Jerry and a group of us Buddy Deaner wannabes often have dinner and dance to the oldies on Friday night at a place called Tully’s in Baltimore. During dinner and between dances we discuss tidbits of our lives as well as rock-and-roll-related trivia when we were growing up in the fifties and early sixties. Over time I realized that Jerry brought a lot to the table to these discussions. Often he spoke of oldie groups as if he had been a member. And, one night he even brought in a 1957 high school yearbook from a town in Texas with Buddy Knox’s picture in it. (Jerry is from Long Island.) Obviously, Jerry is no ordinary spectator of the oldies music scene.

Jerry disappeared from our scene during the spring, summer, and fall of ’07, and it wasn’t until just before Christmas that I received a telephone call from him. After the normal greeting pleasantries, I asked him where he’d been. There were several reasons he offered. But what took me was his last one. He said he had just been hired as a drummer for a band. Not any old band. How about “Jimmy Gilmer & The Fireballs? You know, “Sugar Shack”, “Bottle Of Wine”, “Torquay”, etc. (Obviously, Jerry had been “holding out on me”. Hell, I didn’t even know he played any musical instruments. No doubt this gentleman has a considerable musical resume.) Further, he told me of his first upcoming gig with them
in April of this year at an oldies concert on Long Island near Jerry’s hometown. It sounded real good. We then wished each other the best for the holidays and departed the phone.

Saw Jerry at New Year’s and several more times at Tully’s prior to the first week
in April when gave me a second call. It was here that he invited me to attend a Fireball’s dress rehearsal at his home in nearby Eldersburg, Maryland two days before they would perform at the aforementioned Long Island oldies concert. Of course, I told him I’d be there.

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But, I now digress. Please indulge me- my musical background.

‘Prodigy’ drummer in the fourth grade who performed in my grade school’s (Montebello Elementary School, P.S. #44) orchestra as a lead drummer three months after taking my first lesson. Did that for two years in the late fifties.
An adolescent soprano in my church’s junior choir (St. Matthew’s United Church Of Christ) around the same time.

Later on in my senior year in high school (Baltimore PolytechnicInstitlute), became a band valet (now known as a ‘roady’) with a trombone playing classmate’s musical group, Bob Brady & The Conchords. They were a bit more than your average bear band and they had a hit record in the spring of ’67, “More, More, More Of Your Love”, a tune written and previously recorded on an album by Smokey Robinson And The Miracles.

Traveled with the Conchords to a lot of musical venues around Baltimore, Annapolis, Washington D.C., and since the song charted not only here where it hit number 1 but also in Philly (#3) and the New York City region (top 10), the band performed live for Philadelphia’s Joe Niagara at one of his hops in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, and the next day for the Geator himself, Jerry Blavat, at the Hullaballoo Club right outside Atlantic City. A few weeks later, we would also perform on a Sunday in July (the first day of the ’67 Israeli-Egypt War) at Portchester High School north of New York City (the alma mater forty years before of none other than Ed Sullivan). On the bill with us was The Music Explosion with their hit “Little Bit Of Soul” and the show’s headliner, a fading Leslie Gore. One additional thing worth mentioning, though; during this spring-summer I attended numerous band practice sessions and as a result absorbed a great deal about music and performing it live.

There was, in addition, another high school classmate of mine at the same time who was fast becoming my lifelong best friend. He played with more modest bands at local ‘waterholes’ about town. A number of years later he eventually formed his own group, The Final Touch, and played at numerous affairs both private and public around the Baltimore, Annapolis, & Washington area. I even sang at his

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wedding years later where I was his ‘worst man’. Sadly, I lost my best friend to depression in 1995.

In the late nineties, I really got into the doo-wop scene locally and even auditioned as a back up singer with a local interracial doo-wop group just getting started. Much to my delight, I got a call from the group’s leader several days later asking me to work into the group over time. In other words, they liked me and I was wanted for my modest talents. However, I turned them town; don’t ask me why,
(I still harbor the fantasy that I will perform someday in a senior geezer-biddy doo-wop group probably at some fellow-boomer-occupied nursing home.)

Back to Jerry and The Fireballs. It was with musical baggage that I attended the group’s ‘dress’ rehearsal on the 3rd. of April. Ironically, the night before I was driving along and listening to XM’s 50’s channel with “Matt The Cat”. He was doing one of his specials featuring the great rock and roll instrumental hits of the fifties and early sixties. As I turned the radio on, I heard a familiar ring. When it was over I said to myself, “I haven’t heard that song in years, what’s the name of it?” Torquay, by the Fireballs “, Matt shouted. Unbelievable, I had remembered the tune and forgot the performers. What a coincidence?

