Rock n Roll Chicago Podcast
The Rock n Roll Chicago Podcast is a weekly podcast that interviews bands and musicians from the Chicago area. The podcast is hosted by Ray Bernadisius ("Ray the Roadie") and Mike Metoyer ("Hollywood Mike" of Cadillac Groove, Mike & The Stillmasters). The podcast covers a wide range of topics, including the history of rock n roll in Chicago, the current state of the scene, and the challenges and opportunities facing musicians today.
Founded in 2019 by Ray the Roadie and Paul Martin, the two co-hosted the show until 2022. In 2023 Ray was joined by Mike Metoyer as the new show co-host.
The Rock n Roll Chicago Podcast is a great resource for fans of rock n roll and musicians alike. The podcast is informative, entertaining, and inspiring. It is a must-listen for anyone who loves rock n roll and wants to learn more about the Chicago music scene.
Here are some of the things you can expect to hear on the Rock n Roll Chicago Podcast:
Interviews with bands and musicians from the Chicago area
Discussions about the history of rock n roll in Chicago
Information about upcoming concerts and events
Tips and advice for musicians
And much more!
If you're a fan of rock n roll, or if you're just curious about the Chicago music scene, then you need to check out the Rock n Roll Chicago Podcast. You can find the podcast on iTunes, Spotify, and other major podcast platforms.
Show your support of the podcast and visit our Swag Store. Just click copy and paste this link in your browser: https://tinyurl.com/yr5pa7zt
The Rock n Roll Chicago Podcast is edited by Paul Martin.
Theme song courtesy of M&R Rush.
Rock n Roll Chicago Podcast
Ep 50 Carl Giammarese
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Episode 50 brings us an original member of the legendary Buckinghams, Carl Giammarese. Over fifty years of rock n roll history!
Podcast edited by Paul Martin.
Theme song courtesy of M&R Rush.
www.rocknrollchicagopodcast.com
Hey, this is Paul Martin and Ray the Roadie for the Rock and Roll Chicago podcast. How's things today, Ray, how you feeling? Not too bad. It's, you know, it's, you know, this, this whole pandemic thing and it's quarantine.
It's really kind of a drag. It is kind of a drag. It is.
Mercy, mercy, mercy. I don't know how long this is going to go on. Oh boy.
You planned that. You planned that segway, didn't you? Yeah, I think I did a little bit. We got a special guest today for our episode 50, our 50th episode.
Episode 50. No way. Yeah.
Half a hundred. Wow. That's cool.
We're going to have to get there and do a couple shots of tequila or something. That's right. Yes, we will.
Yes, we will. And long, long time coming here, but we made it. We made it to 50.
Let's hope for another 50, huh? That's right. That's right. A century of episodes.
So who's our guest? Today we're speaking with Carl Giammarisi of Chicago's very own the Buckinghams. We talked to Carl for almost an hour and we got some great stories from Carl and he was very nice and very polite and very forthcoming with his stories. Very much so.
We really appreciate that he took the time out to do an interview with us. Yes, we do. So let's get to it and see what Carl, all that Carl had to say.
Let's go. Welcome, everyone, to our 50th podcast and a 5-0 50th podcast. We've got a special guest with us today.
We've got Carl Giammarisi of the Buckinghams. How are you doing today, Carl? I'm doing pretty good. I hope you guys are too.
We're in crazy, it's a crazy time right now with this pandemic and we're all kind of social distancing. It's a different way of life. But we're all becoming Zoom experts.
Yeah, we're becoming Zoom experts. I was trying to figure out how to take my whole band and do a, you know, Zoom everybody in and have everybody do a song together. So that's something that I'm looking into.
You know, I've been keeping busy with doing my little videos. Yeah, I've noticed that. I've noticed that you've done a few of them and several of the songs, right? Several of the Buckingham songs.
Yeah, I picked, I think I've done about 15 songs already. I've done all the Buckingham's hits and a couple other, you know, album cuts. And then I started doing some of my other favorites.
I did a few Beatles songs. You know, I did I'm a Loser from my Tofano and Giammarisi days. I did that.
I did Blackbird. I did Yesterday. You know, did an original song.
