August 20, 2009

Birmingham guitarist Rick Carter is one weary fellow. He’s performing solo on a Sunday afternoon at a Five Points South bistro where the patrons are more interested in conversation and eating lunch than listening to some fellow strum a guitar and sing. “And I thought I was an artist,” Carter says with a touch of cynicism as he extends a hand after finishing his set. He is worked every joint imaginable in 40 years of playing music, so he simply rolls with the punches. Though evening audiences ripe on alcohol are no doubt preferable, Carter remains the consummate professional in the face of mid-afternoon apathy, even if he does keep an eye on the clock in anticipation of quitting time.

It’s no wonder he’s tired. A few hours earlier, Carter finished a set in Auburn at 4 a.m. with his popular bluegrass trio Rollin’ in the Hay, returning to Birmingham around 7 a.m. By noon he was setting up gear for the Sunday afternoon job. “I’m gonna go home and take a nap,” he sighed after finishing his set, desperate for some much-needed sleep before his rockabilly-swing band Frankie Velvet and the Mighty Veltones take the stage six hours later at Metro Bistro for their weekly Sunday night gig.

“I started playing music in 1966,” he says on a recent afternoon at his Shelby County home, where an American flag is proudly displayed in the front yard throughout the year. “The first money I ever made as a musician was in 1967, when I was 14. I was playing with my band the Invaders in a teen club at Shaw Air Force Base in Sumter, South Carolina.” Carter’s father was a career Air Force officer. (The Hawkins B. Carter American Legion Post 235 in Fultondale is named in his honor.) The family moved to the Philippines in 1968, where Carter formed a band called The Great Wind Controversy.

	I walked into my little dressing room and there stands Bob Dylan. He says, “Hey Rick, that’s pretty crafty using that Band song to finish the set.”

“We chose that name because it sounded psychedelic,” he says, laughing. “We played Steppenwolf, did a lot of soul stuff like ‘The Letter,’ ‘Sittin’ on the Dock of the Bay.’ I played a Farfisa organ and we all wore matching clothes. In the Philippines, you got your clothes made because you didn’t really have access to new clothes unless you ordered out of the Sears, Roebuck catalog, and whatever you ordered took six months to arrive. So it was easier just to get a Sears catalog and tell a tailor, ‘I want that shirt or those pants,’ and the tailor would custom make you a shirt for a dollar.”

 

The band became fairly popular. “We got to be pretty big on all the military bases in the Philippines and we went on the Filipino TV equivalent of ‘American Bandstand.’ We were the only American band that had ever been on that show. We had to take my family’s maid with us ’cause we didn’t have a work permit to allow us to be paid by Filipinos. So they had to pay the maid and she gave the money to us.”

By 1970, Carter was living in Selma, Alabama, where his father was stationed at Craig Air Force Base. There he started the band Truffle and added Allman Brothers songs to the set. “We played all that dual guitar stuff,” he says. “I learned every Dickey Betts lick. In Selma, there was the Ramshack where they had high school dances. But at Craig Air Force Base, you had a teen club, an officer’s club, an NCO club—all those private parties. So there really was a nice little thriving music scene in Selma.” (A rival band with whom Truffle competed for jobs was The Born Losers, which boasted future HealthSouth founder and convicted felon Richard Scrushy as a member.)

“In 1975, I got the dream job of a lifetime—playing the Ramada Inn in Selma in the house band, six nights a week with Larry Hall and The Summer Breeze,” Carter says. “We had to wear powder blue leisure suits and got to live at the Ramada Inn, and each band member had his own room. I got paid $145 a week. We walked down the hall to work. All the food was free because the restaurant was right there. I don’t think we even drank much back then, maybe beer. But we never had to pay for that. We played that gig from June ’75 till March of ’76 before it dried up, which was a heartbreaker. I knew I had to do something, so I moved to Birmingham.”

The High Life
In Birmingham, Carter landed a job selling ice cream from a popsicle truck. He started Telluride in 1977, and the band soon established a following at the Wooden Nickel, now known as The Nick. “By that summer, Telluride was doing so well that I quit my day job and started playing music full time, which I’ve done for 32 years now.” For a bar band, Telluride traveled with an impressive amount of equipment. “We were the only [bar] band that had an 18-wheeler. We wanted to have the biggest show we could,” Carter explains. “We wanted to have the biggest light system, the biggest P.A. system. People thought, ‘Man, they must be the best band around. Have you seen the size of their truck?’ We had a four-man crew that loaded and unloaded the thing. It was a full-blown production. In the ’80s, it was the show, baby! The more lights you had, the better you sounded to audiences. That wasn’t necessarily the way it should be, but that’s the way it was.”

In his home recording studio, a couple of red Miller Beer guitars are mounted on the wall like museum pieces. “When Telluride was sponsored by Miller in ’85 and ’86, you had to have all the Miller signage up [in each venue]. All the beers on the stage had to have the labels pointed out toward the audience,” Carter remembers. “We had to play the Miller guitar and the Miller bass on at least one song a night. So, we’d do ‘Bad to the Bone’ and we’d play the slide guitar parts with Miller beer bottles. It was actually very advantageous to us. We sent [Miller] our calendar, and by the time we got to the gig, they already had us set up for radio interviews, record store appearances, backstage meet-and-greets, all that kind of stuff. They would fly us up to Milwaukee and do symposiums and teach us how to do interviews and all the basic things you need to know about media etiquette or how to say the right thing and how not to sound stupid, basically. And they’d give us a nice, big check.”

	“We were the only bar band that had an 18-wheeler. People thought, ‘Man, they must be the best band around. Have you seen the size of their truck?’”

Telluride was playing at Louie Louie’s in Five Points South in 1985 when a familiar-looking piano player walked into the bar. “Nicky Hopkins [former pianist for the Rolling Stones, among other bands] was in town on a promotional tour for a book called Battlefield Earth by L. Ron Hubbard,” Carter recalls. (Hopkins had played on a soundtrack album of the same name that Scientology founder Hubbard had produced to promote the novel. The book was later made into a movie starring John Travolta.) Hopkins asked to sit in with the band. After the set, he invited Telluride to play with him at a record convention in the Cayman Islands. Essentially, Telluride would be working for the Church of Scientology. Carter was skeptical that the trip would ever materialize. “Hopkins took all my contact info, and about a week later my mother called me and goes, ‘There’s a package here for you from FedEx,’ and I said, ‘Well, open it up.’ She does and it’s 12 tickets to the Cayman Islands. So I called our booking agent and told him to cancel all our shows because we’re going to the Cayman Islands. Oh, he was all in an uproar, saying, ‘You can’t do that, you can’t cancel Louie Louie’s or whatever it was.”

“The Cayman Island trip was awesome. But we didn’t know too much about the Church of Scientology at the time,” Telluride co-founder and guitarist Moose Harrell recalls in an interview from his Nashville home. “I feel like Telluride really set a standard for the way to be successful in that era, even if we didn’t hit mainstream success,” Harrell says. “We were a good, living example of what hard work and dedication can do for you. A lot of it came from Rick, he has an exceptional amount of drive. He’s always been a real professional. A lot of the stuff that Telluride did, and the way we did it, carry over into my life today, too. But we had more fun than anybody has a right to in 37 lifetimes.”

In 1994, Carter formed Rollin’ in the Hay. “Moose had quit Telluride, so we had replaced him with Barry Waldrep, who was really a bluegrass player,” Carter says. “He and I would sit around in hotel rooms and play bluegrass. So I thought if we could add a bass player, we could go out and pick up some extra money. We hit some kind of strange, odd niche, because within two or three years, that thing got huge. It just swallowed Telluride. We were doing Monday, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays. And then we were getting offers for Fridays and Saturdays, and were making three times what Telluride was making per night. It was time to get off the road with Telluride. Rollin’ in the Hay was right before O Brother, Where Art Thou? and all that kind of stuff.”

Rollin’ in the Hay scored a contract with CMH Records to record for the label’s “Pickin’ On” series, which featured bluegrass instrumental versions of songs from popular bands played by studio musicians and bands like Rollin’ in the Hay. “We did right around 20 of those Pickin’

 

On CDs,” Carter says. “Pickin’ On the Allman Brothers, Dolly Parton, Neil Diamond, Tim McGraw, R.E.M., Travis Tritt, all kinds of things like that. But the biggest one that we did was Pickin’ On Widespread Panic. When Telluride used to play Athens, Georgia, every time we’d go into the frats, there was always these three guys that didn’t look like frat boys hanging around. And we used to do the best Allman Brothers. That was my inspiration. So, one night I finally asked these three guys, ‘Who are you guys? You’re obviously not in a fraternity.’ And they said, ‘Oh, we got this little acoustic thing going called Widespread Panic.’ And I was like, ‘Well, good luck to you.’ And then years later, I’m doing a Pickin’ On Widespread Panic CD. That one busted us loose with that jam band genre. So now, Rollin’

in the Hay is the breadwinner. We get airplay in the British West Indies, Japan, The Netherlands, Germany.”

Business, as Usual
“I got a check one time for foreign royalties for my song ‘Sail Away’ that I wrote in Selma,” Carter recalls with a grin. “Telluride recorded it. The check was for a bunch of money, so I called BMI and said, ‘Are you sure this is for me?’ It was for foreign royalties, which can come in two or three years later than the actual play period,” he explains. “We had a hit with that song in Europe and never knew it until after the fact, because if we had known that, we’d have gone over there. I bought a National steel guitar with that check, so I can always say I bought that guitar with a song. The license plate on my Corvette says ‘SONGS.’ That’s what bought it, songs and royalty checks. I wrote a song called ‘Redneck Girl’ and my wife at the time said, ‘Don’t ever play that song for anybody. That’s the stupidest song I’ve ever heard.’ So I gave it to J. Hawkins at the Florabama [Lounge]. He always played those kind of nasty songs, silly songs. He was playing at the Florabama one time and Jeff Foxworthy came in. Foxworthy has a record label called Laughing Hyena. They do all those CDs you see at truckstops and convenience stores that say ‘Truckers’ Favorites.’ Well, ‘Redneck Girl’ ended up on one of those. Turns out I get this big giant royalty check for that song, and I showed it to my wife and she goes, ‘You are kidding me! Somebody bought that?’ And I told her, ‘More than one person bought it, baby.’

