WOTA Act II

WAITING ON THE ANGELS – The Long Cool Summer of ’65 Revisited

– Part 2 – Text Only

Act II – Scene I – The KYW TV3 Crew Comes to Town

With the AM radio blaring and the warm summer wind rushing in the windows the white KYW-TV Chevy van crossed the Walt Whitman suspension bridge to New Jersey and headed southeast to the Jersey Shore with producer-director David Brenner driving and his secretary-Girl Friday sitting next to him.

Rookie reporter Tom Snyder, just out of college and on one of his first assignments as a TV reporter, sat in the rear seat next to the window while the cameraman-technician Gary Shenfeld fiddled around with equipment in the back.

“Shall we take the Expressway or the Pike?” Brenner asked retorically, as he often threw out options to the crew making it seem democratic, then make a rash decision on his own - “We'll take the Pike,” he said swerving into another lane when they got to the fork in the road. “The Expressway's a toll road and that will cut into our beer money.”

“Director's prerogative,” Brenner smirked, as the secretary singed quietly, “I shall take the road less traveled, and that will make all the difference.”

“Hey Tech,” Brenner called out to Gary Shenfeld, the cameraman-technician in the back. “You should get a load of the streetscapes of the Black Horse Pike, since it won't be here for long since the Expressway is going to put all these businesses out of business,” he said, using a hand to point to some old roadside stands, diners and service stations.

The cameraman had cut a hole in the roof of the fan that he could open and standing on a box could extend his head, torso and a camera out and film without getting out of the van. It was good for situations you had to get out of quickly, the kind that investigative reporters often found themselves in.

Shenfeld the cameraman took his baseball hat off and stuck his head out and looked around as the van moved along at a good 70 mile per hour clip, and caught a glimpse of some of the ice cream stands, Stewart's Root Beer, used car lots and an Esso Flying Horse gas station.

“Okay, okay,” he said disappearing into the van and then emerging with his camera up to his eye and began filming the disappearing streetscape.

With the cameraman filming as they cruised down the Pike Brenner laid out the scheme.

“Here's the battle plan,” he said. “We're going to go into Ocean City filming, get the downtown and main street and then we're going to get the boardwalk and beach and film the scenes as they are just to have it in the can so we can concentrate on finding the real story and having a good time doing it. This is our first assignment where we can actually enjoy ourselves and get paid too.”

Brenner then started into his James Cagney impersonations as the cameraman came down from the hatch and as he put his camera down said, “You missed your calling Brenner, you should be a comedian,” and they all laughed as Brenner leaned over and changed the dial on the fading AM radio to get a local station with better reception.

“It's the Budweiser Beachcomber Show,” the announcer said in a dull, dry voice.

“Schmaltz” the secretary said. “Rock and roll, next station down the dial.

“But first this special report from our news desk.”

“This is Michael Schurman reporting to you from the Boardwalk in Atlantic City, where record crowds are jamming the beaches and boardwalks all along the Jersey Shore from Manesquan to Cape May. The retail merchants, bars and restaurants are all doing a boom town business but the overflow crowds are causing shortages of gas, bread, milk and toilet paper in some areas, though more supplies they say, are on the way.”

“Beer!,” Brenner said loudly, “beer they got. No milk or toilet paper but by God they got plenty of beer.”

“And now back to the Budweiser Beach comer show,” as strands of Frank Sinatra singing “Summer Wind” crackled over the radio.

“What's schmaltz?” Tom Snyder asked from the back seat.

“Fucking Schmaltz!” Brenner said as he turned the dial on the radio. “Let's rock and roll!”

Brenner stopped the dial on the Animals version of “House of the Rising Sun.”

“Schmaltz,” the secretary said, turning to Snyder in the back seat, “is Doris Day, Dean Martin “That's Amore,” Sammy Davis “The Candy Man,” - “That's schmaltz, get it?”

Brenner yells, “Let's rock and roll!” slaps his hands off the wheel, “Hot Dog! - Ocean City here we come!”

Coming into Somers Point from Route Nine they pass Sullivan's Bar on the left, a local neighborhood taproom and turn left onto MacArthur Boulevard, as the cameraman sticks his head out the roof and Shenfeld begins filming, as the secretary, familiar with the area, starts pointing out landmarks – Mediterranean Diner on the left, with its backroom bar, the open all night bowling alley, DiOrio’s Circle Cafe and the Point Diner on right and the Jolly Roger and the historic Somers Mansion on the left as they turn right around the circle, coming in at six if the circle was a clock, past Your Father's Mustache, the Crab Trap and Circle Liquor and at what would be twelve on the clock - the causeway to Ocean City on the right, where there is usually some hitch hikers trying to catch a ride to the beach. Continuing past the Texaco gas station, making a hard right at 9 o'clock, and then another hard right down Goll Avenue, you pass the Under 21 Club on the right, where Orsatti's Casino was, and you have Steel's and Tony Marts on the left and Bay Shores across the street directly on the bay.

As Shenfeld the cameraman is taking all this in as he pans his camera a full 360 degrees, Brenner makes a left onto Bay Avenue, past the open front doors of Steel's and Tony Marts and past the Marotta residence on the left, a Frank Loyd Wright style, squared off split level. The van slows down and comes to a complete stop in the middle of the street so they can get a good, zoomed in shot of this huge paper m ache purple dragon head on the roof above the door of the Purple Dragon coffee house, the hippies headquarters at the Point.

Panning around, as the secretary described what he was filming, she noted that there was Dolphin Dock, where Rob was writing the morning's fishing report with chalk on a blackboard out front:

“Fluke in the bay by Rainbow Channel, softshell crabs on the bridge pilings, mid-sized strippers off the jettys and the inlet, schools of blues running offshore, Tuna at the Thirty Mile Wreck – Go Phillies! Don't tank again,” he wrote still hurting from the Phillies crash in the last two weeks of the 1964 seasons going from eight games up losing ten straight and missing the playoffs to the St. Louis Cardinals.

Then there's the Clam Bar at Smith's Pier – Mrs. Smith, God Bless here, still lives upstairs in 1965, and there's the breakfast joint out back that only operates from six in the morning until noon, when the open air Clam Bar kicks in.

Across the street there's four identical two story cottages, one of which was inhabited by one of the Tony Marts Go-Go girls and her hippie mother, a single mom who tie died T-shirts and made jewelry, and let two of the Hawks - Rick Danko and Richard Manuel move in the spare room for the summer.

Further on down Bay Avenue was Mayer's Marina on the right, Johnny Mayers' boat yard, and a little pizza shack across the street. Then there's the historic, world famous Anchorage Tavern on the north corner of Delaware Avenue and the Point Pub in the old, clapboard marina just down the street next to the municipal beach. The beach is now named after William Morrow, who was on the Somers Point Police Department that summer of 1963.

Going up to Shore Road, they turned back towards the circle and passed Charlie's, Gregory's and Mac's on the left, while Daniels was a few blocks up Shore Road the other way. Then it was back to the circle and over the causeway to Ocean City.

The cameraman stopped filming as they road across the flat, bay waters teeming with all kinds of boats – motorboats, fishing boats and different size sailboats colored the horizon.

After driving slowly down Ninth Street while they continued filming both sides of the street lined with college kids in bathing suits, Brenner approached the Boardwalk and noticed that one walk was wide enough to drive up and pulling off the road and onto the sidewalk, softly brushing some frightened pedestrians aside, he ignored Tom Snyder’s plea, “What the hell are you doing, driving up on the boardwalk? Don't you need a permit to do this?”

“Better not ask and say you're sorry than to ask and be turned down,”:said Brenner as Shenfeld continued filming the 9th Street boardwalk scene from his perch on the van roof – the Strand theater, Shrivers Candy, Monroe's book store, Shriver's Pavilion – the hippies playing guitars and singing – and then the beach – packed wall to wall with college kids, blankets, towels, beach chairs and umbrellas – the cameraman taking it all in panning and zooming in on some particularly good looking girl in a bikini or hippie girl dancing with a tambourine like a gypsy.

Inhaling though his nose, Brenner said, “I wish we could copy this salt air, candy and pizza smell and can it.”

Turning right Brenner slowly made his way up the boardwalk hugging the fence by the beach past Mack & Manco Pizza – 25 cents a slice - $2 for a whole Trenton Tomato Pie, Joe Dels' grill –”great cheesesteaks” the secretary picked up her narration – Irene's gift shop, Preps's Pizza, the arcades, t-shit joints, Kohr Brothers custard stands, the Flanders pools and the hotel, where Mister Kirkman lives in the two story Penthouse.

On the other corner is Copper Kettle Fudge, now, since Harry Anglemeyer's murder, is being run by his family. Upstairs above the fudge shop was Harry's apartment, and across the boardwalk is the 11th Street Pavilion where the old folks retreated after the hippies took over Shriver's Pavilion at 9th Street.

The only other landmark worth mentioning is the Old Salt Shop, where Iron Mike the heavy metal deep sea diving suit was sitting in the back of the shop that was filled with nautical art, whale bones, scrimshaw jewelry and knives and similar unique and unusual gifts. Sam McDowell, the Old Salt, was a former lifeguard rowing champion, who still took a surf boat out past the breakers every morning before the lifeguards checked in.

Looking ahead, “Utt ohhhh,” Brenner said as he slowly drive down the boardwalk – a police car was parked on the boardwalk ahead of them, apparently waiting for them to get to 14th street, where the College Grill, Bob's Grill and the fishing pier were located, which was also the surfing beach at the time.

The lone cop that got out of the car was none too friendly. A short, Italian guy with a temper, he ordered the cameraman to stop filming and Brenner to turn the car off and get out.

Turning Brenner around onto the hood of his cruiser, the cop pulled his hands behind his back and locked on some handcuffs, and put Brenner in the back of his patrol car, telling Tom Snyder to drive the van and follow him to the police station on the first floor of the old red brick school house behind the Greek joint at 9th and Central, Grand Central in Ocean City that summer.

The cop through Brenner in a jail cell and locked it before summoning the mayor, and telling him a KYW TV truck was riding down the boardwalk and its driver was under arrest. The mayor came right over from his travel agency office around the corner on 8th street, and ordered D. Allen Stretch, the public safety commissioner, to release the KYW guy immediately.

When he emerged from the jail cell Brenner saw his secretary on a pay phone against the wall, calling her father, a friend and neighbor of the mayor, while the cameraman began filming Brenner walking out of the jail as the mayor came in.

“What the hell is going on here?” he wanted to know. “You can't just come into my town and run slipshod over everybody! We have rules and regulations and laws that must be obeyed. If you would have asked I would have arranged for you to have a permit to safely drive on the boardwalk with a police escort, you didn't have to just barge your way in.”

“I'm sorry Mr. Mayor,” Brenner spoke up. “We're here to do a story, just doing our jobs, and don't want to cause any trouble for you.”

“Well you already caused trouble, and if you're going to do a good, honest story about America's Greatest Family Resort and how we combine Christian values with a fine time, then that's okay, but if you're just here to exaggerate the beach blanket bingo bull, the Sin Cities and the hippie stuff, well you might as well just go back to Philly because we don't need any more of that negative publicity.”

“I understand,” Brenner said, handing the mayor a business card, “and my boss doesn't want that story either. There's his number, give him a call and he will tell you that. And we'll conduct ourselves like professionals from now on.”

The secretary's father then walked in and shaking the mayor's hand, said, “this here's my daughter and she works for Mr. Brenner and KYWTV, and they're here to do a good story about Ocean City, or I won't let them stay at my house.”

“Well then,” the mayor said, “as long as they behave themselves and don't break any more laws they can have the run of the island.”

Shenfeld, who had his camera unobtrusively running perched on a table, turned it off, having gotten on celluloid the truce deal between the mayor and the KYW TV crew, a truce that would be tested more than once in the days ahead.

Act II Episode 2 – Rock & Roll Turns Ten

It's hard to say where the idea came from at first, probably the radio ad exec Dave Herman over at WMGM FM in nearby Northfield, and the sister station to WOND the AM station that featured the Budweiser Beachcomber Show and Michael Sherman the news man.

Somebody realized that rock and roll would turn ten years old that summer of '65, and that the first decade of the revolutionary music should be celebrated – memorialized with a party, even though there was a party going on every night of the week to celebrate something – Monday was Talent Nite – the open mic Karaoke of its day, while Tuesday was Twist Night (later Taco Tuesday at Gregory's), Wednesday was Kamikaze night at the Anchorage, and Thursday night was Limbo Night at Tony Marts.

To celebrate the 10th anniversary of - the first rock and roll song to make Number One on the Pop Charts - Bill Haley's “Rock Around the Clock,” Tony booked Bill Haley and the Comets for a one night stand.

