I Remember Ralph (March 12, 1955 – July 15, 2009)
It was fall 1975. I was entering North Carolina School of The Arts as a freshman. I had a dorm room, E second floor. My roommate was drummer, Jason Brashear. Not long after I moved in I heard drums on my hall. There was this guy down the hall who had a set of Gretsch Drums in his room. It was Ralph Robinson. Jason was a drummer and the connection was immediate. There was lots of drum talk going on. Those guys would talk about drums until I thought a gray fog was moving into my brain. Ralph was in a straight and narrow phase. He was Studying hard, practicing and had a nice girlfriend named Tracey. I remember thinking there is something about this guy. There was.
I guess we were both sort of trying to clean up some. I think he was a little more successful then me at that time. He kind of tolerated me. I was really out of my league. All these people playing Bach and reading music. I couldn't read and I had never played the upright bass. I didn't know shit except Grand Funk and The Ohio Players. One night he came to our dorm room and burned a pencil. He sat right in front of me and held the burning pencil in my face and stared at me real hard. ??. I practiced really hard, like 4-5 hours a day at least. We became good friends, started hanging out and playing. The next year we were in Orchestra together under Niki Harsanyi. For one concert Max Rudolph the conductor of the Cleveland Symphony came and conducted Beethoven 6. At one point the Maestro called Ralph out. He had him play a timpani part by himself. Ralph had this look on his face, a sort of ok Mr. conductor I am going to play the shit out this. He did. The Maestro just gazed at Ralph for what I thought was a long time. Then Max Rudolph said thank you.
Ralph was slowly reverting back to his crazy self. There was one night in particular where I think he kind of "broke bad". Keith Yarbrough, Ralph and I were drinking a lot and generally raising hell. Keith told me the next day that his girlfriend said Ralph was acting weird and crazy that night. Before that night, if memory serves me right he was kind a one beer guy. Little did I know this pharmicist's son was a maniac from way back.
We had some bands in this time. Bursita was one. That was with guitarist Matt Balitsaris (Rakit) and singer Kathy McKenna. That band played a lot gigs in a lot of clubs. We were playing at "The Scoreboard" the night Elvis died. This redneck insisted we play some Elvis or there would be trouble. I remember saying I guess I could croak out blue suede shoes. Upon hearing this, Ralph immediately counted off the tune with that authoritative stick click and 1234 of his. No key, no discussion, just boom "one for the money". He never wanted any trouble. We did a lot of trio gigs too. Me, Chris Deane and Ralph. Chris played guitar and sang. We did a lot of gigs for parties and such through the NCSA gig office. Ralph and I even did some jazz gigs with Bob Smitherman and Joe Robinson. During this time Ralph rented a house on Walnut Street in Winston-Salem. He bought a set of fancy timpani and practiced like crazy. At some point He went to Europe and did timpani gigs there. He wanted to get to the German root of the things. There is this picture of him behind an East German guard. He’s all wild looking sticking his tongue out. One night on his way to Berlin on the train an East German guard woke him up about something. Ralph told the guard “ You can’t do anything to me because we kicked your ass.”
Ralph, Matt Balistaris and I also played a show called “Jason and The Scabs” by Steve Jackson, directed by Vince Park, in summer 1977 in Winston-Salem. This was pivotal.
In fall 1977 I quit school and moved to New York City with Vince Park. Vince started Main Street Extravaganza’s. Ralph came up later in 78. We all had nicknames. Ralph was Roast Beef, Matt Balitsaris was Rakit, I was Suitcase, Vince was Bigfoot, Steve Jackson was Pigmeat, Brandt Clark was Pissed. What a crew. Main Street was a production company that did this huge multi media production in 1979 at the Perry Street Theater. It was called “Treadway in the Blue Room” Ralph, Rakit and I played in the 6 piece band for it. Rakit wrote the music and came up with the concept. Ralph played percussion and mallets. One day my brother showed up in New York during the Treadway run with this “brown shit” as Ralph named it. Ralph and I went to LaGuardia to get him in Steve Jackson's car "the Shark". We ingested some "brown shit"and oh my god. We stopped on 14th st to get a chair off the street. Ralph opened the car door stepped out and fell down in the gutter. We left Pigmeats car running in the middle of East Sixth street in front of the apartment. We were in bad shape and we had to play the show that night. It was a hard show with complicated music. I spent the day getting psyched up. We played the shit out of the show. I think that was the official recording. Ralph told me when he was playing the xylophone the bars were coming up with the mallets like they were melting.
When Ralph arrived in New York He had things set up real well for himself. He had a job at Avery Fisher Hall as an usher. He could practice timpani there and he was studying with the timpanist of the NY Phil. Wow. He saw a lot of shows at Avery Fisher. I remember him telling me all about Jaco’s show there. I still remember the vivid detailed account of the weirdness of that night. I left NYC at the end of 1980.
I lost track of him some until 1983 when I moved back to NYC for a while. Ralph had things pretty well together although Timpani were out of the picture for good. He had a cheap studio apt on East Fifth St. by the Police Station. He had this girlfriend Julie, and was in three or four bands. He was playing gigs around the city with Don Morrell’s band, the infamous “Sex In Miami” and some other groups. Ralph and I played around New York for 6 months with Don, Virgil Moorefield and some other things I can't remember now. We did a Leonard Melfi show at Theater For the New City. He got in trouble for throwing a beer can on stage during the fight scene. It fit in perfectly. Melfi liked it.
I left New York again for good. Ralph stayed. He had some substance problems brewing. We used to say he had a hollow leg. All the stuff would go in that leg. He could do two black beauties and go to sleep. He burned a taxi and moved back to his hometown Rockhill, South Carolina in the 80’s. I would see him now and again. I have some tapes of music we recorded in the 80’s.
Last time I saw him was in 1998 or so. I gave him a truckload of old equipment. Speakers and stuff. He loved the Georgia Bulldogs. I used to kid him and call him a damn Georgia piss ant. He used to laugh at that and call me a Carolina something. Ralph was a good drummer. He was very creative. Very fiery without being too heavy, ever. Never plodding, always alive and swinging. I remember his groove.
