Magical Moment Photos

YESTERDAY & TODAY PERFORMING AT GOLDEN GATE PARK IN SAN FRANCISCO, CA. ON 4-18-75. PHOTO BY BEN UPHAM.

YESTERDAY & TODAY-
“1977 INTERVIEW”
BY MIKE DEL REY
THE MONTCLAIR TRIBUNE
MONTCLAIR, CALIFORNIA
APRIL 14, 1977

A few weeks ago I was in the dressing room at the Starwood, a somewhat showcase arena for new talent arriving in Hollywood. However, the group I talked to Saturday has, according to their publicity release, “arrived.”
The group is “Yesterday and Today.” They have just recently signed with London Records and their debut album “Yesterday and Today” is somewhat promising.
Yesterday and Today is composed of Dave Meniketti, lead guitar, lead vocals, background vocals; Joey Alves, rhythm guitar and background vocals; Phil Kennemore, bass, lead and background vocals; and Leonard Haze, drums, percussion, lead and background vocals.
In an “off-the-wall” manner where questions bounced from one subject to another, I interviewed Yesterday and Today in their dressing room before they took the stage.
MD: How did Yesterday and Today get started?
Dave M: Well, we wanted people to hear us and the only real way was to produce and promote our own concerts. We tried Oakland but Oakland is too funky.
MD: Funky?
Dave: Yes, too “Tower Of Power” and Graham Central Station”.
MD How did you go about promoting your own concerts?
Dave: We had money to put up. Then we just printed about 500 pamphlets and had some of our friends hand them out to the high schools in the area.
MD: Where was the first place Yesterday and Today played?
Dave: Well I believe it was “Ides Lodge Hall in Hayward.
MD: What does the Ides stand for?
Dave: If it stood for anything it’s beyond me.
MD: About how many people attended these self-promoted concerts.
Dave: Between 800 and 1,000.
MD: Were the concerts as “successful” as you thought they may have been?
Dave: Well, we played because we liked playing. As far as being successful we did get our music heard.
MD: How did the group come up with the name Yesterday and Today?
— Henry Bentley (loyal supporter and personal friend also in dressing
room): When the band was doing a concert at Treasure Island Naval Base for the enlisted men one thing lead to another and they were thrown but due to security. Later on that day the band called the promoter and during their conversation the promoter asked one of the members what the name of the group was. Not having a name, they used the first thing that came to mind and that was the title of an early Beatles album resting next to the phone, “Yesterday and Today.”
MD: Interesting. Well here is another toughie for the band. Do you feel that you’re a commercial band?
Leonard: Yes I think we’re commercial hard rock.
Joey: I think we’re commercial also. That is if commercial means selling a lot of albums.
MD: You guys were just on tour for the first time outside the West Coast. I heard that in San Antonio, Texas you got your best welcome yet.
Leonard: Well I don’t know if you can call it our best welcome but it was a welcome we won’t forget.
MD: What happened?
Leonard: San Antonio has one of the finest radio stations in the country; radio station KISS. Not any relation to our “Kiss” Station here at home. Anyway this station played our album “Y & T” before we got there. So consequently people in the S. A. area were familiar with our music.
MD: I heard the crowd would not let you off the stage.
Leonard: Well that’s true. We had already given three encores and if the house lights did not go on we would have given a fourth.
MD: Being a new band, did you have enough material to cover a fourth
encore?
Len: Oh yes. We have 30 written tunes.
MD: I also heard that when you were walking down the street in S. A. a car full of girls drove by and screamed “There goes Y&T”.
Len: Yes. That did happen.
MD: Dave. How did the title cut from your first album come about?
Dave: Well, if you mean “Alcohol,” it’s a true story about a friend of mine who got arrested by being under the influence of alcohol, and the song is his story.
MD: A couple more questions before you go on. Joey what did the band expect from this debut album?
Joey: Well it was like a test album. It would tell us where we went wrong or what we did right. We made the album so as to not overpower our live performance. We want to be better on stage than on an album.
Yesterday and Today are described by Henry Bentley as “steal on stear”. And for being the first such band out of the Oakland area Y & T will be here tomorrow.

YESTERDAY & TODAY (Y&T) DISCOGRAPHY:
1976 Yesterday & Today
1978 Struck Down
1981 Earthshaker
1982 Black Tiger
1983 Mean Streak
1984 In Rock We Trust
1985 Open Fire (Live)
1985 Down for the Count
1987 Contageous
1990 Ten
1991 Yesterday & Today Live
1995 Musically Incorrect
1997 Endangered Species
2000 BBC In Concert
2003 Unearthed Volume 1
2004 Unearthed Volume 2
2009 OneTwo (1st two albums Remastered)
2010 Facemelter

CLICK THE LINKS BELOW TO SEE YESTERDAY & TODAY (Y&T) PHOTOS:
Y&T FINE ART AMERICA IMAGES BY BEN UPHAM
and
YESTERDAY & TODAY PHOTOS FROM SF 4-18-75 BY BEN UPHAM
and
Y&T PHOTOS FROM SPOKANE, WA. ON 7-18-10 BY BEN UPHAM

JERRY GARCIA...STANDING ON THE MOON...PHOTO ART BY BEN UPHAM....

