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Topic: What now-famous person did you once dismiss? |
Rick McDuffie
From:
Benson, North Carolina, USA
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Posted 15 Jul 2003 5:38 am |
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30 Years ago in Lumberton, NC, there was a little kid who used to hang around our band... always trying to steal a lick. We were nice to him, but no one took him very seriously. The last time I remember seeing him was in Greenville, NC and he was hanging around our band again, pumping me to show him a lick in "Sweet Home Alabama". I blew him off, I think.
His name was (and is) Tony King. He turned up later as Vince Gill's acoustic rhythm player/harmony singer, and now does the same in the Brooks and Dunn band.
What now-famous person did you dismiss once-upon-a-time (and live to regret it!)?
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Rick McDuffie
Tarheel Jazz Q-tet
Debbie Elam Band
www.tarheelmusic.com
[This message was edited by Rick McDuffie on 15 July 2003 at 06:40 AM.] |
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Al Marcus
From:
Cedar Springs,MI USA (deceased)
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Jeremy Steele
From:
Princeton, NJ USA
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Posted 15 Jul 2003 9:25 am
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| It's not steel related, but in the early 80s I was offered a tour manager slot for a little girl out of Detroit who had just finished her first record. I turned it down because I didn't think she had much talent and I wanted something steady. Her name was Madonna Ciccone (still don't think she has much talent). |
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Gene Jones
From:
Oklahoma City, OK USA, (deceased)
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Posted 15 Jul 2003 9:50 am
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In the middle 1960's the guy I was playing steel with made a career move to Nashville to be near the studios, and wanted to take me with him. I opted for the security of a day job instead.
The decision worked out well for both of us.
I completed my college degree and was eventually promoted to the top of my chosen career which has given me a great retirement....
......and the singer hired a steel player named John Hughey and both of them became famous......
It worked out well for all three of us! I wouldn't change a thing! 
www.genejones.com
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Eric West
From:
Portland, Oregon, USA, R.I.P.
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Posted 15 Jul 2003 11:33 am
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One I did "dismiss" was a young blond haired George Strait wannabee I met from a dairy town on the coast. Was down at Jubitz one time looking for a band to "rehearse" a "show" and had some little county fair "showcase" set up. Pffffttt....
Sounded OK when he sat in with the band I was in, but I just wasn't into the "rehearse for a showcase" deal. Seemed like a nice enough kid, but I just had seen too many of those deals...
Jerry Kilgore.
More power to 'em. His "handlers" would have flushed me for having bent pedal rods anyhow...
Success or failure is something you bring with you. It's not something that's ever very far away.
EJL |
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Roger Rettig
From:
Naples, FL
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Posted 15 Jul 2003 11:50 am
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When I was a spotty sixteen year-old, I was persuaded to take a 'bus from Muswell Hill to Crouch End in North London to attend a rehearsal - these guys had heard me play guitar in a West End music shop and had taken my number.
I staggered up the street from the 'bus stop with my Antoria amp and Gibson Les Paul Junior (great guitar, by the way!) and proceeded to play a bunch of Buddy Holly/Everly Brothers songs with the band. I SAID I'd return, but I never did - I couldn't face that arduous journey again - but maybe I should have done....
I still have an old address book with the singer's number in it (he was the best one there - he dominated the proceedings, and sang with vigour) - his name is mis-spelt as 'Rod Stuart'...
This was 1959, and the notion of a British singer ever amounting to anything was an absurd one - so near yet so far!
Twelve years later I saw him again in Crouch End - this time by pure chance; he was in a new Rolls Royce Silver Shadow....(visiting his mum, maybe?)
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Roger Rettig
[This message was edited by Roger Rettig on 15 July 2003 at 12:51 PM.] [This message was edited by Roger Rettig on 21 July 2003 at 06:27 AM.] |
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Frank Parish
From:
Nashville,Tn. USA
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Posted 15 Jul 2003 11:55 am
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| I owned The Turf on Broadway from 1984 until the tornado got us in 1998. It was about 90-91 or very close in there that we hired Kenny Chesney to do a single from 5-9 six days a week. Kenny worked for us for 1 1/2 years and was always on time although he never really drew a crowd to speak of. I had the band that followed him and most all of the nights he didn't have much when we came in. In all fairness to Kenny the 5-9 was the hardest shift to hold a crowd to and still is as it's the turnover from the working crowd that usually leaves around 6:30-7:00 to go home and eat. The evening crowd won't hit the street until around 8:30 or later and usually later. I never gave him a thought as to being a star. He was very quiet and withdrawn, not at all what I've heard from him in his interviews. You might watch for another of our former single acts that has recently signed on with Warner Brothers named Brad Wolf. Brad does what most of the new artists are doing now, a rock/country hard driving blend that pleases the young crowd and turns off the older ones. He just had his CD release party. He's from east Tennessee and didn't even know who Merle Haggard was when he came to work for us in 96! |
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kyle reid
From:
Butte,Mt.usa
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Posted 15 Jul 2003 12:59 pm
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| Chesney & Madonna Now there's a pair to draw to |
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Jim Phelps
From:
Mexico City, Mexico
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Posted 15 Jul 2003 1:20 pm
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Don't know if I'd say I "dismissed" him, but I will say I never expected him to become famous...
