| So who steered this vortex? On stage every Monday night, Tony Mafia was the emcee, an artist, a painter of some accomplishment. Yep that's his real name. Then there was The Man, Doug Weston, tall with long flowing locks, thick glasses, boy du jour, and loony vision that Weston would have liked to have propelled the performing folk arts in Los Angeles. It was "Doug Weston's Troubadour" in name and flavor. It was at the Troub and under Weston's strange mentorship that Men began and flourished, if only for a season. The Troubadour hoots were well attended and often packed. There were always more players than slots therefore many players would play for, and with other players. It began to get rather familial. Doug Dillard might play banjo for several others in an given night, I would play guitar behind Jackie and Gayle, newly split from the Christie Minstrels, then behind somebody else, then might form an on-the-spot trio with Randy Sierly and Terry Kirkman. Some evenings there would be ten or fifteen players in queue and we would form different duos, trios, and quartets defined by who knew what songs, and who had the best grass, or worse for that matter.. It was a cold, dark, rainy night in LA . . . actually it wasn't but I always wanted to start a story with that line. It began one warm, thick, bright Monday night on West L.A's Santa Monica Blvd. Dark nights don't exist on Santa Monica Blvd, only dark moments. The Troub was at full tilt acoustic boogie, packed and happening. Someone, I think it was Terry K. or Doug Dillard, invited me to form a crew other players, a battalion it seemed, to do a few tunes together, all at once, together, as an ensemble, just for fun. Success and great fun! The rag tag group of players was good, better than good, no real surprise as whomever did the invitations asked only the more experienced and facile players. I think we did maybe three tunes, something like the "Banks of the Ohio", "Darlin Corey", and some other folk chestnut. I have no idea who all played that first night except that the stage was really crowded with banjos, autoharps, guitars, mandolins, various other stringed instruments, and people. The evening had been so much great fun, and sounded so good that there was a consensus that we should do it again next Monday night under the aegis of the name, "The Inner Tubes" (Don't ask, I don't remember). This continued for a second and third week and in those few days began a transformation within the tenuous group that was the not-so-subtle co-emergence of a new musical movement, "Folk Rock". Doug Weston had been watching this development from his loft office in the Troub. One evening after the Inner Tubes had burned up the stage Doug sent word that it was time to formalize and that anyone interested in forming a real, official, serious band to show up at the Troub on a Saturday and Sunday morning, axe in hand. That weekend, perhaps a hundred or more people auditioned for Doug. Many didn't have what Doug was looking for. Several of those people went on to have huge careers in music world, others not so. At the end of those two days there were thirteen of us that Doug found something in. The first draft was thirteen; Bob Page, Niles Brown, Harvey Gerst, Steve Cohen, Tony Mafia, Sanny Delano, Terry Kirkman, Howard Wilcox, Brian Cole, Mike Whelan, Ted Bluechel, Steven Stapenhorst, and me. Ted Bluechel was a part of a group called "The Cherry Hill Singers" basically a Kingston Trio, striped shirt type of group, along with Michael Whalen and Niles Brown, all future members of The Inner Tubes. In the Cherry Hill Singers, Ted played the Guitar and percussion instruments, the Gourd, Congas, shakers and other noisemakers. This was cool. It gave the Cherry Hills something that most other folk trios and quartets didn't have. Rhythm. Ted, before becoming a guitarist, had been a rather excellent drummer. I believe that it was Terry's or my idea to cajole Ted into using his drums on stage with the Inner Tubes. I had a Martin guitar and had decided to use an electric pickup on it and poof! Instant Folk Rock.. Few had dared use the hated and detestable electric guitar and the war-like drums in the folk music scene till then. Being more interested in the present than the past I was, and am not welded to fundamentalist folk music traditions nor was, or is Ted. Bob Page.. I never got to know Bob very well, I don't know if anyone did in the Men or later in his short stay in the Association. He played and sang well which was enough at the time. Niles Brown. Along with Ted Bluechel and Mike Whelan, Niles was from the band The Cherry Hill Singers, a group that was benevolently assimilated into The Men. Niles played Guitar and sang. Harvey Gerst. Harvey reminded me very much of non-neurotic Woody Allen. He is a very funny man filled with musical hubris. "I can sing any note" was his battle cry. He played Guitar and sang and being somewhat of an electronics whiz was