The Soul Superbs, 1973

I had been rehearsing with Link (Bob Davis) and the Mod Squad, a rhythm and blues band in 1972 and one of the folks rehearsing was Ernest “Pepper” Reed. Ernest was seventeen, an earlier graduate of Columbus Mohawk High School and a guitar phenomonen, playing with Rusty Bryant’s Band at aged fifteen.

Pepper was rehearsing with a couple of bands and he suggested that I make a rehearsal with a South Columbus Band, The Soul Superbs. The band’s personnel was Chris Powell, sax, Anthony Ludaway, drums, Frankie Justice, vocals, Larry Ferris, bass, Bobby Payton and Pepper on guitar.

I rehearsed with them a couple of times early in June and the next weekend they were going out of town to do a week in Rock Island, Illinois at Woody’s Magic Room. They asked me to join them and I did. I fronted the money for a trailer rental and we were off in two vehicles.

It was quite a long drive to Rock Island, one of the Quad Cities and home of the legendary Rock Island Line (Get your ticket at the station for the Rock Island Line). We made it with no problem and played six days at Woody’s Place. Woody was the Black entreprenuer of Rock Island; he owned the night club, the rib joint and the liquor store. We played six nights, ate well and were paid decently.

We had a booking agent in Beloit, Wisconsin and from Rock Island, we went to Grand Rapids, Michigan to work at The Golden Glow. The club owner, who name escapes me, had a nice club and a house that he rented to the band for the week’s stay for one hundred twenty-five dollars. We played and went to a nice home, where everyone had their own bedroom. I can remember good Mexican food and a waitress whom I was fond of, Lori Smith.

From Grand Rapids, we went to a club in Battle Creek, Michigan, The El Dorado, where we played one night. I remember a party after the club, because the girI who was chasing invited me into the bathroom and it was the first and only time that I shot up heroin. I was the first one to get the needle, she put it in my arm, then drew it back out, then shot me back up. I wasn’t effected.

That incident reminds me of the first time that I was introduced to cocaine, on a music trip to Galesburg, Illinois, by a lesbian woman, or as Black folks say “a Bulldagger.” We were in the front seat of our new Dodge van between sets and the “nose candy” came out, I snorted, snorted again and returned it to the sister. I couldn’t feel anything. I only indulged one other time and wrote cocaine off as a bad luck drug that did do anything for me.

I got along well with everyone in the Soul Superbs except the bassist, Larry Ferris, who was a jerk and liked to mess with people. Anthony Ludaway and Chris Powell were co-leaders of the band and we had one recording session during my year with the band. We recorded Just Ask Me and Cannibals and I have been told that the disc is a collectors item on Ebay.com.

Eventually we became managed by Kenny Keels, of Columbus, and he booked The Soul Superbs in Bluefield, West Virginia at a club. We tried to get there in one day from Beloit and if it wasn’t for fog on the West Virginia Turnpike, we would have made it. We played in White Sulphur, West Virginia at Haynesworth’s Hotel and the Federal Reformatory for Women in Alderson, where singer Billie Holiday had been incarcerated years earlier.

In January, 1974, I played my last weekend at Haynesworth’s and bid farewell to the Soul Superbs. We had made money the first few times that we went out together, but subsequent trips were unproductive, breaking even or losing on the trips.

The Soul Superbs packed up for California just after I left, changed their name to Nitro, secured an agent named Dick Griffey, got signed to a contract by Motown Records and produced two albums. Ernest “Pepper” Reed went into the studio with a group, Shalamar, and produce a guitar line on A Night to Remember that is legendary.

I saw Ernest a few times later. He was a shadow of the lively guy I had known in the early 1970s. He succumbed to kidney problems in the 1990s.

Ray Starrett, 1917-2009

On September 5, 2009 Ray Starrett passed on from his labor to his reward. In his ninety-two years he outlived his wife Ruth by ten years and married his college sweetheart, Helen.

Ray and I were related because he was my first instrumental music teacher, starting to teach at Jonathan Alder High School and the Plain City Schools in the fall of 1960. I was an enthusiastic ten year old, who had gotten a head start on training by playing bugle the previous summer. Mr. Starrett was glad to have a good student among his fifth graders.

By the time I got into my second year in high school, I had moved into first chair of the trumpet section. We played so many different things in school; show tunes, concertos, marches, dixieland jazz. Under Mr. Starrett’s guidance I absorbed everything musical.

During my senior year I borrowed his Bach Stradivarius trumpet to play the Trumpeter’s Lullaby. I had lost my horn and he trusted me to use his.

