There's always magic in the air

Thanks to Charles Hughes for the big Junker mention on his blog, and for his very kind words about me. For some reason I am reminded of one of the Junkers' first shows, a party in the basement of a building I lived in on North Ingersoll Street, here in Madison. This was not long after I moved here, back in 2000 or so -- so long ago, in fact, that we were called not the Junkers but the Benders.

I was still so new to playing live music that I was terrified to perform even for that group of partygoers, most of them friendly hippies who were guests of my flatmates and neighbors. But we made it through our set, and then came the performance by the headliners, a sort of jazz-rock combo fronted, if memory serves, by the boyfriend of one of the ladies who lived in the apartment upstairs from mine.

Midway through their set, they launched into the familiar riffs that begin George Benson's funky remake of the old Drifters tune "On Broaday." (Benson's version, you'll recall, played at the beginning of the Bob Fosse film All That Jazz.) It soon emerged that no one in the group was equipped to sing the song. It was too hard for the regular singer, or the guy who normally sang it was sick, or something.

I must have been standing nearby, because I was quickly handed the lyrics and pressed into service. And so one of my earliest performances in Madison live music was a George Benson tribute. I love that song, and that version, and I believe I sang it with gusto -- including, of course, the scatted portions.

Years later, at a Junkers show, I ran into someone from that band, and he said a tape existed of the performance. He promised he would get me a copy, but I'm still waiting. Anyone else got a dub?