"Fred was good friends with my kid brother Terry at the time. Fred started coming around to the Seaquarium where I was training dolphins for the Flipper TV series. He was interested in dolphins and diving. At that time, I had five dolphins to care for. Whenever I had to go to the Bahamas to do the underwater filming, I would leave Fred babysitting some of the dolphins that I left behind. Fred, Bob Ingram and Bob's lovely mermaid girl friend at the time, Gay Idema, now his wife Gay Ingram, would all spend time with the dolphins while I was gone. Fred had the patience of a saint, which made him the perfect dolphin babysitter. I remember watching Fred with his head under the water with bubbles coming out all around, trying to sing to the dolphins underwater. He would come by all the time and would bring his friends to play music for the dolphins... I remember Joni Mitchelli, Gerry Mulligan, Rambling Jack Eliott, even Timothy Leary and several other far out people. I was always getting in trouble because of this. I was working for MGM, NBC and the Miami Seaquarium and though I had lots of privacy. This was the early sixties, and long hair was starting, and people were wondering what all these long hairs were doing, tripping around the grounds. Felix Pappalardi, Cass Elliot, Denny Doherty from the Mamas and the Papas, David Crosby, all these people were coming around with Fred to hanging out and playing music to the dolphins.. Those were great times. I knew Fred more as a diver and someone who was interested in dolphins than a musician. He seemed more interested in what I was doing than in what he himself was doing at the time. Fred would come in there for days and play his 12 string his guitar. The dolphins would come up and tap the guitar when he played certain chords.....Fred always said it was the tone that attracted them, I don't know what anything of it meant but that's what he would do. He wanted to communicate with the dolphins with musicr... Dr. John Lilly had done research into communicating with dolphins but nobody had tried with music before. Fred pioneered that work with the dolphins and with Hugo, the killer whale at the Miami Seaquarium". (Ric O'Barry interviewed by Henry Llach, fn.com, 2003).
Tags: With stills
