By: Matt Robert
After publication of “Scott Ricciuti: Epilogue,” in Worcester Magazine, on April 12, 2012, I continued to interview and to work through the material. Here is the “extended cut,” which I will continue to add to if/when more interviews occur.
“I was in the studio and my phone rang, and it was my friend John Donovan, who performed every Tuesday night at Vincent’s with Scott. Why would John be calling me at 11:30 AM? I answered it and he began with, ‘I really don’t know how to say this….’”
This scenario, experienced by Roger Lavallee, began his nightmare – one we all fear. Around Central Massachusetts and throughout the Bay State, and up to Vermont – where childhood chum, Childhood band mate, and one of his earliest friends, Ken Ebell, lives – similar phone calls announced the same horror to a nexus of distraught family members, a life partner, musicians, fans, friends, club owners and club goers, bartenders, music writers – a massive web spun over forty-eight years of life, and almost as many making music: James “Scott” Riccuti had succumbed to injuries incurred when his car left Route 290, in Northboro, and landed in the median strip.
“I ended my (recording) session, and like a zombie, went to be with my girlfriend and my dog. I spent the day cycling between numbness and breakdown,” added Roger, who, over two decades that began when sharing bills with Scott’s band Childhood and evolved as Roger became the central engineer/producer of the vast majority of Scott’s prolific body of work, inadvertently became one of his closest friends.
“[Scott] had just been up to my house [in Vermont],” said Ken. “Your girlfriend answers the phone; her face turns white….I still haven’t processed that.”
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Sunday, May 20, 2012 11:00pm until 1:00am
