May 15, 1971: Friendship Train

 

Two local music legends here – singer Chuck Vicario, who went on to be lead singer in Big Wheelie & The Hubcaps, Buffalo’s answer to Sha Na Na; and manager Fred Caserta, who found religion and founded Kingdom Bound, the mega Christian summer music festival at Darien Lake amusement park. 

May 15, 1971 

Friendship Train Runs on Five-Part Harmony 

        Rich Antolucci, manager of The Scene, is winding things up with the guy from Guider magazine while Friendship Train tells the photographer that they don’t want to pose with instruments.

        “Hey,” someone says, “how about that amusement park up by Ellicott Creek? You could take a picture of us on the train.”

        The sun is giving Niagara Falls Boulevard its first summer licks as our caravan pulls in on Earl Dealing. The surprised amusement-park owner says pictures are fine with him. He unwraps a merry-go-round, but the train is what everyone wants so out he brings it.

        “I used to come out here when I was a kid,” guitarist Dan Cook says, taking the engineer’s seat.

* * *

RICH SETS up Cokes all around as the group returns to the club and there’s a lot of good-natured joking that makes everyone seem younger than they turn out to be.

        What helps is that everyone in Friendship Train is on the same success trip. They’ve all been around rock and country bands. They all know what it takes to make a group work and they’re all prepared to do it.

        “My sister and I have been in groups for six years,” says organist Carol Fremy, “and it was going nowhere. When we talked to Fred, his ideas turned out to be almost identical with what we wanted to do.”

* * *

FRED IS Big Fred Caserta, who use to produce dances in Kenmore (Dan Cook was in his house band) and who later managed Caesar & The Romans. Now he’s Friendship Train’s architect, manager, pizza buyer and birthday cake provider.

        “I felt there was definitely a need in this town for acommercial group with the idea we had,” he says. “I got together with Chuck (Vicario) and Dan on it and we went from there. It was a question of keeping together and working hard.”

* * *

THE HARD work began in mid-October. A month later there were three guys from Caesar & The Romans and four girls who answered Fred’s ad practicing five and sixth nights a week, often until 1 a.m. in Carol and Diane Fremy’s Town of Tonawanda living room. Two days before Christmas they were displaced by the Fremy Christmas tree.

        “We found out there really was no time to go out on dates,” says Carol. “Nobody minded because I think we all want THIS first.”

        By mid-January, Fred got them their first job. It was Russo’s Trophy Room on South Park Avenue and on their first weekend they got a standing ovation.

        Next was 11 weeks at Williamsville’s Page One and now they’re at The Scene every night but Mondays until the end of May. After that, agent Fred Saia is putting them on the road. Batavia, Rochester, Binghamton and maybe Albany. They’re looking forward to it.

        “A lot of people have come up and said don’t go on the road,” Chuck Vicario says, “but that’s why we put this group together. We want to tour.”

* * *

THEIR specialty is five-part harmony and it’s no surprise that they favor songs from The Fifth Dimension, Three Dog Night, Sly & The Family Stone, Brasil ’66 and other groups that stress vocals.

        “The challenge of doing a Fifth Dimension song,” Carol points out, “is the harmony. It’s a five-part harmony and you have to have someone who can hear the parts.

        “The other challenge is getting the bass and drums to get the beat established. There has to be drive without a lot of volume.”

“It’s knowing when to make your accents,” Dan says. “It’s dynamics. Dynamics is the whole thing behind it.”

“It’s everybody being sharp,” Chuck Vicario adds. “Let’s face it, in a rock group, you can’t mess around.”

* * *

THAT NIGHT their stage presence is full of that same joyful determination despite a PA problem. That may have been what made the solo vocals by Chuck Vicario (and Judy Ware and Linda Socie on the other side of him) seem a bit thin next to the powerful harmonies.

        Judy and Linda try to work together on choreography, but Chuck’s movements are all his own. Singing Runt’s “We Got to Get You a Woman,” he prances in a combination of, say, Frankie Lyman and the old Caesar. And he still has that taped-up microphone. He no longer twirls it, but he holds it the same old way.

        The instruments are clean and understated. Diane Fremy’s bass provides a lot of support. Dan Cook weaves occasional guitar ornaments the way that must have infuriated his old rock fans and Chuck Brideau’s drums are a dusting of cymbal and bass.

        And every four or five songs, Carol Fremy will do a little tour de force on piano, drums or flute. Twelve bars of funked-out piano close their version of The Beatles’ “Help!”

