Local playwright overcomes misgivings to pen History Theater play

By JAN WILLMS

PHOTO: Joe Minjares said he first agreed to write the play for History Theater, but then met with the family and got cold feet. “I wasn’t sure I could do it, but then I reconsidered. I did more research and started putting facts together. I think that gave me a good feel for the story.” (Photo by Jan Willms)

Local businessman and actor Joe Minjares had misgivings about writing a play on Augie Garcia, a musician from the West Side Flats of Saint Paul. But he took the task on, and “River Road Boogie” is being performed at the Minnesota History Theatre through May 31.

“This was not my idea,” said Minjares, who owns Pepito’s Restaurant and the Parkway Theater at Chicago and 48th. “The Garcia family presented the idea to the History Theatre, and Ron Peluso, the artistic director, thought it was a good idea.  He contacted Jack Reuler over at Mixed Blood Theatre and asked him if he had a recommendation for someone who could write this, and he suggested me.”

Minjares said he first agreed, but then met with the family and got cold feet. “I wasn’t sure I could do it, but then I reconsidered. I did more research and started putting facts together. I think that gave me a good feel for the story.”

“At first I wasn’t sure what the story was,” Minjares continued. “A small band of great performers takes off, and then it fades away. I just didn’t know how that would be very interesting to people. But the more I dug into it and met some of the performers and some of Augie’s Korean War buddies, I knew I had stumbled onto somebody people could identify with. There’s more about the man than superficial things.”

The Augie Garcia Quintet had a fast rise to fame, and Garcia became known as the local godfather of Rock and Roll. He and his band opened for Elvis Presley, and a play date in Chicago beckoned. The play delves into what happened and also focuses on Garcia’s experiences with the war and his family.

Cornbread Harris was a pianist for the Quintet, who still performs Friday nights at the Loring Pasta Parlor. Minjares spent a lot of time visiting with Harris, learning about Garcia’s career path as a musician.

“I learned about how the guy used to interact, about the clubs that they played in, about the money, the club owners, the River Road and what it was like playing there,” Minjares explained.

He then went to Garcia’s house and met with his wife, Nancy. “We went through scrapbooks, and she told me about her life and Augie’s life,” Minjares said. “I got a real good sense of the man, the gentler side of him.”

He got a sense of how close Garcia was to his family from his wife.

“I saw photos of his wartime outfit, and I started to ask her questions about that. She told me Augie won a Purple Heart when his bunker took a hit from a Chinese artillery shell. She told me about a friend of his who was killed over there, and she told me about another wartime buddy who was from Cleveland, but transferred with 3M to this area and lived in Blaine.”

Minjares contacted Joe Leon, the man who had served in Korea with Garcia, and spent hours talking with him.

“Joe has boxes of old photos from the war, and Augie was in quite a few of them,” Minjares noted. “One, in particular, showed him in the bunker, playing his guitar. Joe said he didn’t remember meeting Augie; one day he was just there like he dropped from outer space. He had his own walk, his own talk, his own way about him.”

Minjares said Leon related to him that everyone wanted to walk like Augie, talk like him, be like him. Everyone wanted to be his friend.

“Now what does that tell you?” asked Minjares. “That he was a special human being. When I heard that from this guy, that’s what fully converted me to being an Augie admirer, not just a fan.”

Minjares said he sensed that Garcia’s Korean War buddy and his family were describing the same Augie, but in different ways.

“For the guys in the military, Augie took away a lot of their pain when he played his music,” Minjares said. This gave him the idea of music being used as a medicine, an idea expressed in the play.

Minjares said he started the whole process of researching and writing the play in May 2013. It was first read in December 2013. It was presented at Raw Stages, which is a reading of different plays over a course of a week.

“They liked my idea right away, and the play went to a workshop to work it into a final form,” Minjares continued. “We came out of there and went into production in April 2014.”

The research for the play is the most challenging part, according to Minjares, who has previously written about a half dozen others, four of which have been produced.

“One of the reasons I was thinking of backing out is that I wasn’t sure I would have the time,” Minjares said. “But I write pretty fast. When I sat down, I cranked out quite a few pages. I tend to write in binges, in my family room.”

Minjares said it helped that he did stand-up comedy for many years, writing his own material, and also has written for television.

“I learned about a character’s needs and how to get to it,” he explained. “A lot of writers fall in love with their words, but I don’t. I can edit a lot of stuff to get to the point.”

For the music, he drew from Garcia’s song list and got the general idea of when the music was recorded. “I strung the music together like beads,” Minjares said, “and then I wrote between the songs I knew a certain amount of the audience wanted that music. I pushed most of the songs toward the front because I wanted to show his band on the rise, and then at the height of their careers, I wanted to delve into issues.”

The play was very difficult to cast, according to Minjares. They needed musicians who could act. “They did an unbelievable job, and the music is great,” he said. He gave a lot of credit, also, to director Raul Ramos; music director Sarah Berg and set designer, Tom Hanks.

“I watch the play now, and sometimes I can’t believe I wrote that,” Minjares said.

The Augie Garcia Quintet stayed together after turning down the Chicago offer, but things started to change. Cornbread Harris reminisced about the big money they were making, and when that went away, things changed. “They had to get out and hustle like everyone else,” Minjares said. “Guys started dropping out of the band, and Augie wanted to move more into jazz. That didn’t work.”

Minjares said that for a rock and roll band, the frontman is the guy. But with jazz, it’s more of an ensemble.

“Cornbread said Augie wasn’t a great guitar player, and he wasn’t a great singer. But as a performer he was deadly. So moving into that jazz format took away that magic he had. In the end, he gave it up and went back to ironworking, putting the dream behind him.”

“When he died, I don’t think he fully realized how he affected people. Not just audiences, but individual people. To me, he did this by kindness and love, and that means a whole lot more than affecting an audience with your talent. Through his being who he was, and his music and his charisma, he changed lives.”