“To say that I’m addicted to work would be an understatement. I love to play music but I also have always understood the business aspect of it,” Carter admits. “But you do have to ultimately have the songs. If you don’t have the songs, you’re just another band. If you want to eat, it just depends on how good you want to eat. And I always wanted to eat steak. But ultimately I always wanted to just play music. And the more I played music, the happier I was. That’s why if you play with me, you’re gonna work. Rollin’ in the Hay just did seven shows in seven days in seven cities, and I’m 55. So I haven’t slowed down in that department.”

Bob Dylan, Bo Diddley, and Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown
Rick Carter’s first solo record was Loveland. He assembled a large entourage of local musicians and singers he dubbed the Loveland Orchestra that opened for Bob Dylan. “We did four shows opening for Dylan in ’93 and ’94. For the show in Huntsville, I told the band, ‘Let’s close with “The Weight.” We’ve got all these voices and everybody can sing really well, and by then everybody’s ready for Bob, so that’ll kind of secure our success as the opening act if we play that song and do it well.’ I walked into my little dressing room after we came off stage and there stands Bob Dylan. He walks up to me and says [nasal voice], ‘Hey Rick, that’s pretty crafty using that Band song to finish the set.’”

Carter developed a friendship with late jazz and blues guitar legend Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown. “We were playing in Slidell, Louisiana, at a barbecue joint, and Gatemouth had a little piece of the place [as part-owner]. Rollin’ in the Hay used to play there and Gatemouth lived nearby and used to come hear us and sometimes sit in on fiddle,” Carter says. “He used to tell me that his favorite food was grape jelly. One day he called me when he was in Birmingham playing a blues festival downtown, and told me to come eat dinner with him. So I went backstage and they were bringing the catered food in. Sure enough, they bring in a big jar of Welch’s grape jelly. We’re having catfish, green beans, and baked potatoes, and Gatemouth takes about a quarter of that jar of jelly and drops it right in the middle of that catfish. I said, ‘Damn, grape jelly on catfish?’ And he said, ‘Didn’t I tell you I love grape jelly? Grape jelly is on top of everything I eat!’”

Carter once booked bands for the Star Dome when it was a music venue (before becoming the Comedy Club). His chores included an afternoon spent babysitting Bo Diddley. “Bo Diddley and I went into Mike’s Pawn Shop at Christmas time, and there was this guy buying his son a guitar and amp. And the guy goes, ‘Damn, Bo Diddley!’ And Bo said, ‘That’s right.’ And the guy said, ‘I’m buying my son a guitar, which one should I get?’ And Bo said, ‘Well, don’t buy that red one! Get that black one, don’t buy no red guitar.’ And I’ll be damned, because I’ve seen pictures of him for years where he played that red Bo Diddley guitar. Guess he didn’t want anybody else to have a red guitar. Then Bo said, ‘Watch this. I guarantee you he’s gonna ask me to sign it.’ So the guy asked him to sign it and Bo turned to me and goes, ‘I told you.’

“Back at the hotel, he wanted some barbecue, so I went to Golden Rule. And this is a sight I’ll never forget. I knocked on the door with his barbecue, and Bo opened the door and he was in a pair of boxer shorts and cowboy boots, no shirt, and he’s go that damn cowboy hat with ‘Bo’ on it. I gave him the barbecue and he said ‘Thanks,’ and slammed the door, didn’t even ask me in.”

His career in music has afforded Carter a comfortable lifestyle. While walking through his bedroom to look at some photos in his office, I did a double take at what I thought was a casket. It turned out to be a tanning bed. “I’m the weirdest guy in the world,” he laughs. “I have a refrigerator in my bathroom upstairs, I have a tanning bed in my bedroom, and a washer and dryer in the closet in my bedroom. At my age, I don’t want to have to walk downstairs to get a Coke, and I don’t want to have to drive to the tanning bed place, and I don’t want to have to walk downstairs to get my damn clothes. They’re all right here. I’ve got my rock ‘n’ roll crib.” &

When Earl Williams is amused, his low-key laughter eerily resonates through the room; he sounds like a chuckling Lou Rawls. Williams, a local guitarist and owner/operator of Intensive Care Beauty Salon in Bessemer, laughs when he explains the shop’s name. “I felt like a hair doctor. Everybody that was coming to me had problems. I think I started out that way; I was trying to save my own hair. So, if I could save myself, I could save others, too.”

Thirty years ago, Williams moved to Dallas, Texas, to play guitar with renowned rhythm & blues singer Johnnie Taylor, known for hits such as “Who’s Making Love? (To Your Old Lady),” “Cheaper to Keep Her,” and “Disco Lady.” By the mid-1980s, he was traveling with chitlin’ circuit legend Latimore, a popular singer on “party blues and oldies” radio stations. He quit the road life to open Intensive Care salon 23 years ago, but he still joins Latimore on stage whenever the singer plays in the area.

Williams learned guitar as a nine-year-old while hanging out at Gip’s Place, a Bessemer backyard juke joint that has been around since the 1950s (see “The Juke Joint,” August 7, 2008, at http://tinyurl.com/gips1). “I had started picking around, going to different friends’ houses who had a guitar,” he recalls. “And I chased the guitar around. One friend of mine, he had a guitar and he sold it and I started hanging out with the guy he sold it to. I learned how to play it. None of them ever learned to play it, but I kept following them around. And I’d go to Banks Pawn Shop down there and I’d just pick it up, go down there every other day. Some of the bluegrass guys showed me how to make chords.”

“I got my first job playing with a band when I was 13 when I played a Johnnie Taylor song, ‘I Got to Love Somebody’s Baby.’ So Johnnie Taylor’s kind of been in my past all the way. . . . We were called The Corruptors. We were doing blues, a lot of Johnnie Taylor. We had a female vocalist; we did the Supremes, Martha and the Vandellas, a lot of Motown stuff,” Williams says of his first band. “We played for all grown people. A bunch of old people who would be there, wouldn’t be nobody our age or nothing. We couldn’t go out and mingle, we always had to stay in the dressing room. It was kind of like in the Michael Jackson era when it was okay for kids to play.”

Williams was a bit of a renegade. “I listened to Jimi Hendrix a whole lot. I would have parties and I’d be the only musician playing Jimi Hendrix,” he remembers fondly. “Playing Hendrix, man, and drinking Boone’s Farm wine. Had the nets hanging out of the ceiling. I even had the Confederate flag in there. One of my friends was like, ‘Why you got that Confederate flag, man, what’s wrong with you?’”

	“I found myself making more money fixing hair in the hotel than I was making playing my guitar . . . you could make $500 for a haircut.”

The guitarist eventually formed the Afro Blues Band, which became the group Kalu. The band’s lead singer, Greg Miller (brother of former Birmingham City Councilor Bert Miller, according to Williams), left briefly to sing with Parliament. Soon Kalu saxophonist Lee Charles Mitchell moved to Texas to play with Johnnie Taylor, eventually inviting Williams to Dallas, where the guitarist joined Taylor’s band, Justice of the Peace, in the late 1970s.

Earl Williams worked at U.S. Steel for nearly 20 years before the Latimore job came along. There, he was a guitarist in a company bluegrass band. “We played parties for the superintendent of our plant. And the superintendent heard I’d written a song about a reprimand from him called a ’74.’ I wrote a song called the ’74 Blues.’ He caught me sleeping I don’t know how many times,” Williams remembers, laughing. “So this time I was thinking I was getting fired. I had to go to his office to play it for him. I got all those guys playing that bluegrass, banjos, and fiddles and everything, and he liked it so much he started throwing parties [with the band as the entertainment]. He created that group and called it the Swinging Sinners. So we just played for him all the time.”

After taking a leave of absence to go to Texas to play with Taylor, Williams was in for a shock. “Johnnie Taylor didn’t do a lot of playing when I was with him. He kind of went into a little refuge period there where he’d drink pretty heavy. . . . He’d go and start drinking before he’d get to the show. And most of the time he’d come with his eyes all red—he’d be loaded. And sometimes he couldn’t do more than two or three songs, too.”

Williams returned to Birmingham and U.S. Steel to work several more years before being laid off. Two weeks after losing his job, Latimore called to offer work to Williams and his blues band. “We had to be one of the only groups carrying our own equipment. We had our own sound system, and that’s part of why Latimore really wanted my band,” he admits. “Latimore was really what you would call a chitlin’-type circuit player to survive. His pay was always at the bottom of the totem pole,” the guitarist explains. “Latimore would lower his pay just to keep a job all the time. He always had a philosophy. He said, ‘I’d rather lower my price and play five nights than to have a high price and don’t play but one or two nights. I want to play, whether I’m getting the money or not. I gotta stay sharp.’”

Jheri Curl Days
Williams soon added band leader and management chores to his Latimore guitar duties. His biggest break, however, was when he began to style the singer’s hair. “I was just kinda launching me a new career when they came out with this new hairstyle, the Jheri curl,” recalls Williams. “Do you remember when whites were wearing their hair curly like—what’s that guy . . . “Welcome Back, Kotter”—was wearing his hair? Well, that curl was discovered by Jheri Redding, who was a white guy. And the blacks caught on to it and started wearing their hair real curly. That brought a lot of money into the hair industry. That’s when I joined up!”

Because the band stayed at the same hotels as other acts when appearing on big shows, B.B. King soon enlisted Williams’ hair-styling talents. “When we’d be backstage, they’d see Latimore’s hair and they’d say, ‘Hey, you got you a built-in beautician, huh?’ because I’d be following him around and be fixing on his hair. That’s how it all got started and word just kinda got around, and then one told another about it. . . . I found myself making more money fixing hair in the hotel than I was making playing my guitar. They paid on a celebrity level. On a celebrity level, you could make $500 for a haircut.”

“I was doing everybody’s ‘curl.’ I did B.B. King’s hair, I did Latimore’s hair, Johnnie Taylor, Tyrone Davis. I give them their very first [Jheri curl], because nobody really knew about it like I did,” says Williams. “See, they didn’t know what type rolls to use. I used to hang around white [barber] shops a lot—kind of grew up in a white shop, too—because I used to be a shoeshine guy in a white shop. I’d sit there and watch and learn how to cut Caucasian hair. So I was always a barber, and cosmetology, I’ve had that since I was a little kid.”

