David Potter (2)

from official website 2010: David Frederick Potter was born January 30th, 1948 in North Adams, Massachusetts. He moved to Cleveland, OH at the age of eleven. At the age of fifteen, David could wait no longer to start playing music. After listening to Johnny Cash and Johnny Horton for most of his young life he knew somehow he had to play music. He bought a guitar for $5.00 and learned three chords, C, F and G, enough to play six songs, and was ready to start playing professionally. He and his friend, Sonny Tino, immediately went to the Clinton Bar in Cleveland, OH on a Friday night, was asked to sit in with the house band and proceeded to play all six songs they had learned. They were hired on the spot to play five nights a week at $5.00 a night, but before David could reveal his skill playing guitar the drummer dropped out. Someone had to play drums so he took the job. He picked up an old drum set for $50.00. It had a 28 inch bass drum, snare, tom-tom and high hat. With only days to practice he was back on stage playing as if he’d been playing all his life. Always having a natural beat and rhythm he said he could always see in his head how each drum beat was broken down just by listening to other drummers play. (He still creates how he wants a drum sound (without the drums) by using his hands, legs, feet and vocal sounds to add all the other beats.) After playing drums at the club for three months, Wesley Watt, a guitar player came in looking for a drummer for a group he wanted to put together, “The Bushman”. When he heard David he knew he was the one. David turned sixteen in January and in May, David, Wesley, Paul Armstrong and Carl Johnson left for Los Angeles to make their mark. On arriving in L.A. they immediately became the house band for the club, “Guys and Dolls”. After only eight weeks they signed a contract with Colpix records, also signing with Buck Ram, the manager of the Platters. Their first single was “Baby” with “What I Have I’ll Give to You” on the flip side. “The Bushman” were getting a lot of notoriety and attention from all over, including film producer David L. Wolper. He was looking for bands for a documentary about to start filming, “Teenage Revolution”. They approached Buck Ram about “The Bushman” being the premiere band for the documentary. Wolper wanted to show what bands went through while traveling around the country from gig to gig. (Along with “The Bushman” were about four other bands, one being “The Lovin’ Spoonful.”) About a month later Buck set up a live gig in Lancaster CA where they filmed their part of “Teenage Revolution”. After filming the documentary, David, Wesley and Bill Lincoln wanted to do their own thing. Now seasoned professionals and highly respected musicians they wanted to play and record their own music. With the change so did their name, to Euphoria. The newly named group spent all their time playing, touring and recording material that would lead to two of the group’s albums. During a successful tour in Texas, their single, “Baby”, released when they were “The Bushman”, went to #7 on the Texas charts, staying there for seven weeks. On return to LA, Wesley, then David joined the Lee Michaels band; touring and rehearsing for a new album to be recorded titled “Carnival of Life”. They would end up rehearsing at A&M records studios eight hours a day, five days a week for over three months. They also had a very busy playing schedule which he loved. While on tour the group had a ritual of meditating before going on stage. They would find some “out of the way” place, like a walk in cooler, to meditate and become centered (as well as literally cooling off) before walking on stage. They headlined all around California, from the Whisky in Hollywood to the Avalon Ballroom in San Francisco. Despite the enjoyment of working with the other band members, David and Lee had many artistic differences. These differences finely led to David telling Lee that he was leaving the band. Because they still had one song to record on “Carnival of Life”, Lee decided to get back at David for leaving by hiring another drummer (Eddy Hoe) to come in and try and duplicate David’s sound, for that last song, thus not using David. This also was the reason why Lee did not give David credit for playing the drums on the album. Not only did he not give him credit, he put Eddy Hoe’s name down for the drum credit with an * next to his name and an * next to the only song that Eddy played on, “My Friends”, the last song on the album. It was a terrible injustice for such excellence David’s drumming brought to the album. By the time the album was released and David saw he had not been given credit for playing drums on the album he was with another band and really didn’t care. Everyone in Hollywood knew he had played drums on the album, which led to him being the most sought after drummer of the late 60’s. Recording drum tracks for people like Janis Joplin, who came to hear him in San Francisco at the Avalon ballroom when Lee and the rest of the band had played there, to Leon Russell, Joe Cocker, the Platters and so many others, that he finely lost track. He cared more about the music community knowing what he could do as a musician then extracting revenge from Lee Michaels. Rather naïve but at his young age he didn’t really care about the money, but he did care about being the best. And that he was. He was now with another band that he became very close with. Like with the L. Michael’s band, they were in total harmony. David Potter, David Doud and Michael Doud lived together and jammed together almost every night when they weren’t playing a gig or in the studio. They became Hollywood’s “pin up” group, The East Side Kids, with an extraordinary amount of fans and Beverly Hill’s groupies following them from gig to gig as they traveled across California. They signed with UNI records where through the studio met and played on Buzz Clifford and Danny Moore’s albums. They liked them so much they asked them to produce their album, “The Tiger and the Lamb”, which Buzz and Danny contributed songs to. With the release of their album they continued to grow in popularity and became the hottest band in California. David continued doing studio work along with rehearsing with the ESK’s. They knew by instinct what each other was going to play before they played it. Their shows were exciting and different every night and David now had a group he could feel free to exercise his creativity with. They opened for “The Doors”, Jimi Hendrix, “Eric Burton and the Animals”, “Steppin Wolf”, “Chicago”, “Three Dog Night” and many others. Were on the Dick Clark television show “Where the Action Is” and played at celebrity’s parties, i.e. author, Harold Robbins New Year’s Eve party. Things were going great until their manager took off with all the band’s money and equipment. They were forced to regroup and go their separate ways. David decided to head for Texas once again to check out the scene there. Soon after arriving in Houston he met and formed a writing team with singer, Alan Mellinger aka Endle. After writing and playing around Houston they were approached by a record company executive from International Artist about signing a contract. They did, and soon went into the studio to start recording their first collaborative album Endle St. Cloud, “Thank You All Very Much”. Texas was becoming an up and coming place for musicians, but did not yet have the large venues, famous clubs, studios, record companies or opportunities that Hollywood still possessed. It was back to LA for David and Endle. Soon after their arrival in California they signed with MEDIARTS to record their second album together, “Potter St. Cloud”. Record World Magazine gave the album this review… “Mediarts is certainly doing the right thing—observing good taste, is what it’s called. Here’s label’s first rock group and they have verve and pertinence and intelligence. They are no idle protesters. They have purpose in their message and their music.” David wanted very much to get away from L.A. to clear his head. He got the opportunity to do just that by joining a fifteen piece group traveling to Australia. They decided to call themselves “The One Ton Gypsy” (15 members must equal a ton). They were booked for five concerts to be played between Melbourne and Sidney. It was perfect. The group had six singers, nine musicians and a lot of fun. From there he lived with an Aboriginal Tribe for a month, really getting back to nature, before heading back to L.A. Soon after met and married his wife of almost thirty years. Traveling to her home state of Wisconsin he made the decision to move to the country there, raise horses and play music, starting up his own band, Potter’s Marauders. David continues to write and play music while living in Wisconsin and plans to release a new CD in 2009/10.