Johnny Gale
Johnny Gale is a Grammy nominated guitarist/producer who is originally from Queens and now resides on Long Island. At a young age, he was exposed to the popular music on AM radio as well as the many music related television shows, such as American Bandstand. With music playing a big part of many city kids social lives, Johnny decided to start playing the guitar. This led to him forming neighborhood bands that performed at local school and church social functions. As rock and roll evolved through the various phases, so did Johnny's knowledge and skills on the guitar. He would diversify his chops through genres like doo wop and teen Idols... right through to the British invasion and FM radio underground artists.
This solid foundation of experience prepared Johnny for a professional career where he would perform or record with groups and artists with the likes of Ringo Starr, Ronnie Spector, Randy and the Rainbows, Kenny Vance and the Planotones, Al Kooper, Dion, Robert Randolph and so many others. With countless hours of studio experience, Johnny soon became a sought after producer as well. He now uses this expertise on movie soundtracks, Broadway shows and helping other artists with their musical projects. Johnny will be appearing at the LAR Entertainment Doo Wop and Rock & Roll All-Star Weekend at Hauppauge High School - Long Island, New York - April 21st and 22nd, 2018. Johnny and I had a retrospective conversation about the early days of rock and roll and his career in music.
R.V.B. - Hey Johnny... how are you?
J.G. - Hi Robert... how are you? I'm looking at my bio to get re-acquainted with myself.
R.V.B. - Did you lose touch? (Haha)
J.G. - Actually in the process of taking care of my aging parents. In the midst of that... you kind of lose yourself.
R.V.B. - I have similar issues.
J.G. - I soaked in a lot of memories of my youth with them of music and TV. A lot of people wake up at 13... I woke up when I was about two.
R.V.B. - Did you grow up on Long Island?
J.G. - I grew up in Queens. The first 10 years in Flushing, and then we moved to Bayside in 1962. In all those years, the records that were popular - my ears were glued to the radio or watching American Bandstand - it could of been the Kirby Stone Four or The Four Preps... I was very aware of what was popular. The records were so otherworldly, and so vivid. When I hear them today, they take me back to those moments.
R.V.B. - What music were you exposed to in your house at first?
J.G. - My father was a classical music fanatic. His older brother, who he idolized, was with the NBC orchestra - with Toscanini. Then he was with the New York Philharmonic... from 56 to 76. He listened to WQXR (classical station). I appreciate that station now, more than I did back then. They would ram it down my throat. My mother loved that too but she listened to WNEW AM... William B. Williams, Martin Block with Make Believe Ballroom. So I knew the pop records also... Perry Como, Patty Page and Rosemary Clooney. I was exposed to all of that stuff when I was a kid. Then I discovered rock and roll on the dial. We'd be in the car and if I didn't hear what I called "wild music," they would pacify me by putting on my station... which was WINS. This was AM radio... there was no FM yet.
R.V.B. - That was like thee station before WABC took over.
J.G. - WABC came on the air in 61. I listened to them too. I listened to WMGM and all the way down the dial to WWRL. If they were doing too many commercials on one station, I would switch over to another. Before we had a transistor radio, I had a Philco radio, that ran on a cell battery. When my grandparents moved to Florida, they got me a transistor radio. I was glued to that thing. I had some older acquaintances that introduced me to Alan Freed. I knew Murray the K from the radio. I wasn't that interested in that, it was the music that hooked me. There were tons of commercials back then with a lot of jive talking. I was young and didn't want to listen to them. I was very affected by the music. Every season, we'd have a different batch of records that were popular. I vividly remember the records that I associated with certain seasons. They would go away and then many years later when the oldies radio format arrived, I started hearing them again.
R.V.B. - Did you make side money and go out and buy 45's?
