Dave Garrett is not David Garrett (born David Bongartz, 1981 Sept 4 in Aachen, Germany), a classical violinist and recording artist, though a Last FM link for Sha Na Na article suggests that.
Woodstock Dave
This Dave Garrett was a vocalist with Sha Na Na and performed with them at Woodstock.
At the time, Rolling Stone magazine said that he was from Brooklyn and the “…first tenor…majoring in electrical engineering, due to a masochistic philosophy.”
Tenor Dave Garrett
Bendix Mouldings
He also, according to his bio at the Sha Na Na dot com site, “owned Bendix Mouldings for 35 years and has recently retired splitting his time between New York and Florida.
Dave was with the band from its inception in 1969 and only through 1970.
On June 3, 2016 eleven of the dozen Woodstock performers were part of the Columbia University Alumni weekend celebration. Member Frederick “Dennis” Greene had died in 2015.
A George Leonard site article described Dave Garrett as “…a mountainous figure with a pure tenor.”
Here he is doing “Little Darlin’.”
Tenor Dave Garrett
Earth Sound
A Revolvy site article states that Garrett, “ran Earth Sound Research, a Long Island-based musical instrument amplifier company, during the 1970s.” The Farmingdale company closed in the early ’80s. It may have closed because of its use of very similar design to Peavey amps.
Tenor Dave Garrett
2016 gig
Hofstra University celebrated its 75th anniversary in 2016 and Sha Na Na was there as part of that celebration. The San Diego Tribune has a picture of members rehearsing for that gig
More?
If anyone has anything more about Dave, please comment. He deserves more than a few links that all seem to end with that he is in business in New York City.
If Life gives allows us enough time, there will interesting intersections. For Bruce “Bruno” Clarke, Columbia University, a doo wop band on a lark, a surprisingly well-received Woodstock performance, and cybernetics all intersected.
Tutti Frutti > Plastic Fantastic
In 1960, a cadet uncle attending West Point gave Clarke Little Richard’s “Here’s Little Richard.” He was 10 and fell in love with rock and roll.
He built a crystal radio and hung an antenna out his McLean, Virginia bedroom. Along came Beatlemania and an acoustic guitar. He replaced it with a Gibson Melody Maker, an amp, and some high school friends to become Fuzz, his first band.
He played rhythm guitar until the bassist’s parents removed the bassist from the band. Along comes bass player Bruce Clarke.
Fuzz morphed into Fantastic Plastic and great SAT scores helped get him into Columbia University.
Bruce Bruno Clarke Woodstock
Columbia
He wasn’t part of Columbia’s a Capella King’s Men, but when its members wanted to do a one-night doo wop show, Clarke became its bassist. The success of the show led to more than one night.
Late June, 1969, the newly minted Sha Na Na got a two-week late-night run at Steve Paul‘s Scene. Who should stop by one night and happened to see this Sha Na Na? Artie Kornfeld and Michael Lang. A late invitation followed.
“…I just had this insane crazy good fortune to stumble into a phenomenon which turned into the group Sha Na Na which then became a successful rock act and played at Woodstock when we were three months old.
In a Wild River Review piece, Clarke relates his story leaving Friday morning for Bethel, finally getting to the site, and experiencing the whole scene.
When they left the stage on Monday morning, Jimi Hendrix “…shook hands all around and, shaking mine, uttered the personal compliment I’ve tried to live by ever since: “You got soul, man.”
Bruce Bruno Clarke Woodstock
Jumps off
In that same video interview, Clarke says “...I did it for four years…I just happened to be there, caught the thing by the tail and took the ride.
“I don’t really want to dedicate myself to more years on end, ready to go back, go to grad school, see what happens. So I did. I cut it loose.”
Bruce Bruno Clarke Woodstock
Texas Tech
Bruce C Clarke currently teaches in the English department at Texas Tech in Lubbock, TX. According to the Department of English site at TT, “Bruce Clarke is Paul Whitfield Horn Professor of Literature and Science in the Department of English at Texas Tech University. His research focuses on 19th- and 20th-century literature and science, with special interests in systems theory, narrative theory, and ecology. In 2010-11 he was Senior Fellow at the International Research Institute for Cultural Technologies and Media Philosophy, Bauhaus-University Weimar, and in Summer 2015 he was Senior Fellow at the Center for Literature and the Natural Sciences, Friedrich Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg. He edits the book series Meaning Systems, published by Fordham University Press.”
It appears that his most recent book was the 2014 Neocybernetics and Narrative. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. His credited list of Special Issues, Book Reviews, Invited Presentations and Book Chapters in Print, Articles, Article Reviews, and Introductions is a long one as well as the awards list for research.
Stratford guitarist John Till, member of local rock band The Revols and Janis Joplin’s Kozmic Blues and Full Tilt Boogie bands. Submitted photo
Remembering John Till on his birthday
December 28, 1945 – September 4, 2022
John Till was the guitarist in Janis Joplin’s Kozmic Blues Band at Woodstock. His path from Stratford, Ontario to that famous Bethel stage is an interesting one because it includes some familiar names along the way.
