Tonight I time-traveled. Twice.
After chimichanga and salsa, I switched on CBS and BOOM! Time travel to the 1970s and Ozzy Osbourne – back then the frontman for a group called Black Sabbath. (I point this out because some of you have asked me who the Beatles were.)
Now, I think ole Ozzy is better known as being the husband of Sharon Osbourne. Yes! The same Sharon who revealed on her talk-show The View that she had a “fling” with a guy years and years ago. Before she met Ozzy. A fling with a guy named Jay Leno.
Well!
That was about the same time I met Jay Leno (I had no fling, cross my heart) upstairs at a nightclub in Brookside. Sharon Osbourne – fling with Jay or no – wound up marrying the heavy metal singer, taking on his management duties, and having his children. One of whom would end up on Dancing With the Stars.
Is this a chain of events that signifies the arrival of the Apocolypse?
Doesn’t matter.
Now, I’m time-traveling again. Watching the CBS-CSI concert featuring Ozzy and Black Sabbath, I’m flashing on one of my first-ever live concert tickets: Bloodrock on a Tulsa stage. (Do NOT Google that date.) Never heard of Bloodrock? I don’t hold that against ya.
One hit wonder.
On the other hand… There are – as usual – a couple of stories there. In an age of New York, MoTown, and LA music, Bloodrock was a Texas group. There were plenty of others (ZZ Top, those Albino Boys from Beaumont, TX, Freddie King, Stevie Ray Vaughn, to name a few), but none hit early from the Lone Star State like – Bloodrock. (Don’t nitpick about Richie Valens and La Bamba…)
DOA was the song. As in Dead On Arrival. A song that featured a European-sounding siren as a key musical component. They had a recording contract and a few records before guitarist Dean Parks left to become musical director of the Sonny & Cher Show. (You can Google that one.) Lee Pickens replaced him – later fronting his own Lee Pickens Group.
Stevie Hill of Tulsa joined the band in about 1968, providing keyboards and vocals. The next year, they changed their name to Bloodrock. Charted an album. Really low on the Billboard 200. But that’s still something.
In 1971, the song DOA hit the charts. Made it to #36, mostly due to radio play in Texas, Oklahoma, and the Southwest US. Lee Pickens explained the song later. He wanted to get his pilot’s license. His friend got one. His friend took off as Pickens watched, got to about 200 feet, rolled the plane and crashed. DOA.
The concert was pretty amazing. (You think a kid’s first or second concert experience wouldn’t be?)
Oh, did I mention? Bloodrock was the opening act. Sort of like Ozzy was for Sharon, the headliner in that family currently. And the stars of that 1971 Tulsa show? (OK. I’ll tell you the date: April 6, 1971, Tulsa Assembly Center, my first ever exposure to potential hearing loss.) In the BIG print on the ticket was:
Grand Funk Railroad.
What? Grand-who?
Ozzie has the last laugh on that one. It was five years later when Black Sabbath took the stage in Tulsa. And only five minutes ago when he took the stage in Broken Arrow (by way of CSI on CBS). Woo. Time-traveling again.
Just like Sharon Osbourne, I guess. “That man that I had a flingy-wingy with was Jay Leno,” she admitted on The View. How was it? “It was so long ago I can’t remember!” she said. “One cannot remember that long ago!”
Hey. I remember Bloodrock. But then, I’m a time-traveler. And what does this all have to do with a bookstore in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma? Answer (from those who don’t know me): Nothing. Answer (from those who know me – including those who won’t admit it): Nothing. Hee-hee. I’m just rifting here.
Come visit! (with or without your time machine.)
McHuston
Booksellers & Irish Bistro
Rose District
122 South Main, Broken Arrow, OK!
