Fiddler on the Road...

     Christmas in New York is really fantastic. But, the anticipation I felt during the holiday was extremely intense and I was really excited about heading down to Washington and joining my cast. The rehearsals in Toronto were wonderful and I knew that I was going to truly enjoy working with this very talented group of people. The original production of “Fiddler” opened in 1964 and had held the record for the longest-running Broadway show for almost 10 years until it was surpassed by “Grease”. It still is the 16^th longest running show in theater history. And I was going to be in that very show. Wow!

     The role into which I was cast, that of the Russian Tenor, also carried with it a production job of being an assistant stage manager. That was really cool because I was able to get to know the show inside and out. The “director” on the road is called the Production Stage Manager and is primarily responsible for each performance being true to the original. Audiences who come to a national touring company performance fully expect to witness a replica of the hit show that was still running on Broadway. The PSM has the primary task to maintain that honest replication, and of course the cast wants the exact same thing as everyone truly takes pride in their performances. I was truly impressed with this group of actors/dancers/singers and how they threw themselves completely into their roles. Professional Equity Theater is quite demanding in that you are doing eight…that’s right, eight performances each week. That’s a heavy load, especially when the role demands strong vocals or rigorous dancing. I learned early on that world-class athletes have absolutely nothing on a professional dancer. These guys are amazing. One of the classic dance performances in all of theater is the famous bottle dance that takes place in the wedding scene. Fabulous.

     My little part in the show was also personally exciting to me because every night I had to interrupt the wedding scene with this really loud high-G so I had to really take care of my voice. I have to tell you I was in absolute heaven.

     We were scheduled for either a week-long engagement or two-weeks in each of the cities. In the old days, they used to call the national theater tours “bus and truck” tours. The cast would travel by bus and the sets, lighting rigs, costumes and props would travel by large trucks. We would bus to some cities and fly to others. We started in Washington, then on to Richmond, Nashville, Atlanta,  Sarasota, Miami, St. Louis, Kansas City, Dallas, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Denver, Houston, Cincinnati and finally in Chicago. 

     When we were in Dallas, the company held a replacement audition for some of the lead roles and I decided to go for the role of Perchik, the student who marries the second daughter. It was a major role with a major vocal solo, so if I won the role I would no longer be in the chorus. Know, however, that being in the chorus was great fun as I got to play several of the other roles along the way. I u

nderstudied the Constable, and also got to play the Rabbi in one performance. But, being a lead singer in a Broadway musical would also be a fabulous opportunity. Miracle of miracles (that’s another song from the show) I was offered the part. But at the very same time, Tom Smith the Production Stage Manager, was leaving the company so his job was also going to be open and, amazingly, they offered it to me. Instant dilemma. What to do? Becoming the guy who runs the show on the road was a huge job but it would mean I would have to forego my acting/singing role to be totally focused on the production side of the theater.

     It actually turned out not to be a hard choice because the stage manager role paid $200 more a week than the acting job, so I made the decision based on the economics of the deal. Done. I was now running the show on the road. Yet another great big Wow.  

     As you are about to see, this little decision didn’t turn out to be so little after all. It truly changed the entire trajectory of my career path.

     The next stop for the show was Los Angeles. I reached out to some old friends at Disney to come see the show and have dinner with me while we were in town. You might remember the name Bob Allen. He was the General Manager of the Disney operation in Denver that had hired both the Hustlers and The Five Part Invention to perform in their swanky supper club, The Cart and Rib Room. He, his wife, and a couple more Disney execs came along and we had a great time together reminiscing about the “good old days”. Great fun to see them.

     So, the show wraps in Los Angeles and we are now up and running in San Francisco when I get a call from one of the VPs at Disney. Evidently, they saw me in a different light as a production guy now and they made an offer for me to come to Disneyland and become the production stage manager in the Park.

     Wow! That actually took my breath away. But after thinking it through, I called them back and turned them down with the explanation that I really was happy in the theater and was on a path to become a top character actor, like unto a Jack Lemmon (one of my acting idols) and that I was anxious to get back to New York after the tour and start pursuing that career, which was my original intention in going there in the first place.

     We had four more cities scheduled before we wrapped the tour, and the next stop was my home town…Denver.

