{{< MultiGalleryComponent galleries="1977-awb" >}} Showco provided sound and lighting for the Average White Band 1977 tour. {{< StoryImage id="showco-1977-awb-013-awb-77" title="AWB Stage Set" caption="Average White Band Stage Set and Lighting Rig for the 1977 Tour. The design featured clean lines and bold color washes." credit="Showco Recovered Archive" size="large" >}} {{< StoryImage id="showco-1977-awb-007-awb-77" title="Average White Band Stage Sets and Lighting 1977 Tour. " credit="Showco Recovered Archive" size="large" >}} ## Jackson Browne Running on Empty 1977 Tour with The Section {{< MultiGalleryComponent galleries="show-pix, backstage-pix, 24-jackson-browne-jul-1977" >}} Showco provided the sound and lighting for Jackson Browne’s 1977 Running on Empty tour from August 12 to September 24, 1977 with two extra dates added in January 1978 in Ft. Worth and Houston Texas. The Section consisting of studio musicians Lee Sklar, Russ Kunkel, Danny Kortchmar and Craig Doerge, opened the show with their own set and also played as part of Jackson Browne’s band during his set. Jim Bornhorst was the Showco house sound mixer and Bill Gans was the Showco monitor engineer. Showco employees Alan Owen, Kevin Di Piazza and Jim Waits were the lighting crew. Showco engineer Tom Walsh recorded this tour with producer Greg Ladanyl using the Studer 24 track tape machine connected to the Superboard tape outputs for the live Jackson Browne album, Running on Empty.

{{< StoryImage id="showco-show-pix-010-roe-ft" caption="Jackson Browne 1977 Running on Empty Tour." credit="Photo Jim Bornhorst" size="responsive" >}} {{< StoryImage id="showco-24-jackson-browne-jul-017-jackson-77" caption="Jackson Browne 1977 Tour Showco Lighting Rig at Red Rocks Ampitheater, Morrison, CO-ground supported using Vermette hand operated lifts to elevate the truss structure into position. At the time, there is no roof structure to support chain motor rigging." credit="Photo Jim Bornhorst" size="responsive" >}}

{{< StoryImage id="showco-backstage-pix-001-roe-ft" caption="Jackson Browne 1977 Tour Showco Lighting Rig rigged with chain motors in a large arena. The rigged lighting system is much larger than the ground supported version." credit="Showco Recovered Archive" size="large" >}} ## James Taylor Tour 1977 {{< GalleryComponent id="26-james-taylor-sep-1977" >}} Showco provided the sound and lighting for the 1977 James Taylor tour.

{{< StoryImage id="showco-26-james-taylor-sep-009-jt-77" caption="Russ Kunkel during the James Taylor 1977 Tour." credit="Photo Jim Bornhorst" size="responsive" >}} {{< StoryImage id="showco-26-james-taylor-sep-015-jt-77" caption="James Taylor in performance, 1977." credit="Photo Jim Bornhorst" size="responsive" >}} {{< StoryImage id="showco-26-james-taylor-sep-024-jt-77" caption="James Taylor's band on the 1977 tour." credit="Photo Jim Bornhorst" size="responsive" >}}

## Lynyrd Skynyrd Plane Crash October 20, 1977 On October 20, 1977 a Corvair CV-240 passenger aircraft carrying Lynyrd Skynyrd and the production crew that included Showco personnel ran out of fuel and crashed in a wooded and swampy area near Gillsburg, Mississippi. The Lynyrd Skynyrd lead vocalist and founding member Ronnie Van Zant, guitarist and vocalist Steve Gaines, background vocalist Cassie Gaines, assistant road manager Dean Kilpatrick, Captain Walter McCreary, and First Officer William John Gray all died in the crash. Twenty others, including all of the Showco sound and lighting personnel including Donnie Kretschmar, Ken Peden, Mark Howard, James Brace, Mark Frank, Clayton Johnson, Steve Lawler, Joe Osborn, Craig Reed and Paul Welch survived the crash but some had severe injuries. The cause of the crash was determined to be negligence of the pilots for not checking the fuel levels before departure of the flight. ## The Gel Changer Project 1977 By 1977 the lighting rigs that we were providing had grown so much in size and quantity of PAR cans that we could see we would soon run out of space and weight capacity over the stage to hang more lights. Kirby Wyatt suggested that we develop some kind of mechanical gel changer system for the PAR cans which would greatly increase the lighting designers’ creative possibilities of the lighting designers without continually adding more lighting instruments. Keny Whitright was part of the team that worked on the gel changer project. Kirby suggested a system that would have six different gel colors and the capability to change between any of the six colors within a tenth of a second. One solution to this specification would be to have six 8” X 8” steel gel frames mounted on the front of the PAR can with a mechanical apparatus to rapidly change any of the six colors within a tenth of a second. Another solution was suggested by Tom Walsh. His idea was to use three wedge shaped glass cells on the front of the PAR can that could change thickness and fill each cell with a liquid dye in the colors (C)Cayenne, (Y) Yellow and (M) Magenta. We decided to pursue the idea of making a semaphore flag mechanism with six color flags or gel frames and a motorized mechanism to move the gel frames into position within a tenth of a second. George Cason consulted with us and found an engineer who designed and built a prototype mechanism that would move the gel frame in and out position in front of the light within a tenth of a second. The mechanism was very clever but not practical because the motor was too big and the mechanism was loud and heavy. We then thought about using air cylinders to move the gel frames in and out of position but they would also be big, loud and heavy with the added complication of distributing compressed air everywhere. We worked on the gel changer for about a year with no success. In 1978 Keny Whitright left Showco and moved to Colorado, so no further work was done on the project until 1980. More on this later.