Coming to you from the studios at the Illinois Rock and Roll Museum on Route 66, it's the Rock and Roll Chicago podcast. Rock and Roll Chicago, Rock and Roll Chicago, my hometown. Well I was born in the city, going to rock the city of Chicago.

Chicago rock and rollers are the best here I'm around. Hey everybody, it's Ray the Roadie. And this is Hollywood Mike.

What's going on, Ray? Oh, not a heck of a lot. Having a little technical problems before the show today, but we were able to fix that. Yeah, Viagra? Yeah, and some Prevagen, so I don't forget to take the Viagra.

You know, something tells me that there's another reason why you would, you know, oh, I forgot to take my Viagra. I don't think you need another pharmaceutical to help you remember that. Hey, speak for yourself, buddy.

Who the fuck was that? I don't know. Where'd that voice come from? It sounds like Skip Prepares. All right.

Oh my God, it is. Looks a little like him. I didn't.

Yeah, it looks a little like him. He just came in here from behind the curtain. Yeah.

I didn't even see him come in. How you doing, Skip? I am great. Yeah.

Awesome. It's warm outside, a little rainy. Yeah.

But I'll take it for March. That's right. Even though this program is out in June.

Oh, like I said, it's June. Look, it's so sunshiny out there. It's so beautiful.

It's getting warm. Well, hey, thanks for coming in tonight. We do appreciate it.

Well, sure. I understand you had to brave the traffic. I had an orgy with the Olsen twins, but I gave that up to see you guys.

Did you? Yes. Well, plus it's Lent. Oh, that's true.

Yeah. Got to give something up for Lent. Yeah, that's true.

Yeah. That's true. I don't know.

I think I wouldn't have had a problem leaving the Olsen twins. No. Yeah.

No. Never know. Yeah.

Well, there's one of those motorcycles. Yeah, yeah. And nobody can hear.

So I honestly don't know where the heck to start, Skip. I have to be totally honest with you because you have done so much stuff throughout your life and throughout your career and so many different things. You know, we forgot to tell them.

See, the one time we forgot to tell someone. Oh, yeah. Yes.

The Olsen twins were just calling him. Yes. Yeah.

Please come back. Yes, we need you so much. But no, you have just done so much in your career and done so many different things.

I think I just feel like I need to get shut up and just kind of tell us the folks that listen to our podcast want to know a little bit about who you are, not necessarily who you are on stage, but how everything started and. Well, I can start talking. You can stop me when it gets too obnoxious.

No, you go right ahead. You just start talking. We're going to go.

Oh, you won't even be here. We're going to get those cupcakes. I don't blame you.

I'd rather have the cupcakes myself. Actually, my first performing experience was as a youthful magician, about age 10, where my first shows were doing magic. Sometimes for the neighborhood kids in my basement, set up a little theater, charge them two cents to get in, a penny for popcorn.

So I was headed to big money, as you could see. Yeah. Was that completely your idea? You're 10 years old and you said, OK, how am I going to get money out of the neighborhood? No, it wasn't how to get money.

It's that I love magic so much. Well, I got to do it somewhere. And from that, it went to, you know, my mom had started teaching me piano when I was five and she played classical piano around the house.

I got exposed to some good music early. Her brother played violin and saxophone and owned a music store for 50 years in Villa Park, Villa Park Music. Oh, really? Yeah.

I've been there many times. Well, it's been closed for a long time. If it's the one you're thinking of, I'm not sure.

It would have been open 30 years ago, 35 years ago or so. I mean, I was in high school. I was in high school at the time.

I grew up in the Roselle area, but strangely enough, all of my, most of my friends, because of a church youth group, were like in the Glendale Heights, Lombard, you know, Villa Park area. So when I was becoming a musician myself, we'd been there many times. My uncle Gus was really good at getting me guitars at cost or close to it, so I could afford to get them.

Anyway, I put together my first band, age 16. The Aristocats, before Disney just glopped it. Stole it from you.

Right. You didn't have a legal team to go after them or anything? Not at that age, no. No cease and desist or anything like that? No, I'm not that kind of, at least I wasn't that kind of, but and various bands until, in Joliet area, right here, until Trilogy in 19, we performed in 1969, 70, and we put out an album on Mercury Records, which was based in Chicago at the time anyway.

Right. Really great album, really crappy promotion by Mercury. The excuse was they were trying to break, at that time, Rod Stewart and Buddy Miles.

We're not, we're not stars, but they signed a big contract. So they, Mercury put all their, the executive producer came up to me once, decades later, to skip. We really blew it with you guys.

Sorry. Great. Thanks.

Now you realize it. Right, yeah. But then after that, played with another band in the Illinois Valley called Stronghold.

Then got the call to, I had been writing songs with Billy Herman, who was the drummer for the New Colony Six. Now, Billy had been with a band called Aorta, which was kind of a progressive rock band in the sixties. Was that a preview to Heart? Oh, geez.

Sometimes, sometimes we, sometimes we have to stop. Mike, I knew that was coming out of his mouth. You know, I might need that whiskey.

I might need the whiskey, if you could get it. I heard it. They offered it earlier.

I heard it and I couldn't get, I couldn't get myself up off the chair to stop him. I thought that was a preview to the band, you know, start with the Aorta and then you get Heart. In a weird kind of, you know, squint your eyes, lose your mind kind of way.

Yeah. Yeah, really, really good. I'm trying to think who else was in that.

Pizza Terra, maybe. I could be wrong about that. Anyway, so they had a kind of an overturn in the New Colony Six.

In the late 1972, I joined the band along with a couple other guys. And from the South Side, who turned out to be good musicians, complete whack job as people. And I wound up writing and singing our final two singles, which were on MCA, I want to think.

