Street Player

by Danny Seraphine

  “I don’t know how to play bass pedals that well, but I can try,” Bobby explained over the phone.

  Once he agreed, we had our bases covered—a stellar horn section, a great guitarist, and a multitalented keyboard player. Bobby would be able to provide the middle-register voice, while Terry took care of the low-end vocals. I couldn’t wait to see what we could do musically as a group. With the amount of talent in the band, the possibilities were endless.

  5

  The Big Thing

  By March 1967, no more than six weeks after seeing the Missing Links dissolve, we had a new project in the works. We scheduled a first rehearsal and everyone met at Walt’s mother’s house in the suburb of Maywood. Once we had set our equipment up in the basement, we headed back upstairs to the kitchen and introduced ourselves over beers. Not only was I the youngest, but also the shortest. It was like walking through a forest up in the kitchen; most of the guys were six feet tall or more.

  I was excited to meet the new guys in person. Jimmy Pankow was good-natured and likable from the start. He came from an upper-middle-class family out in the white-collar community of Park Ridge and had gone to Notre Dame High School before continuing on to study music at Quincy College and DePaul University. To be honest, I had never hung out with anyone like Jimmy before. He was a regular Joe College—good-looking, clean-cut, with his hair perfectly combed to one side. There was almost a nerdy quality to him. As with Walt and Lee, music ran in Jimmy’s family and his father had also been a musician.

  Bobby Lamm was tall and good-looking, but surprisingly quiet and almost introverted. He had grown up in Brooklyn, New York, and later moved to Chicago, where he had gone on to study music at Roosevelt University. Bobby was the intellectual in the room, and having grown up partly in New York City, he was very hip and well-read—a real cool character. He was also five years older than me, which was a wide gap at that age. In contrast to Walt and Jimmy, Bobby had more of a serious personality.

  From the moment the six of us started jamming in the basement, everyone knew we really had something. Bobby might have come across as rather unassuming in person, but behind the microphone he absolutely wailed. I couldn’t believe how soulful his voice was, and I mean Righteous Brothers blue-eyed soulful! Talk about a major score! And any lingering doubts about Lee’s ability quickly disappeared. His intense dedication to his instrument was paying off and he sounded better than ever.

  At the same time, the “in the pocket” musical relationship Terry and I had developed during his days of playing bass carried over into his guitar work. Having functioned together as a rhythm section for so long, we had a unique type of groove and swing you didn’t hear in most bands.

  Walt had told us Jimmy Pankow was a great trombone player, and he was right on the money. Jimmy’s talent for writing out horn charts and arrangements was also obvious. He sat down in between numbers and feverishly wrote out horn voicings in his notebook. At one point I looked over at Walt as if to say, Can you believe this? I’m sure he was thinking the exact same thing.

  After we finished jamming, we went upstairs and found seats around the dining room table. Walt and I had discussed what we intended to accomplish with this new group. It was important to start off by bringing everything out into the open.

  “Listen,” I told the guys. “Everyone has been involved in bands that have gone nowhere and had to deal with being treated like shit by other members on a regular basis. We’ve seen big egos take over and ruin groups. Well, this band isn’t about any of that; it’s about the music. Everything will be done by a democratic vote. I say we make a pact right now that no one is ever going to be fired from this group. You either quit or you die.”

  The guys had no complaints with what I was saying. We needed this band to be every member’s first priority. This group wasn’t going to be a job; it was going to be a lifestyle. We made a pact and one by one shook hands on it around the table. It was time to live the music. It would be the only way if we were intent on getting anywhere and making careers in the business.

  “We follow the music wherever it takes us. For as long as it takes us,” I added. Walt reinforced everything I said. We were on the same page every step of the way.

  We then consummated the deal by smoking a joint in the backyard. When we came back in the house, Walt’s mother, Ruth, had a batch of her delicious homemade chili waiting. Food had never tasted so good. I looked around the table and could see that every one of us was full of anticipation.