J.G. - Absolutely. I used to go to Larry's records. He used to be on Horace Harding and Springfield Blvd, in Bayside. He would sell current records, but he would also sometimes run a special on records that were a few years old. He's have the Del Vikings one week... if you bought a couple of records you'd get "Come Go With Me" backed with "Whispering Bells"... or Buddy Holly. In 1963, I'd go there and buy Bobby Sox and the Blue Jeans. I had accumulated a lot of records at that point from my old neighborhood. They didn't call it doo wop in those days. They just called it rock and roll. I had a lot of stuff and I still do. I didn't really take good care of them, so the sleeves were thrown out. They were played with four quarters on the arm of the turntable. I wore out a lot of the records.
R.V.B. - I'm sure you stacked them up with the automatic changer.
J.G. - You better believe it. I've always loved records from the time I was little. I loved listening to the radio. I used to watch American Bandstand with my mother. I remember seeing Conway Twitty and Dion and the Belmonts... everybody that popular in that moment.
R.V.B. - That show was out of Philadelphia.
J.G. - Dick Clark wasn't the original host. The original host left after a scandal (Bob Horn). They appointed Clark to the position because of his clean cut image. The show became very popular. Then he had the Saturday Night Beech Nut Hour. That was broadcasted from New York City. I used to watch that with my mother on Saturday nights. I remember watching Million Dollar Movie with my cleaning lady. We lived in garden apartments. I had a next door neighbor named Ann Joel, who was in a wheel chair. She was a generation older than my parents - chain smoking Winston's - and she belonged to the Columbia Record Club. She would play records like Guy Mitchell, and other pop stuff. She used to give me rock and roll records when she was done with them. When I opened my door, I would be facing her door. I used to hang out with her a lot. It was a little peculiar but that's just the way it was, back then in the 50's. She had some Tommy Edwards... more like adult oriented pop stuff. Some of them drove me wild. I didn't know why at the time but when I became a little more mature, and started to learn about musical de-construction, I figured out that arrangers like Leroy Holms were really talented and knew what they were doing. They were professionals... Don Costa. I had exposure and became aware of that. It became my mission to get inside of as many of those arrangements as possible. Then when I played the guitar, it became natural to incorporate this knowledge into my playing. I'll play around a singer and do some pianistic stuff on the guitar... like decorating around a singer. Eddie Holman said to me once "I was a singers greatest gift." That was the best compliment I ever got.
R.V.B. - When did you start playing the guitar?
J.G. - I was just shy of 10.
R.V.B. - Was there any particular song or artist where you said "That's it... I'm playing the guitar?"
J.G. - There were a couple or records - when I was young - that were guitar intensive and made be wild. One of them was Young Love by Sonny James. When I was a little older there were chords that were making me crazy... You Cheated by the Shields... that intro. The whole record is a killer. I had it on a EP. When I was little, I would just play it over and over. My mother would get annoyed. We lived on top of each other... "How many times are you gonna play that?" I was so enthralled with the sound. I had a lot of records... Elvis's Teddy Bear. I must of played that 80 times in a row one day, when I was young. Many years later, when my son was little, I'd be playing Handy Man by Jimmy Jones or Poetry In Motion by Johnny Tillotson. He would ask me "How come you play it so many times?" I told him "So you learn it." He enjoyed it, before there was peer pressure. He loved some of those records... they transcended time. I got a kick out of - when he was four years old - to see his reaction to that stuff. He's got a good memory, like I do. Now he's in his early 20's and he'll get embarrassed when I remind him of something, because he remembers it. My parents didn't really care so much what was going on in my world. My world was private. All the kids back then had the kids TV shows. Most of them were crap, but some of them, I really followed. I knew all the actors names. I was into baseball. Like most of the kids at the time, we were out on our own at five years old. We'd be out for the whole day until our mother would yell out the window for us to come in for dinner.
R.V.B. - Were you a Mets fan?
J.G. - I saw two Mets games the first year they were in existence at the Polo Grounds. It was the worst ballpark to see a game. There were so many pillars, that obscured the view. The seats were uncomfortable. I still have the scorecards of the two games I saw. They were a terrible team. The star was Richie Ashburn... Choo Choo Coleman... Yogi Berra was on the team... Gil Hodges. Some of the old timers were there. Before that, I was a Yankees fan. My father was actually a New York Giants fan. He was really into Willie Mays. We also used to go to a lot of Yankees home games in 1961, when Maris and Mantle were in that home run race. It was an exciting time, between that, and rock and roll. It was a pretty exciting time for a kid.
