Rock of Ages: After 50 Years, ‘The Geator’ is Still Heatin’ It Up with the Hits You Want to Hear
It was 50 years ago, the summer of 1972. Obviously, much has changed over that time here on Seven Mile Beach. Hurricane Agnes struck the East Coast in mid-June that summer; gasoline shot all the way up to 55 cents a gallon, which was pretty expensive after paying $2,078 for a new Ford Pinto. Over at Sullivan’s Department Store, the new Frisbee by Wham-O had arrived and was selling for just under a dollar – available in nine colors!
Meanwhile, just down Dune Drive a bit, and across 21st Street, Phil and Tony Matalucci were busy constructing what would become popular night spots in the Princeton and Avalon hotels. The headliner at The Princeton on weekends for the summer of 1972 was none other than “The Geator with the Heater,” Jerry Blavat.
It’s nice that at least one thing has remained constant: A half-century later, Blavat is still packing them in five or six nights a week year-round throughout the Delaware Valley. This summer, he spends Wednesday happy hour at Oar House Pub in Sea Isle City, and every Friday and Saturday you’ll find him at Memories in Margate, where he has hosted the original live radio dance party since 1972. (You can catch the show live on KOOL 98.3.)
Blavat had wrapped up his popular television program about a year earlier when Phil Matalucci, who often caught The Geator’s show at the Elbow Room (the venue that became Memories in Margate), approached him during a break at his appearance. The partners who were leasing the Elbow Room on Amherst Avenue at that time had apparently run into some financial difficulties. Although they made sure that Blavat was current, he worried about the reputation they were developing.
It didn’t take much to convince Blavat about Avalon and Seven Mile Beach. Already renowned throughout the Delaware Valley with a growing national reputation, he knew Cape May County well. A fixture at dances in Ocean City and at the Starlight Ballroom in Wildwood, he spent several summers operating dances for Bob Horn, the creator of “American Bandstand,” at the Avalon Pier on the Avalon Boardwalk.
As he tells it now, some 60 years later, Horn, who preceded Dick Clark as the “American Bandstand” host, would drop him off on what was then Third Avenue in Avalon on his way to Wildwood.
“I’d walk up the sandy, unpaved street to the Avalon Pier on the boardwalk,” he says. “The place was always packed. The Marine Ballroom was over top of the movie theater. After the show I’d pack up and walk back down the street and wait for Bob to pick me up. There weren’t many streetlights then. It was dark!”
Then, Blavat and Horn would head back down south on Third Avenue into Stone Harbor. “Bob had a boat docked in Stone Harbor, with a cabin – right at the foot of the bridge coming over from Wildwood. That’s where I’d sleep.”
His accommodations were a bit more stable in the summer of 1972. “I stayed at the century-old Avalon Hotel,” he says. “Rooms with big windows facing the ocean but the only bathroom was at the end of a long hallway. I’d walk down there with my towel around me to take a shower. Phil would come chasing after me saying, ‘Jerry! You can’t walk down the hall with just a towel on! You’ll get us in trouble.’
“Phil was always nervous,” he remembers with a laugh and a smile after all of these years.
“On Friday nights I’d play the lounge at the Avalon Hotel. Then, on Saturday Phil had me appear at what then was the beginning of the Rock Room in the Princeton Hotel.”
The Rock Room would reach a pinnacle in the late 1970s and early 1980s – but The Geator was there in the beginning. “We had great crowds at both places,” he added. “We kept that schedule for the entire summer. I’d spin the hits that everyone wanted to dance to from 9 until last call around 1 – they had to be closed by 2.
“Phil was a great guy to work for,” Blavat recalls. “He watched everything very closely and he cared about making memorable experiences for people who visited his establishments. That’s why he was so successful with his operations. And Phil loved me. And I still think the world of him.
“We continued weekends into September. That’s when the owner of the Elbow Room approached me. They wanted me to buy the club. We settled on a price and the deal was that I’d pay them cash up front and then pay off the remainder as the seasons went along. I had it paid off after two summers – and, of course, I renamed the club Memories in Margate.”
He goes on to explain his choice for the club’s name: “At the time there weren’t a lot of venues booking the great older groups. But people loved to dance to live music, so we booked them. That’s where the name Memories came from. This was the place for memories!”
Blavat would make his way back to The Princeton again several years later, appearing weekly in a more intimate venue that Matalucci called Uncle Philsie’s Lounge. Jerry Blavat spinning the hits and a fried shrimp basket from The Princeton’s kitchen for just $1.99. “Phil knew what his customers wanted,” Blavat adds with a smile.
In more recent years, it’s been standing room only when Blavat headlines a fall weekend each year for the Avalon Performing Arts Council at the Avalon Community Hall.
And with so much having changed since the summer of 1972, one thing that has remained a constant is “The Geator with the Heater,” “The Boss with the Hot Sauce,” “The Man with the Plan” – however you know him. He’s still rockin’ – and as strong as ever.