This is great! The music, the legend, everything. Alison as she passed by me said, I love that music. Who is that? Buddy Damen, I said. Oh, I’m from Texas but never heard of him. Well, says I, let me tell you about the legend of Buddy Damen . . .
And as I told her, I suddenly realized I had heard Buddy on the radio during the Vietnam War, I remember a staticky voice announcing Buddy was entertaining the troops somewhere . . . in Saigon . . . and I said, Ma, that’s great stuff, and she said, Turn that thing off and eat your breakfast! And after that I tried every radio station in Salinas but never heard him again.
I also remember a waiter at one of these Asian noodle restaurants in LA, he was a translator for the US in Saigon so he escaped the Viet Cong invasion. Well we got to talkin’ and he said he heard this great music on the US army radio, reminded him of his village music—someone named Baddy Damong and ..I said, not Buddy Damen? and he almost dropped the Ramen noodles and said Yes! But he never heard him sing again.
-Rocky from East LA
Leave a Reply