My brother's college roommate at San Jose Stae, 1969, asked him to join his band; my brother declined, saying he was still working on his skills and was a little intimidated by Pat's skills. Within the year, Pat Simmons and his band, The Doobie Brothers, put out their first album. But this has nothing to do with cruising; let me see, Bowser of Sha Na Na was on our cruise to the Western Caribbean.
My brother is philosophical about missing out playing with The Doobies; he says if he'd joined, he'd probably be a junkie like the rest of them. He does maintain periodic contact with Pat, though.
I had a close call like that. A bass player friend at Long Beach State was putting a group together with a couple of kids--you may have heard of them--Richard and Karen, before they were The Carpenters. They wanted somebody who could double on drums and keyboards--not a common double--so Karen could get up from behind the drums once in a while, and assist Richard with keyboard duties the rest of the time.
We met at their parent's home in Norwalk or Downey, i'm not sure which, and went over some material. Then went out for coffee to talk it over. I told them politely that I thought they had a good thing going, but it just wasn't the kind of music I wanted to play. We parted friends and went our separate ways.
And of course I spent the next 30 years playing their music.
Oh yes, we played a lot of Carpenters music on the ships. That brings us back to point.
(Sorry, for some reason I was hearing Gomer Pyle in the background.) Rest assured, your near miss was not missed. That is quite a story, The Carpenters came along at the right time for my wife and I. "Top of the World", was "our song."
Dwayne, I was born and spent the fist 15 years of my life in Ashland, KY (still have family in the area). I've also been to Pikeville and Myrtle Beach for that matter.
How old is your best friend? I may know him, Ashland is not exactly a big city, except by KY standards. I'm 46, if your friend is near that age I'll bet I know him.
Neil, sorry I lost this thread. I kept hearing Billy Joel's "Big Shot" in the background.
My Bud is 42 and I won't post his name, but he graduated from "Blazer" sp? High School in 83. We shared a road trip for Thanksgiving once to visit his folks as I am from just over the Va line for my folks. We went over one day to visit, and I thought Ashland was pretty neat with the river and the bridge they showed us. It certainly was pretty, and they took us to a park in the town. Where I am from it was a big city
They took us to a great place called Bluegrass Drive In. I grew up about 40 miles from Pikeville on the Va side.
It was a very early morning at JFK airport waiting to return to college after Christmas break. I was fooling around with the man next to me on the breakfast carousel - rearranging the food and making rude, crude comments on everthing that passed. It wasn't until I was half-way across the country that I realized I was goofing-off with Harry Nillson (think the theme song from Midnight Cowboy for those of you too young to know Harry Nillson). Anyway - growing up in the NYC area, I ran into "famous folk" all the time. No-one on a cruise yet - I guess we just haven't been on the right ship...
Not on a cruise - but my mother was a waitress in a diner on the Taconic State Parkway in NY State for many years. Lots of celebrities stopped in on their way to upstate homes or to ski resorts. I guess the most famous she served was Paul Newman - he had a cheeseburger deluxe and coffee. Eli Wallach was another. I don't recall what he ordered.
I won't go into what happened to Virginia Graham's scrambled eggs before they were served (by another waitress). The health department may be watching.
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