by Charly Mann

The story of The Blazers began in the foothills of North Carolina in Rutherford County when in 1963 Sherman Tate got his first guitar. He soon became enamored by the music of the Rolling Stones and their charismatic front man Mick Jagger. Sherman's first band was called December's Children, which was the name of a 1965 album by the Rolling Stones.

The original Blazers: left to right - Rodney Underwood, Ronnie Taylor, Sherman Tate, Jimmy Weaver, and Joey Earth

In 1967 Tate came to Chapel Hill and established himself as one the central figures in the town's emerging rock 'n' roll music scene. In 1969 he put together and fronted the legendary band Frog Level with two of other of the best musicians in the state, Spiral Spurlin and Granny Grantham. In 1970 the band relocated for two years to Toronto so Tate could avoid the draft. In Canada the band really took off and might have made it to the big time if Sherman had not decided he wanted to return to Chapel Hill. When the band returned to Chapel Hill they became regulars at Fat City (now He's Not Here), and Sherman took a job in a store I managed, The Record and Tape Center. Later that year Frog Level broke up and Sherman took a brief hiatus from being a performing musician.

Sherman Tate - Born to Rock 'n' Roll

In 1974 guitar wonder kid and marketing savvy Rodney Underwood convinced Sherman he was the man to front a polished rock and roll band with a strong rhythm and blues undertone, and the Blazers were born. The other original members of the group were Joey Earth (a nom de plume for Joey Sinreich) on bass, and long time Chapel Hill resident Ronnie Taylor on drums. The band quickly established a loyal following and remains the best looking foursome in Chapel Hill's history. Despite Sherman taking off a couple years to enjoy the serenity of northern California, the band revived in 1977 with the addition of Jimmy Weaver on keyboards. It was this line up that I saw several times at the Cat's Cradle and Town Hall music clubs in Chapel Hill. They impressed me so much that I signed them to my record label Cream of the Crop Records.

Logo of my record company, Cream of the Crop Records, on which the first Blazers album was recorded

What made the Blazers an exceptional band was the amazing transformation of the mild mannered Clark Kent-like Sherman Tate into the outrageous bundle of energy known as Shakin' Sherman when the Blazers took the stage. To the trained eye the only visible difference were the dark glasses that were his trademark when performing, yet his personality was so different that it always seemed miraculous when he metamorphosed into a cross between James Brown and Little Richard.

Legendary Chapel Hill band Frog Level in 1974 featuring Sherman Tate (photo by Ric Carter) 

I produced the Blazers first album and the recording was done at Mega Sounds in Baily, NC in 1977. Besides the Blazers the album featured guest vocalist Adele Foster, Jim Henderson on tenor and alto sax, and Spiral Sperlin on harmonica. Richard Royal served as the engineer. The album was titled Store Bought and the cover photograph was taken inside the Record Bar on Franklin Street. On the cover the five members of the Blazers are surrounded and embraced by fourteen of Chapel Hill's most beautiful women. The album had many highlights including, I think, the best cover of the J.J. Cale song, They Call Me The Breeze as well as what several critics have hailed as the best rendition of  Wilson Pickett's 634-5780. My own favorite is their Southern rock treatment of Billy Joe Shaver's I've Been To Georgia on a Fast Train.

Cover photo of the Blazers album Store Bought

The Blazers Store Bought album sold well in Durham, Raleigh, and Chapel Hill and was reviewed favorably by all the local media. One local newspaper even rated it one of the top 15 albums of 1977 along with albums like Bruce Springsteen's Darkness on the Edge of Town, Billy Joel's 52nd Street, Dire Straits debut album which included the song Sultans of Swing, Tom Waits's Blue Valentine, Little Feat's Waiting for Columbus, The Cars debut album, and The Who's Who are You. Even though the Blazers did not tour in support of the album, it found pockets of success nationally and around the globe. It was a hit throughout France, sold very well in Italy where it got great reviews, and even had decent sales in England where the prestigious New Musical Express made favorable comments about it.

Back cover dedication of the Blazers album Store Bought

The Blazers stayed together for more than ten years with original members Tate and Ronnie Taylor. They were joined by Rick Miller in 1979 and went on to record their second album called How to Rock. Miller later had a successful career under two different monikers,  Rick Rock and Parthenon Huxley. Many people who knew the Blazers believe if they had relocated to Los Angles, New York City, or Austin in the late seventies they would have also been able to achieve national prominence.

