[Dixielandjazz] Another strange gig courtesy of the Sheik

[Dick Baker]

At 01:16 PM 8/6/2006, Jack Bryce wrote [a delightful story about playing an 
Indian wedding, which went sour, with Dave Littlefield].

I've got my own Littlefield "gig that went sour" story--and I'm not even a 
musician!  I was, however, the sound man for the Potomac River Jazz Club in 
its early years, and did some free-lance sound and recording jobs.  One 
year, The Sheik had two big New Year's Eve gigs booked, so, like Lester 
Lanin, he sent a "B" band to one of the gigs.  He hired me to do sound for 
the concert, and asked me to pick up the band's paycheck at the end of the 
evening, so I was, willy-nilly, the group's manager for the evening.

It was in the ballroom of a big hotel on the Washington Beltway, a Ramada 
Inn, I think.  It was the hotel's party, and the director of catering had 
hired Dave and his Charleston Sheiks band, which specialized in 1920s hot 
dance music.  It was a sellout crowd, probably 400 people, geared for a 
good time.  Dave had hired the finest local players for the gig, and had 
assembled a quality set of charts.  They played great--and the crowd hated it!

You see, they thought they were getting modern music.  I'm not sure how 
much whispered, or even shouted, grief the guys on stage were getting, but 
a steady stream of patrons made their way to the sound table in the back of 
the room to complain to me about the "corny old crap" that the band was 
playing.

At the first break, I huddled with the band and explained that the folks in 
the crowd wanted rock 'n' roll.  They riffled desperately through the 
Sheik's book and found, amazingly, a rollicking chart for "Proud Mary," the 
1969 hit by Creedence Clearwater Revival.  God only knows what it was doing 
in a '20s book, but the crowd loved it.  So for the rest of the evening the 
band played Charleston Sheiks music to boos and hisses, interrupted every 
20 minutes or so by a repeat of "Proud Mary," to great acclaim.  The crowd 
wasn't happy, but at least occasionally mollified.

At the end of the evening, I presented myself at the catering director's 
office and asked for the band's paycheck.

"You must be kidding," he said.  "My people hated your bums, and I had to 
give lots of them their money back.  I should be paying you a fraction of 
your price, if anything."

Luckily, and coincidentally, I had talked with Dave about how he got the 
gig, so I was able to reply, "Sorry, Buster, but I happen to know that Dave 
Littlefield gave you a one-hour demo tape of the band and a list of every 
tune in its book.  You hired him on that basis, and if you sold your crowd 
something else, that's your fault, not the Sheik's.  Pay up!"

And he did.

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       Dick Baker - Now in Chattanooga!
             box2 at twotonbaker.com