     We started in January of 1971 and we would finish in Chicago sometime in June. It really was a fabulous experience. Bob Carroll was our star, our Tevye, who with his vast theatrical experience had earned his name “above the title” and Fritzi Burr, who had been on Broadway in “Funny Girl” played his wife, Golda. They were really wonderful people who taught me a lot about being in the theater. The entire cast was extremely talented and, happily, they were also terrific people. It was truly one of the highlights of my professional life to have been in this company and to perform in this classic show.

     The tour comes to and end and we get back to New York and whaddya know…all the upcoming shows were cast and there were no acting jobs available. Needing to work, that led me to make a call to the good folks at Disneyland to ask if their offer was still on the table. Amazingly, it was. So, a deal was made and I packed up my car and started my second cross-country driving trip in less than a year.

     What a whirlwind I had just been through these past 10 months! I came to New York in October of 1970, actually made it into a major Broadway show, toured all over the country, became a production guy along the way, and now early in July of 1971, I was headed back out west into what would become giant part of my professional life for the next several years.

     Disneyland…here I come. 

The Denver Post – April 30, 1971

“Mike Wuergler Back in Denver” by Madelene Ingraham

     Late last October, Mike Wuergler arrived tired and bleary-eyed in New York City. Well known in Denver as a singer and comedian, he had decided a few weeks earlier to put aside this successful career and try his hand at acting.

     This week, Mike is back in Denver as stage manager of the touring company of “Fiddler on the Roof” playing through Saturday at the Auditorium Theatre. To say that he has “made it” in theater in this short time would be an overstatement. But events in the last six months of Mike’s life tell a tale of happy improbability that is a giant step in that direction.

     Mike Wuergler is perhaps best remembered as the lead singer and bass player with the Hustlers, a folk pop trio that played club and concert dates all over Denver, Aspen and the Midwest from 1962-68. Later he put together the Five Part Invention that headlined at Taylor Supper Club and on the West Coast.

     “Theatre has been in my blood and my family since I was a little kid,” the stocky, dark-haired, blue-eyed Mike said in a recent interview.

     “My grandmother was Dorothy Dean, the silent movie star, and my mother sang with the big bands in the 30s.

     “Somehow I had gotten off into the music field, though, and it wasn’t until last year when Bill McHale cast me in the Country Dinner Playhouse production of ‘Oklahoma!’ that the acting bug really bit me again.

     “I was 28, had little actual theatre experience outside of college and knew the odds were against me. But I just had to try New York…”

     Two weeks after his arrival in the Big City Mike had a job. He was hired as stage manager for the Off-Broadway production of “The Immaculate Misconception.”

“It was a terrible show,” Mike confessed. “It closed after one night. Even Clive Barnes walked out.”

     Undaunted, Mike next signed with the Children’s Theater International, a professional company that toured the city presenting quality children’s theatre productions from around the world. He was featured in “Hans Brinker and the Silver Skates.”

     Two weeks later, he auditioned for and won the role of the lead Russian tenor in the national touring company of “Fiddler on the Roof.” His first professional performance was at the National Theatre in Washington, D.C. less than two months after he’d left Denver.

     Then, early this year, while still on the road, the stage manager left the “Fiddler” company and Mike fell into that job.

     His duties are the actual technical running of the show, keeping it moving calling the cues and lights and keeping the production true to the original direction.

How does Mike feel about the technical end of theatre a opposed to acting?

     “It’s a great discipline,” he said. “My theater experiences at the University of Colorado brought me a discipline which I used in my night club work and music. Backstage is even more. Everything has to click and be just right. I’m enjoying it, plan to use it, and most of all I’m learning by it.”

     “That’s the lovely thing about this business, you’re always learning from it,” he said.

     From Denver, Mike and “Fiddler” go to Houston, Cincinnati and Chicago. From there he doesn’t know where because the new Broadway strike deadline in June 1 “and we may all be out of a job.”

      “I’ve got several options, however,” he continued. “One is to stay in acting return to New York and go back to auditioning. Or, I can stay in production, stay where I am with the Harold Prince people. I love touring and living out of a suitcase. I had an uncle once who ran off with the circus in 1910. I think that’s in my blood too.’

     “One of the things I think I would really like to do is take a job that was recently offered me by the Walt Disney studios in Los Angeles. Then again I could go back into the music business.

     “And old friend, Peter Martin, in out in L.A. writing for television and wants me to come out there and do some song and comedy writing.

     “I’m really very loose on the whole thing. But then I’ve always been very loose. I’ve had a little angel on my shoulder that just always seemed to have floated me off in the right direction.”

