It’s 9:00. a.m. Saturday morning time to get up. We’re working on Kenny Wayne Shepherd today. 

Kenny Wayne Shepherd is a blues rock guitar player who was discovered as a child prodigy. He started playing at age seven, and was discovered at age thirteen. He took seven singles into the Top 10, and holds the record for the longest-running album on the Billboard Blues Charts with Trouble Is… He is one of my favorite players to listen to, so I’m glad to get a chance to work with him, his band and crew.

So far the day is going well. Hunter his Monitor engineer and Mike his Front of House engineer have been pleasant to work with. Even one of Kenny’s 15 year old sons is working on the road crew. And doing a great job. It’s nice to see a young man learning stagecraft, and making his father proud. The day is pretty easy. The band is self contained, having their own gear, but is using our PA and monitor wedges and amps. “Racks and stacks,” as we say.

This is the beginning of a long weekend for me. As soon as the show is out the door, I will be heading to LAX to catch a plane to Atlanta, Georgia. I wish I were traveling for pleasure but that’s not the case, as I am headed for a friend’s funeral service. A celebration of his life. That’s how I’m thinking about it.

More about that later.

Right now the band is on stage playing. They sound great, just as I thought they would. There’s a full house, filled with audience members screaming as loud as they can while the band burns through the set list. I’m gonna enjoy the music, it’s always lucky when a band I actually like plays on my stage. So I’ll write more later. Cya.

It’s 11:00 p.m. The show’s over. We’re loading the trailers. Twenty minutes later everything’s out the door. I’m signing out and heading to the airport.

It’s 12:52 a.m., and I’m at LAX. Sitting on the ground in a corner outside of the TSA checkpoint, because, I’m told, the terminals are all closed until 3:00 am. What the fuck? I can’t go through the TSA checkpoint at night? America. Not the greatest country on earth. Can’t even keep an airport in one of the world’s largest, richest cities.

open at night!

Anyhow, let’s get back to the reason I’m traveling this evening after a long day of work.

The celebration of life for my friend, Peabo Bryson.

I knew Peabo for somewheres around thirty years. We met on stage. I am a stagehand and he was a vocalist, a really good one. And famous. But that’s not why I became friends with him. He returned to our venue every year. Year after year. Not just to make a living, but he loved our venue, and particularly the people who worked within it. And when he visited, unlike most performers, he spent lots of time talking with us and enjoying our company – as we did him. Eventually we exchanged phone numbers and would occasionally talk on the phone when we weren’t working. I’d spend hours enjoying long conversations with Peabo, talking about all kinds of subjects from racism to religion and science. And then about writing. When I started writing my memoir, he was one of the people who gave me much encouragement. He even told me a personal story which I put in my book. A piece of music and personal history which I may have been the only person he had ever told it to. Offered up as advice to me about a situation I was going through. Peabo always gave good advice. Then later he told me he had started to write too. When I saw him at Christmas time for his concerts, or when we chatted on the phone, he read me some of his brilliant writing. He was so intelligent, and kind. I will always be grateful that we became friends. So when I heard he had a stroke I contacted his wife, who he had introduced me to a few years ago (and his son). But the day after that, I heard he had passed away. I was incredibly upset.

Soon after, his family contacted me and invited me to Atlanta to attend his service. Being poor, and having not worked much in the proceeding weeks, I debated whether I could afford to go. I started quickly looking into the cost of travel, and if I could even find a flight that I could bend my schedule around. I just couldn’t say no to the invitation, though, and finally as I was talking to my coworker, Tony, he said, “Don’t worry about the money or anything else, just go. He was your friend.” Peabo himself would have told me to go too, to make an adventure out of the opportunity to travel, to live life. So here I am, on my way. On the way to honor the memory of a friend who embraced me as his family. Who advised me in hard times, and who took the time to care. I will miss him.

Okay, I’ll write again about the adventure when I get to Atlanta.

I arrived in Atlanta and traversed the airport, it’s huge. Then I took the MARTA (light rail train) to within a block of my hotel. A great deal at $2.50. Just tap any ATM or credit card. I received a text from Jon, my FOH engineer at work right before we pulled into 5 points station on an empty train. “Apparently there is a FIFA fanfest going on right now in Atlanta by the wheel.” He said. And when the doors opened, so many soccer fans got on the train that there was barely room to stand.

But I made it to the hotel, where Kia at the front desk had saved my whole trip the day before due to a Priceline SNAFU!, And when I asked for her she gave me my room key without even having  to look at my ID. “I know EXACTLY who you are!” She said upon our meeting. So now, a shower and a nap are in order. Then dinner, which I’m greatly looking forward to, as Atlanta has great Southern cooking. I’m hitting Mary Mac’s Tea Room, it’s an institution!

