Archival Buffalo News feature articles

  Less than two weeks after the legendary Blizzard of ’77 paralyzed the city, this date was very much in doubt. Getting around continued to be a challenge for everyone. As for me, my car was still buried up to its roof in the Buffalo News parking lot and I was walking to work from my apartment in the Elmwood Village every day – a 45-minute trudge each way. Fortunately, Kleinhans Music Hall was a much shorter hike.   Feb. 10, 1977   Springsteen Revives Rock Scene             Bruce Springsteen helped celebrate the thaw in the temperatures Wednesday night by putting an end to the number of consecutive days the city has gone without a major rock concert.           People couldn’t quite believe he would make it. Festival East fielded a lot of calls asking about a snow date.           He’s coming by bus, said the promoter. No ...

  Turning that last year-end page on the musical calendar.   Dec. 31, 1976 Books Offer a Look Inside Record Industry   THE BIG EVENTS in this reviewer’s musical year were not records, but books. Three of them provided not only an inside peek at the record industry, but also a better critical plateau from which to oversee the music.           They are Clive Davis’ autobiography; Geoffrey Stokes’ “Starmaking Machinery: The Odyssey of an Album” and “The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock and Roll.”           Serious record fans would do well to look into them.           So if rock and pop music seemed to take on a new vigor for the bicentennial, part of it could be ascribed to the industry and its artists gearing themselves for fiercer competition in a large, but relatively slow-growing market. * * * WITH NOT MUCH e...

  Another episode in the eternal struggle between a band’s ambitions and the expectations of a club crowd.   Nov. 27, 1976   Piper Changes Music Strategy – Hopes Ride on Original Tunes   IT’S PIPER’S SECOND NIGHT in the battered finery of a bar and restaurant complex in Niagara Falls , Ont., called the Boarding House and this time around the four of them figure they’ve got to change their strategy.           “Last night we ran into the most hostile audience,” guitarist Jay O’Rourke was saying as the group gathered in the house they share in Lewiston before the gig.           “They kept calling for Rolling Stones. Sure, we do a couple of their songs. You have to keep your sanity.”           The guys in Piper have their own priorities, which include a fistful of highly likeable original tunes and Jay’s showy Bruce Spring...

  Lenny Silver lands a big fish for Amherst Records. Nov. 13, 1976 LaFlamme Rises from Ashes, Still Seeking a Beautiful Day   “I HAVE JUST ONE REQUEST,” David LaFlamme says as we arrive at a suburban restaurant for lunch. “After I tell you the whole story, do me a favor. Don’t write in the paper that I’m a bitter person.”           LaFlamme, followers of the late ‘60s San Francisco rock scene may recall, was the singer and violinist who led one of the Bay Area’s germinal rock bands, It’s a Beautiful Day.           He wrote the group’s best-known song, the soaring “White Bird.”           But while the group’s records have become collectors’ items (used copies of their first album command a price of $12.95 and up), LaFlamme has had to endure an incredible stream of hard luck which has stripped him of virtually everything but his pr...

  Some shows, you go in loving the artist a lot and come out loving them even more.   Nov. 20, 1976 Phoebe Knocks Them Dead             It was the old Jo Stafford tune, “Teach Me Tonight.” It came up second before a sold-out Shea’s Buffalo Friday night and Phoebe Snow darn near stopped the show with it right then and there.           Snow, having already jolted the crowd to attention by opening with the rip-roaring Motown hit, “Shakey Ground,” followed it up by driving folks to their feet with an incredible display of vocal acrobatics on the ‘50s standard.           The coy hit of a generation ago was enough of a surprise on the singer’s “It Looks Like Snow” album, but the recorded version scarcely was an indication of what she does to it in person.           It became a vehicle for...

  I never liked Chicago . As a guitar rocker, I was dismissive of their horns. I thought their songs were doofy. And I despised their name. Can you imagine the reaction if somebody called their band " Buffalo ?" Nevertheless, their durability and their enormous mass appeal couldn’t be denied. The journalist in me had to check it all out. Nov. 13, 1976 Chicago Might Be Fat Cats, But They Deliver the Goods The rock group Chicago, now observing its 10th anniversary, has matured into the same kind of regime as the one that rules their namesake city.           What might be considered quirks in younger administrations have become formalized in Chicago , as was evident from a seat behind the eight-man aggregation in a nearly sold-out Memorial Auditorium Friday night.           Self-indulgence made for a 35-minute break between the group’s opening 45-minute set and the final hour – long ...

  One of the biggest bands of this bicentennial year at the top of their game. Nov. 6, 1976 Overall Excellence Scores Points for Earth, Wind & Fire             Earth, Wind & Fire has mastered the art of being Number Two. It’s like in the Olympics. Pile up enough number twos and you’ve got a winner.           For instance, their “Spirit” album is second on the charts this week. And every trick they trotted out in Memorial Auditorium Friday night was second-best to someone else.           There was their entrance onstage. Coming out of three huge pyramids was spectacular enough, but only because Parliament-Funkadelic cancelled out of here last month before they got to show off their $275,000 spaceship setting. * * * TOWER OF POWER could blow Earth, Wind & Fire’s horn section over like the Walls of Jericho. Next to th...