It would be a shame if I didn’t include some local 1960s rock musical history by spotlighting our drummer, Barry Corbett, otherwise known in our tight little musical circle as ” Li’l Spector.” The moniker came about because the boy, at age 15 years old, was a musical genius in the same vein as Brian Wilson, Leonard Bernstein, and Phil Spector: thus his earned nickname. We would never know why he chose the drums as his primary instrument: the guy played an assortment, including Bongo drums, kazoo, paper and comb, Dog House bass, violin, Hurdy Gurdy, guitar, keyboards, Vibes, Trumpet, Piccolo, Harmonica, Juice-Harp, Spoons, Autoharp, Dulcimer, French Horn, Tabla, finger cymbals, gasoline-powered Lawnmower, and Sitar. I’ve probably left a few out; it’s been a while since I thought about this. Barry’s original drums were worn out, so his father purchased him a set of Slingerlands. The finish was all swirling and psychedelic, and if we wore those cheesy 3D glasses from 7-Eleven, we could see the Summer of Love a full year before it happened.
In 1966, our repertoire consisted of The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Hollies, Paul Revere And The Raiders, The Turtles, and The Byrds. We also played a handful of Beach Boy songs. Our voices were still high, so the Brian Wilson falsetto wasn’t a problem.
Unknown to Jarry and I, Barry secretly listened to weird underground music: “Frank Zappa And The Mothers of Invention.” These guys were so whacked out that the radio refused to play them, but Barry would. He adored Zappa and wouldn’t wear brown shoes in brotherhood to the song ” Brown Shoes Don’t Make It.” He was also a newbie-semi-devout disciple of East Indian music, mainly Ravi Shankar and his droning Sitar, thanks to George Harrison and the album Rubber Soul.
We knew Barry had purchased a Sitar from “Pier One,” a Dallas specialty store loved by the Hippies. The store hawked strange goods from India and the Middle East. He called one day and asked that Jarry and myself drop by to hear him play his sitar.
We were surprised when he could coax the part to “Norwegian Wood” out of the goofy instrument, so we agreed to learn the song and let him play it during our next gig at the Richardson Recreation Center the coming Saturday evening. He failed to mention that he had two additional musicians accompany him. He was a tinkerer, so he removed the electric pickups from his Gibson Melody Maker guitar and installed them on the sitar, creating the first electric East Indian instrument. Two Electrovoice condenser microphones were used to amplify his additional musicians.
Our gear was set up, and sound checked an hour before the dance, and in strolls Barry, dressed in a Nehru suit: his girlfriend and a guy about Barry’s age in tow. His followers, wearing a white Sari and a Dhoti, trolled behind him: they carried a small bongo-like drum called a Tabla and two tiny Zildjian cymbals on cute little stands. The guy was carrying an instrument that looked like a cross between a fiddle, a guitar, and a Dulcimer. All three had bright red Bindi dots on their foreheads. Barry was lugging his sitar, drum kit, and a Vox AC30 amplifier. After he set up his drums, he ran a sound check on the electric sitar and stuck the other mic inside the Tabla drum, one next to the little cymbals and the frankeninstrument. They sounded pretty good for a Rube Goldberg rigged setup. The three of us were duly impressed but leary of what might happen. Chaos followed Barry like an afternoon shadow.
The band played the first set to about 300 sweaty teenagers. The building’s air conditioning couldn’t keep up: it was a typical July in Texas.
Barry and the two musicians rolled out a Persian rug, which was likely stolen from his mother’s dining room, and positioned it in front of his drums. The girl lighted incense sticks held in large brass holders. Barry lugs his sitar from behind the stage, plugs it into the Vox amp, and sits in the traditional Shankar crossed-legged position. He is ready to rock. We break into Norwegian Wood, and the three-piece Hindi band sounds darn good but a bit loud. The teenagers move in close and surround the trio. Who are these weirdo-freaks? We finished the tune and received polite applause. A better reception than we had hoped for, but then…
For their second tune, Barry announces they will play Ravi Shankers’ biggest hit: “Beach Party On The Ganges,” a snappy little number sounding like Brian Wilson, and the boys meet Ghandi and crew for a cookout on a crocodile-infested beach. The sitar starts to feedback, and the Tabla drummer and Frankenguitar lose their tempo, not that there was one ever established, and Barry, now in a musical trance, is all over the sitar. The crowd of surrounding teens is transfixed, awed by his Zen Zone musicianship. The two other musicians, lost and toasted, have stopped playing. Lil Spector drives onward in his moment of musical adulation.
The Sitar feedback was incredible, so Barry, still locked in his “Ravi sitting position,” leaned back to reduce the volume on his amp. He leans too far, loses his balance, and falls backward, causing the head of his Sitar to catch a mic stand and break off the long body of the instrument. No one knew that Sitar strings were wound to a deathly tension. When the Sitar broke, the strings popped, winding around Barry’s head into his hair and then into his two other musicians’ long hair. It was a disaster. All three were incapacitated on the rug, unable to move. The crowd hooped and hollard, thinking it was part of the show. The poor Sitar wound up in the dumpster, and his musical disciples left the fold, throwing their red-dot makeup tin at Barry as they stormed out of the Rec Center. At his request, we dropped Norwegian Wood from our setlist.
Notes From The Cactus Patch 