Feb. 2, 1974: The Blue Ox Band

 

One of the major local rock bands of the day and predecessor to some equally wonderful aggregations down the line. 

Feb. 2, 1974

Blue Ox Wants Aggressive, Bitey Sound 

AS BLUE OX themselves will tell you, a lot depends on the crowd.         

          One night they’ll be sitting there in the Bona Vista on Hertel Avenue like good old boys and girls on the bayou, bobbing in their private dreams to the Grateful Dead’s “Truckin.’”

          A few nights later, at an even more tender hour, the tiny dance floor is full of folks boogieing their heads off to the very same tune.

* * *

“IF YOU LISTEN for a whole night,” guitarist-organist Charlie O’Neill says, “we go through all kinds of styles. But sometimes the slower stuff is rough when you’ve got a bunch that wants to bounce around.”

          Variety, for Blue Ox, has been a matter of trading and balancing between a club crowd’s boogie urge and the band’s own preference for subtler, more complex tunes, including a few they’ve written themselves.

          Many bands try to strike this balance, but Blue Ox has been more successful than most. The trade-offs show not only in repertoire, but also in a definable Blue Ox sound, which is as strong as the name implies.

          If you could make cloth from Blue Ox’s music, it would be denim, with Willie Schoellkopf’s vocals as embroidery, with threads of harmony from Charlie and bass guitarist Norris Lewis.

* * *

BUT THE GAUGE of the fabric is decidedly instrumental, the suppleness of Charlie’s organ playing or his guitar with its Duane Allman overtones and the can’t-bust-‘em strength of the rhythms, which in drummer Joe Frontera’s hands are more percussive than driving.

          “We try for an aggressive, bitey sound,” Joe confirms. “like the early Allmans, a Marshall sound. A lotta different things go into our sound. Even our shuffles don’t quite belong in Buffalo.”

          The quiet side of Blue Ox comes from the work Charlie and Willie did together on acoustic guitars a year ago, right after Willie joined the group on an invitation that brought him back from Albany, where he’d graduated from Siena College and sung in an acoustic group.

          “We were waitin’ for Blue Ox to play,” says Willie. “We played at the Blue Fox in Orchard Park right up until it burned and at Murphy’s in Boston. Then the band started playin’ on Wednesdays.”

* * *

THE ACOUSTIC duo will resume playing at the Emery Inn in South Wales with guitarist friend Doug Yeomans Monday nights beginning Feb. 18. “A week after Joni Mitchell,” says Charlie. “We wouldn’t want to miss her.”

          As for Blue Ox, tonight they’re at Geno’s on Route 16, Arcade; Tuesday at the Bona Vista; Wednesday and Thursday at the Monte Carlo on Ontario Street in Niagara Falls; Friday at Bishop Timon High (Willie’s alma mater) and Saturday they expect to be at Niagara University for the second of four appearances there this year.

          Blue Ox grew three years ago from a band called Atlantic Tug, which included Charlie and Norris and, for its last two weeks, Joe, who had been with another rock band, Stillwater. All met while teaching at the same West Seneca music store.

* * *

BEFORE CHANGES came down early last year, Blue Ox was a six-man band, doing somewhat more commercial material with a Santana flavor, thanks to Norris’ brother Bruce on sax, flute and congas.

          Within two months, they lost brother Bruce to the military and a guitar player and lead singer to other interests. Willie was summoned first to sing, then found he was needed as a guitarist too.

          Charlie had known Willie since they were kids at St. Teresa’s School in South Buffalo. Both of them sang in the boys’ choir.

          “We even put out an album,” Charlie recounts. “He’s got two songs on it. ‘O Holy Night’ and ‘O Little Town of Bethlehem.’”

* * *

AS A FOUR-MAN band, they tossed out their old repertoire and built a new one, mostly around the playing and singing capabilities of Willie and Charlie. They also shed their booking agent and went looking for jobs themselves.

          The first one was at the Belle Starr in Colden, where they’ve returned regularly ever since. These days their organization is part of the Belle Starr’s organization – Willie’s girl friend Colette and Sharon, a friend of Charlie’s, both work there.

          The summer found them at the lake in Angola. By fall, they’d added two new members to the organization – Bob Edie, who handles bookings and drives the Blue Ox truck, and equipment man Michael Malone.

          “What we used to pay for a booking agent, we pay them,” says Charlie.

* * *

BY FALL, they’d also found a secluded headquarters and practice area – a rambling farmhouse that Willie and Charlie share with a married couple in the Boston Hills. The nearest building is a firehouse half a mile away.

          “We can hear them more than they can hear us,” Willie grins.

          Willie would like to do all original material some day and Joe muses about getting beyond the club circuit, but the foursome seems fairly satisfied for the moment at rounding up full-time work on their own and establishing an identity.

          “We picked it out of a list of about 100 names after we found we couldn’t use Mandrill,” Joe says.

          “It makes you think of Babe the Blue Ox from Paul Bunyan. And you can’t pluralize it. The Oxes? It seemed to be strong and majestic and that’s the things we wanted the group to be.”

* * * * *

IN THE PHOTO: From left, Charlie O’Neill, Joe Frontera and Willie Schoellkopf. Rear, Norris Lewis.

* * * * *

FOOTNOTE: The Blue Ox Band continued in this configuration through 1976, when Joe Frontera departed and the group expanded to six with the addition of keyboardist Ronnie Davis (of LeeRon Zydeco fame) and drummers Pete Holquin and Phil Yoakam.  

          Later in 1976, everybody in the band except Pete Holquin picked up and went to Phoenix. The Blue Ox Band played its last gig in April 1978 and Charlie O’Neill, Willie Schoellkopf and Ron Davis went on to L.A.

Charlie and Willie returned home to Buffalo to become an acoustic duo again, the Chuck & Bill Show, then Charlie was a mainstay of several notable bands. With Willie and Ron, he was a founding member of the blues band Rocket 88. Where I most often saw him, though, was with the Thirds, a delightful harmony trio that held down a regular weekly gig at Nietzsche’s for 11 years. He also taught guitar and had a music studio in Lackawanna. He was inducted into the Buffalo Music Hall of Fame in 2011, the year he passed away.

Also a member of the Buffalo Music Hall of Fame Class of 2011 is Willie Schoellkopf, who’s still going strong. Best place to find him is the Sportsmen’s Tavern, sometimes with the Argyle Street Band, which he, Ron and some other notables founded while they were in L.A. Willie joined the Rochester country-rock band Old Salt in 1980, toured and recorded with them for three years, then came back to play for a year with Ron and Pete Holguin in Billy McEwen and the Heartbeats. Then he went to law school and became law clerk to U.S. Magistrate Judge Carol Heckman, but has kept performing through the years.

Drummer Joe Frontera took up keyboards and founded the band Freefall. He still plays locally too, with the Black and Blues Band. One of his drum solos is posted on Facebook.

Bass guitarist Norris Lewis stayed in Phoenix and became director of the music education program at Linton-Milano Music in the suburb of Mesa, where he taught guitar, bass and ukulele for 40 years. He also played the clubs in Phoenix with his own band, Country Nights. In a YouTube video for the store in 2013, he said, “It’s not work. There’s no part of this that’s work. I play guitar, I don’t work guitar. … If I’m not on my Harley, I’m playing guitar.” He died in 2016.