Re: [Harp-L] Re: Good Old Days of SPAH & Good New Days of SPAH

[Joe and Cass Leone <leone@xxxxxxxx>]

On Aug 7, 2008, at 1:43 PM, Winslow Yerxa wrote:

> By "madman" I didn't mean you, Joe. The group I was with  
> interpreted the reports to mean the character you had so kindly  
> escorted to Beale Street.

I knooooow, I was kidding  :)
> Danny Welton was behaving, er, unusually throughout SPAH 1994. One  
> of the examples that I witnessed: I arrived late at a seminar he  
> was giving on "how to make it in the music business" and the  
> tension in the room was palpable.. He was talking about everything  
> but the music business and one of the attendees asked him rather  
> angrily when he was going to do so. Welton then dismissed the topic  
> by saying something to the effect of, "None of you will ever make  
> it in the music business, so I'm not going to bother." Then he  
> singled out an Asian man in the audience and said something like  
> "no offense but the Japanese make lousy harmonicas. Great cars, but  
> lousy harmonicas" Then he lauded Hohner harmonicas but linked that  
> statement to some sort of Nazi/concentration camp/shower-gas  
> chamber joke, which he declared was OK  for him to say "because I'm  
> Jewish." At this point fisticuffs might have ensued, but the hour  
> was up and everyone departed the room like hornets streaming out of  
> a nest.

Yup, yup, I remember that.

I 'thought' there would be trouble when, while crossing the lobby, he  
turned and called Murad a old "Has-Been", Jerry got hot . Then a  
couple minutes later, he referred to Pedersen as a "Never-Was"....  
ostensibly because: Pete hadn't had an album out as yet. Pete laughed  
it off.
> When it came time for him to perform, tension was high again.  
> During rehearsal he'd gotten into an altercation with the backing  
> musicians and one or more of them had stormed off and refused to  
> play the gig. Replacements were found who didn't have the  
> opportunity to rehearse. And yet his set went well - no weirdness,  
> and he played beautifully. Many heaved a sigh of relief. And then  
> he started in on his tirade . . .

Yeah, and with only ONE song to go. Such a shame. Other than that, a  
GREAT spah. Maybe my favorite. Since we were right downtown, there  
were lots of places to walk to or take the little tram trolley.  
Playing in the tent in the Jackson Square was ok except the night I  
was supposed to play, an electrical storm and deluge forced us to  
shut down the power (or get electrocuted), and I lost my time slot.  
Tom 'strikeforce' Stryker then went on when we hooked up again, and  
the rest of the evening was ok.
smo-joe
>