Love and Let Love: A Conversation with Norbert “Nibs” Solystiak

My philosophy for “Confessions of a Pop Culture Addict” is that the most interesting pop culture stories are not the ones told by the people who were legends in their field. They do not concern Tom Cruise or Katie Holmes or what Britney Spears did today. The most interesting Pop Culture stories are the ones concerning the people who had brief flirtations with fame. The people who we barely remember. The almost famous. The obscure people who were spectators from the inside. That’s why I have tried to tell the stories of the minor celebrities and not the giants. Last night I found that my philosophy held true when I had the opportunity to have a visit with former Hardy Boys member Norbert “Nibs” Soltysiak. In the 1960s Nibs Soltysiak represented the character Chet “Chubby” Morton as part of Filmation’s Hardy Boys cartoon series that ran on ABC during the 1969 – 1970 season. Last week I wrote an article about the Hardy Boys + 3 which you can read here. After the article, with a bit of detective work, I contacted Nibs, one of the missing members of the band, via email and he agreed to talk with me about his time with the Hardy Boys + 3. Now I must admit I was very nervous just before I called him. I mean, what if he had nothing to talk about? What if he didn’t remember anything about his time with the Hardy Boys? My fears were definitely uncalled for. In Mr. Soltysiak I found a very friendly and charismatic man with plenty of stories to tell. What follows is the transcript of our discussion. Friends, this is going to make interesting reading. Get ready to hear about not only the Hardy Boys band but stories of fleeting fame, the Chicago music scene in the 1960s, groupies, the dangers of touring in the intolerant American south and encounters with such names as The Guess Who, Ron Howard, Richard Pryor, Jonathan Frid and the cast of Dark Shadows and even the legendary Man in Black himself, Johnny Cash. Nibs Soltysiak is a man with a story to be told. Come friends and read it as:

CONFESSIONS OF A POP CULTURE PRESENTS

LOVE AND LET LOVE:

A CONVERSATION WITH NORBERT “NIBS” SOLTYSIAK

I contacted Nibs Soltysiak on November 18, 2005 at his home in Illinois via telephone. The following is an unedited version of the conversation, for the exception of some of my own babble. As many who know me are aware, I can often be a bit long winded.

Nibs S: Hello?

Sam: Hello. Is this Nibs?

Nibs: Yeah…

Sam: Hi! This is Sam Tweedle from “Confessions of a Pop Culture Addict”, the website!

Nibs: (laughs) How ya doing?

Sam: Good! How are you tonight?

Nibs: Oh, it’s a few strange emails I got from ya in the past few weeks. I’m good. I’m okay.

Sam: Okay. Well, ya know, I wanna thank you for being willing to talk to us.

Nibs: You know it’s far out. I saw that little article you had there on “The Hardy Boys” and it’s just amazing how you picked up on some of the information.

Sam: Well, you know, there’s not a lot about the Hardy Boys band on the net but I’m pretty good at doing detective work on stuff like that. Pop culture is kind of my bag. So do you just want to get going with the questions?

Nibs: Sure. Do you have some prepared?

Sam: Yeah, I do. Just elaborate as much or as little as you want.

Nibs: There were a few items on your website that was actually incorrect.

Sam: Well I wanna know about that because a lot of it was speculation. What was incorrect?

Nibs: “Hardy Boys + 3.” There was no “+ 3″.

Sam: Okay, that was actually one of the questions I was going to ask.

Nibs: Yeah, it just was The Hardy Boys.

Sam: Flat out “The Hardy Boys”. Yeah, I wondered. I think the confusion lay in a comic book ad for the cartoon that stated the name of the band was “The Hardy Boys + 3″.

Nibs: And then Don Kirshner wasn’t in the mix. It was the guy actually from Filmation – the animators? His name was Norm Prescott – Norman Prescott. He was like the thrust behind the whole thing and it was a combination of ABC TV and Filmation’s associate that put the money behind this whole Hardy Boys thing.