     Angel, luck or just plain determination, Mike Wuergler seems to have the magic.

Welcome to the Big Apple...

     I drove into New York City at the height of the annual Columbus Day Parade which blocked my way to get to Mike Burke’s apartment on the Upper West Side for several hours. I remember thinking that if I was going to be delayed, what better place to spend a couple of hours than in the world-famous Stage Deli. This was the first time in my life that I had been to New York before so be assured that I had planned to visit every clichéd site and truly take it all in. So, why not start it all off with a giant legendary kosher pastrami sandwich at a legendary dining spot?

     George had arrived a few days before me and we got settled into our new living quarters. This was a one-bedroom and all Mike had for us was a fold-down couch, which we had to share. Truly less than ideal, but hey! We were livin’ the dream, right?

     I started going on auditions right away, and if there is anything in the universe more humbling than NYC Theater auditions, I wouldn’t know what it would be. Most of them had all of hopeful actors standing in a line opposite the director and producer and sometimes, the casting director and wait until they either pointed at us to stay or gave us a curt “thank you” and out the door we’d go, on to the next “cattle call” as they were known. 

     Every one of my auditions that first week ended in a “thank you”.

     What I came to realize was that if you didn’t visually fit the director’s image of who/what he wanted in whatever role, it wasn’t worth his even being nice about it. For example, if the leading lady in the show was over 5-foot-10, then I might as well not even bother showing up.

     I also came to learn that to attempt this brutal experience you had to have a solid sense of your own self-worth as well as needing your ego to be fully in check and tied down really tight. 

     My very first job in New York wasn’t an acting job at all. Mike Burke got me hired as the assistant stage manager in an Off-Broadway show that was beyond terrible. The Immaculate Misconception (trust me, the show was far worse than the title) was being funded and directed by a theater-wannabe from somewhere out in Indiana who wrote it, produced it, and starred in it. The two weeks of rehearsals that were absolute agony and I had a feeling that this show was doomed from the very beginning. Sure enough…all the critics actually walked out an intermission, and the guy announced right then and there that his show would be closing that very night. At least the check cleared!

     My very first acting job was being cast as the Doctor in Hans Brinker and the Silver Skates,Bur which was being produced at the Papermill Playhouse over in New Jersey by the National Children’s Theater.

     My very first theater job! I was really in heaven, until I learned that the show would only run two weeks. Well, ok…it’s a start.

     George was doing far better than I was with auditions, most likely because he looked like a leading man and had a powerful singing voice. He would eventually wind up spending several years in such long-running hits as Stephen Sondheim’s A Little Night Music and Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Phantom of the Opera.

     But, my Broadway dream was about to come true.

     Mike Burke told me that the National Touring Company of the giant Broadway megahit, Fiddler on the Roof was recasting the next day. Boy, did I jump at that opportunity.

     The auditions were held in the wonderful old Majestic Theater right in the heart of the theater district just off Times Square on 44^th street. This grand old lady had housed some of the theater’s most famous shows: Carousel, South Pacific, The Music Man and Camelot just to cite a few. 

     The auditions were right out of every theater folklore story I had ever heard. I  checked in at the door with the person with the clipboard and then just waited in the wings for my name to be called. When they said “Mr. Wuergler” I walked onstage to find a guy at a piano and one spotlight into which I walked. The house was completely black so you couldn’t see anyone out there at all.

     A deep and resonant disembodied voice boomed out from the blackness, “What are you going to sing for us Mr. Wuergler?” Since I was going for the role of the Russian Tenor I announced that I would sing that part of one of the big production numbers from the show, “L’Chaim – To Life.”

     At one point in the show, the Russians have interrupted the wedding celebration and this guy (me) gets up on a table and belts out this ringing high-G, holds it for what seems like forever until everyone at the wedding is looking at him, then slides down the scale into what amounts to a blessing on the happy couple and the family.

“Za va shas da rovia

Heaven bless you both nazdrovia

To your health and may we live together in peace”
(By the way, I wish I had a photo of me in the show. Sadly, I don't. So, I inserted this photo just to give you an image of what my big moment on stage would soon look like.)

This interruption does, in very deed, stop the show and is an absolutely wonderful moment for the singer. So, I sang my heart out in that little part hoping to impress the folks out there in the darkness and as I ended, I heard the standard, “thank you” and walked off into the wings and out onto 44^th street and took the subway home. 

Where, of course, I nervously waited by the phone.