Remember nine months into the, that incarnation of the band, the Billy Herman always did a big drum solo at the end of the night. And I look over at our keyboard player, Bob from the South Side during the drum solo. And Bob's reading the Bible, thinking this, this can't be good.

Two weeks later, he calls Jerry Van Collenberg, the then leader and lead guitar player, says, God told me not to play rock and roll anymore. So he quit on us, cold turkey, just left us hanging. We had gigs booked.

Wow. We cut out, we, so we, we, we canceled two weeks of work, used the first week to find a couple of replacements, which were never quite the right ones that we needed, but we had to get them that, you know, not bad. And the next week of rehearsal, next, our first show, I think it was a Dex card.

What are his shows? His, his, uh, you guys aren't old enough. Wild Gooses. There were Wild Gooses back then in different cities.

He just appropriated a venue and called it a Wild Goose for that night. We weren't together yet. I'll never forget.

He, he had our, our money in a roll or something. And Billy was there and he threw it across the room at Billy. And that was the last time we ever heard from him.

So, um, let that be a lesson to you, Bible readers. Give your band, uh, some notice, please. Next time.

So that they can have time to put together a good band again. Not the right time to do one to others. Yeah.

Yeah. So when was this, this wasn't in the middle of a performance. You looked over and he's reading the Bible.

Yeah, it was. Yes. You guys were on stage.

On stage. And Billy's doing the big drum solo, which is the big part of our big closing number. Okay.

And there he is. And this is the, this is the wildest. He had the wildest white man's Afro I've ever seen in my life.

It went about 10 inches above his head and then down his side, all like that. And he was like this hipster and, uh, uh, just a crazy man. But he, he found God in the middle of the drum solo.

So it could happen to anybody, I guess. I suppose. At any time.

What, I mean, what venue, how many people, I mean, how all saw this was, was this. Well, I, they didn't see it. Oh, they didn't see it.

No, I don't think so because he's sitting at his, uh, what we call a cut down B3 back then. Okay. Hammond, uh, the Hammond organ was the greatest rock and jazz organ, but to try to transport him was, you know, bare.

So this was a cut down where they cut off the bottom half of it. He doesn't use, doesn't have the foot pedals or anything for bass, uh, just the top two keyboards or whatever. And, um, that, that hurt.

And we eventually had a good band again, but by that time we couldn't get the records played well. And there was a discourse between some of us. And I said, Jerry, you know, it's, I think it's time.

So we ended at the end of 74. Then I started working solo, working on my fingerpicking a little bit, playing a little dinky club here and there. And I get a call from Bernie Perchy, uh, from Minneapolis.

Uh, now Bernie had been the drummer on the Trilogy album and he said, uh, we're looking for, uh, we're looking for somebody who can play finger pick acoustic guitar and sing backup vocal. I think, well, yeah, I can do that. But boy, I am so sick of bands, not interested.

Bernie, there's no way you could, it's Olivia Newton-John. Oh yes. Oh, okay.

Sure. Yeah. When can I, when should I be there? Wow.

So I flew up to the Minneapolis and actually auditioned for the band. I initially was hired by the band, not directly by Olivia. They were a jazz fusion band when they weren't working with her and they had a need an add on guy to, you know, accommodate her tunes.

So I, I wound up, uh, working with her, uh, for four years. Um, after the first year, the, uh, the first band with Bernie, um, quit or got fired depending on who you talk to. And so operation shifted to Los Angeles.

So I would fly to Los Angeles for rehearsals and, you know, and then we'd go on the road for three months at a time or whatever. And so, uh, did that for another three years for, so four years, Olivia was wonderful, sweet, um, sung so well. She was so consistent, great pitch, great phrasing.

Um, just a doll. Always nice to me. I had a, I had a crush on her the whole four years.

How, how can red blooded guy not, I don't know. Maybe the other musician didn't. I was crazy.

I get so flustered when I talk to her. I never got over. I like talking to a regular person.

I'm not, that's all I could do. Yeah. Terrible.

Well, you know, I'm, I'm of the age where one of the first movies that I remember seeing was when she was in Greece. Oh wow. I was, I was in maybe about fifth or sixth grade, I think.

And, um, yeah, I, as a fifth and sixth grade kid, I was in love with Olivia Newton-John and, you know, and then my sister liked all of the, you know, the songs like physical and things like that. She, she did the, she did the music video that was being played on Friday night videos all the time where she was in the workout uniform. She was like my first crush.

I understand. That was a little after my time. We ended at the end of 78, but, uh, I think that was the biggest single of the eighties actually was physical for sure.

But we, uh, we did a world tour in 78, um, Japan, Australia, Europe. We ended at the metropolitan opera house in New York city. And after she took me aside after that show and said, don't wait for me.

I'm not going to go back in the road for a while. I said, okay. Uh, it turns out she didn't go back for another four years.

And I was involved, uh, by that time I'd gone back to school at Lewis university in Romeoville, got a degree in speech and theater. I wanted to round out as a performing artist, not just the music, but you know, other stuff. And, uh, I started working my way through school, just playing solo gigs.

I had a drum machine, I'm a little embarrassed to say, and I did pop tunes of various decades and, and then at some point I said, boy, this is how I started out. I'm a little bored. So I started acting a little comedy shtick here and there.

And I thought, gee, I wonder if maybe I can do that. And I was learning some skills or acting and so on, which all got incorporated. And it started, uh, I'm thinking, you know this, but I was at the wrong venues.

I was playing this place again. There's so much of this before your time. This is a lettuce entertainer restaurant.