It’s Monday morning and I’m waiting for the number 2 bus, which will take me to Peabo’s celebration of life service. After a short trip I arrived early and met up with friends from Peabo’s band. I ended up sitting with Regina Troupe, one of Peabo’s backup singers and her friends who I knew from work. I met plenty of people who he had befriended over the years. People who had traveled from all over the world to be here. The services were moving. I cried a little. Everyone’s stories about Peabo bore similarities to my own stories of Peabo. People talked about their own friendship. It’s truly amazing how many people’s lives he touched. Many people spoke about how Peabo enriched their lives. In between speaking there were musical breaks. It’s a Baptist church so the music and choir were great. BeBe Winans sang a song, as did Ruben Studdard (who I hoped to talk to, but for such a big guy he disappeared quickly) and then Regina Belle definitely gave Peabo a fitting send off to heaven, singing Can’t Nobody. Her rendition gave everyone a joyful moment, which we all needed.

It was nice to meet so many good people, knowing they cared for my friend, and theirs.

Sorry I don’t have photos from you, but I hope you understand.

There was plenty of media coverage though, so I am going to leave links here.

A short news article about the service: https://www.11alive.com/article/news/local/livestream-peabo-bryson-services/85-305c882e-ca46-4181-a360-411aa4b264e8

Here is an interview with Regina, who I spent the service with:

And a live feed of the whole service, if you are interested:

Anyhow it’s time for another good meal! After the service I changed clothes and grabbed my camera. I walked the streets downtown shooting video for my stock collection until well after midnight. While I was at it, I did a little pub crawl, stopping at places with good craft beer and drinking. Near the end of the night I ended up at a place in a basement called American Dive Bar. I spent some time listening to a cover band and drinking with a crowd of IBEW electricians, who were in Atlanta for a big convention.

Here’s some photos of my wanderings around the Midtown area of Atlanta.

I also had a nice conversation with Jimmy the audio engineer. Then I walked and shot more videos until I was able to stumble back to the hotel. Now it’s noon and I’m getting up with a hangover to seek out another good meal. I’m thinking fried eggs, sausage and of course I’ve gotta have grits!

I’ve been wandering around Georgia tech campus. The university is amazing. I just wandered into a building in the manufacturing related disciplines for mechanical engineering and material science and engineering Department. They had an incredible machine shop which I shot a lot of video in. The people are very friendly here.

Out for my last dinner at a place called Max Lagers, they brew beer. I’m ordering a BBQ Creole shrimp dish, and a flight of beer. I’m not drinking any more tonight!

After my meal I continued to shoot video until I couldn’t walk anymore and now I’m going to sleep. I have to get up early for my flight home tomorrow. I’m posting this from the airport, sorry if there’s spelling errors etc. All in all, my trip to Atlanta, Georgia was not what I expected. This is a beautiful city with great eats, awesome bike infrastructure, ( I wish I had time to ride) and friendly people. I always wondered what kept Peabo living in Atlanta. We spoke many times about racism, and his personal experiences with it. He was always fighting for peoples rights, the right for people to vote, civil rights, and made every effort to educate people who thought narrowly. When he first arrived in Atlanta it was a different place from what it is now. And I think his efforts had much to do with that. I’m not saying that racism and prejudice is completely gone, but while I was here I saw many rainbow flags, and people of all races getting along and living peacefully together in a beautiful city. So Peabo’s efforts were not lost. He was a great person who I will never forget. He befriended many people like me, and spread his love widely. Rest in Peace Peabo!

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We semi-recently did two shows with Rob Kapilow and his series, What Makes it Great? I’ll write here about the show titled, Beethoven’s First Symphony, the other show was about the Beatles, as I have no photos of that one!

Kapilow performed at The Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts 

https://ccpa.cerritos.gov

Rob has been returning to the Cerritos Center for thirty something years, three or four times a year. So it’s easy to say that he has been here more than any other performer in our history. And that’s great because he is a pleasure to work with, and is also a very talented musician, conductor, author and performer.

From Rob’s website https://robkapilow.com/

“Rob Kapilow “gets audiences in tune with Classical music at a deeper and more immediate level than many of them thought possible,” hails the Los Angeles Times. In a three-part format. Kapilow dissects a musical composition. The pieces are performed, and a lively Q&A concludes the evening. “You hang on to every word and note,” says The New York Times.”

Essentially he takes a piece of music, breaks it down, explaining each part of the composition in language that anyone can understand and tells the audience what makes it great. He also gives the audience background about the composer/ musicians who wrote the piece so that the audience gets a good idea about when, where and why the music came into the world. His show is always fascinating and I never fail to learn something about the history of music.

