Since 2009 the Midwest-based band Signs of Life: The American Pink Floyd – devoted to recreating the musical and visual immersions of the celebrated British progressive-psychedelic pioneers – has been thrilling the Floydian faithful throughout the eastern U.S.
This fall and winter the band will be performing again in two Ohio cities, at the Dayton Masonic Center, on Nov. 19, and the Sorg Opera House Theater, in Middletown, on Jan. 22, 2022.
Veteran guitarist/vocalist Jon Stankorb heads up the eight-piece band, and the line-up has been relatively stable since their 2009 Cincinnati debut. Branching out from southwestern Ohio with shows in nearby Midwest cities, such as Indianapolis and Mansfield, Ohio, they later expanded their range to the East Coast and several southern states. Then, with a couple of key personnel changes, they honed themselves into a formidable, road-tested band, with a deeper, more variable Floydian repertoire.
The Nov. 19 date at the Dayton Masonic Center is very much a homecoming for the band, as they have performed in this architecturally stunning theatre to ecstatic audiences twice since 2018. And when SOL appears at Middletown’s Sorg Opera House in Janurary, it will be the band’s first performance in this artfully restored performance space. So, if you find yourself within driving distance of either city and are seeking an authentic, out-of-body Floydian experience, then don’t hesitate to gravitate to one of these Signs of Life shows. And keep your controls set for more SOL shows in 2022.
* FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 2021, 8:00-11:00 P.M.
Dayton Masonic Center, 525 W Riverview Ave, Dayton, OH 45405
Doors open at 7:00 p.m.; show time 8:00 p.m. All ages welcome.
Advance reserved tickets are $20-$45 via HERE
* SATURDAY, JANUARY 22, 8:00-11:00 P.M.
Sorg Opera House Theater, 63 S Main St, Middletown, OH 45044
Doors open at 7:00 p.m.; show time 8:00 p.m. All ages welcome.
Advanced reserved tickets are $25-$30 HERE
Fans of the legendary British progressive rock band Pink Floyd will have numerous opportunities to hear their music performed live in 2022. Of course, they will be able to catch original Floyd members Roger Waters and Nick Mason showcasing their classic songs with Roger's solo tour of the U.S. and Nick's Europe tour later this year. But also, a small handful of seasoned Floyd-themed bands, including the international touring unit Brit Floyd, have major 2022 tours on deck in North America. So much Floyd, so little time!
Brit Floyd – now with more than ten years of road experience under their belt – have another fully-booked year ahead in 2022. And, in fact, the North American leg of their “World Tour 2022” is already under way, having just kicked off on the East Coast in mid-March. Then, after more than 60 dates in the U.S. and Canada, the band will shift to Europe in Fall 2022 for a clutch of about 25 shows in various countries.
First having come onto the touring scene in 2011, Brit Floyd have become a perennial favorite among Floyd fans worldwide, and for multiple reasons. First, they load their shows with many obvious, must-hear PF songs. As part of the total experience, they also replicate PF’s dramatic lighting and multimedia effects with their own twists. But, most important, the shows stay musically fresh through rotation of non-hit album tracks, from tour to tour. In short, nothing is off the table with Brit Floyd.
According to the band’s founder, lead guitarist and musical director Damian Darlington, audiences can always count on Brit Floyd for chunky servings of favorites – such as “Money,” “Shine on You Crazy Diamond,“ “Learning to Fly,” “Run Like Hell,” “Wish You Were Here” and “One of These Days.” Yet, adds Darlington, who helps to craft the band’s set lists, serious fans can expect their fair share of deep Floyd, too.
“Obviously, we can’t leave folks behind by going too deep,” says Darlington, noting that the BF repertoire reflects all Floyd eras, from the first album with songs by founder Syd Barrett through the post-Roger Waters years.
“We’ve performed quite a few [pre-Dark Side] songs, such as ‘Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun’,” he says, explaining BF’s focus on variety and the element of surprise. In fact, over the past 11 years, they have revisited nearly every PF album, including Floyd’s 2014 swan song The Endless River. “People who attend more than one tour hear new things each time. And it’s more interesting for us, too.”
During their earlier tours, Brit Floyd had followed the crowd-pleasing route, performing classic albums, including Dark Side of the Moon and The Wall, in their entirety. Yet, in time, BF have taken a more thematic approach of rotating LP album “sides” or featuring longer, multi-section epics, including “Dogs” from PF’s 1977 Animals album. And, when the time is right, they have even been known to perform that most celebrated and desired epic in Pink Floyd history, “Echoes,” from the 1971 album Meddle.
Fortunately for fans of this classic Floyd track, as Damian Darlington points out, “Echoes” will once again take center stage in 2022.
“It’s too wonderful of a piece of music to leave lying around too long,” says Darlington, noting that Brit Floyd first performed this dramatic set piece on their 2011 debut tour, then revisited it in 2016. Just two years ago, he adds, BF activated the song again to mark the song’s 50th anniversary on the 2020-21 tours. So now, the anniversary celebration of “Echoes” continues into another year.
“It’s such an emotional journey, with its delicate passages, the ‘funky’ jam, and the mysterious [sounding] middle section,” he says, expressing his personal admiration for the multi-part Floyd masterpiece. “Some [newer] Floyd fans at a show may not recognize it at first, but ‘Echoes’ always makes a big impression on audiences.”
