May 5, 1973: Former Raven singer Tony Galla

 

By this time, I’d caught up with the solo careers of every other former member of Raven except for the fabled rock band’s fabulous singer. Turns out it had taken him a while to emerge from his post-Raven shell. 

May 5, 1973 

Raven Changed Its Musical Feathers 

THREE YEARS AGO this spring, the rock band Raven had just finished a series of recording sessions in Philadelphia for a single to follow their slow-selling album on Columbia Records.

          The five of them had gone further into the big time than any Buffalo group till then. And coming up was a tour of England.

          It was there the blow fell that ultimately split the group. Columbia announced they’d renew Raven’s contract if the band stayed in the British Isles six months to a year to build up momentum, the old Jimi Hendrix route. Raven decided they’d rather come home. A month later it was all over.

* * *

THEIR MUSICAL energies weren’t put aside, however. Guitarist John Weitz founded his own jazz-rock trio – J. R. Weitz. Organist Jimmy Calire began gigging about with a portable Moog synthesizer. He’s playing now with Spoon and The House Rockers weekends at Sundays and Brink’s on Elmwood Avenue.

          Bass guitarist Tom Calandra is with Toni Castellani’s Gingerbread Express at Gabriel’s Gate when he isn’t making weird musical commentaries for WKBW. And drummer Gary Mallaber is doing studio sessions in Los Angeles and touring with songwriter-singer Paul Williams.

          Tony Galla, the group’s big-voiced singer and flute player, got a job as a Port Authority parts clerk at Buffalo International
Airport and spent a year thinking things over before getting back on stage.

          These days he’s singing and playing bass guitar with guitarist Dick Terranova, a 14-year member of The Vibratos, in the Shadows, Delaware and Virginia, on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday nights.

          It’s a commercial gig, but it gives the veteran rockers enough latitude to slip into an occasional blues.

* * *

TONY’S 25 NOW and last year he bought a house in Depew, settled in with his wife Janice and their three daughters. They’re going to be singers too, he grins. Pappa Galla and the Galla Singers.

          Dick and Tony make for an easygoing partnership. They sit on opposite sides of the living room picture window, Dick smoking cigarettes, Tony drinking coffee. Tony’s pug-nosed dog, Muggsy, snores loudly at his feet as he talks about the concerts he’s been giving in churches.

          “It’s not during Mass, but in the afternoon. I did one for Father Jack (Rev. Jacob Ledwon) at St. Lawrence and it went so well I booked some more.

          “I do a couple original things I’ve written. Father Jack does a couple he wrote. It’s an all-religious sort of program and the original material gives people a new outlook on church.

          “Dick’s been with me two years. He was in the old group I had too, Alive and Well. Jimmy Calire was in it for a while and numerous drummers. Paul Lieberman, Larry Rizzuto. Now we got Hal.” Hal is their electronic drummer.

          “He doesn’t complain,” Dick notes.

* * *

“HOW’D WE get the duo together? Dick called me up and I told him I was gonna do a single and he said why don’t you make it a duo.

          “We do some of what we did with the old group, but there’s more commercial stuff, more pretty ballads. Which I really enjoy singing anyway. I imagine the sound isn’t as full as with a band, but if you close your eyes, you can even imagine things. I can hear strings sometimes.

          “I started bass with the Rising Sons and dropped it when we became the Raven. I never thought I would play it again. But in three or four weeks I got it back. And I really enjoy working with Dick. I feel I’ve got all this experience sitting next to me.

          “It’s quite a change, Saturday night going da da da da da da  da dom, Sunday morning singing in the folk Mass at Immaculate Heart of Mary. I guess that’s my aim eventually. Doing churches, doing concerts or something like that.

          “I don’t want to do touring like with the Raven again. You grow as you go along and you form different outlooks, different opinions.”

* * *

“WHEN THE Vibratos were at the Glen and the Town Casino, we had people approach us for going out on the road,” Dick says, “but we were never interested. We were having fun at the Glen. We had just an unbelievable amount of fun.”

          “I used to go watch them,” Tony says.

          “Then,” Dick says, “when the Rising Sons came out they were at the Town Casino and that’s when we came in and said look at that singer …”

          “That was a long time ago,” Tony muses.

          “Now,” Dick replies, “you’re making me feel old.”

* * *

“I GOT STARTED singing when I was seven,” Tony says. “My mother took me around to sing at the Army bases. There was her, my older brother Armondo, my sister Mary Jane and me.”

          “You did that thing with the three of you in the back of the Town Casino,” Dick puts in.

