Published in the Quad-City Times on Oct. 13, 2024

There were days like this.

It was 2003 or 2004, David Garrison estimates, when he rode his bike almost daily to Rock Island Sports, Music & Collectables, a now-closed vintage shop on 14th St.

He was 19 then, a recent dropout of an art school in Boston, living at home with his family in Moline. Garrison was aimless, he said. But he’d spend hours in this store, listening to vinyl records with the store clerk, who he remembers being named Pete.

Pete, an “interesting” 50-something, had encyclopedic music knowledge. At the time, Garrison was really into collecting 45 RPM singles. Pete was his curator. 

Garrison’s taste was eclectic: Midwest emo, new wave, ’60s folk, The Beatles and Elvis Costello. Pete gave or sold Garrison a bunch of records to try out. Chad and Jeremy, The New Christy Minstrels, The Highwaymen, The Beach Boys and Neil Young made the cut. He introduced Garrison to even deeper cuts, too. Garrison still remembers “Forgive Me Darling (I Have Lied),” a Ran-Dells B-side hidden behind the novelty song “The Martian Hop.”

One day, Pete gave Garrison a 45 by the Blues Brothers, the soul-rock band led by comedians Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi (whose fictional origin story traces back to an orphanage in Rock Island). The song: “Gimme Some Lovin’,” a charting track initially recorded by the Spencer Davis Group.

Garrison was not a Blues Brothers fan, so he let the single sit on his shelf. Years later, he decided to give it a shot. But when he pulled out the disc, it wasn’t a Blues Brothers hit. It was a mysterious song by an artist named Walter David, with an address on it directing to a Davenport residential neighborhood.

On the A-side: “Daddy’s Song,” a wistful country tune about a court ordering a father to separate from his children. On the B-side: “Ways of The World,” a classic country ballad about a college boy whose parents have forbidden him from getting married to his dream girl. The single was released by Now Records, whose logo looked legit enough to pique Garrison’s curiosity.

He started sleuthing for information about the label and the song, but found nothing. It isn’t online. Nor is any mention of a singer named Walter David at all. 

Considering this record was presumably recorded in the Quad-Cities, the mystery behind it has nagged at Garrison for years. But we chased the story down and found two of the three creatives behind “Daddy’s Song” and “Ways of The World.”

This is a story about parenthood, a longtime Rock Island judge, a pseudo-gunshot in rural Italy and the role of physical media in keeping the music alive. 

There aren’t many days like those anymore. 

Ralph Iaccarino, composer

Raphael “Ralph” Iaccarino’s name is listed as a producer on both sides of the “Daddy’s Song” single.

The 77-year-old visual artist, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist moved to the Quad-Cities from Connecticut to study calligraphy in 1965. In the time since, he’s done just about everything. 

Fittingly, the Quad-City Times described him as a “living legend” in 2012. 

He’s been to the Amazon rainforest and Thailand. For a long time, Iaccarino hosted his own segment on WQPT. For 18 years, he made an annual trip to Costa Rica to sell art to a wealthy family, who let him stay in their home. His artwork has been purchased by multiple Central American presidents and actors Clint Eastwood and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

“I’ll be back,” he exclaims, nailing the voice.

Iaccarino’s Davenport living room is filled with his vibrant watercolor art. Even the couch cushions are colorful. Purples, reds, yellows and oranges explode from every wall. Prints are stacked everywhere. A massive collection of CDs sits above a six-disc Sony sound system. Some of them are his own. 

For decades, Iaccarino has been a prolific songwriter for local groups like The Loved Ones (later renamed 1984 Love Machine) and Noble Spirit. The former had a minor hit with their Troy Shondell collaboration “Magic Baby” in the late ’60s. The latter released three CDs in the ’90s. He’s particularly proud of that work, eager to play the band’s song “No Free Lunch.” 

None of the Noble Spirit albums are available online, though. They, like “Daddy’s Song,” exist only on a physical copy. 

“He’s gotta get all this stuff digitized …” Iaccarino’s grandson, Alexander, said, sitting in his grandfather’s kitchen. “If this ever deteriorated, it’d be lost media.”

In his life, Iaccarino estimates he’s recorded 125 songs. He’s done instrumentals, symphonies, rock songs and everything in between. He’s proud to call himself a composer, unafraid of admitting his talent.

With such a massive discography, he couldn’t quite remember “Daddy’s Song” before hearing it. But he had a hunch about who Walter David might be. The hunch was confirmed when he finally listened to the song. 

“I used to be in a band called The Butlers with Walter Braud, who had an incredible voice,” Iaccarino said, before giving the group’s elevator pitch. “The Butlers, serving you fine music.”

“We wore tuxes. We were better dressed than most of the people we played for.” 

Walter David Braud, the vocalist on “Daddy’s Song,” remembers Iaccarino, too. 

Walter David Braud, singer

“Daddy’s Song” begins with a banging of a gavel. 

“All rise, court’s adjourned,” a booming voice proclaims. 

This courthouse scene wound up being an accidental clue. Walter Braud, the voice behind “Daddy’s Song,” was a judge. His backstory is perhaps just as eclectic as Iaccarino’s. 