The saddest part of writing this piece was discovering that Rodney Underwood had died on June 4th, 2009. He was the vibrant force of the Blazers and an incredible human being. He had a successful career in advertising in both New York City and Pittsburgh. Just prior to his death he finished making a documentary film on the Pittsburgh blues scene called Getting to the Bottom of Our Blues. Rodney's wonderful vocals can be heard on the third track on the music player at the top of this article singing "I Ain't Got You." 

Rodney Underwood (1951 - 2009)

by Charly Mann

Woodstock was not the first great three day music festival; it was the University of North Carolina's Jubilee. Beginning in 1963 and continuing through 1971, Jubilee was a spectacular marathon of music, joy, and love that featured the top musical acts in the world at the peak of their popularity.

Crowd on McCorkle Place watching the second Jubilee, April 1964

It all started in the spring of 1963 when the Student Union wanted to bring the Four Preps, one of most popular groups on college campuses at the time, to perform free for the entire student body at Memorial Hall. The problem was Memorial Hall only held 1600 people and was way too small to accommodate everyone. The idea was hatched to have the concert outside under the trees on a stage in front of Graham Memorial. Soon the concept was expanded to become a three day open air party of music, dance, and film called Jubilee, with the slogan "A Salute Spring." The festival was held Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, April 26-28. The stage was placed at the center of McCorkle Place not far from Franklin Street. Students and their dates were the only people that were supposed to attend, but there were no gates, security, or ticket takers, and many townspeople, including myself, then a 13 year-old boy with a passion for music, were also there. (I attended all but one of the nine Jubilees)

The Four Preps performing the first night of the first University of North Carolina Jubilee

From 2PM to around 10PM folk and pop-jazz groups performed on the main stage. The Four Preps concert on Friday attracted more than 5,000 people sitting on blankets almost as far back as the Old Well. On each day of Jubilee major motion pictures were shown for free at 6:30, 8:30, and 10:30 at Graham Memorial. At the close of performances on the main stage, the party simply got larger and expanded into five separate stages around campus where rock combos (a term used to refer to rock bands in the pre-Beatles days) performed almost until dawn. Those stages were in the Planetarium parking lot, in Y-Court, behind the Ackland Art Museum, in Steel Hall's parking lot, and directly in front of Graham Memorial. The headline act for the closing night was The Chad Mitchell Trio whose repertoire contained several songs that mocked right-wing thought and promoted integration. This was at a time when many businesses in Chapel Hill did not allow blacks, and the majority of the state and much of Chapel Hill was politically conservative.

Politcally irreverent folk group The Chad Mitchell Trio, final act of the first Jubilee

Beautiful coed enjoys Four Preps singing their hit song 26 Miles to Catalina

The first Jubilee at UNC was a huge success, and by the following Monday as bleary eyed students returned to classes, the student union began plans for a second Jubilee in 1964. Amazingly, the total cost for the first Jubilee was only $4,000. Jubilee become an annual tradition until 1971. For the next four years the concert continued to be held in McCorkle Place, and headline acts included The Serendipity Singers, Flatt and Scruggs, and Petula Clark in 1965, who chose Chapel Hill as the first place in America to perform her #1 song, Downtown.

James Taylor sings Carolina in My Mind, UNC Jubilee April 1970

As the University's enrollment increased and rock replaced folk as the preferred music on campus, UNC's Jubilee expanded into a major rock festival. In 1970 the event was held at Kenan Stadium and featured, Blood, Sweat, and Tears, then the biggest act in America with three top ten hits, as well as Grand Funk Railroad, Sweetwater, the Bar-Kays, Pacific Gas and Electric, and James Taylor, just months after the release of his Sweet Baby James album. The crowd particularly enjoyed his renditions of Fire and Rain and Carolina in My Mind. The highlight act though was Joe Cocker with his huge Mad Dogs and Englishmen ensemble that featured Leon Russell and Rita Coolidge. That year's crowd was far different than in 1963. Almost everyone was on some mind altering substance especially pot which permeated the air. LSD was also a popular drug of choice. The group that surrounded me enjoyed some amazing marijuana brownies. The UNC athletic department was unhappy with their football stadium being used in this manner, and in 1971 Jubilee was moved to Navy Field (which sits below Fetzer Field). That was the final year of Jubilee, and featured the Allman Brothers with Duane on lead guitar, Alex Taylor, Chuck Berry, B.B. King, Muddy Waters, Spirit, and the J Giles Band.

