Forgive this indulgence. This is me processing. If youre from Bartlesville, you might already know this. If not, it wont really matter. I learned alst night that back in May, the next door neighbor by whom Ive measured next door neighbors ever since died. For a lot of us from Bartlesville, W.C. Mac McIlvain was the single degree separating us from a Beatle. I wasnt there, but I saw the photos. One night in Tulsa in 1971, his band Down Home was playing at a bar. Two guys walk in. They listen for a set. During the break, they confer with the band - in particular the keyboardist and lead guitarist to make sure they wouldnt be n intrusion - and then one walks up to a mike and says mynameisleopnrussell and thisisgeorgeharrison and weregonnaplaywiththebandforawhile. And they did, played an hour or so and then split. Mac played drums. That was the thing I knew about him in 1960, when his family moved into the corner house on Hill Drive that had seen two previous occupants in the two years my family lived on Old Tulsa Road at that point. He washed dishes at the Madison Junior High cafeteria to pay for most of what a trap set cost back then, and then played in three different bands that I know of before his 1966 graduation from Col-Hi. They often practiced either in his familys den or on the back patio. His mom and step-dad asked my parents if the noise was a problem, and Thank God they believed playing music was one of the best things four teen-aged boys could do to generate noise and process their emotions in early 60s America. The Vibrations came first, led by Mike Floyd during the year or so before The Beatles broke. I mainly remember them doing an English-words version of La Bamba. then, they broke up. Mike formed The Echoes and Mac, Dave Fraser, Greg Cassidy and Buddy Cunningham spent two years as The Tempests. They had the two guitars - bass - drums format of the Fabs, but were a touch more old school. The only Beatle songs I remembver them doing were Buddy singing lead on Ill Cry Instead and Dave, the usual lead singer, singing Larry Williams Slow Down. Other songs. Little Latin Lupe Lu. You Cant Sit Down. You Cant Judge a Book by Looking at the Cover. They did Do You Love me before the Dave Clark record came out and Mac was pretty contemptuous of Clark as a drummer. Ringo doesnt know some of the fundamentals, but he plays great, he answered one of my endless annoying questions. Clark might as well be holding two wrenches. Hed listen to and learn songs from the radio, but the records he owned tended toward R&B or pre-Beatle American rock. The singles I remember were usually by Ray Charles. I onloy think he owned a couple of albums back then, The Wham of That Memphis Man by Lonnie Mack, which he worshipped, and a hits album by James Brown that was pre Papas Got a Brand New Bag. It should be clear that Mac, along with several of my cousins and the late Phil Kreigh, supplied this 9-12 year old with huge hunks of his pop music education. Mac knew things generally about the music business. One thing that has stayed with me is that those cool weekly surveys the Top 40 stations printed were commercial exercises. Congress wouldnt let radio stations take pay for play or payola, so they sold survey positions. I remember kvetching that it was ridiculous for KELi to say It Aint Me Babe was the No. 1 single for 1965 in its New Years Eve countdown and getting a how stupid are you kind of rejoinder that such a distinction meant absolutely nothing. That the record company (White Whale) had likely bought the placement. Great record, of course, although I really liked You Baby better among those first Turtles records. During this period, KELi I think but it might have been KAKC, was using The Tempest playing some song about midnight - I dont think Midnight Hour, but I think it was a cover and googling hasnt yielded anything else for me - as sign-off music as 12. Also by that time, The Tempest had broken up and Mac had curiously formed his next band with another drummer (Larry Lagel which I might be spelling wrong my family rented his familys house our first year in Bartlesville while they were in Borger or something.). That meant he would be playing bass and singing lead, the songs I remember being a loose, no=harmonies version of California Dreaming and a similar Little Red Riding Hood that for which he spent much time between takes perfecting the line Gonna Keep my sheep suit on. His singing was colorful. He was a colorful guy. I guess one of the thigns you had to do in sophomore English back then was to memorize Anthonys funeral oration in Julius Ceasar. He practiced the thing, pacing in his back yard, and in particular - in the same manner as two years later processing Sam the Sham - would hang on and work on And Brutus (pause) is an honorable man. We moved to Harris Drive the same late summer that Mac went off to college. I was in high school when I started running into him when he was back in town from Down Homes road schedule, and never had a bad conversation with the guy. the last one was in 1973, and I really regret that. I have thought about him loads back when I wrote about music, and since them when Ive written about writing about music. the obits I saw didnt mention drums. Thats part of why Ive written this.
Posted on: Sun, 20 Jul 2014 17:06:12 +0000