Ed Vadas: REVUES-ARTICLE

Ed Vadas & Sue Burkhart: Ameri-MF-cana

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ED VADAS FABULOUS HEAVYWEIGHTS PERFORM ON MAIN STAGE KING BISCUIT FESTIVAL IN HELENA, ARKANSAS

"Sunshine" Sunny Payne (The King Biscuit Time radio since the 1940's. KFFA AM/1360 Helena, AR) "The King Biscuit Times" Blues Journal.

" The King Biscuit Blues Festival is always a lot of fun for me. I see old friends and musicians that I admire. I get to see them perform, and it is always great to hear that music. Even for the 100th time, it still sounds beautiful to me. An old man like me gets tired with so much going on, but, boy, is it fun.

I guess one of the biggest surprises of the whole festival was Ed Vadas and the Fabulous Heavyweights. They played Sunday, and the attendance was a little light, but those that saw the show were pleasantly surprised, as I was. This outfit is really good. They play every kind of music, - Willie Dixon, Robert Johnson and lots of their own.

Ed was great to talk with. I don't think this man has ever met a stranger. He uses a van that he won in a contest to take his band around the country. That van has more than 650,000 miles on it, and God bless Ed. It looks like it would like to stop and rest forever. Ed, wherever you are, you are the finest I have heard in a long time - a regular guy! "

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ED VADAS INTERVIEW...ART SIMAS

After working nearly 30 years in his profession, Ed Vadas still hopes his Blues--will reach that special person somewhere, sometime. And that person will actually listen to Vadas' Blues message and say, 'Yes, those are worthy songs, worthy of recording. By the way, I'm with the XYZ label,' and the man will extend an offer.

For someone who seldom had thoughts about earning a living as a musician, Vadas now finds he cannot get away from it. "I don't have any choice now. I am 51 What the hell else am I going to do? I think I'll be playing and drop dead on stage. I just hope it's somewhere where people like me."

The deadpan humor fits him just fine. A portion of his Vadas' life resume includes stints as a stand-up comic and bit parts in three movies -- "The Money Pit," "Svengali" and "Nothing Lasts Forever.” The movie "career" allowed him to buy a 1985 van, which he still has.

Nevertheless, for the past 30 years or so, Blues has dominated his life. "I've always been doing my own either original music or roots music. I glean no pleasure from copying something. I'd rather hear somebody fall down the stairs hitting all wrong notes trying to do something original rather than somebody who plays all the notes just like Albert King. It has no redeeming value to me unless it's Albert King.

"I play for purely selfish reasons. I want to find that spot where the dirt opens up and the little seedling comes out. I don't care if the seedling is poison oak. I'm not necessarily growing great flowers here. They could be weeds. But I want to be at that spot where that seedling pokes through and I want to feel that," Vadas says. "Sometimes I'll be in the zone by myself and I'll be looking at the band and they're not with me. It's like a soap bubble, it's so fragile, first you see it and you look back and want to say, 'Hey guys look, look over there.’ Then it's gone. It's such a meditative thing."

“ A truly good musician takes the musical skills he has on an instrument, couples it with his life's experiences and tries to express the person that he is through that instrument," Vadas says. "You've got to have a good sense of yourself and where you are in the world -- in the universe, on the planet, in the town, on the stage, in the song, and how that radiates out. It's intrinsic ... it's not something you do conciously. But the better your sense of self and your torments, the better you will be in touch with that angst. Blues deals directly
with that -- no money, no love, no alcohol, too much alcohol, and life's ironies."

Ed Vadas and the Fabulous Heavyweights

There is a piece of Graffiti written on the bathroom wall of a local nightspot that reads: "Vadas is Polish for Zen."

Although usually referred to as "Vast" Ed Vadas and on a few occasions even introduced as the "Venerable" Ed Vadas, these titles actually have little to do with his size, which is formidable, or his age, which is... well, older than some of us, or his heritage.

As a musician, songwriter, comedian and sometime actor, Ed Vadas is, first and foremost, a performer... and one of considerable presence.

With a long and varied history of performing to his credit, Ed Vadas is presently best known for his band The Fabulous Heavyweights and their renowned though brief appearance as The Cheap Girls in Steven Speilberg's movie "The Money Pit."

But if you grew up in the Pioneer Valley, then you grew up knowing and listening to Ed Vadas. From the Ed Vadas Blues Band of 15 years ago... to his stint as the comedic emcee at the Bluewall nightclub at U Mass during the mid-seventies... to Vast Ed Vadas and Washtub Charlie, during which Vadas would put a towel over his head and some tissue in his shirt and launch into a mean Janis Joplin imitation of "Piece of My Heart"... to those now legendary gigs of the Ambrosia Blues Allstars in the late seventies at the old Ambrosia Cafe in Amherst... to the present Fabulous Heavyweights and his many gigs around the Valley as a comedian. And even if you missed all of that, you've probably heard his laugh, a deep, loud, almost sinister sounding cackle that is unmistakable once you've heard it. The same way some people laugh when Steve Martin walks, people laugh when Ed Vadas laughs. As Vadas himself says, "Some people think I'm funny no matter what I do."

