Eeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeee

Last night was all I’d hoped for.
I saw Savoy Brown for the first time, even though I’ve listened to their music since I was a teen, maybe before!
Street Corner Talking, Raw Sienna, Lion's Share, Blue Matter, and A Step Further are in my vinyl collection and also duplicated in my CD collection along with Looking In, Getting To The Point, and Simmonds solo effort, Solitaire. I am an invested fan.
It's always been strictly about the music. None of the celebrity culture of today ever manifested itself in my appreciation of the great music I was hearing. I know nothing of Kim Simmonds other than he makes music that stirs my soul.
Tonight, not only was the music great, but there were lots of friends and good vibes in the bluesbar. And I got up close with Kim Simmonds. Wasn't even trying!
During the band's break, a small group of friends and I stood just outside the side door, enjoying the moderate-for-Texas summer night. Kim Simmonds, who basically IS Savoy Brown, walked out and casually joined us.
As we welcomed him into our little circle, Kim said something which I remarked back to, and he laughed heartily. I sure wish I could remember what it was I said. I remember thinking it was pretty clever, at the time.
I didn’t realize how excited I was to talk to Kim Simmonds until he left after a few minutes to sign autographs. Though I felt calm as he stood there, when he left I realized how excited and happy I had become. My heart was beating quickly and my voice became high and dolphin-like.
eeeeeeeee....
The only other time I remember feeling like that was after meeting Ringo for the first time. I became a squeaky fourteen year old and my feet didn't touch the ground for a few hours afterwards....
It’s kind of funny how some of my emotions about “rock gods” are so strong, even at this age! It surprises me.
I must've been wickedly emotional as a teenager. I'm pretty sure I was. Even today, my mother accuses me of being dramatic every now and then.
I prefer to think of it as passion :-)
I've met lots of other stars, musicians and celebrities, but only Ringo and now Kim Simmonds have stirred that googly feeling up. Only Ringo and Kim Simmonds made me get starry-eyed.
And a couple non-famous men who shall remain nameless that I dated... that was good, too.
Who's next?
Ain't life grand!

MUSICAL HIGHLIGHT 2006 #4

RINGO STARR & THE ALL-STARRS
July 3, 2006 Nokia Theater

The first time I met Ringo Starr was in 2004. I’d been loving and listening to him and his Beatle band-mates since I was 7 years old. Meeting a Beatle, and working for him, even if only one day, made for a whole ‘nother article, which I may re-publish here someday. Suffice to say I was thrilled.
This time was almost as much fun as the first time. A new band of All-Starrs included Rod Argent, Richard Marx, Sheila E, Billy Squier, Edgar Winter, and Hamish Stuart. Though I was familiar with these names, and admire their respective talents, the only one I would have gone to see without Ringo was Edgar Winter. And then only if it was convenient.
Together, these artists put on a great show; top-notch, professional and fun. Granted, I am totally biased towards any Beatle, but when Rod Argent from The Zombies tickled “She’s Not There” out of the ivories, I really wanted to get my groove on right there! What a great song! And Sheila E always blows me away with her drumming abilities. Simply amazing, that woman is a dynamo on-stage and a sweetheart offstage. Edgar Winter teamed up with Billy Squier for a gut-bucket version of “Ramblin’ on My Mind.” Even Richard Marx overcame his pop stereotype and showed why he deserves the limelight, too.
There were moments during this night when I was fourteen years old again. Anytime music transports me that easily makes for a musical highlight. Ringo, and whomever he brings along for the ride, will always be one of mine.

Musical Highlights of 2006-- #2

JAMES GANG--Nokia Theater
I have loved Joe Walsh since I first saw him become one with his guitar in 1972-3(?). I watched in awe as he led a band called Barnstorm on stage at Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green Ohio back then.
I’d never seen nor heard a person and an instrument merge like Joe and his guitar did that night. I continued to love his talent through the Eagles, his solo stuff, and his recordings with The James Gang.
Though I’d heard the music of the James Gang on radio, and the band members were all from my mid western state, I was too young to attend any performances they might have been doing when Walsh was with them.
So now, in August 2006, I get a chance to see the re-united Walsh version of the Gang.
Joe Walsh, Jimmy Fox and Dale Gilmore have come back to have fun, revive the music of the Gang, and give Joe a chance to shine again. Joe said in a radio interview that playing with the Gang allowed him to go different places musically and get into his guitar more than when he had to be a professional sideman with other talented players to perform songs with rigid parts. This was for fun, he said.
True to his word, it was fun for everyone!
The James Gang played their biggest hits and best album songs. Fox and Gilmore smiled all night long while onstage, spreading positive energy along with their excellent playing skills.
Joe was just Joe. Wise-cracking, humble, and the coolest guy in the room,any room, anywhere.
The music was magnificent, and the Gang even backed Walsh on some purely Walsh hits. The crowd loved it. The band loved it. It was a great concert.
Before the show, in my job as backstage runner, I had knocked on Joe’s dressing room
door to hand over an awaited package. Joe answered, with his guitar hanging in front, and I realized I had just interrupted his warm-up.