R.V.B. - Right around that time period the vocal groups were still very popular. A lot of them started in the 40's and 50's. Why do you suppose the urban city areas like New York, Philly, and DC, grew so many singing groups?
J.G. - I think because those areas were more congested. If you were on a farm in Idaho, I don't know... Haha. Although they had groups singing in Texas, and some of those rural areas. We had like a super-culture then, because now everybody's on the computer or watching TV, but in those days it was more provincial. There would be a different cultural scene in Harlem than say, Cleveland or Cincinnati... which was a musical hub in those days. Down south they had a different temperament. On the west coast they had a different singing group scene. There was Jesse Belvin... Gaynel Hodge... Bobby Day and people like that. Also, these record companies with all these independent labels. There was a lot in New York. New York was the hub then. When those guys grew up in an urban environment - where it was very congested - it was a way to get together. A lot of them probably started in church, where they were exposed to singing. It was their recreation. Each building or block, the guys would get together. Maybe they'd hear about somebody a few blocks away... or they were looking for a 1st tenor or something? Maybe there was a guy that was having a falling out with his group, who was great? I read a lot about it. In Queens, you had The Heartbeats and The Cleftones. They went to Jamaica High School. They also had some adult supervision. I know that William Miller was a father of The Miller Sisters. He was very involved with The Heartbeats. When they got with James Sheppard - he was a bit older than them - they heard he was great. They used to sing in some park in Jamaica. There was another group The Videos... they were great. They became The Limelight's. I've worked with a lot of these people, through this organization that I was a staff musician for... for many years. From 87 to around to the early 2000's. They were called the UGHA... United in Group Harmony Association. The founder was a guy named Ronnie Italiano. He went by the name Ronnie I. I was learning about every facet of that era. It was very educational because he would bring in people that were very obscure and some not so obscure. I backed many, many people in the Doo Wop idiom, on both the guitar and bass.
R.V.B. - When you started playing guitar in the early 60's, did you get caught up in the British invasion?
J.G. - For sure. I remember there was a woman that my mother hooked me up with - who was nine blocks away - who was teaching me some fundamental chords. I had a nylon string acoustic guitar, that my cousin had given me. I remember learning a few chords in the first position. I remember I would fantasize I was in the Dave Clark 5. The records were so incendiary. Of course, The Beatles records were other worldly. I had heard about them, and I remember I had to go to the dentist, in the Bronx. We were driving on the Cross Island Parkway. Before I heard The Beatles, I heard Dusty Springfield I Only Want To Be With You - and I heard She Loves You... I Want to Hold Your Hand and Please, Please Me. I still love the early Beatles guitar intensive records. I love the way they're recorded... with all that room ambience. When I hear them, they still really affect me. Later on, those records sound a little European to me. They didn't sound as official as those records that they were trying to emulate. But a lot of them were tremendous. A few nights ago, I actually went to a book signing at The Bitter End... that I got invited to. It was a book about Bert Berns. It was 20 years in the making. He was one of the early writers/producers from the Brill building scene... to go over to England to record the "Them" - which was Van Morrison - and some other people over there. So he was there in 1964, right around when the scene was just starting to pop. His children were there. I met the daughter, and she was a very sweet person. I met Gary Sherman, who was the arranger. Bert Berns was a co-writer on Twist and Shout... and Brown Eyed Girl... and Hang on Sloopy. He had his own record label. He died very young. He was 38 when he died. He had congenital heart problems. Now they have an off Broadway show based on the life of Bert Berns. I knew his name just from records. He also went by the name of Bert Russell. He co-wrote Twist and Shout with this guy Phil Medley. Phil Medley was an older black guy. He wrote A million to One... Jimmy Charles. He wrote those two songs but he didn't have any other hits to speak of. I think Phil Spector was the supervisor of the session, with a group called "The Top Notes." The version wasn't happening, so they went in with The Isley Brothers. They made the record that we're familiar with. It came out on "Wand." It was a monster. Bert Berns was into that Latin tinge. He was a big fan of Latin music... mambo... and all those elements. Bert Berns also did Under the Boardwalk. There's a lot of those Latin percussion instruments on there... those rhythmic elements on there. There were some interesting people there at the book signing. The book is called "Here Comes the Night." There is also a show coming out called "Piece of my Heart." He also wrote that song... which was made famous by Janis Joplin. It was originally recorded by Erma Franklin... Aretha Franklin's sister. A friend of mine - Aaron Fuchs - who owns Tuff City Records... he told me it's a must read.
