Al Marcus'
Steel Guitar Web page
page 3
The trumpet player in the white coat was an old friend of ours and sat in on a lot of jam sessions with us. So we went to Windsor, Ontario, Canada and Played for his wedding reception. He just had to get into the act and play too, even on his wedding night! On the right hand corner is my Gibson Electra-harp on a pipe stand.
I was playing a Gibson L7 guitar at the time, I think. Later I played an L5 and had a pickguard pickup so as not to mar the guitar and change its natural tone. It was still a good acoustic guitar, without the amp. The amp was a small Gibson as you can see in the right hand and plenty good enough for those days, and easy to carry.I forget the model.
After playing this job we went accross the bridge to Detroit and went into an afterhours joint and watched Charlie Ventura knock himself out with his fabulous playing on that Sax. At 3 am in the morning, it was packed. We talked to him and had a drink with him during the break.
This was the original Tune-Toppers. It was somewhere around 1948, we had several rehearsals before taking our first job. I had an old beat up Silvertone guitar. The bass player is Harry Clark, a fine singer and very good MC and entertainer. The trumpet player was his Brother Bud (Charles) Clark. The sax and clarinet player was a real cutup and a great entertainer, Florian Czarnecki. We all sang, Bud and I did the harmony parts. A great bunch of guys and we all had fun. The public had fun with us, and we always packed every bar we played in. We worked Northern Michigan. Tusdays was Barney's in Petoskey. Thursdays was Carl's on Crooked lake in Conway. Maybe Friday and Saturday at the Gold Front in Cheboygan. We played in Rogers City, Alpena and Mackinac Island. They used to take us over on a Garwood speedboat,and pick us up when we were thru, what fun. We played everything from "Cold ,Cold Heart" to "Perdido' and "Beer Barrel Polka". Harry and I are the only two left.
Another shot, same guys. That is my Gibson Electra-Harp in the lower right hand corner.
This was at a jam session at the Gaiety, in Cheboygan.
Starting from left is Ed Clark on drums, a great guy and very talented musician. His fills, and drum beats used to charge me right up so I could really stretch out on the jazz sessions. Next was Florian Czarnecki, played all the reeds, there he is blowing up a storm on the Baritone Sax (ala Ventura) In the back, Dale Clapham playing Trumpet and Trombone. Les Clark on Tenor Sax and he always played jazz. Harry Clark, mentioned before on Bass, very talented guy. He, in later years MC'ed every season in Las Vegas and played with Buzz Evans. Then back there is Lyle Eddy playing sax and clarinet, a good musician. Then at the end, Al Marcus, playing the guitar and Gibson Electra-Harp. Right when the picture was taken I probably was laying down some big fat chords for the horn men on some jazz tune.
Sorry to say, all the guys in that picture are dead except Harry Clark, the bass player, and me, Al Marcus, guitar,keyboard and steel. We have had a lot of great memories and they were all a great bunch of guys. I considered every one of them my friend.
I did a lot of teaching in the Northern Michigan area. Here's my business card from those days. I was teaching mostly guitar students with just few steel students. I taught in three different towns at times. Usually one or two days each. I seemed to be always busy, both teaching and playing nights.
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