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Before he became a western Lake Worth Beach resident, drummer/vocalist Carmine Appice (www.carmineappice.net) was part of one of the all-time great live shows in South Florida.
At the venue formerly known as the Hollywood Sportatorium in 1977, the New York City native played an out-of-control concert with Rod Stewart while touring in support of the vocalist’s rocking, Tom Dowd-produced Foot Loose & Fancy Free album.
It was clearly a different era, for music in general and for Stewart in particular. He’d soon veer into disco-tinged pop, and he now croons the American Songbook and a parade of his hits Vegas-style. But on this night, the singer drank sherry passed to him by an audience member; autographed and kicked soccer balls into the balcony of the 18,000-seat venue, and brought down the house with additional banner performances by musicians like guitarist Gary Grainger and bassist Phil Chen.
Forty-eight years later, Appice will play two area concerts with the celebrated band that had previously catapulted him to fame. Tribute and cover albums are now expected fare, but psychedelic rockers Vanilla Fudge released a rare covers-heavy self-titled debut in 1967. Fellow original members Mark Stein (vocals, keyboards) and Vince Martell (guitar, vocals) join Appice and bassist/vocalist Pete Bremy for shows on Feb. 6 and 7 at Boca Black Box Center for the Arts.
“We were playing what were then called ‘production numbers’ around Long Island starting in 1966,” Appice says, seated in his home recording studio. “Leslie West [guitarist/vocalist for Mountain] was doing those with The Vagrants; Billy Joel with The Hassles before both of them became famous. People had never seen anything like us covering a song like [The Supremes hit] ‘You Keep Me Hanging On.’ So I guess our first album was ahead of its time, even if that was part of the scene that was going on back there and then.”
The Vanilla Fudge album featured brief original interludes that surrounded recreations of The Beatles’ “Ticket to Ride” and “Eleanor Rigby” and Curtis Mayfield’s “People Get Ready” as well as the band’s souped-up, dramatically muscular take on The Supremes’ hit. The quartet, then completed by the extraordinary bassist/vocalist Tim Bogert (1944-2021), would appear multiple times on The Ed Sullivan Show.
Appice’s home studio is separated from his expansive, uniquely designed house by a three-car garage. Gold records adorn the walls surrounding the equally expansive drum kit he now uses to record tracks remotely. His famed mane of black hair has grayed, but he’s still a recognizable figure, especially seated behind those drums.
“My wife [New York City radio personality Leslie Gold, a.k.a. “The Radio Chick”] and I moved here in June of 2020,” the 78-year-old drummer says, “right in the middle of the pandemic. I’d previously lived in Los Angeles for 40 years; she had a house in Connecticut. We’d made a deal that we’d move to Florida after her mother eventually passed, and the guy who designed this house was a Frank Lloyd Wright student.”
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Vanilla Fudge opened separate concerts by artists like the Jimi Hendrix Experience and Cream, and Appice’s own unofficial students included Led Zeppelin drummer John “Bonzo” Bonham (1948-1980). Bonzo’s iconic quartet, along with the band Spirit, opened for Vanilla Fudge in Denver on Dec. 26, 1968. It was Led Zeppelin’s first show ever in the United States, and preceded their 1969 debut album release.
“When I first heard and met John, I told him I loved his triplets,” Appice says of the signature Bonham bass drum pattern, famously captured on the Led Zeppelin tune “Good Times Bad Times.” “‘I got it from you,’ he said. And I said, ‘I don’t even do that triplet.’ I was doing a different kind of triplet pattern that also employed the snare drum. But he’d taken it from me and extended it. John was a young, unknown guy then, and a great drummer. It didn’t take long for him to become an icon.”
Never content with being merely a drummer and vocalist, Appice has earned additional compositional credits throughout his career. During his five years with Stewart, the drummer co-wrote two of the singer’s biggest hits, the poppy “Young Turks” and disco-infused “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy?”
“Rod had said he wanted something like the Rolling Stones’ ‘Miss You,’” Appice says of the latter. “[Producer] Tom Dowd decided that our original 24-track band recording needed an additional orchestra, which turned it into a 48-track recording. But the song went straight to Number 1 on the charts, so he was right.”
Stewart’s music, which Appice recorded on from 1977-1981, still factors into his life. He regularly plays drums with the legacy act Tonight’s the Night, performing many of the songs he co-wrote, arranged or produced, with singing impersonator Rob Caudill and Stewart’s former saxophonist, Katja Reichermann.
“Carmine isn’t just a great drummer, but a great songwriter and all-around musician,” says Port St. Lucie-based drummer Hollywood, a.k.a. Jonathan Joseph, of South Florida jazz/fusion act the Beast Mode Trio. He would know. Forty-plus years after Appice recorded Beck, Bogert & Appice with Bogert and guitarist Jeff Beck (1944-2023), Hollywood was one of that iconic guitarist’s final names within a scroll of top-shelf drummers when he played with Beck from 2012-2017.
Bogert and Appice also proved a formidable rhythm section with the still-active blues-rock band Cactus as well as Vanilla Fudge and the short-lived group with Beck, whose trio yielded one studio album, one live album, and a recent boxed set. Appice has also crafted a half-dozen more recent Guitar Zeus albums with guest rock and fusion guitarists like Slash, Brian May, Steve Morse, and Ted Nugent.
Cactus and Vanilla Fudge each have double-digit album release tallies over their respective 50-plus-year careers. On the second of Vanilla Fudge’s Feb. 6-7 shows in Boca, comedian Andrew Dice Clay is the opening act.
“He’s a friend of mine,” Appice says. “He called up and said he wanted to open one of the two nights. I gave him and his son drum lessons back in L.A.”
Unsure what songs Vanilla Fudge will play in South Florida yet, Appice is nonetheless very sure about the prospect of retirement after having moved to South Florida in 2020 and turned 78 years old on Dec.15.
“Nah,” he says with a smile. “People tell me that if I retire, then I can play golf. I tell them I play the drums instead.”
If You Go
Vanilla Fudge performs at Boca Black Box Center for the Arts, 8221 Glades Rd., Suite 10, Boca Raton.
When: 8 p.m. February 6 and 7
Tickets: $56-$83 Feb. 6; $103-$153 Feb. 7 with Andrew Dice Clay
Info: 561-483-9036, www.bocablackbox.com