Archival Buffalo News feature articles

  A quick return visit with the House Rockers, soldiering on without Elmo "Spoon" Weatherspoon, the man who inspired them to get together in the first place.   Oct. 6, 1973   Busy House Rockers Drive Music Forward With Style and Grace   ACCORDING TO the rules and regulations of this garden planet, the price of a memorable night is payable in full the morning after – no checks, credit cards or IOU’s accepted.           Several of The House Rockers thus are still working on their belated final installments for Monday night’s revelry at Casey’s on Hertel as they gather for afternoon picture-taking and a brief practice session at saxophonist Phil DiRe’s house near McKinley High School .           “I wish we had a movie camera for nights like that,” road manager George Zakrzewski grins at guitarist Ernie Corallo.         ...

  First featured on this page in December 1970, United Sound’s vocal front line is still intact three years later, aside from the departure of Ike Smith. The backup instrumentalists, however, are a whole different crew. A couple of them went on to solid careers in music.   Sept. 22, 1973   United Sound Together To Record New Album For Their Friends   “I’M SO NERVOUS for you,” a stageside woman is telling Dorothy Hooks, who like the rest of United Sound is visiting friends while the sound people search down an elusive hum.           United Sound’s a little nervous for themselves, too. They’ve been doing clubs from here to Daytona Beach for the past two years (they’re just in from Akron, Ohio), but Monday night’s special – their first time at the Three Coins on Niagara Falls Boulevard and their first stab at recording a live album.           Their agents, John and F...

  It happened all too often in the 1970s – Buffalo ’s brightest and best packing up and heading for California .   Sept. 15, 1973   John Weitz, Buffalo ’s Leading Jazz-Rock Guitarist, Moves West   “SEE MY CARRIER?” John Weitz nods at the white-painted box in his living room. “I just finished it. That’s going on top of the truck.”           The rest of Weitz’s apartment in the North Buffalo housing project has that kind of doomed look things get just before moving day. The battered couch, the old kitchen table, their days are numbered. Everything’s been sold.           Weitz, the city’s foremost jazz-rock guitarist, and his cohorts, bass guitarist Gary (Red) White and drummer John Opat, will pack it in next week and drive off into the sunset.           White and Opat will be going first, towing White’s three-wheeled ...

  One of these young women was embarking on a career that took her around the world. See the Footnote:   Aug. 25, 1973   Rockin’ Illuminations Eye the Big Time; Offer High-Powered Stage Act   IT WAS THEIR FIRST appearance in a couple months, that UB Black Student Union mixer, and The Illuminations are still beaming with the success of it as they talk three days later in Donna Robbins’ parents’ gracious wood-paneled living room on Buffalo’s near West Side.           “Sometimes,” Donna is saying, “we can practice once a week and get up and sound great, but Lily has been working us to death lately. Every day last week we practiced. And it helps.” * * * “I HAD THE biggest head when I walked off the stage Friday night,” grins William Lawrence, drummer in the girls’ backup group, “just from bein’ part of it.”           The Illuminations’ success is no occasional Fri...

  One of the most unforgettable characters I’ve ever met. Aug. 18, 1973   A Legend Comes Home to Play Piano   “Gin and tonic,” Frank Hermann muses as the drinks arrive, “that’s what Fats Waller used to drink. He killed himself drinkin’ booze.”           That launches the elf-like pianist into a Fats Waller story that he picked up from his New York City manager, Mort Browne, the man who got Glenn Miller’s orchestra arrangements published.           “Mort invited Fats Waller up to his office to talk about publishing his songs,” Frank relates, “and Mort bought a bottle of gin to make him happy. He sits down and Mort pours him a shot of gin and Fats gets up and leaves. * * * “MORT CALLS up a friend trying to find out what he did wrong and the guy tells him: ‘You don’t pour Fats a shot. You gotta give him a glass or he’ll walk out on you.”      ...

  Before Record Theatre, Buffalo already had a major homegrown chain of record shops.   Aug. 11, 1973 Engineering an Independent Record Business   WALKING THROUGH the University Plaza parking lot in gray pants and a white short-sleeved shirt, the oldest and biggest independent record dealer in Buffalo looks more like what he went to the University of Buffalo to become – a civil engineer.           “I was working for the railroad and I wanted to make as much as my boss did,” Carl (Charlie) Cavage says. “I knew it would take me 20 years to do it through seniority, so it was quicker to go to school. When I came back, I was his boss.”           Cavage, who’s 50, and his blonde wife, Betty, have just come in from the opening of the new quarters for their Seneca Mall branches – one for cards, one for records, an accommodation to the fact that record buyers and card buyers don’t...