Two hours later the call came in from Hal Prince’s office that yes, I had the part and would need to join the company up in Toronto, Canada that next Monday to

start replacement rehearsals.

I could hardly breathe. I was in a Broadway show.

Well, actually in a Broadway show that wasn’t actually on Broadway, but for me…close enough!

The Theater Calls…

     Well, my rock ‘n roll days are now over. The Five Part Invention dissolved in a very friendly way after Peter and Susie Martin bought a house in Pasadena and Jan was headed back to Colorado to get married. So, for me, it was time to see if I could make my childhood dream come true of being a working actor…eventually, of course, in a Broadway Show. Remember that I told you that through all four years of high school I was in every possible drama, comedy and musical they produced and really came to love everything and anything about the theater, even hanging lights and painting sets.  

     A very cool new dinner theater had opened that summer in Denver – The Country Dinner Playhouse.

     A very familiar face in the Denver night club scene, Bill McHale, was the producer/director for both venues. There was a sister-theater of the same name in Dallas and Bill’s operation was to have different shows running in both houses for 3-weeks, then the Dallas show would move to Denver and the two casts would switch. It was pretty much a travelling repertoire arrangement.

     So…heaven smiled on me once again as Bill cast me as Ali Hakim, the comedy lead in the Broadway hit classic, Rogers and Hammerstein’s wonderful Oklahoma!

     Yes, getting the part was not the highest highlight for me in this opportunity. Getting my union card, however, truly was! By being cast in this show, I was now a fully-vested member of the Actor’s union – Actor’s Equity.

     This was a really big deal as struggling actors can go for a very, very long time and never get their card. The “catch-22” in the theater business in that you can’t be cast in a show if you don’t have your card and you can’t get a card unless you are cast in a show. Getting it in a regional dinner theater was yet another of heaven’s blessings to me.

     Dinner theater is a whole different animal from doing a show on a large proscenium stage. The audience is right up in your lap and the show, of necessity, can’t be as large a production in such tight quarters. But, boy is it fun to do!

     I had met George and Georgia Lee when they were in Bill McHale’s Highlights of Broadway cabaret show in one of the city’s finest supper clubs. George had this great booming baritone voice and Georgia was a fabulous singer/dancer. George played the romantic lead, Curly and Georgia and I played opposite each other, she as Ado Annie and I as the wily Persian peddler. What a terrific show this turned out to be.

     After we moved the show to Dallas for the next three-week run, Bill was casting his next production, The Boy Friend, a show that was pure fluff, pure fun and pure “camp”. He gave me a role in this new show that would really test me and get me up on my feet as a dancer….most definitely not one of my acquired skills.

     So, sure enough, it was time to dive right into the deep end and start learning to dance with Georgia Lee as my very patient teacher.

     But first…the beard had to come off and I had to transition from dirty old man into the young boy dancer. I had really come to like the beard but, anything for my craft, right? 

     

     This show was a heck-of-a-lot of fun and had a very, very different feel from the first one. Audiences loved this one too and the cast was once again, loaded with mega-talents.

     George Lee and I became good friends and we made the decision together to head out to New York City after this last show had wrapped. It was time for us to go for the “big time” and see if we could “cut it” in The Big Apple.

     We had met and made friends with Mike Burke, who played Jud in Oklahoma! He had invited us to stay with him in his Manhattan apartment while we made the rounds and went to auditions. So, as soon as our obligations to dinner theater were complete, off we went.

     A fabulous summer in the theater came to a close. Broadway here I come! 

     I also thought you might enjoy a newspaper article and a couple of quotes from the reviews that were published during our run.

The Dallas Morning News - September 1, 1970

“Wuergler Bounds Through Life” by Francis Raffetto

     In “The Boy Friend” at Country Dinner Playhouse, a character, Bobby Van Husen, keeps bounding in high leaps across the stage, dressed in striped blazer, white flannels and tennis shoes, as if to ask “Tennis anyone?”

     This character and bit of stage business so accurate for this spoof of the 1920s, belongs to Mike Wuergler, 28, an alumnus of a bouncy singing group now turned actor.

     “Our director, Bill McHale, told me to go from one place to another and that seemed like the best way to get there,” said Wuergler, a Denver native who has a degree in radio and TV production and knows where he’s going dramatically.

     “The Boy Friend,” the most successful show for Country Dinner in its short span, was extended for one 2-week period and then for another fortnight, to end with Sunday’s show.