Tony knew Haley for over a decade, from the early 1950s when Haley came to Tony Marts with his band the Saddlemen, playing what they called Country Western and Western Swing music that was all over the AM radio dial.

Tony gave them a Monday night audition, listened to them play a set, didn't give them the hook or pull the plug, but quietly gagged the audience reaction, and politely declined to book them, advising Bill to try Wildwood, Cow Town or Tennessee, where they might be better appreciated.

Then Haley came back in 1954 with a new sound and a different band – the Comets, one that blended the Country Western Sound with Race Music Soul... Black bands like Joe Turner were playing rock and roll at the Kentucky Avenue clubs in Atlantic City for years now, but they called it “race music,” and Haley tried to blend that sound into a package that he could sell to middle class white people, his target audience.

Haley and his Comets played the winter of 1954 at Jack's Twin Bar in Gloucester City, NJ on the Delaware river, in the shadow of the Walt Whitman bridge, and that summer he came back to Somers Point and played Tony Marts, opening his act saying: “All you Hillbillies can go home now cause we're gonna play a little cowboy-jive, so cut loose and let the Cool Cats in, cause we're gonna rock this joint tonight!”

And that they did, bringing the word rock into the musical vocabulary, and playing songs like “Shake, Rattle and Roll” and “Rock Around the Clock,” though it just didn't catch on, at least right away.

To show you how the movies are tied to the music, “Rock Around the Clock” is a good example, as Bill Haley and the Comets recorded and released the song as a single 45 rpm that year, but after a spate of slow sales, it dropped off the chart and was pretty much forgotten, except by the teenage son of Hollywood movie star Glenn Ford, who was picked to play the lead role as a teacher in the Blackboard Jungle, a film about the so-called “youth rebellion.”

While the director of the movie visited Ford at his Hollywood home to go over the script, his son played the song over and over on his little turntable in his bedroom, and got the director's attention. Borrowing the record, he made “Rock Around the Clock” a part of the soundtrack as the opening lead song into the movie's credits, and when the movie was released in the theaters around the country, including the Strand on the Ocean City boardwalk, and the song quickly ran up the pop charts to become the first rock and roll song to make Number One, and it stayed there for the entire eight weeks of the summer of '55.

Bill Haley and the Comets were playing the Hoffbrau in Wildwood at the time, not anticipating what was to happen, but suddenly they were a national sensation, and were no longer a nightclub act, but were being booked into larger concert halls, the first being the Ocean City Convention Hall, a large tin building at Sixth Street off the boardwalk. They then went on the Dick Clark and Ed Sullivan TV shows.

But it was while Haley was being interviewed by Cleveland DJ Donald Freed when the term “rock and roll” was first coined, and why the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is in Cleveland, even though Bill Haley and many of the early rock and roll bands came out of the Jersey Shore musical milieu, where the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame really belongs – where the music was made.

By 1965 however, the kids who made “Rock Around the Clock” a hit were now ten years down the road, and were among the “older crowd” who patronized Steel's Ship Bar, DiOrios, Your Father's Mustache and Somers Point's five 5-star restaurants – the Crab Trap, Macs, Harry's Inn, Daniels and Chi Chi's, and fell out of place with the college kids and hippies who took over Bay Shores and now dominated Tony Marts.

With Bill Haley and the Comets booked for a one night stand at Tony Marts, the manager next door at Steels Ship bar – at the suggestion of Mike Pedicin, Sr., booked the JoDiMars, who were later inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as the Original Comets, but were relatively unknown at the time.

Bill Haley had a big ego and his manager had a bigger one, made evident after their sudden success when they hit the Big Time and with the flush of money that came in, bought identical pink Cadillac convertibles for themselves, while giving each of the band members a fifty dollar a week raise.

“Fifty Bucks!?” Was their first reaction and quitting the band was their second, and rather than negotiate with them Haley let them go and replaced them with some scab garage band of kids just out of school.

So Joey Ambrose the sax man, Dick Richards Boccelli – who lived in Ocean City, and standup bass player Marshall Lytel formed a new band – the JoDiMars, taking the first few letters of their names, and they got a few gigs in Somers Point and then found some success in Vegas, but made their mark in Europe where the German and British fans recognized them as the original Comets. One British fan took their song, “Now Dig This” as the name of his music magazine – the Rolling Stone of UK, while a young, up and coming band out of Liverpool covered their song “Clarabella” in their first early sets.

But the JoDiMars stayed pretty much off the radar in America, until they went head to head with Bill Haley and the Comets on Bay Avenue in Somers Point in the summer of '65.

So with Haley and the Comets coming into Tony Marts for Rock and Roll's Tenth Anniversary, and the JoDiMars Original Comets playing next door at Steels Ship Bar, Bay Shores just had to get into the act so Tito Mambo decided to change the name of his band from the Upsetters to the Messiahs of Soul, exclaiming to everyone he met that “I'm here to save rock and roll!”

Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs, who at the time had the Number One hit song in the nation in “Wooly Bully,” were playing the Steel Pier that week, and while their contract prevented them from appearing anywhere else in the area before they played the Pier, when they were done that night they were hired to make an appearance at Bay Shores – in full Pharaoh regalia – with Tido Mambo and the Messiahs of Soul, - making for an unforgettable collision of musical theater and the absurd.

When a radio ad man, Dave Herman, heard about Haley and the Comets playing next door to the JoDiMars, and Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs colliding with the Tito the Messiah of Soul – he took over the FM side of the two sister radio stations, which was run out of the second floor room of a house on Shore Road in Northfield, in a small room next to the busy AM station where all the money was made.

WMGM FM had an elevator music format that would put you to sleep and sometimes played Schmaltz music on weekends, and Herman sold ads on a commission basis, so he didn't make a lot of money, and he had failed to convince the station owner and program manager to let him change the FM format to feature the rock and roll music on the stereo station, but they refused.

But since they were both on a deep sea fishing trip to the canyon that weekend, and out of communication with the station, Herman took over. The FM station didn't even have a DJ, but repeatedly played the same reel to reel tapes over and over again. So Herman made up his own tape – one with “Rock Around the Clock” and “Wooly Bully” playing over and over again, and turned it on and locked the door as he left. It was unnecessary to lock the door since no one actually listened to the elevator music and nobody complained about the same two songs being played over and over, at least not until the entire weekend was out. And Herman didn't get fired until the following Monday morning when the owner and station manager returned and found out what happened.

With Bill Haley and the Comets and the JoDiMars briefly taking the Somers Point spot light's focus off of Conway Twitty and Levon and the Hawks, the Bay Shores acts stole some of the college crowd, the hippies and the publicity by promoting their own “Rock and Roll Around the Clock,” beginning at Bay Shores at 8pm and then moving the show at 2am to the Dunes, where they would keep the music going until 8am – playing solid rock and roll for a continuous twelve hours - around the clock, which is what they did every night all summer anyway.

And when they came out of the Dunes at 8 am that morning, the bright sun light rising over Margate made them squint from the garish sun, as they retreated to the Ocean City as the beaches were now open and they could sleep for a few hours before taking a dip in the breakers and then going to work and repeat the Ground Hog Day as just another day in the best summer they ever had, before or since.

Act II Episode 3 – Lynda and the Nurses

Squinting from the garish sun as it rose over Margate, Lynda Van Devanter and her boyfriend "JJ" walked out of the Dunes a little after 8 am on the morning after the Rock & Roll Turns Ten Party, each sporting fresh blue t-shirts that read "Bay Shores" on the front and on the back,"Dunes 'til Dawn" with a rising sun they had won in the dance contest earlier that night.

They were with fellow nursing students Barbara and Gigi, walking across the vast now nearly empty parking lot to Lynda's black '61 Chevy Nova convertible with its top down and all piled in and Lynda drove across the Ocean Drive bridge to Ocean City, having to make the first significant decision of the day - should they go back to their rooming house or hit the beach?

The beach won a hands down unanimous decision, though JJ didn't vote, he would go with whatever the girls decided. John Joseph Smith was a local boy from nearby Tuckahoe in Upper Township and attended Ocean City high school before enlisting in the Army. A buck sergeant who just returned from a year-long deployment in Vietnam, JJ was on leave until Labor Day when he had to report to his unit at Fort Dix.

Lynda parked on the street a half block from the boardwalk and carrying their blankets and beach chairs they walked across the boards, past the hippies gathering at Shrivers Pavilion and taking their shoes off, walked through the cool, soft sand that would soon be hot from the sun. Setting their blankets down in their preferred spot next to the huge black granite boulders of the jetty they surveyed the scene around them and of the hundred or so people already on the beach they could recognize some of them from the Anchorage, Tony Marts, Bay Shores and Dunes the night before.

It wasn't long before Chris and Katie - the mayor's daughters came by and set up in their spot nearby. They all had met there on the beach on Memorial Day and became fast friends and Lynda regaled the sisters with stories of what occurred the previous night - Seven for a dollar beers at the Anchorage, the Hawks and Bill Haley and the Comets at Tony Marts, the JoDMars at Steels, Tido Mambo and the Messiahs of Soul and the unscheduled appearance of Sam the Sham and the Pharos at Bay Shores and the dance contest at the Dunes. The sisters were annoyed they missed it all.

The unwritten but respected beach rule was to keep radios off in the morning so people could sleep, and after a little cat nap JJ woke up and picking up a medical text book began quizzing the girls, as they had graduated from Mercy Hospital nursing school in Baltimore, they were preparing for their state board exams.

Among those who came by to say hello to the girls were the lifeguards when they came on duty, Jim Croce, one of the hippies with his guitar, who knew JJ from when he was in the Army reserves at Ft. Dix, and Silvio, a young Italian law student kicking a soccer ball.

Jim sat down on the blanket and told JJ he was writing a song about their drill sergeant at Ft. Dix - Big Bad Leroy Brown. JJ laughed and said he had to go back to Dix and report for duty on Labor Day.

After noon, as the beach filled up with college kids and the radios came on, Jim commented on the city commissioners wanting to ban music on the beach and Boardwalk. "First they close the beaches at night so we can't sleep there and now they want to ban music all together? What's this world coming to?" he asked rhetorically, though no one responded. Then Katie said their father was against the resolution - it was an infringement on free speech he argued, but the other commissioners were adamant. About two in the afternoon, while JJ, the sisters and the nurses kicked the soccer ball around the water’s edge with Silvio, Lynda took a dip in the gentle breakers and then gave Jim and his guitar a ride across the causeway to Somers Point and dropped him off at the Anchorage Tavern where he was to finish writing his song while Lynda went to work in the emergency room at Shore Memorial Hospital a few blocks away.

The Long Cool Summer of ’65 – Act 2 Episode 4 – Wordman - The Myths and the Legends 

When events of historical significance occur or people do extraordinary things, a legend develops from the word of mouth reports that are retold over and over, each time gaining exaggeration or losing some substance, creating a popular myth that makes it into songs, ballads, novels, movies and history text books – legends and myths that are not the same as what actually happened, and it’s important to know the difference.

Frank Ridgeway was also known as P.F. Kludge, one being his real name and the other being his pen name, but few really knew which was which and called him “Wordman,” because when he wasn’t working he was always reading a book or jotting down notes in the little notebook he kept in his hip pocket.

Wordman was the Tony Mart’s janitor who helped the Hawks unload their equipment and introduced Levon to Tony. A recent college graduate – Kenyon College in Ohio, he was to begin his professional career as an English Lit teacher at nearby Vineland high school on the day after Labor Day, but first he wanted to work at a rock and roll nightclub at the Jersey Shore to research his first novel that was to become “Eddie and the Cruisers,” that was eventually made into a movie.

Eddie and the Cruisers didn’t resemble Levon and the Hawks, as Ridgeway’s band was more of a composite of a number of bands that he encountered that summer when he worked as the janitor at Tony Marts.

While the Hollywood producers and director pretty much kept the script faithful to his novel, a few things were changed, including the fact that in the movie Wordman – played gave Eddie Wilson a copy of a book by Rimbaud, the radical European poet, when in the novel the inspirational book of poems is “Leaves of Grass” by America’s poet laurite Walt Whitman, who lived the last years of his life in Camden, N.J. and died there.

Unlike most of the other Tony Marts employees, Ridgeway worked days, sweeping and mopping up the closed and empty bar and sometimes going next door to the Marotta residence across the side street to do odd jobs for Tony or Mrs. Mart.

After a few weeks Ridgeway got to know the Hawks pretty well, noticing that Rick and Richard liked to party and hit on the girls, while Levon was a happy go lucky hillbilly who got along with practically everybody, and Garth was totally into the music. Robbie Robertson, the young guitarist, he noticed, was the one who paid attention to the lyrics, and Robbie came into the club during the day to play an acoustic guitar and write down song lyrics.

