Music-Related Posts Elsewhere: R S Crabb Music Review & Top Ten Site

Over at his site, RS Crabb was talking about how vocalist Ronnie Hammond from the Atlanta Rhythm Section had a fatal heart attack on Monday. That got me thinking again about being a stupid fucking teenager:

Whoa, ARS, been a long time since I've heard that name . . . . I'd always find their singles in the bags of 45's my old man brought home. I had "Imaginary Lover" and "So Into You" and "Champagne Jam" and "Spooky," probably some others too.

In 1980, when they were promoting The Boys from Doraville, they backed up Kansas on the Audio-Visions tour, and I was 15 years old and it was my fourth concert, and because it was the thing to do, I got myself freaking wasted, probably quaaludes and pot and Budweiser.

At some point during the headliners I looked up in a grossly intoxicated kind of way and Dave Hope had suddenly gained 100 pounds and had gotten butt ass ugly. I was sure I was hallucinating, but then I realized that what was happening was that Paul Goddard from ARS was sitting in on the song.

Then the song ended and Steve Walsh thanked Goddard, and I felt pretty smart for somebody who was stoned stupid.

Probably never forget it, and while I'm not proud of it, I don't necessarily regret it, either.

Click anywhere on the blockquote to be taken to Mr. Crabb's post.

Thinking now that it was probably Robbie Steinhardt who thanked Mr. Goddard. While Walsh was almost always the one who screamed "Welcome to Kansas!" at the start of the show, Steinhardt usually handled the audience interaction after that. Also seeing that the show I attended--which almost as a matter of course had been held at the infamous, and the lamented, Hollywood Sportatorium--took place on December 6, 1980. So I would have been 15 years 93 days of age. Old enough to get fucked up, anyway, at least at the Sport.

Observing as well as I look around that Goddard had played on Kerry Livgren's solo album from that same wonderful year, Seeds of Change. And if that's so, I think I've figured out which song it was that Mr. Goddard had guested on.

It was probably the single from Livgren's album, which was called "The Mask of the Great Deceiver." I never did pull the trigger and buy Seeds of Change (just like I never bought Schemer-Dreamer, the first Steve Walsh solo album), but I did find a copy of the single in one of my dad's grocery bags. Wish I still had it: while not a picture sleeve, the label gave a special vocals credit to Ronnie James Dio, who sang on the thing. It made no mention of Goddard, however, or of Barriemore Barlow, who played the drums.

Anyway, I don't have a setlist from the concert, but I do see that the band played "Deceiver" at points along the Audio-Visions tour, like in Houston and in New York. My thinking here is that if Goddard played bass on the album track (he did), and played at all with the band live, wouldn't it make the most sense that the live tune he played would be the one he already knew?

And not that Dave Hope couldn't have learned the song, but if Goddard was playing the thing, he wouldn't have had to.

So: there you have it. A little bit of the 30-year old memory that had not been eradicated by the drugs. A little bit of present-day internet detective work. And what do you get?

Well, you get proof conclusive of Paul Goddard playing his Fender Precision on "The Mask of the Great Deceiver," before a stoned-out Hollywood audience, December 6, 1980.

The only thing left unknown (besides where that fucking "Mask of the Great Deceiver" 45 has gone off to in the years since) is whether or not I puked out all the Budweiser and all the pills after the show was done.

But the answer is, probably.