MEMOIR WITH TWIN GUITAR LEADS

The Life and Times of The James-Younger Band

   Part 5 - Back Where It All Begins

                            

                             The Woodstock Festival 2 was planned for August 1994 in Saugerties, NY.

                              As I looked over the list of performers, I couldn’t help but notice appearances by The Allman Brothers Band, Orleans, The Band, and Crosby, Stills and Nash.  It was clear that all our music was still popular.  Hell, it even sounded like a James-Younger set list.

              So, 15 years after that initial meeting in a Saugerties basement, Rick and I went to see Guy who was tending bar at Donnie Spada’s place on North Front Street.  I told Guy, “I want to put the band back together, and with no disrespect to all the other musicians we’ve played with, the only requirements I have are I manage, and you and Rick play guitar.  That’s it.  You’ve got total say over who else plays”.

              I guess it was my attempt to fix my karma while keeping my dogma on its leash.

              Guy agreed.  We brought in Rick Bergenson on bass guitar and vocals, who had recently opened for Styx at the Mid-Hudson Civic Center.  And we brought back Joe Martino on drums.  We also added Richie Sullivan on keyboards.

              I met with John Sangi who at that time owned The Flamingo Restaurant in Saugerties.  I had known John for a number of years, and we had played for him when he owned Joyous Lake in Woodstock.  I told him I was looking for a large venue to host The James-Younger Band’s 15^th Anniversary Reunion Concert.  He loved the idea.

              Then Richie Sullivan learned he had a conflict with the date, so we brought in Haney Salem for our keyboards.

              

              Meanwhile, I jumped back into the manager’s chair, and it was as if I’d never left. I placed ads in the Daily Freeman, just a one inch square at first, with our logo.  After a week or so, I added “Reunion Coming Soon” and then “Only 20 Days ‘Til”, “19 Days”, etc., building anticipation. I mailed out a few hundred invitations, sent free passes to area radio stations, and promo kits to newspapers.    

                   The Freeman Preview insert ran our logo on the cover and gave us an inside-the-front-page profile.

             

             On the day of the concert, the Poughkeepsie Journal ran a feature article on us.

Journalist George Fletcher ended the piece with “Some of us remember the group’s now infamous bumper sticker: ‘Reward – Catch the James-Younger Band’.  Bumper Stickers may fade with time, but it’s clear that the James-Younger Band hasn’t.”

              Richie became available again and we ended up with two keyboards on the gig.

              

              The show couldn’t have gone better.  More than 300 people filled The Flamingo.  We played all our favorite numbers.   There was Rick and Guy “cutting heads” again with alternating improvised guitar leads during The Allman Brothers’ Dreams, Guy’s powerful raw vocal styling on Van Morrison’s Brown Eyed Girl and Domino, and the infectious groove and leads on Gary Moore’s Still Got the Blues.  Bergensen’s voice was pitch perfect on songs like Melissa, Statesboro Blues and the newly added Joe Cocker cover of With A Little Help From My Friends. The band nailed the Talking Heads version of Al Greens’ Take Me To The River and then broke it open with a fun segue into the Peter Gunn Theme.  And of course we played a killer version of In Memory of Elizabeth Reed.

              It was a terrific night for me personally as well.  My date for the evening was Ruth who, I’m proud to say, is now my lovely wife.  And also attending, as my very special guest, was my now adult son, James, visiting from his home in California, who finally had the chance to see the band, and his Uncle Rick, play.   The James-Younger Band looked sharp and sounded tighter than ever.

              After the reunion, we played a few gigs, but the band was too big, the clubs too few, the personalities too diverse to hold it together.  The band devolved back to four pieces, this time with Guy and Rick on guitar, Joe Martino on drums and Richie Sullivan on keyboard. It was this incarnation of The James-Younger Band that was probably the most fun – for the musicians and for the audience.  They really enjoyed playing together and it showed.  Richie played all the keyboard parts with his right hand while his left covered the band’s bass guitar part.  That sounds limiting until you realize that Richie is such a suburb musician, it was like getting two solid players for the price of one. Yes, I’d put Richie Sullivan up against any keyboard player any day of the week and I’d put his left hand up against most bass players.  They played frequently at John Saveski’s Trapper’s Bar on North Front Street.  It wasn’t about the money; it was just to play out for friends and fans - people who really enjoyed the music we made.

             

                   “We came here to play” and we had one hell of a run.  We played the best clubs in the area. We put together a band that, after an eleven-year hiatus, could still fill a big room.  Even today, my James-Younger bumper sticker draws interest. When fans asked where the band would be appearing next I used to say they were touring Scandinavia, The Caribou-Tundra Tour.  But the timing hasn’t been right to bring it all back one more time.  Wives, children, grandchildren, jobs - they all conspire to demand our time.  Guy has been fortunate to have a successful second act playing with Exit 19 and now Buster.  Rick played in Reckless, then Roadhouse, and now the country band, 90 Proof.  We still regularly get together, share pizza and talk about wouldn’t it be nice...

