Bob wrote for The Journal Herald back when Dayton could support a morning and an evening paper. The JH was the good one. He spent three and a half years doing two columns a week plus an occasional special. The Thursday column was usually a "what's coming up" piece focused on the coming weekend and what could be seen and heard in and around the area. Mostly he covered Dayton and the surrounding communities but sometimes he got in stories on Cincinnati and Columbus clubs. Saturday's article was generally a review of an act that he'd seen earlier in the week and was probably going to be in town at least through the weekend of publication. The position was freelance in that Bob was not on staff at the paper. While he was referred to as the Entertainment Editor that really was a glorified bit of fluff. At that time (early ‘70s?) he was paid $30 a column ($15 for Thursday) and had what might have been a $30 budget to pay for the cover charges, meals and (sometimes) much needed drinks.

Bob's most notable assignment was to cover a season of the Kenley Players. He wasn't overly impressed and may actually have been partly responsible – okay, mostly responsible - for the company pulling their shows out of Memorial Hall. Oh yeah, he also did a review David Brenner
at the Beverly Hills Supper Club in northern Kentucky just before it burned to the ground. Coincidence?

Bob says that some favorite moments on the job include sitting at Sam's Bar and Grill on 5th the night Nanci Griffth blew through town with her band back before anyone knew who she was. There was also the interview with Loretta Lynn – his first really big star - in her tour bus parked outside of Kings Island after her show. The absolute best was sitting in Gilly's after Mary Travers finished her solo show one night. She was out of cigarettes and she spent the better part of two hours bumming his and talking about her career, PP&M and other stuff.

Bob's Random Acts of Memory from those days:

• Oddest act: A Caribbean Calypso Steel Drum band from..wait for it...Buffalo, NY. They played the Tropics several times.
• Most frequently heard act: Dow and Astrid.
• Strangest after show gathering: Sitting in a motel room on North Dixie with a magician - who's name is lost to history - surrounded by doves and rabbits in cages as he did close-up magic.
• Highest energy act: Tina Turner at Hara Arena.
• Band with the most interesting name: Zeno's Revenge.
• Only piece covering Cleveland: There was a lasarium show that was getting great press. He got a page one entertainment section story out of it. His editor changed the headline to laZer and they laughed about the misspelling for weeks. Not really.
• Place with a special place in his heart: Monk's Inn on the UD campus.
• Act he never had a harsh word for: Kathy Burch.
• Place to go when nothing else was going on: Dominic's.
• Best peanut shell covered floor: The Ground Round, Kettering.
• Reason he got the job: Knew the guy who had it before him. Could write a complete sentence.
• Reason he lost the job: Reader complaint of favoritism. A damned lie, he says, a damned lie!
  
  

THESE DAYS:

These days Bob is in Cleveland playing open mic nights
putting himself on the other side of the microphone as
penance for all things he said about the truly awful acts
he reviewed back before American Idol made music
criticism a parlor game.

Bob Sammon's Home On The Interwebs

 

 

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