Moving on ... My Life in Music

    So, here I am it's early '74 and I'm in in Coco Beach Florida. Worked there and in Daytona and Orlando. This was my first serious Funk band. Oakland style Funk! Rhythm section with B3, two horns and a Soulful Tenor up front.  I roomed down there with the B3 player Andy Gerard.

     Andy and I had a two bedroom apartment above a garage on the mainland side of Daytona

I remember that the property that we lived on was adjacent to Bethune Cookman College. On off days the two of us would jam up in the apartment. Andy had a Wurlitzer electric piano and I had some kind of tiny amp.

      One day a group of maybe 6 or 8 students from Bethune Cookman College came by. They could hear us playing all this funk stuff and wanted to check out who was playing.We had great times hanging with them. They would pop over on occasion and start singing  Gospel songs they were learning. It was Heaven, no pun intended! Their voices and the melodies were amazing. The few months that Andy and I spent with them were a trmendous a influence on my approach to singing, bass playing and writing.

     Here's another 2022 song that's called "Daytona Greyhound" Inspired by my days in Florida.

I left Daytona on a Greyhound bus on July 4th 1973 with a suitcase of clothes, my Gibson EB-0, my Sunn Concert amp and a tiny air conditioner.  Greyhound local from Daytona to Newark NJ.  I highly recommend the experience.

1974 to 1976

     Straightlife’s Catskills run ended at The Nevele in December 1973 right after Christmas. I think we left The Nevele on Wednesday December 26. We drove from Ellenville NY to a gig at the Steak and Brew in Wilkes Barre PA … in a blizzard! The drive was crazy scary and took forever but, somehow we all got there in one piece. I do remember driving over an iced up bridge crossing the river into PA from NJ at about 5 mph passing a few spun out cars along the way.

     Adding to the storm issue we were at the beginning of the first Arab Oil Embargo.

We were able to gas up in NY and that got us to Wilkes Barre but, the gas situation got steadily more squirrelly as the month went on.

        A chance meeting, while in line to get my $2 worth of gas at a station on the NJ Turnpike led to my next gig.

     So this guy in the car next to me is trying to get my attention through the snowstorm and it turns out to be Bobby Gerlack one of the drummers that I knew in High School. He yells over to me,"Hey Dave I have a gig in Cocoa Beach Florida and we need a bass player." that sounded fun to me so Bobby, Andy Gerard, Bobby Ingrahm and me set off for the Sunshine State.

     Andy introduced me to keyboardist Doug Riecken from Metuchen in the Fall of 1974 and

that ‘s the next part of the story.

    Doug Riecken, singer, songwriter and Keyboard man. I introduced Doug to drummer Joe DiBella and the three of us arranged some of Doug’s tunes for recording. Doug got some development  money from Arista and we went in to the “House of Music”  in West Orange to record. Doug brought in Bernie Brauswetter on guitar. Bernie was one of my favorite guitar players. Unfortunately Bernie passed away in 2007. Check out his blues band "B.B. and The Stingers". Also on that date Doug introduced me to percussionist Tim Solook.

    Tim and I are Musical Soul Mates. Now, the story moves to a short stint with The Back East Band and a trip to Iceland and then on to the “Za Zu  Zaz Years”.

Daytona Greyhound