Sept. 9, 1972: Power of Soul
Meet a Black band with an affinity for “whitey music.”
Sept. 9, 1972
Power of Soul Group
Scores with Jazz Rock
SCHOOL 74’s
playground is kind of a natural hangout for black kids from
Swings and some basketball
nets are over by tranquil, tree-shaded
The kids have left their mark
too. That long yellow brick wall of what must be an equipment shed has been
humanized by a torrent of graffiti – nothing obscene, just gang names,
nicknames and romances done up bold.
So when Power of Soul decided
to throw a concert for their community one afternoon last week, a concert like
the ones over in
* * *
THEY’D WANTED
to build a stage, but there was a hassle about inspecting it so they put their
equipment and the two extra Leslie units they rented for David Gibson’s organ
right on the asphalt in front of the wall.
Three other bands were lined
up, but only Kaboom showed up. It started out being Power of Soul’s production
and it wound up being their show as well. They played about five hours.
Meanwhile, the social scene
came and went – swings, kids doing bicycle wheelies, a basketball game, cars
cruising through curiously. The crowd packed in tight behind the band was
almost as big as the one watching out front.
* * *
“THEY WERE
diggin’ it on the inside,” drummer Tony Wilson remarks later down in David
Gibson’s wood-paneled
The crowd that responds best
to them, they say, is the UB crowd, the ones that know more about music than
what’s on the Top 20 at WUFO or WBLK.
“When it comes to dancin’, I
enjoy dancin’ to James Brown music,” Tony says, “but to listen to it, it’s all
the same beat over and over. On Miles Davis, you never hear Jack DeJohnette
play two beats the same on the whole album.”
Power of Soul is into
jazz-rock. They even have a jazz-rock name. Got it off a song in the Jimi
Hendrix-Buddy Miles “Band of Gypsies” album.
They’ll talk about Miles
Davis or Wes Montgomery (they once did his version of The Beatles’ “Day in the
Life”), then go on to Black Sabbath (they do “Iron Man”). They’d play Jethro
Tull if they had a flute player.
* * *
“PEOPLE ACCUSE
us of playin’ so-called ‘whitey music,’” Tony says. “Then you turn around and
the
“The only thing I don’t
understand is when we play Hendrix they say we playin’ whitey music. They don’t
realize that all the music they listenin’ to came from black music. Rock, acid
rock, you can’t say it’s whitey music.
“Jimi Hendrix’s ‘Purple Haze’
and ‘Foxy Lady’ never got played on the black stations. Now Jimmy Castor’s come
out with a revised version and everybody thinks it’s ba-a-ad.”
Guitarist Mitch Meadows,
handkerchief tied around his head Hendrix-style, gives a look of disgust. Jimmy
Castor doesn’t use Hendrix’s licks. Mitch has them all down. He makes them look
easy.
* * *
WHEN POWER
of Soul began in this same basement three years back, the first song they
learned was The Tempts’ “My Girl.” That didn’t last long. The second one was
“In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida.” Then Mitch brought his Hendrix records over.
They sprang their acid-rock
on the world at two parties – one thrown by Tony’s father for management people
he works with at Simon Pure Brewery (they didn’t dig the Hendrix at all) and a
party in the basement.
“We sent out invitations,”
Tony says, “and it was like this, man.” He scrunches up. “The man was
patrollin’ outside and there were dudes from rival gangs starin’ at each other,
but they were all diggin’ on the music.”
The thing at School 74 was
“lousy,” they say, though the level of their command of their instruments makes
even a weak set sound competent.
* * *
THEIR BEST
playing is in the basement. Two or three or all four of them will jam
endlessly. Whenever they hit something good, they’ll go back and try to
recreate it. They’ve gotten down maybe 15 original songs that way.
“We’ll come down,” Tony says,
“and somebody’ll say: ‘Hey, that was ba-a-ad.’ And we’ll smack a name on it –
smack! What’s that song? ‘Car.’ We took the serial number off David’s Leslie
and made it a title.”
Presently their equipment
fits nicely into Mitch’s father’s funeral home hearse, but they’re looking for
more.
David has only one Leslie
unit and there’s just a single Kustom amp for a PA, minimally adequate in
competition with the booming bass and guitar amps. That’s why they haven’t been
stressing vocals. They’ve been doing some harmonizing lately, but only in the
basement.
* * *
THEY’RE ALSO
looking for paying jobs. It cost them money to put on the School 74 show. A
would-be manager got them playing for a fashion show, then paid them in
T-shirts. Their hopes now are on winning first place in a battle of bands in
“The last time we were in the
Falls,” Tony recalls, “we were playin’ for the senior citizens and they had
such a high admission nobody could afford to get it.
“We were playin’ low for a
while, but nothin’ was happenin’ so we started jammin’ and people started
bangin’ on the doors. There were over 400 people out there on the street. We
were gettin’ a percentage of the door, so we lost cash too.
“I think everybody in this
group is serious about music,” he says later, “not just for jammin’, but as an
art.
“To me, the harder somethin’ is to play, the more I enjoy playin’. It’s more of a challenge. And if you’re doin’ somethin’ nobody else can get down, you gotta be ba-a-ad.”
The box/sidebar:
Together as Children
Power of Soul organist David
Gibson and drummer Vincent (Tony) Wilson, both 16, both juniors at
“They said we shut everybody
else out,” Tony says. “We be sittin’ over in a corner by ourselves buildin’
great big castles.”
* * *
THEY STARTED
doing music together early, too. David was taking piano lessons and Tony’s
parents got him a little drum set so he’d stop beating up the furniture.
“We did ‘Yesterday’ and ‘Wade
in the Water,’” Tony says. “I made brushes by tying straws from old brooms on
my sticks. We were all set to go professional. The thing that motivated me to
play was David. He was like a prodigy, useta write all these songs. I wanted to
be like David.”
Mitch Meadows, who’s 17 and
starting in at UB, began picking up songs by ear when he was 11, working them
out on piano, then moving them to guitar. Then his first year at
He’d been with a band called
the Devores when he came to David’s basement about three years ago and decided
he’d be better off musically with David and Tony.
Sam McCollum Jr. is 20 and
played piano for 10 years before going to bass. “I was with this other dude
playin’ bass when I was playin’ piano,” he says. “I was watchin’ him and
getting’ more involved with his instrument than with my own.”
Sam, who’s a graduate of
Kensington High and an office worker in the
They got him down to the
basement to jam and he left his amp. “He says: ‘I think you’re badder than
us,’” Tony says, “and they were the number one group.”
* * * * *
IN THE PHOTO:
Power of Soul outside School 74, from left, David Gibson, Sam McCollum Jr.
(seated), Tony Wilson and Mitch Meadows.
* * * * *
FOOTNOTE: Mitch Meadows is the only member of Power of
Soul who turns up in my internet searches. He got a
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