chuck berry – music memories

February 9th, 2008 · No Comments

chuck berry – Sitting around not doing much of nothing. Ripping CDs, which are bringing back some memories. Perhaps this will be the seed for a future BC column. Some of this I may have blogged before, some I haven’t. Let’s see how it comes out.

The first rock band I ever saw live was the Al Kooper Big Band. It was at some bizarro proto-rock convention at the New York Coliseum, I guess around 1968. It wasn’t a proper concert per se. But Kooper had just left Blood Sweat & Tears and was about to release his first solo album. All that I really remember about that show was being incredibly impressed by legendary drummer Bernard “Pretty” Purdie.

The first proper rock concert that I attended was at the Fillmore East. I suppose this would have been 1969. $3 for a ticket in the balcony. The opening act was legendary bluesman Albert King, with his Flying Vee Gibson guitar. The next act was Chuck Berry, and that was the show at which he recorded “My Ding-A-Ling,” which oddly enough was his only #1 hit single. The headliners, added to the bill at the last minute, was The Who. After running through several of their singles, they announced that they had a new album coming out soon and that they were going to play some of it – and to my recollection they then played all of “Tommy” about a month before the album was released.

Until it closed in 1971, I saw some amazing shows at the Fillmore East. I saw The Mothers of Invention, the original line-up, on their final tour. And then saw the Mothers line-up with Flo & Eddie (Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan of the Turtles), though I was there the night after the Fillmore East album was recorded.

I saw the Grateful Dead there twice. One night I can remember that the show started around 8 or 9 PM. The Dead came out and did about three hours of acoustic. (That’s because they seemed to take about 15 minutes to tune up between each song.) Then New Riders of the Purple Stage came out and did a couple of hours. Then the Dead returned, electric, and played all night. And I mean all night, too – when we came out of the theater the sun was shining.

I also remember seeing Leon Russell, Taj Mahal, Donny Hathaway, Jefferson Airplane, Buddy Guy & Junior Wells.

But the best show I saw at the Fillmore was undoubtedly one that kicked off with Wilbert Harrison, doing a hokey one man band thing and still riding the success of “Kansas City” about 20 years later. Next came Seals and Crofts, long before “Summer Breeze” became a hit. Doesn’t sound very impressive, does it? But the headliners that night were
Source: chuck berry – music memories