By BILL BERRY
of The Gazette
Music has taken Dennis Provisor around the world. He has been in the spotlight, lived the good life and made good coin.
All of that is fine, he says, but he has never lost sight of what it means to be a musician.
"You could be the biggest star in the world, but the only thing that matters is the last note. It's the joy of the moment," says Provisor, who lives in the town of Hull.
Dennis Provisor has spent most of his life making music. He started a high school band in Los Angeles as soon as he realized he could figure out a tune on the piano by ear. He went on to travel the world with club bands before hooking up with the popular rock band the Grass Roots in 1969. Provisor played keyboards with the Grass Roots for 15 years and penned several of the band's hit songs, including "Temptation Eyes" and "Sooner or Later."
All of which makes his recent gift to the United Way of Portage County all the more special. As a favor to campaign Chairman Chuck Nason, Provisor agreed to let the local United Way use his tune "Take Pride in Love" as the theme song of this year's campaign. He modified some lyrics, worked in the suggestion to give to United Way and laid down instrumental tracks to support other campaign communications efforts.
Of all the songs Provisor has written, he says this is his favorite. "I'd sit at a piano for days," he says of the process of writing the song. Add to that the fact the song has never been recorded and you have the makings of a very special gift to the community.
The song has a story that starts in California, but to get there, let's start in Wisconsin.
Provisor moved here 15 years ago. He'd had enough of playing the same 20 songs at every Grass Roots appearance, and L.A. was wearing on him. Years earlier, he had met Glen Shulfer, a Stevens Point guitar player, and had told Shulfer that if the opportunity ever came around, he wouldn't mind hooking up. Shulfer called one day about 15 years ago, and Provisor packed it up and headed for Wisconsin. "Moving here was the greatest thing that ever happened to me," he says from his comfortable home just northeast of Stevens Point.
He joined Shulfer in a three-piece band called The Hits, and they started gigging heavily in the Fox Valley. He met his wife, Tammy, during a gig in Oshkosh. They have two children.
Shulfer is no longer with The Hits. These days the band includes Provisor, Tom Mullin and band leader Cookee. They play up to 150 times a year, mostly in the Fox Valley and have opened for The Beach Boys, Johnny Rivers, America and other national acts.
Provisor also occasionally partners with local singer Vikki Nason. That's how he met her husband, Chuck, president of Worzalla Publishing and this year's United Way drive chairman. That's also how a song written by a musician who has gold records hanging on his walls ended up helping out the United Way of Portage County.
"I wrote the song 15 years ago," Provisor says. "From that song, I was signed to Columbia Records." He was all set to record a solo album that included the song, but the shifting sands of the music industry buried the album. "Clive Davis was president of Columbia, and he was fired. When he left, my album was lost in the shuffle." So
"Take Pride in Love" went unrecorded.
Flash forward to central Wisconsin, where Provisor is playing gigs with Vikki Nason. They'd sometimes work in "Take Pride in Love," and "People always liked it," he says. Chuck Nason liked it, too, and thought it would work perfectly as a United Way theme song.
The song will be unveiled at a "Swing Into Action" musical event to kick off this year's United Way campaign at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 12, at Sentry Theater. Vikki Nason will be there to perform, as will the Bob Kase Quartet, Don Chesebro Swing Quartet, River Cities Jazz and Provisor.
There isn't a hint of regret as Provisor looks back on earlier chapters of his life. He was there when rock music took off. He knew virtually all the big-name rockers of the 1960s and '70s. The walls of his music studio at home are lined with framed memorabilia and gold records. Even as a rookie cutting his chops, he was having fun.
It started when he was just a kid. He went to a concert sometime in the 1950s, and it changed his life. "I saw Ritchie Valens. It was the first time I ever heard an electric guitar. I said, 'That's it.'" Provisor laughs as he remembers that moment. It led him to the piano, where he figured out some songs. Then he put a high school band together.
"We played frat parties in L.A. Five bucks and all the beer you could drink."
That led to some great gigs with club bands that literally took him around the world.
Between gigs, he'd play clubs in California. In places like San Jose, Sunnyvale, Hayward and the Frisco Bay, he watched musicians like Johnny Rivers, The Doors and Sly and the Family Stone play the clubs, sometimes in front of tiny crowds. "All the groups were club bands in those days. They didn't move, they stayed where they were," he says. That gave the bands a steady income and let them work out the kinks.
Provisor was playing a gig one night in a San Fernando Valley club. The Grass Roots showed up, looking for a guitar player. They heard Provisor on keyboards and took him instead.
"I bought a Corvette and decided it was time to make some money," he says. The Grass Roots were formed in 1967. He joined them in 1969, just in time to ride a great wave of hits.
How fast did it all happen? "They were working on, 'I'd Wait a Million Years,' and I put the keyboard line on it. Two days later, I heard it on the radio," he says.
For several years, the Grass Roots always had a song on the hit charts. They were recording for Dunhill Records, a label that also hosted Hendrix, Three Dog Night and Steppenwolf.
The band traveled so much that Provisor says it seems like they played every city in the nation. They were hauling in lots of money, although they didn't see all that much of it. "Managers ripped us off terribly," he says.
The Grass Roots did their musical colleagues a big favor when they sued their own manager. He was serving as both manager and agent, and double dipping on the band. They won their suit. "We set a precedent in the courts for musical groups. Managers cannot be agents," he says.
The Grass Roots then began to manage themselves. That's when they started making some real cash.
The band still tours, fronted by lead singer Rob Grill. Occasionally, The Hits will open for the Grass Roots. Grill will call Provisor up to jam, and everyone has a good time.
Mostly, though, The Hits cover their own territory, working about 150 gigs a year.
Provisor actually found himself musically stifled in the Grass Roots. These days, his gigs let him explore all kinds of music, from polkas and the blues to rock and ballads.
With a family to raise in a place he loves and plenty of time to write and play music, Provisor feels he's where he should be.
That's not surprising when you hear him talk about what really moved him when he was playing all over the country in a big-name band.
"To me, the only thing that ever mattered was the music," he says.