John "Broadway" Tucker gets ready for Friday's 20th anniversary of the Broadway Band.

Every once in a while, it''s great while tramping around looking for new, interesting musicians, to come across a true elder statesman. John "Broadway" Tucker is just such a gent.

John "Broadway" Tucker''s musical life began here at Fort Ord in the 1960s during a stint with the U.S. Army. Back in those days, soul and rock were ripe with feeling and filled with fat-bass juice. One of his first gigs was with the Invaders, who we would call a Top-40 cover band today. Besides covering material by Smokey Robinson and Curtis Mayfield, the band also played old Chicago-style blues, music that tends to have a little jump and the electrical feel you can find on old Chess Records recordings. In JBT''s words, "We played it all."

Tucker affectionately recalls that his mother didn''t want him to be a bluesman. "She wanted me to be a minister," he says with a wink. After years of playing around the country, Tucker began gigging at Jimbo''s Show Lounge, a legendary MoCo dive. In 1967, it was the place most out-of-town musicians strolled into during and after the original Monterey Pop Festival. The Grateful Dead (who didn''t play at the fest but who were here to watch) dropped in to jam with Tucker''s group, as did folks like Jimi Hendrix, Paul Butterfield (who ended up filling in for Tucker''s group one night), and Otis Redding''s entire brass section.

"All the greats used to come and sit in with my band," Tucker says fondly. "Marvin Gaye--he was there, but he would use another name, and he would never sing none of his songs."

Smiling, Tucker adds, "They made my band sound like a million dollars." Remembering the local music scene of 30-plus years ago, Tucker says, "Back then it was the hippies. People were more into music, you know. The music brought people together and there was love in that crowd. There still is with R&B and blues music--there is a lot less violence at those festivals. In the clubs, though, we had a lot of fights in those days. Wives of soldiers were sneakin'' off with the musicians all the time."

John Tucker knows how to rock the house, jumping into the audience to get folks involved or hopping around the stage on one leg while squeezing out sweet lyrics to the greatest soul songs of this past century. If you listed all the former and current players of the Broadway Band, it would run off this page--the total is somewhere around 100 musicians. However here are some of the people you "might" see performing with the band on Friday at Sly''s: Bob Campbell (guitar), Carveth Clausen (drums), David Price (bass), Bili Turner (drums), Bill Haines (guitar) and Jim Hannibal (sax).

I caught up with original Broadway Band sax player Hannibal, playing with his current group at the Crow''s Nest in Santa Cruz last week, and it took him all his fingers and toes to finally total up the number of years he and Tucker have played together. Hannibal promises to come down for the 20th anniversary show Friday night at Sly McFly''s.

In fact, the Broadway Band invites everyone and anyone who has ever played with them to jump in and rock.