Darlington, who oversees all aspects of Brit Floyd’s production, says that recent solo shows by former Floyd bassist Roger Waters, drummer Nick Mason and guitarist David Gilmour have triggered ideas for updating BF’s shows. That is, when his own “night job” hasn’t gotten in the way.
“I did see Roger’s production of The Wall [in 2010] but missed his last tour, since our schedules overlapped so tightly. We work a lot! But I also got to see David in 2016 and Nick in 2018. You hear things and think, ‘Ohh, we should add that one.’ For example, Nick’s band did ‘Fearless’ [from Meddle]. Definitely a nice addition. So we added it for 2019, and audiences reacted very well.”
Much has been going on with Brit Floyd and much lies ahead, Darlington summarizes. As he notes, BF recently broke new ground, with a brief, first-ever tour of Japan, in late winter of 2019. And they periodically document tours visually with DVD releases, such as the very successful Live at Red Rocks set, although a new DVD has yet to be announced. Meanwhile, he adds, fans can expect more set list experimentation down the road.
This could even include adding “a solo song each” from the post-Floyd careers of David Gilmour and Roger Waters, he says, to add a “sense of their continuing creative legacies” beyond Pink Floyd.
“This is wonderful music to perform, and demand for it is strong all around the world,” says Darlington, who had spent 17 years in his band’s other major competitor, the Australian Pink Floyd Show, before launching Brit Floyd himself in 2011. “And there’s no sign of it stopping anytime soon.”
If you haven’t heard the early reports yet, there’s a new all-star psych/jam band making quite a stir with their exploratory shows and streaming events called The Gilmour Project. Yes, “Gilmour,” as in guitarist David Gilmour of Pink Floyd. But nearly the only thing this “project” has in common with their namesake is the same deep well of cosmic-blues-based progressive rock first dug out by the original band. And though neither Gilmour nor other Floyd members are involved, the word is this new, five-man band of psychedelic jam slingers is seriously stirring up the ghosts of early-‘70s Floyd with a brand new spoon.
Intending to hit the live circuit in early 2020, the Gilmour Project began to rev its engines but got waylaid by the same Covid roadblocks as all other touring acts did in this period. So this Floyd-themed band of elites, – consisting of veteran guitarist Jeff Pevar, keyboardist Scott Guberman, bassist Kasim Sultan, drummer Prairie Prince, and guitarist Mark Karan – went deep underground and came back up with “something extra.”
In mid-2021, the band re-surfaced with a live-streaming event in which they introduced their update on those much-loved, Floydian spatial explorations. For this first special presentation – streamed from San Francisco’s legendary Great American Music Hall on June 24, 2021 – the show’s title namechecked the Floyd’s original 1972 Dark Side work-in-progress, Pieces for Assorted Lunatics. Then, over Thanksgiving weekend in 2021, the band put on the stream again with the cleverly- titled holiday performance A Dark Slice. Both shows included airings of their highly re-interpreted version of Dark Side of the Moon, plus a lengthy second set of PF fan favorites.
Finally, before they could go live with a full 2022 tour, the Omicron variant threw the Project off track one more time, requiring January shows to be postponed. Nevertheless, the band persisted, with a small handful of U.S. warm-up shows through the late winter. And soon, in early May, they will be kicking off a 30- something-date tour in North America, capping it all with a date in Mexico City!
According to the band’s manager, industry veteran Michael Gaiman, the band members have deep pedigrees in jam, jazz, progressive and alternative rock history. Notably, they have served with Phil Lesh & Friends, Todd Rundgren’s Utopia, Talking Heads, RatDog and The Tubes, among others. And he explains how he himself played an instrumental role in bringing all these thoroughbred players together.
“It seemed like with all the active Floyd tribute bands out there, there’d be an opportunity to revisit this music from a new entry point,” he said, noting how guitarist Jeff Pevar – with his previous stint in Phil Lesh’s band and also in the trippy-blues Gov’t Mule offshoot, Blue Floyd, in the early 2000's – was a natural fit.
Gaiman explains that he began discussions with Pevar and the others, with a strong belief that the time was right for a fresh approach to interpreting Floyd. “My feeling was ‘y’know, this can’t be a note-for-note tribute.’ Plenty of other acts already do that, and this would have to be something different.”
A big part of that difference, of course, he stresses, is the Project operating with the same kind of risk-taking spirit as Pink Floyd epitomized in their well-known “R&D” period, from 1968 to 1972. In those days the venerable psychedelic band would often play roughly the same set list from show to show but with wide-ranging variations and unexpected side excursions. It’s how they honed their rough drafts of classic, mind-blowing tracks before committing them to tape. That is, until bootleggers came along and spoiled their fun. And the Project are all for taking chances, but with a few more down-to-Earth elements, including blues, jazz, and country.
“The Project starts from the basic point of doing this music as David Gilmour himself would often do it, in terms of improvisation, experimentation, and even sound design,” Gaiman explains.
