{"id":11087416,"date":"2025-01-07T11:04:11","date_gmt":"2025-01-07T16:04:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.baltimoresun.com\/?p=11087416"},"modified":"2025-01-07T17:07:18","modified_gmt":"2025-01-07T22:07:18","slug":"rodricks-crack-the-sky","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.baltimoresun.com\/2025\/01\/07\/rodricks-crack-the-sky\/","title":{"rendered":"Dan Rodricks: How Baltimore, like no other city, embraced Crack The Sky 50 years ago | STAFF COMMENTARY"},"content":{"rendered":"

The origin story of Crack The Sky<\/a>, the progressive rock band that became a sensation and legend in Baltimore, if nowhere else, could have been the inspiration for a couple of music-rich movies, \u201cO Brother, Where Art Thou?\u201d and \u201cThe Blues Brothers.\u201d I\u2019ll tell you why.<\/p>\n

In the latter, the John Belushi\/Dan Aykroyd-led band famously performs for a crowd that had come to hear country-western music, not blues and soul. The crowd turns hostile, throwing beer bottles at the Blues Brothers until they change their tune to the theme from \u201cRawhide,\u201d the 1960s TV show about cattle drivers.<\/p>\n

Something like this happened to Crack The Sky during its early tours in the mid-1970s.<\/p>\n

Booked to play My Father\u2019s Place on New York\u2019s Long Island, the band found itself caught in the club\u2019s transition from a rundown country-western bar to a spruced-up rock venue.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe opened for the Earl Scruggs review,\u201d recalls guitarist Rick Witkowski in a new book about Crack The Sky. \u201cEarl Scruggs co-wrote the \u2018Beverly Hillbillies\u2019 theme. They were bluegrass and we were 180 degrees from bluegrass.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Earl Scruggs gig was in front of this flannel-shirt kind of crowd,\u201d says Joey D\u2019Amico, Crack\u2019s drummer. \u201cWe were doing \u2018Sea Epic\u2019 or something and this guy at a table full of maybe 10 or 15 people starts counting down with his fingers \u2014 three, two, one and they all scream, \u2018You suck!\u2019 \u2026 They were throwing bread heels and bottles and I think some fruit.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was a demoralizing experience for a band that, in 1975, had its first album hailed by Rolling Stone<\/a> as the magazine\u2019s debut album of the year. Crack The Sky formed in West Virginia, at Weirton along the Ohio River, but it became forever identified with Baltimore after an experience not unlike one depicted in the Coen Brothers\u2019 film, \u201cO Brother, Where Art Thou?\u201d<\/p>\n

In that epic set in Depression-era Mississippi, three fugitives from a chain gang make some quick cash by presenting themselves, along with a skilled guitarist, as the Soggy Bottom Boys. They record \u201cMan of Constant Sorrow\u201d at a rural radio station, then continue their odyssey. Meanwhile, their song becomes a radio hit throughout the Delta \u2014 something the four men do not realize until they sneak on stage to perform at a political rally. The crowd goes wild for the Soggy Bottom Boys.<\/p>\n

Something like this happened to Crack The Sky in 1976. And it\u2019s a great story, told in oral history form, in a new book, \u201cAll Things Crack,\u201d<\/a> by longtime fan Tyson Koska and published by Baltimore-based BrickHouse Books<\/a>.<\/p>\n

While Rolling Stone praised the band\u2019s debut album, Crack The Sky did not really benefit from that acclaim because the album\u2019s producers were new to the promotion and distribution of records.<\/p>\n

It was the 1970s, a decade before compact discs and 25 years before iTunes. It was a boom time for the record industry; Fleetwood Mac, Jefferson Starship, Boston and other bands sold millions of albums.<\/p>\n

Not so Crack The Sky.<\/p>\n

The company behind its first label could not deliver records to record stores. It could not even deliver records to record-signing events. Airplay on radio stations was good, but it did not turn into sales.<\/p>\n

Except, for some reason, in Baltimore.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were plenty of records available in Baltimore apparently,\u201d says Crack guitarist Jim Griffiths. \u201cIn other places people went to stores and they didn\u2019t have it. Baltimore had them and people bought them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Radio stations of the time \u2014 WKTK-FM (105.7) and WAYE (860 AM) \u2014 had a lot to do with that. Chris Emry, at WAYE for the start of his long radio career, believes he might have been the first DJ to give Crack The Sky air time. Both stations played three or four cuts off the debut album, and the band caught fire among listeners in the Baltimore region.<\/p>\n

