June 24, 1972: The promising young Al Fortune/Henry Alford

 

Here’s a future so bright, I had to wear shades just to transcribe it: 

June 24, 1972

Pro Football’s Al Fortune Leads a Busy Life

He’s Also a Concert Promoter,

Singer and College Student 

HENRY ALFORD Jr. is in Mexico City this particular afternoon and it’s beautiful, but there’s a lot of Buffalo on his mind.

        After all, he was born here Feb. 27, 1950, went to East Side public schools and besides, he’d just been home a few days ago, popping in from Pittsburgh to see his folks on Locust Street.

        Then he flew off again to New York City and a disappointing session with the agency that was supposed to send him Cold Blood for a Pittsburgh concert. Then, without breaking stride, he headed south of the border.

* * *

BUT HERE he is, calling Buffalo. About the time the phone connection starts to clear up, Henry, who goes by the name of Al Fortune these days, is saying:

        “Mexico City is like one big New York City. I wanted to see this place very badly. And I just want to enjoy things for a while before football camp comes up.”

        Al does most of his work in Pittsburgh, but it seems like he gets a lot of his ideas and background from home. Everything seems to come back to Buffalo.

        What got him to Pittsburgh in the first place was football. He was all-city end for Hutch Tech his junior year, fall of 1966, and the following year, when Hutch won the city title, he switched to fullback and made the all-city second team.

        “Dave Garnett from East was being scouted the year before,” Al says, “and one of the coaches saw me in a game and told me he’d be back to see me next year.”

* * *

HE THOUGHT college would cost his parents too much, but next year there were scholarship offers from Syracuse, Michigan, UCLA. The people from the University of Pittsburgh, however, flew him down to the campus. He loved it.

        At Pitt he started thinking seriously of a football career. “After playin’ my freshman year,” he says, “the guys from the big colleges didn’t look so superior. They weren’t much different from me.”

        Al towers about 6-foot-6, weighs 250 pounds or so, just enough for a defensive end, which he played his sophomore and junior years until he hurt a knee in a game against Baylor.

        “A helmet hit my knee and strained some ligaments. I sat out for three weeks and then played three more games. Then in the game with Syracuse I hurt my other knee. Now I’ve learned protect your legs first, then go for the man.”

        About the same time, he was getting into concert promotion and a bit of singing. His Zeta Beta Tau fraternity brother Arnie Steinberg was president of the men’s dorm council and appointed Al social chairman. His job – set up a dance once a month.

* * *

“I STARTED dealing with local booking agents,” Al says, “and that alone gave me some experience. Actually, way back in high school I was managing a couple groups.” Everything comes back to Buffalo.

        Al rented an old VFW hall near his home, called it the Haute Monde Club and recruited some members and held dances.

        He managed two groups, both of which won WUFO talent shows. There were some girls from Bennett called The Jades and some girls from Hutch called The Andantes. Al took them on tours to Olean, Jamestown.

        Arnie Steinberg also played guitar and so Al started singing with a little dorm group at Pitt, playing in lounges and all. That spring he was confident enough to front a local 12-piece Chicago-type band to warm up the crowd for a Friends of Distinction concert he brought to campus.

        “From that,” Al says, “I learned it was a lotta fun to put on a big show. And even better to be in it.”

* * *

“I HAD MIXED reaction from the football team. The coach heard I was singing very well and he said he was proud of me. But after that, he wouldn’t mention it. He just wondered how much money I was making. They assumed I was making all kinds of money.

        “The coaches mentioned I should concentrate on football. And I told ‘em I am, but they thought I had time to waste. They thought I oughta be lifting weights and killing myself. But most of the guys on the team thought it was a fun thing.

        “I find singing has aspects altogether different from being an athlete. Football’s a relatively open thing. Everybody’s good in their own way. Like there’s no other quarterback like Joe Namath. But music is an art. You strive to a goal.

        “I don’t see any conflict between the two at all. From the study of music, I learned proper breath control, using your stomach and diaphragm to control your exhale, and that helps in athletics, too.

