{"id":18738,"date":"2020-05-20T05:30:19","date_gmt":"2020-05-20T09:30:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=18738"},"modified":"2020-05-04T09:42:28","modified_gmt":"2020-05-04T13:42:28","slug":"before-the-family-stone-age-the-viscaynes-part-three","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2020\/05\/20\/before-the-family-stone-age-the-viscaynes-part-three\/","title":{"rendered":"Before the (Family) Stone Age: The Viscaynes (Part Three)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Continued from Part Two<\/a> …<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"One afternoon soon thereafter, Chuck Gebhardt found himself mowing the very same lawn. \u201cNext thing I knew, a limo pulled up, and my mom got out,\u201d he recalls. \u201cCome on; we’ve got to go to Los Angeles,\u201d she told him. Gebhardt hesitated; he was only halfway done with the grass cutting. \u201cI can’t just leave!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou’ve already quit,\u201d his mother told him. \u201cIt’s all taken care of.\u201d He got in the car, and the limo took the family to the airport in San Francisco, where they boarded a plane \u2013 \u201cthe first plane trip in my life,\u201d Gebhardt adds \u2013 to LAX. Once in Los Angeles, the group made its second recording of a Sly Stewart original. \u201cWe first recorded ‘Yellow Moon’ at a studio in the Bay Area,\u201d Gebhardt recalls. \u201cBut I guess they didn’t like it very much.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYellow Moon\u201d features a slightly odd-sounding lead vocal from Sly Stewart. \u201cI don’t know why,\u201d Gebhardt says, \u201cbut what they did was speed it up just a little bit. So instead of Sly with his nice deep voice, it has a little different twist.\u201d The b-side of \u201cYellow Moon\u201d would be another Stewart original, \u201cHeavenly Angel.\u201d Neither the a-side nor the flip was credited to Stewart, though; the composers are listed respectively as George Motola (the session’s producer) and Earl Washington, both also co-credited to Rickie Page, Motola’s wife.<\/p>\n

A third song, \u201cUncle Sam Needs You,\u201d was also cut; it was released as a single as well, with \u201cYellow Moon\u201d on its b-side. \u201cWe did quite a few songs,\u201d Gebhardt recalls. \u201cWe were there for a week.\u201d On its release, \u201cYellow Moon\u201d became a minor hit on the West Coast.<\/p>\n

Even though they were all still in their teens, the members of The Viscaynes could appreciate the talent within Sly Stewart. But even they didn’t realize just how deep of a creative well lay within the young musician; the work he did with The Viscaynes only hinted at that potential. He wasn’t at all involved in the production side of things with the group, Gebhardt says. \u201cI don’t think that they knew he had that ability at all.\u201d<\/p>\n

Various online sources assert that The Viscaynes backed Richard Berry \u2013 famous for \u201cLouie, Louie\u201d \u2013 on a session credited to Jasper Woods. That song, \u201cHully Gully Papa,\u201d was released on VPM Records, the same label that put out \u201cYellow Moon.\u201d But Gebhardt’s memory contradicts that story. \u201cI don’t remember doing [recordings] with anybody but us,\u201d he says. \u201cIt’d be neat if I could say, ‘Yeah, that’s right.’ But I’d rather have the truth out there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those same sources suggest that The Viscaynes had already broken up by the time \u201cYellow Moon\u201d began to get airplay. \u201cThat’s weird,\u201d says Gebhardt. \u201cBecause we hadn’t broken up until Frank went into the Air Force and Sly was doing more stuff with Tom Donahue and Autumn Records.\u201d He says that the group didn’t formally decide to disband; it was more a matter of its members drifting in different directions. \u201cSly was being taken to San Francisco and being catered to down there,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd it was almost like we were finished with what was going on.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gebhardt says that Sly did his best to make opportunities for his friends from the Viscaynes. \u201cHe kept trying to bring us back into [musical projects]; he was loyal, and we were family.\u201d Nothing significant came of those efforts, though, and the group members all went on to other things.<\/p>\n

But even after the Viscaynes were over, the former members still hung out together on occasion. Gebhardt recalls one night when several of them (including Sly Stewart) visited San Francisco’s Condor Club to take in a performance by the famous topless dancer Carol Doda. Gebhardt recalls that as soon as the show was over, Sly told his friends, \u201cCome on; let’s go say hi to her!\u201d<\/p>\n

As they approached the dressing room door, a club employee shouted at them. \u201cYou can’t go in there yet; she’s not dressed!\u201d Gebhardt recalls laughing and saying to Sly, \u201cWe just saw her on top of a piano and without any clothes on, and now we’ve got to wait here in the hallway!\u201d<\/p>\n

Once Sly found greater success with The Family Stone, he invited his former band mates to visit his parents’ home, one he had recently bought for them. \u201cThey took us into the house and showed us all around,\u201d Gebhardt recalls. \u201cHis mom said, ‘You’ve got to come in and see, Charlie.’\u201d<\/p>\n

Neither Charlie Gebhardt nor any of the other Viscaynes have seen nor heard from Sly Stone in many years. But Gebhardt still thinks highly of his former band mate. \u201cHe’s like a nomad now,\u201d Charlie says. \u201cAnd it’s a shame. Because he could actually be doing something [music-related] right now. And [even] if he wasn’t singing the music, he could be putting music together for somebody else to sing. Because I bet he’s got a million songs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though their time in the spotlight was brief, Gebhardt has nothing but fond memories of The Viscaynes. \u201cIt gives you some memories,\u201d he says. \u201cThe experience was unbelievable. You got to be a rock and roll star. And that’s something that none of us, I don’t think, would ever trade.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Continued from Part Two … One afternoon soon thereafter, Chuck Gebhardt found himself mowing the very same lawn. \u201cNext thing I knew, a limo pulled up, and my mom got […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18746,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,51,60],"tags":[3580,1980,1981,4192],"class_list":["post-18738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interview","category-pop","category-rb","tag-org-music","tag-sly-and-the-family-stone","tag-sly-stone","tag-viscaynes","cat-41-id","cat-51-id","cat-60-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18738","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18738"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18738\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18747,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18738\/revisions\/18747"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18746"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}