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From The Scranton Times - Tuesday, September 12, 1978 |
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Going In
Circles... |
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by Lance Evans, (First of Two Parts) Jerry Hludzik fondles the tape cassette in a reverential fashion. As if he were a priest, and the recorded material represented the core of the teachings of some religion, he handles it gingerly. With respect. Admiration. Maybe, even, a touch of awe. This is not just any recording. It isn’t one that you can walk into a music store and buy. It is a test tape of the forthcoming album by the legendary group, Chicago. The fact that Hludzik is now holding it in his talented hands and has just played it on his home stereo system demonstrates that hi is now very close to the inner circle of one of the most successful bands of recent years. LOFTY POSITION |
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For a 26-year old composer-singer from Northeastern Pennsylvania, it is a rather lofty position to occupy. So, for Hludzik and his close friend and professional partner, Bill Kelly, their possession of the tape signifies membership in a relatively elite – if unorganized and highly informal – club. Danny Seraphine, Chicago’s drummer, is currently the patron saint of the two regional men, who now form the center of The Jerry-Kelly Band, which is going to have its first album, “Somebody Else’s Dream,” released on the Epic label this week. It was Seraphine and David “Hawk” Wolinski, the white keyboard player from the otherwise black powerhouse group, Rufus, who heard Hludzik and Kelly in a Pottsville night club a little more than a year ago, thought the two area musicians had the talent to make a go of it nationally and set the wheels in motion for a production deal that will include another pair of albums after, “Somebody Else’s Dream.” In the recording of the album, Seraphine and Wolinski added their highly regarded professional direction to the production, secured “studio” musicians of stature and saw to it that any rough edges that The Jerry-Kelly Band might possess were quickly sanded down.
THEIR OWN DREAM “But, they didn’t restrain us. They didn’t make up compromise on the things we felt strongly about. The relationship with them has been great.” For Kelly and Hludzik, who for many years were featured with the immensely popular local band, The Buoys, it is one of the few recent professional relationships that has been smooth. The pair’s sudden jump to a recording group of national stature has left behind a wake of turmoil. The remaining members of The Buoys were not at all happy that Hludzik and Kelly split. The backup members of the original Jerry-Kelly Band are not happy, because one of Seraphine’s early moves was to dismiss them.
RECOGNIZABLE TENOR “I guess it’s a point of view,” explains Hludzik in a tone of voice that indicates he and Kelly have no real sorrow about what has transpired. “Kelly and I have wanted to make it nationally for many years. To do that, there are a lot of sacrifices that have to be made. “It didn’t seem as if the rest of the group wanted to do the things that had to be done. To Bill and me, it appeared as if they were satisfied. “We weren’t, though, so something had to give.”
FEEL KIND OF BAD “We feel kind of bad about it, but when we formed they knew that the possibility of what eventually happened happening existed.” “Our fans,” says Hludzik, “are what we feel saddest about. A lot of them haven’t seemed to comprehend the need for us to do what we did. “It seems as if they thought that it was engraved in stone someplace that The Buoys would always have to stay together.” At this point, Hludzik and Kelly are ready to put all those strained feeling behind them and concentrate on the task of getting the most recognition for the album the was recorded in Los Angeles last April and suffered a series of postponements before finally being released. The album is solid testimony to the multi-faceted abilities of Kelly and Hludzik. Of the ten songs on the disc, nine are the products of either solo or combined writing efforts by the two. The tenth is a surprising rendition of the old Del Shannon hit, “Runaway.” This song, as much as any of the original work, points out exactly where the Jerry-Kelly band is at, musically speaking. When Shannon rod the charts with “Runaway” in the early ‘60s and in a re-release a couple of years back, the song was a spectacular forum for him to demonstrate his falsetto.
DEGREE OF IMAGINATION Certainly, this is not the “sound” of The Jerry-Kelly Band, but it does serve to show the groups versatility. If the album has a flaw, it might be that there is such a wide variance in the styles of the music put forth. The first cut on the first side, “Settle Down,” is a tune that allows the listen to do anything but that, as it compels the tapping of fingers and toes on the part of its listeners. The flavor of the music is surprisingly of a West Coast nature, with certain rhythms harking up visions of The Beach Boys when they were riding the crest of the surfing sound popularity. However, Kelly’s vocal work saves the tune from becoming an anachronism since it provides enough of a current lilt to preclude it being deemed a rip-off. The second song onside one is the tune that has been selected for marketing as the group’s first single. Called, “Magic,” it has plenty of solid guitar work and a catchy melodic “hook,” of the kind that makes it hard to erase if from your mind once you’ve heard it.
