Gusto Stories 1978

  Buffalo ’s keeper of the Holy Grail of rock ‘n roll. April 7, 1978  Buffalo Blues Stan Szelest – designated hitter Of the rock piano world             They got his name wrong again. This time it’s on the back of the soundtrack album for the new Richard Pryor movie, “Blue Collar.” Bad enough that the music’s mixed so low in the film that you can’t hear the piano, but not this too. Once more, for the record, it’s Stan Szelest. Not Sileste.           “I’m starting to feel like the designated hitter of music,” Szelest says in the living room of his father’s house on Buffalo ’s Far East Side. “When they run out of hotshots, they call me to fill in.”           For a man who’s played on tour with Jackson Browne, Neil Young and Maria Muldaur, the “Blue Collar” sessions were a case in point. Producer Jack Nitzsche couldn’t get Howl...

  The twisted tale of Buffalo ’s most celebrated one-hit wonders. March 24, 1978 Gusto cover story The Rebels             The Rebels were the hallway heroes of Lackawanna ’s Baker Victory High School back in the days of “American Hot Wax,” the autumn of 1959. Starting out the previous year as members of a South Buffalo street fraternity, they’d turned their energies indoors and soon caught the ear of a wheeling, dealing young deejay named Tommy Shannon. Shannon asked them to be the featured band for his many weekly record hops, which traveled from school to school all over the Buffalo area.           One of the songs Shannon asked the Rebels to learn was the theme song that he played every night to start off his show on WKBW. It was called “Wild Weekend.” Shannon liked it so much that he had them record it for him. Then Shannon and his manager put it out as a single. It ...

My introduction to the wonderful world of all-expense-paid show biz media junkets, which the movie and TV reviewers had enjoyed for many a moon. It didn’t take long to discover and obey the first commandment for these affairs: Thou shalt charge everything to the room.   March 17, 1978  1950s: Rock ‘n Roll in the year 1959             A new mania has seized the motion picture industry – rock ‘n roll. Hot on the heels of “Saturday Night Fever” is a stampede of big beat movies that will boogie from here to Halloween. In varying stages of production are things like “Sgt. Pepper,” “Grease,” “FM” and “The Buddy Holly Story,” but there’s no need to wait. The first rock film is out already, opening tonight. It’s called “American Hot Wax.”           “American Hot Wax” is a fictionalized account of the messiah of rock ‘n roll – disc jockey Alan Freed – and what turns out to be his last...

  This could be the beginning of a beautiful relationship. See the Footnote.   March 3, 1978  Jazz Report: Five years of promising growth             The only free-of-charge, full-blown monthly jazz magazine in the U.S. hits the streets with an anniversary issue this weekend, but it won’t be resting on its laurels. Like a strapping youngster that’s outgrown its own back yard, the Buffalo Jazz Report is greeting its fifth year by looking for new worlds to conquer.           For starters, editor and publisher Bill Wahl wants Cleveland . He and the other half of the Buffalo Jazz Report’s two-man full-time staff, advertising manager Bob Riley, have scouted the territory and it looks good. Starting in April, they’ll give Cleveland the same reviews and features with different covers and different ads.           “What we want to ...

What’s not to love about Jackie DeShannon? Apparently, that’s what the folks at Amherst Records were thinking too.   March 3, 1978  There First             Mention Fleetwood Mac to Jackie DeShannon and the singer-songwriter is obliged to set the record straight. “The only thing I can say,” she insists over the phone from Los Angeles , “is that I was there first. I hear a lot of influences coming back at me over the radio these days. Actually, I consider it a great compliment.”           DeShannon is quite right in claiming her place as one of the unsung pioneers of the modern sound. Her two big hits – the Bacharach-David “What the World Needs Now Is Love” in 1965 and “Put a Little Love in Your Heart” in 1969 – foreshadowed the soft-focused romance that has won the ‘70s for Olivia Newton-John, Linda Ronstadt and the rest.         ...

  Revisiting some familiar faces in the Winter of ‘78.   Caught in the Act Feb. 17, 1978   Pegasus           It’s been three years since the Buffalo area’s most promising progressive rock aggregation delivered its first concept piece. The premiere of the newest one, “The Beauty of Spontaneous Relationships,” is admission-free and it jams UB’s handsome Katharine Cornell Theater with more fans than can comfortably fit.           The quintet is still remarkably young. All of them are around 20 years old. Nonetheless, they’ve acquired a considerable amount of instrumental prowess since they first broke into the spotlight with their slide shows, costuming and other derivations of Genesis’ “The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway.”           Their escalating skill and confidence show up in their “Overture” to the evening – a boil of keyboard...