The song playing as I left was "Cinnamon" by Derek. We extend the pinkie and say, "Yes, the 'sha-la-la' school of vocalizing." I not only remember it but there is a personal connection. One I'd known since the 60's, but today with more amplification. A beloved Christmas present, the book "One Hit Wonders", is buried in a parking space cabinet, so I went to The Wiki World and got yet more than I intended to write.

It's another "manufactured" session crew record as many t-bop hits were, this time for the bubble-gummy Bang label, which for a minute they had folks like Van Morrison with the inescapable "Brown Eyed Girl" . I knew someone who played bass on the tour put together to capitalize on "Cinnamon" charting, but there definitely was a singer-writer who fronted it whose stage name was Johnny Cymbal. One of his creations was "Mary In The Morning", with which Matt Monroe charted and my Mom, otherwise a Monroe liker, hated.

Ultra middle of the road with edge? Welcome to the same old History Of The World 100 through 199-B.

Thanks to Wikipedia's entry for Mr. Cymbal the whole "Cinnamon" enterprise was not as anonymous as I had long figured, and it was a bit brain frying to see L's name, and another path crosser, as members of the touring band. Further frying was averted since both names did not come, how rare, with one of the hyperlinks that 'blue' up that web site something fierce.

After the mid 80's I saw L just once when he threw a birthday party for another long left behind friend the night before the Northridge Quake. Late in the spring 1968 semester reparing for the, what else, summer tour for the song he played hide and seek with the huffy male authority figures at the Catholic parochial high school we attended, he a year ahead, as he grew his hair. And it was after periodically striking out looking up his name online with coupling the name with said high school, a search he'd have reviled, I found out he died in August of 2007 from brain cancer.

The stories of the tour have been parsed together from many other people than speaking with L directly, and one was about a Cadillac they bought on impulse---and its eventual disposition escapes me. Well, such are the things of youth one can occasionally experience when knowing your instrument combines with the serendipity of linking up with a visible if ephemeral show biz event.

But who went to see these shows? I apologize to the reader, but the demographic implied was one with which he was preoccupied when I began drifting away. A friend of his did a demo of a song admitted to be a lift of "Brown Sugar" (karma level dropping rapidly, I know) and L did some post production touches, including a cello break which was not going to make Casals look over his shoulder, which really altered the ante to Bang/Buddha.

The friendship ended up on more rock than the demo.