Kozmic Blues John Till
Musical family
John Till was born into a musical family. His mother played piano and his father played pretty much any stringed instrument.
In his AllMusic bio, Joe Viglione wrote of Till: “Till’s family never pushed him into music or forced him to take lessons. They told him years later that their philosophy was to just have the musical instruments “around” and to make sure there was lots of music to be heard in the house. Till describes his parents as being “totally supportive” when he showed an interest in playing music himself. His father taught him to play the four-string tenor guitar and banjo by ear, and also taught him the concept of improvisation — “taking off on the chords” — which is such a big part of Dixieland. They weren’t rich, but when he became interested in rock & roll around the age of 11, they managed to buy him his first electric guitar and amp.”
Kozmic Blues John Till
Bands
At Stratford Central High, John and a few classmates formed the Revols. One of the band mates was Richard Manuel.
John later became part of Larry Lee & the Leesures and Max Falcom and the Falcons. At one point, Till played with David Clayton-Thomas who would also be at Woodstock with Blood, Sweat and Tears.
When Richard Manuel, Robbie Robertson, Rick Danko, Garth Hudson, Levon Helm left Ronnie Hawkins, new Hawks replaced them. One group of replacements included Richard Bell, Larry Alamniuk, and John Till. Those three would go on to become part of Janis’s last band, The Full Tilt Boogie Band, but John was with Janis before that.
Till can be heard on Hawkins’s 1967 single, “Home From the Forest.”
Kozmic Blues John Till
Who’s Janis Joplin?
John stayed with the Hawks until July 1969 when he replaced Sam Andrew in Janis’s Kozmic Blues Band.
It was after Janis abandoned the Kozmic Blues Band that she “created” the Full Tilt Boogie Band. The reason for qualifying the word created, is because the Full Tilt Boogie Band had actually begun as a side project of John Till and with double-L spelling of Tillt.
Till performing w Janis Joplin on the Dick Cavett Show
On January 19, 2018, the day that Janis would have been 75, John Till spoke on CBC radio about his time with Janis. Here are some of his observations:
before he joined the band, he’d never heard of Janis.
he wondered what he’d gotten himself into, but…
he realized her greatness when he first heard her live
he thought her performance at Woodstock was great because all the delays would have given her an excuse to slide
he thought Janis felt isolated at that point in her career and that that sense of isolation pushed her to the use of opioids
he said that she felt the Full Tilt Boogie Band was the perfect band and that “She’d be pissed if they ever left her.”
following the band tour and back in California recording her last album, Pearl, she would take out for dinner John, his wife Dorcus, and son Michael.
she made a purple necklace for Dorcus
the song, Buried Alive In the Blues was the only song on the album that she didn’t sing live with the band as she’d done with all the other cuts. The band recorded it separately. She never did record a vocal because she died before she could. It became an instrumental on the album.
the band was unaware of her opioid use.
Also regarding the Full Tilt band from a Wikipedia entry: Joplin and her management then hired Till, bass player Ken Kalmusky (also from Stratford, and who used the stage name “Ken Campbell”), as well as pianist Ken Pearson (from nearby Woodstock, Ontario), to fill out her new band, called Full Tilt Boogie. The band appeared on The Dick Cavett Show and were booked on the Festival Express which toured across Canada. The group recorded their classic Pearl album, which reached the No. 1 spot on the Billboard charts in 1971, after Joplin’s death.
After Joplin’s death, and the subsequent breakup of Full Tilt Boogie, Till played with Bobby Charles, Bob Burchill and his ensemble in the Stratford apartments.
In the foreword of Love, Janis, Laura Joplin’s biography of her relationship with her famous sister, Till and his Stratford born wife, Dorcas, are thanked for providing some of the material for the book.
Kozmic Blues John Till
Lifer
John on left
After Janis’s death, John moved to Woodstock, NY and did sessions with Bobby Charles at the Bearsville studios. He returned to Canada in 1976. He continued playing and occasionally recording for other artists. He taught s guitar as well.
His last band was B.W. Pawley & Plum Loco. Friend Ken Kalmusky had been the band’s bass player until his death in the fall of 2005. John’s son Shawn joined at that point. Postings and comments on their Facebook page suggest that the group disbanded in June 2016.
Kathryn Manuel, Richard Manuel’s sister-in-law through her late husband, Donald Manuel, told the Beacon Herald…how much she valued her friendships with John and Dorcas Till over the years. Kathryn said she grew up with John – his parents and her dad were well-known musicians in Stratford in the ’40s and ’50s – and their families remained close, often vacationing together at their shared cottage in Sauble Beach.
“It’s sort of the end of an era with John and Richard and Ken,” Kathryn said. “They all did so very well as Stratford people. (John) was just always welcoming, always willing to help you, always giving our kids little pieces of technology to take home, and always interested in the world and people around him.”