TALENTED STORY TELLERS Hludzik realizes that the album embodies a wide variety of sounds. He has some questions about the wisdom of this, but does allow that it might be a potential source of strength. “People have told us that this is the kind of album that you listen to and don’t take the needle off. You don’t jump around from song to song. There’s something for everyone. “Part of this,” he feels, “is due to the fact that there is some experimentation going on to find out what we can do best…what will be most popular. “There’s a lot of money tied up in this project, (One estimate being as much as $250,000) and the company wants to get its money worth.” There is no questioning that Seraphine and Wolinski put together a top-flight studio aggregation for the sessions. Peter Cetera, Lee Loughnane and Laudir deOliveria, all members of Chicago, took part. Wolinski added his talents on the keyboards. Seraphine, playing under the absurd alias of Cosmos Carboni, took some turns on the drums. And, just to make sure all this musicianship didn’t got to waste, the album was mixed by Deni King, who had a hand in many of Boston’s successes, including, “More Than A Feeling,” and Roy Halle, who handled much of the production work for Simon and Garfunkel when they were together.
REHEARSED EVERYTHING “We rehearsed everything at Danny’s own studio before we went into the recording studio,” Jerry says. “That meant that when we started to record, we knew exactly what we wanted to do.” However, it would seem that knowing and doing are not necessarily the same thing, for the sessions began in January and ran into April. Sometimes, as Hludzik recalls, “We’d go into the studio at 7 p.m. and not come out until 7 a.m. There was a real drive for perfection.” When the recording work was finally accomplished, the setbacks began. The album was supposed to come out a couple of months ago and The Jerry-Kelly Band was booked to act as the opening act on a recently completed tour by Chicago. But, with Epic having a spate of albums coming out at that time, it was decided to hold back the release of “Somebody Else’s Dream,” to make sure it got the best promotional shot possible. So, in essence, Kelly and Hludzik have been sitting on their hands since April. Still, they do not see it as wasted time. “We’ve done a lot of writing and I’ve worked at learning to really play the piano,” Hludzik says. “It really isn’t the same thing as getting started, though,” he adds with a smile that expressed both optimism and frustration at the same time. “We’re ready to go. But, then again, we have been at this for a lot of years.” Kelly and his wife, Susan, have no children. Hludzik’s wife, Barbara, is 6 ½ months pregnant.
EVERYTHING HAPPENING Even the possibility of meeting what some persons would deem as failure does little to shade the hope and dreams of Kelly or Hludzik. “If you interpret failure as not having our record be one of the major successes of the year,” Kelly says, “I guess there is the possibility that we will fail. “But we don’t see things in that light. After all, how many guys from around here have a national recording contract? We have one and that offers us the prospect of having three years to meet our goals. “Hell, you could sit around here and say, ‘Boy, I could do that.’ Or, ‘We’re as good as those guys.’ “But, there’s a lot more to it. You have to believe in your talent and then make a commitment to get the best out of yourself. “It’s a case of put up, or shut up. If you think you can do it, try. If you don’t, keep your mouth shut.”
CLASSIC PARALLEL If a team is faced with a third-down-medium-yardage situation, the coach has two choices: He can elect to run or pass. If he opts for a run – and it fails – many spectators will cry, “You dummy, why didn’t you pass?” If he chooses to pass – and this fails – the same throng will scream, “You fool, why didn’t you run?” Either way it goes, if the play doesn’t work, the coach is branded an idiot. What the screaming fans fail to take into account, though, is how much work has gone into getting to the place where you have to make such a decision in the first place. “No matter what you do,” says Kelly, “there will be critics who will say we should have done something else.
MOST IMPORTANT THING In
“You Can Be,” one of the album’s cuts, Hludzik sings the words he wrote: “Considering where we’ve come from,” Hludzik says, “I think we have as many things going for us as possible. Bill and I think we can do it. With Danny and Hawk, we have strong production experience. “Jeff Wald and Herb Nanas, our management (who also handle Chicago, Donna Summer, Flip Wilson, and some other heavyweight acts) is excellent. “Epic, which is part of CBS, is a well-known label. “Everything we need to make it work,” Hludzik concludes, is there. Now, all we have to do is do it.” For Jerry Hludzik and Bill Kelly, it is obvious that “Somebody Else’s Dream” is now their own. It is something that they are hoping to share with a large portion of the record buying public in the near future. |
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