Stories behind memorable albums of the 1970s as told by the artists

Month: September 2014

You can go home again: John Oates shines solo at ST94

John Oates, shown here at a 2104 summer Hall & Oates concert in Atlantic City, performed a solo gig at the Sellersville Theater Thursday, Sept. 25. (Photo by Mike Morsch)

John Oates, shown here at a 2104 summer Hall & Oates concert in Atlantic City, performed a solo gig at the Sellersville Theater Thursday, Sept. 25.
(Photo by Mike Morsch)

John Oates is comfortable coming home to Pennsylvania, especially when he performs solo gigs at the Sellersville Theater 1894.

As he is fond of saying when performing there, the theater holds a special place in his heart. It was where Oates, as a newly licensed driver in the mid-1960s, took a young lady from nearby Silverdale borough on his first car date to the venue to see a movie.

The locals will tell you that the intimate movie-theater-turned-concert venue has been the site of a lot of memorable moments ever since that Oates date.

And on Thursday night, Sept. 25, John Oates created another of those memories for himself. Six songs into his set, his drummer and bass player exited, leaving just Oates and his guitar on stage.

“I want to dedicate a song to my mom,” he said.

The Oates family is from North Wales, PA, in Montgomery County, the northwest suburbs of Philadelphia. A little further west in the county is where Daryl Hall grew up, just outside Pottstown, PA.

For years, at least at all the East Coast Hall & Oates shows that I’ve attended in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, John’s parents have been in the audience. They were there again in Sellersville Thursday evening.

Oates proceeded to relate a story about how when he was 5 or 6 years old, his mother had him perform at a local park, dressed to the nines in a red blazer. But the young Oates was more interested in getting some ice cream than he was in performing. In an effort to persuade her son to focus more on his song and less on the ice cream, Mrs. Oates insisted that the star of the show – a young Irish tenor by the name of Dennis Erickson – certainly was more interested in his music than he was ice cream and that John should be, too.

It was enough to do the trick, and John sang his song. It was the last time he sang that song until Thursday night.

The tune John dedicated to his mom was “Me and My Gal,” written in 1917 by George W. Meyer, Edgar Leslie and E. Ray Goetz. But it was Judy Garland and Gene Kelly who made it into a hit in the 1942 film of the same name.

And this is how music connects us. Not only did Oates create a special memory for himself and his mother, he created one for me as well.

Of the songs my mother used to sing to me as a toddler, the ones I remember are “Paper Doll” by the Mills Brothers. And “Me and My Gal” by Judy Garland and Gene Kelly.

But getting something special out of a John Oates solo concert isn’t at all unusual. As much as we all like the Hall & Oates concerts, they’re different than what Oates gives fans at a solo show. And different in this context is really good.

I love the Hall & Oates album “Abandoned Luncheonette” from 1973. In fact, interviews with Daryl and John about the making of that album were the inspiration for “The Vinyl Dialogues: Memorable albums of the 1970s as told by the artists.”

If you go to a Hall & Oates show, you’ll get “She’s Gone” and “Las Vegas Turnaround” off “Abandoned Luncheonette.” But if you go to a solo Oates show, you’ll get the Oates-penned “Had I Known You Better Then,” an absolutely great song and a personal favorite off that album.

Oates solo shows do feature H&O classics, like “Maneater,” “Out of Touch” and “You Make My Dreams Come True,” but they’re Oates versions of those songs, with Oates vocals, Oates interpretations, Oates arrangements and Oates tempos.

In addition to great storytelling to set up each song, the set list Thursday night featured “Camellia” (another personal H&O favorite), more recent solo efforts from Oates’ albums “Mississippi Mile” and “Good Road to Follow,” as well as performances of “It’s All Right” by Curtis Mayfield, “Come Back Baby” by Lightnin’ Hopkins, “Little Queenie” by Chuck Berry and “Deep River Blues” by Doc Watson.

Fortunately, there was a whole lot of good at this show that overshadowed a bit of the not-so-good.

We’ve all been to concerts and sat next to people who don’t know how to keep quiet during the performance. And Thursday night it was my turn to sit next to not one, but three of them.

