By Tom and Jerry Caraccioli
Music and memories often clash into what many people refer to as the soundtrack to your life.
You may hear a certain song or group that immediately transports you back to college or high school where you remember the smell, who you were with, what you were doing, the way your feet stuck to the floor at a certain bar, a sense of mellow or the high you had when something great happened.
Despite being famous for its snow, in the late 1960s and ‘70s, Oswego also became renowned as a favorite stop for future hall of fame musicians who would become rock and roll royalty.
Bold-faced names like The Doors, Sly and the Family Stone, The Ramones, Billy Joel, James Taylor, Pure Prairie League, Earth, Wind and Fire, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band and others all made their way through the Port City as they climbed the charts to becoming musical icons.
Other not so bold-faced names also made stops in Oswego as students or were locals who stayed in town and honed their musical talents for generations to come.
Many of those same “kids” of the 1970s and ‘80s are still here today, playing, entertaining and providing residents of Oswego, Central New York and beyond with the soundtrack to their lives.
“I saw Pure Prairie League [“Amie”] and the Marshall Tucker Band [“Heard it in a Love Song”], “The Billionaires vocalist and member Tom Ciappa recalled. “I remember Earth, Wind and Fire coming through, [Bruce] Springsteen, Billy Joel.”
During the ‘70s and early-‘80s, a burgeoning local music scene was developing in the city also known for its bars and churches on seemingly every corner of the city’s neighborhoods.
Historic areas of the city became home to this nascent music foundry with the advent of the Lowlife Caffe, Old City Hall and The Ferris Wheel on Water Street, the “Forks of the Road” with Broadwells, Bucklands and The Woodshed, as well as the Oswego State campus.
“I was in middle school and received encouragement from an art teacher,” Ciappa recalled. “When I got into high school, my freshman or sophomore year, I remember someone asked me to sing in a band. We started at the junior variety show and then transitioned. I started with Eddie Thomas, Kevin McDevitt, Dan O’Donnell and Bill Crego and were called Spazz. It is one of those names you don’t want to remember but it was named after me.”
After connecting with John Luber, who knew the local music scene, Ciappa and his mates got on board with Luber and changed their name to Road Work and began traveling and playing in area bars.
This prelude leads us to 2024, where the local musicians of yester-year — influenced by their experiences as teenagers during that early period of Oswego’s music history — now serve as long-time, tenured headliners of today’s music scene in Oswego.
The Billionaires are one such group making music almost every weekend in the Port City playing more than 100 gigs as a full band and another 100 as a splintered duo. The group features Anna Marie White, vocals and percussion; Ciappa, vocals; Edgar Pagan, bass and vocals; Daryl Hunt, drums; Kimo Cortini, keyboards and vocals and Ritchie Melito, guitar.
Whether performing on the banks of the Oswego River during the “Rockin’ the River Summer Concert Series,” local church bazaars or weddings and special events, The Billionaires are a cover band who play a wide range of popular songs from the ‘70s through today. Learned through their more than two decades together, they cover a list of more than 1,000 songs including familiar tunes from favorites like Prince, Journey, Lady Gaga, Jennifer Lopez, Justin Timberlake, The Steve Miller Band, Frank Sinatra, Sam Cook, Robert Cray, Beyonce, Taylor Swift and more.
“Weddings are where the money is,” White candidly admitted. “After COVID, we decided to do more private than public gigs. Though, we always try to play the Veteran’s Stage in Oswego. We get a lot of requests for Taylor Swift. We are playing songs that I never thought I would be singing. We’re always rehearsing to perform different stuff. Our audience loves the ‘80s music, which is fun.”
Nearly 40 years after they first met, John Bletch and Nick Gravelding are still making sweet music together as members of the band Frostbit Blue. Described as “too hot to be cold even after four decades,” Frosbit Blue is another local band with deep roots in Oswego and Central New York.
Bletch, better known around Oswego as “Valch” is on drums, Gravelding and Tommy McCaffrey on guitar, Mike Place on vocals and Benny Fiacco on bass guitar comprise today’s version of the band that has been playing together as a core group since the early 2000s.
But their story really began in 1987.
To hear Bletch, 66, tell the story today of how Frostbit Blue first came to be is like listening to the same enthusiastic, shaggy-haired teenager who pounded his drums in the mid-1970s between playing point guard for Oswego High School’s varsity basketball team and patrolling centerfield for the varsity baseball team.
“I was playing with Johnny Luber in 1987 with the Melons,” Bletch remembered. “He came to practice one day and said there was a college band that wanted to open for us at Nunzi’s. The day of the gig, I went out to Nunzi’s to set my drums up and there was another guy setting up his guitar. The guy said to me, ‘I appreciate you guys letting us play.’ And he introduced himself as Nick.”
Fast forward several years later after Bletch had returned from California where he had been living.
“I came back and played for Jolly Roger, who were playing showcases around town,” Bletch said. “Chris Ellerd called me one night and asked me to play at Old City Hall with some college kids who had recently graduated. I asked him the name of the band and he said, Frostbit Blue. I vaguely remembered that name. Again, I went to set up my gear and there was another guy setting up his gear. I introduced myself and he told me his name was Nick. Then, he said, ‘I think we’ve met before.’ After that, Nick and I have been playing music together for 34 years.”
According to Ciappa and Bletch, the resident locals who grew up in the Port City, the music scene has changed quite a bit.
Bletch, who teaches drums and has a stable of 65 students each week, continues to make his living doing what he’s loved to do since his youth.
“It’s so different now,” Bletch explained. “I started playing in the 1970s. There was always a lot of music going around. In the ‘70s and ‘80s, the music really changed — The Police came out and Duran Duran. Nowadays, it’s nothing like the ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘90s.”
White, who makes her living playing music in Oswego and surrounding areas of Central New York, concluded with this thought, “When I first moved to Oswego I was blown away with the amount of talent in this town. Anybody that I ever had visit always said, ‘I can’t get over how much talent there is in this area.’ It’s just unreal. I’m blessed to be in a town that loves music and I get to play here. It’s pretty cool. And I love it.”
Though age maybe catching up to some of these musicians, the fire still burns inside them to play.
“I can play my drums five nights a week,” Bletch energetically said. “I’m still as hungry now, 40 years later, as I was back then.”
Tom and Jerry Caraccioli are freelance writers originally from Oswego, who have co-authored two books: “STRIKING SILVER: The Untold Story of America’s Forgotten Hockey Team” and “BOYCOTT: Stolen Dreams of the 1980 Moscow Olympic Games.”
