Bluebird
Mercer Island, Washington
1968 - 1973

Members
 

David Baroh ~ Guitar
Tom Chapman ~ Guitar
Emerson Hoefs ~ Guitar
Phil Klitgaard ~ Drums
Kevin Marin ~ Bass
Ric Niemer ~ Bass
Tony Pugel ~ Guitar
John Soltero ~ Guitar
 

Steve Montgomery ~ Manager (70-71)
Chet Tozer ~ Road Manager
 

Ron Foos played briefly with John Soltero on a previous musical effort.

In Memory of

Chris Klitgaard
Dave Baroh
Kevin Bruce Marin
d:  16 May 2015

To all those that ever had any connection with one of the greatest bands to come out of the North West it is with a heavy heart that I submit this brief note.  One of the founding members of Bluebird has taken flight for the final time.  Mr. David Baroh passed on to a better place over the Christmas Holiday.  He was one of the best and most comfortable friends I will ever have.  Dave and I go back to the early sixties where we met at auditions for the Teen Fair up in Eastgate.  From there our relationship just naturally blossomed and grew ever closer. As a person my friend was true to heart and mind, faithful, honest, and always there.  He had a great sense of humor and was always the same which is a gift very few of us possess.

The Bluebird website was created out of his love for music and the desire to allow others to grasp at least a portion of the excitement and joy that was Bluebird as a group.  A group that was in the forefront of musical change during the sixties.  I am honored to have known him as a musician, a man and above all a dear, dear friend.  He lives on in all our hearts and whenever any of us play again there he will be as he has always been.

His physical nature may be gone but what really makes a person up is what's inside and that remains with all that knew him.  My heart goes out to his Wife Theresa, and all his Family members, his Father Lou, his Mom Leah, his Brothers Danny and Sandy, and his Sister Luann.  To his children Robyn, Julie, and stepson David Dvorak, I give my deep felt condolences and support.  And to all his other beloved relatives, friends, co- musicians and acquaintances I say David will be missed but never forgotten.  He loved life and all of us as part of his life.  Carry on my friend and save me a spot on the bandstand up there.  See Ya later!  Byyyyyyeeeeee!!!!!!
To you Lovingly, Kim.

Kim Marin, 14 January 2003

I am deeply shocked and saddened to hear of Dave's passing. The last time I saw him, he was happy to tell me about world-wide interest in Bluebird reissues. I was so happy for him, because that band deserved whatever recognition they received. His music was always quality and I'm sure he applied that same effort to his family life. Dave was a great influence on me... a gift and a blessing.

The one thing that most impressed me about Bluebird was harmony... something the world could sure use more of.

My life is a better place to be thanks to Dave Baroh

Ricky Lynn Johnson, July 2003

I go to visit the Bluebird site from time to time when I feel  nostalgic about my old friend, Dave Baroh. I miss him a lot and never forget the good times that we shared.  I have lost touch with Teresa,  and I regret that.

Earliest influences towards music

Dave had just beaten lymphoma when I met him in the 7th grade. By all rights, he should have been dead from the two pound tumor that was removed from his neck area. But experimental radiation treatments, which eventually did kill him by damaging his heart, put the cancer into remission. When he moved to Mercer Island, I sat next to him in remedial math class. I claim to have been his first Mercer Island friend back then.

Dave and I and Phil Klitgaard had all become good friends by the time the Beatles hit- and that changed the future for all three of us. Within the week, we had Neru jackets and Beatle boots and had decided to form a 'band' despite the fact that none of us had instruments or any clue as to how to play anything!  All over the world, this was a familiar story- gaggles of misunderstood youth, forming 'bands'.

I remember that Dave, Phil and I would go to downtown Seattle on the bus to a hole in the wall called Import Records to buy the newest release of Beatles music before anyone else had it.  Dave was the absolute first person to bring a Beatles record onto Mercer Island, period.  I got off the return bus second, so mine was the second copy!

