Embedded Files
Inner Light
1973-77
This was our 1976 promo picture, taken at the Silver Spring regional park.
From left in back row: Steve Boyle (bass), Carol Kozelsky (drums), Susan Frasier (vocals) & Jerry Kozelsky (guitar). I'm seated, holding the leather top hat that was my trademark.
I joined Inner light in December 1973 after answering a want ad in the Washington Post. I had hung up my musical spurs after college but discovered that my muse was still calling me. I got back into jamming with friends but was itching to play again at a professional level
During my first months with the band Gordon Bannister played bass.
On October 3, 1976 we did a video shoot for the agency. It was set during off hours at a venerable surburban Maryland bar called The Bastille. I had to leave right after the video shoot for a business trip to Chicago and therefore never got to see the video until 2010 when it was restored from the 1-inch open reel tape, which I purchased in 1977 when the agency was preparing to throw it out. The equipment on which it was recorded became obsolete a year after it was recorded.
Inner Light had a contract in 1974 to play every Friday and Saturday night from 8:30 p.m. until midnight at The Olney Inn in Olney, MD. Pictured is my daughter Sheri (4 at the time) holding my Melodica.
The hand-painted mural behind the band extended completely around the dining room and depicted rural life in colonial Maryland.
Every night during the winter months a fire would be kept going in the fireplace, which was in the same room in which the band played.
The Olney Inn was a beautiful colonial inn, favored by patrons of the nearby Olney Theatre. However, it was a strange place for a rock band to play. We developed a talent for planing at high energy and low volume, which served us well in 1975 when we signed with Washington Talent, one of the DC area's largest booking agencies.
Soon after signing with Washington Talent, we were busy playing weddings, bar mitzvahs, bat mitzvahs, country club dances, corporate parties and private boat parties.
These pictures were taken at Lubber Run Park in Arlington, VA when Gordon Bannister was still our bass player. Steve Boyle, with whom I had played in Thaxton & Reed, replaced Gordon not long after these pictures were taken.
Here I am hamming it up at a wedding reception at the Rockville Civic Center.
A couple of weekends each year we would play the Comus Inn. We played in the back, which faced Sugarloaf Mountain. Sunsets could be spectacular. The band looked forward to these gigs - we could leave our equipment set up after Friday night, we got the dinner buffet for free, and the owner and clientèle loved us. Every night around 11:00 p.m. we would play the Mickey Mouse Club theme song for the owner (who we thought looked a little bit like Mickey Mouse). All in good fun.
In 1976 Leonard Greenburg hired us to record two original songs of his: "Reston, VA" was written to commemorate the 10th anniversary of Reston's founding. For a good laugh, give it a listen.
We were hired with less than a week's notice to play the Democratic National Committee's Election Night watch at the Statler-Hilton in Washington, DC in November 1976. We were asked to learn the Jimmy Carter Campaign song, which we played that night in front of 2,700 people and 2 national TV networks - without a rehearsal.
The recording Omega Session (1976)
Reston, VA
Free Lunch
From the Garden City, KS Telegraph Nov. 8, 1976
A Satisfying Final Hurrah By BILL CHOYKE Telegram's Washington Bureau WASHINGTON — For Democratic National Committee Chairman Robert Strauss, election night marked a satisfying final hurrah. Four years ago, the tan, medium built Texan assumed the task of patching up a battered Democratic Party gutted by Sen. George McGovern's ill-fated run for the presidency. It took four years, but Jimmy, Carter's victory Tuesday is evidence that the millionaire Texan had succeeded. From the moment he confidently strode to the podium to address the 2,700 boisterous Democrats at the Statler Hilton Hotel early election night', Strauss projected victory. The only hitch of the evening — as he saw it — developed when the microphone didn't work. [His podium mic didn't work, so he used one of mine to give his speech.] Bob Strauss — conservative, compromiser, conciliator — is expected to relinquish Democratic Party reins this year. It is Jimmy Carter's party now — besides, Strauss had already made his decision to quit, win or lose Tuesday. "I might try another job," he told the Telegram's Washington Bureau. "I want to try something new. Maybe take up painting." Strauss inherited a badly divided Democratic Party on Dec. 9,1972, from former head Jean Westwood. Liberal Democrats were outraged, calling the Texan too conservative. However he proved to be good medicine for a troubled party. From the outset, Strauss worked to bring usually loyal Democrats who bolted in 1972 back to the fold. His efforts climaxed on election day evidenced by the results and his chats with such 1972 Democratic dropouts as Chicago Mayor Richard Daley and chief AFL-CIO staffers. On election night, he repeatedly beamed that the "solid South is staying solid" and that his home state, Texas, was back in the Democratic column. "There's no unpleasant surprises," he told the party loyalists early in the evening. , "Let's get ready for a hell of a celebration." So they did. The ballroom of the plush downtown Washington hotel was packed, drinks sold for $2 a shot, and the band [Inner Light] catered to the predominantly young crowd, many of whom had never seen Strauss prior to that evening. Upstairs in his six-room suite, Strauss huddled with his lieutenants and greeted such Democrats as Kentucky Sen. Wendell Ford, Louisiana Sen. J. Bennett Johnston Jr. and former LBJ aide Harry McPherson. He also talked with Carter several times on the phone. For Bob Strauss, victory was particularly sweet in light of past questions that always surrounded him. Some Democrats,' skeptical of Strauss, claimed he owed loyalties to his one-time mentor, Democrat-turned- Republican John Connally. Once asked what he would do if Connally was on a ticket opposing the Democrats, Strauss bluntly replied: "I'll do my damndest to whip his ass." When Bob Strauss stood behind the DNC podium shortly after 1 a.m., he knew that victory was certain. New York's 41 electoral votes had been given to Carter by CBS projections, putting him just a few votes from victory. "This is a family night." Strauss beamed to the now screaming Democrats. "In my judgment. . . Jimmy Carter and Fritz Mondale are going to return openness and decency and compassion and trust," to the government, he said; After a few more words, the silver-haired, 58-year &!d Democratic party leader left the podium. To some, he was a hero. To others, just another face flashed before a now jubilant crowd. ,, "Who was that?" bellowed one young person, swaggering and clutching a beer. "Who was that?"
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