Archival Buffalo News feature articles

Ah, Kris Kristofferson! I suppose that for everybody like me who loved and admired him, there were things about him that were just downright annoying. Nevertheless, you were obliged to forgive because he was, well ... Kris. In my case, I was a huge fan of his 1970 debut record on Monument Records and arranged to interview him in Toronto one Sunday afternoon in March 1971 before a club date in the Riverboat Coffee House, that beloved folk mecca on Yorkville Avenue in the days before Yorkville became impossibly gentrified. Kris was a no-show. Instead, I sat around with his keyboard player, Donnie Fritts, a delightful guy, for a couple hours and then gave up. I heard later that he was down at the Horseshoe Tavern on Queen Street, hanging with some musicians there. Nevertheless, my admiration was back in place six months later when he came to Kleinhans Music Hall on Halloween night. Nov. 1, 1971 A Great Little Turnout for Kris; 'Cat' Sells Out Kris Kristofferson's b...

  A night that wound up in the Guinness Book of World Records. Sept. 10, 1979  Disco Fever Lives Up to Predictions The recorded voice of Donna Summer crooned "Last Dance" through 40,000 watts of amplifiers about 4:45 a.m. Sunday as Buffalo Convention Center director Glenn Arnette III broke out the champagne and breathed a sigh of relief.          Beyond his office window were a few hundred die-hard dancers and a vast floor full of used confetti and crumpled beverage cups – the remains of the World's Largest Disco. After a year of planning and three months of preparations, it had lived up to all its hyperbole.          It also lived up to its attendance projections. Halfway through the night, it was reported that ticket sales had passed the 13,000 mark. Later it was guessed that as many as 17,000 might have showed up. By 1 a.m., the turnstiles were lightly protected and anyone who wanted t...