Kingsmen Chronicles 1972

Introduction
I've had a short version of this chronicle in my advanced drum book since 1986, (Drum Corps Challenge, Book 3). I also have kept extensive calendars with notes my whole career, both for tax purposes and for future analysis. I love having the facts at hand when talking about why we succeeded and how much we rehearsed. This has been very useful in my presentations to directors through the years. Finally I love to look back and smile at the past. I think living in the present is very important, but reminiscing about something that gives you happiness can be very uplifting. So here we go.

We had a great system in the Kingsmen drum line. The drum captain/section leader was really the snare technician (cleaner) of today. Often he was an arranger/composer of various drum parts & solos too. This was the case with Donnie Porter Jr. in the late 60's, then myself (Michael Ellerby) in '70-'72, then Tom Float & Ralph Hardimon in '73. Then just Tom Float in '74. That is not to say anything against the non marching staff, this was just the tradition in the Kingsmen. The same tradition was true in the Kingsmen Color Guard with the Captain being the technician (cleaner). By 1972 this was even starting to occur with the lead sopranos, french horns, and other sections of the brass line. I started seeing brass leaders rehearsing with their sections away from the traditional ensemble rehearsals. This really was showing a lot of maturity in the various section leaders and senior members of the corps. I had always seen this in the rifle section too. I say all this to let you know the great maturity of this corps in 1972.

I really set the snare line game plan in motion at Carlsbad Caverns. It was the end of tour in 1971 and I was pitching my plan to Tom Float. We were walking the Caverns and I was discussing Blue Rock's success with 8 snares during the course of the season. I felt that Santa Clara and Anaheim were the top percussion lines of the year. But Blue Rock had the judges wowed with the 8 snares. So I was pitching making the show a little simpler next year and going with the Big 8 snares ourselves. We would take that opportunity to capitalize on all the visual opportunities too. We wouldn't copy Blue Rock, we would still be Anaheim clean, with great visuals and 8 snares to sell it!
I continued pitching my ideas to Ralph and the other snares at Apollo JH. We set up chairs and practice pads on stands and I started teaching solos & visuals. We were returning the whole snare line from '71 and we promoted 5 others to a total of 10 snares. Things were really starting to gell. Donnie was wonderful about our proposed changes, including eliminating the big bass toms. This gave us a cleaner look visually and we were able to fill out the other sections to the appropriate numbers. 4 multi tenors, 4 basses, 5 timpani, & 3 cymbals. Please remember that we rehearsed completely different than the once a month, weekend, corps camps of today. Here is our month to month breakdown.

Sept. Wed. 7-10 PM and Sun. 1-4 PM.
Oct. Wed. 7-10PM and Sun. 1-4 PM, plus 2 Sat. parades.
Nov. Wed. 7-10PM and Sun. 1-4PM, 2 Sat. performances.
Dec. Wed. 7-10PM and Sun. 1-4PM, except Christmas vacation we had off.
Jan. Wed. 7-10PM and Sun. 1-4PM, add Sat. 2-5 PM, 1 Sat. parade.
Feb. Wed. 7-10PM and Sun. 1-4PM, Sat. 2-5 PM, 1 Sat. parade.
Mar. Wed. 7-10PM and Sun. 1-4PM, Sat. 2-5 PM, add Sunday 10-12 noon sectionals, 2 Sat. performances.
Apr. Wed. 7-10PM and Sun. 1-4PM, Sat. 2-5 PM, Sun.10-12 noon , add 2 Fridays 6-9 PM.
May Wed. 7-10PM and Sun. 1-4PM, Sat. 2-5 PM, Sun.10-12 noon, Friday 6-9 PM, 1 Sat. performance.
June The same schedule until school was out in mid-June. Then we practiced nearly every day. Usually 1-5 PM and 7-10 PM.
This avoided the dreaded drum corps burn-out. We also went to 2 small field competitions that month.
July Practice nearly every day, 1 parade, 2 small shows, and then 3 major competitions on a small weekend California tour.
We semi-completed the closing drill on this weekend tour and left on the big national tour the next evening!
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Let's look back at several aspects before the National Tour.

