Five hundred dollars got the Bethlehem Asylum a bright yellow school bus in Clearwater, Florida. They intended to drive it to Miami and all over Florida to gigs that their ertswhile manager, Micheal Denlinger was putting together. The year was nineteen sixty nine.
The Bethlehem Asylum was a strange mix of personalities but onstage the paradoxes yielded amazing music where almost everyone was entranced, amazed and enchanted. The original songs had melodies memorable after one hearing, the soloing was extraterrestrial performed by Charlie, Christian, Jim, Danny and Buddy. Charlie; tall, blond, thin wearing John Lennon spectacles shared his Berklee school of music jazz facilities on saxaphone with Christian’s New York via India hip jazz electric piano, buttressed by Jim’s foundation R n B bass, and Buddy’s unwavering grooves while Danny’s folk/electric guitar flavorings topped everything off. It was an eclectic band. And they headed off into the sunset with an entourage not unlike the Grateful Dead following close behind. Several gigs at junior colleges were already set up but the piece de resistance would be the upcoming first annual West Palm Beach Pop Festival. They weren’t booked yet but they were determined to make the bill and perform. Everyone was going to be there; Janis, the Airplane, Stones, Chambers Brothers, Grand Funk, Johnny Winter, Spirit, Spooky Tooth, the list seemed endless. Bethlehem Asylum was destined to go down in history, they could feel it in their bones. Everyone who heard them said they were the next supergroup. And they believed it down to the very core of their existence. They knew they were different, greater and cooler than anything else out there. They had already shut down Spirit when they had opened for them in Orlando. They were on their way.
First stop was Daytona Beach Junior College. A dance/ concert to be held after a football game which unfortunately Daytona Beach lost. There were a lot of angry rednecks that soon became drunk and aggressive. In the conservative climate of the American South this did not bode well for the longhaired, racially mixed constituents of Bethlehem Asylum. The night ended in a stand- off with Animal the road manager/bus driver wielding a microphone stand in a particularly menacing manner in the faces of the drunken collegiate defensive linemen who were intent on taking out their defeat on the commie, faggot, long haired freaks in the band-even though they were dancing and hooting to the music just minutes earlier. Moods can change quickly in the fetid humidity of Southern Florida in the middle of a summer night.