Pittsburgh Music Scene from 1968 to 1974

Welcome to Rock and Roll Flashback!  I'm Jumpin' John, and I am calling this podcast episode the "Pittsburgh Music Scene From 1968 to 1974".  We are going to drift back through the fog of time - back some fifty years or so - and test our fading memories.  Since I essentially left the Pittsburgh area in 1968 to go to college, I need to contact someone who was still in Pittsburgh during those years.  His name is David Shannon, and he has promised to share some of what he remembers of the Pittsburgh music scene during the late 1960's and early 1970's.

So I managed to catch up with David Shannon.  We live in separate parts of the country, so I have created a compilation of a couple phone conversations that we had in October and November 2024.  What follows is one man's perspective on the Pittsburgh music scene from 1968 to 1974.

All podcasts on the Rock and Roll Flashback Podcast are produced by brothers-in-law Bill Price and "Jumpin' John" McDermott. The Podcast Theme Song, "You Essay", was written by John. It was initially recorded by Bill and John on April 1, 2004 with several revisions since then.
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Until next time...
Rock On!

Transcript

Thank you for that introduction and welcome to Rock and Roll Flashback!  I am calling this podcast episode the "Pittsburgh Music Scene From 1968 to 1974".  We are going to drift back through the fog of time - back some fifty years or so - and test our fading memories.  Since I essentially left the Pittsburgh area in 1968 to go to college, I need to contact someone who was still in Pittsburgh during those years.  His name is David Shannon, and he has promised to share some of what he remembers of the Pittsburgh music scene during the late 1960's and early 1970's.

I'm your host, Jumpin' John, and I was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania - the blue collar city known for its iron and steel.  In fact, my parents were in the iron and steel business.  You see, my momma would iron and my poppa would steal!  At any rate, the Pittsburgh area has always had a vibrant music scene.  Prominent musicians from the area have included such diverse performers as Billy Eckstine, The Marcels, The Del-Vikings, Perry Como, Bobby Vinton, Wiz Khalifa, and Christine Aguilera to name a few.  In a separate podcast I will focus on three other Pittsburgh area acts from the early 1960's:  Lou Christie, The Vogues, and the bands associated with Sonny DiNunzio.

Back in the 1950's and early 1960's the record stores were selling tons of vinyl singles in the 45 rpm format.  Those pop singles were usually only 2 minutes or so in length, and they worked well on AM radio.  AM radio was king in the 1960's, and that's what teenagers like me were listening to.  Pittsburgh had several influential radio personalities during this AM radio era.  These DJ's had the power to plug songs and influence the buying public, resulting in a few songs actually being launched nationwide from the smaller Pittsburgh market.  A few of the prominent Pittsburgh DJ's back then were "Porky" Chedwick on WAMO,  Clark Race on KDKA, Chuck Brinkman on KQV, Terry Lee on WIXZ, Bob Mack and "Mad Mike" Metrovich on WZUM.  I will go into greater detail about each of these six personalities when I do that separate podcast discussing Lou Christie, The Vogues, and Sonny DiNunzio.  By the late 1960's the record industry was witnessing increasing sales of LP rock albums.  There was a corresponding gradual transition of listeners from the pop singles being played on AM radio to the higher-quality stereo sound of FM radio.  The FM airwaves offered space to try new things in an era defined by experimentation.  Listenership was rapidly growing, FM radio stations were making their presence felt, and they began playing extended album cuts.  Pittsburgh's KQV-FM would eventually evolve into the locally dominate FM station WDVE.  Today WDVE is still going strong using a classic rock music format.  It is now owned by iHeartMedia and is also the flagship station of the Pittsburgh Steelers radio network.  In fact, since 2006 DVE has been the highest-rated radio station in the Pittsburgh market, surpassing longtime market leader KDKA. 

So I managed to catch up with David Shannon.  We live in separate parts of the country, so I have created a compilation of a couple phone conversations that we had in October and November 2024.  What follows is one man's perspective on the Pittsburgh music scene from 1968 to 1974.

