Countless wonderful perks came from being a member of Savvy. We'd been enjoying those perks in abundance and counted our lucky stars every day. It was a truly magical era for me in which everything touched seemed to turn to gold. It didn't matter that it was usually Fool's gold. I didn't know the difference. Even not getting to play the Texas Jam had turned out to be a blessing in disguise. (If we'd played that show it would've been over at 10:30 am before a quarter-full stadium. As it turned out, people would be talking about us getting ripped off by the Eagles manager for DECADES to come.) But when things go that well for that long, something is bound to eventually happen that brings everyone back to reality. For me it was the night the house on Green Acres was robbed.

Sometime between 9 pm and 1:30 am on the night of December 7th 1980, (a night that will live in infamy) - Savvy played what seemed to be another routine gig at Savvy's Nightclub. At that same time, across town, burglars entered the big Savvy compound on Green Acres. They took guitars, recording equipment, and all other electronic equipment they could find. In addition to robbing the place, they also inflicted as much destruction to the place as possible. This wasn't just a burglary -- it was a personal attack on the band.

Both Ricky and I lost several guitars each. All the "stuff" I'd been accumulating since joining Savvy was gone; they took my microwave, VCR, stereo, an amplifier, speakers, and some cash they found in a drawer that was earmarked from the band to pay my dad back for his financing of our 45 record. But even more heartbreaking than losing the guitars, money, and other "stuff" -- the worst part for me was what they'd done to my record collection. While unplugging stereo and recording equipment from the shelves in my room, they found the big TEAC 4 track reel to reel deck too heavy to deal with, so the simply dumped onto the floor what they couldn't carry with them; my record albums, tapes, four track recorder, and all other items on the shelves. Then it appeared they'd stomped on the record albums in order to break as many of them as possible. In the process, they managed to destroy the most prized possession I owned. It was an old 33 rpm record album of various country artists, including a song featuring my uncle.  Okie Jones had made many recordings back in his day, but most were on old 78 rpm records. This compilation album on the Crown Records label was the only song he had put out on a high fidelity 33 rpm record. It had been in my dad's collection at home, but I'd borrowed it a while back to play for Ricky and it had been with the rest of my records the night of the burglary. It was completely destroyed; smashed into at least a dozen pieces -- and the album cover was ripped to shreds. Of everything I lost that night, all could be replaced except for that album. It had been entrusted to me and I let the family down. At least that is how I looked at it.

One of Ricky's guitars stolen during the burglary at Green Acres.

Coming home from the gig and walking into that mess was horrific. The further I walked into the house, and into my room, the more I felt that I simply wanted to die. The only things they couldn't take were my water bed (too big) and the big console RCA TV that Lilly had given me (too difficult to get to because of the bed being in the way.) I know that Ricky lost a couple of guitars too, but I'm pretty sure I took the biggest hit by far. I had a lot of "stuff."  The other guys really didn't have much of anything to steal. It was about 3 am by the time I got home from work. The fact that ours was the only house on the block with all the lights on at that time of the night wasn't unusual.  I figured some of the other guys had made it home before me and a party was likely getting underway. Then I realized that a police car was in the driveway... 

Bob had come home from the club early and had found the door busted in. As each of the room-mates arrived home from the club the story would have to be retold again. Nobody had seen anything. Nobody had heard anything. There were no obvious clues to go on. Despite all the standard crap the detectives were telling us, we could sense that they didn't really give a damn about what had happened to us. In fact, if the truth had been known, they were probably reveling in our misfortune. We were long-haired party animals living in the very heart of an otherwise quiet neighborhood. There was no-telling how many phone calls they got from our neighbors each night reporting noise and other disturbances. Good riddance to us. 

They took a few notes and left. Still in shock, I went out and sat on the sidewalk and just stared back at the house. I tried to find words for my feelings and could only imagine it being akin to being raped. We'd been violated. Our space had been invaded and our stuff was gone. There seemed nothing we could do about it but start cleaning up the mess and moving on. If only Ricky and I had been more on the ball about moving out, we might have been spared.

