Comments on: Vito’s Ark

By: Donna

Donna — Tue, 17 May 2011 02:47:16 +0000

If anyone who still has a Freedom t-shirt would be kind enough to post a photo of it perhaps I could have it silk screened. I’d like to have one for myself. Please post pic of Freedom t-shirts or email to me.

ankh151@aol.com

Peace!

By: charlie davidson

charlie davidson — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 21:38:28 +0000

Ursula, planning to ride to tn. for terry’s 70 birthday however do not have current number been trying to call for a couple of weeks. If you would be so kind do pass this on to him to call me or mouse we would appreciate it.
My e-mail is air2cycle@aol.com thank you

By: Ursula Nuzzo

Ursula Nuzzo — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 05:43:34 +0000

I did get in touch with Terry. He was shocked to find out I was looking for him on behalf of my sister Elke. I left him her phone number , but I think I gave him the wrong area code. She was very excited that I got in touch with him .I gave her Terry’s number, but even though she wants to talk to him she is a little upset that I told him she was sick and now is uneasy about calling him and the awkwardness of him knowing that she is sick. While I was in the Keys visiting with her she told some great stories and showed my a lot of great pics of her and Vito before and after his and her transformation.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 07:02:13 +0000

I grew up around King. My mother did most of the artwork for the group. Mom was called Mother Goose and my brother, sister, and I…The Three Goslings. They would always say “Hang Loose Mother Goose!” and I tried to pretend I did not understand the context. My mother raised us mostly on her own after her divorce from my father. We were poor, and in exchange for the artwork they would feed us. They never told us no. They never told us too much candy. They gave and gave and gave. As a child I got my Jesus and my ice cream at the same time. The stained glass featured on the back of the album cover was above the glorious reflective clean steel of the, to the hilt, soda jerk/ice cream fountains. The anticipation of the best available ice cream with all the toppings just heightened and elevated towards the icon, and perhaps beyond.

Some of the best “Christians” I have ever met in my life are the Sea Hippies.

By: mouse

mouse — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 13:11:21 +0000

going to vist terry in TN this may for his 70th birthday bash.Ill pass on the good vibes.

By: pat

pat — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 02:01:33 +0000

Remember working for Vito on City Island..I still have the autographed 45 of his record and the original red jqcket with the sea hippies logo on the back..good memories.

By: Ursula Nuzzo

Ursula Nuzzo — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 20:46:29 +0000

Edwin,
My sister Elke had a 5 year relationship with Veto late 60′s early 70′s. Her name is Elke Holley. She met him before he became King Veto. She met him on a plane to Vegas. While in Vegas, Veto asked her to go to L.A. From L.A. they went to Hawaii. She was with him when he went from Veto business man to King Veto. She left him and moved to the Fla Keys. My sister is sick and asked me to look up Veto, we found out that he died. She kept saying Holly crap man he is dead 10 years already. Now Elke has asked me to look up Terry Benadetto, she said was Veto’s right hand man. Any info would be of help. My memory of Veto from when I was a little girl, how cool it was that my sister lived with Veto King of the hippies