  Our new group wasted no time in hiring the main promoter from the Hi-Spot, Joe De Francisco, to manage our new project. Joe had been managing the Mob and had them earning solid money out in Las Vegas. Overall, he knew what he was doing. Besides, what he lacked in business knowledge he made up for in persuasiveness. Joe wasn’t exactly the easiest guy for club owners to say no to. He did things his way no matter what anyone said. From the start, he had some immediate ideas for our group, not all to our liking.

  “I got it figured out,” he explained to us one day. “You guys ready for this? Your name’s going to be Top Banana.”

  The band traded a few confused glances with each other. “I don’t know if that is such a good name for a band,” Walt piped up.

  Joe D fell silent for a moment and scratched his head. “Okay then, forget about that other one. Your name’s gonna be the Big Thing,” he said, only with his thick Chicago accent it came out sounding more like “the Big Ting.”

  The band looked at each other once again. “Do we have a choice?” Terry asked.

  “No, that’s your name,” Joe replied.

  None of us knew how to answer. It was obvious we hated the name, but nobody had the balls to argue with Joe. He was the one who was going to be getting us work, so he was calling the shots.

  “It’s settled then,” he said proudly. “The Big Ting.”

  Joe’s intention was to try to mold us into the same type of act that the Mob had become—a Vegas show band. That was where success lay at that time, so we went along with the plan. Back then, it wasn’t about writing original music and recording albums; it was about fine-tuning an “act” and performing shows. Joe took the band down to the legendary men’s shop Smokey Joe’s on Maxwell Street and bought us suits to wear during our shows. Although they were cheaper knockoff versions of the expensive brand-name suits on the market, they still looked sharp.

  With our new name and image in place, the six of us practiced constantly in Walt’s mother’s basement and developed a solid sense of chemistry. We tore through tunes like “Hold On, I’m Coming” by Sam and Dave and “(You’re My) Soul and Inspiration” by the Righteous Brothers with relative ease. Bobby’s and Terry’s vocals perfectly complemented each other. Our horn section was working hard to become as tight as possible and Jimmy continued to show his skills with charting and arranging.

  Once we were confident enough, we played our first show out at the Pussycat on a crowded Saturday night. Our sound was massive in the room. We were so tight and controlled that even the band couldn’t believe what we were hearing onstage. Up until that point, we had been limited to the acoustics in Walt’s mother’s basement, and now here we were blowing the doors off of a legitimate nightclub. For the most part, the audience was impressed and couldn’t believe what a big sound we had (maybe Joe D wasn’t all wrong with the name). It was like nothing I had experienced performing in Jimmy Ford and the Executives or the Missing Links. There was a much more interesting and unique type of chemistry between us.

  Being a little on the stiff side and having grown up in a different type of community, Jimmy took a lot of ribbing from the rest of us. One of our main sources of ridicule was his relationship with his girlfriend at the time. Everyone thought she had him completely pussy-whipped, and we never let him forget it. Once we caught him in a lie when he made up an excuse for not being able to play a gig. Turned out he was busy taking her to her high school prom. The guys and I started calling her “Chickey Sweets.”

&nb
sp; “How’s Chickey Sweets, Jimmy?” we’d ask him. “Will she let you out of the house tonight?”

  We were relentless, but to his credit Jimmy was always a good sport.

  Not that I didn’t have my own Chickey Sweets to answer to. I had asked Rose to marry me, and in the summer of 1967 she and I tied the knot at the beautiful St. Michael’s Church. After the ceremony, my mother cooked up a batch of her famous lasagna and we had a wonderful reception back at my parents’ house on Normandy Avenue. The following night, we had a smaller get-together where Rose’s mother put together a traditional Japanese-style dinner for everyone. Unfortunately, my schedule with the Big Thing didn’t let us have a proper honeymoon. The very next night the band was scheduled to play a gig in Peoria, Illinois, so I brought Rose along for the trip. We spent the night in a run-down hotel that we later found out was a brothel, of all things. It wasn’t exactly the best introduction to married life for either of us, but we made the best of it.

