Recovered memories. . .

Back in the day. . .

Chocolate Milk's drummer, Dwight Richards, has posted another comment, this time about the "Sweet Touch Of Love" post, which I GREATLY appreciate. So, I am putting it up here so it's more readily seen:

Dan, you're right again. Dwight here, drummer for Chocolate Milk. reading your blog definitely jogs my memory. It brings me back to those days in Allen's studio and of course the live shows. Yes, that is my complete band "Chocolate Milk" backing allen on that track. you are also correct about the venue. It was a night time concert sponsored by Jazz fest on the riverboat president. I don't recall playing outdoors with allen at the Fairgrounds, that year, but I surely remember playing on the Riverboat. Allen had only recently begun playing live during that time. Allen was a master in the studio, Chocolate Milk were masters on the live stage. We were his security blanket. Being a self contained unit, we were quite used to playing live. Allen, on the other hand was painfully shy. He would not venture onto a stage without us. We were always a "jam" band long before the term was coined. any live venue was fun for us and often we would make up a song live, on the spot. I remember that some of the songs were named only after we played them. not only did we play live with Allen on the Riverboat, but, about a year or so later we played live with Paul McCartney on the Cotton Blossom riverboat for an album wrap party. we played on some tracks for McCartney's album. To celebrate the completion there was a huge party given on the riverboat. Paul's band played, the Meters played and Chocolate Milk played. Then we ALL jammed together. the whole thing was filmed for a documentary, but someone stole the film that night. There was a big commotion and investigation, but that film has not surfaced even up til today. THAT would be a show!!!!! anyway, I hope you enjoyed the story. Anytime I see something that I have some intimate knowledge about, I will try to respond. we were in Allen's studio just about every night, even when we were not recording, so I did get to see quite a few interesting sessions. If you like, you can move these comments to your main page. Actually you can do that antyime I respond. I can't remember if I told you, but we are reviewing four shows that we recorded at Sweet Lorraines (the latest was new year's eve. we played a funky version of "auld lang syne"). I promise to send you a copy of the CD once we get it mixed. It's taking a while! Keep up the excellent work here Dan, I really enjoy it! I guess I have talked enough here now so, good bye for now.

[Note 2/26/2008] What neither Dwight nor I knew when I did the original post and he responded is that the show we were talking about was actually NOT the 1976 riverboat concert, but a Toussaint concert from 1975 that was taped in Philadelphia for possible release as a live album by Warner Brothers, which was his label at the time. (The full 1975 concert recording finally saw the light of day in 2003!) As Dwight told me later in person, Chocolate Milk was not backing Tousssaint on that date. See the "Sweet Touch Of Love" post for more on how we were deceived into thinking otherwise.