Archival Buffalo News feature articles

  A band still fondly remembered in Salamanca . In this incarnation, it included a couple of future Buffalo Music Hall of Famers.   Dec. 22, 1973 Rainbow Kitchen Serves Rock, Country   CALL IT EARLY Southern Tier Dilapidated, this all-but-abandoned farm in a hollow not far from the Village of Cattaraugus . Sort of Tobacco Road come North.           Hay bales sun themselves through gaps in the broad side of the barn, half of the half-dozen aging cars in the front yard have coughed themselves into semi-retirement and the bitter wind flaps the tattered plastic storm-proofing on the farmhouse windows like hobo laundry.           Bob Maas, one of Rainbow Kitchen’s two drummers, shouts down the dogs.           “Want a puppy?” he asks. “We got nine.”           He leads the way throug...

  These excursions back into the 1970s sometimes seem like visits to an alternate universe, but few have been quite so otherworldly as this one.   Jan. 5, 1974   3 V’s Warm the Audience With Hawaiian Songs   AROUND ABOUT the billiards parlor (hotel guests only), you start to suspect that the Sheraton East is maybe something more than mere shelter from the ice and elements out there on Walden Avenue near the Thruway.           Those cueball wizards in the picture frames, the fuzzy wallpaper in robber baron red, the etched glass windows in imitation Sarah Bernhardt.           Unconsciously, you twirl your moustache into a pair of waxed stilettos and flex the garters on your striped sleeves. Bring on that robot, the one they call Minnesota Fats …           But that, my friend, is small-time escapism. Let us step around the c...

Looking back 20 years, my contribution to Buffalo News 9/11 coverage was this survivor story. One of the morning show radio deejays (if I remember correctly, it was Larry Norton on 97 Rock) read it in its entirety over the air. Sept. 14, 2001 WNY Woman Tells of Her Nightmare Courtney Timms had just arrived in her office on the 77th floor of the World Trade Center's South Tower on Tuesday morning. She was closing the window blinds when it happened. "All of a sudden, I saw all of this stuff flying in front of my window," she said Thursday evening from her parents' home in Kenmore. "Then I looked down at the ground and saw people sprinting away like ants." Timms, 24, a client support representative for Baseline Financial, a software company serving the financial community, said she knew immediately she had to get out. "I got my wallet and my flip-flops," she said. "I knew I could run faster in my flip-flops...

Another talented spinoff from Spoon and the House Rockers. Dec. 1, 1973   Couple Leaves Rock Band for Acoustic Music   “IT WAS AN OMEN,” Debby Campagna reflects. “It would have been wrong to turn it down.”           On the strength of that omen, Debby, who sings under her maiden name, Debby Ash, and her husband, guitarist Mike Campagna, have forsaken the demands of leading a rock ‘n roll band for the quieter joys of acoustic music.           The sign came about a month ago in the praise they got after their first acoustic appearance, sharing the bill at a UB Norton Hall Coffeehouse with singer-songwriter Eric Kaz, who is one of their favorites.           Like most omens, it just came out of the blue. The UB Coffeehouse people had seen them with their band, the All-Stars, in a Hertel Avenue club and called them to fill in when anot...

  Time for an excursion out to the country:   Nov. 10, 1973   Blue Country Sticks to Middle of Road   IT’S SATURDAY AFTERNOON when you call Mama’s down in Chaffee for a table reservation and already it’s too late. Come early, the woman says, and maybe somebody won’t show up.           But they all make it. Mama’s, a one-time roller skating rink on Route 16 between Holland and Arcade, may be one of the biggest country music rooms in Western New York , but prudent patrons know it fills up fast and they share in the 275 seats early.           Usually they do it a week in advance, around about when they’re packing it in at the end of the previous Friday or Saturday night and heading back for homes in Rochester, Lockport, Niagara Falls, Ont.; Warren, Pa., and points in between. * * * WHAT THEY drive 50 miles or more to see is a country band that many consider the bes...

  This being Buffalo , there’s somebody in this band we’ve met before. See the Footnote:   Nov. 3, 1973   Orion’s Country Rock Served Strong and Sweet   THE LATE JUDGE EMERY did it right. Deeded his estate in South Wales over to Erie County for a park, Emery Park , and sneaked into the fine print a provision that his house had to be used as a restaurant and bar.           Unfortunately, that didn’t protect the judge’s grand 140-year-old manse, now known as the Emery Inn.           When the new owners got it last spring, the porch was shrouded in tattered plaster, French doors were boarded over to accommodate a decaying hot dog stand and acoustical tile hid all traces of the main room’s oak-beamed ceiling. * * * THE REBIRTH of the Emery Inn is proceeding with all deliberate speed, however. The porch has been enclosed with windows, the ceiling beams have been e...