SAL VALENTINO of the BEAU BRUMMELS
The Director's Cut Version by JUD COST

As we mentioned in the intro to the Declan Mulligan online interview, the Beau Brummels were a unique collection of individuals, each with his own special talent. Sal Valentino's gift from the gods was his stunningly original voice, a heartfelt warble that, as much as the finely crafted songs of Ron Elliott, was a signature element of the band. Valentino is an original. He sounds like no one else. Much like latter day Paul Revere, Sal still performs Beau Brummels hits from time to time with his own band of baby Brummels these days. Keep an eye out for him in a honky tonk near you.

We were privileged to have Sal perform material at Goathenge, the Jimmy Silva memorial concert that Big Myke Destiny, Phil Dirt and I hosted at Foothill College in Los Altos Hills recently. Pals since the mid-80's, Silva-a rare pop genius who died of complications from chicken pox in 1994-and Sal recorded a lot of material on Silva's porta-studio. And I know he was looking down and smiling on our efforts, probably with a paper cup of Tanqueray in his hand.

But enough of that. You're here to root around in the director's cut Sal Valentino interview. Sure we published a twenty four page booklet in our 3-CD box set, The Beau Brummels: San Fran Sessions, with an especially long segment devoted to your favorite Brummels crooner. But, as Fee Waybill of the Tubes was once fond of saying, "That's not all." Here's the stuff that wound up on the cutting room floor when we did the Big Trim and cut about a thousand words from this. At the end, if you're not already tired of him, Quentin Tarentino may answer your questions about the Beau Brummels and why they were one of San Francisco's three best pop/rock bands. Ever. Then again, he may not.

Sundazed: You grew up in North Beach in San Francisco, a mostly Italian neighborhood, didn't you, Sal?
Valentino: Yeah, we lived on Mason Street, four blocks from where I went to grammar school, at St. Peter and Paul's. Then we moved up to Powell Street, about two doors down from school, close to Washington Square. I played a lot of baseball as a kid. I was left-handed, so I played first base and pitched a little bit. I wasn't a power hitter, more like line drives. My father grew up playing semi-pro ball with Joe DiMaggio and his brothers, Vince and Dom. He used to tell me how Joe could hit softballs into the swimming pool at North Beach Playground. Baseball ended for me when I went to Sacred Heart (high school), because that was big-time baseball. I went out one day and there were about four hundred guys, trying to make the team. When I found out they were only looking for one or two guys, I decided to play football instead. I was a receiver. I think I made second team All-City. This friend of mine, Bob Cicchi, the other receiver on the team, and I met (NFL Hall of Famer) Ray Berry one day at USF when he was in town with the Baltimore Colts to play the Forty Niners.

Ron Elliott says he met you in elementary school, when you were both interested in music.
They were always doing these musicals, Salesian benefit shows at St. Peter and Paul's, and they found out I sang, so they asked me to do one. I had this friend Bob Gradek who played guitar along with me. That's when I first met Ron, when I was about fourteen. He seemed pretty talented to me. He was writing musical show tunes even then.

What singers influenced you enough as a kid to make you want to do it yourself?
I don't know how that came about. I'd always liked country and western music, anybody I could find, like Lefty Frizzell or Merle Travis, and Hank Williams, of course. Also that guy who sang "Half A Heart," Ernest Tubb. In San Francisco I couldn't find much of that stuff, and it took a little doing to even find a country radio station, KEEN in San Jose. Later, when I was about eighteen, I got to meet Merle Travis in a nightclub in San Jose. Elliott knew a little bit about country and western music too. He'd been working with this guy named John Francogiotta, this operatic kind of singer, and they had kind of an act together. They tried a couple of talent shows. I remember them doing Marty Robbins' "El Paso," which was pretty good.

Were you into pop music as a kid, or just country?
Mostly country, until Elvis came along, and then I started getting into that. And I also sang in these light opera productions at the Salesian shows, things like Bye Bye Birdie and West Side Story.

