{"id":19277,"date":"2020-09-04T05:30:40","date_gmt":"2020-09-04T09:30:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=19277"},"modified":"2020-07-21T15:27:46","modified_gmt":"2020-07-21T19:27:46","slug":"second-verse-better-than-the-first-the-choir-reunites-part-3-of-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2020\/09\/04\/second-verse-better-than-the-first-the-choir-reunites-part-3-of-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Second Verse, Better Than the First: The Choir Reunites (Part 3 of 3)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Continued from Part Two<\/a> \u2026 <\/p>\n

Jim Bonfanti explains that it was the reunion of The Raspberries that would eventually lead to The Choir getting back together. \u201cWe were working on the Pop Art<\/i> deal,\u201d he says, referring to Omnivore Recordings\u2019 2CD release of a November 2004 Raspberries concert recording. Released years later in 2017, that album sparked renewed interest in The Raspberries. <\/p>\n

\u201cAnd then Kenny [Margolis] put one or two of the [1969 demos] on Facebook,\u201d he recalls. \u201cHe was surprised at how many people responded, liked it and wanted to hear more.\u201d Klawon phoned Bonfanti and asked him what he thought about self-releasing the cache of demos recorded more than 40 years before. <\/p>\n

Bonfanti told Klawon, \u201cI\u2019m kind of busy working on a \u2018Berries deal with a label called Omnivore, so let\u2019s wait a couple of months until we get this all done. Because they might be interested in this; it\u2019s kind of what they do.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

In fact label head Cheryl Pawelski and her team at Omnivore Recordings were very interested. Artifact: The Unreleased Album<\/i> hit the shelves in February 2018. The release was greeted with positive reviews, but that didn\u2019t mean that The Choir would regroup.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was the one who was kind of against getting together,\u201d Bonfanti admits. He believed that his best days as a drummer were behind him. \u201cWhen I quit playing in \u201877, I didn\u2019t play any drums. I sold my drums, and I was done. I didn\u2019t play any music until the early \u201890s.\u201d He says that in the intervening years, he would occasionally oblige when called out of the audience to join a group onstage.<\/p>\n

\u201cSomebody would recognize me, or know who I was, and ask me to sit in and play a song.\u201d
\nHe recalls that one time when he did so, it didn\u2019t go well. \u201cI stunk horribly,\u201d he says. \u201cWhen I came back to the table, I told my wife Barb, \u2018I can\u2019t do this. I have to get a set of drums of some kind, just to practice a little bit. Because I\u2019m losing it. Or I\u2019m never going to sit in again.\u2019\u201d He didn\u2019t like the idea that someone in the audience might view his performance and think, \u201cI thought he was better than that.\u201d <\/p>\n

Bonfanti practiced and did quite well when The Raspberries reconvened for the 2004 concert. But more than a decade later when faced with the prospect of The Choir getting back together, his concerns resurfaced. \u201cSometimes it\u2019s better to let people remember what they think it was,\u201d he muses, \u201cthan to try and go out and [find that] you\u2019re not as good. I was worried about that.\u201d<\/p>\n

He needn\u2019t have worried. By that point Bonfanti had been keeping his chops up playing with a Cleveland band, Abbey Rodeo. And his former band mates in The Choir could still play, too. \u201cFrom \u201975 to about \u201885, I played in bar bands,\u201d Klawon says. Though in the mid 1980s, Klawon quit the bar band scene, he\u2019d continue to play. \u201cI\u2019ve been in my church band for 30 years,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

So when the decision was made to reunite for live shows, The Choir wasn\u2019t starting from scratch. \u201cWe actually sound better now than we did back then,\u201d Klawon says. He believes that the band today is substantially better than the one that made those \u201869 demos, even though it\u2019s the same lineup. \u201cI think that [Last Call<\/i>] kicks Artifact<\/i> out the door,\u201d he enthuses.<\/p>\n

As enjoyable as the reunion concerts would be, for Klawon, the best part was getting back together with his old friends and musical comrades. \u201cWe emailed each other and knew our song list, but we didn\u2019t know if we were actually going to pull it off,\u201d he admits. The five musicians only had time to schedule four days of rehearsals. \u201cBut it was just magic in the room,\u201d Klawon says. \u201cJust being there and seeing the same faces, everybody in good health, it was amazing. And bringing the music back to life was just breathtaking for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bonfanti didn\u2019t take it for granted that things would go as well as they did. \u201cYou\u2019d think that by the third day, and you\u2019re in the fifth hour [of a practice], you\u2019re going to be at each other\u2019s throats,\u201d he says with a laugh. \u201cBut we never were. We just pushed through and had fun with it.\u201d He says that a big part of the reason is that everyone involved appreciated the opportunity with which they had been presented. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s something that I would have never dreamed of,\u201d Bonfanti says. \u201cI joked with Phil a couple of times: \u2018Phil, did you ever think when we broke up, that 50 years later that we\u2019d be practicing again? Take it a step further, that we\u2019d have an album released?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

He admits that a great deal of hard work went into preparing for rehearsals, the rehearsals themselves, and the reunion shows. \u201cThese are all really good musicians,\u201d Bonfanti emphasizes. \u201cThey came prepared.\u201d Everyone learned his individual parts at home, so when they gathered for practices, the group had a head start on the challenging material. \u201cWe put it together, and it came off pretty good,\u201d he says. \u201cIt was a lot of fun. I love these guys; it\u2019s so easy to work with them. There\u2019s not an ego problem anywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt confident before we did our first show that no one was going to leave thinking we weren\u2019t as good as we were,\u201d says Jim Bonfanti. \u201cPeople would ask, \u2018How\u2019s practice going?\u2019 I\u2019d say, \u2018This is what people are going to look like when we start playing,\u2019 and then I\u2019d just hang my mouth open, like \u2018Whoa.\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n

Randy Klawon was surprised as well. In fact, he says, all of the recent activity surrounding the band he played in a half-century ago is unexpected. The biggest surprise? He answers without hesitation. \u201cThe opportunity to sign a record deal when I\u2019m 68 years old. That\u2019s mind-blowing!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Continued from Part Two \u2026 Jim Bonfanti explains that it was the reunion of The Raspberries that would eventually lead to The Choir getting back together. \u201cWe were working on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19284,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,49,51,56,62],"tags":[3373],"class_list":["post-19277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interview","category-new-release","category-pop","category-prog","category-rawk","tag-the-choir","cat-41-id","cat-49-id","cat-51-id","cat-56-id","cat-62-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19277","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=19277"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19277\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19287,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19277\/revisions\/19287"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}