BEACON – In 1969, Bert Sommer, an American folk singer, songwriter, and a crew member of “The Tribe” for the Los Angeles production of “Hair,” was immersed in a moment when peace, love, and hippies flowed through Bethel, N.Y., at a three-day-event known as Woodstock.
At the time, Sommer released his debut album, “The Road to Travel,” produced by music executive and Brooklyn native Arthur Kornfeld of Capitol Records. Kornfeld left the business to co-create the Woodstock Music and Arts Festival alongside Michael Lang. Kornfeld then invited Sommer to perform at the opening of the festival on Friday, Aug. 15, 1969, where he played the songs, “Jennifer” and a cover of Simon and Garfunkel’s “America.”
After Woodstock, Sommer recorded three additional albums, had his single “We’re All Playing in the Same Band” reach No. 48 on the Hot 100 Chart in September 1970, and while at SUNY Brockport in 1974, met Waterford resident and singer/songwriter, Johnny Rabb (real name: Gary Roberts), through friend Rob Landis. Together,the trio performed at clubs and cafes in and around Brockport for several years.
Eventually, through Rabb’s encouragement, Sommer moved to Albany in August 1983 where he continued his music career until his death from drug addiction on July 23, 1990 at the age of 41.
Little is known about Sommer, but those who did know him within the music circuit would have their own intricate memories to share and tell to a super fan who became inspired to write about the late singer.
Entering Sharon Watts
Growing up in a suburb of Harrisburg, Pa., the then 16-year-old teenager Sharron Watts barely had the Woodstock festival on her radar. Watts, who later became an illustrator and writer, lived in New York City for 30 years before moving upstate to Beacon where she currently resides.
In December 2017, Watts visited The Museum at Bethel Woods for the first time to learn more about the festival and its performers. She was inside the hallway of performers and read their information and realized at the time that she didn’t know half of the performers. After her museum trip, she returned home with a book that she took out from her local library with every performer, in order of appearance. With her iPad and her two cats, she sat on the sofa and began reading the book until she reached his name.
“When I got to Bert, I was simply blown away. Something in his delivery reached into my core, and I needed to know who he was, and why had I never known of his existence,” Watts recalled. “There was not a lot of info on him on the internet, but I started going down rabbit holes and found people who knew him – starting with his Woodstock bandmate, Ira Stone and his wife, Maxine, who was onstage during their set.”
Watts was drawn to Sommer and felt that he really could have been a contender in the music world. Sommer was a mystery for her to solve, and she wanted to shine a light on a musician she called a “forgotten treasure.” She decided to do more research and tell his story through the assistance of his musical peers.
The origins of her research
Watts first wrote a personal essay that she shared on her writing website in 2018 and in 2019, she pitched an article idea to the United Kingdom’s Shindig Magazine. The magazine’s editor or publisher asked Watts for a piece that coincidently timed with Woodstock’s 50th Anniversary. Her article “Hair,” based on the play that Sommer starred in, also centered on the festival and living in the mid-1960s.
Through her continued research, she found Sommer’s time living in Albany “equally if not more fascinating.”
During the Covid lockdown, she continued to collect stories from Capital Region musicians who knew him and had performed with him during the mid-’80s-’90s.
Watts then made connections with several of Sommer’s band members and friends including Rick Bedrosian, who provided her a personal photograph he took of Sommer and Rabb in the early ’80s to use for her book.
Kevin McKrells’ wife, Carla, told Watts about Sommer, “Even if you only met him for 10 minutes, you (will) never forget him.”
The tales told by Johnny Rabb
Rabb recalled the moment when Watts first reached out to him about his friend.
“(Sommer), he’s an angel, a bad angel, but an angel. I spent years with him, I lived with him in the same college house in Brockport and at several other places over there,” Rabb said. “I lived with him in Los Angeles, and it was pretty wild.”
Rabb met Sommer while attending college at SUNY Brockport near Rochester. They became friends and got into bands together.
