Henry Phillip Pritchard–known as Phil. Born January 3, 1947, in Yuma, Arizona. I lived in Carlsbad, New Mexico; Clovis, New Mexico; and El Paso, Texas. My family and I moved to Santa Barbara, California, in 1950. My father was a heavy equipment operator and got a job working on the Bradbury Dam project. Mom fell in love with Santa Barbara and said, \u201cThis is it. We\u2019re not moving anymore.\u201d After El Paso, who could blame her.<\/span><\/p>\n I have an older sister, Francis, and an older brother, Michael. We all grew up listening to Country and Western. When we finally got a TV, we watched \u201cCal\u2019s Corral\u201d and \u201cTown Hall Party\u201d\u2014live C&W. At some point we got a little RCA 45 rpm record player. I remember there being a good selection of Country and Western and Rock-and-Roll: Buddy Holly\u2019s \u201cPeggy Sue,\u201d Elvis Presley\u2019s \u201cHound Dog,\u201d and the Everly Brothers. I noticed some 45\u2019s actually had four songs on them. One of my favorites was a Country record by Eddie Arnold. On one side it had \u201cCattle Call\u201d and \u201cGot An Angel On My Shoulder.\u201d The other side was \u201cJust a Bummin\u2019 Around,\u201d and I can\u2019t remember the other unless it was \u201cDown In The Caribbean.\u201d These songs\u2014on the records, on the radio, and on TV\u2014had a major influence early on in my life musically.<\/span><\/p>\n My music career started at a young age. Right\u2014I bet every person in this book says that, but it\u2019s true. My first performance was in a barbershop quartet at Hope School in the first grade. The quartet consisted of Donald Nunn, Tony Rose, William Levy, and me. It was a special show in conjunction with the local Barbershop Quartet Club or something like that. I don\u2019t remember how or why the other three and I were chosen. It might have had something to do with the real adult quartet that was there. On stage, the adult quartet reminisced about when they were kids singing together. The stage lights faded out and came back on\u2014and there we were\u2014handlebar mustaches, bowler hats, the whole deal. One of my little buddies was sick that night just before the show; maybe a case of cold feet. The three of us did a great job\u2014we belted it right out. We sang \u201cThe Syncopated Clock.\u201d I still have the <\/span>Santa Barbara News-Press<\/i><\/span> picture of us getting our makeup on. I wanted to keep the mustache, but they made me give it back.<\/span><\/p>\n Next up was the Goleta Boys Club Drum Corps<\/em>. I was a marching snare drummer. There were about twelve of us\u2014eleven snares and one bass drum. We traveled all over southern California playing in parades. My first Santa Barbara Fiesta Parade was with these guys. That was around the second grade. What a lot of fun.<\/span><\/p>\n I started the trombone in the third grade. I played it in school bands to the end of the ninth grade. My parents must have gotten tired of hearing me blow on that trombone, because at Christmas when I was 12, they gave me a steel-string guitar. It was a Silvertone, auditorium size, arch top, \u201cF\u201d hole, cable action guitar. The action was so stiff, I don\u2019t think I ever played a clean-sounding first position \u201cF\u201d bar chord the whole two years I had it. After that I stepped up to a Kay brand flat top. Much easier to play.<\/span><\/p>\n My mom set up guitar lessons right away with a lady named Ann Tischer. She didn\u2019t play the guitar herself. Actually, she was first viola with the Santa Barbara Symphony. It didn\u2019t matter, she was a very good teacher. I would go to her house on Saturday mornings and she would have me sit with my guitar at the piano, on the piano bench. Mrs. Tischer had two large Siamese cats that hated my guts. They would sit way too close and sometimes growl at me. Those two big cats scared the hell out of me, and she knew it. Sometimes she\u2019d say something like, \u201cI\u2019d like to see you work a little harder on your key signatures,\u201d or whatever, and then give her huge, bloodthirsty cats a sweet little smile. Mrs. Tischer helped me learn any song I wanted to learn. In the process, she taught me to read treble clef. She also made me memorize all key signatures. She made me learn all the chords for all the keys and their relative minors and learn how to figure it out myself in case I forgot. When I got my first string bass at 14, Mrs. Tischer was my teacher. No, she didn\u2019t play bass either. I really owe a lot to Ann Tischer.<\/span><\/p>\n Me N Ed\u2019s Pizza Parlor<\/em> was just down the street from my Boy Scout troop\u2019s meeting hall. I loved Boy Scouts, but I couldn\u2019t wait for the meetings to end so I could hurry over to Me N Ed\u2019s to watch Bill Dodds. Bill played the piano and sang. For solos he\u2019d reach over and grab his cornet or valve trombone and play a great break, never missing a note with his left hand. He really wailed. One evening I finally spoke with him. \u201cAh\u2026Mr. Dodds\u2026I play guitar.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s nice, son, But you know, you really should learn the string bass. There just aren\u2019t that many string bass players around. You\u2019d be in demand all the time. You could probably work your way through college. You don\u2019t want to be a baseball player or a football player. They\u2019re seasonal. You want to be a musician. They\u2019re popular with the girls all year \u2018round.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n I was sold. It just so happened that my assistant scoutmaster, Mr. Don Becker, had his old string bass for sale because his wife had bought him a new Bavarian bass for his birthday. I think I paid $125 for it. This bass was old when I got it. It\u2019s a \u201cKing Morton\u201d by E. B. White Co., Chicago, Illinois. It had obviously been played a lot too. I was very blessed to get this bass. Not only is it loud, but it\u2019s got great tone to boot.