[Beginning of telephone interview]

•JJ:  Welcome back to Rock and Roll Flashback podcasts!  I am pleased to have on the phone with me a native Pittsburgher, who has some firsthand knowledge of the late 1960's/early 1970's music scene in the Pittsburgh area.  He is my longtime friend and a fellow Gateway Gator, David Douglas Shannon!  Welcome to the podcast, David!

•David Douglas (DD):  Thanks, Jack.  It's great to be here, wherever we are!

•JJ:  Well we're kinda lost in space.  We're separated by a few thousand miles, but we will make this thing work.   Since this is called Rock and Roll Flashback, we're going to transport our listeners back in time and test our memories of Pittsburgh's music scene in the late 1960's through the early 1970's.  Now I have mentioned a few prominent radio personalities and DJ's earlier in the podcast.  I know he wasn't a big name in the Pittsburgh radio market, but wasn't your roommate a DJ for the Point Park College radio station?

•DD:  Yes, he was.  My roommate, Lee French, was a DJ at Point Park from 1969 to 1970.  His time slot was the 8pm slot.  He called it the Kinetic Audio Visual Experience (the acronym KAVE).  It was a new format for radio that college stations were known for called AOR, album oriented rock , as opposed to oldies.  Lee was one of the pioneers in that.  

•JJ:  You don’t know if he went on to a DJ career, or was that just something he was doing for fun?

•DD:  That was just something he was doing for fun. 

•JJ:  Back then Pat DiCesare and Rich Engler were doing a lot of the booking and promotion of bands in the greater Pittsburgh area.  While in college, you briefly worked as a booking agent.  Can you tell us a little bit about that?

•DD:  Sure.  In 1971 my future wife and I were living on Grandview Avenue in the Mount Washington section of Pittsburgh.  I was attending Point Park College when I met 21 year old Joe Riccelli.  We were both Point Park students at the time.  At Joe's suggestion we decided to become booking agents, booking bands in Pittsburgh.  We called ourselves Fly By Night Productions.  

•JJ:  Fly By Night… 

•DD:  Joe was the impetus for starting the agency.  He had a rivalry with another booking agent, Rich Engler and Paul Saint John, and he wanted to compete with them.  Paul Saint John was also known as Paul Overdorf, who went to my high school, Gateway Senior High in Monroeville.  

•JJ:  Paul was in your class, I think.  So whose idea was it to come up with Fly By Night?

•DD:  Mine.  We had business cards printed up with silver lettering on black background

•JJ:  Oh, OK.  So, Joe was in it for the rivalry.  What was your motivation?

•DD:  I was in it for the money.  Joe had contact with Pittsburgh's #1 band, Scarab, and decided that we should open an agency to book them.  We had a small office in the Oakland area of Pittsburgh, next to a "teacher recruiting" office.  On one occasion, Marie Hill (who was a Gateway High School French teacher) stopped into our office and surprisingly recognized me. The last time she had seen me I had a Beach Boy haircut, and by the time I got into the booking business I had long hair, and she still recognized me.  It was kind of a shock, and it was funny. 

•JJ:  I'll say.  You and Joe thought alike? 

•DD:  No.  Our partnership - we were nothing alike.  It was an odd relationship.

•JJ:  Uh huh.  How did you initially get connected to rock bands?

•DD:  We first had to go through the Musicians Union and get approval to book union bands.  The big bands were all union at the time.  And we had to meet with the Musicians Union in a smoke-filled, dimly lit room in Pittsburgh with the union reps.  We had to get their approval to book bands. 

•JJ:  Well, how did that go?

•DD:  The meeting was very intimidating.  The union reps seemed like shifty characters.  It was like a sit-down meeting with organized crime.

•JJ:  Boy.  Right out of The Sopranos or Godfather!  How did you start booking bands, once you were approved by the union?