In 1979 the band I was playing steel and a little bit of regular guitar with went to Nashville a couple times, including Fanfair. The bandleader/singer/wannabee and his bassplayer brother knew some people there, one of them Faron Young who according to them had taken a liking to them and was trying to help give them a start in the biz. I don't know how much of that "helping" part is true or just wishful thinking, but they did know him well enough to get invited to Faron's private grand opening party for his Celebrity Ballroom (I think that's what it was called) club opening, and introduce me and the rest of the band to him. While we were there we also visited Lester Flatt at his apartment, this was only about 2 weeks before he died. Another of their friends was a rather quiet, shy kid, he ran around with us a little, hung out in the room and swapped some guitar licks, even came over to the studio and played some lead guitar tracks on our album which was probably never released. I thought he was an "OK" guitarplayer/singer, nothing "special" although he did have a kind of stage presence and I did like his mandolin playing. He seemed very well-liked by everyone around Nashville. Years later I quit (for a time) the music business and hadn't even kept up on who was popular....during that time I went into a record shop and walked past the Country section and my jaw hit the floor...there were all these hit records by that quiet, shy kid who I thought was "OK"........Marty Stuart. [This message was edited by Jim Phelps on 15 July 2003 at 02:38 PM.] |
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Bobby Lee
From:
Cloverdale, California, USA
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Posted 15 Jul 2003 1:37 pm
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The Judds. They used to come around and sing with my band "The Cowpokes" for free. They were friends with Suzy McKee, our singer. I thought it was really tacky getting a 13-year-old girl up on stage in the low-life bars we were playing. I really never expected them to hit the big time.
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 Bobby Lee - email: quasar@b0b.com - gigs - CDs, Open Hearts
Sierra Session 12 (E9), Williams 400X (Emaj9, D6), Sierra Olympic 12 (C6add9),
Sierra Laptop 8 (D13), Fender Stringmaster (E13, A6),
Roland Handsonic, Line 6 Variax |
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Jim Cohen
From:
Philadelphia, PA
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Posted 15 Jul 2003 6:08 pm
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| Quote: |
| I thought it was really tacky getting a 13-year-old girl up on stage in the low-life bars we were playing |
So, what's your point?  |
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John Steele (deceased)
From:
Renfrew, Ontario, Canada
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Posted 15 Jul 2003 6:11 pm
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The point, sadly, is: tacky sells.
-John |
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JB Arnold
From:
Longmont,Co,USA (deceased)
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Posted 15 Jul 2003 6:32 pm
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I was knocking around Long island in the early 70's doing a duo folksinger thing with another guy (also named John, oddly). We kept running up against this piano playing guy who even for his young age had an attitude that annoyed and a gang that thought he was the second coming of God. we beat him out for some gigs, mainly because he didn't go over well with the promoters of those local shows, and he had a penchant for high fees. Got in a lot of fights, as I recall, pretty big drinker. Always had a hot babe on his arm. He played mostly originals, a few covers, I thought his singing sounded way over the top affected-you know, trying to sound like a big gun. He DID have a flair for imitating just about anyone. Did a dead-on Paul McCartney, Mick Jagger, James Taylor-I thought he had something going there. But mostly he stuck to originals and many times didn't draw flies. Somehow, he got a record deal of some sort, and made arrangements to record it at a local High School gym and charge folks to come watch him make is "album". Typical of his attitude. I heard the event was awful, the sound hideous, and the album, when it came out was pretty bad. (I heard it more than once). He disappeared shortly thereafter-left town for the coast I heard.
The High School was Cold Spring Harbor High. The album was "Cold Spring Harbor". The singer was Billy Joel-he came back from the coast with a vengeance, eh? One of the songs he wrote while out of town was Piano Man.
By the way, the album is now extremely rare. He considers it a blight upon his career and has bought up most of the remaining copies. And to think that for some reason I had 2 of them at one point...
