MEMOIR WITH TWIN GUITAR LEADS                                                                                                                                          The Life and Times of The James-Younger Band

by james michael naccarato

Part 1 - Let There Be Music

              To begin with, let me be clear: I am not a musician.  Under duress I’ll admit that as the elder son of an accordion-playing Italian father, I did learn to play the accordion.  This was hardly an instrument popular during the ‘60’s British music invasion, perhaps because an accordion meshes with rock n’ roll about as well as, let’s say, bagpipes.  After too many recitals and too many hours of playing “The Beer Barrel Polka”, I begged off my accordion studies to devote all my energies to the daunting challenges of junior high school.  Sadly, I never returned to music lessons of any kind.

              My brother Rick, on the other hand, is a musician and was playing rock ‘n’ roll with other neighborhood kids when he was still in Little League.  His first guitar was a twenty five-dollar Kimberly, with a green sunburst design.  Apparently, it was the first guitar for a lot of musicians; the nostalgia value has it now selling for about five-hundred dollars on eBay.  Our dad bought it at Lafayette Electronics on Albany Avenue.  You remember Lafayette?  It was that ugly, dark blue, plywood-covered building next to the Evergreen Inn.  Years later when they removed all that siding, it was revealed to be a beautiful FDR-era trolley restaurant that had once improbably been called the “world’s largest diner”.  After twenty-six years in Rhinebeck, they had moved it to Kingston in 1964, and, for reasons that still remain baffling, covered it in cheap blue plywood.  Today, it resides in some Wappinger’s Falls’ warehouse, after moving back across the Hudson River in 1994. 

              But back to Rick. 

              His early bands often practiced at our house, and the bass and drums would rattle Mom’s tchotchkes as she tried to watch television directly above their basement “studio”.  She was, and certainly remains, blissfully unaware that those bass vibrations were produced by future record producer and Fugs bass player Scott Petito, whom Rick played with for years. That early group soon graduated from our cellar to church halls and school proms.  Rick was able to convince our gullible Mom that he needed a better guitar and soon he appeared on stage with the chocolate brown Fender Stratocaster that he still plays today.

              We knew an aspiring drummer named Jimmy, who was, more importantly (at least to me), my girlfriend’s younger brother.  He and Rick began tossing around the idea of forming a band.  Jimmy enlisted Bob, a car mechanic/singer he knew, and they, in turn, recruited Kevin, a novice rhythm guitarist.  It was 1979, and the original James-Younger Band had been birthed... sort of. 

              I had always supported my brother’s musical endeavors, and since they couldn't use an accordion player, I immediately signed on as their manager.  From the start I had a lot of ideas of how this band should work.  When Rick was in the band Storm with Scott Burnett, Chris Costello, Frank Casciara and Wayne Bryant, they got a gig at Saugerties High School and I decided I would do lights for this particular performance.

              I had carefully watched the light shows that accompanied bands at The Hobbit, a weekend “coffee house” in the basement of the Fair Street Reformed Church; I had been particularly impressed by their strobe light.  Okay, it wasn’t really a strobe light.  It was a piece of cardboard, with a square hole cut out of it, spinning in front of a bright projector beam.  But the high school kids dancing to “Rollin’ and Tumblin’” loved it, and I thought, “I can do that!” 

              My favorite low-tech effect was a clear glass pie plate with a mixture of vegetable oil and food coloring projected onto a screen by an overhead projector.  Gently pressing the corners of a piece of clear plastic swirled the colors, and I could recreate all the wonders of psychedelia on a bed sheet hung behind the band.  

              Of course, it never occurred to me to carefully check the bottom of my pie plate, so, minutes before the show, I found myself looking at this giant pie plate’s company logo stretched out above the drums.  It was too late to change the name of the band to Pyrex so I stuck a piece of duct tape over the offending brand, and the show went on.  It was a temporary mood killer for me, but I have to credit that pie plate for my life-long attention to detail.

              Pyrex was still out of the running as a name, and I began to consider what this new band should be called.  I knew I wanted more than just a name. I was looking for an image: a total package of name, design and style - something that would specifically call attention and provide an immediate identity for the musicians.  Rick’s previous bands had names like Storm, Brothers and, no kidding, Fred’s Body.  Since southern rock was becoming a strong component of our early set lists, I wanted something that sounded tougher, more “bad-assed”.  The Outlaws was taken, but, taking a cue from the infamous Jesse James – Cole Younger outlaw gang, I came up with the name The James-Younger Band.

