by Charly Mann

Few people know that the origins of Frank Zappa's musical genius come from Chapel Hill. It was Zappa's father, Frank Vincent Zappa Sr., who instilled an aptitude for music and love for the guitar in his son, and that all originated in Chapel Hill in the late 1920s. Frank Zappa Sr. was a student at UNC from 1926 to 1930. He had little money and first made ends meet by working as a barber in town. In 1928 Zappa met fellow UNC student Jack Wardlaw who was a banjo prodigy. Wardlaw was starting a group he called the Carolina Banjo Boys, and convinced Zappa he could further supplement his income as a guitar player in his band. In the these days the banjo was more popular than the guitar, and bands with good banjo players were in demand for dances and other social functions. 

Francis Vincent Zappa, father of Frank Zappa, UNC Chapel Hill student photo from 1928

Frank Zappa Sr. bought a guitar in Raleigh and for the next three years played in two very popular bands that were headed and organized by Wardlaw. Wardlaw's most famous band was called Jack Wardlaw And His Carolina Tar Heels and had thirteen musicians. Zappa learned to become a good guitar and banjo player from Wardlaw and became adept at many styles of music. In the Banjo Boys he played hillbilly and ragtime guitar, while in the Carolina Tar Heels he performed jazz music and Dixieland on both guitar and banjo.

Jack Wardlaw and His Carolina Tar Heels from 1929. Jack Wardlaw is in the white jacket. Francis Zappa played guitar with this group.

It is the musical versatility that Frank Zappa Jr. learned from his father that makes Zappa's music so intriguing and hard to categorize. In a career of just 25 years he released 70 albums in styles ranging from rock, classical, jazz, rhythm and blues, electronic, oratorios, symphonic ballets, to avante garde, all rooted in the diversity and originality that Zappa's father learned from UNC's Jack Wardlaw.

Senior photo of Frank Zappa's father, Francis Vincent Zappa, from University of North Carolina yearbook

After leaving UNC and his guitar and banjo playing career in 1930, Frank Zappa Sr. had a long career as a computer scientist and engineer. He remained  friends with Jack Wardlaw for the rest of his life. He retired from Lockheed in the early 1970s. His son Frank Zappa Jr. was born on December 21, 1940 and died in 1993 at age 52 of prostate cancer. Frank Zappa's two most popular albums were Over-Nite Sensation and Apostrophe. His only Top Forty single was the satirical Valley Girl which featured his daughter Moon Unit Zappa.

Frank Zappa with his mother and UNC alumnus and guitar playing father, Frank Zappa Sr.

Note: many people think that Frank Zappa's father was the actor Hugh Brannum who played Mr. Green Jeans on the children's television program, Captain Kangaroo. This is because on Zappa's very popular 1969 album Hot Rats there is a song called Son of Mr. Green Genes.

Jack (John) Wardlaw's Yackety Yack senior photo from 1930. He inspired Frank Zappa's father to become a guitar player and play in two of his bands.

Jack Wardlaw remained a performing musician the rest of his life playing banjo in various bands well into his nineties. He also ran a very successful insurance company in Raleigh. His Carolina Tar Heels became internationally popular in the late 1930s, and performed throughout the United States and Europe. On one tour a young singer named Peggy Lee made her big band debut with the band. Soon after that she became one of the most popular female vocalists in America when she joined the Benny Goodman Orchestra. In the 1960s and 70s Wardlaw led a banjo band called the Executives that often performed throughout the Carolinas and made frequent television appearances. Jack Wardlaw died in 2003.

by Susan Prothro Worley

The destination of choice for Chapel Hill kids in the 1960s was Franklin Street. I don't remember that area being referred to then as downtown. Whenever anyone I knew was headed that way, we said we were going "uptown," probably because that part of Franklin Street sits at the top of the hill that defines our town.

Friends enjoying a meal at Suttons Drug Store on Franklin Street in Chapel Hill

Franklin Street plays a central role in our memories of Chapel Hill just as it plays a central role in our town. It's Franklin Street that forms the backdrop for many of the things we remember best. Not only personal childhood experiences took place on Franklin Street - for me that would be going to the movies at the Carolina or Varsity, eating pizza at the Rat, browsing at the Intimate - but it's also the place we traditionally gather as a community, whether for the Beat Dook parade, street festivals, protest marches, or basketball celebrations.

Enjoying coffee and great conversation on the stone wall next to the UNC campus on the south side of Franklin Street in downtown Chapel Hill.

