{"id":5382,"date":"2011-07-06T08:00:54","date_gmt":"2011-07-06T12:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/?p=5382"},"modified":"2021-05-29T15:50:53","modified_gmt":"2021-05-29T19:50:53","slug":"he-made-a-living-at-music","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/2011\/07\/06\/he-made-a-living-at-music\/","title":{"rendered":"HE MADE A LIVING AT MUSIC"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n

\"music-store\"<\/p>\n

Barry Weinberg, <\/strong><\/span>the owner of Mayfield Music in Cleveland Heights, rented PA systems and sold amps, guitars and drums. He died at 55. He was a rocker who lived hard. The sign at the back of his store read Give Me the Dough and You Can Go.<\/span><\/p>\n

He carried a quality line of blues harps.<\/p>\n

Before Barry, Mayfield Music was Chick Chaikin’s store. Chick lived pretty hard too, but in a middle-class way: Chick golfed, raised a family and played thousands of\u00a0cocktail-piano gigs.<\/p>\n

\"Chick

Chick Chaikin<\/p><\/div>\n

Chick was a big-band leader and solo pianist for decades. He played six nights a week at the Colony Restaurant, and\u00a0knew just about every pop song written, according to trumpeter Bob Dreifort, who I\u00a0talked to recently.<\/p>\n

\"Cleveland

Cleveland Plain Dealer, 8\/23\/74<\/p><\/div>\n

Chick’s brother<\/strong><\/span> Bill went out to Hollywood and eventually ran a movie studio, Avco Embassy. Bill was involved in The Graduate<\/em> and more.<\/p>\n

“I could have gone to the Coast too,” Chick said. “But my life is here, and I have my work, although every winter I say this is it. But I’m still here.” (Plain Dealer<\/em> interview, 1977)<\/p>\n

Chick’s store was Currier-Chaikin Music. Chick’s business partner, John Currier, was even older than Chick. John Currier had played piano at Euclid Beach Park in the 1920s.<\/p>\n

\"Cleveland

Cleveland Plain Dealer 1\/23\/53<\/p><\/div>\n

Chick called<\/strong><\/span> me “Toby’s son.” Chick didn’t know my name. Chick and my father, Toby, were Kinsman Road boys.<\/p>\n

Most of my father’s friends and acquaintances were businessmen: shoe store owners, insurance men, pawn shop owners.<\/p>\n

How did my dad know a full-time musician? I guess Toby had no choice. Toby and Chick grew up almost next door to each other.<\/p>\n

How did Chick<\/strong><\/span> wind up a full-time musician? I didn’t ask old people questions like that when I was in my twenties.<\/p>\n

Chick’s life was all about family and music, his daughter, Jeri, told me this year. For a while Chick had a side job giving private music lessons through Cleveland public schools.I didn’t have the chutzpah to ask Jeri if there was more to Chick’s headstone than Leonard ‘Chick’ Chaikin 1915-2000.<\/span><\/p>\n

Here are three<\/strong><\/span> fitting epitaphs:<\/p>\n

a)\u00a0 “Here lies a man who made a living at music.”<\/p>\n

b)\u00a0 “Chick a la King.”<\/p>\n

c)\u00a0 “I’m here 7 nights a week.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Barry Weinberg, the owner of Mayfield Music in Cleveland Heights, rented PA systems and sold amps, guitars and drums. He died at 55. He was a rocker who lived hard. The sign at the back of his store read Give Me the Dough and You Can Go. He carried a quality line of blues […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5382","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cleveland-full","category-toby-stratton"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5382","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5382"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5382\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28928,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5382\/revisions\/28928"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}