You and Ron Elliott went to different Catholic high schools?
Yeah, I went to Sacred Heart and he went to St. Ignatius. I knew this guy named Joe Brattesani who owned Music City. Joe was an accordion player, and he had all the work in North Beach - all the dances, all the weddings. So I introduced Ron to Joe, and they played together quite a bit after that. I'd work sometimes with Joe or this drummer, Joe Vella, who'd come up with gigs once in a while. Then Joe got married and got rid of the store. By then Ron had put together a band, and that's when I first met John Petersen. Bob Gaglione played with us too. They had this band called the Irish Californian band, a name that John Hooley came up with once he decided to use us at that hall out on Clement Street. And I assume that's where Ron met Declan. I think Declan approached him about putting together another kind of band, and Ron called me, told me about it and asked me if I wanted to come and rehearse with them. I'd played a little bit with Joe Piazza and the Continentals and Les Welch and the Preludes, when Les got this gig at Bimbo's in the side room. And I was playing one night a week (as Sal Valentino) at El Cid.

When did you change your last name from Spampinato to Valentino?
I made a record for these guys Trig Richards and Bob Kelso, who'd seen me at a Columbus Avenue bar called LaRocca's Corner, where I was singing Sunday nights with Leo, Vince and Jack. I recorded "I Wanna Twist" and "Lisa Marie" for them in 1961(on Falco Records), but they didn't think it was a good idea to use Spampinato - not catchy enough. They were going to call me Rudy Valentine, but my father suggested they use "Sal Valentino" instead. Everybody assumes it was because of Rudolph Valentino, but my father picked it because he was a big boxing fan, and one of his favorites was this heavyweight - who fought Ezzard Charles for the title - named Pat Valentino. I got quite a few appearances on Dick Stuart's Dance Party on KPIX (local CBS TV station) out of that single. Before I met Trig and Bob, when I was about sixteen, my father took me over to Fantasy (in Berkeley) to meet Sol Zaentz, and he offered me a seven year deal. I told him, "When I want to get married I'll come back."

Where did the Beau Brummels play their first live shows?
I think the first time we ever played live was this gig Ron got us in the East Bay, and nobody showed up. But Art, the guy down at El Cid had told me, "If you ever get a band together, let me know. You can play here on off-nights." So I approached him, and we started playing on Monday nights. We didn't last there long. One night he asked Elliott how old he was and Elliott told him. And that was the last night we played there. I don't know how it happened - I guess he got ahold of Ron or Declan - but Rich Romanello found us two weeks later and got us into the Morocco Room (in San Mateo). Less pressure down there, so it didn't matter how old we were.

What do you remember about the Morocco Room?
It was different down the peninsula than playing in the city. I met a guy there named Herman who did all James Brown stuff. He was the first one to turn me on to the humidifier, because he was always hoarse. It was a lot looser at the Morocco Room. There were a lot of divorced women down there, a lot of pilots and a lot of stewardesses, back when they weren't allowed to be married. We met more girls down there than we'd meet for the rest of our lives. We played four nights a week, Wednesday through Saturday, five sets a night, and it seemed like the place was always full. When the Brummels thing started, in the summer of '64, I was on my second summer as a lifeguard six days a week up at the Marin Town and Country Club. They put me at the five-foot pool because I wasn't that great a swimmer. But I saved quite a few kids. I had two great jobs there for a while.

Rich Romanello wanted to be your manager?
He really made some moves to get us going. He took us down to LA one time, and we recorded four songs at Gold Star, but the only song I remember was one called "People Are Cruel." And probably "Stick Like Glue," I think. Romanello paid for everything. Tom Donahue may have told that story about being turned on to us by a hooker to make less of Romanello's presence in the whole thing. But it seemed to me that Romanello must have played that demo for Tom.

Do you remember the first night Tom Donahue and Bob Mitchell showed up at the Morocco Room?
No, I don't. But they'd been doing record hops down the peninsula some time before they started doing those big shows at the Cow Palace. Tom told the story how, before their first Cow Palace show, he was counting all the money they were going to lose. Once they did that first one, though - with Chubby Checker, I think - the rest was history. I think we did the second or third Cow Palace show, wearing those yellow cutaway coats. They were Romanello's idea.

