April 4, 1970: Pivot Point -- The first feature story in Pause

           The turning point for me at what was then The Buffalo Evening News came 50 years ago. The editors, in their neverending quest to reach readers under 30, set me up on the opening page of Pause, a special section of lifestyle features tucked into the back of the Saturday TV Topics magazine. My assignment – write an article every week about the vibrant local music scene.

This proved pivotal. I was playing in a band when I arrived at The News in 1968, figuring the day job would be temporary, just until we became rich and famous. But we weren’t. We were still poor and obscure – a second-tier bar band. Here was a chance to seize the day as a writer. Before the summer was over, I was no longer a working musician.

I thought this all began in June 1970 with a story about the Road – a group so enormously popular that it was touted as Buffalo’s answer to the Beatles. When I spooled into the microfilm in The News’ library, however, I discovered that the debut actually came two months earlier. And not with a band.

 Saturday, April 4, 1970

THEY BOOK THE ROCK

Jerry Nathan and Lew Fisher Have Faith

in Modern Music Scene

 “There are a lot of different rock audiences in Buffalo,” the grey-haired man in the blue three-piece suit remarks as we wait for the tea to come.

“You could run the Lettermen here on one night and Led Zeppelin the next night and not overlap more than 50 people.”

The man is Jerry Nathan, vice president of Atlas Plastics and head of Buffalo Festival Inc. Hair’s a little long in back. Thin-rimmed glasses. If he’s running a little late, it’s because he’s got a lot to do.

When a big name group comes to Kleinhans Music Hall or Memorial Auditorium, chances are he’s arranged to get them. He and Lew Fisher, mastermind of Theater Series and Melody Fair.

* * *

“I WENT ON A campaign to bring rock to Kleinhans,” Nathan says, “because I believed that it was not a passing fad. I thought that it would develop and become more musical.

“If we could bring in any group with the proper care and avoid problems, then why pass up Buffalo on some of these hot groups? The kids want to see them and there’s no reason why they shouldn’t.”

Nathan knows the music well and listens to it with the trained ear of a jazz fan. One of his sons, Steve, is in the Parkside Revival – a merger of the Cisum Revival and the Parkside Zoo.

“When I was interested in jazz, I got put down rock as hard as anybody who put it down,” he says. “It deserved it. It was too simple. The words weren’t saying anything.

“Now there’s 10 times the number of young kids playing guitar. It’s inevitable that the simplicity of the original form would be unsatisfactory.

“To my thinking, rock today is doing many new things. There are at least six separate paths it has moved into. Some of these will disappear, but the blending of them will become the music of the day in a few years.”

* * *

NATHAN’S business has grown with the music. His Festival Ticket office began when he had to sell tickets to four shows in 10 days. Last fall he staged the pilot show for the Ballantine Three-Ring Thing series (it was Arlo Guthrie and Grand Funk Railroad) and now he’s going to do 30 of them.

And here’s what he’s into for the next six weeks or so – Savoy Brown, Nice and the Family at Niagara University next Thursday, Sha Na Na at St. Bonaventure University April 25, and in Kleinhans, the Temptations April 22, the Letterman April 26, Joe Cocker May 1, the Dells and the Sweet Inspirations May 10 and Santana May 15.

* * *

UP MAIN ST. in the Wurlitzer store is the Theater Series office – the very model of a theatrical booking center. Glossy autographed photos circling a big desk and all. And Lew Fisher, dark wavy hair, open smile and a big cigar, the model theatrical agent.

Once an actor and primarily a theater man, he began booking talent in Kleinhans after he ran into Victor Borge’s agent at a party in New York City.

“You know, kids now don’t see plays, they don’t go to the theater,” he says. “Rock is their theater.”

“My biggest thrill is trying to outguess the public,” he says. “It doesn’t always work. Some nights my seat has cost me $3,000. But it’s always the buyer who’s right in entertainment. They know what they want.”

* * *

FISHER’S bookings span rock, folk and easy listening. He’s bringing in Ferrante & Teicher next Saturday. Summer Sunday nights at Melody Fair may include Canned Heat, the Youngbloods, Ian & Sylvia and Chicago. That’s tentative.

“The problem with a lot of rock groups is they haven’t had theatrical experience. They’re undisciplined,” he says. “When we had the Who at the tent, I walked back to the dressing room and found them putting together a guitar. They were an hour late.

“Now Iron Butterfly, Judy Collins, the Four Seasons, they’re on time, they’re well rehearsed. You never have to worry.”

* * *

THERE ARE some groups neither promoter can get into Buffalo. The Doors and Janis Joplin, for example, are forbidden by Kleinhans management. They provoke incidents, Nathan says, and they won’t help control the crowd.

Others just plainly want too much money.

“Creedence Clearwater Revival wants $18,000 a night,” Fisher exclaims. “You’d have to charge $10 at Kleinhans to make any money. Or put them in Memorial Auditorium.”

Same with Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young and Jefferson Airplane.

“Many of these cats cut themselves out of the best halls,” Fisher says. “You get to a point where there’s no place to do it.”

* * *

A COUPLE years ago you could complain that nobody ever came to Buffalo and you were just about right. Kleinhans was still wary because of three rowdy rock concerts in 1965 and there was just no place to do it.

What’s changed it is the gradual liberalization of Kleinhans’ policies. By way of Lew Fisher and Jerry Nathan, it’s brought a wealth of live big-name rock.