The next evening while driving up to Jerry’s home in Eldersburg, I scanned the fifties and sixties channel on XM to hear, perhaps, another forgotten classic by the Fireballs again. Incidentally, their biggest hit, “Sugar Shack” often reminds me of the early fall of ’63 in my high school freshman year during the morning ride to school with my father. That song, number one for much of that period, seemingly came on every day at approximately the same time on 60 WCAO with morning drive man, Les ‘The Beard’ Alexander.

The directions to Jerry’s home were well written and followed, and I arrived there about 7:30 p.m. I parked and entered Jerry’s magnificently kept palatial brick mansion, or so it seemed. (I didn’t know that Jerry and his wife were that well off. It certainly appeared so.) With hopeful anticipation, I entered the premises with guarded optimism that this evening’s soiree might be better than staying home or even going to Tully’s. As I opened and entered the side door leading to the

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basement, I heard that familiar ring again. Yeah, the same instrumental I heard the night before, ‘Torquay’, neat!

I proceeded down the steps with a smile on my face and when I got there I saw all these people in this rather large-sized club cellar. Of course, there were the five musicians; Jerry on drums, the lead and base guitar players, a keyboard man, and sitting in upholstered rocking chair with his back towards me, Jimmy Gilmer. The dozen or so people remaining and standing, most of whom had cameras, were other invitees like me.

Fantasyland became reality and visa versa as the band completed that song and swung into another. Eventually, they finished their instrumentals and began their vocal hits beginning with ‘Sugar Shack, then ‘Daisy Petal Picking’, another song sounding much like the previous two that I didn’t recall but liked hearing anyway, and then their last big hit, ‘Bottle Of Wine’. They sounded as good if not better that evening than they sounded on their records and on radio.

The group eventually rehearsed this set of six tunes three subsequent times for about an hour and a half. Between each song there was a back and forth between the various musicians regarding arrangement; timing (the usual suspects). Also, Jimmy would fill between each song as he had at their previous performances.

Eventually, the rehearsal session came to an end and all present stayed around for a while to chat. One of those who arrived later during the session was none other that Phlash Phelps the morning man on XM’s 60‘s Channel. Earlier in the day, he recorded an interview Jimmy Gilmer et al for a later airing on XM.

I, too, got a chance to talk to all of the above and, in addition, walked around Jerry’s well decorated basement where the rehearsal took place and viewed the numerous black and white and color photos he had of pop artists of the early rock and roll era. One of those mounted on his wall was a posed group shot of Bill Haley & His Comets. That particular photo stood out because over a half century ago as a child, I saw an autographed version of it on the wall of a barber shop I went to. It seems Bill and his group had played at a nearby nightclub (The Surf Club) and while there had visited this barber shop presumably to get haircuts. A number of years later
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when the barber retired and closed shop, I tried to get a hold of that relic but was thwarted due to the fact that the barber had left them for the landlord and the
landlord stated that he had threw them out. (I guess he didn’t like rock and roll music, or he was lying.)

Another, photo on Jerry’s wall which piqued my interest was that of a well known rock and roll musician who wasn’t wearing his distinctive dark rimmed glasses. In fact, I had to ask Jerry whether or not that was a Buddy Holly headshot. It was. (How much different Buddy looked without his glasses).

Before departing, I had an opportunity to speak to Jimmy Gilmer. I told him of my remembrances of “Sugar Shack” as a freshman in high school. And we both traded our similar views on why rock and roll then is so well received now, as least by us oldies; and how out of touch today’s pop music is with us.

Finally, it was time to head home. After saying goodbye to most everyone remaining, I pulled Jerry aside and told him how much I enjoyed being there that evening. In fact, as a result of the session having been so memory-filled and at the same time alive, I was in the midst that moment of a genuine natural high. I’ve had a few of those experiences in my life whenever I encountered something so spontaneously enjoyable. This night was no exception and probably the best natural high of all.

Upon departure, I told Jerry that I wished I was going to the concert, but because of my witness to that evening’s ‘performance’, I really didn’t need to. It’s difficult to imagine ever again experiencing a more enjoyable and satisfying evening.

“Giacomo Madison James”

• RE: It's Growing At The Sugar Shack - Joy 08/27/2008 20:13:12 EDT (0)
• RE: It's Growing At The Sugar Shack - Joy 08/27/2008 20:14:17 EDT (0)