One day Wordman gave Robertson a copy of Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass,” and told him that Whitman had lived and died in Camden, a one hour drive. And by-the-way, Wordman told Robinson, the acoustic Martin guitar he was playing was made in a guitar factory just north of Philadelphia, a pretty neat place to visit.

So one slow Monday morning, while Rick and Richard and the Tony Marts All Stars prepared to play Bader’s Raiders in the Hangover League baseball game of the week, Wordman, Robertson and Garth Hudson got into Ridgeway’s car, a ’57 Chevy, and drove to Camden to visit Whitman’s grave at Harleigh Cemetery, just off the Black Horse Pike.

There they met a young girl, Patti Smith, a local student who was meditating in a yoga position, who said she often came there for inspiration, and also played guitar and was writing poetry and songs.

So she joined them in the short drive to downtown Camden where they visited Whiteman’s historic house, and took the tour, as it is recounted in Ridgeway-Kludge’s  “Eddie and the Cruisers” novel, but left out of the movie.

From there they crossed the Ben Franklyn Bridge into Pennsylvania and stopped at The Kyber Pass, a little bar on 2^nd street near the waterfront where they had a beer and learned that Bob Dylan was there earlier and they had just missed him. He was alone and drinking, and was directed to Dirty Franks, another local corner watering hole about ten blocks across town. They just missed him there too, but stayed around and had a few cheap shots and beers, “whatever Bob was drinking.”

While the bartender at the Kyber said Dylan was quiet and didn’t talk, he was quite a different person at Franks, where the bartender said he flagged  him.

“You flagged Bob Dylan,” Robertson asked increduliously, “what for?”

“For being a drunken’ asshole,” the bartender said almost in anger.

From Franks, they heard from some hippie at the bar, Dylan went over to McGlinchy’s, a plastic formic Irish joint on the back side of the Academy of Music, just down the street from the Pen & Pencil Club.

Of course they missed him there too, but stayed around and had a few more beers, and laughed about missing Dylan, not yet recognizing the irony of how Dylan would soon come looking for them.

And it was only then, after visiting Walt Whitman’s grave, meeting Patti Smith, stopping at Whitman’s home in Camden – “The City Invincible,” who would urge you to “Sing the body electric,” and a tour of Center City Philly bars did they then they drive an hour north to visit the Martin Guitar factory that is situated near the small town of Nazareth, Pa.. That’s why they were tired and that’s what set the scene for the opening lines in “The Weight,” a song Robertson would write, some of which stemmed from that summer of ’65.

“I pulled into Nazareth, was feeling 'bout half past dead
I just need some place where I can lay my head
Hey, mister, can you tell me, where a man might find a bed?
He just grinned and shook my hand, "No" was all he said.
Take a load off Fanny, take a load for free
Take a load off Fanny, and you put the load right on me…”

While some people would endlessly analyze the song lyrics to “The Weight,” as they also tried to do with Dylan’s songs, the biblical connotations didn’t go unnoticed, and many philosophical school papers were written about the true meaning of “The Weight,” but the truth of the matter is that Robbie was referring to Nazareth, Pennsylvania, where the Martin Guitar factory was located, and not the Nazareth of biblical times, as the myths and the legends and term papers suggest.

Another case in point is the meaning behind Garth’s magnificent orgasmic piece “Chest Fever,” from Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D. minor, the lyrics of which were originally credited to Robbie Robertson, but in the end, everyone recognizes Garth’s contribution to the song and as Robbie himself later admitted, he didn’t recognize the lyrics and said they were non-sense.

As one critic put it, “The lyrics were dummy word, simply designed to fill the gaps while the instrumental tracks were put down.”

“I’m not sure I know the words to ‘Chest Fever’: I’m not even sure there are words to ‘Chest Fever.’”

Robertson said that the song was a reaction to the mysticism and myth-making of the other lyrics on the album – Music from Big Pink.”

According to Robertson: "’Chest Fever’ was like here's the groove, come in a little late. Let's do the whole thing so it's like pulling back, then it gives in and kind of kicks in and goes with the groove a little bit. If you like ‘Chest Fever’ it's for God knows what reason, it's just in there somewhere, this quirky thing. But it doesn't make particularly any kind of sense in the lyrics, in the music, in the arrangement, in anything. It's kind of a hard love song, but it's a reversal on that old rock n' roll thing where they're always telling the girl, you know, he's a rebel; he'll never be any good. This time it's the other way round, people are telling him about this girl and it affects him physically. These things they're telling him move him incredibly, and he's really a victim of that.”

But they’re not nonsense, and were probably written by Rick Danko or Richard Manuel, the party guys who knew a number of young girls like the one depicted in the lyrics of “Chest Fever," and Richard is given some credit for improvising some of the words.

“I know she's a tracker, any scarlet would back her
They say she's a chooser, but I just can't refuse her
She was just there, but then she can't be here no more
And as my mind unweaves, I feel the freeze down in my knees
But just before she leaves, she receives”

The early lyrics say “She’s been down to the Dunes and she’s dealt with the goons” – the goons being the Dunes’ bouncers, who were known to keep order in the place, but later published lyrics say "She's been down in the dunes," not recognizing that the Dunes is a nightclub and not just a pile of sand, and the goons are the nightclub's bouncers.

“She's been down to the Dunes and she's dealt with the goons
Now she drinks from the bitter cup, I'm trying to get her to give it up
She was just here, I fear she can't be here no more
And as my mind unweaves, I feel the freeze down in my knees
But just before she leaves, she receives…
It's long, long when she's gone, I get weary holding on
Now I'm coldly fading fast, I don't think I'm gonna last
Very much longer. ‘She's stoned’ said the Swede, and the moon calf agreed….”

She's been down to the Dunes and she's dealt with the goons means she's been kicked out of the most roughly, all night, no holds-bared roadhouse in the State of New Jersey, so she must be really getting out of control, and that's where things were heading - totally out of control, though not everyone noticed it yet.

Act 2 – Episode 5 - Flashback - To the May Day When the Hell's Angels Came to Town  

Just back from Florida, Bay Shores manager Jack Murray drove over the causeway to Ocean City to see Mr. Kirkman at his penthouse apartment atop the Flanders’s Hotel. Parking on 11th street Murray walked in the back door and stuck his head in the barber shop to pay his respect to his old friend the barber, and let him know he was back in town. He then walked into the lobby and took one of the elevators to the top floor and walked down a long hall, and made a right and walked to the end of the corridor to the single door and knocked.

A young girl in a black French maid’s outfit answered and let him in and escorted him back to the living room, that had wrap around windows with spectacular panoramic views of the Flanders’s pools, the boardwalk, beach and ocean horizon.

“That you Murray,” Kirkman said, and Murray was a bit startled to turn around and see Mr. Kirkman sitting on a commode in a bathroom with its door open. A proclivity shared with other contemporaries with enormous power – President Johnson and Gen. LeMay, Kirkman seemed to enjoy making decisions and barking orders while relieving himself on his ivory seat, gold handle toilet that was next to a low picture window that gave a view of the Copper Kettle Fudge shop across the street and the pavilion across the boardwalk.

“I know why you’re here,” Kirkman said, “and I don’t want to have anything to do with Harry Anglemeyer,” as he looked out the commode window at his former next door neighbor's fudge shop and apartment.

“You know the legal status of his case,” Murray said emphatically.

“The status of his case is – a previously convicted con man currently serving time for preying on rich homosexuals and blackmailing them has confessed to targeting Anglemyer, killing him and taking his ring – and he will soon be entering a guilty plea in court. It’s all covered.”

“You mean covered up,” Murray said.

“My police sources in Florida tell me that the ring was pawned in Fort Lauderdale by one of my boys, a bouncer from the Dunes, and I understand that there’s another witness too.

“I know all that,” Kirkman said. “The witness had previously applied for a job as an Ocean City fireman and Mr. Stretch has hired him, so he’s now working for Mr. Stretch.

“Well my man is holed up in Florida and is afraid to come back to work if he’s going to be questioned about this, “Murray said.

“He won’t be questioned. You can tell him it’s safe to come back,” Kirkman reassured him, dismissing Murray with a wave of his hand.

As he was leaving through the door, Kirkman added, “And don’t come back to see me about this again. Mr. Stretch is handling this problem, go see him and keep me out of it.”

Around the same time Jack Murray left Kirkman’s apartment, Mayor Waldman was leaving the Lincoln Hotel where he had just given a short speech on the status of the town to the daily luncheon meeting of the Riverboat Club. The increases in the summer tourist business has been good for everybody, the tax rolls are fine and there will be no increases in taxes for the foreseeable future.

The mayor didn’t mention the incident he had with the Hells Angels earlier that morning. Even though the whole showdown only lasted a few minutes, the experience unnerved him and it stayed in the back of his mind, and he knew he hadn't heard the last of it.

Walking across 9th Street, the mayor walked down Wesley Avenue, past Dr. Townsends house with the big pillars, past Dr. Smith and Chris Montagne’s house with the wrap around porch, and stopped to say hello to Mrs. Somers, who was watering her flower and talking to her next door neighbor Mrs. Miller.

Mrs. Somers was related to the Somers family who founded Somers Point and once owned all of the barrier island that is now Ocean City, while Mrs. Parker Miller was the widow of Mr. Parker, the first year 'round resident of the island, a shipping insurance man who handled the Lifesaving Station crew and all the shipwreck matters for Loyds of London and all the shipping insurance companies. Mrs. Somers worked as a sales clerk at Copper Kettle Fudge, had been hired by Harry Anglemyer, and she stopped the mayor to shake his hand and ask about the Anglemeyer murder case, much to the astonishment of the staid Mrs. Miller, who stood back, somewhat aghast at the question.

The mayor said in a reassuring tone that there would be an announcement, “someone confessed and we shall see justice soon,” he said as he continued to slowly walk awkwardly on. Cutting through the Knight’s Pharmacy parking lot the mayor crossed the alley and took some mail out of the slot in the door and let himself in the small one man travel office. With travel posters on the wall the mayor walked behind the one desk, and as he sat down he opened his mail o the copy of the Nation magazine. 

Although officially a conservative Republican, one of his constituents had given him a holiday gift subscription to the liberal publication and he found some of the articles interesting and stimulating, even though he disagreed with them, but was quite startled to read that May 17, 1965 issue.

The mayor could feel his blood suddenly begin to boil as he quietly read to himself the first few lines of the featured article: “Last Labor Day weekend newspapers all over California gave front-page reports of a heinous gang rape in the moonlit sand dunes near the town of Seaside on the Monterrey Peninsula. Two girls, aged 14 and 15, were allegedly taken from their dates by a gang of filthy, frenzied, boozed-up motorcycle hoodlums called “Hell’s Angels,” and dragged off to be ‘repeatedly assaulted.’”

The mayor stopped and thought of his own two teenage daughters, and continued reading:

“Some 300 Hell’s Angels were gathered in the Seaside-Monterrey area at the time, having convened, they said, for the purpose of raising funds among themselves to send the body of a former member, killed in an accident, back to his mother in North Carolina. One of the Angels, hip enough to falsely identify himself as ‘Frenchy of San Bernardino,’ told a reporter who came out to meet the cyclists: ‘We chose Monterey because we get treated good here; most other places we get thrown out of town.’”

The mayor winched, and picked up the phone and asked to speak to Mister Stretch, the Public Safety Commissioner.

Act II Episode 6 – Slice in Time – Bay Shores

If you go back to any of these places today, say the joint that is now where Bay Shores used to be, where they change the name, chefs and management every few years or so, some new fancy dancy hot de' trot first class joint with a wine list, small portions and a staid jazz band that plays soft standard tunes that are like a backdrop to awkward conversations, where people sit around marveling at the bay views and salt air and they think they're having a good time, a fine vacation, good weather, wish you were here kind of post card setting, but they really don't know what a good time is.

You don't have to have a conversation when you're having a real good time. 

And they could never know unless they were there, the same exact spot, the same small quadrant in this universe, same place but a different time, actually not that long ago, still within some living memories, and sometimes it comes back, like a latter day Brigadoon. 

Usually after hours, when there's no living soul around, the waves lapping at the deck pilings set the vibes in motion, and you get thrown back via the memory cells in the back of the mind that take you to that same place in time. If Sherman could set the Way Back Machine to the summer of '65, or any time in that era, you would find Johnny Caswell and the Crystal Mansion playing on the back stage, the full moon high tide bringing small waves that occasionally seep through the cracks in the back dance floor as people dance to Caswell singing, “Schools's out, come on let's go! We're going down the shore, just like before, cause there's no school anymore, so baby, meet me at the shore..." 