JERRY GARCIA-
“LOOKING INTO THE NEXT CENTURY”
BY ANTHONY DeCURTIS
SYRACUSE HERALD JOURNAL
SYRACUSE, NEW YORK
NOVEMBER 7, 1993

Now 51, battling diabetes and other health problems, Jerry Garcia still looks unstintingly ahead. In conversation he is a marvel, bouncing associatively from topic to topic, sharing his amiable intelligence as if it were a gift, in love with good talk. Childlike in his curiosity and enthusiasm, he has more projects going — and more different types of projects — than most musicians half his age.
The Grateful Dead is planning to record a new studio album, the first since “Built to Last” in 1989, for release next spring. As the band’s summer tour crossed the country, a collection of Garcia’s artwork — pen-and-ink drawings, watercolors,computer-generated images — accompanied it, with gallery displays in the various cities the Dead have visited.
An album of traditional children’s songs, “Not for Kids Only,” with mandolinist David Grisman, was released this fall on Grisman’s label, Acoustic Disc. For a collaboration with the Redwood Symphony, with which his eldest daughter plays violin, Garcia is commissioning works for orchestra and guitar.
Of course, the Jerry Garcia Band is a going concern, with an East Coast tour now under way, including a stop next Sunday in Syracuse. And Garcia also hopes at some point to pull together another band, featuring Edie Brickell on vocals, for shows of entirely improvised music and lyrics. Clearly, this is not a man who has run out of either energy, ideas or passion:
Q What about your own musical beginnings?
Music was something I was not good at. I took lessons on the piano forever, for maybe eight years — my mom made me. None of it sank in. I never did learn how to sightread for the piano — I bluffed my way through, I was attracted to music very early on, but it never occurred to me it was something to do — in the sense that when I grow up I’m going to be a musician — although I knew that my father had been a musician.
Q What about bluegrass? When did you come to that?
My grandmother was a big Grand Ole Opry fan. Now this is in San Francisco, a long way from Tennessee, but they used to have the Opry on the radio every Saturday night all over the United States. My grandmother listened to it religiously. I probably heard Bill Monroe hundreds of times without knowing who it was. When I got turned on to bluegrass in about 1960, the first time I really heard it, it was like, “Whoa, what is this music?” The banjo just … it just made me crazy. It was like the way rock ‘n’ roll affected me when I was 15. When I was 15, I fell madly in love with rock ‘n’ roll. Chuck Berry was happening big, Elvis Presley — not so much Elvis Presley, but I really liked Gene Vincent, you know, the other rock guys, the guys that
played guitar good: Eddie Cochran, Buddy Holly, Bo Diddley. And at that time, the R&B stations still were playing stuff like Lightnin’ Hopkins and Frankie Lee Sims, these funky blues guys. Jimmy McCracklin, the Chicago style blues guys, the T-Bone Walker-influenced guys, that older style, pre-B.B. King stuff. Jimmy Reed — Jimmy Reed actually had hits back in those days. You listen to that, and it’s so funky. It’s just a beautiful sound, but I had no idea how to go about learning it.
When I first heard electric guitar, when I was 15, that’s what I wanted
to play. I petitioned my mom to get me one, so she finally did for my
birthday. Actually, she got me an accordion, and I went nuts — Aggghhh, no, no, no! I railed and raved, and she finally turned it in, and I got a pawnshop electric guitar and an amplifier. I was just beside myself with joy. I started banging away on it without having the slightest idea of . . . anything. I didn’t know how to tune it up; I had no idea. My stepfather tuned it in some kind of weird way, like an open chord. I thought: “Well, that’s the way it’s tuned. OK.” I played it that way for about a year before I finally ran into some kid at school who actually could play a little. He showed me a few basic chords, and that was it I never took any lessons. I don’t even think there was anybody teaching around the Bay area. I mean electric guitar was like from Mars, you know. You didn’t see them even.
During this time, too, I was going to the art institute on Saturdays and
summer sessions — they had this program for high-school kids. So I
was picking up that head. This was also when the beatniks were happening in San Francisco, so I was, like, in that culture. I was a high school kid and a wanna-be beatnik! Rock ‘n’ roll at that time was not respectable.
Q When the Dead started out, did yon have a sense that it would last this long?
We had big ideas. I mean, as far as we were concerned, we were going to be the next Beatles or something — we were on a trip, definitely. We had enough of that kind of crazy faith in ourselves. We were always motivated by the possibility that we could have fun, big fun. I was reacting, in a way, to my bluegrass background, which was maybe a little over-serious. I was up for the idea of breaking out. When we were in the Warlocks, the first time we played in public, we had a huge crowd of people from the local high school, and they went — nuts! The next time we played, it was packed to the rafters. It was a pizza place. We said, “Hey, can we play in here on Wednesday night? We won’t bother anybody. Just let us set up in the corner.” It was pandemonium, immediately. I don’t remember ever thinking, “Now, am I going to be doing this in 20 years?” But it never occurred to me that I wouldn’t be doing it And as things went on, we went past my own personal — what? — goals, visions, my own imagining, “This is how far we could go.” So we’re way over in the land of pure gravy, so to speak — pure gold. Now it’s like stuff that I might idly have wished for one day in 1957 is coming up.
Q So what does a studio album mean for the band now?
I can’t encompass it with my point of view, because it usually isn’t made up of just my material — it’s made up of all of our material The material has to speak to us, you know — “This album seems to be going in this direction, or it contains these elements,” and then you try to see if you can sew it together. The basic odyssey format or variety show, you know. Something rubbery tike that usually is best because it’s tough to get everything under the same umbrella. Sometimes the sound of it will be the unifying feature. Sometimes it’s not there at all.
Q Are all of you in compatible spaces as far as this upcoming particular album is concerned?
I think so. It used to be wildly different If you checked on each of us
about what our version of Grateful Dead music was, it used to be way
different from each other. We’re all sort of looking at the same thing