Show design wise we decided as a corps and a staff to keep the same show with re-arrangements throughout. All new drum parts, visuals & solos, a new drill, new guard work, and a new arrangement of the end of the opener for the brass. Also a new arrangement of the closer for the brass too.

Momentum wise, the brass line was slow at recruiting. We didn't really feel happy until the lead soprano section finally filled up the beginning of May. That's also when we started the drill. The brass section was finally sounding and looking as strong as the percussion section and the guard. Still 43 horns was on the small side. Luckily, they were almost all monster players with lots of experience. By the time we played at the Pomona fairgrounds in May things were really starting to click. We also had a lot of fun early in the year at the Hollywood Christmas Parade. We were on national TV with 10 snares and a full corps. The marching style of the brass players was awesome to watch. Incredible block of horns floating down the street without any phasing or bouncing. The guard was unbelievable to watch also. Flags & rifles in complete synchronization, a pleasure to watch their tremendous control and concentration.

The first big competitions were against the Santa Clara Vanguard and the Blue Stars on the short California swing, July 21st-23rd. Friday night in Spartan Stadium in San Jose was the first stop. Watching SCV at their home stadium was inspiring. They were already clean and we didn't even know the drill to the closer yet. That would operate to our advantage later in the year. (I'll explain later). We also got to watch the Blue Stars from the top of the stadium. I especially liked the blend of brass for the closer. Bruce Bonney and I just looked at each other and said, "Wow, they are good too!" We didn't expect to beat those 2 corps' yet and we didn't. Saturday night was our own show in Anaheim. This time Blue Stars won, but we were still in 3rd as expected. Sunday's show was in San Diego and SCV won again. We were pleased that the DCI drum judges said that we would be great and that we had just competed against the 2 best lines in the nation. They saw our potential and reassured Donnie that we would be right in the running for the top trophy. I heard similar reports from all the other captions too. Good news already and we were still finishing the show!

National Tour:
The busses left on the big National Tour at 7:00PM on Monday, July 24th. This was a dead head run straight back to Boston, changing drivers every 8 hours. I hated bus rides even then so I flew back to Boston on Thursday and still was there the night before the corps arrived. It cost me a little more but I also got to teach with my other young corps' during that week. So I made up the difference and fulfilled my obligation to those 2 corps'. The Kingsmen busses arrived on Friday and we had the CYO National Championships on Saturday. We won our first National Championship of '72 with an 83.40. There were 2 simultaneous tours going on, so we were competing against just the Eastern corps for this part of the tour. A perfect plan for us though. We were still finishing the rough cleaning of the show. The next day we won handily the Kingston, New York show. Finally we had 2 days ahead to really clean. We got a lot of work done in Garfield, but the show Wednesday night was cancelled for rain. 2 days later World Open prelims was also rained out. Too much rain & lightning at Manning Bowl. I can remember the black plumes bleeding dye on the brand new Cadet uniforms. Luckily the chaperones remedied the situation. This was a disappointing cancellation. We could have claimed our first World Open title, the previous year we had placed third. But we were definitely dominating the East and we had more cleaning days ahead.
Sunday, August 5th, we left for Wilmington, Delaware. More cleaning and no shows to eat up practice time. Tuesday, August 8th, off to Pittsburg, PA. We got to rehearse a couple of more days and then we handily won the Pittsburg show. Then off to Marion, Ohio for the U.S. Open National Championships. We had not competed here since 1970. Mr. Porter liked to alternate between the U.S. Open & the World Open since it was tough to fit both in. We were really starting to cook, another strong first place performance and a score of 88.15. This was very competitive with all the corps' on both tours. The next day was another first at West Milton, Ohio. Then finally a first in Toledo, breaking through the 90.00 barrier! We were off to Columbus with 2 National titles and a record breaking high score.
After a couple of days in Columbus we were bound for Whitewater. At this point Kirk Kelley, Milton Buice, & I were talking about this statement: "After DCI we are going to have 3 National titles, or zero." I agreed with this statement because we needed not to relax on our laurels. The toughest competition was yet to come at DCI. We needed to win the first DCI, beating the Blue Stars & Santa Clara. I really thought we could do it! Individually we were all starting to do perfect shows by this point in time.

