Latest / Troubled Men Podcast / TMP323 JOHNNY PENNINO: BOURBON STREET PARADE

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TMP323 JOHNNY PENNINO: BOURBON STREET PARADE · Troubled Men Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker A: Foreign listeners, welcome back to the Troubled Men podcast. I am Renee Coleman, sitting once again in Snake and Jake's Christmas Club lounge in the heart of the Clempire with my co host, the original troubled man for troubled times, and future mayor of New Orleans, Mr. Manny Chevrolet. Welcome, Manny.
• 0:33
  Speaker B: Hey, man. What is going on?
• 0:36
  Speaker A: Oh, not too much. It's getting dark a little earlier these days here. You can feel the. The sun is. Is waning. It's. Yeah, days are shortening.
• 0:45
  Speaker B: I didn't know they had music here on Tuesday night.
• 0:48
  Speaker A: Well, they always have music here, but I guess the. The bar has been filling up in the later part, so they decided to start a little bit earlier. So we have the Shiv and Shank duo here.
• 0:59
  Speaker B: Oh, really?
• 1:00
  Speaker A: Playing. Playing behind.
• 1:01
  Speaker B: I really don't care for music.
• 1:02
  Speaker A: Right. I've heard you say that before, but especially live music. Right.
• 1:06
  Speaker B: It's like right in the back of my head right now. Right, well, then they expect you to pay them. They get paid to do the gig and then they pass around a jar.
• 1:17
  Speaker A: Yeah, I'm not sure what the.
• 1:18
  Speaker B: It's embarrassing.
• 1:19
  Speaker A: Not sure what the. The fundamentals here are with the finances, but. But here we are back in Snake and Jake's on Tiki Tuesday. They have those. They have the tiki torches lit outside. Okay.
• 1:32
  Speaker B: It's great.
• 1:33
  Speaker A: Right?
• 1:33
  Speaker B: All right, what's happening with you? This is really annoying to me. Okay, well, had a long day and this is what I do not want to hear.
• 1:41
  Speaker A: All right. Sorry about that. We'll try to. Try to make some other arrangements next time. Didn't.
• 1:48
  Speaker B: Anyway, if I give them five bucks, they'll learn a new tune. You know, that's what I used to call Tal. The Higher Krishnas in Westwood village in the 70s. And they sit there banging around, going Hare Krishna. We say here, five bucks, learn a new tune.
• 2:02
  Speaker A: Learn a new song. Yeah, exactly.
• 2:05
  Speaker B: Anyway.
• 2:06
  Speaker A: Okay, well, what's going on? Well, we have continuing the countdown to the mayor's race where you have the election on in about three weeks from. About four weeks from now. October 10th or something like that.
• 2:19
  Speaker B: Well, I know. Four weeks.
• 2:21
  Speaker A: Four weeks.
• 2:22
  Speaker C: Yeah, yeah.
• 2:23
  Speaker A: Three weeks from when the show comes out. Right, right, right. And today I. I saw or read an article about the first of the attack ads that some of the. The candidates are running. So I guess Royce Duplessis put out an attack ad aimed at Helena Moreno.
• 2:42
  Speaker B: They should attack that first name. What the hell kind of name is that?
• 2:45
  Speaker A: Royce. Yeah. For a man. Well, you know, I've heard that name before.
• 2:50
  Speaker B: Really?
• 2:50
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
• 2:51
  Speaker B: Yeah, I've never heard that name before. Royce, but sounds like Joyce. Well, maybe it's the male version of Joyce. Joyce Duplesses.
• 3:01
  Speaker A: Well, maybe that's his drag name or something.
• 3:03
  Speaker B: I don't know either, but. So what did he do? He attacked.
• 3:07
  Speaker A: Who was attacking? Helena Moreno.
• 3:10
  Speaker B: Oh, and about her hairstyle?
• 3:12
  Speaker A: Well, no, not about the hairstyle. Something he says in the ad. It says he's one of us, I think. Well, what does that mean? That was like as opposed to everybody else who's not one of us and, and who is us?
• 3:23
  Speaker B: And I don't know, maybe it's lgbq. High five mentioning. I don't know.
• 3:29
  Speaker A: Yeah, it didn't, didn't say anything about that in the article, but, but.
• 3:33
  Speaker B: Oh, there was an article I just saw. I thought you saw. You just saw a commercial.
• 3:36
  Speaker A: Well, there's an article about the commercial. I haven't actually. It's a 30 second commercial. It's supposed to be out and I was wondering, I was thinking, well, you know, perhaps you might be the next target. I don't know.
• 3:48
  Speaker B: Why not?
• 3:49
  Speaker A: If, if I've got a bullseye on.
• 3:52
  Speaker B: My back my whole life.
• 3:53
  Speaker A: Sure, sure. Wouldn't. Wouldn't be any.
• 3:55
  Speaker B: Come and get me, Joyce Du Plessy. I'm here. You want to attack me? I'm right here, man.
• 4:01
  Speaker A: All right. It's easy to find.
• 4:03
  Speaker B: But, but I've saw, I, I think you know, because this is the week where all the candidates after report their financial disclosures to the ethics board in Baton Rouge, right? And I noticed that they had a, they had a story about it on one of the local channels and so we'll see. Because you know, Helena Moreno has a war chest of over a million dollars, right. Where guys like Joyce Du plessis maybe have 500,000 to $700,000. And then who's the other big shot?
• 4:40
  Speaker A: Oliver Thomas.
• 4:41
  Speaker B: Oliver ot. Yeah. He might not have half of that. I don't know. But we'll find out after this Thursday because they'll have to. If you want to, you can go and onto the la.gov website and see how much these people have raised and we'll see if Du Plessis, because he's got a lot of history with a lot of older African American rich families and see how much he raised.
• 5:13
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 5:13
  Speaker B: But I did notice one thing on the way here, actually. Our, our Sheriff Susan Hudson.
• 5:20
  Speaker A: Oh yeah.
• 5:21
  Speaker B: Who refuses to back down. I saw her first campaign sign today on Broad Street.
• 5:26
  Speaker A: Really?
• 5:27
  Speaker B: Near, near. Near a Tulane and broadcast. It said vote share and is a nice picture of her. She's smiling.
• 5:34
  Speaker A: Okay. A rare smiling picture.
• 5:37
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 5:37
  Speaker A: She's usually scowling.
• 5:38
  Speaker B: Well, usually she's, you know, pissed off because everything's going wrong.
• 5:42
  Speaker A: Right.
• 5:42
  Speaker B: You know, but speaking of Tulane and Broad, remember our. Our old place, Best of life?
• 5:49
  Speaker A: Oh, yeah, yeah. Best of life. Composite combination restaurant and pharmacy.
• 5:53
  Speaker B: Restaurant, the best food and drugs.
• 5:55
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 5:56
  Speaker B: You can't go wrong.
• 5:57
  Speaker A: Right.
• 5:58
  Speaker B: You know, you can't go wrong with that. But, you know, they were right there at Caddy corner to the courthouse, and then they disappeared and they opened some tire shop there.
• 6:09
  Speaker A: Right, I saw that.
• 6:10
  Speaker B: Well, I just happened about a week ago to be coming down Tulane from the downtown area, and best of life is still there. They just moved in to a smaller little place right next. Right next to the tire shop. But basically it's best of life and it's just drugs.
• 6:31
  Speaker A: Oh, okay.
• 6:31
  Speaker B: No more food.
• 6:32
  Speaker A: Cut out the food. Well, cut out. You know, you can get food anywhere, man.
• 6:35
  Speaker B: Right.
• 6:35
  Speaker A: I think they figured that out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's the drugs. Is. Was the big draw.
• 6:40
  Speaker B: And it basically was. It's this little place. I mean, tiny, tiny little storefront. And it just says delivery only.
• 6:48
  Speaker C: Huh.
• 6:48
  Speaker A: So they're okay. We deliver.
• 6:50
  Speaker B: So just deliver. You can't go there.
• 6:53
  Speaker A: All right.
• 6:53
  Speaker B: You want the best of life? It gets delivered.
• 6:56
  Speaker A: Okay, well, that could be convenient.
• 6:59
  Speaker B: That's what my ex wife used to say. I don't know what that means.
• 7:02
  Speaker A: Sure.
• 7:02
  Speaker B: Anyway.
• 7:03
  Speaker A: Well, that's. Maybe you might want to get on their. Their roster there. Get it. Become a client. It's kind of in your neighborhood. They probably. You're probably within the delivery zone, I guess. I don't know.
• 7:14
  Speaker B: I'm only on three meds. At this age, I only take three meds a day. But maybe I'll look them up. I don't know. My. The people who give me my meds are pretty good, and I have a program.
• 7:25
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Why switch horses in midstream? Yeah.
• 7:28
  Speaker B: I mean, if they bring me some drugs with maybe a pizza, maybe I could tell them to pick up a pizza on the way.
• 7:35
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 7:37
  Speaker B: Like old days.
• 7:38
  Speaker A: Right, right, right. You know, harken back to their. Their origins.
• 7:41
  Speaker B: Give me that arthritic medicine with a pizza.
• 7:45
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 7:45
  Speaker B: You know, anyway, what else is going on?
• 7:48
  Speaker A: Well, we had some sad news this week. We've been. We mentioned it a couple of times, kind of leading up to this. We lost our good friend Sydney Smith.
• 7:56
  Speaker B: Oh, yeah, Sydney.
• 7:58
  Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah.
• 7:59
  Speaker B: You know, and he went fast.
• 8:00
  Speaker A: He did. He did. I told you. I just he had just come into my iguanas gig about three weeks ago, maybe four weeks ago, and you know, he's. He, you know, was having.
