Archival Buffalo News feature articles

Sending out the ‘70s with a bang. Dec. 31, 1979  Pat Benatar Gets a Really Warm Welcome          Somebody pinned a big “Welcome Back to Buffalo, Pat” button on tiny rock singer Pat Benatar Sunday night and what a return trip it turned out to be.          Benatar has sufficiently impressed the local folks as an opening act back in November. For this – one of the few shows, major or minor, to enliven the holidays – Harvey and Corky’s Stage One had sold out a day in advance.          The little song belter from Long Island proved that her first sizzling stop here was no fluke. If the club weren’t so intolerably sweaty and airless, there’s no telling how many times she would’ve been summoned back for an encore.          How hot was it? It was so hot that a roadie spent both encore numbers (same ones as November – The...

  Every once in a while 45 years ago, I got to review a movie. Dec. 15, 1979 review The Jerk: Wild, Crazy – And Funny          Excu-u-u-u-u-use me for a minute while I ask a serious question. What is the funniest part of the new Steve Martin movie, “The Jerk?”          Is it when Steve, as the adopted son of Black Southern sharecroppers, tunes in a late-night radio station and starts dancing uncontrollably to a corny old big-band tune?          Is it when Steve’s Black adoptive mother makes him his favorite soul foods for his birthday – a tuna fish sandwich on white bread, a pair of Twinkies and a can of Tab?          Is it when Steve, hitchhiking off to make his mark in the world, waits for hours and then gets a ride that takes him only to the end of his yard?          I...

  One of the better lesser-known bands that came here under auspices of Bruce Moser and Doug Dombrowski from Could Be Wild Promotions: Dec. 10, 1979  Horslips’ New Emphasis Brings Forceful Attack          When Horslips, the Irish rock quintet, decided to drop Charles O’Connor’s folk instruments and assign him an electric guitar, it was feared they would lapse into anonymity. Sunday night in sweaty, smoky Harvey and Corky’s Stage One, they proved such fears were groundless.          Happily, they didn’t leave O’Connor’s fiddle and mandolin or keyboardman Jim Lockhart’s flute and pennywhistle back in Dublin. Their set was dotted with delightful solos on these instruments – jig-rock, you might call it.          Those were the numbers in which they sounded most like Jethro Tull, tunes like “Aye, But the Boy Was Green.” They also were the band’s oldest a...

  The new biography of singer and songwriter Randy Newman prompted our old friend and WBFO honcho David Benders to recall that Newman played the Fillmore Room in 1972. I was there too. July 28, 1972 Songwriting Geniuses Newman, Prine Meet          Randy Newman was bouncing out “Political Science” (They don’t like us anyhow, so let’s drop the big one now”) in the spotlight, but wait – over there in the shadows, there’s John Prine, listening intently.          It finishes and Prine takes another cigarette, lights it and smiles as he joins the applause, much like Newman did as he watched Prine’s set.          Superlatives would make the meeting of Newman and Prine in the Fillmore Room of UB’s Norton Union Thursday night seem a bit ludicrous. No summit meeting, please. More like two genius songwriting loners running into each other behind the garage. ...

  A night that went down in history at the Aud. Dec. 4, 1979 Tense Audience Hears The Who Play Its Best          “We’re totally shattered,” singer Roger Daltry said before the music began in Memorial Auditorium Tuesday night. "But life goes on. We lost a lot of family yesterday. This show’s for them.”          On the flight up here from Cincinnati, where 11 fans were trampled to death trying to get into a Who concert Monday night, the distressed Daltry had told a reporter he would rather not even get off the plane.          But instead, Daltry and the band followed up the disaster in Cincinnati with a triumph in Buffalo. They honored the fallen by putting on one of the best rock shows this city has ever seen.          Local authorities were determined to avoid repeating the Cincinnati disaster. Never have the...

  Another Buffalo legend. I first encountered him seven years earlier when he was the upstart teen among all the cognoscenti in the Institute of Rock and Roll Studies at UB. Nov. 11, 1979 Fanzine Whiz Kid Waits to Launch The Big Magazine          He spells his name with an exclamation point – Gary Sperrazza! – and he means it. At 23, he’s already made something of a legend for himself with his outspoken writings in the leading rock ‘n roll magazines. New York magazine acknowledged his prowess last spring in the issue which assessed Gotham’s born-again musical scene. “But still no Sperrazza!” they conceded.          The Big Apple still hasn’t corralled Sperrazza! For the time being, he’s right here in his old hometown, the scene of his first fanzine triumphs. He’s working for Record Theater and filing his columns by mail to Bomp! Magazine in Los Angles and the Time Barrier Express in New York...