Sam: Okay, well that crosses out all my Don Kirshner related questions…

Nibs: Don Kirshner – he was around at that time but it wasn’t him.

Sam: Okay, so it’s been over 30 years since this whole Hardy Boys thing happened. When was the last time that you sat down and talked about this?

Nibs: Oh jeez. Y’know, some of it’s vague. Y’know, when you started bringing up the article I just started daydreaming about it a little bit. Thinking “Oh my god, some of this I don’t remember.” That was hilarious, this thing about Devon English being a porno star. That couldn’t be so far from the truth.

Sam: No kidding, eh?

Nibs: No. I can’t believe that. Actually, Devon English was her stage name.

Sam: Oh really? Are you allowed to give out her real name?

Nibs: Well her name, you know, that’s what I was thinking. It was like a real common name that she had. It was like… I’m not sure if it was Mary Jane or Mary Anne Rowland. She was from Boulder, Colorado.

Sam: Yeah, well information about her dries up around the mid seventies. Apparently she did appear on The Hardy Boys show with Shaun Cassidy and Parker Stevenson at one point.

Nibs: Oh, I don’t know. She was a cabaret singer from Chicago. She was a bunny. She was that.

Sam: What’s that?

Nibs: She was a Playboy Bunny.

Sam: I’m in the midst of trying to get her Playboy issue. I’m just fascinated by this whole thing… I’m in the midst of trying to get copies of the magazine and copies of the albums and copies of the television series.

Nibs: Did you ever try contacting Filmation? Do they still exist out of Pasadena California?

Sam: Filmation went belly up at the end of the eighties but there was a book published about the history of Filmation and The Hardy Boys gets hardly a paragraph.

Nibs: Great. Yeah, you know, you were right. They tried to do a spin off on The Archies. “Sugar Sugar” was real big at the time and basically there were three people – the management company I was involved with prior to The Hardy Boys was called Dunwich productions – they’re out of Chicago. Dunwich production was a real – uh – they did the Chicago scene. I don’t know if you ever heard of the Shadows of Knight?

Sam: The Shadows of Knight?

Nibs: Gloria was the song.

Sam: I’ve heard of The Shadows. Was that the same group?

Nibs: Shadows of Knight was the name of the group. Gloria was a number one hit.

Sam: Gloria, like that’s the Van Morrison song – right? And then the Doors covered it – right?

Nibs: Well they made it popular but, well, actually it was a way bigger hit than the Van Morrison version.

Sam: Oh. Then I’ve never heard the original version then. I guess I always thought that the Van Morrison version was the real version.

Nibs: Well Van Morrison had the original version but the Shadows of Knight picked up on it and made it more rock and roll-y and it was a number one hit.

Sam: And you were with these guys?

Nibs: No. I was with Dunwich Productions, the same…

Sam: They represented these guys.

Nibs: Yeah, and they were actually the ones that produced The Hardy Boys stuff. It was Dunwich Productions which was the local management. Actually, I saw an article with the guy that was involved with Dunwich called Bill Traut. Bill Traut… Jim Golden… they had a bunch of local groups. The American Breed.

Sam: Yeah, I know them.

Nibs. Yeah, that was Dunwich Productions. Rufus. I think Chaka Khan might have actually been involved. There was a bunch of groups involved at the time.

Sam: So I found reference of a band called “The Delights” which was under Quill Records. Were you with them?

Nibs: That was amazing that you picked up on that! I was in high school with that group! That was the screamin’ wild man Carl Bonafede. He was a local… I dunno… hustler… producer… he managed us – The Delights. We had a local tune called “Long Green”. That got us some local play and another band that he managed that became national were The Buckinghams. 

Sam: Oh… sure… “Kind of a Drag”.

Nibs: “Kind of a Drag”. Carl Bonafede. Go and get the .45 and you’ll see the screamin’ wild man on there.

Sam: Yeah. I actually have a copy of the .45. I’ll have to look for it, but I gotta copy of it.

Nibs: Bonadfede… The Delights… we were managed by the same guy. He had a girls group called the “Daughters of Eve”. Oh, it was incredible back then. I was in high school. That was ’64. I would say that was before ’65.

