on Tin Pan Alley in midtown Manhattan and, at the same time, searched for players who might fit into the group we wanted to use as a vehicle for our prime stuff, the stuff we thought of as âthe dynamite.â But thatâs another story.
â¢Â   â¢Â   â¢
I n May of â69, I was up at Bard for the weekend, working on the last draft of my senior thesis in an off-campus house I had rented with a couple of other students. At four in the morning,the house and several menâs dorms on campus were raided by deputies of the local sheriffâs department, along with some state cops, under the aegis of the Dutchess County DAâs office. Led by soon-to-be Watergate burglar G. Gordon Liddy, then running for assistant DA, they were looking for any trace of marijuana, at that time still seriously illegal. Though I hadnât smoked pot for quite a while, much less peddled any, they had a warrant for my arrest that included the testimony of a witnessâin fact our landlord, one Beau Cogginsâwho said I had sold him drugs, âto wit, marijuana.â Never mind the fact that Iâd never met the man (one of my roommates had rented the place and paid the rent). By sunrise, some fifty kids had been paddy-wagoned over to the Duchess County jail and locked in a cell block, including me, Walter and Dorothy, who were both visiting. The guys were shorn of their long, treasured locks by a trustee barber. After a day or so, the college bailed out all the students, including former student Walter. They refused to do the same for Dorothy, a nonstudent.
I called my father, then living in Ohio, who arranged bail for Dorothy and then flew in so we could consult with the schoolâs attorney, Peter Maroulis. (In 1972, when that toxic little weasel Liddy got popped for masterminding the Watergate break-in, Maroulis was the guy heâd call.) A month later, our cases having already been dismissed, I sat on a bench with Dorothy, my father and Maroulis, watching the graduation of the class of â69. Because the college had refused to bail out Dorothy, and because theyâd let the sheriffâs office place an undercover spy with the building and grounds departmentâhe had been disguised as a janitorâIâd decided to boycott the ceremony. Yeah, good times . . .
Withthe Dukes of September
In December 1980, I was living three blocks away from the Dakota, watching
Monday Night Football
, when Howard Cosell announced that John Lennon had been shot in the back. I walked over and watched as a huge crowd of sobbing New Yorkers gathered at Seventy-second Street and Central Park West. This pretty much set the tone of the decade to come. After delivering my album
The Nightfly
to Warner Brothers, I came apart like a cheap suit. The panic attacks I used to get as a kid returned, only now accompanied by morbid thoughts and paranoia, big-time. I could hardly get through the day, much less write music. I started seeing a shrink and gobbling antidepressants.
Fast-forward to 1988. (Please!) I was feeling a lot better. A friend of mine, Libby Titus, was producing a series of what she called her âhorrible little eveningsâ of music and comedy at restaurants around Manhattan. To make a long story short, we started collaborating; the project turned into the New York Rock and Soul Revue, which toured nationally for two years; and then we got married. Mike McDonald and Boz Scaggs were in the lineup of the 1993 tour. In 2010, we revived the concept as the Dukes of September Rhythm Revue. During the 2012 summer tour, I started keeping the journal that follows.
JUNE 19, 2012
This hotel, a Four Seasons on a highway in St. Louis, seems to be adjoined in some way to a casino and theater. Outside myseventeenth-floor window I can see an electric sign advertising future attractions down the way. An enormous picture of Eddie Griffin, the comedian, is followed by one of Tracy Morgan, and
â¢Â   â¢Â   â¢
I n May of â69, I was up at Bard for the weekend, working on the last draft of my senior thesis in an off-campus house I had rented with a couple of other students. At four in the morning,the house and several menâs dorms on campus were raided by deputies of the local sheriffâs department, along with some state cops, under the aegis of the Dutchess County DAâs office. Led by soon-to-be Watergate burglar G. Gordon Liddy, then running for assistant DA, they were looking for any trace of marijuana, at that time still seriously illegal. Though I hadnât smoked pot for quite a while, much less peddled any, they had a warrant for my arrest that included the testimony of a witnessâin fact our landlord, one Beau Cogginsâwho said I had sold him drugs, âto wit, marijuana.â Never mind the fact that Iâd never met the man (one of my roommates had rented the place and paid the rent). By sunrise, some fifty kids had been paddy-wagoned over to the Duchess County jail and locked in a cell block, including me, Walter and Dorothy, who were both visiting. The guys were shorn of their long, treasured locks by a trustee barber. After a day or so, the college bailed out all the students, including former student Walter. They refused to do the same for Dorothy, a nonstudent.
I called my father, then living in Ohio, who arranged bail for Dorothy and then flew in so we could consult with the schoolâs attorney, Peter Maroulis. (In 1972, when that toxic little weasel Liddy got popped for masterminding the Watergate break-in, Maroulis was the guy heâd call.) A month later, our cases having already been dismissed, I sat on a bench with Dorothy, my father and Maroulis, watching the graduation of the class of â69. Because the college had refused to bail out Dorothy, and because theyâd let the sheriffâs office place an undercover spy with the building and grounds departmentâhe had been disguised as a janitorâIâd decided to boycott the ceremony. Yeah, good times . . .
Withthe Dukes of September
In December 1980, I was living three blocks away from the Dakota, watching
Monday Night Football
, when Howard Cosell announced that John Lennon had been shot in the back. I walked over and watched as a huge crowd of sobbing New Yorkers gathered at Seventy-second Street and Central Park West. This pretty much set the tone of the decade to come. After delivering my album
The Nightfly
to Warner Brothers, I came apart like a cheap suit. The panic attacks I used to get as a kid returned, only now accompanied by morbid thoughts and paranoia, big-time. I could hardly get through the day, much less write music. I started seeing a shrink and gobbling antidepressants.
Fast-forward to 1988. (Please!) I was feeling a lot better. A friend of mine, Libby Titus, was producing a series of what she called her âhorrible little eveningsâ of music and comedy at restaurants around Manhattan. To make a long story short, we started collaborating; the project turned into the New York Rock and Soul Revue, which toured nationally for two years; and then we got married. Mike McDonald and Boz Scaggs were in the lineup of the 1993 tour. In 2010, we revived the concept as the Dukes of September Rhythm Revue. During the 2012 summer tour, I started keeping the journal that follows.
JUNE 19, 2012
This hotel, a Four Seasons on a highway in St. Louis, seems to be adjoined in some way to a casino and theater. Outside myseventeenth-floor window I can see an electric sign advertising future attractions down the way. An enormous picture of Eddie Griffin, the comedian, is followed by one of Tracy Morgan, and
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