Gary Del Vecchio
Born and raised in Ohio,Vecchio quickly became infatuated with music and learned the accordion at just the age of six before picking up the guitar. Playing in a handful bands such as Time, Wizzard and Maz, he would go on to start his own labels that released, not only music of his own, but of other talents. Vecchio’s single, ‘Buzzin’’, that was recorded by the band Max will be released on Riding Easy’s very popular comp series “Brown Acid” this Halloween! As always, it was a pleasure speaking with Gary about his life and all things rock n’ roll. Enjoy!
I was born November 28th 1954 in Bellaire, Ohio. We moved to Warren, Ohio when I was. I have no siblings. My dad was a professional accordion player and of course he wanted me to also play it. I was about six, or seven years old playing a small accordion and performing for company. I felt like a monkey for an organ grinder, but in retrospect playing the accordion enabled me to play organ and keys, so about the age of 12 I asked my dad if I could learn to play the guitar and he made me a deal, but only if I could learn to play the song Malaguena, a Spanish song, he would then buy me a nice guitar.
It took me awhile, but I finally got it, so he bought me a Hagstrum semi-hollow guitar and so began the journey. I was lucky to have grown up in this area in the late 60s. The talent was and still is great, I was fortunate to play some nice venues, Christ Episcopal was a place that held dances and bands like the James Gang, Glass Harp and so on. I played there often and some of the bands like Time, Wizzard, Magic and Max were one of the biggest thrills. This was the time that I played in a band called Time and we played with the James Gang at Christ Episcopal. I also played with the Human Beings and that was about the time I met the bass player when things changed a lot. His name is Gary Mills and for the next few years we were connected at the hip.
Buzzin’ / Dream Woman single released on A.R.A Records circa: 1970.
I've always been into recording since the late 60s and still do to this day. I have a studio in my home and instead of playing cover tunes, I write the music, so I've always played original music and still do. Max had a few line ups, the one that recorded Buzzin’ along with myself was Gary Mills and Tony Ferderburgh. A great 3 piece. I always seem to gravitate to a 3-piece band. When we recorded Buzzin’ and Dream Woman I was only 16. We recorded many more recordings during this time at Peppermint Studios with the great Gary Rhamy behind the desk. In fact, his voice is on the beginning of the song Buzzin’ saying, ‘this is Buzzin’ take number 3.’ The song on the B side of Buzzin’ is Dream Woman.
Max lineup feat. Gary Mills, Phil Daugherty, GDL and Rick Vannelli.
A collage of photos feat. MAX.
I wrote that song about my late wife Ann and we were dating at that point and ended up being together for the next 40 years. Once again, Max morphed into Bullit with myself, Gary Mills and Jimmy Haun. We recorded a lot and we also flew to New York City to try and get a record deal. We where offered two deals from Mercury Records and London Records, but these deals fell through because we didn’t have proper management. I was walking out of Mercury Records and I saw a bunch of tapes on the desk of Paul Nelson, a great A&R man, and I saw a tape marked Blue Ash. I said ‘you should listen to that, they’re from my area.’ I thought they were good and as it happened Mercury signed them to a 3 album deal and record them at Peppermint Studios in Youngstown Ohio.
Bullit.
The record Buzzin’ was on A.R.A. records, American Recording Artist, a label I owned and the publishing was done by Elgin Music BMI. In 1972 I decided to move to California. I settled in the Bay Area of San Jose and I immediately started to form a 3-piece band called Scareb. I was lucky enough to find bass player Mark Pasby from Montana and drummer Joe Montemayor from Mexico. We built the band at Cribari Vineyards when I moved out west. I changed my name to Grayson Lee and for the five years that I lived out there I was only known as Grayson Lee. We had some pretty good success. We played a lot of shows. About this time we wanted a keyboard player and it so happened we put an ad on the radio and a man named Dan Desserich responded. He was from Ohio and was leaving to go back to Ohio the next day, so we hired him on the spot. He had his B3 organ shipped out from Cincinnati and there was the fourth member.
Scareb feat. GLD, Mark Pasby and Joe Montemayor in Cribari Vineyard.
Flyer from a gig in Santa Cruz, CA circa: 1974.
We worked hard and sounded good. It only grew from there. We added a saxophone player, a friend of mine named Bill Hapgood Zeus. He lived in Eureka, California. We all moved into a big house and lived together writing and playing gigs all over and thats when we hit the studio and recorded some really great material. We were recording at Funky Features of San Francisco on the corner of Haight and Ashbury. Many big bands recorded their White Rabbit and other songs. We recorded in a lot of wonderful studios and while we recorded at Funky Features, The Tubes had recorded White Punks on Dope and stopped by to do some mixing. They liked what they heard from us. We became friends and played with them. They had a house in Mill Valley, California where we played a big party for them at their house and at the time we were a five-piece band and played some large venues.
Wally Heider Studios in San Fransico, Ca circa: 1976
Our largest gig was when were the headliners at Santa Clara University. Bands on the same bill where Mike Bloomfield and BoDiddley, The Family Jewels and many many other acts. At the very end or Scareb I moved back to Ohio and once I got back to Ohio I bought a working recording studio and brought back my great friend Dan Desrich, the keyboard player from Scareb. He was living in Cincinnati. He moved up to Warren and we worked together building up the studio. We had a great knowledgeable engineer that piloted the board, His name was Dave Sheward. The name of the studio was INNER CHAMBER SOUND LABS. We did many bands there besides commercials and our own recordings. Thats when I decided to make Earth Records. We put out a few bands and solo artists on that label and years later made my CD compilation G.L.D 1972- 1975 on Earth Records. That brings us up to now. I built a nice small studio in my home. I mainly use this for my own writings, but I do have a couple of outside projects going on. Just finished a six song project for Lenny Bumbico, 3 chords and a cigarette and hope to release it on Earth Records.
Various pieces of memorabilia and photos from GLD’s career in music.
Having a song that I recorded 51 years ago being re-released on Riding Easy Records has so far been great. The world release date is October 31st on Halloween of this year. It's on the Brown Acid Compilation Vol. 13 with a lot of other cool acts from that time. I've been really hoping to re-release my CD GLD 1970- 1975 on a label to get good distribution. It's a nice cross-section of my early years. It was recorded from the East coast to the West Coast and was all written in the 5 years between 1970 and 1975. As far as the re-release of Buzzin’ on Riding Easy Records this October 31st, it has really gotten my music juices fired up! So I hope to get to see G.L.D. 1970 -1975 re-released. And hopefully get a new CD out of my new material I'm working on.
GLD.
As always, Love and peace.
Gary.
Dakota Brown