• 8:10
  Speaker B: What am I going to do with those wristbands now?
• 8:12
  Speaker A: Yeah, well, you know, we both were sitting on invitations to his big annual birthday party that was delayed from May and was supposed to be this coming weekend.
• 8:24
  Speaker B: Right.
• 8:24
  Speaker A: So he came right up to the precipice. Didn't quite make the finish line.
• 8:28
  Speaker B: Yeah. But, yeah, I think it's better to go quick. Just go quick. Why do you want to sit there for months and months and months with.
• 8:37
  Speaker C: You said it, buddy.
• 8:38
  Speaker B: Yeah. You know, go quick, man. You don't want to sit there. Cuz he had what? He had pancreatic cancer.
• 8:42
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. You don't want to be wasting away.
• 8:44
  Speaker B: You know, you don't want to be wasting away, but everyone's looking at you and.
• 8:48
  Speaker A: But make you feel better, he'll be sorely missed. A giant. He had so many, so many friends. So well known, you know, early podcast guest of ours. Goes all the way back to your movie. Giving it to the people. He played reporter Jackson Square.
• 9:04
  Speaker B: That's right.
• 9:05
  Speaker A: And he and I had a scene.
• 9:07
  Speaker B: Together banging that broad.
• 9:10
  Speaker A: Right, Yeah, I remember that scene.
• 9:13
  Speaker B: Bang that broad.
• 9:14
  Speaker A: Right, right. And then they didn't want to use the scene because it. She got too naked or something.
• 9:18
  Speaker B: Yeah, something.
• 9:20
  Speaker A: But yeah, I think they were banging.
• 9:22
  Speaker B: In really, in real life.
• 9:23
  Speaker A: Could have been.
• 9:24
  Speaker B: Yeah. They were just banging on the screen.
• 9:26
  Speaker A: Right. Well, that's why. That's why it looks so real.
• 9:28
  Speaker B: But yeah, well, I'm that kind of director.
• 9:32
  Speaker A: Right.
• 9:32
  Speaker B: Like Cassavetes, you know?
• 9:33
  Speaker A: Yeah, Go for realism, huh?
• 9:35
  Speaker B: Yeah, I don't want this Hollywood fluff. Yeah, yeah. I'm all about realism. But anyway, you know what's fun I found funny this week is that our fearless leader decided to rename the Department of Defense, or whatever it's called, to the Department of War.
• 9:54
  Speaker A: Right.
• 9:55
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 9:55
  Speaker A: You know, that's what it was originally called back when.
• 9:58
  Speaker B: I don't know, when they changed. Making it great again, going back to that.
• 10:01
  Speaker A: Right, right, right.
• 10:02
  Speaker B: Calling it the Department of War. What I understand is, is, so when does he think we were great?
• 10:10
  Speaker A: Yeah. I don't know. I don't know.
• 10:12
  Speaker B: I have no idea.
• 10:13
  Speaker A: Back when Jim Crow was still in effect, you know, and you could.
• 10:18
  Speaker B: When he had hair, maybe when he.
• 10:19
  Speaker A: Had a woman and nobody would look twice.
• 10:23
  Speaker B: Slap a woman in public.
• 10:24
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. I don't know.
• 10:25
  Speaker B: I just don't know when he thinks, where's he going with that. But anyway, he also decided to rename the Statue of Liberty.
• 10:32
  Speaker C: Huh.
• 10:33
  Speaker B: The Statue of Puberty.
• 10:35
  Speaker A: Oh, wow, that's. That's kind of a stretch, but.
• 10:37
  Speaker B: Yeah, I don't know what that means. But then also the FBI is the Federal Bureau of Incense.
• 10:44
  Speaker A: Okay. Crazy.
• 10:45
  Speaker B: You know, because you know him and what's his name, Epstein. Go way back.
• 10:47
  Speaker A: Right, right. Well, you know, the puberty. That's his favorite age group for. For a girlfriend, perhaps.
• 10:55
  Speaker B: He has. Probably has lots of statues around his Oval Office, you know, and you notice how he changed the Oval Office. It's all gold.
• 11:03
  Speaker A: I saw that.
• 11:04
  Speaker B: It's like a casino.
• 11:05
  Speaker A: Yeah. That piss. Elegant kind of, you know, like. Like furniture. Like if you ever go in along like Market street in San Francisco, they have all those furniture stores and they have furniture like that, but it's, you know, like gold leaf. Everything's gone.
• 11:19
  Speaker B: It's kind of reminded me of my aunt's 70s where she had those. Those weird kind of fountains where there was like. It was a string statue, but these waters would drip down on top. Remember those?
• 11:31
  Speaker A: Vaguely. Yeah.
• 11:32
  Speaker B: So weird. But she had those all over the house, you know, I don't know.
• 11:36
  Speaker A: You have to. You know, you might catch another photograph of the. The Oval Office. And it'll have plastic covering the.
• 11:43
  Speaker B: Right. Yeah.
• 11:44
  Speaker A: The cushions.
• 11:45
  Speaker B: Well, because that's all the puberty going on.
• 11:48
  Speaker A: You can wipe them down. Yeah, you just wipe it down.
• 11:50
  Speaker B: You made a mess.
• 11:51
  Speaker A: A wet sp.
• 11:55
  Speaker B: You know. Get out of here. Anyway, also speaking about our fearless leader, his guy, RFK Jr. Oh, yeah, yeah. He's declaring that he's going to make America healthy again and he's a star with himself. Yeah, well, that's it. That's what I'm saying. He just released a report, the new report from his new, you know, his new regime. And I'm thinking to myself, this guy's got to be the most unhealthiest person I've ever seen.
• 12:19
  Speaker A: Yeah. What's that going on with the skin and the blood? We had the brain worm. Yeah.
• 12:29
  Speaker B: Something going.
• 12:30
  Speaker A: Swims in. In. In contaminated reservoirs.
• 12:35
  Speaker B: This guy is. Is not. Well. No, no, it's not well.
• 12:39
  Speaker A: It's crazy. Well, that's. You know, again, the. The. The fearless leader has such a weird idea of who to put in charge. It's. It's. It's almost like yes men. It's almost like he's making a mockery of. Oh, yeah, almost.
• 12:53
  Speaker B: He's almost making a mockery. But we'll be great again one day.
• 12:57
  Speaker A: Oh, you know, at some point we will get better.
• 13:00
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Let's just get better.
• 13:02
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
• 13:02
  Speaker B: Let's get well. How's that?
• 13:04
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 13:05
  Speaker B: Make America well, right?
• 13:07
  Speaker C: You said it.
• 13:09
  Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. But what else is going on?
• 13:12
  Speaker A: Well, well, I hate to have all my points be. Be the deaths of. Of people, but another one I have we can't skip is Mark Vollman from the Turtles Passed Away. You know, Flo and Eddie. Not only did they have so many terrific hits as the Turtles, Happy Together on and on and on, but then they went out as a vocal duo, background vocals, and sang on all those initial T. Rex records and then sang on a bunch of Frank Zappa records. And they were still active, still had the happy together. We should get them on this oldies tour as well. Mark Volman sadly passed away earlier.
• 13:53
  Speaker B: We'll get him anyway.
• 13:54
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 13:55
  Speaker B: You know, but also, you know, one of my favorite vocalists ever was Bruce Loose Calderwood. You know who he is?
• 14:04
  Speaker A: I know that name.
• 14:05
  Speaker B: He's a singer from the punk Bay Area punk band Flipper.
• 14:10
  Speaker A: Oh, sure, sure. Of course.
• 14:11
  Speaker B: Bruce Loose Calderwood. He was a great singer. One of my favorite punk bands was Flipper, and he passed away at like 62, 63. And I don't know what he passed away of, but he's dead.
• 14:25
  Speaker A: Yeah. Probably let a. Somewhat of a hard life, I'm guessing.
• 14:30
  Speaker B: Perhaps we all believe hard life.
• 14:31
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 14:32
  Speaker B: But he had that great song. Flipper had that great song. How'd it go? I forget the name. He was like, what is there to do today? Come on, baby, let's have a good time. Let's go down to one of those cheap hotels and get all squishy and wet. And that was the chorus.
• 14:54
  Speaker A: All right.
• 14:56
  Speaker B: So shout out to him. He seems like a good.
• 14:59
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. We're dropping like flies, Manny.
• 15:01
  Speaker C: Yeah, you said that, right?
• 15:03
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. It's all right. So let's do something.
• 15:08
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Let's get, get to the guest.
• 15:10
  Speaker B: I was late.
• 15:11
  Speaker A: Quiet moment here.
• 15:12
  Speaker B: Yeah. Things.
• 15:13
  Speaker A: Oh, okay. All right. Well, glad you made it. Well, our guest, he's a guy's a legend of Bourbon Street. He's been around forever. Terrific tenor saxophone player and inductee of the Louisiana Music hall of Fame. As I said, terrific tenor saxophone player, recording artist. He's worked with a whole long list of of of music stars, including Freddy Fender, Ernie Cato, Dr. John, Al Hurt, Professor Long Hair, Sam Cook, Frankie Ford, Pete Fountain, Kenny Rogers, on and on and on. Had his own band way back in the day. The Emperor is also a Member of the legendary Papa Joe's house band with Freddie Fender at that time. Going to get into all that and much more. But without further ado, the great Mr. Johnny Panino. Welcome, Johnny.
• 16:03
  Speaker C: Thank you. I'm here. Have no, have no fear. I'm here.
• 16:07
  Speaker A: Right on, Johnny. Well, well, Johnny, you and I met few years ago. Of course I always heard your name, but you and I played a job together with Carlo Dita and he's a cousin. Is he a cousin of yours? Okay.