Or even as Jerry Garcia might have done it. Case in point: For one recent performance of the meditative Floyd space prayer, “Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun,” the band took it into a noticeably Latinesque rhythmic space. In addition, after the front-end verses and some thematic probing in the original’s more familiar Arabic drone, the band brightened the harmony – Jerry-style – with distinctive Mixolydian mode, seamlessly slipping into “Dark Star.” And before returning to the main theme of “Controls,” the band also managed to spotcheck a bit of the Floyd’s truly otherworldly sound tapestry “Echoes.”
While the musicians in the Project have been perfecting their repertoire and arrangements, Gaiman points out, the technical crew have also been developing media and animation elements to visually accompany the performances. Meanwhile, audio techs have also been beavering away on sound innovations, going so far as to construct a working replica of the Floyd’s famous quadraphonic panning unit, known as the Azimuth Coordinator. Gaiman adds that in this year’s shows the band have been road-testing these multimedia components, at least when the venues have had the room and facilities for them.
“The Project hopes to reshuffle the deck on everyone’s expectations about Pink Floyd, by tapping into that zeitgest of the early ‘70s,” Gaiman observes. “Using the multimedia and a quad sound system along with the Floyd’s music helps them to create all of those interstitial bits – the connective tissue – between the musical passages. That became a key element in Pink Floyd’s mythology. And, in time, I think the Project can create its own mythology, too.”
Recently, an amusing social media thread relating to British guitarist Steve Hackett – renowned for his early 1970s work with prog-rock pioneers Genesis – popped up online. The banter centered around the vocal abilities of Swedish rock singer Nad Sylvan, who has been fronting Hackett’s popular solo project Genesis Revisited since 2013. One commenter gushed about Sylvan’s range, praising him for his apparent ability to “channel” the voices of the two mercurial Genesis singers Peter Gabriel and Phil Collins “at the same time.” The other writer was diametrically opposite. “Sorry, mate, not even close!”
Well, everybody’s got one, right?
Since Hackett worked with both vocalists in Genesis’s definitive prog years, 1971 to 1977, he should know exactly what a singer needs to “deliver the goods” in a repertoire that encompasses that era. And if the enthusiastic reports from his band’s European performances on the “Seconds Out + More” tour are any indication, Hackett must rightly feel that Sylvan was an inspired choice. One cranky Genesis fan’s opinion notwithstanding, Hackett’s fans seem to overwhelmingly agree that Sylvan is the real deal. And, lest we forget, they obviously think the band and their esteemed lead guitarist are pretty good, too!
“All of our tours have been very popular, and not just with longtime fans,” says Hackett, noting that all of his annual Genesis-themed tours since 2013 have done bang-up business globally. And, he adds, “Seconds Out + More” is certainly competitive among them. “In Poland this year the audiences were very, very young – possibly seeing this music performed for the first time – and very eager for it. Tremendous experience. And, of course, I’m still flying the flag for the music I did with Genesis. I’m a big believer in it.”
Steve Hackett knows the 1977 double-LP live Genesis album Seconds Out holds a special place in the hearts of Genesis fans. Not only does it boast a well-curated set of both Gabriel- and Collins-voiced songs up to that point – but it also captured Hackett in his last live peak with Genesis. So it’s equally special for him. A couple of years ago, as the album’s 50-year mark began to draw closer, he recognized that it was about time to celebrate this personal triumph with full, live run-throughs again. Along with an opening set of music culled from his solo releases, such a long album makes for a long night!
Although the Seconds Out track list itself should come as no surprise to any die- hard Genesis fan, bonuses still lurk in the first set and the encore. These include breathtaking highlights from Hackett’s 1976 solo debut Voyage of the Acolyte and 1979’s Spectral Mornings, plus standouts from his 2021 album Surrender of Silence, and, of course, a stray Genesis gem or two. And a pleasant surprise for fans who haven’t heard his band perform the core Genesis songs in recent years, says Hackett, is some unexpected instrumental tweaks and re-grooves.
Backing Hackett on this tour are three longtime comrades, plus two more recent arrivals. On board with him since the first Genesis Revisited tour, in 2013, are keyboardist Roger King, saxophonist/flutist/percussionist Rob Townsend and vocalist/dramatist Nad Sylvan. And rounding out the rhythm section are bassist Jonas Reingold and drummer/percussionist Craig Blundell, both of whom first signed on for the 2019 tour. That tour and this one share a number of essential Genesis songs, so the duo were already dialed in for those parts of Seconds Out.
“There is crossover, and that was useful in putting the new show together,” says Hackett, acknowledging the 2019 tour featured the full 1973 Genesis album Selling England by the Pound plus other classics also on Seconds Out. That was Reingold’s and Blundell’s “boot camp,” in a sense. In the next few months, he adds, the band will still occasionally have a Pound make-up date to drop into the tour. So that’s two-way crossover. “Both Jonas and Craig are powerful performers. I love guys who can really play. And they bring their own experience, influences, and energy.”
When asked about why Genesis could inspire such passion in their fans, Hackett confirms that Italian audiences were among the first to embrace their music deeply in the early ‘70s.
“They heard elements of opera and storytelling in our songs, I think. This was familiar to them, from the music and mythology they knew,” he says, noting that the Genesis buzz in America “took a while longer” for the band to cultivate. A 1973 public endorsement from John Lennon certainly couldn’t have done any harm, either.