  When we went back to Chicago, my parents were nice enough to let us live in my bedroom to allow us time to save money for a place of our own. Rose spent her time between my parents’ house and her mother’s. Her mother’s health had taken a turn for the worse. We came to find out that years earlier she had been exposed to radiation from the A-bomb dropped on Hiroshima, and now she had been diagnosed with cancer and was in tremendous pain. It got to the point where she needed around-the-clock attention. It wore heavily on Rose and I did all I could to support her.

  My dad had moved on from his job driving the bread truck and opened a convenience store in Arlington Heights. My grandmother thought I should be working in the family business and not running around playing music. “You should be helping your father, Danootz,” she told me.

  I understood what she meant. Our family had always supported one another, but there was no way I could see myself working in the store. I would never be able to stand behind a cash register day after day. It would have driven me mad.

  Besides, the Big Thing was still trying to build a positive word of mouth around the city. The band had to remain my primary focus at all times, even though we still weren’t getting the amount of gigs we thought we should have been. One day, I was explaining the band’s situation to a guy from the neighborhood named Denny Colucci. Denny was a real man’s man whom everyone respected. I told him about the troubles we were experiencing in booking gigs.

  “Hell, Danny,” he said. “I’ll manage you guys. I’ve got plenty of connections around town.”

  It didn’t sound like a bad idea. Besides, Joe D wasn’t making things happen for us. He wasn’t able to duplicate the type of success he had with the Mob.

  “That would be great, but what about Joe D?” I asked. “He’s been handling things for us.”

  Denny gave me a smile and put his hand on the back of my neck. “I’ll take care of Joey. Don’t you worry,” he said.

  In the natural pecking order of the neighborhood, Joe D may have been well respected, but Denny was a level above him. His taking over as manager wouldn’t even be an issue. That was the way things went. After they talked, Joe graciously stepped aside.

  Denny had the best of intentions, but it wasn’t like he was banging down doors trying to get the band to the next level. Even with his connections in Chicago, our shows didn’t get any better. When we played a club called Barnaby’s in the middle of the brutal Chicago winter, we couldn’t draw flies. Even the waitresses stood motionless, staring blankly at us performing up onstage. When we finished our set, two people sitting at the bar offered a couple of claps without even turning to face us. While we were packing up our equipment, the manager came out of the back office. He was a hip young guy named Phil Rapp, who was very supportive of the bands that came through his club.

  “You know what, guys? You sound fantastic,” he enthused. “But it’s all about marketing. I am going to put on a promotion for you.”

  Phil hatched a plan on the spot to offer free fried chicken with the price of admission to our show on Sunday afternoons to draw the younger college crowd. It sounded a bit zany at first, but I figured any promotion was good promotion. None of the band had a clue how it would go over until the following Sunday, when we arrived to see a long line of college kids out in front of Barnaby’s waiting to get in. Who knew how popular fried chicken was?

  As crazy as it may sound, Phil’s Sunday fried chicken promotion played a major role in launching the Big Thing in the city. He also had the bright idea of booking us to open up for another group called the Exceptions, who were the number one act in the Chicago at the time. Phil knew that people would catch on to us if they had a chance to see us play. The draw we needed came with the Exceptions, a highly skilled band that showcased the talents of a young bassist and vocalist named Peter Cetera. Peter was tough to miss up onstage with his free-flowing blond hair. He had the looks and the skill. It was incredible what his band could pull off. They performed flawless cover versions of the Beach Boys’ “Good Vibrations” and the Beatles’ “Paperback Writer” that sounded identical to the album cuts.