R.V.B. - When did you start your first band?
J.G. - I fantasized about it for few years when I was about 12... when I started junior high school. I had some friends in the neighborhood that I knew from elementary school. We put together our version of what we thought our band was. It was kind of cute. We tried to played the songs that were popular at the time. We learned the riff on Mr. Tambourine Man... Good Lovin'... Hanky Panky... Louie Louie... Hang on Sloopy... those kind of things. A little later on we'd learn the riffs to Last Train to Clarksville. When I was 14 - because I was a good singer - I'd strum the guitar. I didn't really play solos at that point. I'd try to do a little Gene Cornish kind of thing... playing double stops on the guitar. But I mostly sang and played rhythm guitar. I got hooked up with these guys that were a few years older than me, in May of 67. I remember we played a band battle at St. Margaret's church, in Fresh Meadows... and we won! It was really like an impromptu thing. It was me, another guitar player that was three years older than me. His name was Mike Sullivan. A bass player, Artie Pilibosian and a drummer whose name was Steve Mongelluzzo... who I am still in touch with. I've known him for over 50 years. I remember the place was packed with kids, like sardines. So much of our life was that music. It would bring us together in a social setting... when bands would play at a school or a church. I remember my mother dropping me off - I had a Fender Jaguar guitar - she told me "Have fun." It seems like yesterday. It's hard to believe how long ago it is. Unfortunately the other guitar player - who was influential on me - was killed in a car accident in 1978... on the Interboro parkway. We played a couple of gigs before that. In junior high school we played in the auditorium. It seemed like everybody played guitar in those days. I started to see that I was getting more advanced than more of my peers. I had different interest than they had, in music. I saw Leslie West... I used to see them on The Clay Cole Show, with The Vagrants. In the fall of 67, they did some shows in a place called The Singer Bowl. It was in Flushing Meadow. The Rascals headlined... The Vagrants... The Illusion... and The Candy Men. I watched Leslie West become Leslie West. I guess he discovered Clapton that summer. He was transformed into a monster. Seeing them, I started to pick up on the language. I got into Clapton and Hendrix then. A little later on, Jeff Beck. Before that, I knew Lonnie Mack... and Duane Eddy... and Gene Cornish. I did make the leap into the more modern thing at the time... which was blues derived. I saw some unbelievable shows there. I saw Jimi Hendrix play there, with Janis Joplin and The Chambers Brothers... and The Soft Machine on the show. I saw The Cream at Madison Square Garden. It was one of their last shows in November of 68. I used to go to the Fillmore East. They would have bizarre mixes of bands. I remember seeing Steppenwolf... the opening act was Buddy Rich. They were Bizarre but they were interesting. Steppenwolf was the loudest band I ever heard. They had these Rickenbacker amps that would rip your head off.
R.V.B. -I loved the look of the keyboard player.
J.G. - Yeah. I did do a gig with him years later at this place called TG's, in Greenwood Lake. They had a sign up on the marquee - we were the opening act. I was in a band called "Whiplash." We were popular there - it said Steppenwolf. The place was filled with bikers. I went out to get some air and I saw they changed the spelling of Steppenwolf. It was only the keyboard player. John Kay wasn't there. I had my brothers, brother-in-law with me. He was a kid at the time. I said "As soon as we finish our set, I'm getting us out of here." I knew there was going to be trouble. They destroyed the place because there was no John Kay. I have so many stories Robert. As I tell these stories, hundreds of others come back. I've consistently done a lot of live shows over the years.
