Shake Your Damn Booty!

Near the end of 1977, I received a telephone call from John N.. If you’re keeping track of all of this, he was the extraordinary bass player from Ebenezer’s Rock Hill rival band Caution. Simply put, he asked if I would be interested in filling the drum spot for his Disco/ Top-40 band Rhapsody. The timing could not have been better! I was quickly running out of interesting classes to take in college, plus (most importantly) I had just turned 21 and my Social Security checks had ceased magically appearing in my mom’s mail box.

I did need to think about it, though. This was a business offer as much as it was a music offer. Rhapsody would be performing a lot. We’re talking about being booked weeks at a time, mainly in hotel lounges. We would be traveling throughout the Southeast, and for the first time in my life I would be leaving mom and my girlfriend for extended lengths of time. I’m sure my girlfriend took it worse than mom did. Mom was probably glad to get rid of me and frankly, she was excited about the fact that I would be earning a relatively good living! I’m sure it caused a stink with my girlfriend, but the years gone by seem to have left little memory of what went down. Maybe that’s a good thing.

The fact that it was a Disco/Top-40 band may have given me a tiny bit of “what the hell am I doing?” thoughts, but I was ready to take the huge step into learning how to use my musical talents in the real world. Danny and Jimi from Ebenezer had already joined the same type of band. I actually auditioned for them but didn’t make the cut - the main dude (who reminded me a lot of Steve Martin pretending to be a lounge singer) opted for a very good drummer named Bill Stowe (who went on to be one of Charlotte’s best studio drummers). Not a problem, and since I had accepted that I’d probably never be a Rock Star, Rhapsody sounded like a great opportunity for me to play with great musicians, be a professional and most importantly, keep the learning process going.

John’s offer to me was that I would be a salaried musician, earning between $150 - $200 a week regardless if we had gigs or not! Not a bad selling point. I agreed for an audition and here I was again, driving the 20 minute drive back down to Rock Hill S.C.!

Rhapsody consisted of a very gorgeous and sexy female singer named Pam. Believe it or not, she was now the second ex-Miss Rock Hill S.C. beauty queen I have played with! She had a giant smile, knew how to shake her booty and her voice was....fine on the pretty material and at times..adventurous on the funk tunes, but that was ok. Mike played guitar and shared the lead vocal duties. He played quite well and had a great voice. As I said, John was the bass player, sang backing vocals, was the leader of the band, and also worked the lights, monitors and P.A. from the stage!

The audition went well and I accepted the offer. One of the first things that helped all of this new reality really start to set in was that I was given the previous drummer’s disco jump suit. Good God! It was a black one piece with a cut-out front and huge bell bottoms. It came with 2 shirts; one was a baby blue satin number with a frilly chest thing going on, and the other was a polyester paisley print, but thankfully, lacking the frilly front. The drummer before me was a very tall and lanky guy so you can imagine the hilarity that ensued when I tried it on at practice. Jesus.... The crotch hung down to my knees and the legs were way too long. We all had a pretty good laugh! Fortunately, Pam was a bit of a seamstress and offered to do the best she could. Well, it turned out even funnier...now the crotch was up my ass, the legs were too short, but it would have to do. The insanely goofy jumpsuit would spend most of it’s time sitting behind a drum set, so what the hell...

I had to learn around 40 or 50 songs. I also had a new task to deal with, and that was to be a backup singer. I had never done it before, but I knew I had an ok voice and I was excited to sing . This was a real job and I was expected to do whatever my new boss asked of me, be it wearing a uniform, singing backup, playing whatever songs he chose, and to look like I loved what I’m doing ( but to never show up Pam). I was fine with that. The rehearsals went well and we were ready to disco down and shake our booty. Look out Holiday Inn lounges! Rhapsody is on it’s way for your dining and dancing pleasure!

* A note about the photo - it’s the only photo I have of the band and it does not represent the personnel that were in the band when I joined. It does represent the members that were in it for most of my time in Rhapsody with one very major (and funny) exception; the guy in the top left was the photographer! We were being booked as a 5 piece band (which was important as far as the money we would earn) and the 5th player was not yet hired at the time of the photo session!
From left to right, Top row: Photographer, John N., Richard G.
Bottom row: Me, Pam