• 16:23
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 16:24
  Speaker A: And. And Freddie Staley on drums.
• 16:27
  Speaker C: I gave him his first job playing drums.
• 16:29
  Speaker A: Freddie Staley, Emperor.
• 16:30
  Speaker C: As a band?
• 16:31
  Speaker A: Yeah. Really?
• 16:32
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 16:32
  Speaker A: Wow.
• 16:33
  Speaker C: And he was playing straight fours on the bass drum. I told him, I said, if you keep playing a straight fours on the bass drum, I'll break your leg.
• 16:40
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 16:41
  Speaker C: So he got funky with it.
• 16:43
  Speaker A: All right. Okay.
• 16:45
  Speaker C: Ask him. He'll tell you.
• 16:46
  Speaker A: Right. Well, I'm trying to get Freddie on the show too, so hopefully we will be on here. But we met there that, that time played and you gave me your record. Sexy Country Soul. Yes, I've hung on to it since then.
• 17:00
  Speaker C: 10 National hall of Fame people. It's on there, man. Oh, yeah.
• 17:04
  Speaker A: So great to finally have you on the program here. So.
• 17:07
  Speaker C: Well, glad to be.
• 17:08
  Speaker A: Let's. Let's go back, talk about your, your origin in New Orleans. Now I know by your name and by your accent that you are born in New Orleans.
• 17:17
  Speaker C: You believe it. So I don't know if that's good or bad.
• 17:21
  Speaker A: Well, well, so tell us, what, what neighborhood did you grow up in?
• 17:26
  Speaker C: Around Orleans and Broad.
• 17:28
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 17:29
  Speaker C: That's the vicinity, basically. We, we never moved very far away. My grandfather owned a whole block of the 2300 block. Ursula line.
• 17:38
  Speaker A: Huh. So was that a business or.
• 17:42
  Speaker C: No, he was a real estate business.
• 17:44
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 17:45
  Speaker C: Realty company of his own, you know.
• 17:48
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 17:49
  Speaker C: So he. We lived. I grew up as a baby on Durbany street and I think about maybe eight, nine years. And then we moved to my grandfather's house in a 2300 block ice line where St. Ann's Shrine is one block down the street. And then my grandfather bought the house that I'm living in now and gave it to my father.
• 18:11
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 18:12
  Speaker C: So I've been there ever since.
• 18:15
  Speaker B: Where's that house on Ursuline?
• 18:16
  Speaker C: Oh, in Rocha Believe.
• 18:17
  Speaker B: Oh, Rochester.
• 18:18
  Speaker C: Okay. 9, the 900 block.
• 18:20
  Speaker A: Now what was your mother's maiden name?
• 18:22
  Speaker C: Chachi.
• 18:23
  Speaker A: Oh, okay.
• 18:24
  Speaker C: I'm full blooded Italian. Sicilian.
• 18:26
  Speaker A: Sicilian, yes.
• 18:29
  Speaker C: Cordleone.
• 18:30
  Speaker A: All right.
• 18:31
  Speaker C: In fact, that's where Francis Copeland's mama She's a Panino.
• 18:34
  Speaker A: Oh, really?
• 18:35
  Speaker C: Yeah, and she's my cousin.
• 18:37
  Speaker A: No kidding?
• 18:37
  Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah, Dave from Corleone too.
• 18:40
  Speaker A: No kidding.
• 18:41
  Speaker B: Do you know Francis?
• 18:44
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 18:44
  Speaker B: You do?
• 18:45
  Speaker C: Yes. Oh, he knows I'm a cousin because of his mom. She wrote a book a while back and she said, francis, you're not a Coppola, you're a Panino. You came out of my body.
• 18:57
  Speaker B: You can get him on the show for us.
• 18:59
  Speaker C: Oh, I don't know about that.
• 19:02
  Speaker B: I'll work them a call.
• 19:03
  Speaker A: Yeah, see what you can do. Well, so. So you're growing up there, right? In Mid City. What. What school did you go to? What school?
• 19:10
  Speaker C: Well, I went to St. Anne School.
• 19:12
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 19:12
  Speaker C: Which is right where the old St. Joseph Academy is, on the Ursuline, right across the street. I graduated from there, and then I went to St. Aloysius for a couple of years.
• 19:23
  Speaker A: Another St. Aloysius boy. You know, we just had wacko Wade Wright on the drummer who went to St. Aloysius.
• 19:30
  Speaker C: Did you say that right?
• 19:31
  Speaker A: Yeah, I had.
• 19:31
  Speaker C: I play. He was playing drums with me and Ray Barris when. When he was a young guy. Yeah, he played drums with us. And I don't know if he remembers.
• 19:40
  Speaker A: It, but I'm sure he does. Oh, yeah, he remembers a lot of stories. In fact, I think your name came up. That may be how I was like, oh, I got to get Johnny on. Oh, yeah, I think that's that.
• 19:50
  Speaker C: I don't know, man. My. My manager in Canada always called me a walking almanac. I don't know why he did, because he knew all kinds of stuff I did. So I guess he must. Must have realized I've been around quite a while.
• 20:02
  Speaker A: Sure, sure. Well, so St. Aloysius. And now, were you already playing music jobs at the time you were in high school?
• 20:09
  Speaker C: Yes, and I went to Warren Easton after. For two years and graduated from there.
• 20:15
  Speaker A: Now, what kind of bands were you listening to? What kind of bands were you playing in?
• 20:21
  Speaker C: Every kind of music but Chinese music. And the only reason why is the Chinese is a quarter tone instrument. American music is a half a tone instrument.
• 20:30
  Speaker A: Right, right. So what would you use? What was your first instrument that you started off?
• 20:35
  Speaker C: Alto Saxophone.
• 20:37
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 20:37
  Speaker C: Then clarinet and then flute.
• 20:39
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 20:40
  Speaker C: And then my teacher said, look, you can be a jack of all trades and a master of none. So I stayed with the saxophone because I like the tone.
• 20:47
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 20:48
  Speaker C: So that was alto. Then I switched to tenor. And I had a friend of mine by the name of Charlie Madwell that played tenor for a long time with Dr. John as well. And he got himself. I don't know what happened. I bought his Selmer tenor.
• 21:04
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 21:05
  Speaker C: So from that day on, I was nothing but a tenor.
• 21:08
  Speaker B: So you picked up music in school, or was it at home with your parents?
• 21:12
  Speaker C: Everywhere.
• 21:13
  Speaker B: So your parents played.
• 21:14
  Speaker C: Your parents played everywhere. My father was. My father and Louis Prima were good friends. In fact, I found out from my cousin Robert Kutcher said that the Prima family is our relatives. And I didn't know that, you know, but Sam Butera was one of my teachers, and that man was phenomenal.
• 21:35
  Speaker A: Sure. Absolutely. A giant. Yeah. Obviously the band leader in Louis Prima's band when he was out there in Vegas and had Sam Butera and the Witnesses, but he was also the band leader of. It was Louis Prima and the Wildest they were called. Right.
• 21:51
  Speaker C: But when. The last time, when I talked to Sam about that, the music thing, after he taught me a whole bunch of things over the years, he left me with five things. Know what to do, when to do it, where to do it, how to do it, and do it with conviction.
• 22:08
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 22:08
  Speaker C: Because if you don't do it with conviction, there ain't no use of learning the other four.
• 22:12
  Speaker A: Right.
• 22:13
  Speaker C: And he was. Right.
• 22:14
  Speaker A: Right.
• 22:14
  Speaker C: And I got. I got a tendency to play loud in some of the bands. And they say, well, man, you loud. Yeah. I said, you hear me say yeah? Then you know I'm working, right. And you know what Sam said? If you're loud and you're good, that's great. If you're loud and bad, that's terrible.
• 22:29
  Speaker A: Sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're not going to get hired too much if you're loud and bad.
• 22:33
  Speaker C: Yeah. No.
• 22:35
  Speaker A: Well, so you were saying that you. You. You switched to. Or you studied clarinet as well. Now I remember, like in my father's day. My father's a little bit older than you, maybe almost 10 years older than you.
• 22:46
  Speaker C: And your daddy was a good player, boy.
• 22:48
  Speaker A: Oh, thank you, man.
• 22:49
  Speaker C: Be proud of him. Believe me, I really like him.
• 22:52
  Speaker A: I. I'll. I'll pass that on that you said that.
• 22:55
  Speaker C: Please, please do.
• 22:56
  Speaker B: So Renee loves him.
• 22:59
  Speaker A: Sure. Well, it's my father. Of course. I love my father.
• 23:01
  Speaker B: Loves him, too.
• 23:02
  Speaker C: His daddy. I knew his daddy.
• 23:03
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 23:04
  Speaker C: And what's amazing, he looks something like him.
• 23:07
  Speaker B: I was.
• 23:08
  Speaker A: I was telling Johnny, the older I like him. No, he does. Oh, he's saying I do look like him. He said, yeah, the older. The older I get, the more I look like him. I catch myself in the mirror sometimes, like, oh, man. Certain way I'm A certain expression on my face in a picture, something.
• 23:22
  Speaker C: God, that looks like your father was a good looking man.
• 23:25
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it just. It's shocking when you see yourself turning into him. Well, I was gonna say like my father came up with studying with the same guy that, that Jerry Jumonville studied.
• 23:37
  Speaker C: Clarence.
• 23:38
  Speaker A: Right. And at that time, at that time, all saxophone players, they. They wouldn't really study saxophone. They'd study clarinet with a teacher because it's a much more challenging instrument.
• 23:47
  Speaker C: Yes, yes.
