ROCK ‘N’ ROLL
Dreams never die for 78-year-old grad student.
LAUDERHILL, Fla.—Is it ever too late for a second chance at your first act?
Not for Kalman Fagan, who at 78 is trying to recapture a time of his life when anything was possible, the music was rockin’, the pompadours were big and maybe, just maybe, his band Robby and The Troubadours would hit the big time.
“This is my last hoorah,” said Fagan, a Florida Atlantic University grad student, as he reflected in his Lauderhill apartment living room surrounded by some of the band’s 45 RPM records and life-size posters of Elvis and Dean Martin. “I want to break through and then I can croak.”
Fagan’s music journey begins in 1961 when he became a manager for a little unknown rock ‘n roll group known as Bob Vidone and The Rhythm Rockers in Byram, Conn.
Under Fagan’s management, the group was rebranded Robby and The Troubadours and made over with pompadour coiffures and matching longsleeved loose shirts. They began booking nightclubs in New York and New Jersey.
“Kal was the one who got us on the road,” recalled the band’s saxophonist, Peter Strazza, now a Boca Raton resident.
“I was 19 years old and it was fun being away from home,” added Strazza, who remembers piling into a convertible Cadillac owned by one of the band members to travel to various clubs. “Kal was responsible for taking us out of that little town and having us go as far as we did.”
One gig brought them to Hallandale Beach to perform at the Lemon Twist club off West Dixie Highway. While there, the group recorded one of its more notable songs, “The Lemon Twist.”
“Hallandale, Fla., everything’s fine, You take your chick and I take mine,” belted lead singer Robby Vidone in the song written by Fagan.
The group also booked a regular engagement at the Rumpus Room nightclub in Chicago where they continued building their name. They also made to it Las Vegas for a week long gig at the Thunderbird club, said Fagan, who even married a groupie.
But a fallout with the owner of the Chicago club led to Fagan leaving the group as its manager, according to Fagan.
And the group never made it big beyond that. By 1965, the group dissolved.
“Everybody more or less went back to their hometowns,” said Strazza, 73. “It was over when Kal left. He was proud of the group and the accomplishments he made.”
Some moved onto to other projects and found success. Drummer Eddie Hoh worked with the Mamas and Papas and The Monkeys. Rock and blues keyboardist Barry Goldberg joined another group, The Electric Flag, which Strazza was also a member of. Goldberg also worked with Bob Dylan, Rod Stewart, Joe Cocker among other artists on other recordings over the years.
And life went on for Fagan.
“I was always that guy under the radar,” said Fagan wistfully.
Fagan moved back to Westchester County, N.Y., where he had a thrift store and drove a cab. His marriage didn’t last, though he has a son.
When he moved to South Florida to care for his widowed mother in 1981, he went into retail because of his love of clothes. He worked as a salesman in the mens’ departments at Bloomingdale’s and Macy’s in Aventura and then Dillard’s in Pembroke Pines, Fla. In the late 1990s, he began taking classes at Broward College.
“I was a fresh brat at the time,” said Fagan, who received two associate degrees from the college. He then went on to FAU for his bachelor’s in arts and then a master’s in public education. “I was a marginal student ... All the women professors thought I was adorable. I sort of charmed them with being an old man,” he said pinching his own cheeks.
Now Fagan is pursuing a master’s in music business administration at FAU. And that’s where the days of his youth and the music of Robby and the Troubadours came full circle. And like the hustling 20-something manager he used to be, the chatty senior is feeling that anything is possible with the band’s music.
“It’s old time rock n’ roll, no rifts. It hits you right between the eyes,” said Fagan.
At the Boca Raton, Fla., campus, Fagan made an impression on Ira Abrams, who teaches courses on artist management and promotion and legal issues for the musician.
“He always came across as if he was about to die at any moment but at the same time, he was fascinated about learning something new, about the music industry that he had been with,” said Abrams.
“He knew zero about online anything,” added Abrams. “He was so passionate about what he was doing, that is the hallmark of someone who succeeds in life.”
Abrams introduced Fagan to friend Glen Kolotkin, a Grammy-winning audio engineer who worked at Columbia Records. Kolotkin collaborated with rocker Carlos Santana on some of his albums including “Supernatural,” as well as dozens of artists from Joan Jett and the Blackhearts to Journey.
A friendship sparked between Fagan and Kolotkin, 73.
“We have a lot in common, he got into the music business before I did,” said Kolotkin, a Boynton Beach resident. “I didn’t know [Robby and The Troubadours] at the time, but after knowing Kal, I knew a lot about them.”
This past year, Kolotkin used vinyl records that Fagan had saved and then digitally remastered them into a collection called “The Bucket List” that was released on cdbaby.com, an online store where artists can post their music. The 13 songs are also available on iTunes and Amazon.com.
“If they are into music of that time period, this is a great record for back then,” said Kolotkin, who also produced a 30-minute documentary-type video of Fagan talking about his days with the band.
Fagan said he’s enjoying the musical trip down back memory lane. And he’s also learning more about the industry at FAU. Fagan is currently taking a marketing class that “teaches you how to brand like the Kardashians.”
He knows that competing in today’s music world is a gamble but hopes that through his “Bucket List” others will discover and share in his nostalgia of Robby and the Troubadours.
“It’s been wonderful,” he said. “I just hope I don’t croak before one of these things hits the charts.”