Remembering Rick Nelson

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[lunarbicep]

Rick Nelson's eyes spar-kled as he signed an album cover for an adoring fan in the basement of PJ's Alley in Guntersville. It was almost showtime as he capped off a leisurely weekend in North Alabama - the last weekend of 1985.

Two shows on Saturday night had thrilled a packed house, so his Stone Canyon Band stayed over for a final fling on Monday. They would be flying to Dallas the next morning to welcome in the New Year entertaining at the Park Suite Hotel. It was a date they would never make.

Pat Upton was owner of PJ's Alley, and he had been a guitar player and backup singer for Nelson's band in the early 1980s. The current group finished a show in Orlando a few days before and needed a stopover before the Dallas performance. Upton was thrilled to be their host.

A newer superstar, Jeff Cook of the band Alabama, was showing Nelson photos of his house in Fort Payne as members of Stone Canyon relaxed before the show. The opening act, a local songwriter named Janet McLaughlin, finished her set and came to PJ's basement to meet the headliner.

Nelson's youthful drummer Rick Intveld was joking with guitarist Bobby Neal and pianist Andy Chapin. Bassist Patrick Woodward wore dark glasses and stayed more to himself. And always near Nelson's side, but shirking attention, was his blond fiance, Helen Blair.

"I had always been a fan, but the first show he did in Guntersville that weekend was the first time I'd met him," said Cook from Destin, Fla., where he will perform tonight at the Emerald Coast Conference Center. "He was supposed to come over to my house and stay, but he called Sunday morning and told me he wanted to stay close - he'd been on the road a good bit."

Cook posed for a photo with Nelson's guitar before the final show began. The next day, he was having dinner when he heard that Nelson's DC-3 had crashed in rural Texas.

"We had a bus driver that came in and caught me on New Year's Eve in Shoney's in Fort Payne," Cook said. "He said he was so glad to see me, because he was afraid I was with them."

Nelson's plane had previously been used by rocker Jerry Lee Lewis. Cook recalls that a few years earlier he had turned down a chance to travel on the aircraft as Lewis' bass player.

That bulky DC-3 stood out in the darkness of Guntersville's airstrip along U.S. 431 on the road to Huntsville as McLaughlin played her last song and headed downstairs at the downtown Guntersville nightclub.

"So often when you're the opening act for someone, there's some level of isolation, but it wasn't that way at all," she recalled this week from her home in Nashville. "It was a very upbeat vibe - just a fun, festive, exciting kind of night - and I remember how gracious he was to me."

She remembered chatting with Woodward, who played upright bass in the band. Upton had called her at the last minute to perform when the Monday night concert was scheduled.

In fact, the entire weekend was a spontaneous affair. Nelson's band had been in Florida with three days to kill.

"They were in Orlando, and to sit on the road costs a lot of money," said Upton. "They were going to have to fly to Los Angeles and then go back to Dallas."

Nelson's manager Greg McDonald had worked with Upton earlier, so he called and set up the shows. Nelson would play for the admission charge, and he and Upton would be able to reminisce.

Does the club owner feel guilty or in any way responsible for the star's death?

"No, not really," said Upton. "The only thing is that I don't like its infamy. It's like the dark side of a bright thing. It's like a painting."

Closed with Buddy Holly

Nelson closed the Monday night show with a rendition of "Not Fade Away," a song written by Buddy Holly, who died in a 1959 plane crash on his way to a show in Iowa. Nelson, his fiance and the band members stayed a third night at the Holiday Inn on Lake Guntersville, which has created a sort of shrine to the star with Rick Nelson memorabilia.

The next morning, Upton called some of his musicians to help drive Nelson and his crew to the airport. Damon Johnson was a 19-year-old guitarist who had landed a job partly because his mother and Upton had grown up together in the DeKalb County town of Geraldine. He knew very little about Nelson before that last weekend of 1985.

"I was just in awe - it was like Elvis was there," he recalled this week. "They were super cool, very laid back, no pretense, no ego whatsoever."

Johnson understands that backstage calm after several years of touring with the band Brother Cane and now as part of Alice Cooper's entourage. With his own three-piece band called The Welfare, he will play this New Year's Eve in Guntersville at a club called Cheers just up the street from the Holiday Inn.