•DD:  The first thing we did was we held a concert at the Pittsburgh Playhouse to introduce our agency to club owners, because they were going to do most of the booking.  The concert featured Scarab, Freeport, and another band.  I don't remember their name.  One of the odd things that happened during that concert is my parents wondered what I was up to, and they attended the concert.  They were in their late 50's.  They were dressed in formal attire.  My dad was wearing a suit.  My mom was wearing a dress, and they stood out like sore thumbs.  Everybody else wearing tie-dyed tee shirts and bell bottoms.

•JJ:  Sure. Sure.  You look at photographs from back in the day in the late 60's at NFL games or at the World Series.  Everybody's dressed up.  All  the men are wearing their hats and their suits, and the ladies are wearing their dresses. So that was a time of transition, let's say that, in wearing apparel.

•DD:  Definitely.

•JJ:  So you kicked things off.  Then what happened?

•DD:  Well, we first started booked union musicians only, with Scarab from Detroit being our primary focus.  They were the top band in Pittsburgh.  There seemed to be a strong connection with other Detroit bands coming to Western Pennsylvania.  Detroit was getting overpopulated with bands like Ted Nugent, Bob Seger, MC5, and Scott Richardson Case.  We also worked with a band called Freeport from Youngstown, Ohio and a band called Chameleon from Pittsburgh.  We didn't have much contact with the bigger Pittsburgh area promoters like Pat DiCesare or Rich Engler, but we did have a connection with club owner Bob Mack.

•JJ:  Why don't you share with our listeners how that connection with Bob Mack came about?

•DD:  Well, the back story is we wanted to book Scarab and a few other of our other bands with Bob Mack's club, the White Elephant.  Bob Mack offered a deal to us that, if we took care of the Kinks and Argent that he had promoted in a concert in Pittsburgh, he would book our bands.  So the gig with the Kinks we coordinated with Bob Mack, who, in addition to owning clubs, was a prominent area DJ and concert promoter.

•JJ:  I believe that concert was on September 1st, 1972.  Do you recall where it took place?

•DD:  Yes, it took place at the Syria Mosque in Oakland.   

•JJ:  What were Fly By Night's duties for the concert. 

•DD:  There were just a few of them.  We had to meet the band at the airport, and the only two members of the band who showed up were John Dalton and Mick Avory, the bassist and the drummer.  Ray Davies and Dave Davies never showed up.  So we took a limo from the airport to the Holiday Inn in Monroeville, where the band was staying, and we ran into Ron Argent, of Argent.  You know the "Hold You Hear Up" group?

•JJ:  Uh huh.

•DD:  And he suggested that we go to the cocktail lounge and have a drink.  Well we got to the cocktail lounge and there was a band up on the stage playing songs like "Jeremiah Was a Bullfrog", and they were dressed in powder blue tuxedos.  

•JJ:  Oh boy!

•DD: And I'm sure they did weddings over the weekend.  It was kinda odd because there was a band playing on stage, and the only people in the cocktail lounge were a bunch of businessmen, blurry-eyed businessmen, and their female acquaintances.  They were probably good musicians.  So when the band saw that Ron Argent and John Dalton were there and they recognized them they suggested they come up on stage and join them in playing a song.  I don't remember what the song was, but it was so weird because they were playing to a bunch of people who had no idea who they were.

•JJ:  Ha!  That's amazing.  

•DD:  And it was kind of just an odd situation.

•JJ:  Oh, yeah.  Well Argent, wasn't he one of the main people in the Zombies?

•DD:  He was.

•JJ:  "She's Not There" and songs like that, so maybe they did "She's Not There"?  Who knows?  Who is going to remember?  OK, so in the end did Bob Mack keep his word?

•DD:  Yes, he did.  He booked Scarab and another band called Jailbait.

•JJ Well, good.  Anything else you can think of from the Kinks concert that would be of interest to our listeners?

