July 29, 1972: Rosco and the Red Hots

 

True disciples of Stan Szelest, these guys went forth and did a lot of likewise. See the Footnote: 

July 29, 1972

A Mix of Southern Boogie and Blues 

THE EGG CRATES begin at the ceiling and come down the wall to about chest level.

        “That’s our $600 soundproofing job,” Phil Gallo chuckles as the photographer inadvertently bumps a crate and it falls.

        Push another crate and the brass chandelier with the imitation candle-flame light bulbs glows with displaced elegance among the spare chairs and the bare walls in the ground floor apartment a couple blocks south of Buffalo State University College. The place is nicknamed Nasty Manors.

        “The décor here is 20th Century poverty,” cracks harmonica player Seth Holzman with characteristic irony.

* * *

THE SIX MEMBERS of Rosco & The Red Hots can joke about the shabby room and being poor, but in a way it’s as essential to their music as anything else they do. Because playing isn’t as bitterly sweet, not nearly so intense when it doesn’t rise out of hard times and troubles.

        “Yeah,” says bass guitarist Andy Rapillo, “I guess we’re payin’ dues.”

        Seth is the only one of them that has a car (a battered 1964 model that needs a valve job) and then there’s Phil’s record collection – 14 albums and nothing to play them on.

        This room is where Phil – that’s his upright piano against the wall – and guitarist Bob McMaster started jamming five, six, ten hours a day last spring. Rock ‘n roll. Old rock ‘n roll.

        “You might say we’re from the same school of playing as Stan Szelest,” Phil says. “Straightforward rock ‘n roll, music to feel good by. ‘Cause that’s where rock ‘n roll is at – it just fee-e-e-eels good.”

        When Stan was playing Monday and Tuesday nights up at Granny Goodness on Hertel Avenue last winter and spring, Phil was there every time.

        Seth brought in his harmonica and sat in a couple times. And drummer Greg Zark, with the fierce determination of his proud Cossack ancestry, sat as close to drummer Sandy Konikoff as he could. “My drum lesson,” he says.

* * *

“STAN HAS quit Ronnie Hawkins, you know that?” Phil says. “I saw Ralph Parker here in town the other day. He quit too and he said Stan was staying in Toronto a few days to do some recording sessions.”

        (A call to Stan’s home confirmed it. Stan just got back, happy to be with his family, secure in sitting in four nights a week with the country band at Al Bemiller’s Turfside Lounge in Hamburg, listening to his Ray Charles records again and looking for a part-time solo gig like the one he had at Granny’s.)

        Rosco & The Red Hots call their music “greasy,” a throwback to the good-time ‘60s. It evolved to a mixture of good old Southern boogie and Chicago-style blues as the group expanded to its present strength in May.

        Among other things, they do a batch of J. Geils Band tunes (there’s a strong J. Geils influence in their playing), a couple funky Bob Dylan things, feel-good songs like Ernie K-Doe’s “Mother in Law” and blues old and new, from “Statesboro Blues” to “Whipping Post.”

* * *

THEY SAY there’s little individual competition in the group and sometimes, when they’re really deep into the groove on an occasional jam number, things can be so laid-back they’re automatic.

        “Jay (Dzina) is the first guitarist I ever played with that I haven’t had any ego hassles with,” Bob McMaster says. “We’ll be in a jam number and I’ll look over and say: ‘Want this ride?’ And he’ll say: ‘No, you can take it.’ And I’ll say: ‘Go on, take it.’”

        Beer flows and there’s more talk of local musicians, the ones that play feel-good music. Like the Shakin’ Smith Blues Band and The Conqueroos and The Posse down at Miller’s on the lake in Angola.

        And of Phil’s cousin Lenny Riforgiato and his partner Bruce Gallagher, whose Medicine Band has temporarily taken up commercially-oriented music to make some money.

        Some of them come around and sit in with the Red Hots during their regular Wednesday, Friday and Saturday night appearances at Bowery Boys, a club at Pine Ridge Road and Genesee Street in Cheektowaga.

* * *

THERE AREN’T a lot of them and there aren’t a lot of clubs that’ll hire them. Even a seasoned rocker like Stan Szelest, who’s been at it since the late ‘50s, has trouble finding a steady place where he can play what he wants to play.

        Guitarist Jay Dzina explains the problem: “I was talking to (he mentions a major local bar owner) and I tried to tell him that if anything’s gonna get Buffalo on the map, it’s the musicians. And he said: ‘Ehh-h, the bars here already done that.’

        “Can you believe that? I mean, that’s what’s brought the town down is bars with sound systems insteada bands. These club owners gotta get back into communication with the musicians.”

* * *

“RIGHT NOW,” Greg puts in, “Abe at the Bona Vista has got more good musicians in front of the people than anybody else.”

