Rock Redeemed (Part 2)

I regret never having attended performances by many of America's heavy-hitters... Magic Sam, Howling Wolf, and Sonny Boy Williamson (the later, touchy one); Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Thelonius Monk, and John Coltrane do all come to mind.

But for rock at any time between the mid-Sixties and the Nineties, I tried to see every act that mattered--the Beatles on their 1966 tour, moptop-cute but impossible to hear above the din of fans; the Stones many times over the years, never so right as during their Banquet-to-Exile period; Dylan with and without the Band, and later on too--but ignoring his team-ups with Tom Petty or the Grateful Dead, both groups always better on their own whether rockin' out or noodling cosmically. (Wish I'd been somewhere when Dylan sang "Blind Willie McTell," if he ever did it live. Certainly one of his greatest songs, too little known because held back for so long. But I do have an unlikely bootleg from Japan where Bob actually sang a few other major numbers with a symphony orchestra!)

I saw Hendrix and the Who at Monterey Pop, and the Who later for Tommy and then also after Keith Moon's death. Missed the Byrds but got to the Flying Burrito Brothers three times and the Doors twice; Crosby Stills and Nash with and without Young, who wowed me more both in Buffalo Springfield and then on his own tours (Rust Never Sleeps, yes!); Winged and band-running Paul McCartney in his cheery heyday; the Beach Boys with Glenn Campbell in place of Brian Wilson, but the harmonies still intact; Sonny and Cher when she was 18 and astonishingly gorgeous and he was in a tux, trying to Go On from The Beat.

I followed the changes for both Eric Clapton and Steve Winwood, the latter soul-voiced kid graduating from "Stevie" in the Spencer Davis Group (yes, they played Seattle) through "Steve" in the hallowed days of jazz-tinged Traffic, to some other, more adult but kinda boring Winwood years later on his own. He also figured briefly in the shortlived Blind Faith with Clapton and Ginger Baker, both of whom I'd already gawked at in Cream. And guitar-god Eric just kept on cruising after that, first with Delaney and Bonnie and then scoring brilliantly as Derek and the Dominoes, and forever after in various solo ventures. (Backing up for a moment, I once had an interview scheduled with Delaney and Bonnie which was suddenly canceled, because Duane Allman had just been killed and Delaney was jetting back South. Loved that Southern soul duo for as long as they lasted together, and their cohorts like Leon Russell, whom I watched in amazement as he plunked funky piano while conducting the massive backing for Joe Cocker on that infamous Mad Dogs and Englishmen tour.)

Running somewhat parallel to Winwood and Clapton, I regularly checked out both Van Morrison's latest incarnation and Jimmy Page's Led Zeppelin (well, Zep twice only)--that long-gone quartet about to reunite just this month for a huge one-off fundraiser in Los Angeles (which only the celebrity charity price keeps me from travelling to see), and Robert Plant having just released his surprising and splendid duet album with perfect vocalist Allison Krause. But Van the Man was really more my style, and I love almost every one of his albums, though I gave up on him live after a couple of near no-show performances, once when he had a cold and the other time when he just didn't feel like singing!

Another major vocalist and band back then was the no-longer-Small Faces with Rod Stewart and pre-Stones Ron Wood. The group came to Seattle riding the crest of their wave and put on a high-spirited show that I remember as less raggedy than the critics always accused them of being. Rod the Mod was in fine gravel voice on song after song, and he did his other specialties, fencing with the mic stand and kicking soccer balls into the crowd. I had an interview scheduled backstage that night, not with the Faces but with opening act Family. But en route I did get to shake hands with cheerfully friendly Ron Woods and then sort of wave at totally exhausted Rod, slumped in a chair looking almost exactly like the cover of one of his great early albums! He just grunted at me.

The bigger names kept touring, but their ticket prices kept rising too, so from the mid-Seventies on I focussed more on new or lesser-known acts--for example, early cheap-price tours by snarling Elvis Costello and the rhythmic Police, before either had exploded into their well-deserved global fame; and around then too, Los Lobos ahead of their Will-the-Wolf-Survive break-out, at a student-sponsored concert on the U.W campus. Needless to say, they rocked the house. I danced more that night than I had for years, and I still try to see the band almost every time they hit Seattle, even though I don't dance as much these days! (Coincidentally, Los Lobos' producer/saxman Steve Berlin lived up here on Vashon Island for several years; and big David Hidalgo came into my bookstore one time, bought some small item I've forgotten, maybe a Billie Holiday bio, and had me special-order a poetry book for him. And did I get his autograph on a pair of albums? Oh yes.)

I would also particularly like to thank the music gods for the Clash (and the Punk Explosion in general), waking up the turgid, torpid music industry around 1977-78 and some after. I caught the Clash during their suddenly-triumphant London Calling tour, and the show was a barnburner, rousing us punters to the rafters, but also providing an enlightening Reggae experience courtesy of a black deejay playing hot cuts between the acts.