The Beethoven’s First Symphony show was of course interesting, informative and something to hear. Rob played along with the Fullerton College Symphony.

https://music.fullcoll.edu/index.php

The Fullerton College Musicians often accompany Rob, and they are extremely talented. The school has, over the years provided many musicians for this endeavor and all the many generations of students have been exceptional musicians.

Some quick video from rehearsal.

The other show we did with Rob Kapilow was about the Beatles. I didn’t really have time to write about this show as I was busy preparing for a corporate event which followed the morning after. So sorry!

Here you can find his books through this search link: Rob Kapilow’s Books.

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I think when I retire, it will be safe to say that this will be the act with which I have worked longer and more days in my career. 

I’ll leave you now with a short video which I shot backstage as the mariachi bands played in the green room together after they arrived and before soundcheck. And some photos from tonight and the past.

Above mariachi bands Sol de Mexico and Mariachi Reyna De Los Angeles rehearse backstage.

And below,

And a memory from the past. One night working the MerryAchi Christmas show I had to clear some mics and cable for the dancers, but they went on too fast! I call this video The Mariachi Stomp. 

That guy getting stomped on by the dancers would be me. I had to run out and clear a cable and mic stand! Don’t get in their way!

Photos and video from past shows below.

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Guitarist Terry Sylvester of The Hollies told me the story of how it accidentally became their biggest hit during sound check tonight.

“A DJ in Germany was playing the A side of the record we recorded, it was late and he was feeling lazy- so instead of getting up out of his chair to grab the next record to play, he just flipped over the record on the turntable and played its B side. And the song on the B side was “Long Cool Woman.””

“Long Cool Woman” wasn’t like our other songs, it didn’t have the three part harmonies we were known for. We figured that our fans wouldn’t be interested in it. So we used it as a B side song, nobody expected anyone to pay any attention to it at all. But as soon as that first guitar part started playing, the red lights on the DJ’s telephone switchboard started lighting up! People started calling in like crazy, and the next thing you know we were on a world tour with a number one hit song.”

Also, tonight The Lovin’ Spoonful played. Rob Bonfiglio, the guitar player (also, Carnie Wilson’s husband), has been here many times with various bands. Rob last played here with Al Jardine and the Pet Shop Band, who I wrote about in a previous post.

I was glad to get to see Carnie, who I missed at the Al Jardine show because I was so busy. But she has always been a sweet person who is always friendly to me. So I quickly ran backstage to say hello, and had a short chat before going back to work on stage.

Talking to Jeff Allen Ross, the keyboard player (and vocalist) of the Hollies and Lovin’ Spoonful, we found out that we are practically neighbors. So we talked, naturally, about our shared home turf.

Closing the evening was Gary Lewis and the Playboys.

So all in all a good day on the stage. Filled with interesting conversations and talented musicians. Pretty much why I decided to dedicate most of my life to this business in the first place.

Photos and video below.

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He was sitting stage left in the wings struggling to put his feet up on a rolling cart, so I offered to get him an apple box, to which he declined. But this started a conversation. I asked if he still lived up in central California. He lives in the Big Sur area. I told him that I had taken a drive up highway 1 many years ago before the road closed, but the next time I took that drive I discovered the road was washed out when I came to it’s end and had to drive a small road back to the 101. He reminded me that it was Naciamento road, which joins the 101 at fort Hunter Liggett. Exactly as I then remembered. He said that although it’s not to bad if you’re on vacation – as the drive is still nice, but as a resident, the two plus hours drive is tough for residents to get into the city in both directions, north and south. “It’s not always as easy as one thinks living in paradise,” he said. I told him as I was keeping an eye on real estate on the big island in Hawaii, and I always thought about that when looking for houses because of floods and lava. One must choose wisely. And, also the story of when I lived in the hills here in LA that a tree crushed my house and my car. I lost most everything. Paradise at work.We talked about travel, as I want to go to Thailand in a couple of years when I retire. I was surprised that he had never been there on any tours. He said, ” I made it as far as Singapore, but never Thailand.” So I said, ” I guess you still have things to do and places to visit in your life!”We talked about New Zealand and Australia, where he said they had a lot of fans, Australia in particular, and he loved to visit. But then I needed to go back to work, as there was a small audio problem on stage, and he had to go back out to play for sound check. I had received a graphic from the company which they wanted to display on screen the day before the show, but it was square and didn’t fill the 16×9 screen so I did a bit of work to fill it out for them. I displayed it for Al on the screen, and he liked it, so we decided to use it for the show. I’m glad about that, and will give it to them to take on the road. I always love when I get a chance to talk with the performers, especially when I have worked with them over the years, like Al. Also “Weird Al” Yankovic showed up at the end of the evening and I got to meet him. which was cool! So another good evening at work.

