|
|
|
||||||||
PAPA JOHN
CREACH
IN HIS OWN
WORDS
"I was born in Pennsylvania in 1917, on May 28th in Beaver Falls. It's near Pittsburgh, about 42 miles, and I was raised up around there. I attended public schools in Pittsburgh. My uncle came along with a violin and so I liked the violin. We had it around there so I picked it up and started to play a couple of notes on it. Very weird sound, so I left it alone for awhile. Then I came back and picked it up again. I guess I was about 11 or 12 at that time. When I was about 13 or 14, I guess, I got kind of serious with it. Also my uncle started helping me to play, showing me the fundamentals on it, the notes and scales and so forth. I started practicing scales. I was about 15 then, and after that I studied with my sister. She played piano, so that made it just right for me because I had someone who could accompany me. She played mainly overtures - Classical music."
"We had 5 brothers and four sisters. Most of all my family are musically inclined. Like one of my youngest brothers was out here visiting, he plays drums very well. One plays guitar, one plays bass, and I play violin. So sometimes we get together and blow. Some stopped playing and went into other things, but I kept mine up. We went to Chicago when I was about 18 and my musical studies was one of the principal reasons for the move. I really began studying music. I was a guest artist with the Illinois Symphony Orchestra. I studied with the symphony orchestra down at the Musicians Union and we had the Pros."
"I didn't really get serious about Jazz until I got a basic foundation on the violin because the violin is an instrument that the more basics you have on it the better for you: the scales, and positions, and bowing techniques. I started to study a little theory and harmony. When Jazz came out, and Blues - well, there wasn't any Rock at that time, but Rhythm and Blues, more or less - I kept on playing and got with different people and got little odd jobs, which encouraged me to make a little money. I was inspired by all the old timers. Old bands, Bassie, you name them. Music was something I tried to dig practically everybody's styles. That's the reason I can play everything, basically Rhythmn and Blues and now I am playing Rock. I played Pop tunes, Classics. Even church music. I played church concerts, too."
"I kept on practicing, and formed a little trio. That was years ago. We got a job in a chain of hotels. We worked for them for 6 years. Then we went to other hotel chains and worked for another six years doing that. Then we started doing clubs and cocktail lounges, like 1943, '44, '45. "
"From then on I started a group of my own. We came to California in 1945 and started working at a place called the ChiChi out in Palm Springs. That's where all your movie stars and show people hung out. There was just the three of us--that's all I wanted: Just bass, guitar and violin. It was neatly named the Johnny Creach Trio."
"We travelled everywhere by car. We had uniformss--we were more or less a tuxedo type thing. We had seven complete wardrobe changes. Travelling around like that you had to have something, because of playing in the more formal atmosphere of hotels. You had to have a costume back in those days. A costume really meant something. This was all during World War II, around 1945, '46."
"After that I started working with an organist. I worked with her for about four years in California. Then from that I went and got a job on the SS Catalina, a California hotspot seacruiser which takes tourists from Los Angeles harbour to Catalina Island, and stayed on that for about five years. I guess that was about 1963. Great gig. "
"After I left that I started doing a single at the Parisian Room in Los Angeles. I stayed there for two and a half years and after that I met Joey Covington, who had not yet become Jefferson Airplane's drummer."
"I met Joey at the Musicians Union and he was looking for somebody and I was also looking for somebody to play with. We became friends and I guess it was about 2 years later and he called and said he was in Jamaica with the 'Planes and he said let's get together. Why not get together and do something. I said Yeh."
"So after that Marty Balin was with him and they stopped by my house. I put on a good pot of corn bread and stuff which Joey loves and they discussed all the possibilities of me coming up to San Francisco to do some type of recording bit.
"So once I went and played with Jefferson Airplane at the Winterland Auditorium in San Francisco (Oct. 1970). And then I guess I went over pretty good and so they said why not just make the tour."
TO BE CONTINUED ...............