Since it was on Oates’ home turf, in addition to his parents, he had a lot of friends and acquaintances in the audience, including a crowd from Temple University where he went to college. Part of this trip home for Oates includes his being presented – along with Brian Williams of NBC News and others – the Lew Klein Excellence in Media Award from the university. Klein is a Philadelphia-area philanthropist and former television executive who hired Dick Clark to host American Bandstand. The ceremony was scheduled for the night after this particular show.

So it was no surprise that the three women who sat next to me claimed to have some kind of connection to the star. As they took their seats 15 minutes before the show, one of the women announced, “Where are you John? Your high school sweetheart is here.”

Apparently, in his early years, Oates dated mostly jibber-jabberers who thought that rock shows were supposed to start 15 minutes earlier than the 8 p.m. time printed on the ticket. And this woman wouldn’t quit talking through the entire show. That not only shows a lack or respect for the artist, it’s rude to the people in the immediately vicinity who paid to hear John Oates perform.

I’m guessing one of the reasons that she’s not Mrs. John Oates today because she wouldn’t shut up long enough for him to propose to her back in the 1960s.

Nevertheless, it was the only glitch in an otherwise stellar performance by the bona fide Rock and Roll Hall of Famer and all-around nice guy.

I even called my mom on the way home after the show and we sang a line or two of “Me and My Gal” together over the phone.

Thanks to John Oates and his music, I was reminded of a cherished childhood memory of my own. And no amount of jibber-jabber can overshadow that.

Vinyl memories: A conversation with Al Jardine of the Beach Boys

Longtime Beach Boys bandmate Al Jardine will be joining Brian Wilson for three upcoming California shows.  (Photo by Randy Straka)

Longtime Beach Boys bandmate Al Jardine will be joining Brian Wilson for three upcoming California shows.
(Photo by Randy Straka)

It was 1965 and I was thumbing through my parents’ 45 rpm vinyl collection when I came upon an orange and yellow-labeled record that caught my eye.

I put it on the record player and for the next few minutes was enthralled by the sweet harmonies, sounds that I had never before heard in my young life.

The song was “The Little Girl I Once Knew” by the Beach Boys. I was 6 years old. And I was hooked on that sound for life.

That was nearly 50 years ago. One of the voices coming off that record was that of Al Jardine, who along with Brian Wilson, Mike Love, Carl Wilson and Dennis Wilson co-founded the Beach Boys.

The story of the Beach Boys is well documented. So when I heard Al Jardine’s voice on the other end of the phone this week, I wondered what questions I could possibly ask him that he hasn’t already been asked many times over in his career.

Jardine, as he has several times in the past, is joining Brian Wilson for three upcoming shows in California: this Saturday, Sept. 27, at the Vina Robles Ampitheatre in Paso Robles; Oct. 9 at the Mary Stuart Theatre in Modesto; and Oct. 11 at the Carpenter Performing Arts Center in Long Beach. (That show is already sold out but tickets remain for the other two.)

It wasn’t the first time I had talked with Al. As a newspaper reporter and editor for 38 years, I interviewed him first in 2006 to preview a series of shows he was doing with Brian on the 40th anniversary of the release of the “Pet Sounds” album. I actually got to meet Al and Brian after one of those show at the Keswick Theatre in Glenside, PA.

We spoke once again for a story before the the kick off of the Beach Boys 50th anniversary tour in 2012 and then again that same year for a story on Al’s solo album “A Postcard From California.”

For these three California shows, though, it’s going to be mostly a celebration of the Beach Boys.

“We’re going to cover three different eras, I think: the early stuff; the middle era, the 1970s, which is turning out to be my favorite era; and the 1980s material,” said Jardine.

“It will be primarily Beach Boys music. I don’t do my personal stuff and Brian doesn’t do much of his personal stuff either because we’re really celebrating the Beach Boys. Believe it or not, that’s who we are.”

Al deadpanned the “that’s who we are” line and added a little snicker for emphasis. Like there is anybody left on the the planet who doesn’t know that the Beach Boys are the Beach Boys. In other words, they’re not likely to try and be something they’re not.

But they never have.