Sam: So you were pretty much involved with the Chicago music scene during the 1960s – eh?

Nibs: Oh yeah. Yeah. I was right in the midst.

Sam: What was that like?

Nibs: Oh. At the time it was pure crazy because there was the New Colony Six in the same neighborhood. CTA which is Chicago… Peter Cetera… they were all local guys. The Buckinghams. Chicago. Actually, the group before Chicago I knew… called The Exceptions. The Exceptions – Peter Cetera was in there and a real great guitar player named Jimmy Vincent. It was a big local scene.

Sam: So you played sax for these bands?

Nibs: Yeah. I was a sax player. There was a Chicago sax sound. I was so out of bubblegum music.

Sam: You know, a lot of guys in the bubblegum industry wasn’t into it either.

Nibs: You know, Dunwich put us together because they actually had the cartoon made before they had the live band.

Sam: Oh. No kidding! See I read that, but I thought the resemblance of the band members to the cartoon characters to be so close that I kinda wondered.

Nibs: We auditioned for those parts.

Sam: You auditioned – eh?

Nibs. All of us did. We all auditioned for the parts. Dunwich had it through the Midwest. There was someone out west who was trying to put a group together and there was somebody out east. So we did a demo tape, took our snapshot, sent it into Filmation and low and behold we won.

Sam: So the band was formed in the Chicago area.

Nibs: It was all recorded in Chicago at RCA studios. Same studios incidentally when we were recording The Hardy Boys guess who was also recording there? The Guess Who!

Sam: The Guess Who!

Nibs: “These Eyes”.

Sam: I actually have met both Burton Cummings and Randy Bachman. I used to work at a collectables shop and Burton Cummings used to come in.

Nibs: In Canada! That’s right! He’s from Saskatchewan. He was a character! Randy Bachman… Bachman Turner Overdrive… Bachman was in that group. Actually, we were on the same label. We were on RCA Records so we got to know them. I saw them record “These Eyes”.

Sam: Really!?

Nibs: Oh yeah! (chuckles)

Sam: That’s fantastic!

Nibs: I actually witnessed it.

Sam: You see, up here in Canada The Guess Who are kinda considered musical legends because not a lot of our bands from the ’60s or ’70s got to be that big.

Nibs: Burton Cummings was just phenomenal. Just a talent.

Sam: So how did this whole Hardy Boys thing start? Did you read an ad or…

Nibs: Dunwich Productions called me up one day and said “Hey Nibs. We got a deal cookin’. It might be big money. You never know. This thing might take off. Do you want to audition for this? You look just like the part. You’re chubby. You play the saxophone. The only thing you don’t have is red hair.” Incidentally, they tried to get me to dye my hair red and I wouldn’t do it. And you know, that was the only time I was actually heavy in my life. It was really funny.

Sam: Well I’ve seen pictures of you and you don’t look all that heavy.

Nibs: I was about 215 or something like that. Not huge but…

 Sam: And this is a question I kinda wanted to know. I mean, the Monkees didn’t play on those albums. Did you guys play on those albums?

Nibs: Yes.

Sam: That was you.

Nibs: Some of it. They had studio musicians. Bob Crowder was a studio musician. There wasn’t a lot of sax playing going on in bubblegum music. I was kinda like, “What do I do?” I sang. We all sang. Little bit of sax here and there. They had a few songs were they had overdubs on it and besides me playing sax there were some trumpet players that weren’t part of the group. But we played as much as we could. All the songs were… basically writers were doing all sorts of songs for this group and we went through a bunch of demo tapes and picked the ones that we liked. That’s how it was done.

Sam: Wow. So you guys even had control over what songs you put on the albums?

Nibs: Well somewhat. The producers more than us but there were certain things that were catchier than others. And we didn’t have a lot of time to make it… I bet you by the time we got the demo tapes the ones we recorded were a couple weeks maybe. Three weeks and that was it.

Sam: Did you know anybody in the band before it was put together?

