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 prestigious Liberace Piano University (LPU), where Arty quickly distinguished himself as virtuoso.
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 the city, and finally working for well-known sports
entrepreneur Jerry Buss.
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 places at exactly the same time.
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.
