In the early 1960’s, before interstate highways were built, Robert Williams, my grandad and best friend, and I often motored U.S. Route Forty-Two north to visit his Aunt Millie Bookman in Cleveland. The only time that we came close to meeting our maker (and it was very close), I missed reporting a stop sign as we intersected Ohio Route Thirty-Seven in Delaware. A gasoline tanker bounced to a sudden stop to avoid broadsiding us; close, but no smoke.
During our visits to Northeast Ohio, we included a stop in Twinsburg Heights, a rural community where Uncle Al Turner, my grandad’s brother-in-law, was raising his children, Robert, Fannie, Gail and Carol Ann, following his wife, Willie Mae’s death. On the way home from one trip, Uncle Al put a field drum and a jazz guitar into the Plymouth for my brother and I to play, since his kids didn’t seem to have musical interests.
These instruments became among the first in the Howard Brother’s collection, to be joined by an upright piano, a bass drum, xylophone, bugle and a host of musical noise making toys. The bulk of the instruments came from the attic of Cornetta Palmer, a church woman whose husband had been a drummer during the jazz age of the 1920’s and ‘30’s.
The bugle was a gift from my neighbor and big brother, Billy Leftwich. He used to blow bugle calls from his porch during the summer of 1960 and that sound burned so deep that I eventually begged Billy for the bugle and with his guidance, I taught myself the calls.
I got my first formal lessons from our pastor’s wife, Mary Liggins, who taught Gerald and I introductory piano that summer of 1960. It took a year to get through Teaching Little Fingers To Play and while we were learning, our mother was teaching her fingers too. We had just started book two when Mom ceased our lessons, apparently frustrated that our exploding passion for little league baseball was destroying her investment in our training.
But my brothers and I kept the ear shattering racket going in the basement, playing along with her tape recorder, listening to WVKO Radio, singing, learning lyrics and harmony, absorbing everything musical. I began to be noticed in school music classes; I raised my hand when my teacher, Shirley Cox, asked, “Whose got that deep voice out there?”
Ray Starrett began instructing instrumental music for Plain City Schools in the fall of 1960 and I was eager to be his fifth grade trumpet student at aged ten. He was confident enough in my progress by aged twelve to allow me to switch from trumpet to the baritone horn; an instrument that I heard solo on a boogie piece called Time Out For A Jam Session. I had to switch back to trumpet in the eighth grade because he needed a strong, first chair, lead trumpeter for the Plain City Junior High School Band. That year I wrote my first chart and was featured in the spring concert on my arrangement of the hit Alley Cat.
When I went to Jonathan Alder High School in the fall of 1964, a lack of seniority forced me to sit with the third trumpets for the football and concert season. But early in my sophomore year, I was apprenticing with the upperclassmen in the lead section, playing selections from Broadway shows like South Pacific, overtures to operas, concert band repertoire, dixieland medleys and in the trio of trumpets on Bugler’s Holiday.
The kids in our Frazier Estates neighborhood had formed a band by 1965 and I was leading with my trumpet and voice. The first group, The Soul Internationals, included my brother Gerald on guitar, Doug Yoder on bass, Richard Madry on tenor saxophone, Chuck and Debbie Davidson on drums and piano. We rehearsed James Brown songs, The Four Tops and Temptations, Otis Redding, etc. Uncle Bill Chapman, an announcer on WVKO, used his connections to get us mentions on the radio and appearances at teen dances with the Belmont Youth Club.
In the early summer of 1967, I was appearing on stage at Columbus’ Veteran’s Memorial Auditorium as a screaming teen in Bye, Bye Birdie, with Gene “Bat Masterson” Barry, singer Arlene Fontana, comedian Totie Fields and Ted “Lurch” Cassidy. Fellow teen Andy Robinson and I were the biggest hams of the entire company, singing and playing the Righteous Brothers at every party or rehearsal break. I cherished that entrance into show business; becoming an adopted son to Totie Fields and George Johnson, her husband/music director. She died two summers later, losing her inspiring bout with cancer.
I became a paid, professional musician, July 21, 1967, seven weeks before my seventeenth birthday.
Monday, April 30, 2007
Sunday, April 22, 2007
Arnett, 1968, The Dave Workman Blues Band, Capital University
In the late spring of 1968, less than a year after my professional beginnings, I was about to start gigging with my third professional group, the Dave Workman Blues Band. Hank Fisher, leader of the Metronomes, called me to tell me about a new band that was rehearsing and he wanted me to be a part of the horn section.