Speaking of reggae, two life-affirming concerts I was fortunate to get to were Toots and the Maytals in all their soulful, high-stepping glory, and this one: the pairing of Jimmy Cliff and headliners Bob Marley and the (non-Tacoma) Wailers. Cliff came on a half hour late or so, which was standard practice back then, and did a fine opening set ranging from slow to fast, misses to massive hits. And then we waited... and waited... and waited...

Finally, about midnight, out danced spliffed-up Marley and his I-Threes and the Barrett Brothers-led band; and Bob and friends proceeded to put on an eye-opening, body-shaking, soul-enhancing object lesson in making music and working the crowd. In minutes he had the whole two-tiered sitdown-theater crowd up and dancing in the aisles, beside and atop their seats, all of us trying to keep up as Bob tossed his dreadlocks and his body every whichaway, still playing rhythm guitar and singing his Redemption songs. More than just a night to remember, those two Wailer hours marked a never-to-be-equaled moment in spirit and time...

((Next time, a few other such moments, Merle to Bruce to Mac--no, not Fleetwood--and a possibly hopeless attempt to sum things up.))

Parsons and Hillman, Part Three

So your intrepid interviewer next inquired about the Burritos' (later much-honored) pedal steel guitarist, Sneaky Pete Kleinow...

Can we talk about Pete for a minute?

GP: I'd love to talk about Pete.

CH: He's been playing steel for ten years. He's from Indiana originally; he migrated out west.

GP: He also made most of the special effects that were used in Outer Limits. ((Sixties sci-fi TV show))

CH: He's an animation expert.

GP: He played the music in front and then he did the other thing on the side, and he went back and forth. He's a true-to-life maniac. He's 34; he's got a daughter who's 15 and sings country music and can take his steel apart and put it back together--she's just as crazy as he is! He's got a son that's 14 and went on the road with us, that can drug any of us under the table. And Pete himself doesn't need nothin'. He's on the natch.

And here he comes now...

GP: The Maharishi of country music, here he is now, Peter Kleinow!

CH: Beat it, Sneaky. Take a powder.

GP: Tell him ((meaning interviewer)) what you did with Projects Unlimited.

SP: I ran them out of business. I joined these guys, and I'm workin' on them... I used to be special effects, in the animation business; used to do all kinds of movies for George Pal and Outer Limits.

Well, are you still in animation?

SP: No, I'm just keepin' it in case these guys fire me next week; then I can go back to it.

GP: He does all the hirin' and firin'. I don't know what he's tellin' you.

SP: Well, if I can't do somethin' without workin' at it, I won't do it.

GP: He's the original country musician-administrator.

SP: Lazy Bones and the Burrito Brothers.

GP: When any of us are trying to figure out what's the basis to what we're doin', we always talk to Pete.

SP: Well, if you'll excuse me... ((repeating his earlier quick exit; as Gram says below, Pete was focussed on repairing his steel))

Chris E: Sneaky. He done snuck off.

I get the impression it's the music he's interested in. This external stuff like a reporter asking questions...

GP: Not at all. The music is what he's interested in, but he loves to talk when he's got the time.

Chris E: He and Michael Saul get along real well... ((Saul)) sat in with us in New York and played every song we play just perfectly.

GP: He's the one cat that's sat in with us that didn't make mistakes.

CH: ((reminding them of another)) Richard Greene...

Chris E: Aww, that guy, fiddle his ass off. But Michael Saul, him and Pete got along so good they just ran all over New York together. Went to restaurants together, got drunk together, just had a ball--and Pete doesn't even drink, so they really got along.

GP: He'll have some of that good, what is it... ((phoney French)) Pea-not Nwah?

Pinot noir?

GP: Yeah. And he'll tell you all about the steel guitar--all the ethics of it, the mechanics of it and everything. But he's just so mad now tryin' to get it fixed. He's got a funky old steel, you know. It's funkier and older than the funkiest, oldest Telecaster ever made--an old, old Fender steel that has... well, you notice on "Dark End of the Street" how much it sounds like a Telecaster. It can me made to sound that way. And we have such a time getting people to understand our specific equipment difficulties and the sounds we're trying to make.

Yeah, because everybody's used to working with Ten Years After and that kind of Blues thing.

((Gram makes guitar sounds with his mouth))

CH: All the groups sound like that shit. All of them doin' that stuff.

I've been listening to black Blues for like ten years, and it took me about five years before I'd listen to any white groups play. And now it's all the same, it seems.

CH: The best group is Taj Mahal. Taj feels the music, and he can sing.

