years I was studying with Stella, I did manage to get my own band together, which I was so excited about! “Bobby J. and the Last Set” was the name, and “Bobby J.” is the name that stuck! The band consisted of a drummer, base, sax, keyboard, and me. The keyboard player at the time had quite a nice setup and contributed a lot to the band. Interestingly, the sax player was my cousin Skip. Aside from being a cousin, he has remained a faithful friend.
I will never forget the one night at the club where we were playing. It was the Italian/American Sportsman Club, and we were waiting for Dave, the keyboard player, who got there late. I had called for my buddy’s brother, Pat, to sit in with us because he played the guitar. Finally, Dave walked in with his nose all bandaged up. We couldn’t imagine what happened. He proceeded to tell us that some guy cut him off the road. When he stopped for a light, the guy came over to him, yelled at him that he cut him off the road, and punched him in the nose and broke it. I had to commend him for what he did. He set up his keyboards and played and sang the rest of his night. He even refused to take any money. He said, “Give it to Pat.”
There was a slight problem with Dave though. It was like a head thing where he wanted to be a star. When you are working with a band, everyone’s head has to be in the same place or problems start, and they did. There was always a struggle with songs and the things he wanted to do. He wanted to add pieces to the band and do the arranging of songs. That would have been great, but I tried to tell him that nobody would pay for a big band in our area. Then I found out that he was doing things behind my back. Not long afterward, the band broke up.
One day I got a call from my buddy, Mike, who was the guy that I was in the original band with. He put me on the phone with his cousin Tommy who was trying to start a band. I never really got along with Tommy, it was like a personality clash, which later in years turned out to be worse. Tommy was an only child and very spoiled, which I think caused the problems. He liked his way and nothing else.
We got together with a drummer and then a keyboard player. The drummer’s name was Crazy Eddie, who turned out to be quite a nice guy. We spent eighteen months in Eddie’s cellar practicing two to three nights a week. This took a lot on my part, being married, with children, and having a full-time job. Fortunately, my wife put up with it and backed me because of my love for music. There were times when we would practice, and a couple of other guys would start drinking. It was a bad thing to do. I was there to work, not to drink, so that kind of aggravated me. We started getting calls for jobs. We did three jobs that went well. On the last job, Tommy came to me and said that he was quitting along with Eddie. I said, “Why are you, guys, doing this?” Their response was that we weren’t playing enough. I told them that we just started and it takes time but couldn’t convince them otherwise, so that was it. I made a promise to myself that I would never spend that much time for a band again, and I never did.
After my divorce a few years later, another guy, Steve, called me and wanted to start a band. I went over to his house for a few Sundays. The keyboard player seemed to have a drinking problem, so I just quit that outfit fast. Steve and I remain good friends to this day and even visited me in Key West while I lived there for ten years.
CHAPTER 6
My Debut as Elvis
Speaking of divorce, I was on the verge of it and was separated. That’s when I started frequenting a place over the bridge in Pennsylvania. The place was called Washington Crossing Inn. There was a keyboard player named Dave Boyd who played there every weekend. He would call different people up to sing, including me. Every time I got up, people yelled for me to sing Elvis Presley’s songs. Dave started telling me that I should get a costume and impersonate Elvis. He hounded me for four months until I finally gave in. I was going out at the time with a woman who did seamstress work, and she offered to make me a costume. That’s how it started.
Lou was the name of the guy who owned the Washington Crossing Inn at the time, and he was an avid Elvis fan. He was such a fan that he wore out the Aloha from Hawaii video tape and had to go buy another one! He was planning to have a luau at the Washington Crossing Inn. I asked him if he would be interested in me doing a show with Dave. I told him that I didn’t want any money, but I would take a couple of bottles of beer. He agreed to it, and finally the day came.
The place was packed with all the regulars plus a lot of people I had never seen before. I didn’t know at the time that Lou was telling everyone about my show. I went upstairs to change, and then the big moment came. It was time for my debut as an Elvis Presley impersonator. Down the stairs I came dressed in full regalia with a big intro! I brought the house down! I was absolutely dumbfounded! I had never gotten such a reception! The show went so well that I could hardly believe it! The people wanted all kinds of pictures, and they were asking for my autographs. All Dave kept saying was, “I told you, Bob, I told you, Bob!”
I had always wanted to be a star working in Las Vegas being myself but never was able to get there. I figured that this was God’s way of making me a star. I was now an official Elvis Presley impersonator, and nothing was going to hold me back!
Then the need came for new costumes. I knew that I was going to do all the shows I could, and I would need more than one. My girlfriend made me a couple more, which helped, then we broke up. Now I had to find someone else to make them. I found a seamstress at a local dry cleaner. She made me a couple more. One of my problems was the stones to put on them. I searched all the local fabric stores and managed to get the things I needed. It was a lot of work putting all those stones on one by one with a little bit of glue. It was very time-consuming. I also found an Oriental woman who did a nice job on them. By this time, I had about half a dozen costume.
Dave got me in touch with an agent named Jerry Samuels who had an agency in Northeast Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Jerry was a real character, to say the least. At the time I met him, I was running my own deli in Trenton. He would call me in the middle of the day just to tell me a joke. I would say, “That’s what you called me for?” but that was Jerry. Jerry had been a record producer, played a piano, and did a little singing. He had traveled the country for years playing and singing before he decided to settle down with the agency. And that’s how he got such a rapport with about five hundred nursing homes.
When he was fourteen years old, he wrote a song titled “To Every Girl, to Every Boy (The Meaning of Love)” for a guy named Johnny Ray. He managed to get this song to Johnny and saw him perform the song. What a thrill for a fourteen-year-old kid. Jerry also had a number one hit at one time called “They’re Coming to Take Me Away Ha-Ha” which he recorded under the name of Napoleon XIV, it was novelty record. All talking really but went to number one on the charts. To show you how crazy he was, if you flip the forty-five-record over, the song was all in reverse. He followed it up with several other novelty songs and an album, none were every successful as that first hit. He is still something of a cult figure to fans of the sixties novelty music.
Jerry primarily booked me at nursing homes and occasionally private parties. He loved Chinese food, so when we got together, we always went to his favorite Chinese restaurant in Philadelphia. He would call each facility when I was finished with my shows, as he did all his other bookings, to make sure everything went well. He would call me and say that they loved me and then tell me that they had no taste! It was not always easy getting around to these different facilities. His directions left a lot to be desired. One nursing home he sent me to was way out in the country somewhere where they didn’t have names on the roads. I wound up getting there late but did the job and made a lot of senior citizens happy. It was a lot easier getting around after the cell phones were developed.
The nursing homes were a real experience. This was a different audience than I was used to. Some of them were attentive while others seemed to drift away. At times it was sad to see how some of them were. My heart went out to them and I always wished I could do more for them. My theme has always been “I loved making people happy with what I do.” There were times when I was singing and some senior in the back of the room were holding their ears saying I was too loud (which by the way I wasn’t, and if I was, I would have been told to tone down). At the same time, there would be someone