Hank and I arrived on the westside of Columbus one after school, at the home of organist Tom Collins and the rehearsal assembled a very talented group of young players. Tom was a senior in high school, but he was a devotee of jazz organist Jimmy Smith. The solid drummer was Andy Smith, who was an alumni of the Grayps, an Arlington rock band. Pat Geany was bassist with the psychedelic sensations, The Four O’Clock Balloon. The horn line was made up of Hank on alto sax and vocals, Neil Gadous, tenor sax, Vaughn Weister, trombone and me on trumpet. A smokin’ rhythm section and four horns.
The guitarist and namesake of the new group was Dave Workman, a worshiper of B.B., Albert and Freddie King. Dave, a Worthington, Ohio brat, had become a star in the mid-1960s when the British Invasion hit and his band, The Dantes, started carrying the early Rolling Stones flag and they had a local hit, Can’t get Enough of Your Love. Dave could play his wicked sounding guitar by stealing everything he could from the King boys.
We started covering the best blues songs, The Laundromat Blues, Crosscut Saw, Sweet Sixteen, Hideaway, Born Under a Bad Sign and occasionally we’d stray into jazz territory with themes like Bluesette and songs from the new Blood, Sweat and Tears group, formed by Al Kooper or Chicago Transit Authority. James Brown got covered (Lickin’ Stick) and within two weeks of rehearsal, we had booked an appearance at Valley Dale, other halls and clubs around the Capitol City.
By the summer a new club, Mr. Frankie's, opened just east of Nelson Road on East Main Street and the Workman Blues Band made a name within weeks of packing in hippies and serious musc fans there. We even got an invitation to go north to Chipawa Lake in Lodi, Ohio, to be a part of a weekend rock festival and we shared the stage with the Blues Magoos.
During a July week at Mr. Frankie’s, I got playful on stage, as Dave was taking a guitar solo, and I put a piece of ice on the back of his neck. He reacted by cursing, bashing me in the face with the neck of his guitar and stomping off stage. I finished singing the song and leaped off stage to continue the battle off stage, but I was restrained from beating on Dave by Hank. I finished the week, but was replaced the next week by trumpeter Lee Savory.
I claim to be the first person fired from the Dave Workman Blues Band. The band continued for at least two decades around the Columbus area, bringing in legendary musicians like Willie Pooch, Bili Turner, Vince Andrews, Steve Burkey and others. Dave still makes music in San Francisco and his blues band was the high point of an era that finished the late 1960s.
I started Capital University, September 6, 1968, on my eighteenth birthday. My first classes were in the Conservatory of Music and, despite not having private lessons, I had pretty good chops in piano, trumpet and music theory. What was missing was my ability to sight read music, a definite advantage when in the competition of a noted music school.
I had plans of becoming a music educator and one day having a great high school marching band. However, no one informed me that the university didn’t have a marching band for their football team’s games. So I shifted my focus from education to a performance major.
But performing in a classical tradition was never in my plans; I wanted to play everything but the music of the masters. My masters became Ray Charles, Frank Zappa, John Mayall, the Beatles and within a short time, I had organized a new group of players from the ranks of my fellow students. Fess Parker brought his bass from Toledo, Steve Trout, played guitar, Steve Dodge was an excellent drummer and I recruited my younger brother, Gerald, who was still at Jonathan Alder High School, to play guitar with us in the campus snack bar.
David Papke and Ron Coats were upper classmen at Capital who had a Simon and Garfunkle thing going, which I wasn’t all that keen on. But by the spring of 1969 came the song Bridge Over Troubled Water and my group, Cash McCall and his Bumswipe Blues Band Boys, were backing them at campus assemblies and antiwar moratoriums.
But at a campus coffee house, I was to soon start jammin’ with my new best friend, guitarist Don Chakeres.
Hank and I arrived on the westside of Columbus one after school, at the home of organist Tom Collins and the rehearsal assembled a very talented group of young players. Tom was a senior in high school, but he was a devotee of jazz organist Jimmy Smith. The solid drummer was Andy Smith, who was an alumni of the Grayps, an Arlington rock band. Pat Geany was bassist with the psychedelic sensations, The Four O’Clock Balloon. The horn line was made up of Hank on alto sax and vocals, Neil Gadous, tenor sax, Vaughn Weister, trombone and me on trumpet. A smokin’ rhythm section and four horns.
The guitarist and namesake of the new group was Dave Workman, a worshiper of B.B., Albert and Freddie King. Dave, a Worthington, Ohio brat, had become a star in the mid-1960s when the British Invasion hit and his band, The Dantes, started carrying the early Rolling Stones flag and they had a local hit, Can’t get Enough of Your Love. Dave could play his wicked sounding guitar by stealing everything he could from the King boys.