•DD:  Yeah, I can.  The next day after we had the meeting at the Holiday Inn, we went to the Syria Mosque to do the sound check, and in addition to that we had to oversee that the rider was fulfilled.  The rider for the Kinks was basically cases of beer.  Kinda weird.  But it ended up that Ray Davies squirted most of the beer over the crowd.  

•JJ:  So they used the beer, not for their own refreshment, but for keeping the crowd cool.

•DD: Yeah.

•JJ:  That's neat!  Do you remember any of the song titles that Scarab did?

•DD:  Yeah, there were three that I remember off hand.  "I Got To Show You", "Magic Eyes", and "The Meat Song".  I don't know what "The Meat Song" means, but that's the name of it!

•JJ:  Is Meat spelled M-E-E-T or M-E-A-T?

•DD:  M-E-A-T.

•JJ:  M-E-A-T.  Hmm!  Didn't Scarab go to Ft. Lauderdale, Florida occasionally?

•DD:  Yeah, every year they had a regular gig  in Fort Lauderdale during the Spring Break.  They went down there for two weeks.  They were very popular in Ft. Lauderdale and in some of the other areas of Pennsylvania.

[Well, here is a sample of music by the band Scarab]

[A sample of "The Meat Song"]

•JJ:  Dave, what can you tell our listeners about Bob Mack's White Elephant?

•DD:  In 1960 Bob Mack purchased the Belvedere Club on Lincoln Way in White Oak, Pennsylvania, and he renamed it the White Elephant.  He turned it into an under 21 club.  He held dances three or four times a week.  In early 1960's Mack booked live acts at the White Elephant.  Some of those included Chuck Berry, the Coasters, Smokey Robinson, the Drifters, Gary U.S. Bonds, Bo Diddley, and the Shirelles.  In the rock era of the late 1960's he booked Bob Seger, Ted Nugent, Styx, Lynyrd Skynrd, the Bachman-Turner Overdrive.  Mack took on two partners and renamed the White Elephant the Zodiac in the early 1970's and sold the Zodiac in 1975.  

•JJ:  And I guess by that time you were done with your booking career.  Speaking of Bob Seger, I think your agency also had some involvement with Bob Segar.

•DD:  We did.  As far as the talent agency business, our primary focus was booking bands in local clubs - not concerts.

•JJ:  OK.

•DD:  We did do concerts though.  Just a few of them.  Bob Segar was one that we did totally on our own.  For the Segar show, they all arrived in a crowded bus:  the band, the equipment, the crew, the roadies.  A friend of Joe's from Fox Chapel came into some money and wanted to promote a concert.  He had no idea what to do, so he came to our office and and we were leafing through Rolling Stone magazine, and randomly turned to a page that mentioned Bob Seger.  We decided to promote the event.  We called his agency and agent in Detroit, and picked the Kittanning Skating Rink for the venue to hold the concert.  We and put it together in 3 months.  One of the things about it that was really odd is that I had to go to the Western Union office in downtown Pittsburgh with $5000 in my pocket.  Cash.  And walking thorough crowds of people I had to take it to send it to the agency in Detroit.

•JJ:  I'll bet you were nervous doing that!

•DD:  I was!

•JJ:  So you took $5000 cash…

•DD:  So the Bob Seger concert was held at the 3,000 seat Kittanning Skating Rink.   Unfortunately, there were only around 600 in attendance for the arena that held 3,000 people.  It was so poorly attended I had to cut Bob Seger a check in the office at the end of the day.  I admit that we did a terrible job booking the band and promoting a concert.  

•JJ:  Was this during Bob Seger's Silver Bullet Band days? 

•DD:  No they hadn't come along yet.  All they were known for at the time was the "Ramblin' Gamblin' Man".  His band then was called the Bob Seger System.  In the early 1970's they didn't have the other hits like "Katmandu", "Night Moves", "Main Street", and "Old Time Rock and Roll". 

