Kent Crowley died in his sleep July 25 in San Bernardino at age 69, and since I knew him, I want to bid him farewell.
Crowley, who was born in Redlands and grew up in Newport Beach, moved to Rancho Cucamonga in the mid-1980s and generally lived in Fontana or Berdoo. But he was a true believer in Cucamonga’s importance to the universe.
There was Paul Buff, who had recorded the Surfaris’ “Wipe Out” at his tiny Pal Recording Studio, later bought by Frank Zappa, at Archibald and Foothill. The John Rains murder of 1862. The brief local residency of Lita Grey Chaplin, one of Charlie’s ex-wives.
Crowley loved sharing such stories with friends, strangers and readers of newspapers, including a stint with ours and in recent years with the Foothills Reader.
“My dad knew everything. His mind was a steel trap of information,” his daughter Courtney told me last week.
Crowley brought the Surfaris to perform at the Grape Harvest Festival in 1993, completing that circle, and organized a tribute concert to Buff in 2005 at Chaffey College.
His defining personality trait was enthusiasm.
When we were introduced in the mid-1990s in Hesperia, Crowley responded with a beaming smile and rapid-fire commentary. His boyish energy was remarkable from a man in his mid-40s.
After he wrote a history of surf music in 2011, I interviewed him over lunch at The Deli. In line, Crowley pointed to me and asked the young cashier, “Do you know who this is?” To my mortification, he talked me up with his trademark hyperbole as if I were about to bring home a Pulitzer as the cashier looked on, bored.
“That’s so quintessentially my dad,” Courtney said when I told her the story. “He could be so difficult to go out in public with. But that was so much of his charm.”
It was.
David Allen writes Sunday, Wednesday and Friday, inessentially. Email dallen@scng.com, phone 909-483-9339, visit insidesocal.com/davidallen, like davidallencolumnist on Facebook and follow @davidallen909 on Twitter.
The Link LonkAugust 20, 2020 at 02:45AM
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Kent Crowley, booster of surf music and Rancho Cucamonga history, dies - Inland Valley Daily Bulletin
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