Crowd at Kenan Stadium UNC Chapel Hill Jubilee 1970

By 1971, I recall many of those in attendance looked more like members of a motorcycle gang than UNC students or Chapel Hill hippies. This group was responsible for a number of fights, vandalism, and the serious injury of a security guard. That was enough for the administration and the Student Union, and Jubilee Music Festival at the University of North Carolina, perhaps the best outdoor music celebration of all time, came to an end.

 Duane Allman performing as the last act of the final UNC Jubilee May 1, 1971 (photo by Ric Carter)

by Charly Mann

In January of 1952, Dr. Isaac Taylor left his job at Harvard Medical School in Boston to become an assistant professor at the UNC School of Medicine. Ike and his wife Trudy, along with their four children, moved to the outskirts of Carrboro to a two story farmhouse off Old Greensboro Road near University Lake. The family was made up of three boys and one girl each born one year apart from 1947 to 1950. In birth order their names were Alex, James, Katherine, and Livingston. (An additional son was born later at Duke Hospital in 1952 – his name was Hugh).

Alex, James, and Kate with Livingston on Ike Taylor's  lap - June 1952 - Carrboro

From anecdotal information it seems that all of the Taylor children loved music from an early age and were somewhat precocious in their talent. For two of the kids, James and  Livingston, there was one contributing factor that may have put them on the road to musical stardom. It was the fact that the first song each leaned was the commercial jingle for Tube Rose Snuff. Liv says "I sang along in my crib with the Tube Rose Snuff commercial which was popular on the radio in the South…." James, as the recording you can listen to here claims, it was he, and not Liv, that was indoctrinated by this song. We can not say where the truth in the contentious controversy lies, but speculate that without their exposure to the Tube Rose Snuff song it is very possible that James and Liv might have followed their Dad into a medical career instead of becoming professional musicians.

James and Livingston Taylor's Tube Rose Snuff 

Lest you think that the snuff commercial dispute has created a schism between the two brothers, the additional interview you can listen to here, as well as a duet Livingston and James performing City Lights at Martha's Vineyard in 1981, indicate the rift has been healed.

For you snuff commercial fans I can tell you that when I was young, (I am the same age as Kate Taylor), I recall hearing the Tube Rose Snuff jingle many times on the Arthur Smith Show which was broadcast on WFMY, Channel 2, in Greensboro during much of the 1950's. Arthur Smith and his band, the Crackerjacks, would perform the song at least once every show. As I recall, the Smith show was actually taped in Charlotte and re-broadcast on WFMY. In addition the show was recorded for radio and broadcast from Durham.

Arthur Smith and the Crackerjacks - The group that sang the Tube Rose Snuff jingle

In 1970 Chapel Hill seemed to be at the epicenter of the music world as James Taylor's chart topping album Sweet Baby James brought national attention to our little town. While our village was certainly the incubator for many great singer-songwriter talents in those days, including Bland Simpson, Don Dixon, and Mike Cross, the one person everyone knew was destined for stardom was Decatur Jones. He reeked of charisma and talent, yet for some inexplicable reason the stars did not align themselves for Decatur, and his flame has largely faded from our collective memory. Former band mate, and long time Chapel Hill musician, Skip Via recounts for us the recording of Jones’ album that sadly was never released. If any of you have photos or additional memories of Decatur please contact us at chmemories@gmail.com.

Decatur Jones (center with orange t-shirt) and friends Coconut Grove, Florida circa 1982. (photo is by Wayne Sloop)

by Skip Via

In the summer of 1970, Chapel Hill native Decatur Jones assembled a group of local musicians and brought them to New York to record an album. Over the course of a week or so, we recorded 12 tracks in a small studio called Blue Rock Studios in Greenwich Village. All of the tracks were recorded as live takes with Decatur playing and singing in real time along with the other musicians. All of the songs were written by Decatur and arranged by the musicians that played them.

Decatur passed away several years ago at age 44. The album we recorded was never released.

Included here are two of the tracks we recorded with notes on the musicians.

Where Will You Be

Harlan Collins (known during high school as Paul) was living and performing in NYC at the time this recording was made and stopped in to record backing vocals on this track.

Decatur Jones: vocals, acoustic guitar
Jack Becker: double bass
Harlan (Paul) Collins: backing vocals
Corodon (Don) Fuller: piano
Jay Norem: drums
Skip Via: mandolin

Ode to Uncle Sam

The album's producer (name not remembered) brought in a "hot" bass player who was new on the NYC scene. He was a tall, thin, African-American who played excellent bass. Given the time of this recording and my memories of what he looked like, I like to think it was Stanley Clark. I have no proof at all--just my rock and roll fantasy, probably.

