What can you say about the seventies. All the weirdness of the sixties was homogenized, polished, repackaged, replicated in bright red, yellow and green plastic - and then sold as mainstream American lifestyle and culture. The bowl haircuts sported by the Beatles in the mid-sixties (only barely over top of the ear length) would give way to men with shoulder length (and longer) hair styles. I too would sport almost waist length hair for a period of time. Other seventies fashion statements that we would all fall victim to would include bellbottom pants, hip huggers, platform shoes, clogs, t-shirts, hot pants, dresses from micro-mini to maxi and the father-of-all bad taste, polyester leisure suits. The seventies also brought a truck-load of fads including: mood rings, lava lamps, Rubik's cube, sea monkeys, smiley faces, pop rocks and pet rocks, but none quite as bazaar as "streaking" (running naked through a public place). The chaotic events of the 60's, including the Vietnam War, civil rights unrest, and the women's lib movement spilled over into and continued to plague the 70's. While the end of the Vietnam War did finally come in 1973 - it came at a great price. Disillusioned soldiers who had put their lives on the line for their country, came home to ridicule and hatred. Many became homeless and drug addicts while others just gave up and committed suicide. Few of us were not touched by friends or family that had suffered from the severe effects of the post traumatic syndrome symptoms left in the wake of this dark smudge in U.S. history.
Inflation was rampant and almost everything would more than double in price by the end of the decade. In 1970 a gallon of gas was 36 cents and by 1979 was 86 cents. A loaf of Merita bread was up to about a quarter a loaf in 1970 but would double by the end of the decade. The four-laning of the section of U.S. Highway 92 from (and including) the overpass in Auburndale to Lake Alfred was finally finished, but probably the most far reaching event was the death blow to "Old Florida" that was delivered on October 1st, 1971, when Walt Disney World's MAGIC KINGDOM® Park first opened it's gates near Kissimmee. Central Florida would never be the same again.
I entered the seventies unemployed with an infant son and a wife who would soon be pregnant with our second child (by the end of January). Needing to work, I reunited with Ron and the Starfires members: Ron Whitney, Jesse Chambers, Muggins Willard, and new drummer (from Leesburg's "Nation Rocking Shadows") Larry Hunt - to form "Cinnamon". We only worked about a year together doing a similar circuit of jobs that The Starfires had previously done - but with the demise of Municipal Teen Centers (and our own teen status) jobs were harder to come by and finances didn't stretch as far. Ron soon decided to move into the local lounge circuit because it involved less travel, as well as less setting up and tearing down. Ron, Muggins, Allen Keefer, and Ronnie Skinner went to work at the Rustic Lounge on Highway 17 between Winter Haven and Lake Alfred under the name "Matanzas". Jesse and I started putting together an 8 piece horn band that would be dubbed "Raintree County", along with old friend and vocalist Willie Metts, from Lakeland's "Canadian Rogues" and continued to try and survive in the one-nighter market.
I think it was also about 1971 when I took the only day ("real", as the old folks would say) job I ever held for more than a month. I hired on as a clerk in the stock room of the State Farm Insurance Company's Regional Office on Highway 17 near Winter Haven. Now the father of two small children (Wendy was born in September 1970), I would hold that job for exactly two years. By the end of that period the 8 piece band had run it's course and I had started to play 6 nights a week, first at the Rustic and then at the local Holiday Inn in Winter Haven. Since I was making almost twice as much in about half the time, I soon dropped State Farm for the lounge life. However, those gigs only lasted a few months, proving to be just one more of the less than stellar decisions I made during my young manhood. This was also the time frame that my wife and I discovered marijuana, a substance that would hold me prisoner for about a decade.
By 1973, my wife, San, had become restless and decided that the "forever" in the contract we had made (you know, "through thick and thin", "for better or worse", "for richer for poorer", etc.) meant only 5 years and split with some dude (or is it dud) she worked with at Publix supermarket. I did manage to get the only things that mattered from that disaster - I won custody of my children in the divorce. In order to try and work through it - I started full time classes at Polk Community College. It was there that I met Carolyn K. who helped nurse me through some of my heartaches. I did manage to maintain a 4.0 average until I got bored and dropped out. Chalk up one more.
The mid-70s would find Jesse and me playing at Rick Furnari's "Blue Room" on Cypress Gardens Boulevard and then "Dante's Inferno " on Highway 17 (6th Street) in Winter Haven with Ron Whitney's "Matanzas". Eventually we would rotate nights with "Matanzas" with "Dizzy Rambler" (a band Jesse and I put together) so that neither band had to work all week. We probably did this for about a year or so. Disco music was quickly becoming the rage and discotheques (night clubs catering almost entirely to the dancers and usually with no live music) started to pop up with more and more frequency, coming to it's apex in December 1977 with the release of "Saturday Night Fever" a film that exploited the disco music craze and social pressures of the day.
It was about 1975 (I was 28 or 29 years old), while a student at PCC that I actually started trying to write songs. I thought it would be cool to perform original songs. Unfortunatley we seldom found a crowd that would listen to original songs - something I had not counted on - but it still gave me great satisfaction. One of the first songs I wrote was a piece called "Forty Miles To Macon". It was basically a heavy rewrite of a poem that someone I had met at school had written. I have always regretted that I do not remember the fella's name. He could easily take credit for being the spark that ignited my desire to write songs. Before that time - I doubt I had ever written much more than my name. My earliest writings were somewhat esoteric and often veiled in meaning (a product of the rock and roll of the time) but as I wrote more - my story lines became simpler and the words made more sense. In other words - I started to write country songs.
The mid-seventies were also when I started working with Len Walls at his recording studio, "Central Sound Studio", in Auburndale. It was here that I got opportunity to demo my original songs and was the main reason I continued to write with earnest. Writing a song - then being able to produce a recorded version that you can sit back and listen to - is one of my life's greatest pleasures. It also put me in touch with other writers in the area, such as Herb McCullogh, Judy Bailey, Joyce Brackin, Bobby Drawdy, Doug Charlton, Wayne Preston, Jim Elliott, Ben Silver and Donnie Sumner, which again only served to fuel the fire.
In 1977, while working a two-week gig at the Crest Restaurant in Clermont, I met a 20 year-old beauty by the name of Nancy Fosgit. She was awaiting the finalization of a divorce from her husband who lived in Michigan, whom she said had encouraged her to go visit her parents in Florida, then advised her to not come back. She retook her maiden name (Shafar) when the divorce was final. In any event - she stole my heart and imagination and after about a year of long distance dating - we were married in June of 1978. You know the shtick, "through thick and thin", "for better or worse", "for richer or poorer", "till death do us part", "blah, blah, blah".
It was only about 2 months later that I got a call from Howard and David Bellamy who wanted to come over and discuss the possibilty of my becoming lead guitarist for the band they were assembling. The only confirmed member they had at that time was Jon LaFrandre, a keyboardist from Winter Haven, who had been hangin' round their ranch in Darby (an area near Dade City) for a while. I suggested three of my comrades who I was currently playing with: Jesse Chambers on bass, Rodney Price on drums and Dannie Jones on steel guitar. They agreed to audition the whole band and although they weren't too keen on a steel guitar at first, after hearing Dannie's depth of contribution to the sound, they were completely sold. They hired the entire band. I played both in the studio and on the road for the Bellamy Brothers (through two albums and 4 number one hits) until just before New Year's 1979.
By the end of the seventies, I had lived one of my life long dreams, to play in the studio and on the road with a famous recording act and as a kicker I was also married to the "girl of my dreams". Oh, did I mention I was unemployed again?
Carl's Scrapbook: The 1970s