We renewed our friendship in 1988 when I was invited to perform at Jonathan Alder. I was glad to show him the Severinsen-Akright Bel Canto trumpet that I had recently purchased; my first good horn since the Bach Stradivarius.

We remained friends through thick and thin, calling each other several times during each year. In 2007 I spend a couple of days with him at his vacation home in Florida, where we went to the movies and went shopping for flowers. That summer he celebrated his ninetieth birthday with his family.

Prompted by a call from his family I went by the house in July, 2009. He was weak but still able to to converse with me. We told each other that we loved each other. I called in August, expecting to hear that he had passed, and he answered the phone.

I loved Ray Starrett with all my heart. He was a good man and he was proud of me.

Wednesday, November 5, 2008, America's New Day Dawns

Peeps,

This is a personal letter to me from a friend in Lawrence, Georgia, and my response. There's gonna' be a lot of activity in cyberspace today; thanks to Al Gore for his invention.

A

Hey Good Lookin'

I am not a Democrat, but I am proud to be a part of this history. It is 11:00 p.m. on election night and the news has just predicted your man as our president elect. I remember the riots and the marches when I was a kid. I remember Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech. I remember meeting you in speech class and how "bad" that was that I fell in love with a "black man!" I still love that black man! I always will. It is much more acceptable today, but not really!

Our constitution gave us certain rights in this country that, until tonight, have not really been true.

I hate racism. I hate ignorance. I hate arrogance. I am proud to be alive to see an African American be elected our president. I'm not excited that he is a Democrat, but I am proud to be witness to this history.

God put ALL of us here on this earth!!!!!!!!!!!

Have a great party tonight!

Be Blessed~

E~


E,

Cute picture of a good lookin' guy. Two good lookin' guys!

Sorry about politics, sorry about race, sorry about all the things that the things that we should be sorry about; mostly winning, losing and wars.

I have broken down twice today; the race is over and it time for the competitors to rest. I cry because their exhaustion is my exhaustion.

Before I think of myself as a Black man, I think of myself as a human. Before I think about being an American, I think about being a citizen of the world.

Maybe because my mother was an active republican and my father an active democrat, I am an active musician. We musicians are blessed to carry a love force that unites people of all ages, religions, colors, political persuasions.

My hope is that your grandchildren can see me play, witness other musicians and be inspired to devote their lives to the love force that brings people together in joy, to forget their troubles, sing, dance and clap hands. That's a legacy that, in my opinion, trumps being a famed sportsman, military or political hero.

I hope our new president is encouraged by us all, not to be a Black man, but a human, that leads and inspires our fellow citizens of the world that the good work that we do together makes our communities better. The strength of our unity, is superior to our partisanship.

Sorry, that's the way us liberal, democrats think; love feels good, hate stinks, help your brothas' and sistahs', dance to the music, get lucky when you can, it's only money.

A

Friede Bennett, 1919-2008, The Color of Love

Elfriede Bennett, one of my moms and my biggest fan, passed on to her heavenly reward, Wednesday, October 15, 2008, sixty-one years to the day after she was married to Bob Bennett, a soldier and musician that she met in Germany. The story of their struggle to get married, The Color of Love, is a statement to strength of the union of their souls, as one for fifty-one years before Bob's death in September, 1998.

Friede approached me in 2004 to write her story. Here 'tis.

Little did I know when I went to work at the U.S. Army Air Base several miles from my hometown of Offenbach/Main on December 4, 1945, that my life was about become full of such joy, but at the cost of much heartache. As a stenographer/secretary to the base adjutant and base interpreter, I greeted a sergeant who was requesting to speak to the base commander. He came to report an ambulance accident that he was in while traveling with several officers off post and his limp and use of a cane gave away his injuries.

It was at the base dispensary that I saw the same sergeant the following day. Over the next few days, our paths crossed and our small talk began, with me revealing that I traveled by bicycle ten long miles each day to the job. He offered me some transportation in my direction and I accepted.

I was really happy to meet Bob Bennett, a well-spoken and charming Black American from Boston, Massachusetts, and we became very attached to each other. However, if there was a written taboo concerning associations with Black soldiers on an American base, I was totally unaware of it. In 1946, The U.S. Army was not quite at the end of its policy of segregating troops by skin color, except that the unit’s officers were White.

When Bob and I became noticeably a pair, my new job assignment became the kitchen, for cooking detail. The fall from the grace of secretary to cook was too much for me to handle, so I quit the base.