The rest of the interview was more of a conversation, like two guys sitting around at a backyard barbecue, lifting a few cold ones and shooting the breeze about music, their families and life in general. Two guys in Hawaiian shirts, of course.

I told him I really liked the song “San Simeon” off his solo album. It very Beach Boys-ish. Go figure.

“America (Dewey Bunnell and Gerry Beckley) does such a great job on that song. It has an authenticity to it. My son Adam did a great job on it, too. He’s the one singing that real pretty deep reverb that goes into echo. He doesn’t get much credit because there are such big names on the album (Brian and the rest of the Beach Boys, Glen Campbell, David Crosby, Stephen Stills, Neil Young and Steve Miller, among others). But he came up with that part. I have to give him all the credit,” said Jardine.

With no disrespect to The Mystics, who were the first to record it, I told Al that I thought the Beach Boys version of “Hushabye” – covered on their 1964 album “All Summer Long” – was better than the original. And that when Al’s son Matt joined the Beach Boys in the 1990s and took over the high lead on that song, I thought he did a great job with it.

“Yea, Matt can really sing. He nailed that song,” he said. Spoken like a proud father.

The conversation then turned to the 1970s. “That’s my wife’s favorite era of music. She educates me every day to it on Sirius Radio,” said Jardine. And then to the 1972 Beach Boys album, “Carl and the Passions – So Tough,” on which Al shares songwriting credit on two cuts: with Carl and Mike on “All This Is That” and with Brian and Mike on “He Come Down.”

“That is an amazing song. I can’t believe it’s us,” said Al of “He Come Down.” “It was a meditation song, and it turned into some kind of a spiritual. And it’s really good. Somebody ought to cover that thing. I should probably talk to Brian about that.”

We rounded out the conversation transitioning from music to the environment, specifically talking about recycling. Al is a longtime environmental advocate and a big recycling proponent.

“I start preaching on stuff like recycling. I drive everyone crazy with it. I probably should write a song called ‘The Recycle Man,’” he said.

Jardine is working on a couple of solo projects that he’s not ready to detail yet, but he’ still having a lot of fun doing what he’s doing and teaming up with Brian yet again.

“Just to be able to go down to the studio and work up a new song – or even an old song – is fun,” he said. “When it stops being fun is when you should stop doing it. But I’m looking forward to working with Brian on these next three shows. That’s always a gas.”

Just like it’s always a gas to talk to Al Jardine. Nothing heavy, just one Rock and Roll Hall of Famer talking about music with a guy who has been writing about it for years.

For a moment, I considered pulling my Hawaiian shirt out of the closet – the one with the surfboards on it that my wife hates – and throwing it on just to try and extend the summer for another day.

Instead, after I hung up the phone with Al, I went over to my vinyl collection, thumbed through the 45s, and pulled out “The Little Girl I Once Knew,” put it on the turntable and drifted right back to 1965.

It sounds as sweet today as it did nearly 50 years ago.

Sun, sand and cigars: A shore way to motivate and inspire

This is the view from Music Pier in Ocean City, N.J. A perfect place to write about music from the 1970s.

This is the view from Music Pier in Ocean City, N.J. A perfect place to write about music from the 1970s.

In an effort to find inspiration and motivation, I took off Wednesday, Sept. 17, in search of an ocean.

My hope was that the combination of the late summer sea breeze, the sound of the waves, a slice or two of my favorite boardwalk pizza and possibly a leisurely go at a mild cigar after lunch would be just the thing to kick off the Opening Day of Writing for The Vinyl Dialogues: Volume II.

It was a well-calculated plan. I had been watching the weather report for 10 days in advance, trying to free up a day where it was the just the sun and me. And I picked Ocean City, N.J. because it is relatively close and it has an historic concert hall called Music Pier that stretches out from the boardwalk and touches the ocean. I figured that the extra music mojo coming off Music Pier couldn’t hurt the writing process of a book about memorable albums of the 1970s.

I anticipated that because summer vacation season is over and the kids are back in school that the boardwalk would be virtually deserted.

For the most part it was, with the exception of three things I discovered when I got there:
(1) Old people.
(2) Old people.
(3) And old people.