  At the same time, the Big Thing started integrating more challenging material into our sets, such as extended songs by Frank Zappa and Beatles tunes like “Got to Get You into My Life” and “Magical Mystery Tour.” Above all, the audiences were impressed with Jimmy’s arrangements. Not many bands were doing what our horn section was at the time. Barnaby’s was packed up to the rafters, and judging by the audience response, the Big Thing was beginning to overshadow the headliner. It wasn’t long before we began blowing the Exceptions off the stage.

  A few weeks later, Jimmy Guercio came back into town. He had been hired by CBS Records as a staff producer and was working with the Buckinghams. The group had four top ten singles that year, including the number one song “Kind of a Drag.” Guercio never understood why Terry hadn’t taken him up on his offer to join the Illinois Speed Press and move out to California. He was curious to know the reason why Terry had stayed back in Chicago, so we arranged for him to come out to one of the Big Thing’s shows at Shula’s Club in Niles, Michigan.

  At the end of the night, Guercio came backstage and began pacing the dressing room. Something had really gotten into him. “You guys are the best band I have heard in a long time,” he said. “I want to sign you to my production company right away.”

  Guercio’s positive feedback meant a lot to us. I had a tremendous amount of respect for his opinion. We had a legitimate mover and shaker in the music industry telling us we had blown his mind! What more could we hope for?

  We had a meeting and decided Jimmy’s offer would be good for the future of the band. Denny wasn’t going to try and compete with Jimmy. He understood the kind of pull Guercio had in the music industry. Being the skeptical corner guy, I brought the contract Guercio offered us down to a local attorney in the city.

  “One thing’s for sure,” the lawyer said, sliding the papers back across his desk. “Be aware that this guy your band is signing with is going to own you lock, stock, and barrel.”

  Despite the attorney’s feedback, the Big Thing went ahead and signed the contract. There was no negotiating with Jimmy Guercio. Maybe we should have done more to secure a better arrangement, but it was the infancy of the music industry as we know it today and that was just how things operated. Artists were often taken advantage of. Besides, Guercio said he intended to bring us out to California to record an album within the near future. We didn’t want to let anything stand in the way of a chance to hit it big.

  After signing with Guercio, I found out the Exceptions were having some trouble. There were rumblings that Peter Cetera was leaving the band. Anyone who was a fan of the music scene in Chicago knew Peter was an immense talent, and once the rumor spread, every group wanted him. I seized the opportunity and pulled him aside after a gig one night.

  “Listen, why don’t you think about joining our band?” I asked. “We’ve already got Terry handling the low vocal and Bobby doing the middle. Yo
u’d be perfect for the high range,” I explained.

  Peter had a bunch of offers he was considering, but being a fast-talker, there was no way I was letting him off the hook. I was determined to land the best singer in the city for our band. The Big Thing was developing into a finely tuned machine—an absolute steamroller. Peter’s talents would make the band stronger, more versatile, and round out our sound.

  “We both know that you could join any band in the city. But none of them come close to what we are doing right now,” I confidently told Peter. “The Big Thing is going places.”

  All of us believed it was only a matter of time before we found the right opportunity to break through. I pressed Peter at every opportunity and finally my constant nagging paid off. He agreed to join. Part of me wasn’t sure if it was because he truly wanted to or was just sick and tired of me pressing him about it night after night. It was probably a little of both.

  Unfortunately, Guercio wasn’t initially in favor of the addition, since Peter had gotten a reputation in some music circles in Chicago for being a prima donna. In some ways it was true—Peter’s confidence in his playing and singing often came across as arrogance. The bottom line was that Peter knew what an asset he was to our band and wasn’t interested in kissing anybody’s ass. This mind-set initially rubbed Guercio the wrong way, but I was adamant about including Peter. The group was starting to move into more rock-oriented material similar to bands like the Rolling Stones and the Beatles. If we were to continue in the same direction, Bobby would not be able to carry the load by relying on his pedals. Having a bass player wasn’t an option any longer; it was a necessity.