I continue to believe that music was the tonic that channeled all of the anger and resentment that Dave felt about his bout with mortality.  In those years, he was a fireball of emotion and creativity. We spent endless hours together- Phil, Dave and I, in Dave's basement, making music, raising hell, and inventing, inventing, inventing. It was a time that I will always cherish. It made me the creative person that I have been ever since. It should be mentioned that, just like Kim and Kevin Marin, Dave had the support of a terrific mother. Mrs. Baroh put up with a lot - and drove us to gigs to boot!  I love Leah Baroh like a second mom. It should also be said that Phil's mom also put up with our noise making and I remember that she also was a bit of a saint in this regard.

Very shortly after this Dave befriended John Soltero.  John had guitars - good ones- and he actually took private lessons!  I remember that John would have a lesson and then Dave would pump him for a second hand demonstration, which he then passed onto me.  John had an actual guitar and could play, based on actual knowledge, so he was IN, period.  Because of John, Dave and I got our start playing the guitar.  Neither of us ever put the darned things down again!

The first real musical incarnation was called 'BANNED' and it does not show up on the bio.  John was too smart to count on us rank amateurs for gigs, and had been previously committed to another group anyway, so he moved to another band that seemed to offer more of a future because they were willing to wear matching suits. Dave wanted no part of that.  So Gregg Bigsby played lead guitar in 'Banned'.  Gregg now lives in Haines, Alaska, where he owns a fishing boat and still plays with an old time group called the Fish Pickers. They gig in Germany during the off season of fishing.  Like Dave, Gregg is one of a kind - a very creative human being. Dave and Gregg clashed a lot as I recall.   'Banned' evolved into The Thymes, a timely herbal reference.

While Dave became a good steel guitar player, he never really played mandolin.  John never played a D-18- it was a 00-18 with a pickup added by the legendary repairman Phil Tafoya.  By the time we played for the infamous Teen Fair auditions, we were actually getting pretty good, or so we thought. We made the audition, but we absolutely knew at the first chord that another band there was well beyond us.  The Nightshades featured Kim and Kevin Marin, two exceptional musicians who later became central to the Bluebird story.  The name Bluebird was actually inspired by the Steven Stills song, not the Moody Blues.  The rest, you know.

Marc Connelly, February 2008
Bass player for Banned and the Tyhmes,  (I still have and play this Vox Cougar bass!)

In 1970 - 1971 I managed The Crome Syrcus, Springfield Rifle, Bluebird, Chinook, before I went back into radio.

Steve Montgomery, March 2011

Kevin Marin

Kevin at the Trolly Club with Bluebird - 1970

I must sadly announce to all the groups that have websites, to all the musicians Kev played with, and also to this overall musical website that My brother, Kevin Bruce Marin, passed away on May 16, 2015, and this world will never be the same for me or any of the close friends and relatives that he touched in life, as well as music.  The Seekers, the Loose Chippin's, Wind Fair, Bluebird, the Nightshades, ShadowFax,  and don't forget the infamous Grand Theft and all the musicians involved will sorely miss the guy I also knew more intimately than anyone in the world as my brother, my confident, my dearest friend, my team mate, collaborator, planner, guidance counselor, arbitrator, smoother outer, but most of all my life long little brother.  From the time when we played cowboys and Indians in the back yard in 1950 on Magnolia, to the time we played as the trio "Wind Fair" with Emerson Hoefs at Shilshoal Bay Marina at the  "Windjammer North" with Julie Andrews in the audience, it has been a fine, fine ride for us both.

A finer man I never knew and I never will. He was quite a guy in all kinds of ways, just ask anyone who knew him and you will hear words like helpful, concerned, ingenious, imaginative, cool, or just plain nice.  My lifelong sidekick and partner is only gone physically.  We have been so tight and so "one" for the last 65 years that this temporary separation is a drop in the bucket compared to our times together.  I will deeply and very, very dearly, miss my BROTHER.

With tears in my eyes and a heavy, heavy heart, I bid you adieu, my little one; until we meet again.........I LOVE YOU AND LOVE YOU and LOVE YOU SOME MORE. Your BIG Brother,

Kim Marin, May 2015