BSBBBACKSTORY

Chicago, Illinois

JUNE 5th @ The Club

San Francisco, California

AUG 26th @ The Music Ranch

Las Vegas, Nevada

OCTl 30th @ Blues Room

PLUMB BOD & FRIEND AT JASPER

THE PAKARD IN BETTER DAYS

the Bijou Street Blues Band backstory

1971 saw the band achieve it’s largest and most peculiar audiences
since the beginning

1971 saw the band achieve it’s smallest, largest and most peculiar
audiences since the beginning. The year was highlighted by the summer
Ghost TownTour, with these memorable stops included:

South Park City        Leavick        Como
Garos        St. Elmo        Hancock
Romley        Parlin        Woodstock
Kebler        Tincup        Jasper
Summitville        Shalako        Tomichi
Bonanza        Oil Creek        Virginia Dale
Laporte        Red Cliff        Holy Cross City

Led by their relentless road manager, Bill Blair, the boys continued to
refine their chops at altitiudes of up to 11,000 feet. The electrical
problems inherent with a Ghost Town tour were solved by using two early
Honda 125 cc motorcycles in tandem, one for positive electricity, the other
for negative. these doubled as beer run scooters, as they could hold one
Bijou and one case of beer. With Billy Blair taking care of business, we
never had to worry about getting paid. Billy, his dog Falstaff, and his
Alaskan Guide Special .45 made sure the money was on time and all there,
no matter what the booker had in mind. Not that he needed the dog or the
gun very much; at that age, he’d rather fight than &^%$!

Transportation was always a problem, as money was usually tight in
those early scuffling days. The vintage Packard ambulance went to the car
graveyard in the sky on old Monarch Pass road, and Bill Blair walked the
15 miles into the mine HQ and bought a dump truck from the
superintendent to finish up that leg of the tour.

The mountains weren’t nearly as crowded back then as they are now in
the 21st century, so the boys had plenty of time and elbow room to enjoy
their off time. Not being smart enough to keep scrapbooks, there aren’t
many pictures from that era, but there are indelible memories of the warm
days, cool nights,wildlife, scenery and the relaxed atmosphere of the small
towns. People were a lot more charitable towards drunken itinerant
musicians back then, and the boys enjoyed the hospitality of many a hill
jack and family. Some of the few pictures that have turned up include
Larry practicing at an old hotel in Gunnison; looks like haircuts were in
short supply that summer! The other is Bad Bob after a few Schlitz Malt
Liquors, dancing with the only girl that would stay …..

Girls, groupies, etc.

“You have to remember” said Horse “those were more carefree days, as
far as social diseases and the like went. You’ve heard that old bluegrass
tune, How Mountain Girls Can Love, haven’t you? Well, I’m here to tell you
–
it’s God’s own truth. Some of those girls hadn’t seen a young man since
the summer before and just plain loved the idea of putting a great big smile
on the face of a lonesome young guitar player. Yee-ha! Hey, don’t tell my
wife that one, OK?”

357 reminisced with us about his favorite memory of the Ghost Town
Tour. “Up at Mt. Princeton, where we stayed at the old hot springs for the
St. Elmo-Tincup-Romley weekend of the tour, they had a old mine
tramway.   Just a steel cable and an ore bucket that went from the hot
springs up to the last mine to play out on the high side of Chalk Creek
Canyon. I think the mine was called the Kaken. Anyhow, I met these two
Irish girls, tourists in America for the summer. Lordie, lordie, they were
sweet and could make you forget all about your blues. Between the tram
ride and the private hot tub, it’s the weekend I’ll never forget. Hey, my wife
isn’t gonna see this page, is she?”

“There was this great big girl, I betcha 6 feet tall and a good 225
pounds, all curly hair and flannel underwear, that decided Billy Blair was
the finest hunk of manhood she had ever laid her slightly crossed eyes on”
said Gatemouth. “That girl fell for Billy and fell hard, even though he would
only give her the time of night, not day, if you catch my drift. She followed
us all through southern Colorado, until Bill told her we were going to
Durango when we were actually headed up to Laporte. By the time she
caught up to us, Billy had trained the dog to run people off on command,
so that was the end of Big Fat Cindy.” Last I heard of her, she was running
the UFO Dude Ranch in Sawatch.

Music

Some gigs were better than others, but the one constant was that the
repretoire constantly expanded. If the crowd was tolerant, or too loaded to
notice, the band would play one song for a whole set. Things like Mountain
Jam, Soul Serenade, Crossroads got longer and longer in some of those
ex-whistlestops. One night, Rick never had to sing at all, which was a good
thing, as he was in the early stages of trying to enlarge his liver. Dan
Jenkins, author of Semi-Tough said “A man can’t be considered drunk
unless he is lying on the floor, unable to speak his native language.”.
Either Rick and Vic were drunk that night, or they were speaking in tongues.

That was also the summer the band truly learned the art of compromise
in music. They wanted to make each other happy and keep everyone
interested, so some gigs featured old time rock and roll, others jazz, with a
lot of soul music thrown in. It wasn’t just a blues band by the end of that
summer……

Bijou Alumni

Tom "Gatemouth" Geiman
Dan " The Finger" Heidenreich
Rick "Redline" Renner
Larry "357" Mangan
Dave "Horse" Patriarche
Bob "Plumb Bob" Braidwood
Bob "Bad Bob" Ledford
Walter "Bonedaddy" Chase
Steve "Homeboy" Williams
Jay Cox, "the Man with the Box"
Lydia Durr
Jake Jacoby
Dave Brull
Vic Russelavage
Edd Barber