Celebri-T-Shirt Auction Shows Who’s on Top in Pop

Friday night’s third annual Celebri-T-Shirt Auction at the San Diego Omni Hotel downtown raised close to $50,000 for the Storefront, San Diego County’s only emergency shelter for homeless youth.

The auction also provided a good indication of who counts and who doesn’t of the more than 200 pop stars whose autographed T-shirts were sold to the highest bidder.

The late Roy Orbison certainly counts. The winning bid of $1,275 for a shirt he signed last October at the Starlight Bowl, just six weeks before his death, set an all-time record, topping the $1,200 paid for an autographed Bruce Springsteen T-shirt at the inaugural 1987 auction.

Far behind, but still in the Top Five, were shirts signed by Jimmy Buffett ($725), the Beach Boys ($650), the Grateful Dead ($625), and Sammy Davis Jr./Dean Martin/Frank Sinatra ($600).

There were several surprises. Neil Diamond’s autographed T- shirt went for $300, considerably less than what scalpers charged for front-row tickets to his three San Diego Sports Arena appearances last month.

And Bob Dylan might be one of rock’s few true legends, but the bidding for his autographed T-shirt stopped at $200. Bringing in bigger dollars were shirts signed by Bon Jovi ($350), George Michael ($320), Sting ($300), Guns ‘n’ Roses (also $300), Madonna ($275), the Everly Brothers ($260) and even Three Dog Night (also $260).

San Diegans appear to have a soft spot in their hearts for the Beat Farmers, one of the few local rock bands represented at the auction. The group’s autographed T-shirt sold for $80, the same as shirts signed by Billy Joel, Jackson Browne, Whitney Houston, and Rush--and more than shirts signed by Bryan Ferry ($70), Willie Nelson ($55), Judas Priest ($50), the Fat Boys ($36), and 50 or so other pop luminaries.

Tied for last place, without a single bid: T-shirts signed by Nils Lofgren, Ronnie Laws, the Mighty Lemon Drops, the Nylons, Three (the descendant of Emerson, Lake and Palmer), the Tubes, the Violent Femmes, Wasted Talent and Wayne Newton.

Legendary Motown hit machine the Four Tops will be appearing Friday night at Humphrey’s on Shelter Island to kick off the eighth annual Concerts by the Bay series.

Over the last 35 years, the Four Tops--led by the gruff-voiced Levi Stubbs--have scored nearly two dozen Top 40 hits, most of them dramatic love songs like “Reach Out I’ll Be There,” “Standing in the Shadows of Love,” “Bernadette” and “Seven Rooms of Gloom.”

The four original members met at a party in Detroit in 1953 and soon began singing around town as the Four Aims. After a name change to the Four Tops, the quartet--Stubbs, Renaldo Benson, Lawrence Payton, and Abdul Fakir--was signed to Chess Records in 1956 but didn’t meet with much commercial success until hooking up with Berry Gordy Jr. and his Motown Records label in 1964.

Their first Top 40 hit, “Baby I Need Your Loving,” came out in June and peaked at number 11; ; a year later, they topped the charts for the first time with “I Can’t Help Myself.”

The Four Tops’ hit streak ended in 1973 with “Ain’t No Woman (Like the One I’ve Got),” and they spent the rest of the decade grinding out oldies in small nightclubs and Las Vegas showrooms until their 1981 comeback hit, “When She Was My Girl,” put them back in the pop-music mainstream.

LINER NOTES: With the success of his new single, “239-KING,” Mojo Nixon is getting plenty of press these days. And how does the rest of the country view the local loony tunesmith? USA Today describes him as a “ribald folksinger/satirist.” The Oakland Tribune calls him a “preaching, ranting, rockabilly-ing guitar-pounder.” And the Gavin Report, a national radio trade paper, says Nixon is “a folk hero, . . . a cross between Spike Jones, Elvis Presley, and George Thorogood.”. . .

Tom Waits showed up at the La Jolla Playhouse last Sunday night for the opening of “The Grapes of Wrath.” The gravel-voiced singer-songwriter has previously worked with the Steppenwolf Theatre Company, which originated the show--based on the John Steinbeck novel--in Chicago. . . .

Cox Cable will begin airing a series of monthly pay-for-view concerts, broadcast live from locations all over the country. The series starts May 23 with Wayne Newton, live from the Las Vegas Hilton. The show starts at 7 p.m. and will cost $14.95. . . .

Just added to the Del Mar Fair’s 1989 grandstand concert lineup: Guitar Legends, 2 and 7:30 p.m., June 25; disco dandies Stevie B and the Sweet Sensations, 7:30 p.m., June 26; gospel duo BeBe and CeCe Winans, 7:30 p.m., June 28; the Dukes of Dixieland, 2 p.m., June 29; and pop singer Sheena Easton, 7:30 p.m., July 1. The Guitar Legends show features axmen from such vintage rock groups as Bachman-Turner Overdrive, the Doors, Montrose, Spirit, the Leslie West Band, and Wishbone Ash. . . .

Chet Atkins has canceled his June 22 appearance at Humphrey’s on Shelter Island; Acoustic Alchemy will carry on alone. Also off the books is the July 23 concert by Sergio Mendes.