YO Tony, Russ,
Been too sick to follow up on this post but I am up and moving around a little bit this morning. Been down near two weeks with a severe sinitus infection.
I have been through all the ringers that musicians of old suffered through. Maybe it was because of them that I went through so much of this for so long. You see it was an accepted way of life for us in those days. It was not only accepted by us but also our peers that we played for. They would say, Oh, that is ok He is a musician
We lived to play and we played to live.
Side man scale was 10.00, doubling to 15.00 plus your meds We might get two nights a week with our band and then another night or two through the "hall".
I left the band and went to 6 nights a week piano bar, at 10.00 a night, plus tips, plus booze. I kept a mt bottls of 4 star Henesy along side me under the piano keyboard with a funnel. What I didn't drink went in the funnel. I only drank 4 star boiler makers so I would drink the beer and dump the shot into the bottle. That bottle was worth another 12.00 if full at the end of the shift. The tips could average 20.00 but on days when this racetrack crowd had a big and profitable day at Santa Anita racetrack, tips might go to 2 or 300.00. This hotel I worked in was where all the owners, jocks, trainers, etc stayed during the meet. By day, I handicapped the horses and went to the track, and often made a little more bread to feed all my bad habits.
I am not going to go through all the grusome background, the pain, the fears, the distress, and the humility again but suffice to say that:
I married my 8th wife in 1974. She got me into a rehab program. It was to be 30 days. I flunked so was signed over twice. After 90 days they finally turned me loose.
I then begin to channel my energies into my business and it really begin to prosper. My spiritual program moved me in directions that I would have never thought possible. I played Organ in the church house and no more gigs. They had to teach me the music every week because I had never played this stuff and sight reading was more then rusty.
In 1982, I turned my business over to the employees to operate and we went into full time field evangilism. We traveled this country for 5 years, speaking at all denominations, and making the effort to reach the poor suffering people from my background. I found that there was at least one person in every church that had a background similiar to mine. There were usually several closet AA's and NA as well.
My businesses supported our 5 years in the field and we would probably still be there but the IRS thought they could shake me down for a ton of bucks so we had to come home for an 18 month audit. We sold our RV, bought another house and here we still sit.
Straight, sober, Clean, happy, and much to my amazement now 74 years old.
In the old days we worked hard, we played hard and we mostly died hard. We thought it was the good life. We always thought we played better under various influences but when we did recordings we soon learned we could barely play at all in that condition.
Would I do it all over again? Absolutely not I say from my current perspective but very likely looking back to where my head was then.
I hope that this post speaks for the many musicians that are no longer able to speak and gives you a little insight into what we went through in those days, and why.
It wasn't a good life but it was our life.
It is my hope that anyone reading this will learn something from it and side step some of the many mistakes we all made in the "GOOD OLE DAZE".
Best to all,
Bebop