Cover Photo: Michael Stanley Band 1976 Courtesy of Janet Macoska
Ever wonder what makes a band a stadium headliner or a never known bar band? Is it luck? Is it talent? A combination of both? This musing is because I put on my playlist this morning and up popped a song by the band Robbing Mary. Have you ever heard of them? Probably not but you really should have but more about them later.
Growing up in Cleveland and working in bars since I was 15 (those were different days people, settle down) I’ve heard a lot of bands playing in bars trying to break out and couple that with working around in the concert industry since the mid/early 70’s I’ve heard my share of music, good and bad and occasionally my ear does pick up when there is something special about a band (it also misses at times like when I first heard Rush at The Agora in ‘74 and said this band will never make it and left about half way thru the show but that’s another story for another time). It’s more than just can they play a guitar or sing a song well, most bands or musicians can do that but to be really good you have to have that “something special” that connects to the listener in the audience even though they probably don’t realize it at that moment but they keep coming back to see you or they buy your album your selling off the side of the stage because you touched them.
What I’m trying to ask (I know in a very long way) is why is it that a band that touched you when saw them years ago and felt “these guys are great” are still playing bars? Why aren’t they bigger? What’s holding them back?
Again growing up in Northeast Ohio we’ve had our share of what if’s.
Michael Stanley might be our biggest example. I remember picking up the first Michael Stanley album in ‘72 and listening to it and right off the bat loving “Rosewood Bitters” and “Movin Right Along” but wasn’t overwhelmed by Michael overall. A year or two later I read that he was putting a band together with Danny Pecchio of Glass Harp, Tommy Dobeck who I knew from the band Circus and Jonah Koslen. Listened to their first album and again wasn’t really blown away. It wasn’t like a “these guys are going to be huge” moment for me. No that came when I walked into a bar one night and heard them live. The studio albums I was listening to could not capture the magic they had live until they put out one of the best live albums ever recorded with “Stagepass.” That album gave you all of the excitement and feel you got by seeing them live. That album was going take them to the next level but it never really happened. People will argue they were big and you can’t argue they weren’t huge in our neck of the woods but outside of our little universe most people really don’t know them. They toured, played shows like Dick Clark’s “American Bandstand” and Don Kirshners Rock Concert but even though here they could sell out shows at the Richfield Coliseum (where acts like Billy Joel and John Mellencamp opened), Cleveland Stadium and still hold the record with 74,000 people coming to see them at Blossom Music Center they never really caught on to a larger audience nationwide. So tell me was it a lack of talent? C’mon they were as talented if not more so than their contemporary bands at the time like Kansas, Boston, REO Speedwagon and many more. No had they had the talent but what held them back, what stopped them from selling out stadiums around the country like they did here?
In a 2014 interview with Chuck Yarborough of the Plain Dealer, Michael said about the lack of national recognition “There is this misconception that we weren’t successful,” “We had 11 albums in 13 years,” he said. “Just being AROUND 13 years is being successful.” “Look, if I had the answer, I would have done it,” he said. “It would have been great to take it to the next level and national stardom.”
But is it? The talent was there but was the luck missing?
I remember going to my grandmother’s funeral in Mississippi and running into a cousin who was a vice president at MCA records in Nashville. We were driving around somewhere and in my car I had a copy of Alex Bevan’s “Springboard” album in the tape deck. I remember him reaching over and turning it up and really listening to it. I stayed quiet and after several songs he looked over and asked who is this? I told him about Alex and how he had a great following in Cleveland and how he was our “folk” legend. He asked if he wrote his own songs and after he listened to the rest of the tape he said “this guy is really good.” I told him he should make a trip to Cleveland as Alex plays every week somewhere and he should check him out. Well he never did come to Cleveland and when “Grand River Lullaby” came out I sent him a copy with a note to give it a listen. Nothing ever came from it. Was it a lack of talent? No, not at all. Alex is one of the best songwriters to come out of Cleveland and his voice fits his music perfectly. That’s why you couldn’t get into his shows at bars at his peak. He hit a note with people and they loved him. I don’t think I’ve ever told Alex that story but man how I wish I could have gotten my cousin to just make that trip.
Again talent or luck?
I was having lunch with John Gorman right after his book about WMMS came out and we were talking about this very subject. Cleveland in the 70’s had the “perfect storm” for launching a band. You had clubs like The Agora and Smiling Dog where a band could come to town and get a foothold with an audience. We also had the Belkin brothers, Jules and Mike who built up a powerhouse promotion house with Belkin Productions and they could take that band from the Agora and move them to bigger halls like Music Hall, Public Hall, Cincinnati Gardens, Vets Memorial in Columbus and many more venues in the Midwest and expose them to more people. Then to finish the triangle you had WMMS who was a power when it came to audience loyalty. If you got your album on WMMS you had a big leg up on the competition because if MMS played it, people bought it.
How many stories have you heard about huge national acts now getting their first break because of Cleveland. Bowie, Rush and everyone has heard the story about Bruce Springsteen and Cleveland. He was getting ready to be dropped by his label and Columbia didn’t even want to put out the album “Born To Run” because of the lack of success of his first two albums but because of the push locally by WMMS and Kid Leo and the fact that Cleveland at the time sold more albums per capita than anywhere in the U.S.A. “Born To Run” got the push needed to get the label behind the album and in essence behind Springsteen. What would have happened if WMMS didn’t push the album? Would Springsteen be the Springsteen we know now?
Was it luck or talent?
Back to Robbing Mary where we all started in this story. I was at a charity event and was talking and having a drink with the late Jim Henke who at one time was an editor at Rolling Stone and at the time was the chief curator at the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame. We were just shooting the shit when the band that was the entertainment for the night started to play. I didn’t really give them any attention as we were talking and then they launched into a song I never heard before called “Lower A Line” an original song by them. I just stopped talking and turned my head to the stage and was mesmerized. This song was great, it was one of those moments where you think “this is special”. They then played another song “Glad To Be” that was almost as good. I remember turning to Jim and asking “who the hell are these guys?” He said he had no clue and I asked him “are these guys as good as I think they are?” I wasn’t sure if it was the music or was I spending too much time at the bar. Right around then the band said the last two songs were off their new album and they had free copies by the stage if people wanted one. Jim and I walked over and we each picked up a copy of their album “El Otro Lado”.
A few days later I gave the album a review on the original clevelandrockandroll.com website and I compared them as a newer version of Buffalo Springfield/Byrds hybrid and in my review thought they had it. If they continued down this track they could make it but guess what……12 years later they are still putting albums out with some really good songs and I see they occasionally play around the area but…..
Is it talent or luck?
There are so many of these stories out there but no matter how I analyze it I still can’t find the answer. Music is so subjective, and everyone hears it differently so maybe the answer will never be found or maybe it’s for the lucky few that have talent.
