07/20/2026
Terry on 𝙒𝙊𝙍𝙆𝙎𝙃𝙊𝙋 (as told to Johnny D)
“𝙒𝙊𝙍𝙆𝙎𝙃𝙊𝙋 came at a great time. Our previous album, “Scraps”was recorded with producer/engineer Eddie Kramer at the band house during a cold December in Mt. Vision, NY.
But now, it’s summertime in New York City. We were having lots of fun and crazy times there. We were staying at the Chelsea Hotel and there were lots of great people there. I met the guy who was the main character in Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road” and also actor Michael J. Pollard, who became a big fan.
At first, I was shocked when Frank Gadler left the band when we started to record 𝙒𝙊𝙍𝙆𝙎𝙃𝙊𝙋. He said that he was going to open a bicycle repair shop. We didn’t release “It’s Not Too Late”, which we had intended as a special song for Frank until later with Al Anderson singing it on “High Noon”.
Al played great guitar on the album, but he was only allowed to sing one song, because he was still signed to Vanguard Records. That was a tough break because we had hoped to record “Be My Woman Tonight” and another of his songs, but we had fun and made a good record anyway.
At Electric Lady Studios my brother Donn had come up with “Dry Up and Blow Away.” And even though the song mentions people that didn’t exist, like a sister, our mom took issue with the lyric “Daddy’s always drunk, His eyes are shot with red.” She told Donn, “Son, your Dad doesn’t drink.”
While writing songs for the album, I caught up with a lot of stuff that happened to me when I was a kid, like on “RC Cola and a Moon Pie”, which deserves its own story. It had Joey on the upright bass. We recorded it at the beginning of the sessions and when we were done, we did it again, but stuck with the original. And we did a song written in ’66 with my friend Charlie Craig, who played drums with the Louisville version of NRBQ, about needing gas money to go out on the weekend: “Get That Gasoline Blues.” It had nothing to do with a gas shortage. We were later called back into the studio by K**a Sutra Records to update the song when a shortage actually happened.
For the album, Joey wrote a great song called “Deaf, Dumb and Blind.” He and I were both working on a similar song idea. I thought his was better, so I gave him my title and a few lyrics. For the recording, he had Keith Spring play a great saxophone line during the song’s chorus. That was a wild thing we had going on.
Also, two tracks on the album were recorded earlier than the others. “Misunderstanding” was recorded in 1970 (after Steve Ferguson left and before Kenny Sheehan joined). I got Steve Shook from our good friends Travis Shook & the Club Wow to play acoustic guitar. The song was written after the Kent State shooting. The original lyrics were about that, but I toned them down for the recording, which was done live in the studio. It’s a pleasure to hear Tom Staley’s percussion on it. And Joey’s song “Mona” was recorded during the Scraps sessions. It was too good to leave back there.
I also remember that we were starving while we were in New York City and there were lots of fabulous pizza places. Our manager Frank Scinlaro volunteered to go get the best pizza. We waited for him and the longer we waited, the hungrier we got. He finally arrived with a large pizza box. He carried it carefully but then fell on it face-down in front of us all. After we gasped, he got up and laughed. The box was empty. He went into the other room and got the real box with the delicious pizza. It was the best joke of the day.
This new version of 𝙒𝙊𝙍𝙆𝙎𝙃𝙊𝙋 brings us a lot closer to what the sessions for the album actually meant. And there’s more to come!”
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