Johnny’s Got a New Group

Saturday, Feb. 3,1979

By MATT DAMSKER, Of The Bulletin Staff

Boomer (from left): Rickl Leone, Jimmy Bevan, Johnny Jackson, John Evans Jr. and Chris McAlpine.

Johnny Jackson is best known to lo¬cal rock ‘n roll fans as the lanky namesake of Johnny’s Dance Band, but it’s been more than a year since he left for other pop music pastures. Now, Jackson is back from his self-imposed exile, as the star and “sole manager” of a new quintet called Boomer, which will debut Monday night, at 10, at Grendel’s Lair, 500 South St., Philadelphia.

“Seven of the band members were writing songs by the time Tony Juliano and I decided to leave the Dance Band, which we’d started in 1969,” explained Jackson during a recent visit to the Bulletin. “The group was just going in so many directions that we felt we had to take our music some¬where else.”

With Boomer, Jackson claims to have find the perfect vehicle for his musical journey. As lead singer and rhythm guitarist, Jackson has the kind of control he never had with “his” Dance Band. Except for a few select tunes by fast friend Juliano, all the Boomer material is Jackson’s own, and he’s eager to try it out on the public.

“Variety in rock ‘n roll can be a dangerous thing, don’t I know,” re-fleets Jackson. “But we also believe that variety is an inherent part of rock, and Boomer is shooting for the right balance of different things. There are lighthearted songs and serious ones, love songs, hate songs, a number about getting shot down in a disco. . . there’s even a pro-cop song.”

Jackson would seem to have found the right sidemen for his vision of rock ‘n roll variety. Lead guitarist Chris MacAlpine is equally adept at jazz and rock; keyboardist Jimmy Bevan, from Toronto, has an impressive record of studio session work with top “Philly Sound” rhythm-and-blues acts, as does bassist Richi Leone; and percussionist John Evans’s musical experience spans everything from session work to a stint in a drum and bugle corps.

“Tony and I made a lot of trips to New York and L A. after leaving the Dance Band, but most publishers were reluctant to sign us as staff writers because they felt that the strength of our songs lay in our own performances of them,” says Jackson. “To me, that was gratifying advice, but Tony had no desire to perform again, so now he’s scuba diving off Catalina Island in California.” Jackson himself is a Cleveland native who originally wanted to be a pro baseball player, but wound up with a fine-arts degree in woodworking from the Philadelphia College of Art and now teaches that subject there. “But I have a fondness for diving too — that’s why I’ve plunged back into the music business.”

HERE AND THERE: In case you haven’t heard, cabaret-rock sensation Karon Bihari is appearing tonight at The Hat Club, 21st and South sts. .. New York rock idol David Johanson turns up tonight, in concert, at Alexander’s, in Brown’s Mills, N.J.. .. Philadelphian Bobbi Silver is leaving RSO Records after two fast-rising years as regional operations manager. She’ll join Casablanca Records as East Coast operations manager for Associated Labels.

“Wings Over America,” the 90-min-ute CBS-TV special featuring Paul McCartney and Wings during their 1976 American concert tour, will be broadcast March 16 from 11:30 P.M. to 1 A.M. over Channel 10. Reports have it that McCartney has finally signed with CBS Records after a long association with the Capitol label.