Once we'd gotten over the initial shock of being burglarized, we started asking ourselves and each other who could've done such a thing. Pretty quickly we surmised that this was the work of someone who knew us, and knew when we were not home. But that didn't require a genius detective mind, and wasn't much help. Anyone could call Savvy's and find out what nights we would be playing. It became apparent that we'd somehow been asking for it, without knowing it. Hell, this could've even been the handy-work of an angry neighbor who'd grown sick and tired of the noise and traffic at our place late at night. It could've been someone needing money for drugs who knew we would likely have easy-to-pawn items. Or maybe it had just been a random burglary. We couldn't figure out what had happened and feared we might never know. One thing was for sure though. We had to quickly come to terms with the fact that not EVERYBODY was a Savvy fan. 

On December 8th 1980, the day after the burglary, Ricky asked me if I wanted to get out of town and go back to his hometown of Longview to try to get the burglary off our minds. Ricky was an even bigger star in Longview than he was in Ft. Worth, if that was possible. He'd been the hometown boy who did good. Everyone knew who he was and a lot of Longview residents were big Savvy fans because of our Ricky connection. Ricky had always been extremely close to his family and was a self-professed "Mama's Boy." His mother, Lucille, had always been at the center of Ricky's universe. His dad had been a farmer and country preacher, and Ricky had started singing gospel songs from the time he could talk. Any time Ricky Lynn Gregg came home to Longview to visit, the whole town seemed to know about it. Lucille's phone would ring off the wall with the same question I would come to know so well; "Is Ricky there???" The local radio stations would be broadcasting open invitations for him to come by and visit on the air. Just about every musician in Longview would start preparing for a big night of music somewhere in East Texas. The funny thing is that all he really wanted to do was go home and relax. That was usually the primary purpose for the trips home, but after a few hours of being with the family, and hunkering down with his mom's famous home cooking, he would retire back to his old bedroom, and that's when the restlessness would start to set in.

On this particular trip, Ricky and I had taken along a camera and cheap tape recorder. On the way, Ricky showed me some of the landmarks of his early career in Longview. I photographed one which was nothing more than a clearing in some woods just off the road. Ricky told me it was the site of the first club he ever played at. The building had recently been torn down. The tape recorder was for recording the silly bits, songs, stories, or other things we did to entertain ourselves and pass the time during the drive. (Those tapes are quite entertaining to listen to even all these years later! We had a lot of fun.) 

After a warm welcome home and a hearty meal, Ricky signaled for me  to follow him to his room. We sat around and just picked on acoustic guitars and talked for a while, but it wasn't long before he was itching to get out and make the familiar rounds. First stop was to a local record store where we signed some autographs and posed for some photos. Then we visited a local radio station and did a short impromptu interview. By the time the Longview nightlife kicked in, we found ourselves hanging out at a big club called City Limits. The huge marquee outside the club said "STEPPENWOLF."  

Ricky and I looked at the marquee and then at each other with huge grins. We couldn't believe our luck. Savvy was scheduled to play with Steppenwolf in Dallas and Houston the following month! We figured this would be a great chance to get acquainted with them ahead of time, making our future gigs together less impersonal. Once it had been announced that we would be opening for legendary John Kay and Steppenwolf, I did a little research about them. I knew their songs, who was in the current configuration of the band, and what they looked like. I don't know who the band was on stage at the City Limits Club that night, but I knew it wasn't the REAL Steppenwolf. Ricky and I may have been among only a few people in the entire place who knew these guys were frauds, but we didn't want to ruin it for everyone. They weren't even trying to look like the real deal. It was sad and funny at the same time. 

