"It is too big and bulgy," he complained, "don't you have anything more handy?"
The only other instrument available was a silver baritone saxophone, John took it, and his teacher demanded: "Do not show up here before you can make a sound again!" It took Johnny two weeks to get a decent tone out of the instrument, two weeks more to be able to play the first songs, but from that moment on he was hooked and already just a few months after he started to play saxophone, he was already good enough to join the marching band, without having any prior education in the music field before picking up the tuba.
The "horn" gave him the capability not just to make music, but to finally express emotions and feelings, something that he was forced to suppress in his family of Czech and Ukrainian background, where the old concept was still very much alive that children should only be seen but not heard.
John
remembered about his time in Rossford/Ohio, where his
family moved back to in 1955: "My father would bang with
his feet against the floor of the living room, when I was
getting too loud and carried away down in the basement!"
But finally the young boy found his voice, and converted
many of his "noisy horn" practices into the garage during
the summer time.
That John had great potential was noticed by his school
mates already when he was just 17. A girl named Barbara
Ewing wrote in John's 1958 High School Yearbook: "The Head
Orbit. Keep up your music career and may it be up in light
like you dream of!" Band member Don Staczek referred to
John as "A wicket man on a sax". John was called Mr. Music
and Sylvia Ann Gwozdz wrote: "To Johnny. Best of luck
always, especially with your always famous Orbits," and
Mike Canfield realized: "Always blow that hot sax hard and
you will go somewhere."
But not only his talent, also his dashing good looks was
one of the reasons why he was the center of attention. He
was called "the man who draws women like flies," and
classmates warned him to take it easy on the women before
he even needed to worry about the right kind of razor
blades.
Johnny Paris®, how John Pocisk would call himself when
associated with his music and as a saxophone player, was
never much of a talker, this might be one of the reasons
why Johnny and the Hurricanes® was at least at the
beginning stages a purely instrumental group and why Johnny
Paris® dreaded interviews. He was called the "inventor of
the talking saxophone" for his distinctive sound, which
gave the impression that his saxophone was actually
"talking". A suitable name for a man that really talked
more through his music than through words in his life.
John called his favorite saxophone affectionately "his
baby" or "his lady", even when he would go on a vacation as
a private man, he would take one of his saxophones with
him: "I feel like one of my arms is missing if I do not
have a sax with me," he admitted once in an
interview.
Soon
after his first steps into music and his experiences in the
Varsity Marching band of his school in Rossford, John
created the Dance Music and Polka band "Black Cats"
followed by the "Orbits", named after his other passion:
Star Gazing!
Maybe the fact that he played Polish Polka and lived in a
Polish neighborhood when he was still a teenager was the
reason why people believed he was of Polish ancestry, when
indeed his family was Ukrainian from his mother's side and
Czech from his father's side.
John never had initially the intention to become a
professional musician. His big dream was actually to become
an astronaut, but life threw him into another direction,
after failing the qualification for the Air Force Academy
just by a margin. The only stumble stone: lack of skills
when it came to articulation and eloquence. Again the sign
that Johnny Paris® was not a man of words, and most
probably the reason why he became according to his Swedish
Agent Hans Edler: "The most
outstanding and best ever Rock´n Roll saxophone player in
the world. Just listen to his records and keep in mind how
young he was there. You can hear already the great
potential in his early works! In total we did 21 great
wonderful gigs together. Johnny was 100% professional to
work with on stage and private. I have only good things to
say about my friend Johnny Paris®. He was the best Rock 'n
Roll saxophone player in the world ever."
And
indeed, most people never had the chance to experience how
Johnny Paris® evolved over the years. When he tried to get
too "jazzy and carried away" on stage, the euphoria in the
crowd went down. John knew, his fans wanted to hear his
songs as close to the original as possible, regardless if
ten, 20, 30 or even 40 years went by, and he was way too
much of a professional to disregard the wishes of his fans,
and so jazz session were held only among close friends and
at free sessions where he did not even mention his stage
name or his association with Johnny and the Hurricanes®.
Johnny Paris® was the only constant member of
the band Johnny and the Hurricanes®, he put the band
together, and as its leader never abandoned music nor
Johnny and the Hurricanes®. Over the decades literally
hundreds of Hurricanes had come and gone, and John was
especially proud of his German formation, which he called
"The best Hurricanes ever!"
