Buck Munger with Buddy Fite and Willie Nelson '76. Buddy played steel guitar in Willie's band, in Vancouver as a teenager.

Buck Munger was now managing the careers of two jazz guitar players. Buddy Fite was in awe of Howard Roberts, which flattered and amused Howard, given Buddy’s magical gifts. Around the office, Buddy was a big jovial bear and accomplished practical joker. It can now be told that the widely covered UFO sightings in Hollywood back in… ’68 were the handiwork of Buddy Fite and his accomplices from the Sunn office. Buddy had launched UFO’s in the wilds of Oregon and Washington and was now ready to create some urban panic. Buddy collected the parts and spread them on the conference table. Clear plastic dry cleaning bags, a little over three feet long. Birthday candles, straws and straight pins. Assemble a cross with the straws the size of the opening on the bottom of the bag. Stick the straight pins through the straws facing up and mount the candles on the pins. Weight is a consideration, so not too many. What you have now is a three-feet tall hot air balloon. The heat from the candles fills the bag and up she goes. We launched from the parking lot next door. The balloon rose slowly up between the buildings and when it was above the streetlights you could see a luminous light inside the bag. Aloft, it was impossible to tell how big it was and because it moved so slowly, it could be far away. Remember, this is downtown Hollywood, California, corner of Sunset & Vine, swarming with nighttime tourists. We walked north up Vine Street, following the fingers of the gathering crowd pointing up in exclamation. I must say, of all the jokes I’ve ever been in on, this was the killer. We reeled ‘em in by the dozens. The finale came when the candles burned down, caught the straws on fire, flaming the bag. From the ground it was a bright flame in the sky and then, nothing. Cue the Oohs and Aahs. As you can imagine, the UFOs made Buddy a superstar around the office, and as word spread of each “flight” more people asked to crew the balloon. On his day job, Buddy started work on his solo album for Robert Mersey’s new label and began rehearsals with the Johnny Mathis band. Pretty heady stuff for a guy who didn’t read music.

I was back in The Game. Norm and Con Sundholm had asked me if I could use my “extensive contacts” in the music business to get their Sunn clinician a record deal. Buddy Fite was a Portland jazz guitarist that had been demonstrating Sunn amplifiers for a while and created a sensation at the ’67 NAMM Show in Chicago when h…e strung his guitar with two bass strings and four guitar strings and played both parts at once. Les Paul came over from the Gibson booth with his entourage and sat-in for an hour, and then spent the next two days steering people to the Sunn booth. Jazz wasn’t really my bag, but with my new friend Howard Roberts, who co-incidentally, was a big hero of Buddy’s, I thought I would broaden my game. Buddy arrived in Hollywood with neatly trimmed hair, wing-tips and a business suit. You’d never guess he had been an active member of the Hell’s Angels. He had some great stories and became an instant favorite in the office. After signing my Sinatra-lawyer management contracts, we went into the studio to cut a demo. We also recorded Buddy’s two bass, four guitar-string solo. Back in the office, the stunt solo got most of the attention. Our next-door neighbor on the fourth floor was Robert Mersey, an old school producer at Columbia and one of the first to go independent. He now produced Barbra Streisand, Aretha Franklin and Johnny Mathis and was setting up his own label. Our two offices shared a wall and we listened in on each other’s playback. I knew he was looking for a guitar player for Johnny Mathis, so I sent him Buddy’s tape and his reaction was positive, but he was skeptical about one person playing both parts simultaneously, so I invited him down the hall to see Buddy play it live. We had a deal before he left the office.