User:Starlite1/sandbox

The Bio-and-Discography of Frank Harold Lemon, II I was born in New Orleans October 13th 1950, I have a very slim memory of living there. I was uprooted early in my life and moved San Francisco where I started Raphael Weill Elementary School. All my cousins were already there. In the immediate family were nine girls and two brothers on my mom's side. One of my uncles went into the Navy and the other stayed in New Orleans. The girls migrated to San Francisco with their families looking for jobs at the Navy shipyard in San Francisco and in the surrounding areas. I had a good childhood, plenty of cousins and relatives and lots of activities. While I was in elementary school, my mom introduced me and some cousins to the Elks Lodge drum and bugle Corps. There we learned to play drums in a marching band. We played in most of all the northern California parades in the 1950s. But before I left Elementary School my mom wanted me and my two sisters to go back to New Orleans to get reacquainted with my dad and the rest of both sides of my family-especially my dad. By this time, I did not remember my dad I believe I must have been about two or three years old when we left the suburbs outside of New Orleans in Jefferson Parish name Shrewsbury... this was the most important time of my young life at the time I got reintroduce to my dad and his two other sons Greg and Glenn. I would spend the weekends with them and my cousins on my dad's side and we would roam all around Shrewsbury having a great time. You see for me that was the closest to being in the country as I ever had been but it was not necessary the country has a later found out. Anyway, I continued to play drums and while I was in junior high school my mom bought me my first marching drum. It was silver with sparkles all over it. I thought I was the "baddest" kid on the block! By the time I got to high school, I took music classes and eventually joined the marching band the music teacher was surprised that I caught on to the drum Cadence so fast without knowing how to read music. but it was because I started playing drums in that drum and bugle Corps, that I was able to pick up and mimic any drum pattern that was put in front of me. While I was in high school at Walter Lewis Cohen High School a fellow band classmate brought his drum set to school and that blew me away. I asked him how could he play all those drums at the same time bass drum hi-hat pedal with the feet snare and Tom's and cymbals? You see my classmate who we called "Zigaboo" or Ziggy later after high school joining the New Orleans band The Funky Meters... while I was in high school my dad passed away the night of older sister's prom, and she took it hard by her being the oldest she had all the memories of her childhood before we moved back to New Orleans of my dad, we all loved him and we thanked our mom for putting inside whatever happened between them - to bring us back (to New Orleans) so we could get to know him. RIP Dad! My oldest sister graduated that year in June of 1966 and was sent to live with my grandmother in San Francisco and we followed later -December of 1966. When the school year started, I went to Washington High School. I enjoyed the band, but I was kind of mad because they didn't have a marching band in San Francisco. I stayed at Washington for one school year and then we moved into the Fillmore. There I attended Polytechnic High School and once again things in my life would change. (This) School was full of talented vocal music athletes! This school had it all! Some of the coolest guys I've ever known and still do, have gone to Polytechnic High School. I met a drummer in the ROTC marching band name Alan Ross. This big guy could play some much drums we immediately became friends and what I didn't know on drums I stole from Alan affectionately. We would beat on everything in school especially in the band class he was in the Jazz Band and at the time I got to Poly, the class was full. So, I couldn't get into the Advanced band. I had to go into the intermediate band class (in order) to learn to read music... I still have my marching drum (from the time I was) living in Hayes Valley. One of the (Hayes Valley) neighborhood kids had an acoustic guitar and he would play on his steps on Buchanan Street and I would go get my marching drum and a steel milk crate that I used as a symbol and stomp my feet on the wooden steps to create a drum set we would play for hours and hours on those steps and people would gather around and join in playing glass bottles hitting on wood light poles or whatever they can get their hands on to play any type of beat... Down the block at Hayes Valley Playground in their multi-purpose room on Saturdays, they had a band practicing there. It was an older gentleman playing saxophone and a few others along with the guy on the stairs, Earl Anderson playing the rest of the instruments. One Saturday, their drummer got into an argument I can't remember who he got in argument with, but he packed up his drums and was leaving! Now by this time everybody knew I had just got a drum set and decided with my downstairs neighbors the Franklin family to practice my drums upstairs on Saturday only from noon to 5 p.m. and I would practice that whole time, so about this time I had learned by listening to two albums; James Brown and the other one was the Beatles, but I learn how to play a drum set. Then the band asked me to bring my drum set to Hayes Valley playground that next Saturday. When I got there Saturday and set my drums up, and to my surprise before the band got a chance to start practicing, their old drummer brought his drum set in. Nobody said anything. I didn't because I didn't know this guy, but he set his drums right next to mine and everyone was so quiet-including me, then he said, “OKAY let's get started!” and from then on, the band had two drummers. The drummer's name was Thomas Bouldin and we would get together at the Hayes Valley Projects where he lived along with the bass player and the saxophone player at that time... After that band broke