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The load-in went smoothly. The band and crew arrived in a bus with a large trailer. They are traveling light for this tour as they have a series of fly days. I believe they were recently in Europe and in the morning they will fly to Hawaii. So they are traveling with limited gear, making everyone’s day easy. The crew, including Johnny, their monitor engineer, with whom I worked with most has been professional and super easy going, making for a good day.

I took a few photos from stage, so without further adieu, here they are.

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I always enjoy working with Lance Burton. It was his sixth time visiting the Cerritos Canter for the Performing Arts. Last time he came I asked him if he had signed our balls .(Ping Pong Balls that is!) He couldn’t remember, so we went in the office to check. He did, many years ago– two balls in fact. But he really wanted to see the collection anyways. He said he had heard about it but had never seen it. So I took him to look at the collection. The technical staff only has performers WE like sign the ping pong balls. All performers sign a tile for the lobby.

Lance was fascinated by the many famous people we have collected over the years, he took a lot of photos of the whole collection and especially people he knew or liked. We swapped stories about some of the performers. He especially was moved when he saw Louie Anderson had signed a ball, as they were good friends. I told him the story about when Louie came to visit. 

Louie was such a nice guy. Everybody loved him. He took the time to meet everyone, including the ushers, who he did a little comedy routine for before the doors opened. After the show he asked me if I would be interested in making some video content for a comedy/magic show that he was planning to do with a friend. I gave him my number and was looking forward to working with him. But he unfortunately passed away soon after and the tour didn’t happen.

That’s when Lance told me that he was the magician who was going to go on tour with Louie! What a small world.

Lance Burton, his crew and the friends who he tours with are all some of the most down to earth people who have ever come to work on our stage. All super friendly. He certainly does not have to tour to make money after playing in Vegas for thirty years, but him and his friends just love what they do, so they keep going out on the road.

I gave Lance a copy of my book, Stagehand: A Backstage Pass to my Life Stories, and was hoping to get a photo with him and the book while he was in his magician costume, but he gets in and out of costume only seconds before going on stage and out of it as soon as he leaves the stage! So the timing was bad and I didn’t want him to have to pose in his street clothes– oh well. Either way I am glad he will read my book! At the end of the night as we finished packing the trailer, the crew all took photos with me– but on their phones, I didn’t get any!

On to Robert Cray. I don’t have a lot to say about him. He, his band and his crew are all wonderful and hassle free to work with. The day was easy and fun. Their music is awesome! If you don’t know who he is, just know that he is one of the most accomplished blues guitarist in the world. And his band is great. Go Google his name and take a listen to some of his music, I guarantee that you will not be disappointed. I’ll leave you with some photos from throughout the day.

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Their website: https://www.gtlorocks.com/

Tonight we will be presenting the band UB40, but as I am only working the load-in I will not be writing about the presentation unless something unusual happens before I leave.

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But tonight my story is not about the bands and crews so much as it is a personal story. If you read my book Stagehand: A Backstage Pass to my Life Stories, you would have read about my time spent with my friends at the mall, whom I like to refer to as ‘The Old Guy’s Club”. A group of older Vietnam war veterans. One of them who I consider one of my best buddies, Cecil, is a fifty year martial arts champion and Sensei.

When I told him that I was working with the Temptations he said to me, “Really? Otis was one of my students and a good friend! Make sure to say that Sensei says hello.” (For those who don’t know Otis Williams is the last surviving original,  and founding member of the Temptations)

So of course, since I love Cecil, when Otis arrived, I went to the dressing room and gave him Cecil’s greeting. He was very happy to hear from Cecil and asked, “Do you have his number?” Which I do. So I called Cecil and put him on speaker phone. Cecil had forgotten all about our conversation and was very surprised! I ended up giving Otis Cecil‘s contact information so they could catch up later, as it has been a few years since they have talked to each other. It warms my heart to have been able to hook up two old time friends after them being out of contact for so long. (It’s not easy to get a hold of famous performers, so it may have been hard for Cecil to contact Otis.)

I’ll include some photos below.

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In the middle slot for the night was KT Tunstall. KT has been through our venue before. She’s a talented musician. Playing guitar and singing. She also plays percussion. She’s a looper. Making music by starting different rhythms using percussion and guitar lines, and running them through looping pedals to create soundscapes that form songs. A pretty cool type of music which I happen to like. She also brought along her cute little dog to sound check. 

The opening band tonight I had never heard of before, but they are a pretty rocking band. They’re called Vertical Horizon . Tight with good songs. I enjoyed listening to their set.

All the musicians and their crews were nice people today and the day went better than expected, although it is a long one and we are back tomorrow for 90’s Mixtape Live.

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