Considering that I am on the doorstep of OldGuyHood myself, it should not have surprised me that other people would have been thinking the same thing that I was thinking on a nice day this time of year. But it did.

Still, I am sometimes surprised at how much I am surprised sometimes.

Having completed four interviews to this point, transcribed the notes, done some research, and let all of that ferment inside my head for several days, I was anxious to get the writing process started. My hope was that I could get first drafts done for two chapters of about 2,500 words each with the ocean as my background music.

I had decided to start with the chapter on the 1978 album “Entertainers On and Off The Record” by the Statler Brothers. Don Reid, lead singer and primary songwriter for the group along with his brother Harold Reid, was the final interview for the first Vinyl Dialogues book. It was such a wonderful interview that I asked him to participate again for Volume II, and he agreed, much to my delight.

It made sense to start the next project right where the first one had left off.

A word here about country music in general and Don Reid specifically. If country music is not your preferred genre, know that the Statler Brothers are one of the greatest country music groups in the history of country music. Their harmonies, songwriting abilities and accomplishments are virtually unmatched in country music. And Don Reid himself is a superstar who doesn’t act like one and a gentleman who does. He is a treasured storyteller and a gracious interview subject, the kind of guy that makes me want to build a porch on the front of my house, buy a few rocking chairs, grab a six-pack of cold beer, invite him over and just listen to him talk for three or four hours on a Saturday night.

To get in the right frame of mind, I rolled down the car windows and listened to “The Best of the Statler Brothers” CD twice on the drive from suburban Philadelphia. It was kind of like a baseball player in the on deck circle warming up by swinging a leaded bat preparing for his turn in the batter’s box.

By the time I got to Music Pier, I was primed to write. I stationed myself in my chair just outside the great music hall in its open air annex, where I could see, smell and hear the ocean, and pulled out my laptop.

And promptly took a nap. Zzzzzzzz. See, writers are Major League procrastinators. And and when it comes to distractions, as previously stated, I can be as much of an old guy as the next old guy.

Fortunately, I was able to recover quickly and banged out a first draft of about 2,500 words on “Entertainers On and Off The Record” with the information that Don had provided in the interview. It took about two-and-half hours.

And then I took another nap. Zzzzzzz. After that, I grabbed a couple of slices of pepperoni pizza from Manco and Manco – if you’re from this part of the East Coast, you know how good it is – a chocolate and mint frozen yogurt cone for dessert, packed up my chair and laptop and drove home.

I didn’t get quite as much work done as I had initially planned, and there is no smoking on the boardwalk so I didn’t get to the cigar. But the writing for The Vinyl Dialogues: Volume II, has officially commenced.

For the first time in my life, I got to create something while peeking at the ocean over the top of my computer.

And it was glorious.

Daydreaming of a simpler time: Teenage love, teachers in tight pants and a mob boss

My dad, Edward E. Morsch, circa 1956 or so, looking much more like a mob boss than an elementary school superintendent.

My dad, Edward E. Morsch, circa 1956 or so, looking much more like a mob boss than an elementary school superintendent.

This isn’t a music-related post. It’s just a fond memory of teenage love, school teachers in tight pants and a mob boss existence in a much simpler time.

My dad was a school superintendent in central Illinois, where I grew up. We lived in his district, so when it was time for me to start at Rankin Grade School, a small rural school grades K through 8, he sat me down and had a talk with me.

See, he was the boss at school (at home, too, but that’s another story). It was the mid-1960s and in those days, the school superintendent was like a mob boss. What he said was the law. He wasn’t a big guy, maybe 5’10” and 165 lbs. But he walked around that school like Andre the Giant. Every kid, teacher and parent in that district knew it.

If you were a student and stepped outside his rules, he had a paddle in his office. And believe me, he was a baseball player, so he knew how to swing a piece of wood.

So on my first day of school in 1965, he sat me down for a little talk. You know how the mob boss kind of whispers in a guy’s ear? That’s how this talk went down.

“Young man,” he said, coffee breath right in my face. “I want you to understand that if you get in trouble at school, you’re going to get in trouble again when I get home.”

