels were all the rage in NYC and the most chi chi at the time was Morgan’s, located at Madison and 37th Street.

Morgan’s was redesigned by Andree Putman and it was dark, very dark. The walls were painted black, the ceilings too. The Hallways were lit by little hi intensity pin spots. The rooms were tiny and expensive. There was a breakfast room on the third floor that served coffee, croissants and bagels. And there were dark bronze elevator doors that opened to a black hole of an elevator, with, again, a pin spot on the ceiling, creating a small pool of light on a black and grey carpet. Your basic NYC black on black mausoleum.

I awoke early, 6AM (3AM PST) and headed to the breakfast room determined to get my money’s worth… a free bagel and a cup of JOE. Bleary eyed, I walked down the pitch black corridor to the elevator and pressed the call button. A few second passed, the elevator dinged and the bronze doors slowly opened.

In the elevator, pinspot lit, standing solo, in full on black drag, complete with sunglasses was Roy Orbison.

“Why, good morning Mr. Orbison ! “, I stammered.

The doors slowly started to close.

Roy didn’t even flinch and said ” Well, it might be good morning for you son, but it’s good night for me”.

And Roy was gone.

Bob Dylan

In a previous life, I was an audio engineer. I mostly mixed TV sports but every now and again I would be called upon to do shows like HBO specials, The Barbara Walters Show, The Perry Como Show, some concerts etc.

Over the years, I had built a relationship with a fellow named Ed Greene, the leading audio engineer of the 80’s. Ed Greene and Gene Crowe owned a mobile TV 45 foot expand-o truck, which was used for the February 27, 1980 broadcast of the 22nd Grammy Awards show at the Shrine Auditorium in LA. Pierre Cossette was the producer and Marty Pasetta was the director. And yours truly, was an assistant audio shlepper, which at the time paid $125/day for lugging around cables and setting up microphones.

We had a day before to set and rehearse and on the 27th, a few more rehearsals and then we went live over the CBS network to millions of viewers.

Bob Dylan was to perform his hit ” You Gotta Serve Somebody”. The plan was that the band would perform live as opposed to so many of the other performers who would sing to track. Dylan was set to rehearse at about 5 in the afternoon. His roadies brought out the gear and I, under the careful direction of Ed Greene was to set up and place microphones.

There on the stage of the Shrine, as I was placing a Shure SM 56 on Dylan’s Fender Amp, Bob walks over and starts to plug in his Strat.

I’m a HUGE Dylan fan. I named my son Dylan, I’ve seen him 20 times, I taught a course at a major University on Dylan, I have all of his work, I’ve read almost every book ever written about him. I am a Dylan groupie. I had fantasized about meeting him since Highway 61 Revisited.

I gathered myself… scared to death but alive with the thought that my hero, my idol, the Poet Laureate of the 20th Century was just inches away from me.

So, I stood up and looked Dylan straight in the eye and said…

“Sir, I just want to thank you for being the voice and conscience of my generation and for saying the things that we all wish we could have said”.

Dylan pulled his guitar cord out of his Fender, glanced at me from the corner of his eyes and said ” You’re welcome”, and then walked away.

The Rolling Stones

In October of 1981 I was working at One Pass Video as its sound engineer and head of production operations. I was sitting in my office in the China Basin Building when the phone rang. Queenie Taylor of Bill Graham Presents asked if I could put together a crew for a small venue musical event. I asked her who the band was and she said ” No one special”.

We loaded four Ikegami Hl79A cameras, two one inch Sony BHH 500 VTR’s, a small GVG 1200 switcher and a 24 input Yamaha audio console. I threw a crew together and we drove the short distance to the Embarcadero to set up at Bill Graham’s WOLFGANGS (formerly the Old Waldorf).

About 10 of us showed up at 444 Battery Street and loaded the elevator to take the gear up to the second floor venue. It was strange being in a night club early in the day, the smell of rancid beer and cigarette smoke still hung in the air. After several hours of technical set up we were ready for the evening. The small stage had a set of drums, a bass guitar rig, two electric guitar rigs, piano/keyboards and not much more.

When we got back from our dinner, we took our positions, setting audio levels and video. Out of nowhere, the doors flew open and several large dudes walked in and did a security check and swept the premises. I thought to myself… “What the hell?”

Five minutes later, Charlie Watts, Ronnie Wood, Bill Wyman, Keith Richards and Mick Jagger bounded onto the stage! Sound Check… and I’m the audio guy. I’m setting levels like a madman… eq’ing like Rasputin…. and, the Stones launched into “Under My Thumb”. Twenty people in the room, no frills, just us and the Rolling Stones.

For four or so hours Mick pranced, Keith smoked and Charlie was like a frickin’ metronome. They played and played for just this small gathering of 20 people… song after song after song.

Under My Thumb
When the Whip Comes Down
Neighbours
Just My Imagination (Running Away with Me)
(The Temptations cover)
Shattered
Let’s Spend the Night Together
Black Limousine
She’s So Cold
Time Is on My Side
Beast of Burden
Waiting on a Friend
Let It Bleed
You Can’t Always Get What You Want
Tops
Tumbling Dice
Hang Fire
Let Me Go
Little T&A
Start Me Up
Miss You
Honky Tonk Women
All Down the Line
Brown Sugar
Jumpin’ Jack Flash
Street Fighting Man
(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction

At about 2AM… they stopped.

They left in a Jumpin Jack flash, the entire crew had not known what had hit them. As we were packing up, Queenie Taylor told us that it was a dress rehearsal for tomorrows show at Candlestick, and oh BTW… she gave us all tickets for the show!