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OBIT: Walt Conley
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Subject: OBIT: Walt Conley From: GUEST,Mary Katherine Date: 27 Nov 03 - 09:59 AM FROM: The Denver Post ~ http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~11777~1790831,00.html Denver folk musician Walt Bell Conley once explained a detour into Celtic music by announcing that if the Irish band U2 could get away with singing American blues, "then I sure as hell can sing Irish folk songs." A memorial service for Conley, who died Nov. 16 after a stroke, will be at 3 p.m. Friday at Cameron United Methodist Church, 1600 S. Pearl St. He was 74. "He was Mr. Folk Music when I came into town during the 1960s," said his friend Harry Tuft, owner of the Folklore Center and founder of Swallow Hill Music Association. Conley's career as a musician began during a summer job at Spanish folk musician Jenny Wells Vincent's dude ranch, where Conley met Pete Seeger and other members of the 1950s folk group The Weavers. His first guitar was a gift from Seeger, who liked Conley's rich baritone and taught him to use it to advantage in folk songs. After graduating from college with degrees in theater and physical education, Conley began teaching at a Weld County junior high school. He lost that job when his superintendent learned that he was also moonlighting as a musician at Denver bars. His debut as a professional folk singer coincided with the popularity of calypso singer Harry Belafonte. Conley's gig at the old Windsor Hotel required him to perform in all three of the hotel's bars. "I'd sing a few songs in one," he said on his website http://waltconley.freeservers.com/ . "Then I'd race up the stairs to another and do a show there; then on to the third bar. It was the Belafonte era. I was barefooted and wearing cut- off pants. It was a crazy way to perform, but I sure learned a lot of calypso songs." Conley went on to work at Little Bohemia, a 1950s Denver folk club where performers had to crawl through a cramped passage to the small stage. He met Judy Collins, who also sang there, and they both played at Michael's Pub in Boulder and the Exodus Supper Club in Denver. From 1959, when the Exodus opened, Conley spent six months a year, alternating with Collins, as the warm-up act for headliners, including Josh White, Bob Gibson, Mama Cass Elliot, the Highwaymen, the Kingston Trio, Jimmy Driftwood and others. Conley also did gigs in Aspen, where he met Tommy and Dick Smothers, whose career as the Smothers Brothers was just beginning to blossom. His friendship with the Smotherses later brought them to the Satire Lounge, where Conley worked as a manager whose jobs included booking acts. The Smothers Brothers brought such steady crowds to the Satire that Hal Neustaedter, owner of the Exodus, offered to double their salary if they would switch to the Exodus. When the Smothers Brothers accepted the offer, the Satire Lounge's owner took them to court, suing for breach of contract. During the trial, Tommy Smothers' testimony left the courtroom ringing with belly laughs. The judge found the comedians guilty, fined them $1, and Conley followed them when they left, returning to work at the Exodus. He became close friends with the Neustaedters, and after Hal Neustaedter died in a 1963 plane crash, Conley worked with Liz Neustaedter until she closed the Exodus in 1966. They were so close that when Conley married a woman who didn't like children, Liz Neustaedter took in Conley's son Troy and raised him when Conley was on the road. During the 1970s, Conley continued performing at the Ice House in Pasadena, Calif., and at clubs in Denver and Chicago, but moved to Los Angeles to focus on his acting career. Conley played Dr. Lomax on the 1975 TV show "The Bionic Woman," along with minor roles in "Get Christy Love," "The Six Million Dollar Man" and "The Rockford Files." He did voice-overs for commercials and some movies, including "The Longest Yard," for which he supplied all the grunts and groans during a rough football game. He also read the Indian Lord's Prayer that aired when Denver TV stations signed off at night, in a ritual that prompted a letter of praise from President Nixon. In 1984, Conley moved back to Denver and opened his own club, Conley's Nostalgia. He brought in big-name performers - Bob Gibson, John Fahey, Dave Van Ronk - along with local talent. Swallow Hill held weekly open-mike nights at the club for folk and acoustic musicians. Conley noticed that the place was packed whenever he booked The Juice of the Barley, which featured his longtime friend and bass player Clark Burch. The Juice of the Barley played Celtic music, and Conley found himself increasingly drawn to the genre. With its engaging rhythm and politically nuanced messages, Irish music reminded Conley of the folk singers he idolized - Seeger, Leadbelly, Woody Guthrie, Merle Travis and Doc Watson. By 1995, when Conley celebrated 35 years as a professional musician by holding a fundraiser for the Rocky Mountain Music Association, he was performing mostly Irish music. "I'm black Irish," he would joke. The 1995 performance was meant to be his retirement party, although he continued to play monthly, as Conley and Company, at the Sheabeen Pub in Aurora, until shortly before his death. "What musician can afford to retire?" he liked to ask, rhetorically. If someone pressed the question, he told them something along the lines of the notes he published on his album "After All These Years": "The music I choose to interpret is really a vicarious expression of my life, because for every song I sing, I have a memory from my own travels. That's what keeps this music alive - the shared association we all have with these songs." Survivors include his wife, Joan Holden of Denver; two sons, Troy Conley of Denver and Joel Conder of Salem, Ore.; a daughter, Michele Melnick Bond, last of Denver; a stepson, Robert Holden of St. Helena, Calif.; and eight grandchildren. |
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