Rhonda
Howard: Hey Rhonda, you are with some guys who have been doing this a long time. How about you – When and what was your first gig?
Rhonda: Really??? I sang the “Jamesway” Jingle on the radio when I was about, well let’s just say I was young and it was around 1970. I received a 25 dollar savings bond, which was a big deal at the time.
Howard: What was your first live concert?
Rhonda: I’ll never forget it, even though I was very young to remember… Gary Puckett and The Union Gap on the Steel Pier in Atlantic City (1968.) I was a very lucky little girl to be carried into the dressing room by the drummer and get my first autographs. Gary, his brother David, and I met many years later at a reunion organized by Hy Lit and had some laughs over the pictures. He hadn’t changed a bit – needless to say I had!
Howard: How did you get involved with the ViBE?
Rhonda: Well, involved I guess was the right word. A good friend of mine, Joe Gabe, who I used to gig with, invited me to see Acoustically Challenged (now the ViBE). When I finally did come out to see the band, Bill and I met. We’ve been together ever since – it’s great to be able to share our love of music together. Joining was really different for me though, since I never really sang the hard rockin’ stuff.
Howard: Will you encourage your daughter to play?
Rhonda: Trust me – she needs no encouragement. By the time she was a year old she already had been dancing, singing, trying to play Bill’s guitar, and kissing pictures of Keith Urban and Lenny Kravitz on the cover of Bill’s Guitar Aficionado Magazines. She’s got great taste in music (and men it seems!)
Howard: So given all your musical experiences, what stands out for you?
Rhonda: Wow – that’s an impossible question to answer. I’ve had so many amazing moments over the years that stand out for so many different reasons – really great, really bad, and just plain embarrassing. I’ll go with this top three:
- Most amazing concerts – Lenny Kravitz and (separately) Velvet Revolver – seeing Scott, Slash, and Duff together at the time was a beautiful disaster (music and chemistry was great but at the time Scott wasn’t – unless gray skin is normal.)
- Most proud moment – Watching Bill rehearse and perform with Earl Slick (guitarist for John Lennon and David Bowie) in NYC a few years ago. They opened for Extreme at the Fillmore.
- Most ethereal experience – Accepting an award from Barry Gibb at the (first annual) Andy Gibb Memorial Foundation benefit. RIP Andy…I miss you, Babe.
Howard: Well you can’t end it like that – you have to tell the stories now. What was embarrassing?
Rhonda: Being kidnapped and locked in a recording booth at the Riviera in Vegas by members of Andy Gibb’s band and forced to sing Rock Around The Clock. They projected the video on the big screen upstage to open the closing night’s performance of Solid Gold. They were great fun and very good at playing jokes – no one was excluded!
I’ll stop there…Thanks Howard.