“Genesis did longer songs that told stories, and also longer-form things, such as ‘Supper’s Ready,’ in which there’s a journey, a personal odyssey,” he continues, alluding to a fan favorite that looms largely in this tour. “There are Classical music elements in these long pieces, and I’m proud of those influences, such as [Russian composer Sergei] Prokofiev, that I’ve also included on my latest record. I’m still very much a believer in long forms, because people seem to like pieces with many movements, many parts.”
Speaking of movement, we should note this ambitious, intercontinental tour is in full swing now, if with the occasional hitch. The second of two European Seconds Out legs wrapped in recent weeks, and soon – in the early days of April – Hackett and company will launch a roughly-35-date North American run in Boston, on Saturday, April 2. Originally, the tour had been scheduled for a March 26 start in Canada, but – due to Covid concerns – the four-date, Canadian lead-in series was just pushed back to late November.
Soon after the spring U.S. dates, a small batch of shows in Australia and New Zealand will follow, with possible rescheduling of 2021 Japan dates still TBA. Finally, upon returning from their long journey, the band will lean into more European and UK shows – including festivals – for the remainder of the summer. All in all, that’s nearly 60 more dates since the Fall 2021 and Winter 2022 chapters.
Most notably, tickets sales have been strong, with many shows selling out, reinforcing Hackett’s observation about how every Genesis Revisited tour has been “aces” with audiences. For the upcoming North American tour alone, more than a third of shows have sold through in advance. This suggests that Hackett’s instincts in choosing Seconds Out as a showpiece at this time – like his tapping Sylvan as his very own prog-rock, flag-bearing front man – were on target and that Genesis fans sense this tour is something special which may or may not pass this way again.
But fear not, devoted Hackett and Genesis fans: Dates for Steve Hackett & Genesis Revisited’s UK Fall tour, “Foxtrot at 50 + More,” slated to begin on September 9, 2022, are already on sale.
Beginning in early April 2022, the long-running Canadian rock band The Musical Box will hit the road again with a deluxe staging of the classic 1974 Genesis double- LP concept album The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway.
This acclaimed Genesis legacy band – known for their authentic recreations of Genesis’s legendary live production from the early 1970s – plan on an extensive tour visiting close to 100 cities in North America, the UK and Europe. And the tour – launching soon, on April 7, 2022, in Sherbrooke, Quebec – will continue through February 2023.
Attending any Musical Box show – whether it be a production of The Lamb or others, such as Selling England by the Pound – is often described as stepping into a time machine. And this would be especially true of TMB’s Lamb re-enactments. Aside from the fact that the band and their production team are now using more reliable, state-of-the-art technology than clunky 35mm slide carousels and dodgy, old-school Mellotrons, the “look-and-feel” and sound of Genesis’s groundbreaking stage show are faithfully reproduced with painstaking detail and love for the music.
Having first emerged in the mid-1990s with full blessings from the extended Genesis family, the Montreal-based TMB tackled their first Lamb tour in 2000. This included set design, effects and costumes closely following those of the historic 1974-75 final Genesis tour with then-vocalist/frontman Peter Gabriel. And a centerpiece of TMB’s restored show was a similarly iconic, three-screen, rear- projection system for the original 1,200 35mm slide images from the Genesis days.
With exclusive licensing from Gabriel – the story’s principal lyrical creator and license holder – TMB have taken the surreal, shadow-musical world of The Lamb on tour a total of three times, performing more than 300-plus shows in the process. These included the debut 2000-2001 tour, plus two more lengthy tours in the 2004- 2006 and 2011-2013 time periods. Of course, during the prior and intervening years, the band has been continuously presenting other full Genesis albums and themed shows, including the cleverly-curated 2018-2021 musical showcases Genesis Extravaganzas, I & II.
Each time out with The Lamb was reportedly a learning experience, with TMB not only honing its renditions but also continuing to research historical/technical details to fine-tune the shows even more. Since no official films of ‘70s Lamb shows were ever captured, TMB have been especially fortunate to gain insights from archival photos and amateur 8mm films shared by fans.
For those unfamiliar with the dense, character-rich storyline of The Lamb, Gabriel himself has often described it as a morality tale – in his words, “a sort of Pilgrim’s Progress” – set in decidedly more “modern” times. The proverbial “hero” of this tale, named Rael, is a young, Latin-American rebel who leads a violent, hedonistic life on the mean streets and in the subways of New York City, only to suddenly end up going through “some things” himself. Karma, in other words.
Right from the start – when a giant “Wall of Death” descends upon Manhattan and sucks the hero into a subterranean world of shadows, tunnels, and cages – Rael meets assorted oddball characters and undergoes many soul-testing moments. Not unlike the character Ulysses in Homer’s famed epic The Odyssey, Rael must confront his own fatal character flaws and demons, and shed them one by one. In the end he comes to learn that empathy and sacrifice may be his only salvations.
Earlier in the 1970s Genesis had earned a reputation for a deeply fantasy-based style of progressive rock, with often long, complex songs, full of deep literary and mythical references, and even the odd sci-fi twist. To a certain extent this carried over to The Lamb, both Gabriel’s final album and tour with Genesis.
But, as reported out in Genesis fan world, the deeply impressionable Gabriel had been exposed to the controversial, midnight-art-house, acid-Western movie El Topo (The Mole) – itself a nightmarish tale of personal transformation – at some point during Genesis’s 1973 U.S. tour. And, at the same time, he had also observed things on American tours – perhaps even the emergent punk rock scene in mid-‘70s New York – that jarred and jump-started him into a new storytelling direction.