“It’s high style, very camp, fresh and honest,” analyses Wuergler. “People think it’s fun, and I think that Bill McHale’s enthusiasm had much to do with it.”

     It was also the vehicle for the early Julie Andrews when she first came to these shores.

Wuergler was front man for the Hustlers, modern singing group with three men and a girl which lasted for eight years. The youngsters got together at the University of Colorado and became especially great in the ski country around Aspen.

     “Aspen is the hippest audience,” said Wuergler. “Seattle was the slowest for current events and humor appreciation.”

     Wuergler’s show biz roots run deep. His distant cousin if our own Mary Martin. His grandmother, now retired safely to Aurora, Colo., was the silent screen’s Dorothy Dean, who batted her eyes, guarded her virtue, was tied to railroad tracks and clung from cliffs before riding off into the sunset with cowboy stars Tom Mix or W.S. Hart. And his mother was Kay Robinson, a vocalist for the swing bands of the 1930s.

     Mike never had doubt about his career. After eight years writing and leading the Hustlers (night clubs mostly) he was happy over his first two stage roles, both for Country Dinner: Ali Hakim in “Oklahoma!” and now Bobby Van Husen in “The Boy Friend.”

     Does he find it hard to dance opposite Georgia Gray Lee in the latter? “No,” he smiled. “I’m not so much a dancer but what the business refers to as a mover. I move well.”

     Somewhere in the off-stage world there is a Wuergler benefactor, who evidently saw him in a college show. When Mike was too broke to start his sophomore year at UC, an anonymous benefactor sent the school $500 for him.

     The stipulation was that (a) he would continue his show biz career and (b) he would pass it on to some other youngster some day. 

Dallas Morning News Reviews

‘Oklahoma’ Revived Again by John Neville

“…But, as we said, the audience didn’t seem to notice anything but the music – much foot-tapping and humming or soft singing along – and the broad comedy scenes, especially those which highlight the Persian peddler, Aki Hakim, wonderfully characterized by Michael Wuergler – a truly funny man.”

“A Bright ‘The Boy Friend’ by Olin Chism

“…So many other characters are so good that it’s hard to know where to start discussing them. Michael Wuergler, though, and Georgia Gray Lee are nearly irresistible as another young couple, both of whom have their 20s spoofery down pat. Wuergler’s bouncy Bobby Van Husen is a pleasure to watch.”

“The Twenties Roar at CDP” by John Neville

“…Bubbly Georgia Gray Lee and Michael Wuergler (both of whom appeared at the CDPs – “Oklahoma!”) are a scream as Maisie and Bobby.”

    Time to Change the Music...

     

     When the Beatles invaded the country in 1964, and then were quickly followed by such groups as The Rolling Stones, The Doors, Herman and the Hermits, et al. – folk music took a cultural nose dive in the U.S. Even though the Hustlers were now more of a lounge and concert act than a true folk group, we still were struggling with what might be next for us career-wise in this new musical climate.

     Yes, it was a whole new era and Jan and I made the decision to re-invent ourselves musically. We said a fond goodbye to Chub and Twerp, and I have to say that was bittersweet after a fabulous seven-year run together, and started re-engineering the act. 

     We felt we had a strong base upon which to build with Jan’s highly marketable musicality along with my own pretty-well now developed comedic chops. Now what?

     It was a blessing from on high for us to have found Peter Martin in Denver. Here was an absolutely over-the-top talent and a wonderfully delightful person who, when he played his piano, you would have thought he had 13 fingers on each hand. He was beyond phenomenal on the keyboard. I mean his skills were absolutely dazzling.

     After making friends with Peter and his beautiful new wife, Susie, we created a three-way partnership, went out and searched for and found a truly outstanding bass player, Joe Bellamy, along with one of the all-time best drummers I’ve ever heard, John Pesci.

     Enter a brand new band – The Five Part Invention.   

     The harmonies we created and the music that began to flow out of all of us, was really, really exciting. We were good at the start, but we continually improved over the next two years and wound up being an excellent act.

     We found ourselves retracing some steps that Jan and I originally made with the Hustlers…the Cart and Rib Room, The Red Onion and once, amazingly, we were the opening act at Red Rocks Amphitheater – this time for reigning Motown royalty – Diana Ross and the Supremes.

     We moved to California and got an agent who immediately booked us to open for the hottest act on the charts at the time - The Righteous Brothers.  I mean Wow!

