April 17, 1976: Donna McDaniel and a disco band called Windfall
There
was so much to celebrate about the Buffalo Sabres in 1975, the first time they made
the Stanley Cup finals. Here in 1976, not so much.
April 17, 1976
Sabres' Songs Push Windfall as Disco Band
CROSS-CHECKING HOCKEY TRAFFIC all the way out Main Street to just beyond Transit, it’s possible to elbow into a packed Patrick Henry’s (the former Poorhouse East) just in time to hear the band announce that the Sabres have won their firsts playoff round from the St. Louis Blues.
Now if this were Schony’s, another
nightspot this group Windfall plays, then there might be a move toward
celebration. But not here. If these unmatched singles cared, they wouldn’t have
come out dancing and drinking.
Last year, with singer Donna McDaniel
belting out “We’re Gonna Win That Cup,” Windfall fanned the city’s hockey
fever.
This year Donna rarely does the Sabres
victory chant and the whole band’s just as glad.
* * *
THE MAIN REASON is because they wore it
out.
“We did it so many times last year,”
Donna grimaces as most of the band sits talking in her
That’s because Windfall isn’t the band
behind Donna on the records. Songwriter and producer Tom Calandra picked her
out for the vocals and had his own studio people back her up.
The novelty helped Windfall – hockey
enthusiasts in their own right – last year, but this year’s a different game.
“This time the whole atmosphere’s not
as spirited,” observes organist Jimmy Poulin, who spent the first half of
Friday night trying to keep an eye on the soundless TV action across the bar
while the group played.
“Last year,” he continues, “the night
Richard scored that overtime goal, we came out and did the song and the place
went crazy. It would never have the impact this year.”
* * *
THE CUP SONG and this season’s successor
– “The French Connection” – aren’t likely to sit on ice long, however, if the
Sabres advance to the semifinals.
But until hockey fever seizes the city
again, the impact this time around remains disco music, which Windfall has
absorbed with well-matched male-female harmonies and sharply refined
instrumental parts.
The band stays on top of disco
workhorses like their Average White Band medley of “Work to Do” and “If I Ever
Lose This Heaven” with rhythms tight as newly-washed jeans.
* * *
THEY’RE ALL neatly adorned with Jimmy
Witherspoon’s snippets of sax, flute and trumpet.
“If a commercial band doesn’t do
disco,” says Donna, “you might as well forget about working the clubs we’ve
been working.”
Windfall plays the Fred Saia Great
Lakes Booking circuit. Tonight and tomorrow they’re at the Red Balloon, Colvin
and Sheridan.
Next week it’s
“We find that we do what we have to do
first – like K.C. & The Sunshine Band,” says guitarist Mark Dunham.
“Actually, I suppose we’re doing what we want to do first because we’re
playing.”
If it was a question of doing what
they liked, Windfall would blow off in seven different directions.
Donna leans toward Melissa Manchester
and Chaka Khan (“She’s 22 like me and look what she’s doing,” she remarks.).
Mark claims he’s a bop player born 20 years too late. But then again, he also
claims he’s a reject from the NHL.
Singer Jimmy Ahr prefers a bit of
country with his rock. Jimmy Poulin likes Latin. Drummer Pete Militello digs
Gino Vannelli. And for Jimmy Witherspoon, it’s jazzman Ronnie Laws.
The man they all credit for keeping
them so tightly together is the bass player, Lou Carfa Jr., whose experience
before he joined up last September included a stint as arranger for movie-theme
singer Maureen McGovern.
Lou shaped everybody up.
“Since he came, we’ve been working a
lot harder,” says Jim Poulin, who, along with Donna, is talking music theory
these days. “Before that, it was like one practice a month. Now we’re working
up two new songs a week.”
* * *
“I’VE LEARNED so much about music from
Louie,” adds Pete. “I used to overplay a lot and he’s showed me how to make the
drums and bass work together better.”
To get a break from disco, they work
up Tom Scott numbers or tunes like Freddie Hubbard’s “Red Clay” and use them
for instrumental set-closers.
Another break may come this summer,
when they play to record a few Jim Poulin originals.
As for the future, Windfall is of many
minds. For instance, Donna wouldn’t mind touring. Jim Poulin, who’s been her
bandmate since the Jerry Hudson Group, thinks it wouldn’t pay enough.
As hockey fans, one thing they can all
agree on is wanting the Sabres in the playoffs when they do their mid-May week
at Schony’s. Not only do they have the tunes for it. But more important,
they’ll actually get to see the game.
* * * * *
IN THE PHOTO: From left, top, Mark
Dunham, Pete Militello and Jim Witherspoon; center, Lou Carfa Jr. and Jimmy
Poulin; bottom, Jimmy Ahr and Donna McDaniel.
* * * * *
FOOTNOTE: The band wouldn’t get to
see the Sabres on TV when they played Schony’s in May. The team won its first
two quarterfinal games against the New York Islanders, then bowed out by losing the next four in a row.
Donna McDaniel, who we met in 1972 as a backup singer in Jerry Hudson's band After Dark, went to L.A. As noted in the footnote to that previous article, she sang backup for Billy Idol and Toto and appeared prominently in the 1980s cult films “Angel” and “Hollywood Hot Tubs."
She left a gig at Disneyland to successfully audition
for the heavy metal monsters Motley Crue in 1987. As one of their Nasty Habits
backup singers, she performed at the legendary Moscow Music Peace Festival in
1990 and wore a black leather bustier. Her own habits, though, were not at all
nasty. As she told Rock Candy magazine: “I didn’t do drugs. I never did drugs
and it was an interesting concept, to be in the throes of all that.”
These days she’s Donna McDaniel Pavlock, lives in
Woodland Hills, Calif., and since the early 2000s has run a catering business
in Canoga Park, Bella Donna Special Events, with her husband Tom. Check out the
company’s Facebook page. They do some amazing cakes. And for the past few
years, after partnering with a fancy English high tea caterer, British actress
and chef Jane Windsor, they've offered exquisite tea parties as well.
As for the rest of the band, Jim Witherspoon went on
to play jazz with the Dick Bauerle Group and Lou Carfa toured with the Maynard
Ferguson Big Band from 1978 to 1982. Lou has been living in
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