El Topo‘s impact on Gabriel is not so hard to see when one learns that several of the film’s more bizarre elements and symbolism – such as a “grand parade” of meandering people, a pool of seductive women and an ominous raven – had mysteriously jumped the screen and re-surfaced in his lyrics.
So, yes, Gabriel soon began to conceive of a tougher persona, in grittier circumstances, and, thus, the Lamb’s lead character of the leather-jacketed, jack- knife wielding, priapic graffiti artist was born in his mind. In contrast Genesis bassist Mike Rutherford and keyboardist Tony Banks had proposed a lighter-weight option – a musical adaptation of the children’s book The Little Prince – which Gabriel dismissed out of hand as “too twee.”
As his fellow band members busied themselves with the writing of the instrumental music apart from Gabriel in mid-1974, the hallucinatory story of Rael percolated in his head and exploded in a torrent of emotion and psychological narrative that – even today – fans still strive to understand fully. (Even Gabriel continued wrestling with it. Years later, he had reportedly even explored tasking none other than El Topo’s director Alejandro Jodorowsky with translating The Lamb to the Silver Screen, but the project did not proceed.)
To recreate the hard-to-nail, classic, electro-acoustic Genesis sound of 12-strings, double-neck guitars, and amply layered keyboards of The Lamb, TMB perform with the same vintage brands of guitars and amplifiers – but a few more modern keyboards – as Genesis had used. But the band’s current members also bring with them nearly a lifetime’s worth musical knowledge of performing the deep and varied Genesis songbook. And, better yet, they have a charismatic lead vocalist in the person of Denis Gagné, who convincingly conjures the shape-shifting figure and reedy, plaintive voice of the younger Gabriel in his travails as Rael.
Gagné is joined on stage by the four instrumentalists who provide the musical backbone for The Lamb production. These include bassist/founding member/musical director Sébastien Lamothe, lead guitarist François Gagnon, drummer Marc Laflamme, and keyboardist Ian Benhamou. In unison with the vocalist the four players follow the original Genesis arrangements, without substitution or modification, delivering them with all the passion, yearning, and irony inherent in the original lyrics, music, arrangements and recordings. Truly, every ingredient of the show – musical, technical and human – adds up to a sum greater than the whole.
Whether you’re a fan of the “Golden Age of Prog” who never got to experience the magic of the “Gabriel Years,” or even if you’ve seen The Musical Box before and can’t get enough of their crazy, musical “Wayback Machine,” then the upcoming Lamb tour is one you will definitely want to plan on seeing. In fact, with TMB having logged so many Lamb performances along the way in their nearly-30-year career and Genesis fully retired from performing, this time around may very well go down as the final chapter in this epic musical adventure’s long and storied life.
As Rael himself declares in the concluding song of The Lamb story, “It is here. . . It is NOW!”
More information about the full Musical Box tour dates can be found at the band’s website: htttps://www.themusicalbox.net
Midway into his band’s first set, EXTC guitarist Steve Tilling eagerly waved his arms about his head as his long, curly hair danced over his shoulders.
“C’mon, then!” the grinning frontman said to the already-stoked audience at Cincinnati’s Ludlow Garage on April 1. “Give it some more beans!”
The British alternative group – headed up from behind by one-time XTC drummer Terry Chambers (Ex-TC . . . get it?) and featuring songs from those colorful, post- punk/alt-pop pioneers’ prolific career – had recently been making North American rounds on a whirlwind spring tour of small theaters and nightclubs. So they stopped through here on April Fools’ Night to play a generous, inspired set of classic XTC songs, plus a couple. And, as the British often say, it all “went down a storm.”
As the inventive drummer who fueled XTC through five studio albums and over ten years into the early ‘80s, Chambers was clearly in the driver’s seat again with this wide-ranging repertoire. Reaching well into XTC’s past, he and his merry quartet plunged in with a pair of kinetic songs from the band’s ‘70s New-Wave era and then two grungier tracks from the early-‘80s album Black Sea. Quickly moving beyond his time in XTC and into that band’s more melodic, mid-‘80s studio period, EXTC then opened the lid on XTC’s pop songwriting paint box.
XTC bassist Moulding got special attention in the first set with a four-song mini- sampler of his sly romantic touches and clever lyrical turns. And the audience leaned into them with gusto. Among these were two from 1985’s Skylarking (more would come later), a surprise late-career 2017 solo song about life after death, and, in particular, a lovely rendition of his 1983 Mummer track “Wonderland.” This rather treacly tune – Chambers’ last XTC recording, in fact – was electronica-based originally but benefited from being reset as an airy, Hendrix-like love song, with trippy, open- chord guitar flourishes from guitarist Tilling and second axe Steve Hampton.
Soon after these psych/folk/pop entreés, more chunks of power-pop from XTC guitarist Andy Partridge muscled back in to great response, keeping pace with more Moulding melodies through the end of the set and well into the second. Songs spanning the ‘80s, such as “No Thugs in Our House,” “Mayor of Simpleton” and “Respectable Street,” all conjured the spirit of ‘St. Andy.’ So much so, in fact, that if you had closed your eyes, you could have almost felt the ‘Talented Mr. Partridge’ lurking in the room. (Fwiw, it was he who also gifted the band with their clever name.) But Moulding’s aura remained equally bright with songs such as “Ball and Chain,” “Standing in for Joe,” “Grass” and “The Meeting Place” each having shining moments in the show.
