Roger Zee Memoirs

"Life and Times of a Pandemic Musician"

Helen Goldberg 05/09/20

Waking up to this literally freezing Saturday morning during the Plague, I started reminiscing about my early years. Born in the UK to a US Air Force captain stationed there during the Korean War, my mother and father moved us to Brooklyn when I turned two months old. A few years later, the family relocated to Parkway Village, Queens, NY where I ended up getting into a lot of playground fights, even getting suspended a week from PS 117! Welcome to another excerpt from my memoirs, "Life And Times of a Pandemic Musician."

But the story really begins in the middle of second grade when I moved to Great Neck, Long Island, New York and started Saddle Rock School. My mom sent me off on my first day in the snow to navigate the three blocks from my house. Not surprising to all who know me, I got lost, started crying, and a stranger had to rescue me!

A shy, sickly loner, it took me a while to adjust. But one Spring day at playground recess while watching a kickball game, I got struck by the Thunderbolt! This gorgeous brunette, golden goddess, Helen Goldberg, kicked a home run and stole my heart for the next 10 years!

I found out that she lived across the street from me in this beautiful house high atop a hill. Her family owned a big Golden Retriever and I took to hanging out in the street near her home in hopes of running into her while she walked the dog. How this shy, skinny, geeky loner managed to befriend her, I'll never understand. But I did. We drifted apart in a few years when we reached that age where boys and girls start detesting each other, LOL!

She came to my Bar Mitzvah but by that time we had both changed physically and mentally. By then, I had developed a crush on Joanne Petroff which I managed to screw up completely! But in the summer between 7th and 8th grade, a bunch of us neighborhood kids would hang out at the local Saddle Rock pool every afternoon with our families and Helen and I grew close again. That's the summer my good friend Robert Lampl taught me how to play guitar. We built homemade skateboards from pulled apart metal roller skates and mounted them on a painted planks of wood. I remember that as the absolute best summer of my life!

Then came eighth grade and we all separated into our own cliques. But now I get to the real point of this long-winded narrative. I lived on Old Mill Road which, believe it or not, containd three Jewish houses of worship -- Great Neck Synagogue, Temple Israel, and Temple Beth-El (orthodox, conservative, reform.) And not too far away there stood a Catholic Church, St. Patricks. All four of these places sponsored teen dances, usually twice a month, which featured local Junior and Senior High School bands playing the hits of the day including The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Doors, The Animals, The Blues Project, etc.

The bands all followed a strict format -- three fast songs and then a slow song. Suffering from extreme shyness and insecurity, it would take me half the night to work up the courage to ask someone to dance. Then it would take a few more tries before I could find a girl who would actually agree to dance with me! I lived for those slow dances for obvious reasons, LOL! I always remember "Steve's Song" as my favorite.

Many of the musicians who played those gigs went on to future fame and fortune including Dean Bailin, Jeff Berlin, Billy Yule, Neil Rosengarden, Seth Kimball, George W. Nardo, Dave Alpert, Lynn M. Johnson.

Many years later living in Chelsea, Manhattan, I got to see the Blues Project play many times and even met some of the members. I ran into Al Kooper at Doctor Generosity, a bar close to my apartment. Not very nice to me. On a few occasions, I rode the downtown 7th Avenue bus sitting next to guitarist Danny Kalb. Very friendly but not in the best of health at the time. I also ended up jamming with Danny's brother Jonathan Kalb at some clubs on the Upper East Side. Lately, I friended Steve Katz on FB!

So on yet another Covid-19 Lockdown day, I bury my head in the sand dreaming of Summer romance while learning the bass lines to the epic Blues Project album "Projections." One <3

YouTube - Steve's Song - Blues Project