As Caswell's set winds down, the other stage comes to life, with Pete Carroll and the Carroll Brothers coming on as the dancers shift from one floor to another, the beat goes on, and as the boys get cooking, it doesn't take long for the house to be rockin' once again. The Carroll Brothers aren't real kin brothers, they just call themselves brothers in a white, soul brothers sense. As they reach a fever pitch, a girl jumps up on the bar to dance and nobody stops her, and then the sax player lays down, his back on the bar as he continues playing and wiggling around like an overturned turtle, as the place goes crazy with everyone clapping, singing along or shouting, as you couldn't have a conversation in Bay Shores between the hours of 8 pm and 2 am when the music went off.

Then, unannounced and out of seeming nowhere, Gary U.S. Bonds jumps on stage, gives Pete a hug and grabs a microphone as the band, drummer first, shifts beats to a very familiar one - “Quarter-to-Three,” - and the place is going crazy, everyone moving and dancing where ever they were, including the bartenders and bar backs, who stop working for a few moments to take it all in.

Then between songs, as Pete Carroll announced that Gary U.S. Bonds would be performing that song again – at 2:45 am at the Dunes, there's a roar at the door that gets everyone's attention. Jack Murray, sitting on a bar stool by the door, jumps back, slips cash into his jacket and leans against the wall as a motorcycle, you hear it coming before you saw it ride in the door, around the bar and onto the dance floor where the college kid did circles, scattering the dancers.

Pete quickly whips the band into an appropriate song, as the bouncers grab the guy on the motorcycle, shut off the bike engine and hand the kid over to some of Bader's Raiders, who were already at the door.

Bader's Raiders would throw him in the back of their Paddy Wagon and take him to the drunk tank jail at City Hall where he would wait until he got a chance to meet Judge Helfant, whose midnight Kangaroo Court began nightly at midnight.

The Dark Side of Bay Avenue

The guy who rode his motorcycle on the Bay Shores dance floor did one of the things you have to do to get picked up by Bader's Raiders and meet Judge Helfant, the others being urinating in public, drunk and disorderly, littering and assault and battery.

And there are more girls picked up than you'd expect, like the girl in “Chest Fever” they get drunk and do drugs and get jealous of their boyfriends dancing with others and a do something crazy or get into a cat fights, and are quickly dispensed with by the efficient work of the bouncers and handed over to Bader's Raiders.

The Paddy Wagon takes offenders to City Hall where they are put into the group drunk tank until Judge Helfant arrives and begins his court proceedings at midnight.

One by one the drunk tank is emptied and the offender brought before the Judge, who having a list of the contents of the defendant, knows how much cash he has on hand, and fines him whatever that amount happens to be. If the arrested person is broke, they were given a dime to make a phone call from the pay phone to get the bail money or fine.

What made Helfant's midnight mischief a Kangaroo Court is the fact that no records were kept. And since the defendants didn't mind that it didn't go on their official record, they didn't complain. And the cash that was collected by Helfant was spread around loosely, like fertilizer he said, "the more you spread it around the better it works for you."  The city financial manager was aware of the arrangement, and got a small cut, Lt. Bader got a big cut but had to pay his thirty some man Bay Avenue police force. Judge Helfant kept the biggest cut for himself, but he had to share some of it with Stumpy Orman, the underworld boss of Atlantic City who cut his share with Angelo Bruno, the nominal mob boss of Philadelphia and South Jersey, who got a slice of every shady deal made on his turf.

The mayor and tax payers, while kept in the dark about the details, didn't mind Helfant's Midnight Court sessions since they knew it paid for the extra summer season police force and kept taxes down, so nobody complained.

But this time, the guy on the motorcycle was filmed by the KYW TV crew as he rode into the club and got arrested, and the KYW crew followed the Paddy Wagon to City Hall and learned about Helfant's midnight court sessions, and David Brenner smelled a rat.

No Helfant said, he would not permit his television cameras in his court, period.

Act II – Scene 7 - Plato Under the Boardwalk – Music Banned on the Beach

Ocean City High School teacher Bill Hamilton was a bit of a rebel who was popular with the students but not so much with the administration. He taught English and coached soccer when nobody considered it a talent threat to the football, baseball and basketball teams.

Hamilton owned the Rock Garden record shop on Asbury near 9^th street, and hired some of his students to run it.

He also taught one summer school class in classic literature that Katie, one of the mayor's daughters attended twice a week. This was the next to last class, and it being such a nice day, instead of having the class in a classroom at the high school at Sixth Street, Hamilton had all six of his students meet him under the boardwalk at the music pier, where they moved closer to the hippies at Shriver's Pavilion as the tide came up.

For this particular class Hamilton had them read Aristotle, Socrates and Plato, especially Plato's Republic.

As they sat around in a circle on the beach, under the boardwalk, where it was out of the sun and cooler, Hamilton had Kate read a portion of the Republic that she found most interesting, and she opened it to where she had it marked and began reading: “....Any musical innovation is full of danger to the whole State, and ought to be prohibited. When modes of music change, he fundamental laws of the State always change with them.”

Continuing to read: “This is the point to which, above all, the attention of our rules should be directed – that music and gymnastics be preserved in their original form, and no innovation made. They must do their utmost to maintain them intact. And when anyone says that mankind must regard the newest song which the singers have, they will be afraid that he may be praising, not new songs, but a new kind of song; and this ought not to be praised, or conceived to be the meaning of the poet; for any musical innovation is full of danger to the whole State, and ought to be prohibited. When modes of music change, the fundamental laws of the State always change with them. Then I said our guardians must lay the foundations of their fortress in music...”

Then after a pause she began reading Plato again: “Our youth should be trained from the first in a stricter system, for if amusements become lawless, the youth themselves become lawless, and they never grow up into well-conducted and virtuous citizens.”

Hamilton then noted as Peter Pan said, “This has all happened before and it will all happen again,” or as Yogi put it, “It's Deja vu all over again.”

After a fervent and vibrant discussion and debate, the hour was up, the students kept looking at their wrist watches at the time, and looking around at all the people lying in the sun and having fun. Some of the students wore their bathing suits and were just going to join the fun.

“For next week, the last assignment for this class,” Hamilton said, “I want you to read Calvary's 'Awaiting the Barbarians” of ancient times, and discuss its relevancy today, class dismissed.

Hamilton then walked down to the beach to Silvia, the Italian law student kicking the soccer ball about, and talked to him for a while, asking him if he would give a demonstration to his co-ed soccer team they had put together, because they didn't have enough to field a team of either sex, so they had a co-ed team, and Hamilton wanted Silvio to show them a few of his tricks.

That evening at the Ocean City Commission meeting, the commission chambers were crowded and Mayor opened the floor to any citizen who had something to say, and there were quite a few, before they got down to business and one of the commissioners who had introduced a resolution banning live music on the beach and boardwalk a few months ago, now called for its third and final reading and a vote on the matter.

The last citizen to make a comment was Kate, the Mayor's daughter, who read the paragraphs from Plato's Republic on the threat new music posed to the State and how it should be banned, but instead of the reaction she expected, one of the commissioners said that Plato was right and that the music was bad for everybody, including those who played it.

After the resolution was brought to the table the Mayor spoke first, saying that he thought the measure went too far and was an infringement on free speech.

“This isn't about free speech,” one of the commissioners barked back, “it's about noise, and the noise pollution these kids are bringing into our lives.”

After a vibrant debate, the city attorney was asked to rule on the matter, and Mr. Bell, an elderly gentleman had to be shaken awake, as he had dozed off, and when asked to repeat the question, he said it wasn't a matter of music but the level of the noise that should be restricted.

And so the resolution was amended to ban the level of music by the decibel level and the level was set so low that almost any type of music or noise would be considered illegal. A fifty dollar fine was approved and a few hundred dollars was appropriated from the budget to purchase a dozen hand held decibel meters that were to be distributed to all of the policeman that patrolled the boardwalk, with the law taking effect the following Friday at noon.

Act II Scene 8 – The Anglemeyer Trial

The Mays Landing court room in the Atlantic County seat of government where Anglemyer's trial took place is old, the same court room that Nucky Johnson’s father and brother had used before him when the three served as county sheriffs continuously for almost fifty years. That was the basis of Nucky's power, and that of the County Executive who handled the tax money, and the County Court room was where all of the stories eventually played out.

No air conditioning, it had huge wood ceiling fans and on the hottest summer day of the year everyone was sweating and it felt and looked like the Scopes Trial court room, except there weren’t that many people in attendance, as the powers that be had kept the matter quiet and out of the news. But there was Mrs. Somers and a few younger Copper Kettle Fudge employees and Michael Sherman, the WOND AM radio news reporter who didn’t listen to his station owner and producer who both asked him to downplay the matter as it was bad publicity for the shore.

The jury was let in and the defendant sat at a table in front of the judge next to his lawyer, who had made the deal for him to confess and plead guilty to the crime in exchange for a reduction in time to be served on his previous conviction and an arrangement that was not to be made public.

Then the Sergeant at Arms called for everyone to rise and Judge Edward Helfant entered the room. Although Helfant was the Somers Point municipal judge, the powers that be arranged for the regular county judge to take a vacation and allow Helfant to sit in and run the show for him.

The prosecutor then announced that Harry Anglemeyer was the victim of a confidence gang that preyed on rich homosexuals to blackmail them and they targeted Harry because of his public notoriety and ostentatious diamond pinky ring.

The prosecutor then called a witness, the young women who saw the incident as she was sitting in a parked car making out with her boyfriend.

She took the stand and when the prosecutor described the situation she noted that since last Labor Day she had married the guy, and smiled at the judge and jury, holding up her ring for all to see.

When the prosecutor asked her to describe what she saw and heard, she said that at first heard an argument and then looked up and saw the two men talking and one of them, a man in a black suit and tie, strike the other man who went down and hit the edge of the jagged concrete hard. The man who hit him walked away and three other men came along – who they call the “Good Samaritans,” who dragged him to a car and placed him in the driver’s seat behind the wheel and closed the door.

“Is the man you saw strike Mr. Anglemeyer in this courtroom today,” the prosecutor said, looking at the man at the table dressed in black suit and tie who was prepared to plead guilty, and then at his attorney and both smiled.

“Yes,” she responded. “He is.”

“Would you point him out to us please,” the prosecutor asked.

She hesitated for a moment, looked at the judge and then at the prosecutor squarely in the eyes, and then glanced to the back of the courtroom and pointed to a man standing against the wall in a black suit and tie, a plainclothes Ocean City Police officer.

The gasps in the room were audible, and as the attorney for the defendant leaned over and told the prosecutor that his client was no longer going to plead guilty or testify at all, the prosecutor asked for a temporary adjournment, but the judge called it a mistrial and slapped the gavel down hard, dismissing the court.

Act II Episode  9 - Dylan and the Hawks

Few events in the half-century history of rock & roll are considered more significant than when Bob Dylan plugged in his guitar, went electric and began playing with the Hawks.

How Dylan came to meet the Hawks has been a matter of much scrutiny and uncertainty, and there has been a lot of myth making around the legends as they grew over the years.

The most popular accounts have Dylan discovering the Hawks while on vacation in Atlantic City, or some variation of that, but after much diligent research this is the most likely account of what really happened.

By the end of June '65, Dylan's song “Mr. Tambourine Man,” as recorded by the Byrds, was Number One on the pop charts and one of the songs that the hippies at Shriver's Pavilion would play on their guitars and sing, with someone playing a bongo drum and inevitably a tambourine would chime in.

The Byrds were a new California band who took the song, as it was written by Bob Dylan, and gave it a rocky twist, and make the song the first and the only song Dylan would write to make it Number One on the popular music charts.

Dylan wrote the song the previous winter of 1964 during a cross country road trip he made with some buddies. He was already the epitome of all things folk, mentored by Woody Gunthrie, leader of political protests, playing with Joan Baez at the Lincoln Memorial when Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his “I Have a Dream” speech, the darling of the folk crowd and the “conscience of his generation.”

But Dylan had recently been booed by a liberal white audience when he accepted the Tom Paine Award and gave a drunken, rambling speech in which he showed sympathy for President Kennedy's assassin. With a new album in the can, a small college tour to back it, his relationship with girlfriend on the rocks, it was time to get out of Dodge.- “Get while the getten's good,” as someone in his crowd said, making Dylan stop to think if there's a song in that cliché.

On the cross country, coast to coast road trip from New York City to San Fran, they stopped at every record shop on the way – in Newark, Philadelphia, Wilmington and Washington D.C,. to buy every copy of his new record they could get their hands on, one of which was given to Carl Sanberg, who they dropped in to visit unexpectedly, and found the old man at home on his farm and a bit perplexed by this young man knocking on his door and handing him a record. Sandberg just didn't get it, but was polite about not acknowledging it.