Vadas' performing career began over twenty years ago in, of all places, Viet Nam. After graduating from high school in his hometown of Worcester, Massachusetts, he enlisted in the Air Force. Shortly after brief leave, during which he saw Howlin' Wolf at the 1966 Newport Folk Festival, and with two records in tow, Howlin' Wolf and Muddy Waters, he was shipped to Viet Nam. It was in Viet Nam that he entered a talent search and won the dubious title of "Best Folksinger in Southeast Asia." The title also gained him, along with a watch, inclusion in a group of musicians that did a literal "tour" of duty performing for soldiers throughout Viet Nam. But this was no Bob Hope kind of gig. The band went in close to the action where small groups of soldiers were helicoptered in from the front lines for hour long shows. Vadas says of his time there, "The Viet Nam experience was positive (for me)... I mean I've played music under some of the most adverse conditions anyone could imagine." The sometimes rough and tumble club scene must look pretty tame.

Ed Vadas is a performer who likes to take chances. Risk and creativity are inextricably linked in his philosophy of performing and being. As a comedian he will go on-stage with no prepared material and risk bombing. Vadas relies on an extraordinarily quick wit. "I just go up there and ad lib... it kind of gets me off... consequently I have to experience that feeling of bombing, of insecurity. It's all a matter of how I align myself 5 minutes before I go on, whether it's success or failure," he says of his comedy. As one of the founding members of the recently formed Pioneer Comedy Connection, "a support group for comedians," as Vadas calls it, he advises others not to rely too much on their material but to take risks. Zen and the art of comedy perhaps. Vadas has in the past taken his comedy to such places as Catch a Rising Star and Tramps in New York and also warmed up the crowd for Gilda Radner in "Gilda! Live!." And as an actor, Vadas has also appeared in a TV movie, "Svengali," with Peter O'Toole and Jodie Foster, as an emcee in a punk nightclub, and in a movie titled "Nothing Lasts Forever,"... "which is true," says Vadas, "because I don't think it was ever even released."

Vadas' band, The Fabulous Heavyweights, formed about 5 years ago, was originally a part comedy and part musical act. Appearing on stage in satin boxer trunks, they combined rock'n'roll, blues and zany originals with short comedy routines, and there has certainly never been another act quite like them. The past few years, The Heavyweights have separated the comedy from their show and the act is now strictly music. But even during those serious moments when Vadas gets down on some blues number with his mean slide guitar playing, there seems to be an everpresent tongue-in-cheek quality, still an element of wit and fun.

Currently The Heavyweights, with Tommy Filiaut on guitar, Chris Tuttle on bass and Jeff Thompson on drums, are in the studio working on an upcoming album which is being produced by T.R. Richards of Wild Card Entertainment. Recording at Derek Studios in Dalton, Massachusetts the album will feature such originals by Vadas as "Heart On My Sleeve," "Bigfoot in My Girlfriend's Driveway" and "The Letter." Previously, The Fabulous Heavyweights recorded a cassette, "Cruisin' for a Bluesin'," that, though not widely distributed, was well received. In April 1985, Marc Allen of Sweet Potato magazine gave it the "Pick 0' The Litter," saying "... while this group has a good reputation for live shows, i! would have to go some to better what it's done in the studio. Musically, all one has to do is hear "Walkin' Blues," with its dazzling harmonica-like keyboards and slide guitar, to be convinced of this group's worth." Allen went on to say,"Vadas is a quality songwriter as well, as shown on 'You Turn to Me,'... and 'Madison Avenue Media Made.'"

As a songwriter Vadas employs a love for word play, and the lyrics of a lot of his songs often have a double meaning. He says of "Madison Avenue Media Made," a song he wrote about 10 years ago that is still relevant today, "I always say... 'this is a song about Madison Avenue media...'," and he spells out media,"... m-e-d-i-a-, and how it made, m-a-d-e, the little maid, m-a-i-d, into a superstar... so it's about a m-a-i-d, that was m-a-d-e by the m-e-d-i-a. And then I say, 'This song will be coming out in the crossword puzzle section this Sunday and right now we're going to get down and across with it.' "

The element of risk taking comes out in Vadas' songwriting too. He talks of media and technology breeding antisocialism, of people... "coming home and sitting in their living rooms with their videos. My songs always have a tinge of regret about that. I would rather risk going out and meeting some psycho... my whole life is a risk... every day everyone should take a little bit of a risk." A new song, "Bring it to the Edge," deals with just that, and he reads some of the lyrics, "...protect yourself at all costs... never pay the price to reveal how you feel... but I say, bring it to the edge."

Ed Vadas is still on the front lines... still taking it to the edge. With the new album almost ready, it is hoped that all of Vadas' risk taking will finally pay off... if somebody else is just willing to take a little bit of a risk on the big talent that this big guy has, he is sure to go all the way to the top.