Savvy had become everything for me; my job, social scene , creative outlet, and pretty much - my world.  The mere thought of not being a part of it anymore made my stomach hurt. I hated the fact that we'd been running into all kinds of problems at almost every gig we'd played recently.  Touring on the road was expensive even when things were going smoothly. But things hadn't been going smoothly at all. Our truck was costing a lot of money in repairs, Cardi's managers had been trying to cut our pay through a series of underhanded methods, such as docking us for things that made no sense. Clubs were closing, and the entire music scene was changing. We were stuck in a good dream that had gone bad. 

Rare circumstances required that someone from the band would have to ride with the crew to Waco in the equipment truck. Wanting to be a sport, I volunteered. It wasn't that the company would be unpleasant, but the vehicle left a lot to be desired when it came to basic comforts. The crew told me that if I wanted, I could make a nest in the back with the equipment and try to sleep during the drive. That sounded good to me, so I took a sleeping bag along and wedged myself into an area on top of what appeared to be Dan's organ (we're talking musical equipment here!) I was all the way towards the back so that when the door was rolled up, I was right there in view. Off we went, and I actually found it to be an acceptable trade off; it was a little bumpy, but I got to sleep. Things went just fine until the truck had a blow out half way between two towns! 

Ambrose and Rabbit decided to try to walk to find help. I stayed with the truck. Hours went by before they returned. They said they'd called a local tire service, but it would take special equipment to change the tire on our truck. We waited several more hours. Finally, what looked similar to the Beverly Hillbilly-mobile pulled up behind us, and a half dozen Mexicans jumped off of it with various rusted tools. Their foreman took the lead and began giving orders. I watched from the side of the road. With my limited knowledge of changing a tire on a large truck, I would have thought they were attempting to destroy our vehicle rather than fix it. There was beating and banging and sledge hammering, and cursing. But eventually they got us back on the road. Turns out they knew what they were doing, and if they'd only had the correct tools, it probably wouldn't have taken them three hours to do it. God bless them. 

Rabbit (from Gladewater) worked as light man
for Savvy, then RLP, and then Savvy again.

I figured that we'd gotten our curse for this road trip out of the way, but there would be more. In Waco, Rabbit was trying to hook up the dimmer pack for the new lights we'd just bought, and somehow he started a fire! We had to do without lights on that Tuesday night gig. Rhonda called to leave a message for me to call her on break. When I did, she was having really bad stomach cramps, and had been X-rayed earlier in the day. We ended up fighting during the long distance phone call while I was standing at a pay phone in Waco. Playing Waco still meant driving an hour and a half each way to work every night, but at least we got to sleep in our own beds - if we wanted to. I asked RJ to ride with me so I wouldn't get stuck in a car with Dan. We were still at odds as a result of the Pasadena incident, when he'd pushed me off the stage.  I truly liked Dan and wanted things to be different, but we just clashed like nothing I'd ever experienced with anyone on the planet before. So we had to make the best of it. RJ was hot and cold with Dan, but for the time being, they weren't getting along either. 

After a week in Waco, we were booked back at Savvy's in Ft. Worth for two and a half weeks. During our first week back, we heard the news that Ricky Lynn Gregg had hurt his back while playing at Matley's. That didn't surprise me, since Ricky was always pulling stunts and getting hurt. But this one topped all the others. He'd been hanging from the rafters, upside down, playing his guitar during a set, when he fell! He landed on a shot glass and had hurt himself pretty badly.  This is how it was reported in the December '84 issue of Buddy Magazine...

"Rocker Ricky Lynn will most likely be keeping his show on the stage from now on. During a recent performance at Matley's Phase II, the singer/guitarist was hanging at the ceiling when the cable came loose and he fell. Fortunately at tequila sunrise broke his fall, but the glass shattered and cut him badly enough to force the last set, after hours, to be cancelled with a full house. As fate would have it, veteran drummer Gabriel Saucedo (Phren-Z, Brat) was in town scouting members for a new project. He rounded up Texas Tornado guitarist Rocky Athas of Lightning, original Lightning bassist Mike Hargrove, and ex-Caper vocalist Wade Michaels, and the We-Remember-Mother Blues Band was formed. They hammered out every Grand Funk and Humble Pie song ever recorded and the crowd loved it. Ricky is feeling better now and on December 15 will be drawing the name of the winner of a free guitar at Muzik Centre, as well as hosting a guitar seminar at the Fort Worth music store where he buys his guitars and strings and sheet music to "Cuts Like a Knife". 

Ad appearing in Buddy Magazine for personal appearance by RLG. We
couldn't help noticing that Ricky was sporting a new hairstyle, complete
with bangs, and was wrapping a long riveted strap in an "X" across 
his chest. It seemed he was really trying to re-invent himself.

I cut the article out and filed it away with all the other news clippings about Ricky that I'd come across since he'd left Savvy. I couldn't help going back and reading an article that had been in the September 13, 1983 Star Telegram. It was titled "Savvy singer rocks into a solo career". I knew the middle section  by heart...

Jerry Hudson, Gregg's manager and also the former manager of Savvy, says the split was amicable. "Nobody's mad at anybody. This was strictly a business decision. In fact, Ricky Lynn plans to play Savvy's (nightclub on East Lancaster) soon. So everything's cool," Hudson said. "It's just that when you try something for three or four years and it doesn't seem to be progressing, then it's time to try something different. It's hard to say if Ricky Lynn is making the right decision because Savvy's got a good name and the band is extremely popular. In fact, I've told the guys in Savvy that I'm not sure this is the right thing to do. But Ricky Lynn's going to keep going."