At the same time, Bob, was a part of the unit being reassigned to an air base in Southern Germany. Since a good friend was making the move with the unit also, Bob and I decided to get married and I would follow along to live in the town near the new base. Boy, did all hell break loose with that move!

Before our wedding occurred, the pregnancy did, and our plans to marry were met with a refusal from German authorities. The local mayor was getting his orders not to marry us from the base commander. Bob, my fiancé, was facing a dismissal from his unit and a return to the U.S. to face the music of race mixing, which was a clearly defined prohibition of American and Army culture.

Our son, Dwayne, was born on February 5, 1947. It would have normally been a day of unforgettable joy for most mothers in the world, however the base commander gave personal orders for me “not to bring the baby out in the street or I will send you back to Russia.” Since I’ve never been to Russia, I thought that was some pretty strong talk for a person who had no authority over a German citizen. But still, the commander was a vocal obstacle in the path to our marriage and our family.

The racist commander fabricated charges and allegations against Bob, but he defended himself against the threats of jail and transfer/deportment back to the States. Bob lost his court martial on trumped charges and was restricted to his quarters. The power mad commander was forcing me into action.

One of Bob’s friends was positioned to leak to me that he had seen transfer orders scheduled for the next day. I began walking to Erlangen, Germany, home to the Eighth Air Force Command and two days later, I arrived early to see if Colonel Martin would have an audience with a German civilian.

I was admitted to the colonel’s office and found that he was not only aware of the request that Sergeant Bennett had put in to marry a German, he was in agreement with the papers. He proved to be on our side by calling the base in Roth, talking with the commander and ordering Bob’s release from detention. He arranged transportation for me back to my home and child, following me to Roth the next day to investigate the whole terrible affair.

Bob wasn’t idle during these ugly days; he had written a letter to General Dwight Eisenhower, mailed it to his sister in Massachusetts and she forward the letter to a congressman. The power of my companion’s words must have compelled the general, because Eisenhower responded with not only an approval of the marriage request but a choice of dates for the ceremony. With his help, we chose October 15, 1947.

Base Commander Glass promptly transferred Sergeant Bennett to Rhein-Main and took a parting shot with an AWOL charge for lateness. Bob fought the AWOL battle and subsequent loss of his sergeants stripe, but we had won the war to liberate our rights to marry.

The marriage, by law, was by the Mayor of Roth, Germany, with close friends and my family at the Enlisted Men’s Club. The next day’s icy marriage proceedings by American officials freed us to escape back to Frankfurt, gladly fleeing the hideous restrictions of the U.S. Army hierarchy there in Roth. We encountered harassment from military police as we arrived at the train station, “No fraternization between Black soldiers and German Fraeuleins!” “Kiss off, boys. We got a license.” MPs were left in disbelief.

When your marriage is to someone from a country with a tradition of racial segregation, the problems are seemingly endless. Bob was due for a transfer Stateside a month after our marriage, but there were military regulations disallowing me and Dwayne to travel with him. I had to wait another month and during that time I found the two of us to be people without a country.

To German authorities, I was married to an American and no longer eligible for German food rations. But to the Americans, I was German, thus ineligible to shop at the Post Exchange or Commissary. Thank God, not for government officials but for friends who helped our survival.

Two week after Bob’s departure we finally were passengers on December 18, 1947, boarding the U.S. Army Troop Transport General Callan and heading towards the English Channel to pass the ‘White Cliffs of Dover.’ Us passengers watched sunshine on the cliffs and, truly, they shown white.

After the General Callan stopped for passengers in Dover, we set course for the Azores and just in time for christmas, the crew and passengers were greeted with the suddenness of a hot and heavy storm. We weathered the rough seas and sailed onwards to the United States of America.

If the seas weren’t rough enough, the hatred was from my fellow sailors, the military people. An officer order me off the upper deck with a threat that leaving my stateroom could cancel my disembarkation in New York. and blind hatred that we encountered. But time has healed and made me very grateful for our sizable family, which includes five children, five grandchildren and several great grandchildren. Our fruitful love, that has been undefeatable from that chance meeting in December, 1945, has multiplied Black soldiers, who had heard the grapevine news about the Bennett Family’s victory over injustice, came to Little Dwayne and my aide with clean clothes and I was allowed out of the stateroom but to go get food for the two of us.

How excited everyone was to see the Statue of Liberty coming into view on the port side of the troop ship; welcoming us in the bright sunshine with her book and right hand extended. To this day, it was a sight never to be forgotten; a proud lady saying “Welcome, all of you, to this great country.”

