Sometimes angels come into our lives and leave an indelible impression on the trajectory of our subsequent years. We may not recognize them as such at the time, especially if they’re “angels with dirty faces,” so to speak…they hide their wings well.
In the summer 1976, a music producer came from Coconut Grove, Florida to our group of troubadours, a/k/a Climbadonkey, to record a three-song demo. More than just the technical stuff of going into the studio, he took the time and got to know each one of us individually. We hung out. He showed us things that we thought were really cool, “magic” tricks, card games, seemingly innocuous time wasters, nothing ostensibly to do with music. But they had an important theme behind them. They were team-building exercises, and we didn’t even realize it then.
The guy was living the rock’n’roll lifestyle and was associated with some of the highest names in the rock world. You may not have known his name, but you certainly were aware of the company that he kept. Not going to drop names here, only his. This was in the wild, wide-open days of the rock era. And he was known in the industry as a wild man, cleverly hiding his angel status.
We tried to put together a deal with his production company, but the timing wasn’t right then and the deal never happened.
Fast forward six years, when there was some interest in a song with our subsequent band called the Ravyns. Interest in using a song for the soundtrack for a Hollywood motion picture came about and was being considered for use by another band you’ve heard of. The president of the label that was releasing the soundtrack was associated with this angel producer from 1976. Now, this is but one of the cogs in the happenstance machine, of many, that went into the Ravyns finally securing their shot at the big time. Had that angel’s cog not been in the machinery, I daresay you probably would’ve heard the song, but performed by different artists.
This producer agreed to record the song with us performing it, others had rallied the powers that be, that were telling them to give these guys a shot. The next weekend we were flying to LA and worked over the weekend where this producer put the song together. And the rest became history for us.
Fast forward another few years, a turnabout came in this producer’s life for various reasons, and the producer moved off of the rock-world mountain and into a more normalized life. I tried tracking him down for years. And finally got in touch with him a few years ago.
Two years ago I visited him where he had retired in his hometown in southwestern Michigan. I took an artist that I had been producing to meet him and played him our music. Even though the business had stung him over the years, his love of music and his eagle-eye for production details never waned. He gave some very good constructive criticism in the five hours we spent with him. And he selflessly gave up some of his secret sauce production tips as a parting gift.
We took him to dinner at his favorite local restaurant and had a lovely meal together. His menu had to be altered because he was not in good health; he had been having digestive issues, which he thought at the time was celiac disease. But the doctors hadn’t been really sure.
In the subsequent couple of years, we remained in touch by telephone and on social media. He was a bass player and had some reunions with his old mates in Michigan. Once music gets under your skin, it never goes away.
The last time I spoke with him, he was still having health issues, still properly undiagnosed. I received a text message a few days from his nephew, stating that he had had a stroke and was declining in health, and wasn’t doing well. I called and spoke with his nephew who also informed me that he had bone marrow cancer and probably wouldn’t make it a few more days.
I just received word that he passed a short time ago.
This man, this rock’n’roll producer, this crazy, devil-may-care whirling dervish of a wild man, got to walk with the giants from the highest mountaintops. And glimpsed vistas we could only imagine. He never forgot from whence he came, and in his own way went out of his way to help anyone he could. Without pretense.
He can no longer hide his wings. RIP Allan Blazek.