• 23:48
  Speaker A: So you came up with that same kind of.
• 23:51
  Speaker C: I had to learn the piano first and then I had my saxophone. But Don told me, he says, look, be a jack of all trades and a master nun, so pick the horn you like. So that's when I stayed with the saxophone.
• 24:06
  Speaker A: Okay, right on. So you're young teenager when you're starting to make bands.
• 24:12
  Speaker C: I was. I started. I had my own band at 12 years old.
• 24:16
  Speaker A: Really? Where were y' all playing?
• 24:17
  Speaker C: All over the dancers, St. Dominic, St. Anthony, Sacred Hearts, all over the place.
• 24:23
  Speaker A: All right, what band was that?
• 24:24
  Speaker C: Redemptress.
• 24:25
  Speaker A: That was the Emperors.
• 24:26
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 24:26
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 24:27
  Speaker C: Yeah. Oh, yeah.
• 24:28
  Speaker A: And so you had other 12 year olds in this band or you had older guys?
• 24:32
  Speaker C: Freddie was in the band.
• 24:35
  Speaker A: Freddy Staley.
• 24:36
  Speaker C: Yeah, Freddy Staley was with me. You know, I hired him a little bit after we got started. We had a guy that wasn't so good. So friend of mine, this other sax player, we was working together, he said, man, if you don't get rid of that guy, I'm quitting. I said, that's it. I hired Freddy Staley.
• 24:53
  Speaker A: Now where'd you find Freddy?
• 24:55
  Speaker C: I forget where the devil. I ran across him. It's been so dauntless, you know what you're asking me? I got cop.
• 25:00
  Speaker A: Yeah. That's all right. That's. That's kidding. Sorry.
• 25:05
  Speaker C: Holy cow.
• 25:07
  Speaker A: Right, right, right.
• 25:08
  Speaker C: But you know, he remembers people that I forgot that we backed on the road. I couldn't believe it. Freddie, I talked to him a while back, he said, johnny, you remember us playing with Smiley Lewis and Joe Jones? I said, what? He said, yeah, you remember that? We did. We backed him way out in Venice. Somewhere out there, you know, In California. No, no.
• 25:29
  Speaker A: Venice, Louisiana.
• 25:30
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 25:30
  Speaker A: Oh, right, right, right.
• 25:32
  Speaker C: And I couldn't, I swear to say, shocked. I mean, we back. We backed some heavyweight guys.
• 25:38
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 25:39
  Speaker B: And you were 12 years old.
• 25:41
  Speaker C: 12, 13. 12, 13.
• 25:42
  Speaker B: You backed all these heavy guys.
• 25:45
  Speaker C: When I turned 17, I went to Bourbon Street.
• 25:48
  Speaker A: Oh.
• 25:49
  Speaker C: And I don't know if that was a good thing I did. I Worked at a work. Ray Barris and I worked at the. The original Dream Room. That was known all over the world. We worked there. Skip Easterling was our keyboard player. Wade. I think Wade was there with us at the time.
• 26:08
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 26:08
  Speaker C: You know, so. I mean, we. We've been. Oh, God. The Dream. When Sam Anselmo and Walter Noto owned the. The Dream Room.
• 26:19
  Speaker A: That's what I was going to ask you about. The. So Sam, that's. That's Jimmy Anselmo's father, a relative?
• 26:24
  Speaker C: I don't know whether it's his father or not.
• 26:26
  Speaker A: Uncle or something maybe. Because I know Jimmy Anselmo's father owned a bunch of clubs and it was a former boxer.
• 26:35
  Speaker C: Yeah, my father knew him because my father used to be a boxer.
• 26:38
  Speaker A: Oh, no kidding. Well, you're a big guy yourself. You're what, like six, three, four?
• 26:43
  Speaker C: No, almost six one.
• 26:45
  Speaker A: Really?
• 26:45
  Speaker C: Yeah. My father, you wouldn't believe. My father was a little bitty guy. But I'm gonna tell you what, he wasn't one to be reckoned with.
• 26:51
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 26:51
  Speaker C: You know, and the family nicknamed him. They called him the Malandrina. In Italian, that means a tough guy.
• 26:58
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 27:00
  Speaker C: I'm not gonna mention no names. But they had one of the guys that was a. A bodyguard for one of the people. He came into the restaurant and he was looking at my father, and the Godfather was sitting there and he says, man, I hate to think of me and him would have to tie up. My father told him, if you tie up with him, you got to have two things. Either have good hospitalization or family plot. You're going to need one of them.
• 27:24
  Speaker A: Oh, man.
• 27:25
  Speaker C: And I seen him in action. Believe me, that will mess with him no more.
• 27:30
  Speaker A: Yeah. Who's that?
• 27:31
  Speaker C: My father.
• 27:32
  Speaker A: Oh. Oh, okay. Right, right, right. So, I'm sorry I cut you off. You're talking about Sam Anselmo and.
• 27:37
  Speaker C: Yeah, well, I met years after he closed the Dream Room. We worked. We worked there for a while, you know, they decided to close it down. So I was in a movie theater. I walked outside, there was Sam, and Selma was there. He said, johnny. I said, hey, Sam. He said, you know what, man? I said, what? He said, I did something I should have never done. I said, what's that? He said, I should have never closed the Dream Room. Yeah, that's what he said. He said that place was known all over the world. He wasn't kidding.
• 28:06
  Speaker B: So why did he?
• 28:08
  Speaker C: Don't know. He didn't say him and Walter Noto had it. Both of them together.
• 28:12
  Speaker A: Was that Just a nightclub or like a strip club?
• 28:15
  Speaker C: Yeah, no, it was a nightclub. A lot of big, famous people played there.
• 28:19
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 28:19
  Speaker C: I think even the Glen Miller Orchestra played there.
• 28:22
  Speaker A: Okay. Touring acts.
• 28:23
  Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. In fact, speaking of Glenn Miller, Don Lasday taught me something that Glenn Miller was taught from Joe Schillinger. Schillinger was not a musician. He was a mathematician.
• 28:38
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 28:39
  Speaker C: He broke music down into math.
• 28:41
  Speaker A: Right.
• 28:42
  Speaker C: And they still use the number system in Nashville.
• 28:45
  Speaker A: Sure.
• 28:46
  Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah, they still use it, you know, and it's a. It's a better way than to navigate.
• 28:52
  Speaker A: Through tunes, because then if they change the key of a tune, it doesn't matter. You can still read the chart because it's all. You're just going by, you know, the tonalities, you know.
• 29:04
  Speaker C: Your father was a good reader. Yeah, he was a good reader. When I was like, 13 or 15, 17, I could have read Duke Ellington's first chair book. Thing is. So I was on Bourbon street when I was about. At 17, 18. By the time I reached 25 and 27, I spent 15 years at Papa Joe's.
• 29:26
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 29:27
  Speaker C: You know, plus working earlier gigs.
• 29:30
  Speaker A: Y' all weren't reading any charts?
• 29:32
  Speaker C: No, no, no. I gotta tell you, something crazy about reading. Dizzy Gillespie was. Came in front of me at the bar. We was up in the air. He was right there when I was walking out. He said, hey, son, you know who I am? I said, yeah, Dizzy, I know who you are. He says, we at Al Hirtz Club. I said, oh, okay. He says, you know, I got something to tell you. He said, what? He said, I know guys that would like to come and put their recorder right in front of you and record what you're playing. I said, why me? He said, what you're playing is not on paper. You're creating everything you playing. I said, are you kidding me? He said, no, I'm not.
• 30:15
  Speaker A: That's a great compliment.
• 30:16
  Speaker C: I couldn't believe it. He says, what you're doing is not on paper.
• 30:20
  Speaker A: All right?
• 30:22
  Speaker C: And then.
• 30:22
  Speaker B: Until he stole it from you and put it on paper. Now, who is Dizzy Gillespie?
• 30:29
  Speaker C: The trumpet player that had the bent up trumpet.
• 30:32
  Speaker B: Oh, yes, that's him. I got you.
• 30:34
  Speaker C: You know how that happened? He dropped the horn and bent up, and he had no choice but to play the horn. And it. It was a. His Persona. Oh, he stayed there with it. Yeah.
• 30:45
  Speaker A: But they actually make trumpets like that. That's the. For. For reading purposes, I guess. You know, you can have your head down.
• 30:53
  Speaker C: Yeah. And.
• 30:54
  Speaker A: And reading the chart, but the bell is still projecting up above the music stand.
• 30:58
  Speaker C: I even had Edgar and Johnny Winters come in a couple of three times. They became good friends.
• 31:02
  Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
• 31:03
  Speaker C: And Edgar told his son, his brother Johnny says, I'm gonna go get my horn and teach that guy how to play horn.
• 31:09
  Speaker A: Edgar's a good alto player. He didn't.
• 31:11
  Speaker C: Yeah. He didn't realize that I'm a seasoned. I was a seasoned player, right? So when he came up on stage, I. I decided to pull the stops out and shove the pedal to the metal, okay. He looked at me, said, my God, how come you don't play like that all the time? I said, edgar, this is my sixth hour. He backed up. He said, what? I said, Yeah, I got two more hours to go.
• 31:34
  Speaker A: Y' all played eight hour jobs in those days?
• 31:36
  Speaker C: Seven nights a week, eight hours and eight hours, 50 hours a week. That was playing 200 hours a month.
• 31:44
  Speaker A: Jesus.
• 31:44
  Speaker C: And I've done it for 15 years. Oh, man, you know how many hours I got on that saxophone? I know I'll be cracking crevice at that horn.
• 31:52
  Speaker A: Right, Right. Now, Manny was asking you a few minutes. Minutes ago about the. The quarter being mobbed up that time. I mean, you must have. Must have a lot of.