Decatur Jones: vocals, acoustic guitar
Unknown: electric bass
Corodon (Don) Fuller: exquisite blues piano
Jay Norem: drums
Skip Via: electric guitar

(Editor's note): Via claims that Corodon (Don) Fuller was possibly the finest musician ever to come out of Chapel Hill

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by Charly Mann

Before there were Arrogance, Mike Cross, the Squirrel Nut Zippers, James Taylor, George Hamilton IV, or Kay Kyser, one man put the University of North Carolina and Chapel Hill on the music map. His name was Hal Kemp, and he was as well known in the 1930's as Madonna, the Eagles, or the Dave Matthews band are today.

Chapel Hill's first Superstar, Hal Kemp

Kemp was driven for stardom at an early age. As a youth he learned to play the piano, trumpet, alto sax, and clarinet. In high school he even had his own orchestra. He entered UNC in 1922 and immediately joined the glee club, the school band, the University orchestra, the drama club, and two fraternities. He also started his own group, the Carolina Club Orchestra. When that group was not performing for some event, he also had a smaller seven-piece band that also featured Skinnay Ennis, a fellow student, who would go on to be one of the country's most well-known vocalists. Even in college, Kemp's Orchestra was so popular that during the summer breaks it would tour Europe.

When Kemp left UNC he formed his own professional orchestra that featured legendary trumpet player Bunny Berigan as well as Skinny Ennis on vocals.  He turned over the Carolina Club Orchestra to Kay Kyser, who would become a major music and movie star in the 1940's. Kemp's band played all over the United States and Europe, and recorded hits for several major record labels. Kemp died in late 1940 from complications of a serious automobile accident. Many suspect that had he lived, he would have been one the most popular bandleaders of the 1940's Big Band Era.

Skinnay Ennis at the microphone

It was while at UNC that Kemp made and recorded the arrangement of Hark the Sounds of Tar Heel Voices that we all know and love today, which included a coda of I'm a Tarheel Born. In honor of this great man, who many have long forgotten, I have remixed and enhanced the 1925 recording of this song for your enjoyment. Also included are two other of my favorite Hal Kemp songs.

by Arthur "Dan" Gifford

It's impossible for me to think of Alex Taylor without also thinking that there but for the grace of God go I.

In a 1950s Chapel Hill full of frat boys and others offering beer to kids, Alex Taylor and I started drinking before our teen years. He became an alcoholic, I did not. Just before Chapel Hill was hit with a 60s plague of street drugs that would kill the bodies and damage the minds of a number of friends, I went to Virginia Episcopal School and only heard the horror stories when I'd return to town during vacation breaks.  Against all that, it has often crossed my mind that had I stayed, "it coulda been me," as David Bowie said.

Alex Taylor who was a great singer, but never mastered an instrument, at his home at 618 Morgan Creek Road Chapel Hill

Maybe my escape from Alex' fate was providence. Maybe it was dumb luck, but whatever it was, I took a big hit in the gut on reading about his death at age 47 -- largely attributed to the effects of alcoholism, the stories said -- because some of my earliest happy childhood memories involved Alex.

We were born about two months apart and I first recall meeting him in kindergarten at The Little Red School House though my parents said we had played together earlier.

Alex' father and my mother were both UNC professors who practically worked in the same building in allied fields. My mother was Alice Gifford, the first professor brought on board the new UNC School of Nursing in 1950 and the person charged with obtaining its accreditation. Dr. Isaac "Ike" Taylor was a newly arrived professor of medicine at UNC who would later become the Dean of the Medical School. That connection aside, there were other social binders in play. Both my mother and Alex's father had strong Scottish ancestral links and Boston connections. My mother had grown up in Boston and was in the first Yale class that accepted women. That was a very big deal to both Alex's New England raised mother Trudy -- an early champion of women's equality -- and father, a Harvard Medical School graduate.

James Taylor left, Alex Taylor, and Kate Taylor with Alex Taylor's son Sweet Baby James - 1971 

In class, Alex and I were both hyper kids who probably spent more time sitting in The Little Red School House punishment corner than all the rest of the children there combined. We were also the cut-up bane of the parents who took turns collecting us at the end of the school day, an act we would encore during later years in such venues as Mrs. Bagby's social dance class at Chapel Hill Country Club and the bus to and from Durham Academy. Most of those disruptions involved our imitations of people, pop songs, rhythms and sounds, all of which got an early start at The Little Red School House.

