Sept. 11, 1978 review: Good Time Festival at Buff State with NRBQ, Vassar Clements

 

A fine afternoon of what we now would call Americana music.

Sept. 11, 1978

Good Times, Tunes Prevail Against Rain at Festival

        For the first time in three years, Buffalo State College’s annual outdoor Good Time Festival, held Sunday afternoon, didn’t get driven indoors by the weather.

        That doesn’t mean that there wasn’t any rain. A freak sunshiny shower descended during an intermission midway through the rock concert, drenching Rockwell Quad and sending about 1,000 listeners scurrying for cover.

        But within minutes they were all back again. The rain stopped as suddenly as it began and the show resumed, a happy counterpoint to the increasingly gloomy skies.

        The afternoon kicked off with the wacky Texan Kinky Friedman, who was assisted by a harmonica player. If Friedman’s raunchy mix of ethnic jokes and bathroom humor between songs seemed slightly subdued, there was a reason.

        “It’s difficult for me,” Friedman drawled, puffing a big cigar, “’cause I’m doin’ this show completely straight.”

        Marshall Chapman and her band came next and she took things more seriously.

        Where Friedman made light of the Hank Williams legend (“I found out last week I’m the exact weight of Hank Williams at the time of his death,” he quipped), Chapman built a monument to him with a powerful trilogy of songs, ending with Bob Seger’s brooding “Turn the Page.”

        Blonde, lanky Chapman, forsaking her early impulse toward country music for the heady thrills of rock ‘n roll, still seemed a bit forced in her Rolling Stones pouts and her “do-the-alligator” number with its gyrating sprawl on the stage.

        For Vassar Clements, the Nashville fiddling wizard, it made no difference whether the music was country or rock. Backed by a sizzling quartet young enough to be his godsons, he played it all.

        Guitarist and singer Jim O’Neill and pianist Jackie Garrett, who doubled on harmonica, proved to be standouts in their own right.

        Meanwhile, Clements caressed, sawed and occasionally finger-picked his instrument in an amazing display that climaxed with “the fiddle players’ national anthem.” “Orange Blossom Special,” as Clements played it, made whistle stops at half a dozen other songs, among them “A Hard Day’s Night.”

        After the ecstasy of Clements’ encores, it took an hour to set up for NRBQ, a veteran quartet from Connecticut that was joined by a pair of brass players called the Whole Wheat Horns. Though the crowd by now was beginning to thin, those who stayed found NRBQ well worth the wait.

        Led by burly blues guitarist Al Anderson and featuring a truly deranged pianist, the group romped through a raft of blues numbers, spicing them with asides like Anderson’s atonal rendition of the old Barbra Streisand hit, “People.” The Good Time Festival wouldn’t have been complete without them.

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IN THE PHOTO: Vassar Clements studio portrait from 1972.

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FOOTNOTE: NRBQ stands for New Rhythm and Blues Quartet (or Quintet) and the truly deranged pianist is founding member Terry Adams, who continued as a solo artist after the group stopped performing in 2004. Al Anderson left in 1994 and became an award-winning Nashville songwriter.

Mojo Nixon may be gone, but Kinky Friedman is still among us. When he ran for governor of Texas in 2006, pro wrestler Jesse Ventura, former governor of Minnesota, campaigned for him. In recent years, he’s operated a summer camp for kids with his wife. His last album, "Circus of Life," appeared in 2018. No tour dates on his website.

Marshall Chapman's 1978 album, "Jaded Virgin," was voted Record of the Year by Stereo Review magazine. She's released records on her own label, Tall Girl, since 1987, most recently in 2020.

The amazing Vassar Clements kept performing until six months before his death. His last gig was Feb. 4, 2005, in Jamestown.