Nibs: No. Nobody. You had the facts pretty right. Reed Kailing was from Wisconsin. Jeff Taylor… and I think his first name was actually Jim… James… he went by Jeff Taylor. He was from Potomac. Jeff was in a group, I think it was called Michael and the Messengers. They did a remake of “Midnight Hour”. Bob Crowder was a studio musician. He was the black guy and the facts you had on him I think are pretty accurate.

Sam: So you probably think that is still the same guy – eh?

Nibs: You know, that’s pretty amazing. Did you get that information that he’s still playing in Chicago?

Sam: You know… I searched for his name with “studio musician”, “drums”, “Chicago” but mainly I was just finding his name in the credits of albums as a drummer.

Nibs: Recent albums or old?

Sam: Recent albums.

Nibs: No kidding? You know that was the part that amazed me because I though Crowder went out west. You know, he did a lot of commercials… the jingles. He was involved in the jazz scene. There was another jazz artist in Chicago – Bobby Shift was his name.

Sam: Well that’s the thing. He seems to be really involved in the jazz scene still.

Nibs: Sounds like him. He’d be really old now if it was the same guy. He was older then me.

Sam: He looks older than the rest of the band.

Nibs: Yeah. Very skinny. Strange guy. He had strange habits.

Sam: Like what?

Nibs: Oh… well he, uh, I don’t even like to get into some of it because some of it’s a bit personal. Ah – he was into high colonics and all this crap. Yeah, he was a strange guy. Real like… a… well it was the times too I suppose. It was like, “What’s your sign?” and you know.

Sam: So did you get to know these folks very well?

Nibs: Yeah! I got to know them. Actually I got along very well with Bob Crowder. Reed… Reed Kailing. He was… y’know he comes from a very wealthy family and he wanted to be a star. Devon wanted to be a star. I think Jeff Taylor, myself, Bob Crowder… we were more just the musicians and “Okay, let’s do this bubblegum thing and see if it works…”

Sam: So this is like about ’69. Right?

Nibs: Yeah. ’69, ’70.

Sam: So who would have been the big bands at the time?

Nibs: Oh… the big bands at the time… Who was big then… Well The Guess Who were big. We toured with Nilsson. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of him.

Sam: Harry Nilsson.

Nibs: Yeah. He was big at the time. Midnight Cowboy… all that… he did the theme song. He was big. There was The Beatles, naturally. That was a big thing then. The whole English group thing was big at the time.

Sam: So that was still going strong in ’69.

Nibs: Yeah. That was still basically the same.

Sam: See, I was trying to put that together. I know my problem is, like, I’m only 30 right.

Nibs: (chuckles) Oh god… yeah.

Sam: So sometimes the music of the 60s, while I know it, when what came out and the timeline gets kinda muddy.

Nibs: Now I’ll be honest with ya Sam. To remember the chronological order of what was popular then and right at that time… I mean there were The Zombies. And I mean you had that right. I couldn’t believe you actually said that (The Delights) actually stylized ourselves after The Zombies. I mean how the hell did you figure that one out?

Sam: Well I found that on the ‘net. Somebody wrote that.

Nibs: That is incredible when you hear this. I mean how the hell did he figure this out? What a detective!

Sam: As I said, it’s my bag. I’ve been doing the pop culture thing since… well… I don’t remember when I wasn’t. Since I was a kid, y’know.

Nibs: That was incredible! Y’know. To have somebody contact me on that premise it was like… WHAT!?

Sam: So do you know what ever happened to the rest of the group? I mean…Reed Kailing is all over the net because he had a bit of success.

Nibs: Reed did because he was a splitting image of Paul McCartney at the time. I mean he sounded like him, he styled his whole guitar playing and everything off of him. When I knew he was in the Broadway version of The Beatles I thought this guys perfect. Like a mirror image of the guy.

Sam: And then he went on to work with John Lennon and Paul McCartney at different points too.

Nibs: Huh?

Sam: Yeah – he was a session guitarist for John Lennon and a member of Badfinger.

