At the height of disco in the late 1970s, Larry LaFreniere and some friends had a band playing ’50s songs in Lubbock.
They needed a drummer and he found one from a pilot training class at then-Reese Air Force Base – Reza Pahlavi, then Iran’s crown prince and son of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who was soon to be overthrown by the Islamic revolution.
That drummer is the same man who recently on news show “60 Minutes” was willing to play a role in a transitional government if the Islamic regime in his native country loses power.
Pahlavi is back in the news since the United States and Israel began an ongoing bombing campaign in Iran – leading the Islamic leadership to attack American and Israeli targets, along with other Middle East countries.
He was charming.
larry Lafreniere
LaFreniere and Alan Henry, former Lubbock mayor, shared their memories of the time Pahlavi lived in a very nice home in Lubbock’s Tanglewood neighborhood.
LubbockLights.com reached out to Pahlavi – who has lived in Los Angeles for years – more than once using the news media contact form on his website. We did not get a response.
“He was charming,” said LaFreniere.
“He was just a guy going through pilot training, like all of us. … It wasn’t until after the shah fell when we kind of put it all in a historical perspective and said, ‘Wow, we just had a brief brush with royalty here,’” LaFreniere said.
Pahlavi’s father, the shah, left Iran on January 16, 1979 and the monarchy collapsed the next month.
Henry was not yet mayor of Lubbock – but mayor pro tem.
“I was privileged to go to several events, several occasions with the crown prince,” Henry said.
“He had almost, you’d say, a regal bearing, very formal, but he was very approachable. And a young man like that, that’s hard to find both of them. But he was, you could tell, somebody special … And he was a great host,” Henry said.
Tied to current events
Pahlavi recently said he does not want to be shah or king of Iran if the current hardline Islamic leaders lose power. But Pahlavi told CBS “60 Minutes” reporter Scott Pelley in a March 1 report he’d like to be part of a transition government.
Pelley is from Lubbock, having started his journalism career at the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, KLBK and then KSEL (now KAMC).
Pelley and Pahlavi, the one-time Lubbock resident, met in Paris, France for the “60 Minutes” interview.
It’s like elation. It was like, Oh my God! It has finally occurred. Maybe this is it. This is our chance now.’
Reza pahlavi
Pahlavi reacted to the bombing of his home country with optimism. He’s opposed to the Islamic government that forced his father from power.
“It’s like elation. It was like, Oh my God! It has finally occurred. Maybe this is it. This is our chance now,” Pahlavi told Pelley.
“To us it’s liberation. To us, it’s like a humanitarian intervention to protect lives that could otherwise continue to be lost,” Pahlavi also said.
Pahlavi, like many others, accused the ayatollahs of human rights abuses and organizing terrorist attacks worldwide. Pelley challenged Pahlavi during the interview about his father’s reputation for cruelty as well.
Pahlavi answered, “Look, my father left Iran voluntarily to avoid bloodshed.”
Pahlavi has called for demonstrations and does what he can to organize Iranians in exile around the world. President Trump has not ruled out a role for Pahlavi should the Islamic government fall, but Trump has not endorsed Pahlavi either.
He played the drums
The U.S. and Iran, before the fall of the shah, were military allies. Iranian Imperial Air Force pilots sometimes trained in the U.S. Pahlavi was not the only Iranian to have trained at Reese over the years.
LaFreniere, who was also doing training at Reese, said, “My friends in his class got to know him well. We had … been in a little ’50s band. … Reza played the drums. We didn’t have our drummer.”
“He found out, we had guitarists and vocalists, we didn’t have a drummer. And he just was like, ‘Hey, I can hook you guys up.’ … So, we went to his house, and we played twice with him in our little ’50s band. And that’s how I got to know him face-to-face, other than just seeing him around on the flight line,” LaFreniere said.
The songs included “Hound Dog” and “Rock Around the Clock” and Beach Boys tunes too, LaFreniere said.
“We were at the height of the disco era. ‘Saturday Night Fever’ was featured, that kind of show. Our little band was kicked off in college because of movies like ‘American Graffiti’ and Sha-Na-Na and those guys,” LaFreniere said.
Pahlavi had a room not being used for anything else, LaFreniere said, and that’s where he had his drums set up.
The community in general just really adopted him more or less as – at that point I would say – he was probably our most famous resident.
alan henry
“We’re walking on these rugs. We’re going, ‘Yeah, these are legit Persian rugs, aren’t they?’ Yeah, they are. Everything in this house was what you might expect of a royal,” LaFreniere said.
“It was a beautiful house – big, wide-open staircases, lots of gold, ornamental kind of things, paintings, art. It was well decorated. If that was your house, you would be proud of it. But we didn’t tour it. We just came in,” LaFreniere said.
Henry described the home as being in “West Lubbock” and gave an address along 21st Street near Vicksburg Avenue – the Tanglewood area of Lubbock.
“The community in general just really adopted him more or less as – at that point I would say – he was probably our most famous resident,” Henry said.
“I think that basically the sentiments in Lubbock were that we had a good impression of the prince, the crown prince and had no reason not to have a good impression of the family,” Henry said.
Pahlavi remembers Lubbock
A 2018 Caprock Chronicles article in the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal by John McCullough detailed Pahlavi’s Lubbock memories.
McCullough quoted Pahlavi as saying, “As far as my memories go for Lubbock, I must tell you that it was for me both a place where I felt at home and at the same time a place very far from home.”
“The community affection and support has always been in my memory and forever will be as long as I shall live. So, therefore, the house itself was kind of interesting because it was a typical one-story house in the neighborhood but with a pool in the back, which was great because in the summertime we enjoyed some nice barbeques – Iranian style,” Pahlavi was quoted as saying.
As the Islamic revolution began to take hold in his home country, Pahlavi began to stay at Reese rather than the house.
“I immediately recall some neighbors showing up with their cowboy hats and they said, ‘Don’t worry. Even the State Department can’t cover it completely, and we will be here as a backup, if necessary.’ That was good,” Pahlavi said in McCullough’s article.
When the Shah fell
LaFreniere and Henry both remembered what it was like when the monarchy fell to the Islamic Revolution.
LaFreniere said, “I’m still in pilot training at the time of this happening. So, I’m going in and the base is locked down. That’s not normal. There’s extra security. Everybody has to show ID.”
“And by the end of that day, the gate out by Reese was packed with Tech students protesting. … So that made even tighter security, because that’s a pretty narrow street,” LaFreniere said.
Those protests were against Pahlavi’s father, the shah.
Henry said, “My office at that time was on 34th Street, and there was a group of, I’d say, 100 or so folks that were demonstrating against the shah and kind of marched down 34th Street.”
LaFreniere said the Air Force gave instructions.
“We were all told, basically, just say nothing,” LaFreniere said.
He stayed at Reese for six more years as an instructor pilot. Having married his wife Susan from Lubbock, he went to seminary in Dallas, then took a job with Texas Instruments. He moved to Colorado after that and came back to Lubbock in 2006 – taking a job with Cox Communications. He since helped start a company (Quext) and retired.
Reese was decommissioned in 1997.
“Years later, I saw him on TV for the first time and I was like, ‘Hey, it’s Reza Pahlavi,’” LaFreniere said.
“We never did honor him as royalty, except when we did come to his house. It was just amazing. He did have a little entourage here with him,” LaFreniere said.
