Aug. 9, 1975: Buffalo musicians in Hollywood
On one of my mid-1970s visits to Southern California,
I brought along my reporters’ notebook and looked up four future
Aug. 9, 1975
THE MORNING SUN STARTS burning down on the backside of the Hollywood Hills
and the phone starts ringing. Gary Mallaber beats the answering service to the
bell. By noon, he’s turned down two gigs.
“One of them was for TV,” he mentions, sipping juice while
Debbie, his bride of five months, fixes scrambled eggs and toast.
“I don’t know what it was. It’s gotten so that if I can’t
do something, I don’t bother to get into the details.”
It takes a lot of playing, politicking and hanging out in
the right places to get a break and make it big in the starstruck, supercharged
scene that comprises the music industry in
There are literally scores of
“A couple years ago,” he observes, “people would think of
calling me but they’d get Jimmy Keltner instead. Now I’m getting all the dates
that he used to get.”
* * *
IT’S BEEN
four years since Gary marathoned his Volkswagen out to the West Coast with
nothing more than a drum set, his considerable talents and the work he did on
Van Morrison’s “Moondance” album.
Now
“I really wanted to go,” he says. “The tour’s going to
“But at this point,” he explains, “I can’t really afford to
be away from here for a month. There are too many opportunities I’d miss. If I
go on the road, I’d be standing still.”
* * *
FROM GARY,
who knows virtually all the musicians who’re in Los Angeles, the trail leads to
Ernie Corallo, guitarist for the House Rockers for the past couple years. He’s
been out since last fall.
These days he’s living in the middle of the San Fernando
Valley, worrying about making rent for the house with the big swimming pool out
back and playing Tuesday nights with a country-rock group headed by Gary and
Paula Fishbaugh, who’re from
They’re in the Sundance Saloon, a dusty little musical
hangout in Calabasas, out the far end of the Valley.
It’s a showcase kind of place. This Tuesday pianist Nick
Gravenites is there. And a guy who used to play with Commander Cody & His
Lost Planet Airmen comes out of nowhere to sweeten proceedings with some super
pedal steel guitar.
Ernie’s responsible for the down-and-bluesy version they do
of Gordon Lightfoot’s “Sundown.” Everybody tells him he’ll go far, but so far
he’s still scuffling.
“They all tell me I’m the best guitar player they’ve heard,”
he grumbles. “But none of them call me up with any gigs.”
* * *
IT DOESN’T
matter what kind of dues musicians pay getting to
Nobody sits around for those two years, either. One is
expected to hustle up contracts, play little clubs, work the music industry’s
menial jobs and generally show good-natured adaptability no matter what
happens.
The problem is in the waiting. The level of tension shows
most in dealing with the phone.
Aspiring musicians leap to it like dateless high schoolers
on a Saturday night. Others dial frantically trying to stir up some action.
One
* * *
ERNIE CORALLO
serves as a welcome wagon for
Pianist Joe Azzarella drops by. Singer Debbie Ash and
husband Mike Campagna stayed a few days before they got their West Hollywood
Apartment.
Gary Mallaber serves as godfather. They marvel at his new
Mercedes-Benz 450-SL, down payment courtesy of last year’s Joe Walsh tour.
And they know he never forgets fellow Buffalonians.
Whenever he knows of a gig, he steers them to it.
His contacts in Asylum and A&M Records are good ones.
Singer-songwriter Paul Williams never tours without him.
* * *
“WE WERE working
three hours last night on this reggae piece,” he relates, “and we couldn’t make
it sound right.
“Finally I said how about switching the beat from three to
one. We played through it like that and it worked perfect.”
The sessions are for Bonnie Raitt’s new album (
That’s because
* * *
NOT ALL
There’s Cory Wells of Three Dog Night, recently performing
on NBC’s “Night Dreams.” Producer John Boylan, who used to tend the Limelight
Gallery. And tenor saxophonist Don (Red) Menza.
Don’s leading his own quartet (which includes Tom
Azzarella, Joe’s brother, on bass) for one night in Donte’s, a top
Don came West in 1968, did a year as featured soloist with
Buddy Rich, went with Della Reese, then got into recording and film track
sessions.
Lately it’s been sax gigs for himself – including a date
last January with the Buffalo Philharmonic – and a lot of recording on “everything
except bassoon.”
“I can’t even think of ‘em all,” he says between sets. “I
was on part of Three Dog Night’s last album. I played flute, English horn and
oboe on Glen Campbell’s For Barbra Streisand, I did all the bass clarinet and
alto sax.
“For me, these days are good ones,” he reflects, “but being
a freelance musician is a big thing on your head. There are times you feel like
the whole town has picked up and left. Even now, when things get slow, I start
to get nervous about it.”
* * * * *
IN THE PHOTOS:
Left, Gary Mallaber with Liza Minnelli in
* * * * *
FOOTNOTE: Gary Mallaber kept getting phone calls,
including some from Bruce Springsteen to work on a couple of his solo albums.
His most enduring gig was with the Steve Miller Band, which began in 1976 with
the “Fly Like an Eagle” album and continued until 1987. He’s still active as a
player and producer.
Along with
Cory Wells did a solo album after Three Dog Night
broke up in 1976, then helped revive the group in the mid 1980s. He and some of
the other original members, including singer Danny Hutton, toured until shortly
before his death in 2015.
Don Menza’s Wikipedia page shows him doing a
staggering number of recording sessions with other artists in the 1970s. Chief among them was
Louie Bellson, with whom he did more than a dozen albums. He has more than a
dozen albums of his own, including “Jack Rabbitt” in 2004 with
* * * * *
FURTHER NOTE: All of these transcripts of old feature articles about the
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