R.V.B. - It's still going on. You've been exposed to a lot of music and the stories will follow. It all gets ingrained in you and you never lose it. You mentioned Gene. I've played a few times with him. He has a story to tell also.
J.G. - I know the guy well. He's an interesting character.
R.V.B. - I'm happy for him that the Rascals got back together.
J.G. - I had him in this little group I put together called "Little Isidore and the Inquisitors". He was in for a time. He didn't drive, and I would spend some time with him, and take him out to friends houses. I would drop him off in North Bergen, New Jersey. He lived in an apartment there with his mom. When I was 13 or 14, I idolized the guy. I even had a Barney Kessel guitar because he used a Barney Kessel guitar. wanted to see if I could pull some of those sounds out of that thing. I met him, and he told me, you better bolt that bridge down, otherwise when your're playing, you're going to knock that thing all over the place. I remember I had a friend that worked in a place called "The Guitar Lab." He did a very neat job for me, of doing that procedure. I have a short bio and when I look at it, I'll see somebody's name, where I participated in a project, and it brings back memories. It's been a wild ride. I've been doing it for many years. There are guys that I still bump into these days, that I was in bands with many years ago. Do you remember Randy... of Randy and the Rainbows?
R.V.B. - Oh yeah... "Denise, Denise."
J.G. - We were a rock band at the time. We were called 'Them 'an' Us." I still have dreams occasionally - with a couple of those guys, when we were 24 years old - like I see them and it's surreal because they're 70. I was the youngest, and the older brother of Dominick Safuto... has to be close to 80. I was real close with him. I was always interested in those guys era, growing up. I knew a lot about it. When I see them... it's wild. It feels like no time has passed. But he's like an elderly guy. I don't think of myself that way. Although lately, I'm feeling it a little more. I'm kinda like a kid that never grew up. I'm a little bit like Gene Cornish. I used to say to Gene "You making me have to be my father." In a way it's wonderful, but in another way it was annoying, because I want to be that guy... and I'm younger than Gene. He was like a kid that never grew up.
R.V.B. - He still is. I used to blast the Randy and the Rainbows song Denise, Denise in my back yard on a little portable turntable, to impress the older girl in the neighborhood, named Denise. It didn't work because she never heard it. Hahaha
J.G. - You were trying to summon her... like a lure.
R.V.B. - Exactly. Haha How did you wind up more involved in the Doo Wop circuit, as opposed to the rock and roll scene?
J.G. - I was involved in the rock and roll scene. I had a record out in 94, called "Gale Force." It was a hot handed blues rock kind of thing. From the days I was with Randy and the Rainbows, we would moonlight doing Richard Nader shows. I guess I loved that music, I would delve into it a little deeper than maybe some of the other guys. They would hear things that I would play that would please them. I started to develop a reputation of being a guy that plays doo wop... authentically. I developed my own style based on knowing a lot of the record arrangements, and incorporating a lot of little hooks into my style of playing. After years, and years, and years, of doing it, it went that way. If you look at me, and they didn't know me, they'd say "Oh God, this is going to be a rock thing." I would never go there. I could, but I wouldn't, because I was being respectful to the music. I love playing that stuff. I have a storehouse of riffs in that bag. I deploy that stuff. I just enjoy playing that music. Word got out with the original authentic people like Dion... the guys in the Teenagers... Harvey Fuqua from the Moonglows... and Pookey Hudson from The Spaniels. Unfortunately, most of them aren't around anymore. When they were, they heard that there was a kid that played their music so authentically. I played with so many of them. It was really a gift to me to be able to get to know a lot of those people. When I played with them, they would turn around and react to stuff. Since they made those records, they hadn't heard it played so stylistically. It was a kick for me to excite them. Now unfortunately most of them are gone. I partnered up with Kenny Vance about 15 years ago. We cultivated a very big following. I produced and arranged Kenny's records. I play on them and sing the background vocals. It's cost effective. He's become incredibly popular but had a big medical event recently. We haven't been working so I've been freelancing. I've played with Mark Rivera from Billy Joel's band.
