We made a transcontinental move from New York to Los Angeles in 1945 when I was four\u2014in a 1936 Dodge and a 24-foot trailer\u2014and settled in the San Fernando Valley, in Tarzana and then Reseda, when the Valley was walnut orchards, citrus groves, and the Red Line trolley car ran through it\u2014to downtown and the beaches.<\/p>\n
I started at the Los Angeles Conservatory of Music when I was five\u2014my dad and me on the Red Car every Saturday. I played my first solo concert at the Wilshire Ebell Theater when I was eight and was well on my way to being the new Van Cliburn. I played live on the radio when I was eleven\u2014that performance was captured on a \u201cwire recorder\u201d\u2014and I had my first record out on a 78.<\/p>\n
At the same time, I was listening to Huggy Boy and Hunter Hancock on the radio\u2014the early days of Rhythm & Blues\u2014and I realized that my audiences were appreciative, but those other audiences were DANCING and having fun. Also at that same time, I\u2019d been selected for the Tchaikovsky Competition in Paris\u2014and found out how the game was really played in the \u201cclassical\u201d field, whereby I got to be a \u201cprot\u00e9g\u00e9\u201d (boy-toy) for the \u201cFat Lady in Paris\u201d\u2014and I bailed. My \u201cdistinguished career\u201d went down the drain.<\/p>\n
My mom was horrified, my dad understood, and I went right into R&B and became John \u201cFats\u201d Thomas\u2014entertaining my friends at lunch hour in the cafeteria during junior and senior high school\u2014probably drove \u201cBlueberry Hill\u201d and \u201cAin\u2019t That A Shame\u201d into the ground\u2014and started writing my own songs in the process\u2026and having fun!<\/p>\n
And then, in 1957, I went to UC Santa Barbara\u2014what a paradise! Two thousand students, five miles of campus beach, and seven girls to every guy. Learned how to drink beer and started going to beach parties, where some guys with guitars were sitting around serenading the girls and singing Kingston Trio songs. At that point I thought, \u201cHey\u2014these are easy tunes\u2014I can play them! I can join that fun circle!\u201d But\u2026one does not take a piano to the beach. So, I bought a Silvertone 6-string and a book that showed me how to mash the wires down, and went for it\u2026picked up all the tunes off the records, got calluses, and finally put myself out there on those sandy stages and found the fun of playing with other guitar players and singers. I hadn\u2019t done anything but solo piano, except for \u201cOrchestra\u201d at the conservatory, and stepped into a whole new world of music and fun!<\/p>\n
I jammed around with some of those beach guitarists\u2014kinda fun\u2014more experience\u2026and then I met Phil Earl<\/a>. He shared a mutual love of the blues\u2014the real blues\u2014and he turned me on to Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, Lightnin\u2019 Hopkins, and Josh White, to mention a few\u2014and he knew all the licks on the guitar. So I locked myself up for a weekend and learned every Josh White song from the album, note for note. We got back together again for another practice session, and it just clicked. Phil had an old Martin D-18, and he let me play it\u2014adios Silvertone, hello new Martin D-18 for me!<\/p>\n Phil and I hooked up with a banjo player named Roffe Morris, and Danny Hudson on bass. We played at UCSB for the Galloping Gaucho Revue and the Roadrunner Review, and we played at the OMTAE coffee house in Isla Vista and the Contempus in Goleta (forerunner of the Nexus), and some parties. My first folk group, and we didn\u2019t have a name\u2014we just played.<\/p>\n Isla Vista, 1959<\/p><\/div>\n Roffe graduated ahead of us and moved to San Diego, and Phil and I kept jamming for a while. Then a friend at work, Riley Jackson, who had his own folk group\u2014the Freeway Singers with Don Robertson<\/strong> and Bob Hoffman\u2014introduced me to Howard Pelky and Ernie Brooks<\/strong>. I think we auditioned each other\u2014and it was instant synchronicity, and total fun\u2014and I joined The Channel Singers.<\/p>\n We developed a repertoire of many musical forms and styles\u2014even had some \u201coriginal\u201d folk songs\u2014and took it out there. We had played at the Noctambulist<\/em> and a few other coffee houses and were visiting the Iopan<\/em> one night when Bill Berner, the co-owner, said that the scheduled performer hadn\u2019t shown up, and if we had our instruments, would we like to play? I think it took us about three minutes to get the axes out of the car and be tuned up and ready to go. More fun!!!