I graduated from college, upriver from New York City, in June, 1965 and immediately hooked up with Auto Drive Away, a delivery system that allowed me to go coast to coast delivering someone else’s car; I just had to pay for the gas. Snowbirds would fly to California, and I could roll in later that week. This time, I got a brand-new Buick to take to Laguna Beach. My idea was to get a band going in L.A., but I barely got set up with friends near U.S.C. when I got a call from John Boylan (who later hit it big producing Boston, Rick Nelson, Linda Ronstadt, The Little River Band, and tracks for Urban Cowboy) urging me to fly back to New York to rejoin a college band project called The Egos; he said we’d been hired, based on a demo, to replace The Lovin’ Spoonful, who had just secured a recording contract and were vacating residency at The Night Owl Café in Greenwich Village to promote their first release, “Do You Believe in Magic?”
Courtesy William A. Smith archive
I dutifully exhausted my funds and bought a ticket. Boylan met me at La Guardia. “Like a Rolling Stone” and “Help” were in heavy rotation on New York radio. The future looked bright until I learned we didn’t really have a gig, just an audition. Not only did we not have a gig, but we also had just lost our drummer. His parents decided a college boy shouldn’t be playing in a rock n' roll band and ordered him back home. But it was an electric time on those streets, and we found our new drummer right away by walking up to Mike Equin in Washington Square just because he looked like he might be a drummer. We went down to the boiler room of the Albert Hotel to put our audition set together. Surprisingly, we nailed it and got the gig, playing six nights a week for a $42 payday every Saturday, plus all the B.L.T.s we could eat. Oh, and owner, Joe Marra, made us change our name; we settled on The Gingermen after the J.P. Dunleavy novel.
Courtesy William A. Smith archive
There were three bands on the bill: The Strangers, featuring Canadian songwriter Peter Gallway, The Blues Magoos, who later scored a hit with “We Ain’t Got Nothin’ Yet” and us. On the off nights, Steve Stills and Richie Havens stepped in as the third act. Stills did his act with his beloved 12-string that went missing one night. Understandably, he went berserk but the fates were kind. The guitar was located in its case under a pile of cartons in the back near the kitchen. We sat in with him that night.
Stephen Stills, 1972, AVRO's Top Pop, Courtesy https://wiki.beeldengeluid.nl/index.php/Afbeeldingen_in_de_Beeld_en_Geluidwiki
Richie Havens was his own story. He carried a black shiny soft shell guitar case and the way he played was like he learned on another planet. His right thumb seemed to do most of the work. Instead of fingering the frets, he used the thumb as a slide, making his chords by laying that thumb across the frets. I watched both these guys many nights with my mouth open. Both amazing, both bound for glory.
Richie Havens, 1973, Public Domain
I remember one afternoon, before the club opened, Felix Pappalardi, who later formed Mountain, spent hours helping The Strangers arrange Barbara Lewis’ "Hello Stranger" and a rock version of Aaron Copland’s “A Gift to Be Simple” from Appalachian Spring. The Night Owl was always busy with bands like The Blues Project rehearsing and people like Mike Bloomfield, Eric Anderson, John Hammond, and Fritz Richmond (from Jim Kweskin’s Jug Band) stopping by, sitting in, or just hanging out. I remember Cass Elliott walking up to me after a rehearsal. She said my playing was “bitchin'.” I did not know what that meant. At the time, Cass was months away from the release of The Mamas and the Papas debut album. Joe Marra had a good thing going; the place was a hub. There was a line around the block on Third Street every night.
Cass Elliot, 1972, Public Domain
The Blues Magoos came in from The Bronx by subway, mostly, but this one night, they had borrowed a 1960 Ford Falcon. When they offered me a ride home, I gratefully accepted. At $7.00 a night, saving a subway token was a good thing. I was staying with a college friend up in the West 80’s off Amsterdam Avenue. The problem was that, to make room for me, lead guitarist Peppy Thielheim, had to jump in the trunk. Peppy thought it was cool; he happily curled up next to the spare tire and we slammed the lid. The short trip was more of an adventure than we anticipated. As we headed up Columbus Avenue, the N.Y.P.D. pulled us over for a burned-out taillight. Even with Peppy in the trunk, the car was overloaded. There were four of us in the back seat. In 1965, rock n' rollers weren’t all that popular with law enforcement, so we braced ourselves. Everyone knows it’s not a good thing when a cop finds a body in the trunk. Years later, watching Up in Smoke, I had a Columbus Avenue flashback but, that August night in 1965, we got lucky. I think Ronnie Gilbert, the bass player, was driving. He had a Jew-fro that could block out the sun, but he summoned more diplomacy than I expected. Maybe growing up in the The Bronx served him well for sliding out of jams like this. Or maybe our deputy got a call. . .In any event, he let us roll without searching the overpopulated trunk or counting heads. When we freed Peppy from his tight quarters, he took one look at me and said, “We ain’t doin’ that again.”
The Blues Magoos, 1967, Public Domain
Within 18 months, The Blues Magoos, God bless ‘em, had a single and an album on the charts. It continues to sell, a cult favorite to this day. They saved me a subway token that night. It meant a lot back in that hungry summer of ’65.
By Labor Day, The Gingermen had returned to their studies while I went west to form The City Lights. Our first and only release was John Sebastian’s “On the Road.” Maybe that summer never really ended.