Pribek

I was eating some pasta and I heard one of my favorite songs on the radio in the background, “Blue Monday” by Fats Domino. There have been lots of different versions cut by other artists (Ronnie Lane and Bob Seger come to mind) that are really good but, I like Fats’ the best. That is a sign of a well-written song, if two very different singers can do it and it does not lose impact. I have always thought of Fats Domino as a stylist, and if somebody else does the song they usually try to assimilate some of his style, but it still holds up.

Early rock and roll had a lot of stylists. I have always found it interesting that all of these unique musicians had at least one other player that was equally stylistic playing on their records. Fats Domino and Little Richard had Earl Palmer on drums. Chuck Berry had Johnnie Johnson on piano. Jerry Lee Lewis had Roland Janes on guitar. Elvis had Scotty Moore.

It is not coincidence. It takes a musician as talented as Earl Palmer to recognize what is different and special about Fats or Little Richard and realize how best to accompany them so that what is special becomes apparent to the world. It’s always a team effort and it wasn’t just the players mentioned that deserve some credit, there was a very high level of musicianship all around on those records.

While I’m thinking about it I got to tell a funny story about Johnnie Johnson.

Johnnie played with Chuck Berry but before that, Chuck Berry played with Johnnie Johnson. Johnnie went unnoticed for a long time but he started to get some long overdue recognition in his later years. He was a wonderful piano player.

Anyway, Johnnie was in town for a couple of days to play on a Bel-Airs record that was recorded at Lou Whtneys’ studio. Lou says that Johnnie carried a briefcase with him everywhere. If they went to eat, he grabbed the briefcase. When he was playing, the briefcase was by the piano bench. So, Lou is wondering “what’s in the case?” Is it cash, or a gun? The two were alone in the control room and Lou finally just asks him. Johnnie opens up the case and inside were, two Mars bars, a bottle of Crown Royal, and a National Enquirer. Now, that’s a guy that’s ready for anything.

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I just checked my cell phone messages and my mind began to wander.

Pretty soon I hear the automated operator saying “Are you still there? Are you still there?” I never had that happen before. Once, I passed out on the phone while talking to Chicago and the other party left the phone off the hook until I woke up six hours later. Good times.

I guess I am a little preoccupied with writing a lyric. Sometimes it is like a puzzle; you can walk away from the table but you still picture it in your mind.

I just bought “The Complete Early Recordings of Skip James” and am presently downloading it from Napster. Yeah, I was just griping about Napster a while ago, but where else are you going to find a Skip James record at midnight on a Wednesday.

James recorded eighteen songs in 1931, then he quit. He found religion and walked away from the blues. He was rediscovered in the sixties and started recording again. These 1931 recordings are like no other music.

Here are some words people have used to describe Skip James music, devil-ridden, gloomy, sinister genius, anger and lurking madness. Damn, how can anyone resist sinister genius.

It is a beautiful, crisp, peaceful night in the Ozarks. The leaves are just beginning to change. I always like the changing of the season. It’s like a fresh start.

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It is funny sometimes how you find something by mistake.

I was working in our little demo studio tonight and checking out some new wiring. So, I needed something to record, anything.

I have an instrumental I have been kicking around that I envision as a little jam to open a live set with. It is a simple blues based thing that will be fun to play. I decided to make a demo of it.

Sometimes when I do this, I use a drum machine. I have one that is about the cheapest you can buy. It is easy to use and I can usually write a simple part that a real drummer can hear and then play something better. This machine has little buttons that when pushed sound like the various drums. I play the kick drum for the whole song, then go back and do the same for each separate drum and cymbal. So, when the whole thing is together, I press play on the drum machine and feed it into the big multi-track recorder.

I hit the wrong button on the drum machine and switched the parameters. Instead of hearing bass drum, snare, cymbals and toms, I heard ticking clock, church bells, marimbas, something that sounds like a machine gun, and possibly a whale in heat.

It was a strange mix but sounded kind of cool. I really wanted to check the wiring so I kept it and overdubbed some other parts. I ended up with a little piece of electronic mayhem that would not exist if not for my mistake.

I have known some very creative musicians who specialize in computer music. I don’t understand a lot of it but I think some of it involves manipulating the machines to somehow generate random noise within a framework. That is my perception and I may be way off base.

I have a friend that I have not seen in years. He used to play saxophone in a band I was in. He was from upstate New York and we used to call him Yankee. One night he said “I’m from so far up north, Yankees live south of me.” We called him Tater after that.

Tater was a musical force to be reckoned with. He was one of the most intuitive players I have ever met. He has a master’s degree in electronic music and he was really just goofing around with us to keep his chops up. A couple of times he brought a synthesizer called an E.W.I. (electronic wind instrument). He could make all kinds of beautiful, crazy, violent sounds with this thing and we made hit put it away. We just wanted the sax.

As I go along in life, I really appreciate people who have the stones to experiment and do something different. I was in a museum a couple of years ago and I saw some paintings by Mark Rothko. I had seen these in books before and they didn’t make sense to me. When I walked around the corner and was confronted by one of these enormous canvasses, I felt a physical reaction in my gut. Art isn’t always supposed to be comfortable, it’s supposed to make you feel something.

Anyway, Tater if you are out there, get in touch. You were Miles ahead of me at the time but I think I have gained some understanding.

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