The itinerary of this road trip included stopping to sing for some Freedom Riders, who were northern white liberal college kids trying to convince black people in the South to register and vote, some of whom were being killed by the local red necks.

Then it was on to New Orleans, where they visited some clubs in the French Quarter and found a young hippie singing Dylan's songs. Then they stopped at Dealey Plasa in Dallas where President Kennedy was killed before moving on to Vegas and San Francisco.

Well it was sometime during that road trip that Dylan wrote “Mr. Tambourine Man,” a song he said was about Bruce Langhorne, a folk music session percussionist who had a large Turkish drum that was lined with bells that sounded like a tambourine, an instrument Langhorne said he bought in a Village pawn shop.

Dylan recorded the song in a Hollywood studio while he was in California, and a demo copy of the first recording of the song was shared with the Byrd's manager, who convinced them to record it as one of the first of the songs they would do in what was to become known as new genera of music they called soft-rock, and they did it complete with drums, guitars and all kinds of new electronic gimmicks they were coming up with. The “Mr. Tambourine Man” recording session actually included only two members of the Byrds, formerly The Jet Setters, including David Crosby, and studio session men who would become known as The Wrecking Crew.

The Byrd's version of “Mr. Tambourine Man” was released first, and hit the pop charts like a bullet, and it quickly got Dylan's attention, in fact it blew him away, not only because of the sound, but the fact that a lot of people liked it – it helped bring folk music into the popular mainstream, and made everybody a lot of money.

Back in New York City, Dylan retreated to his Village apartment and was inspired to write not just another song, but another song that would change music as we know it, society as it was and the world in ways that are not yet done.

When Dylan finished writing the last lyrics and notes to “Like a Rolling Stone” he knew he had a hot hit on his hands, and made a quick mono tape recording of it, and then took the tape and his guitar uptown to the office of his manager Albert Grossman. Grossman was busy with another client, John Hammond, Jr., but Dylan and Hammond were friends too. Hammond's father, John Hammond, Sr., had signed Dylan to Columbia Records, as he had previously signed Billie Holiday and would someday sign the kid from Asbury Park who had yet to come down the Pike and wasn't yet the boss.

Dylan excitedly told Grossman and Hammond that he wrote a new song, and he wanted them to hear it. Dylan was going to play the tape he had just made but instead he spread the half typed and some hand scrawled words out on paper on the coffee table in front of him, picked up the guitar and began to strum and sing, “Once upon a time, you dressed so fine, threw the bums a dime.....”

Grossman and Hammond had the same reaction to the song as Dylan himself, they knew it was a hit, but they also knew the ugly inner workings and blood, sausage and guts of the entertainment industry and were aware that even the best songs can fall by the wayside if not done logistically correct, and there was no particular way to do it, they just had to get all the ducks in order to make that song a hit.

Then Dylan mentioned the Byrd's version of “Mr. Tambourine Man,” and how neat it sounded with the drums, guitars, keys and all that reverb shit, and that's how “Like a Rolling Stone” had to be produced, not as an acoustic folk song.

And Grossman agreed, and he seldom agreed with anybody, as he was known to be one of the toughest and most ostentatious entertainment managers on the planet, at least in New York City. He even disagreed with the contract Hammond, Sr. had given Dylan and made him re-write it.

While Hammond, Jr. was a rich white boy who loved and played really good black blues songs, he got the rock and roll thing too, and Grossman started going through his massive Rolodex they began throwing out names of rock and roll bands who could possibly play “Like A Rolling Stone,” and tour with Dylan to back the song and the next album that they knew could revolutionize music as it was known at the time.

Dylan and Grossman 

“Dion broke with the Belmonts,” Grossman said dryly, “and we have this new group out of Chicago, “The Paul Butterfield Blues Band is looking for work,.....” and Hammond threw out the names of some of the groups he knew might fill the bill, but then a squeaky, uncertain girls voice spoke up and interrupted them.

“Excuse me Mr. Grossman but,” Grossman's secretary hesitated, “but, but I know a really good band – the Hawks.”

Receptionist-secretary Mary Martin - had the same name as the actress who played Peter Pan, had been sitting there fielding phone calls while taking it in, and if they want a rock & roll band, well she really did know a good one – the Hawks.

Originally from Canada, Martin went to school in Ontario and caught the Hawks on numerous occasions.

“I saw the Hawks play back home and they're really the best band I have ever seen or heard, even here in New York,” Martin said.

“That's a pretty good endorsement,” Hammond spoke up, “and I'll vouch for them too; I met the Hawks on the road down south playing with Rockabilly Ronnie Hawkins, a real routy road bunch, but solid musicians.

Grossman looked at Dylan, and Dylan looked at Mary Martin and John Hammond, Jr. and asked, “Where can we find the Hawks?”

“Put in a call to Colonel Kudlets in Ontario,” Grossman said to Martin, and without having to look in his Rolodex, barked out the address and phone number from memory – That's Harold Kudlets, Suite 824 Sheraton-Connauqht Hotel, Hamilton, Ontario – 522-0900.”

Grossman talked to Kudlets directly, one on one, mano to mano, they were two of a kind, and dealt on an equal basis even though Grossman was much higher on the entertainment totem pole since he was in Manhattan, the center of entertainment power, and Kudlets was in Ontario, a third world market in the entertainment universe.

Few words were exchanged, and when Grossman put down the phone he said, “The Hawks are playing a nightclub in Somers Point, New Jersey called Tony Marts, and they're booked until Labor Day, and Kudlets said the contract is good but they can be bought out of it if the money was there."

It's at this point in the proceedings where things get a little foggy, as some accounts suggest that Dylan, with Hammond, Jr. immediately drove down the Garden State Parkway to Somers Point (Exit 30) to check out the Hawks at Tony Marts.

If they did they didn't call ahead or announce the fact, and at the door paid the $2 cover to Sonny McCullough, the guy behind the cash register at the door who took the tickets and cover charge, they got a beer from Dick Squires at the Triangle Bar, or Dooby at the Round Bar, and just took the whole scene in, giving the Hawks close scrutiny.

If Dylan did come to Somers Point he didn't say hello to the Hawks or Tony Marotta, or tell anybody who he was, and he wasn't recognized, but it’s entirely likely that he did check out a performance by the Hawks before he tended them an offer, which he did one afternoon over the phone.

Now back to more solid historical footing, as recounted by Levon, one day while they were rehearsing or sitting around their dressing room on the second floor of Tony Marts, they got a phone call, probably to the pay phone in the hall, and Levon took the call.

Dylan identified himself and asked Levon if he and the Hawks wanted to play with him at Carnegie Hall.

Levon was perplexed, he held the phone away from him and told the other guys sitting around that it was Bob Dylan.

“Whose Bob Dylan?” Levon asked, and Richard leaned over and whispered in his ear, “Mr. Tambourine Man,” and Dylan went back on the line and asked, “Who else is on the bill?” he asked.

“Just us,” Dylan replied, as Levon incredulously considered them selling out Carnegie Hall as something that just wasn't possible.

But Dylan was serious, and talked Levon into coming to New York City to see him, and the following Monday while the Hangover League played ball, Levon, Robbie Robertson and Garth Hudson drove up to New York City, possibly with Conway Twitty, who had business in New York at the same time.

While Twitty was signing a new record contract with a Country Music Lable, the three Hawks visited Dylan at Grossman's office where they introduced themselves to Mary Martin, the receptionist, who in turn introduced them to Dylan, sitting on the couch in the adjacent lounge.

When Grossman came out of his office, they all sat down around a reel to reel tape recorder and when they were ready he turned it on and played the studio recording of “Like A Rolling Stone,” that Dylan had made a few days earlier, mainly with the Butterfield Blues Band and Al Kooper and some studio guys who just happened to be there at the time.

Levon, Robbie and Garth listened, and at the end of the song, they all sat back speechless for a few seconds, until Dylan spoke up enthusiastically, “Do you want to play that?” he asked.

That they did, but there was a problem, you see. They were under contract to play at Tony Marts until Labor Day, but Dylan said he needed them, and needed them Now, as he was booked to play Forest Hills, a tennis area being used for folk shows, on August 28, a little over a week away.

Impossible, they said, as Tony Marotta was a tough one, and they liked him like their father and couldn't and wouldn't break the contract with him.

Grossman spoke up for the first time saying, “We'll double what they're paying you for the week and we'll contract you for the year, and pay you even if you don't play.”

And Levon looked at Robbie who looked at Garth and they all were just dumbfounded.

“Well, we'll see what we can do about the Tony Marts gig and get back to you soon Mr. Dylan,” Levon said shaking his hand, as Robertson and Garth got up and they all left wondering what was going to happened now.

The ride back down the Parkway was a quiet one; they kept the radio off and just thought about what was going down, what could go down, and what would go down, and all of the various possibilities.

Going with Dylan, someone spoke up sometime along the ride. It was not like backing Ronnie Hawkins, as Hawkins was stuck in the rut off the old Chitlin' Circuit, while Dylan was on his way up, playing arenas, not nightclubs and roadhouses, and his song was Number One on the pop charts at that moment, and they just heard a new song that was going to go somewhere, and they just felt they had to be a part of it and go along for the ride.

But how would they explain that to Rick and Richard and most of all Mr. Mart, Anthony Marotta, who had taken them off the road, given them a steady job and made them feel at home?

They couldn't and wouldn't screw him no matter what.

When they got back to Bay Avenue Somers Point they asked for Rick and Richard and were told by Wordman, cleaning up the joint, that they were across the street at Coach's Corner, the little outdoor grill where they often ate and hung out during the day.

After talking with Rick and Richard, Levon went back across the street to Tony Marts, and as he did the first day he arrived, walked through the club, now just getting ready to open, and out the back door, past the canyon of beer cases and kegs and knocked on Tony's office door.

Sitting across from Tony in his office was a bit unnerving, especially given what Levon was about to tell Tony, and he got what he expected.

Tony got up from his chair saying, “You want to leave me before the BIGGEST weekend of the SUMMER!,” he shouted, and Levon sat back in his chair, as Tony's voice shifted and went from deep, dark and husky to a softer tone, and the acknowledgment that, “it's a good opportunity for you boys,” - if it was anyone else he would have called them bums. But the Hawks had been good to him, so he sat down again and picked up the phone and said, “If Colonel Kudlets has a band that can fill your shoes for Labor Day weekend you can walk, you can go dance with Dylan, but Kudlets has to come through.”

And Kudlets did come through with a band that was acceptable to Tony – Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels, whose hit song, “Devil With The Blue Dress” was on the charts and making like a bullet.

Then Tony did what he seldom does, he would throw a farewell party for the Hawks, something he had only done once previously, for Len Carey and the Crackerjacks. Len Carey was a protégé of Spike Jones, and brought his New Orleans shtick to Tony Marts, complete with beads and crackerjacks, while Spike Jones is mentioned in “Up on Cripple Creek.”

Since Conway's birthday was coming up soon, on September 1^st, but he too was leaving Tony Marts, his contract was up the week before Labor Day, so the farewell party was going to be a double whammy – goodbye, so long, farewell to both Conway Twitty and the Hawks, and planning for a fine Somers Point sendoff party was in the works.

Act II Episode 10 – Croce and Brenner at the Anchorage

Jim Croce got out of Lynda Van Devanter's black '61 Nova convertible, stepped onto the Bay Avenue sidewalk and walked up the steps of the historic Anchorage Tavern. After pausing on the top step on the porch to turn around and look at Ocean City’s skyline across the bay, he entered the Anchorage through the heavy wooden door with the ship's port hole for a window. It was cool and dark inside with the late afternoon sun light coming in the two other large round wood porthole windows that permitted an unhindered view of Great Egg Bay across the street.

The dining room was busy for late lunch but the bar was practically empty and Buck the bartender was standing around polishing beer glasses he had taken out of a new box on the bar.

The day time bartender is the lowest rung of the bartender totem ladder, usually a young guy, while the night time bartenders, especially those who worked weekends, were the most senior on the staff and made the best tips.

Buck the bartender was young then, but was an experienced bartender who knew the ropes and was just filling in the day time slot until one opened at night. Buck knew Croce from other days he came around, so he knew what he drank and opened a long neck Bud beer before Croce could ask, and said, “No, Andrew's not here.”

Croce knew Andrew Carneglia and his mother and late father from their South Philly neighborhood and when he made one of his frequent forays to the shore always made it a point to stop by and pay his respects - and usually get a fee beer from Andrew. Croce also had a girlfriend - a waitress who worked at the Lobster House in Cape May, who he occasionally stayed with, but he liked Ocean City and Somers Point better because of the vibrant music scene. Croce was one of the regular guitarist and folk singers who played at the Purple Dragon Coffee House and at Shriver’s Pier in Ocean City.

