The most magical time of my musical career happened when the long anticipated new millennium, the year 2000, arrived, and so did the St. Louis Rams. 

St. Louis Cardinal NFL football fans had felt clipped when St. Louis sold the Football Cardinals (à la Bud Bidwell) to Phoenix.  St. Louis football fans saw their most cherished avian obsession plucked, mauled and used for buzzard bait as St. Louis fans were left without an NFL team for many years.

Then came the St. Louis Rams with Georgia Frontiere.  "Beauty and the Beast." "The Greatest Show on Turf."

Just weeks before the Super Bowl of 2000, before The Rams had even made a playoff spot, Butchwax & the Hollywoods' leader Gene Ackmann let the guys in the band know that he and Dickie Steltenpohl had collaborated on a song that, though none of us knew it, was about to become inextricably linked with the Rams' World Football Title. Using Coach Dick Vermeil's "Gotta go to work" catch phrase, Ackmann was able to convince R & R legend, and one of the founding fathers of Rock and Roll, Johnnie "B. Goode" Johnson, (Chuck Berry's original piano player and song collaborator) to play on the musical event named after Vermeil's catch phrase. The song "Gotta Go to Work", with most of the members of Butch Wax & Hollywoods as it existed then, was put together in a St. Louis Studio.  We played the song at rallies, local radio stations played it regularly on air, and word was that the players listened to it in the locker room.  When the Rams won the 2000 Superbowl, we were there to play "Gotta Go to Work" at their victory parade. During the parade that evening, it took 15 minutes for the floats carrying the players to travel 5 blocks, so insistent were the fans to be in on the celebration. Rick Proehl even jumped off the float and nearly broke my wrist later on when he reached the performance stage and gave me a high-5... and Dick Vermeil's firm, gloved handshake spoke volumes.  Moments I'll never forget.

Here is a list of the original musicians and vocalists I can recall being part of the "Gotta Go to Work" project*…
 
Featuring:
Johnnie "B. Goode" Johnson-- Keyboard solos & background vocals
Gene Ackmann--co-wrote song and lyrics with Dickie Steltenpohl
Dickie Steltenpohl--also played bass and worked with horns on horn parts
"Smash" Asher Benrubi--Lead Vocal and collaborated with Gene Ackmann on lyrics
Mark Kersten –Drums
Bob Hammett-Guitar
Donny Besancenez-Guitar
Larry Smith-Baritone Sax and horn collaboration in arrangement
Ray Vollmar-Lead Tenor Sax and horn collaboration in arrangement
Elliot C. 'Doc' Simpson-Trumpet and arrangement, background vocals and skat concept
Jack Petrocek-Recording engineer

    *Other group singers consisting of friends and relatives will be listed on the proposed - soon to be released:

   A Documentary of when Butchwax and the Hollywoods "Let the Good Times Roll" (w/Kenny Rice vocal and Drums; and Johnnie "B. Goode" Johnson on Piano)

The next time I can remember seeing such a huge crowd of celebratory St. Louis sports fans (though it still didn't rival that 2000 Superbowl Victory Parade crowd) was when I went to the downtown World Champion Baseball Cardinals '06 celebration.  Since I wrote, distributed and played "St. Louis Rally" to commemorate the New Busch Stadium  opening day on  4-6-06, I felt a special connection to the whole thing. The day of the opening of the new stadium that year, Butchwax & the Hollywoods, were hired to play for the event on a parking lot immediately in front of the new Busch Stadium.  Lo-and-behold, after a worse season than the previous year,  the St. Louis Baseball Cardinals "rallied" in the end of the season and took the World Series.  ("St. Louis Rally" is available on my newly-released STRUCK cd).