Looking back at a time we can never return to, it's natural to think of that past as a better era. When I was a child, there was much lamenting over the loss of our village atmosphere. A regular Chapel Hill Weekly series, Looking Back, included stories from past decades, highlighting the small town atmosphere of an earlier period. As much as I loved my hometown, from a young age I felt a sense of loss that Chapel Hill was no longer the special village it had been before I arrived. Along with that sense of loss, I felt some guilt because my family, having shown up in 1960, was part of the problem. It was because of newcomers like us that a formerly wooded area was carved into the developments of Coker Hills and Lake Forest. Without us, Eastgate Shopping Center may never have been built and Estes Hills Elementary School wouldn't have been necessary.

The face of a young girl strolling down Franklin Street near the Kidzu Museum

There I was though, along with my newly arrived neighbors and classmates, contributing to change and development but claiming Chapel Hill as our own just as generations before us had done.

At that time, Chapel Hill was a town where dogs roamed free and so did kids. Safety was not an issue we gave a lot of thought to. We biked and walked around town and campus without a sense of boundaries or fear.

Locally Grown Rooftop Music and Movies Series is held in downtown Chapel Hill on top of the Wallace Parking Deck during the summer.

When I think back to those childhood days uptown, it's easy to recall various experiences that might make the police blotter today. However, we didn't associate such episodes with a place or with a time period. We learned that scary things can happen in the world but, just because they sometimes happened on Franklin Street, that didn't mean Franklin Street was a threatening place to be.

Carolina blue eyes in a future Tar Heel scholar

Recently, a handful of Franklin Street merchants began expressing their frustrations about crime, street people, and the lack of parking downtown. It struck me as odd, first because it didn't match my reality of the vibrant place I visit. What was really puzzling was that it was coming from people who had every reason to promote a positive image of Franklin Street. It wasn't long before I started hearing the same rumblings from friends - not based on their experiences but on those complaints that were now being perceived as fact. It only takes a short time before rumors become conventional wisdom. And of course there are people who can come up with a negative story about an experience on Franklin Street...or any other street in America. Just as has been true in past times though, those random incidents don't define the place.

Michael Brown mural on the side of the NCNB building in downtown Chapel Hill

We warmly remember past characters of Franklin Street, chuckling at their eccentricities. Is it possible that some of the so-called street people sitting on a bench uptown could be the Franklin Street characters of today? The only way to find out is to get to know them.

The diversity of life in downtown Chapel Hill

Today many of the places and people we recall from our own childhoods on Franklin Street are gone. Just as people in the 60s lamented the loss of the village, it's easy for us in 2010 to dwell on the things we miss from our own pasts. There is a whole new generation of children though, and a new crop of students, and newcomers to town, and they are creating memories of their own. They may enjoy the view from Top of the Hill, marvel at Michael Brown's murals, check out the caricatures of local celebrities at Spanky's, or take their children to Kidzu Museum.

Enjoying Ben & Jerry Ice Cream on West Franklin street in Chapel Hill

For newcomers and oldtimers alike, there are plenty of merchants to counter the negativity of those whose glass is perennially half empty. Locally owned, thriving Franklin Street businesses, places like Med Deli, Chapel Hill Sportswear, The Varsity, and Chapel Hill Comics, are too busy serving happy customers to spend their time complaining.

Two young people on Franklin Street in Chapel Hill

A site like chapelhillmemories is a draw for those of us who remember the good old days. But it takes nothing away from yesterday's creaky wood floors at the Intimate Book Store to acknowledge the fun of identifying North Carolina musicians pictured on the walls of today's Pepper's Pizza. The joys of a small town have given way to the vibrancy of a small city. Missing the former shouldn't stop us from embracing the latter. If we do, we miss out on the very place that defines our community, uptown Chapel Hill.

Susan Prothro Worley has been the personification of Chapel Hill  for the last five decades. She eats and breathes  the place, and Carolina blue blood runs through her veins. She loves the history of the town, and adores its present. There is very little she does not like about Chapel Hill. She is the Executive Director of Orange County's Volunteers for Youth.

by Charly Mann

For years I lived on the edge of Chapel Hill surrounded by Duke Forest. Looking up at the sky I enjoyed seeing a wide variety of local and migratory birds.

A rare Bald Eagle soaring over Chapel Hill near Whitfield Road

At night when the moon began to rise I often enjoyed its luminescence. There was a peaceful essence flowing from the heavens that often sparked memories of my childhood days near the woods across from Greenwood Road.

The moon rising through the winter trees of Duke Forest

by Charly Mann

During the first 16 years of my life The Goody Shop was a Chapel Hill institution, yet I must confess I do not think I was aware of it during those years. Since starting Chapel Hill Memories ten months ago more than two dozen readers have suggested I write about this long forgotten restaurant. On every occasions I confessed my lack of knowledge, and suggested they were better qualified to write a piece on it, but sadly no one accepted my offer and I have now taken on the task of preserving the memory of this place.