The Chitlin’ Circuit
“It used to be that they were letting the blues die. And B.B. King went on national TV and said that they were letting the blues die, and he was wondering why we’re not holding on to our heritage, why we don’t value our heritage and why are we letting the history go to nothing,” Williams recalls. “When he was interviewed about that, the whites embraced B.B. King, because at the time B.B. King was losing his slot as being the number one blues player. Z.Z. Hill was knocking him out of his number one spot. In ’83 and ’84, I used to do bookings, I used to put shows together myself. B.B. King was making $15,000 a night, and Z.Z. Hill was at $10,000.”

When asked to elaborate about the “chitlin’ circuit,” Williams laughs. “Chitlins have always been described as the ultimate soul food. If you can get the pig or not, you’ll take whatever you can get out there. You just kinda have to get out there and go for it. The thing is, you need a regular paycheck, ’cause if you don’t get out there for the chitlins, you won’t eat—’cause steak ain’t gonna be available but every once in a while. So you got to pick the chitlins up until you can get to [the steak], and keep yourself in shape. ‘Cause if you just sit down and get all out of shape, you can get forgotten about.”

When pressed for anecdotes from his days with Latimore, Williams picks up his cell phone and makes a call. “Hey Lat! I’m doing this interview and this guy wants to hear some phenomenal stories about the chitlin’ circuit,” Williams says as the distinctly deep-timbered chuckle of Benny Latimore comes from the speakerphone. Latimore is in Mississippi prepping for a cross-country trek to California, happy to oblige a request from his occasional guitarist. The pair laugh about a bass player who could sleep and play at the same time, and the night they played a run-down army barracks in Greenville, Mississippi, where the wiring was so poor that the band had to stop after every three songs to let the electrical circuit “cool back down” before they could resume playing. They chuckle about another former band member who, during tours, would go into housing projects in search of weed. “That was part of his diet,” adds Latimore over the phone, laughing while speculating that the musician was eating marijuana.

“Hey Lat, you gonna eat you some of that boudin while you down there in Louisiana? They make it out of cow blood, don’t they, Lat?” Williams asks. Latimore responds: “Yeah, some of it has got blood in it. You know, cooked blood! [laughs] Some of them places we played in, they had all kinds of things. They had ‘coon’ sandwiches. I don’t know if it was real raccoon or they just called it that or what. But I don’t think I even wanted to deal with that at all.” &

April 17, 2008

Birmingham Mayor Larry Langford’s mastery at communication often seems to hypnotize many members of the City Council. At the April 8 council meeting, even Councilor Joel Montgomery—who often resists freewheeling spending—was drinking Langford’s Kool-Aid. Montgomery and five other councilors supported allotting $48 million for the mayor’s proposed upgrade to Fair Park and the surrounding Five Points West district—which Langford says will cost a total of $90 million.(Councilor Roderick Royal voted against the proposal, Councilor Abbott abstained, Councilor Bell was absent.)Predictably, Councilor Valerie Abbott remained suspicious of Langford’s economic notions. “I’m in favor of this concept. However, you know me. I’m always waiting for those little details,” admitted Abbott. “And in this case, I just want to get to the bottom line. I would like to approve money to develop a plan today, but not necessarily to allocate all the money, because at this point I do not know exactly what the money will go for.” Langford’s redevelopment plan for Five Points West includes an Olympic-size swimming arena [natatorium], equestrian facilities, and an indoor track at Fair Park. Several businesses, including hotels and retailers, are scheduled to open in the immediate vicinity as part of the area’s economic revitalization. The bulk of the funds for this project will come, at least initially, from funds raised by the increase in business license fees approved by the council three months ago. Though at the time those funds were earmarked for construction of a domed stadium. According to Langford, monies would not be due until 18 months after construction on a domed stadium had begun. Until then, according to Langford’s plan, funds generated by the license fee increase will be the primary funding source for the Fair Park plan. Other funding for the revitalization project will come from a one-cent sales tax previously approved by the council for economic redevelopment, as well as money previously approved for Fair Park but never spent.

Regarding the development’s commercial versus its sports/athletic components, Abbott favors the latter, fearful that current Five Points West businesses might not be able to compete with new businesses. “I would like to see a redevelopment plan and a legal agreement, something we can sink our teeth into,” the councilor said as she also inquired about an ongoing operational funding source for Fair Park. Abbott also wants to know what the economic impact would be. That kind of information is often available whenever city economic development is proposed, but in this instance no economic impact study has been undertaken.

When Councilor Carol Duncan simply asked about the cost of the natatorium (or “swimming pool,” as Council President Carole Smitherman refers to the facility), Langford said the pool would cost about $12 million. “I’m not going to get emotional about any of this anymore. This is too long coming in this city,” said the mayor with obvious disgust. “Without the retail component out there, all we’ve done is build another stadium. You’re going to have to have the retail component in order to be sure that it is maintained. This area has so longly needed something out there. Let’s don’t piecemeal it. If you’re going to vote it, vote it . . . If the Council decides today that you don’t want to do it, that’s fine. I will not bring it back.”

Councilor Roderick Royal wanted to delay the item until after the council receives the 2009 budget in two months. “Since we are contemplating using business license fees—the money that we said to our taxpayers that we were going to use for the dome—the question is: how do you replace this money? And will that affect our ability whenever we do decide, or can build a large facility?”

“We must have about 17 different projects going on in this city,” Royal continued. “Now, I’m not a very smart guy but I will say this: we may need to stop and look at and evaluate how far we’re come. And whether or not any of those projects have really moved. Rather than just continuing to promise out and promise out. I don’t think that’s good fiscal management.” Royal proposed that the council “wait until we get the budget in hand so we can assess our fiscal health for next year and perhaps the following year. And so that we can also look at the evaluation of the 15 or 16 other projects that have been proposed and the Council, either tacitly or formally, has approved.”

Langford denied that money for the domed stadium is going to be used for Fair Park improvements. “The minute they let bids on this stadium, payments will become due 12 to 18 months later,” said Langford. “This city has the fortunate benefit today to be able to use those funds now to do these projects.”

Councilor Montgomery supports Langford’s Fair Park proposal because the money is available. “Councilor Hoyt, this is in your district, and I support you on this. And I don‘t care who likes it,” said Montgomery. “The bottom line is we need economic development in this city. There’s no question about it. That area has been neglected for the longest time. Now you can spin it any way you want to and try to make this look like we’re overspending up here. I don’t vote to overspend taxpayers’ money in this city!”

Council President Smitherman agreed that the council should seize the opportunity to redevelop the Five Points West area. “If we don’t take this money and put it over to the side, then we will never see a new Fair Park,” she said. “It won’t happen. We’ll just take that money and say, ‘Oh, we can go and repair some streets with that.’ Sure. We need it anyhow. Or we can go and we can do some other kind of economic development. And you look up and that money will be squandered all over the place.”

Smitherman believes that the Fair Park development will “spread development over in my area just like it will in everybody else’s area. It may be in Five Points West, but it’s going to have a ripple effect throughout the whole city of Birmingham . . .” She said that Fair Park will show critics that the council can do more than “bring a Wal-Mart.”

Councilor Royal later objected to Smitherman’s lack of adherence to proper parliamentary procedure. “And that means you are out of order again. And you just need to chill out. And that’s what I think,” Royal told the council president. Smitherman replied, “I think I need to use a gavel on you.” Royal again called for “point of order” once more, asking, “Madame President, is that a threat or some kind of assault?” To which Smitherman said, “Nah, I don’t go there, like you.”

• • •Holy Rollers

At the April 8 Birmingham City Council meeting, Mayor Larry Langford announced that he had ordered 2,000 burlap sacks for use at a citywide prayer meeting to combat crime. Langford displayed one of the burlap bags and said he will ask area ministers to participate in a “sackcloth and ashes” ritual as the Bible commands. “When cities—in the early part of the world’s history—when they had gotten so far from God, begun idol worship and all kinds of crazy stuff that we’re doing even today, that community came to its senses,” explained the mayor. “And the Bible tells us that they [wore] sackcloth and [put] ashes on their faces and they prayed. And God heard their prayer . . . To get this community back on the right track, we need to understand the power of prayer.”

Langford has worn his religion on his sleeve during his first four months as mayor and has led a Bible study group each Friday morning in the city council chambers. “I got a call from someone saying that I need to quit mentioning God’s name so much,” said Langford. “And so I politely asked them what in hell did they want? Because there must be something in hell we want because a lot of us are working real hard to get there . . . If you’ve got a problem with God, take it up with Him.” &

October 19, 2006 

“I guess Gene is just being Gene,” said Gene Simmons’ publicist with a sigh. She had called to apologize for a scheduling mix-up. “He sounds like he’s just going to do what he wants to do. He’s a nut, but a good nut. He’s like the CEO of a billion-dollar company.” Simmons was scheduled to call in the afternoon to promote his appearance at the Galleria. He is visiting to tout a new KISS line of colognes and perfumes entitled KISS Him and KISS Her. Instead, he called hours earlier, leaving a message that he had tried to do his part, was sorry it hadn’t worked out, and that maybe he’d try again.

In addition to playing bass for KISS, Simmons is a pompous, adolescent version of Hugh Hefner. Living for the past 23 years with former Playboy Playmate Shannon Tweed (the family has a hit reality TV show, “Gene Simmons’ Family Jewels” on A&E, similar to MTV’s The Osbournes), Simmons is a man addicted to marketing himself and his band. He boasts that he has slept with thousands of women, that he discovered Van Halen, dated Cher, and even managed the career of Liza Minnelli.

Simmons finally called back, and we talked through a poor cell phone connection as he drove from New York to Philadelphia. We discussed drugs, money, and underarm deodorant. He’s as arrogant on the telephone as he is on television. But that’s all right. We wouldn’t want him any other way.

Black & White: Is this Gene Simmons?

Gene Simmons: It is he. Are you near a computer? Just click on Genesimmons.com for the bio with the bullet points.

It’ll take just a few seconds here to pull up the internet.

You don’t have DSL? Why not? It’s the 21st century. You’re killing me. You know that? Where am I calling, Alabama or Kansas?

David Lee Roth said, “Money can’t buy happiness, but it can buy a boat big enough to sail right up next to it.” Is this pretty much your motto?

I discovered Roth. My reference point is actually a little easier. Margaret Thatcher said, “Money is the root of all evil.” Actually, it’s not. Lack of money is the root of all evil. Because if you don’t have money, you’ll do all kinds of things, including holding up a 7-Eleven. But if you’re a hundred million dollars liquid, why would you want to hold up a 7-Eleven?