• 32:04
  Speaker C: A lot of owned nightclubs. But little by little, they. They dropped off. You know, Louis Prima's brother leon owned the 500 Club.
• 32:15
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 32:16
  Speaker C: And that's where, well, Lily Christine danced and Sam Butera was her backup hard player. So Louie called his brother Leon, said, I need Sam up here in New York. And Sam left there and went to New York and played with Louis up there. So. But a lot of the place that we work, Papa Joe's, that was Jerome Conforto's family. The boxer Jerome Confaro, he was good friends with my father because they used to box together. I remember one time, Willie Pastrano came into the station. My father and Mr. Dominic Espadita, they were running a Shell station on Rampart, right across the street from the Fraser district. I remember Willie coming in and I'm sitting in the chair. He said, charlie, I'm sure glad you quit boxing. My father said, why, Willie? He said, every time you spurred with me, when you hit me, you hurt me.
• 33:11
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 33:12
  Speaker C: I said, you gotta be kidding. He said, man, those arms on your daddy was not armed. It was cannons, okay? Yeah. I couldn't believe it. Look, when I seen my father knock out three guys, I ain't seen but two punches. I left him alone. That was the end of that. The end of that boy.
• 33:33
  Speaker A: Well, so you were mentioning Sam, butera and that, that he came into your life pretty early. Now that was like a family friend or something.
• 33:40
  Speaker C: Sam. Sam used to come to the house. He called me Little Charlie, okay? And I said, Mr. Sam, my name is John. He said, okay. So he was teaching me a lot of things. So dad after. Over the years. So he disappeared for about a year and a half. And I got a job, my own gig, working at the Bistro. I don't know if you remember that place. It was a jazz place. I had my cousin Milt Stevens playing upright bass with a PhD on bass. The guy was unreal. George Demi on keyboards. A graduate on keyboards. And he knew more music before he went to school than he did when he left. And the drummer, Mike, he was with. So we, we had a knocked out jazz band. I taught them guys everything they knew. We did things by Dave Brubeck. Take five and you better, you better know what you're doing when you're doing tunes with. That's got five, four on it.
• 34:36
  Speaker A: Sure.
• 34:36
  Speaker C: You better know what you doing, right? You know, and the funny part about it, the bass player is the one that kept it where the time was. If he messed up, you were up the creek, right? I mean, it was crazy, man.
• 34:50
  Speaker A: Right?
• 34:50
  Speaker C: But we had, we had. In fact, the union agent came to me and told me, he said, you know what? You are the pride of the union. I said, me? Are you kidding me? He said, no, I'm not. He says, that group you got there. I said. He says, what do you do? I said, rehearsing once a week. I teach him what they. What. What I want them to do. And we was doing things by Cannonball Adley, right? Doing what's his name? Damn it.
• 35:19
  Speaker A: A whole bunch, a whole bunch of repertoire, right?
• 35:21
  Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, right. A real good jazz repertoire. Exodus to Jazz by Eddie Harris, huh? Ronnie Cole came in one time. He says, boy, if I knew you played like that, I'd have you on my Batman album. I said, I've been doing this all my life. How come, how come everybody's getting to understand who I am later? Yeah, it don't make any sense.
• 35:41
  Speaker A: Late to the party.
• 35:42
  Speaker C: Oh, man, that's crazy. And you know, I got it. I hate to say this. I worked for Sinatra in Los Angeles. I worked for him, not with him, okay? I was up there with Ralph Andrews Motion Picture and Television Productions Company. And the band I was with was the Invaders. And the keyboard player with the Invaders was Robert Dabon, the guitar player. If you ever see one of some of the old fats Domino movies. The guys that's on his show stand right by him with the afro. That's Jimmy Moliere I worked with. I was in California with them guys.
• 36:16
  Speaker A: Okay, and what were you doing out there?
• 36:18
  Speaker C: We, we were doing shows, playing. Okay. Ralph Andrews was promoting a guy to do Sammy Davis, but Sammy Davis, the guy that was out, supposedly he was out in the street running after things, needless to say.
• 36:33
  Speaker A: Right?
• 36:33
  Speaker C: And I was in the shed teaching a band. So anyway, we went in, we did the show and then Ray Sakheim, big name Beverly Hills promoter, top of the bunch. And you know what's crazy? I just found this card over two weeks ago. Couldn't believe it. I've been having it all them years and didn't know it, but he came to listen to the guy that was supposed to be a Sammy Davis copy. Okay? He told Ralph Andrews, he says, I'll tell you what he said. What? He said, I wouldn't touch the guy with a 10 foot pole, but I'll take that saxophone player right now.
• 37:13
  Speaker A: Oh, talking about you.
• 37:14
  Speaker C: Yeah, nice. And Ralph said, you, I didn't tell you to come listen to him. I told you to come listen to the singer. You know, he was right to the point about it. Okay, so anyway, when Ralph left, I went to Ray Ray. I said, ray, why would you want me? He said, man, I can put you between Vegas and Lake Tahoe with Keely Smith because you're the only other guy that plays like Sam Butera. Yeah, that's what he said.
• 37:40
  Speaker A: Nice.
• 37:41
  Speaker B: When did you, when did you meet Sinatra? What year?
• 37:44
  Speaker C: I think it was in 70 to early 70s.
• 37:46
  Speaker B: Okay, okay.
• 37:47
  Speaker C: You know, he. I'm on stage at the Factory with the engineer was up at the top up there and I'm getting my horn sound. I got a sound in my head, I better get that sound. So he got, helped me get it. I found a sudden, I felt a guy pulling on my pant leg. I looked down, I said, oh, Mr. Sinatra. He says, no, huh?
• 38:08
  Speaker B: Sinatra was passed out on the floor, that's why he was pulling on your.
• 38:11
  Speaker C: No, no, no. I was up in the air, the ball was as high as that right there, okay? And I'm on there. And he walked up and was yanking, getting my attention.
• 38:19
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 38:20
  Speaker C: I said, oh, Mr. Sonata. He said, no, Frank. Okay. He said, oh, where are you getting all of that? You playing through that microphone? I said, right here. He said, he said, point to your head in New Orleans.
• 38:33
  Speaker A: Sound is in your head in New Orleans.
• 38:34
  Speaker C: If you don't ad lib and you know how, don't know how. You don't get no work.
• 38:39
  Speaker A: Right.
• 38:39
  Speaker C: So when he brought me over to meet the other guys, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis and Peter Lawford, you know, and Joey Bishop.
• 38:46
  Speaker A: Oh, Rat Pack.
• 38:47
  Speaker C: Dean Martin told him in New Orleans they do that. They create what they play.
• 38:53
  Speaker A: Right.
• 38:54
  Speaker C: You know, he said they don't do that. You don't eat.
• 38:56
  Speaker A: Sure, sure. Let me stop you right there. I'm loving all these stories, but it's that, that time of the night, huh, Manny?
• 39:02
  Speaker B: Yeah. We need to take a break and the nation knows what to do. We'll be right back.
• 39:07
  Speaker C: You got it.
• 40:35
  Speaker A: And we're back. Yes, back with Mr. Manny Chevrolet. Yes, I am Renee Coleman.
• 40:40
  Speaker B: Yes.
• 40:40
  Speaker A: Back with our guest, Mr. Johnny Panino. Now, Johnny, I know you're, you're new to this podcast, but.
• 40:47
  Speaker C: Yes, I am.
• 40:47
  Speaker A: All of our devoted listeners understand this is a listener supported operation. We have a PayPal link and a Venmo link in the show, notes of every show as well as the Facebook page. And our listeners will use, use those links. And this week we have some support from Ryan Ocpek. He's a longtime listener and he actually bought a round of drinks for, for the podcast and then also sent a contribution to the Manny for Mayor fund.
• 41:22
  Speaker B: Oh, really?
• 41:23
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And he sent, it included his address, which I won't read here, but he, he asked if he could get some Manny for Mayor stickers. Okay, so I'll give you that address and, and I'll include some troubled men podcast stickers because Ryan O. Has supported us in the past. And so. Thank you. Thank you, Ryan. And also we have the Patreon link there a handful of patrons that are supporting us week in, week out. You can, can join that group. Also we have the link for the Troublemen podcast T shirts. Also follow us on social media, Instagram, Facebook and rate, review and subscribe to the podcast wherever you're listening to it.
• 42:08
  Speaker B: Yes.
• 42:08
  Speaker A: And have a couple of dates coming up. Have the Tribe Nunzio playing the broadside on September 19th and then the end of September here. I'm going out up to the Northeast with Loose Cattle. We're playing Richmond, Virginia on September 25th, the 26th in Durham, North Carolina, 27th in Huntington, West Virginia, and then 28th at the Mountain Stage broadcast there in West Virginia. It's a syndicated radio program. We'll be there with the baseball project and I think Bob Mold. And that's enough of that. Back to our guest, Mr. Johnny Panino. Now, Johnny, you were, you were telling us some Stories about meeting Sinatra. But let's, let's talk about the Papa Joe's house band there. It's a classic period. You had the band. I was looking at a photograph of that band today. It's you, Skip Easterling, Freddie Fender, Joe.
• 43:03
  Speaker C: That's Joey Long on the side of Freddy.
• 43:06
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 43:06
  Speaker C: And Joe Barry was the next one. And Lil Joe Lambert, the low drummer.
• 43:11
  Speaker A: Right.
• 43:11
  Speaker C: He's on Past the Hatches.
• 43:13
  Speaker A: Oh, oh, he's the drummer.
• 43:15
  Speaker C: He's the one that made that tune happen.
