Mike Militello found the reference in the careful notes he kept as an 18-year-old. There it was. Yes, he told me. He remembered Michael G. Davis.
Fifty years ago this week, Davis was an electric piano player who — according to Militello’s notes — jumped high in sheer rapture on a high school stage in Buffalo. He had just finished up with his piece of the song “One Way Out,” led by the late rock music legend Gregg Allman, a founder of the powerfully influential Allman Brothers Band.
Militello, a Buffalo native, now lives in California. Davis is a longtime Syracuse photojournalist. What they share through keen memory is that extraordinary afternoon in Buffalo, an event that happened after Militello mobilized some Canisius High School classmates to send a few longshot notes to Allman, asking him to make an appearance at their school.
Allman did it. He was staying in Buffalo while he received treatment during a struggle with heroin addiction. One of the student messages made its way into his hands, and he responded by calling the house of Brian Procknal, Militello’s classmate — whose mother, Procknal told me years ago, answered the phone.
Procknal thought it was a manager from a nearby McDonald’s, where the teen had applied for a job. Instead it was Allman, whose one condition was that his appearance at the high school had to be kept absolutely secret until the instant he showed up, a stipulation that a tiny group of awed pre-Internet high school kids somehow met.
The result?
Except for the moment he was married and the birth of his children, Militello, now 68, still calls Allman’s against-all-odds performance at Canisius “one of the best days of my life.”
As for Allman, playing without any drugs or alcohol in his system, he told his young audience that he was “as nervous as I can be,” a reflection captured on a tape Militello still has of that show.
He contacted me a few days ago. As a senior, Militello — no relation to the Michael Militello of Mulligan’s fame in Buffalo — was Canisius school president. Fifty years later and retired in California, he and his classmates are coordinating a big 50th class reunion that will be held next spring. Someone mentioned in one of their recent email chains that this month marks a half-century since Allman’s seemingly out-of-nowhere school appearance.
Militello, remembering how I did a couple of Buffalo News columns on that Canisius concert after Allman’s death nine years ago, reached out to me about the anniversary. Fifty years resonate, and while I will not attempt to match the length and detail here of the pieces I did in Buffalo, it is always a joy to write about the sheer wonder of that concert.
Besides, Militello and Davis added some intriguing details to the history.
On Oct. 20, 1976 — 50 years ago Tuesday — the students at Canisius, a Jesuit high school, were told by school administrators that their day would end with an all-school “acoustical science” assembly in the school auditorium. Some students groaned. A few skipped out and blew it off.
It was a lifetime mistake. They missed the instant when the little group of student ringleaders — led by Militello and Procknal — walked onto the stage to tell an auditorium packed with students that they were about to see what Militello promised would be the greatest event in school history. Then Procknal said:
Sit back and enjoy Gregg Allman.
“Jaw-dropping,” remembers Eric Spina, now president of the University of Dayton, who trudged into the auditorium that day as a high school sophomore, expecting “the same-old, same-old assembly.”
Instead? Here was Gregg Allman – Gregg Allman! – in real life, a rock giant at Canisius accompanied by Cher, the legendary performer and Allman’s wife at the time. She was there with her children — Chaz and Elijah Blue, the infant son Cher and Allman had together. While Cher did not perform, Allman spoke during the show of what he described as her unshakeable support.
Allman and a friend, violinist Doug Cameron, were backed up on that high school stage by a Syracuse band called Freeze, big in Buffalo at the time. Its members — along with Davis, the band included Howie Bartolo, Eric Cappotto and the late Gary Zamory and Ellard James “Moose” Boles — were willing to play the gig simply for what it meant for their reputations to perform alongside Allman.
“We didn’t get paid at all,” said Davis, who typically played Hammond B-3 organ but handled electric piano that day because Allman, too, preferred the Hammond B-3 — so Davis loaned his own instrument to Allman.
There are slight variations in the accounts from some of the principals regarding the buildup to the show, but the core element is this: Militello recalls how he saw a piece in the old Buffalo Courier-Express that noted Allman had arrived in Buffalo for medical help with his addiction.
For Militello, a teenage light bulb clicked on. He suggested to a few close friends that they all should send letters to Allman, in care of the doctor, expressing their hope the Southern rock pioneer might stop by Canisius.