Holiday Inn:
The snare line had decided to stay at a hotel for the last show of the tour the previous summer. We had heard from Mike Duffy, our horn arranger, that the Blue Rock snares had done this at VFW in Dallas in '71. We thought that this was a terrific idea, so we were going to get 2 rooms in '72. We had done the same thing when traveling to Northern CA guard shows. 4 to a room, lots of fun and some concentrated practice on pads. Well when the corps started hearing about this, the enthusiasm spread like wildfire for the whole corps to be put up at the Holiday Inn. It worked out famously. The heat & humidity was oppressive and we loved going back to the air- conditioned comfort of the hotel.

DCI prelims:
Thursday, August 17 was the prelim show in the heat of the day. We knew we had to hold back a little to survive and play it safe for the next evenings competition. It is very tough to play a 12 minute plus show while in wool cadets in the mid-day summer heat. But it was a solid pre-lim show & it put us in perfect position for the real show Friday evening. I was very confident at this point. To score so close to the Blue Stars & SCV while playing it safe in the mid-day heat? I knew we had the title in our hands.

DCI finals:
What can I say about this show? A spectacular show for all involved. The crowd was so loud at the end of the concert number, I could barely hear the drum major. The applause for the drum solo and for the rifle features and for all the hit points was incredible. All the horn solos and high notes for the leads were on the money. We had learned the value of this at Dallas the previous year. A soloist can't win a corps championship, but he certainly can lose one for the corps. Same with a snare drummer who has a bad show. It decimates the drum score and kills all chances of the corps winning. Bruce Bonney and Tom Float were hollering at the top of their lungs at the end of the show. The 2 drum judges were looking at us with grins from ear to ear. One of these same judges had judged us on that early CA weekend trip. When he was asked by the SCV drum staff, "Why did you give it to Anaheim?" His answer was, "Santa Clara's drum line sounded the same tonight as it did in July in California. Anaheim got better & better all season." He was right too. Float and I watched SCV's show and counted the amount of times the drum judges ticked the line, (marked the mistakes). I knew where every tic was in our show, so I knew that we had won.

DCI Retreat:
The first big announcement was for high drums. When we were announced first place I turned up the arc of snares and caught Ralph Hardimon's eye and gave a big thumbs up sign. The corps awards were beginning and rain was starting to pour so all the corps' and some of the spectators were running for cover as the scores were announced. Tom & I stood by the fence where our busses were and we listened to the reading of the scores. 3rd place with an 87.35, Santa Clara Vanguard. Our hearts were pounding out of our chests as we strained to hear the announcer. 2nd place with a score of 87.65, Blue Stars! Float was hugging me so hard he was lifting me off the ground! 1st place with an 88.10, Anaheim Kingsmen! I was so sure we were going to win, but to actually finally hear it again, I felt so relieved. The last time we beat SCV was at the Mid-American Open in '71. That was our first national title. But to win the first DCI, was history in the making. I still get goosebumps watching the video. All of my advanced drum students have to learn that show along with drum set, vibes etc. To this day I think fondly of the 8 snares and what we accomplished, I especially think of how Terry Walker, Mike Hubbard and I had played snare together since 1970, (when our drum line first became National Champions at American Legion in Portland).
I know the horn line is equally proud and so too the guard. Without all the elements being at the top of their game, we would not have won.

Interesting Side Note:
Stanley Knaub had been a Kingsmen from '68-'70. After we lost to Santa Clara in '70, Stanley moved up north to march in SCV. It was a split decision in '71, 2 wins & 2 losses between SCV and Anaheim, plus Don Hertel was back writing drill and creating guard work. I'm sure Stanley felt torn. But '72 was different, Knaub always regretted missing this year. Stanley said that as SCV walked into the stadium, the crowd was deafening as Anaheim completed their concert number. He knew at that point that the Kingsmen were going to be the first DCI champions.

post script:
We did have one more show on a race track at West Allis. We didn't really practice for this much, just a little adjustment in the size of step since the track wasn't very wide. It was also on asphalt, but the pay was $3000 so we went through the motions. Not a real contest, but 3rd was a little bit of a bummer. Too bad, I wouldn't have signed up for this show. $3000 or not, it was too anticlimactic and I prefer to have an undefeated tour. But such is life. What a great tour!