How did you manage to stay off the drugs and booze during KISS’ heyday?

When I get down, I run my own race. Champions do, you know. If you’re a champion and you’re running a marathon, never look over your shoulder or in front of you, just run your own race. Because these rock ’n’ roll waters are shark-infested, and very few people who work in it are qualified to do anything else besides ask the next person in line, “Would you like some fries with that?” I only like to rub shoulders with the best of the best, because you’ll be judged by the company that you keep. I have never been high or drunk in my life, because that’s my decision for myself. Although I reserve your right to get on crack as often as you want. But don’t come to me with a hand out. I don’t want to hear any sob stories. . . . Speaking of rubbing shoulders with the best, there’s an entity called Gemini, which does fragrances and so on.

Okay, go ahead and hawk the KISS products.

I’m proud to say that we have this joint venture where the KISS fragrance line has just debuted so big and so fast it will whip your head around like a corkscrew. If you look at Women’s Wear Daily you will find that we’ve gotten the complete thumbs up from a very finicky and fickle—which are not bad things because these are semantics. And, of course, you know I’m not anti-semantic—you’ll see they have given us the thumbs up by putting us on the cover. That’s as much of a “Boy, these guys are cool” as you need to get . . . The products are intended for every crevice of your body.

Is it a full product line?

Creams, underarm deodorants, shampoos, fragrances for women. And we are going to be debuting something in a month or two. Maybe the powdery, glittery stuff that actually smells good that women love to do. You know, sometimes you don’t want to spray it on, you just want to sorta powder it on and have it glisten as well as smell good when he or she comes close.

Describe the fragrance.

It’s difficult to talk about taste. It’s like eating a steak. Describe it . . . When you describe a fragrance, you just have to experience it.

Have you always used a particular personal fragrance?

I haven’t really. And so far, I’ve been using daily the KISS underarm deodorant. My daughter, who is 14, uses the KISS fragrance every day, as a matter of fact. Let me tell you something, at 14 years of age, that’s as much credibility as you need . . . So far the fragrance has been gangbusters. I can spell that for you if you like.

Please.

G-A-N-G, baby . . . busters.

Is there anything you won’t attach the KISS name to?

As far as I’m concerned, planet Earth should be renamed KISS. The air you breathe should be KISS air, the ground you walk on should be hallowed KISS ground. There should be Kisstianity, the religion. No other brand’s got what we’ve got. Every other brand pretends to be what they are. Every other band is simply a band. We’re the only true rock ’n’ roll brand. Second only to Disney. We’ve got 2,500 licensed products. Everything from KISS condoms to KISS caskets. We’ll get you coming and we’ll get you going. &

Gene Simmons will be at Parisian at the Riverchase Galleria on Saturday, October 21, from 2 to 5 p.m. He will be signing packages of the new KISS fragrance. For more information call 987-4200.

September 07, 2006

(By J.R. Taylor, except where noted.)

Elf Power/Geoff Reacher

Tenacious D and “South Park” have already done it better, but Elf Power deserves credit for a dozen years of winsome prog folksiness. The band—or, more accurately, Andrew Reiger—can also claim to be the least irritating of the Elephant 6 collective. Does anyone remember the Elephant 6 collective? It was a group of bands who wanted to sound like the Beach Boys but played like Brian Wilson drooling in the sandbox.

Anyway, Back to the Web will probably be considered Elf Power’s big sell-out. The album was even released on Rykodisc, a label which has certainly been busy signing legitimate power-pop acts. To devotees, however, the band’s biggest sin will be recording a consistently fine collection of ’60s-inspired psychedelia that holds to a driving beat. But the band’s still addled enough to ask you to endure the cutesy cacophony of Geoff Reacher as an opening act. (Tuesday, September 12, at Bottletree; 9 p.m. $10; 18+.)

Kaki King

Even Herbie Hancock succumbed to trying to be a soul singer, so it’s no surprise to see a vocal turn by the reigning sexbomb of soulful, weepy, acoustic guitar. The only problem with …Until We Felt Red is that it deprives us of what made Kaki King so unique. Still, her wispy and gorgeous vocals aren’t overbearing—or even memorable. If you really like her singing, then you’ll be frustrated that she simply murmurs with the melody. If you don’t care for vocals, then her voice is easy enough to ignore. That’ll make everyone happy while they enjoy an evening of fine music to be put on hold to. (Thursday, September 14, at Zydeco; 10 p.m. $8-$10; 18+.)

Edwin McCain

Yes, a lot of his output sounds like a fatigued Allman Brothers finishing up a half-hour jam on a Dan Fogelberg tune. To his credit, though, McCain took being dropped from his major label as a challenge, and his recent albums have adapted his woodsy self-love into a setting for determined pop sounds. The new Lost in America turns McCain into a singles act for a decade that’ll never let him near the radio—not that standards were particularly high when he had his radio hit in the ’90s. (Thursday, September 14, at Workplay; 8 p.m. $20.)

Supersuckers

The New Bomb Turks had the good sense to break up, but The Supersuckers go on and on—although, to be fair, the Turks’ dissolution left The Supersuckers without much competition on the blaring, drunken punk front. The band is still worth seeing live. You just wouldn’t know it from the new Paid EP, where they’ve got nothing better to sing about than being a punk-rock band with country influences that long ago ceased to be shocking or interesting. Oh, well. If people cared about Supersuckers albums, then they wouldn’t be on the road yet again. (Thursday, September 14, at The Nick; $12. Eddie Spaghetti and Pacific Stereo open.)

Tony Joe White

With his distinctive Louisiana drawl, Tony Joe White defined rock ‘n’ roll soul music with his 1969 rhythm ‘n blues gem “Polk Salad Annie.”

While performing on the Texas-Louisiana roadhouse circuit in his early years, White’s musical world took an abrupt turn when he heard the Bobbie Gentry hit “Ode to Billie Joe,” which inspired White to give songwriting a shot. “I heard that song on the radio, and I thought, ‘Man, how real can it get. I am Billie Joe.’ So, I decided that if I ever was goin’ to sit down and try to write, I was goin’ to try to write somethin’ I knew about, and somethin’ that was real. And in a couple of weeks time I started on ‘Polk’ and ‘Rainy Night in Georgia.’”

In 1970, Brook Benton had a hit with White’s drop-dead gorgeous “Rainy Night in Georgia.” White has re-recorded the song for his latest CD Uncovered, which includes the late Waylon Jennings in one of his last recording sessions, as well as Mark Knopfler, J.J. Cale, and Eric Clapton. If you’ve never heard White sing “Rainy Night in Georgia” live in that irresistible, growling voice, it’s worth getting out of the house for. His prowess with an electric guitar, especially when played through a wah-wah pedal, is pretty seductive, too. —Ed Reynolds (Friday, September 15, at Workplay; 9 p.m. $12-$15.)

The Damnwells

Birmingham has probably already seen more of The Damnwells than anyone in the band’s hometown of Brooklyn has, but this would be a great show to catch for those who missed their five Birmingham shows last month. Air Stereo is out—on an indie label, no big surprise—and it’s a fine follow-up to the neurotic country tones of their major-label debut, Bastards of the Beat. Bastards is slightly more catchy, but Air Stereo has a quieter, folksier pop veneer worthy of tonight’s venue. Don’t take them for granted, either. It’s amazing they’ve survived this long, given their track record of avoiding interviews—and, yes, I’ve considered the possibility that they just don’t like me personally. (Friday, September 15, at the Birmingham Museum of Art; 8:30 p.m. $5-$15.)

Barton Carroll

It’s been a long time since anyone has been excited over a true brooding genius who sounds like his recordings were smuggled out of a mental ward. Barton Carroll is pretty much the first real thing to come along since the first few recordings by Smog—whose paperback musings can’t stand up to Carroll’s mighty lit-wimp-rock leanings. And even though he’s from Seattle, Carroll’s damaged and chatty intellectualism is pure Birmingham. You can catch him at Bottletree later that evening, but the quieter setting of Laser’s Edge is probably much better for all parties. (Saturday, September 16, at Laser’s Edge CDs.)

	Barton Carroll (click for larger version)

Marshall Chapman

Before there was Cindy Bullens, Marshall Chapman existed to make sure that nobody cared about women in rock. She didn’t do much for women in country, either. Chapman’s songs have been covered by plenty of very cool recording artists, and you can usually find her songs on their worst albums. Her dull parodies of rock ‘n’ roll were routinely overpraised by East Coast critics trying to create a vaguely hip practitioner of boogie-rock. Chapman’s sole decent album, 1978′s Jaded Virgin, is mainly notable for producer Al Kooper’s grand struggle to make her sound slightly more relevant than Jimmy Buffett. Not surprisingly, Chapman and Buffet would go on to many collaborations. Now she occasionally puts out a new album when she isn’t puttering around her mansion with a theater or book project. The latest one is painfully dull even by her standards, and recording it probably interfered with her plans to open a restaurant. (Saturday, September 16, at the Moonlight Music Cafe; 8:30 p.m. $10. Claudia Nygaard opens.)

Enon/Tokyo Police Club

Enon makes reliable pop that’s fortunate enough to draw upon two songwriters—one seriously fey and the other determinedly radio-friendly. Not a memorable melody in the bunch, though. In contrast, Tokyo Police Club is the surprising culmination of just about every failed, overhyped rock band of the past few years. They’re no supergroup; the band is just a bunch of young kids who’ve managed to improve on the influence of crappy bands.

Or maybe they took the time to cultivate derivative greatness from a serious study of overhyped crappy bands from slightly further back. There may not be anything new about the discordant tones and the decadent poses, but at least admire them for a delivery that suggests they’re secret devotees of flower power. (Sunday, September 17, at Bottletree; 9 p.m. $10; 18+.)

Rogue Wave/Jason Collett/Foreign Born

We all want a scene full of quirky and fun alt-pop bands that regress back to the glory days of AM radio. Rogue Wave, however, is not that band, and pretending that they are will not create that scene. Instead, we’ll just get more bands fleshing out what would’ve been pretentious home-studio noodlings with winsome vocals and steady beats. Maybe you can close your eyes and pretend it’s kind of like Brian Eno’s pop years, or you could simply accept this as a good reason to get home early after enjoying the opening acts.

Jason Collett is one of the many guys lost in Broken Social Scene’s expanded touring lineup, but his solo release, Idols of Exile, is surprisingly impressive alt-rock—albeit with the expected trimming of country and psychedelia. Nothing unfettered about it, though. The success of the live show could depend on whether he’s brought along the French horns.

