Sometimes the worst opening act distinction has nothing to do with the music, per se.
I witnessed the late Scatman Crothers open for Return to Forever at a small club called the Troubadour in LA. The year was probably 1974 ? 75 and Al Di Meola had just replaced Bill Connors on guitar and Al had to read some of the material from charts (and he looked like he was about 15 years old with a beard!).
With all due respect to him, we hardcore fusion fans had to suffer through the Scatman's antiquated vaudeville act -- complete with ukulele -- while impatiently waiting to hear RTF?s hyper-velocity unison lines, Stanley?s blazing chops and his glorious Alembic.
I'm almost reluctant to mention this, but it's absolutely true and culturally relevant. The Scatman ended his set with a song that had the disturbing refrain ?Walk on, N?s, walk on? (as in the derogatory N word historically applied to black people) and it seems like he repeated this phrase a thousand times in the course of the song. It was disturbing and seemed so incongruous (with Scatman being black, himself). The bottom line: he and his act were definitely out of their element with this particular crowd.
I was sitting behind a number of other black males in the front row with their big Afro?s silhouetted against the stage lights. It was easy to tell none were bobbing to the beat and I imagined the looks of disbelief and disapproval on their faces mirrored my own. The juxtaposition of Scatman?s homage to a painful throwback era versus the forward-thinking aspects of the fusion movement (and Stanley?s electric bass playing that was in the process of helping to revolutionize attitudes towards that instrument) had most of us wondering ? absent a perverse joke ? how on earth these two musical acts could have possibly been booked together.
Epilogue: After having our minds thoroughly blown by Stanley and the other members of RTF, and as we're staggering out of the club in a daze, we all slowly filed past the Scatman sitting forlornly at the now-darkened bar, virtually ignored as he nursed a drink. As my friend and I drew abreast of him his own frustration with the gig boiled over and he suddenly blurted out, Chick Corea, Chick Corea. That's all I hear. How about me, dammit?
An anonymous voice responded, Shut up, you old Uncle Tom!. Ah, those were the days?.
