June 6, 1970: Stone Soul
You can’t always write about the big
guys.
Saturday, June 6, 1970
To Stick Together
Want to know where tomorrow’s rock musicians are? During the
day, high school. At night, the neighbors can tell you.
They’re over in some attic, basement, garage or spare room,
polishing up a borrowed harmony or trying to make that guitar sound more like
the record.
Down around Prospect and
* * *
SURE
ENOUGH, in the driveway a tan 1963
station wagon sports a plastic sign proclaiming: “Music by Stone Soul” and
another sheet says the group will play June 6 at the Working Boys’ Home,
Vermont and Busti.
Mr. Battaglia is a heavy equipment operator for Transit
Paving Inc. He’s manager of the group and his son, Paul, is drummer. He bought
that station wagon to haul group equipment. When they play, he goes too.
Ring the doorbell and the basement yields five upstairs
neighbors – just down watching – and the genial Mr. Battaglia, late 30s, heavy,
with thick brown hair.
* * *
THE
CELLAR ceiling is maybe 6 ½ feet
high, smothered in heating ducts, plumbing and wiring. There’s one light bulb
over near the washer and dryer.
“Him,” rhythm guitarist Joe Cali points to Paul, “he blackens
everything out.”
“Yeah, all he has to do is hit a drum,” says Chuck Palumbo,
the lead guitarist. “He doesn’t have to see the strings.”
* * *
THE AMPS, new last winter, still being paid for, are set up in
a circle. Joe, closest to the stairs, then singer Jeff Stewart, the drums and
Paul, wearing sunglasses, Chuck, and bass guitarist Larry DelPriore.
Behind Paul is a freshly-painted peace symbol. Too fresh.
Before the night’s over, it’s on his T-shirt.
* * *
FIRST OFF is Dyke and the Blazers’ “We Got More Soul” and
Jeff’s smiling, circling the mike with his arms to bang the tambourine. Like
Jerry Hudson of The Road. They used to sing this song straight, but Jeff forgot
the words one night and started ad lib introductions:
“I’m Jeff the lead singer, doin’ my thing, I’m Jeff the lead
singer, doin’ my ay-h-h-uuuhhh!”
Then “Leaving My Past Behind,” the old Caesar and the Romans
local hit. And “Mr. Soul.”
* * *
“WHY
DON’T you give him ‘Dance to the
Music?’” Mr. Battaglia suggests from his seat on the washer. Halfway into the
first verse, Paul’s sizzle cymbal tips over.
“It’s been falling all night,” he says.
“You’ve got it set up wrong,” Larry exclaims, crossing to the
drums. “How do you have it?” They adjust and start again.
“Let me hear the horn blow.” No horn, so Jeff imitates:
“Ba-da, ba-da, ba-da, BA-A-A!” The drum solos speed up and the harmonies aren’t
perfect, but it’s surely powerful.
* * *
“WE HAD a guy from Warner Bros. records,” Mr. Battaglia says.
“Frank something. Frank Nestro (who, it turns out, is a local record promotion
man). He liked these next two numbers. He said he’d like to cut them in six
months to a year.”
The first is “Summertime,” with lots of reverb, a heavy bass
line and wah-wah lead guitar. The other is a flashy version of “Knock on Wood”
with a bass solo melting into a guitar solo.
And it’s 9:30.
Time to quit. Kids sleeping upstairs. Jeff runs out and
reappears with an ice cream sundae.
* * *
STONE
SOUL’S first public appearance was
Feb. 8 at the Ramblin’ Lou March of Dimes Show in
“I thought we were comin’ in last because everybody else was
country,” Chuck says.
Since their first paid appearance in April, they’ve played
the Factory on
* * *
THEY
PRACTICE usually three times a week,
but they see each other almost every day. Joe and Jeff, same class, same
school, listen to records together afternoons, sometimes with Paul. Chuck works
in a grocery store, as does Larry, his parents’ place, Dan’s Deli, Lakeview and
In picking material, they stay away from underground. “We
know we can’t go out and play songs kids never heard before,” Joe explains.
“They’ll say: ‘What’re you playing?’”
They like Chicago (“good style”) and Three Dog Night (“the
harmonies”), but don’t want to tackle them yet.
“We had a big talk about it the other night,” Larry says.
“We’ll try each individual guy with the lead singer and the best ones will do
the singing.”
After trying recently to bring in an organist – his old group
started up again and he left, right before a job – Stone Soul figures the five
of them are enough. And they’ve signed agreements to stick together until
they’re 21. Or drafted.
* * *
THEY PACK their stuff into a far corner of the cellar as Mr.
Battaglia leads the way upstairs.
“You couldn’t want a better bunch of kids,” he says, “I’ll
tell you, I never listened to rock music before, but I’m listening to what the
boys play and, you know, I really like it.”
And now the box/sidebar
High School Students by Day
Some pertinent and
impertinent information about Stone Soul:
Jeff Stewart, 17, leader and singer, a Capricorn, junior at
Chuck Palumbo, 17, lead guitar, a Cancer, sophomore at
McKinley.
Larry DelPriore, 17, bass guitar, a Libra, junior at Kenmore
West.
Joe Cali, 16, rhythm guitar, a Leo, junior at Grover
Cleveland.
Paul Battaglia, 17, drummer, a Capricorn, sophomore at Seneca
Vocational.
* * *
THE GROUP started with Paul and Joe, who came up with the idea
early last year while hanging around the CYO coffeehouse at
They contacted Larry, who then was living in
“You couldn’t know what it sounded like,” he says. “I’d
planned on saying no.”
* * *
THE GROUP named Paul’s father manager and Joe’s mother
assistant manager. The name was borrowed from The Stone Soul Experiment after
that group decided to become The National Trust.
“We asked if we could have the name,” Paul says, “so they let
us have it. We didn’t like Experiment, so we dropped it.”
“We used to practice in Holy Angels gym,” Joe recalls. “The
CYO and them used to come up and listen to us.”
“There was this one clique that heard us then and laughed at
us,” Chuck adds. “Now that we’ve gotten better, we’re just waiting to see them
when we play dances. I think they’re afraid to come because they laughed.”
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