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Music |
After high school, and a few wasted years, I finally got serious about something positive, playing music, and it started my transformation into an actual productive human being. I think I had been looking for a way out of my wicked ways, I just didn't know where to look.
I was always a singer. I learned my first song at age five, "I'm Always Chasing Rainbows," a lovely tune taken from Frederick Chopin's Fantaisie-Impromptu, Op. 66, which was my mother's favorite song during World War II, and I serenaded her often. My second was Hank Williams', "Lovesick Blues," which I enjoyed singing the most.
I dabbled in songwriting too, penning my first song at age ten. It wasn't very good.
Before long, everybody wanted me to sing. The church wanted me to join the youth choir, but I rebuffed their best efforts. Then my seventh grade music teacher tried to pressure me into joining the junior high choir, but I likewise turned her down. That made her very angry and she berated me in some way every day until midterm, when I dropped out of her class. I hated her for that and before I left I put a hex on her and within a month she broke her big toe and it never healed right.
Twenty five years later I went to a friend's house to watch a Monday Night Football game and as I approached his front porch, he came walking down the street. There was some sort of commotion down the block and I inquired as to its nature.
"Aw, it's just crazy Ms Gaines," he answered, "She used to be a music teacher, but she retired and now she's always hobbling up and down the street raising Hell and disrupting the neighborhood. She needs to be put away."
"No Kidding," I said.
Damn, I didn't know a hex could last that long.
Anyway, it was that I enjoyed singing my choice of songs. I didn't want someone else to tell me what to sing. That is why I enjoyed a ten year span of solo performing. I could sing what I wanted when I wanted. When I finally joined a group, It was also very exciting because the other members of the group were of a like mind in song selections and it was just physically and mentally easier to do. And it was usually just three or four of us and not a whole mob.
My mother's side of the family were pretty musical, as most of them were old time vaudeville performers, including my grandfather. My grandmother was a poet and my mother played the piano.
As for my father, I don't know anything about his family except that they were Irish immigrants from eastern Kentucky and might have been bootleggers. But I have no knowledge of what they really did.
So when I decided to get serious about music, I needed an instrument. Everybody played guitar and I loved the banjo, specifically the five string banjo. This was in the beginning of the folk revival of the early sixties. Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and The Kingston Trio were just hitting the big time and Pete Seeger was becoming more widely known as was Woody Guthrie's music.
There was a big argument about who was traditional and who was authentic. I didn't give a hoot about that stuff, if I liked a song, I liked it. That was all I needed to know.
I needed another instrument to offset the banjo and I chose the autoharp. Guitars were a lovely instrument, but ubiquitous, so I chose the autoharp, a lesser known but beautiful sounding instrument. It would gain some notoriety in folk circles in the music of "Mother" Maybelle Carter, John Sebastian, Randy VanWarmer, Bryan Bowers and Mike Seeger.
I wanted to learn how to play the banjo and ended up taking lessons only to discover that five string teachers were very scarce at that time, so I bought the Pete Seeger How To book. I received it in the mail with a nice note from his wife Toshi, thanking me for the purchase and wishing me luck. She explained that Pete was on tour at the moment so she was handling the business at home. I thought that was pretty decent of her.
There were folk music programs on the radio if you really searched for them. I found a great one that broadcasted on Saturday morning. Unfortunately it was 3:00 am Saturday morning. I had to fight to stay awake on Friday night, but it was worth it. That was where I first heard Pete sing "The Bells of Rhymney."
I bought copious volumes of song books and records and I sat in my room and played and sang for months on end. Quite a few of my friends and acquaintances thought it was strange and teased me about it, but how else do you learn songs? I didn't care, I was having too much fun.
I learned a couple of hundred songs pretty quickly, but it was just for my own entertainment. There were so many songs I wanted to learn to sing, my musicianship kind of took a back seat. I learned chords and rhythm patterns, but that's about it. Then the Courier-Journal Advertising Department boss decided to have a night on the Belle of Louisville, a steamboat that cruised the Ohio River, and have the employees provide the music via an amateur show.
My pals seized on that and insisted that I play. I didn't know, because I had never played before anyone except my family. I wasn't bashful about singing, it was the playing that held me back. I could strum along with my songs, but I wasn't even close to being an accomplished musician. They didn't care, they just wanted to see me perform.
I thought, "Well, okay, I'll just do my best and see what happens." But I got more nervous as the time neared. I even left my banjo at home the day of the party and claimed, "I forgot to bring it."
One of the sales staff who lived near me volunteered to pick it up for me since he had to go home first anyway. I couldn't refuse his offer. I was trapped.
I tried to hide on board the boat, but they found me, "Hey Ronnie, Dave's here with your banjo," they hollered.
