Famous rock names will forever be associated with the West 48th Street premises, purposely sited close to 52nd St, Broadway, recording studios and the Brill Building.
Goldrich introduced Eric Clapton and Jimi Hendrix to the wah-wah, David Bowie and Mick Jagger were ushered out because their presence caused a commotion, holding up business! And the savvy Goldrich sold a Fender Stratocaster to one Gordon Sumner who would later play it when writing and performing Message in a Bottle and other worldwide hits. Sting later donated the instrument to the Smithsonian Institution. One can only imagine those who dropped by at the height of the bebop era. One such was Ella Fitzgerald who acted as babysitter to Mr Goldrich when his parents went out to lunch!
A New York Times obituary (www.nytimes.com) noted Henry Goldrich's self-effacing reply when asked about his musical ability: I play cash register. Mr Goldrich died on February16. He was 88.
Russell
PS: Photo from The New York Times.
2 comments :
Re the last sentence. Back in the day when I worked in Newcastle's equivalent of "Manny's" I was at a seminar at Boosey and Hawkes' factory in Edgware in the company of Ivor Saville who owned Saville Bros. who had shops in South Shields and Sunderland. When I asked Ivor which instrument he played, he too replied "The cash register". I wonder who said it first?
In 1972 on my last day of a 3 week visit to New York I popped into Manny's and bought an Otto Link soprano mouthpiece at a cost of $ 12. Unfortunately it didn't give me the sound I was looking for so when I returned to the UK I gave it to musician friend. Wonder what they cost these days! I also bought on a later visit a box of Rico Royal tenor reeds from a store close by called Sam Ash which was larger than Manny's and had lots of vintage saxophones hanging on the wall.--Cheers- Mike
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