The beautiful music I’d heard as I rapped on the door was him playing his guitar. I had ignorantly thought it was recorded music.
“Hi!,” He said with a wide smile, standing there in his stocking feet.” What can I do for you?”
He was acting just as friendly as if I was an old neighbor looking for a cup of sugar. I told him what I had and handed it to him. I met his smile with one of my own.
“Anything else I can help with?,” he said.
I said something which meant no, and thanks, and I went on about my business. I was not the coolest one in the room, but sure felt like one of the luckiest.

A Top Ten List for 2006

Musical Highlights
Numero Uno
Van Morrison, Nokia Theater-- My good friend Patti bought tickets, and gave me one as a birthday gift.
To start the evening, Patti and I met at the theater early, parked next to the levee bank and tailgated. We sat in lawn chairs facing the west, looking behind the row of parked vehicles, enjoying choice, delicious food and drink.
As we watched a beautiful sunset, a bonus feature of the evening serendipitously came upon the horizon.
About ten cars down, a well built man appeared behind a truck, standing on the levee bank, silhouetted by the sinking sun and all it’s colors. Just enough shadows to make out body textures and forms, but not distinct features, the lighting was absolute perfection.
As if in a Ralph Lauren commercial, the man stripped off his shirt, pulling it off overhead one arm at a time, emphasizing his toned physique.
In the light of the setting sun, he put on another shirt, as sexily as he’d taken the other one off.
The sky darkened, he finished changing and moved out of site between the cars.
Patti and I watched without saying a word, appreciating the marvelous view. This was our private opening act. Proving that sometimes the best things in life are free.
But the headliner was about to begin.
We walked in, sat down, and he came on immediately, as if waiting for us. We were there to see the Man, and he came through without missing a beat.
Van had just released a CD of what had been reviewed as “country music.” Van the Man did about four songs off this CD, and if that’s how Van does “country,” I’m a fan! (not a fan of country, so you know it must’ve been great).
He did many of his hits from the 70’s and 80’s, or is it the 60’s and 70’s now? Decades are flying by.
Brown-Eyed Girl, Moondance, Tupelo Honey; all were sung without losing a note, expanded from the recorded version, and played masterfully by his talented 15 (?) piece band.
It was a glorious night of friendship and music. One of the best of my adult life.

Highlights Numbers 2-10 coming this weekend.