We started covering the best blues songs, The Laundromat Blues, Crosscut Saw, Sweet Sixteen, Hideaway, Born Under a Bad Sign and occasionally we’d stray into jazz territory with themes like Bluesette and songs from the new Blood, Sweat and Tears group, formed by Al Kooper or Chicago Transit Authority. James Brown got covered (Lickin’ Stick) and within two weeks of rehearsal, we had booked an appearance at Valley Dale, other halls and clubs around the Capitol City.
By the summer a new club, Mr. Frankie's, opened just east of Nelson Road on East Main Street and the Workman Blues Band made a name within weeks of packing in hippies and serious musc fans there. We even got an invitation to go north to Chipawa Lake in Lodi, Ohio, to be a part of a weekend rock festival and we shared the stage with the Blues Magoos.
During a July week at Mr. Frankie’s, I got playful on stage, as Dave was taking a guitar solo, and I put a piece of ice on the back of his neck. He reacted by cursing, bashing me in the face with the neck of his guitar and stomping off stage. I finished singing the song and leaped off stage to continue the battle off stage, but I was restrained from beating on Dave by Hank. I finished the week, but was replaced the next week by trumpeter Lee Savory.
I claim to be the first person fired from the Dave Workman Blues Band. The band continued for at least two decades around the Columbus area, bringing in legendary musicians like Willie Pooch, Bili Turner, Vince Andrews, Steve Burkey and others. Dave still makes music in San Francisco and his blues band was the high point of an era that finished the late 1960s.
I started Capital University, September 6, 1968, on my eighteenth birthday. My first classes were in the Conservatory of Music and, despite not having private lessons, I had pretty good chops in piano, trumpet and music theory. What was missing was my ability to sight read music, a definite advantage when in the competition of a noted music school.
I had plans of becoming a music educator and one day having a great high school marching band. However, no one informed me that the university didn’t have a marching band for their football team’s games. So I shifted my focus from education to a performance major.
But performing in a classical tradition was never in my plans; I wanted to play everything but the music of the masters. My masters became Ray Charles, Frank Zappa, John Mayall, the Beatles and within a short time, I had organized a new group of players from the ranks of my fellow students. Fess Parker brought his bass from Toledo, Steve Trout, played guitar, Steve Dodge was an excellent drummer and I recruited my younger brother, Gerald, who was still at Jonathan Alder High School, to play guitar with us in the campus snack bar.
David Papke and Ron Coats were upper classmen at Capital who had a Simon and Garfunkle thing going, which I wasn’t all that keen on. But by the spring of 1969 came the song Bridge Over Troubled Water and my group, Cash McCall and his Bumswipe Blues Band Boys, were backing them at campus assemblies and antiwar moratoriums.
But at a campus coffee house, I was to soon start jammin’ with my new best friend, guitarist Don Chakeres.
Arnett, Vadicans, Metronomes, 1967
I became a music professional in July, 1967, earning fifteen dollars a night with the Vadicans Band from London, Ohio, twenty-five miles from my home near Plain City. It’s hard to believe that my father, George Howard, allowed me, a sixteen year old, soon-to-be senior at Jonathan Alder High School, to spend the summer wandering the state with a band. He likely trusted Richard Peterson, leader of the Vadicans and a fellow worker with my father at Westinghouse Appliance Plant on Columbus’ Far Westside.
I remember weekends-for-pay in Washington Courthouse, Yellow Springs, Springfield, Chillicothe, Mansfield, Zanesville, East, West and South Columbus. In the fall, when I turned seventeen and school started, I would play in the Jonathan Alder High School Marching Band on Football Friday Nights and Saturdays with the Vadicans at chitterling joints like the Sportsman’s Club on Parson’s Avenue. I saw all of the things that my father probably wished that I didn’t see; dives, bar glasses flying at the stage, a pistol sliding across a tile floor, fights in parking lots that would empty a club in seconds. I probably saw hookers and dope fiends, never in the act, though.
Our band was sensational. Richard was the boss-businessman, drummer and chauffeur who drove the Corvair Van full of instruments. Link (Robert Davis) was the music director and owner of a first generation Farfisa organ, which doubled as bass instrument, since Phil Lowery, the bass guitarist was serving in Viet Nam.
Elden Peterson and Don “Lil’ Moe” Wilson played guitars and were lead voices. Harold McNeil played tenor sax and I would say that we were a horn team, but Harold was so devilish and mean to me. He had a sweet tenor voice and would sing many of the whispering ballads, like At Last.
Gary Lee Thomas was a unique percussionist/dancer. His main percussion instrument were maracas and he would shake the light, simple instrument with high style, snake his hips and leap into the James Brown-inspired splits. He would be the frosting to our show; classic rhythm and blues hits, a range of harmonic voices, two horns and a pretty percussionist that would shake his moneymaker and make the women go crazy.