Donahue had you signed and in the studio pretty soon after that?
Ron Elliott's father was being real cautious, so it seemed like a long time from when they submitted a contract until we actually signed one. But I guess it wasn't, really. Once we signed, it didn't take long to record "Laugh Laugh." It took longer to cut "Just A Little" - four different times, I seem to remember.

We found Sal Valentino demo reels and Ron Elliott demo reels in the Autumn vaults. What were those all about?
I did a lot of demos after our first album because I was writing songs at the time, and we didn't record very many of them with the Brummels. Me and John Petersen, and some of them Don Irving played on and Meagher. And Jan Errico sang on one session. And another time I had Ted and Scap (Ted Templeman and Dickie Scoppettone of the Tikis) singing on one.

How were the early Brummels sessions at Coast Recorders?
Any early signs of friction in the band?Our first engineer was a strange guy - this was before John Haeny - somebody named Don Guys, who would have fit better at a Ken Nordine (word jazz) session. But it went pretty smoothly. Ron had more to do than anybody because we did a lot of overdubbing, and they were always conferring with him about things to add to the songs. They babied him that way, because that's the way Tom wanted to do it. They'd been around these kinds of situations, and they knew what to do - go through Ron, because it seemed like he had the abundance of talent. We'd had problems the time before, down in LA at Gold Star - me and Declan. He thought it should be done differently, so he'd talk to Ron, and I'd hear about it sometime later: like if I was singing the A-sides, he should be singing the B-sides. Sometimes he and Petersen would have problems too, Declan making waves about the way things were. I guess he wanted us to sound more like the Beatles, more of a Declan sound than a Sal sound.

You seem better adapted to go with the flow.
I never had much to say about anything. I just sang the songs. But I'd known Elliott the longest - Declan and the rest of them came along later - and I guess he wrote the songs for me. (Declan's lead on) "Oh, Lonesome Me" was thought of as a good B-side, but even though he was always experimenting, playing his parts differently, there really wasn't anything he sang that was better than "Laugh Laugh" or "Just A Little" for the first two singles. There were several discussions - while Declan was deciding whether to play this kind of guitar or that kind of guitar - about him working on what he did more, even though he claimed he didn't need to work on what he did. There always seemed to be arguments about the two of us, but they weren't ever between the two of us. And another thing we had to consider was Ron Meagher's vocals on things like "They'll Make You Cry" and "Not Too Long Ago." His voice was so different - kinda spooky and interesting - and they thought about using some of them for singles.

How did you get along with Donahue? Did he admire your voice?
Yeah, he did. And we hung out together too, because we enjoyed each other's company. It was more difficult for Ron or Declan to hang out with Tom or Bob (Mitchell). I remember Declan and I had words one night down at (Donahue's club) Mother's, and Ron got all upset and had a (diabetic) seizure. His dad was in tears the next day, and I had to apologize to Declan. But whenever there were problems, Tom would always say, "Don't worry about a thing, babe. I'll take care of it." And he did take care of us, but while we waited for Tom, sometimes things seemed on the brink of going over the cliff.

Did Declan get fired or did he quit?
He burned his bridges with Elliott for some reason, I think, and got himself fired. Maybe he got him on a low sugar day, I don't know. But it wasn't like any one of us went to Tom or Bob and said, "Something's gotta be done about Declan" - not at all. John Petersen may have disagreed with Declan about rehearsing and things like that - John's the one who used to get in fights with him - but he's told me he never complained to anybody about him. One day Elliott went to Tom, and they decided that Declan had to go. So he was gone.