Croce knew Andrew from when they were kids and they played sand lot baseball together. They used to call him “Andy Anchorage” because his family owned the Anch, but since his father died and he had taken over the business they now refer to him with more respect as Andrew.

Croce just shrugged and put his guitar and beer down on the empty bar and went over to the juke box in the corner and for a quarter played three songs – the Skylines “Pennies From Heaven,” Del Shannon’s “Runaway,” both band he had earlier seen at Tony Marts, and Johnny Caswell's version of “Carolina On My Mind,” which was one of a number of Caswell records Andrew had put on the juke box special.

Croce then went over behind the two pool tables and sat on the red mahogany wood flap that was pulled down over the shuffle board when it wasn’t being used, so people could sit on it or use it as a table for their drinks. He sat on the shuffleboard top with his back to the wall, and with pen in hand scribbled out some more lyrics to his new song.

When the songs on the juke box were over and the room got quiet again, Croce picked up his guitar and started working out some chords of his new song, which was about the drill sergeant him and Lynda’s boyfriend “JJ” had when they were in basic training at Fort Dix.

After a while Croce looked up and there he thought, was Jesus Christ himself. Tido Mambo, the leader of the Upsetters, who had changed their name to the Messiah’s of Soul, lived upstairs in one of the rooms above the Anchorage. Since it was an old wood clapboard hotel with no insulation, the sound of Croce’s acoustic guitar drifted upstairs through the floorboards and rafters and brought Tido down to see who was playing guitar in the bar.

“Jesus Christ!” Croce exclaimed, “who the hell are you?”

“That’s Tido Mambo,” Buck the bartender said as he emptied some beer glasses out of some boxes stacked on the bar. “He plays at Bay Shores.”

“You the guy who comes out of the coffin?” Croce asked.

“Yea, that’s the guy,” Buck said.

“What ya playin’ there,” Tido asked.

“A song I just wrote,” Croce said. “Wanna hear it?”

Before he could answer the front door opened and Andrew came in. Croce saw him as Andrew darted into the old wood phone booth behind the front door and closed the glass doors.

“Sure, let’s have it,” Tido said.

“Wait a minute,” Croce hesitated, “I want Andrew to hear this one too.”

After a minute or two Andrew came out of the phone booth, looked in the dining room to make sure everything was okay, poked his head in the kitchen door and then walked around the bar to the back of the room to shake Croce’s hand and give Tido a nod of recognition.

“I got a new song I want you to hear Andrew,” said Croce, as he began playing the opening cords on the guitar and singing “Big, Bad, Leroy Brown.”

About half way through the song Tido moves over to the little Tom Thumb piano against the wall and plays a few notes to accompany Croce, and when he was done, Croce smiled and his face beamed, as he said, “What da’ ya think?”

Andrew moved over to the bar and sat down, lit a cigarette and ordered a drink from Buck, “I really like it Jim. You may have a hit on your hands there.”

Andrew didn’t drink or smoke much before his dad died, but now he was running a bar and at 21 years old, had to make a lot of decisions. His whole life had suddenly changed, and his lifestyle did too.

Telling Buck to give Jim and Tido each a drink on the house, Andrew took out a pen and began writing numbers on a piece of paper while Jim and Tido went back to the song with Tido helping out with the cords to go with Jim’s lyrics.

Although a few bar customers came in and sat by the front door, the rest of the bar was empty except for Jim and Tido back in the corner and Andrew supervising Buck as he emptied boxes of small glasses, when David Brenner came in the front door.

Brenner, like Croce knew Andrew from the old South Philly neighborhood. Although Brenner was actually from West Philly, and grew up in the Jewish hood, he often wandered into the Italian market area and played basketball and sandlot baseball with the Italian kids, and sometimes got into fights with them at weekend dances when school was in session. Andrew and Brenner started out antagonistic, but when some other kids ganged up on Brenner, Andrew came to Brenner’s aide, and after that they became good friends, though they hadn’t seen each other in a few years.

As Brenner made his way to the back of the bar Andrew got up and gave Brenner a hard handshake and a hug, and ordered Buck to give Brenner a drink.

“I heard you’re in charge now,” Brenner said. “Sorry about your dad; he was a good man. I was here last summer for dinner in the dining room and said hello to him but you weren’t around, and I’m glad to see you’re doing okay.”

“Yea, I’m okay,” Andrew said. “Just getting to learn this bar business. I now know how to make a Harvey Wallbanger. What are you doing?”

“I’m a director of the Investigative Reporting Team at KYW TV 3,” Brenner said proudly, “and we’re down here on a story.”

“What story?” Andrew asked.

“I don’t know yet, we’re still poking around.”

“Jim there is from the old hood,” Andrew said looking over to Croce, “and he’s got a new song he just wrote.”

“Everybody's got a story and a song,” Brenner said, dismissing the idea with a wave of his hand. “We’re looking for a real newsworthy story that will get public attention and improve our ratings – that’s what it’s all about – ratings.”

“The real reason I came to see you,” Brenner said, is to find a good, really good restaurant, because I got to take my secretary’s family out to dinner for letting us stay at their house and I want to really impress them.”

Brenner then named a few of the better restaurants that had been suggested – Crab Trap, Mac’s, Chi Chi’s and Harry’s Inn, but Andrew recommended Daniel’s.

“Danny Antolini will be in the kitchen," he said. "Danny owns the joint and he’s the best around, and if you go, say hello to Bobby Chic the piano player. He’ll play some requests for you and is really good too.”

“You got a good thing going here,” Brenner said. “Are you making any changes?”

“Changes are in the works,” Andrew said. “I’m keeping the dining room the same, but the bars' going to be different. We’re getting a lot younger crowd at night now, and making more money on the beer than we are on the pasta and wine.”

Andrew then went into a long but interesting story about how, on the previous Good Friday, when most of the bars were closed, including the Anchorage, three guys came in, bartenders from different bars in the area.

“I left the front door unlocked and these guys came in and since I was there I served them,” said Andrew, “and they stayed for a few hours and had such a good time they started coming back and sent a lot of the younger college kids over.”

As Buck the bartender continued to open boxes of little glasses, clean them and stack them on a shelf below the bar, Andrew continued.

“Gregory’s up the street started serving seven little draft beers for a dollar, so I started doing it too, and now we get a lot of the college kids coming in here before they go up the street to Bay Shores, Tony Marts and the other places that have live entertainment and more expensive drinks.”

“Looks like you got live entertainment here too,” Brenner said with a laugh.

“Yea, Croce and Tido, what a combination,” said Andrew, shaking his head as he ordered Buck to set up seven beers and show Brenner how they hold all seven at once, beers they shared with Croce and Tido, who were still playing around with the cords to the song.

Then Andrew snapped is fingers and said that, “I might have a story for you.”

“Check this out,” Andrew said, getting up and opening a little closet door under the steps revealing a large black safe that almost took up the whole closet.

“This was here when we bought the place, but dad never opened it, but I did.”

“Well, what’s in it?” Brenner asked.

“There were three things in the safe,” Andrew said. “A baseball signed by Babe Ruth, a hand drawn map of Atlantic City with different locations marked out, and Dutch Schultz’s wallet.”

Andrew went on to explain that, “A handwritten note in the safe, from a Mrs. Coyle, the wife of a former bartender from the twenties and thirties, said that Schultz brought the safe in one afternoon, and later that night when the place was raided by police, he threw the wallet behind the bar. It’s got a couple of identifications, driver’s licenses with his photo and other people’s names, including Arthur Flegenheimer, but it belonged to Dutch Schultz, who fled from the cops and never came back.”

“Wow,” said Brenner. “Does the map tell you where he hid his loot?”

“I don’t know,” said Andrew. “I can’t decipher it.”

Brenner then said he had to go, but would run the Dutch Schultz safe story past his boss and maybe come back and do something on it, but said he was more interested in Judge Helfant.

“I can’t get into all that,” Andrew said. “David, you can do a story and leave town but I got to live and work here and these are my neighbors so I can’t upset the applecart.”

Then Andrew said quietly, off the record, that one of his bartenders got pinched one night for drunk and disorderly, and went before Judge Helfant at his midnight court and got fined what he had in cash on him at the time, and there was no record of it. But that court pays for the summer police and keeps the taxes down on those who lived there all year ‘round, he explained.

“And they don’t usually bust local guys,” Andrew elaborated. “They usually give the locals a ride home and only hassle the college kids from out of town who get drunk and out of hand.”

Brenner got up, thanked Andrew for the deep background on Judge Helfant and the dinning tip on Daniels, shook hands and promised to get back to him on the Dutch Schultz story.

Andrew then went back to jotting down numbers on pieces of paper on the bar while Tido Mambo played the little Tom Thumb piano with two keys that didn’t work,  and Jim Croce played the guitar and sang his new song: "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown"

Woah!
Bad, Bad Leroy Brown

Well the south side of Chicago
Is the baddest part of town
And if you go down there
You better just beware
Of a man name of Leroy Brown

Now Leroy more than trouble
You see he stand ‘bout six foot four
All those downtown ladies call him "Treetop Lover"
All the men just call him "Sir"

And he's bad, bad Leroy Brown
The baddest man in the whole damn town
Badder than old King Kong
And meaner than a junkyard dog

Act II Episode 11 - The Nomads Case out the Scene

The Nomads Case out the Scene - Joe Walsh and the Nomads Come to Town

With all of the mainstream media publicity – the newspaper profiles and especially Life Magazine calling Ocean City – Somers Point the “Sin Cities of the East” and with a National Enquirer supermarket tabloid sneak preview of  a story Newsweek was preparing on where the Beach Blanket Bingo and Hippies meet the Bikers, the area began to draw an unwarranted amount of new tourists who had never been to the South Jersey Shore before, including a lot of musicians and garage bands looking for work in the vibrant nightclub scene the mainstream media played up and the old folks were all complaining and harping about.

Take the Nomads for example. As an upstate North Jersey high school band from Montclair, they couldn’t cut it in finding work or paying gig in New York City so they packed their VW van with their equipment and headed south on the Parkway to Somers Point and Ocean City.

Joe Walsh, the leader of the Nomads, even spelled it out as he drove down the road – “S-U-M-M-E-R-S-P-O-I-N-T” he sang to the tune of “Gloria” or a sports team cheer – saying “anyplace called Summers Point must be a great place,” and was surprised to see the Exit 30 sign say “Somers Point,” with the correct spelling.

Driving around the Point circle and over the causeway they got excited as they drove into town to see all the college kids walking up and down 9th Street and parked at a meter on the street and walked up on the boards to check out the scene.

It being late afternoon, most of the beach goers were gone or were leaving, but the Shriver’s Pavilion hippie crowd was just gearing up, and there were already a half dozen guitars playing on deck and two or three under the boardwalk, in the shade and shadows and out of the glare of the setting sun.

Joe and the other two guys in his band just walked around for a while and took it all in. There were four but the keyboard player couldn’t make this trip so they decided to make the Nomads a power trio. They each grabbed a slice of pizza at the front counter of Mack & Mancos and walked over to Shriver’s Pavilion to listen to the hippies play.

Joe had his acoustic guitar strapped across his back and his drummer brought a long a little duel bongo set that they sometime used to jam in living rooms, but the more they listened the more they realized that these guys were good, not just your typical hippies playing songs in the park.

Just as the competition between the Tony Marts and Bay Shores bands raised the level of the music to new heights, when one guy plays a really good song, it makes the next guy try a little harder and makes them all better, so Joe and his pals just listened for a while. And though they knew they could play with these guys, they had to go put another nickel in the parking meter and while walking across the boardwalk, Joe stopped to ask the clown selling balloons if there was a place for them to crash that night, other than in their van.

Since it was a week night, some of the rooming houses had a few openings, but it was pretty tight. The clown, a local guy named Freddie Prinz, suggested they go to the Purple Dragon Coffee House on 8th Street, a few blocks away, and ask them about finding a place to crash, maybe meet some hippie chicks who would put them up if they played some love songs.

Freddie was a good source for anything. He could sell you a balloon or a house, as he was also has a license to sell real estate, and had a pickup truck he used to clean out garages, attics and cellars. But at the moment, he was selling balloons, and walked over to a little girl, crying on her father’s shoulders, and gave her a balloon. The tears immediately stopped and a big smile lit up her face as she took hold of the helium balloon with the Mickey Mouse face.

The father was a bit startled, and asked how much the balloon costs and Freddie said “It’s on me. Just seeing her smile was enough,” but the father insisted, as Freddie knew he would, and handed him a $5 bill for a $2 balloon, a psychological ploy that Freddie had finessed as a salesman.