able to fix various amplifier/electric guitar problems. Steve Cohen, another guitar and banjo player and singer from the very traditional folk music ilk with a deep knowledge of the musical roots of folk music. Tony Mafia. Tony, with great shock of salt and pepper hair, was older than the rest of us and much wilder. His voice was rough and ready, his guitar playing less than virtuoso, however he could hold an audience with his sweet personality like no one else. Tony was an artist, a painter of some accomplishment though he was plagued with physical problems that never seemed to deter him. Sanny Delano. I met three people while I was in the Navy that would later join me in musical adventure, Sanny (Sanford) Delano and Mike Whalen, both fellow sailors along with Terry Kirkman who was a civilian at the time. I met Sanny (and Terry Kirkman) while I was stationed AT Pearl Harbor Hawaii, and Mike while on board a ship, the USS Nereus in San Diego Ca. Sanny was from San Francisco returning there after he left the Navy. I was stationed in Oakland, Ca. for a short time allowing our friendship to blossom in a post beatnik, pre-hippy San Francisco.. Sanny later migrated to LA for some unknown reason and started hanging out with my musician friends and me. He couldn't sing well enough to be a lead singer but certainly well enough to be in the chorus and well enough to qualify for The Men. I also met a friend, a fellow musician named Rick Allen, while attending a training school at the Great Lakes Naval Training Center. Although Rick and I only played together once professionally, we jammed and burned it up offstage as much as we could, Rick on some broken down Navy piano and me on some out of tune upright bass.. Rick went on to have, and still has, a great career, a Grammy nomination, and a list of credits as long as he is tall which is considerable. He is perhaps the formost Blues and R&B organ (B3) player in the US of A. Rick and I still communicate and it is a great pleasure and honor to know this guy and to have shared cheap wine, a mutual past, and gales of laughter with him. Here's his website, as they say, "For a good time call ."http://www.rickallenmusic.com/ Visit his site and hear the real thing. Mike Whelan: Mike and I had both been sailors stationed on the same ship in San Diego Ca. Mike and I both played guitar and became friends, ultimately forming a trio, the "Froggy Flats Ramblers", with a woman Marine who didn't fit a stereotypical image, oh no, not at all. Mike and I left the Navy within months of each other and ended up, along with Terry Kirkman at the Troubadour. Mike then played a 12 string guitar and acoustic bass and still has a tremendous baritone bass voice. Mike eventually left The Men. I'll delve into the circumstances of his departure later in these few paragraphs. Eighteen year old Steve Stapenhorst, the youngest of the crew, was already a respected singer in the LA folk scene. Steve often played and sang as a solo and in many of the impromptu trios and quartets. Howard Wilcox was our token Texan folk singer. A large fellow with a large guitar, a mild manner and a winning smiling voice. Brian Cole was from the Northwest. He came to California as part of a trio with Bob Page and another person. The group was called the "Gnu Folk". He played acoustic bass. Brian came from a theater tradition, having acted in Shakespearian drama, and was well experienced in stagecraft. Terry Kirkman. Terry and I met in Hawaii at a party, I had my guitar and he had a recorder (for those unfamiliar with the instrument, it is a wooden flute like instrument). We knew the same tunes and playing together seemed to be the most natural thing. We would anticipate each other's changes and it sounded as if we'd rehearsed together for years. Soon after Terry and I met in Hawaii, he decided to return to the mainland. Hawaii and the business world that he was gravitating toward had lost its appeal. We lost contact for a year or so, then I was discharged from the Navy and went to my family's home in Ontario Ca, just outside of LA. I had heard about a folk club in the neighboring community of Upland and one evening I decided to check it out. As I walked in the door I saw Terry laughing in a crowd of people. What a piece of serendipity. He was managing the club. We hooked up instantly and began playing and plying the folk clubs in the area eventually ending up at the Troub. The place seemed to be made for us. In the few months before the forming of The Men, we made tons of new friends, I got a gig as the guitarist behind Jackie and Gayle, Jackie Miller and Gayle Caldwell, the recently departed women members of the New Christie Minstrels and Terry had gotten a gig as the musical arranger for the Cherry Hill Singers. We continued to jam with our friends and acquaintance musicos all around and in the Troub till the forming of The Men. Home Next Page |
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