Stories and rememberances written by people who were there.
Wally had a dance band in the 40′s and Biff Dawes found an acetate (one-off-disk recording) of the band live:
check out THE WALLY HEIDER ORCHESTRA
Ginger Mews
Ginger passed away May 19, 2000 at the young age of 59. (She came to be with us on Christmas Day 1999 with the hope treatment for her cancer would buy some time.) We later flew to SF and had a wonderful celebration of her life. There is a memorial bench in Golden Gate Park with her name that reads “for the city she loved, etc.” I would love to hear any and all stories you might have about Ginger. We visited every year and spent many hours with her at the Fillmore, Heider Studio (Christmas party), and enjoyed all the stories–Airplane/Starship, Doobie Brothers, Grateful Dead–hope to return again this year–what a wonderful time! Thank you in advance! Vicki
This is part two of this article. To see part one, go to http://wallyheider.com/wordpress/archives/rebel/39/
San Francisco
Russ Gary in Studio C in San Francisco, 1970
Between late 1968 and early 1969 I made several trips to San Francisco to help prepare the studios for opening day.
The original staff members included studio manager Mel Tanner, formerly an engineer at Coast Recorders in San Francisco. Ginger Mews ran the traffic office and Harry Sitam was the tech engineer. George Fernandez joined the group a short time prior to opening day. Although based in Hollywood, Frank DeMedio remained the chief tech engineer.
Wally put me up in the Lafayette Hotel (now the Midori) on Hyde Street, directly across from the studio. Well, the Lafayette was not exactly deluxe accommodations. I only slept in the Lafayette, however, and spent all my time working in the studios. Most weekends I went home to Southern California.