One Saturday night during the fall of my senior year at Alder, a blue-eyed, soul band from West Jefferson, the Metronomes, played the Homecoming Dance in our gym. The leader, Hank Fisher, was a white West Virginian, but with the soul of a Black bluesman. He worshiped the Vadicans and when he spotted me in the audience with my horn, he called me up onstage and my life changed forever.
Hanks started calling me to appear with the Metronomes and some of their gigs and my favorite was Sunday afternoons at Valley Dale ballroom, where Jerry Razor, a WLW-C TV personality would host The Battle of the Bands. Four bands would be be invited to bring their fans out for the competition that would award a best band $100.00. There were a number of bands with growing popularity; The Grayps, The Fifth Order, The Rebounds, The Electras, The Four O’Clock Balloon, The Muth Brothers.
The band judging was more a popularity contest; the band with the loudest audience response was usually the band with the most friends who paid their dollar for admission. But it was a time to drive to the Big City with my Plain City friends and hang with other teens. Most of the other band were rock and rollers, but the Metronomes were a blue-eyed, southern soul band, performing the hits of James Brown, Booker T. and Otis Redding. I was such a hardcore soul music junkie that when someone offered me two Jimi Hendrix tickets at the face value of nine dollars, I nearly cursed him, “I don’t wanna’ see no damn psychedelic music. I wanna’ see James!” I regret my ignorance at the time.
I had another opportunity to see Jimi Hendrix in May, 1970, however, two days before the May 25th concert, it was announced that his concert was canceled and the tickets were refunded. On September 18, 1970, Hendrix was found dead in a London, England hotel room.
I remember weekends-for-pay in Washington Courthouse, Yellow Springs, Springfield, Chillicothe, Mansfield, Zanesville, East, West and South Columbus. In the fall, when I turned seventeen and school started, I would play in the Jonathan Alder High School Marching Band on Football Friday Nights and Saturdays with the Vadicans at chitterling joints like the Sportsman’s Club on Parson’s Avenue. I saw all of the things that my father probably wished that I didn’t see; dives, bar glasses flying at the stage, a pistol sliding across a tile floor, fights in parking lots that would empty a club in seconds. I probably saw hookers and dope fiends, never in the act, though.
Our band was sensational. Richard was the boss-businessman, drummer and chauffeur who drove the Corvair Van full of instruments. Link (Robert Davis) was the music director and owner of a first generation Farfisa organ, which doubled as bass instrument, since Phil Lowery, the bass guitarist was serving in Viet Nam.
Elden Peterson and Don “Lil’ Moe” Wilson played guitars and were lead voices. Harold McNeil played tenor sax and I would say that we were a horn team, but Harold was so devilish and mean to me. He had a sweet tenor voice and would sing many of the whispering ballads, like At Last.
Gary Lee Thomas was a unique percussionist/dancer. His main percussion instrument were maracas and he would shake the light, simple instrument with high style, snake his hips and leap into the James Brown-inspired splits. He would be the frosting to our show; classic rhythm and blues hits, a range of harmonic voices, two horns and a pretty percussionist that would shake his moneymaker and make the women go crazy.
One Saturday night during the fall of my senior year at Alder, a blue-eyed, soul band from West Jefferson, the Metronomes, played the Homecoming Dance in our gym. The leader, Hank Fisher, was a white West Virginian, but with the soul of a Black bluesman. He worshiped the Vadicans and when he spotted me in the audience with my horn, he called me up onstage and my life changed forever.
Hanks started calling me to appear with the Metronomes and some of their gigs and my favorite was Sunday afternoons at Valley Dale ballroom, where Jerry Razor, a WLW-C TV personality would host The Battle of the Bands. Four bands would be be invited to bring their fans out for the competition that would award a best band $100.00. There were a number of bands with growing popularity; The Grayps, The Fifth Order, The Rebounds, The Electras, The Four O’Clock Balloon, The Muth Brothers.
The band judging was more a popularity contest; the band with the loudest audience response was usually the band with the most friends who paid their dollar for admission. But it was a time to drive to the Big City with my Plain City friends and hang with other teens. Most of the other band were rock and rollers, but the Metronomes were a blue-eyed, southern soul band, performing the hits of James Brown, Booker T. and Otis Redding. I was such a hardcore soul music junkie that when someone offered me two Jimi Hendrix tickets at the face value of nine dollars, I nearly cursed him, “I don’t wanna’ see no damn psychedelic music. I wanna’ see James!” I regret my ignorance at the time.
I had another opportunity to see Jimi Hendrix in May, 1970, however, two days before the May 25th concert, it was announced that his concert was canceled and the tickets were refunded. On September 18, 1970, Hendrix was found dead in a London, England hotel room.