        Carol does most of the group’s arranging and she was the one who wrote the commercial the group does on Channel 29. She’s planning a whole set of “American music,” a panorama of songs with Dan on banjo and “all that Al Jolson stuff.”

        Everyone – guys and girls alike – thinks that four girls in the group is far from being a handicap.

        “I think girls put more attention on the little things,” Diane notes.

        “They also put in a lot of commitment,” Fred says.

        “Compared to other groups we’ve been in,” Carol says, “our problems are minimal.”

        “Besides,” Fred cautions, “if they argue, I sit on them.”

        “And,” Linda says, “nobody wants THAT!” 

The box/sidebar: 

Pertinent and impertinent information about Friendship Train:

        Chuck Vicario, 24, singer, Kenmore West High School, married.

        Linda Socie, 21, singer, Tonawanda High School, Erie Community College graduate, single.

        Judy Ware, 20, singer, Sweet Home High School, junior at UB majoring in English education, single.

        Dan Cook, 22, guitar and vocals, Riverside High School, attended Niagara County Community College, single.

        Carol Fremy, 23, organ, piano, flute and vocals, Kenmore East High School, UB graduate, majored in painting, single.

        Diane Fremy, 25, bass guitar, Carol’s sister, Kenmore East, attended Geneseo State University College, single.

        Chuck Brideau, 21, drums, native of Keyport, N. J., attended Monmouth College, single.

* * *

FRIENDSHIP TRAIN steamed from the ruins of Caesar & The Romans, one of Buffalo’s rock mainstays in the late ‘60s, and manager Fred Caserta’s seeing The Glass Bottle, which inspired him to seek a commercial rock group.

        With a nucleus of Chuck (Caesar) Vicario, Dan and Romans drummer Pat Perry, Fred advertised for musicians. First to answer was Carol, who with her sister Diane had worked six years in groups like The In Crowd, The Storybook and The Blues Forum.

        Judy was a veteran of the original Lemon Sky and Linda sang country-western with Eddie Bentley after doing harmony on one of his recordings. Pat Perry left a month ago and was succeeded by Chuck Brideau, who came to town with a group called Happy Daze and stayed.

* * *

THE NAME Friendship Train – another Fred Caserta invention – rose during a telephone call to a friend in California. But it wasn’t until later that the group discovered that the name came with a ready-made theme songs, courtesy of Motown’s Gladys Knight & The Pips. “Friendship Train” signs off at least one set a night.

        “It beats ‘Fairfield Street,’” one of them says, “That was a joke, really. Fairfield Street was where we used to practice.”

 

PHOTO CAPTION: The group Friendship Train at Darling’s Amusement Park, Niagara Falls Boulevard, from left, guitarist Dan Cook, singers Judy Ware and Linda Socie, bass guitarist Diane Fremy, singer Chuck Vicario, drummer Chuck Brideau and organist Carol Fremy.

FOOTNOTE: Friendship Train gave birth to Big Wheelie & The Hubcaps. At first, a ‘50s rock set within the commercial group’s show, by April 1973 it had moved into the driver’s seat.

That’s when Billboard magazine was taking notice of Big Wheelie & The Hubcaps – which not only included singer Chuck Vicario, but also guitarist Dan Cook, keyboardist Carol Fremy, who had become Carol Fleming (and later would be Carol Jane Swist), and singers Judy Ware and Linda Socie.

The article notes that the group, riding on the local success of their first album, “Solid Grease,” was being prepped for a big showcase tour of Southern California. (On one of my visits to L.A., I was pleasantly amazed to run into them on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood).

Chuck Vicario inhabited his role as Big Wheelie so well that he reigned for many years as the king of 1950s rock hereabouts. He came back from two years of rehab after a serious motorcycle accident in 2012 and kept going until 2019, when he decided to hang up his black leather. He was an early inductee (1985) into the Buffalo Music Hall of Fame.

        Manager Fred Caserta was working for Fred Saia’s Great Lakes Booking at the time of this article, but struck out on his own in 1977, handling Big Wheelie and other leading local groups such as Talas and Cock Robin.

He was inducted into the Buffalo Music Hall of Fame in 2013, where his bio notes that he found religion in the mid 1980s after an accident that laid him low for a year. He started leading a Bible study group and turned his musical interests accordingly.

He and a partner started Kingdom Bound as a weekend festival at Darien Lake amusement park in 1987 with a few touring Christian rock bands and oversaw its growth into a week-long family event featuring the stars of Christian music and drawing tens of thousands of fans.

        Sadly, neither of them is still with us. Covid claimed Chuck in April 2020. Fred died in 2006.