Rudy Valentino

When I first started performing with BPB in the late winter of ’77 I remember we were playing weekends and occasionally we would head to Delaware to perform. Now being from Western NY, Rochester to be exact, my ears were not attuned to the Long Island accent, and Bonnie’s was quite pronounced!

We had a roadie named Eric (can’t remember the last name). Now b4 soundcheck Bonnie in her heavy Long Island accent says “Eric, grab me the tuner”…now Eric lived in his car, or so it seemed because he had taken the back seat out and it was filled with his belongings….so Eric goes to his car and comes back with a can of TUNA and hands it to Bonnie! We were rolling in laughter the entire soundcheck!

– Rudy Valentino

Grand Funk & the The Food Poisoning From Hell

In ’78 BPB (Bonnie, David, Michael and I) toured Illinois and Wisconsin and were based out of Chicago.  We had a show in Detroit opening for Grand Funk Railroad.

Back then we were running around the states in Bonnie’s big white Bonneville. Now it turns out that we ate something bad and had some level of food poisoning!  Of course we always believed the show must go on so we proceeded to drive from Chicago to Detroit with a bucket on the floor of the backseat…I’ll spare the details but heh, it was RnR!

We performed that night with our faithful bucket sitting behind Bonnie’s amp and every once n a while during the show one of us would disappear for a few seconds and then reappear from behind her amp, what a show!!! RAWK