The Ploughman

Last night Dawn got a call that her father had a heart attack and she raced back to Quebec in the middle of the night. Lorraine called me at 3 a.m. to tell me that we’d have to find a sub for our gig the next night. After going through a lot of options, it finally occurred to me that I needed the money and I had some sort of priority. Lorraine didn’t want to do it because she was still sick with the flu, but I volunteered that I could do it with Steve, the piano player I used at Chicago’s. I told Rosemary, the agent, that I could do it with Steve but he bowed out (didn’t want to move his piano, he had a dinner planned with his girlfriend). She was a little miffed when I called her back to say I wouldn’t be doing it, but then she called in another group – but they couldn’t find the drummer and the leader of that group said he’d do it with me as a duo. We actually met at the stage and did a first set which was fine through on song before I realized I was reading the wrong chart – and at about that moment he launched into a single string solo leaving me to play the chords, which I had not figured out at all. Then I couldn’t pronounce his name, Peter Ochipinti (“Just Peter” he finally said). He had a huge repertoire and the only request he didn’t fill was “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald”.