Cerphe Colwell - Cerphes Up: A Musical Life with Bruce Springsteen, Little Feat, Frank Zappa, Tom Waits, CSNY, and Many More

Copyright 2016 by D. Cerphe Colwell and Stephen Moore

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

Cover design by Rain Saukas

Cover photo credit: Joel Heiberger/ Washington Post

ISBN: 978-1-63144-052-6

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-63144-053-3

Printed in the United States of America.

Dedications

I dedicate this book to my beautiful wife, Susan, my beloved parents, my favorite musicians, and my loyal radio listeners with love, appreciation, and thanks for allowing me to be a part of your lives.

Cerphe Colwell

To my family, Margaret, Charles, and Suzanna, with love.

Stephen Moore

Contents

Introduction

E ver since I was a child listening to my transistor radiolate at night buried under the coversmusic has always been my true compass. I got chicken skin listening to Chuck Berry, Roy Orbison, and other early pioneers of rock and roll music. Then The Beatles baptized me with explorations. They gave me permission to be irreverently hip if I wanted to, and to reinvent myself at my will.

So I became a musician, an art student, and finally a broadcaster on emergent and transcendent freeform FM radio. Our daring do it yourself ethic at my first station, WHFS 102.3, was to not play top 40 hits. There was always a tension between artistry and commercial success in which we outwardly challenged broadcast conventions at every turn.

Freeform radio was a musical force and became a potent catalyst for social change. The counterculture fostered the birth of great music, a mosaic of creative drama, and I got to satisfy my relentless, creative impulses by playing whatever I wanted, including unknowns like the Bruce Springsteen band and Little Feat. My musical and personal crossroads were very self-indulgent but I was never cavalier about the good fortune that brought me to this pathway. A journey that continues after forty-five years in radio. I am extremely grateful.

Writing this autobiography has been enormously rewarding. It has given me a chance to relish and relive my multifaceted musical adventures and up-close encounters with some of the worlds greatest musicians, and now share them with the congregation.

I am grateful to my wife, Susan, whom I love with all my heart, for helping me relive deeply personal moments I have shared and experienced with her throughout our sixteen years together. I am thankful to my friend Steve Moore for his eyes, ears, and spirit. He helped me document whats true about my work, and myself, and convey in words the spirit of American rock and roll radio, ever fast fading into myth.

Ive been so fortunate to be friends and spend time with some of the finest musicians in the world. Their passion is inspirational, and I invite you to enjoy my experiences and savor the memories of a chaotic, energized radio industry intoxicated in the most powerful city in the world. Ive never lost faith in the power of radio and why we still care about our brilliant musicians.

Remember the vibrations at the Capital Centre (or any large rock arena), the pin-drop quietness of the Cellar Door (or any other small, intimate music club), and the taste of the Dom Perignon and catering backstage (if you were lucky enough to slip past the guards)? This book might be like being on a long-distance phone call with old friends. Its a story of the birth of an industry, wild times, artistic drama, gifted musicians, and true love with an astonishing musical soundtrack that radiates creative restlessness.

I recently very much enjoyed Wild Tales, the very cool memoir of my good friend Graham Nash. He and many other exceptional singer-songwriters have published their autobiographies, and many of them were guests on my radio shows. Their examples helped me pull this collection of stories and interviews together, reminding me of so much I had forgotten in my rich and eventful life. The memories rush back.

So this book goes out to the truckers, the mad hatters, the ships at sea, and especially (whisper) the little ladies of the night. Hang on. Here we go.

CHAPTER 1

Growing Up

I n the beginning I was allergic to everythingexcept music.

My birth mother was from Boston. The only thing I know about her is that she asked a doctor to find me a new home. I have tried to discover who she was and what became of her, but she covered her tracks very well. My adoptive parents, Mabel Evelyn Chapin and Chester Fremont Colwell, were in their early forties. We lived in a modest house in the town of Winchester, a Boston suburb. I heard roosters crowing every morning, since our neighbor behind us had a barn. I smelled fresh hay when I raked the leaves with my dad.

Me, age nine

Credit: Cerphe Archive

Chester was an engineer for Cuneo Press of New England/Ginn & Company publishers in nearby Cambridge, one of the most successful high school and college textbook printers in America. Mabel was an artist and housewife. Their only biological child had died one day after his delivery. He made it possible for me to become a Colwell. I am very grateful to that little departed soul.

My mom was a descendant of Samuel Chapin, who sailed from England to the colony of Massachusetts in 1642. For history buffs, Winchester was one of the towns that Paul Revere galloped through on his famed Midnight Ride through Cambridge and Boston. The late singer/songwriter Harry Chapin and I were second cousins. I still see Harrys brother, Tom, from time to time.

I loved my parents very much. They were supportive of whatever I wanted to do. There werent many rules growing up in Casa Colwell.

Asthma-Cadabra

Asthma and allergies often kept me sidelined. It didnt help that Chester, or Chet as he was called, had a woodworking shop in the basement and was generating wood dust in the evening hours while he chain-smoked Winstons. My mom would yell at him, Quit smoking in the house, and hed joke, I am not smoking in the house. Im smoking in the basement.

Pop loved to smoke and take family road trips. In the summer, hed pile us into our Ford Galaxy 500 and head to Lake Massasecum in Merrimack County, New Hampshire. In the fall, wed drive through southern Vermont to enjoy the foliage. My mom, being a proper New Englander, dressed me according to the calendar, not the weather. Come September 1, no matter if it was seventy-eight degrees outside, it was wide-wale corduroy, flannel shirts, and cable knit sweaters for me. Id be in the back seat swaddled in my hot garb with the windows rolled tight and Chet lighting one cigarette after another. Ugh.

In those days it seemed like every adult smoked. Our family doctor, whom we only saw when he made house calls, smoked while he took my temperature. Everyone on TV and in the movies smoked. Smoking was an addictive nicotine itch that many were scratching. I, too, smoked when I got to prep school, but I eventually learned that its better not to scratch certain itches.