     We were together for a little over two years and never quite broke through to the rarified atmosphere of true national “stardom” but we made great music together, worked with some real rock stars, and had some truly fun times along the way all the while solidifying true forever friendships.

     My Musical Career Begins...

     So, back to school I go. What a marvelous blessing to have someone interested enough in me as a performer to ask about me personally and then, miraculously, care enough to make the very kind and generous gesture of giving me the financial ability to just worry about school-work and not about having to work-work. What a fantastic gift.

     My first semester after the USO tour was truly eventful. To start things off, I pledged to Phi Delta Theta national fraternity and joined that wonderful group of men by moving into the grand old frat house on College Avenue where I was to make life-long friends and have one heck-of-a lot of fun in the process.

     Next, the CU University Theater was producing a big musical that spring semester, so of course, I auditioned and won the comedy lead role of Mr. MacAfee, the Dad in Bye Bye Birdie. Wow…what an absolute hoot that show turned out to be. Great fun, great friends, great music, great audiences and yet another validation of my great love for musical theater.

     

     And the really big happening – the one that was going to wind up financially supporting me through the next 7 years – was teaming up with two new friends who shared my love of performing and who invited me to help them create a little folk music group, which was the current popular music of that era. So, my banjo-playing fraternity brother, John Hunt and a wonderfully talented guitar-playing graduate student from Idaho, Mel Anderson (who was called Chub from the time he was very young) convinced me to sing along. Since I couldn’t play a guitar, the most logical instrument for me to get was a big ‘ol bass fiddle.  Since I played the trombone, it was the most logical since moving the slide on the horn was closely akin to shortening the strings on the bass. I went out that very afternoon and found a pretty good-sounding (and not too awful-looking) instrument in a second-hand store, and just like that, I became a folk-music guy.

     What a fabulous musical ride was about to begin!

     It was three weeks before spring break and so we decided to take a road trip, singing for our supper along the way. We practiced every afternoon, and built up a repertoire of 15-20 of the most popular folk songs of the day.

     And, you know what? We were actually pretty darn good. The music was fun and happy and we were having an absolute ball making good sounds together. We really clicked.

     I bought a used Ford convertible, and we put the top down so the bass fiddle would fit in the back seat, filled up the tank and off we went for spring break – to college campuses in Phoenix, Tempe, Tucson, San Diego, Reno, Salt Lake City, Cheyenne and then back to Boulder.

     We stayed in our fraternity houses along the way and sang for our supper in every sorority house we could find, all the while honing our performance and tightening our harmonies.

     
     It was a fabulous trip.

     Back in Boulder, classes were back in session but we needed a gig. And, it really wasn’t very hard to get them in and around Boulder and Denver. Everywhere you looked there were college-kid-oriented beer halls that wanted live music to draw the drinking crowds. It was in those fun-filled places that we started to really build a following and, we kept getting better. 

     I was the “front-man” making the jokes and introducing the songs. And, after about a year of doing that, we had started to build a pretty solid reputation. We produced a marketing brochure, bought a van and painted our name on the side of it, and got a pretty big sound system that we carried with us to all our jobs.

     Oh yeah…our name. We called ourselves The Hustlers and defined that as “those who are enthusiastic about work and play.” It was a great name for the times we lived in and had no negative connotation at all…not back then. Today, it’s a different story, right?

     Our career took a huge turn when we started moving out of the beer halls and into the full-on “elegance” of lounges and proper night clubs, such as Denver’s most famous jazz room, the Senate Lounge, and one of the better dinner clubs in town, The Terrace.

     The biggest step for us however, was being hired and booked to perform at Denver’s most up-scale of those clubs, The Cart and Rib Room.

     It turns out, this place was actually run by the Disney organization as a training spot for managers who had been tapped to eventually open and run Walt Disney World, several years into the future. We were truly in our element in that venue and, thankfully, we would be invited back to this wonderful dinner club many, many times. Walt Disney himself was actually in the audience one night. A true breathtaking experience.  

     This is also where we met two men who would change our lives. Bob Allen, the General Manager for this Disney enterprise, who would later become the head guy at Walt Disney World when it opened in 1971; and, Morrie Bernstein, who, for some reason, really loved us and practically adopted us as part of his family. Amazingly, he put up a whole bunch of money for us to travel down to Las Vegas and record several songs, which he would then put out on his very own record label, Finer Arts Records.

