When I was younger, between 1975 to 1985 and between the ages of 16 to 26, I was in a band with my older brother. We were a nostalgia band from Chicago called Jade 50’s and later just Jade. We were a lot like Sha Na Na. We had a big show we preformed mostly in college towns and “Rock and Roll” bars in the Midwest and East Coast. We also were lucky enough to have caught Dick Clark’s attention and during the summer he would hire us to be the back up band for all of his acts like Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, The Coasters and so on. He use to hire us to preform at festivals all over the country.
He was the most professional person I had ever met in the music business. His itinerary for both the matinee and evening shows were down to the minute. Whatever town we were preforming in he would have a 11:00am rehearsal and schedule something like 23 minutes with each artist....except for Chuck Berry. Chuck Berry would never rehearse with anyone. He would just say, “If you don’t know my music you shouldn’t even be here.”
There was nothing better than playing in front of 40,000, 50,000 and a few times at Disney World 70,000 people. I will never forget playing with those Dick Clark Rock and Roll Shows. It was such a pleasure to be on stage with him. What a professional and gentleman.
Cool. Good for you.
VERY cool story; memories for a lifetime, no doubt.