June 9, 1978 Gusto feature story: Billy Brite Band and "The Ice Cream Cone Song"

 

Sometimes the Buffalo News archives cough up something that the world has totally forgotten.

June 9, 1978 Gusto feature

Billy Brite Band

Their boogie fans may not recognize them

It's a tune the Billy Brite Band will never dare to strike up in their live club dates around the area. Just think of the reaction their boogieing, boozing blues-rock fans might register to a number called "The Ice Cream Cone Song." It would be like showing them singer Billy McEwen's baby pictures.

"No, we don't do it at all," McEwen notes during a break in the band's regular Tuesday night stand at the Bona Vista on Hertel Avenue. "It's not part of the gig. That's probably why it was so much fun to record it. It was such a change."

True. McEwen usually doesn't do this kind of thing. He has a voice that sounds like one of the Billy Goats Gruff. He used to rasp out a carbon copy of Joe Cocker's sandpaper snarl back in the days when Cocker was au courant and his vocal cords still carry the grit.

So "The Ice Cream Cone Song" is sort of a busman's holiday for McEwen and the rest of the band. It stands apart from the rest of their repertoire, which runs from B. B. King to Steely Dan to Doobie Brothers.

In place of playing it live, the band has issued "The Ice Cream Cone Song" as a 45 rpm single. Only the first 500 copies go under the name Billy Brite. The next pressing will change that to Billy Bratz. The flip side is an exercise in adult exasperation called "Don't Eat Your Crayons" and it's kind of funny too. Both numbers were taped in a single session in Mark Custom Studios in Clarence.

"It's sort of geared to children of all ages who like ice cream," says the fellow who composed both numbers, Billy Brite Band soundman Jonathan Anner. "It's not an attempt at anything else. I just wanted to make a summertime tune out of it."

It starts with a gang of kids chanting out the old refrain: "I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream." Next comes McEwen, sounding for all the world like Sesame Street's Cookie Monster, growling: "I want an ice cream cone. Gonna eat it all alone."

The children come back for the choruses. It's cute and catchy, which satisfies the basic criteria for a novelty number, and despite the child-like subject, the sound of the Billy Brite Band is strictly professional, with liberal sprinkles of Jimmy Beishline's tinkly piano.

"It's the most fun I ever had at a recording session," Anner says. "The kids were great."

"Two of them were mine," McEwen reports. "The others were neighborhood children and kids from Clarence. We rounded up a whole crew of them. There were eight. I was the director."

"He used his experience as a camp counselor," Anner puts in.

"We tried to do it so it wasn't like a Billy Brite thing," McEwen says. "It's just real loose and real light. All we wanted to do was loosen up and sing about ice cream."

But why did Anner, horn-playing alumnus of the old House Rockers and a bachelor to boot, why did he reach back to childhood for this one?

"Brain damage," suggests McEwen.

Anner disputes that. "I like kids," he says, "and I like ice cream too, you know?"

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IN THE PHOTOS: The 45 rpm single and a really grainy photo that accompanied the story, which was jammed into an irregular space beside an ad on Page 2 of Gusto.

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FOOTNOTE: Billy McEwen has had a long career on local stages, beginning in the 1960s. He's been part of Posse, the Buffalo Blues Brothers and was a founding member of the Soul Invaders. He was inducted into the Buffalo Music Hall of Fame by himself in 1989 and again with the Soul Invaders in 2006. When I interviewed him again in 1990, he considered his longevity in the clubs as a badge of honor. "I haven't had a weekend off since I was 15 years old," he said then, "except for the two years I was in the service."

Jonathan Anner got married, had kids of his own and went on to write other songs in the 1980s, things like “Pam in the Yellow Trans-Am" and "The Dirty Underwear Detector." He later toured with Spyro Gyra as their stage manager and was a bartender at the Scotch 'N Sirloin. He also sailed in the Wednesday night races with the Buffalo Harbor Sailing Club and built boats, giving them oddball names. He died in January 2023. His son Zach, who was born with cerebral palsy, is a celebrated actor and comedian.