The club manager asked Ricky to get up and jam, and he dragged me up with him. Suddenly, the fake Steppenwolf found themselves being our backup band for a few songs -- something that never would have happened if John Kay and the real Steppenwolf had been there. At some point, the FAKE Steppenwolf guys gave up on trying to pretend to be the real thing and we all just had a good time playing for a while as the event turned into a jam session. Several of Ricky's musician friends from Longview sat in as the night went on. One of them was Sammy Brazier, Ricky's longtime best friend from school. 

Sammy still lived in Longview and played in bands around the area. After the gig, Sammy invited everyone over to his apartment. Every party animal in Longview must've been there; even members from the FAKE Steppenwolf band dropped by. The place was full, music was playing, the lights were low, and clouds of exotic smoke hovered in the air. A TV was on in one room with the sound turned down. I was weary from the drive and all the day's activities, but was feeling no pain and in no hurry to go anywhere. This was a welcomed break from the gloomy happenings back home as a result of the robbery. The house was filled with that noise that happens at parties where people are trying to talk over the music and each other, but you can't really make out any of the conversations unless you are in them. I was leaning against a wall with a drink in my hand and had casually scanned the room, ending up gazing at the meaningless images on the TV screen. Suddenly, something on the tube caught my attention but I couldn't quite decide what it had been. I continued to watch with minimal interest, just to see if I could make out what was going on without listening to the audio. I watched a series of talking heads mouthing words -- like a fish out of water trying to breathe, looking very serious as if something grave had happened. At first glance I decided it was probably just a late rerun of the local news. But then came the images of England, followed by old footage of the Beatles playing on the Sullivan show. "Perhaps a Beatle documentary..." I presumed, just about to lose interest in the whole thing when a stark image of John Lennon filled the screen, and remained there for a few moments. I felt compelled to strain my blurry eyes to try to focus on the text at the bottom of the screen. What I read sent a shock through my whole body, as if I'd been sucker punched; "John Lennon - October 9, 1940 - December 8th, 1980."

Surely I'd missed something. Looking around the room, I could see that the party was going on without missing a beat. Nobody else had been watching the TV. If anything had happened to John Lennon, this would be a somber time, wouldn't it? Shouldn't it? Or would things just keep going on as usual? Or had this awful thing happened earlier in the day and Ricky and I had been the only one's to miss it? I couldn't stand by and just ask myself stupid questions any longer. I needed to find out what was going on. I tried to press through the crowd to get to the TV, but had little luck, so I started trying to shout at someone near the TV to turn on the volume. My voice just blended in with all the other noise in the room, but a few people were noticing me waving my arms and saw that I wasn't joking. I realized I was closer to the blasting stereo than I was to the TV, so I pushed my way over and pushed the POWER button, killing the music. The chatter of voices continued. There was one thing left to do. I just shouted at the top of my lungs to get everyone's attention. I realized that if something bad hadn't actually happened, I was going to look like a real fool, but this seemed for real and I had a really bad feeling about it. It was a gamble I had to take. 

Finally the room quieted down and I asked someone to turn up the TV. All heads turned to the TV screen and soon the only sound in the room was the voice of the reporter repeating the breaking story for anyone (like us) who might just be tuning in. John Lennon had been shot dead! There were spontaneous outbursts of swear words and some began sobbing. Even with all the people crowded into the room, it was an intensely private and personal moment for me - the moment it really sunk in -- and I began sobbing too. We were witnessing a profound moment in history. My eyes scanned the room, taking in the pained expressions on every face. I knew that I would never forget a single thing about that entire night. And I haven't.

There's nothing like the death of a Beatle to clear a party in record time and bring down a room. Just one day earlier, Ricky and I were thinking about how bad our luck had been with being burglarized. "Oh what could be worse?" we'd asked ourselves. "Why was this happening to us?" we moaned. The death of John Lennon made us forget about our own little problems. For the next few days, all anyone could talk about was the shocking news coming out of New York City about Lennon's shooting. The whole world felt the loss when John died, but those of us in the music business seemed to take it a little more personally. The cloud seemed to hang around longer and loom a little lower. The knee-jerk response for many was sadness that a true Beatle reunion would never be possible again. Yet upon a little more reflection, people began to understand that one of the composers of the soundtrack of our generation -- a true musical genius -- was gone forever. 