JB
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Fulawka D-10 9&5
Fessenden D-10 8&8
"All in all, looking back, I'd have to say the best advice anyone ever gave me was 'Hands Up, Don't Move!"
www.johnbarnold.com/pedalsteel
www.buddycage.net
http://www.nrpsmusic.com/index.html
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Ken Williams
From:
Arkansas
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Posted 15 Jul 2003 7:44 pm
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Back in the early 80's I played at a club in El Dorado, Arkansas. There was a guy that would come in on a regular basis. Sometimes when we were on break he would sit down banging on the piano and our piano player would have to tell him to get down. When I would speak to him at the bar he didn't make a lot of sense. I thought he was mentally challenged, if you know what I mean. We're talking kinda loony here. Years later I saw him several times on the Ralph Emery TV show on the Nashville network. I'm speaking of Jason D. Williams.
In the late 70's was playing at a club in Texarkana. Probably at least once or twice a week there were brothers that came in an sat in with our band. Scotty and Bubba Wray. Scotty played lead guitar and did most of the singing. Bubba played bass and sang harmony. In the mid 90's I asked a member of our old band if he knew Colin Ray, after hearing that he was from Texarkana. His reply was "yeah, you know him too", as he informed me that Colin Ray was one of the Wray brothers that used to come in and sit in. I was always more impressed with Scotty than Bubba. Goes to show what I know.
Ken |
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Jim Phelps
From:
Mexico City, Mexico
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Posted 15 Jul 2003 8:06 pm
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| Well hey, they told Elvis not to quit his day job too....what does anyone really know? |
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Jim Cohen
From:
Philadelphia, PA
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Posted 15 Jul 2003 8:59 pm
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JB:
I enjoyed reading your recollections of Billy Joel. I, too, grew up on Long Island, and while in High School, I used to write local music/band reviews for the school paper. I had identified a local band that was, I thought, awesome, and wrote raving reviews about them. They were called The Hassles, and they had an LP out with their big radio hit, "You've Got Me Hummin'" The piano player in the band was "Billy Joe Joel" who later resurfaced as "Billy Joel". I didn't exactly "write him off", but he didn't sing much with the band, and I don't recall any great piano fireworks, so I just didn't pay too much attention to him. There was a different guy who actually fronted the band, named "Little John" Dizek. He was the "cute" one with the long hair who attracted all the girls, and danced while he sang, etc. I also recall the bass player Howie Blauvelt. I recall reading the newspaper a year or two after "discovering" the group, and reading that Howie and maybe another band member or two were busted on the highway for marijuana possession. I remember I was "shocked". (Billy Joel was not one of them; that's probably what should have shocked me )
I think I also read, years later, that Blauvelt had passed on... but don't quote me on that.
That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
jc |
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Dyke Corson
From:
Fairmount, IL USA
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Posted 15 Jul 2003 9:38 pm
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| In the early 70s I was doing pickup gigs with a local country singer (who was also my boss at the music store I was working at) He was always trying to help young kids get their start in the music business. One night he brought out a 10 year old little girl to play the fiddle at a local Moose lodge gig. I did not dismiss her, but thought it was more of a novelty thing. She started playing more and more in the area, I sold her mom a pickup for her fiddle, she was getting pretty good. When she was a teenager she would sit in with our band at the Rose Bowl in Urbana. We did some more shows with her and she was starting to sing too. She was really starting to sound great, soon she had her own local bluegrass band called Union Station. Her name was Alison Krauss. |
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JB Arnold
From:
Longmont,Co,USA (deceased)
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Posted 16 Jul 2003 12:25 am
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Hi Jim
Oddly, I never heard of the Hassles until way later, after I left New York. (I think I'm the only one. Everyone else seems to remember them.) I'm assuming that was going on just before the period where I was aware of him. For a number of reasons, that time period is a bit of a blur. But I do know that the guy who set up the CSH thing was a so called "manager", and that the "album deal" pretty much involved Joel signing over rights to everything to this guy in perpetuity. Right after the album, he got new management, and they were trying to get him out of this deal, but the guy wouldn't budge, because he KNEW there was gonna be a paycheck someday. The new mgt sent him to california to lay low and stay out of sight while he perfected his writing skills-at a little hole in the wall in LA, which is where Piano Man took shape, along with many others. Back in New York, things weren't going so well. The courts would not overturn the agreement, and negotiations dragged on and on. Threats to expose the guy as a viper meant nothing to him-as he saw it, he spotted Joel first and got a signature. Just because he knew nothing about the business was irrelevant, and the fact that the contract was a complete ripoff didn't matter to him. He didn't care if he was a slime, as long as he was a rich one.
Utimately a compromise was reached, and Joel kept his songwriting and publishing rights, but gave away a quarter per side for every sale. That's a lot of dough, but pocket change when you think about Joel's catalog. Joel came back to New York to start his solo career with Columbia Records, and the rest as they say is history. His final composition in california was written the night they left for home-"Say Goodbye to Hollywood"-a nod to Phil Spector and the Wall of Sound.