Foreign Born is a fairly hot L.A. band that attempts to package their lush and melodic ’80s recycling as some kind of trance music. They’re doing enough things right to make that seem believable. (Tuesday, September 19, at Bottletree; 8:30 p.m. $10; 18+.)

Band of Horses

 

Nobody’s saying they aren’t as pensive and gorgeous as Barton Carroll, but fellow Seattle citizens Band of Horses venture into acid-folk territory with Everything All the Time. “Acid-folk,” for those too young to know, is like “prog” without the gong. You can’t argue with the self-knowledge of a mopey band that plays ten songs in under 40 minutes, either. That includes a real epic that breaks the four-minute mark. This is all very gorgeous and mellow—but don’t bring anybody who’ll talk during the show, because these acid-folkies can get awfully touchy. Especially the ones who look like they just wandered in from Spahn Ranch. (Wednesday, September 20, at Bottletree; 9 p.m. $10; 18+. Chad VanGaalen opens.)

Kathy Griffin

She used to be one of those comics for people who need to pretend they have clever friends. Now she’s one of those comics for people who want to be extras in a reality show. (Thursday, September 21, at the Alabama Theatre; 8 p.m. $37-$41.)

Terri Hendrix

The most rocking thing she’s ever done is her album of kiddie music, but that’s just another thing that makes Terri Hendrix seem so endearing. Never mind that there’s a certain banality to her jazzy country lite-pop. She still puts the best possible spin on vaguely authentic Americana. Hendrix remains capable of the occasional great tune, and her recent work is finally getting to be as memorable as her own personality. They also really like Hendrix in the U.K., probably because they get Nashville winsomeness confused with Midwestern wholesomeness. (Friday, September 21, at the Moonlight Music Cafe; 8:30 p.m. $10. With Lloyd Maines; Brianna Lane opens.) &

August 24, 2006The small Alabama town of Enterprise, known for its monument to the boll weevil, is welcoming a new icon: country singer George Jones. And like the boll weevil, Jones has a history that once classified him as a destructive little pest. Jones is the new national spokesman for Ronnie Gilley Properties, LLC, a real estate management, development, and marketing organization headquartered in Enterprise. The development, scheduled to begin construction in the fall of 2006, includes 220 residential estate-sized lots featuring gated manors and moderately priced garden homes.

Jones and his wife, Nancy, have made numerous trips to the southeastern Alabama community (population 27,000), about 70 miles south of Montgomery and 90 miles north of Florida’s Gulf Coast. The couple reportedly plan to live in the community two to three months out of the year. “The more we visit, the more we seem to like it,” says Jones. The town is touted as “a safe haven from hurricanes, yet still close enough to feel the ocean breeze.” The housing development, to be called The Legends, is situated on 200 acres directly across from the Enterprise Country Club, and according to the Enterprise Ledger, Jones has already signed up as a member.

	George Jones has lent his name to a variety of products, from sausage to bottled water to “gourmet” pet food. (click for larger version)

“I’m working on a jingle for Enterprise to coincide with one of my hits,” Jones said at an Enterprise press conference several months ago. “I like the fact that life is slower here . . . It’s a lot less traffic and it’s peaceful and that’s what my wife and I are excited about moving here. It’s a nice place.”

Ronnie Gilley Properties has constructed residential communities and commercial projects that include restaurants, hotels, neighborhood retail centers, and office buildings in southern Alabama for two decades. The company’s partnerships include country music stars Alan Jackson, Kix Brooks, Tracy Lawrence, and Darryl Worley.

Jones and his wife Nancy also plan to open the Possum Holler Restaurant, a meat-and-three cafe that shares the same name of a nightclub Jones once owned in Nashville. Stamping his name on products is nothing new for the man whom country music stars revere as the greatest country singer of all time (“Hoss, if we could all sound like who we wanted to, we’d all sound like George Jones,” the late Waylon Jennings once claimed). Jones has marketed his own brand of pet food, bacon, barbecue sauce, country sausage, honey, and “White Lightning” bottled water. Earlier in his career, he even considered marketing “Possum Panties,” with his face emblazoned on the crotch.

No one knows for sure how he came to be called the “Possum.” It may have derived from Jones’ unpredictable behavior, such as pretending to be passed out drunk before suddenly leaping to his feet to brandish a notorious temper (especially while married to the late-singer Tammy Wynette). The stories are legendary. He once drove a riding lawn mower 10 miles into Nashville to a bar after Wynette hid the car keys from him. On another occasion, police found Jones in a stupor in a Cadillac that was littered with whiskey bottles, empty sardine cans, and a life-size cardboard figure of Hank Williams, Sr., sitting next to him. His career appeared to be on the rebound until an appearance in 1980 with Tammy Wynette on “The Tonight Show.” Jones stopped midway through the couple’s duet of “Two-Story House” and confessed to a television audience that he couldn’t remember the lyrics.

 

	No one know for sure how Jones came to be called Possum. It may have derived from his pretending to be passed out drunk . . . especially while married to the late-singer Tammy Wynette.

Enterprise can be thankful that Jones’ notorious wild days appear to be far behind him. But with the 75-year-old Jones, one can never quite be sure. After several years of reported sobriety, in 1998 he crashed his car into a bridge, blaming the wreck on a cell-phone conversation with his daughter. A half-empty bottle of vodka beneath the Cadillac’s seat suggested otherwise. Rushed to the hospital in critical condition, it was doubtful that Jones would survive this latest episode, as his long-abused liver was severely lacerated as a result of the accident. A couple of weeks later he walked out of the hospital, and two months later he was performing again.

People from across the United States are already making deposits to secure acreage in The Legends. Jones’ future next-door neighbor is reportedly a couple who recently won the Florida state lottery and contacted Ronnie Gilley directly to plunk down a deposit next to Jones’ lot, site unseen. “I just want to live next to the Possum,” the lottery winner said. &

he man who defines Las Vegas appeared at the Alys Stephens Center on April Fool’s Day. With his 20-piece orchestra playing the theme from 2001: A Space Odyssey, Wayne Newton bounded on stage singing “Viva Las Vegas,” a towering figure with a bluish black pompadour and a perpetual smile on his aging boyish face. “You can’t sit there with your arms folded, saying, ‘Go ahead, Indian, entertain me,” Newton, who is Cherokee, admonished the lackluster audience after his opening number. Two hours and a dozen more “Indian” jokes later, even the orchestra’s string section were snapping their fingers in time as Newton brought the crowd to its feet with his 1963 hit “Danke Schoen.” His set included a predictable “Mack the Knife,” his mother’s (she was born in Birmingham) favorite song, “The Shadow of Your Smile,” and a haunting rendition of Hank Williams’ “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry.”

Wayne Newton has made a career parlaying an unsolicited role as a high-voiced showbiz freak of nature into that of a finger-snapping crooner known as “Mr. Las Vegas.” As a ten-year-old, he was playing steel guitar and singing with Grand Ole Opry traveling shows. Then, Newton caught the world’s attention as a charismatic 21-year-old heartthrob who sounded more like a woman than a man. He also became a target for Johnny Carson’s relentless jokes aimed at Newton’s sexuality. The feud with Carson went deeper, however. Newton bought the Aladdin Hotel and Casino a couple of months after Carson’s offer had been rejected in 1980. NBC reported that Newton’s purchase of the Aladdin had been financed by organized crime. Newton sued NBC, winning a libel suit to the tune of $19 million, but in 1990 a circuit court overturned the ruling against NBC. Newton spoke with Black & White before his April show about the libel suit, bailing Dana Plato out of jail, dating Elvis Presley’s girlfriend, and threatening to beat up Johnny Carson.

	“I had a country music background, and I had a bit of a ‘50s and ‘60s rock background. That’s why Bobby Darin was such an inspiration to me, because he moved out of rock into a mini-Sinatra kind of bag.” (click for larger version)

B&W: I was surprised that you started out doing Grand Ole Opry touring shows.

Newton: I started in show business at the age of six, and I had a local radio show in Roanoke, Virginia, on WDBJ before going to school. And then I would do weekends in Bristol, Tennessee, and Roanoke and other towns with a traveling road show of the Grand Ole Opera [sic].

B&W: I don’t usually associate the Las Vegas-style Wayne Newton with Hank Williams, Kitty Wells, Little Jimmy Dickens, and the Carter Family.

Newton: (Laughs) All my roots, musically, were well embedded in country music. It’s wild, because most people don’t think of me as country music, when in fact, the first instrument that I learned to play was steel guitar. That was before they had “pedal” steels (laughs).

B&W: Didn’t you turn down a headlining spot in Las Vegas to remain as Jack Benny’s opening act?

Newton: I was Mr. Benny’s opening act for five years. I was in Australia, and he came to see my show and invited me to see his matinee the next day in Sydney. He invited me backstage and asked if I wanted to be his opening act. I said, “Absolutely.” He gave me the opportunity to finally headline. I turned it down because I wanted to spend another couple of years studying with him. It’s those [old-school] guys who really ingrained a kind of, not only philosophy of performing, but certainly a philosophy about how to treat an audience. And when you’re not on stage, also how to treat an audience.

B&W: How has the proliferation of casinos across the country affected Las Vegas in terms of it remaining a tourist destination point?

Newton: It’s pretty interesting. Let me liken it to when Elvis, Frank, Dean, Mr. Benny, Mr. Burns, Sammy, and Bobby Darin were all alive and appearing in Vegas. People would ask me if it bothered me that all the other acts are playing here. I would say no, because one would draw a huge crowd of their own fans. And then, of course, those fans would go to catch other shows. So instead of it being that having gaming opening in other places diminishes the appreciation of Las Vegas, it’s worked exactly the opposite. The more [patrons are] inducted into the legal gaming atmosphere, the more Vegas is appealing to them. Everybody thought when Atlantic City opened up to gaming, that would really hurt Las Vegas in terms of the East Coast gamers. But it didn’t; it just helped. And I think that’s why Vegas is what it is today, because people have been introduced to gaming in a legal way without worrying about being cheated and that kind of thing, and that kind of mystique it carried with it for so long.

B&W: Why was Bobby Darin such an inspiration to you?