now — kind of. I mean, each person still sees it through his own frame of reference, but that’s what Grateful Dead music is, you know: Grateful Dead music is a holographic experience. It’s made up of the points of view of all of the members of the band: consequently, every angle that you look at it from, it’s different. And a lot of times, it’s unpredictable. That’s one of the things that makes it interesting to keep doing.
The way we’re approaching this album, and we’ve done it in the past, too, with our better albums, is to let the material live onstage for about a year. It starts to evolve into something different. I mean, it’s probably a way of saving, “This is a collaborative effort.”
Q How do you perceive your various musical relationships — the Dead, your band, your projects with David Grisman? Do they merge, or are they clearly compartmentalized in your mind?
They do bleed into each other, but that’s OK, I don’t prevent that from
happening. But I do try to keep them separate, because I love them for reasons of their own. I like their identities to be clear.
Q What are the differences?
The Garcia Band really reflects my musical personality. The people in that band think — musically, conceptually — the way I do. Their notion of the way the instruments should speak to each other — I don’t have to show anybody anything. When we work out a tune, all I have to do is say: “Here’s the tune. Here’s the changes. Here’s the chords” — and it just happens. And it happens perfectly. It happens better than if I told everybody, “This is exactly what I want you to play.” I mean, that band, to me, is total resonance. It’s consonance. It’s like — yes, yes, that’s my version of music! The Grateful Dead has more dissonance in it. It has more variables and more wild cards and more oddness. And it has more tension, too. I mean, to Grateful Dead fans, my band might be a little bit too agreeable. Grisman is a very rigorous musician. He likes to rehearse and get things down perfectly. He’s a master of detail. I’m not those things, but we balance each other out. I’m loose enough to loosen him up, and he’s tight enough to tighten me up. We also share a love for American traditional music, for bluegrass and for acoustic music. And for swing. Me and David are working on a children’s album right now. It’s something I never would have thought to do. It’s kind of a reaction to the revisionist approach to children’s songs.
Q Like what?
Well, there are these shows that have the old children’s songs, but they’ve rewritten the lyrics to make them tamer or more gentle. It’s infuriating because these songs are part of the oral tradition of America. A lot of them are perfectly lovely. Some of them have teeth, but, hey, so what? I mean, kids get enough mindless, senseless stuff. So we’ve gone poking around in some mountain music and traditional stuff for children’s songs that don’t want to be changed. We’d like to introduce them to the kids the way they are and let them be. We’ve been taking a real simple and spontaneous approach — just picking and singing, you know. This music should be heard. It’s part of our heritage.
Q One of your goals seems to be to explore every genre of American music.
Oh, definitely. If I live long enough, I hope to do exactly that I missed out on a lot of legitimate music by not being a music student I didn’t play a band instrument; I didn’t have that background. But I’ve been learning about these other worlds. I would love to be able to play, like, Gershwin tunes. And I will do it. There’s a lot of great music in the American experience, and l hope to be able to touch as much of it as I can. I feel that I can honestly contribute something.
Q With your health problems, were you concerned that you might never get to do all the things you’ve been talking about wanting to do?
Absolutely. I was getting to the place where I had a hard time playing
a show. I was in terrible … shape. I mean I was just exhausted, totally exhausted. I could barely walk up a flight of stairs without panting and wheezing. I just let my physical self slide as far as I possibly could.
Q Did you deny to yourself what was happening?
Oh, yeah, because I’m basically lazy. Things have to get to the point where they’re screaming before I’ll do anything. I could see it coming, and I kept saying to myself: “Well, as soon as I get myself together, I’m going to start working out. I’m going on that diet.” Quit smoking ~- ayiiiii (waves lit cigarette).
Q What about in terms of the Dead? Were there times when the band was discouraged about its future?
Well, there were times when we were really in chaotic spaces, but I don’t think we’ve ever been totally discouraged. It just has never happened. There have been times everybody was off on their own trip to the extent that we barely communicated with each other. But it’s pulses, you know? And right now everybody’s relating pretty nicely to each other, and everybody’s feeling very good, too. There’s a kind of healthy glow through the whole Grateful Dead scene. We’re gearing up for the millennium.
Q Oh, yeah? What’s the plan?
Well, our plan is to get through the millennium (laughs). Apart from that, it’s totally amorphous.
Q Historically, turns of the century have been really intriguing times. Does that date hold any real significance for you?
No, the date that holds significance for me is 2012. That’s (writer and self-described expert in “the ethnopharmacology of spiritual transformation”) Terence McKenna’s “alpha moment,” which is where the universe undergoes its most extraordinary transformations. He talks about these cycles, exponential cycles in which, in each epoch, more happens than in all previous time. Like he talks about novelty, the insertion of novelty into the time track. His first example of novelty is, say, the appearance of life. So the universe goes along, brrrmmmmm, then all of a sudden, life appears… bing! So that’s something new. Then the next novelty is, like, vertebrates. Then the next novelty might be language — that sort of thing. They’re transformations of a huge kind, gains in consciousness. So he’s got us, like, in the last 40-year cycle now — it’s running down, we’re definitely tightening up — and during this period, more will happen than has happened in all previous time. This is going to peak in 2012.
Q Are you concerned about what you’d leave behind?
No. I’m hoping to leave a clean field — nothing, not a thing. I’m hoping they burn it all with me. I don’t feel like there’s this body of work that must exist I’d just as soon take it all with me. There’s enough stuff — who needs the clutter, you know? I’d rather have my immortality here while I’m alive. I don’t care if it lasts beyond me at all I’d just as soon it didn’t.
Q Maybe it will just scorch in 2012.
Yeah, I’m hoping that the transformations will make all that — everything — irrelevant We’ll all just go to the next universe as pure thought forms — wowwwnnnng. Yeah!

