Wednesday, July 29, 2009

"Some went on...."

"...to make commercial recordings...
said Hank.
And Rik Elswit was one of them. How ironic that
"Everybody's making it big but me..." with Dr. Hook, made
him BIGTIME. One of the hip young nobody's who walked into
the little funky Paradox with hope and wonder and climbed
on up the Stairway to Stardom to become a Star.

The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band became stars too.
Jim Fadden and Bruce Kunkle hold the stage with
Jim Fielder of Blood, Sweat and Tears playing bass.
Just how these young kids, Elswit, Fadden, Kunkle, Fielder and the rest
had the stuff to be professionals at that age I can only wonder.

Two more Nitty Gritty Dirt Band founding members, (with Jim playing bass).
That makes 4 Dirt Band founding members on the Willow Valley Stage.
Amazing.
Fielder, a superb master of Bass, JB, a superstar still, and Ralph Barr,
destined to become a legend with amazing, spellbinding guitar and song.
Different paths for these extremely talented and practiced musicans.
They each confided in me that they were pretty sure it
was the Chocolate Chip Cookies.

8 comments:

Diane Smith said...

And what a star! I LOVE this band:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8ijaHYm9eU

I think I posted this one earlier, but I love this one, too:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-XzGOZHYdA

I think we need a reunion tour.

Unknown said...

You young people in the"60's" at The Paradox thought you had tried everything, but Bob,Helen, Hank and Connie are NOT going to tell you what we put in those chocolate chip cookies!!!!

Rand and Mand Band, great pictures!
A reunion tour sounds fun, starting at your house in Montana Diane, and keeping with the Paradox traditions,we won't have to make any money.........

Diane Smith said...

I was thinking that Dr. Hook needed to reunite, but I'm 100% behind the Paradox Band tour.

As for those cookies, didn't the help eat most of them? Maybe that really was the secret.

Unknown said...

Good point Diane...

Rik Elswit said...

That clip of "Everybody's Makin It Big" is a classic in that you get why I felt right at home in Hook. They were very much like the Dirt Band in their anything-for-a-laugh approach to performing, complete with the long, non-sequitur intros to tunes. Dennis came up with the album-as-hat dealie on the spot, live on TV. He was fearless, and we were all wearing illegal smiles.

A reunion would be hard to pull off without a rhythm section, though. Jon, our drummer, died of liver cancer about 10 years ago, and Jance, our bassist, ewnt out in a motorcycle accident a couple of years back. What's left is a very sick keyboard player, and a grumpy old man in his 70s, living in Florida. The guitar section, Rod, Dennis, and myself, would have a ball playing together, but we couldn't really call it Dr. Hook. And, since Rod lives in Nashville, and Dennis is in Brighton, England, rehearsals would be problematic.

It sure would be interesting doing some of that stuff again knowing what we know now, though.

Rand, these photos are terrific.

Diane Smith said...

Sorry to hear you are all so spread out around the universe. I think a Dr. Hook reunion would be fantastic. I LOVE watching those old videos.

I particularly liked the comment about the hat also serving as a shark fin when you go swimming. What a group!

Unknown said...

Diane, about the staff and the cookies, let us not forget about the teeny bopper staff member that later became an award winning author of two amazing books, see, it was the cookies!

Diane Smith said...

I did sneak a lot of those cookies, that's a fact.....