MEMOIR WITH TWIN GUITAR LEADS

The Life and Times of The James - Younger Band

Part 3 - Flirtin’ With Disaster

               I still see Guy Greco, although it’s usually over a pizza and not a guitar, and I consider him a close friend.  I’ve loved the way Guy plays guitar from that first time I saw his band at The Vineyard to the last James-Younger set he played.  I’ve seen him perform as much as anyone has, yet I’ve never tired of watching his fingers dance over those frets.  I never saw him “mail in” a performance... ever!   His favorite saying, and the title of one of his songs, is “We came here to play.” Guy Greco comes to play, and he always plays with passion.     

              That’s not to say Guy was always easy.

              Over the years there were many times when I wondered, “What the hell was I thinking?”  Those riveting performances at Magoo’s and The Vineyard were Guy just being Guy, and they were usually fueled by alcohol. 

               From the very beginning when we first put The James-Younger Band together I had envisioned a band that would always display a certain level of professionalism.  I’m not talking collarless jackets and bowl-shaped haircuts, but I wanted us to be pros.  That’s where Guy was a challenge.  We had somewhat different approaches to what being professional meant.  He would not only consume a fair amount of scotch while playing, but he would order his drinks from the stage, over the mic, between songs...even between verses.  

              I hated that. 

Of course what I failed to understand was just how eager our fans were to buy him those drinks.  It was part of that connection he had with the audience, his audience. 

There was this one time when we were playing The Watering Troff in Woodstock and our sound man, Pat McDonough, had just turned Guy onto tequila.  Guy had wanted to know what tequila was made from, and Pat had said wood.  He explained that they squeezed the bark of trees and “made tequila from what oozes out”.  We’re playing in Woodstock and Guy’s ordering “more wood” from the stage, and Pat keeps bringing him shots of tequila.  By the end of the first set, Guy, and the rest of the band, is sweating up a storm.  Soaked through and through Guy says to Pat. “I’m dying. It’s broiling up there.” 

Pat just smiles and tells him that’s because every time he asked for “more wood” a very accommodating bar employee would throw another log onto the wood stove until it was a roaring fire.  Guy went back to ordering scotch from the stage after that.  

I also had an issue with Guy’s language on stage. True, it wasn’t as if we were playing church suppers, but it bothered me when he would say “fuck this” and “fuck that” over the microphone, sort of tarnishing that gold frame I was trying to hang around the band.  When we played Marist College I was told by the organizers of the show specifically to watch our language and not to encourage drinking.  The thing is both Guy and I had attended Marist and the school we went to was pretty rowdy and wild, with unchecked drinking all over campus.  But the times had changed, and more importantly Marist had worked hard to shed the “party” school reputation.  Soon Guy is telling everyone to “fuckin’ get drunk and party”.  Suffice to say they were not very happy with us.

When we played the 1981 Ulster County Fair, we had an early evening performance and there were a lot of families with a lot of young kids in the audience. I said to Guy just before he went on stage, “Please! Watch what you say.” The band took the stage. Guy took hold of the microphone and said, “I know I promised our manager to watch my language, but (he paused dramatically and looked around) we came here to fuckin’ play!”

Granted, he was all apologies afterward although somehow he managed to place some of the blame on me.   He said my telling him not to curse just made him want to curse more.  I never did that again.

Then there were all those nights when coming to play meant playing and playing and playing guitar leads until we emptied the place.  And all it took was one blind drunk in the back yelling “Greco!” and we would play still another set.  This one night at The Peeping Hollow Inn in Staatsburg there was no more of an audience than if they had just unlocked the door and turned on the lights.  After maybe a set and a half, the owner came up to me.  I assumed he was going to complain that we hadn’t drawn a crowd.  Instead he said, “Look I’m really sorry that there’s no one here.”   

This was new.  He was apologizing to me.  He added, “You can go home now, and I’ll still pay you half.”  

