The Bowery House Band
The Boys, the Band and Kris Kristofferson
The following piece, updated here, was published as “The Boys and the Band” on “Old Ones Dream” February 8, 2013.
At 185 King Street for a songwriters round recently, I watched two friends play with swapping beers while the other was not watching. It reminded me of a night in Myrtle Beach in the early 70's that T and I enjoyed with friends. We went to a bar on the beach that had a pretty good house band and we enjoyed the band, the beer, and the US Marine Corps recruits from Camp Lejeune that were at the big table with us. They were on their first weekend pass and were having a real good time, and the servers could carry an astonishing number of mugs without a tray. T seemed to be concerned about the well being of those boys and so she implemented a program of exchanging her empty glass for their full ones. She did it for God and Country to protect the U. S. Marines, who never knew the difference.
The bar was The Bowery and the band was Alabama.
My dear friend and schoolmate, Fred, says that he was in a wedding in Marlboro County, South Carolina in 1968. One of the other members of the wedding party played guitar so Fred unlimbered his Martin and jammed with him for a while. HIs name was Kris Kristofferson.
The rest is history.
LOL!