<\/p>\n Being The Channel Singers was a completely unique experience for me. We got to open at various clubs for Joe & Eddie, the Kingston Trio, Bud & Travis, etc., many of whom are still friends of mine, and we were able to participate in a folk scene that was comparable only to the Greenwich Village scene\u2014except we had beaches and much better weather and beach bunnies.<\/p>\n And the clubs were unique as well. The Iopan<\/em>\u2014a beautiful, three-story Victorian house\u2014the fireplace, the living room\/stage\u2014the chandeliers, the polished stair rails\u2014the epitome of warmth, coziness, intimacy, and no PA needed. When we saw Joe & Eddie\u2019s first show there, and they rocked the place without amplification, I\u2019m surprised the place didn\u2019t fall down from the applause and the roar of the audience. The Iopan<\/em> was the kind of place we all wish we could go to now\u2014again.<\/p>\n There were several other clubs that we played\u2014the Bluebird Caf\u00e9<\/em><\/a> (opened by Peter Feldmann), Gatsby\u2019s<\/em>, and others\u2014but the two major venues were the Rondo<\/em> and The Nexus<\/em>.<\/p>\n The coffee house scene was going through a transition\u2014people started serving beer and wine, and the whole scene changed. Tony Townsend<\/a> took over the Rondo and turned it into the hottest music spot downtown. It featured all of the best of the local performers (and a dud or two, but that\u2019s what hootenannies were for\u2014a precursor to The Gong Show, American Idol, and Karaoke), and a good time was had by all!<\/p>\n Back somewhere in the ’63-’64 period, the folk scene in Santa Barbara was seriously moving along\u2014out of the coffee houses and into new clubs that served beer and wine, and where the patrons and the performers got a tad more rowdy\u2014perhaps a bit more like Frisco and LA.\u00a0So out in Goleta, real close to UCSB, a new place called the Nexus<\/em> was opened where the Contempus<\/em> used to be, at the intersection of Fairview and Hollister\u2014in what had originally been a walnut-shelling factory, and right next to a tin building that had been an old-time cabinet shop\u2014I think the original owner was named Dave Deras. It was turned into a great club\u2014benches along the wall, pretty good-sized stage in the far left corner, pillows and small tables in the central area, and a nice long bar on the right as you walked in\u2014light and dark beer on draft, candles on the tables, and a pretty good sound system.<\/p>\n It became a really great place for us folkies, like my group, The Channel Singers, and most of the other folk personas, like Don Robertson, Todd Grant, Tony Townsend, and others, to perform. It was a really fun, comfortable venue, where the interaction was close between the performers and the audience…if you spilled a beer on stage, it would probably splash on the front-row tables…lots of colored burlap on the walls and ceiling to create atmosphere and cover the tin roof.<\/p>\n Someone installed a new sound system, with JBL speakers hanging from the ceiling\u2014I think a friend of our bass player, Ernie Brooks<\/strong>, installed them\u2014but whoever did the wiring back down to the stage and the connections to the amplifier\/PA on stage (back in the old days when we controlled our own sound, as opposed to having a sound man) used lamp cord instead of speaker wire, used lamp plugs instead of phone jacks, and set up a power strip to plug into. I’ll never forget when Howard Pelky, our banjo player and fellow guitarist, plugged it in for the first time to get us set up for our gig. Somehow all that stuff just went directly from the 110-volt wall socket directly to the 8-ohm JBL speakers hanging from the roof\u2014the resulting screech and pop and explosion of those speakers was \u201ca most awesome noise\u201d with little bits of the speaker cones filtering down like ashes from a volcano\u2014so much for THAT debut!!!<\/p>\n The Nexus<\/em> did turn into one of the most happening places in Santa Barbara. We had regular Sunday afternoon hootenannies featuring other local artists like Sheri Geiger, Ren\u00e9 Leyva,<\/strong> The Terrytown Trio (later to become The Floyd County Boys), and anyone who had an ax and wanted to play and sing\u2014gee, the forerunner of Karaoke\u2014except you had to actually play AND sing. And someone got smart, opened a door in the wall to the space next door, and a pizza place was set up there. I can’t recall the name of it\u2014before Petrini’s\u2014or maybe the first Petrini’s\u2014but that sure was fun\u2014folk music, beer, and pizza\u2014what more could anyone want???<\/p>\n Unfortunately, the place caught fire and burned down\u2014always some questions about how a tin building burns down\u2014but, shortly thereafter, the Nexus<\/em> reopened across the street, in what had been a medical and dental office. The new Nexus<\/em> was not nearly as cozy and comfy as the Nexus #1<\/em> but had a better stage and light system, and actually a \u201cperformer’s room.