Nibs: Wow. Well Reed was a talented guy but he had aspirations of being a star. He always did.

Sam: Now the rest of the folks. You don’t know what happened to them do you?

Nibs: All I know is that Jeff Taylor and Devon. They were real tight. Like tight as in I assume they probably got married or…

Sam: Oh really!

Nibs: Oh yeah. They were dating and they had a thing going. Oh… they had a thing going old Wanda Kay and Joe Hardy. That’s why I assumed. I know Jeff was, like, an art teacher. He went to the university of Wisconsin I believe and he was into art. He was a real artistic guy. He did most of the lead singing. And him and Devon… Jeff and Devon… I assumed they went off into the sunset and got married. That was my assumption although I never heard.

Sam: You never heard.

Nibs: I haven’t heard from them. I haven’t heard from Reed. Me and Bob Crowder got along for a while but we all grew apart. So I have no idea.

Sam: Can you tell me the last time you saw these folks?

Nibs: Reed, Jeff and Devon – early seventies. Bob Crowder maybe mid ’70′s. I moved out of town. I totally lost contact.

Sam: Well that happens.

Nibs: You know, I was not involved with music at all. It was something that happened at that time. The lifestyle didn’t suite me. 

Sam: Now I think it’s fair to say that The Hardy Boys band is a pop culture oddity but is it fair to say that it is obscure?

Nibs: Yes.

Sam: So why don’t you think the whole thing took off like The Archies or The Partridge Family?

Nibs: Y’know, I really think the managers, Dunwich, at the time really didn’t put enough effort into it as far as the production. The albums were terrible but the songs were catchy. I know they got “x” amount of dollars for them but I think they tried to invest minimally into it and it just fell apart. We all weren’t happy with the ways the albums were coming out. We just did it for the money. We did a bunch of state fairs. Traveled the country and a had a good time, got paid fairly well.

Sam: Were there groupies?

Nibs: Oh yeah. There were groupies. You know what’s funny. The first album had a song on it that was a bit well known. It had a limited amount of success as far as hitting the top ten and stuff, mainly through the south, called “Love and Let Love.” That was on the first album.

Sam: Do you still remember how it goes?

Nibs: No. No. I wasn’t the singer.

Sam: Okay.

Nibs: “Love and Let Love”… I have the album.

Sam: Ha. Well I haven’t heard them yet, but I’m trying to track down copies.

Nibs: Well “Love and Let Love” was the .45 and it got popular in Birmingham, Alabama and I had a mother actually pushing her daughter on me down there and she was actually underage! I couldn’t actually imagine how old that girl was! I was like, “Wait a minute! What are you doing!” She was down at my hotel, knocking on my door saying “Come over to my house for dinner. We want you over,” and I mean… oh my god! Get me outta here. I thought I was being set up! But we met some interesting people. There were some good ones. Actually we had some back up musicians. Have you ever heard of Aliota Haynes And Jeremiah?

Sam: No I haven’t.

Nibs: “Lakeshore Drive”? Well they were in a group that used to do backup for us. We had a couple of back up musicians assist us. We had some pros behind us. John Jeremiah was one of the band members. Gary Liozzo from “The American Breed”. He helped us produce our live show – he was involved. So we got involved with Gary Liozzo. He was involved in the scene. That was a big local guy too. I think he’s still involved locally.

Sam: So when you did the state fairs at the time…

Nibs: We were on the road with Johnny Cash.

Sam: Oh! No kidding!?

Nibs: Oh yeah!

Sam: Wow!

Nibs: I met him.

Sam: You met Johnny Cash! WOW!

Nibs: I partied with him somewhere at some Sate fair in the middle of nowhere down in the south. He was with his wife and he had a nurse and…

Sam: Now was this when he was “badass” Johnny Cash or more cleaned up Johnny Cash?

Nibs: You could tell he was all cooked up with something. He had a good voice still. He was a legend at the time. With him it was like walking in and seeing God. We were like “Holy Christ!” He was a hell of a guy. A hell of a guy.