GRATEFUL DEAD DISCOGRAPHY:

1967 The Grateful Dead
1968 Anthem of the Sun
1969 Aoxomoxoa
1969 Live dead
1970 Workingman’s Dead
1970 American Beauty
1971 Grateful Dead (Skull & Roses)
1972 Europe ’72 (Live)
1973 History of the Grateful Dead (Bear’s Choice)
1973 Wake of the Flood
1974 Grateful Dead from the Mars Hotel
1975 Blues for Allah
1976 Steal your Face (Live)
1977 Terrapin Station
1978 Shakedown Street
1980 Go to Heaven
1981 Reckoning (Acoustic Live)
1981 Dead Set (Electric Live)
1987 In the Dark
1989 Dylan & the Dead
1989 Built to Last
1990 Without a Net (Live)

JERRY GARCIA BAND DISCOGRAPHY:

1971 Hooteroll? (w/ Howard Wales)
1972 Garcia
1973 Live at Keystone (w/ Merl Saunders)
1974 Compliments
1976 Reflections
1978 Cats Under the Stars
1982 Run for the Roses
1988 Almost Acoustic (Live)
1991 Jerry Garcia Band (Live)
1991 Garcia Grisman
1993 Not For Kids Only (w/ Grisman)
1996 Shady Grove (w/ Grisman)
1997 How Sweet it is (Live)
1998 So What (w/ Grisman)
2001 Dont Let Go (Live)
2001 Shining Star (Live)
2004 After Midnight (Live 1980)
2005 Garcia Plays Dylan (Live)
2009 Let it Rock (Live 1975)

CLICK THE LINKS BELOW TO SEE JERRY GARCIA PHOTOS:
GRATEFUL DEAD PHOTOS BY BEN UPHAM
AND
JERRY GARCIA BAND PHOTOS BY BEN UPHAM
AND
GRATEFUL DEAD ART BY BEN UPHAM
AND
JERRY GARCIA FINE ART AMERICA IMAGES BY BEN UPHAM

MAJESTIC MT. TAMALPAIS ON A BEAUTIFUL SUNNY DAY. PHOTO BY BEN UPHAM.

MT. TAMALPAIS-
“VARIETY ON MT. TAMALPAIS”
BY DON AND PHILA WITHERELL
THE OAKLAND TRIBUNE
OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA
JUNE 21, 1969

