I happened to see an article in the San Francisco Chronicle today about how the Santa Clara theme park which was originally known as Marriott’s Great America will be closing down for good within the next ten years.
This brought back some very old memories of when I was hired for the show band of the Grand Music Hall the very first year Great America opened, way back in 1976 (almost fifty years ago!).
I was initially very excited about the gig, for two reasons: First of all, it was an actual job where I was paid to play music (and $5.00 an hour was actually pretty good pay back then).
Secondly, it was described as being musical theater. I had recently played for a production of the Broadway musical, “George M!”, the most challenging music I had ever played at that point in my young life. But I had loved it and was eager to do more of the same.
However, the Great America show was more of a musical revue. It was an hour-long show which hit all the usual stops — blues, gospel, rock ‘n roll, something patriotic; John Denver’s “Country Roads”, and ending with “Ease on Down the Road” from The Wiz as the grand finale. The problem was that we repeated that show every hour on the hour — something like eight times a day, six days a week!
I grew so sick of that show I couldn’t believe it. The musicians in the orchestra pit got to the point where we could literally play the music in our sleep.
So, it wasn’t really that great of a gig after all. The park management also did things like have us work on holidays without any additional pay…but they gave us cupcakes. Even in my late teens/early twenties I knew that was bogus!
I didn’t last very long at Great America; I was out of there within about six months. But it was definitely an experience!