Pete and Spero Dotron on The Goody Shop of Chapel Hill logo

Spero Dorton opened the Goody Shop in 1948 and it was located on the south side of Franklin Street near the Carolina Theater. During the 1950’s it was the most popular place on Franklin Street to hang out at. It sold more beer than any restaurant or bar in town, had incredible cheeseburgers, and almost the only subject for conversation there was UNC Sports. Spero had passion for Carolina basketball and football, and both teams had their dinners there before all home games.

Smoking and enjoying a beer and two beautiful UNC coeds at the Goody Shop in Chapel Hill in 1962

The head waiter at the Goody Shop was large black man named Bozo. He would flip you double or nothing for your bill. If you lost you paid double, if you won he paid your bill. Spero's father, Pete, was the main cook at the restaurant and often dripped ashes from the cigars he smoked into the food. In those days students did not have credit cards, and Spero would allow them to sign a little I.O.U. note called a chit. Many students left UNC owing Spero hundreds of dollars.

UNC students enjoying beer at the Goody Shop in 1955. Note typical student attire of the time and girl to boy ratio.

Tar Heel athletes and coaches were regulars at the Goody Shop. Legendary basketball coaches Frank McGuire and Dean Smith were friends of Spero's and ate there often. A former UNC student, Hal Kushner who is now an ophthalmologist in Florida, remembers Spero was talented at writing comic poetry and that Sports Illustrated even published a couplet he sent in after they did a feature on UNC basketball star Lenny Rosenbluth saying he was overrated. Spero wrote the magazine: “come on Sports Illustrated tell the truth/what have you got against Rosenbluth?”

UNC Basketball coach Frank McGuire in 1953. He was a regular at The Goody Shop.

From the  time The Goody Shop first opened in 1948 and throughout its first decade 75% of its sales were in beer, and by far the most popular beer was Pabst Blue Ribbon. Beer was served in bottles which students delighted in peeling the labels off of as they became more intoxicated. By the mid 1960s this trend was reversed and food sales were 80% of their sales and beer only 20%. In the 1950s many students formed drinking clubs that would meet at the Goody Shop after classes to drink beer. Spero said students simply drank more beer in those days because many of them were older and veterans of World War II or the Korean War. The Goody Shop closed every evening at 11 PM, but they had a back room where a poker game was usually played until the wee hours of morning.

We believe this is Bozo who worked at The Goody Shop driving this car in a parade in front of the Tin Can at UNC in 1949 

The Goody Shop like many other Chapel Hill cultural landmarks was a causality of the high rents on Franklin Street and the changes of time. By the late 60s when the Goody Shop closed "beer" bars had sprouted up all over downtown, and a restaurant where you could have a beer with fries and a cheeseburger seemed antiquated. After the Goody Shop closed Spero Dorton went into the real estate business in Durham, and Bozo got a job at UNC's Memorial Hospital.

This is a rare 1921 photo of Franklin Street. Note the name of this business is The Goody Shop. I assume Spero Dorton bought this establishment in 1948 and made it into a restaurant.

by Charly Mann

There are several stories that attempt to explain the origin of the name Tar Heel. The one I believe is accurate has highly racist overtones, and has been supplanted by more benign explanations in the last eighty years. My source is Kemp Plummer Battle, one of Chapel Hill most beloved and influential residents, who was President of the University of North Carolina from 1876 to 1891. For the last thirty years of his life until 1919, he spent much of his time diligently recording the history of Chapel Hill and the University. His two volume History of the University of North Carolina remains the definite source of information about the first 120 years of the university. What follows are the recollections of Battle who was born on December 19,1831and graduated from UNC in the class of 1849.

Kemp Plumber Battle, President of the University of North Carolina for 15 years and author of the History of the University of North Carolina

At the beginning of the Civil War in January of 1862 a group of black slaves in Mississippi were playing a game in which a copper penny was placed in the middle of a ring. Each man had a chance to dance over to coin and try to pick it up with their foot. The man who could pick it up and then dance with it out of the circle got to keep the penny. An especially dark black man who was referred to as a "darkey" kept winning the penny and the crowd watching the game became suspicious. A man in the crowd shouted," Dat nigger has got tar on his heels!" The man's foot was inspected, and indeed he did has tar on his heels.

Racist writings and cartoons sometimes appeared in UNC publications like this one from the 1913 Yackey Yack until almost 1960

This story was widely reported by Southern newspapers and soon Virginia soldiers started calling North Carolina soldiers Tar Heels because they said North Carolina was best known for producing "tar, pitch, and turpentine" The North Carolina soldiers enjoyed the nickname and declared Virginia soldiers would run away in battle with the Yankees, but the North Carolina soldiers would not run because they had tar on their heels. From then on people from North Carolina has been known as Tar Heels.

A cartoon with racist undertones from the 1912 Tar Heel
 

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)