• 43:17
  Speaker A: Right now, I played a gig with Little Joe Lambert when I was a teenager. Like I was maybe 14 or something.
• 43:24
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 43:24
  Speaker A: And I told the story. I won't tell it again. But he had some, some very encouraging advice for me as he was. He was already out on the road playing with Freddie Fender. You know, Freddie had had his hits.
• 43:35
  Speaker C: That's how you could kill before the.
• 43:37
  Speaker A: Next teardrop falls out. That's right. There was a bus act like a. They were on the tour bus and a semi truck crashed into the bus or something like that.
• 43:45
  Speaker C: The power steering and the power brakes went out on the bus and it ran into the 18 wheeler.
• 43:52
  Speaker A: Oh, okay.
• 43:52
  Speaker C: Joe was drunk. Joe would never had driven one of them, kind of. But he wanted to drive it, so he drove it.
• 43:58
  Speaker A: Little Joe was driving the bus.
• 43:59
  Speaker C: Took the top of his head off.
• 44:00
  Speaker A: Oh my God.
• 44:01
  Speaker B: So what was the advice he gave you?
• 44:03
  Speaker A: Well, what he fly instead of dry?
• 44:06
  Speaker B: Maybe that's good advice.
• 44:07
  Speaker A: Yes. Take the train.
• 44:09
  Speaker C: Yeah, I was mad at Freddy for a long time. I said, you son of a gun. You're flying around in a multi million dollar plane. You let them guys go around with a ten dollar bus. What are you doing? Why'd you do that?
• 44:21
  Speaker A: Oh, man, it wasn't me.
• 44:23
  Speaker C: It was my manager that did it.
• 44:24
  Speaker B: Yeah, I was mad at him.
• 44:28
  Speaker A: Now, now, Freddy, when you. When, when y' all were playing in that Papa Joe's band. That's, that's right. When Freddie had gotten out of jail, right? Or out of prison, huh?
• 44:37
  Speaker C: Yeah. I was outside drinking a cup of coffee. Angelo Confado saw Freddie at Joe Fine's place. A quarter, Two sisters. He was a bus boy, huh? There. And Angelo brought him to me. I was outside.
• 44:51
  Speaker B: He became a busboy after he got released from prison.
• 44:54
  Speaker C: Yeah, he was a bus boy.
• 44:55
  Speaker B: Boy after prison.
• 44:58
  Speaker C: Joe Fine F E I N Joe Fine had him working as a bus boy. And then Angelo found him down the block about. I think it was in the 6, 500 block. Brought him to me outside and he says, hey man, you Mind if this guy works with your band? I didn't recognize him at first because £10 I had on his head. Yeah, you know. So I. And I said, I don't care if you, you pay him. We can't afford another guy, you know. So he says, I'll take care of him. I said, well, who is he? He says, freddie Fender. I looked at him, I said, oh, man, Freddie, I apologize. I didn't recognize you, you know. And he said, that's okay, man. He said, a lot of people didn't recognize because I got all of my hair, you know.
• 45:41
  Speaker A: Right.
• 45:41
  Speaker C: So he was something that was not the only one that didn't recognize with hair. There was another guy that came to me and I was working a gig at Papa Joe's and Earl Stanley was playing bass with me.
• 45:53
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 45:54
  Speaker C: You know who that is?
• 45:55
  Speaker A: Sure. Yeah. Yeah.
• 45:56
  Speaker C: I decided to burn a little bit. So Earl hits me on my shoulder. He said, what are you doing? I said, do you mind if I play for myself? He said, there ain't but three people in here. I said, so, so what? So one of the people walked around the bar, came up to me, says, hey, man, are you committed to this place? I said, not really, you know. I said, it's just a job, right? You know? And he said, well, how would you like to work for me? Well, as soon as I said, well, who you are? Angelo, owner of the club, came up. He said, you dumb mother, that's Johnny Mathis.
• 46:31
  Speaker A: Oh, wow.
• 46:32
  Speaker C: I looked at him, I said, I'm sorry, Mr. Mathis, I don't recognize you because I got an album of yours with short hair. You got long hair. This threw me off, huh?
• 46:41
  Speaker A: Really? Johnny Matt says, yeah.
• 46:43
  Speaker C: I looked at Earl, I said, earl, will you keep your mouth shut from now on?
• 46:47
  Speaker B: It's probably a wig.
• 46:48
  Speaker A: That could have been.
• 46:49
  Speaker B: It could have been a wig.
• 46:50
  Speaker C: Yeah. He has long hair.
• 46:52
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 46:53
  Speaker C: I was supposed to meet him the next day at the Royal Sinesta for lunch. He left me a note up there. And you know, them guys are they, they, they, they into a lot of things, you know. So he left me a note saying, johnny, I apologize for not being here. He said, my manager called. I had to be on a plane at 10 o' clock this morning. He said, when I come back through, I'll look to see if I can find you. But you know, you know how that works.
• 47:22
  Speaker B: The plane crashed.
• 47:25
  Speaker A: Now, at some point in all this, do you, like, go to, like some kind of. Get some kind of medical training or something? You have some science Training?
• 47:35
  Speaker C: Yeah. I went to college for psych, anatomy and medicine. Yeah.
• 47:38
  Speaker A: Now, you were starting to tell me a story on the phone the other day about this.
• 47:42
  Speaker C: The reason why I quit is because I caught the scientists, the two scientists that we went to a seminar at LSU and O. I caught online about cancer. And I raised my hand and they said, can I help you? I said, yeah, you can help me. I said, why don't you quit lying about cancer? You got a cure for every damn kind of cancer there is, and big pharma won't let you say it, so you do. Who you think you're talking to, a dummy?
• 48:09
  Speaker A: When was this?
• 48:10
  Speaker C: I said, you know what? I said, what about mental illness? And they said, oh, well, you know, Mr. Panino. I said, do me a favor. Don't lie to me no more. I said, I had enough of you two. So I said, you know, you just made my mind up. He said, what's that? I said, you. You may. I'm not going for another year to get a sheepskin. I quit. And my teacher yelled across the side over there, he says, man, don't quit. Your water runs deep. We need people like you. I said, yeah, you want me to drown in my own water, huh? That ain't gonna happen. And I told him, I said, and furthermore, if I went into research and I fixed something and them two jugheads right there would break it, I wouldn't know they broke it.
• 48:52
  Speaker B: Okay, now, when those two Jugheads were RFK Jr. Right, they.
• 48:56
  Speaker C: They were scientists.
• 48:58
  Speaker A: So when you were saying, like, what about mental illness? What were you going to say about mental illness?
• 49:03
  Speaker B: Runs in the family.
• 49:05
  Speaker C: My mother was schizophrenic.
• 49:06
  Speaker A: Huh.
• 49:07
  Speaker B: Okay.
• 49:08
  Speaker C: Schizophrenia don't run in the family.
• 49:10
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 49:10
  Speaker C: What happened was she caught the yellow fever when she was a baby, and she beat it.
• 49:16
  Speaker A: In New Orleans.
• 49:17
  Speaker C: Yes. And she beat it. And the doc said, somewhere along her life, it's going to come back on her. And it did. At 47 years old, I never forgot that. As long as I live, I've done everything in the world to help her. She was okay, basically. My grandmother was alive at the time, and she had a stroke. Mom. Trying to help my grandmother.
• 49:44
  Speaker A: And.
• 49:44
  Speaker C: And I had no brothers or sisters and no wife and no kids, so I was the only one there to help.
• 49:49
  Speaker A: So you were an only child.
• 49:50
  Speaker C: Exactly.
• 49:51
  Speaker A: Okay. Now, some. I skipped over. Your family came to New Orleans from.
• 49:56
  Speaker C: Sicily, you know, when my grandfather came, and he was born in 1875 in.
• 50:02
  Speaker A: Sicily, and he came over.
• 50:03
  Speaker C: He came over in the 1900s. Here.
• 50:08
  Speaker B: Okay, so you believe that there is a cure for cancer? Just a cover up, brother.
• 50:14
  Speaker C: I'll put my life on it.
• 50:16
  Speaker B: Okay.
• 50:17
  Speaker C: You understand? I'll put my life. You know what big pharma is all about?
• 50:21
  Speaker B: Yeah, I understand.
• 50:22
  Speaker C: Money. M O N E Y. That's all them son of a guns. They think people.
• 50:27
  Speaker B: So if you get cancer, let's say, you know, I'm not saying I don't want that to happen, but somehow you get some kind of cancer.
• 50:35
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 50:35
  Speaker B: You think there's going to be a cure for you? Are you know what the cure is for you?
• 50:40
  Speaker A: Could you cure yourself?
• 50:42
  Speaker C: Let me quickly run down something to you. I was listening to George Norrie Rush Limbaugh show. Okay.
• 50:50
  Speaker A: George Norrie, that's different. He has the coast to coast overnight. Yeah. America.
• 50:55
  Speaker C: Italian. Italian scientists called him on the phone from Italy and he had him on a radio. And Italian formus, the Italian scientist said, I called the medical people down there. I told them I want to come down and open up cure clinics, not treatment cure clinics. They wouldn't let me do it because of money. He said, I got a cure for cancer. They will not let me come to open a cure clinic.
• 51:22
  Speaker B: But he has them in Italy, so there's no cancer in Italy.
• 51:27
  Speaker C: He must be doing something over there. They doing pretty good.
• 51:30
  Speaker B: I understand you're saying there's no cancer at all in Italy.
• 51:33
  Speaker C: I'm not saying that. No, no, I can't say that. I mean, you know, but I'm saying that a lot of people like didn't get the treatment. They had it. They died. With the ones that got his treatment, they probably didn't die.