In spite of a not-quite-sold-through room in this compact, cinema-like club that – believe it or not – used to be an Uno’s pizza restaurant, the energy was pouring out of the band well before the first set ended. And it was a two-way flow, as the band never needed to egg on the audience at all to spill “the beans.” Dancers popped up all around the stage and in the aisles, especially leading into the Set 1 closer, “The Ballad of Peter Pumpkinhead,” from 1992’s Nonsuch. The vibe ebbed only during mid-show break, and then the mosh pit kicked into action again after the two-guitar-ballad version of XTC’s 1987 stealth B-side hit “Dear God” led off Set 2.
Seeming longer and more varied, the second set ping-ponged around XTC’s back catalogue to the audience’s great delight. Again, songs from Skylarking ranked right alongside others from Oranges and Lemons, Drums and Wires and Black Sea. “Earn Enough for Us,” “King for a Day” and the Captain Beefheart-influenced “Sgt. Rock (Is Going to Help Me)” were only a few of the all-out rockers that fans were just bustin’ to hear. Two more must-hear songs – a rousing, extended, sing-along version of the jaunty, Black Sea anti-war anthem “General and Majors,” and XTC’s groovy first hit single from 1979, “Making Plans for Nigel” – capped the set.
With Chambers’ ever-precise drum lines hammering right through to the end, the era-jumping, three-song encore brought it all home: “Senses Working Overtime” and “Stupidly Happy,” plus one more souvenir from the days in which it all began for XTC (Of course!), “Life Begins at the Hop.” All combined, the double-guitar attack of the two Steves, the fine-tuned rhythm section of Chambers and bassist Matt Hughes, and Tilling’s playful vocal impressions of both Moulding and Partridge gave the songs all the wit, grit and growl of those days when that duo helmed the band.
At night’s end, to the roar of a fully-transcended audience, the band left the stage, mission accomplished! So, all in all, a good time was had by “those boys and those girls at the hop,” all right. And then many of them headed to the merch counter for the band’s meet-and-greet, with much good cheer and buzzing ears all around.
As of mid-April, EXTC’s North American tour is already done and dusted, and the band has headed back home for a small run of UK dates in May. Steve Tilling just posted on the EXTC Facebook Group page how much fun the band had on the NA tour and how happy they were with the loving reception they got from fans. And at the end he simply asked: “Mind if we do it again?”
The first set of Steve Hackett’s April 28 performance on the “Seconds Out + More” tour in Cincinnati, Ohio, was breathtakingly short. Thirty-six minutes and twenty-one seconds, to be exact. (Just kidding, but really not that far off.) And the British prog-rock guitarist took a moment after the first song to “apologize” to the audience in advance.
“This set is going to be a bit short,” he cautioned the Taft Theatre audience, adding that they would hear a few of his most well-known solo pieces plus a couple of brand-new tracks. True, it was abbreviated but densely packed with energy and oozing with musical super powers. “After this, we’ll take a break. . .and when we come back,” he said, pausing dramatically, “we’re going to play the whole Seconds Out album.”
As if on cue, the Taft Theatre audience erupted with mad approval. Then again, at the sold-out May 1 Hackett performance at Akron’s Goodyear Theater, Hackett gave a similar intro after the first song. And the audience’s reaction was more than just a carbon copy. Nice work when you can get it!
Obviously, these wound-up Ohio audiences must come as no surprise to Hackett and his band, Genesis Revisited. Inching toward the 50-year mark since its 1977 release, the landmark double live Genesis album Seconds Out remains an object of great affection for the former Genesis guitarist and for Genesis fans everywhere. And that’s largely true because that tour and recording were Hackett’s final contributions to Genesis. So, no one’s kidding anybody here: Killer first set aside, Seconds is the main attraction for Hackett’s fans on this current tour.
Yet, we can happily report, there was no shortage of rapturous moments for fans in that commanding first set on both nights. Leading with only five songs, Hackett and the band amazingly time-jumped through his entire solo career, from his 1976 debut Voyage of the Acolyte to his most recent release, 2021’s Surrender of Silence.
In short, the set was front-loaded with songs and sounds that make all your neck hairs stand up straight! For example, the Mellotron- and synth-powered instrumental opener, “Clocks-The Angel of Mons,” from 1979’s Spectral Mornings, ignited the audiences with madhouse zeal. Then, in mid-set, came an arresting new track full of twisted saxophone, organ and guitar licks titled “The Devil’s Cathedral.” (Hackett, whose music often has supernatural overtones, described it in Cincinnati as “a dark tale” of murder and other dirty deeds.)
Hackett gave the closing slot to the glacially grand, Moog bass-pedal instrumental “Shadow of the Hierophant.” In its booming climax, drummer Craig Blundell also took the spotlight for the first time with his percussive equivalent of a heavy-metal guitar solo, much to the audiences’ delight in both cities.
