I Was a Superstar!
Larry’s band started playing regularly at a bar called Linda’s Place, in Whitehall. It was right at the end of the bridge that (in my eyes) went to Kennywood, but Linda’s Place was headed in the wrong direction, toward crime-ridden neighborhoods I’d never seen.
Being at the end of the bridge doesn’t mean that anyone frequented the bar. It was tiny and dark and quite empty. In fact, Larry’s band played there every Friday night – for a pittance of $120 to be split among four people – and the patrons on Fridays usually knew someone in the band.
Linda – the bar owner – didn’t seem to be aware that a band sucked up every cent of proceeds she might have otherwise acquired. Linda was a squat woman with bug-eye glasses who sat in a corner grumpily complaining that nobody was there, then leaping to her feet and dancing alone when she liked a song.
Larry and Leo were bothered by the lack of crowds, but had too much fun playing music to care. The drummer, Stogie, brought in a guy named Zeke to play guitar. Zeke was very, very loud and the more he drank, the louder he got. He wanted to play rock and roll, which didn’t sit well with anyone else, but managed to talk them into playing Keep Your Hands to Yourself, which he’d drag out with guitar solos until even the band wanted to quit. Zeke would breathe the occasional “whoo!” into the mic, so that everyone would think he was ready to close out the song, but then he’d just keep going.
With Zeke wanting to rock and Larry wanting to play country, they managed a fine line of southern rock music that kept them both happy enough to continue playing at Linda’s for more than a year.
In this new format, Larry started closing the last set with a rousing, very loud, run-on-forever version of Free Bird. And since I knew how to play Free Bird, and was there every week, and had been drinking by then for many, many hours, Larry eventually invited me on stage to play along with them.
I loved, loved, loved this time. I hopped on the stage, completely wasted, and in front of a crowd of maybe three people I jammed out on my guitar. I did the slow part, the fast part, the bar chords … I was a superstar! It was many months before I realized that Larry was turning the amp off when I played along.
Since my guitar playing left a lot to be desired, Larry brought me on stage for other songs throughout the evening. Together we sang duets: Meet Me in Montana, You’re the Reason God Made Oklahoma, and Leather and Lace.
Unlike Zeke, I required a microphone to be heard. With that microphone in front of me and a dozen beers in my system, I sounded exactly like Marie Osmond, Shelly West and Stevie Nicks.
I’d never heard of Shelly West before Larry taught me the Oklahoma song. But getting to be Marie Osmond and Stevie Nicks in one night…? Every Friday? Well, that was the most fun I had ever had in my drunken adult life. I sang my heart out, and then sat back and drank more beers while listening to the audience – sometimes all three people – compliment me on my singing.
I knew it was only a matter of time before I was singing in front of thousands.