I think that was the most recent thing I did. I had my Cubs hat and my Cubs shirt on, you know. I don't know if you guys are Cubs fans or not.
Oh, you're looking at a couple of Sox fans. I had a feeling, you know, what is it with you Sox fans? You know, I love the Sox, too, because I love baseball. I do, too.
I miss it, too. And, you know, I've been out singing the national anthem for the Sox and for the Cubs many times. But, you know, we love baseball.
But, you know, the Sox fans, they just hate those Cubs. We will hold it against you. You know, I've got, you know, Nick Fortunato is the other original Buckingham.
He's a Sox fan and he hates the Cubs. And then Bruce Soboroff, our keyboard player, is a Sox fan also. But, you know, he watches the Cubs, too.
I was looking forward to this season so much because, you know, last year, right about this time, I was getting ready to leave for the Happy Together Tour, which was a 60s tour, you know, the Turtles. We've been on that tour many times. And it goes out for three months.
I mean, it's 55 shows we did on June, July, and August. So I was on the road. So I didn't get to see a lot of baseball.
So I was, like, this year, looking forward to it. Because even though we're playing, you know, I dropped back and forth more than I was last year. And then this happened, of course.
So let's go back and let's start in the early years. You started out as the Pulsations, is that correct? Yeah, yeah. That was the first inception of, well, before we were the Buckingham's.
You know, there was, you know, I've talked about this before. There was a great music scene going on in Chicago back in 65, 66. You know, so many great bands came to fruition.
You know, you had the Eyes of March, New Colony Six, Crying Shames, Shadows of Night. You know, we were the pop, more the pop rock groups playing around. And we had a lot of venues to play.
We had dances, you know, mostly teen hops, teen clubs dances, a lot of dances, Holiday Ballroom, Embassy Ballroom. You know, there were all these different venues for us to play. And we all kind of knew each other.
And I was in a band with my cousin, Jerry O'Larty. Jerry started the group. He was a drummer and singer.
A group called The Centuries. And we were playing for about a year and a half or so. And Nick Fortuna was in that group.
And after about a year and a half, two years of that, there was this other band, The Pulsations, playing. And so The Centuries broke up. And The Pulsations asked me to join their group.
And I thought that was really promising. At the time, they had two vocalists, Dennis Tufano and George McGrow, with the band. And so I came into the group.
And it was in 65. And we started playing around the city. And we were getting a good response.
And we had a pretty good sound for what was happening back then. And then, of course, a really big break came along in 1965, September. We won the audition to be the house band on a TV show on WGN called All Time Hits.
And it was a variety show for 13 weeks. And we were kind of the token rock band. So whatever was on the top of the charts that week, we would pick a couple songs.
And we would do those songs on the show. We'd do a Beatles song, whatever was there. And the sound wasn't that great.
Because back then, they really didn't know how to capture the sound of a rock band. And they kept telling us to turn down. I was playing on one.
And the drummer's playing like this. It wasn't what you could put a lot behind it. But we got a lot of exposure from doing that show for 13 weeks.
But what happened was we won the audition to do the show, but they didn't like our name. They wanted something to capitalize on the British invasion. So there was a guy we became friends with.
His name was John O'Pager. He was a security guard that worked for WGN. And he came up with, he says, well, why don't you call up the Buckinghams? They want a British-sounding name.
And we thought about it for one minute. And we said, okay. The Buckinghams.
So we told them that would be our name. They agreed. WGN liked the idea.
So we became the Buckingham's royalty of rock and roll. And we started doing the show as the Buckinghams. That's a very cool story.
Yeah, it was great exposure. Because WGN was a superstition. And it was syndicated.
So people were seeing it around the country, too. Chicago. And not only a British connection, but we have Buckingham Fountain right here in Chicago.
Buckingham Fountain, yes, we do. A lot of people think that's why we came up with the name. But really, we were certainly aware of the fountain.
The funny story was when we finally, that TV show led to a recording contract with USA Records, Chicago label. And they brought us in the studio in the old Chess studios on South Michigan Avenue. We recorded a bunch of sides.
They were cover songs, mostly. Because it was the songs we did in our show. We did soul tunes, James Brown, Sam and Dave, whatever.