        “And athletics enhance your physical ability. I find athletes very musically minded. There’s rock music in the dressing rooms, Rolling Stones, Ike & Tina Turner every day. It’s a thing athletes are into, like partying.”

        In spring 1971, Al ran for student commissioner and was beaten by a guy who implied that all Al would bring in was soul shows.

        “It wasn’t true,” Al remarks. “The year before, I brought in more white groups than soul groups. Anyway, he got in office and tried to put on big shows and they’d fall through. And just because I didn’t win, didn’t mean I could bring in shows through the men’s dorm council.”

        He even struck up a partnership with Buffalo Festival’s Jerry Nathan to bring Sergio Mendes to Pittsburgh. Al sang to open the show, then took Brasil 66 to dinner afterward:

        “I’ve never met anybody in show business so down to earth and natural as Sergio Mendes. And after the show, in the car, one of the chicks was singing a song I’d done.

* * *

“I WAS SO impressed that she had taken notice of a song I did, my mouth was just hanging open. After that, I said now this is definitely the sort of business I want to stay in.”

        He staged a show for a couple fraternities with Eddie Kendricks and another with War, which he feels was the best show he’s done yet, even though he had a hassle with management. And he had to take a cut in his profit so his backers would get what he promised them.

        Meanwhile, because he hadn’t made up some classes, he was declared ineligible for football. Sitting out five games while he churned out 13 credits worth of term papers, he came back just in time to help beat arch-rival Syracuse.

        “After the season,” he recalls, “I was waitin’ to hear about the football draft, but playing only five games, it discouraged my hopes.

        “I listened to the draft for two days, through the 12th round, then I figured it was over. But on the 16th round, St. Louis drafted me. I thought about it and decided I wanted to play.”

* * *

AFTER HE gets back from Mexico, Al figures pro football will keep him busy right up through January. Training camp opens July 17 in Lake Forest, Ill., and he hopes he will be with the team when it comes to Buffalo for its opening exhibition game. Everything comes back to Buffalo.

        Also in the works are a couple concerts. One with Bread and another with Hot Tuna. Neither have been to Pittsburgh yet.

        Then there’s Al’s plan to set up an institute to help Vietnam veterans train themselves and otherwise make use of their personal resources. The inspiration came out of Buffalo.

        “I came home,” he says, “talked to friends who’d been drafted and were out now and the main problem is they find a job for $1.80 an hour and then they work for three weeks and get laid off. Now if the vets put their money from the Army together, they could set up something of their own.”

        He also has the foundation of what he hopes will be Pittsburgh’s “first black advertising agency with a young approach.”

* * *

THE CITY’S new international airport will have things booming in three or four years, he feels, and “it’ll be just right for a black agency to deal with the black community.”

        Al’s still got a couple courses to pick up at Pitt next spring so he can get his political science-history degree. And he still thinks he’d like a singing career.

        “When I first started singing,” he says, “I thought I had an adequate voice that could get a song across. No blockbuster.

        “I’m still weighing the possibilities of getting professional voice training so I can iron the flaws out. I think I could be a night club entertainer and get into it seriously.

        “And I’d like to do something in Buffalo,” he adds, “but I can’t seem to get anywhere in terms of setting up concerts. But Buffalo is still my home, naturally, and whenever I’m not doing anything else, I’ll be coming back to see what can be done here.”

* * * * *

FOOTNOTE: He wasn’t Al Fortune when he played football. He was Henry Alford and he had just one pro season. Not with the St. Louis Cardinals in 1972, but the following year with the New England Colonials of the Atlantic Coast Football League after the Cardinals put him on waivers during the pre-season.

        It was the only season for the Colonials and it was the final year for the ACFL. Home field was Schaefer Stadium in Foxborough, Mass., when the Patriots weren’t playing there, and the team bulldozed its way to a 10-2 record, finishing first in the Northern Division and winning the league championship.

        After that, Henry/Al disappears. How can a guy with his potential not show up somewhere? But poof! Vanished. Anybody know what became of him? (BTW, the hapless Cardinals’ first pick in 1972 was future sportscaster Ahmad Rashad, who came to the Bills in 1974.)