R.V.B. - He plays with Ringo also.
J.G. - Yes. I did a job with him at The Cutting Room. I had to learn 18 songs. He has a record that is produced by Jimmy Bralower, who is my production partner. One artist that I discovered was nominated for three Grammy awards... based on the songs that we wrote and produced. I have three co-writes on Mark's record. One of them was a song that Ringo played on... myself, Will Lee and a lot of other good people. Mark is a great guy and a good friend of mine. There is another guy who's father is a friend of mine. He hired me to make a record for his son. His name is Dennis Dorrity.
R.V.B. - You played with him in Hauppauge.
J.G. - Right. I backed him up in Hauppauge... exactly. We did three songs. If you ever get to hear his records - I created his records for him - they're pretty good and pretty authentic. I'm working on a second record for him now.
R.V.B. - He has a pretty good voice.
J.G. - He's a younger guy to my standards. He's like a 40 year old guy, so he could be my son. He's a smart guy and a hip guy. He's got a yearning and a thirst to learn. I don't know what the future holds? I don't know if Kenny is going to recover and be able to sing again. Time will tell on that.
R.V.B. - I understand that you've done some work with Ronnie Spector of The Ronettes?
J.G. - I've had a relationship with Ronnie Spector for many years....I've appeared onstage with her and in 2009 produced a Christmas record for her called 'It's Christmas Once Again'... It was originally recorded by Tommy Edwards but Frankie Lymon covered it and my version with Ronnie was patterned after that version...A real departure from the Phil Spector sound we're accustomed to hearing as Ronnie's backdrop.
R.V.B. - What were some of your favorite venues that you have played in? Did you have any memorable gigs that sit above other ones?
J.G. - So many. We played the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia around 19 times. It's an unbelievable venue in every way. From the acoustics to the decor of the place. It's a monster venue to play. The stage is like an operating room. Singing in that room was a joy. I've played in Madison Square Garden and the Meadowlands many times with oldies shows. Kenny and I did over a hundred jobs a year for thirteen years. I never stopped working. In the old days with Randy and the Rainbows, we used to do 300 gigs a year... mostly one nighters. We carried our equipment... fortunately I was young, so I was able to do it. We'd have no accommodations. We'd sleep in the van. We mostly played in clubs. We'd play in Las Vegas in the MGM Grand... with Kenny. We used to open up for Jay Leno there. That was a great gig. We would play in Atlantic City.
R.V.B. - Did you ever go overseas?
J.G. - I went to France in 1981. I did an album there with a French rock star... Charlelie Couture. He was on Island Records. The record we did became his biggest. He had his biggest hit off that album. We played over there. Of course we did cruises. We did a lot of traveling. We were big in Florida. I also bumbled into the Carolina beach music scene with Little Isidore and the Inquisitors.
It was like a cult favorite. I wrote a couple of songs that became huge hits in their repertoire. One of them was called "The Harlem Hit Parade." I co-wrote it with David Forman and Felix Hernandez... who is a good friend. I actually had an assignment. We did 31 bumpers for his radio show. He needed a theme song because he was doing a show called "The Harlem Hit Parade." So we wrote it in the car on the way there, in a blizzard. We spent all night in the studio and made the record. It became a legendary record in that world. I'd say the mid-Atlantic States. It was huge in New England and Jersey. They love us in Pennsylvania. There are really good rock and roll towns in central PA. So it's been a little strange for me not working, for the first time in 44 years. I'm still doing studio work. I'm working on Dennis Dorrity's next record. I'm freelancing, and freelancing is ten thousand time more work than having a bread and butter steady gig.
R.V.B. - Well you go on auto pilot after a while.
