12-04-2021 — Happy Birthday to my big brudduh Craig D. Ward, who would have turned 68 today had it not been for cruel fate (AKA Cancer) taking him away much too soon.
Like the immortal Jack Benny who always claimed he was 39, Craig will forever be 49. He died two days after his birthday 19 years ago.
Craig and I spent much of our lives together. Of course, as brothers, we grew up together. But as adults, we joined the family newspaper business — a small town weekly that was never really a financial success — and we all lived together (in a Yellow Submarine? No, that’s someone else’s song).
But during those adult years, we were also compadres in a musical group (The legendary, nearly-remembered Bunk House Boys) for five years. Our other brother from the same mother Bart was also a part of this chapter in our lives.
When things began to unravel, Craig and I fled the small town life for the largest metropolis in the state — Wichita, KS! Although it seems small by other standards, the city of about 300,000 was where the action was (kinda).
Craig and I got a house and did the bachelor lifestyle for a few years. Eventually Craig got married, became an over-the-road-trucker with his wife, Joy, and they bought their own house on the other side of town.
Not too much later, I met my soul mate, Estelle, and we tied the knot and immediately moved to Oklahoma City — a bigger metropolis a few hours away.
Craig and I would see each other infrequently, but we were on the phone quite a bit. There was always a lot to talk about — sometimes for an hour or so. We also did a bit of snail mail, but this was the early days of internet, and although I was an early adopter, Craig was not, so no email, no social media.
But we still were close enough to get together a few times a year, and our extended family was still alive and healthy (parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles and cousins). We had our traditional holidays nearly as much as in our formative years.
However the Christmas of 1995 was a landmark. We met at Brother Bart’s house in Kansas City. Besides his wife Sharol and his kids Nick, Ben and Ali (trying to remember if the last two were born yet –). But most importantly, our Paternal Grandmother Lee Ward. We didn’t know it but this would be our final Christmas with her. Grandpa Roy had passed away in 1988 (if I remember correctly).
But this was where Estelle and I made our special announcement. I made a clumsy attempt to get their attention by saying, “Estelle and I have some important news for you!” They all anticipated an announcement that we were having a baby — but instead, we were moving to California.
This was big news for us, but meant we would not be seeing much of our family in person any more. But as usual, the family was supportive and encouraging, and we knew that our move to the Golden State was right for us.
Where does the recording aspect you were promised fit in?
Well, it ties in with Christmas — one quite a few years earlier than 1995. Maybe closer to 1965. I’m not sure of the year.
That year, we were celebrating in Norton, KS at the house of Grandpa Roy and Grandma Lee — they were traditionally hosts for a huge family gathering.
This was before Craig or I had a guitar but we were avid record players (I’m not sure we started buying our own, but our family always bought records). We had a kiddie record player — a small machine with the 45 RPM spindle and one of those record-stacking spindles. Very lo-fi.
Our family also had a more advanced stereo record player and a good collection of 33 RPM long-play albums. This was the historic transition era between the Rat Pack pop of the 50s and the new fangled Rock N Roll era. My parents bought Bobby Darin (Mack the Knife) and Danny & the Juniors (Let’s Go To The Hop) and — although I don’t think we had any Elvis records, we had the 2nd most famous singer of that era — Pat Boone! The parents also bought those Firestone Christmas Albums with Perry Como, Tony Bennet, Rosemary Clooney, and other big names digging the Christmas standards. They also bought comedy albums, but that is another long story in itself.
But the magic Christmas gift I remember is when Dad bought a tiny reel-to-reel tape recorder. And when I say “tiny” I mean (estimated) 2-inch reels of tape. He put his own message on it — something like: “Ho Ho Ho this is Santa Claus. Have you been good boys this year?”
The sound quality was so bad that it didn’t sound like our Dad. Had we been a few years younger, we probably would have bought it and thought it was really Santa.
That little recorder opened up a whole new world. Craig and I started making recordings right away. Back in those days, there were novelty records where someone would do a comedy line and then play a lyric from a popular recording to answer the set-up question. We immediately tried doing that and learned that there is a lot of finesse we couldn’t duplicate with needle drops on a kiddie record player and a clunky little home reel-tape machine.
But it was fun and got us started.
Fast forward 20 years. I learned to play guitar and piano, and Craig gave up on guitar (until later) and became a decent bassist. Bart really went to the wood shed and was developing into a hot blues guitarist.
I bought more tape recording equipment — always cheap and not too hi-fi. I had cassette recorders, I even had an 8-track recorder!
But by the time The Bunk House Boys were formed (1975), I talked Craig into buying a fairly serious (but not studio quality) TEAC stereo reel-to-reel recorder.
I believe the model was 3340, and it would handle 1/4″ tape on 7″ reels. You could also fit on 10″ reels, but I never went that far. It could record at a slow speed (not much better than cassette) and a medium speed (I think 3.75″/sec). If I recall, it would also record at higher quality (7.5″/sec?) but heck — the tape wouldn’t last as long at that speed.
I recorded our group down in our basement rehearsal area and I recorded a few gigs. It was hard getting reels of tape. This was in small town Kansas in the 1970s and there just weren’t local suppliers for exotic equipment. We bought the TEAC machine 2nd hand from somebody and he gave us half a dozen reels of tape. He’d put some of his favorite albums on them, and we just recorded over them. I don’t know that I ever bought a new, clean reel of tape.
I also started writing songs back when I started playing the guitar, so now (five or more years later) I was pretty serious. I did some demo tapes of my songs on the TEAC and we played a few originals in the Bunk House Boys so I could record the songs done with a full band.
Needless to say, the recordings were primitive. I ran off copies on cassette and — Yes, 8-track! — to give to our parents and share with the other band members (Hi Ron and Gail! Hi Dave and Gloria!). I even sent a few off to record companies, who must have gotten a laugh or two out of them.
I remember sending one to David Geffen at Asylum records and getting a personal reply back from Laura Plotkin (Google Chuck and Laura Plotkin to be impressed). Nice, encouraging, and she didn’t even say “You gotta be kidding!”
As history has noted, the Bunk House Boys were history themselves by 1980 and as mentioned, Craig and I moved around together and then apart.
I bring this story to the tragic ending where Craig develops cancer. I couldn’t be with him in person but kept in contact by phone. Finally, Estelle and I came back from California for a visit, and we knew it would be the last time we would be with Craig.
Although I had seen pictures, it was shocking to see how chemotherapy had changed him. What hair he had left was stringy strands, but he was mostly bald. But he was Craig — stoic and upbeat.
I asked him about the TEAC machine, which he had retained when I moved away.
He told me he sold it.
I was shocked. But I asked him about the tapes with our music on them.
He included them with the recorder of course.
But … maybe the fellow he sold it to still had the tapes. Maybe he hadn’t recorded over them as I had recorded over the record collection of the previous owner.
Craig couldn’t remember the person’s name and there was no way to track down him or the lost tapes.
I was devestated but I wasn’t about to berate Craig. I had to accept that those tapes, and some of the demos of my original songs, were gone.
About a year earlier, the country suffered through the Twin Tower attacks on 9/11. Estelle and I lived in Las Vegas that year, and I was on the phone with Craig not long after the attack.
That’s when he broke the news to me that “they found a spot on my x-rays”
Trying not to cry, I cursed fate and told him, “I’d rather have a big brother than Twin Towers.” Not very patriotic or very sensitive to the thousands that died in that tragedy but I was serious.
I’d rather have a big brother that some poorly recorded tapes of some poorly written and poorly performed music I generated.
I constantly think of him, knowing that he should be around today.
Happy Birthday, Craig.