Gusto Stories 1978

  Every once in a while, an absolute killer of a year comes along in rock and pop music. Take 1957, which was a fireworks display of classic singles by Elvis, Chuck Berry and Buddy Holly with the Crickets, among others. Then there was 1967, a mind-blowing succession of amazing releases from Jimi Hendrix, the Doors, Jefferson Airplane and Cream, plus, of course, “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.” And now, digging around in the late ‘70s, I rediscovered this bright, shining year – maybe not one of the all-time greatest, but in the era of disco and arena rock, pretty darn impressive. Jan. 5, 1979 Gusto record column Rock: A year of reaching back to basics Rock got harder in 1978 and the superstars of the '60s, most notably the Rolling Stones, continued to flex their aging talents. The most astute assessment of the situation came from Jerry Harrison of Talking Heads, who observed prior to the group's Nov. 8 show here that in one way or another all of rock is reacting to t...

  A nuts-and-bolts look behind the reworking of two albums that I already loved in their original versions.   May 12, 1978 Gusto feature   Remix: The fine art of remixing recordings             Recordings, unlike some other works of art, are not graven in stone. Even after a record has been issued, the basic musical elements can be shaped and reshaped in a process called remixing. Mixing takes multiple studio tracks (commonly 16 or 24) and boils them down into two-channel stereo.           Remixing and a second process, remastering, is what sets the second version of the Spyro Gyra album, the reissue on Amherst Records, apart from the first edition, the privately issued disc on the group’s own Cross-Eyed Bear Records.           Contrary to popular rumor, Spyro Gyra itself instituted the revisions. The group also was responsi...

  One of my big regrets of 2023 is missing this woman when she played the amphitheater at Chautauqua Institution back in June.   April 21, 1978  The fans couldn’t get enough of Bonnie Raitt             Bonnie Raitt is the best white blueswoman making popular music today. If there ever was any doubt, she erased it Thursday night while a wet spring snow fell outside Shea’s Buffalo .           What sets her apart is that she’s not just a singer in front of a band. Raitt’s a musician, a student of the blues.           Over her sparkly purple blouse and jeans, she wears an electric hollow-bodied guitar, with the F-holes taped over to minimize feedback, and a capo on the third fret. And she knows how to use it. She plays a mean bottleneck solo.           She knows how to choose a band...

  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 ...