My first post

[John Watt]

Sometimes, for musicians who care, it's more than just the music,
especially when you're the center of attention for a city or community.

Selvis, the first Elvis imitator shown here, paid me a salary to be his lead guitarist, 1979-80.
That was me living in Toronto, the capital of Ontario.
His father was an Italian opera singer and Canadian Broadcasting executive.
Even if we just played one night a week, I always got paid.
He was making a minimum $5,500 for a gig, with a hot seven piece band,
with a back up female recording artist, a roadie and a follow spot operator.
We could be playing in a mall on a Saturday afternoon,
and the crowd would be rocking us in the van until security helped us out.

"Elvis Little", sitting beside him in white, used to hitch-hike almost 100 miles,
just to stand beside the stage and hold the handkerchiefs Sal handed out.
When I moved back in with my parents, I heard he was living under a bridge in St. Catharines.
Everyone said to avoid him, but I helped him start his first band, driving him around.

Selvis looks a little lost, not getting the band action he's used to.
The audience is too polite.
When he moved offstage, he's used to women rubbing him or grabbing him to kiss him.
No moves either, just walking up the stairs. He is lost without his band.
He's older than he looks, more of an athlete, and he became a big restaurant and bar owner.
His father, Corrado Accaputo, didn't need a microphone.

And uh, why did I get to feel the hunka burnin' love with so many Elvis acts?
I'd hear, if Elvis was alive he'd want the best lead guitarist to work with him.
And that would be Jimi Hendrix. I always stuck to the original Elvis movie soundtracks.
I played with Douglas Roy, the only imitator to get up with Elvis and sing a song.
He was pulling in $7,500 a week in Toronto.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3bvXXuYeOU

 

[JHC]

In order of appearance:

JHC! I listened all the way, very, very nice to listen to.
What you're saying about not being as fast sounds a little apologetic.
Here's my string theory, and strung-out theory too, if you don't mind.
I'm hearing some jitterbug music,
when people caught the jitters, or were bugging out.
That's as much a war and post-war, stress, as it was the substances.

I don't hear any muscle relaxants or Ambient, with no visible Viagara symptoms,
and no-one's huddling around behind an amp drinking out of the bottle,
so I'm hep to these cats, digging and swinging to it, in my imagination.
Modern music is slacker beats, hip-hop, raggae, all slower.
Am I right to think they're working around just three chords?
And what these musicians are accomplishing is about my next comments.

John I made a reply to your post but it must have gone down a black hole ^^
It has been getting on for 60 years since I played this type of jazz but I still love it, I cannot remember the chord sequence but it is a normal 32 bar tune with the standard middle 8 for solos, did you notice that the clarinet player had his priorities right in that he had a special glass holder on his stand into which he put his glass of good old draught beer (if they still have it in the UK)

 

[John Watt]

Sometimes I feel like I'm disappearing down a black hole, without some proof to keep me afloat.
I dug up some souvenirs, or ephemera, according to the Antiques Roadshow, from the Selvis gigs.

This photo was given to me by a Kodak enthusiastic, a fan of the band.
That's David Burke on the left, a great pianist from Nova Scotia.
He blended various synth sounds with devices so they sounded choral,
not just like human voices, strings, woodwinds and piano all at once.
He was a non-smoker, non-drinker, and I had a car, so we bombed around a lot.
The drummer on the right just came up from Boston, and wasn't used to Sal's antics.
He was making his sister squeal a little.
That's me on the right, happy to be out of the spotlight, wearing a hiking jacket.
Visiting this new restaurant-bar as a band meant having a go at a nice afternoon buffet.
I remember the red peppers stuffed with anchovies, and the different butters.
The Sugars gig was huge, what used to be a supermarket.
People from Welland came up to me, saying is that really you John?
I still had the chords to "Can't Help Falling in Love" on my amp.

The security pass, oh yeah, how many rock musicians talk themselves into army bases?
This let me and Dave go inside and get into all the airplanes, tanks and vehicles,
chatting up a storm with all these military maintenance men.
They were surprised at my knowledge of radar, especially when I said that's Jimi Hendrix.

I say I dance around on stage. These guys offered me $75 for a fifteen minute show,
two shows a night, as long as I didn't use my guitar and took off all my clothes.
Getting a ride home with them in their limo was all the excitement I needed.

Seeing all this reminded me of how nervous I would feel, walking up onstage.
Until the band got going at volume, I was always worried about being able to play.
I would be ooo-ing and aah-ing background vocals, and singing an octave above Selvis.
Corrado spent four days asking and listening and trying to find out who was singing,
an octave above Sal, saying he liked it, vocal doubling, until I finally said it was me.
Hey! My mom had some original Elvis albums. I new Elvis in grade three.