•JJ:  OK.  You had mentioned Bob Mack's White Elephant club in Pittsburgh's eastern suburbs.  There were a couple other dance clubs east of Pittsburgh near Greensburg that were (pardon the pun) making a lot of noise back then:  The Thunderbird Lounge (also called the T-Bird) and the Red Rooster.

•DD:  Yes, they were popular.  I was familiar with both venues, and I went to the Red Rooster frequently.  Once Beatlemania hit the United States in the mid 1960's, teenage nightclubs became sort of a national fad.  

•JJ:  OK.

•DD:  Of course, that was before the disco days took over in the 1970's.

•JJ:  One interesting story about those two Greensburg venues concerns a five man band called The Raconteurs.  The band was mostly made up of music majors from Latrobe's St. Vincent College.  In the mid 1960's The Raconteurs were regulars at the Red Rooster and also played occasionally at the T-Bird.  One night in 1966 your acquaintance Bob Mack showed up at the T-Bird with a singer named Tommy Jackson, and Tommy sat in and sang with the Raconteurs.  At that time, Tommy had a promising song he recorded with a studio band called Tommy James and the Shondells, and he needed a live band to play behind him.  So Tommy Jackson became Tommy James, The Raconteurs became the Shondells, "Hanky Panky" became a nationwide hit, and the rest is history!

•DD:  The Red Rooster was also known for having teenage dances, but they had saw some big name bands there as well.

•JJ:  Oh, yes.  In the late 1960's Red Rooster headliners included bands The Turtles, Janis Ian, The Outsiders, Mitch Ryder & the Detroit Wheels, Sonny & Cher, The Cyrkle, and the aforementioned  Bob Seger.  They also showcased two other Pittsburgh acts who went on to national fame:  and The Vogues and Lou Christie.  And my notes say that R&B acts that played at the Rooster included Aretha Franklin, Peaches & Herb, the Capitols, Junior Walker & The All Stars, Little Anthony & The Imperials, The Temptations, and Wilson Pickett.  Getting back to your agency, this must have been really challenging for you, as a small agency trying to compete with promoters the likes of Bob Mack, Pat DiCesare, and Rich Engler!

•DD:  It was!

•JJ:  Can you share some background information about Pat DiCesare?

•DD:  Pat DiCesare was a Trafford native.  He was involved in bringing the Beatles to Pittsburgh in 1964, which was a real coup.  Pat was tough competition because he was a dominant promoter in the Greater Pittsburgh Area, and he had exclusive leases with the Civic Arena and Three Rivers Stadium, so he was promoting almost all of the large rock concerts that played in Pittsburgh.  

•JJ:  OK.

•DD:  He was also promoting shows at many of the surrounding secondary markets such as Erie and Johnstown.

•JJ:  How about Rich Engler?

•DD:  Rich Engler was a Creighton native who was a drummer with "Grains of Sand," a Pittsburgh area band.  Engler and Paul St. John formed the Go Attractions booking agency in 1969.  Their offices were in the Shadyside area of Pittsburgh.  Engler also acted as a promoter with a separate company called Command Performance.  Command Performance was promoting in the secondary markets like Johnstown, Erie, Altoona, and Hagerstown.  DiCesare controlled much of the Pittsburgh concert venues at the time. 

•JJ:  So Fly By Night was up against some stiff competition?

•DD:  Yes, it was.  Engler must have known that change was coming because in 1972 Go Attractions began liquidating their agency.  However, in October 1972 I got married, and my involvement in booking took a back seat to marriage and classes at Point Park College.  Also Scarab decided to go back to Detroit, and left their North Hills home.  So the booking agency was over. 

•JJ:  OK.

[Here is another sample of music by the band Scarab]

•JJ:  Do you happen to know how DiCesare-Engler come about?