Looking at his notes today, Militello said the first batch of letters all had Allman’s address wrong. That would have been the end of it, except Procknal wrote his letter a little late. He gave the envelope to Militello, who got the address right this time — and dropped the message in a mailbox.
Two days later, at 10:45 p.m. on a Thursday, Allman called Procknal’s house to say he would do the concert, with one condition:
“Any publicity, it would be canceled,” Militello said.
That account does not surprise Michael Davis. He received a similar call from Allman, earlier that autumn. Davis and the other Syracuse-based members of Freeze had done so well and established such a name in Buffalo — particularly at a nightclub called Patrick Henry’s — that several band members had rented a place in Cheektowaga.
One day, their manager told Davis a call was coming he did not want to miss. It was Allman, wondering if they would come out and perform at his side at a few local gigs. To appreciate the magnitude of the call, Davis notes: The Allman Brothers Band had played in front of 600,000 people three years earlier, during the “Summer Jam” at Watkins Glen.
Davis thinks Allman called him directly out of courtesy and respect, knowing they played the same instrument and wondering if Davis would mind sharing his B-3 and switching to electric piano whenever they played together.
It was like Willie Mays asking, hey, do you mind moving to left for a few games while I play center field?
The Allman-Freeze collaborations would include Canisius High. Militello will never forget how Allman showed up for a sound check and rehearsal on the night before the show. He remembers how Allman told him with cheerful confidence that the concert would make Militello a big shot with the girls, and how Militello had to tell him, well, look, the thing is: This is an all-boys school.
The most astounding element might have been the 1970s reaction of Rev. Joseph Papaj, the Canisius principal. To bring it all together, Militello and his buddies needed Papaj’s OK — which meant telling the school’s top official that this famous rock star was staying in Buffalo while in treatment for heroin addiction, and the guy wanted to come to Canisius and play a live concert during the actual school day.
Papaj said yes. Nine years ago, when I wrote the Buffalo columns, Papaj told me how impressed he was by the students — by the way they had the initiative and imagination to contact Allman — and that it all seemed to fit with the ideals of a Jesuit education.
Not to mention that Papaj got a chance to meet Cher. A photo of the two of them together was still on his wall in 2017, when we spoke.
The show opened with Allman doing a couple of songs accompanied by only Cameron, who has gone on to a distinguished career on violin. They performed Allman’s “These Days” and the Allman Brothers classic, “Melissa,” and Militello said there was a brief flash of worry in the audience that this was it, and the show was over.
No way. The curtain rolled back, and there was Freeze. Allman launched full-tilt into a version of “One Way Out,” done with such energy that Militello wrote in his notes how Davis — at his piano — “leapt with joy” as the song ended and the concert exploded into four more songs.
All these years later, so many details of that show remain vivid to Davis and Militello – notably how Cher, with her children, seemed to enjoy the whole atmosphere. Militello remembers Cher casually telling him about the hardships she faced when she was little. He remembers how his mom showed up at a reception with cake and brownies for everyone.
And he remembers understanding, even then, how he would never experience anything again quite like that afternoon.
While Militello would see the Allman Brothers perform many times, he never had another conversation with Gregg Allman. Still, he said the event had transformative power in his life: Militello was accepted for college at Stanford, whose acceptance rate is tiny, and he thinks a major part was his application essay describing how and why the great Gregg Allman showed up at Canisius High.
As for Davis, he said Freeze — a band he remembers with a sigh of deep appreciation — broke up a few years later. Davis would soon move into photojournalism. He worked for many years for the old Syracuse New Times, which is how many people around Syracuse know him. Yet he still performs in a band called Menage A Soul, and he still owns the Hammond B-3 organ he shared with Allman.
In this case, Davis told me, 50 years ago feels like yesterday.
I got off the phone and called an old friend, Boston-based rock historian Tim Riley, who marveled at the tale. What it shows, he said, “is what believers the music makes of teenagers,” who have this beautifully innocent faith that some rock legend might actually respond if those kids can only manage to make direct contact, to explain how much they care.
The truly magical part?
“Every once in a while,” Riley said, “that rock star shows up.”
Read more of Central Current’s coverage
Sean Kirst: Fifty years ago, Gregg Allman asked a Syracuse band to support his surprise show at a high school assembly
On Oct. 20, 1976, students at Buffalo’s Canisius High School were called to an assembly involving “acoustical science.” Instead of a lecture, Allman and Cher were there, as well as a Syracuse band called “Freeze.”
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