Joe watched that little charade, and bought a balloon he would put on his VW van radio antenna, and thanked Freddie the Clown for the Purple Dragon tip.

Freddie then mentioned, by the way, Tony Marts in Somers Point had open mic night that very night, a sort of audition for new bands, and it could be an opportunity for them if they were any good.

Pumping a few more nickels in the parking meter, the three Nomads walked down the street and around the corner at 8th street and could see the giant Purple Drago paper Mache head jutting out over the front door of the coffee house like a Thanksgiving Parade float.

Now 60s era coffee houses did not really have much to do with coffee like a Starbucks has today. It was more of a counter-culture hangs out for the hip entertainers and beat nick poets, run by a Catholic priest and a protestant minister from the local churches, providing a safe place for young people from out of town to conjugate.

At the Purple Dragon Joe and the Nomads signed up to play later that night, after they went to Tony Marts where the open mic night started at 7 pm. From Stephanie, one of the young girls there, they learned about a rooming house around the corner, where they could park their van and share a two bed bedroom with a cot for ten bucks a night.

Then they drove over the causeway to Somers Point and made their way down to Bay Avenue, following the red neon arrow on Tony Mart’s roof, and parked close to the door so they could move their equipment in if they got an audition.

They were early, and met Tony - Mr. Mart, sitting in his usual seat at the little rectangle elevated bar just to the side of the front door, drinking slowly and smoking a cigar. He asked them a few questions and said they could go on first.

Since his house band, Levon and the Hawks were leaving soon, along with his star attraction, Conway Twitty, Tony was looking for some more talent to fill in the cracks in the lineup, to keep both stages going steady for the next few weeks until Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels came in for Labor Day weekend, riding their hit song “Devil with the Blue Dress.”

Tony Marts was just getting started for the evening, so the waitresses, bar backs and bartenders were setting up their stations, and the stage hands were moving equipment around. The Nomads had to set up their own drum kit and plug in their guitars, but Tony Marts would supply the sound system so they didn’t have to bring in all of their amps and speakers and stuff that filled up the van, keeping them from sleeping in it.

Most bands are four or five guys, but the Nomads, without their keyboard player, were just a drummer and two guitars – bass and lead, and while Tony wasn’t used to it, they did play some songs he recognized and made it clear they had been practicing together a lot so Tony gave them a serious listen. He didn’t give them the hook or pull the plug on their electricity, which he was known to do on some bands that were especially bad, and after a half hour set of six songs, Tony stayed quiet until Joe put his guitar down and went up to him and asked, “How’d we do Mister Mart?”

“Well,” Tony said, “youse boys aren’t that bad, you play the right songs, but the three of you just don’t cut it. Why don’t you go get a few more guys to back you up and a girl lead singer and come back next week and give it another shot.”

With that, Joe smiled, it wasn't a no, and shook Tony’s hand, thanked him for the opportunity and promised to come back with a bigger band next week.

Pumped up from the audition, they went back to Ocean City and set up their equipment in the Purple Dragon where they would play for an hour for $20 and tips and then head up to the boardwalk where they would jam with the hippies there until the cops kicked them out, looking for a keyboard player and a female vocalist to round out their band, the Nomads.

Shriver’s Pavilion had no shortage of good talent, most of which came from the Philadelphia area where the hippies from Rittenhouse Square were spending their summer, but more and more were coming down from New York City where the “Sin Cities” of Ocean City and Somers Point were just getting some media and word of mouth promotion in the Village, attracting an even more professional musical crowd, including the likes of Phil Ochs and Richie Havens, before they were popularly known.

And as the center of the hippie society at the Shore, Shriver’s Pavilion was of particular interest to the Ocean City Police Department Special Investigations Squad, who considered the drugs, loud music and the counter-culture crowd to be a security threat, and had a film camera set up in a second floor window above Shriver’s Candy store from where they captured everything that went down there on celluloid as evidence.

The Philly crowd, who pretty much knew each other from school shows, dances and sporting events, were not to be out done, and their talent really stood out – including a number of performers who would go on to fame and fortune, including John Hall and Darrel Oats, Todd Rundgren, Jim Croce, Patty Smith and Stevie Nicks, whose grandmother ran the rooming house where the Nomads would stay their first night in town.

Stevie Nicks, at 17 was from California, but staying with her grandmother at her rooming house for the summer, making beds and working as a waitress at Watson’s Restaurant – you could tell by her waitress uniform, but after work she usually went to the Purple Dragon or came by Shriver’s Pavilion to listen to the hippies play and occasionally sit in and sing while strumming a borrowed guitar.

She borrowed Joe’s guitar for a little while, played two songs she said she wrote herself, “I’ve Loved and I’ve Lost” and “I’m Sad But Not Blue,” and after she was done, Joe asked her if she would join the Nomads and sing a few songs with them the following Monday, talent night at Tony Marts. He told her about their audition earlier that night, and the invitation to come back with a bigger band. Sure she said, she would take next Monday off, but they had to practice a little as she said she didn’t want to make a fool of herself on stage in front of someone she's only heard about like Mr. Mart himself. She also said she knew a few keyboard players and could get one to join them for the next audition.

Then, around ten o’clock, as the boardwalk police came by, nocking their Billy clubs against the metal boardwalk railing and wood benches of Shriver's Pavilion, telling them it was time to go, the music came to an end, and they walked back to the Purple Dragon and continued jamming into the night, mainly for the under 21 crowd who were too young to get in the Somers Point nightclubs, where the real action was going down on another typical summer night in the Sin Cities.

Act 2 – Episode 12 Number One in ’65

At any given point in time, at least in the ‘60s, there was only one Number One. There was only one president of the United States, one heavyweight champion of the world, one mob boss, and one hit song, book and movie of the week, the last three based entirely on public taste and sales figures.

LBJ was POTUS, the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world Cassius Clay had yet to become Mohammed Ali, Angelo Bruno was the boss of the Philadelphia and South Jersey Underworld while the hit song of the week was heard on the radio, in juke boxes and played by every cover band on the continent.

The Top 20 Songs of the Summer of '65 in the order they appeared at #1 on the Pop Charts were:

Petula Clark - “Downtown”

Gary Lewis and the Playboys - “This Diamond Ring”

Righteous Brothers - “You've Lost that Lovin' Feeling”

The Temptations - “My Girl”

The Beatles - “Eight Days A Week”

Supremes - “Stop! In the Name of Love”

Freddie and the Dreamers - “I'm Telling You Now”

Wayne Fontaine and the Mindbenders – “Game of Love”

Herman's Hermits - “Mrs. Brown, You've Got a Lovely Daughter”

Beatles - “Ticket to Ride”

Beach Boys - “Help Me Rhonda”

Surpremes - “Back In My Arms Again”

Four Tops - “I Can't Help Myself”

Byrd's - “Mr. Tambourine Man”

Rolling Stones - “I Can't Get No (Satisfaction)”

Herman's Hermits - “Henry the VIII I Am”

Sonny & Cher - “I Got You Babe”

Beatles - “Help!”

Barry McGuire - “Eve of Destruction”

McCoys - “Hang on Snoopy”

I remember distinctly, over fifty years later, when I first heard Gary Lewis and the Playboys’ “This Diamond Ring,” - eating a hot dog and drinking a root beer at the Chatterbox when it came on the juke box.

Not all of the songs deserve special mention, though some, like the Byrd’s “Mr. Tambourine Man,” become entwined in the story of what went down at the shore that summer.

The Stones’ “Satisfaction” is one of the songs that got them into the Steel Pier in Atlantic City, and the McCoys, riding “Hang on Snoopy,” shared the bill with them and included hot guitarist Rick Derringer, who would become one of the hot lead guitar gunslingers shooting for number one.

While national sales determine the hit song of the week, and cover bands played all of the Top 20 hits, the local juke boxes better exemplified the preferred musical tastes of the area, and the juke boxes at the Chatterbox, Bob’s Grill, the College Grill, the Anchorage, Gregory’s and other cafes and bars all reflect a different style – some hit songs of the past years that remain popular at the Shore, such as Dion and the Belmont’s “Run Around Sue,” “Pennies from Heaven,” “Bummin’ Around” and some of Johnny Caswell’s songs that were put on the local juke boxes by special request.

The music was heard everywhere – on car radios, on transistor radios on the beach, in the juke boxes and played by the hippies and folkies at Shriver’s Pavilion and in the bars and nightclubs at the Point.

Books on the other hand, were pretty much a beach and front porch thing in the summer time, and it was primarily little, handy paperback books that you could fit in your back pocket and buy from racks at the drugstore, retail shops and Monroe’s Book store on the boardwalk. There was also a used book store just off the boardwalk on 11^th street, one of the last remnants of the old boardwalk.

For serious minds JFK was remembered by Arthur Schlesinger in his “A Thousand Days” chronicle of his administration, and in Theodore H. White’s distasteful “The Making of the President 1964.”

The new paperbacks ruled the beach however, and the best sellers ran the gamut from Frank Herbert’s Sci Fi – “Dune,” Truman Capote’s “In Cold Blood,” and Dr. Seuss’s “Fox in Socks,” to Beverly Cleary’s comic “The Mouse and the Motorcycle.” There was Agatha Christie’s “At Bertram’s Hotel,” Noam Chomsky’s linguistically unreadable “Aspects of the Theory of Syntax,” Robin Moore’s “The Green Berets,” Arthur Hailey’s “Hotel” and spy fiction such as John le Carre’s “The Looking Glass War” and Ian Fleming’s “The Man with the Golden Gun,” though Fleming would become part of the story because of the movie, “Thunderball,” which played one of Mrs. Schilling’s boardwalk theaters that summer.

Mrs. Helen Shriver Schilling owned all of the boardwalk theaters, the Strand at 9^th Street being the biggest and most glorious, with its art deco ambiance, 2,000 seats, wrap around sound, huge screen and light blue silk curtain with the god Neptune rising from the sea that opened at the beginning of each screening.

Then there were the other theaters – the Village, just off the boardwalk at 7^th Street and the Moorlyn, at Moorlyn Terrace across from the music pier, where the manager of all the theaters Mr. Oschlager had his office behind the big screen, and where at the front was an old unused vaudeville stage above the boardwalk stores where W.C. Fields and Sophie Tucker once performed.

Then down at 12^th street there was another big theater that had a stage, backstage, curtains, lights and all the works necessary to put on a Broadway play, as they used to do, but now was just used to screen movies.

The Strand got all of the big blockbusters – The Sound of Music and Doctor Zhivago held sway there for most of the summer, along with “The Greatest Story Ever Told,” with Max von Sydow as Jesus Christ, which gave Tido Mambo’s Jesus routine a publicity boost, but the westerns, war movies, comedies and spy flicks also packed the other theaters all summer long.

Among the westerns there was Clint Eastwood’s “For A Few Dollars More,” “The Sons of Katie Elder,” with John Wayne and Dean Martin, Jane Fonda and Lee Marvin in “Cat Ballou,” Jimmy Stewart’s “Shenandoah,” and Sam Peckinpah’s “Major Dundee” with Charlton Heston.

The war movies included Frank Sinatra in “Von Ryan’s Express,” “Battle of the Bulge,” with Henry Fonda and Robert Shaw, John Wayne “In Harm’s Way,” “The Heroes of Telemark,” about Norwegian resistance fighters during WW2, “Operation Crossbow,”and two military prison flicks “King Rat” and “The Hill.”

The bizzare – “Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!.” Peter Sellers and Peter O’Toole in “What’s New Pussycat,” “Planet of the Vampires,” “Dr. Who and the Daleks,”

The Sci-Fi “Alphaville,” was about “a U.S. secret agent is sent to a distant space city of Alphaville where he must find a missing person and free the city from its tyrannical ruler.”

Louis Malle’s “Viva Maria!,” about the daughter of an Irish terrorist, Roman Polanski’s “Repulsion,” William Wyler’s “The Collector” and Sir Laurence Olivier and Keir Dullea in Otto Preminger’s “Bunny Lake is Missing,” round out the director’s cut.

Others that deserve mention includeElizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton in “The Sandpiper” and Steve McQueen and Ann Margret in the poker playing “Cincinnati Kid.”

Adventure movies included Peter O’Toole as “Lord Jim,” “Ship of Fools,” and “The Naked Prey” safari as well as the “Flight of the Phoenix,” which was taken from Shakespier’s “TheTempest,” where survivors of a plane crash make a flyable plane from the wreckage, just as Captain Somers inspired “The Tempest” when he sailed out of Bermuda with a boat built from his ship wrecked in a storm.