During a break at Savvy's in Ft. Worth, Laurie got my attention back by the door to the dressing room, and nodded for me to come back to where she was. I followed her into the employee's restroom, in the back by the dressing room area. I locked the door and asked her what was going on. She looked incredible, as usual. We rarely got to visit anymore since Ricky had moved out, and we missed each other. There was no big news flash, other than to tell me that she and Ricky were still drifting further apart with every week that passed. Much like Rhonda, Laurie had realized that trying to have a real, honest, full time meaningful relationship with a rock and roll musician who is on the road most of the time, was like trying to breathe underwater without scuba gear. She'd been drowning in her own tears for so long that she was just about cried out. As she talked, I couldn't help wondering how I'd been able to keep things plutonic between us for so long, but we had.  Something in Laurie's eyes seemed to tell me that she was thinking the same thing, but it was most likely only wishful thinking on my part.

Laurie and I had been like siblings for almost 5 years. She was such a sweet and beautiful girl that I had to get really good at blocking out any personal thoughts about her. That was the relationship we'd forged, and it was apparently in stone forever, no matter what kinds of silly thoughts we might have entertained in those dream sequence-like moments alone, like the one in the employee's restroom that night. Rick was on stage kicking the bass drum, our cue to come back for the next set. Someone was rattling the door knob; probably one of the other guys in the band hoping to use the bathroom before the set started. Laurie and I spontaneously hugged.  It was like saying hello and goodbye at the same time. I opened the door and we walked out into the hallway. Whoever had been trying to get into the restroom was gone and the hallway was empty. She paused, turned back to me, and told me she was lucky to have me as a friend. Then she was gone.  It took me a minute to pull myself together. She'd taken my breath away.

We made it to the end of November alright, and on Friday December 7, we showed up at rehearsal to work up new songs. But instead of rehearsing, Rick Miller sat us all down and gave us a grim report. Business had been falling off at the club when we played there, while several of the new "MTV" type heavy metal bands were pulling in substantially better crowds. He was frustrated and it showed. As he talked, he seemed to get more and more agitated by the whole thing. And finally he got tired of mincing words and just came out and basically told us we'd been fired from Savvy's!

Rick and his sister Jan had gotten into a heated conversation on the phone during which Jan had allegedly told him that the family (club owners) had come to actually hate it when Savvy played there because business was so bad. Rick had put on his "band" hat and tried to defend us, but the pressure from his family had been more than he was able to deal with, so Rick spouted off back to her that he would tell the band that we weren't wanted there anymore, and that the coming Sunday would be our last night there. 

Rick was truly in between a rock and a hard place on this one. As an owner he had to look out for the family's investment in the club, which had been substantial over the years. But there was also a part of him that had loved making a living playing music. He'd made records, played major concerts, and come very close to making it to the big leagues. It was torturing him to have to let that go, but business was business. He'd been the leader of the band through all the good times, but now he was having to lead during the bad. He'd made an executive decision. I thought the whole thing was a bit vague because he didn't seem to be saying that we were breaking up. We just weren't going to be playing Savvy's anymore after Sunday. I wasn't sure what it meant.

Getting "evicted" from our own house gig at Savvy's Nightclub was a tough pill to swallow. We had always assumed that the Savvy's gig would be there, no matter how tough things got out on the road. But suddenly we were having to face a completely different reality. There was no rehearsal that day. Rick had said what he had to say and  we just ended the meeting and went our own ways to cogitate on the big news. To me it just felt like I'd had the crap kicked out of me - AGAIN.  

Fortunately, things would turn out to not be as bad as they'd seemed. Once Rick reported back to his family that we'd had a meeting and that Savvy had been told they weren't wanted at Savvy's any longer, the club owners did a 180 degree turn. Suddenly they seemed embarrassed about being so harsh with Rick about us. My guess was that the family had gotten into a heated discussion about business and it had led to Rick getting tired of being blamed for things being slow when we played there, so he probably just told them we wouldn't play there anymore. At Savvy's that night, the owners were bending over backwards to show they were sorry about the whole thing, and some were even in tears over it. We were told that they didn't mean for it to come to that point, and we would always be welcome to play at Savvy's. But Rick wasn't ready to budge yet. He was holding their feet to the fire, and claiming that we'd been shown the door and we were out of there. It was a brilliant bluff.  He didn't want to hear anymore crap about Savvy being responsible for all the club's problems. 

The other owners persisted until Rick finally agreed to play out our scheduled dates at the club. We were booked for dates at Savvy's for another two or three months. After that, nobody could say what would ultimately happen to Savvy.

Jim Wise had come into a great job with a computer company and was making decent money. He bought a huge house in Arlington and needed a room mate. He called me to see if I'd be interested. After driving over and seeing the place, I was extremely excited about it. There was just one problem.... what to do with Rich.  Jim said that Rich was welcome to move in too. There was plenty of room, and once Rich saw the house, he was sold too.  Finally we had something to feel good about again. And on top of the situation with the house, we were also discussing another ski trip for January! 

CHAPTER 62:  THE NOWHERE MEN

SAVVY STORY INDEX

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