I might've told this before,but...

I had a longneck customized Vega tubaphone banjo (always kept a chicken inside to mute the sound and so I could say I had "a chicken in every pot") and I traded that banjo for a very small Martin guitar for my wife. Eventually I wanted that banjo back, but the guy who owned the store I'd traded it to wanted an outrageous amount of cash for it (even in the early 70 the amount was high). I was telling the sad tale at SOMEBODY ELSE'S TROUBLES, a great bar, folk club and hangout owned by Bill Redhed, Steve Goodman, Fred Holstein, Earl (of Old Town) Pionke & maybe others. Steve heard me tell it and he got that narrow/challenged look in his eye & he said, "How much will ya pay for it?" I answered, "$500.00"---that is what I'd paid for it the first time. Steve told me to get the cash. I got it and several of us went down to the store on an upper floor of a building on Wabash Avenue in Chicago's Loop area---above a huge record store. I gave the cash to Steve and he went upstars alone! We all hung out looking for LPs downstairs.

The owner hung around Steve up in the instrument store as Steve went from instrument to instrument---but he kept coming back to my old banjo.(Steve was already sort of well known.) Steve asked what it cost? $1,000.00 was what he was told. (That's already $200.00 less than what was quoted to me.) Steve walked away from it but later came back--telling the owner that "I'll play it on stage and mention you wherever I go if you'll cut the price!" BOTTOM LINE: Steve got it for me for five hundred bucks (no tax added)& brought it downstairs, handed it to me,and we all went next door to Millers Pub and had a beer. Then we went back to the club and bragged about scamming this notorious over-charger!

As he did on stage, when Steve was challenged by a situation he'd get that look in his eye like Mike Singletary at middle linebacker for the Bears & GO for the tackle! He was the best damn performer I ever saw (other than Pete Seeger or Louie Armstrong maybe).

I needed the rent money a few months later & had to sell that banjo for the same amount. Gigs were sparse sometimes.

The bar/folk club was named for Steve's song "Somebody Else's Troubles"---about "It's not hard to get along with soebody else's troubles-------They never make ya lose any sleep at night,-----And when fate is out there bustin' somebody else's bubble-----Everything's gonna be alright!/ (or something like that??)

This was a thinly disguised tale about Steve's own fight with leukemia----we all knew that around Chicago but not too many others knew about it. And to this day I'm amazed at how much that little guy has continued to mean to me. Thanks, John in Brisbane, for giving me the excuse to revel in the nostalgia of those youthful Kerouacian memories!

Art Thieme