To avoid the “non” in the sequiter, I first met Eric Burton of The Animals (whose cover of “House of the Rising Sun” I cover, every chance I get) in a small municipal airport on the Michigan peninsula in the early 60s. The scene was this: my older brother, Frank, had just come on the ferry from Macinaw Island where we had spent a week with our grandparents, and were sitting waiting for a flight to take us back to Dayton, Ohio, where we would get a train back to our parents in New York. All of sudden, the waiting lounge is flooded with pimply faced 13 year old girls. A plane lands, and from it disembarks a very mangy looking group of musicians, one of whom, after signing autographs for his adoring bevy, takes a seat next to me.
He puts a cigarette in the corner of his mouth, and asks me if I have a match.
I am 10, maybe 11 years old.
“Sorry, I don’t smoke.”
Several months passed before I recognized that man as Eric Burton, from the cover of the first Animals album.
Music was different in those days. It was before the promoters got into it big time, after which the only way you could see a big name was in a football stadium. At Brown, in the late sixties, we had a thing called “Spring Weekend”, where you could see James Taylor play on a small stage in Wriston Quad, solo, with no back up singers or musicians, or James Brown at a slightly larger venue in the hockey rink. I saw the Doors my freshman year at the Meehan hockey rink. Mitch Ryder and Detroit Wheels warmed up for him.
And now my terrible admission, which I have never told anyone until now. The night Jimi Hendrix AND Eric Clapton (with Cream) played at the broken down Marvel Gymnasium, I decided it would be more fun to go “Street Meeting” — that is, go out on Thayer Street and flag down cars full of girls from Cranston and Woonsocket.
The price of the ticket? Two bucks fifty.
Will Dominique beat the rap, or have some terrible admission of his own? I can’t say the work of the IMF hass been all that positive for FINCA, as when they put the heat on the poor countries to balance the budget, they usually look to our clients or even non profits as a source of tax reveneues, since they will of course give the elites a pass.
This year just gets curiouser and curiouser
Rupert