Rabb, Landis and Sommer went from jamming at the Brockport Crypt inside a basement of a church to New York City’s Schaefer Music Festival, the Capital Record building in Hollywood, and The Troubadour on the Sunset Strip, Watts said.
When Sommer resided in California, music producer Artie Ripp encouraged him to audition for the role of Flatbrush, a character of the factitious rock band Kaptain Kool and the Kongs, based on the children’s Saturday morning variety TV show, “The Krofft Supershow” in 1976. Sommer was only on the show for one season and did not reprise his role for its second season. He also released his final album while living in Los Angeles, “Bert Sommer.” It was ultimately unsuccessful, and he was dropped from Capitol Records.
Living the dream in Albany…
When Sommer moved to Albany, he started performing at open mics until he met Kevin McKrell and his wife, Carla. They, along with Rabb and additional members Rick Bedrosian and Bill Pulchinski (formerly “Broadway Blotto” in the band Blotto) formed The Fabulous Newports. Sommer also performed with Kevin in their duo “Irish Bert,” and once Sommer became friends with Rabb’s friend Eddie Angel, formed The Poor Boys alongside Rabb, Bedrosian and Buck Malen.
Sommer performed all around Albany, Schenectady and Troy at clubs and venues like 288 (Lark Street), The Grinch, Dulan’s, Billy’s Pub, The Gemini Jazz Cafe, J.B. Scott’s, The Boat Slip, and later Quintessence, a retro diner in Albany where he sang and played the piano to restaurateurs.
“He had an amazing life – 41 years. He had an amazing life and he wouldn’t take credit for it because he screwed it up somehow when he didn’t get the money, but I think it’s survival,” Rabb said. “He was a survivor, and he took the wrong path with the drug thing, you know. That just killed what he had.”
Sommer was buried next to his late father at Kensico Cemetery in Valhalla, near Westchester.
Rabb called Watts a master as a writer and a fan of Sommer. He provided Watts plenty of stories of his friend over the phone and provided her some personal photos to use for her book. He said reminiscing about his friend was very cool.
Sommer’s legacy
Even though Watts never met Sommer in person, her collection of memories that she gathered from his friends and bandmates who still remember him with a big smile, made her feel like she knew him on a deeper level.
“The stories I’ve collected for my book are what give it any weight,” Watts said. “People’s memories and stories flesh out a man (in many ways still a kid), who had a mega talent, a golden glow, and some ‘demons’ clanking along his ankles. Had he not fallen through the cracks by not appearing in the Woodstock film or soundtrack (or any subsequent director’s cuts), Bert could have been as big a star as anyone.”
The memoir
Watts calls her book about Sommer an “impressionistic portrait.” Although the stories told about him are nonfiction, she adds in a little creative leeway as she sometimes will write a scene that will help put the reader in a “you are there” position, she said. As of now, she does not have an official title for the book.
She began pitching agents for the book this past year and hopes for it to get picked up by a traditional publisher. If it doesn’t get picked by a publisher, Sharon may also publish the book independently.
If and when she goes on the self-publishing route, she is aiming for the book to be released in time for the 55th Anniversary of Woodstock, August 2024. She would make certain that future readers would be able to get the book from her website: www.sharonwattswrites.com as well as the Museum of Bethel Woods gift shop.
The takeaway
“I think what is most heartening to me is that he (Bert Sommer) never, ever gave up performing, that he was always upbeat in the face of many adversities,” Watts said. “But the most interesting thing was that he was literally three degrees of separation of anything and anyone who was happening over the course of three decades.”
Watts wanted to write Sommer’s memoir now because she felt that it was time to do something to help draw people to his music, share his voice and monumental personality, and also, to help recognize him and his contributions to Woodstock.
“He deserves to be part of the Woodstock Monument and he deserves to be more than ‘Bert Who?’ There were so many rumors floating around about what happened, why was he omitted from the Woodstock documentary and the soundtrack,” Watts said. “I tracked down every thread I could to solve the mystery as best it can be solved.”
She concluded, “This is partly about righting a wrong, getting Bert’s rightful place in the annals of Woodstock history.”