Part I: Ambrosia, 1978

by Dinky Dawson • January 7, 2009

In September, a few months after I completed touring with Warren Zevon, I got a call from Warren Wallace, the former tour manager for Steely Dan, asking me to join him in Los Angeles, where he was working with Ambrosia. Arriving in LA, I went straight to their rehearsals at S.I.R. I dropped my bags, walked to the house console, and immediately started mixing the song they were rehearsing. When the tune ended, David Pack, Ambrosia’s lead guitarist and main vocalist, rushed over, very excited I was there. Soon Warren introduced me to Steve Lehman, their tour manager, chief cook, and bottle washer, Bob “Omaha” Toth, the keyboard tech and electronics whiz (whom I instantly pegged as the road crew’s wild man), and Gordy Hebler, their young lighting director. I also met the other band members: Joe Puerta on bass, Moog pedals, and vocals, Burleigh Drummond on drums and vocals, the two keyboard players, Chris North and David Lewis, and Royce Jones on vocals and percussion, whom I remembered from the 1974 Steely Dan tour. Their manager was Freddie Piro and the publicist Billy Pfordresher. Over the next few days, we all worked together, primarily for my benefit since these guys were well together after rehearsing for a month.

After a week we were ready to hit the road for a short tour, but I got a stomach bug and fever the day before I was to leave LA. Feeling queasy, I visited an old friend, a chemist, who had said he might be able to calm my stomach. As soon as I walked into Roy’s apartment, he noticed how ill I looked and immediately started putting a concoction together. I was fascinated by his prescription. He first emptied a bit of soda from a quarter-sized can of Coca-Cola, adding three crushed coca leaves to it. Scraping a brown chunk of rock he called French chalk, he added this white powder to the soda, which started bubbling and frothing out of the can.

“Drink this,” he said. “It will calm your stomach and bring down your fever.”

I followed his instructions, noting the pleasant sensation followed by a wonderful aftertaste. About five minutes after I downed the drink, my stomach settled and within the next hour I felt somewhat better. After two hours or so, I was feeling well enough to get ready to board a plane for the East Coast. It was pretty amazing, and I was thankful for his medicine! However, as I started to leave, I looked out the apartment window. The palm trees were waving at me. Was I feeling so good I was hallucinating?

“Earthquake!” yelled Roy, interrupting my thoughts. Good thing I had a few hours before my plane was scheduled to leave, so I waited at the apartment. On arrival at LAX, all I had to do was go to the gate, but stopped in my tracks as I passed the first class TWA counter. There was Muhammad Ali, checking his bags and shaking hands with the ticket agent. A little boy came up to him, asking for an autograph. Ali picked the kid up and put him on the counter as he signed the paper. You never know who you’ll see at LAX!

Our first gig was opening for Santana in Toledo, Ohio on October 6th and Kent State on the following night. After a day off for travelling, we opened for Heart at the Spectrum in Philly, followed by a gig with Heart in Portland, Maine.

After the Portland show, we drove to my warehouse in a former rope factory in Plymouth, Massachusetts, so Omaha could work on Chris North’s Chamberlin (a Mellotron-like, electro-mechanical keyboard) while the rest of us worked on other equipment and cables. After a night’s rest, we worked all day. As we were about to load the truck shortly after midnight, there was a sudden bang as the warehouse door crashed open.

“Bloody hell,” I thought, looking up from putting an amp into a case. “What’s going on?” Suddenly, the warehouse was filled with local and state police, waving automatic weapons as they rushed into the building.

“Don’t move. Stay where you are,” one of the cops said. “We have a search warrant.”

Everyone froze, more surprised than anything else. After an hour of tearing the place apart, the cops apologized, explaining they had been tipped that smugglers were in Cordage Park, loading bales of pot into a tractor trailer. A former hemp rope factory on the water front in Plymouth, it was an ideal place to bring in contraband, but the cops found nothing in our stuff. The cops were a little embarrassed but impressed by the amount of gear we had. A couple of them even knew Ambrosia’s hit single, “How Much I Feel.” Relieved, we packed the truck and set off to Buffalo for our next show on October 11th with Heart and Walter Egan at Memorial Auditorium.

There had been no problems opening for Santana, who were generous in letting us use their sound system. Heart was another story; their roadies turned off the low-end bass cabinets for Ambrosia’s set and were adamant about not turning them on. I have never understood why groups are reluctant to let opening bands use the entire sound system, although it’s often common practice, even today.