•DD:  I do.  Rich Engler had caught Pat DiCesare's eye as an up-and-comer.  In late 1973 Engler got a call from DiCesare to combine forces, as DiCesare-Engler.  They totally dominated the rock promotions to the Greater Pittsburgh Area.  DiCesare-Engler went nationwide.  In 1978 their production company would rank #2 in the US behind Bill Graham Presents!

•JJ:  That's pretty impressive.  They got big!  Any unusual stories you can share about DiCesare or DiCesare-Engler?

•DD:  Yeah.  DiCesare also managed a band called Katzenjammer Kids.  They were horrible.  

•JJ:  Ha!

•DD:  They played McKees Rocks bar a lot.  They were supposed to be the next Jaggerz.  Such lofty goals.  

•JJ:  Yeah.

•DD:  Pat had them open for his shows.  We saw them with The Three Dog Night at the Civic Arena in 1971.  It was there that they announced that they had changed their name from the Kattzenjammer Kids to Thy Brother's Blood.   

•JJ:  Thy Brother's Blood.  That's an interesting name!

•DD:  They were still bad.  The name change didn't do anything to improve their performance.

•JJ:  You mentioned the Jaggerz.  They were big in Pittsburgh.  Can you share any information about them?

•DD:  I can.  Unfortunately Fly By Night Productions didn't have the chance to do anything with the Jaggerz, who were managed by Joe Rock.  Donnie Iris started The Jaggerz.  Their single, "The Rapper", which was written by Donnie, was released to the Pittsburgh market in December 1969.  It quickly rose on Pittsburgh's KQV Top 40 singles reaching #1.  Then it was #2 on Billboard Hot 100 in March 21st, 1970.  

["The Rapper"]

•DD:  The single was on the Hot 100 chart for 13 weeks.  Another Pittsburgh area band that was famolus back then was B. E. Taylor.  Their lead singer, William B. E. Taylor, was from Aliquippa and would later work with Donnie Iris.

•JJ:  B. E. Taylor.  You didn't actually have involvement with him, but I know you said you saw him in concert?

•DD:  We actually saw him playing in a stadium in Beaver Falls.  There's a picture of us.  There's B. E. on the stage, and  Joe Ricelli, me, and the guy who paid for the concert to Bob Seger, sitting in chairs in the background.  The stage was just a small stage in the center of the field, and we were on the field behind.  It was an odd looking picture.  It was just the three of us sitting there, looking bored, and B.E. on the stage acting wild.

•JJ:  Wild and crazy!  So your booking days were over.  In 1973 you and your wife were still living on Mt. Washington, and you were still a student at Point Park.  What was your next venture?

•DD:  My next venture - I worked briefly with a small ad agency doing promos for the 2001 Club.  

•JJ:  What was the 2001 Club?

•DD:  The 2001 Nightclub was on Pittsburgh's North Side.  It was a huge disco, and it was on the present location of  Acrisure Stadium, where the Steelers play.  It was started in 1972 by Tom Jayson, later joined by his wife, Maggie.  It was named after the 1968 Stanley Kubrick film.  The club had 16,000 square foot dance floor.  The place was huge.  It was an old automobile warehouse.  

•JJ:  Did it have high ceilings?

•DD:  High ceilings and a massive dance floor.  It was lit up and designed with cutting-edge,  computerized sound system that played pre-programmed music.  Tom Jayson named the sound system Major Tom.  Not sure if it was named after the David Bowie hit "Space Oddity" or after himself.  

•JJ:  Hmm.  So, how do you end up actually working at the 2001 Club?

•DD:  The first disc jockey there that started and had been there about months played only Allman Brothers and Southern Rock and nothings else, which didn't fit the disco image.  I knew Gil Armbruster, the sound & lights guy at 2001 Club, as Gil had been the sound engineer for Scarab.  

•JJ:  Gil Armbruster?

•DD:  Gil Armbruster.  And so he recruited me for the job.  In 1973 I was the second disc jockey at the 2001 Nightclub.  Gil had experience with sound systems.  He had designed a megawatt sound system for Scarab that could blast holes in auditorium walls.  The one he developed for 2001 Club was even more powerful.  If I can remember correctly, it could get up to 125 decibels.  Same as a jet engine.

