This event happened back in 2006, so it’s been a while, but I remember it like it was yesterday…..
I’ve played guitar and bass for the better part of the last 35 years. A good friend of mine, Avrel Seale, lives here in Austin so we get together every now and then and record some music and just jam a bit. So he calls me one day and asks if I remember the band Seals and Crofts, you know the guys who sang the tunes, Summer Breeze and Get Closer. They are on most 70’s compilation cd’s available. Well, it ends up that one of the guys in that band, Dash Crofts, lives in the Austin area and is a member of the same religion, bahai, that Avrel practices.
Every year, the bahai community has a regional gathering here in Austin, that goes on for a few days with speakers etc. They also provide entertainment on the last night of the conference and were trying to get Dash Crofts to perform. Avrel was in charge of contacting him to set it all up. He managed to get Dash to commit to the concert and had to meet with him early on to show Dash he could play. It ends up, they needed a bass player to fill in, the original bass player had a scheduling conflict or something, so Avrel got me involved at that point.
I spent the next few weeks rehearsing all the tunes on their greatest hits album, including all the hits, like Summer Breeze, Diamond Girl, Get Closer, etc. We then had a few rehearsals at my house, which was very cool indeed. Dash came over, shades and all. He pulled up to the house in a large Lincoln Town Car that was almost scraping the ground as he parked the car. Ends up, he had this, HUGE, amp in the trunk, that was weighing it down. We never pulled it out as I had set up a PA system, amps, mics and everything else we needed, to rehearse, so we just left his amp in the trunk. Anyway, we played all the songs that made him famous in the 70’s. Dash plays a mandolin, he brought the same one actually that he recorded all those hits with, so the sound was really good and the vocal harmonies were tight.
We played the concert on a Friday night in February to a good size crowd, 200 or so people, at the bahai conference. One of the funny things I remember is that Dash, the true rock star that he his, would not let anyone see him before the show, there was no backstage area or green room, only a small supply closet in the back of the room we were playing in, so he told us he’d be in there, waiting for us to introduce him. So, he went into this closet, and I mean a supply closet with cleaning supplies, office supplies, etc about 30 minutes before the show, and didn’t come out until we introduced him. We got up to start the show and my buddy, Avrel, gives him this great introduction and sure enough, Dash, pops out of this little closet and makes his way to the stage with people whoppin’ and hollerin’ high fiven’ him down the middle aisle. We were cracking up…he was a real pro though. We played a great show and things went so well, Dash even asked us to possibly tour with him sometime. It’s been 13 or so years, we’re still waiting for that call…I think Dash is pretty much retired to his horse ranch in the hill country though at this point. It was a blast though and my first experience with that caliber of an artist.