This was unknown to the band as it headed for Maryland on its dismal tour of country bars and discos. \u201cWe get down to Baltimore and we really didn\u2019t know what to expect,\u201d Griffiths says.<\/p>\n

On the night of March 18, 1976, the band was expected at the bygone Four Corners Inn, at Jarrettsville Pike and Paper Mill Road in Jacksonville, Baltimore County. As band members arrived, they were startled by the quality of the warmup act, Sky King. \u201cI couldn\u2019t believe those guys were opening and we were headlining,\u201d says Witkowski. \u201cI was intimidated.\u201d<\/p>\n

As Koska\u2019s book tells it, the crowd’s reaction to Sky King was mild and polite, nothing more. \u201cIt made me real nervous,\u201d says Joe Macre, Crack\u2019s bass player. \u201cThey had chops. They were killin\u2019 it.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the customers had not come for Sky King. They had come for Crack The Sky.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe started to walk on stage and got a standing ovation before one note,\u201d Witkowski recalls.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey knew our music, enthusiastically,\u201d says Griffiths. \u201cIt never happened before that night, and it was the most amazing feeling of pure excitement.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe went in thinking it was just another gig, and afterwards I let myself get excited,\u201d says John Palumbo, the band\u2019s songwriter and lead vocalist. \u201cPeople knew the music and it knocked me out how they responded.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were rock stars all of a sudden,\u201d says Witkowski. \u201cThey ended up booking us for three more nights, four shows in all, each one sold out.\u201d<\/p>\n

The rest is rock history, and a lasting legend around Baltimore.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cWe started to walk on stage and got a standing ovation before one note.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":99999,"featured_media":11087431,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"apple_news_api_created_at":"2025-01-07T16:04:17Z","apple_news_api_id":"eb0a8f0a-d030-4c63-9fb0-7b2280c01856","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2025-01-07T16:04:17Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAD\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/w==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/A6wqPCtAwTGOfsHsigMAYVg","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":true,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"middle","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":[],"apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"subheadline":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[83,96,99],"tags":[24457],"feature":[],"location":[223],"type-of-work":[],"coauthors":[404],"class_list":["post-11087416","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-headlines","category-opinion","category-opinion-columnists","tag-social","location-maryland"],"post_status":"","edit_last":0,"edit_lock":0,"highlights":"","original_byline":"","original_canonical":"","original_category":"","original_email":"","original_id":0,"original_pubdate":"","original_source":"","primary_section":"99","primary_tag":0,"print_workflow_body":{"deck_headline":"","print_title":"Dan Rodricks: How Baltimore, like no other city, embraced Crack The Sky 50 years ago | STAFF COMMENTARY","print_subheadline":"","print_priority":"","print_placement":"cover","print_planned_ready":"","print_pub_date":"","print_slug":"TBS-L-RODRICKS-0108","print_content":"

The origin story of Crack The Sky<\/a>, the progressive rock band that became a sensation and legend in Baltimore, if nowhere else, could have been the inspiration for a couple of music-rich movies, \u201cO Brother, Where Art Thou?\u201d and \u201cThe Blues Brothers.\u201d I\u2019ll tell you why.<\/p>\n

In the latter, the John Belushi\/Dan Aykroyd-led band famously performs to a crowd that had come to hear country-western music, not blues and soul. The crowd turns hostile, throwing beer bottles at the Blues Brothers until they change their tune to the theme from \u201cRawhide,\u201d the 1960s TV show about cattle drivers.<\/p>\n

Something like this happened to Crack The Sky during its early tours in the mid-1970s.<\/p>\n

Booked to play My Father\u2019s Place on New York\u2019s Long Island, the band found itself caught in the club\u2019s transition from a rundown country-western bar to a spruced-up rock venue.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe opened for the Earl Scruggs review,\u201d recalls guitarist Rick Witkowski in a new book about Crack The Sky. \u201cEarl Scruggs co-wrote the \u2018Beverly Hillbillies\u2019 theme. They were bluegrass and we were 180 degrees from bluegrass.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Earl Scruggs gig was in front of this flannel-shirt kind of crowd,\u201d says Joey D\u2019Amico, Crack\u2019s drummer. \u201cWe were doing \u2018Sea Epic\u2019 or something and this guy at a table full of maybe 10 or 15 people starts counting down with his fingers \u2014 three, two, one and they all scream, \u2018You suck!\u2019\u201d \u2026 They were throwing bread heels and bottles and I think some fruit.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was a demoralizing experience for a band that, in 1975, had its first album hailed by Rolling Stone<\/a> as the magazine\u2019s debut album of the year. Crack The Sky formed in West Virginia, at Weirton along the Ohio River, but it became forever identified with Baltimore after an experience not unlike one depicted in the Coen Brothers\u2019 film, \u201cO Brother, Where Art Thou?\u201d<\/p>\n

