"One Morey Time"
A Benefit for Morey Goldstein
Zasu Pitts Memorial Orchestra
Butch Whacks and the Glass Packs
Booker T.
Al Jardine of the
Beach Boys

Zasu Pitts Memorial Orchestra was not only THE dance and party band in San Francisco during the ‘80s, the band virtually drew the blueprint for all the other party bands that followed. When bandleader Steve Ashman first trotted out the Motown and Stax oldies with a big band, horn section in the back, girl group in beehive hairdos at the front, those songs had been tucked away, gathering dust.

Together for the first time in more than twenty years, the most popular lineup of Zasu Pitts Memorial Orchestra will return to the scene of the band's greatest glories in an all-star benefit concert for one of the Zasu's fellow musicians, “One Morey Time,” at 8 p.m. Monday, June 23 at the Great American Music Hall, 850 O'Farrell St. Opening the show will be Butch Whacks and the Glass Packs.

Saxophonist Morey Goldstein played with the original band, as did his wife, vocalist Katie Guthorn. Goldstein was diagnosed this spring with a terminal brain tumor and the band immediately agreed to come back together to play a benefit. Special guests will be announced.

Bassist Steve Ashman, ironically, founded the band in the early ‘80s after he was diagnosed with a brain tumor and wanted to play these old Motown songs before it was too late. Thankfully, Ashman survived and so did the songs. By the time the band recorded the 1984 live album, “The Pitts Bear Down,” at the Great American Music Hall, the rock ‘n soul orchestra was packing the O'Farrell Street club every month, the toast of the town, pictured on the cover of “San Francisco” magazine.

The shows featured four fabulous females vocalists in heavy hairdos and high camp fashions – Katie Guthorn, Annette Olesen, Kathy Kennedy and Keta Bill – in front of a blasting ten-piece band, often accompanied by further choreography from the Sluts a Go-Go. The band split in two in 1986; Ashman formed a new edition of Zasu Pitts, while the other members went on to start Big Bang Beat, a band with which most of those musicians still play today.