“And Zappa was a rocker who thought for himself.”
I had just finished a stint in a MOI type band. A friend who was the big cheese at the local “underground” radio station called me at my teaching gig, and asked me to stop by on my way home. I walked in, and there was Frank, sitting on the sofa. My friend asked me to show Frank around town. I was delighted, to say the least!
Took Frank and his bodyguard John to a local bar. FZ was quite quiet, and non-committal. Well,,,, he didn’t know me, so,,,,.A meet and greet line was set up. A very young, and very pneumatic young girl wanted to meet him, so I asked her name. She asked, “Is that really Mr. Zeppelin? So I introduced her to Frank as Mr Zeppelin. That broke the ice! I almost swallowed my tongue during the intro, and his bodyguard, John, turned around and buckled over! For the rest of the weekend, John and I would not call him Frank,, we referred to him as Mr. Zeppelin. I figured he and I had a similar sense of humor, so I spoke to him in a Southside Milwaukee accent all the time. He was in stitches!
We weren’t friends,,, at best,,, acquaintances. But,, I always got a call from a gal, (his wife?) saying “Frank will be in Milwaukee/Beloit/Whitewater/Chicago, hope you can make it! Passes are at the ticket booth.”
So,,, I had fun, and I guess Frank did too. A great memory, of a great musician/composer. Rivaled only by Robert Lockwood Jr., exclaiming, “Why! You’re White!”
Thanks for that vivid story-—but I don’t know whO Robert Lockwood Jr, is/was and Why! You’re white! means.
One fond memory of mine is being part of a created-on-the-spot group (called The CHicago Boxcar) to perform only one time and open for Chuck Berry
at the Washington U. homecoming concert right around this time FORTY ONE YEARS AGO. Most of us were from the original production of Grease in Chicago that ran almost the entire year prior to this C Berry concert-—this concert was the brainchild of two Wash U students who fancied themselves as budding rock producers, We had in addition to the Grease members one vocalist who was a leftwing storefront attorney in Chicago who has been part of a locally well-known doo-wop group in Brooklyn about 10 years earlier. We had to drive down to St. Louis and perform on virtually no sleep, in addition to having all of 24 hours to put together and rehearse enough songs sufficient to be called an opening act. Our lawyer diva, (who was also a friend of mine at the time) said he would come down but demanded to have roundtrip airfare paid. That was granted, and we finally put on the opening act, having no choice but to stand there, try to smile and sing, as we ducked catcalls and a couple dozen beer cans thrown at us, because after all they were there to see the Merry Mr. Berry, and not The Chicago Boxcar. Ahhhh, good times!