up, I got into a band created by me and Alan Ross called the Dynamics to play at a school rally I think we only had two or three gigs... Later I got back with the Hayes Valley bands Rhythm Section and we started our own band and we named it the Soul Reflections and we kept two Drummers going like James Brown's band we had horns and got this guy out of Hayes Valley Project because he could dance like James Brown named Gregory Alston, then we added go girls from the Hayes Valley area we were tight we play every local spot in San Francisco from Sacred Heart to the Way Club. We found our manager that had associations with the Black Panther Party and we started practicing at the local Panther office on Fillmore Street... by then, word got around that I was a good drummer. About a couple of years later, I was called to this community center called Red Shield, they had an experience jazz band practicing up there. The leader was named Ricky Kelly. He played xylophone and they asked me join the band. So, I got my taste of playing jazz and R&B with them. We played the College circuit from San Jose to Sacramento. That was a great experience for me... After that while working part time jobs After that I worked at a furniture store on 3rd Street in the Bayview and this young man would come by the store every day after school and talk to me about playing in his band, they needed a drummer and they were having auditions. So, I told my buddy Thomas (the other drummer that played with me) to check it out because I thought the guys in that band was too young for me to play with. Thomas didn't make the cut, and he continued to come by the shop and asked me to play with them. I agreed to go to one of their shows at Woodrow Wilson High School. When I got there, the band was good-very good! but, the lead guitar player, Larry White and the bass player, Tyrell Johnson, were wearing knickers and Bazooka Bubblegum shirts and I did all I could do to not laugh at them, but the music was superb! The drummer they used that time was Charles Wright. This young man was rocking the hell out of those drums! At one point, the band gave him a solo and everyone left the stage for about 3 to 5 minutes. He had those drums talking the whole time! But he wasn't a member of the band just sitting in so I had to talk we're Larry later that week and decided to go do an audition at their manager Raymond Bell’s house on Van Dyke in the Bayview. So I came to the audition they had a drum set there and I sat down and proceeded to do the audition with the band. In the meantime, upstairs their manager, Raymond Bell, said that all he could hear was that bass drum pounding through the floor and he had to come downstairs and see who was playing those drums. He came down in the middle of one of the songs and stood at the bottom of the stairs and listen intensively. When we finished, he introduced himself as the band's manager and didn't give anybody a chance to say anything but he said I don't know who you are, but if you want the job, it's yours right now. I accepted and the band was called,          “Grand Theft.” We went on to perform everywhere in the Bay Area and as far as Seattle, Washington, Portland, Oregon. We got a record deal with Honey Records under the director Harvey Fuqua formerly of the group Harvey and the Moonglows a subsidiary of Fantasy Records in Berkeley. At the Grand Opening of Honey records the band performed in front of Smokey Robinson, Sheila E and others. We had a chance to be on stage with some of the finest artist known, like Gil Scott-Heron at the Kabuki Theater, Tito Puente's at the St. Francis Hotel San Francisco, The Side Effect band and we also was on the final tour going to Portland Seattle and Vancouver Canada with Harold Melvin & the Blue notes which was the tour that Harold Melvin called and cancelled the tour right before Showtime... The Blue Notes and Teddy Pendergrass had done their final sound check in Portland Oregon, and they wanted to go on anyway because Teddy was leading most of the songs. But Harold threatened the promoter with a lawsuit and they cancelled the show and refunded the people's money. The band stayed up in that area Portland and Seattle to perform at various venues in that area. At this time, I was the leader of the band and we had played in one year, just about every High School prom in the area. One school, down the peninsula, was so adamant about having us play their prom, but we were booked up most all the weekend. So, they move their prom to a Sunday so that we can play. I can't tell you what that did to the heads of most of the band members! After the release of our record, “Disco Dancing” and “How Could You Be So Cold,” we went to Canada to perform in 1977 for about a month. After returning to the States, the Disco movement was having sit-ins and gigs were scare. The band started downsizing and dropped the horns through various reasons and the band eventually disband and Larry white went off to The Whispers band... I start working my talent as a sound man through Alan Ross and the New Genesis band. Alan had just come out of his band -Funk Junction, and was singing with the new Genesis band. We eventually started our own band and named it “The Chateau Band.” Then again, I was in another Dynamic band. We played in Oakland at Mosswood Park for a battle of the bands, it was a two-day elimination event and we won $5,000 worth of studio time and produced a 45-rpm featuring the song, “Feeling and Strike a Spark.” From there, I started playing and subbing with a numerous number of other bands in the Bay Area. To name a few: The 5.0 band, The Bay Area Blues Society, The Picture-Perfect band. And I even formed my own band on a limited basis named The Eclectic band... I am currently working with some Bay Area Talent like Terrie Lundee and the B-4 Dawn band, Jackie Turner, blues singer Willie Ge, the KP project, George Whitsell formerly of the Crazy Horse band and Niecy and the Obamas. I'm currently working in and around the San Francisco Bay Area playing venues festivals and clubs in the San Francisco Bay Area...