Rising from ocean cliffs and sandy beaches in the west and from San Francisco Bay in the East, Mt. Tamalpais dominates the Marin County landscape. Two hundred miles of trails crossing the State Park, Municipal Water Co. land, and Muir Woods National Monument offer the hiker an enticing variety of scenery.
The walk we took traverses one of the upper slopes of Tamalpais. From these heights are extravagant views of the Pacific Ocean, San Francisco Bay and the land that surrounds the Bay. In the Summer the coast line is usually obscured by fog which flows through the Golden Gate and spreads over the Bay to pile thickly against the Eastbay hills. Except on the most overcast day Mt. Tamalpais stands above the mists, warm and inviting.
Begin this beautiful four mile hike at Pan Toll Ranger Station (1,500 ft.) in Mt. Tamalpais State Park. To get there take the Mill Valley turnoff from Highway 101 and watch for Mt. Tamalpais signs. Turn right on the Panoramic Highway (off State Highway 1) pass Mountain Home Gift Shop and Restaurant and continue up the winding route until you come to Pan Toll Camp and Ranger Station. Leave your car in the parking lot and be prepared to pay a 75 cent fee. Cross the highway and take the Old Stage Road, a narrow asphalt road that veers sharply to the right. The road ascends a hillside that is thickly forested with Douglas Fir, bright with new needles, Madrone, and several varieties of oak. The fresh pale leaves of the tan oak contrast strikingly with its dark green mature foliage.
The road forks just beyond a small concrete block structure. Proceed left on the dirt road marked with a California hiking and riding trail sign. This essentially level road brings you to the south slope of the mountain where sweeping views present themselves — Muir Woods, dense with redwoods, is below you and beyond is the Bay, San Francisco, and depending on the weather, part of the coast line.
Closer at hand are beautiful rock out-croppings and the most spectacular aggregation cf chaparral that we have yet encountered. The chaparral pea, an impenetrable shrub with its stiff branches and thorns, is blooming now with a bright magenta blossom. Toyon and Manzanita have new berries and the chamise is covered with sprays of tiny white blossoms.
The trail crosses several ridges of blue-green serpentine growing out of those formidable rock cascades are Gower cypresses. Although lost among the rock, several large specimens grow along the road in pockets of richer soil. The scale-like leaves are pungently fragrant and attractive small cones ornament the limbs.
On its inward curves the trail crosses Rattlesnake Creeks (No. 1 and No. 2) which are both spring fed and active all year. Azaleas perfume the air and Woodwardia ferns lift their graceful fronds to the light.
Stop at West Point Inn (about 1% miles from your starting point, 1,800 ft. elevation). This rustic structure was built 75 years ago and served as a lunch stop and inn along the route of the old Mill Valley-Tamalpais Railway.
The railroad was abandoned in 1930 and the inn is now owned by a private club which generously offers the use of their porchs and tables to the hiker. No food is available, but coffee, tea and lemonade may be purchased. It is a pleasant place to linger—listening to hiker’s conversations and absorbing the magnificent views over the tops of Monterey pines.
Behind the inn are several trail signs. Take the trail marked Rock Springs Trail to Mountain Theater roughly paralleling the Stage Road at a higher elevation, you thread your way single file through head high chaparral. Above is the summit with its radar domes and below more dramatic vistas. Red Indian paint brush and bush poppy mingle with Ceonothus, Chamise and Manzanita.
The creek beds, crossed often on simple plank bridges are mostly dry now. Along their edges are small Laurel trees growing in clumps like Aspens with their slender trunks tufted with mosses. As the trail bends south the forest grows denser and a turnstile, out of context here, tells you that Mountain theatre is close by. This unique outdoor ampitheatre, with seats of native stone, looks as if ii could be a relic of another era. It is, however, most contemporary and in the summer dramatic and musical programs are presented.
To return to the trail clamber down into the ampitheatre, bear right past the restrooms, and follow the Easy Grade Trail (the only moderately steep part of the walk.) The final descent through firs and oaks returns you to Pan Toll.
The State Park does not have a map or brochure. However for 60 cents you may purchase a large trail map of the Mt. Tamalpais Region at Mountain Home. A National Geological Survey Map of the San Rafael Quadrangle is an interesting reference for trail information and location of landforms.
Remember this walk, too, for the winter days when the Bay Area lowlands are smothered in dense tule fog, but high places such as Mt. Tamalpais stand above in warm winter sunshine.

CLICK THE LINKS BELOW TO SEE MT. TAMALPAIS PHOTOS:
MT. TAMALPAIS PHOTOS BY BEN UPHAM
AND
MT. TAMALPAIS FINE ART AMERICA IMAGES BY BEN UPHAM

TOMMY BOLIN LIVE AT WINTERLAND ON MAY 7, 1976. PHOTO ART BY BEN UPHAM.

