This recollection of a unique “record hop” experience from Paul “Emperor Rodgers” Rothfuss:
I hosted a record hop on Friday nights in an empty end-of-strip storefront in the Eudowood Plaza (formerly Eudowood Phaarmacy), the rental arrangements for which were made by the late Marty Resnick (later owner of Martin’s West).
The space was fire-scaled to hold 350 people. It was there that Kerby and I presented The Yardbirds, who’d received a late ‘mid-week between gigs’ cancellation while en route to a Saturday night appearance in DC.
One of the record promotion men knew about our ‘hop’ and offered the group to us on a Friday night in late June – for free!!! (‘Might as well get the boys some publicity’ was probably the rationale.) The Admirals were the band we had scheduled for that night.
We said YES.
With only a few days to promote, Kerby got all over this news on his Liverpool Hour radio show. I got some posters printed and stapled them to trees, telephone poles, etc., most of them around or near to high schools.
Doors were to open at 7:30 PM. Admission price: $3.00.
Barbie (my wife) and Beverly (Kerby’s wife) would be collecting the money at the door. Two off-duty Baltimore County policemen (our regular crew) would be on hand to insure the peace.
We arrived around 6:30 to find the parking lot jammed with young people! We opened the doors at 7:15 and the crowd poured in. About one-thousand mostly high-school age folks!
The Admirals played for about an hour – ‘music for dancing’.
When The Yardbirds came on stage the big crowd formed a ‘half-moon’ shaped queue in front of the stage. Those up front could reach up and touch the performers at will. (But no one did.)
The Yardbirds performed for fifty minutes or so, receiving much applause and loud shouts of approval. The Admirals did a 45-minute set to end the show…which went off without a hitch of any kind. It was perfect!
At around 11:30 Marty, the ladies and I divvied up the proceeds’…about $1,000.00 for each of us!
I was astonished!
On Saturday’s Kerby was on the air from 10A to 2P. I followed him – 2P to 6P. Around 1:45 I brought Kerby’s share with me to the radio station in a brown paper grocery bag (mostly ones). I plopped the bag down in front of him saying, “Here! Take this!” Like me, he had never seen such a pile of cash.
Talk about a couple of happy guys? That was us! .
Note #1: The Yardbirds featured Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton and two guys who helped form Led Zeppelin. As this event was unfolding we had no idea that we were in the presence of Rock Royalty.
Note #2: To me in retrospect: the crowd’s reaction to the Yardbirds seemed a bit subdued. If that was the case could it have been because Baltimore kids favored R & B artists such as James Brown, The Temptations, and Otis Redding and this new British Rock had not yet taken hold?
Your guess is as good as mine.