I went back and told the band we could leave.  Guy shook his head. “No. We came here to play!”  And we played, and played, four sets, four long sets without adding a single customer.  Worse, when the owner gave us the half pay he had promised us, the band was pissed!  

While loading up the equipment, they decided to get even by knocking all the bluestone off the top of his porch railing. 

There was another night at the Mount Pleasant Lodge when Guy got so drunk (in fairness, it was his birthday) that he actually fell down while playing a guitar lead.  Of course, he didn’t miss a note.  He just kept right on playing guitar, lying flat on his back on the floor.

              Nope. Guy wasn’t always easy.

              My brother Rick is the complete opposite of Guy. 

              Rick doesn’t say much, never has.  From day one, I’ll bet 90 percent of our audiences have never even heard his voice.  His guitar speaks for him.  Rick is the most prepared musician I have ever encountered.  His performances are controlled, his playing always on the money.  Even at rehearsal, as soon as he arrives, he’s ready to go to work.  He always knows his part cold and usually he knows the other players’ parts as well. 

              Rick was recently playing with a group, and I happened to sit in on a rehearsal.  As they were hammering out a song, the other guitarist said to Rick, “I don’t think it goes that way.” 

              I immediately flashed on that scene in Butch Cassidy when the gambler accused Sundance of cheating at cards. “I didn’t know you were the Sundance Kid when I said you were cheating, “said the gambler. “If I draw on you, you'll kill me.” 

              To his credit Rick didn’t kill him.  He went to the practice tape and hit “Play”.  When the part in question was over, all the other players just nodded, “Yep, Rick’s right.”  

              Perhaps I’m biased, (okay, of course I’m biased) but I’d be hard pressed to come up with a time when he wasn’t right.  

              I love listening to my brother play guitar, and I love watching him play even more, not that he gives us much to see.  His movement is so economical, sometimes even I have to look carefully because I can’t believe all that sound is coming from his fingers.  We were playing at the Rondout Marina once, and during this killer guitar solo, a girl walked up to him and she actually started a conversation with him.  She had no idea all that guitar music was coming from him.  I had to go up and remind her: “He’s a little busy right now.” 

              Playing with Guy really has expanded Rick’s playing.  There’s a musical expression “cutting heads” where two musicians try to outdo one another with challenging guitar leads.  That’s been a mainstay of our music and one of my favorite experiences is watching Guy and Rick onstage alternating between increasingly complicated guitar riffs.  It’s magic!  

              In addition to his musical talents and innate sense of what works for the audience, Rick was always the sobering, objective voice in the band, and God knows we needed that.  Yes, managing The James-Younger Band was all the more exciting and satisfying especially because my little brother was on one of those twin guitars.

              The James-Younger Band certainly had its share of drummers.

              We lost our first after only a few gigs.  (Was it only 3?)

              Kevin Steuding lasted just a while longer.  Now, I’m not saying Kevin wasn’t talented.  He played drums, guitar, flute, and probably a number of other instruments I never knew about and he did backing vocals.  But Kevin sometimes had that deer-in-the- headlights look. 

              There was this time when we were playing at Jimmy Curran and Mike Briglia’s Currigula’s Nightclub in Eddyville (Get it? “Curran” plus “Briglia” equals “Cur-riglula”?) for a Hudson Valley Television show.   HVTV  was the local access station operating out of the Kingston Cablevision (now Time Warner) building in Port Ewen.   They had this program where Rosemary Hutton, a local radio personality, appeared at different businesses and would interview the owner and staff, plug the location, and get some testimonials from customers.  They often used our band to fill out the show.  So they’re taping at Currigula’s and Guy announced that the next song would be The Marshall Tucker Band’s “Can’t You See”.  Great song, beautiful flute introduction.  