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Larry Bechtel Survives Virginia Tech Massacre
Professor Larry Bechtel designed a sculpture of my Aunt Nannie B. Hairston, of Christiansburg, Virginia. After we met in October, 2006, we have corresponded and I intended to see him in February, 2007.
Fortunately he was not in the line of fire in the Virginia Tech University shootings that occured Monday, April 16, 2007, another monumentally dark day in American history.
4/16/07
Larry,
Greetings from Columbus. You and the extended Virginia Tech family are in our prayers at this time. We hope that time will heal the pain that we share with you all.
Arnett
Arnett--
Thank you very, very much. It has been shocking--for everyone at Virginia Tech and in Blacksburg, but for everyone who has seen the news. I do appreciate your prayers. I was on campus and at work when it all happened, but was not in the area. The campus is still pretty much a "crime scene."
Larry
A university professor killed was Dr. Kevin Granata, an Ohio State graduate, a brilliant scholar in spinal/muscular studies and a student of Dr. William S. Marras. Alex Marras, his son, is my trumpet student.
We must take the time to hug each other; even people outside of our friends and family circle. Many, many people are left out or thrown out of the circle of family love and become loners. Loners are deadly, if not to only themselves.
Let our grieve renew our love. Go hug somebody.
Fortunately he was not in the line of fire in the Virginia Tech University shootings that occured Monday, April 16, 2007, another monumentally dark day in American history.
4/16/07
Larry,
Greetings from Columbus. You and the extended Virginia Tech family are in our prayers at this time. We hope that time will heal the pain that we share with you all.
Arnett
Arnett--
Thank you very, very much. It has been shocking--for everyone at Virginia Tech and in Blacksburg, but for everyone who has seen the news. I do appreciate your prayers. I was on campus and at work when it all happened, but was not in the area. The campus is still pretty much a "crime scene."
Larry
A university professor killed was Dr. Kevin Granata, an Ohio State graduate, a brilliant scholar in spinal/muscular studies and a student of Dr. William S. Marras. Alex Marras, his son, is my trumpet student.
We must take the time to hug each other; even people outside of our friends and family circle. Many, many people are left out or thrown out of the circle of family love and become loners. Loners are deadly, if not to only themselves.
Let our grieve renew our love. Go hug somebody.
Sunday, April 15, 2007
My First Professional Band-The Vadicans
According to Richard Peterson, The Vadicans Band was born in Robert “Link” Davis’ home in 1962. “That’s where the old piano was and Link was plunking on it and getting himself together. I drummed on a cardboard box and a pie pan cymbal, while Phil Lowery strummed on an old guitar. We needed a bass so I made one for Phil, before he was able to buy one.”
Phil remembers, “Richard bought some wood and cut out the body and put an older neck on it. We went to Springfield and found pickups and and old amplifier. That guitar had the best blues sound.”
According to Richard, “Link took the name of the band from Vatican City, only he changed the “t” to a “d”.” Richard’s younger brother, Eldon, a guitarist, had been lured to Colorado Springs, Colorado by another brother, Robert, who was in the U.S. Air Force there. A call was made to Colorado and they rehearsed songs with Eldon over the phone, before he was talked into coming back to London to join the them. The Vadicans Trio had already been journeying to Washington, Court House, Ohio play at the Rocking Chair Lounge.
Donnie “Little Moe” Wilson soon joined The Vadicans, along with another singer, Walt Wilson and he remembers that instrumental in the band’s maturation was a series of teen events that they began playing in London for State Theater manager Dick Feree. “Dick had us play regularly and we packed teens in for those dances. He took us to Dayton for a talent show and we were a hit there too.” Richard also remembers Jack Schultz, from The Rebel Room in Bloomingsburg, Ohio, who helped the band buy the first electric piano that Link played.
Eldon Peterson remembers those days, “The Vadicans were hot! We began playing clubs, lounges, dawn dances and cabarets all over the state of Ohio.” A list of performance sites from 1962-1969 include the American Legion in London, Wanda’s Lounge (where the barroom battles were frequent), Central State College in Xenia, Wittenberg College and The Blues Club in Springfield, The Majaga Club in Yellow Springs, The Ponderosa in Chillicothe, The Liberty Club in Delaware, The U Bar in Zanesville, The Blue Note in Mansfield and legendary “Hairy Buffalo Parties” at Kenyon College in Gambier, OH.
In Columbus, The Vadicans auditioned for but were “too good” for Jerry Razor’s Dance Party on WLWC-TV, instead they played for grownups at the Preview Lounge, Joe's Hole, The Sportsmen's Club, The Mecca Club, The Bonfire, The Westinghouse Company picnics and The Arena Lounge, where I first joined them in July, 1967. Phil remembered parties at the NCO Club at Lockbourne Air Force Base and benefits at Training Institute of Central Ohio (TICO).
