Nine Things About Me

Big craze, on Facebook at present, "9 Things About Me..." Sort of fun, in light of all the shallow relationships we have, to learn something unexpected about someone we think we have sized up.

1. I met my life partner at the age of 25, a couple of years after a failed marriage. We have been (Happy Together)  95% of my adult life (so far) 35 years.
2. I was born and raised on the West side of Chicago. I moved to the (hipper) Near North side as soon as I could.
3. After a couple of really great years living on the North side of Chicago, I visited my parents in Houston one Christmas. Four months later, age 18, I moved here with my girlfriend.
4. My single greatest achievement is co-raising two great kids that grew into great adults.
5. As a kid, I was really into music. It would have blown my mind if my adult self had shown up to explain I would have a career in which one of my jobs was supporting concerts of my idols; Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, Dr John, etc.
6. I played guitar my first rock show in Chicago at age 11 for a crowd of around 4000.
7. I played bass guitar in a band that regularly performed for a crowd of 55,000 in the Astrodome as part of Houston Oilers games.
8. I have enjoyed snow skiing since 1975. I have skied the Lake Tahoe area, New Mexico, Colorado, New Zealand, and Jan 2014 Park City Utah.
9. I have an incurable disease called Achalasia.  As incurable diseases go, it is one of the better ones, but it makes for a dubious relationship with food.

Bonus Thing: I am secretly the love child of Elvis Presley and Joanne Pankey.

Momma's baby daddy.

End of a Great Era

I awoke yesterday to the news that Clarence Clements had died the night before (Sat. June 10, 7pm) and it was similar (in the past) to when I got the news that a  Major Rocker had passed. I will always remember where I was when I heard about Jimi,  Janis, Jim M, Elvis, even Rick Nelson.

It may have been a combination of things that caused it to hit me so hard: There was 20 minutes of sobbing before I could even get out of bed. I'm still trying to sort it all out.

Even though I never met Bruce Springsteen or his band, I've been on board with their mission and music since year one; 1973. The folks at radio KLOL 'got' it right away and were solidly behind this new guy Springsteen, 'played Greetings From Asbury Park album  with a passion (remember when radio had passion?). A local music venue, Liberty Hall, hired Bruce and his band right away (when gigs were few and far between). They played the former movie theater 2-3 times before moving to larger music halls.

It was a lot like finding religion; I was telling everyone I knew about this guy and his amazing approach to music. I made just about everyone I knew sit and listen to the first and second Springsteen albums.
I have always said Rock and Roll is a religion. I have never believed it more than now. No doubt the Unitarian in me finds it easy to stretch the definition to fit.

The music of my youth was/is a place I could find hope, answers to my questions about love and life.
It still lifts me up in a way little else can.
Bruce Springsteen's vision still amazes me, first in how his ideas are so massive and seemingly limitless in scope. Second in that he doggedly achieved what he set out to do, but most importantly, he did it with his tribe, his band. They all grew together to become not just one of the worlds greatest rock bands, but a force that effected the path of countless lives.

Sound like an overstatement? I don't think it is.

There are millions of followers of the man's music around the world. What we are followers of is more than the music. It is the underlying message:

There is a "Promised Land" waiting in this life.
You can make a good life for yourself no matter the circumstance of your birth
All men are brothers
Dignity starts with courage

Alright, I also like his politics. He is on the side of everything I am on the side of.
All that realization came to pass over years, through discovery.

But back to The Big Man.

There really was something magical about the two of them on that stage together. Everyone knew it.
I wonder now if Bruce would have gone as far if he and Clarence had never met.
Right now it is hard to imagine Bruce out there minus Clarence Clement's amazing presence.
It is a void I am feeling personally.

Great Moments in Rock

Everyone can talk about something they have witnessed that stuck with them. Usually it's some superstars getting together to save the world or something, that's cool.

I maintain great moments happen in rock all the time by people not at all well known.

One came to me from my dim and distant past (most of the people I knew then are dead or in the nursing home).

The band was a group I moved to Austin to start right after getting married (1973). I can't tell you the name of it, we could not agree what to call it, so we each referred to it by the name we liked best (hoping the others would like it). I called it Jack Frost. Like many bands, we spent most of our time rehearsing in our living room. Yes, like the Monkees, we lived together - 8 people in a 2 bedroom house. Hang on, I'm getting to the "great rock moment in a minute or two.

We got our first job playing a homecoming dance for Waco High School. I was the point man, 'played guitar, organ, electric piano, saxophone, flute, and sang a bit. On our first gig, we were doing a song with twin lead guitars ("Blind Eye" by Wishbone Ash if you must know). When it came time for the twin guitars to do their thing, me and the real guitarist came simultaneously charging out to the front of the stage as if we had done this on the last 14 shows, when in reality, we never practiced it (in our cramped living/practice room? No way!) Didn't discuss it, or even think about it until "it" happened. We happen to glance at one another on the way out and traded grins. "This IS rock and Roll" Thought I...

