City native stars at SPAC

by Don A. Metivier, The Post-Star, August 13, 1981

Chuck Mangione’s tenth concert at Saratoga Performing Arts Center had a hometown touch, as he featured a former Glens Falls resident.

It was Don Potter, who grew up on Everts Avenue, attended Glens Falls High School, and comes from a family with a history of playing music in the Glens Falls area. He played guitar with the quartet that performed with the Emmy Award-winning Mangione and was the featured singer on the title song from the album, “The Children of Sanchez.”

After leaving Glens Falls High, Potter went to California to play with several groups. He was part of several local bands, including the “Sundowners,” and later had his own group, the “Showstoppers.” He was featured at several Lake George nightspots, including the Canteen, the Airport Inn, and Spagna’s Crosstrails. He later spent two years in Nashville, where he was a backup musician for several country-western singers, including Johnny Cash. He then moved to Rochester, where he met Mangione.

Potter was part of the Rochester Philharmonic, the group that made the first Mangione album, “Friends and Love,” which elevated the flugelhorn artist to stardom.

Mangione opened the concert with “Hill Where the Lord Hides,” the song from that album that earned him a Grammy nomination and a record contract. He also performed several of his well-known songs from other albums, including “Makebelieve” from “Live at the Hollywood Bowl,” and his Emmy winner, “Give It All You’ve Got,” from “Fun and Games,” the album of the 1980 Winter Olympics at Lake Placid.

Mangione spoke of “playing around the corner” at Lake Placid, and his mention of the American hockey team’s victory over the Russians got an ovation from the crowd that jammed the amphitheater and the lawns.

During the second half of the program (Mangione, his quartet and a 14-piece all-star band played the entire concert), the Rochester musician said he wanted to introduce a performer “who grew up around the corner.” He was speaking of Potter. He said Potter was the “only one in the crowd born in Glens Falls,” but cheers from throughout the audience indicated there were more.

Potter sang the theme music from “The Children of Sanchez,” a song he performed on the album and for the Special Olympics television special Mangione did last year.

Potter’s father, Gerald, is a well-known area musician. He played violin for many years with local groups in Glens Falls, Lake George and Stony Creek, just as his father had done.

Potter’s brother, Skip Potter, owner of Potter Fence Co., Farm-to-Market Road, was in the audience with his family.

After a flat first half, the concert picked up pace in the second, as the group played some of the music from their new album, “Tarantella,” which was recorded live with jazz greats Dizzy Gillespie and Chick Corea at a concert to raise funds for Italian victims.

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