Link remembered one of the Columbus singing groups that the Vadicans frequently performed with was the Ohio Quotations. “Tommy Crowder and Verlyn Reeves were in that group and their act rivaled the Temptations and Four Tops. They continued to be great friends and guests on stage with us for years.”
My encounter with The Vadicans began in a recording studio on Columbus’ Hilltop at West Broad Street and Eureka Ave in the spring of 1967. Two fellows from Mt. Vernon, Ohio had set up a four track recorder in their storefront and Tutti Rose, a Westsider, was acting the role of talent scout and producer for the studio.
I was just sixteen and recommended by Bill Chapman, WVKO announcer to play my trumpet in the horn trio that was adding a section to The Vadicans’ original song, “Listen People.” When school was out, the group asked if I’d join them for their summer tour, but I had made a commitment to perform in the Kenley Players production of “Bye Bye Birdie,” as a screaming teen in a chorus of Columbus kids.
When I join them on July 21, 1967, the personnel included Richard, drums and leader, Elden, guitar, Link, organ and music director, Little Mo, guitar, Harold McNeil, saxophone and Gary Lee Thomas, dancer and percussion. Bassist Phil Lowery had been drafted and was serving in Vietnam in 1967.
Everyone in the band was a superb vocalist and the songs were all rich with the natural harmonies that make Black music so treasured. James Brown's years as a hit maker were at their peak and we performed “Cold Sweat,” “I Feel Good, I Got You.” Both the Stax and Motown companies were churning out hit records, Otis Redding was making lasting musical memories, before his abrupt ending in a Wisconsin plane accident in late 1967.
I vividly remember “Little Mo” making the women howl as he sang “For Your Precious Love” and Gary Lee playing maracas and leaping from the stage into a full splits and slowly alternating from side to side, while smiling and flirting with the women at the bar stools. Hot, hot hot!
Larry Davis, Link’s younger brother, came into the band as a guitarist replacing Elden, who went to California in 1968-69 and Larry has a phenomenal recall to many of the people, places and Vadican events during the last days of the band before 1970. “I inherited the homemade bass guitar from Phil and it was the instrument that developed me into a player.
One of my favorite memories is of a song that made dancers go crazy. Link sang the hit by Dyke and the Blazers, “Funky Broadway” and he also remembers the songs “Shake a Tail Feather” and “Express Yourself.”
Attracted by the “Battle-of-the-Bands” at Valley Dale Ballroom, I was lured into splitting time between The Vadicans and their younger brothers in the Metronomes from West Jefferson, led by Hank Fisher. From there, Hank and I were privileged to join the original Dave Workman Blues Band in the spring and summer of 1968, before I started college classes at Capital University that fall.
I cannot say that the best of times in my world travels have been any better than the miles down Ohio highways in a Corvair Van, the dim lights, smoke and sweat of the Arena Lounge, the adventure of a snow storm on the way to Zanesville and the pretty ladies that kept us warm until dawn.
The Vadicans Band was my first experience on the road to that good life and I can’t be more thankful to Richard, Link, Phil, Little Moe, Eldon and their wives for being my mentors and extended family. Happy Fortieth Anniversary, good health to all the alumni of the Vadicans Band and prayers for the souls of our departed fellows.
Phil remembers, “Richard bought some wood and cut out the body and put an older neck on it. We went to Springfield and found pickups and and old amplifier. That guitar had the best blues sound.”
According to Richard, “Link took the name of the band from Vatican City, only he changed the “t” to a “d”.” Richard’s younger brother, Eldon, a guitarist, had been lured to Colorado Springs, Colorado by another brother, Robert, who was in the U.S. Air Force there. A call was made to Colorado and they rehearsed songs with Eldon over the phone, before he was talked into coming back to London to join the them. The Vadicans Trio had already been journeying to Washington, Court House, Ohio play at the Rocking Chair Lounge.
Donnie “Little Moe” Wilson soon joined The Vadicans, along with another singer, Walt Wilson and he remembers that instrumental in the band’s maturation was a series of teen events that they began playing in London for State Theater manager Dick Feree. “Dick had us play regularly and we packed teens in for those dances. He took us to Dayton for a talent show and we were a hit there too.” Richard also remembers Jack Schultz, from The Rebel Room in Bloomingsburg, Ohio, who helped the band buy the first electric piano that Link played.