JB
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Fulawka D-10 9&5
Fessenden D-10 8&8
"All in all, looking back, I'd have to say the best advice anyone ever gave me was 'Hands Up, Don't Move!"
www.johnbarnold.com/pedalsteel
www.buddycage.net
http://www.nrpsmusic.com/index.html
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Jason Odd
From:
Stawell, Victoria, Australia
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Posted 16 Jul 2003 3:28 am
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| That shy kid Marty hey?.. by '79 he would have been on the road with Lester for some seven years, so he would have been about 17 in 1979, that guy has been on the road and active since 12, scary! |
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Mark van Allen
From:
Watkinsville, Ga. USA
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Posted 16 Jul 2003 8:19 am
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I had been playing with John Berry for a few years when he bought into a little nightclub in Athens, GA. and scaled back to duo/trio playing there, and fewer full band dates. I was looking around for other opportunities and went to some jam sessions with a guy who had asked me to join his band. He had a great voice but I didn't think there was much going on musically there. I had also just found out my (first) wife Debbie had breast cancer, and decided to forgo joining Travis Tritt's band to start a band with her. Never regretted that, we had five great years of music together. Seems like Travis did ok too...
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C'mon by and visit!- www.markvanallen.com
My Bands: Sugarland Kate and the Retreads Kecia Garland Band Shane Bridges Band Dell Conner Blues Band
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Mark van Allen
From:
Watkinsville, Ga. USA
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Posted 16 Jul 2003 8:24 am
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| It seems like everyone who grew up around or rubbed shoulders with a "later famous person" has endless stories and anecdotes...(as with the Hassles stories in NYC). Madonna went to my high school in Michigan a year or two behind me, and strangely, no one from there seems to remember her at all. I guess she "blossommed" after leaving town! |
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George McLellan
From:
Duluth, MN USA
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Posted 16 Jul 2003 9:29 am
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Back in the late 50's there was a kid (a little older than me) that I remember. He wasn't what I'd call popular as far as a singer or guitar player in this area at the time. He showed up nationaly a few years later AKA Bob Dylan.
We also had a DJ that had a deep voice, and played at a few of the local beer joints on weekends. He went on to a succesful career in music and still lives in this area. Dave Dudley. (so does Marvin Rainwater)
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SUAS U' PHIOB
Geo
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Jackie Anderson
From:
Scarborough, ME
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Posted 16 Jul 2003 9:58 am
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Another "not a steel player" but in 1965 or 1966, the band for which I played bass in NYC dismissed a guy who showed up to audition with a big Gibson L-5 and didn't quite fit the gig -- no rock or country (or whatever we were playing) chops. I later realized it was Larry Corryel.
By the way, b0b, some folks think it's tacky to poke them cows! [This message was edited by Jack Anderson on 16 July 2003 at 08:20 PM.] |
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Jim Phelps
From:
Mexico City, Mexico
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Posted 16 Jul 2003 11:33 am
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| Hi Jason, yep we were all well aware of Marty's experience with Lester Flatt, and at the same time we were there he was playing guitar with Vassar Clements... by "shy, quiet kid" I was speaking mainly of his personal demeanor, he was always quiet and polite, maybe I should have said he seemed like a quiet, shy kid..... but in reality, definately well-experienced and self-condfident. Also, despite all his experience since such a young age, most would probably agree that transitioning from sideman to "Star" is still much more rare than remaining a sideman, even a very successful one.... By the way, these comments aren't meant to be in "defense" of anything....I didn't take your post as any kind of disagreement... just a few further notes on the subject of Marty. [This message was edited by Jim Phelps on 16 July 2003 at 12:39 PM.] |
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Bob Carlson
From:
Surprise AZ.
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Posted 17 Jul 2003 8:41 am
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A little more about Marty. I have a CD, "Once Upon A Time...Marty Stuart". His CD "Hillbilly Rock" came out in 1989 and this was released in 1992 when he was really hot. The CD is Lester Flatts band but Marty sings, plays mandolin and does some real fine guitar flat pickin. The linner notes was written by Lance LeRoy and he states Jesse McReynolds Introduced a 12 year old Marty to Lester in his presence. Marty promptly "burned" "Rawhide" on the mandolin to the absolute astonishment of Lester and himself.
Roland White was playing mandolin for Lester so Marty had to play guitar. Three months later Roland went back to calif where his brother Clarence played guitar.
The rest is history. Marty went on to the big time and Parsons and White went on to invent the B String Bender.
The Tele Marty plays is the one Clarence was playing when he got hit and killed while loading his gear after a gig. There is more I could say about that Tele but I better quit.
Bob |
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