Archival Buffalo News feature articles

  Buffalo State ’s music programmers score a coup and stage a night that still lives on in the annals of local rock history.   Oct. 13, 1977 Show Offers Rock And Role-Playing             Buffalo got its formal introduction to New Wave Wednesday night in a program appropriate to the academic setting – the poster-plastered Buffalo State College Student Center .           First there was a talk. Then a panel discussion. Finally, there was the music.           The talker was a music industry legend – Clive Davis, a lawyer who as president of Columbia Records built and merchandised the biggest rock acts of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. Now president of Arista Records, he’s determined to do it again.           Davis , in blue blazer and tie, spent most of his hour skimming throug...

Certain comedians really speak to me and Robert Klein is one of them, probably because we were born in the same year – 1942 – and share a lot of touchpoints from our formative years, including Yankee fandom.   Oct, 10, 1977 Comic Klein Rambles Through Improvisations             Comedian Robert Klein steps on stage in a trenchcoat and cap in overheated Clark Gym on the State University of Buffalo’s Main Street Campus at 9:30 Sunday night, puts on his scarf and reassure the 1,900 folks in the student crowd.           “OK, the score is 2-1 Kansas City in the third inning,” he says. “Number one, the game will take care of itself. If they win, they win. If they lose (gulp), they lose.”           Klein is from New York City . Brooklyn to be exact. And his allegiance in this baseball playoff series is not exactly a secret. One of this reco...

  After all these years, my mind still rings with the choruses of practically all of the songs on Randy Newman’s setlist.   Oct. 3, 1977   Newman-Prine Concert Is Tailored for Cynics              “I’ve never felt like the target of a song before,” an associate laments after Randy Newman finishes his second encore in Kleinhans Music Hall Sunday night. She’s just heard Newman’s new “Short People” for the second time in an hour and, since she stands slightly better than five feet, she doesn’t like it.           The cultural schizophrenia that gives Newman’s odd little songs their crackle may backfire on him this time. Despite the brotherhood-of-man interlude in the center, the message can’t be hidden: “Don’t want no Short People/ ‘Round here.”           What’s more, Buffalo may be making a hit of it. WGRQ-FM’s John Velchoff has played i...

  If I recall correctly, the real reason I signed up to review this concert was to see Melissa Manchester.   Sept. 1, 1977 Melissa Misses It, But Donna Saves It             The Leo Sayer-Melissa Manchester show arrived at the Century Theater Wednesday night without Melissa Manchester. Exhaustion, said co-promoter Corky Berger in the lobby as her replacement, Buffalo ’s Donna McDaniel, struck up a sharp band called the Navigators.           Manchester , the former Bette Midler Harlette who went on to ballads like “Midnight Blue” and commercials for cassette tape, had gone on stage Tuesday night in Saratoga Springs against doctor’s orders. The new prescription: Cancel your next three dates.           McDaniel has become a more commanding performer as a result of her summer of success with the European disco hit, “Save Me.” That ...

  In my book, one of the best Rich Stadium concerts.   Aug. 22, 1977 A No-Nonsense Fest Bathed in Sunshine, Compliments of ‘Yes’             Superfest 12 Saturday was a sunfest too.           British singer-songwriter Donovan, blinking into the brightness, sounded the first amplified notes of the day at high noon, earliest start ever in the history of rock concerts at Rich Stadium.           The headliners, progressive rock quintet Yes, encored and exited well before they needed to switch on the stadium floodlight towers. Mother Nature threw in her own encore: A brilliant sunset for the drive home.           Yes was responsible for the daylight show. It was their request that moved the starting time ahead from the original 3 p.m. They hadn’t wanted to perform partly in sun and pa...

  Fleetwood Mac at their absolute max. “Dreams” had just given them their first and only Number One single and their popularity was so immense that their one sold-out show at Memorial Auditorium wound up turning into two. July 5, 1977 ‘Mac’ Is Memorable In Two Super Sellouts            “This is a song about a witch.” Stevie Nicks murmured it into the mike, still saying it a year after “Rhiannon” went Number One, talking over the tawny riff of Lindsey Buckingham’s guitar intro.           She was all flowing black and she stood absolutely still as the music rose into the first verse. She sang it with her arms folded under a pair of sheer black scarves: “Rhiannon rings like a bell through the night/ And wouldn’t you love to love her …”           The spotlight illuminated half her face and most of the frizzy blonde abandon of her hair. This song, more than...

  One of my favorite assignments – the annual pilgrimage to Centre Island in Toronto Harbor . June 25, 1977 At Mariposa Fest Individual Ingenuity Reigns Here            TORONTO – The bad news came moments after arrival in this magical metropolis – Kate and Anna McGarrigle would not be at the 17th Mariposa Folk Festival this weekend.           The McGarrigles from Montreal are little known to the world at large, but with two albums on a major record label they’re closer to stardom than almost anyone else in this smorgasbord of folk music.           Their high-school-girl harmonies were expected to provide some of the rarest moments in these three days of picking, singing, storytelling and dancing on the island park in Toronto Harbor .           Their cancellation came at the last moment. The reason: A...