Sam: A real nice character?

Nibs: A real nice guy.

Sam: And you said you knew June Carter too?

Nibs: Oh yeah. Met her. She was always around. They always traveled with a nurse to take care of the kids. He had a whole entourage.

Sam: Who else did you meet on the road?

Nibs: Sam the Sham.

Sam: And the Pharaohs?

Nibs: We did one of these kind of a crazy daytime shows. There were rollercoasters involved and everything. It was an afternoon shin-dig type TV show. I don’t even remember what it was. But Sam the Sham… he had a big hit at the time – “Wooly Bully”.

Sam: Which was followed up with what I think is a better song, “Little Red Riding Hood.”

Nibs: There you go. That was him. Sam the Sham. Little Anthony and the Imperials. I met them. Who else did I meet? We were involved, because we were both on ABC TV, there was a daytime soap that was weird called “Deep Shadows”.

Sam: “Dark Shadows”.

Nibs: “Dark Shadows”.

Sam: With Barnabas Collins.

Nibs: Remember the vampire guy?

Sam: Jonathan Frid.

Nibs: Huh?

Sam: His name was Jonathan Frid. He played Barnabas Collins.

Nibs: Yeah. We had a big party in New York and we were all on ABC TV at the time and we performed live at that show. There were cobwebs all over the set.

Sam: You were on “Dark Shadows”?

Nibs: No. We did like a promo for ABC on the set and all the people from ABC – it was daytime TV and Saturday shows mainly. We were at this big bash in New York. But Dark Shadows. He was involved in this thing. He was interesting.

Sam: Yeah. Jonathan Frid is getting his own doll next month. The fans for that show are all still crazy, man.

Nibs: (Laughs) Dark Shadows. That was crazy then and you gotta remember, y’know, drugs swept the neighborhood when you’re getting Dark Shadows and stuff. It was kind of a crazy world. It was fun. It was fun while it lasted.

Sam: So did you ever watch the cartoon? I mean did you ever see it?

Nibs: Well the cartoon was horrible. It was just horrible but we appeared live doing one of our album songs in the middle of the cartoon and we were live at the beginning and the end. But the beginning and the end? You know where that was filmed?

Sam: Where’s that?

Nibs: Second City in Chicago. On the stage. The original, original, original Second City. It was a funky little place in old town. 

Sam: You know, a lot of Hardy Boy sites run by Hardy Boy fans all pretty much hate the show because it pretty much threw away the whole original Hardy Boy premise. However, anytime I read anything about the albums as much as these Hardy Boys fans don’t want to admit it, they always say the albums are pretty good. It’s almost like they are begrudgingly admitting it.

Nibs: Well, y’know. If you really get the albums you’ll see that just the technical sound of it, well actually, the same engineer that mixed our songs mixed “These Eyes”. Bob Christian. Same guy. They were right down the hall. So he was the guy in Chicago. He was the engineer that mixed all this stuff.

Sam: So how did the whole thing end?

Nibs: It just ended. The contract ended. Bob Crowder actually left before it ended. There was another black drummer they had to sign up to finish off our contract. Haralson Davis.

Sam: Why did he leave?

Nibs: He was a musician. He was fed up. He knew it wasn’t going to work and he was a studio musician and he could make more money. 

Sam: So none of you put much of your dreams into this thing.

Nibs: No. Towards the end it was kind of like, “Okay, let’s go through this. Let’s let this thing end.” We knew it wasn’t taking off. It was almost like an anti-climatic ending.

Sam: Now do you ever get recognized as being “Chubby” Morton?

Nibs: Uhn-uhn. Not at all. I’m so far out of it. Y’know I’m in the construction business now and I’m so far out of that scene. I do once in a while run into old musicians. It’s funny because The Buckinghams do the ’60s tours at a lot of the parishes around here. Like Summerfest and stuff. Y’know the lifestyle wasn’t right for me. I settled down, got married, had kids. Yeah, I’m a grandpa now.

Sam: Oh really. How many of those do you got?