It was called Lawrence of oregano on diversity and Clark. I think, and you would play in the waiting room because they were so busy that people had to sit in a, in a big waiting room before they got it. And that's what you, that was your audience was fine.

If you're playing music. Once I started doing comedy, I, I would do the, I do the setup and then they hear Johnson party ready to be seated. I thought, wait, we're, we're waiting for the punchline.

We'll be right there. Yeah. So I thought, okay, well now let's move to a better venue.

And then it was like eclectic venues like the Roxy, uh, which was, um, not cabaret, it was everything. It had, uh, comedians and music groups and whatever. And that was a really good fit.

But I knew at some point I had to get, play an actual comedy club as, as I developed the act, got more sophisticated. So I talked to a guy that I didn't know that well at the time, John Caponera. Who also went to Lewis university, but before he's younger than me, but he went before me and he said, ah, can I get a showcase in there? So he got me a 15 minute showcase, uh, one night at Zany's, which is very hard to get, but he got it to me.

And of course I was nervous as hell. I don't know how they're going to respond to it. And I just kicked ass big time.

And the manager's running around. I got to tell Rick, I got to tell. So I called the owner and they started booking me and I was a headliner.

I didn't even go through all the comedy club stuff that these guys have to go to. Cause I had an act that I developed outside the club and, uh, and that became my career for, you know, decades. So go figure.

Yeah. I play, I, you know, I played around the country. Um, I didn't travel as much as some, I did headline danger fields a couple of times.

I opened for Rodney in St. Paul, Minnesota, a big concert. I think I was being auditioned to see if I'd be a good opening act for him. And I, I, I did a little too well.

And he says, well, yeah, yeah. So you blew the roof off the place. Yeah.

All right. And so I never heard from him again. He was a nice guy, but I, he, I could tell that he, he was, he struggled a little.

You have to have the right kind of act in front of you. My, not that I was better or worse or whatever. It just has to have a certain sensibility so that when he comes up, his stuff is, is, you know, timely and, and, and works.

Right. So I wasn't the right guy, but nice to meet him. Nice to work with him.

The second time I worked, uh, danger fields in New York city, he let me stay in his apartment, which was, uh, there's just a door to the club alongside kind of a hidden door. Open that. And there's his apartment.

So I got to stay that one time, one week. And so I did that for a long time. And, um, then I started, uh, outgrowing the audiences and with my material, you know, you're doing, you're doing, uh, I'm doing satirical impressions of, uh, let's say Paul McCartney, for example.

And the audience doesn't know who, when, when it gets to the, where the audience doesn't know who Paul McCartney is, I'm in trouble. Right. So, you know, I'm 60, I'm playing to people that are 20.

They have no frame of reference whatsoever. And I talked to the owner. I said, well, I just, you know, I can't, I just can't do this.

So, um, so I kept working private gigs for a while, but then I, my cousin, John Cordigan, who fronts a band. I don't know if you've ever heard of it. It's two hype crew.

Oh yeah, absolutely. It's a, it's a hip hop tribute band. That's my cousin Johnny's band.

Oh, no kidding. He goes to C chord or something like that. Anyway, he said, you know, you ought to do a, a history show.

He said, you're almost doing that now. Cause I would include background information about different, oh, that's not a bad idea. Let it roll around for a few years, put together my first heroes of rock show, which was the fifties and sixties.

And so I was able to include a comedy, music, history, very well received again, you know, so that's what I've been doing ever since all that expanded to several shows. The first one is the, now it's called the birth of rock and roll, the forties and fifties. Now I've got the sixties heroes of rock, the seventies heroes of rock, a Beatles show, the rockabilly heroes, and the newest one, the Illinois heroes of rock, which I'll be debuting July 27th at the, whatever the clarion is called now in conjunction with the Illinois rock and roll museum and Ron Romero.

I don't have much of the details right now, but that'll be the first time I'll be doing that. And just all Illinois people starting at Muddy Waters. Right, right.

And I think the newest one that I do is Smashing Pumpkins. Nice. With 1979, that tune.

Excellent. Excellent. And run the gamut, everybody from Curtis Mayfield and the Impressions to the late sixties rock groups and all that stuff.

Right. So did I leave out any of the, when I danced at Chippendale stuff, did I leave that out? You did. Can we backtrack a little bit? Sure, sure, sure.

Yeah, yeah. How do we, how do we, how do we transition into the Chippendales? Well, that's a tough one. Yeah.

By all means, we don't want to miss that. One night he was dying on stage. He's like, what the hell? Let me just strip naked.

Yeah. And the response was overwhelming. Not good, but overwhelming.

Overwhelming. And I'm thinking, well, maybe I got something here. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, you've kind of, I mean, you truly have kind of reinvented yourself a little bit. Yeah, a number of times.

To be going on tour with Olivia Newton-John, right? And playing with New Colony Six and then all of a sudden deciding, well, you know what? I'm going to try this standup comedy thing. Yeah, it's crazy. I mean, you got to, you have to start all over again.

I mean. You have to, you got to be a little nuts or some of us lot, lot nuts. Yeah, yeah.

And just always needing something fresh, like I need to be challenged. Right. I can't just do the same thing for the rest of my life.

Give me a new challenge every now and then. And these days it's more and more challenging memorizing songs. Oh, yeah.

The older you get, that memory, not so good. Thank God for Apple books and. Yeah, I don't use those.

Yeah, you can't. I won't do a show with iPad or something in front of me. I figured they're paying to see me.

I should at least give them a real show, not just me reading a show. So it makes it more challenging, but I think the audience appreciates it. And then at some point I started sometimes adding some side musicians to my show.

