(A letter to Tony Cahill’s sister upon learning of his passing)
Quelques petites vignettes de ton frère.
Hi R______,
A few months ago I promised to send you some reminiscences about the time I spent with Tony: Here goes:
Paris: We were playing a nightclub in some chic part of town. We usually started about 12:30 and played until 3 or 4 am at which time the bakery were opening as we went home to our hotels, so we at least had fresh croissants for our trouble. On one of the nights I was headed out the door after the gig with a very pretty French girl who was the spitting image of Marilyn Monroe and I was feeling pretty excited about the prospect until I passed Tony at the door who whispered in my ear, “She’s a bloke mate”. So he saved me from something anyway – whether he did me a favor or not is for the gods to decide. There were a lot of transvestites in Paris those days – a lot of them worked for the Folies Bergere and we used to comment that they were so beautiful it almost wouldn’t have mattered if they were male or female – almost.
Spain: We worked several clubs on the Costa Brava with Sammy Gaha and what had remained of King Harvest, our band in Paris after we broke up and left Paris. David Montgomery, Tony’s longtime cohort, was in that configuration too. We were also in the process of refitting a Danish Tuna Boat that was brought down there by a mad Russian Captain Viktor Kornowski. The idea was to refit it and put it into charter in the Med. So Viktor had a ragtag crew of musicians who basically wanted to get out of Paris and away from heroin for a while. The boys in the band took a day off and went to Fomentera on a ferry. Our boat, The Gift of the Wind, was anchored at Formentor and Tony didn’t want to walk the whole way back from where the ferry berthed so he decided to exit the ferry near where we passed our boat on the way back. So he put his passport and money in a plastic bag and jumped off this ferry which was traveling about 30 knots subsequently inundating every orifice in his body with salty water. We saw him surface so knew he’d lived but when we got back to the boat he swore never to try that one again. He’d skidded about thirty feet over the surface before slowing down enough to float. But it was a shortcut after all.
Another time in Spain we were coming up to a quai. The Gift of the Wind didn’t have great steerage and Tony being an ex merchant seaman elected to take the hawser and jump the last few feet to the quai to tie us up. This particular port like most Spanish ports was absolutely filthy. Well, Tony made the lovers’ leap from the deck to the edge of the quai and
n e a r l y made it. I saw his toes just grab the edge of the quai and he seemed to totter a bit before falling backwards into the oil slicks, rotten fruit and old sardine boxes and bits of discarded steel cable that characterized that particular port and indeed most Spanish ports. We fished him out, hosed him off and dispensed the medicine – a water glass of cheap Dago Rum. Brilliant memories for me.
When we quit Europe finally we ended up in California living on the beach and still working in the music business. Tony was not working with us then but we were in the same area and every week or so he’d run from Santa Monica to Marina del Rey where we lived because he was always awfully fit. He’d make the run – about 6 miles and immediately light up a Camel. I was really sad when I heard he had died. We used to call him Tony Immaculata when we were in Europe. I think that name was given to him by Julio Finn and Chicago Beau, two authentic bluesmen from Chicago with whom we worked for years. When we were in Spain and anything would go wrong (that was often) Sammy and Tony would look at each other and say, “There’s a Spaniard in the works.” Of course we were always trying to pick up women and we all had our pick-up lines. Tony’s was the best: Come home with me tonight. I’m a great fuck.” What could be simpler? He was a rare fellow, your brother, and I consider myself privileged more than most men to have spent time in his company, not just because he was a fine musician but because in a world of counterfeits he was one of the real ones.
Thanks for getting in touch R_____. If I think of anything else I’ll send it on, Share this with anyone you care to. I loved Tony. Life was better for him being in it.
Eddie