And we did Beatles songs. So we just picked out certain songs and recorded for the album. And of course, our manager, Carl Bonifetti, who tapped on a great songwriter, Jim Holvey, for an original song.
We wanted an original song. After having with USA, we had about three local Midwest hits. With I Call Your Name and I'll Go Crazy and I've Been Wrong.
And they were all cover songs. We got a little bit of attention but we were looking for that original song and so he came up with Jim Holvey's Kind of a Drag. We rehearsed it and went in the studio and the rest is history.
It just took off overnight. It was our producer's idea to start adding horns to our recordings because we weren't really a horn band but he wanted to dress it up a little bit and make it sound bigger. He brought his horn section because he had a big band and it was Dan Bellock who owned the Holiday Ballroom.
He produced us. We did Kind of a Drag and that changed everything for us. That was just... I'll tell you my Kind of a Drag story was that was what? 67? It was the number one record in the country by February of 67.
Came out late in 66. I must have been just a lad of 12 or 13 and actually I have older sisters who would go and buy records but the first single that I went and bought was Kind of a Drag from money I saved from cutting lawns or whatever I was doing at the time as a 12-year-old. I probably still have it somewhere but I don't know exactly where all my 45s are.
That's the song that changed everything for us. All of a sudden we were on the national charts and became the number one record on top of it. It was just a very exciting time.
67 was a magical year for Buckingham. A lot of bands from the Chicago area back in the 60s usually a lot of them had their initial exposure on WLS. Was that an outlet that featured you initially? I'm sure that if you talk to anybody from all those groups that you probably know we do a rock show now occasionally around Chicago on the Arcata Theater It's a great venue to play.
The people love it. They come out for that show. We've probably been at the Arcata about five times now doing that show.
If you talk to any of the guys that's Brian James, they'll tell you how much WLS and WSKFL meant to us as far as getting our careers going. The radio personalities number one is Dick Viandy who was so supportive but all the other guys were too. Dex Card Dan Records, Landecker and that was a little later Art Roberts Clark Webber These guys were very supportive and if they liked your record they liked what they heard they would put it on on a regular rotation on the station so it would come on a certain amount of times every day.
WLS exposure was great because you could hear it coast to coast because it was a 50,000 watt station and you could hear it all over the country late at night. I've had people tell me from back in the day, I've had Paul Schaefer tell me that because he's a Canadian he'd be up in Canada and I heard you guys back you know he knew all about us and the history of the band and so forth. WLS and and CFL, they were big supporters of us, Chicago bands back in the day they were very instrumental in launching us, getting us off the ground, no doubt about it.
What I failed to say, I lived in Cleveland, Ohio at the time as a young lad and so I would listen to WLS too with the transistor radio under my pillow at night and that's how I got connected with Kind of a Drag What was the follow up to Kind of a Drag? You had several hits but what was the next follow up to that? The next follow up was Don't You Care but what happened was it was really crazy, here we had the number one record in the country with Kind of a Drag and our record contract was up with USA I don't know why they didn't have the sense to re-sign us or whatever it's kind of a great position to be in, to have the number one record in the country and be looking for a record label so everybody was knocking at our door and we wound up signing with Columbia Records and a new producer manager came into the picture James William Gursio Jim Gursio was our management producer later on went on to manage and produce Chicago but anyway we signed with Columbia and we were signing contracts on our way to New York and a day later we were in the studio cutting Don't You Care which was another Jim Holvey song and that was the song they were releasing as a single and then at the same time USA because they still owned all the masters from the Kind of a Drag album they released to counter it they released our recording of Lottie Miss Clottie as a cover tune because of the success of Kind of a Drag Lottie went up the charts too so we actually had three songs on the national charts at once because Kind of a Drag was just starting to come down a little bit and Don't You Care was up there in the top ten I think and Lottie was behind that and so you know we had a lot going on Don't You Care was on Time and Charge and your second one actually we had two hits off of Time and Charge Don't You Care and we had Mercy Mercy Mercy also was off that album they released Mercy as the next single Columbia did after Don't You Care when they heard that recording that we did they were they said that's got to be the next single and it made us very happy because it took us in another direction it gave us a chance to do something a little different because it's kind of you know it's kind of a soul tune it is more soulful and we got it from a couple soul guys Johnny Guitar Watson and Williams had a minor