And I found some great ones right here in Joliet. In fact, a guy that was a drummer with me back in 1971, Jim Albarico in that group Stronghold that I mentioned. And he's been playing in a group lately, Shindig.

He's actually the main lead singer and rhythm guitarist for Shindig. Before that, he did a bunch of stuff, but I got him back on drum. So he's got like this mini drum kit where he sits on a cajon.

You guys know what a cajon is? For your listeners, it's a wooden box that you can tap and get sounds out of, right? And you sit on it. Well, he's got that. Plus he's got a foot pedal for the bass drum sound.

And now he's added a hi-hat with his other foot and a snare drum. So it's kind of like a mini drum kit. It's not as loud, doesn't take up as much space.

So I got Jim and then on bass, I've got Jay Hilton. And it's fun playing with those guys. So my Beatles shows and my Rockabilly shows, which is called Elvis, Buddy, Roy and Ricky, I have a trio.

And that's a whole different kind of fun. Not as much comedy and history, a little more music. So the shows have little different balances of, you know, heroes, hits, history, humor.

Right, right. And nudity. Nudity? Yeah, nudity.

Okay. Yeah. Well, you know, you got to have a little nudity.

Little bit. Just a little bit. Yeah.

Yeah. I used to have a band. We were called the Loincloths.

Wow. So we played. Boy, I'm jealous.

I should have thought of that group name. Yeah. Damn it.

Do any of your shows, do you perform strictly as a solo actor? Or do you always perform with someone else? Yes. Yeah. The 60s Heroes of Rock is solo.

The Birth of Rock and Roll, the 40s and 50s, that's solo. My 70s show is with Jim, plays percussion and sings harmonies. He's also a great tenor vocalist, which I'm a baritone.

It compliments me great. And sometimes a girl singer, because that's the decade I was with Olivia Newton-John. So we include four Olivia Newton-John songs, plus a number of anecdotes.

My experience is with her and so on. Right. Right.

And so we have a girl singer. You were with Olivia Newton-John, you said, prior to her being in Greece. Prior and during.

Okay. Prior and during. Okay.

So you were with her kind of in that part of her career that made people take notice and say, hey, we want to get her for this film, basically. Yeah, I guess you would say. I think when I first joined her in March of 75, her boyfriend was also her manager.

And he has passed away now, and Elvis rest his soul. But he wasn't a very good boyfriend or manager. So I don't think he always made the greatest decisions.

So at one point, she dumped him and got, I think it was Katzgallon Cleary, which was a reputable LA Hollywood agent. And they secured the Greece deal in 1978. Right.

Right. And of course, I had nothing to do with the movie or anything. Although I did later, I've been in a couple production of it myself.

In 1984, I played Sonny Latieri in a production at the Candlelight Theater in Summit, Illinois. Which is no longer there. Which is no longer.

No, it's a Portillo's. I've been there. Yeah.

Is it? I've been there several times. That was like if I met a new girl. Yeah.

I would impress the hell out of them by saying, Hey, honey, you know, we're going to go see a play and have dinner. Yeah. And I was a young man.

I was like 18, 19, 20 years old when all this stuff was happening. That was like my secret weapon at the Candlelight Dinner Theater. I loved that place.

Well, it was fun. And it was in the round. And parts of the stage were on hydraulics would come up and down.

Like one would go down and then you'd play on the other part and they'd put like a stage, what do you call it? Nut gear. The mines, like furniture and so on, set. And then they finished and this would come up and then you'd have that area.

Or like with, as I recall, for Greased Lightning with the car that they did that. Right. They had the hydraulic go down, drive the car on it and then bring it up.

Yeah. Yeah. And we, that was about five, I want to say five or six months there.

And after the first couple of months, we were doing three acts and we included two songs from the movie. You're the One That I Want and Helplessly Devoted to You, which were written by, I believe, John Farrah, who was also her producer and mainly guitarist for the recordings and so on. And one of the still living writer of the original Grease came to the show, was not happy that we were using those other tunes and he made us change it.

So we reduced it to a two-act play and my favorite scene got cut that, you know, where I got my big laugh. Of course, that got let go. Story of my life.

But, and then we finished it. We finished it like that. I've always, I've always wondered, it's funny that you mentioned that because I've always wondered, I, I've, I've played several roles in Grease myself and I've always wondered, why would they change the music from the original Hollywood or Hollywood, the original Broadway production? And they changed a lot of music for the movie.

You know, like, like you mentioned, those songs weren't in the stage production. And was it, the one that John Travolta sings in the movie too, the song Sandy, I don't, that one wasn't in the stage. That was Blue Moon, I believe.

In the stage. Well, let me correct you a little. This started in Chicago.

Okay. Grease was a product of Chicago and it was done here first. Now, I don't know how many changes were made.

And it was pretty raunchy. The first version was really raunchy. Okay.

And that subject, we just kept taming it down a little bit for a wider audience, which I understand, but now I don't think anyone does Grease without those two songs from the movie. Right. But back then it was, you know, a little touchy subject for the writer.

He may not be even still alive. I'm not sure. Right.

And then about eight years ago, I did a production of, actually at the Bicentennial Theater of Grease. And I played Teen Angel, the part in the film that was played by, oh, that's terrible. Frankie Avalon? Frankie Avalon.

Yeah. And that was kind of fun. That has always been one of the favorite characters to play in that thing.

It's so fun. You know, I can't mention the venue just yet. I can say this, but I can't mention the venue just yet because we're still working the details out.

But I occasionally will be asked my band to play theme nights and we've been asked to do a Grease night, but there is a twist to it. They're going to turn it into a murder, into a murder mystery dinner. What? Who killed the Teen Angel? Because, you know, you've got this angel in, you know, in the storyline.

