they turned over Monday nights to Milligan, Dillon & Brady. This continued as Michael and Debbie took up the Monday night spot at “The Bona Vista” with Polla Milligan and led to the meeting of Phil, Polla and John Brady.
It was during this time that he began subbing regularly with Debbie Ash and Michael Campagna. They also taped a WNED –17-television program and were regulars at “The Library” on Baily Ave. With Phil on acoustic guitar and vocals, his brother Mark Dillon on Congas, old friends Gary Matyus on acoustic piano and Mick Novitz on bass guitar they played an eclectic mix of Dillon’s originals and great covers in a then undefined format now referred to as “unplugged”. In 1973-74 the “Dillon McMatyus Quartet” was formed. He held that position for almost 30 years. It wasn’t long before Jimmy got the gig as Tina Turner’s guitar player. But soon the west coast called and Ralston answered. He and Ralston wrote some new material and the band revamped some of the old. With all the members of “Flash” except Dean Mooney back in Buffalo, and Larry Swist now pursuing his engineering career at Jerry Meyers’ “Act One Studios” a four piece version of Flash was born with Phil on piano and vocals. In the fall of 1971 with tapes in hand, management took them out to Los Angeles where they showcased at “Gazzari’s”, “The Rag Doll” and performed at the “Love In’s” at Griffith Park.ġ972, now back in Buffalo, Phil started doing solo gigs on Sunday afternoons, first at “Granny Goodness” (formerly Aliotta’s), then “Mister Goodbar” (in between fires) and then “Binky Browns.” This association with Guzauski would soon lead Swist down the road to becoming a Grammy Award winning recording engineer for his work with Mangione and Spyro Gyra.
Mick had just recorded the live album “Friends & Love” for Chuck Mangione. They recorded an album’s worth of that material in Rochester, at PCI Studios with a young engineer named Mick Guzauski. The group played all original music written by Dillon and Ralston. They made their debut in late October of 1970 in The Fillmore Room at The University of Buffalo and then on November 4th, 1970 to a packed house at Aliotta’s.
The band consisted of guitarist Jimmy Ralston, bass player Larry Swist, drummer Rich Pidanick, Hammond C-3 player Dean Mooney and Phil on acoustic guitar and vocals. Six years (and many bands later) he was asked to join the group “FLASH”.
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