hit with it and our producer Gursio brought that song to us just to put on the album and of course originally Mercy was a jazz hit with Cannonball Adderley had an instrumental as Joe Zolanow wrote that song and then the soul guys Watson and Williams put lyrics to it and turned it into a soul tune so we took their version and copied that and recorded it and of course you know we were a pop group and we were pretty hot at the time and we just came off of two big hits so we had the bigger hit of course actually Mercy was the second biggest hit I think that we had next to Kind of a Drag Now did you record that album in New York? Yeah, Time of Charges we did in New York You did three albums that year, right? Three albums in 1967 Well Kind of a Drag album we recorded in 1966 and it came out in 1966 and then Time of Charges was 1967 and then Portraits came out later in 1967 and Portraits was our Sgt. Pepper the band put a lot of effort into that album and we were really focused and we spent a month or two out in LA we rented a house and we rehearsed every day and wrote songs worked out the arrangements and went in the studio and it was kind of a concept album and we were expecting much bigger things to happen with Portraits but at the time we were a pop group that was making hit singles and people weren't buying into us I don't think becoming a more concept album group so it didn't work out It still produced two hits, right? Hey Baby and Susan? They stuck Hey Baby and Susan on that album they almost didn't fit on the sound of those singles but they wanted to have the singles on the albums to sell albums, you know, and that's made sense you know, and so yeah, Hey Baby and Susan were on that album and of course the last album we did with Columbia was In One Ear and Gone Tomorrow which was, that was in 68, you know, and didn't have the success the single off of that album was a song that our keyboard player Marty Greb wrote Back in Love Again and we just didn't it didn't quite do it made it on the charts went up a ways but not like the success of the top 10 of the other songs So you went from Chess Records in Chicago to New York to LA and so you had to do some traveling at that time Well, I mean we were constantly on the road in 67 we toured probably approached close to 300 dates we played that year we were always out playing and you know, we would come into New York to record you know, or LA make a record and then head back out again and go back out and play we were constantly on the go at that time that's why when people ask me what was it like or what do you remember you know, well at the time I didn't have time to think about it but it was such a whirlwind crazy time for us What was it like working with Jim Gershia I mean, he's obviously like you said, to be pretty successful with Chicago and Bugs N' Gears Well, Gershia was a very talented record producer no doubt about that he helped us after kind of a drag we had success with another 4 top 10 records we produced them he knew his way around the studio he was a great musician he could play guitar and bass he's a very creative guy no doubt about it he was a good businessman let me just put it this way he was a good businessman for himself I don't know if I can say that and like I said he went on to manage and produce Chicago and he did their first I don't know how many albums you probably know better than I do we had our differences too because we started to realize how important it was to have control of our own publishing and writing and he had that we paid a lot of attention at the time we were too busy chasing girls and having a good time so after the Buckycabs split up when was it about 70 or so? yeah we broke up we were together from 65 to 70 and by 70 decided there were a lot of reasons people say why did you guys break up but there's there's never one reason we had guys in the band who wanted to try something different we had me and Dennis Tufano we wanted to be singer songwriters at the time we started writing together doing more of a duo our sound was leaning more toward what was going on in those early 70s James Taylor Mitchell Carroll King Eagles America we were kind of leaning that way musically we signed a record deal of course with a great record producer great music guy Lou Adler we signed with him that brought us out to LA quite a bit we had some success with it especially on a song that I wrote a song called Music Everywhere so that was what we wanted to do so we were kind of pulling in different directions and if you remember the music scene it seemed like overnight we went from AM to FM and groups like us Grassroots, The Turtles, Scary Pocket we were sort of becoming a little bit passe I guess things were just changing all of a sudden you had the Monterey Pop Festival Woodstock had happened you had Heavier Sounds Santana, Janis Joplin and so forth all of a sudden there were concept albums so the music scene changed a lot too so that kind of hurt us a little bit from what we were doing and then all through the 70s there were no Buckinghams we didn't play at all and there didn't seem to be much interest in 60s music at all until all of a sudden 1980 comes along everything became 60s again I think there's every surge every 15 to 20 years of the music from 15 to 20 years before, prior to that because that 60s music that late 60s music was such great music great recordings so our audience weren't old yet in 1980 maybe in their early 30s but they were starting to become