Well, nobody knows how he died. So let's create a murder mystery dinner. Right? The whole thing starts, somebody comes in, somebody kills the, you know, somebody kills the guy, he becomes the Teen Angel.

Oh, wow. That's interesting. Yeah.

We don't have a date for it yet and we're still working on all the details and the whole bit, but I can't wait to do that. Uh-oh. I was trying to find that one.

I know what killed this Teen Angel one night. The, what do you call it? The wireless on my guitar stopped working. Oh, boy.

And I found that singing to the track was just a pain in the, and I hate that anyway. I hate pre-recorded stuff. And there's this long pause in the track and you're supposed to come back in right on the beginning note.

What do you think I am? And there's two different tempos within that chain. So you're supposed to count one, then slow down kind of, and I said, no, I'll play guitar. It'll all be live.

And I can, which worked out great, except for the one night that, uh, didn't come out of the amplifier. So I just strummed the guitar acoustically and we got bar that way. I had like six girls dancing behind me, which is where I always love them to be.

But, uh, and, uh, we made it work. Yeah. Yeah.

You know, before we get ahead of ourselves, um. Too late. Yeah, we, we, we already kind of, we already did kind of did.

And then, and then we probably need to take a break because we definitely want to hear you play a little bit. Oh, wow. Um, but, uh.

You're going to need that whiskey. Let's get him some whiskey. We've got a young, we've got a young crowd.

We've got a young audience. I have a, I have a lot of people under the age of 20 come up to me all the time and say, oh yeah, we listened to your podcast. We absolutely.

Oh, nice. Right. So there might be, there might be some young folks out there that don't really know you from the seventies, the eighties, but they will know you from the movie major league.

They will. Oh, okay. And we should probably, we haven't talked about that.

We should probably touch on that just a little bit. Cause I know we're going to have, cause I know that the light's going to go on in the, in the minds of some of our younger listeners. Like, oh, okay.

Yeah. Him particularly in that, that I carry that whole movie single-handedly, you know, for sure. So we ought to talk about it.

Well, some of the funniest scenes in the movie are in the book with you and Bobby. It's pretty darn good. Yes.

I was kidding, but yeah, they are pretty good. How'd you, I mean, how'd you get, get it? Was it just a simple, Hey, you know, come on. They filmed the first major league in Milwaukee at old, I think County stadium, which is no longer.

And so they came to a Jane Alderman casting in Chicago to flesh out the cast. And I'd been auditioning for, you know, this and that at that time. And most of my audition was actually as a base player, I don't know, a base player, baseball player on an opposing team at bat.

And I think he's being heckled by the catcher or something like that. And that was most of the audition. And they had me bring my, a ball and glove or whatever, just to show I could play.

Cause I, I could, that's not so much now, but back then. Yeah. And then he said, Oh, let's have him read for Color Man.

So I did one line. Now this is probably, this is, you don't want to say dirty words here, right? Oh, you can't. Oh, you can't.

You can say anything you want. Yeah. We are.

Yeah. All right. The original, the original line, my audition was, you can't say fucking on the air.

That was the original. Cause he said, cause he just said, that's all we got. One hit, one fucking hit.

Yeah. Well, in between that and the movie Euchre decided that was a little strong, you know, he was promoting beer and all that kind of stuff. And the sponsors, maybe they wouldn't like it.

So they cleaned it up to goddamn hit. Right. But if you watch it on TV, it just comes out.

Damn hit. Sometimes they take the God out of it. Right.

But so they laughed a little bit and I didn't hear anything for two. I thought, geez, I blew another audition. And they said, you're, you're a color man in major league.

Yay. And, and ironically though, I mean, you don't say much in it. Well, that's, that's the whole point.

That's, that's the, that's the whole schtick. It's based on a real broadcast team. Right.

That the writer and director David S. Ward knew of, I think Iowa, maybe where one guy's blustery and the other guy just doesn't say much. And he's thinking, you know, there's some comedy gold there and I think he was right. And so that's the whole point.

And basically I'm there as a foil. Right. For Harry Doyle foil for Doyle.

And there was actually, there's actually a scene in the movie where he asks you to say something, you just kind of hunch your shoulders and he's, and he's, and he makes a comment like very well said or something like that. Yeah. Yes.

Yeah. And some of his lines were ad libbed. There was a script.

The script was funny. Yeah. But he came up with some even more stuff at the, at the shoot and, and they would at least film it and usually use it.

Very funny guy. Very easy for me to work with. Very nice to me.

First one in particular, we had a lot of downtime. So we went to an empty booth and he just told me baseball anecdotes. Bob Uyker anecdotes.

I mean. Yeah. I'm thinking, geez, I'm in my first movie and Bob Uyker is telling me about his baseball career.

If this isn't heaven, I don't know what is. Right, right. You put in the Olsen twins and you couldn't get any better.

No, no, not, no. He really likes the Olsen twins. He sure does.

He sure does. I get a, you know, I get a laugh out of it. Now, anything I get a laugh out of, I'll use.

It used to be J-Lo and Shakira. Lately, people got tired of that. So now it's the Olsen twins.

I'm with you on that. Yeah. Yeah.

I get behind J-Lo and Shakira. And Shakira, yeah. Although they would, they would fight between themselves over me.

And that's, you know, that got old. Yeah. And I understand that, but still.

Anyway, so on that note. On that note, I think we're going to take a little break and then come back and listen to some of his music. Yeah.

Well, I'm gonna go get a cupcake. All righty. Cupcake.