TOMMY BOLIN
“LIVED HARD, DIED HARD”
BY JOHN HUDDY
COLORADO SPRINGS GAZETTE
COLORADO SPRINGS, COLORADO
DECEMBER 17, 1976

Only 24 hours before Tommy Bolin played the final rock and roll concert of his life, the wiry, good-looking Sioux City musician walked alone into a nightclub. He sat on a five-foot-high wooden stool, ordering at the same time three Margaritas and three double martinis. The 25-year-old musician drank the six cocktails quietly and almost at once, a witness remembers, and then Tommy Bolin, a strong, bright music industry flame about to self-extinguish fell backwards off the stool onto the floor dead drunk.
Tommy Bolin whose gross earnings total an astonishing $750.000 since June 1975, according to his personal manager, had fewer than 30 hours to live. It was Dec. 2.
“Report, of the Medical Examiner: 118.01-1,13. Name of Deceased: Thomas Richard Bolin. Date: 12-4-76, 5:30 a.m. Case number: 7B-277-5. Identified by: Richard Barry Wood. 4315 Sunset Dr., Hollywood. Calif. 09927. Manager. The body is that of a well-developed, well-nourished young Caucasian adult male that appears to be the recorded age of 25. Measures 5 feet 9 inches, weighs 175. The body exhibits a moderate degree of rigidity and moderate purplish lividity over the back portions of the torso and extremities.”
From Janis Joplin to Jimi Hendrix. From Jim Morrison to Paul Kossoff, superbly talented rock superstars have perished in their own fireballs of hard living, financial pressure, image making, image breaking and hard narcotics — which at first glance appears the fate of Tommy Bolin, whose eight-year career included stints with Deep Purple, the James Gang, Energy, and his own, newly formed band.
Tommy Bolin however, seems to have been different.
He spent his money recklessly and foolishly — his closest associates will concede that much — but Bolin had not tired of his career, the most acute symptom of self-destruction in the rock asylum, nor was he without close ties to family.
Before the Miami concert, Bolin spent the Thanksgiving holiday period with Mom and Dad, and brothers Johnny, 18, and Rick, 17, back home in Sioux City, Iowa. He then performed his first hometown concert since breaking with Deep Purple earlier this year. The performance went very well, and friends recall long standing ovations.
Which does not explain why Tommy Bolin staggered reeling drunk through four days of Miami vacation prior to the Friday concert, nor his off-hand remark to road manager Richard Wood before the final performance. “I want my life to be as exciting as it can possibly be,” Bolin told his friend, “to die young and to leave behind a good-looking corpse.” Bolin and Wood laughed.
The facial hair is shaven except for long sideburns to the level of the earlobes. The irises are brown, and the pupils are brown and in mid dilation. The ears and nose and throat are grossly unremarkable except for the presence of a moderate amount of pinkish foam at the mouth and nostrils. The left earlobe exhibits the presence of two pierced holes, and in them there is a long earring made up of metal wire, a black bead and some long fowl feathers. In the front of the left earlobe there are three small contused abrasions.” “I don’t know what happened,” says personal manager Barry Fey from his Denver, Colo., office. “Tommy wanted so much to be a success, not just for himself, but for the people around him. including me. He was doted on by all the big stars. I know that. But he couldn’t live their lifestyle: he couldn’t afford it. He went through an awful lot of money because he didn’t want to live like an opening act. I think working with Deep Purple spoiled him. The man had gone through $750,000 in less than
two years.”
The final hours of Tommy Bolin…
On the night of the Miami concert, Bolin wears tight, black velvet pants, a red velvet jacket with flared sleeves and a $150, handmade T-shirt with the name of the Tubes rock group on the front.
Stone sober or just plain stoned. Tommy Bolin, everyone agrees, walks onstage shortly after 8:30 p.m. at the Miami Jai-Alai Fronton. His opening number is “Teaser,” a cut from his first solo album. Bolin performs for just under 50 minutes, about normal for a name opening act. His final tune, the last song of his rock and roll career, is called “Post Toastie.” It is a song about drug abuse. “Don’t let your mind Post-Toastie. Don’t let your brain get fried. Like a lotta my friends did.” “The left upper extremity exhibits the presence of four ecchymoses (bruises), some of which appear to be evolving ecchymoses. Two of these are located within the left lower forearm.
One is over the left upper forearm and in the left antecubital fossa (the crook of-the elbow), although the latter appears to be the more recent one.”
Over the telephone, Bolin’s personal manager is read the autopsy report. “Oh my God,” Fey gasps. “Oh Jesus.” There is a pause. Fey cannot talk on the telephone for several moments . Finally he returns. ‘Give me a second, will you.” he says in a broken voice. “Oh Jesus. Does it really say all that?
“Tommy was scared of a needle, I swear to God that’s true. I can’t imagine that he would shoot himself in the arm. He had a bad throat last month, and when I took him to the doctor, he was afraid of any drug and any needle.”
Tommy Bolin leaves the Jai-Alai stage at 9:20 p.m. and meets Wood in the wings. He seems excited and pleased. “Wow, I’m really happy about tonight,” Bolin says. “It really came off well!” The two men hug each other. Bolin returns to his hotel, driven to the Beach by L.C. Layton, a muscular, black stagehand and bodyguard. After changing clothes, Bolin drops into a small bar off the main hotel lounge, according to band members.
Bolin leaves the small lounge at 2:30 a.m.” with several equipment handlers, or “roadies,” employed by the band. First Bolin goes to his own room, then to the nearby hotel room of either Clayton or Jeff Ocheltree, a second crew member (officers are not sure which one). Clayton and Ocheltree later tell police that Bolin is sober and lucid when the guitar player leaves at 2 a.m. At about 7.50 a.m., the manager of the resort hotel receives a terse call from Room 902.

TOMMY BOLIN DISCOGRAPHY:

1975 Teaser
1976 Private Eyes
1996 From the Archives, Vol. 1
1997 The Bottom Shelf
1998 From the Archives, Vol. 2
1999 Energy
1999 Snapshot
2000 Naked
2002 Naked II
2004 After Hours: The Glen Holly Jams – Volume 1
2006 Whips and Roses
2006 Whips and Roses II
2011 Teaser Deluxe

Live:
1997 Live at Ebbets Field 1974
1997 Live at Ebbets Field 1976
1997 Live at Northern Lights Recording Studio
1998 The Energy Radio Broadcasts
2000 First Time Live
2001 Live 9/19/76
2002 Live in Miami at Jai Alai: The Final Show
2003 Alive on Long Island
2003 Tommy Bolin and Energy Live
2004 Albany 9/20/76
2004 Live at the Jet Bar
1969 Zephyr
1971 Going Back to Colorado
1996 Live at Art’s Bar and Grill

Energy
1998 The Energy Radio Broadcasts 1972
1999 Energy (1972)
2003 Tommy Bolin & Energy, Live in Boulder / Sioux City 1972

