Sam Tibiri recalls starting a dance band in the 1940s with Walter Botts, the model for the original Uncle Sam poster during WW I. Recorded at San Clemente Library
San Clemente, California.
Transcript
My name is Sam Tiberi, I was raised in Butler, Pennsylvania. I was in the high school band and had a little dance band during World War II and wanted to further my music career so I joined the navy and they promised that I would go to Washington, D.C. and Navy Band, but that I had to go through boot camp first. Well I did that. At Great Lakes I was in the drum and bugle corps, kept my jobs up all through that. [I] came out of boot camp supposed to go to Washington, D.C. [but] that didn't happen. Instead I was sent to San Diego, California, Hospital Corps School, which is the medics for the Navy and Marine Corps. [I] graduated from there and was transferred to Camp Pendleton Naval Hospital and that‚s where I spent over four years. In the mean time, a fellow started a municipal band in San Clemente and found out that I was a trumpet player, so he came in and coaxed me to go play well, I hadn't touched it in eighteen years, the valves were supposedly stuck but after going down and listening to a rehearsal one night my foot started tapping and I wondered if I could. So I tried it out and I spent about a month trying to get [inaudible] Anyhow I went into the municipal band and we did a lot of civic things around town we would play for the Fiesta, and [there are] pictures of us marching up Del Mar Avenue, which was terrible because we were all too old to do that and we got too hot it‚s a wonder we didn't pass out. There were some other fellows in the band and said, ‚Well why don't we start our own dance band?‚ And I [said], ‚Ah, get out. We can't do that.‚ One fellow had stands, and he had some combo orc[hestra] books which were good for dancing, so we started a dance band and it was called the ‚Royal Knights.‚ Actually, it was named by my son because we played mostly for the Knights of Columbus which at that time, the Catholic church was where the [municipal] golf course is now. There was a big hall and we played there with sour notes and had a lot of fun [as] it progressed. During that time, a fellow came in the store one day and [said], ‚I understand you have a dance band. I play tenor sax, baritone. I do a little vocal. I wonder if you might need me.‚ And I, real smartly, said, ‚Well, we rehearse on Wednesday night if you‚d like to come try out, we‚ll see what you can do.‚ He came and he took his saxophone out of box and started to warm up and I knew that we were dead. This man was fantastic. He was doing arpeggios up and down and all over the place. We said, ‚Wait a minute, we‚re the amateurs.‚ And he said, ‚No, no, no.‚ He‚d been around. He played with big bands in New York. It was a great novelty thing; he actually was the man that was the model for [the] ‚I Want You‚ Uncle Sam [poster] from World War I. His name was Walter Botts and he was the original Uncle Sam. He played for me for years. He and his wife both taught piano, music [to] a lot of children around town. And I had a great time with him. The man passed away and I missed him terribly because he was just a great musician and a great person.
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Original file was named Two Sams and a Band Sam Tibiri.mov, which was renamed as corcl_000076_prsv.mov. An access file was produced from it and was named corcl_000076_access.HD.mov.