Back home, Ricky and I made getting out of Green Acres our number one priority. It only took a week, and I have to give a lot of credit to Ricky for doing so much legwork in finding the apartment at Sleepy Hollow. It was in the same complex where Rick and Hud lived, and only a few buildings away from Pantego Sound Studios where the Savvy album was being recorded. It was perfect. The neighbors across the hall, and above our apartment were all Savvy fans so we weren't going to be frightening any little old ladies with our appearances. Nobody would mind us coming and going at all hours. And we could walk to the studio! Since I was footing a lot of the initial move-in deposits and costs, Ricky insisted I take the master bedroom. It still took getting loans from mom, brother Chris, and Rick Miller, but we were able to swing the deal. The band got another raise on December 14th and that helped a lot. The $100 Christmas bonus per man helped a lot too. There was a nice living room, which had an ideal layout for my furniture, and there was a small dining area by the kitchen, which we converted into a music recording area. But the first thing people noticed about our apartment, and the thing I'll always remember most, was the blue carpet!

We packed up and hauled ass out of Green Acres in record time. We'd been warned by the Sheriff that we weren't welcome there, and we didn't really want to be there anyway. So on the night of December 19th 1980, Ricky and I spent our first night in our new apartment at Sleepy Hollow. That was also the night of our Savvy's Nightclub Employee Christmas party. The next day, I cried for John Lennon again, but this time it was in the privacy of my new bedroom in my new apartment.

December 1980 felt more like a full year than it did a single month, and it wasn't over yet. Our records were playing on the radio, our house was burglarized, we met a fake Steppenwolf, John Lennon died, we got a new apartment, the band got a raise, and we had a Christmas party at Savvy's and all got Christmas bonuses. Even with all that, we still had a few days left to go before we could put 1980 behind us. The neighbors upstairs at the new apartment liked to party a little more than we'd hoped, and we had to talk to them about it a few times, but they were cool about it and the problem went away. Savvy was asked to play at the Agora Christmas Bash in Dallas. We did it as a favor to Eddie and our friends at the Agora. Of all the bands in North Texas, they asked us to play their party, and that meant a lot to us. It was a great party too.

The Agora Christmas Bash put everyone in a good mood and also signaled the start of a week of vacation! I had to borrow $200 from Rick Miller to pay dad back for his investment in the 45 record deal. We had most of it put back to pay him, but it was stolen during the Green Acres ordeal. This meant that ultimately, I would be paying for the Savvy 45 record project on my own. For vacation, Rick Miller went to Vegas, Ricky went to Longview, and I enjoyed having the apartment to myself! During the week off I managed to fix our washing machine with a tennis shoe, went to Spencer's Corner a couple of times, partied at Hud's a night or two, and spent some quality time with my family, which I hadn't done in a while. Our friend Judy was working at the Playboy Club and invited me to come over and hang out there with her and Ilene one evening. When she got off work, I invited Judy back to the apartment for candlelight crepes. Sounds dreamy, but we were just friends, and I knew she had a big thing for Ricky anyway. But we still had a great time trying to figure out what the hell crepes were.

I killed some time at the Agora. RJ was filling in with a country gig with our ex Desperado band buddies Jim Wise, Jerry Coker, and Carlton Tanner. They were playing at a club out on the South Freeway. I sat in one night, making it a complete reunion of the original Desperados lineup. As soon as vacation was over, we were back in the studio recording "I Won't Call It Love", "Love Light", and "Long Way From Home." Rusty Burns dropped by our apartment one night and watched some TV and jammed with Ricky a bit in our makeshift studio. Ricky and I decided not to get a phone for a while.