    
      Wow! We were now recording artists in the folk music genre and our music was being played on the radio. The first song we recorded, “Julianne” actually got as high as #18 on the local Billboard Chart.

     One of the true joys in our musical career path was being invited to open for some of the national touring stars in one of the most amazing outdoor concert venues in the world – Red Rocks Amphitheater. Look up this venue on the internet please because I want you to really see how fabulous it truly is. We were the opening act for two really big stars of the day…Trini Lopez and again the next year for Peter, Paul and Mary. 

     The audience was 14,000+ and, with the seats raked upwards from the stage, the first giant wave of applause we received for our opening song literally pushed us back. It was absolutely magical. 

     
     Along the way, we changed the make-up of the group. Chub and I being the two originals who stayed because John chose to leave the band for his personal career education reasons. We were now no longer a trio, but now a full quartet, first by adding Chub’s long-time Idaho cowboy buddy Adrian Anderson (called Twerp by his friends…no, seriously, Twerp Anderson and what a wonderfully gentle soul he is.)  And the super-talented woman who would turn us into a far more classy group, Jan Camp, who would become the absolute best addition we could have made. She, and her astounding collection of truly phenomenal musical talents, would take us to new heights. 

     I think the real highlight of our many years together, was becoming the regular house group at the most famous restaurant/night club in Aspen, Colorado…The Red Onion.

     We started out as the Après-Ski entertainment in the afternoons, and after a year of making our musical “bones” in the eyes of the exec chef/owner, Werner Kuster, he placed us as the main act in the night club. We had made it!

     Another great perk about being in Aspen in the winter, is that all of the Texas Ski Clubs would vacation there, catch our act, and then invite us to their great big ‘ol Texas Country Club golf tournaments in the summers. Could it get any better?!

     Living in Aspen and Vail for part of the year, however, did take its toll on my college education for darn sure. Since we were travelling year-round and performing at college concerts and being the headliners for many corporate business meetings all over the west, I only took on 3-5 hours of classes each semester. As a result, it took me 3 years longer to graduate. I started out in the class of 1964, but didn’t get my degree until June of 1967.

     My running joke was, “some of the best years of my life were spent in the senior class.”

     The Hustlers and our particular brand of music and our night club act was a huge part of my life and I hold many, many fond memories of fabulous trips, great concerts, wonderful audiences and a heck-of-a lot of great music lovingly and happily created by great people who truly loved each other. And, most importantly, over those seven years together, I cultivated dear, dear forever friendships that I continue to cherish to this day.

     And, remember, that my secret benefactor’s gift had only seen me through that one semester. But it was enough, because meeting Chub and John started me along the path of actually making a living with my music and truly paying for my own college education.

     What a tremendous blessing folk music turned out to be!   

PS: Here's one of our wonderful reviews that I thought you might enjoy too..,

Review by Barry Morrison, the Entertainment Editor of The Denver Post May 3, 1968

THE HUSTLERS, POLISHED STARS, LIGHT UP CLUB SCENE

               Mark this down. The Hustlers are the most improved, polished bunch of entertainers that I’ve seen in a long, long time.

               It seems only yesterday they were kids singing for pay to get through college. Now, in their appearance at the Chateau, they are complete pros, delivering devastating shows that have you laughing and singing.

               You might have a tendency to compare their verve and vivacity to the Back Porch Majority, but truly, these kids have an image of their own and it’s all upbeat.

               Take Mike, the leader. When he started in the business he was new to comedy… His quick wit saved him a lot of the time. Now, he’s the complete funny man, delivering dialogue with magnificent timing and throwing in quips that rock the audience with laughter.

               Mel and Adrian come on strong in their primarily back-up roles, occasionally coming front-stage to bop the listener’s with rousing solos.

               And, there’s that cute little bundle of charm, the girl named Jan, who will woo every male heart in the crowd with something like Gentle on My Mind.”

               Incidentally, the Hustlers have just recorded another album to go with their “Ski Country”, and it should be on the record shop shelves sometime next week.

               This one is called “The Hustlers in Action,” and was recorded live last winter at their engagement at the Red Onion in Aspen.

               After you have been to the Chateau and have seen this marvelous group, you will know that the only thing that stands in the way of their eventual national fame is simply a matter of time and exposure.

               By the way Mike Bisesi said that the new group the Pocketful of Change, was so successful this past week when they appeared on the bill with Josh White that he’s bringing them back this weekend to second the Hustlers.

               That makes for a lot of music in one package.