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Cold Harbor

Patty Bortko, Jim, Ellen, and Mike. Reunion at Six Row Brewery

Cold Harbor was a "top 40's group"—now they would call us a cover band—that I played with in the early 1970's. I thought that Cold Harbor would just remain a wonderful memory. But in April, 2011, thanks to the persistence of Mike Bortko, the bass in the former band, three of the four of us had a reunion at Six Row Brewing Company, where we remembered the old, good times. Then, I found a dirty old Radio Shack reel-to-reel tape recorder moldering away in my basement and a pile of tapes. To my amazement, I found a whole recorded set of Cold Harbor performing, probably at the then Harry's Sword and Shield Lounge in Gillespie, Illinois. The tape was in perfect condition, and over the next month, I gingerly cleaned and repaired the old machine, and it played the tape without a hitch. Unfortunately, the recording itself has a lot of distortion, especially of the bass, but maybe that was the style in those days. The good news is, here is a good, long set of Cold Harbor playing and having a lot of fun. Enjoy as much or as little of it as you would like.

From my memoirs

written sometime around 1990

In the spring of 1972 a young man by the name of Mike Bortko was taking my philosophy of education course. Slavic ancestry showed through this 6' 3", blond and blue-eyed, handsome, moon-faced kid. He came up to me after class one night, grinning his charming and slightly ornery smile, and proposed that we get together and "jam some blues." That summer we set up my electric piano in his mom's garage in Staunton, Illinois, and we struck a common chord. We both knew all the pop music that was playing on the Top 40.

Mike had a vision. He had always wanted his own band, since he had been playing in the shadow of his older brother, Dennis. Mike knew a middle-aged drummer named Ott Ferrari. "Jim, we need a chick singer," he would say. So we auditioned a couple of girls. But we weren't prepared for the talent of Ellen O'Brien. She was dynamite. Besides that, we all clicked. How could we not click? We were all wonderful Sagittarians. In fact, Mike's birthday and mine are the same. Ott didn't last, and we ended up with Eddie Ebert, a wiry kid with a steady, heavy beat who worked the railroad during the day.

Mike suggested we name the group "Cold Harbor, if you don't have any objections." We practiced, and in a surprisingly short time, we had enough numbers for several sets. I had bought an Arp Odyssey synthesizer. The Odyssey had revolutionized the performance of synthesized music at that time because it was relatively inexpensive and had a two- voiced keyboard. Mike got us an audition at Harry's Sword and Shield Lounge in Gillespie, Illinois. It was a sunny late summer afternoon. We set up our equipment in this fairly big room. About twenty people were there. They weren't paying much attention.

Carly Simon's "You're So Vain" had just hit the air and it was hot. In fact it had played a couple of times on the jukebox while we were setting up. We tried a couple of numbers without making much of an impression.

Mike said, "Ellen, let's do Carly's new tune."
"Mike," she gasped, "you've got to be crazy. We haven't even rehearsed it!"
"Do you know the words?” he shot back.
"Well, yes, but ... "
"Go on, Ellen," I chimed in, "I know we can do it. I know it."

Before she could protest, Bortko hit that A minor bass sequence that introduces the song. I was right there with the parallel fourths on keyboard: A, G-A, C, A. Ellen grabbed the mike and launched, into the song: "You walked into the party like you were walkin' onto a yacht. Your hat strategically dipped below one eye; you're scarf, it was apricot. You had one eye on the mirror as you watched yourself gavotte. You had some dreams; they were clouds in your coffee, clouds in your coffee. And you're so vain."

They stopped. They looked. They listened. "You probably think this song is about you. You're so vain, you probably think this song is about you, don't you, don't you, don't you?!"

When we finished, we got cheers, whistles and applause. "More, more!"

It was a miracle. We were hired. We gradually developed a reputation in the area. One night, people even left a Foghat concert at the Colosseum in Benld and came down to hear us. I still play my tape of our psychedelic version of Jefferson Airplane's "White Rabbit." The smoke filled room, the clink of glasses, people on the make, or dancing, or making obscene remarks and jokes, having fun ... It all comes back. "Hey, where did it go, the days when the rain came ... 

We had done it. We had been able to bring to ourselves and others that same feeling of power that had come over me when I stepped into the Granary in late 1970 and heard a band play that wall of sound music of Pink Floyd and Chicago.

And then it was over. Ellen was also studying opera. Her voice teacher insisted that she give up rock. We couldn't believe it. But she did quit the group. We were devastated. We weren't Cold Harbor anymore, just three guys jamming.

Mike's a salesman now, and Ellen lives in California, is married and has two kids. I lost track of Eddie. But I cannot forget this intense experience. We created a bond that I believe will never die. It's the bond of love. All my life I have been creating improvised music. I know the miracle of four individuals welding together in a group. The musical group is a symbiotic creature with its own life. As a pianist and guitarist, I have felt myself literally providing the harmonic structure onto which the lead instruments' melodic lines flow and under which the rhythmic foundation sets. As a vocalist and synthesizer soloist, I have felt myself leading the harmonies and rhythms in rising and falling patterns. And as a synthesized bassist, I have had the most powerful experience of all—that of driving a group home.