•JJ:  Wow!

•DD:  I would play it regularly at 80 decibels.  One day when the club was empty the sound guy and I decided to test the system's power.  We stood out in the middle of the dance floor, while Brian the light guy cranked it up all the way.  Suddenly we were off kilter, had a feeling of vertigo, confused, and really disoriented.  We never did that again!

•JJ:  So you went back to 80 decibels and stayed there for the...

•DD:  We never did that again!

•JJ:  Yeah!  

•DD:  I was there for a year and a half.  I  didn't have much contact with Tom Jayson though.

•JJ:  Did they call you David Shannon?  

•DD:  No.  My stage name was "David Shane."  I came up with it.  I thought it sounded cool, and I didn't want to use my real name.  I was looking for an identity.

•JJ:  Sure!  Wasn't there a movie Shane, a Western.

•DD:  There was.  It was a cowboy movie.

•JJ:  Yeah.  So there.  You know a little bit of gravitas from that!

•DD:  I wanted to come across as avant garde like the rest of the club was.

•JJ:  Sure!  What sort of pre-disco music were you playing back then?

•DD:  It was still in the club band music era, so I played mostly rock and glam rock music like the Doobie Brothers, Stevie Wonder, David Bowie, Roxy Music, and others.  Disco was in its infancy in 1973, so this was pre-disco era.  Later on, when disco began to take off in the mid 1970's Jayson expanded the 2001 Club into a chain of disco nightclubs that became the most successful disco franchisee in the US.  So I worked for 1 1/2 years, leaving in 1974 to work for Bistro Management.  

•JJ:  Bistro Management.  What was Bistro Management?

•DD:  Well, my job was to recruit partners to invest in a new venture called the "Fini Disco", located in "The Bank Building" on Wood Street in Pittsburgh.  It was an old bank that had been closed down, and they were opening shops and the disco.  One of the shops was in the vault of the bank.  It was a jewelry store.  It was pretty cool.  I recruited a couple investors, but the owner took off with funds, and they had to sue to get their money back.  

•JJ:  Do you know if "Fini Disco" ever took off?

•DD:  No.  It never got off the ground.  They started construction on it, but they had to end it because the money dried up because the guy took off with it.

•JJ:  What did you end up doing, after it didn't get off the ground?

•DD:  I ended up getting a divorce in September 1976 so I finalized my degree in Journalism & Communication at Point Park College.  Now it's Point Park University.  I did that in 1978.  In June 1979 I left Pittsburgh and went to Atlanta, Georgia to work for a data processing recruitment company.

•JJ:  Do you have any general observations from your time in the Pittsburgh music scene?

•DD:  I have one big one.  I guess you would say that I was present during the death of club rock band performances and the early beginning of disco.  I saw the transition at the time, but didn't realized what was happening.  It probably wasn't until the release of Saturday Night Fever and Studio 54 in New York City that I began to put it all together.

•JJ:  Yeah, it really exploded in the mid '70's!  Well thank you, David Douglas Shannon (aka David Shane) for appearing on this Rock and Roll Flashback podcast and for sharing some of your memories of the Pittsburgh music scene back in the late 1960's and early 1970's! 

•DD:  Thanks, Jack, I was glad to do it!.

•JJ:  All right!

[End of telephone interview]

This podcast episode dealt with David Shannon's recollections of the "Pittsburgh Music Scene From 1968 to 1974".  Keep checking back with Rock and Roll Flashback, as I will soon be airing a separate podcast discussing the impact in the 1960's of Pittsburgh Area musicians Lou Christie, The Vogues, and Sonny DiNunzio!  So, for now, I'm Jumpin' John McDermott, and until next time…ROCK ON!

[Here is another sample of music by the band Scarab]