att. San Francisco catters-re: Juanita Montrond

Subject: att. San Francisco catters
From: Deckman
Date: 28 Oct 09 - 11:28 AM

I'm trying to locate the son and daughter of the late Juanita Montrond, of Sausilito, California. Juanita, and son Benny and daughter Lola, sang traditional Mexican folk songs in the better clubs of the Bay area 1959. I stayed with them for a while and I'd like to contact the family. Any help will be appreciated. Bob(deckman)Nelson

Subject: RE: att. San Francisco catters
From: Deckman
Date: 29 Oct 09 - 01:03 AM

Subject: RE: att. San Francisco catters
From: ClaireBear
Date: 29 Oct 09 - 01:15 AM

Bob, are you sure you are spelling that surname correctly? I don't have any information to the contrary; it just doesn't look quite right.

Subject: RE: att. San Francisco catters
From: Deckman
Date: 29 Oct 09 - 01:47 AM

I think I am ... thank you. If I'm making a mistake, I hope someone will correct me. bob

Subject: RE: att. San Francisco catters-re: Juanita Montrond
From: Don Firth
Date: 29 Oct 09 - 01:57 AM

Aha! Juanita Montrand. With an "a" as I recall.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: att. San Francisco catters-re: Juanita Montro
From: Joe Offer
Date: 29 Oct 09 - 04:26 AM

Well, the Social Security Death Index shows that a Juanita Montrond died in Marin County in 1986, and I'm betting she's the one.

-Joe, retired investigator-

Subject: RE: att. San Francisco catters-re: Juanita Montrond
From: Deckman
Date: 29 Oct 09 - 08:59 AM

Joe ... That's the same SS death record I also read. And I do remember, after 50 years, that "Montrond" was the correct spelling of her name. Her (their) singing was so spectacular that the name "Juanita" was all that was needed to bring smiles to everyone's faces. Thanks, bob nelson ... still up here in Everett, Washington ... where the cold rain is washing the dust off the bluejays!

Subject: RE: att. San Francisco catters-re: Juanita Montrond
From: Don Firth
Date: 29 Oct 09 - 02:42 PM

Hmm! I have to revise the spelling in a couple of chapters in my manuscript. Scratch the "a." Montrond it is!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: att. San Francisco catters-re: Juanita Montrond
From: Deckman
Date: 29 Oct 09 - 03:00 PM

Don ... is there any chance that you remember Lola or Benny's last name? I seem to remember that his last name started with the letter "A". Patti, in California, thinks so also. bob

Subject: RE: att. San Francisco catters-re: Juanita Montrond
From: Don Firth
Date: 29 Oct 09 - 03:53 PM

This comes drifting out of the mists of antiquity, but I vaguely recall the name "Gonzales" being mentioned. I think (but I'm not at all sure) that Lola had been married briefly and it didn't work out, and that her married name was Gonzales. Some vague and ill-formed remembrance swirling in the fog. . . .

Benny's last name, I don't recall that I ever heard. Or if I did, it didn't stick with me.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: att. San Francisco catters-re: Juanita Montrond
From: Deckman
Date: 29 Oct 09 - 05:03 PM

Don ... yer phone is ringing ... I can tell ... it's ME! bob

Subject: RE: att. San Francisco catters-re: Juanita Montro
From: Joe Offer
Date: 29 Oct 09 - 09:21 PM

Does that mean the two of you were both down here in Northern California for a while? I would have enjoyed being around then. Guess I'll have to just pick up and go to the Great Northwest sometime to meet you guys.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: att. San Francisco catters-re: Juanita Montrond
From: Don Firth
Date: 29 Oct 09 - 10:46 PM

Yeah, Joe.

Bob and I met at a citywide hobby fair at the Hec Edmondson Pavilion at the University of Washington in 1953 when I was manning the booth of the newly formed Pacific Northwest Folklore Society (recently resurrected by Bob, Stewart Hendrickson, and me). Bob was sixteen, I was twenty-two. Later during the fair, Bob, Walt Robertson, and I sang one song each in our fifteen minute stint on the fair's performance stage.