James Gang:
1973 Bang
1974 Miami

Billy Cobham:
1973 Spectrum
2002 The Spectrum Sessions

Alphonse Mouzon:
1975 Mind Transplant
1999 Tommy Bolin & Alphonse Mouzon Fusion Jam (Rehearsals 1974)

Moxy
1975 Moxy

Deep Purple:
Come Taste the Band (1975)
1977 Last Concert in Japan
1995 King Biscuit Flower Hour Presents: Deep Purple in Concert
1995 On the Wings of a Russian Foxbat – Live in California ’76
2000 Days May Come and Days May Go (The California Rehearsals Volume 1)
2000 1420 Beachwood Drive (The California Rehearsals Volume 2)
2001 This Time Around

CLICK THE LINKS BELOW TO SEE TOMMY BOLIN PHOTOS:
TOMMY BOLIN PHOTOS BY BEN UPHAM
AND
TOMMY BOLIN FINE ART AMERICA IMAGES BY BEN UPHAM

JOHNNY WINTER AND FLOYD RADFORD PAINT WINTERLAND BLUE ON APRIL 30, 1976. PHOTO BY BEN UPHAM.

JOHNNY WINTER
“PLANS TO GO ON PLAYING FOREVER”
THE BRANDON SUN
BRANDON, MANITOBA, CANADA
AUGUST 11, 1976

Johnny Winter is a man who knows a lot about the ups and downs of rock stardom and a few minutes after he walked into the room wearing the standard jeans, black shirt and sailor’s cap perched incongruously atop a long, thin shock of white hair it became apparent that he’s willing to talk about the way things have gone for him.
Johnny was born in 1944 and grew up in Beaumont, Tex., as an outcast from a lot of the regular pastimes of the kids who lived around him. Both he and his brother Edgar were albinos with abnormally white skin and little eyesight. For something to do, they both turned toward a variety of musical instruments.
As teenagers they played in bar bands with Edgar gravitating toward jazz and Johnny plunging headlong into blues rock guitar. In 1968, Rolling Stone Magazine ran a feature detailing the Texas music scene and devoted a few lines to Winter, dubbing him a “130 lb. cross-eyed albino with long, fleecy white hair playing some of the gutsiest fluid blues guitar you ever heard.”
Winter had already recorded a rough sounding album for a Texas label but the Stone article touched off a bidding war amongst the major record companies with Columbia eventually signing, him for a figure reported to be in the neighborhood of $750,000, which at that time was the highest advance ever paid to an artist.
Suddenly, Johnny Winter was a superstar in demand for live concerts to the degree that he was on the road nonstop for three solid years with few breaks other than to record another album. In the struggle to live up to the guitar legend that was being created around him, Johnny turned to heroin.
“I just got sick of-having no home, no friends, no sleep and no real personal identity,” Winter said. “After a while I just couldn’t handle the whole scene. It drove me nuts. Hell, it almost killed me. One day I said to myself, ‘No more, I quit. I’m goin’ home!’ ”
For over a year Winter remained in a private hospital cleaning up his addiction and getting his strength back before he served notice with the LP ‘Still Alive And Well’ that he was ready to attempt a scramble back to stardom. Now that he has managed just that feat, he was asked if it was all worth while, if he must not get tired of playing the speedy fusion of rock and blues guitar that is synonymous with the name Johnny Winter.
“I don’t get tired to doing what I’m doing,” he said. “I do get tired of being put in a category which prevents me from broadening out, still playing the blues and rock but do a nice ballad or country song and have people appreciate that, if I do it well. But I can’t. To my audience I’m either a blues player or a rock ‘n’ roll blues player and I never have been able to put anything else over.”
His latest album was recorded last summer in live concerts in San Bernadino, San Diego and at the Oakland Coliseum where the crowd numbered 55,000 people.
“Really when we did those dates Edgar and I were trying to get an album of stuff together,” Winter explained. “His band played a set, then mine, then we did a set together but after listening to the tapes I said, ‘Hey, there’s enough here for a live album of my own.’” I think people would rather listen to me live anyway. We’ve tried to make our studio recordings sound as much like a live gig as possible, ‘but there’s just that special buzz you get from going on in front of a crowd.”
Once again Johnny relies heavily on material written by other artists but the truth is that he uses songs like ‘Bony Moronie’ and ‘It’s All Over Now’ primarily as a skeleton on which to hang his extended guitar workouts.
“The reason that I do stuff by other people is that I’m simply not a great songwriter” Winter said. “Once in a while, I came up with something worthwhile but I’d rather record a great song by someone else than a mediocre song that I’ve written. Some people put you down for doing the old stuff but as long as you “do ‘em your own way and don’t just copy ‘em I think it’s fine.”
Does Johnny Winter ever ask himself how long he can keep on doing what he is doing. Does he ever think about standing out on a stage and yelling rock ‘n’ roll at an audience young enough to be his children? “Muddy Waters is still around,” he answered, “and Chuck Berry is still going strong. So I think, and hope, that as long as I play and sing well I can just go on forever. As long as I can stand up this is what I’ll be doing…