Newton: Bobby was the hottest thing in the country when I was coming up. I was at the lounge at the Copacabana in New York when I got my first break on “The Jackie Gleason Show.” I was a bag fan of “Mack the Knife,” and I was a big fan of “Dream Lover” and “Splish Splash.” We moved to Arizona for about six years; I really started moving out of country music then because the demand for Elvis was hot, Bobby Darin was hot. There was no demand for country singers playing steel guitar, so that’s when I started picking up the other instruments and started doing kind of a rockabilly-type music. That’s when I switched from steel guitar to lead guitar, frankly, just to keep working. When I started in the lounges here [in Las Vegas], I was 15, and we’d do six shows a night, six nights a week. You can’t sing that much; I don’t care who you are (laughs). So I kept developing the instruments in order to give my voice a rest. It was interesting, because when I came up here I had a country music background, and I had a bit of a ’50s and ’60s rock background. That’s why Bobby Darin was such an inspiration to me, because he moved out of rock into kind of a mini-Sinatra kind of bag. So he came into the Copacabana when I was in the lounge there. He had seen me on the Gleason show, which I didn’t know. He summoned me to his table, and he asked, “Are you recording?” I said no, and he replied, “Well, you will be by next Thursday.” So he was the first one to take me into a recording studio and gave me the kind of material that I ultimately ended up recording.

B&W: Did you think Kevin Spacey did a good job portraying him?

Newton: Well, it’s really tough . . . Kevin came to see me about a year before he made the film just to talk about Bobby and get an insight into Bobby as a human being. [The film] didn’t work for me, not because Kevin didn’t do a good job, but I felt it was more a showcase for Kevin’s talent than it was any kind of autobiography of Bobby because there was so much of it in the film that was not true and did not happen. So it’s tough for me to watch films like that. It was tough for me to watch films about Elvis. It was tough for me to watch the Johnny Cash film for the same reason. I knew all those people and they were friends of mine. And, of course, I saw a whole different side of them than maybe some of the rest of the world did.

B&W: Did you meet Elvis in Las Vegas?

Newton: No, we met when I was doing “Bonanza,” and he was filming on the Paramount lot at the same time. As it turned out, we were dating the same girl and didn’t know it (laughs). I was on the plane after my shooting, headed back to Vegas. He was on the same plane, and the seat next to me was empty. He got up and came over and sat down. I was a big fan of his, so it was a great thrill for me. He asked if I knew this particular girl and I said, “Yes, as a matter of fact I do. We’ve been dating.” And he said, “So have we.” So we both started to laugh and we both quit seeing her for the same reason. We remained really close friends from that point on. When I was nine, I auditioned for Ted Mack ["Ted Mack Amateur Hour"]. Elvis auditioned also, and both of us didn’t make the cut (laughs).

B&W: You posted Dana Plato’s ["Different Strokes"] bail when she was arrested?

Newton: I had never met her, and I was home watching local news, and it came on that she had been arrested, and the commentator said that no one had posted bail. Here is a young lady who is going through a tough time in her life and has made a million dollars for a lot of people, and none of them cared enough to even bail her out of jail. So I called my manager and told him to put up the bail for her. I don’t think she deserved that. We did meet afterwards. Then of course she went on her way, and continued the ways that ultimately led to her demise.

B&W: What was the outcome of the libel case with NBC?

Newton: Well, it was overturned in the Ninth Circuit in California, which is the most liberal court in the United States. There have been more overturnings of their overturnings than any other court in the United States. Once they overturned it, [the case] which [spanned] ten years, I’d had enough at that point. I felt that I had been vindicated for what they had said that I was guilty of. They really couldn’t make up their mind what I was guilty of. NBC was doing a favor for Johnny Carson. And what they were attempting to do was ruin my ability to be licensed. If that happened, the deal [to buy the Aladdin Hotel] fell back to Johnny Carson. At that point in time, I think he [Carson] represented 18 percent of their [NBC's] income.

B&W: Did you really threaten Johnny Carson face to face because he was making fun of you?

Newton: Yes, I did. I had done the Carson show many times. I walked in Carson’s office, and seated with him was his producer Freddie DeCordova. I said, “Mr. DeCordova, would you please excuse us.” And he got up and left, and I closed the door. And Carson’s jaw dropped and I went into a little speech about how many people I had tried to get him to stop that kind of nonsense because it had no basis in fact at all. And I just wasn’t going to put up with it anymore. I physically threatened him, and I meant it. I said, “If you don’t believe it, let’s just get it on now.” And he started babbling and muttering, and he said, “Wayne, I’m your biggest fan.” I said, “Don’t give me that crap!” I didn’t exactly use that word, but I think you can read between the lines (laughs). And then he said, “Well, you know I don’t write that stuff.” So that ended the malicious jokes about me. He never did it again.

B&W: Didn’t you play the Carson show after that?

Newton: Yes, but not when he was there. If Jerry Lewis was hosting, or if Mr. Hope was hosting . . . I preferred not to do the show when he was there.

B&W: Hanging with the Rat Pack bunch in the 1960s must have been fun.

Newton: Those guys, as much as they were party animals and enjoyed what they did on stage and the way they did it, the truth of the matter is that they were consummate professionals. It is true that they would do two shows a night and party for the rest of the night, and then jump on a plane and go to Utah to make a film. But that’s hard work, I don’t care what anybody says. &

Sounds like I’m hearing myself three different ways,” complained Mavis Staples to the audience, gasping for breath before adding with a smile, “Guess I should have made it to soundcheck.” Staples ushered in Birmingham’s Juneteenth celebration at the Alys Stephens Center on Saturday, June 3 with her family’s trademark blend of the gospel and the secular. That the stout, 66-year-old Staples should gasp for breath after each song only added to the drama. Gospel testifying is her strong point, which leaves plenty of time for improvisation. She performed only a half dozen songs during the evening, but with a hot-shot trio of guitar, bass, and drums—along with sister Yvonne on backing vocals—it didn’t really matter. Mavis told the small crowd how her father, Pops Staples, gathered his four children around him one night to teach them “Will the Circle Be Unbroken.” Pops’ real name was Roebuck. Mavis swore that he had a brother named Sears. When she sang “Respect Yourself,” she told the audience that a record producer recently called her “old school,” to which Mavis added, “Like I don’t know that . . . I used to be a Beyonce . . . If Beyonce keeps on living, she’ll be a Mavis!” She told the band’s drummer to “bring it down, Brian,” then warned, “If he wants to get paid, he better bring it down.” During “Respect Yourself,’ Mavis threw in an Aretha Franklin reference by singing “R-E-S-P-E-C-T,” but stopped with a snicker, “I ain’t gonna mess with Aretha . . . But I’ll pick on that little ol’ Beyonce.”

In a telephone conversation two days before her performance, “Respect Yourself” came up.

“Mack Rice wrote that. Luther Ingram’s name is on there. Luther said, ‘Man, we black people need to start respecting ourselves.’ That was the most Luther did on the song . . . Mack said, ‘I’m gonna write a song,’ but he gave Luther Ingram half of it for that title . . . Mack did some good stuff with Wilson Pickett. He wrote ‘Mustang Sally.’”

The unforgettable line “Take the sheet off your face, it’s a brand new day” from “Respect Yourself” prompted memories of traveling in the South during segregation. Racial showdowns were a way of life. Mavis remembered a white service station owner who accused the Staples family of stealing gasoline, prompting Pops to use his fists. “Oh yeah, we had our time. Actually we went to jail in West Memphis, Arkansas,” recalled Mavis from her Chicago home. “We beat up a white man. Well, (laughs) actually Pops beat him up. [The gas station attendant] ran into his office to get a gun. We knew what he was going to get . . . Well, the guy was just nasty. And when my father went in to get the receipt, I saw him shake his finger in Pops’ face. He said something about me because I was driving. I asked him to wash the windshield, and he wanted his money. I had driven from Jackson, Mississippi, to Memphis. All these bugs were on the windshield. He went on and washed the windshield . . . I asked him for a receipt and he said, ‘If you want a receipt you come over to the office.’

 

	A record producer recently called her “old school,” to which Mavis added, “ Like I don’t know that . . . I used to be a Beyonce . . . If Beyonce keeps on living, she’ll be a Mavis!”

“So Pops told me to pull over and he went in to get the receipt. And [the attendant] said something about me and shook his finger in Pops’s face. Next thing I know, Pops had walloped him. He beat him up real good and got in the car. And Daddy got the receipt, and actually that receipt is what saved us. Because when [the attendant] called the police, he told them that we didn’t pay for our gas and we robbed him. So the police caught up with me, had us standing out on the highway with shotguns on us and dogs barking. Oh, it was spooky. But the best part of it is I’ve never been so glad to see a police station. They took us to jail. The chief asked Pops what happened. The chief told them, ‘Get them handcuffs off them people.’ He said, ‘These young bucks always trying to keep this mess going. We’re trying to clean up down here.’ They found our money in the trunk and he asked Pops, ‘Well, this is what we’re looking for. This is the money you took from the service station.’ And Daddy said, ‘No, we sang for that money tonight.’ And he said, ‘Well, I got to hear what kind of singing you do to make this kind of money.’ And the money did look like [we] had robbed somebody because the people in Jackson, Mississippi, had it in a cigar box (laughs).”

At the Alys Stephens Center, Mavis led the band into “The Weight,” calling out: “Levon Helm . . . Robbie Robertson . . . Danko . . . and dear Garth.” She asked the small audience if they’d seen The Last Waltz. When few responded, she admonished, “I knew y’all hadn’t seen it.” The Staples had been featured in the film, as they had pioneered the introduction of gospel to rock ‘n’ roll audiences. During the interview, she remembered the varied shows they played. “Our sound was so unique that the people would call us to sing. And we were singing strictly gospel. But they called us for folk festivals, bluegrass festivals, blues festivals, and jazz festivals. . . . We toured with people like The Who, The Bee Gees, Jimi Hendrix. They really liked the Staple Singers’ sound. And a lot of those white guys have recorded some of our songs.”

