A Trip Down Memory Lane with Guadalupe’s Johnny Perry

Bright Lights and Bragging Rights

Johnny Perry was a colorful character, as fondly remembered by writer Cynthia Carbone Ward

Mon Feb 13, 2023 | 01:16pm

This was Johnny Perry: musician, raconteur, unofficial historian, and proprietor of the NAPA auto parts store (which also doubled as a museum of local artifacts) on the main drag of Guadalupe. Sadly, the place has since closed, and Johnny died last year, but it’s nice to remember colorful people and small-town curiosities. The store held not just a good supply of auto parts, but an 1840 adobe brick; vintage photos, posters, and bumper stickers; and even the plaster paw of a sphinx from Cecil B. DeMille’s 1923 production of The Ten Commandments, filmed at the nearby Guadalupe-Nipomo Dunes. But the best attraction was Johnny himself, a veritable fount of information about Guadalupe — especially the good times. 

A photograph on the wall showed a teenaged Johnny wearing a striped serape and playing the sax alongside three other musicians at a Mexican Independence Day parade in the 1950s. “These celebrations predated Santa Barbara’s Old Spanish Days,” he said, adding that they were so big, folks would miss work the next day. His fondness for music went back to his boyhood days at the family ranch at Oso Flaco and a song he heard there, “Sentimental Journey,” played over and over. “I liked the sound,” said Johnny. “Tenor sax. So I thought, ‘I’ll learn that.’”

And he did. From the school band in 4th grade, he parlayed his talents to playing at dances, eventually becoming part of a band called The Biscaynes, who opened for Jan and Dean in Pismo Beach and were the lead band at the Beach Boys’ first concert on June 2, 1966. In a display case at the store, there was a 45 rpm vinyl record of the Biscaynes’ biggest hit, “Church Key,” but Johnny’s son Eric switched on his computer, found the sound clip, hit play, and music filled the shop. It was a classic surf tune of the early ’60s — guitar, drum, organ, and Johnny’s sax in an arrangement so lively, you’d want to dance … or drive along the California coast … or simply stand there, grinning. (What can I say? It was one of those “I love my life” moments.)

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