Archival Buffalo News feature articles

  I inadvertently ruined the living arrangement for the subject of this article, who was sharing an apartment with a young elementary grade teacher in a suburban school district. Although she is not named here, someone knew she was dating this singer, put two and two together and decided she was violating the morality of the day.   Nov. 11, 1972 He Moves From Song to Song And the Crowds Like ‘em All   WHAT’S A Barry Dale? Ask your waitress, the card on the table says.         And here we’d been figuring a Barry Dale was that dark-bearded bear cub of a guy over on the little stage here at The Canterbury out on Niagara Falls Boulevard , playing guitar and doing songs to the never-fail beat of an electric drummer. Goes to show you never can tell …         OK, we say when the waitress arrives, what’s a Barry Dale?         “It’s one part vodka, one part Galli...

  When we previously met singer Jerry Hudson, the leader of this band, it was April 1970 and he was idolized by thousands of Buffalo teens.   Nov. 4, 1972         After Dark Group Formed Almost Overnight   It’s a somewhat different Jerry Hudson sitting with this new band over by the stage of The Cross Bow, that Tudor-trimmed oasis in the drive-in expanse of Sheridan Drive east of Niagara Falls Boulevard . Mellower. Brown horn-rimmed glasses, quietly fashionable clothes, the old cascade of curly hair styled into easygoing waves – a far cry from two and three and four years ago when, as lead singers for The Road, he and younger brother Phil were knocking out teenage Buffalo with their remakes of The Zombies’ “She’s Not There” and Three Dog Night. You’d warm up to Phil’s semi-shy smile and the smooth way he moved. Jerry you’d take to for other reasons. His intensity, the haughty command of his performance, his tightly-wound power. The Road b...

  No trace of these guys on the Internet, with one exception. See the Footnote:   Oct. 28, 1972 The Infatuations ‘Are All Together as a Group’   Impish Reggie Rice follows the tape with his drums, whumping the bass and snapping the snare crosswise (he’s left-handed, but sets his drums up right-handed) as he fits beats into a slow satiny song like fingers into a tight glove. The drum set takes up most of soft-spoken organist Kenny Hilliard’s parents’ modest sunporch on tree-darkened Riley Street on Buffalo ’s East Side . The rest of The Infatuations are jammed in wherever they can sit, frowning or laughing at their parts. A mellowed-out latter-day arrangement of “Dedicated to the One I Love” swirls ahead dreamily, the drumbeats loud on the tape, driving home the elaborate phrasing behind the soaring vocal harmonies. It’s no easy job, hanging a ballad like that together. It’s risky, in fact. The hypnotic illusion is so delicate that one little slip and crash ...

  A band with a five-year plan. Did it work? See the Footnote:   Oct. 21, 1972 Together’s in Harmony Both On and Off Stage   “WE’VE GOT SEVEN guys now who really get along,” Ed Schmidt says over the phone a couple weeks ago. “This band ought to stay together for the next five years.”         It took a year for Together to get with it that way. There were the usual problems – too many players (13 at one point), mismatched musical tastes (one guy wanted to do Zager & Evans with horns) and just plain bad attitudes.         “We had guys who didn’t show up for practice,” recalls Jim Borkman, the group’s guitarist, “or who’d miss a job because they had a date. The attitude now is good. Everybody now is really into it.”         “Everybody now is a personal friend too,” Mike Binis, the bass guitarist, observes.         “I...

  The Hollies, despite being at a low point, hold their heads high.   Oct. 20, 1972 A Fine Hollies Concert … And Nobody Came           “Looks like you all came here in the same taxi,” Tony Hicks told the meager audience in Kleinhans Music Hall Thursday night.         Only about 800 or so showed up to see Hicks and the rest of The Hollies, the British quintet that gave the world Graham Nash and a dozen hits like “Bus Stop,” “Carousel,” “Hey, Marianne” and “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother.”         It seemed like the people who were there felt like they made a mistake. Their only mistake was that they didn’t forget about the empty seats and get carried off by the music.         The Hollies, undaunted, trotted out the high three-part harmony that endeared them to the late ‘60s and only took occasional nods to the past. ...

  Let’s look behind the scenes and meet one of the guys who set up all those tours for Buffalo ’s traveling show bands.   Oct. 14, 1972 Show-Rock Groups Are in Demand   “IT’S BETTER FOR rock groups than show groups,” John Sansone says during a letup in the telephone calls earlier this week. “Most rock club owners don’t see the acts first.”         He turns on the TV and the videotape player and there’s United Sound bouncing onto the 12-inch screen to do “Aimless Lady.”         Do they have two video machines, then, one for him, one for his younger brother, Frank, who’s out checking on bookings somewhere around St. Louis ? Three, John corrects.         Things have been booming like this for John’s three-year-old J. R. Productions since mid-1971 when he joined forces with Dynamic Entertainment, a booking agency out of Columbus , Ohio .    ...