And then, yeah, we're going to get all set back. We're going to, we're going to listen to some music. All righty.

What kind of cupcakes they got? Give me one for later. Yeah. What do they got? You know? I don't know.

We don't know yet. We're going to find out. We'll be right back.

You're listening to the Rock and Roll Chicago Podcast. I'm Christy from Crime Cave Podcast. I've had a huge interest in true crime since my days of watching marathons of Snapped back in the mid-90s.

I needed an outlet to talk about the cases that have haunted me for a very long time. With each episode under 20 minutes, I shine a light on some of the most bizarre cases in the last 50 years. Join me in the Crime Cave.

Hi, I'm Rick Anthony. I'd like to thank my radio brothers, Ray the Roadie and Hollywood Mike, for allowing me to tell you about my podcast, the Someone You Should Know Podcast. We spotlight musicians, authors, and interesting people.

And we like to say we're making a difference one artist at a time. The podcast is heard twice a week on Mondays and Thursdays. And you can check it out on your favorite streaming platforms and on the web at someoneyoushouldknowpodcast.com. That's the Someone You Should Know Podcast with me, Rick Anthony, making a difference one artist at a time.

Oh, hey, and we've had Rick for the first time tonight, everybody. Can you have chairs for Kate and Ashley? Yeah. Chairs for them? Here, let's get this all set up.

Here, here. Just put your feet in those stirrups right there. You're good.

You're good. Usually I'm the craziest guy in the room, but I'm not sure that that's true tonight. Yeah, you know, we've been accused.

What do you got for us? Well, we've got that show coming up July 27th. The Illinois Heroes of Rock. It'll be the world premiere in conjunction with the Illinois Rock and Roll Museum.

And we're going to talk about all the guys that have some association with Illinois, Chicago, downstate, whatever. Chuck Berry recorded just about all of his classic hits at Chess Studio in Chicago. Mr. Chuck Berry, baby.

How about Sam Cooke? There's a guy. Oh, there you go. Don't know much about history.

Don't know much biology. Don't know much about a science book. Don't know much about the French I took.

But I do know that I love you. And I know that if you love me too, what a wonderful world this will be. How about, um, oh, Bo Diddley? You can't judge an apple by looking at a tree.

You can't judge honey by looking at a baby. You can't judge a daughter by looking at the mother. You can't judge a book by looking at the cover.

Oh, can't you see? Whoa, you misjudged me. I look like a farmer, but I'm a lover. You can't judge a book by looking at the cover now.

Shave and a haircut. Two bits. Oh, yeah.

That's kind of what that, it was, uh, Bo Diddley was famous for that rhythm. It's technically an Afro-Cuban clave rhythm, but it sounded kind of like, you know, shaving a haircut. Two bits.

Maybe that's enough from that particular show. You know, I do so many shows. How about, um, oh, well, we didn't cover much of the, uh, how about a little Buckingham's here? Oh, yeah.

Kind of a drag when your baby don't love you. Kind of a drag when you know she's been untrue. Oh, listen to what I've got to say.

I still love you, always love you. I'll always love you, always love you anyway, anyway. Or how about, uh.

Hey, Carlo Izzabelli, if you're listening to this podcast right now, he was imitating you, my friend. Yeah. Carlo Izzabelli, trumpet player currently in Cadillac Groove.

Your job's in jeopardy, sir. He plays with the Buckinghams. Oh, I know, I know.

Yeah. Oh, you know Carlo? Good guy, yes. Yeah, yeah.

Absolutely. Jimmy Peterick. Hey, well, I'm the friendless reindeer in the black sedan.

Won't you hop inside my car? I got cake, I got candy. I'm the love of a band. Won't you take it to a nearest star? I'm your vehicle, baby.

Take you anywhere you want to go. I'm your vehicle, woman. By now I'm sure you know.

Well, I love you. I need you. I want to, got to have you, child.

Great God in heaven, you know I love you. Because I love you, I need you. I want to, got to have you, child.

Great God in heaven, you know I love you. Oh, fantastic. You got to give lessons doing that.

Yeah, you know, I don't know who started, well, you know who started that to my knowledge? Again, some of you guys probably don't know the Mills Brothers. Oh, yeah. It was, they were called four guys and a guitar.

It was four black brothers and one sang bass and played this four string guitar. And the other three would switch, one guy sang the real high parts and the other two switch like Harry Mills was lead singer. Anyway, phenomenal.

And they'd hear them on their, they became radio stars. And they would say, okay, this is just four guys and a guitar. But they've got, they got all that going on there.

And people thought, well, wait, don't we hear a band? No, it was just the incredible Mills Brothers who all sang great. And the one guy, the oldest brother that played the guitar and sang the bass part died young while they were just becoming, you know, world famous and everything, or just had. So they had to replace him with two people.

Their dad took over singing the bass and then they hired a full-time six string guitar player. Anyway, but that's where I think if they didn't originate it, that's where it became popular, the mouth trumpet. And then Ronnie Rice used to do it years ago.

Good buddy of mine. So I took his place in New Colony Six in 72. Do you guys know Ronnie at all? Ronnie's a great performer, great singer, kind of heavy, heavy set for a long time.

People always ask me, Skip, why did Ronnie leave the New Colony Six? And I always tell him my theory, Ronnie left the band to go eat, but he loves that joke, I hope. So, so your, your shows, how do people find you? How do people learn about them? You know, if you go to Skid Row, look around for me, just ask for me. SkipGrupparis.com, S-K-I-P-G-R-I-P-A-R-I-S.com. And my dates are all there.

