The Weirdest Concert I Ever Went To

Back in the early 1980s, there was a cool little twice-weekly newspaper called The New Mexico Sun. It didn’t last very long, less than a year, I think. Anna Dooling, my very first editor at the Santa Fe Reporter, was the Sun’s arts editor, while Marty Gerber, who was the Reporter’s news editor when I first started writing for them.

(I just learned there’s a current online publication with the same name. But I’m not talking about that one.)

While I still was freelancing for the Reporter, Anna started assigning me freelance articles for The Sun— and if I’m remembering correctly, they paid even better than the Reporter. I wrote mainly reviews of Albuquerque concerts. And there were some great ones. One was Ray Charles, the only time I ever got to see him live. I also reviewed a fantastic Merle Haggard show and a real fine one by Emmylou Harris.

There were several mediocre shows too, mainly commercial country acts like Alabama, Kenny Rogers, and The Bellamy Brothers.

Digression: The Bellamys played at the old Caravan East on East Central Boulevard, where a few years before I’d seen the second-weirdest concert in my life, a Japanese lady called Tokyo Matsu, who played a mean Cajun fiddle. When performing “Diggy Liggy Li,” instead of mimicking Doug Kershaw’s Cajun holler, she’d shout “AH SO!”

But the weirdest show I ever covered for The Sun — actually the weirdest I’ve ever seen in more than 60 years of concert-going — was one at The Pit (University of New Mexico Arena) headlined by a guy named Wayne Newton.

Those who’ve read my old Terrell’s Tune-up column in The Santa Fe New Mexican probably realize that almost all record reviews I wrote were positive, especially in later years. (The damned column ran for about 30 years!) My philosophy, if that’s what you’d call it, was that it’s far more useful to try to turn people on to what I consider great stuff, rather than just ripping mediocre crap to shreds.

But sometimes, especially in my reckless younger days, ripping mediocre crap to shreds could be fun.

Thus, I wrote in The Sun in its April 24, 1983 issue:

Let’s face it, Wayne Newton is the ultimate in sleaze. His gassed-back, Conway- Twitty-circa-1962 hairdo, his crooked-politician’s mustache, his white tuxedo sparkling with sequins... Put them all together, they spell SLEAZY.

It’s in the way he calls everybody “baby.” It’s in those ever-present rumors about his alleged friendship with Mafia figures. (He has admitted to calling a man named Guido “The Bull” Penosi, a purported member of the Gambino organized-crime family, who put an end to a number of death threats against Newton and his family. Penosi then allegedly tried to blackmail Newton.)

Yet this “Mafia Mystique” has seemed to enhance his persona, just a s pseudo-Satanism does for hard-rock bands.

I guess I was lucky. A few years later, Newton successfully sued NBC and was awarded $19 million in damages for alleging the singer used Mafia money for his 1980 purchase of the Aladdin Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas.

I mocked Newton’s selection of material:

To say that he performed every American popular song written in the last 150 years with the exception of “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” and the theme from The Mary Tyler Moore Show would be little exaggeration. What other singer could get by singing a Hank Williams song in one breath, a Neil Diamond song in the next, and then turn around and do “The Impossible Dream”? He even sang “When the Saints Go Marching In,” complete with his own trumpet solo. “Dueling Banjos, “You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling,” and even blues songs like Etta James’ “Hard to Handle” were covered by Newton on Thursday.

My review also sarcastically credited Newton for being a comic genius, saying his lounge-singer impersonation was far superior to those of Bill Murray, Andy Kaufman and Lilly Tomlin.

But even though Newton never sued me for $19 million, a lot of his fans would have gladly chopped me up and thrown me into the Rio Grande for free. I had provoked hate mail for my reviews before. But nothing like the letters irate Sun readers sent.

Sadly I can’t seem to locate my favorite Newton fan reaction to that review. It was from a woman who said, “Wayne Newton is very handsome. What do you look like, Mr. Terrell? Wayne Newton makes a million dollars a month. What do you make, Mr. Terrell?”

I jokingly suggested to editor Anna that the paper add an addendum to the letter: Steve Terrell replies: “I don’t make half that.”

So yeah, I went to see Wayne Newton, I had a fun time ridiculing everything and I pissed off his dedicated fans.

But that’s not the half of it.

What really made this show weird was an encounter with a faded celebrity before Newton even took the stage.

