Archival Buffalo News feature articles

  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.          The crowd from the first show said Prine was brilliant, Newman not so good. Too sarcastic. Newman’s second set, however,

  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 there been so many police officers surrounding a show at the Aud.          “Have your tickets out and your jackets open before approaching the front gate, pleas

  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, but all this is temporary. It will last only as long as it takes to line up sponso