I drove a taxi in Boulder CO in the late 90s, early 2000s and I frequently had the pleasure of providing Rick with a ride from his North Boulder apartment. Although he was obviously in some personal turmoil he treated me very respectfully and kindly and I really liked the guy. He even showed me his gold records. I'm glad he's still around, a very nice fellow.
I was in a sauna at a spa in Boulder on Spruce or Pine Street back in the day -- it was owned by a guy named Howard. Several people were in the sauna baking away. Anyway, two guys came into the sauna and I recognized one guy was Chris Hillman. He introduced the other guy as Rick Roberts from a start up band named Firefall. He was getting Rick cleaned up to fly to New York the next day to audition for a record deal. Chris was having Rick snort and drink herbal concoctions to clear his lungs and sinuses out from too much 'marching powder.' I remember one funny but wise thing Chris said to Rick. "Party after you get the contract not before." This therapy must've done the trick because I heard they got the contract.
As a TBI survivor, it's always good to see other stories about brain injury getting exposure. Sorry Rick had to go through but then none of us expected it to happen to us. I've got to get a copy of his book now.
I auditioned for Firefall as a drummer/vocalist and obviously didn't make it. The band I formed afterward, Wolfcreek, knew them well. They used our rehearsal space a few times and our lead player shared a house with Larry Burnett. He knew the girl Cinderella was about. Loved what they did and what they are doing currently.
Today I'm in Santa Fe, NM and I had no idea there were so many bands & writers from Colorado. POCO, Dan Fogelberg & John Denver of course but, Firefall, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Sugarloaf. I thought they were all LA Studio bands. I'm from Minnesota and heard them on the radio but, I'm amazed.
Just the beginning my friend! Because of Poco, you have the background of at least two Eagles players! Joe Walsh started in Cleveland, but went to Boulder to record everything from Rocky Mountain Way, to Average ordinary Guy. While recording those, he produced Dan Folgerberg's first three albums, and nobody has to tell you the history of John Denver
John Denver, despite his stage name, was not from Colorado. He was born in New Mexico and as a military kid, moved around a lot, not including Colorado. His real name was John Deutschendorf, jr.
@@valeriepickens2533 Walsh procuced only Fogelberg's second album, "Souvenirs",Though he did guest on Dan's self-produced third album "Captured Angel".
The "Unknown" in the Gram Parson b&w appears to be John McEuen from the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, who was also in Boulder area. He was a great banjo Player but excelled in several instruments!
Colorado sound may have more to do with James William Geurcio's Caribou Ranch. If he built his recording studio in Wyoming instead of Colorado, I suspect we would be talking about the "Wyoming sound."
A few points worth mentioning. I believe Stephen Stills was tied in with Rick Roberts and Firefall in some form or fashion. Firefall later modified and recorded “It Doesn’t Matter,” a wonderful melodic tune from Stephen Stills’ band Manassas.
Actually Chris Hillman modified Roberts' song and went ahead and gave himself credit and tried to exclude Roberts from the credit. I read this and Rick's book "Song Stories."
Every summer in the 80s the band played in Lonagan's Saloon in Estes Park Colorado. That bar was pretty small maybe 200 seats. They played two shows in one night and i would pay for both. The best part is some of the band members had a side band that played the night before and i still remember a great version of Steve Miller's living in the USA
Big fan of Gram Parsons here. I lived in Boulder 74-79 and saw one of Firefall's early shows in a small theater there. At that time they had a great (country) rock sound and Bartley was a monster guitar player with pretty heavy licks. (I think Chris Hillman played with them or at least introduced them.) A year or two later I saw them open for Fleetwood Mac at the Folsom stadium concert mentioned in the video. As time went on, they added flute and softened their sound until it became like elevator music to me, sorry to say. They had all the ingredients, but for my taste they made poor musical choices later on. (That's just my taste.)
Way, way back in the day I was listening to the local Boulder radio station one day and the dj introduced two folks who were going to play live in the studio -- Gram and Emily Lou. I'd never heard their music before but I sure did become a fan right then and there.
@@JenXer71 A Band that I had years ago "So Long" was on our songlist, we had two good singers, one with an acoustic 12 string that sounded great on that song, We had a great electric lead guitar player, It was fun playing that song and I wish I had a tape of us playing that for an archive of that band. the cassettes were all lost over time of course.
Ray bassman I love the sound of a good 12-string. Sorry you don’t have any recordings but I’m sure you have some great memories. Aside from playing in school band and jamming with various ppl, I would’ve loved to have played in a formal rock band. Now I’m lucky if I can play more than an hour, but I’ll keep playing until I can play no more. 😀
I jammed/drummed with Burnett in my Dad's basement. All he did was brag about Steve Gadd recording Firefall stuff. And he would play a fast tempo folky blues thing with bars of 9/8 randomly thrown in, expecting me to know the shit before hearing it. And the bassist was supposedly with Anthrax in the early days. Good times.
All this does is to turn me onto some other great bands like POCO, The Flying Burrito Brothers, Zephyr, Spirit, Firefall. Yes I believe Zeppelin took the intro to Stairway from one of Spirits songs.
A judge ruled that didn't happen. I'm a songwriter and I don't hear it at all. The diminished minor scale in STH is not uncommion in contemporary music. George Harrison once observed "It's all creative plagurization, anyway."
They should have done a better job, explaining why they made "Cinderella". Colorado is a very heavy Republican State, and they stepped away to close to picking sides, with that song!
Your loss. I loved them from day one when they and the Byrds created that 'hippy' country rock sound. The albums after GP left the band were boring though.