I post things on Facebook. I've got my history, some videos of my shows on my website. And anything else you guys can think of from, you pick, you pick a, you pick a decade and, oh, I'll tell you what.

You know, do you play the glockenspiel? The glockenspiel, that is out in the car. If you told me. He's looking for somebody to come in with a glockenspiel.

This was our biggest single from the Trilogy album. And I do this in my 70s show because it came out in 70. You'll find an answer for the world instead.

We'll dissolve all our troubles away. All the ones that we live with today. Gonna love everybody and say again and again.

Everything is all right tonight. A little taste of the Chicago Band Trilogy. And it's always a crowd pleaser.

There's still a group in Buckhacker that I wrote some songs for. They were on, I think they were on MCA too. And they still do.

It's still their closing number. Good tune. Pick a, pick a decade.

What about, you know, I just had a quick question. Any songs that you've written for people that we might not know that you actually wrote them? Um, besides White Christmas? Yeah. Oh, Irving.

Um, I don't think so. Uh, I was a, uh, a salaried, what do you call it? Staff songwriter for UNARD or United Artists for a couple of years there. But, uh, nothing, nothing big came of it.

One, two, three o'clock, four o'clock rock. Five, six, seven o'clock, eight o'clock rock. Nine, ten, eleven o'clock, twelve o'clock rock.

We're going to rock around the clock tonight. Put your glad rags on, jaunty hunt. Have some fun when the clock strikes one.

We're going to rock around the clock tonight. Rock, rock, rock till broad daylight. Gonna rock, gonna rock around the clock tonight.

When the clock strikes two, three and four. The band slows down, we'll yell for more. We're going to rock around the clock tonight.

Rock, rock, rock till broad daylight. Gonna rock, gonna rock around the clock tonight. Two, three, four.

That was easy for you to do. Well, somebody's got to do it. Somebody's got to do it and why not me? Hey, that was some fancy picking going on.

Well, we don't have guitars in our hand, so we couldn't do it. No, and I, you know, I did not allow you guys to have guitars when I was here with a guitar. So I apologize for that.

Otherwise you'd be rocking right now. You should bring enough for everybody. Yeah, I really should.

Yeah, yeah. So that was obviously from the Birth of Rock and Roll. Birth of Rock and Roll, yes.

That is definitely in my Birth of Rock show. That was Bill Haley and the Comets. 1965, I want to say.

By the way, the solo on that was played by Cedrone is his last name. Can't remember his first name now. Mr. Mr. Cedrone.

Danny, I think, Danny Cedrone. Two weeks after the recording, he dies in an accident. Oh, geez.

Wow. So he is never seen in any video anywhere. Anytime you see Bill Haley, that is not Danny Cedrone.

It's somebody else. So the poor guy finally reaches world acclaim with his guitar playing. Right, right.

And he dies, man. Oh, man. So sad.

This Birth of Rock thing, was it natural or caesarean? Well, that's hard to predict. You know, it's an individual situation. I'm sure there's a lot of people wondering out there.

If they want to take the easy way, they go caesarean. Yeah, yeah. But the spiritual ways, you'd have to say it was natural.

Yeah, right. Of course. It was always just waiting to be come.

Of course. Yeah. Of course.

Yeah. So what do you do? I'm just asking the questions of the people. Yeah, what do you do from the Elvis and Buddy and Roy? Oh, I'm glad you asked.

Just about anything. How about a little Roy Orbison? Oh, yeah. You like the Roy? This is the favorite of all the... I mean, I think I do a really good Elvis and Buddy Holly and Rick Nelson and the Everly Brothers and all that stuff.

However, what people I think like the most is my Roy Orbison. Now, you would really impress the hell out of me if you could do Blue Bayou. Well, I am not going to impress you, Jamie.

You're not going to do it? That's right out the window. That's one I don't do. That's one of the hardest songs to sing.

Any other song that he ever recorded. Yeah. I know it, but not that one.

That is one of the hardest songs to sing. It really is. That song and a Stevie Wonder song are considered to be... And I can never remember the name of the Stevie Wonder song, but they're saying it's the two hardest songs in rock and roll to sing.

Well, I have to listen to that. I've not found any of his songs really hard to sing. Now, I can't sing all of them in the original key.

Okay. Some I have to drop a step. But how about a little Buddy Holly? Ooh, ooh, that'll be the day.

That'll be the day. And you know the hot topic nowadays is yacht rock. Yes.

Are you doing any of that stuff in the 70s? I do one in my 70s show. We talk about yacht rock a lot. No, no, you do.

Okay, fine. It's me. I've got a man crush on yacht rock.

There's absolutely nothing I can do about that. I love that music from the 70s. All right, I'm going to give you a little Stephen Bishop.

Oh, yeah. On and on, on and on, on and on. When the first time is the last time, well, it makes you feel so bad.

But when you know it, show it, hold on tight, don't let her say goodnight. I got the sun on my shoulders, got my toes in the sand, wolves left me for some other man. But I don't care, I'll just dream and stay tan, toss up my heart and see where it lands.

On and on, I'll just keep on trying, and I'll smile when I feel like dying. On and on, on and on, on and on. On and on, on and on, on and on.

Very nice. So did you ever learn to finger pick? I remember you said earlier you were trying to learn. No, I did.

Are you kidding? He just got me right in the butt. I didn't even see that coming. No, here's the kind of stuff that I would play Olivia's band, only with a high-strung.

I would play guitar. They call it high-strung tuning, which is like the bottom four of your strings an octave up. The top two are standard.

So it's a very chimey kind of sound. So this isn't going to give you the real sound, but this is what I did. And they do that a lot in Nashville, actually.

Yes, they call it Nashville. Nashville tuning, yeah. That's from Please Mr. Please.