          “That was the Sure-Win Trio,” Tony chuckles. “We used to sing three-part harmony that was like white gospel. It was down-home. That harmony would really run right up your back.

          “My sister still sings. She came down to the club the other night and did a couple songs. She didn’t need a mike.”

          “You know,” Dick says, “my cousin just bought that Raven album. It’s down to a dollar. I think that was a record that was ahead of its time.”

          “You’re right,” Tony says. “People couldn’t identify with that kind of music. It was a new feeling. You kinda got loose to it.

          “But I wouldn’t want to get back into that kind of thing we had with the Raven. There’s too much pressure. I feel it was a success, but at the end of that scene you choose what you want and apply it to what you’re doing now.

          “Once music is in your blood and once you’ve taken it to a certain point, you have to perform. If it’s a gift to you, you have to give it to someone else. Otherwise it turns rotten inside you.

* * *

“BUT IT’S A HARD decision to make. You can starve and be an artist or you can make the dollars. It’s a matter of saying in your head: ‘I have to do this.’

          “Then you have to get into clothes, uniforms, you don’t really know why, and the lights. When I started this thing, I kept saying why do you have to have all the lights.”

          “Now,” Dick says, “if they aren’t on, you’re sayin’ where are the lights.

          “We just wanted to see whether it would work out,” Dick continues. “As a duo, you lose all that background music you have in a group. You constantly have to play. The first week, I thought my hand would fall off.”

          “It’s easy to keep together this way,” Tony says. “There’s no hassles or arguments. We’ve been at it so long that we’re not afraid up on stage. And we have fun with the people, which is what music is all about.” 

The box/sidebar: 

Vibratos Had Quite a History 

          “If you were to jot down all the people who played with The Vibratos from 1957 until it broke up in 1971, you’d fill up half your page,” Dick Terranova reckons.

          “I’d say there were at least 70. There was Cosmo, you know, Emil Lewandowski, who’s now Corey Wells in Three Dog Night. He was with us for six months. We’ve had some people three times, like Bradd Grey, the drummer with Gingerbread Express.”

          Dick’s 29 and works in the business office at Erie Community College. He’s married, has a daughter. He and his brother Jack were mainstays of The Vibratos, which was one of Buffalo’s original rock groups.

          “There were four bands,” Dick says, “Stan Szelest, ourselves, Bobby DeSoto and Charlie Starr. We started with the Tommy Shannon Caravan when Shannon was on WBNY.

          “And Lucky Pierre, remember him? We used to get $5 a night. That was for the whole band, a dollar apiece.

* * *

“ALL THE GROUPS that started out in rock ‘n roll, all they did was instrumentals. But we had a singer, a guy named Kenny Dee. He couldn’t talk ‘cause he’d stutter, but he could sing.

          “My brother Jack was the original front man. He was the only one back then who’d get out and talk to the people between songs.

          “We were on the Joey Reynolds Show and we had a couple records in the ‘60s. ‘Stubborn Kind of Fella,’ we recorded that in New York at Bell Sound.

* * *

“BUT THE radio stations weren’t like they are now. They just played hits, not local people. We sold the record at the Glen. I think we still have a few thousand copies.

          “It just came down finally to where Jack had to start working out of town on his day job and we were just booking groups. Jack’s working with a duo now too.”

* * * * *

IN THE PHOTO: Tony Galla, right, and Dick Terranova.

* * * * *

FOOTNOTE: Like Gary Mallaber and Jim Calire, Tony Galla went West to Los Angeles. As his website tonygalla.com puts it, “When Tony isn’t recording a new CD, soundtrack for a film or national commercial, he can be found at gigs all over town like the SAG Awards, Emmys or Grammy Awards, singing at celebrity weddings, playing at exclusive events, performing with the Long Beach Civic Orchestra or performing live in Las Vegas to a sold-out crowd.”

The website also notes that he made a musical appearance in the 2010 Amanda Seyfried 2010 rom-com “Letters to Juliet” and had toured doing pops concerts with Grammy-winning composer, conductor and pianist Victor Vanacore.

Among his CDs are a couple collections of Italian songs. He’s returned here every year or two to perform at the Italian Festival or for jazz gigs. His last shows locally were with Mallaber and Calire at the Sportsmen’s Tavern in 2015 and 2016 and as a headliner at the Sportsmen’s in 2018.

As for Dick Terranova, his musical trail grows cold after this, but he’s on Facebook, where it says he’s retired from Nabisco and is alive and well and living in Palm Desert, Calif.