How I Got to Paris
I had graduated from Cornell in ‘68. We had a number of bands during the four years we were all there, cover bands, blues bands, rock bands and rhythm ‘n’ soul revues. When school ended and Ronnie went to Paris to study piano with Nadia Boulanger I went down to New York City to try my luck. To make a long story short, New York chewed me up and spit me out after a few months and I hightailed it back to Ithaca to lick my wounds in familiar surroundings.
Things were so bad for me in the city I finally had to take a job as a shipping clerk in a Methodist bookstore. Previous to this I was down to $15 so I went down to Wall Street where you could take a helicopter tour of Manhattan. I figured if I was going to be stone broke in New York, at least I’d have had a birds eye view of the scene of my non-existent prospects. The next day I saw an ad in the Times. Some fancy uptown hair salon was paying hirsute fellows like myself to come in and get the “flame cut”. So I shaved and had my hair burned off and was fit to look for work. I looked the part and landed the job in the religious bookstore.
I used to take lunch in Central Park and on a day of these days, after my ice cream popsickle lunch, I sat down on a bench in the park and smoked a joint of “Ghetto Green” which I was growing in a pot on my balcony overlooking Tompkins Square Park. Lo and behold the skies opened up with a massive lightning storm and I got totally disoriented, not knowing east from west. I eventually made it back to the bookstore after lunch and quit. The next day there was a sniper attack and a fellow got killed a few blocks from my apartment down in the lower East Side. I left New York two days later and didn’t return for years.
When I got back to Ithaca I started up playing again with the Del Royals for a few months when I got a letter from Ronnie urging me to come over to Paris and play some rock ’n’ roll. The sense of urgency was so intense that I got on a plane and landed in London the day after Christmas, 1969. The skies were leaden grey, the meat was grey, the vegetables were grey and I couldn’t understand a word they said. It resembled English but not strongly and travelling on the underground the exit signs all said “Way Out”. Damn right I thought to myself - way out about sums it up. I had come from America with a small case, a Les Paul Gold Top and a Fender Bassman head.
Upon arrival in Paris none of the above made it to the carousel at the airport and I had to catch up with my sole worldly possessions at the depot in Paris. Incredibly, it was all there before me which I considered an auspicious beginning. The Promised Band was nowhere to be found however. The first three gigs I did with Ronnie in Gay Paree were not to be forgotten: a gig playing Chuck Berry songs with me on guitar and Ronnie on an old upright, a gig entertaining at the lavish residence of Delphine Seyrig, the famous star of nothing anybody can remember (fond memories of Ronnie all but passed out on Delphine’s humongous marble staircase and the German industrialist yelling at him from the top of the stairs: ”You are a good musician but you haf no humor!” ), and finally a gig where we were the third act after a maladroit magician and a truly execrable balloon player. It was the best of times.
No comments:
Post a Comment