              This brings us back to Kevin who played that flute part.  I saw Kevin’s face turn to ashen panic when he heard Guy’s announcement, and I knew then that Kevin had forgotten his flute.  Now, the show was not being aired worldwide or anything, but we were being taped to be broadcast locally.  Kevin, now in full panic mode, was furiously trying to get Mike’s attention. Finally, Mike turned around, and while I couldn’t see what Kevin told him, I did see Mike clearly say to Guy, “Kevin forgot his flute!” We scrambled and they called a different song. 

              We worked with HVTV on a number of other projects.  It was run by a great group of people: Richard Heppner, George Sullivan, Ken Schoen, Dick Gerendazi and Josephine Todaro.  We were doing another Rosemary Hutton show at the Ulster House of Sleep, when she introduced us with that elegant English accent of hers, “I wish I could throw away all my alarm clocks and have The James-Younger Band play beneath my window, and they could wake me up each morning.” 

              Let’s pause for a moment and think about that.  She wanted to wake up to the sound of shrieking guitars, thundering drums and screaming lyrics... hmmm?

              But back to Kevin.

              A few months after the Currigula’s / flute incident, we were setting up our equipment for the Coleman Prom when Kevin suddenly realized he had forgotten his drums. Yes, our drummer had forgotten his drums.  He had to rush back home to get them.

              Remember the Robin Hood / Kevin-not-getting-the-memo reference?  Exactly!

              Kevin’s undoing came with the arrival of Louie Salvino.

              Kevin tended to recede, at least visually, on stage. Louie, on the other hand, was Guy Greco with drumsticks.  His playing demanded that all eyes be on him. He had known Mike and Guy for years, and they had played together in Crosswinds.  So when Louie Salvino came home for summer break from college, he became the next drummer for The James-Younger Band.

              Louie was a perfect fit; with him behind the drum kit the band always looked like they were having fun, and the musical chemistry was obvious.  He also added to our tradition of pushing our audience’s patience to the breaking point.  If you wanted to take your girlfriend out dancing we were not the band for you.  One of our signature songs, and my personal favorite, was the Allman Brothers Band’s “In Memory of Elizabeth Reed”.  On their Allman Brother’s Live at the Fillmore East album, the song comes in at 13 minutes.  I have another Allman live version from 1971, and it runs a little over 20 minutes.  The James-Younger Band did a long version.  Did I mention it’s an instrumental? 

              Our arrangement already featured really long Guy / Rick guitar solos (yes, solos, as in multiple solos).  Now with Louie, we added a really long drum solo.  I‘m talking one of those solos where the rest of the band actually walks off the stage – gets a drink, or goes to the bathroom.  It was downright painful to watch the couples who attempted to dance to it.  It always reminded me of that movie They Shoot Horses Don’t They?  where Jane Fonda dances on screen for two hours in a 1930’s dance marathon.  Like the movie, one-by-one, our fans gave up and then stumbled back to their tables, until the only one left on the floor was “that” guy.  You know, the guy who always danced by himself, beer bottle in hand, wallet chained to his belt.  He grooved to it all with his head in brain damage proximity to one of our speaker columns. Now that I think of it, “that” guy was the quintessential James-Younger fan.

              Louie played all summer then went back to college.  At first he’d come back on weekends to play, but eventually that became too much.  To replace him, we brought in Wayne Bryant, a good friend and a solid drummer.  Years earlier, he had played with Rick in the band Storm.  Wayne had one of those big, twin-bass-drum kits. We did a show with him at the Kingston VFW for WKNY Toys for Tots, and I just remember seeing him sitting up on the drum riser dwarfed by all those drums and cymbals. All I could think of was what a pain it must be to have to set up and break down all that equipment.    

              Wayne’s problem was that he was never able to escape from Louie’s shadow.  Whenever Louie was home from college, it was clear that, at least in Guy’s mind, Louie was still our drummer. Once school was out for the summer, Louie was back behind the drum kit, and Wayne, and all those drums, were gone.

Next: Part 4 - No One Left To Run With