Michigan Music History Podcast -- MMHP989 · Scott Baker, Gary Johnson, Fred Reif, Mike Beattie

Michigan Music History Podcast--Butch Burden: Count & The Colony Through Changes Part 2 of 2

·42 min·2 clips

At the Troy Hilton, Butch says Elvis had the fourth floor and Journey, Little River Band, and Patti LaBelle all came through.

1. Michigan Music History Podcast--Butch Burden: Count & The Colony Through Changes Part 2 of 2 returns to Butch Burden inside the Rock Legends Hall of Fame in Bay City, Michigan. 2. Scott Baker hosts with Dr. J, Sir Fred, and Mr. Mike, and Butch matters because he has played Michigan bars, reunions, and road dates for more than 50 years. 3. The episode asks how Butch moved from Amphigas and Counting the Colony into Counting the Change while still working in music after 50-plus years. 4. Butch says Counting the Colony had numerous reunions, including the Bay City reunion with Dick Wagner and the Bossman. 5. He describes that Bay City bill as an all-day concert that also included the Paupers, the Rationals, and Question Mark and the Mysterians. 6. Butch says Amphigas was the house band at the Troy Hilton and worked four nights a week there for long stretches. 7. He says bands headed to Pontiac Silverdome or Detroit stayed in the Hilton, and Elvis had the whole fourth floor while Amphigas was on the third. 8. Butch names Journey, Little River Band, Patti LaBelle, George Benson, Soupy Sales, and Elvis' brothers as people who came through the room. 9. He tells a Patti LaBelle story in the Haymarket restaurant where she called him 'pretty boy' and invited him to sit and eat lunch. 10. Butch says Robert Plant bit a waitress on the butt at the bar, which brought security and ended the moment quickly. 11. He says Little River Band sat in one night, while Liza Minnelli also came up and sang with the band. 12. Butch recalls collecting autographs on napkins and says Mike Garcia was always there with a camera. 13. He describes Amphigas doing a USO tour in 1979-80 that began with ten days of rehearsals in Green Bay, Wisconsin. 14. That tour took the band to Walter Reed, the Pentagon, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Fulda, Berlin, Austria, and Keflavik in Iceland. 15. Butch says the USO gave the band GS-15 access, hotel rooms, food, beer on the bus, and a Lieutenant Colonel as a road escort. 16. He also says the band turned down an Asian tour because two members wanted to go home after the European run. 17. Butch says Counting the Change grew from Monday-night pub jams after Amphigas broke up, and the group was first called the Nighthawks. 18. He says the stage could hold eight or nine players, with names like Jeff Hall, Earl Pearl, Ed Castaner, Craig Frost, and several drummers rotating through. 19. The tone is conversational, memory-heavy, and full of local names, with Scott Baker prompting stories and Butch answering in long, detailed anecdotes. 20. Listeners who know Bay City, Michigan bar bands, and 1960s-80s live-music history will get the most out of it, while people wanting a tight, modern narrative may skip it.

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