              That original group played out only once, a Friday night at Butch Guido’s Long John’s, an uptown Kingston club that routinely packed the house with the likes of Travelin’ Shoes and other dance bands.  We were not a particularly good fit and the people we didn’t chase out regarded us as more of a nuisance that was keeping the juke box off.  Before the sting of disappointment wore off completely, we regrouped to see what the band could do next.

              That’s when I ran into Guy Greco.

              Guy was the red-hot area guitarist, probably in his mind, and certainly in mine.  I had seen him with the jazz-influenced Crosswinds at Jack Mitchell’s Magoo’s on Albany Ave, and with his band Third Avenue at the uptown bar, The Vineyard.  Greco’s band was electrifying and so was Greco.  His voice was an R&B growl that rumbled up from somewhere north of his gut and south of Detroit. Those distinctive vocals added a coarse conversation to even the mildest melody, yet he still managed to adapt his sound seamlessly to each song.  His high-intensity performances would often end with Guy, precariously balanced on a wobbly bar table, playing guitar behind his head or with his teeth.  And, make no mistake, he owned the crowd.  Granted, this was a crowd who made nightly sport of trying to find their car keys, then their car, then their house.  But still, Guy owned them!

              I first became a fan of Guy’s at The Vineyard.

              The Vineyard Bar and Restaurant was on Fair Street, where Le Canard Enchaine is today.  The three Hewitt brothers, Mike, Steve and Paul, fulfilled every college boy’s dream when they bought that bar, and they soon changed the name from The Vineyard to Hewitt’s.  I had gone to Marist College with Steve, and his bar came together just as my first marriage was coming “untogether”.  That I probably spent a little too much time there may have been a factor, but they did have great entertainment.  The late George Montgomery (Remember the Daily Freeman column “Van Gogh’s Ear”?) hung out at Hewitt’s and arranged their “poetry nights”.  A former Andy Warhol Factory girl was a regular as was a female “punk poet” who performed disgusting free verse that for some reason often included references to pizza.  

              I once arranged for my friend Walter B. Gibson to host an evening of magic there. He had been a professional magician, a ghost writer for Harry Houdini and the writer for The Shadow’s pulp novels. (“Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?” The Shadow and Walter Gibson did. He wrote 282 of those novels.)  But most of all at Hewitt’s there had been the music and electrifying performances of Guy Greco.

              The James-Younger Band was holed up, looking at what to do next, when Guy stopped in at the Kingston Plaza bookstore I was managing.  We talked, got caught up, and I just happened to mention working on a band with my brother.  Guy happened to be between bands and surprised me by saying that he might be interested.  I was thrilled.  This was exactly what we needed!   Of course, that’s not to say I didn’t have concerns.   After all, Guy was coming from a level of experience that our current line up couldn't match if you counted all their hours of performing out put together.  If Guy decided to join The James-Younger Band,      I knew there would be dramatic changes.  I would not be disappointed.

              A week or so later, Guy and his friend, Mike McDonough, a vocalist and bass player, arrived at Bob’s basement to catch one of our rehearsals. They both agreed that the band showed promise so we arranged to move our next rehearsal from Bob’s basement in Saugerties to Mike’s place in Kingston. That night the jam went great! The James-Younger Band was now Rick, Guy, Mike, Bob and Jimmy. 

              Those dramatic changes that had worried me began right from the start. Guy and Mike felt that Bob wasn’t working out. He had a decent voice, but he wasn’t experienced enough to be consistent – not every song, not every night.  Now, with lead vocals from both Guy and Mike, we could afford to let him go.  Bob was out.  Jimmy had been his friend, he had originally brought him into the band, so we bravely elected Jimmy to deliver the bad news. 

              The new four-piece version felt right. We had two strong vocals, solid bass and drums, and the distinctive sound of twin lead guitars.  Although much more experienced, Guy was always incredibly supportive of Rick and his guitar playing, even changing “The Sultans of Swing” call-out line from “Check out ‘Guitar George!’” to “Check out ‘Guitar Rick!’” (I still find the original “George” jarring to my ear.)  It was all coming together even faster than I’d hoped. 

              We booked our first gig at Guys and Dolls, which is now The Anchor on Broadway.  It was a brutal set up. The long, narrow room, with the band playing to the opposite wall, left barely enough space for people to squeeze between that wall and our mic stands. The sound was too loud, unbalanced and distorted.  On the plus side, one very drunk older patron fell in love with the band. He claimed to own a club in Coxsackie, NY, and wanted to book us.  He handed me his number. I jammed it into my pocket and promptly forgot about it and pretty much everything else about Guys and Dolls. 

