Omaha Rainbow : Issue 7
The wedding invitation read, "Mrs.George S. Ford, Jr. , requests the honour cf your presence at the marriage of her daughter Buffy to John Stewart on Sunday September Twenty-first Nineteen Hundred Seventy-five at 2.30 in the afternoon. Christ Episcopal Church, San Carlos & Santa Rosa Avenue, Sausalito, California." I really was knocked out to receive that, my one great regret being that they hadn't fixed the date to be about one month earlier. If it had, I would have been there. As it was, I was back at work and there was no way I could get the time off to make it over there. By way of consolation, I telephoned John to say I couldn't make it and.....just my luck, he was in Los Angeles. However, I did talk with Buffy, who tol d me the wedding was going to, ''be insane, there must be about 250 guests, and my mother doesn't know whether she's coming or going, it's all so hectic." I had hoped that Maureen Grimwade would be able to get over from San Francisco to Sausalito to give us an eye wltness account but, sadly, she couldn't, so we can only assume that everything went as planned. Need I say that everyone at Omaha Rainbow wish the Lonesome Picker and Angel Rain a long and happy life together ? I've said it ,
Returning to Maureen, she will be coming back to England for good in November and, as Ethel Hopley seems to have vanished off the face of the earth for the moment, news for this column is likely to be increasingly difficult to come by. She has also asked me to point out that the concert described in the last 0'Bsessions was, in fact, at the San Francisco Masonic Auditorium. Now back to my phone conversation with Buffv. It seems that there is another album to come on RCA but, as yet, there are no firm plans go into the studios to begin work on it. The better things in life are always worth the wait , I asked Buffy about John's current band. Apparently there is no steel or keyboards player. Apart from John on acoustic and electrlc guitar, banjo and piano (though not all at once.....he's not Rusty Young , .) there's still Arnie Mocre on bass, along with 18 year old John Woodhead on guitar and Chilli Willi and the Red Hot Peppers very own Pete Thomas on drums. It's remarkable what The Amazing ZigZag Concert has led to. Finally, Buffy repeated that she and John would love to get over to England ''as soon as possible.'' Come on RCA, how about it ? Having read the last O'Bsessions, you will want to know that ",Wingless Angels'' got to 15O in the Billboard Top 2O0 chart, stayed there for two weeks, then disappeared. This coincided with John being flown back from New York, where he was in the middle of a big tour, with a ruptured spleen. If that hadn't happened, I'm sure the impetus wouldn't have been lost, and the album would have gone a lot higher. By the way, that album got a tremendous review in 'The Guardian'. I nearly fell off my chair when I opened the paper and saw John grinning at me from the photo at the top of Robin Denselow's column. On the subject of albums, Bert Muirhead gets the 'Whatever Award Is Appropriate Award' for returning from the United States and Canada with a shrink wrapped copy of 'Signals Through the Glass' and giving it to me . , !
In fact, he unearthed copies on successive days at two Hudson Bay
Company stores in Canada. The price ? A princely 99 cents apiece , So,
next time you are in Canada..... Someone else who has made it over to the
west coast of America is Rod Wilson, who made himself known to John's Management,
and also called in on a company called Watermark. They make radio documentaries,
and John was the narrator on their most recent one called "California
Special". Written by Jerry Hopkins and produced and directed by Ron
Jacobs, this is a 6 hour radio documentary on the music of Southern California
from 1960 through 1975 including interviews with the rock celebritles who
made the hits. It is open for any radio station to purchase this documentary,
though I suppose it is too much to hope we shall be hearing it over here.
I do know that Rod has come back with quite a bit of promotional material
on this. I'11 be seeing him in a couple of days, by which time I hope to
have the magazine wrapped up and ready to go to the printers. However,
if he does have any real goodies, I'll have to add on a couple of pages
in a hurry. Close by you will find a letter from Cort Casady, which arrived
quite out of the blue from America. I think he first saw a copy of Omaha
Rainbow through Arnie Moore.....handing out copies of his interview issue
to all his fans. A letter back to him enquiring about that whole "Lonesome
Picker" / "Sunstorm" era brought a most interesting and
informative reply, and I'm sure that you'll all be seeing that in due course.
I must say that had I received that original letter from John's present
manager, I would have regarded it as so much hype, nice though it would
have been to read. For it to have been written by a former manager is an
incredible compliment to John, and says a lot for, and about, Cort Casady
himself. It would be really nice if he were able to come over here some
time, so that we could do an in depth interview for OR. A reminder for
you all to purchase the October 1975 issue of 'Country Music Review', which
carries a very long article I compiled on John at the request of the editor,
Bryan Chalker. Send a 4Op postal order or cheque (payable to Country Music
Review) to 69 Hackington Crescent, Beckenham, Kent and Bryan will do the
rest. The article has quite a lot of information I think will be new to
you, along with the best of the rest. Since writing it back in May, more
information has come to light, such as that received from cort Casady.
Hopefully, eventually it will all come together one day in an 0maha Rainbow
special along the lines of the Poco Extravaganza you will be seeing very
soon. And while I'm on the subject of that Poco special, if you think it
is impossible for Omaha Rainbow to publish anything without getting John
Stewart in there somewhere.......you are quite right , Moreover, as it
turned out, it was done without any cheating on my part. How ? Buy your
copy, and you'll find out. .