Nibs: Two.

Sam: How many kids?

Nibs: Two.

Sam: So you got rid of the whole rock and roll scene all together?

Nibs: Yeah. I tried and tried. Y’know it was so up and down. But times were bad. I knew a couple of great musicians locally but they got into drugs so bad they didn’t know their names. Y’know, I’ve seen a lot of really talented people go down the tubes because of drugs.

Sam: So you guys were pretty much a clean band?

Nibs: Well as clean as you want to be. You know did… um… no, I’m not going to say that because you’re recording this. Y’know we were normal, let’s put it that way. Were we intensely into something? No. But we partied.

Sam: Now the merchandise. Your picture is on comic books… did you guys get into the teen magazines at all?

Nibs: No. No teen magazines. We had a board game, they sold like in the cartoon series they had an old Rolls Royce. I’ve seen the toy car. They had a Hardy Boys collectable car. And .45′s here and there.

Sam: You own any of that stuff?

Nibs: I own the albums and the .45. I kept that. When my grandkids get older I’ll just say, “Hey look. See this fat guy on this cover? Who do you think that is?”

Sam: Let me tell you… there’s the one comic book and you’re front and centre right there on the front of the cover. You’re the biggest one on the cover. Now I’ll tell you… when I worked at the collectables shop we had that comic hanging on the wall behind the counter and I guess I was so uninterested that I never took the time to realize that wasn’t Shaun Cassidy and Parker Stevenson.

Nibs: (Laughs) Oh my god!

Sam: Did you ever find it weird that your face was on a comic book or a record album?

Nibs: I’ve seen it. I mean I’ll never forget it. It was years after the fact… years after… I was walking through like a K-Mart and I’m standing by the counter checking out and I looked at the discount LP rack and right in the front there’s a Hardy Boys album! That was hilarious. I bought it just for the heck of it! I was on the discount rack Sam!

Sam: Wow. On the discount rack. So you don’t know if there is still fans out there?

Nibs: Y’know, I seriously doubt it. I mean I work with a couple of guys who’ll say, “Hey! I remember seeing you guys when I was a kid! You were on that cartoon show!” That’s me. The Hardy Boys. Some people remember it. I think most of those are like 40 now. You know, that was a guy we met! When we were out there doing filming and they were tuning us in I met Opie. We were staying at the same hotel.

Sam: You mean Ron Howard?

Nibs: Little kid. I remember him in the lunchroom – spoiled little brat. We stayed at the Sheridan Universal in Hollywood.

Sam: So he was a little shit, eh?

Nibs: He was a little shit at the time. It was funny. The hotel we stayed at. He was down there every morning. He was a star at the time.

Sam: Is it hard to believe that he’s an Academy Award winning director now?

Nibs: Incredible. Incredibly talented. I remember him when he was eating a milkshake and a hamburger at that place.

Sam: So if you had any fans out there what would you say to them now?

Nibs: What could I say to them? Hi! I don’t know. Hello! I’m still around. Alive and kicking. All’s well. I’m not fat anymore. “Chubby” Morton isn’t chubby.

Sam: I think it’s awful, personally. I mean think about all those fat kids sitting there watching Saturday morning cartoons and stuffing their faces full of Froot Loops thinking, “God damn…”

Nibs: You know, I never even gave it a second thought at the time to be honest.

Sam: I mean the character’s name in the books was Chet Morton and they changed it to emphasize his weight. I mean a lot of this stuff – the dumb girl, the token black guy.

Nibs: We always called Bob the token black guy. That was a joke amongst us.

Sam: Well one of the sources I found actually said that the Hardy Boys cartoon was one of the first cartoons to have a black character in it.

Nibs: Probably was because I remember some harrowing experiences when we were down south.

Sam: Oh? Like what?

Nibs: Couldn’t be served in some restaurants. Like in Nashville? They wouldn’t serve us. We all pulled up in a car and because we had a girl and a black guy with us and we had long hair all these bible thumpers came right out, arms crossed, saying (doing a southern drawl), “We don’t serve y’all kind here.” Oh yeah. It was real bad. We had to go to a black neighborhood to eat breakfast!