              We followed that fiasco with a benefit show at Tall Hall’s in Onteora. 

              One of my high school classmates had been arrested for selling drugs.  He had been turned in to the police by his former (and if memory serves me right, future) girlfriend, and he was facing serious jail time.  Some of his friends had organized a benefit concert at Tall Hall’s to raise money to help pay for his defense.  We were hungry to play out and made sure we were included on the bill.  The good news: as with most multi-band events, we didn't have to bring much equipment.  Guitars and drumsticks were pretty much the extent of heavy lifting.  The bad news: we had absolutely no control of the monitor placement.  As a result, the band had difficulty hearing the sound mix, and we were all over the place - speeding up, slowing down, riffs clashing rather than blending.  In the madness, it became clear that our drummer, who couldn't hear the rest of the band, was having a serious problem keeping tempo.  Maybe it was because he’d learned drums by wearing headphones and playing along with records.  Maybe he was intimidated by Guy (certainly understandable), or maybe it was just nerves.  Whatever it was, there was one hell of a blow-up after the gig.  It got ugly and I was told “Jimmy has to go!”

              Luckily, I was no longer going out with his sister. (A status that would later change...then change again...then...you get the picture.)  Still, Jimmy was a friend, and he had been there from the very beginning of the band.  But Mike and Guy were adamant. To go forward, we had to have the solid foundation of a drummer who could keep time – even when he couldn't hear the other musicians.  It was that same, awkward “Bob scenario” all over again.  Jimmy had bravely accepted the responsibility of letting Bob go. Now it was to be my turn.  

              At the next rehearsal, I steeled myself and called upon all my powers of compassion, and managed a terse “Jimmy, you’re out.”  Hey, at least we didn't have a replacement yet, so I didn't have to echo Brian Epstein’s “Pete, you’re out; Ringo’s in!”  Let’s just say that Jimmy didn't take it well. His parting shot, “Well, if I go, Rick’s going with me!” was met by a long silence.  Rick stared at his proverbial shoes.

              “Rick, you’re leaving too, right?”  A shrug.  A glance at the ceiling not to make eye contact.  A slammed door and we were now a three-piece band with no drummer.   

              That is until somehow we got the name Kevin Steuding.

              Now, Kevin was what is called a “professional” musician.  He was even in the Musician’s Union. I had never met anyone who was in the union.  I always thought it was just for The Johnny Napp Orchestra, Buster Ferraro or Ingo and the Continentals.  But Kevin was a gen-u-ine, card-carrying member; he even marched with the union band in the Memorial Day parade.  And now he was to become the new drummer for The James-Younger Band.

              I remembered our intoxicated fan from Guys and Dolls, and called the number he’d given me. Surprise!  Billy really did own The Clubhouse in Coxsackie.  I booked the band for an extended series of weekend gigs – Fridays and Saturdays.  I figured while the band was “finding” itself we might as well get paid. 

              Right off Thruway Exit 21B, The Clubhouse was a cavernous paneled bar which always felt like we were playing the after party at a low rent wedding.  We never made much money, but we did get more comfortable playing together, learned new music and worked out arrangements that played to our strengths.  We were becoming a band.  

              My primitive James-Younger logo design, a six-gun and holster on a “Reward” poster, was replaced by a new one created by my good friend and local artist, Joe Happeny.  It featured a galloping, masked horseman waving an electric guitar in place of a rifle.  Very cool!  With slight updates, that logo has lasted as our graphic identity for over twenty years, and I still think it looks great.

              It was also in Coxsackie that we found our first enthusiastic fan base. They loved us. They came night after night, week after week. They either ignored, or perhaps couldn't tell, when we had a bad night.  They found all Guy’s jokes hysterical, all our songs exciting, all our music dance-able.  Our first groupies discovered us, and we discovered that the back of our equipment vans could serve another purpose.  As the weeks progressed, our fans told us over and over again that we should be playing at a club called Brennan’s on the other side of Coxsackie.  “That’s where all the big Albany bands, like Northern Star, played.”  So I met with the club manager, who had heard good things about us, and we planned our move across town.

              It was just a simple story that made the front page of the Daily Freeman. Two patrons of a Greene County bar took their argument out into the parking lot where one beat the other to death with a baseball bat.

              You guessed it. The bar was Brennan’s, and it happened just days before The James-Younger Band was to play there for the first time.

              Brennan’s wasn't totally empty the night we played, but I guess all those vacant tables didn't impress the manager enough to give us another date.  With Coxsackie played out, we dragged ourselves back to Kingston.  

Next: Part 2 - Further On Down the Road