Braud retired in 2019 after serving as the chief judge in the 14th Judicial Circuit of Illinois for four years. When he was named to that position, he became the second Black chief judge in Illinois history. Decades before that, in 1969, he became Rock Island’s first Black prosecutor. For 27 years, he was a criminal defense trial lawyer in the Quad-Cities area. Long before that, he dropped out of high school to pursue his dream of becoming a doo-wop singer. 

The 85-year-old’s story is so dense that he wrote an entire book about it called “Bessie’s Prayer,” released this year. 

Braud owes a lot to chance, he says. He wound up studying at Roosevelt College after getting scouted playing pickup basketball. Braud met his wife, Gertrude, of 62 years because his friends drunkenly demanded to go to a dance that she just happened to be at. 

“That’s coincidence. That’s God’s will. That’s the universe uniting,” he said. “That’s the lightning bolt.” 

Braud’s singing experience goes back generations. His mother, who moved to Chicago as a child of the great migration, decided Braud would be an opera singer when he was 5 years old. She later convinced him to give up on doo-wop and pursue an education. 

But even in his law days, Braud came back to singing from time to time. 

“Daddy’s Song” is one of only three records he ever recorded. It was, indeed, made during the time Braud spent with Iaccarino as a member of The Butlers. He remembers just a little bit about those days. He mostly remembers a trip to Sicily, Italy, with Iaccarino in 1975. 

“Every day we’d go into town and Ralph would take pictures, and then he’d sketch,” Braud said. “And I’d just walk around and look lost.”

One day, he and Iaccarino rented an old Fiat to drive through the Italian countryside to get to the small town where the movie “The Godfather Part II” was filmed. Just as they came into the city, the windshield exploded. 

“Ralph goes berserk, because he thinks the mafioso has got us,” Braud said. 

It turned out that they just forgot to turn off the defroster, he says, laughing. 

“We were friends from then on,” Braud said. “And then he called me up and said, ‘We’re going to make this demo recording.’” 

That demo was “Daddy’s Song.” 

By Braud’s estimation, it was recorded in 1977 at Golden Voice Studio in Pekin, Illinois. He remembers making the drive to Pekin with Iaccarino in a big, blue station wagon. Braud’s son, then a teenage whiz when it came to musical equipment, came along too. 

But Braud doesn’t remember much about Carl Reicks, the man who wrote the lyrics to the song. Braud said he just knows that he didn’t get to hear it until he actually got to the building. 

The Quad-City Times attempted to reach out to Reicks on social media and didn’t hear back. 

As for Braud, he said he doesn’t sing much anymore. Seated next to him in a café booth, though, Gertrude is quick to correct him. 

“In the shower,” she says with a laugh. 

So what does it all mean?

If a story like this one feels like a relic, it’s because it is. Bob Herington, owner of local music store Ragged Records, said that there’s a lot of local vinyl that is now regarded as extremely rare. 

“It’s hard to find, because all that stuff was pressed in such small quantities,” he said. 

Herington pointed, specifically, to songs recorded by Fredlo Recording Studios, a prominent label in Moline and Davenport in the ’40s, ‘50s and ‘60s. 

“The rarest thing that came out on that label was (“Through You”) by The Contents Are, and I think they pressed 200 or 300 copies of that album,” he said. “It’s pretty non-existent now, and it’s become worth several thousands of dollars because of that.”

The cheapest copy of that record on vinyl collecting site Discogs is currently $11,999. The original 45 RPM “Magic Baby” single, the hit Iaccarino worked on with Troy Shondell, is selling for around $400.

“Daddy’s Song,” though, is not on the site at all. Iaccarino and Braud aren’t even sure if they have copies. 

The record store experience that Garrison had decades ago is even sort of a relic, too. 

Despite vinyl’s resurgence in the last decade – the RIAA reported that vinyl sales increased for the 17th consecutive year in 2023 – discovery has changed. Algorithms often dictate how folks find new music. 

“In the old days, people came in and they asked, ‘What’s cool? What should I listen to?’ and you knew your customers and you knew what they bought and you knew what they liked,” Herington said. “People now, they don’t care what we have to say. They look on their phone.” 

Clearly, though, they still cherish vinyl. Why? There’s an archival element to it. Herington said that record sales now are driven by old albums, not new ones.  

It’s also generational. After all, “Daddy’s Song” was recorded with Braud and his son in the studio. Iaccarino’s sons are musicians, too. These songs are a sort of heirloom. 

Somewhere in the grooves of “Daddy’s Song,” there’s a rich story that drags along the needle from Connecticut to Chicago to Sicily to Pekin to Davenport and, eventually, a vintage store in Rock Island. 

Garrison is now working as a math instructor, and just recently, he got back into collecting vinyl for the first time in years. He’s done so as a way of passing his favorite music onto his daughter, born last year.

“For some reason, it felt important to have the important records from my life, for her to just experience it,” Garrison said. “I just want her to have that experience: going and getting a record and sitting on your bed and listening to it.” 

Garrison estimates he’s got a collection of around 400 albums. 

He’s got records by The Cure. Garrison’s second date with his wife was going to one of their shows. He’s got records by Pavement. His daughter, Yardley, is named for a lyric in their song “Fight This Generation.” 

And he’s got a 45 RPM single called “Daddy’s Song,” misplaced in a Blues Brothers sleeve, recorded by a historic judge, a famous visual artist and a songwriter we’ve yet to track down. 

It’s a reminder of those days.