One of those “white guys” who no doubt influenced the Staples more than any other was Bob Dylan. “Bobby would be on most of those folk festivals. So we would run into each other a lot, quite a bit,” said Mavis. She and Dylan shared a Grammy nomination in 2003 for their duet “Gotta Change My Way of Livin.’” Mavis said the two had known each other for a long time. “We met Dylan when he and I were teenagers. And when we met him—someone introduced us to him—and he said ‘Well, I know the Staple Singers, I’ve heard the Staple Singers since I was 12 years old.’ And Pops said, ‘Well, where you hear us at?’ He said he heard us on that station that comes out of Nashville, WLAC, I think it was. And he even quoted some lyrics from one of our songs, ‘Sit Down Servant.’ And he described Pops’ voice, he’d say, ‘Pops, you have a really smooth, silky voice, and Mavis has a gravelly, heavy voice.’ And then we heard Dylan sing that day. We were on the same concert, a folk festival. And Pops asked us, ‘Listen do you hear what that kid is saying? We can sing that, that’s a message song. That’s a positive song.’ And it was ‘Blowin’ in the Wind.’ And we recorded it.”

Mavis can still scream like a barely constrained Wilson Pickett as she remembered Pickett’s unpredictable manner: “Oh, Lord, yeah! Wilson Pickett was just as crazy as he could be. He was crazy, but he was beautiful. All the guys would respect us, they wouldn’t curse around us. Nothin’ like that. Oh yeah, Pickett had a temper. Pickett would shoot at different ones. He shot his brother in the limousine. Pickett kept saying, ‘I’m gonna shoot you, man.’ And his brother kept saying, ‘Aw man, put the gun down, put the gun down.’ And all of a sudden Pickett shot him right through the shoulder. Pickett was in the backseat and his brother was in the front seat with the limo driver . . . We were sitting in the Howard Theater watching the show, and all of a sudden you saw Eddie Levert with the O’Jays run across the stage. And the emcee was up there talking, and all of a sudden here comes Pickett behind him with a gun. People were laughing. Somebody caught Pickett and took the gun away from him. Yeah, he was crazy.” &

 

---

 

The Listening Booth

The Staple Singers went from post-World War II straight gospel to soulful folk music in the 1960s to “message” music in the 1970s. Blessed with a distinctive, irresistible rhythm that secular music once claimed as its own, the Staples’ unique gospel style, stamped with patriarch Pop Staples’ wicked, tremolo-marinated blues guitar, offered up black spirituals to a white audience primed for temptation.

Stax Records signed the Staples to their roster in 1968, and “message” music was born. Message music was essentially a spiritual message told in secular language. Songs such as “Long Walk to D.C.” and a cover of Sly Stone’s “Everyday People” were recorded in Memphis with Booker T. and the MGs’ guitarist Steve Cropper producing. The family ventured south to record with the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section on the hits “Respect Yourself” and “I’ll Take You There” at the insistence of Stax musical director Al Bell. Lead vocalist Mavis Staples praised the Muscle Shoals musicians in the liner notes of The Staple Singers: Stax Profiles: “The Muscle Shoals guys were a rhythm section that a singer would just die for . . . They were bad back then! [At Stax] Booker T. and the MGs would mostly put the tracks down before we’d be in the there. [At Muscle Shoals] we would all be in the studio together. We were feeding off of each other. That made a difference.”

 

The band’s pre-stax Gospel era (1953-1967), which still managed to feature plenty of electric guitar and hip-shaking rhythms, is best represented on Columbia’s Freedom Highway collection. Like artists such as John Lee Hooker, multiple recordings of many of the Staples’ most famous songs exist, some far better than others. Freedom Highway is the source for definitive versions of many classics such as “Will the Circle Be Unbroken” and “Wade in the Water”—in addition to lesser-known gems as “Why (Am I Treated So Bad)?” and a cover of Stephen Stills’ “For What It’s Worth.”

January 26, 2006 

Music  

Robert Moog

We could have a discussion about Attack-Decay-Sustain-Release envelopes, waveforms, voltage-controlled oscillators, and other stuff that fellows with PhDs in engineering physics like to talk about. After all, Robert Moog (rhymes with “vogue”), creator of the Moog Synthesizer, had several degrees in physics and electrical engineering, and he certainly knew his stuff. But let’s avoid getting bogged down in technical details and consider the larger story instead, which begins just after the Bolshevik Revolution.

In 1919, mad Russian physicist Lev Sergeivich Termen, aka Leon Theremin, created a musical instrument that generated between two antennas a radio signal, the frequency and amplitude of which a “player” could control by hand, sort of like playing a violin without touching it. An ever-deluded Vladimir Lenin sent Theremin on a global tour with this minor novelty, primarily to show off the amazing avant garde technology that the new worker’s paradise was ostensibly making available to greedy, behind-the-curve capitalists. One of those capitalist outfits was RCA, who purchased manufacturing licenses for the bizarre instrument in the late 1920s. Two decades later the Theremin’s spooky sound was de rigueur in radio and film scores for mysteries, crime dramas, and—most prominently—science fiction thrillers and horror movies (see: The Day the Earth Stood Still and Forbidden Planet.)

Enter Robert Moog, a teenager light years ahead of his schoolmates and neighborhood chums, who in the early 1950s began making and selling Theremin kits as a hobby. For about 50 bucks, Moog’s astonishingly elegant sets allowed anyone with rudimentary skills in electronics to construct their very own instrument. Moog and his father sold about 1,000 kits in 1960. Building a Theremin, however, was a snap compared to playing the thing. Moog was already looking down the road for something even more elegant.

Enter Raymond Scott, a wigged-out composer, swing-band leader, electronics wizard, and studio engineer who may have been from another planet (some of those wild scores heard in Warner Bros. cartoons and “The Ren & Stimpy Show” are Scott originals). Moog and his father popped into Scott’s mammoth “lab” one afternoon and observed, among other wonders, a Moog theremin set that had been reconfigured by Scott into a type of keyboard instrument he called the Clavivox. “I have seen the future,” mused Moog, “and it is the keyboard interface.”

What followed was the creation of the Moog Synthesizer in various forms, but at a fraction of the cost of the big non-interface synthesizers made by universities and electronics companies during the early 1960s. Integrated circuits changed all that, and pretty soon Mellotrons, Arps, and Rolands were competing with Moog’s devastatingly efficient Series 900.

Nonetheless, it was with one of the 900 Series modular systems that the world got switched on to electronic music. In 1968, pianist Walter Carlos (later Wendy Carlos, thanks to gender reassignment therapy) released an album of Bach compositions played on the Moog. Switched-On Bach, one of the best-selling classical recordings of all time, went platinum. Pretty soon everybody was switching on. The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and sundry other pop bands dabbled, but by 1970, artists such as Keith Emerson, Rick Wakeman, Stevie Wonder, and just about every member of Genesis were getting very serious. Then came the soundtrack to A Clockwork Orange (another Walter/Wendy Carlos effort), and Tangerine Dream, and Kraftwerk, and so on to digital synthesizers and computer sequencers, which the Moog synthesizer definitely is not. To get that space age, bachelor-pad sound that Stereolab is known for, you must use an analog device. Just ask Brian Eno.

This makes Robert Moog essentially the father of electronic music as it is made, purchased, and listened to today, even if he was not a composer or player; “I just make tools for others,” he often stated. He’s wrong about that, but physicists do tend to be reductionists at heart. Moog was actually a major catalyst in a quantum shift in modern culture and science. The story in which he had a key role has a parallel narrative, such that the relationship of these cosmic counterparts matches in strangeness the interplay of subatomic particles. Just as Moog and Raymond Scott and other guys in lab coats and crew cuts tinkered with waves and oscillations, so earlier did Edward Teller, Albert Einstein, Robert Oppenheimer, and colleagues manipulate previously unknown/unseen objects and energies to render forth nuclear energy.

The men in both narratives had an affinity for the new and improved, fully understanding the inevitable evolutions of the Kitchen of Tomorrow and the Car of the Future. They listened to swing, but it was the electric, atomic-age swing of the Les Paul guitar. They were squares, nerds, and horn-rimmed geeks that the girls secretly dug (recall Marilyn Monroe’s fascination with Albert Einstein). Their relationship with the enemy had its own curious waveform. Had it not been for the Soviets, Theremin might not have brought electronic music to our side of the globe. But then, without the Soviets, atomic weapon research would not have continued at its frantic pace. Without so many tests in the desert, there might not have been so many giant creatures emanating from Hollywood, but the electronic music team supplied the soundtracks just the same. There might not have been a space “race” either, in which case the space-age sounds of lounge music masters, minus the urgency, may have developed at a slower, less vulgar pace.

Either way, the research teams in both narratives were all about electrons; Raymond Scott’s most famous and instantly recognizable composition is “Powerhouse.” The business of energy entails positive and negative charges, and the two stories are charged with comparable symmetries. These mid-century brainiac physicists instigated a fascination with two things, one that we think we can’t live without and another that we can’t live with: Hi-Fis and Hydrogen Bombs. The space-age bachelor pad becomes the Home of Tomorrow, with a Philco or RCA Victor Hi-Fi in the den and a fallout shelter just south of the patio. The makers of The Bomb worked on the Manhattan Project, the key instruments of which were Uranium 238 and various synthetic elements; Robert Moog and Raymond Scott started their projects in basements in Manhattan, the end result of which was a synthetic instrument.

Polarities evolve from those symmetries. The atom bomb was a fission device; the H-bomb is a fusion device. The bachelor pad becomes a home only after the owner finds his counterpart. Robert Moog’s invention, a thoroughly modern device built for the future, reached the world only after it was used to make a best-selling record of classical compositions from the distant past. The performer on that album was a man who later became a woman.

The H-bomb geniuses and the electronics wizards invented things with properties and behaviors that modern physicists now say might not be correctly understood, if they exist at all. But until we learn for certain, let’s relish the fact that the very first nuclear events in the universe can be observed today in the form of radio signals. The term “radioactivity,” as the synthesizer band Kraftwerk pointed out decades ago, is a cosmic bit of double entendre. –David Pelfrey

Johnnie Johnson

Chuck Berry has for decades performed with no interest in whoever’s backing him on live dates. Berry simply shows up with his guitar and plays with whatever junkies have been corralled by the promoter into being his backup band for the evening. In his defense, though, Berry’s probably aware that he’ll never replicate his luck in hooking up with Johnnie Johnson. Johnson didn’t need Berry when the guitarist joined up with his Sir John Trio in 1953, but the pianist immediately saw that Berry’s tunes were future hits. Johnson’s arrangements became a vital part of developing what became Berry’s biggest songs. Johnson’s own part in rock history was revived when he joined the all-star Berry band assembled for Taylor Hackford’s concert film Hail! Hail! Rock ‘n’ Roll. Johnson would go on to perform well into the ’90s. He put on much better shows than Berry, of course. —J.R.T.