Bob and I kept running into each other over the next few years, then, in 1959, a few months after a lovely young gal named Patti McLaughlin and I had done a series of television shows called "Ballads and Books" on the local PBS station, I got a regular three night a week gig at a Seattle's poshest coffeehouse, "The Place Next Door" (next door to the Guild 45th Theater – showed foreign and art films – and run by the same man). Nothing like having done a television series to give one a bit of "street cred" for getting gigs! Bob dropped in regularly and sang guest sets.

He mentioned that he had audio taped the sound tracks of the television series and had worked out some harmonies for some of the songs I did on the show. One night at "The Place," we tried a few of them on the audience.

It went over pretty well. Good audience response. Patti heard us and said that we gave her goose-bumps! In fact, the response was so good that we decided to try working together. This was okay with the fellow who ran "The Place." The results were pretty gratifying. We wound up being asked to do concerts, more television, all kindsa good gigs.

Figuring we were "ready for prime time," we headed for the Bay Area where all the West Coast activity seemed to be taking place. Hungry i, Purple Onion, lots of things going on in Berkeley. We spent a couple of months there, sang up a storm, met a lot of great people, and auditioned a few places. We found out that most of the clubs in San Francisco were actually tourist Meccas, and the Hungry i and the Purple Onion didn't actually want folk singers, they wanted comedy acts. Although they used folk songs as a base, The Kingston Trio's, The Limeliters', the Gateway Singers', et al "acts" consisted of a lot of clowning around and goofing with the songs. For example, we saw the Smothers' Brothers first professional gig at the Purple Onion. Compared to "acts" like these, Bob and I were a bit too "stuffy," I guess (we're not above clowning it up a bit, but we tend to take the songs seriously).

In Berkeley, there were coffeehouses. But unlike Seattle's coffeehouses, where we were paid regularly by the management, the Berkeley places tended to be "basket houses." You sang for tips. Also, the prevalent singing style in Berkeley seemed to be "thou shalt sound 'ethnic,'" as if you had just ridden into town on a turnip truck. Bob and I didn't try to act like anything we were not.

It seems that we were too "ethnic" for San Francisco and too "commercial" for Berkeley.

In Sausalito, however, as long as we sang good songs and sang them well, we were more than welcome. But there was only one place that paid and they were full up. That's were we met Juanita Montrond.

An older woman (60s maybe?), she was a semi-retired cabaret and night club singer who had a huge repertoire of Mexican folk songs which she sang in a rich contralto voice, to the accompaniment of her old, deep-toned Mexican guitar. She and her two young 'uns, Lola and Benny welcomed us vagabond troubadours into their home in the hills of Sausalito many evenings that we were there—and fed us lavishly. In addition to being a marvelous singer, Juanita was a magnificent cook. When Juanita, Lola, and Benny sing together, it was glorious!! Beautiful!

Although Bob and I did get a number of gigs, (oftentimes when the time came for us to be paid, the manager ducked out – more than once we had to chase him out the back door and down a dark alley, and tackle him to make him pay us what he promised), we eventually ran out of money. As much fun as we were having there, we were forced to concluded that, financially, we had been better off in Seattle.

When we returned to Seattle, Bob had to set about making a living (also, he was soon to get married) as did I, and I wanted to enroll in the Cornish College of the Arts (a sort of conservatory), where I could take more music classes and where, unlike the U. of W. School of Music, they didn't look down on someone who wanted to sing folk songs and ballads. So we let the duo go. But we kept singing together from time to time, and still do.

A bit longer in the tooth, but we can still manage to wheeze out a song or two.

Don Firth

Don Firth

Subject: RE: att. San Francisco catters-re: Juanita Montrond
From: Deckman
Date: 29 Oct 09 - 11:07 PM

YEP ... that about sums it up ... except for the night we were the "act" between the strippers at "Ann's 440 Club" in the "Barbery Coast." But, as they say, that's another story.