Sometime during the last half of December of 1980, one of the undisputed most beautiful girls in the entire history of Savvy's Nightclub came in and sat down at a table fairly close to the stage. I noticed her immediately and was counting the minutes until a break would come so I could go over and introduce myself. There was always the possibility that maybe our resident ROMEO, Ricky Lynn, had been jumping around so much that the new beauty hadn't seen him close enough to be under his spell yet. It was always worth taking a chance and at least giving it the old school try. As the set came to an end, I set my guitar down, jumped off the side of the stage, and made it to her table in record time. It was time to launch "the shoulder" into action!

Even in the semi darkness of the nightclub I could see that she was stunning. Her hair was dark and long. Her features were picture perfect. She had the face of a supermodel and an angel at the same time. The reflection of the mirror ball over the dance floor sparkled in her eyes. At first glance, and second, and third -- this girl was definitely my idea of perfection. All of this processing happened in the instant before I leaned in to introduce myself and welcome her, and her friend (another girl), to the club. As I positioned myself across from them, my heart was skipping a beat every time an occasional bright dance floor light illuminated her face. Her name was Carla and she was delightful to talk to. She was very outgoing and personable. There was a very cute lilt to her voice, and as she spoke I imagined her trying out for Miss America and being disqualified because no other contestants would have a fair chance against her. Carla impressed me THAT much.

Carla's friend dated Rusty Burns from Point Blank. That gave us some common ground to talk about. We visited for a while and I bought them a round of drinks. I asked if they had plans for after the club closed, but she said they would be leaving during the next set. The 20 minute break flew by and Rick was kicking the bass drum, our signal to come back to the stage for our next set. Then I had a grand idea! I asked Carla if she would like to go to the Steppenwolf concert at the Agora that we were playing in a few weeks. To my surprise, she said she thought it would be fun, but she was having to take care of her grandmother that week and wouldn't be able to go. I was so dazzled by her that I didn't get discouraged, and suggested we try to plan something next time she came out. We said goodbye and I seemed to float back to the stage on a warm, happy, sappy cloud. I played the rest of the night with a special spring in my step as thoughts of a possible date with Carla filled my head.

After Carla left, RJ and Dan were giving me the "WOW SHE'S HOT!" look as we played. She was HOT alright. She was gorgeous! She was smart! And she had already decided that what she wanted was on that stage! She wanted to be Mrs. Rick Miller. Well take THAT Ricky Lynn! I'd been so busy trying to make an impression that I didn't give her a chance to tell me about the mad crush she'd had on him since the night she'd laid eyes on him! The picture would all come into focus when she showed up as Rick's date to the Steppenwolf concert. But that was still a few weeks away, and I was still free to let the thought of her roam around in the warm fireplace lit cabin of my mind. At least for a little while longer anyway...

Savvy played New Year's Eve at Savvy's and then we had a little get together at the apartment afterwards. Most of the band showed up, and Ricky's Longview buddies Terry and Brillo drove in to town and stayed over. I'd just met a really pretty blonde named Kelly and had invited her to come by. She had a little too much to drink and turned into a really obnoxious wench! She was throwing out insults at everyone there and the guys were laughing their butts off at me for getting stuck with her. Luckily, she ended up nodding out on the couch, and we entertained ourselves by re-dubbing a movie.

After everyone crashed, or went home, I curled up in my giant waterbed with my journals and started tabulating. In 1980, I had played 269 nights at Savvy's Nightclub, 13 nights at the Dallas Agora, 1 night at the Houston Agora, 1 night at the Wintergarden, 4 nights at Mother Blues, 1 night at Sneaky Pete's, and played 2 days at the Six Flags Music Mill Theater. That came to a total of 291 gigs in 365 days, and not once did it ever feel like work!

CHAPTER 15: Steppenwolf and Travel Hosts

SAVVY STORY INDEX

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