Read “Yes I Can” (Sammy’s autobiography?) many many years ago. Amazing story, amazing man.
His long experience paying his dues paid off later in life. Sammy was the last major Vaudeville entertainer. There was one episode I read about a few years ago where his band got wrong directions and he showed up for a show alone. The promoter wanted to cancel the show, but Sammy told him, “If I can’t entertain these people alone then I’m not half the entertainer I think I am.” He went on stage and did a two hour, nearly ad libbed performance with a comb harmonia. The audience loved it, and no one asked for their money back.
I can’t think of a single artist who could do that today.
We saw him do a fund raiser for a local college in 1979 in Chicago. Frank Sinatra was supposed to be with him, but was a no show. It also happened to be on the same day the Pope was doing a big mass downtown.
But that isn’t my interesting story about him. In the earlier ‘70s Mr G worked in a screening room in Cleveland.... where there was a screening for Deep Throat for a trial to determine if it was pornographic or not. While it was in the possession of this studio, a brand new color video recorder with a film chain was delivered from Japan, and a copy was made. It was then driven by the Ohio Highway patrol to the border of the state, where it was transferred to the next state patrol, etc, etc, until it was finally delivered to Mr Davis in California.
Apparently he had quite a collection.