Alan's 60th Birthday Party

panorama made out of a bunch of photos taken by Bonnie Allen

Last Sunday, September the 9th, I was privileged to participate in a party for most of the Friends of California Zephyr. Above you can see, left to right, me, Warren Haack, Steve Ewert, Paul Farakis, Alan Arnopole, Russ Gauthier, Brian Swander, and Alan's son, Seth Arnopole. Behind Seth is his friend Kate. Brian and Paul and Warren are from Modesto, as are Alan and Steve Ewert. I'm from Napa, a hundred miles away. How did I get mixed up with this group of disreputable musicans?

Long ago, Alan's band (California Zephyr) had stopped touring and he'd been doing duo gigs with astounding mandolinist Evan Marshall, but Evan moved to Los Angeles. One day in (I think) 1991 Alan walked into the Real Estate Reader office where I was working, and said he was told some guy there played the accordion. Yes, I said, that's me. Alan recruited me to form a duo, him on guitar or banjo and me on accordion or guitar. We played lots of gigs in the area, and occasionally he'd squeeze me into one of his now-rare Zephyr gigs. I was the "new guy."

Alan got a job as a wine salesman and event coordinator at the up-and-coming Peju Winery in the Napa Valley, and did well enough to put both his kids through college (and remodel his house.) Just Saturday night Zephyr played the Peju 25th anniversary party.


dinner out back for the lineup for the Peju gig: Kevin Dillon drums, Russ everything, Michael Schnoebelen bass, Steve Ewert guitar and vocals, Seth Arnopole guitar and vocals and washboard. I took the photo. Alan was still selling wine up until gig time.

After 17 years playing with Zephyr, I still feel like the new guy. Russ joined up about 6 years ago, and Seth started singing and playing with us just last year, so technically they are both "newer" at this than I am. But in checking the above links today I see I'm not even listed on the official California Zephyr webpage , and Russ is, (as is Sean Barry, who quit a couple of years ago) so maybe Seth and I are both the "new guys."

Name Dropping

left to right: Bob Fowler, Gary Denton, Steve Ewert, me, Michael Schnoebelen -- photo by Bonnie Allen

I spent last weekend in an extremely beautiful little town in the southern Sierra, Camp Nelson. It was my third annual Mountain Festival gig, playing with the Diamondcutters. I know two of the players from my California Zephyr gigs, bassist Michael Schnoebelen and singer/guitarist Steve Ewert. The other guitarist, Gary Denton, has played the gig for seven years (the first year on drums.) This year was drummer Bob Fowler's first appearance at Camp Nelson. The band really cooked. As usual in situations where I get to play with excellent musicians, I felt like the rookie of the bunch, and constantly tried not to screw things up. I more or less succeeded.

photo by Bonnie Allen

I got to talk with Gary quite a bit this year, and heard some amazing stories. He and his partner, Melody Carpenter, have been running Stagg Street Studios in Van Nuys for something like 30 years. Dave has stories. When he mentioned that his roommate at one point was Dean Parks, I said,"You mean Dean Parks, like 'played on every album in the 1970s' Dean Parks?" Yep. Gary proceeded to tell me how Dean came to LA in the early 70s and met and befriended astounding guitarist Larry Carlton, who began handing off his excess gigs to him. Carlton was first call in LA at the time, and had way more job offers than he could play.

"I remember Dean Parks from all those Steely Dan LPs," I said. Well, turns out that during that time Gary was working as Dean's music copyist, and one day he arrived at whatever studio Steely Dan was using, handed out the charts he'd copied, and then faded into the background. No one told him to leave, so he watching the whole time while Donald Fagen led the band through Aja and, I think, Peg. Maybe FM.

Gary has lots of stories, mostly about people he has recorded in his studio over the years (and about his dogs.) But he didn't say too much about himself.

So just now I googled "Gary Denton" to see if there were any other tidbits I could dig up. There's apparently a quite famous blogger named Gary Denton, and a champion ATV rider named Gary Denton.

But one of the two hits I got for the "right" Gary was from Shawn Phillips's website. Shawn Phillips... Shawn Phillips... Wasn't he that guitar player/singer/songwriter I used to see on the Midnight Special, when Wolfman Jack was the announcer, who would always ask Shawn to "let down all that beautiful hair!"? It seems he was. I had not heard his name in perhaps 30 years.

Turns out he made his latest recording, "No Category," at Gary's Stagg Studio in 2002, with some of the best musicians in the business. And turns out he's now based in South Africa. And he's a fireman and a National Registry Medical Technician. And in an interview linked from his site he tells how he grew up in Texas but went to London where he befriended and roomed with Donovan, whose "Sunshine Superman" he co-wrote, let Paul Simon stay at their place for a month, met Clapton and Beck and everyone else in town, and learned the basic fundamentals of the sitar from Ravi Shankar, which he then taught to George Harrison, who invited him to come to Abbey Road, where he ended up singing background vocals on "Lovely Rita, Meter Maid."

On his web page, he thanked Gary and Melody and Stagg Studios and their dogs Abagail and the Dude (now deceased.)

But I still haven't written up a fitting report about Camp Nelson, 2007. It's coming.