Back in the early ’70’s, prolly the day before Thanksgiving of 1971, I was delivering flowers for Walter Knoll, in St. Louis. That was one of my part time jobs while I was going to college. I know it was a holiday because I was in my own car, rather than one of Wally’s trucks, getting a piece rate in addition to my hourly rate.
Funny thing with the dudes who delivered flowers for Wally. First off, he only had a few full time drivers. When I was still in college there were only two full time guys, Pogie the dispatcher and Benny. The rest were part timers. Two were firemen who worked on some of their days off. Another guy worked at the GM plant but worked part time so he’d have money when the union went on strike. I worked part time until I dropped out of college and then full time while I was looking for a real job which I got in 1973 when I was hired by IBM. The other funny thing was the specialization. The guys could only run one route, either North St. Louis and St. Louis County or West and South St. Louis and St. Louis County. I could never understand this. This was before GPS, but we had freakin’ maps! I was the only guy who could do all of the routes and I could do them faster than the regular guys. In fact, when I gave my notice to Wally after I was hired by IBM he wanted to match my salary until I told him how much it was and the benefits I was gonna get, medical, pension, stock, paid vacation, etc. I still worked some holidays after that but where most guys got 75 cents per package, I demanded and got a dollar per package ’cause I took the far out routes and I demanded the use of one of his trucks so I wouldn’t have to pay for gas. Eventually, I made enough money at IBM that I didn’t need the extra money.
But, I digress. It was dark and around 8:00 PM and I was listening to KSHE and the following came on.
Holy freakin’ crap! This was the best version of Roll Over Beethoven I ever heard! I had to wait in the car until it was over before I walked up to the door to give the people the flowers I was delivering. I went out the next day and bought the album on 8-track. The live stuff was much better than the studio stuff on the other side.
Not too long after this Felix Pappalardi had to quit the band because he was going deaf. My friend Alixe and I went to see West, Bruce, and Laing shortly after that. I guess Jack Bruce hooked up with them because he knew Felix Pappalardi since he had produced some Cream albums and had co-written some of their songs with them. Corky Laing literally threw his drum sticks at the drums and many of them flew out into the audience. He kept a quiver full of sticks beside him. Great concert with some Mountain stuff and some Cream stuff. We prolly only paid three bucks for it. Concerts were really cheap back then. Most of them were around five bucks. Ten dollars was an expensive show. I really liked the 70’s.
Saw them in Passaic, NJ 1974. Corkey almost hit me with a piece of drum-stick.
Nantucket Sleighride and Mississippi Queen echoed throughout the Capital theater.
Great night!
RIP: Felix Pappalardi.
I really liked the 70’s also. I turned 18 in 75 21 in 78 & the music was great. There were jobs everywhere and the U S Govt. was still somewhat sane & mostly followed the laws. A dose of the clap was cured by a single shot in the ass of pennicillin. (don’t drink for a week after the shot). I drove a 1970 Plymouth Road Runner that was fast as hell. I saw most of the majoe R&R bands also.
I had a gorgeous big titted blonde girlfriend named Vickie P and to this day, I’ve never had a better piece of ass than her. Yep, I really liked the 70’s too.
The best piece of ass I ever had was in late ’74 early ’75. Her name was Jane Brown. Tragic love affair. We were both in love with the same person. Unfortunately, it wasn’t me. Black hair, green eyes, petite build, and a fantastic personality! She was also the most insecure babe I ever met. Even though I was madly in love with her, I was the one who broke off the relationship due to trust issues and the fact that she was a pathological liar. Unfortunately, I took out my frustrations on the next girl I dated and wound up souring that relationship altho’ she put up with me for four years. I did buy Jane’s 1973 Monte Carlo from her at a good price right before that breakup. I loved that car! Had 24K miles on it when I bought it and I sold it when it had 128K on it. It was the last American car I ever owned. After that it was a 280Z, 300ZX, two BMW 325s, a BMW Z3, and a BMW X3. I still have the Z3 and the X3. I also had a Toyota pickup and a Nissan Pickup.
My best car was in the ’70s, a Barracuda. My best girl is my wife right now, also a barracuda.
The ’70s rocked, man. That decade was to electric guitar what the Mesozoic Era was to dinosaurs — when giants ruled the Earth.
You got that right! Jimmy Paige, Johnny Winter, Richie Blackmore, Eddie Van Halen, Neal Schon, Steve Howe, the list goes on and on. Sammy Hagar, not known for his lead guitar work could nevertheless play better than any current guitarist. Have there been any good guitarists in the 21st Century? It seems all they can play are power chords.
And they cheat, too — they use drop tuning so they can play power chords with only one finger.
Soundgarden does a lot of drop tuning stuff. I tried to pick up Pretty Noose by ear and after searching around I found out that they drop tune to C-G-C-G-G-E. No wonder I couldn’t do it. One finger power chords describes Chris Cornell. Kim Thayil’s solos are pretty pedestrian as well, but that’s grunge. Pearl Jam, OTOH, has some good guitar work, prolly the best of all the Seattle bands. Stone Temple Pilots, who rip off Pearl Jam, don’t. Lots of good bass players around. No leads.
I really like Megadeth because Mustaine is a good lead guitarist in his own right who was Metallica’s lead guitarist before they kicked him out and he always has another really good lead guitarist, like Marty Friedman for a while and now Chris Broderick who is actually a classical guitarist who now plays heavy metal. He does the guitar solo in Tornado of Souls every bit as well as Marty Friedman who wrote it.
Don’t forget Rick Derringer. Man, could he tear up a guitar neck and make it sing.
Yeah. I have a live Johnny Winter album where Derringer is playing rhythm guitar and Johnny would swap leads with him. Awesome guitar work!
My memory ain’t what it used to be, but I saw Mountain perform Mississippi Queen and some other truly great stuff at a downtown small venue bar called The Castle on High Street in Columbus, OH in the fall of 1970. Blew me away.