A loose-limbed, late blooming hippy I met the other nite between sets my band was playing at a diabetes benefit asked me what my sign was. I told her, but I didn’t tell her my famous astrology story. You are not so lucky. Late one nite, in the summer of 1969, when I was trying […]
(Sorry for the soft focus. I was trying to beat a meter maid back to my idling car and couldn’t get any closer) Went back t0 Hollywood, my home (believe it or not) town to attend the 57th (?) anniversary of my jr. high school YMCA club, the Banshees-Saracens, and decided to take a little […]
It’s been four months since my last entry, so it’s time for a quarterly update. I continue playing with two woodwind quintets, one up here in Westchester, the other on 75th Street in the city, which is gratifying, if somewhat stressful, since all the other players are much better than I. But it’s my trio, […]
(BTW: And old friend of mine who writes for the San Francisco Examiner has done an article on the kid pursuant to an interview she did of me around the time of Doc Watson’s death. She included a link to a performance I did that I didn’t know about until now. If you’re interested: http://www.examiner.com/article/al-ross-talks-about-his-life-as-guitarist-for-doc-watson […]
I just learned by email that Frank, the clarinetist I’d been subbing for in one of chamber music groups is coming back and expects to pick up where he left off, so I guess that’s it for me and the West End Gang, so named by me because West End Ave. is the street where […]
This is a test, Kenny. Don’t worry, it gets worse. An old friend and fellow Evergreen Blueshoes member and I have been pepper-spraying each other with emails for the past years, and it’s time to try to fuck him up with a post. Kenny Kleist, organist, trumpet and sax player, guitar picker, singer and […]
Sometimes Doc Watson stayed with me when he played at the Ash Grove, which was the top folk music club in L.A. in the ‘Sixties. That’s where you’d play if you were a marquis folk act or were just starting to make it, and Doc was just starting to make it. He had records out […]
An old friend, Janet Gallin Kelter interviewed me on Doc Watson for her website, Love Letters Live (last word pronounced both ways, I think) and I like the way it came out. Probably better than I could have covered the things she asked me about. It’s also a great site for other interesting, often exciting, […]
If someone comes into your home a couple of weeks a year for three years in a row, you’re probably going to remember it, and maybe have some lasting memories from it. And so it was with Doc Watson, who stayed with me every time he played at the Ash Grove in LA in the […]
Two friends, Iris Cohen and Pete Tamburrini, and I just formed a folk-pop band to play local gigs and casuals (which are usually anything but; people expect you to know the music they know or they’ll cop a attitude and maybe throw fruit). Anyway, we call ourselves the CoDependents with Pete on guitar and vocals, […]
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