GP: And Indian Ed'll lay more guitar on you than any of them Blues guitar people you can name. Indian Ed ((Davis, who died of an overdose a few years later)) is the cream of the crop; he's better than Clapton and Hendrix put together.

Seems to me The Byrds made some noise ((meaning bluesy or experimental guitar)) in their time too.

CH: Yes, but there was some sort of context to the music--not just "turn up to 10 and jam in one chord, one key, E..."

GP: I used to know the Injun back before Bonnie and Delaney got together with the Main Street Blues Band--as they ((Indian Ed's group)) were called before they joined them.

((fiddling with tape deck I lost some conversation about Seattle and also about Bo Diddley, who appeared as did the Burritos at the Seattle Pop Festival; resumed with a question for Ethridge))

How did you get over to L.A. from Meridian? What were the steps?

Chris E: I flew. ((laughter all around)) Really, I was playing with this group in Biloxi, and I met this cat, and he brought me out. I played session stuff with different people then for about a year and a half. Then I joined the Burritos.

GP: We could get real profound, but I guess Rolling Stone doesn't like that. They like the hillbilly side... sit around and talk like ol' Bonnie and Delaney: "Waal, mah ol' gran'mama down there, she cooks the best Hoppin' John anybody ever made. You don' know what Hoppin' John is?" But I really got off livin' with some guys over in England--with Keith and Mick of the Stones, diggin' things that are profound about where music's at and where it's goin'. I can't ignore things like that, you know. If everybody wants to think we're simple, that's fine. And if everybody wants to think Bonnie and Delaney are simple, that's fine. But they're not, and neither is Leon, who is a very big part of that album. But there are guys that didn't join that band, that left that band, that were with them back then, that could be the band that, like, Rolling Stone was projecting them to be... J.J.Cale, Jimmy Karstein, Junior Markham, and Carl from Bonnie and Delaney--put them together with those horn players that Markham knows, and you got yourself a funky white band. You got yourself some people who don't know nothin' except the bottom of a beer can when they see it through the hole, you know?

Chris E: They're all just good people. Bobby Keyes...

GP: Bobby Keyes is from Tulsa, Oklahoma, and the first time Junior Markham turned him on, Bobby called Junior a "homosexual" and a "dope-pusher." That's how funky and down into it Junior is, man. He's just there. And that's why everybody hates him--why he's gotten all those knife and shotgun scenes.

Chris E: Shoulda heard the song Leon wrote about that, played it the other night down at the session. I didn't believe it... ((sings)) "There's a shoot-out on the plantation... da da da da da-da... Junior better run, 'cause he ain't got nothin' but a knife, and Gary's got the gun." Gary Sanders, cat that went back down to Galveston.

CH: That came from woman problems.

GP: "Woman poisonin'," as Junior Markham calls it. Junior Markham and the Tulsa Rhythm Group would be the wild flower group. Bonnie and Delaney would be... ((I still don't know what he was getting at here.)) They're not the simple people everyone thinks they are; they been around a long time. And so have we, but our past is more difficult to hide. And it sort of flashes out. "Waal, uh-hum, how about the old Byrds?" They were never into The Byrds to that extent. They're more into the Burrito Brothers.

How did you come up out of Waycross?

GP: I just started runnin' away from home at an early age. I was scared to death of Waycross. My father's name was "Coon Dog," and he was really into it.

God, I guess.

GP: "Coon Dog" Connor--Connor was my original name. I got adopted later on. But he lived in the woods and was from, like, Columbia, Tennessee, and taught me how to dig it. And I dug it as long as I was with him, but he passed on early. When I was about 13, I got my new parents--Parsons now. My family's from New Orleans, and it's much more acceptable. But when I was a Connor from Georgia, I didn't like it too much. I moved from Waycross down to Florida. Parsons came from New Orleans and moved my mother down to Florida. And then she died. He just moved back to New Orleans a few years ago, and that's my home now. That's where my Mon and Dad live.

((Gram here has skimmed over a complex Southern Gothic snarl of families and deaths, which later also claimed Bob Parsons, the stepfather who adopted him. As though discomfited by the family talk, he decides to go clean up... and I foolishly tried to ask a few hurried questions while he was preparing to head for the shower.))

Where do y'all live now?

GP: Livin' in Beverly Glen, near David Crosby.

When did you form the Submarine Band?

GP: I formed the Submarine Band when I was at college. At Harvard. I dropped out my freshman year.

((He then said some friendly words about the man who had become his mentor and friend, Harvard's freshman dean the Reverend Dr. James E. Thomas--which I failed to get on tape. And I said something about the performance clothes he was going to put on later.))

Speaking of Nudie, how much does one of those fancy suits cost?

GP: Starting about $350, anywhere up to $10,000.

((With that, he scooted off to the shower... a good place to end this portion. Next time, the long solo talk I had with Chris Hillman while Gram was gone.))