That's the same hotel where he picked up the instruments and luggage for Nelson's entourage on Dec. 31, 1985. At the airport, the group was delayed while the pilots worked to start the DC-3.

The flight plan listed its departure time from Guntersville as 12:40 p.m., but the plane probably was an hour or more later taking off. About 5:15 p.m., the pilot radioed Dallas-Fort Worth flight controllers that the cockpit was filling with smoke from a fire in the rear of the plane. He was unable to find a landing strip and set the DC-3 down in a field at DeKalb, Texas.

Pilot Brad Rank and co-pilot Kenneth Ferguson escaped the burning plane through a window. All nine people in the passenger section perished. A faulty gas heater in the rear of the plane was identified as the cause of the fire.

Johnson was the last to see Nelson, his fiance and the Stone Canyon Band alive. One of the passengers, possibly sound man Clark Russell, had left a briefcase in the office at the Guntersville airport. As the DC-3 taxied down the short runway, Johnson rushed toward the plane.

"They saw me and they waved and they opened the door," he said. "They lowered the ladder, and I ran up in there to them."

He remembered that they told him to come with them to Dallas, that "it would be hopping." Johnson had a New Year's Eve show to do with Upton that night.

"I turned around and had this visual of all of them as they were about to take off," he said. "It's the most surreal thing I've ever experienced."

More info

Rick Nelson might be called the first video music star. He first performed on "The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet" doing the Fats Domino hit "I'm Walking" in April 1957. Within a week, the record reportedly sold a million copies.

The hits: "A Teenager's Romance," "Be-Bop Baby," "Stood Up," "Waitin' In School," "Believe What You Say," "My Bucket's Got a Hole In It," "Poor Little Fool," "Lonesome Town," "Never Be Anyone Else But You," "It's Late," "Travelin' Man," "Hello, Mary Lou," "Teen Age Idol," "It's Up To You" and "Garden Party."

The misses: A nasty five-year divorce battle that began in 1977. He had married 17-year-old Kristin Harmon, daughter of football great Tom Harmon, in 1963. She eventually won custody of their three children, twins Matthew and Gunnar, and daughter, Tracy. It was a low point in his life.

The recovery: Nelson's music took a slide in the mid-1960s with the British pop invasion and he was just beginning a revival in the early 1980s. He also had met a fan named Helen Blair, who became a constant companion. The two were engaged to be married.

The end: Rumors spread over the fire that doomed the New Year's Eve 1985 Guntersville-Dallas flight. Some people alleged that drugs might have been involved. The final National Transportation Safety Board report blamed a faulty heater in the passenger compartment for the fire.

The crash on Dec. 31, 1985, of Rick Nelson's Douglas DC-3, registered as N711Y, killed nine and injured the two pilots.

The victims:

Rick Nelson, 45, singer

Helen Blair, 29, Nelson's fiancee

Andy Chapin, 30, pianist

Rick Intveld, 22, drummer

Bobby Neal, 38, guitarist

Clark Russell, 35, sound man

Patrick Woodward, 35, bassist

Injured

Brad Rank, 34, pilot

Kenneth Ferguson, 40, co-pilot

[Arizona Carolyn]

Pretty much -- the kids said that he was so humiliated by this but that it actually made him stronger and helped him turn his career around. I guess he talks about it on the DVD they are releasing today.

[EGPWS]

Nelson's music took a slide in the mid-1960s with the British pop invasion...

That was overcome by Rick when he went to a "Garden Party". I was fortunate enough to see him live AFTER his Garden Party and appreciated his music.

I'll never forget the black shirt and white tie.

The music was explosively entertaining.

The Stone Canyon Band certainly didn't hinder his musical abilities.

[Emmett McCarthy]

It was pure coincidence that I just happen to have bought Rick Nelson's Greatest Hits CD this past week. When I was a kid, the most important thing in the world was to see the end of Ozzie and Harriet so as to not miss "Ricky" and his band. One interesting story from the CD's liner note is that his hit song "Travellin' Man" was originally pitched to Sam Cooke. It's really easy to see why when you think about it.

[blondee123]

I also stumbled onto LK on CNN, but no excuses, seeing all of Rickys family & hearing them talk about family & memories, was worth it. Mostly, LK had little to say & the show was totally focused on the Nelson family!

I stayed up to tape the replay!

It was eerie how much Sam looks like his dad!