<\/span><\/p>\n Mr. Henry Brubeck was in charge of band and orchestra at San Marcos High School. I played bass in the orchestra from ninth through twelfth grade. I also played in the dance band. I don\u2019t know why they called it by that name\u2014I don\u2019t remember ever playing a single dance. Our sheet music was old swing tunes from the forties. I loved it. Mr. Brubeck gave me the guitar chord charts instead of the bass sheet music parts: \u201cPritchard, I want you to learn how to create your own bass parts.\u201d Thank you, Mr. Brubeck. Thank you. He knew what he was doing.<\/span><\/p>\n I used to have an old Zenith radio from the twenties or thirties. It stood about five feet tall and about two feet deep. It had three speakers and a rich tone. I\u2019d crank it up and play my new bass with the songs on my big radio. This was an enjoyable and challenging way to learn string bass. It was also a very fast way. Sometimes I wouldn\u2019t quite be in tune with the next song, so I would have to tune very quickly\u2014which was also good practice. I would do that for hours at a time.<\/span><\/p>\n The first professional job I had was with a band called The Starlighters.<\/em>\u00a0They had been together for quite a while before I met them. These guys were already very accomplished on their instruments. There was Todd Crow on piano, Fal Oliver on drums, Bob Iorio on either baritone or tenor sax, and Eddy Avakian on alto sax. We played dances at the Cabrillo Auditorium and other places. I think I met these guys in the summer between ninth and tenth grades. I used to hang around Bonnie Langley Music Store<\/em> quite a bit, playing her guitars. Bonnie didn\u2019t mind me playing her guitars, but she told me that if I was going to do that, then she wanted me to tune them. All of them. Every time I came in. My kind of job. One day while tuning Bonnie\u2019s guitars I met a guy named Bud Boyd. He said he played guitar too and that he played folk music with a guy named Todd Grant. Somewhere along the line I mentioned that I played the bass. With little time lost, I was soon practicing with Bud and Todd. I was 15 and they were both 22. This was the beginning of the Terrytown Trio.<\/span><\/p>\n We used to practice in Todd\u2019s basement over on the east side of Santa Barbara. We practiced long and hard, usually past midnight, and then play weekends. Sometimes it made it pretty hard to get my schoolwork done. By eleventh grade we were playing three nights a week at George and the Dragon<\/em> in Ventura. Two of those were school nights. I can\u2019t believe my mom allowed me to do that. There were two other acts besides us, so I would do as much homework as I could in between shows. George and the Dragon<\/em> was the first place I saw live Bluegrass. This would have been about \u201863 or \u201864. I don\u2019t remember their names, but they were good. They really impressed me with their tight harmonies and precise picking. One night I saw them in the dressing room all together. I just wanted to tell them how much I really liked them. I blurted out, \u201cHey\u2014you guys are pretty good.\u201d I didn\u2019t mean for it to come out like that. I think I pissed them off.<\/span><\/p>\n One of the things I liked about the Terrytown Trio<\/em> was the close harmonies. As much as I enjoy singing, I don\u2019t consider myself much of a singer. Todd Grant and Bud Boyd have good voices. They blended well. They also made me sing. I was just a kid and had no choice. I got stuck singing all the high parts\u2014a burden I still carry today.<\/span><\/p>\n Of all of the places that we played locally, I think the Nexus stands out the most\u2014probably because we played there the most. We also met a lot of other folk singers there. It would be impossible to remember everybody, and I would hate to upset anyone by leaving out a name. Let\u2019s see, I remember The Channel Singers. a trio composed of Ernie Brooks on string bass, John Thomas on guitar, and Howard Pelky on 5-string long-neck banjo-\u2014fun group. There was a beautiful blonde lady, Sheri Geiger, who played the guitar and sang. There was also this skinny, foul-mouthed woman with short, dark hair who didn\u2019t have a lot of patience with the audience. Words that started with \u201cF\u201d were some of her favorites. The Nexus is also where I met my friend Don Robertson\u2014\u201cBig D.\u201d What a voice. What a songwriter. What a guy. Years later I played on his album\u2014mostly his songs. We\u2019ve played a lot of fun music together over a long period of time.<\/span><\/p>\n Who could ever forget Tony Townsend once they\u2019ve heard him. I remember Tony as the most professional-sounding folk singer in our area. Tony played great guitar, had a great voice, and wrote super songs. He would play and sing his songs perfectly. Todd Grant and I had the honor of backing him up on a couple of occasions.<\/span><\/p>\n The Terrytown Trio was together for about two years\u2014two fun and exciting years for a high school student. We played everywhere and everything, from my high school to bars, pizza parlors, a female prison, the Troubadour, coffee houses, colleges and universities, The Ice House, and hootenannies. I think \u201chootenanny\u201d is just another word for folk music festival. <\/span><\/p>\n In the summer of 1964, Todd Grant and I started playing Bluegrass with a banjo player named Chuck Flannery, from Kentucky. Forty years later, The Floyd County Boys are still at it. But that\u2019s a book in itself.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Bass Man Phil Pritchard Henry Phillip Pritchard–known as Phil. Born January 3, 1947, in Yuma, Arizona. I lived in Carlsbad, New Mexico; Clovis, New Mexico; and El Paso, Texas. My family and I moved to Santa Barbara, California, in 1950. … Continue reading