\u201d There, I, as a member of The Channel Singers, had the pleasure of being the headline act and having this group from LA that nobody had ever heard of, called \u201cThe Stone Poneys,\u201d open for us. Needless to say, I just wanted to listen to Linda Ronstadt and Bob Kimmell and Ken Edwards play all night…tough act to follow!!!<\/p>\n The coffee house scene in Santa Barbara, which started the whole folk music thing in the first place\u2014mellow, laid back at the Iopan and the Noctambulist\u2014turned into a whole different club scene\u2014like the Rondo, Borsodi’s<\/em>, and Baudelaire’s<\/em> (who could ever forget Claire Rabe?) and The Bluebird Caf\u00e9<\/em> (who could ever forget Peter Feldmann?) (Julie Felix?) (Gene McGeorge and The Scragg Family<\/em><\/a> and Kajsa Ohman?).<\/p>\n Truly a turning point for the folk music scene in Santa Barbara.\u00a0\u00a0It was around the \u201865-\u201866 period when a lot of things changed again in Santa Barbara. There weren\u2019t very many places to play folk music, so Howard and I kind of drifted apart. I bought a Rickenbacker electric guitar and played with The Underground Railroad\u2014made up of UCSB students\u2014and we had a hot R&B band. I also played in a pick-up band with Mike (of Mike\u2019s Drum Shop<\/em>), Ron Fink on bass, and George \u201cStosh\u201d Mamalakis (lead guitarist for the Tridents surf band) who worked at [H.T.<\/em>]\u00a0Bennett\u2019s Music<\/em> and sold me a Fender Strat (genuine 1964\u2014pre-CBS) that I put a Jaguar pick guard on and a Fender Super Reverb amp with the four 10-inch speakers. We played around and opened the Ali Baba<\/em> off lower State Street\u2014the first \u201ctopless club.\u201d Well, as they say, \u201cIt all depends on what you see in your work.\u201d But we had a lot of fun, to say the least. It was all fun!!!<\/p>\n Travis Edmonson and I remained friends. He \u201ccamped\u201d at my house for a few months after his split with Bud, and I produced and recorded him in a solo benefit concert for my Sigma Pi Fraternity at UCSB in May of 1966. And then all of us went our separate ways.<\/p>\n I returned to Santa Barbara in 1974, lived on Mountain Drive, got involved in all the music\/Latin percussion\/drumming, and went to Mexico in 1980. I lived in Yelapa, played in Puerto Vallarta (my new \u201ctropical jazz\u201d on piano) and also joined Gypsy Rock with Glenn Blakesley\u2014folk rock\u2014and toured for a couple of years\u2014paid my dues sleeping on couches\u2014and had a lot more fun.<\/p>\n Since then, I\u2019ve gotten into production. I reconnected with Travis and produced and released the \u201cTravis Edmonson\/Live In Concert at U.C. Santa Barbara\u201d CD, \u201cTravis Edmonson\/The Tucson Tapes,\u201d and\u2014most fun of all\u2014we re-created \u201cBud & Travis\u2014The Santa Monica Concert\u201d\u2014the one that you may remember as a double album. Well, we re-created the \u201creal\u201d set list and the concert sound, and put all the tunes in the right order. This couldn\u2019t have happened on vinyl, but with CDs\u2014a whole new way to go. All are available on Folk Era Records through Rediscover Music, and \u201cBud & Travis\u2014The Santa Monica Concert\u201d was submitted for a Grammy for Best Historical Album two years ago. We were up against Peggy Lee and some sound tracks\u2014so we didn\u2019t get one (yet)\u2014but I\u2019m proud to have been a part of re-creating musical history and to have had some recognition for all our efforts.<\/p>\n I was also delighted to be a part of helping to make \u201cThe Floyd County Boys\/ Heart of Pain\u201d CD become a reality after 39 years; and, in the process of making this book become a reality, to be able to share the new music of Sheri Geiger Odenwald, Tony Townsend, and Howard Pelky. It seems like we\u2019ve all continued to grow, and share, and have fun, and, most especially, to keep the music alive and share the continuing joy and pleasure after all these years \u2026<\/p>\n Music IS a lifelong love affair\u2014and I couldn\u2019t have asked for better people to share it with. My thanks to all of you. It was good then\u2014and there\u2019s more yet to come!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" John Thomas Music\u2014A Lifelong Love Affair The first sounds I can remember hearing were music. My dad had been lighting director and stage technician for the Brooklyn Opera Company, and his Victrola never stopped playing classical music and operas on … Continue reading ![\"Isla](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bluegrasswest.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/IV_early.jpg?resize=403%2C268\")
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