"You got it, baby," croons the Kandyman, launching into a soulful version of "Feelings" by request, albeit one that interpolates the Sex Pistols. The girl in green, that dowdy middle age season ticket holder from East Moline, walks away happy if slightly confused. She forms just part of the stadium entourage of park organist Lawrence K. Samuels. "Now I'm Kandyman, and Kandyman is back," the man intones over the soft key backdrop of Cornershop. Later, in the doldrums of another Greens' laugher, Samuels gets inventive, dovetailing Barry White and Sammy Davis, Jr.: "You're the first, you're the last, the Candyman can. Oh yeah."
"The way I see it," he explains when the game is over, "the people have a right to be entertained. But I mix it up, get the folks to turn their heads to the pressbox and holler maybe." Fans here don't get "Y.M.C.A." with their "Take Me Out to Ballgame," the only traditional ballpark tune that the Kandyman plays. Seventh-inning stretch at Moline Park is as likely to feature Brahms, Fats (Waller or Domino), the Dixie Dregs, or Citizen King. And though he was as sad about the events of 9/11 as the next soul kitchen chef, he never bowed to the trend of playing "God Bless America" during the seventh inning stretch. "There's no song I can pull from this machine that's gonna make a God's bit of difference to those dead people in New York, so let's just do our own thing." The crowds backed him, as they have warmed to his iconoclasm over the years. "Once I played the people a slice of old John Cage. They didn't know whether to cry for me or grin." During the Dizzy Bat Race, he'll shun Tommy Roe for 10cc. "The things we do for love, indeed," murmurs Samuels. "Ain't that a shame."
The Kandyman brings strong credentials to his job as park organist. "I was playing 'Heart and Soul' on the piano when I was 10. Since then, I've spent a whole lotta time working out on those electronic keyboards. I know what I'm doing up here." Is it hard to adjust to playing a church organ at the ballpark? "No, man, not at all. It gives the whole game a religious feel, you know, very uplifting, spiritual. I get comments about that all the time."
Into each life a little rain must fall, and the trickle of criticism that accompanies the Kandyman has everything to do with his choice of music. He's heard it before. "Hey, man, you want the usual ballpark fare, you truck up the river to Dubuque or down to Hannibal. That's minor league cliche. We don't do that here." As for charges that he landed the job because he's related to Greens general manager Rolf Samuels, the Kandyman bristles. "Say I don't play by the usual baseball rules, say that, okay, call me iconoclastic, sure, but to attack me with charges of nepotism, man, that just ain't right."
Away from the park, Samuels keeps himself busy with his four daughters, "the sunshine of my life," he says. He runs an independent computer consulting company on the side that pays for the "considerable expense of keeping the girls happy." The Kandyman also gigs with local blues band Blue Collar and, on occasion, even fills in for the regular organist at the Colona Church of Love. "Good shit, man. Life is all right."