• 51:47
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 51:48
  Speaker C: You know, and there's. There's another thing that I found out about cancer. Some people had prostate cancer that I know for positive. There's a medicine they gave the horses and then they converted it to humans and they take it twice a week. Would you believe it killed prostate cancer.
• 52:11
  Speaker B: In horses and in people.
• 52:14
  Speaker C: All six of the people had prostate cancer. I know. They all got cured and all the.
• 52:20
  Speaker B: Horses won the Kentucky Derby.
• 52:22
  Speaker A: Okay, everybody. Everybody wins.
• 52:24
  Speaker C: Yeah, right. That's crazy. But all right, I'll tell you about it.
• 52:29
  Speaker B: Well, you heard it here first, people. The troubled nation. There is a cure for cancer. And you heard it from Johnny himself.
• 52:36
  Speaker C: Definitely.
• 52:36
  Speaker A: Mr. Johnny Panino. Yeah. What do they call you? The tenor sax king of New Orleans.
• 52:42
  Speaker C: That was given to me by Frankie Ford's manager, Ken Keane.
• 52:47
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 52:48
  Speaker C: He's the one that said that. I'm felt funny when he said that.
• 52:51
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 52:52
  Speaker C: I said, man, what are you doing? I said, don't worry about it. Let me do. I'm your manager. I do what I want to do.
• 52:57
  Speaker A: Well, that's the thing. Like, the Rolling Stones are the world's greatest rock and roll band because they said they're the world's greatest rock and roll band. Michael Jackson was the King of Pop because he said he was the king of.
• 53:07
  Speaker C: Exactly.
• 53:08
  Speaker A: So he's the manager. Frankie Ford's manager. Was. Right.
• 53:12
  Speaker C: Myself that way.
• 53:13
  Speaker A: Right, right.
• 53:13
  Speaker C: I know.
• 53:13
  Speaker A: I just. I had to pull that out at some point.
• 53:15
  Speaker C: Seemed like a good time to do Duke Ellington.
• 53:18
  Speaker B: You said you were the king of Queens.
• 53:22
  Speaker C: Said that to me when he. His first year, trumpet player Cat Anderson, brought him in from Al Hurts Club to listen to me. He brought his sax player, Paul Gonzalvis.
• 53:33
  Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
• 53:34
  Speaker C: With him.
• 53:34
  Speaker A: Oh, great, Great.
• 53:37
  Speaker C: He said. Duke said, man, you mind if Paul come sitting with you? I said, no, I don't care, you know, if he wants to. So he came up and sat in with me. He found out I can play that instrument.
• 53:48
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 53:48
  Speaker C: I'm not going to say no more than that. Okay.
• 53:50
  Speaker A: All right.
• 53:51
  Speaker C: So anyway, Duke come to me. He says, man, do you read? I said, when I was 17 years old, I could read your first year book. Now I'm almost 30 years old. I said, we. I never use it since then. And, you know, if you don't use it, you lose it.
• 54:07
  Speaker A: Right.
• 54:07
  Speaker C: A good bit of it, anyway.
• 54:09
  Speaker A: Sure. Yeah.
• 54:09
  Speaker C: You know. So I said. I said, why you asked me? He said, because you'd have Mr. Gonzalez's job. I said, I don't want his job. I wouldn't take his job. I'm not that kind of person.
• 54:20
  Speaker A: Right.
• 54:20
  Speaker C: So anyway, he says, son, I'm gonna tell you something. Four words. He says, I traveled the world many times. If you don't quit. And he knew how tough the business is, you ought to know you won yourself.
• 54:36
  Speaker A: Sure. Yeah.
• 54:36
  Speaker C: Yeah, okay. He said, if you don't quit one day, you're gonna make it. I said, why you say that? He says, I've traveled the world many times. I've never heard nobody play like you do.
• 54:47
  Speaker A: Nice. Nice.
• 54:49
  Speaker C: Well, I don't understand what it is, why, but I guess Sam Butera turned me into a different kind of person. I don't know.
• 54:58
  Speaker A: Right, right. Well, being around those. Those kind of influences, you know, you. You get the essence of. Essence of. Of what the. What the thing really is. Now let me move on a little bit. So. So, you know, the. The Prima band has a. Casts a Large shadow in New Orleans.
• 55:13
  Speaker C: Right.
• 55:13
  Speaker A: And there's all these guys who, who came from New Orleans who were on the band. Most of them Sicilians on the prima band. And then they came back and I think one of them was Bobby Lanero. Was he on the prima band?
• 55:27
  Speaker C: I spent 15 years with. With him.
• 55:29
  Speaker A: That's what I'm saying. Was he on the prima band?
• 55:31
  Speaker C: No, he. He did, he did work with Louie, I think once or twice, if I'm not mistaken. But that was when he was in Vegas now.
• 55:37
  Speaker A: Right, right. In Vegas. Now there's this other bass player who was on the prima band who would play with. Might have like, played at the Jefferson Orleans with one of those. So I. Jefferson Orleans. I played with the Pat Barbaro Big Band for a few years when I was in, in, in. In high school and college.
• 55:56
  Speaker C: I knew his son. His son worked with Brian. Yeah, Brian Barbara.
• 56:00
  Speaker A: Yeah, he's. He and I are like. Like me and Manny, like, we're like a month apart in, in age, you know, I know Brian very well. I've been trying to get him on the podcast for a couple of years.
• 56:08
  Speaker C: Every good player.
• 56:09
  Speaker A: Oh, yeah, and Brian's a great guy and, and a great rock player and as well as a, you know, a great swing player. But there's this guy Al, who is a bass player and I think he'd been on the prima band and I think he got. He got let go from the prima band because he was too funny. He would, he was, he was so quick. He would say in, in the lounge show. It's not ringing a bell with you? No, no, it was like he was a guy. I think he might have been playing with the Jay Zany band or something like one of those off night.
• 56:42
  Speaker C: I worked with Jay Zany myself.
• 56:44
  Speaker A: You know Jay Zany, the, the son. He was in Judge. Yeah, yeah. And he just came down with a ruling saying that the city of New Orleans is within their rights to regulate short term rentals. So, like all the stuff they're trying to do with Airbnb.
• 57:01
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 57:01
  Speaker A: Said that's totally. Yeah. New Orleans City Council. It was within their rights to regulate all that.
• 57:06
  Speaker C: Right.
• 57:07
  Speaker A: That's good news. Kind of awful.
• 57:08
  Speaker B: I don't know if I'd like to be in front of a judge named Zany.
• 57:12
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
• 57:13
  Speaker B: Here's honorable Zany.
• 57:15
  Speaker A: Right? I know, it's a crazy name, right?
• 57:19
  Speaker C: It was crazy.
• 57:20
  Speaker B: Yeah. I'm up for murder Judge. And you're a Zany.
• 57:23
  Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. But he's also a band later.
• 57:25
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 57:27
  Speaker C: Daddy was the band.
• 57:28
  Speaker A: His daddy was a band leader. That's right. That's a son. Sj.
• 57:31
  Speaker C: Right.
• 57:31
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 57:31
  Speaker C: I. I talked to Jay. I talked to Jay. I had a. I had a little problem. I had to find out whether this situation. Situation. Had a statute of limitation on it.
• 57:41
  Speaker A: Okay? And he called violation of the Man Act.
• 57:44
  Speaker B: What's that?
• 57:45
  Speaker C: He called me on your phone? Yeah, he left a message and I called him back and I asked him about that. He said, no, there is no statute of limitation on it. If I were you, I. Get yourself a good attorney, and you could end up with something big.
• 58:00
  Speaker A: Okay, well, solid advice, okay? Everybody in the troubled nation, you know, get your. Yourself a good attorney. That's always solid advice. Well, you're telling me back to Bobby Lanero.
• 58:13
  Speaker C: So I tell you what. Paul. Paul Ferreira, okay, that invented the Prima Shuffle, right? He invented it, okay? 19 years old. You know why he quit, Louie? Because every time Louie told him something, he called him boy, and it got him mad. He said, my name is Paul, not boy.
• 58:31
  Speaker A: Right.
• 58:32
  Speaker C: You know, but he came to me and Bobby when we were doing a show, a prima show at the. Across the river at the Gretna Festival. He came up to Bobby and I said, I gotta tell you two something. I said, what's that? He said, I've heard every copy of Louie and Sam, you and Johnny is the best I've ever heard.
• 58:53
  Speaker A: Nice, Nice.
• 58:54
  Speaker C: That's saying something for Paul.
• 58:55
  Speaker A: And now that Prima shuffle, it's like. I would refer to it as like an Italian shuffle. It's like. Like what?
• 59:01
  Speaker C: The.
• 59:01
  Speaker A: The. The rhythm of Butcher Boy, for instance. Right?
• 59:04
  Speaker C: It's a different way. Yeah, that's a different way. You play it, right? I'm telling you what. When you play in a tune that you can switch to the shuffle, it enhances the. The band. It totally puts fire into the group.
• 59:18
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 59:18
  Speaker C: Oh, yeah, it works.
• 59:20
  Speaker A: So y' all would. Y' all would play those. Those Italian shuffle fields?
• 59:24
  Speaker C: Yeah, Bobby and I, we did. We did a lot of stuff, you know, a lot of Louis Prima stuff, a lot of Sam Butera stuff. I'm just thankful that I can play like him, right? That and I don't understand people. They say, oh, man, you play. You too loud. You just hear that? I said, hey, you hear me? Said, yeah. I said, then, you know, I'm working, right?
• 59:46
  Speaker B: See, you don't understand people. I can't stand people. That's where me and you are different. You don't understand.