Of course, despite what the statue was declaring; restrictive military agents wouldn’t allow me to get help with my baggage and baby. But despite the formidable odds and obstacles to our resolve, we made it.

Bob picked us up at Fort Hamilton and took me to his sister’s in Massachusetts. But we couldn’t be too comfortable together for long because the Air Force had a transfer in assignment for him to Salinas, Kansas. And that transfer didn’t include his young family, so he quickly lobbied to transfer to a post that would accept families.

No help came from the post’s chaplain, “I didn’t tell you to marry her!”, he blamed. With the help of a colonel in Boston and his connections in Washington, D.C., Bob’s transfer was to Lockbourne Airbase in Columbus, OH. We arrived in early 1948 and by early 1949, Sergeant Bennett became a civilian, along with his family.

Race problems awaited us in civilian life; I lost a job when I was spotted by fellow workers being dropped off in front of the office by my husband. But he WAS my husband and that WAS what husbands do for working wives. The loss of a job wasn’t something that I couldn’t take; my husband was a great man, whatever his skin tone.

Paper and written words about the experience of our time during those awfully struggling years can’t cover all of the indignities; emotional turmoil over nearly fifty-one years together.

We were able to retire, look back on our accomplishments, our happy family and enduring love. And how many couple think of General Eisenhower on their wedding anniversary day? Without his compassion and approving support of our marriage, what would have happened to our lives?

Of course, losing Bob to his illness in September of 1998, has triggered an unbearable shock that our great times together will not continue. What helps me, though, are all the good memories and all the love from our immediate family.

I just wish that our good life together could have gone on and on and on...

Rest in peace, Friede, with continuing love from your decendants.

Katie Smith, 2008 WNBA Championship MVP

I went to Logan, Ohio High School to do a concert in the spring of 1992 and my concert ended up being a celebration for the girl's basketball team's trip to the state finals, where they were a proud runner-up. I left Logan a part of Katie Smith's extended family.
I have followed my sistah through a trip with Ohio State to the NCAA finals in 1993, we celebrated two ABL championships with the Columbus Quest in 1997-98. I have sent her love with USA Basketball in Sidney, on crutches in Athens and victoriously in Beijing.
My Columbus brotha' Bill and I had tix for Monday, October 6, 2008, at The Palace in Auburn Hills, but instead, we replayed Sunday's match and wept in joy as our sistahs of the Detroit Shock swept game three of the 2008 WNBA Finals. Katie, your extended family in Central Ohio sends our love to you in this proud moment; we'll have hugs and kisses for you when you get back to North High Street.

The 2008 WNBA Season is over, my tears of joy are shed because now, my sistahs get a while to rest the aching bones, joints, tendons, ligaments, muscles and sleep in their own beds for a few weeks, before their journeys to make a living in sports continue with travel overseas. I love the game, every team and every player that participates in this sporting entertainment that gives such joy to our extended, women's basketball family.

I just wish our family was larger; that the tens millions of millions that worship Kobe, LeBron, Kevin, Tim and the NBA, would embrace the same passion that comes to the court with Candice Parker, Lisa Leslie, Katie, Deanna "Tweetie" Nolan, Beckie Hammond, Tamika Catchings and Diana Taurasi. But because our mighty WNBA Army remains small and it's mocked by small minds and overlooked by sports media.

I am a world traveled professional musician, a pilot, scuba diver and published author, but there is nothing more exciting in my life than women's basketball. The 2008 USA Basketball/WNBA season was the best; no ifs. ands or buts.

My personal MVP Award is shared by Katie, Ann Wauters and Taj McWilliams-Franklin; three mighty warriors.

Back from Almost Heaven; Colorado

Le & Betty,

Greetings and thanks for the nice gift that I received in the mail from you this week. At this time last week I was descending from the blue skies and mountains surrounding Denver and on the way back to Denver International Airport for the wilds of Columbus, Ohio. Boy am I glad to be home (LOL).

I went to Denver for the forty-fifth anniversary of Eden Theatrical Workshop, a company that was founded in 1963 by my grandmother, Myrtle Scales and Lucy Walker, for the development of the minority acting community. I played at several high profile venues in the area; Wells Fargo Bank, Manual Training High School and the Pine Valley Golf Club.

But my companion, Christine, and I mainly got away to relax from the grind of six busy months of composing, recording, performing, authoring and promoting. The Queen Anne Inn and Mountain Air Ranch were perfect homes for our six days away.