Break time came and went both nights in about the same amount of time and found everyone back in their seats for The Main Event – Seconds Out. And what an event that proved to be! Far from just going through the motions, Hackett and the band used the double live album’s original running order only as a starting point. Much like unearthing buried treasure, they brought each gem in the Seconds setlist back to the present with loving care, and a liberal amount of creative enhancements thrown in for good measure. Adding many twists, layers and extensions, Hackett’s finely-tuned team made this 50-year-old music sound newly found.
Lead vocalist Nad Sylvan, who made only intermittent appearances in the instrumental-heavy first set, became the focal point of the second “half” as the Mad Hatter MC without a hat. Joining in on every song, he deftly navigated the Seconds repertoire, wisely hand-picked by Genesis originally to showcase the best mid-‘70s songs of Peter Gabriel and his successor Phil Collins. Through varying of his vocal timbre – whether deeper or tense and reedy like Gabriel, or airier and melodically sweeter like Collins – Sylvan emulated the styles of both singers convincingly. He also employed various phrasing mannerisms typical of Collins’ live performances that put listeners in that other “Phil Zone.” And whenever needed, bassist Jonas Reingold also supplied higher harmonies.
Throughout the Seconds presentation, the five-piece band behind Sylvan brought a welcome weight to many of the songs that some have stereotyped as melodramatic or overly sentimental. For example, early in the sequence, the obviously ‘churchy’ “The Carpet Crawlers” began in its usual hushed, processional way, with an arpeggiating keyboard figure and a somber vocal overlay. Through the stair-steps of each verse, the band boosted their levels behind Sylvan, and by the time of that song’s resounding peak, a true communal feeling flowed out over the fans.
In classic songs such as “Firth of Fifth” and “I Know What I Like,” the band’s multi- skilled utility player, Rob Townsend, played clarinet in place of flute lines. He also strapped on a tenor sax for an extended, funk-jazz strut in the middle of the latter song. Obviously, the band was not rushing to plow to the end of the sets on either night, and they took turns leisurely passing licks around the stage. And, truly, this R&B reboot from the song’s original, trippy shuffle was enough to make longtime fans forget for a moment that this was Genesis music!
Another spiritually uplifting song with a wide dynamic range, “Afterglow,” also came early in the Seconds set, and – in spite of Sylvan’s plaintive and passionate vocals – it really owed much of its emotional impact to Blundell and Reingold, whose urgent rhythms helped lift the audience to full “ascension” by song’s end.
Later on, in the “final reel” of the set, came the moment of ceremonial magic that practically every fan was really there for – the Genesis conceptual deep dive, “Supper’s Ready.” Brilliant throughout the evenings, Roger King was superb in reproducing the many keyboard layers originally conceived of by Genesis’ Tony Banks for this dramatic set piece. Through the 25-minute epic’s quick moves from melancholy pastoral passages into a hard-charging prog vamp, English Music Hall whimsy, a tense, offbeat section with an organ solo over a swelling martial cadence, and then the glorious orchestral finale, King used every keyboard at his disposal.
Ever the master of the fretboard, Hackett was in full flight himself in the multi- part “Supper’s Ready,” moving seamlessly through the many sequences that build toward the triumphant ending. On previous tours Hackett would take the liberty of extending the original’s heroic but all-too-brief outro guitar solo. And this time, he not only stretched it into a “kiss-the-sky” moment that lasted nearly four minutes longer but also he masterfully dialed his guitar volume down into a pulsing ambient tonal bed that suggested the ever-outward expansion of the Universe. Truly mystical!
The storytelling didn’t end with “Supper’s Ready.” Hackett’s band had one more Genesis mini-drama in store at the end with the fan favorite “Cinema Show,” which began with the twinkling of finger-picked guitars set to the sparkly rotation of multiple half-mirror balls spread across the stage.
In a perfect ‘Peter’ voice, Sylvan artfully sang the story of the song’s romantic young couple Romeo and Juliet, and then the band took the audience on the breathtaking synthesizer rollercoaster that Genesis had slightly truncated for their live arrangement in those days. But Hackett & Co. had a musical surprise in their back pockets, performing the song in full again with a slide into a companion song from the original studio recording on Selling England by the Pound. And with his slight vocal return in this coda to the main set, Sylvan gave an almost prayer-like hush to the concluding song.
The encore, of course, had to include the original grand finale medley “Dance on a Volcano/Los Endos.” And, thanks to Craig Blundell’s wondrous performances on both nights, that ending was pure musical fireworks. With the stage all to himself for an extended solo in the middle, he thundered his way into the solo using his larger drums. Changing up the dynamics, he skittered around on a small set of splash cymbals set atop his bass drum, then threw in an impressive sequence of pitch bending with an elbow pressed down to alter the drum head tuning as he delivered a series of altered tones. The crescendo audibly built toward a final volley of full-on drum attacks. It was slightly different each night but, undoubtedly, a powder-keg performance each time.
Like the perfect maestro, at the very end of “Los Endos,” singer Sylvan turned to face the audience with his blonde mane glowing halo-like around his head. Smiling slyly, he raised his arms slowly from his sides to over his head and gently summoned fans onto their feet. But, judging from both of these Ohio audiences’ reactions, one could easily see they were already way ahead of him.