Still Whining After All These Years

When the tornado came through down town Fort Worth on a Tuesday in 2000, my most pressing concern was if Caravan of Dreams would be open by Thursday for the scheduled John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers show.
It wasn’t that I didn’t have compassion for those who suffered damages. I did. But I also had tickets for a front row center table. And Mayall at the Caravan was guaranteed to be a good show.
Downtown was too damaged for that show to go on and the gig was canceled. Not rescheduled, canceled. Caravan of Dreams was done. I just didn’t know it yet.
Shortly after the twister visited, the Caravan closed it’s doors.
The beautiful, best-music-club I’ve ever been in was replaced by another of Cowtown‘s cultural experiences. For a gastronome, it made little difference. For the music enthusiast of Boomer age, it was a tragedy.
The Bass family opened their music Hall and thought that might help pacify Caravan’s fans. The Hall performances are first-class, the venue is classical, the service is mostly impeccable. But it’s a different experience. The Caravan was the perfect mix of concert and nightclub. Bass Hall doesn’t come close to fulfilling the Caravan’s paradigm.
Fast forward six years. I was one of the approximately 180 people at McDavid Studio recently to hear Alan Haynes with Jim Suhler & Monkeybeat play two sets of quality guitar-driven rock-and-blues based music.
A nightclub “atmosphere” seems intended by the set-up, with comfy chairs around tables for four, and a table bar set up in the corner of the large, acoustically sound but otherwise cold, sterile room.
If using standing room, I’m guessing it could hold three hundred friendly people or two hundred patrons allowing personal space for furs and jewelry.
Bothersome were the blazered employees paired together in the studio, hallways and entrance. Poised and professional, they were noticeable in the sense that I couldn’t figure out what the purpose was.
It’s a find-your-own seating policy so ushering wasn’t needed. They were very helpful as I negotiated the hallways on the initial bathroom trek, and smiled as I passed thereafter. But would a place employ people merely to help others find their way to the bathrooms? Or was it more of a security squad to keep wandering the halls to a minimum, which would be easy to do in the multi-use building? It was very hard to tell.
During the performance, the mostly middle-aged crowd cheered and clapped, and one happy-footed woman stood up and danced to one song. Bless her heart, she moved from dancing near her table to the far side of the stage. It’s hard to dance like no one’s watching when your table is front row center.
The blazer-ed brigade mostly sat around the perimeter during the show. I thought at the time, and still do, that they could have been much more productively used as cocktail servers. They aren’t your average cocktail server type, but who needs stereotypes anyway?
The bar service was easy and the tenders friendly and drink prices were probably average for downtown and less than Nokia Theater. The price point seemed to be six dollars. Add a dollar tip each drink and it’s two dollars over what I pay at my usual haunts. But maybe I’m just lucky.
If you live downtown, and haven’t yet attended a McDavid studio show, it won‘t hurt. Just plan on finding a hot joint afterwards, where your happy feet have company and you can get your groove on.
Mr. Bass, I knew Caravan of Dreams and McNair/McDavid studio is no Caravan.
But it is a really nice place to hear music.

THE REASON I CALL GENE TAYLOR A MASTER ACCOMPANIST

Floating in the Caribbean, on the top-most deck of a cruise ship, off the coast of Puerto Rico, I was sitting at the fancy piano bar.
It was after midnight, and I was listening to Gene Taylor playing just for the fun of it. It was his down time from performing with the Fabulous Thunderbirds.
It was a very intimate atmosphere. The ocean seemed to surround us in the small, heavily-wooded, glass-walled bar.
There were four of us sitting around the piano, three others at the bar. Taylor’s music flowed from ragtime, N’awlins-style boogie-woogie to standards like Georgia on my Mind.
Right outside the piano bar, a bandstand was set up for any ‘wandering minstrels’ to act on their urges. Only a glass wall separated us from the electric instruments. During Taylor’s soothing performance, a few people outside started playing reggae rhythms that boomed into the piano bar. I was getting irritated at this invasion of discordant sounds. But I underestimated the master musician at the piano.
Taylor adjusted his key, changed the tempo ever so slightly, did other things beyond me and continued playing in the vein he had been, only now the previously invasive sounds were his rhythm section.
I looked at him in amazement. How easily he had made that transition, in mere seconds.
In that moment, I totally understood his value as a sideman, and how lucky any band would be to have a magical keyboard man like Gene Taylor.

THE BAR SCENE

Someone once said "You can either be a good example, or a horrible warning."

Sometimes I'm one, sometimes the other. It makes for an interesting life.

Is This the Horrible Part?
Too many times I’ve heard, "I don’t want to meet people in a bar." Since I go to bars, I wonder why so many people have such a poor attitude towards "people in bars." Isn't that a generalization of the worst kind? Or am I delusional?
I love blues music, so I often go to crummy little joints to hear a good band. Even if no one talked with me all night, the music still soothes my soul. Does that make me undesirable?

Magnificent Obsession
I didn’t like the band so much, Anthony Gomes, but he’s good at what he does. Most of the crowd was real enthusiastic for him and he did have a great personality. He is very Robben Ford-ish but more Hendrix rocky....The blues will come later.
What was best about tonight was the company I kept and a conversation I had with a man (Dennis b/f of Cathy) about him being half a woman. He had no qualms about stating this rather obvious fact, once you think about it. He is indeed, born of a woman impregnated by a man, and isn’t he really half a woman!?
We’re not talking parts, of which I’m sure he was all man. We’re talking PARTS of our beings here.
He mentioned God and asked me my beliefs. I told him I believed not in Jesus Christ but that God is Love-Love is God, there is no ‘physical being’. I said he would be a 'better man' than I if he could define Love for me, because then he could define my god.
Dennis immediately replied “God is a blonde with big tits. Some people bow down and pray to an old man with a long grey beard, I bow down before a woman with big tits. Love is a blonde with big tits.”
He had me there. He had no doubt who he adored.
It's good to be god.