Back to Lola and Benny ... I'm sure hoping that someone will read this thread and re-connect me with them. bob nelson

Subject: RE: att. San Francisco catters-re: Juanita Montrond
From: Don Firth
Date: 30 Oct 09 - 01:44 PM

Ah, yes! Ann's 440. You know, I don't remember that very well because I think I repressed a lot of it. Tuning up in the dressing room with all those naked and half-naked young women running around tended to verge on the traumatic. In a situation like that, an innocent lad from the wilds of the great Northwest woods just doesn't know where he's supposed to look!!

And it wasn't the most enthusiastic audience we ever had. The audience really wasn't there to hear a couple of doofuses sing folk songs!

What was the management thinking? What were we thinking!???

Don Firth

Subject: RE: att. San Francisco catters-re: Juanita Montrond
From: Deckman
Date: 30 Oct 09 - 01:46 PM

I remember VERY CLEARLY what I was thinking! bad bad bob

Subject: RE: att. San Francisco catters-re: Juanita Montrond
From: Don Firth
Date: 30 Oct 09 - 01:51 PM

Bob, you've undoubtedly already thought of this, but in the off-chance you haven't, have you checked with Patti?

(For those following this conversation, Patti, with whom I shared the "Ballads and Books" TV show, who preceded Bob and me to the Bay Area, and who, as I recall, introduced us to Juanita in the first place, now lives in Santa Cruz.)

Don Firth

Subject: RE: att. San Francisco catters-re: Juanita Montrond
From: Deckman
Date: 30 Oct 09 - 02:16 PM

YEP ... we've talking. bob

Subject: RE: att. San Francisco catters-re: Juanita Montro
From: Joe Offer
Date: 30 Oct 09 - 02:31 PM

I'm really enjoying this. You guys should leave the microphone on more often, so we can hear more of these wonderful stories...

Subject: RE: att. San Francisco catters-re: Juanita Montrond
From: Deckman
Date: 30 Oct 09 - 03:16 PM

Joe ... we're continuing the conversation this coming Monday, in person at Don's home. Why don't you come up and join us? bob

Subject: RE: att. San Francisco catters-re: Juanita Montro
From: DADGBE
Date: 30 Oct 09 - 03:47 PM

Hi Guys,

An email to Faith Petric yielded no information. I also turned up the death notice and I'm still looking for more info.

Best,
Ray

Subject: RE: att. San Francisco catters-re: Juanita Montrond
From: Deckman
Date: 30 Oct 09 - 04:03 PM

Thanks muchly for your followthru Ray. Has your friend been able to find any information? bob

Subject: RE: att. San Francisco catters-re: Juanita Montro
From: DADGBE
Date: 30 Oct 09 - 08:21 PM

So far I've struck clean out. I'll keep trying, though.

Subject: RE: att. San Francisco catters-re: Juanita Montrond
From: Deckman
Date: 31 Oct 09 - 06:12 PM

Subject: RE: att. San Francisco catters-re: Juanita Montro
From: Joe Offer
Date: 31 Oct 09 - 06:24 PM

Ray, there's a Hispanic woman in Sacramento who has gone to the Getaway off and on over the years. She seems to be very knowledgeable - remember her name?

-Joe-

Subject: RE: att. San Francisco catters-re: Juanita Montrond
From: GUEST
Date: 15 Nov 17 - 10:20 AM

Hello....I am wondering if anyone that was searching found Benny? I spoke to him and he was telling me how he, his mother and sister used to sing.

I do notice this post is quite a few years old so I am not sure if anyone is still searching?

Subject: RE: att. San Francisco catters-re: Juanita Montrond
From: Deckman
Date: 15 Nov 17 - 10:25 AM

Yes, I've found all the survivors. Thanks for your interest. bob(deckman)nelson

Subject: RE: att. San Francisco catters-re: Juanita Montrond
From: Deckman
Date: 19 Nov 17 - 07:50 PM

To "GUEST" ... two posts above. I have lost Benny's contact information. Would you please call him for me and ask him to contact me. His son should still have my information. Thank you ... bob(deckman)nelson