Pork Pie Phillips (Carl Ontis)
In writing this I apologize in advance for any inaccuracies. I met Carl in spring of 1980, and we married November 7, 1981. There is much that went before that I am unsure of. What I have included is that which I have documentation for or firsthand knowledge of. I am sure there are many people he has performed with that I have missed, and probably important events or details I’m unable to provide. I hope those omitted or otherwise mentioned in error will contact me and help me correct the record. In knowing him I have met some incredibly talented people, and they have been a privilege to know. He was rich in friends and experience.
Sincerely,
Elizabeth Pidgeon-Ontis (Mrs. Pork Pie)
To those who knew him well, Carl was a generous man who shared his knowledge and himself unselfishly. He was born in Napa, California in 1948 and lived there until venturing forth on his own. He lived in Berkeley for a time, then in Noe Valley with his first wife and daughter Tiffany for seven years while working at Hunters Point Shipyard. With the closure of Hunters Point he moved on to work at the Mare Island Naval Shipyard as an electrical machinist. His father served in the Navy in WWII, coming home to work as a lineman for PG&E. His mother worked at the Mare Island Naval Shipyard during WWII, and again later on. Carl’s intense interest in history translated into performing in stage and theater in school, and eventually into experimenting with blues and other types of music in his singing career.
In the quick paced music world of the 1960’s he began in The Strangers with Jim Stanley, Jim Pryts and John Stemmer. According to both Carl and Jim, they’d drive from one school to another to play lunchtime sock hops. Then there was The Black Watch band, comprised of Carl, Jim Stanley, Gary Zanardi, Reed Stubbs and Carl Lampley. Jim Stanley, in an interview given in England transcribed by Gray Newell, said “Carl Ontis was one of my best friends, and oh what a front man he was. He looked like Keith Relf with Mick Jagger moves.” During those days he was forbidden from parking his Buick Superchief in front of Taylor’s Refreshers in St. Helena because the owner didn’t want the parking lot clogged with gaggles of girls’ cars there to visit, instead of buying the food.
In the mid-1960’s Carl performed together with Craig Robison, John Stemmer and Jim Pritz in a band called the Warlachs. A letter written by Larry “Smokestack” Caffo to Gene Sculatti, the group’s manager, recounts the performance (and win) at a Battle of the Bands where their blues- based performance gave up songs like “I’ve Got My Mojo Working,” “Mystic Eyes” “Not Fade Away,” “King Bee” “I’m A Man” and “It’s Alright” to win over the other group’s “hair-hat” music. Beating out the Nomads, they proclaimed that “hat music is done”. And there’s the infamous Transatlantic Winkum Chicken #5, where Carl performed with John Stemmer, Reed Stubbs, Carl Lampley, and Jim Stanley. Accorded acclaim for various aspects, they are included in Dave Marsh’s Book of Rock Lists in a list of the “20 most ridiculous band names”, and in Ralph Gleason’s book The Jefferson Airplane and the San Francisco Sound. This is where Carl picked up “The Train Came Rumbling Back,” a song he often performed. According to Jim Stanley, they played “White Rabbit” and “Somebody to Love” before the Jefferson Airplane did, citing that Carl “would come back from the Fillmore and he could play a song like Quicksilver’s “Babe I’m Gonna Leave You” or “Pride of Man”. We would see the Great Society [where “White Rabbit” and “Somebody to Love” originated] and Carl… and he would show us how to play (their songs).” He fronted well known Project Hope for a time with Bill Leach as group leader, and band members Peter Coppenrath, Paul McCluskey and Jeff Jensen. In August 29, 1966 a news article cites “Project Hope has been contracted to play with Jefferson Airplane the following weekend at Clear Lake and are negotiating for an appearance with the Lovin’ Spoonful in October”. Other groups are less clear, but he was connected with Uncle Bunny and Truman Coyote as well.
Carl’s career in music was interrupted repeatedly, first by service in Vietnam. His time there earned him the rank of Sergeant. He returned to the States to a job at Hunters Point and subsequently Mare Island Naval Shipyard, taking up work as an electrical machinist for 25 years and eventually working up to a supervising position. In the 1980’s a two-year stint of working twelve hours for six days a week left him too exhausted for the music he loved. In addition his health began to be affected by illness and injuries sustained in Vietnam. He would continue to suffer from chronic illness that plagued him till his death. A car accident in 1994 compounded things, with him suffering injuries that eventually led to the amputation of his leg and other major surgeries that left him bedridden for five and a half months in 2002, mostly in the hospital. During that time he pondered the people and music that he had loved and became determined to return to them. After leaving the hospital he worked to bring them together again, staging jams with old friends and new ones. Carl always was good at researching, and he committed to making the rounds to jams all over the Bay Area to reconnect to people he’d known and get to know those he had yet to know. Chris’ Club, the Mojo Lounge, the Ivy Room, B Street Billiards, Petars and others I can’t remember. And he started writing.
Morning after morning I’d get up and find him on the porch, coffee and cigarette in hand, quietly singing as he worked out the lyrics to new songs. Sometimes all day he’d be standing at the keyboard, singing to work out the intonation and shading of his singing style in those songs that was so forceful and focused. Many marveled at the intensity of his voice. It came from a lot of hard work. The songs that he wrote often came from his own experiences, some reaching back to those early days in Napa. He strove to work to traditional blues models, and to keep his music simple in the way that allowed him to sit in with people he didn’t know and still be able to perform them. What began in his youth as an affair with an outrageous medium became a commitment to honoring an important piece of our cultural history.
Since 2002 Carl sang informally with several different groups including Out of the Blue, with Jay Shelby. Meeting up with Ronnie Stewart and the Bay Area Blues Society brought Carl’s love of blues and history together in one place. Their work to preserve and promote West Coast Blues and the musicians who helped make it interested him, and he began to work and perform with them regularly. During that time he got to meet and share the stage with many blues legends, and found friendships that carried him through his pain. In 2005 he was awarded the West Coast Blues Hall of Fame Blues Come Back Artist of the Year, and just recently was given a United Black Press Annual 2006 African American Families Walk of Fame Hollywood Superstar Award.
The wolf didn’t stay long from his door though, and earlier this year his health began to decline again. He was finally diagnosed with lung cancer just two and a half weeks before he died, with supposedly six months to live. He left us early in the morning of September 13th, 2006. It seems his body just plain gave out. The irony is that even as Carl died of lung cancer, his voice remained strong. He was enormously saddened he didn’t have time to say goodbye to his friends.
Songs by Pork Pie Phillips:
Rent to Own Woman
Nasty Little Thing
Super Chief Blues
Not Bad for a White Boy
Hoodoo on You
New California Blues
Shooting My Way Out
Temptation
Baby’s Dressed in Red
You In Love
New Workin’ Man’s Blues
Skinny Legged Woman
Your Momma Warned You
Blues Ain’t Nothin’
Bad Love
Bottle’s Almost Gone
and others….