                 The James-Younger Band’s siren song, though quieter now, persists. To paraphrase what George Fletcher said in that Poughkeepsie Journal piece so many years ago, the bumper stickers may fade, but the James-Younger Band?  

                   Well, you never know. You just never know.     

     

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

Part 4 - No One Left To Run With

              I expected 1982 to be the year where we could take the band to another level.  With Louie now on drums, I began to plan ways to play an extended geographic area, reach a broader fan base, and, of course, make more money.  The band sounded tight, the music was drawing crowds, and we had developed a real good reputation with the club owners.  What I couldn’t predict was Guy Greco.

              Guy began to go through a really rough patch in 1982.  He had some very serious personal and family issues that year, and he became much more difficult to deal with.  More drinking, more cursing, more attitude.  As it progressed I became fixated on how it (i.e. Guy) was keeping us from reaching that next level.  Finally, I made a decision, a decision I have always regretted; I fired him.  Today, I can’t imagine how I ever thought that was a good idea, not only musically, but more importantly, on a personal level.  I was Guy’s manager and friend.  I needed to have been more patient, and much more understanding.   Firing Guy Greco from The James-Younger Band wasn’t my biggest mistake (my second marriage earned that distinction), but it’s certainly up there.

              Mike McDonough and Guy Greco had played music together from the time they were kids so it came as no surprise that, as the James-Younger front men, their styles meshed perfectly.  I knew Mike would be a lot easier to manage, and that would relieve quite a bit of the stress in running the band.  After all, managing a band is difficult enough in the best of times.  You have to deal with loudly clashing egos and constantly shifting agendas.  “I have a job so I have to play less”, “I lost my job so I need to play more”, “I just saw this band, and we should add this material”; the frustration of trying to “herd cats” (really big cats!) just never ended.  Without Guy there would be one less opinionated voice, one less headache.

              All we needed was to find a lead guitarist...who could sing.

              And I figured Mike could front the band.  

              I figured wrong.

              Mike certainly had (and has) the talent to be a front man.  It was just that he couldn’t be The James-Younger front man. The rawness, the energy, even the raunchiness that made me crazy also made us what we were, what we were known for.  And Guy had a knack for picking music that seemed totally wrong for us and yet somehow we would make it work.  While our roots were in southern rock, we also did Tower of Power, Van Morrison, Orleans, Steely Dan, and of course there was always Guy pushing his love of funk and Motown.  Maybe I wasn’t completely comfortable with the image we had created, but with Mike wanting to sing Asia’s Heat of the Moment, it was clear we were moving at light speed away from what our fans expected.  I began to worry that we weren’t The James-Younger Band any more.  In fact, we were right in the middle of a severe identity crisis.

               We advertised for Guy’s replacement, and I thought our ad was perfectly clear: “Southern rock band looking for singer / lead guitarist. Should be familiar with music by the Allman Brothers, The Outlaws, and .38 Special.” I guess my mistake was not adding “All others need not apply!” because apparently musicians only see the words “looking for”.  We got a lot of responses.

              Most of them were awful. 

              The worst was a nice enough kid who serenaded us for an hour playing James Taylor on acoustic guitar.  Eventually, the auditions did bring us Buddy Polito.  Buddy was a very accomplished guitarist and singer who had toured with a number of different bands, including The Funky Huns and their legendary bass player, Harvey Brooks.  Jeff Jones joined us as we added keyboards for the first time.  A Berklee School of Music graduate, he had recently played with Onyx.

              Long-time friend, the remarkable Joe Martino, took over on drums.  Joe started playing guitar and drums at the age of five, when he would sit in with his older brother Anthony’s bands.  To this day, he can go months, maybe even years, without picking up drum sticks and then sit down behind a kit and make it sound like he’s been practicing daily. And sound? Hell, Joe could play on overturned garbage cans, and get them to sound like a custom kit. Excellent chops, killer instincts, and his flourishes open up the music so much you have to think, “Why didn’t it always sound like this?”  He’s easy going and never complains. He’s been an absolute joy to work with.

              The “new” configuration played out for a while, but then, with the steady erosion of clubs and venues to play, slowly, inevitably, the James-Younger Band faded away.

              Our band members formed new bands or started playing in various other groups.  I once ran into Guy who now owned a bar in Rosendale, and he said he had been approached by a band to play in his club.  Their bios mentioned that each had played in The James-Younger Band.  Guy just looked at me and shook his head, “You know, I didn’t know any of them!”

              Eleven years passed.    

              I decided it was time for a reunion.