Danny Sugerman

He was the manager of The Doors, but that was after Jim Morrison’s death. Still, Danny Sugerman built himself a nice career as the ultimate Doors fan. He began answering their mail when he was just 14 and would go on to chronicle the band’s exploits in plenty of books. His own autobiography, Wonderland Avenue, would turn out to be the most interesting. At least Sugerman lived long enough to see The Doors reunite—which, in the band’s current incarnation, has probably hastened the death of many Doors fans. He was survived by wife Fawn Hall, who enjoyed some ’80s notoriety for her role in shredding documents as Oliver North’s secretary during the days of the Iran-Contra scandal. –J.R. Taylor

 

R.L. Burnside

February 2 marks a decade since a capacity crowd crammed into The Nick during a snowstorm to see the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion and 69-year-old opening act R.L. Burnside. Spencer obviously dug how Burnside, a Mississippi hill-country blues man and erstwhile sharecropper, was the real deal. The next morning, the Blues Explosion headed to Holly Springs, Mississippi, to back Burnside for what became the A Ass Pocket of Whiskey album (reportedly recorded in a mere four hours). Though it received mixed reviews, the album became the best selling of Burnside’s career and paid for a new roof on his home. He had been recording since the late ’60s, and it must have had him scratching his head to see young, indie-rocker types suddenly turning up at his shows. He recorded a few more albums on the Fat Possum label, including the 1998 album Come On In. His 2001 album Wish I Was in Heaven Sitting Down was aptly named for a man who preferred to remain seated onstage. He died in Memphis. —Paul Brantley

Harold Leventhal

Anyone interested in booking prominent folk music stars 40 years ago usually rang up Harold Leventhal. He was the man responsible for Bob Dylan’s first major concert appearance in 1963 at Town Hall in New York City. Leventhal handled folk stars such as Dylan, Joan Baez, the Weavers, Woody Guthrie, and Peter, Paul, and Mary, as well as pop and rock acts such as Harry Belafonte, Johnny Cash, the Mamas and Papas, and Neil Young. He also produced the Arlo Guthrie film Alice’s Restaurant. —Ed Reynolds

Jothan Callins

A student of Amos Gordon at Jackson Olin High School, Callins went on to a career as an educator when not playing trumpet and keyboards with Stevie Wonder, The Lionel Hampton Orchestra, B.B. King, Max Roach, and many other jazz greats, most notably Sun Ra, for whom he also served a stint as music director. In 1978, Mr. Callins became the first jazz Artist in Residence for the Birmingham Public School System and helped found the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame. (He was later inducted there, as well.) He led his own Sounds of Togetherness, with which he toured internationally, founded The Birmingham Youth Jazz Ensemble, and authored more than 500 compositions. Explaining jazz improvisation to schoolchildren, Callins once put it this way: “Everybody gets to play. It’s like being at church and having testimony time. We all get a chance to say our piece.” –Bart Grooms

Ibrahim Ferrer

As a member of The Buena Vista Social Club, Cuban-born Ferrer became an international star and was featured in Wim Wenders’ documentary of the same title. –B.G.

Jim Capaldi

Drummer and lyricist for Traffic; he co-wrote most of their songs with Steve Winwood. –B.G.

Jimmy Smith

He radically redefined jazz organ in the mid-’50s, making it a bona fide solo instrument and influencing every jazz and rock player who came after him. Eschewing the tremolo typical of the organ sound of his day, Smith used the newly introduced (1955) Hammond B-3 and played lines based on the ideas of his favorite sax players (Coleman Hawkins, Don Byas), not keyboard men. He made numerous recordings, especially for Blue Note. Miles Davis, on first hearing Smith: “Man, this cat is the eighth wonder of the world!” –B.G.

Vassar Clements

Fiddler extraordinaire who played with Bill Monroe’s Blue Grass Boys and Jim and Jesse McReynolds, then later sat in with the likes of Paul McCartney, The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Johnny Cash, The Grateful Dead, Hank Williams, Jr., even Woody Herman; he can be heard on more than 2,000 albums. He combined the bluegrass of his background with jazz and seemed to fit in anywhere, even alongside Jerry Garcia and David Grisman in the hippie bluegrass quintet Old and in the Way. ––B.G.

Shirley Horn

One of jazz’s most sensual vocalists, Horn was both a protegée of and an influence on Miles Davis. Horn was also an accomplished pianist whose playing and singing meshed elegantly on her trademark ultra-slow ballads. Close Enough for Love (1989) is a fine first place to hear the woman who influenced Diana Krall and many others. –B.G.

Spencer Dryden

You’d imagine that the members of Jefferson Airplane are doing well. Some of them are still along for the ride playing as members of Starship, while fringe figures such as Jorma Kaukonen remain respected guitar masters who run their own pleasant rural empires. Property values in San Francisco stayed on the rise, too. Yes, it’s good to be a former member of Jefferson Airplane—unless you were Spencer Dryden, the veteran Airplane drummer who was living in a miserable place that hardly counted as a shack.

Not privy to publishing rights or particularly adult decisions, Dryden was a classic hippie casualty whose induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame couldn’t even rate him a cup of coffee. To be fair, the band had originally lost interest in the guy after he began carrying around a gun in the aftermath of Altamont. Not too coincidentally, Dryden had joined the Airplane as a replacement for original drummer Skip Spence, who would go on to cultish fame as another legendary acid-rock nutcase. At least Dryden benefitted from a 2004 fundraiser that was meant to help him with hip-replacement surgeries and other medical problems. It was still a bizarre end to a weird life—which included an idyllic Hollywood childhood under the auspices of his uncle, Charlie Chaplin. Most telling quote regarding Dryden, courtesy of an ex-wife: “He was so quirky, and he never intentionally hurt anyone.” —J.R.T.

Willie Hutch

 

	Spencer Dryden (click for larger version)

He stepped in to finish up “I’ll Be There” for the Jackson Five, and that pretty much guaranteed Willie Hutch any number of production jobs during the ’70s heyday of Motown. He was a natural purveyor of chart hits, too, having already made the adjustment from backwoods Texas soul to writing songs for The Fifth Dimension. However, Hutch would really make his pop-culture breakthrough with his film scores for The Mack and Foxy Brown—both of which were grandly intrusive experiments in funk and soul. (In the tradition of Curtis Mayfield’s work on Superfly, “Brothers Gonna Work It Out” continues to matter far more than any scene from The Mack.) Hutch was always welcome in the studio during the ’80s and ’90s, as well, and was still releasing strong work right up until 2002. Hutch also stayed around long enough to hear his “I Choose You” backing up the action in this year’s critically acclaimed pimp epic Hustle & Flow. –J.R.T.

Hasil Adkins

Wearing wraparound sunglasses and beaming a toothless grin as he danced in the audience to his own opening act (Southern Culture on the Skids), Hasil Adkins was clearly enjoying himself as he waited to go on stage. Minutes later Adkins was on stage alone with an acoustic guitar, singing in a captivating yet disturbing tenor that occasionally broke into a bad, but hypnotic, falsetto. He broke a string and smashed his guitar against the wall behind him without even bothering to turn around, then calmly asked to borrow someone else’s instrument. After the show, a roadie acquaintance told me that Adkins’ lunch routine was a pint of vodka and five cans of chicken noodle soup eaten straight from the can. He also consumed two gallons of coffee daily.

Adkins was the consummate hillbilly singer, the original madman who inspired The Cramps and other warped devotees of Johnny Cash and Jerry Lee Lewis to concoct a musical genre called “psychobilly.”

He claimed to have written more than 7,000 songs (with titles like “Boo Boo the Cat” and “Chocolate Milk Honeymoon”), and in 1970 he began mailing out thousands of tapes in an effort to secure a record deal. U.S. Senator Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia gave one of Adkins’ tapes to President Nixon; the President responded to Adkins on White House stationery: “I am very pleased by your thoughtfulness in bringing these particular selections to my attention.” Adkins was found dead at his crudely constructed West Virginia shack at age 67 of as yet undetermined reasons. Foul play was ruled out. —E.R.

Baker Knight

Knight wrote hits for Ricky Nelson (“Lonesome Town”) and Elvis Presley (“The Wonder of You”) as well for Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Perry Como, among others. Knight was born in Birmingham, spending much of his 72-year life here. In 1956, he had a strong regional following with his band Baker Knight and the Knightmares. Ricky Nelson recorded 22 of Knight’s songs. —E.R.

Bobby Short

Singer/pianist whom The New Yorker called “one of the last examples (and indubitably the best) of the supper club singer or ‘troubadour;’” he worked at the Café Carlyle on Manhattan’s Upper East Side from 1968 to 2005. –B.G.

 

Little Milton Campbell

Blues singer, guitarist and songwriter (“The Blues Is Alright,” “Your Wife Is Cheating on Us”). –B.G.

Paul Peña

Folk/blues singer; he wrote “Jet Airliner,” which was a hit for the Steve Miller Band, and was the central figure in the remarkable documentary Genghis Blues. –B.G.

Chet Helms

Chet Helms produced the first psychedelic light shows at the Fillmore West in San Francisco and staged free concerts in Golden Gate Park (when not fighting with promoter Bill Graham over whether to charge admission). “Chet was a hippie,” Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart said. “We were all hippies. He hated to charge for the music.” The story goes that he traveled to Austin, Texas, where he convinced Janis Joplin to hitchhike back to the West Coast with him. Helms was managing Big Brother and the Holding Company at the time and brought Joplin in to propel the band to stardom. Helms died at 63 of Hepatitis C complications. —E.R.

Jimmy Martin

A 1950s member of Bill Monroe’s Blue Grass Boys, Martin was an ornery man with a high, lonesome whine and a distinctive, fast-strumming rhythm guitar style. He’s probably best known for giving Mother Maybelle a run for her money as the show-stopper on the immortal 1970 album Will the Circle Be Unbroken?, a record that forced rednecks to forgive hippies for long hair and compelled hippies to forgive rednecks for not liking loud music. The two polar-opposite cultures admitted that they were really quite fond of each other, despite what Merle Haggard sang.

The Grand Ole Opry was too terrified of his reputation as an unpredictable drunk to invite Martin to join. He never got over the rejection; he often drove to the backstage of the Opry in a limo he owned (the license plate read KING JIM) on Saturday nights to drunkenly demand that he be allowed to perform. Martin died of bladder cancer and congestive heart failure at age 77. —E.R.