The comedies included Hayley Mills and Dean Jones in “That Darn Cat!,” “The Great Race,” with Tony Curtis, Natalie Wood and Jack Lemmon, and “Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines or How I Flew from London to Paris in 25 hours 11 minutes.” 

Then there’s the Beatles “Help!” where “Ringo finds himself the human sacrifice target of a cult and the band must try to protect him from it,” and Richard Lester’s “The Knack and How to Get It,” about the changing times with the rockers in mod London.

One of the more popular flicks of the summer was “Beach Blanket Bing,” the fourth in the series of Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello beach party movies that include Harvey Lembeck as Eric Von Zipper, the leader of a bumbling motorcycle gang who are like the Three Stooges as the Hells Angels - “I come here to tell you dat dese beach bums is bums,” he says, in a great imitation of Tony Marotta.

On a more somber note, and one that would bring the Beach Blanket Bingo crowd to “On the Beach,” - “The War Game” set the mood of doom as a “fictional, worst-case-scenario docudrama about nuclear war and its aftermath in and around a typical English city.”

The spy flicks included Michael Caine in “The Ipcress File” and “The Spy Who Came in From the Cold,” but Ian Fleming’s “Thunderball” blew them all out of the water, so to speak.

The story of an international terrorist cartel known as SPECTRE – Special Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism and REvenge hijacks two nuclear weapons from a bomber that ditched in the ocean to blackmail the world, and a story that would become entwined with those enjoying the Jersey Shore during that summer of 1965.

Act II Episode 13 - Dix and Dover - The Other Crossroads

The Other Crossroads – Fort Dix and Dover

 Besides the Ocean City – Somers Point crossroads that changed many people’s directions in the summer of ’65, there were two other nearby places of note where major changes in directions were made – Fort Dix in the Jersey Pines and Dover, Delaware.

Fort Dix, where Jim Croce, “JJ” and many others received their basic training, is adjacent to McGuire Air Force Base, where many servicemen departed and returned to after deployment overseas, especially Germany and Vietnam.

Fort Dix is where Croce’s drill sergeant, “Big, Bad” Leroy Brown was given responsibility for training all of the dog soldiers who were considered troublemakers, including Croce, “JJ,” Jimmy Hendrix and dozens of others who just didn’t fit in with the regular recruits.

Leroy Brown was from the South Side of Chicago, and he was a bad ass mother, but he also had a soft spot in that he liked good music, especially the blues, but he liked all kinds of music and was fond of saying, “There’s only two kinds of music, good music and bad music, and I knows the difference when I’s hear it.”

Besides being the top drill instructor, Sgt. Brown was also responsible for the base band, seeing that reveille and taps were played at dawn and dusk every day, that the flag was raised and lowered, and that musical entertainment was provided for officers, politicians and celebrities who visited the base.

Brown also had a key to the canteen, and knowing all of the guys in the band, he got the best of them to jam in the canteen after dinner every night, and also had this little tight group perform for the soldiers as they were getting ready to go overseas and when they returned, as a sort of farewell and welcome home serenade.

While many guys fit in and played with Brown’s jam band, a few stood out, including Elvis, who harmonized with them on his return from Germany, when he was met at McGuire by Nancy Sinatra, who also sat in and sang a song with the band at the Dix Canteen. Hendrix came through there too, with his left handed guitar, but few really took notice of his greatness, and he hadn’t started playing the weird stuff yet, so he was considered just one of the guys.

Private Ronald Hawkins made some musical friends in the service, and took a particular shine to four young black recruits Sgt. Brown introduced him too, a pair of brothers and two cousins who could really harmonize and each played an instrument and jived well with Hawkins, who called them the Black Hawks, but when they got out of the service, the southern white roadhouses where Ronnie Hawkins performed wouldn’t let the Black Hawks play because they were black, so he had to recruit some white kids from Canada to back him, the guys who became the Hawks.

Conway Twitty, then known as Private Harold Lloyd Jenkins was also there, and was beginning to make it as a rock and roll star, and along with Elvis, inspired the Broadway play and musical “Bye, Bye Birdie,” about rock and roll star “Conrad Birdie,” who is drafted into the Army, much to the dismay of his fans. While Colonel Parker wouldn’t let Elvis sing with the Army band or entertain the troops as part of the Special entertainment troop – because the Department of Defense would own the recording and copyright, Conway and Croce and others did entertain the troops, and themselves.

Jim Croce, who wasn’t in the base band, but came around to jam with the group in the canteen after meals. “JJ” also sat in with them on occasion, and was himself serenaded twice, once when he left for Nam and again when he got off the plane on the rebound.

If you got serenaded by the Leroy Brown Dix Canteen Band you were one of the lucky ones. The ones who didn’t make it back alive from Vietnam were put into flag draped boxes and sent to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, where over 50,000 American causalities were processed over the following decade.

                               DIX and DOVER – The Bermuda Triangle Nexus

Dover Air Force Base was where a military cargo plane took off from one sunny afternoon on a routine mission to deliver two nuclear bombs to a Strategic Air Base in Canada when shortly after takeoff, one of its engines suddenly gave out and it began descending quickly.

The pilot kept his cool however, and after running through a number of emergency procedures that failed to work, he tried emergency procedure 3-D107A – eject cargo, and so with the flip of a toggle switch, the rear cargo bay door opened and the skated pallets with two multi megaton nuclear bombs rolled out and before they could splash into the ocean the plane pulled up fast and safely returned to base.

The two multi megaton nuclear weapons however, crashed into the sea somewhere off of Cape May, New Jersey, and floated to the bottom of the ocean, out of sight and out of mind, an incident kept out of the news by the military powers that be, and generally forgotten about until the summer of ’65 when the movie Thunderball was released, and related the story Ian Fleming wrote about the international crime syndicate cartel SPECRTE fishing out two nuclear bombs lost in the ocean and using them to blackmail the world.

Did Fleming know about the two nukes lost off Cape May?

Could some terrorists find them and retrieve them?

Could some fishermen with long line nets snag them?

Where were the bombs and could they be retrieved?

What were those Russian fishing ships doing off the coast of Cape May and what were they fishing for?

How long would it take for the metal casings to erode through releasing the plutonium poison into the sea and polluting the entire North Atlantic Ocean?

When this "Broken Arrow" nuclear accident happened, they just covered it up and didn't even bother looking for the bombs, but the Thunderball movie got some officers at the Pentagon thinking, and one general, who didn’t want to take the fall for someone else’s mistakes, ordered some Colonel to get the answers to those questions, which would also send another dark cloud over the last few weeks of the summer of ’65 at the Jersey Shore.

Act II Episode 14 - Tony Marts Bids Farewell to the Hawks and Conway Twitty

Tony Marts Bids Farewell to the Hawks and Conway Twitty

The nice summer run at Tony Marts of Conway Twitty and Levon & the Hawks finally came to an end, as the headliner’s contract was up and he was “going country” with a new record label and the Hawks managed to get out of their contract early so they could back Bob Dylan as he “went electric,” so it seemed they were going in entirely different directions.

Since Tony was satisfied with the band that Colonel Kudlets was sending him to replace them – Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels, and he really like the Hawks, “they’re real gentlemen,” and he supported Conway in his bid to “go country,” he ordered a pair of cakes from Chester’s Bakery, a few blocks away on Route 9, and threw a farewell party for them.

Since it was a weekday, and there weren’t that many shoobees in town, some of the locals came out as they too enjoyed seeing Conway Twitty and Levon & the Hawks that summer.

As everyone who likes live music knows, the first and last sets of an extended engagement are always the best, as the first one is one to impress, while the last set is more casual, longer and more fun, with other entertainers usually coming by to jam and everybody has a good time.

And so some big wigs came down from New York City for this occasion.

While they are still debating whether or not Bob Dylan actually came to Tony Marts to check out the Hawks before he asked them to join him, Dylan came back to Tony Marts a second time, again with John Hammond, Jr., the blues man, along with their manager Albert Grossman, driving down in Grossman’s limo.

Dylan was a bit anxious as not to be seen by any of the folk and hippie crowd who could recognize him, so he disguised himself a little bit with a hat and sunglasses. Dylan thought about the story John Lennon related, the first time they smoked pot together, about how he – Lennon had put on a London Fog raincoat, a baseball cap and sunglasses, and walked out the kitchen door of the Lafayette Hotel in Atlantic City the previous August, and walked the boardwalk without being recognized. Lennon in disguise checked out Steel Pier, where all of the other British Invasion bands played, except the Beatles, who were originally scheduled to play there but were moved to Convention Hall because it was bigger. Dylan just didn’t want to be hassled by some of his overzealous fans, but the Tony Mart crowd didn’t include many hippies and obliged, as they didn’t recognize him, or it seemed, even care.

Conway Twitty on the other hand, had just signed a new record contract with a label that had a number of other big country acts, like Loretta Lynn, who met Conway at the record company office in New York when he signed the contract. Conway wanted to try to do both - play rock and roll under the name Conway Twitty, and play country under his real name – Harold Lloyd Jenkins, which sounded country enough, even though it wasn’t ripe for rock & roll. To appease his agents and managers, he took the name Conway Twitty by looking a map of the United States and picking out Conway, Arkansas and Twitty, Texas and came up with Conway Twitty.

And like all big stars with a number of successful albums and three hundred some show dates a year, an entourage builds up around them, as they have a band, a manager, an accountant and a publicist, all of whom had families to support. Then there’s the wife and her mother, and usually a girlfriend and her friends, it becomes like a traveling circus. While the rock & rollers are bad on this count, sports stars are even worse, as Alan Iverson had his posse, and boxers are The Worst with their entourages, as Ali and Mike Tyson have shown.

Conway Twitty could keep them all if he continued playing rock & roll, but as his accountant explained, rock & roll is an ever expanding universe while there are only just so many country fans – it’s a matter of numbers, and they weren’t even playing in the same ball park. If Conway went country, as he promised to do, he would have to cut his entourage down to just a small band and one or two others, but that’s all that the country music could support.

The record company executives said it had to be one way or another, he couldn’t do both, so Conway went with his heart and since he was going to “go country” all the way, and some of the company executives, song writer Harland Howard and singer Loretta Lynn all came down from New York to catch Conway Twitty’s last set as a rock & roller.

Harland Howard wrote songs, songs that Conway liked to sing, and he was the guy who convinced Twitty to switch to country, and he was the one who had to explain to Conway’s entourage that the ride was over and they had to get off the gravy train.

When they got to Tony Marts, Harland went over to Tony, shook his hand and thanked him for supporting Conway’s decision and Tony said he would talk to Colonel Kudlets and give Conway an A-1 rating and help him get some work, though Tony Marts was not the place where that kind of music was best appreciated.

Dylan’s manager Albert Grossman also paid his respects to Tony, taking a seat at the bar next to him for a while; he thanked Tony for letting the Hawks out of their contract, and said it was in the best interest of everyone.

After an exuberant set by the Hawks, much to the enjoyment of the crowd, Conway and his band took the stage and did pretty much the same set he did when he returned from his mid-summer hiatus, starting out slow with some beer crying country whiners, and then beginning with a traditional Irish wake version of “Danny Boy,” and then half way through the song switching gears and kicking in with a houserockin’ good time, and then the “Elvis set” of rock & rollers that got the dance floor and the whole place moving.

After a while of that, near the end, Twittyrecgnized Loretta Lynn in the audience, and asked her to come up and sing a song with him, and that she did, beginning one of the most endearing duets to ever get together behind a mic. And when it was over, everyone cried and ate some of Chester’s cakes that Tony had the Go Go girls bring out.

Then the Hawks played their last set of the night, their last set of the summer at Tony Marts, and their last set as the Hawks, and it was a rare one at that, as they didn’t play their usual cover tunes. Instead they played some of the original tunes they had been writing and working on all summer but didn’t play because Tony didn’t want to hear that new stuff – “They’re playing for themselves and not the people,” Tony would say when a band played some original material. But not on this night. The Hawks were good to Tony and Tony was good to the Hawks and let them play whatever they wanted, just like Conway, on this night they had carte blanch at Tony Marts, they could do whatever they wanted and could do no wrong, at least on this night. 

And as the clock ticked closer to 2 am, the Hawks played one last song, “Try A Little Tenderness,” a slow number that got the lovers slow dancing to a song that most people associate with Otis Reading, because he made it a hit, but was actually much older, as the Hawks could attest, and from then on, that song became the traditional final tune the bands played every night at Tony Marts for the next decade.

And when the lights came on, and the doors opened, the people filtered out, some to go home, some to go to the after hour joints, the big wigs went back to New York, Conway Twitty went country and the Hawks left with Bob Dylan, where ever he was going to go.

And the world as it was known would never be the same.