Last Modified on May 10, 2002
While playing with Saddle Boogie, we had the opportunity to play for one of the 1981 Utah Jazz games. It was about their second or third year in Utah, and the city of Salt Lake as well as the state was really getting behind them. The great Adrian Dantley was playing for them at the time and Mark Eaton (the shot blocker with no offensive skills whatsoever) was introduced in the stands as he was joining the team next season. One of the players even hit on my wife as she was waiting around the loading dock.
This type of gig is usually reserved for some kind of jazz band. They can launch into some improvisational progression and stop at any time. And, hey, the team's name was the Jazz.
At this time in Saddle Boogie, Jerry Hardeman was the lead guy and the largest ego. He, along with the rest of the band, jumped at the chance to play in front of 12,000 people in the Salt Palace. "Do you know how many rich people will be in that crowd?" Hardeman would ask. "We could get hundreds of jobs and maybe even a contract!"
When we got there to set up, we found that we were way up on the top level on a bandstand that was there for the break time bands to play. Packing everything up there was fairly easy. We had lots of help and set up went well.
Now, I'm a basketball fan. I love the pace of the game and I love to see plays set up and executed well. I also know a lot about the time outs and some about the commercial breaks. My concern for this job from the outset was, "How will our type of music fit into 20 second to 2 minute time outs?" I mentally ran through our normal set list and couldn't think of but a couple of songs that were identifiable by the first few measures. All anyone else could say about my concerns was, "It'll be cool."
That was certainly reassuring.
We got to warm up with a couple of short instrumental pieces during the shoot arounds. Some guy would step out in front of the bandstand and queue us to start playing and we would launch into a song. We did stuff like "Under the Double Eagle" and "Steel Guitar Rag," but by the time we were full-tilt into the song, the guy would be giving us the "cut" sign, the one where he acts like he's slashing his throat.
After about four of these, all of us in the band wanted to go down and help him slash his throat.
This was getting maddening, but I resolved to play the gig, take my money, and never do it again. Hardeman was beside himself. This over-inflated, egotistical showman couldn't do his shtick and was getting really irritated with the situation. But Hardeman had a plan.
Unfortunately, it involved me.
"During the next time out," said Hardeman to me, "let's just play a whole song and see what happens!" I did not feel good about this.
The band agreed on one of my songs, I think it was Freddie Neil's "Everybody's Talkin'." When the guy gave us the queue, we launched into it, determined to play this puppy out. No sooner had I begun to sing when the "guy" jumped out and started slashing his throat.
We ignored him and kept on going.
More vigorous slashing.
More ignoring.
He's slashing with both hands and I'm looking over at Hardeman, who is egging me on, in between the lines.
Now he's waving his arms in a big "X" over his head. I notice the basketball players are running from one end of the court to the other. The game is underway. I can see heads turning our way, lots of them.
The "guy" is now jumping up and down and alternating between the "X" over his head and the throat slashing. I swear I could see sweat beading up on his forehead.
Finally, Jerry turns away and stops playing. Have you ever heard the sound of an orchestra when it stops at a point when it's not supposed to? It's cacophonous. That's how we stopped.
Now I can hear "Hot Rod" Hunley yelling into his mic as he finishes a sentence, "…if we can just get the band to stop playing!"
I am so embarrassed. Jerry is banging his stuff around in a tantrum. The band looks like a group of morons. The band IS a group of morons.
At this point, we settled back and just played like they wanted us to do, short clips of songs that no one could recognize.
At the end of the night, we had lots of people come up to us and say that we sounded really good. Compliments are wonderful and greatly appreciated, but a musician knows how he has just performed, and we had been totally out of our element.
I think it was shortly after that when Hardeman left the band and headed for St. Louis or Kansas City to seek his solo fortune.
I've been to one other pro basketball game since then. There was no band. I wonder if Saddle Boogie single-handedly caused the demise of music during the breaks at pro sports events. But then there's always that absolutely awful show at halftime of the SuperBowl…