Eldon Peterson remembers those days, “The Vadicans were hot! We began playing clubs, lounges, dawn dances and cabarets all over the state of Ohio.” A list of performance sites from 1962-1969 include the American Legion in London, Wanda’s Lounge (where the barroom battles were frequent), Central State College in Xenia, Wittenberg College and The Blues Club in Springfield, The Majaga Club in Yellow Springs, The Ponderosa in Chillicothe, The Liberty Club in Delaware, The U Bar in Zanesville, The Blue Note in Mansfield and legendary “Hairy Buffalo Parties” at Kenyon College in Gambier, OH.
In Columbus, The Vadicans auditioned for but were “too good” for Jerry Razor’s Dance Party on WLWC-TV, instead they played for grownups at the Preview Lounge, Joe's Hole, The Sportsmen's Club, The Mecca Club, The Bonfire, The Westinghouse Company picnics and The Arena Lounge, where I first joined them in July, 1967. Phil remembered parties at the NCO Club at Lockbourne Air Force Base and benefits at Training Institute of Central Ohio (TICO).
Link remembered one of the Columbus singing groups that the Vadicans frequently performed with was the Ohio Quotations. “Tommy Crowder and Verlyn Reeves were in that group and their act rivaled the Temptations and Four Tops. They continued to be great friends and guests on stage with us for years.”
My encounter with The Vadicans began in a recording studio on Columbus’ Hilltop at West Broad Street and Eureka Ave in the spring of 1967. Two fellows from Mt. Vernon, Ohio had set up a four track recorder in their storefront and Tutti Rose, a Westsider, was acting the role of talent scout and producer for the studio.
I was just sixteen and recommended by Bill Chapman, WVKO announcer to play my trumpet in the horn trio that was adding a section to The Vadicans’ original song, “Listen People.” When school was out, the group asked if I’d join them for their summer tour, but I had made a commitment to perform in the Kenley Players production of “Bye Bye Birdie,” as a screaming teen in a chorus of Columbus kids.
When I join them on July 21, 1967, the personnel included Richard, drums and leader, Elden, guitar, Link, organ and music director, Little Mo, guitar, Harold McNeil, saxophone and Gary Lee Thomas, dancer and percussion. Bassist Phil Lowery had been drafted and was serving in Vietnam in 1967.
Everyone in the band was a superb vocalist and the songs were all rich with the natural harmonies that make Black music so treasured. James Brown's years as a hit maker were at their peak and we performed “Cold Sweat,” “I Feel Good, I Got You.” Both the Stax and Motown companies were churning out hit records, Otis Redding was making lasting musical memories, before his abrupt ending in a Wisconsin plane accident in late 1967.
I vividly remember “Little Mo” making the women howl as he sang “For Your Precious Love” and Gary Lee playing maracas and leaping from the stage into a full splits and slowly alternating from side to side, while smiling and flirting with the women at the bar stools. Hot, hot hot!
Larry Davis, Link’s younger brother, came into the band as a guitarist replacing Elden, who went to California in 1968-69 and Larry has a phenomenal recall to many of the people, places and Vadican events during the last days of the band before 1970. “I inherited the homemade bass guitar from Phil and it was the instrument that developed me into a player.
One of my favorite memories is of a song that made dancers go crazy. Link sang the hit by Dyke and the Blazers, “Funky Broadway” and he also remembers the songs “Shake a Tail Feather” and “Express Yourself.”
Attracted by the “Battle-of-the-Bands” at Valley Dale Ballroom, I was lured into splitting time between The Vadicans and their younger brothers in the Metronomes from West Jefferson, led by Hank Fisher. From there, Hank and I were privileged to join the original Dave Workman Blues Band in the spring and summer of 1968, before I started college classes at Capital University that fall.
I cannot say that the best of times in my world travels have been any better than the miles down Ohio highways in a Corvair Van, the dim lights, smoke and sweat of the Arena Lounge, the adventure of a snow storm on the way to Zanesville and the pretty ladies that kept us warm until dawn.
The Vadicans Band was my first experience on the road to that good life and I can’t be more thankful to Richard, Link, Phil, Little Moe, Eldon and their wives for being my mentors and extended family. Happy Fortieth Anniversary, good health to all the alumni of the Vadicans Band and prayers for the souls of our departed fellows.
Arnett's Early Music Years Part One
Arnett Howard’s Early Musical Days
Part One
July 21, 2007 marks the fortieth anniversary of my beginnings as a professional musician. I would like to leave a record of my musical history, in case it should become a subject of interest to some future musicians, historians and friends that I have made because of the thousands of concerts that I have played since 1967.
It was at Allen Chapel A.M.E. Church in Marysville, Ohio, that Delores Grettavon Williams Howard, mother to four loud boys, sang solos with the choir. our father, George Howard, supervised the Sunday Schools and the boys tinkled on the church piano. Mom found a used, upright piano and brought it to her new Plain City home’s recreation room and arranged for her two oldest boys, Arnett and Gerald, to take piano lessons from the pastor’s wife, Mary Liggins.