About 10 years later I was emcee at a punk rock concert at a downtown park. A young group not unlike my own in 1973 took the 'stage' (flat spot actually). Their twin guitars came charging out with mucho gusto... and pulled their stacked amplifiers over in a tremendous crash. The guitar player's cables were too short! A 'great moment' thwarted by a tiny miscalculation. Fortunately punks thrive on this sort of thing...

The Last Time I Saw Richard...

Wasn't in Detroit '68, but in Austin at UT a couple of Springs ago. It had been close to 3 years since I had done any work for the show, when I got a call to bring the piano for the UT 40 Acres event (an outdoor festival on campus). It was a nice reunion with the band, they are all nice cats. Leader Wayne and I operated with the understanding we were both there to do and be the best for the show. Lucky for us both, Wayne's well-known temper had never been directed towards me.
The hours-long sound check was over, everything proved to be ready, and it was Showtime!

The days of L.R. standing on pianos were over, he appeared on crutches. Crippled, but still looking and sounding good. Then the horror started.

After the long vamp, he started testing the piano, and something was not right!
The notes were all sustaining like the pedal was stuck. Oh no! I checked everything I could check, but it was in the electronics and I could not figure out the source of the problem. Wayne said "grab the keyboard and put it on top of the grand".
That was done but now L.R. could not reach it. He also could not stand for even one song.
Now somebody said "get a trunk, he'll have to sit on it". I grabbed an amp case and put it on it's side. Now we had Little Richard propped high on a trunk with his feet dangling down. I quickly wondered which hip he would break when he toppled over, when suddenly, one of UT's finest (by this I mean students) showed up with a bonified stool. We pulled L.R. off the makeshift trunk-seat and plopped him on the stool. and the show rocked on...

Well, afterwards I knew I was in for it. I didn't hide or avoid, I went to Wayne and apologized. To my utter amazement, he said "hey don't worry about it, these things happen", gave me a hug and said "take care, we'll look for you next time".

I'd like to thank the gods (or whom it may concern) for a classy ending to a long rock and roll road trip. Below is a video of that same show, right before the excrement hit the wind tunnel.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=493bewScSs0

The First Time I Worked for Little Richard

The original title of this piece is The First and Last Time I Worked for Little Richard. The first story got too long, so the second part I'll publish later.
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By the sound of the title, you probably think I worked one Little Richard Show, but it was closer to 20 over a long number of years. It occurred today that perhaps the most interesting of all these was the first one and the last.
By "worked for" I mean I supplied the piano (and prep for the piano) on his shows. This is going back to the early '90's.

The first show I had a call for was in Galveston for a summer event at Moody Gardens. They might have been opening their latest pyramid or some such thing.
The concert was on the airport runway next to the Moody complex and stared Blood Sweat & Tears, Dr. John, and (The Beautiful) Little Richard.

This was my first L.R. show and I was excited, after all, this man is a god (in Rock and Roll), and has been a major influence on everyone who ever picked up a guitar (or rock piano).

Not to drag this out, it was an all day deal with multiple sound checks, etc. and when evening came and the concert started, well, let's put it like this: They were planning for 8,000... 800 showed up. That is a lot of empty runway space.

Musically, the shows were terrific. BS&T I had not seen since my 16th birthday sounded better than I remembered. Dr John, who I had been a big fan of since his first album was also great with a 5 piece horn section.

It began to get weird after the BS&T show ended. I went up to do a final check on the piano, and some goons told me I had to leave. Now. I tried to explain I had a job to do, but they countered with if I didn't leave, the show would be canceled and it would be my fault.

I left.

From then on it was like a totalitarian dictatorship transferred in from behind the Iron Curtain. These guys who looked like secret service agents went around ordering everyone around, muttering into walkie-talkies and threatened the meager audience that L.R. would not come out if they all didn't back up 9 feet from the stage... it was all pretty crazy.

Finally it was Little Richard Time! After giving us all time (about 10 minutes) to admire His Beauty (by standing on my piano and posing) he sat down and did his show. Which was good except:

• he claimed he saw people video taping him and so threatened them with his goons.
• He complained bitterly about how much he hated the piano.

Yep, in front of friends and family (mine, not his) he bitched about what a piece of crap the gleaming white grand piano was and how he was going to chop it into firewood, etc.

I wanted to fall through my a** hole and disappear. I had fantasies of getting a picture with him and the whole nine yards. Now I was caught between shame and humiliation.

When the ordeal was finally over, I ran up on the stage to check it - none of the things he claimed were true! WTF?! I thought...

I got a lot of good-natured kidding from my buddies "Bil, Little Richard wants to see you in his trailer". I wrote letters of apology/explanation to the producers (the agent appreciated that). Then heard the rest of the story: After finding out 90% of the expected audience didn't show, L. Richard was looking for an out. All the trouble making was about him being pissed at the low turnout.

Here's the kicker:

4 days later I got a call from his bandleader asking me to come work for them at the New Orleans Jazz Festival.