Ursula NUzzo

By: Pam Brandt

Pam Brandt — Mon, 12 May 2008 11:19:49 +0000

Hi, Ed–
I played played bass in Vito’s band for a couple of years back in the mid-1980s.
That was after the Sea Hippies. The band was called King Vito and Da Bronx Cowboys. We played all the usual C&W music circuit clubs in New York– O’Lunney’s, the Lone Star, etc.– plus venues out on Long Island and NJ, including a whole lot of VFW halls, where country music organizations held weekly dances. Some private parties, too, including one where i believe I met your mom.
I was a freelance bass player then; most of the players in the NY country scene were freelancers. We played with lots of different band leaders, so you’d see a lot of bands with different names but mostly only the bandleader/lead singer was different. A lot of the players were the same.
I did pretty much play steadily with mostly Vito for a couple of years, though. A fiddle player named David Sulzer (who played under the name David Soldier), with whom I’d played regularly in another country band, brought me into Da Bronx Cowboys just because Vito had lost a bass player and needed another.
David told me a story at the time about a previous gig he’d played with Vito. It was a private party for one of Vito’s associates from a former incarnation, and during a band break David was talking to one of the guys about how club musicians are always on the road late at night. The guy offered to sell David a handgun. Kinda freaked David out.
Vito used to tell me stories about being associated with connected guys before he got into his Christ thing, and sometimes working for them… in connection with some major dump in the Bronx. In fact, he said he was close to being made in his earlier life, but decided not to take it that far. Every so often he’d get us gigs for some of his former associates, but I didn’t find anyone scary, just a lot of people who liked having a real good time. For sure no one ever offered to sell me a gun. (Actually, unlike David, I might have bought it.)
Vito WAS way into Jesus, but that didn’t come out heavily in the band except for a few original songs of his that we played, like one called “One More”. He did still have, at the time, a small bunch of his followers living with him on the Freedom, maybe four other people. But I never personally saw him treat Typhoid or the rest like a cult leader would. Terry, whose nickname was The Minister, was the band’s road manager, and Vito just treated him like that– and like a friend he lived with.
It’s entirely blievable to me that at a previous time he’d been more heavy-handed in that regard, and also more domineering re. converting people to Christ. But I never experienced anything like that. Though I was raised Protestant, I’m not into religion at all (and wasn’t then), and David, the fiddle player, was jewish. Vito did talk some about his own religious feelings, but never tried to go evangelical with us.
Vito also told me once, pretty early on, during a late-night drive home from a gig, that before he’d asked me to be in Da Bronx Cowboys, people had warned him that he and I wouldn’t get along at ALL. That’s because I was– and remain– a total feminist, who doesn’t take well to any of that stereotypical boy/girl power trip crap. But he was laughing when he told me that, because we got along great. As I said, it’s entirely possible that he’d been more into being on a power trip earlier on, but at that point in his life, he was much more mellow than most band leaders I worked for re. respecting people for what they were as long as they did the same for him.
Which not a lot of the top country circuit bands did, because Vito was so weird. Even when we played pretty much the same cover songs as all the bands– which we largely did–Vito sure wasn’t the same. Other bands used to rank on him because he was definitely rough-edged re. musicianship. And it’s true that he didn’t know much about music technically; when we’d play with pick-up players who didn’t know the songs, which was all the time, I was really the bandleader in terms of calling the practical stuff. (Like telling a strange lead guitarist, “This one’s a slow shuffle, key of A, intro’s a 5-1 turnaround, I’ll do a two-bar count and you do the pick-up on beat three of the second measure.”) Doing that kind of stuff well is what most of these bands respected– having instant musical polish under pressure.
But you know what? They had their heads up their butts. They were nothing but empty polish, and Vito was all soul. He did pretty well that way, too, because he stood out from the pack. He didn’t get as many normal gigs, because those club owners and country music clubs most valued the bands that most perfectly copied cover songs. But when it came to opportunities calling for originality, it was a different story. There was a big national contest once in the early 1980s, sponsored by Budweiser i think (it was before I was in Vito’s band), and all the top NY country bands entered the regionals. And King Vito and Da Bronx Cowboys beat them all! These other bands were livid! Bright green-jealous! But what can ya say? They were copies, and Vito was an original.
Admittedly, it would have been less frustrating for his band if he’d been just a little more into the notes-and-bolts musicianship stuff, because we’d have worked more. The rest of us did need the money. But he was over that. Mostly what he was into was how, once they got the boat all fixed up, they were going to sail around the world.
I’ve wondered for years if they ever did. Sounds like no. I’m sorry about that.
– Pamela Robin Brandt

By: Dennis O'Connor

Dennis O'Connor — Sat, 01 Sep 2007 06:27:50 +0000

Ed,
Thanks so much to you and your mom for her response. I had heard the Hippie’s Place was across the street from the Black Whale, and now I know for sure it was.
I guess Vito knew Richie and Stan, who ran the Black Whale in those days. At least, someone told me those were the guys from the Black Whale back then. I also heard that Richie might even have been Vito’s landlord at the Hippie Place, but I don’t know if that story is accurate.
That’s great that Vito was written up in People Magazine. Any idea of when that was? I might try to locate a copy, as well as that article in the Daily Times from 1975. I think that paper was in Westchester County, but doesn’t exist anymore. But a library may have it in the files.
Vito was such an interesting individual I just want to see what I can learn. Not many people do what he did, meaning leave one life behind for the “counterculture” at a time when he was past his teen or early-20s years.
It is not possible to read that Daily Times article on the internet site. But it probably says what Vito’s job used to be. Do you rememember what they meant by “capitalist” in that headline?
It was before my time. But some people on City Island still talk now and then about Vito, the Sea Hippies, the store and the Freedom. That is what sparked my interest.
The Guy Trails and “Bronx Cowboys” stories are interesting too. It all is.
Thanks again for your reply. If your mom has any information that could answer my few questions in this note, I also would greatly appreciate it.
Regards,
Dennis

By: suela decker

suela decker — Sat, 01 Sep 2007 06:22:58 +0000

Dear Dennis,
My son, Edwin, sent me your email and I will try to answer your questions regarding my brother, King Vito, to the best of my ability.
I don’t remember the name of the street on City Island but The Hippies Place was across the street from the Black Whale. It was a very popular place and at times there were lines of people outside the doors waiting enter. The big story on my brother was in The Daily Times, Feb. 1975. Headline: “From Capitalist to Hippie.” He was also featured in People magazine
In addition to Guy Trails, he made another record – King Vito and Da Bronx Cowboy – -That cover [see above] has a picture of him and some of the hippies. I have the record King Vito and Da Bronx Cowboys, however, I do not have the record under Guy Trails. I think it is somewhere on some cassette tape but I am not sure.
I have no real picture of the Freedom, but I have a T shirt that they had designed and all the hippies would wear them when they went into the city to sell peanuts and odds and ends. There is a picture of a big ship (perhaps the real Freedom ship, or a ship that was similar) and the word Freedom. All my kids had them and wore them but eventually the shirts became old and worn. The sleeves on mine have been cut off. I have tried looking on the internet hoping that I might find the shirts again but no luck.
Yes. My brother’s life was different and exciting and he made lasting impressions on many people. If you have any more questions about him, I would be happy to answer them if I can.
Suela Decker