THE BIRDS ARE THE WORD

The bad feelings flared into the open when a local blues photographer wrote a negative article in the Tucson Blues Society newsletter challenging Mark to leave the band, charging he'd listened to one too many Cream albums." His Sixties musical sensibilities, in other words, were holding his boys back.

Another comment Mark heard was, No one wants to hear an overweight 40-year-old playing bad blues." Mark Babani admits that part of the original motivation for the band was his desire to be onstage. What I was working on originally was to try to make some dreams that I guess I've had and haven't verbalized to myself happen," he says. But what my dream is now, now that this has all happened, is to work with my children for the rest of my days. That is the thing that I want most of all.

The day I can't contribute to what the band is saying from the stage is the day I should leave. And if it comes, that will be a sorry day for me, 'cause I'm a ham like the rest of 'em, and I love being up there sharing it and doing it.

In the beginning, the kids were so young and musically immature that they were along for the ride. Now the whole thing has flip-flopped. Now they're the stars and I'm the one along for the ride. And it's way cool."

GRILLS IN THE MIDST... v4-15-92