established they had some money to spend they wanted to hear their music again they wanted to come out the festivals became really big Buckinghams came back together in 1980 because of the program director from WLS John Guerin called me up and said can you guys do a reunion show and I was a little like well I don't know so I started calling the guys and two of them were available Dennis Tufano and Nick Fortuna and Marty Grubb was playing with Chicago at the time so he wasn't available and we lost our original drummer John Poulos had passed away just a couple months before that so we didn't have him so we got a collection of guys that we knew together and rehearsed for a couple weeks and went out and played Chicago Fest and that was the summer of 1980 and Jane Byrne our mayor of Chicago was behind that she was behind us doing that too and 12,000 people came out on the pier to play that show and you could feel this excitement again heating up for 60s music Buckinghams and then we came back played a few more dates around Chicago and then for a couple summers Dennis would come in because he lived in LA and the three of us would get together with the band and play some more dates and then all of a sudden I started getting a lot of offers to do shows nationally and that's when Nick Fortuna and I decided to put a band together and go out and play for real and then before you knew it it was 1985 and we got an offer to play on the 85 Happy Together Tour which played for 7 months we toured all over the country for 7 months we played over 200 shows that was a real launching pad for us to get back out and we've been doing stuff ever since we've had the band a few changes in the group here and there through the years but it's been consistent we still play a lot of dates every year before this COVID-19 happened, the pandemic we were scheduled all our dates for March, April, May and June were canceled right away or moved to next year or late in the year and most of July is gone now it'll probably all be gone we're still sitting at about 15 dates in August but I wouldn't be surprised if those dates went bye bye I'm hoping by September we get to get out and play some music and see some other bands and whatever it's a crazy time and it's something this world has not experienced in 100 years I don't know what to say it's just terrible when you see the suffering and the pain not only we have people dying which is the worst that could possibly happen and then of course there's a lot of people that are out of work now raise their family and it's just a terrible situation but we've got we're strong, this is a strong nation we'll get through it we did 100 years ago and technology is a lot better now so getting back to when you guys regrouped I know Tommy Sheckle played with the band for quite a while we interviewed Tommy oh gosh almost a year ago now, wasn't it Ray? Yeah, it's been about a year I think he's episode 7 or 8 Well, Tommy is a very very talented, we all know that he's a great drummer I mean, I've heard him play and he played the nuts for a lot of years and he's still my dear friend, I mean him and I have never lost touch content, we get together all the time you know our wives and the four of us get together go have dinner we haven't lately but we still talk all the time so he's still one of my best friends and a dear friend of mine and telling it in a lot of ways he's a great drummer but he's very creative he's done a lot of artwork for me websites and you know I miss him on the road he was one of the guys I enjoyed being out playing with when we traveled but you know, Tom's been out of the group now since I think it was 2010 when he went with Paul Revere and he fit really well into that group, he was really it was a great career it's just really a shame what happened to Paul Revere it was a great opportunity for him they had a really great show but we replaced him with we have a Chicago drummer, Rocky Penn and Rocky has been around Chicago playing with different people all the time great guy he plays in the pocket he's not as flashy as Tom but he's which is fine he backs you up great it adds a little vocals too because he sings but he's a really good drummer he's really solid and he gives us what we need so he's been with us ever since Tom left and then we've got Dave Zane on guitar and vocals Dave's played with a lot of different people and he's a very talented guitar player and vocalist he's the top end of our voice Right I know Dave pretty well yeah he's a real nice guy he's easy going I don't have to slap him or hit him or anything he's one of those guys that goes along with things easy going I'm just kidding around but he's a really good guy and then Bruce Soboroff has been with us since 85 since we finished that Happy Together Tour in 85 Bruce joined us and he's been with us ever since on keyboards and background vocals and then we've got a great we very rarely play without horns and around Chicago we've got a great section and not just in Chicago but when we go out a certain way or drivable days we've got Carlo Isabelli on the trumpet and Chuck Morgan on the trombone and Dan Moffat on saxophone and these guys are great players Carlo and Chuck have been with us forever I don't even remember what year it is now and when we go out on the road and do flying dates I contract horn players because we have charts we read the charts a great staple of horn players in different cities and they just come in and play with us it's cool we know