In that epic set in Depression-era Mississippi, three fugitives from a chain gang make some quick cash by presenting themselves, along with a skilled guitarist, as the Soggy Bottom Boys. They record \u201cMan of Constant Sorrow\u201d at a rural radio station, then continue their odyssey. Meanwhile, their song becomes a radio hit throughout the Delta \u2014 something the four men do not realize until they sneak on stage to perform at a political rally. The crowd goes wild for the Soggy Bottom Boys.<\/p>\n

Something like this happened to Crack The Sky in 1976. And it\u2019s a great story, told in oral history form, in a new book, \u201cAll Things Crack,\u201d<\/a> by longtime fan Tyson Koska and published by Baltimore-based BrickHouse Books<\/a>.<\/p>\n

While Rolling Stone praised the band\u2019s debut album, Crack The Sky did not really benefit from that acclaim because the album\u2019s producers were new to the promotion and distribution of records.<\/p>\n

It was the 1970s, a decade before compact discs and 25 years before iTunes. It was a boom time for the record industry; Fleetwood Mac, Jefferson Starship, Boston and other bands sold millions of albums.<\/p>\n

Not so Crack The Sky.<\/p>\n

The company behind its first label could not deliver records to record stores. It could not even deliver records to record-signing events. Airplay on radio stations was good, but it did not turn into sales.<\/p>\n

Except, for some reason, in Baltimore.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were plenty of records available in Baltimore apparently,\u201d says Crack guitarist Jim Griffiths. \u201cIn other places people went to stores and they didn\u2019t have it. Baltimore had them and people bought them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Radio stations of the time \u2014 WKTK-FM (105.7) and WAYE (860 AM) \u2014 had a lot to do with that. Chris Emry, at WAYE for the start of his long radio career, believes he might have been the first DJ to give Crack The Sky air time. Both stations played three or four cuts off the debut album, and the band caught fire among listeners in the Baltimore region.<\/p>\n

This was unknown to the band as it headed for Maryland on its dismal tour of country bars and discos. \u201cWe get down to Baltimore and we really didn\u2019t know what to expect,\u201d Griffiths says.<\/p>\n

On the night of March 18, 1976, the band was expected at the bygone Four Corners Inn, at Jarrettsville Pike and Paper Mill Road in Jacksonville, Baltimore County. As band members arrived, they were startled by the quality of the warmup act, Sky King. \u201cI couldn\u2019t believe those guys were opening and we were headlining,\u201d says Witkowski. \u201cI was intimidated.\u201d<\/p>\n

As Koska\u2019s book tells it, the crowd's reaction to Sky King was mild and polite, nothing more. \u201cIt made me real nervous,\u201d says Joe Macre, Crack\u2019s bass player. \u201cThey had chops. They were killin\u2019 it.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the customers had not come for Sky King. They had come for Crack The Sky.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe started to walk on stage and got a standing ovation before one note,\u201d Witkowski recalls.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey knew our music, enthusiastically,\u201d says Griffiths. \u201cIt never happened before that night, and it was the most amazing feeling of pure excitement.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe went in thinking it was just another gig, and afterwards I let myself get excited,\u201d says John Palumbo, the band\u2019s songwriter and lead vocalist. \u201cPeople knew the music and it knocked me out how they responded.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were rock stars all of a sudden,\u201d says Witkowski. \u201cThey ended up booking us for three more nights, four shows in all, each one sold out.\u201d<\/p>\n

The rest is rock history, and a lasting legend around Baltimore.<\/p>\n","print_budget_line":"","print_excerpt":"\u201cWe started to walk on stage and got a standing ovation before one note.\"","print_notes":"","photo_limits":"Photo limits are: 1 featured image, 5 featured gallery images, 5 embedded gallery images and 5 in-article embedded images. Articles that exceed these limits will not export. 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Rolling Stone named the band's first album the debut album of the year in 1975. A half-century later, the band still performs shows and has a loyal following.","author":"99999","description":"Tyson Koska's Crack The Sky collection includes the progressive rock band\u2019s albums from the 1970s. Rolling Stone named the band's first album the debut album of the year in 1975. A half-century later, the band still performs shows and has a loyal following.","caption":"Tyson Koska's Crack The Sky collection includes the progressive rock band\u2019s albums from the 1970s. Rolling Stone named the band's first album the debut album of the year in 1975. 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