[Harp-L] SPAH Convention Cities



John Walden writes:

>Detroit was GREAT in '97....!

To which Michael Peloquin replies:

>That was the next to last year of the "Golden Age
>of SPAH" I wasn't there, but I know that it must be
>better than any SPAH I have been to!

Easy there, big fella. That was John Walden who posted, not that person who, without naming names, has wasted no opportunity to apprise the List of his or her firm opinion that the SPAH convention was a much better event when he or she had a hand in running things.

I attended SPAH for the first time in 1998 (Romulus/Detroit again). The venue was horrible for anyone without access to a car. Although the hotel was convenient to the airport, alternatives to the hotel restaurant were almost non-existent. There was a chain restaurant right next door (Bob's Big Boy?), the food from which sickened several people including, if I remember correctly, a close personal friend of mine. Then there was a sub-Subway quality sandwich place in a forlorn strip mall and, at some additional remove, a mediocre Italian place one got to by traversing terrain last used as a location for the filming of Mad Max. That was it.

But the convention rocked because of the people and the stellar entertainment line-up. Members of The Greatest Generation, historically the backbone of SPAH, were ten years younger than they are now and consequently both more numerous and more vigorous. Blackie Shackner was there. Pete Pederson was there. Doug Tate was still with us. Between the official entertainment and the attendees, there was an embarrassment of extraordinary talent. Well, there is at every SPAH, but this was over the top. Kim Wilson, Curtis Salgado, Steve Baker and the amazing Chris Jones (RIP), Jerry Portnoy, Cham-Ber Huang, Charlie Leighton, William Galison, Carlos del Junco, Steve Guyger, Robert Bonfiglio, Stan Harper, Joe Martin....Yikes! And ex-World Harmonica Champion Jim McGlaughlin, who arrived in someone else's Oldsmobile 442 (remember, JR?) and who at one point dumped out his whole bag of harps on the hotel carpet, revealing several Filiskos and a pink plastic harmonica in the shape of a penis, which is the one he put in his mouth. Randy Singer led the best jazz jam ever, with a killer local trio that played absolutely top-level music and that genuinely seemed to be having a blast. And, while it was great to see Richard Hunter in Milwaukee last month, in 98 he was accompanied by his lovely wife and a bottle of Bushmills that, at a critical juncture, mysteriously lost its cap.

A long way of saying that to me, it's the people that make the convention, not the place.

George





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