From Robert Earl and Me: Merry Christmas
John Zeglinski played some really good football for Wake Forest in the years right before I moved to Winston-Salem in 1978. A tough Philly kid who was both crafty and fearless, he caught a lot of passes and returned kicks and punts like nobody’s business. He had his biggest season as a sophomore in 1975 when he provided Chuck Mills’ 3-8 team (3-3 in the ACC) with 1,730 all-purpose yards, for the third best season in school history after Kenneth Moore (1,854 in 2007) and Fabian Davis (1,747 in 2002). I’ve also heard through our mutual friend Billy Armour that Zeglinski, or Ziggy to the masses, was/is quite a character.
I know I’ve been in his debt many fun, fun nights for the even broader mark he left on Winston-Salem. Billy A, a recovering sports writer who was at Wake at the time, confirmed the story I’d always heard that it was Zeglinski and some confederates like teammate Mike Spencer who opened Ziggy’s on Baity Street sometime around the early 1980s. In its day, which was a long, long day in that kind of business, Ziggy’s was as good a place to catch live music as you could find. When I’m on the road with the basketball or football team, I’m always looking for live music, and I know that if I ever stumbled into a club as good as Ziggy’s was in its prime I would come away saying `this is a rockin’ town.’ Winston is still a rockin’ town, but it’s not rockin’ like it was when Bob Marley or Dave Matthews or NRBQ or Hot Tuna or the Drive By Truckers or that legendary local band hatched at Wake Forest itself, the Emma Gibbs Band were tearing down the walls at Ziggy’s. Ahhh, the memories.
Ziggy’s closed in 2008 and I miss it greatly.
My bride Tybee and I never hit the town when Nate and Rebecca were young spuds. I work a lot of nights and when we could all be home we pretty much were. But we couldn’t resist when Los Lobos came through, so we got our first sitter in many moons and headed off to Ziggy’s, really, really pumped for the night. We got there ridiculously early and, if you ever knew Ziggy’s and its distinct floor plan, then you might appreciate this story. There was a dance floor right in front of the raised stage about 20-25 feet deep, and two more levels up to the private bar that actually fronted Baity Street. And along the first raised level of about six feet or so there was a counter for drinks and bar stools—the sweetest spot for live music I’ve ever had the great pleasure to worm my way into.
And we couldn’t believe our great fortune to find two unoccupied stools just sitting there, waiting for us that night. We made a bee-line for the bar and by the time we got back one of the seats had been taken. “That’s one on us,’’ I said. “We’re out of practice. In our dating days we would have known the drill of leaving one of us to save the seats and send the other after beer.’’ But we were double lucky that night when two side-by-sides did come open, and because of where we were, who I was with and the band we were watching it was right up there with the best shows I’ve ever seen. The band opened with a short acoustic set of Mexican Folk tunes that had me tapping my toes. There were all these stringed instruments on stage, and I don’t know if there was a guitar among them. Then Louie sat down behind the drum set, David, Cesar and Conrad plugged in and, joined by Steve on the keyboards, they took off on a long, stomping, super-charged set of their best stuff. To say David Hildago and music is to be redundant. He is music. He’s the big guy with the high angel voice, and he plays the saxophone and accordion and as mean an electric guitar as anyone this side of Robbie Robertson. I poked my head into the side room where he was standing after the show, toweling off, and said “Thanks.” He said `You’re welcome.’ And then I let him be, and Tybee and I headed home from a night I’ll never forget.
Robert Earl Keen played there a few times and eventually got so big that the place would just be too full. But he puts on such a great show. One night he came out and gave this little spiel how every time he ever plays a gig there’s always one guy who will walk up afterward and tell him that it was a great show, but that he’d driven something like four hours to see the show all the while hoping that Robert Earl would play this one song, which always happened to be one that Robert Earl hadn’t played. And Robert Earl said first of all he’d tell the guy to buzz off, only he didn’t say buzz. Then Robert Earl said it actually always made him feel really, really bad and because he didn’t like to feel bad he was going to open this particular show with every song that anybody had ever requested along with every song that anybody might ever possibly request. And he opened with this one. Merry Christmas From the Family
Don’t know how much you’ll hear from me over the Holidays. We’re going to ground here for Christmas and Saturday we’re headed off to Raleigh to party with friends and family there. But we’re all hoping this is your best Christmas ever.