Page 31 - Been There… Done That!
P. 31
Been There... Done That!
did their song, they started putting money in a glass on the bar. I realized that was a pretty good deal and started liking the idea that what I was doing for fun was making people happy.
I was kind of in limbo for something to do and had made up my mind that being an electrician or going into construction work was not where it was at for me. To get by, I bought and sold horses for a bit, but that wasn’t consistent income. Being promotional minded, I started thinking maybe, just maybe we could get the right musicians and put together a band that could make a living just playing music. There weren’t many bands around in those days. I picked Bob’s brain and he came up with a Filipino guitar player named Romeo Bonafacio, an Army brat like Bob and he could play the hell out of a guitar. Later we found Gary Craig, another Army brat who could play lead guitar. Gary had a brother Ed who was in Germany at the time and could play keyboards. Bob, the lifeguard, actually brought all the players together.
Ed on the organ and Gary on lead guitar gave us what we needed for a band. We called ourselves The Spartans and we were good for being new. My primary role was to keep everything together. I was fresh out of the service and assumed the role of a squadron leader. Basically, I took care of the business and hustled the band around to different places and all the other guys had to do was play.
Romeo said he couldn’t travel, so we put Bob on bass, Gary on lead, his brother Ed on keyboards and me on rhythm guitar. We tried a couple of drummers, but they had timing problems, but as
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