• 59:54
  Speaker A: Somewhat the same. Yeah.
• 59:55
  Speaker C: Somewhere, you know, the famous thing he left me with the fact if you loud and you good, that's great. If you loud and bad, that's terrible.
• 1:00:03
  Speaker A: Right?
• 1:00:03
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:00:04
  Speaker C: Now, Sam wasn't no quiet player. Let me tell you, that sucker could play.
• 1:00:08
  Speaker A: Oh, yeah? Yeah. No, he was powerful.
• 1:00:10
  Speaker C: You telling me powerful? Oh, yeah.
• 1:00:12
  Speaker A: And Sam had a long career. He, you know, he played for years. He didn't play New Orleans. You'd have to go to Vegas to catch him there. But then, and, and I did. Iguana saw him out there. When we, we played out there, we made a point to go, to go see him in the lounge somewhere, one at one of the casinos. But then like in the, the later 90s, into the early 2000s, he started coming back and playing. First he played a club on Bourbon Street. I remember I went to see.
• 1:00:40
  Speaker C: And then the Shim Sham Club.
• 1:00:42
  Speaker A: Well, even before that, it was just like a regular place on the street. Street.
• 1:00:46
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 1:00:47
  Speaker A: Then, then he would play like the, the casino and in Jefferson Par in, in Metairie. And then he'd play Jazz Fest. They got booked there a few times. And then play another casino out on, on the Gulf Coast.
• 1:01:02
  Speaker C: Right.
• 1:01:03
  Speaker A: So Sam started coming here pretty regularly. Would you go see him? Would you be in contact with.
• 1:01:08
  Speaker C: Knew who I was because he taught me right. You know, and he knew my father.
• 1:01:15
  Speaker A: Say it again in the microphone.
• 1:01:17
  Speaker C: He knew my godfather.
• 1:01:19
  Speaker A: Your godfather. Okay.
• 1:01:21
  Speaker C: You know, he, he always called me Little Charlie. But you know what's funny? He hadn't seen me for a few years, and that's when I got the bistro job. Dad took him to the bistro to listen to me. He didn't know it was me. My father didn't tell me it was me. He said, I want you to come listen to something. So he took him in there. He was listening to the band. He told my father, he said, man, what is that? That, what is that guy, that sax player doing here? He belongs in a different place, you know, not here, higher up. And my daddy said, sam, you know who that guy is? He said, no, it's Little Charlie. What? He said, you got to be careful. Kidding me? Oh, that's what he said.
• 1:02:05
  Speaker A: He remembered all that. Sam, Sam had a mind like a steel trap. Now, there was a song. I, I, I was looking at one of your records, as the record is like a three tener record. And you had a song called C.R.S.
• 1:02:18
  Speaker C: Yeah, that was my invention.
• 1:02:20
  Speaker A: Well, I went to see Sam one time, and he had these cards and it was the CRS Club, which, which stands for Can't Remember.
• 1:02:30
  Speaker C: And he would I didn't think he was gonna say that. But you did.
• 1:02:34
  Speaker A: He would. You can curse on the show. Yeah, yeah. This is not going out live. It's not for children, clearly. But yeah, he signed it. So I still have in my desk, I have that CRS card signed by Sam.
• 1:02:48
  Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, I did the tune on there. In fact, there was a guy that I did Europa.
• 1:02:57
  Speaker A: Right, right.
• 1:02:58
  Speaker C: Okay. The keyboard player I did Europa with was a Canadian guy. He was with the Downchild Blues Band. That's when Ackroyd and Bellucci got the idea to do the Blues Brothers from them guys and they used three of their tunes. And Donnie Walsh is the leader of the guys of Multi Millionaire because of those two guys. So anyway, I did Europa. The keyboard player in that band, he was Lou Reed's right hand man.
• 1:03:31
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 1:03:31
  Speaker C: On keyboards. That's right. Mike Fun, drug dealer Lou Reed. Yeah, the. The big name Lou Reed.
• 1:03:39
  Speaker A: Yeah, I'm a huge Lou Reed fan.
• 1:03:40
  Speaker C: Yeah, he. He was Lou Reed's right hand man in keyboards. When he left there with him, he went and joined the Downchild Blues Band.
• 1:03:49
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 1:03:49
  Speaker C: And they're still playing on the net. But Donnie Walsh, something happen. I don't know if he got a pinch of Alzheimer's or something, but.
• 1:03:58
  Speaker A: Yeah, we all have a pinch of Alzheimer's.
• 1:04:02
  Speaker C: That's why I did the crs.
• 1:04:04
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. It's like. Well, that's what I was saying. We have to stick together. Because if like you were talking about you and Freddie Fred, Freddy Staley, I mean, yes, he remembers part of it and you remember part of it. And together, y' all remember most of it.
• 1:04:18
  Speaker C: We did so much, man. You just can't imagine all the big names we backed. My God Almighty.
• 1:04:24
  Speaker A: Right, well. Well, back to Bobby Laro. So you've played with Bobby. And you know, I saw. I was looking at some photographs today and. And you and Bobby Laro. And there's a guy who played trumpet in the, the Pat Barbaro band when I was in that band called Chespa Roussel.
• 1:04:39
  Speaker C: Yeah, I know. Just. Well, yeah, he's a good person. What's crazy, when we went back together with the band, we was back in Gia Prima, Louie's wife.
• 1:04:49
  Speaker A: Right. Right.
• 1:04:50
  Speaker C: Later on. Okay. And the word out there on the street, oh, Johnny don't read, you know, this and that. So anyway, what happened was it was Chispa. Tony Horowitz, the trumpet player that worked with Ray Charles.
• 1:05:05
  Speaker A: Right.
• 1:05:06
  Speaker C: That was in his band. Roy Wiegand. Trombonis.
• 1:05:09
  Speaker A: Roy Wiegand oh, yeah.
• 1:05:10
  Speaker C: Trombonis was in the band. Chispa and me. Bullhorns. Well, at the. When we would. We would go across the lake at Pretty Acres and rehearse with Gia. So all of a sudden we had a job at the Hilton. And what happened was she comes into the band room and says, I don't want to see no music on stage. She says, y' all should know these tunes. Needless to say. Who you think was on the point? You're looking at him. I was on a point with the four horns, and it wouldn't be for me pulling them along. They would have been up the creek. And Chispa came to me and said, oh, man. He said, you wouldn't be. For you. We wouldn't have. We wouldn't have been able to get. Get what we did.
• 1:06:00
  Speaker A: You didn't tell her about crs?
• 1:06:02
  Speaker C: Yeah, you tell me about it. So you ain't gonna believe who was in the audience way in the back, like maybe Howard Stern. No, the back wall. You ain't gonna believe this. This guy was pristine, dressed in a tuxedo. He had a gorgeous looking woman on a his arm. He walks up to the. To the stage, he looks at me, he says, man, you play your ass off. He said, I heard you all the way back there. You know who it was? Sergio Franchi.
• 1:06:38
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 1:06:39
  Speaker C: You know who that is? You ever hear Sergio Franke?
• 1:06:43
  Speaker B: Yeah, I have heard of him.
• 1:06:44
  Speaker C: Opera singer. He was on Damn Toms.
• 1:06:50
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:06:50
  Speaker C: Yeah. He point blank pointed to me and I look, I. I said, are you kidding me? He said, no, I'm not.
• 1:06:58
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:06:58
  Speaker C: He gave me an accolade that knocked me out.
• 1:07:02
  Speaker A: Nice.
• 1:07:02
  Speaker C: I couldn't believe it.
• 1:07:03
  Speaker A: Well, it seems like about that time how. Manny.
• 1:07:06
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:07:07
  Speaker A: You've had a long day.
• 1:07:08
  Speaker B: We've. We're coming to the end of the show.
• 1:07:10
  Speaker C: Oh, okay.
• 1:07:11
  Speaker B: You've been very entertaining. Entertaining.
• 1:07:15
  Speaker A: I just.
• 1:07:16
  Speaker C: I got so damn many things happen.
• 1:07:17
  Speaker B: To me, you know, and you want to. You should get your own podcast.
• 1:07:21
  Speaker C: I've been through. I've been through the Gauntlet, man.
• 1:07:24
  Speaker B: Yeah, I know you've been through the Gauntlet. You've known everybody.
• 1:07:29
  Speaker C: I've done. I've done something.
• 1:07:30
  Speaker B: I really think this could be a part two episode with you. Yeah, but maybe in about a year. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But I think you need to do a part podcast and get all your friends and talk about the old days.
• 1:07:42
  Speaker A: My God, man, I'd have to produce that.
• 1:07:44
  Speaker C: You can't imagine. You can't imagine.
• 1:07:47
  Speaker B: I don't want to imagine with Locked up here. Be honest with you.
• 1:07:50
  Speaker C: And I'm looking. I'm. I got a CD I did in Nashville.
• 1:07:54
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:07:54
  Speaker A: And, yes, we're going to be playing some of that on the podcast.
• 1:07:57
  Speaker C: Guess what? Yeah, the c. I got a nomination to the CMA Awards for Country Goose Country Go. And it's on. It's on Amazon, man.
• 1:08:07
  Speaker A: Oh, man. So, yeah, we're gonna. I'll. I'll put the links to. To that. That whole record, Sexy Country Soul and all of your other records.
• 1:08:16
  Speaker B: But listen, Johnny, we have to end the show, okay? And like we always say, trouble never.
• 1:08:22
  Speaker A: Ends, but the struggle continues.
• 1:08:25
  Speaker B: Good night, Johnny.
• 1:08:26
  Speaker C: Good night, our brothers.
• 1:08:27
  Speaker A: Good. It.