How did the band get involved in that giant turkey (no pun intended), Village of the Giants?
We did it because the director (Bert I. Gordon) was supposed to be pretty hot at the time. I think our manager, Carl Scott - who'd come out with Donahue from the East Coast and started this company called Cougar Productions - got us that deal. Tom and Bob seemed to be losing money by then, so they weren't around much. They were shipping records out but no money was coming back. We didn't see them much at that time. We shot everything for that movie in one day at the Whisky-A-Go-Go. We were told to pretend there were giant ducks and stuff in front of us at the club. And, of course, we never got to meet any of the people in it: Beau Bridges and the others (Tommy Kirk, Johnny Crawford, Ronny Howard and Mickey Rooney).

Did you play much on the Sunset Strip in LA?
We played a showcase at a club called the Red Velvet, which was the place for a short while. John Petersen says the Byrds came to see us. And we played some big dates at the Whisky too. We never did Ed Sullivan, but we were on Hullabaloo and Shindig quite a few times. And we played the Mike Douglas Show too. And that was about it.

How was Sly in the studio?
Sly was good to work with in the studio. But he was anxious to go do his own thing, which is pretty much what he did after our first album. I could be wrong, but our second album, I don't remember him being there at all. If anyone was in charge maybe it was John Haeny, but I don't think he was either.

Did Ron ever collaborate with any of you on songwriting?
Ron and I never did any writing together until the Triangle album, much was much later. None of us ever got any credit for writing songs with him. He did that by himself. I remember Declan was pursuing Ron - much later during the 1975 reunion - about getting some sort of percentage from his publishing: "Ron it's not like I'm asking for so much. I'm just asking for a crumb from your table." It was a shame anybody had to say that, because Ron knew as well as anybody you have to give a little bit to get somebody to record your songs.

How were those big bashes at the Cow Palace?
Everybody seems to think of them as career highlights.They went by pretty fast. I do remember this English medley that Ron put together for the third one (in the spring of1965). That was a good idea. It had things like "Don't Let Me Be Misundertood," "Eight Days A Week," "I'm Crying" and some others. It went over pretty well.

Were you shocked to find out you'd been sold to Warner Brothers in the spring of 1966?
What was more shocking was to read in the trades that the tapes for the album we'd just cut that never got released were up for auction. That was a little embarrassing. But once again, Tom stepped in, cooled everybody out and made the Warner Brothers deal. It turned out to be a great deal for himself, selling us one place and the back catalogue somewhere else. I don't know why (Warner's president) Joe Smith didn't get "Laugh Laugh" out of the deal, but I guess they felt it wasn't necessary. They'd gotten the Everly Brothers the same way without getting the hits. I guess they thought we were going to carry on. They did better with the Everly Brothers than they did with us. Although actually once the Tikis turned into Harper's Bizarre and Ted Templeman became a big producer they did okay from our deal too.

How did you cope with Ron Elliott's deteriorating health, when he bailed out on touring?
The guy we got to replace him, Don Irving, was good. But he only lasted a short time. When he got his draft notice, he went. That's when we decided not to play live anymore. We got tired of replacing guys. Don was the second guitar player we had to find to replace Ron. We'd used this guy on tour for a couple of months who had played with the Vejtables, Reese Sheets, before that. That was the first time we had to confront Elliott not wanting to go out. I always heard about it through Carl Scott. Or through Bob Mitchell, who was like the voice of death, "Oh, man, that's it. It's all over. Elliott can't work." He always made us laugh. One time we were supposed to go to England - we really wanted to go - and we couldn't go, supposedly because of Elliott's health. We were really disappointed.

Did you talk to Ron about his health problems?
I never talked to Ron much about anything, so I was never too sure about his health problems. I think he just wasn't really that crazy about going on the road. I remember the morning we were going to do the Mike Douglas show he went into a seizure, so he couldn't do the show with us. Mike Douglas made a joke out of it. He put on a wig, said he was "Ron Elliott for the morning" and joined us onstage. We were just lip-synching anway. After that, Elliott only wanted to stay home and write. That's all he'd ever done, really, that he liked.

How do you feel about the Beau Brummels this far down the road?
The only problem I had with the entire experience was that the Beau Brummels were always way too serious. We should have lightened up a little bit.