At the Pit, right before I went down to my seat before the show started, I ran into an old University of New Mexico campus cop I knew who was working security for the show. Tom and I had been in the same creative writing class back when I was a student at the university.

As we were yacking, Tom looked up and pointed to a guy walking past us: “There goes one weird looking son of a bitch!” The guy was wearing denim and had long, stringy purple hair.

I recognized him. It was none other than Tiny Tim!

I said bye to Tom and approached the falsetto-voiced ukulele slinger, who for one brief moment in the late 1960s seemed to pop up on TV comedy shows every other day and actually got married on The Tonight Show.

Just like that, my one assignment for that night became two assignments.

In case you’ve never heard Tiny Tim, here he is, with a song that, decades later would be used on an episode of Spongebob Squarepants:

Tiny was in Albuquerque to perform at a home show at Albuquerque Convention Center. Yep, a few years before he was household name and national phenomenon. But by 1983, he was doing home shows at convention centers.

So, notepad already in hand, I did a quick interview with him.

“I am here tonight because I have always wanted to see Mr. Wayne Newton perform in person,” Tiny told me. “When I was big back in 1968, I was appearing in Las Vegas, and Mr. Newton sent me a note wishing me luck. I always treasured that note. And today I think he’s just fantastic. He’s the biggest performer since Liberace.”

Jeepers. If Tiny was still in town and read my Newton review, he might have been one of those angry letter-writers

He pretty much stayed in Tiny Tim character, referring to “Mr. Newton” and to his date that night as “Miss Leslie.” At one point he went into a quasi rant about how his career could be revived if only the state of Florida legalized casino gambling. It reminded me of a 1969 appearance on the Tonight Show, shortly after the Apollo 11 moon landing when Tiny told Johnny Carson he believed the moon was inhabited by little gingerbread men.

When Tiny Tim first became famous from his Rowan & Martin Laugh-In spots, lots of people, including my junior-high self back then, believed it was all an act and that backstage after the show he took off his fright wig, packed his uke and laughed all the way to the bank.

But from his many interviews with Carson, there emerged the possibility that Tiny Tim was a real-life freak. After talking to him myself those few minutes in 1983, I strongly suspected that.

His made-for-television wedding to his beloved “Miss Vickie” on Carson’s show seemed to be a turning point for Tiny. His TV appearances became more and more rare, eventually drying up. He’d become a national joke and the joke got old.

We tiptoed through some sad tulips.

He told me about being in Hollywood the week before and trying to get on The Tonight Show. “But Johnny Carson wouldn’t have me,” he said. “But I don’t blame him, really.

“This business is tough, let me tell you,” he said, looking me in the eye with fierce sincerity. “But the rewards are so great.” He contended show biz was “worse for entertainers today than in any other time in history”, but said, “As tough as it is … people are looking for something new. They want a new Elvis, a new John Lennon. And there will be great rewards for whoever fills that gap.”

But I knew, and suspected he also knew, that he would not be the one to “fill that gap.”

I walked away from interview feeling sorry for Tiny. But later that night, it would get even sorrier.

It turns out Tiny and Miss Leslie were sitting just several rows in front of me. Ever so often I’d glance down to his seat. At one point during the middle of Newton’s show, some security guards came to Tiny’s seat and escorted him toward the back of the stage.

I thought this could be a great moment. I got up and attempted to follow hin down to the stage. But somehow I lost him. And he never took the stage. I found a security guy from the UNM Student Veterans’ Association, which was helping out with security there.

He told me that somebody had approached some security guards pretending to be Wayne Newton’s manager. This guy had claimed that Newton had spotted Tiny Tim in the audience and wanted him to perform a couple of numbers with him.

So security guys were dispatched to Tiny’s seat to lead him to the stage. But when the group security got to the steps leading to the stage, they were stopped by real members of Newton’s entourage. Apparently someone was pulling a cruel prank. The people working for the singer who had sent Tiny that friendly letter back in 1968 refused to let him on the stage.

‘Tiny Tim didn’t make a scene or anything,” my security source said. “He just said he was embarrassed, really embarrassed. And then he went away.”

Then he went away …

Yup. It was a very strange evening of entertainment.

Here’s a links to old blog post of mine concerning Tiny Tim: Songs That Tiny Taught Us

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