Carlo quite well too he's a good guy he's on now since 2000 you've guys recorded a number of other albums yeah I mean luckily I created a recording studio so I can do a lot of pre-production stuff before we go in somewhere else and do it for real for the drums and everything but I can sort of scratch out the basic tracks and put things together we've done a whole bunch of things we did a live direct-to-disc on our 25th anniversary show at the Vic Theater it's kind of funky it didn't come out the way we wanted it to we did a Christmas album we still do a Christmas show several times a year because of that album an album called Reaching Back I thought it was a good idea to reach back to the sounds we had back in the 60's and do some new songs with that sound because a lot of fans would say hey why don't you record some new songs to go back to that sound you had in the 60's and I did that I put it together and it's a great album but it's really hard to get our audience we're sort of in a bubble our audience wants to hear the old songs and it's really hard to attract a new audience they don't buy new stuff they want to hear the old stuff and a young audience they're not looking at us we're the old guys out there playing now another one album you mentioned the one that was recorded after Vic that's Places in Five that's one of my favorite albums, I don't see much press on it, but my question is the acapella version of Kind of a Drag was that intentional or did that just happen? it was intentional you know for that show when we did it it was kind of more spontaneous but then we did an album it was original songs and me and Bruce Oberoff had a big part of that album it was called Terrafirma it was a collection of songs that Bruce and I had written over a period of time and the album didn't turn out to be real cohesive as far as the songs being connected to one another, it could have been five different bands recording that album different sounds I mean they were done well they were recorded really well I mean there was a song on there called 99.9 that I wrote that's a little more I don't know what you would call it, it's not pop it's almost you know I could almost hear Enrique Iglesias doing the song I did a verse in Spanish on there and then there were pop songs on there there was stuff that sounded a little more soulful and we did a studio version of Kind of a Drag and you brought that up, Kind of a Drag the acapella version and I used on the vocals the bass voice on there, it was a studio guy that we brought in to sing because none of us had that baritone you know, and that was all the way back in 95 and you know we've done several things I've done re-records of all the hits because you know Columbia Sony, now Sony owns all the masters of the original recordings of the hits and tell us a little bit about your solo stuff that you've done you mentioned Reaching Back and that the band did but I noticed your titles of yours kind of have that same kind of feel to them about your journey and living in the moment and trying not to fade our ex-guitar player, his wife wrote lyrics and well a few songs I wrote myself but you know I was just looking for, when I did that album I was looking for a way to experiment and get into the digital recording world I had a digital 24 track studio I was sort of learning my way around that so that album came out of songs I wrote and experimenting with that album and then the Living in the Moment album I did a couple few years ago now in my studio I did everything myself and there's not even real drums on it I programmed the drums I played the bass I played the guitars Dave Zane played on one of the tracks Living in the Moment on that track he played some guitar I did the vocals I had my cousin Jerry that I mentioned was with me in the centuries back in the early 60's great voice I had him come in and sing some duet stuff and harmonies with me it was a collection of songs that I had written I just felt very creative at the time and wrote all these songs ideas were coming out real fast sometimes you record, you write something and you say I'll probably never write another song it's like your creative juices are gone you're done then all of a sudden one day you wake up and you start jotting things down and writing songs again and pretty soon I had a collection of a whole bunch of songs and that's how Living in the Moment came about and I put it out there and people find it and I don't in this digital age of streaming music and so forth it would take a real big budget to get stuff for publicity and need so I just put it out there and it's available Living in the Moment is available on all the download sites and streaming sites like Spotify and iTunes and so forth all the way down the line there's probably about 30 different streaming sites it's there and I sell some of them but that's the main reason I do it now or do new music is just to stay relevant and creative I've got four songs right now that I've recorded and I did an original song on my last little basement studio video song called There Comes a Time and that's an original song so I keep writing and recording songs and putting them out there and Living in the Moment was a great experience and I got a lot of help input from Jim Peterick on that album too because he made a lot of suggestions and threw some ideas out at me too so I just love to do it now I just love to write and record and play those songs live, I don't know with the Buckingham schedule and