April Fool’s Day has come and gone once again with a big fat “SWOOOSH.” My long time friend and radio host Bill Wax commemorated the moment — as he does frequently — on his WPFW-FM band, with a theme motif (Saturday was the first, ego “Fool” songs).
“Fool, Fool, Fool” (D.C.’s own Clovers). “I pity the fool” (Bobby “Blue” Bland), embellished with Wayne Bennett’s snaking Gibson ES325 guitar lead — Mr. T would have to stand in line! “Get Yourself Another Fool” (an early Sam Cooke classic melancholy rant); and so on. Etta James (“Why Was I Such A Fool”), Dinah Washington (“I Won’t Be Your Fool Anymore”), and Sam Cooke again (“Drinkin’ and Gamblin’, Stayin’ Out All Night, Livin’ in a Fool’s Paradise). Oh, the list continued into the evening hours.
But the man who commandeered the long, oak-plank jam table in the dim and smoky Dan Lynch’s Blues Bar on lower Second Avenue in Manhattan was a wise old soul indeed — even when his sultry eyelids hung at half mast as he cradled a deep goblet of house rosé. Mister Bill Dicey (“Di-CHAY-a”), he’d oft remind us — harking to his Southern Italian origins.
As the frizzy-haired “Murch” and John Allan took the stage, crunching “axes” over Bob Shatkin’s wailing Hohner harmonica, Bill, his florid face tightening and his push-broom mustache wriggling, growled at the musicians.
“Listen to me… Listen to this volume!” He pointed emphatically to his jug ear. ‘Goody,’ on the drums, whacked the snare a couple more times, then dropped his sticks.
“Johnny,” Dicey motioned to me with a husky whisper. “Take a fool’s advice. When you get up on the stage, don’t rush it. And for God’s sake, don’t push it. Just let the Blues flow through you like grease lightning.”
A few minutes later, two distinguished luminaries from “R&B Valhalla” sauntered in, through the swinging doors of Lynch’s Bar. On the left, with a hip goatee and heavy horn-rims, legendary songwriter Doc Pomus. To the right, towering titan of Kansas City vocalese, Big Joe Turner. Bill nodded, high-fived the gents of swing, and introduced me as “Johnny-B-Goode, aspiring guitar man and singer.” Big Joe chortled, and made an uncanny prognostication: “This boy will be a worl’ beater one day!”
With that, Mister Bill Dicey shoved me to the mic, grabbed his “harp” and joined in for “STORMY MONDAY BLUES.” When it was over, my fingers were bloody. Doc Pomus handed me his business card, embellished with a steam locomotive. Guess I had arrived.