Kudos:
Mr. Porter was so smart to bring back Don Hertel, our drill designer, for '71 & '72. Hertel was so forward thinking and creative and he was willing to take a back seat to the drum line & horn line when necessary. His ideas for the guard were always cutting edge. Don was a real team player and worked especially well with Linda Rieke our Guard Captain.
Gerry Kearby had helped us tremendously in 1970 with our snare line. Now the next 2 summers another ex-Trooper had been very helpful in letting us continue to clean and mature. This was Eddie Bostwick. He was a good judge and a great liason to the other judges. Donnie Porter was always a mainstay and was very good with all the sections and their corps spirit. He's especially famous for his attitude adjustment trips to the Sierras. He truly knew how to let go and let the creative juices of the line flow.
Richard Oliverio was a tremendous perfectionist and a near perfect cleaner of Mike Duffy's brass book. He knew how to make a beginner feel terrific about playing his part perfect. But watch out if you didn't reach your potential!
Mr. Linscott did a terrific job as tour manager. Mr. Wells was a great tour scout. The Quartermasters were fantastic and as spirited as any corps member.

Almost no tour?
I might get in trouble here with my good friend and fellow Kingsmen Keith Wilbur. But I don't agree that we almost did not tour. I think some of it is semantics. I think another part is emotional make up. I always look at challenges and turnovers as opportunities to grow and improve. We were destined to go on this tour and nothing was going to stop us. Not even losing our beloved and very respected founder & director Mr. Don Porter. Truth be told a lot of the senior members realized that he was not happy with the haircuts, and facial hair of the '70's. But the times were changing and one had only to look at pictures of our friends in SCV to see that long hair was not the antithesis to winning. Also Mr. Porter had a problem with extending our 2nd tour in '71 by borrowing money from Mr. Wells. Both people had their hearts in the right place. I think Porter was right about not going in debt, but we were all disappointed in the Dallas show and we wanted one more try. Then when Mr. Knott said no to funding a third trip, the season was over, and Mr. Porter had lost a lot of support from the senior members. This set the stage for Mr. Porter getting fed up and leaving the corps in the spring. I wish he could have stayed, but it is tough sometimes for the founder of the corps to allow necessary change.
But I loved that he came on the drum bus to congratulate us all at DCI. His picture was on the front page of Drum Corps News and I was a little sad to see the caption stating his retirement to the whole world.

All of this is a little background to why I think we would never cancel tour. It was fully paid for, we had a full staff going, we had parents filling in for Mr. Porter, and the corps was very old for that era. The whole snare line was in college. In fact we had 44 marching members who were adults (18+). We had 55 members who were HS grads. We had 91 members who were drivers (16+). We also had 24 members who were 19 or 20 or 21. The average age for the boys was 18 and for the girls 17. This was a very mature corps fully capable of working together to have a healthy, happy, successful tour experience.
But there was an incident with underage imbibing with a couple of guard members, just before tour. Nothing that unusual for that age group. Not a good thing, but certainly correctable. Some of the parents were very disturbed at this new direction that the corps was taking. But it was very much an over reaction and opened up their true cause of worry, the loss of Mr. Porter on tour. I knew, and so did the other senior members, that this was an isolated incident, an anomaly. Nothing to worry about. All they had to do was come to rehearsal and see what we were doing. As Gary West said, "We are going to go anyway, parents or no parents". He was being a little facetious, but the resolve was there from everyone. Only the most directly involved parents thought that there would be a problem with tour. This corps was our whole life. Especially in the summer. Especially our horn instructor. He would not have let the corps fold, and neither would the members. I knew that the emotions would settle down as the parents saw our work ethic and our continued commitment to Kingsmen class.
The 1972 Tour was our destiny.

p.p.s. This chronicle was by Michael Ellerby. Don't be offended if you remember it differently. We all remember and cherish what is important to us. This corps was all about striving for perfection. Little did we know that this goal would make us friends for life.