Davy Peckett understood who Johnny Paris® really was when
he described him in the "New Candy Dancer- Issue 5": "He is
a professional who can whip the musicians together into a
thoroughly exciting band to create their (his) biggest hits
and on the time I've caught a Johnny and the Hurricanes®
show in the '80s and '90's, they have been excellent - I
perceived Johnny as a professional, pleasant, friendly,
informative though serious character when I met him on two
occasions for NGD. His live shows are full of energy and
the hits sound even better in a modern line-up of musicians
and if I were booking a super professional act that were
bound to encourage a great audience response, it would be
Johnny and the Hurricanes®"
Even though there is the talk about the "original members,"
and Johnny Paris® being the "last original member" that was
active in Johnny and the Hurricanes® until his death in May
2006, John had problems with that view as he described in a
radio Interview with John Hannam in 2003 prior to his
concert at the London Palladium: "That is a misconception.
Everybody talks about the original line up. There was never
an original line up. When we started as the Black Cats, we
had to let go of the trumpet player, somebody else came in,
a rhythm guitar player, then he left, then a new drummer
came in and made the records, then the drummer left and we
had to put another drummer in, then the second drummer left
and a third drummer came in for some more sessions while we
were making records, and then 1961 is when Dave and Butch
left and I got replacements for them and then the organ
player left summer of 1961 and I had to find a new organ
player. As things were changing and evolving, the group
always had constantly people coming and going. There was
never an original line up!"
Johnny Paris® was already an extremely hard band leader in
High School. Paul Tesluk (organ) referred to him in his
entry of John's copy of the 1958 High School Yearbook as
"The Dictator", when they were still gigging as "The
Orbits". John demanded hours of practice and strict
discipline of his members already when he was just a
teenager, but he explained that this was the reason why
they were so very good at such a young age: "We were a very
tight band, we practiced for hours together almost every
day, and that made us not just very good as individual
musicians but also as a group, we were in tune with each
other as musicians!"
Besides that the in tune stages between Johnny and his band
were not always the greatest, he had a bossy nature that
made a lot of musicians pack up and run and might explain
the constant and frequent changes in the band formation.
Johnny Paris'® hard and demanding nature was without any
doubt the reason why the band became so good and with that
as popular as they were, it was indisputably Johnny's
stubbornness, drive and determination to always give the
best and demand the best of his musicians that pushed this
Roman Catholic High School Band up to greatness and into
the history of Rock 'n Roll. But without the harsh
merciless work that Johnny demanded of his group and of
himself, it is doubtful if they would have reached the high
quality that in the end impressed Irving Micahnik and Harry
Balk to offer those youngsters a record deal in the first
place.
There is some confusion even among music experts if Johnny
Paris® played also in the band The Craftsmen. According to
John's own statements in several radio interviews, Johnny
Paris® never played with The Craftsmen, even though the
sound was similar to Johnny and the Hurricanes®. Johnny
Paris® explained that Morty Craft tried to make a success
with The Craftsmen under the Warwick label in style of
Johnny and the Hurricanes® with different musicians, after
Johnny and the Hurricanes® changed from Warwick to the
Bigtop label. Johnny Paris® was also not a part of the
Fascinators, a split group formed by former Hurricanes to
try to recapture the fame and sound of Johnny and the
Hurricanes®. Even though Johnny Paris® filled in as a
musician in projects other than Johnny and the Hurricanes®
and Johnny Paris® (for example he played the sax part in
the X-Citerz tune Walking Wounded published under his own
Atila Records label), Johnny Paris® was clear in several
interviews around the world that he was not associated with
any of the other Johnny and the Hurricanes® split off
bands.
John devoted all his life to music, in the 70's he ventured
for a short while into other businesses, as the music
business was slowing down for him when saxophones seemed to
be an instrument of the past in the Rock field. He took odd
jobs between concerts as a roofer, putting up vending
machines for his uncle, tried his luck in real estate and
as an antique dealer, and he even sold refrigerators for a
while just to get by, until beginning of 1980. In the same
year he moved to Germany, went back to being a full time
musician - started another Johnny and the Hurricanes® World
Tour and in the 80's he also got back his rights to the
Johnny and the Hurricanes® master recordings, he re-opened
his record company Atila Records® and his music publishing
company Sirius I Music, both companies under Johnny and the
Hurricanes®, Inc, which he owned since the 60's. Johnny and
the Hurricanes® as well as Johnny Paris® are protected,
registered trademark names since then and are still in full
affect to this day.
In 1989 John met his second wife Sonja Reuter (now Sonja
Paris), who became ultimately his widow, in Hamburg/Germany
and together they established the Lion Heart Bullmastiff
kennel in Ohio, which gained, like his music, world wide
recognition. John Pocisk was as committed as a Bullmastiff
breeder as he was as a musician.
“Once I knew what
stardom was, I’ve worked toward it again all these years.
If it never happens again, I can at least say I was there
and I was somebody.”
Johnny Paris®/ John
M. Pocisk
* August 29th, 1940 (Walbridge/Ohio)
†
May 1st, 2006 (Ann Arbor/Michigan)