Shortly after my return from Canada to Los Angeles in
1985, I founded a new charity called
“Musicians for Unicef”
I was once again living in Sherman Oaks, in the San
Fernando Valley, Los Angeles. After getting settled I began playing around town
and reacquainting with friends and businesses. “Josephina’s” was a very cool
hang on Ventura Boulevard and the best place to play in town. Mouse Johnson, an
incredible drummer who had played with all sorts of folks over the years
including Aretha Franklin, Lou Reed, Kiki Dee, Elton John and Chuck Berry was
the first musician to build that club and fill it with the best talent in Los
Angeles. Mouse was the most likeable person in the world and his friends showed
up to support him in carloads. Lots of actors, producers and writers,
extraordinary vocalists and musicians, a veritable who’s who in the
entertainment industry made this a very popular place to be seen and
heard!
On any given night you might
see Stevie Wonder and Al Jarreau or Paul Butterfield and Steven Stills most
times sitting in with the local groups. Glen Fry was a regular between Eagles
tours and the guys from the band “Chicago” and “Tower of Power” would frequent
the restaurant too.
It was a great place to network and to find work. As the
bands that played there were loaded with talent, lots of touring acts would
more or less harvest the players. One night I recall loosing our horn section
to Rod Stewart, imagine that, and they were making 40 bucks a night at the
time!
I was lucky enough to play there at least three nights a
week with different groups throughout the club’s tenure. It was a perfect venue
for “Musicians for Unicef” Everybody was there, talent, celebrities, publicity
and marketing opportunities and the club was more than willing to be part of
it.
I established a rapport with the Unicef office in Los
Angeles and we coordinated the first “Super Sunday” It happened to be Unicef’s
40th Anniversary, Sunday December 7th 1986
It was only $10.00 to get in and Josephina’s served a
buffet.
Our special guests included Master of Ceremonies, Brion
James with Paul Butterfield, Randy Meisner from the Eagles and Preston Smith.
We had a 19 piece band that night with some of the best musicians in town. We
sold out at 150 tickets and celebrated the first of 15 benefit concerts over
the next 7 years.
Super Sunday 2 happened on March 29, 1987 and a surprise
appearance by Bruce Willis and Glen Frey with the band “The Heaters” kicked our
visibility into high gear. It soon became the cool charity to support in town.
By 1998 we had moved the venue to a place called Pelican’s Retreat in Calabasas
where our popularity continued to grow adding Mick Fleetwood, Rick Vito and
Billy Burnette, REO Speedwagon, Mark Campel, Greg X Smith and John Barry from
Jack Mac and the Heart Attack, Scotty Page from Pink Floyd, Jimmy Z from the
Eurythmics and many more. We had as many as 60 musicians performing in our
shows at Pelican’s. Throughout it all Marty Fera, Joe Lala and I held the
drummers post inside while Tony Braunagle and Chet McCracken held the outside
stage together, always two bands playing, one stopped and the other began, continuous
music.
We did a 16 hour extravaganza at The Palomino in North
Hollywood where “Little Feat” Booker T, Kris Kristofferson, Robby Krieger from
“The Doors” Dwight Yoakam, and a cast of 40 more musicians played all day and
into the night. I actually ended up in the hospital that night with bleeding
ulcers. Marty Fera looked across at me and thought I died sitting up, right
there on my drum throne …..!
We all worked very hard to make these concerts happen,
Lorie Tedds was my assistant and we had as many as 30 volunteers on board for
every show. No one took a dime in seven years, 15 benefit concerts. All in all
more than 300 musicians participated in this effort over the years; it would be
impossible to mention everyone. Suffice to know that we made a significant
difference and Unicef was grateful.
These lessons would figure into the success of The
Rhythmic Arts Project years later as music and musicians are the backbone of
our organization. Lots of the same people are still with us today!
In a world full of charities good and bad, musicians have
played a major roll in changing the world time and time again. It is an honor
that so many players trust and continue to help us all these years later.
*Over the years I enlisted players to help with a number of
charities I’ve been involved with and I always found musicians to be kind,
generous and willing to help. In some cases my friends had not participated in
charity events prior to my asking. This is the most rewarding thing about
creating or contributing to a worthwhile cause, to experience the feeling that
comes with such an accomplishment. It isn’t about pride or ego, it’s not like
receiving a gold or platinum record or any sort of personal reward, it being a
part of something much bigger that makes a difference. Giving in the truest
sense is when you give and the recipient has no idea where it came from. In the
case of Unicef, by comparison financially, our support was not tremendous yet
at 25 cents a day to provide a rehydration packet that would save a child’s
life, every penny counts.
More importantly to me, the fact that all the folks who
played their hearts out and worked tirelessly over the years went on to commit
and contribute to untold number of charities and worthwhile causes.
This was the icing on the cake for me.