Oh boy, I was getting more nervous by the minute. As I was waiting to perform, it suddenly hit me. I saw these people I knew just having fun, and some of them were okay, but I was at least as good as any of them. I just suddenly relaxed and bounded on stage for the first time in my life where I was transformed into a bonafide stage performer.
I don't even know how to describe it, but I was like a different person. The stage just brought out a brand new persona. I was relaxed and confident and having a good time joking around and playing. I did three songs and received an outstanding ovation.
After the show, the boss invited some people, including me, back to his house where I sang some more.
A few weeks later I was performing at the Pub Steakhouse, a prestigious downtown night spot and then at the Storefront Congregation, THE spot for folk music on Bardstown Road. My pals had stopped ribbing me about my music by then.
Following my gig on the Belle, I was emboldened enough to pick up a little job playing on Sunday night for next to nothing when I met Bob Rosenthal. He was the new folksinger at The Pub, my hangout after work. Bob was good and I introduced myself and told him about my little gig. He came in the next week to hear me and after my show, asked me to come down to the Pub and try out the mikes and then invited me to share the stage with him. I was like, "Are you kidding?" He wasn't kidding. The Pub gig lasted for a year and I met a lot of people and had a great time.
These people that I met were a varied lot, but they were mostly good, honest people who liked my music and me. I had never been told, "We called you first because if you couldn't come, we just wouldn't have a party."
It may have been a lie but it was nice to hear nonetheless.
People with very nice houses would invite me over and let me roam around at will, and I would repay their kindness and generosity by not stealing anything. That may sound silly to you, but to me it was a step in the right direction and I felt like it was an accomplishment.
As a matter of fact, several times I almost felt like saying, "Good night. Thank you for your hospitality and I didn't break or steal anything."
I also bought my Vega banjo that year. It was expensive, but I still have it and it still sounds great.
It was a crazy scene for me because, for example, the same women who would probably have ignored me a week before were now inviting me to their table and buying me drinks, just because I sang a couple of songs. I found out that music was quite a chick magnet. I was also surprised and somewhat uncomfortable with the deference shown to me on occasion because I was a singer.
I liked to sing some of the protest songs during the civil rights days and one night I sang a Malvina Reynolds tune called, "It Isn't Nice," one of my favorites. When I finished my set, this burly guy came up to me and said, "You know, when you started singing that one song, I wanted to come up and bust you in the mouth. But I got to listen to it and it made a lot of sense. It was a really good song."
I replied, "Well, I'm glad you didn't bust me in the mouth."
We both laughed and shook hands. That's what it's all about. Bob and I remained friends for many years until he had a stroke and it changed his demeanor completely. He became surly and demanding and downright mean. He never recovered well enough to sing or play guitar again. A real shame.
Performing also provided a lot of impromptu fun, such as the night I was singing at the Storefront Congregation and I ended my set with one of my own compositions, "Laundromat Baby." It's a laundromat love story, very poignant. It ends with the line, "I wonder when she's going to bring back my jockey shorts to me."
At this time I noticed Beverly approaching the stage and I thought, "Uh oh, what's up?" and before I could do anything, she hopped on stage and put a pair of my jockeys over my head. It caught me off guard. The audience seemed to enjoy that and I was laughing too, as I removed them, and suddenly a drunken woman jumped up and yelled, "Give me them," and grabbed them. So there we were, having a tug-of-war with my underwear, while the crowd was really into it now, hooting and hollering. Donna told me later, "Bev was afraid you might get mad, but I told her you couldn't get mad at her for anything." She's right, I couldn't. Anything for a laugh.
Three policemen friends of mine formed a trio and started doing a few gigs and several times they invited me to share a gig with them at a private club. We had a good time and one evening I went to the bar for a beer and the bartender said to me, "Hey Ron, you know, you don't need these guys. Any time you want to sing in here, just let me know."
I appreciated the thought. It built my confidence, but I wasn't that cut-throat. I wouldn't do that to my friends.
I was playing all over town, like: The Storefront Congregation, The Cherokee Pub, Phoenix Hill Tavern, Holiday Inns, The Pub Steakhouse, The Red Dog Saloon and others. Then again, there was the Christmas Party I hosted at The Landing on Main Street. Late seventies, Dec. 23, and I invited all the players I knew to join in. It was a good time.
I loved doing Christmas shows. I knew a lot of Holiday songs and enjoyed getting people involved in singing. I had put out flyers and a couple of bigshots from the Courier-Journal came to see what it was all about. It was wild.
Various musicians came to play and share the stage at will. Beverly and some of her friends were dancing on the tables and everybody was whooping and singing and my bosses looked very out of place in trim haircuts and suits. But it was just a celebration and we all had a good time. The Landing ran out of beer a little before closing, so they were happy, too.
Then, after ten years of playing solo, I was invited to join a folk group.