The legend of White Stallion

[chasgroh]

OK...between this...

[

Perhaps it was closer to 80 or 83 when i saw them.

and this...

In 1977 I got a gig assisting the Ghost who was caption head with the 21st Lancers... Yes! 21st!

my olde brain has come to the conclusion that I hung with Ghost circa '79 (when I was with West Coast Express juniors) to '81 or '82 (when I was traveling with VK)...so, thanks for the jump start, guys! Again, Ghost was one of my all time favorite persons to meet up with on the road...and Steve, if he marched in the 60's, even early sixties, that would peg him in his early 60's...although he could be younger.

OH, while it is true, Mr. Turner, that there is finally more than one Groh you can attest to (and we DO have relatives...I even have a mom!) rest assured...ahem...that our paltry numbers would be buried under the weight of the Turner clan. NO PUN, RYAN!

Honest! ...heh.

[drmr27]

...and Steve, if he marched in the 60's, even early sixties, that would peg him in his early 60's...although he could be younger.

Come on Charlie, as the left coast Groh representative, you should know that we were placed on this planet for greater tasks than adding up some simple numbers to come up with someone's age.

Speaking strictly for myself, aging is inevitable, growing up is an option I have declined.

[GregW]

A lot of the legend is true. His given name was Bill Linnen but he dropped that many years earlier and was far more comfortable being called Ghost. He had the habit of appearing and disappearing without warning. He was a thin, small framed guy, balding with a LONG gray beard. During breaks in rehearsal he would lay down in the grass and his beard would point straight up into the air. He said it was drawn there by the spirits in the greater megalithic cloud... He was very friendly and easy to get to know, but still a mystery. He did play with Boston in the 1960's, he often talked about the architectural advantages of a properly designed and built teepee. His teaching and writing skills just knocked me out at the time. He was able to get a line of relatively young kids to play like pros and could motivate people without ever once raising his voice. He believed that visual presentation was very important but meaningless if you didn't have good music and musicianship behind it.

I don't know what happened to him after that year. I hope he went up to Vermont or NH and set up housekeeping in a teepee. I always thought he would be as much at home with wolves and bears as he would with a drumline.

If he is still with us today, somewhere in the north woods, he must be well into his 70's if not 80's. He's probably making hand drums and flutes and teaching squirrels and rabbits to make music.

Steve Groh

I've been trying to locate Ghost for a long time too. I moved up to Salem in 76 to play for him after the Kingsmen folded in 75. I was completely blown away by his energy, his insight and his vision and it was the most un-drum corps year I ever had. It was much more about looking and listening to things differently then ever before and learning about life in general.

Ghost did own a teepee but only lived in it about half the year. Most of the time he rented a little office on the side of a warehouse where he would give us assignments to compose and write things like "duet for triangle and kazoo" or "bass drum and woodblock" that he'd perform and record with us. He was totally into that cacophonous style that was a mixture of varied instruments, unique sounds, different time signatures and anything non-drum corps he could think up. Everyone in the drumline carried at least one hand percussion instrument so not only the solos sounded different the music charts did too. I had a Vibra-slap on one side and a washboard on the other side.

The double snare thing was really his vision though.. The biggest problem is that we couldn't get the drums to sound different enough. We used a 15" and a 13" and cranked the 13 so much we were breaking the rims all the time. We finally got some specially made rims from Gretch about halfway through tour that really made a difference in the sound and even the judges finally realized what we were doing and we got the 5.0 max in difficulty 3 different shows and I believe a 4.9 at prelims.

I did alot in drum corps but by far the year I spent with Ghost taught me more about life and music and how to look at things in a very different way than most any other time in my life. I know this thread is very old but I'm hoping that someone, somewhere will know where he might have landed recently.

Greg Wilson