On days when Alex' mother gathered him at LRSH, I'd sometimes go to his house and play until picked up by my parents and vice versa. We both lived in the country at that time, he because his parents, I would later hear, wanted to live in rural surroundings, we because it was affordable. The Taylors were far better off than most in Chapel Hill. They lived outside of Carrboro when they first moved to the area, a blue collar town then that most Chapel Hillians looked down on. As for us, we lived at what seemed like the other end of existence off East Franklin Street in a rented house above a marsh where Eastgate Shopping Center would be built years later.

Alex Taylor at microphone and James Taylor to his left on guitar as the Fabulous Corsairs in Chapel Hill 1964

That strip of higher ground was an old dairy farm owned by Seton Lloyd and his wife. They still grazed several cows that needed milking which Alex and I got to do under Mr. Lloyd's supervision while he sipped moonshine. Lloyd's main business was a Carrboro general store at 118 East Main Street that was chock full of used pick handles, horse collars, stuff the Union Army left behind and God knows what else, which included homemade whiskey on the sly. Mr. Lloyd was one of the few people in Chapel Hill that probably never had to buy gasoline since he could just exhale into his car's fuel tank. I suppose that's why Alex's and my parents declined his occasional kind offer to drive Alex home since he was "goin' that way anyhow."

Alex and I only saw each other a time or two each week during most of our elementary years since we attended our respective public schools, but we saw each other enough to pick up wherever we had left off before. That changed during seventh grade when we found ourselves on the same bus each day traveling from Chapel Hill to Durham. He attended Durham Academy on Duke Street while I went to a different private school a couple of blocks away on Duke. By that time rock 'n roll was about all that mattered to us and we were pumped for new sounds.

We found them by listening to the radio at night. Quite a few boys then twisted the AM dial when they were supposed to be sleeping to find the 50,000 watt signals that skipped in on the ionosphere when the weather got cold from hundreds or a thousand or more miles away. WKBW, Buffalo. WOWO, Fort Wayne, Indiana. WFAA, Dallas. WABC, New York were but a few of them. I think I was the first to "discover" Cousin Brucie and his odd, sing-song DJ delivery on WABC, tell Alex and then drive everyone crazy on the bus with our imitation, but the big find and fav was WLAC in Nashville.

This is Alex Taylor's first album With Neighbors and Friends released in 1971. It is his best album, and sadly no longer available.

This wasn't ordinary rock music from a far off city, WLAC spewed soul quenchers that neither Alex or I had heard before except in milder form on Durham's WSSB. "Daddy Rabbit" Bobbit and the others there were playing Frankie Lymon and Little Anthony and Micky and Sylvia before WKIX came along. Alex and I even visited "Daddy Rabbit" after school once when Alex accompanied me to my weekly choir practice at Durham's First Presbyterian Church. But WSSB's watered down stuff just wouldn't do once we got onto WLAC. It played the originals the music industry ripped-off and diluted to make commercial hits.

On that station, Hoss Allen, Big Hugh Baby and other disc jockeys played the likes of Howlin' Wolf, Lightnin' Hopkins, Lead Belly, Slim Harpo, Jimmy Reed, Muddy Waters, Lowell Fulson, Little Junior Parker, The Spaniels and Sonny Boy Williamson from record packages put together by Ernie's Record Mart in Nashville that we could order for not much money. Whoaaa. What a world changer.

Alex Taylor of Chapel Hill at his creative and vocal prime

You gotta remember the times. This music was beyond the Elvis and Everly Brothers Kemp Nye hated and wouldn't sell. It was light years away from the the Bo Diddly many white adults said was only fit for juke joint colored people. It was in the class of the Gandy dancer chants I'd heard and tried to imitate to Alex and some others. That is to say, it contained the key to the soul that gave Chapel Hill's Lincoln High School band that extra something that the all white Chapel Hill High School band didn't get.

Alex did get it and he put it into his music. I only wish he'd gotten the acclaim he deserved and lived to enjoy it.

Dan Gifford is an Emmy winning investigative reporter who was also nominated for an Oscar for his documentary Waco: The Rules of Engagement. He is also an actor who has appeared in the films Contact, Mad City, and Malcolm X, and television shows including The X Files and The Practice.

Pictures and music provided by Charly Mann