Even in my 5-year-old pea brain, it didn’t make much sense to get two punishments for the price of one infraction. So I kept my nose clean for eight years at his school.

Almost.

By the time I had reached eighth grade in 1972, I had begun to notice girls. In fact, I had a girlfriend that was already a freshman in high school, Patti Flynn. Man, she was so pretty. I was maybe 13 years old and didn’t quite understand why I liked girls, I just knew that I did.
Our eighth grade teacher was a divorced woman named Mrs. Muren. Thinking back, she must have been in her mid-30s at the time. I didn’t much care for her as a teacher, but I and the other 13-year-old jamokes did on occasion sit up and take notice when she wore a particular pair of white, very tight pants. We didn’t know what the hell we were looking at, but we liked what we thought we were seeing. (This may explain why to this day, I’m an ass man.)

Nevertheless, I was head over heels for Patti Flynn. Mrs. Muren and her tight, white pants were only a distraction. I got to kiss Patti Flynn.

So one day in class, I was daydreaming about Patti while I was doodling in my notebook. Actually, I was a writer back then, I just didn’t know it.

With true Hemingway pinache, I wrote in my notebook, “Mike loves Patti.” (It was, after all, only the beginning of a writing career.)

At that point, I sensed something was amiss. I glanced up out of my stupor to see Mrs. Muren standing right over my desk, eyes glaring.

“Give me that note, young man!” she screamed at me.

Now remember, I had gone almost eight years without getting in trouble at my dad’s school. That was about to change.

“No ma’am I’m not going to give you this note,” I said, as I crumpled up the piece of paper with my declaration of love for Patti Flynn and shoved it into my pocket.

“Get out into the hall!” screamed Mrs. Muren. All of a sudden her ass didn’t look so good in those pants after all.

Now at our school at that time, the “hall” was actually the gymnasium. If one stepped outside the classroom, one set foot right onto the basketball court. There were four classrooms like that just off the gymnasium. But the gym was also the center of the universe then at Rankin. If one was going anywhere in that small school, one was passing through the gym.

There I was for all to see, standing there like a mope, trying to figure out as fast as I could how to dispose of the incriminating note.

My first thought was if I eat the note, then there’s no evidence. That made sense. But eating paper and ink didn’t. So I opted for the next best solution I could come up with on short notice: I folded up the paper, took off my shoe, shoved the note down my sock to the bottom of my foot, and put the shoe back on.

Just as I had completed that task, I saw my dad come through the doors at the other end of the gym. He was walking with a purpose, and obviously going to some other part of the building on some other important duty.

Until he saw me standing outside the classroom. Then he made a beeline right in my direction. With a purpose.

Oh, shit.

“What’s going on here?” he asked, surprisingly calm.

Here was another thing about my dad at that time: You just didn’t lie to him. I didn’t think twice about lying to Mrs. Muren or defying her orders. But not with the old man. That just didn’t happen.

“I wrote a note in class and Mrs. Muren wanted me to give it to her but I didn’t want to do that so she screamed at me and sent me out here,” I rambled.

“What did the note say?” he asked.

Shit.
“It said, ‘Mike loves Patti,’” I said without hesitation. Gave it right up to the boss.

“Well . . . don’t do it again,” he said, pivoting on one foot and heading back to the task at hand. He didn’t even ask for the note.

That’s the other thing about my dad. He was the sweetest guy in the world and had a great big heart, especially for his children. And for the children in his care at school. He could be tough when he wanted to or had to. But those other times, he was just a softie.

I had kept my record in tact – for the most part – of not getting in trouble at school. My dad never said another word to me about the incident.

Fifty years later, I don’t even remember how it all got resolved. I guess I was allowed back in class, and besides, I was the kid of the boss. I assume Mrs. Muren didn’t want to press the issue with him over a silly little love note.

I kissed Patti Flynn a few more times that year, mostly after home basketball games. She eventually married Perry Martin, a classmate of mine in Mrs. Muren’s eighth grade class and witness to the whole note fiasco.

Me, I’d love to just sit and ask my dad if he remembers that story. What I wouldn’t give for that.

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