When I joined her, Have You Never Been Mellow was on the charts. And that was the next one. By the way, there's a girl that sings with me sometimes in my show, my 70s show to sing the Olivia stuff.

And she's so good. She's making a big career for herself doing an Olivia show. Her show is called Always Olivia, and her name is Annie Aiello.

And she does it really, really well. If you're even watching her, but if you close your eyes, it's really nearly impossible to tell it's not Olivia. And she got a full-fledged show with some great musicians.

What's her name? Annie Aiello. And it's called Always Olivia. Annie, if you're listening, we'd love to have you on the program.

He's working already. He's looking for her. She's up in Crystal Lake, but who knows? She might come.

Maybe if I said I'd buy her lunch or something, she'd make the trek, but it's a long way for her. But she's doing well. She's playing all over the country.

She got a really big agent very, very quickly. She hit it just the right, you know, just as she was putting this thing together, Olivia dies, like the same summer. And so now all of a sudden, everybody's clamoring for it because Olivia can't perform anymore.

You know, true story. I had a brush with Olivia. So wait, are the rest of the stuff tonight been false? It's completely just complete bullshit.

All right, go ahead then. Just so I know. I think we have somebody at the door.

Oh, do we? Yeah, we have somebody. Let me check. Our next crew might be there.

But, you know, in my day job, I'm a laboratory consultant. And what's a day job like? Yeah. What is that like? Well, it's really boring compared to my night job.

That's for sure. No, actually, as a lab consultant, people think I'm a lot smarter than I am. But I got invited to go to a conference one time.

And the keynote speaker was Olivia and her husband. Oh, wow. And then like three months later, she passed away.

But I got to speak to her about how her and her husband went to South America. And they were looking for all these natural cures and the whole bit living with the indigenous people. And I got to sit and talk to her for about 20 minutes and ask her all kinds of questions.

She was just wonderful. She had no idea who I was. Met for the first time.

I mean, we were just talking. And she gave me a hug like we were best friends our entire life. But I absolutely love the fact that I got the chance to meet her.

You're very lucky. A lot of people wish they'd had that experience. Yeah.

You know, I had it for me about a year before she passed. Her restraining order against me expired. That was good.

So, you know, it's kind of she had to go out. At least we settled that. And you've got her autograph now.

Yes. You've got her autograph. And it's on the restraining order.

Just not to jump on your bandwagon. But just recently, I was able to get a 70s show for myself. So my friends were asking me, like, you know, Hey, what's this gig? Who are you playing? What bands are you playing? I'm like, no, it's not bands.

I said, I'm at the home. So it's all these people that are 70s. The 70s? Yeah.

That's kind of the 80s home. I was playing for them. Well, all righty then.

How about one more? One more song? Just a little bit. Speaking of Olivia, this will kind of tie everything in, allegedly. And that world tour we did in 1978.

You might find this hard to believe. Well, people that know me find it hard to believe. You know, disco was big, late 70s, right? So we would go dance at a disco in each city that we played.

Me, disco. Just try to get that image out of your head. In the nude.

In the nude. If they paid me. So, and in every disco, this big hit from Olivia's Australian compatriots played.

We're going to have to pause so we can give him the Heimlich and get his nuts out of his teeth. I know, man. I was just going to run out and get my leisure suit and get my gold snaggle tooth on.

What nuts? Oh, boy. Well, I was going to ask you what's next for you, but apparently it's prosthetics. Yeah, prosthetics.

Yeah. Yeah, they're very, very good these days. So I'm looking forward.

Yeah, that's good. Yeah. They feel so real.

They really do. They do. Yeah.

All right. This is really going south. You know, we run out of questions when we're talking about the feel of prosthetic balls.

That's right. That's right. You look up tangent in the dictionary and the three of us sitting here will be pictured.

Yeah. Well, that's true. ADHD as well.

I have a feeling so. Well, thank you for having me be your guest here. Yes.

Thank you, Skip. Yeah. Thank you very much for coming out.

Great to have you. I'm going to get back to the Olsen twins as soon as I can. Yes.

Say hi. Oh, I will. I'll ask about y'all.

It's a little annoying asking about you guys all the time. Sure. I know.

Yeah. Yeah. All righty then.

We'll see you around somewhere soon. I hope so. See you then.

Thank you. Sure. We'll see you.

Bye. Oh, she had Jesus in her cleavage. A tiny Jesus in her cleavage.

Well, there you have it. Skip Grouperis. What an interesting guy.

How about it? He has done everything. Absolutely everything. And when he gets bored, he finds something else to do.

Find something else to do. Yeah. Yeah.

Amazing. And just has to kind of go back and start over again from square one with whatever. And he's successful at it.

Throughout his career. Yeah. And he is.

He's successful at it. That's amazing. Because he works at it.

Yeah. You got to have a good work ethic if you don't. I can't wait till people find out that we interviewed the guy from Major League.

That's going to be awesome. That's right. That's right.

We have a movie star in our midst. Yeah. I'm going to have to go home and watch that movie now.

Yeah. Maybe me too. Yeah.

Maybe I'll do that. Well, that was a lot of fun. And as always, thanks for listening to the Rock and Roll Chicago podcast.

Check us out every Tuesday for another new exciting episode. And don't forget, you can also hear us on Road to Rock Radio brought to you by the Illinois Rock and Roll Museum on Route 66. See you next week.

The Rock and Roll Chicago podcast is edited by Paul Martin. Theme song courtesy of MNR Rush. The Rock and Roll Chicago podcast does not own the rights to any of the music heard on the show.

The music is used to promote the guests that are featured.