JOHNNY WINTER DISCOGRAPHY:
1968 The Progressive Blues Experiment
1969 Johnny Winter
1969 Second Winter
1970 Johnny Winter And
1971 Live Johnny Winter And
1972 Roadwork (with Edgar)
1973 Still Alive and Well
1974 Saints and Sinners
1974 John Dawson Winter III
1976 Captured Live!
1977 Nothin’ But the Blues
1978 White Hot and Blue
1980 Raisin’ Cain
1984 Guitar Slinger
1985 Serious Business
1986 Third Degree
1988 Winter of ’88
1991 Let Me In
1992 Hey, Where’s Your Brother?
1992 Scorchin’ Blues
1998 Live in NYC ’97
2004 I’m A Bluesman
2009 Johnny Winter Anthology
2009 The Woodstock Experience

CLICK THE LINKS BELOW TO SEE JOHNNY WINTER AND FLOYD RADFORD PHOTOS:
JOHNNY WINTER AND FLOYD RADFORD PHOTOS BY BEN UPHAM
and
Johnny Winter Fine Art America Images by Ben Upham

DAVE MENIKETTI & PHIL KENNEMORE OF Y&T ROCKING OUT IN SPOKANE ON 7-18-10. PHOTO BY BEN UPHAM.

YESTERDAY & TODAY
“A BAND ON THE WAY UP”
BY KATHIE STASKA AND GEORGE MANGRUM
THE ARGUS
FREMONT, CALIFORNIA
JANUARY 24, 1975

A little over a year ago Yesterday and Today was just another East Bay rock quartet trying to find itself. Today it is one of the fastest rising rock bands in the area.
After they took a first place in last year’s Hayward Battle of The Bands at Chabot College things seemed to happen for this young hard rock group.
Y&T played several gigs in the East Bay. Then in the middle of last summer they went to Seattle to get their act together. They came back last fall much more polished and played clubs like the Tuckett Inn in Hayward. The next thing you know Yesterday & Today played Winterland twice and a New Year’s Eve concert with the Doobie Brothers at the Cow Palace. It is hard to believe that four can improve so much in a year’s time as a unit like they have.
The band consists of Dave Meniketti on lead guitar: Leonard Haze on drums; Phil Kennemore is the bassist and Joe Alves plays rhythm guitar.
Although the hard rockers have their roots in Hayward, they like to be considered an East Bay band because some of the members live in Oakland.
They are the featured guest stars in this year’s Hayward Battle of The Bands to take place tomorrow night at Chabot College. “We’re all looking forward to playing in front of our fans in the Battle this year.” Haze said. “We are looking forward to hearing some of the young bands that will be in this year’s competition.
The new-East Bay Band played Winterland last Saturday night on the first Saturday sounds Of The City gig. The audience gave a bigger response to Yesterday and Today than the other two bands. Journey who have a new album coming out soon and Fever.
Although there were some sound problems it did not seem to bother Y&T, they cooked from the start to end and drew two encores from the large Winterland crowd. “It is like going home to play Winterland.” Haze said. “We are not all that familiar with it yet but it’s a fun place to play. “We sure owe Bill Graham a lot. He is one of the nicest guys I have ever met, and one of
the most together ones also.” says Haze.
Did Yesterday & Today ever think they would play Winterland as soon as they did in their young musical career?
“I did.” said Meniketti. “You have to have 100 per cent confidence and we do.” “To me it was a goal and now it is not a goal.” Alves said. “Now a goal for me is an album.” “The band does most of their own writing. That is a plus to any group if their material is good and Y&T’s is.
They have a good management firm in Spreadeagle (who takes care of business for the rock group Journey) and they have good people working with them right down the line from the road crew to their road manager Ken McMillian.
Haze tells the story of how Yesterday and Today got their name. “We were playing Treasure Island when they asked how we wanted to be billed. At the time I was listening to the Beatles album ‘Yesterday & Today’. I was on the phone trying to think of a good title and I looked over at the album cover and said Yeslerday & Today. That has been our name ever since.”
“A lot of bands pay their dues by playing a lot of local clubs. We wanted to stay away from that if we could because we don’t play club music. We paid our dues by playing high schools. Navy Clubs, apartment complexes and so on. We are better at larger places,” says Meniketti.
If Yesterday & Today improves in 1975 as much as they did in 1974 the East Bay is going to have a dynamite band.

YESTERDAY & TODAY (Y&T) DISCOGRAPHY:

1976 Yesterday & Today
1978 Struck Down
1981 Earthshaker
1982 Black Tiger
1983 Mean Streak
1984 In Rock We Trust
1985 Open Fire (Live)
1985 Down for the Count
1987 Contageous
1990 Ten
1991 Yesterday & Today Live
1995 Musically Incorrect
1997 Endangered Species
2000 BBC In Concert
2003 Unearthed Volume 1
2004 Unearthed Volume 2
2009 OneTwo (1st two albums Remastered)
2010 Facemelter

CLICK THE LINKS BELOW TO SEE Y&T PHOTOS:
Y&T FINE ART AMERICA IMAGES BY BEN UPHAM
AND
YESTERDAY & TODAY PHOTOS FROM SAN FRANCISCO APRIL 1975 BY BEN UPHAM
AND
Y&T PHOTOS FROM SPOKANE ON 7-18-10 BY BEN UPHAM