ARTHUR FHARDY
Born in Fargo, N.D., Arty was raised on a farm by his grandparents
after both his father and mother were reported 'missing in action' in Vietnam.
But a young Arty clearly wasn't cut out for life on the farm, as he ignored his
chores and continually got into fist fights with the livestock. Deciding the boy
needed a change of environment, his grandparents sent him to the prestig-
ious Liberace Piano University (LPU), where Arty quickly distinguished
himself as virtuoso.
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After graduating with
honors, Arty played a small part in the historic Woodstock festival, when he delivered a large pepperoni pizza to David Crosby onstage. Arty never returned to the pizza job, knowing that show business was his destiny. In the early '70s, Arty made his way west to seek fame and fortune in L.A. He took a job busing tabies, which led to a job driving a bus for |
Turning his energies to acting, Arty acquired an agent named Jimmy the
Armenian, who landed him a gig as David Carradine's stunt double in the hit
series "Kung Fu". After the show's cancellation, Arty won a regular part on
"Little House on the Prairie" until Michael Landon reportedly grew jealous of
his hairdo and canned him. Soon after, his agent was imprisoned for tax
fraud, extortion, and carrying a concealed weapon in his beard. Agentless,
Arty became disillusioned with acting and went into a self-imposed exile.
On a whim, Arty agreed to act along with another struggling
thespian, Camarillo Eddy, in a low-budget expose' of the Orange County
Christian Music Scene. This modest venture proved an historic moment
however, for when the Eddies formed a few years later, Arty was asked to join
the group. Although he is repeatedly mistaken for Peter Fonda, Arty remains
the quietest member of the group
due to a chronic case of
laryngitis.
As the son of stern missionary parents, Berger is familiar
with both the joys and the hardships of the "road". His German
parents' dedication to their calling took the family around the world,
with long stops in Zaire, New Guinea and the French Riviera. Berger
remembers the French as being particularly hard to get along with.
Playing bass was not Berger's first foray into the sometimes
serious, sometimes zany world of music. Young Berger became
something of a prodigy when he started taking flute lessons at the
insistence of his militaristic father (who harbored a life-long fear that
his sideburns would someday grow out of control and cover his
entire face). Berger was eventually asked to sit in as guest flutist
with the Berlin Opera. Always the prankster, Berger would often
anger stuffy opera-goers by throwing in a dissonant note or two
during the final movement of Das Fledermaus.
His woodwind career was brought to an abrupt close
| however, when he caught
his lips in the spokes of a ten-speed bicycle while training for the Tour de France. In the 1960's, Berger earned a reputation as a musician's musician by playing in over 600 bands, sometimes appearing to be in two |
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In 1976, Berger and his life-long collaborator/friend Lenny
Wagonmaster wrote a song Elvis reportedly wanted to record until
an aid pointed out the lyric "All you need is love and a big bucket of
chicken" to the King. ( The song eventually ended up on side three
of a Led Zeppelin double album.)
Roy Al now lives quietly in a suburb of L.A., where he
splits his time between denying involvement in the Bay of Pigs
invasion and adding to his substantial collection of ancient
Babylonian pottery.