Sam: Even in ’69?

Nibs: Oh yeah. It was bad. Down south? Are you kidding me? If you had long hair they’d go after you! Oh man. We had them chase us down there. It was rough. (Doing a southern drawl) “What are you guys? Girls?” You know, we got it bad down there.

Sam: Did you tour much in the south?

Nibs: Like I said, “Love and Let Love” was in the top ten in certain areas in the south. We played at a couple of venues where we all kind of looked at each other and thought, “Holy shit – this place is packed!” I know in Birmingham, Alabama there was a mob. I remember telling the guys, “Y’know it’s a nice day… 70 degrees,” and we were up north and I said, “I’m going to walk back from here…” and I got mobbed!

Sam: No way!

Nibs: I mean I’m leaving and there were girls and they were after me! Holy Christ! And then a State trooper picked me up and took me to the hotel! That was a little bit weird. That was a strange feeling actually.

Sam: Can you describe that?

Nibs: (squeals) “There he is!” And I’m all…”What!?”

Sam: So was it kind of like the beginning scenes of “A Hard Day’s Night”?

Nibs: Similar. And then they’re coming and they’re little teenyboppers, don’t get me wrong, but mobbing me and then the cop saw me and he’s all, “Hey hey hey, where you going?” and he just put me in the car and gave me a ride back to the hotel. Yeah. That was the first time I’d seen that and it didn’t really happen that often. I mean, how did this happen and I guess it was just popular at the time.

Sam: So your fan base was pretty much teenage girls?

Nibs: Oh yeah. Well… uh… barely teenage girls. Yeah. That was it.

Sam: A lot of jail bait at those shows.

Nibs: Oh yeah. They were all out there at the time. But I mean we were all one nighters – did our show. It was pretty lonely traveling. I mean, up early and keep on going. It was grueling. I mean once you stopped and played at a State fair for three or four days that’s when it was fun. Best when we played State Fairs. Y’know, The Guess Who was with the State fairs, and Johnny Cash and you’d all stay at the same hotel and party a little bit. That was a fun time.

Sam: So do you consider that whole Hardy Boy thing to be your fifteen minutes of fame?

Nibs: That was it!

Sam: And in retrospect how do you look at that?

Nibs: To be honest with ya it was one hell of an experience. Met a lot of people. Met a lot of nice people. Had some interesting experiences both business-wise and people meeting-wise. Did a lot of things I would have never… I mean, how do you meet Johnny Cash? Y’know, things like that. I mean, I met Pryor… the comedian before he was famous.

Sam: Richard Pryor?

Nibs: Yeah.

Sam: What was he like?

Nibs: Well he wasn’t even popular. I didn’t know who the hell the guy was. He was at a State fair.

Sam: Was he insane? I’ve heard he was supposed to be insane.

Nibs: He was crazy. He’d pound your door in the middle of the night. He was a maniac! Funny as hell though. Funniest man I’d ever seen. I was laughing. I mean he made me pee in my pants I was laughing so hard. He was a riot. So you know there was good times. That was fun.

Sam: Well I don’t know. I guess thats’ all I got. I don’t know.

Nibs: Well Sam, anything on your mind Sam, you got my number. It was real pleasant talkin’ to you.

Sam: I tell you, this has been pretty exciting for me too.

Nibs: Y’know it was good talking to you Sam and if you contact any of the other old Hardy Boys let me know.

Sam: I’ll let you know, and I’ll send you the link to this article when I get it up.

Nibs: I’d love to see it.

Sam: Okay, thanks again for your time.

Nibs: Okay Sam.

Sam: Okay. Take Care. Bye.

Nibs: Bye.

And so ended my discussion with Nibs Soltysiak – former Hardy Boy and survivor of the 1960s music scene and bubblegum pop industry. If anyone would like to send any messages to Mr. Soltysiak you can contact him through this website and I will pass on the messages.