In 2002 I was lucky enough to be included in a tribute album for Elliott Murphy - Lookin’ for a Hero - put out by his French fan club, made up of tracks cut by Elliott’s - though small, nonetheless worldwide - fan base. My contribution was “Isadora’s Dancers” (one of my Top 5 favorite Elliott tunes) from Murphy’s 1975 Night Lights release.
In early 2003 I was invited to be one of five songwriters from Hero to open Elliott’s yearly mid-March weekend of birthday party shows at The New Morning club in Paris. Each contributor would do one original song and their contribution to the album. The catch was, the fan club couldn’t offer travel costs or hotel lodging for the trip - just a chance to stay at one of the Paris fans’ home. (Which was fine; do you know how many floors and/or couches I slept on in my road manager touring days?)
When my lovely wife Debbie & I added up the flight & food costs balanced against playing two songs in a Paris club - despite those two songs comprising OPENING for Elliott Murphy! - we just couldn’t make the math add up. Sadly, I passed the opportunity on to another album contributor.
Previously, I had written a song in 1998 entitled “Faraway Imaginary Paris” in which I envisioned traveling to The City of Lights in April, 2000; though I’m not sure HOW I came up with that month & year. (Plus, I had my first cardiac pacemaker implanted in late January, 2000, so I have to think THAT scotched that initial April projection.)
(editor’s note; Ricki, is this going to be one of those blogs where we have to PAY you to get to the point?)
Okay, okay, okay - so on January 15th, 2026, I had a cadiac defibrillator implanted, and that pretty much was the Deciding Factor in Debbie & I FINALLY getting down to planning & implementing the Great Parisian Excursion. As mentioned above, I got my first cardiac pacemaker at the dawn of the new century, and subsequently have had a stent and been diagnosed with congestive heart failure, but the defibrillator was the acknowledgement that I could have a heart attack at any given moment.
Plus, our 25th anniversary is coming up in June, so it was time for a blow-out vacation for me and Debbie.
I’ve attained the age of 73 years old without ever leaving the North American continent. As a roadie for Watershed and Hamell On Trial I have visited 44 of the 48 contiguous United States, but never made it to Europe. And the only city outside America I’ve ever wanted to visit was Paris, I think from beginning to read F. Scott Fitzgerald books back in grade school and learning about the 1920’s Expatriate Scene in the City of Lights. And then, after Elliott Murphy - my favorite rock & roll singer/songwriter and personage of all time - moved there in 1990, it kinda sealed the deal. I wanted to someday take a trip there.
I thought Paris would be a lot like New York City, but it truly wasn’t. In fact it was nothing like N.Y.C. It was cleaner, brighter, more lyrical, more romantic, just kinda more EVERYTHING. (Plus, the Empire State Building and Statue of Liberty are one thing, but The Eiffel Tower is quite another. Wonderful.)
There were shops and - especially - cafes on every main street and every charming little side street in the Ninth Arrondisement that we used as our Home Base. An unbelievable amount of cafes, actually, all of them brimming with people sipping drinks & cafes, and smoking cigarettes. (Oh my God, the cigarettes. It was like when I started in rock & roll in 1968 and you could still smoke EVERYWHERE in America.)
Plus, just when Paris would start to seem like Just Another Big City, a STUNNING French girl would stroll by in a beautiful dress & high-heeled black boots - looking just like the young Francoise Hardy or Brigitte Bardot that fueled & steamed my Teenage Fantasies of 60 years hence - and you just KNEW you were not in the States anymore, Jack.
Did we do all the normal, touristy things? Yeah. The Eiffel Tower, a boat-trip on the Seine, various museums (pics below), churches, etc. Plus I made the de rigeur trip to Pere Lachaise Cemetery to visit Jim Morrison’s grave, in honor of one of my favorite rock & roll shows of all time, The Doors in 1968 when I was 16. Morrison’s grave is all fenced-off now (just too much r&r revelry over the decades), but it was still cool to get that close and honor Watershed in the process. (Also Elliott Murphy. I changed my shirt between two tall gravestones.)
Possibly best of all, Elliott was just back from a series of shows in Spain and I got to meet up and have a cafe au lait with him while we were in Paris. AND I was finally able to get Elliott’s past three CD releases which were not able to be shipped to the United States due to Emperor Trump’s fucked-up tariff regulations. Plus Debbie & I were able to meet Elliott’s lovely wife Francoise, while she was on break from the theater where she teaches acting next-door to the cafe where we convened. Elliott and I try to get together for a face-to-face meet-up every 10 years or so (previous: The Bottom Line, N.Y.C. 1992; Piermont, N.Y. in 2012; Elliott’s induction into the Long Island Music Hall of Fame, 2018), but this was my first time in his time-honored adopted hometown.
But I could go on like this all night. Let’s just let some pictures say a thousand words or so apiece…….
MUSEE d’ORSAY
(photo from the Seine boat trip)
SACRE COEUR
DEBBIE IN A SIDEWALK CAFE, SIPPING A CHOCOLAT CHAUD
A GORGEOUS PARIS TWILIGHT
Ricki C. is 73 years old. His sainted Italian father - Al Cacchione Sr. - died of a heart attack on April 24th, 1970, at 56, when Ric was 17 years old. Ric has now outlived his dad by 17 years, the same amount of time they had together on this Earth. The Paris trip was planned to coincide with that anniversary.
It was a very mathematical excursion for a rocker boy whose previous math abilities extended to counting “one-two-three-FOUR!” to begin rock & roll songs.
addendum - for the uninitiated, a coupla Elliott Murphy videos
from Aquashow, 1973
live, 2019