DIG THIS PRESENTS "RICH BUCKLAND'S EPIPHANY NOTEBOOK" - "THE RISING OF JOHNNY RIVERS - FROM A SHOT OF WHISKY AU GO GO THROUGH THE SUMMER RAIN"- A SPECIAL TRIBUTE UPON THE ANNOUNCEMENT OF JOHNNY'S RETIREMENT

This is the unlikely musical tale of a 1950's Italian kid from New York City not named Dion DiMucci.We're talking about John Henry Ramistella.This artist has been inducted into the Louisiana Music Hall of Fame but the big door prize still eludes him. It's possibly the contention that a career delivering mostly vivid, colorful cover versions of brilliant material makes him a melodic figure of less import.I vigorously disagree.He was a different kind of pioneer and If anyone belongs in The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, it's Johnny Rivers.The omission is glaring.- Rich Buckland"The Whisky was a smash from opening night," Rivers says. I brought my following from Gazzari's." Rivers and his famous red Gibson ES-335 guitar symbolized the Strip's new youth-oriented atmosphere. They weren't at the Whisky long when he and Adler thought of cutting a live album. Another L.A. club owner loaned Rivers and Adler money to hire Wally Heider's remote recording unit. "We recorded this album two nights in a row and took it to every record company in town. None of them wanted it," Johnny recalls.Liberty Records executive Bob Skaff liked the tape and convinced reluctant Liberty President Al Bennett to release it on Imperial Records. Bennett had purchased Imperial from founder Lew Chudd, and ran it as a small, semi-independent label. To release Rivers' recordings, he and Adler formed Dunhill Productions with Bobby Roberts (an ex-member of The Dunhills, a tap dancing group that inspired the name) and Pierre Cossette (now producer of the Grammy Awards show). This eventually evolved into Dunhill Records, home to L.A rock legends The Mamas & The Papas, The Grass Roots and Steppenwolf.Adler and company were disappointed that the album would appear on what they considered a secondary label. But not Johnny. "When they said 'Imperial Records.' I just jumped up and went 'YEAH! YEAH!' Because I grew up with nothing but Imperial Records, Bobby Mitchell, Fats Domino, and Ricky Nelson, and I thought 'What a cool label!'" Both Rivers and Adler came to see Imperial's smallness as a plus. "it gave Lou and me the autonomy to pick our own singles and work closely with the promotion men and marketing people," Rivers says. "I think that had a lot to do with why we had so much success, because we had a real good handle on it.".-Johnny Rivers