The Howard house became a magnet for musical instruments in 1960; a guitar and field drum came from Uncle Al Turner in Twinsburg Heights, Ohio, a bugle from Billy Leftwich down the street in Frazier Estates, a classic drum set and percussion toys from Mrs. Cornetta Palmer, whose late husband, Pete, played with jass bands and a home reel tape recorder that was Delores’ pride.
Our first neighborhood band was called The Soul InterNationals (Music So Good It’s a Sin!) and the songbook was made up of Motown hits (Junior Walker, The Four Tops, Temptations...), Memphis soul (Sam and Dave, Dyke and the Blazers, Booker T & M.G.s...) and of course, the hardest workin’ man in show business, James Brown. We played neighborhood parties and teen radio dances thanks to a uncle of two of our players who was an announcer on WVKO-AM & FM.
During the winter of 1967, Uncle Bill Chapman recommended his young trumpeter, Arnett, aged sixteen, to a Westside recording studio that was doing a four track session with a London, Ohio band called The Vadicans (as opposed to the Vatican, home of Pope Benedictus). The band like the kid and by mid-July, after I finished performing in Kenley Players Summer Theater (Bye Bye Birdie), they ask me to join them onstage at their Saturday show.
I hitched a ride with a neighbor from Plain City and rode the bus to the Arena Bowling Alley Lounge, at Columbus’ 1436 East Main Street and Miller Avenue. I hooked up on the bus with a fellow session horn player, Mickey Wallace and when we walked in the doorway of the lounge, the Vadican’s were playing the new James Brown hit, Cold Sweat. Although Mickey and I were underaged, we walked straight to the stage blowing our horns.
I traveled to Black nightclubs throughout Central Ohio with the Vadicans that summer and weekends during my entire senior year at Jonathan Alder High School in Plain City. My band director, Ray Starrett, was so enthusiastic about his prized student’s professional travels that he loaned his Bach Stradivarius trumpet when the kid left his horn in the recording studio and it was lost.
Part One
July 21, 2007 marks the fortieth anniversary of my beginnings as a professional musician. I would like to leave a record of my musical history, in case it should become a subject of interest to some future musicians, historians and friends that I have made because of the thousands of concerts that I have played since 1967.
It was at Allen Chapel A.M.E. Church in Marysville, Ohio, that Delores Grettavon Williams Howard, mother to four loud boys, sang solos with the choir. our father, George Howard, supervised the Sunday Schools and the boys tinkled on the church piano. Mom found a used, upright piano and brought it to her new Plain City home’s recreation room and arranged for her two oldest boys, Arnett and Gerald, to take piano lessons from the pastor’s wife, Mary Liggins.
The Howard house became a magnet for musical instruments in 1960; a guitar and field drum came from Uncle Al Turner in Twinsburg Heights, Ohio, a bugle from Billy Leftwich down the street in Frazier Estates, a classic drum set and percussion toys from Mrs. Cornetta Palmer, whose late husband, Pete, played with jass bands and a home reel tape recorder that was Delores’ pride.
Our first neighborhood band was called The Soul InterNationals (Music So Good It’s a Sin!) and the songbook was made up of Motown hits (Junior Walker, The Four Tops, Temptations...), Memphis soul (Sam and Dave, Dyke and the Blazers, Booker T & M.G.s...) and of course, the hardest workin’ man in show business, James Brown. We played neighborhood parties and teen radio dances thanks to a uncle of two of our players who was an announcer on WVKO-AM & FM.
During the winter of 1967, Uncle Bill Chapman recommended his young trumpeter, Arnett, aged sixteen, to a Westside recording studio that was doing a four track session with a London, Ohio band called The Vadicans (as opposed to the Vatican, home of Pope Benedictus). The band like the kid and by mid-July, after I finished performing in Kenley Players Summer Theater (Bye Bye Birdie), they ask me to join them onstage at their Saturday show.
I hitched a ride with a neighbor from Plain City and rode the bus to the Arena Bowling Alley Lounge, at Columbus’ 1436 East Main Street and Miller Avenue. I hooked up on the bus with a fellow session horn player, Mickey Wallace and when we walked in the doorway of the lounge, the Vadican’s were playing the new James Brown hit, Cold Sweat. Although Mickey and I were underaged, we walked straight to the stage blowing our horns.
I traveled to Black nightclubs throughout Central Ohio with the Vadicans that summer and weekends during my entire senior year at Jonathan Alder High School in Plain City. My band director, Ray Starrett, was so enthusiastic about his prized student’s professional travels that he loaned his Bach Stradivarius trumpet when the kid left his horn in the recording studio and it was lost.
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