        “The other bar owners think what we’re playin’ is for teenagers,” Seth says. “They think it’s only a teen beat.”

        “A lotta people are misinformed about feelin’ good,” Bob McMaster says.

        “Like these guys playin’ records in the bars,” Phil asserts. “They put on stuff like ‘I Don’t Need No Doctor.’ That isn’t rock ‘n roll any more, it’s too heady.”

        “Now in Jethro Tull,” Greg adds, “none of those guys are a slouch, but the thing is I don’t like the feel they get across. That’s the thing about rock ‘n roll. You can put your body in it and ride it right across the floor.”

        “Stan’s got a good saying for rock ‘n roll,” Phil says. “Straight ahead and nail it. That’s where it’s at.”     

The box/sidebar 

Putting ‘Red Hots’ Together 

Pertinent information about Rosco & The Red Hots:

Phil Gallo, 22, piano and vocals, Amherst High School, attended Hofstra College and the School of Time & Space in San Francisco, single.

Bob McMaster, 26, guitar, slide guitar and backup vocals, native of Philadelphia, attended UB, single.

Jay Dzina, 21, guitar and vocals, Tonawanda High, single.

Seth Holzman, 22, harmonica, native of The Bronx, attended UB, single.

Andy Rapillo, 22, bass guitar, Lafayette High, Vietnam veteran, single.

Greg Zark, 24, drums, Tonawanda High, attended Saddleback Junior College in California, single.

“I kinda date the band from the date we got it all together musically,” Bob says.

In that case, Rosco & The Red Hots began in May, although Bob and pianist Phil Gallo had been working on songs since March.

* * *

FIRST TO JOIN them was Seth, who’d never played with a band before (“You know, be a loner, get a Hohner.”) Then came Greg, who’d played with the Rock Bottom Band, Asylum of Sound and the Shakin’ Smith Blues Band.

Next was Andy, who’d been with Rock Bottom and Shakin’ Smith also. And Jay, who’d been in bands with Greg for seven years, including groups like Society’s Children and Sunday School Picnic.

Bob was a veteran of the mid ‘60s Buffalo group Metamorphosis, along with the Friendly Strangers and with Greg In World Flipout. Phil had been with a house band at the Beef & Ale House on Main Street.

* * *

THEIR FIRST appearance game them their name. Or rather it was the band playing opposite them, a Black group which did Grand Funk Railroad. After one set, one of them came up came up to Phil and told him: “You play mean, we callin’ you Rosco.”

“I really liked that,” Phil says, “and so we were sittin’ around, trying to think of something to go with it. And we all go crazy for Texas hots, you know, red hots. It’s a greasy name. It’s just right for rock ‘n roll.”

* * * * *

IN THE PHOTO: From right, front, harmonica player Seth Holzman, guitarist Bob McMaster, guitarist Jay Dzina and drummer Greg Zark. Rear, pianist Phil Gallo and bass guitarist Andy Rapillo.

* * * * *

FOOTNOTE: According to his listing on LinkedIn, keyboardist Phil (Roscoe) Gallo moved to San Francisco in 1977, has been doing musical arrangement and production since 1980 and is owner and operator of a studio there. He’s played with a variety of Bay Area bands, including Malo.

        The Philadelphia Folksong Society website says that Seth Holzman currently is leading virtual blues harmonica lessons on Zoom. It also says he earned a bachelor’s degree in music from Syracuse University. He was a member of Ronnie Earl’s first band and has sat in with Muddy Waters, Koko Taylor and other notables. He’s been appearing with several bands in the Philadelphia area.

        Drummer Greg Zark led his own band, Zark & The Sharks, went on to join bluesman King Biscuit Boy in Toronto later in the 1970s, then migrated back to California. He’s back home now. In 2020, he was one of players in the North Tonawanda Porchfest and before the pandemic, he was a regular at the Saturday Blues Matinees at the Iris next door to the Maple Ridge moviehouse and sat in with the Electras.

        Bassist Andy Rapillo played in a variety of local bands – Junction West, Posse, the Phil Dillon Band and with Billy McEwen. He also was part of the crew on the first Rick James album, “Come Get It,” with his guitarist brother, Alfred “Fast Freddie” Rapillo, who’s a Buffalo Music Hall of Famer. Andy returned from California in 1991 for a benefit concert full of local all-star musicians to help him through his cancer treatments. He died in 1993. Freddie just died on March 24 in Sherman Oaks, Calif.

        Guitarist Jay Dzina shows up playing and recording with the Billy McEwen Band. Jay was short for his real name. Hopefully, he isn’t the Michael John Dzina from Tonawanda who died in 2016 at the age of 64.

        And finally, anybody seen the other guitarist, Bob McMaster? Google doesn't turn him up.