so forth that would take a big undertaking to have another entity, another band and go out and play those dates and who am I going to play them to those are original songs I don't know if there's an audience for it but it's creative so I just love to write and play well we were talking to someone not too long ago that said that they've almost put out because of the digital age now where everything is done digitally that they'd rather put out a single now and then do a whole album you get a single done, you get one song done, go ahead and put it out and it's kind of come full circle from back in the days when we used to go and buy our singles who's doing albums or songs on an album, it's just putting a single out there they're even starting to dictate to us how we should write the song put the hook on the front because when you listens to it and they're attracted to it, if they listen to it for so many seconds, then they have to pay for it that's right and as long as you're out there putting music out there then you've got an audience out there so you guys are members of a few hall of fames as well as the inaugural inductees for the Illinois Rock and Roll Museum on Route 66 yeah as a matter of fact we were supposed to do that induction ceremony and all this was supposed to happen right when the pandemic was going on and they cancelled it for a future date and so we're honored and happy to be a part of that Illinois is our state Chicago is our city and it's a big deal for us we were inducted recently into the Iowa Rock and Roll Hall of Fame so that was kind of cool, we had an induction ceremony for that, we were the only out of state band that was inducted this year so that was cool, so we're taking it one state at a time to the Cleveland Rock and Roll Hall of Fame you work your way there so where do we find the Buckingham's social media wise? you can just go to the Buckingham's on Facebook and we're all over YouTube now our Buckingham's Facebook up there all the videos I've been doing I've got my own YouTube going on with all the different videos I've done, the Carl G. Morrisey one but Facebook, we try to keep that up to date all the time and put new stuff on there just go to the Buckingham's when you're on Facebook and then our website is thebuckinghams.com is the website normally I would say it's a good place to go to see our schedule what's going on what's up there right now needs to be taken down it doesn't make any sense to even try to change anything because we don't know yet what's going to happen with the dates and so forth but there's other things to see besides the schedule on the website so thebuckinghams.com is a good place to go and like I said join us on Facebook I usually have an events page on Facebook try to keep that up to date but it's unbelievable we've been performing now over 50 years yeah 6 decades I figured right well we're very fortunate we're very grateful we have an audience that's very loyal and they still want to hear the music and they still want to come out and join us and I'm very grateful for that I enjoy when we finish a concert we do autographs afterwards and meet people and listen to stories and people say when you guys recorded this song I just met my girlfriend and we just broke up it's just an honor to be part of their history their life it's a great feeling so I hope we can continue doing that for a bunch of years yet we're losing a year right now what's going on here yes we are we'll all be back thank you very much for joining us thanks Carl thanks for our 50th podcast hopefully we'll see you soon somewhere well I wish I could say where but when we start playing again maybe you guys can come out and join us most definitely thank you very much for joining us be safe, stay well get past this and onward and upward God bless thank you thank you very much so that was Carl Giambrisi some wonderful stories some great stories some classic stories most definitely some great stuff from back in the 60's how they got together how they got those number one hits you start out and bam you got a number one hit yeah they've had several hits and it was great talking with Carl and getting his insight into all that they've done and all that they've accomplished yep and they've been rocking the world since the 60's and now they've come to a screeching halt just like everybody else and they're chomping at the bit to get back out there and they will soon I'm sure of that yes things are going to be starting to open up soon and we'll all be able to get out there and see the Buckingham's somewhere around the Chicago area I'm sure yes indeed so don't forget folks to share and share the podcast and join our page what else do they need to do Ray follow us on Twitter follow us on Instagram follow us on YouTube follow us on YouTube you might find some surprises there once in a while I'm just saying so make sure you follow us there alright we will I will I already do alright great alright well thanks to Carl once again and as a matter of fact our next week's interview is going to be kind of a tie in kind of a follow up to this one to the Buckingham's we'll see who that could be see you all next Tuesday same podcast station same podcast time it's ok Batman have a great week everybody thank you The Rock and Roll Chicago Podcast does not own the rights to any of the music that's played on this podcast The music is used to promote the band or musicians that are interviewed
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