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Bill: Tell us about the beginning, when EU was called the Southeast Entertainer?

Rick:  The crazy saga of my tenure at the Southeast Entertainer began in the early 1980s. Tony Trotti started the paper in his house. I joined him at his first location on Merrill Road. It came out every week. I wrote a variety of pieces, and also sold advertising. Before long I was writing full time–4 to 6 pieces a week.

 In the late 1980s, Tony changed the name to First Coast Entertainer.  In 2001, Tony died of colon cancer and Will Henley bought the business. Will changed the name to Entertaining U, or EU. I continued writing for him full time until 2008, when he the economic apocalypse hit. Suddenly, he couldn’t afford to pay my salary. Will then made EU a monthly publication and all his writers, including me, went part time.

Now, I’m happily semi-retired. I’ll be 70 in January. I still write movie reviews and other articles, which appear on the Will’s EU Jacksonville website and my webzine www.rickraw.com.

 Bill: What is your background?

 Rick: Before my long tenure with EU, I was Jacksonville Bureau Chief for a magazine called Entertainment Revue–a glossy Florida film business publication based in Orlando. I would go out on film shoots and write documentary pieces on behind the scenes of North Florida’s movie shoots. After a few years, the rag folded.

After high school, I attended Florida Southern for two years majoring in English. Then I dropped out and joined the Air Force. After that, I was working for United Technologies near Hartford Connecticut and attending the University of Hartford, majoring in engineering with a minor in creative writing. The company was paying half my tuition. I dropped out at the end of my junior year. Throughout my college years, I wrote for various underground and college rags. So, writing has been a part of my adult life for the past 40 years. 

Bill: Do you have any particular memories of Applejacks?

Rick: Man, Applejacks was the epicenter of major blues and folk acts during the 1980s. I covered many fine artists there such as John Sebastian of The Loving Spoonful, John Lee Hooker, who I interviewed, John Hammond, Richie Havens, Koko Taylor, Johnny Winter, Leon Russell, Taj Mahal, JJ Cale, Livingston Taylor, and many more I just can’t think of right now.

In 1987, I wrote some satirical material for my sets with The Crawfish of Love. I performed as The Pope as Elvis. The band had TV monitors playing tape loops and other wild visual oddities. It was insane. I was just a guest artist for a handful of shows. But The Crawfish of Love was a wildly creative band headed by David Roberts. The place was packed for the major shows, and they had great pizza. One of the original owners built The Loop restaurant into a success.

Bill: Do you have any particular special memories of the Jax music scene in general? 

Rick: During my many years writing about Jacksonville’s music scene, it was vibrant, with new creative ideas flying around. When I covered the first incarnation of Stevie Stiletto, at a bar called Manapaters, they opened the show bashing in the screens of a bunch of TV sets and then threw beer at the audience. The owner then threw them out. I knew then that Ray was an innovator to watch. He was punk before the word “punk” entered the lexicon. David Gall and Arvid Smith had some crazy bands, like the Great Invisibles. Arvid had hand wired all available foot pedals onto a pedestal and sang into a Radio Shack mic hanging from the ceiling. Over the years, Stevie Ray Stiletto continued to press the limits of performance art. A few of his shows were so out there, it caused a sensation among the underground scene. There are many other stories, too numerous to mention.

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