We spent one afternoon in Colorado Springs, where our former governor Dick Celeste is president of Colorado College, founded in 1874. Outside of his office is a bust of Kathrine Lee Bates, the educator and poet who after a visit to Pike's Peak was inspired to the poem, "Oh beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain." Dick gave us the ten dollar tour of his growing campus and was like a proud papa. He is a great fit for the job.

At Mountain Air Ranch, we rented a lodge with three bedrooms, a huge kitchen, fireplace, a pool, hot tub and extensive hiking trails. We spent mornings on our deck reading, eating healthy, maxing and relaxing. We put on our rugged footwear and walk on trails that climbed onto lookout points, where we gazed onto treelined peaks; almost heaven.

When the day of our flight home came, I was so lethargic, I couldn't find the switch that would return to me fast forward mode. But we finally got it together and returned to Denver International and home to a windstorm disaster in Central Ohio.

The Superbowl of Nude Volleyball

I wanted to share with my favorite nude resort experience; The Superbowl of Nude Volleyball at White Thorn Lodge (WTL) in Darlington, PA. Since 1971, Superbowl has been held each year on the weekend following Labor Day, however many volleyball animals cruise into the area, between Pittsburgh and Cleveland, before the holiday and let the good times roll for two straight weekends.
WTL is a member owned, family nudist resort and is very deep in the forests that bridge Pennsylvania and Ohio, in the watershed north of the Ohio River. It is a three hour drive for our volleyball gang from Columbus, though communities that urban folk and suburbanites have never heard; Lisbon, Rogers, Negley, Calcutta. But the drive is just long for us to wind down from our go-go, city ways and be maxxed and relaxed when we arrive at the check-in gate.
It costs fifty dollars for the weekend, upwards to two thousand athletes and family members pack themselves into the large campground that has a clubhouse, heated pool, gazebo-covered hot tub, bocce court, children's playground, rental cabins and snack bar. The players of all skill levels compete on four grass, two sand, three asphalt courts and the South Beaver Volunteer Fire Department is in attendance to "oversee" the players injuries. The uniformed volunteers, a welcome part of this unique community, also sell raffle tickets for prizes, including riding mowers and gardening equipment, to fund the local emergency services operations.
For me the weekend is the unofficial end of summer and since 2003, I have been making new friends from all over North America. Ontario and Quebec, Canada sends the six-time champion Bare Naked Ladies, featuring a woman who is rumored to be a member of the Polish Olympic team some decades back. Lake Como and Caliente send championship teams from Pasco County, Florida; the California players fly into Cleveland, throw their camping gear into rental cars and rough it for a week.
I love to rendezvous with the Chili Peppers from Buffalo, who cook for a week before the event and arrive with a hundred pounds of chili that keeps us in spicy conversation between games. It is so invigorating to see brown, healthy bodies working out in the sun, celebrating the freedom of our natural beauty in sport.
Of course, many of us don't play due to Father Time catching up to the conditions of our joints and ligaments, but club members and non-players are scorekeepers, cooks, trash collectors, yoga participants, musicians, kids games and arts are is session. Why, some folks just work on their tans, because usually after Superbowl, us folks in the Midwest, East and Canada are done with the sun.
When the sun goes down, the firepit gets stoked up, televisons are found for the late football games and a local band or disc jockey fills the clubhouse for the dance. There is a whole lotta' shakin' goin' on too, as well as elbow bending. Many clubs are represented and themed parties celebrate homebrews, martinis, jello shots, Bailey's Irish Creme; I'm sure there are Jamaica celebrations of a sort being fire-up in the deep woods around a fire-pit.
But the reason for our convention is tournament volleyball and Sunday is finals day; each team has one last chance to keep playing for the trophies. By the late afternoon, the focus is the AA classes; the best women's teams seem to be on a level that would rival Olympic play and there will be thousands of eyes watching the ball mysteriously stay within bounds and off the ground. The beautiful Canadian women deserve to carry off the trophy year after year because they play so well; forget that they look so good outta' their uniforms.
In 2006 the Canadian men were in the finals against a great Florida team in afro wigs and kneesox and after one of their huddles, the northerners broke, singing the opening of their national anthem, "Oh Canada..." Soon, a couple of smarties in the boundaries began the chant, "USA, USA!" The national war began and grew with every point in the five game series. The Canadians won the match and the war, but you can image the fever and good humor that grew among a couple thousand naked, sports fans, who don't want the weekend or summer to end.
The Superbowl of Nude Volleyball is a hoot and one year you should put it on your travel schedule. It is not the artistic flamboyance of Burning Man, but it is a celebration that burns quite brightly in my soul.
http://www.whitethornlodge.org/