J.G. - You have to learn everybody's repertoire. If I didn't do the arrangements, it becomes a real chore to learn everything. I might have a chart at first but when you get on stage, you can't use the charts. They want you off the book. For two months I didn't even look at a guitar. I always had a guitar in my hands. I'd always be noodling around the house. The guitar has always been my salvation... going back to when I was a kid.
R.V.B. - I thank you very much for all the candid conversation. Keep up the good work. I'm sure you'll be out on the road again shortly.
J.G. - I hope so Robert. It was great to talk with you.
Since this conversation took place, Kenny Vance made a recovery and Johnny is now back in the grove working with him. They are appearing at The Lar Entertainment Doo Wop & Rock and Roll weekend April 21st and 22nd 2018 at Hauppauge High School on Long Island. Johnny Gale began a very meaningful professional relationship with friend Kenny Vance in 2000 when Kenny asked Johnny to produce five or six new tracks and help him complete work on a few unfinished cuts for the soundtrack album to the movie 'Looking For An Echo'. Johnny has been musical director and arranger for Kenny Vance and the Planotones since 2001 and has produced 7 CD's for Kenny and the Planotones.
A current project is that he is involved as an arranger/consultant on the hit Broadway show 'A Bronx Tale'. He also worked behind the scenes as a bandleader/guitarist on the upcoming Martin Scorcese film 'The Irishman', starring Al Pacino, Robert Deniro, Joe Pesce and Harvey Keitel. Johnny appears in the film with Steve Van Zandt. Johnny was hired as a vocal arranger and background vocalist on Boardwalk Empire and played guitar on the hit HBO series which led to his involvement as musical director, main guitarist and background vocalist with the show Vinyl produced by Martin Scorsese and Mick Jagger on HBO. He has five Grammy nominations... three for artist Ryan Shaw... one for Vinyl, and this year, one for my co writing and performing on Robert Randolph's latest record 'Got Soul'. He co-wrote three songs and played on all of them with Eric Gales who is a monster guitar phenom and sang background vocals.
Interview conducted by Robert von Bernewitz
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Great interview. Johnny. I can't believe you went to buy at Larry's records. I loved it there and even though it's changed some I like to go to Bayside. I still live in Flushing and not far from the home of the Mets. The new stadium is nice now.
I love watching you play. The PBS special was sensational! Your so gifted. Good luck in all you do. Sending my love to your mom. Thanks for the music. Bless you.
Annmarie
Posted by: Ann Marie Cavaliere | 03/17/2018 at 12:32 AM
Great history Johnny! Love this interview! My parents bought records at the National Record Mart in PA, near Pat DeCaesrs home. Your pictures are cute! I love your guitar and singing talents. You have a wonderful stage presence!! Your mom is blessed to have a nice son like you. She has to be so proud!! Looking forward to your show!! Give you mom a hug from me <3 . Thanks! Best wishes in all you do!! BettyJean Viecelli
Posted by: BettyJean Viecelli | 03/18/2018 at 02:29 PM
Totally enjoyed reading your interview Johnny Gale. I have been a big fan of Kenny Vance & the Planotones since I saw them for the first time playing at my son’s high school in West Islip, Long Island, NY. I am originally from Queens, NY. I loved the music of the 1950s and 1960s and have bought so many 45s from small record shops back in those days and learned to appreciate all the sounds of the vocals and individual instruments. I love the way you play the guitar, your are extremely talented and make the guitar come alive. I am looking forward to meeting you in Atthe Hauppauge, LI show next month. Best wishes, come tinted success and thank you so much for the great music you have given us.
Posted by: Lillian Hinkelman | 03/19/2018 at 02:39 AM
Great article. I had forgotten about Larry’s records,
I grew up in Flushing and lived there until 3 years ago. Where did you go to High School?? Love your history of music. Enjoy the planotones the best music ever.
Joanne Hrycak
Posted by: Joanne Hrycak | 08/13/2018 at 09:37 AM
Did Johnny Gale pass away
Posted by: Jane Friend | 01/01/2022 at 09:04 PM