At a 2016 Security Project show in Cleveland’s Beachland Ballroom, someone in the small nightclub’s audience was reacting to the band’s adventurous interpretations of Peter Gabriel’s solo music with wild enthusiasm. His eager applause and thunderous shouts of approval between songs cut right through the rest of the audience’s cheering. And Project drummer Jerry Marotta couldn’t help but notice.
“I’d love to have some of whatever that guy out there’s been having,” he said, laughing. And he was actually inspired, not annoyed in the least. “All I can say, buddy, is keep it up!”
From there the band rippled through their spellbinding performance of the prog-rock pioneer’s music that included many uncommercial solo songs (“Shock the Monkey,” where were you?), a couple of mid-‘70s Genesis pieces, plus a few non-PG offerings with similar arty attitude and vibrations. Still, the emotional effect was enough to make any serious PG fan want to blow out his or her voice.
In early May, Marotta and his one-woman, four-man band Security Project – dedicated to revisiting Gabriel’s pioneering early solo years (1977-1986) – will be returning to live performance for the first time in more than two years with a short, late-spring tour of the U.S. East Coast.
Starting out with a sold-out Daryl’s House Club gig, on May 5, in Pawling, New York, the Project will kick off a 12-date, mini-tour that wraps up by month’s end in Annapolis, Maryland, on May 20. Even for a limited geographic area, that’s a pretty stiff sprint. But, as you will find out if you read on from here, you really should try to catch them if you can.
Founded in 2012 by Marotta and having tried on a couple of lead vocalists leading well into 2016, Security Project have been perfecting their approach with many small, regional tours like this one. In addition, they’ve released a handful of live EPs that show how much they’ve dialed in their PG interpretations over time.
The band’s motto is “Expect the Unexpected,” and ever since 2016 – when female singer and multi-instrumentalist Happy Rhodes joined as lead vocalist – SP have been better equipped than ever to make good on that promise. Not only does the band feature stylized versions of Gabriel’s music but also – thanks to Rhodes’ highly versatile voice – they now round out the show with songs from fellow PG art-rock traveler Kate Bush and even Rhodes herself. So, unlike their past versions, Security Project is now more than just “The Peter Gabriel Show.”
As a veteran American alt/folk/art pop singer-songwriter, Rhodes had released numerous independent recordings in the mid-‘80s to late-‘90s. Then, unfortunately, her star began to fade from public view by the early 2000s, eventually leading her to retire from music. But her voice left a lasting impression on certain key players, it seems.
About that voice: By all accounts, Rhodes’ most notable characteristic is her stunning, four-octave vocal range. This ability has brought her many favorable comparisons to such singers as Tori Amos and the enigmatic Ms. Bush, whose own dramatic-soprano range Rhodes easily emulates. Yet this range also offers her many advantages in interpreting the songs of male singer Gabriel. His idiosyncratic vocal style could also be all over the map, often within the same song. No problem for the right singer, right?
Still, matching Rhodes’ voice with Security Project and the vocal demands of Gabriel’s music was not an obvious first choice for Marotta and the band. She practically came to them through the back door. Two previous male vocalists both had seemed more than adequate in achieving the classic ‘Peter’ voice but had moved on. So, with a scheduled 2016 fall tour and an unplanned vacancy in the lead vocal department, the band needed to come up with someone new – but good – and fast. And, “happily,” the Project soon found themselves with a strong “front woman” in the process.
“A female vocalist? Singing Gabriel songs? Who’da thunk it?” Well, remembering her from a previous musical connection, SP member Trey Gunn did. Rhodes’ musician husband Bob Muller had previously played drums in the Trey Gunn Group, it turns out. Plus, Marotta had also supplied drums on several of her 1990s recordings. These threads all came together when Gunn made his timely call to Rhodes.
Quickly overcoming preconceptions about what a singer of Gabriel songs should sound like, Rhodes stepped right into the role as a Mistress of Ceremonies on that first fall tour of 2016. She impressively delivered a range of songs that checked all the boxes for the most discerning PG fans, including “No Self Control,” “Lay Your Hands on Me,” “I Don’t Remember,” “San Jacinto,” “I Have the Touch” and “The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway.”
Much like Gabriel himself, she channeled all of the alienation, melancholy, uplift and sometimes-dark humor of these songs. But most of all she seemed surprisingly at home with the really “dark stuff” – Gabriel’s gravel-voiced dramas about stalkers, assassins, political prisoners and mental patients. It was, perhaps, her anguished, spine-tingling vocals on the darkest of all Gabriel songs – the Jungian-tribal-ritual epic “The Rhythm of the Heat” – that removed any lingering doubts about her covering the PG “waterfront.”
Marotta and the other veteran musicians in the Project have their own long resumés of musical street cred – sometimes proggy but then again, not as much as you’d think. Much of that prog rep comes from Marotta’s status as a long-serving Gabriel sideman and Gunn’s long, strong association with Robert Fripp and King Crimson. Yet, the more R&B-leaning drummer has logged time as a band member and session man with other top artists, including Hall & Oates, Tears for Fears, Elvis Costello, and even Sir Paul McCartney.
Coming in from the alternative rock side, there’s Welsh guitarist Michael Cozzi, who had worked with the English alt/pop band Shriekback in the mid-1980s, and then recorded three albums with American trance/psych rock unit Sky Cries Mary in the early 1990s.
Meanwhile, keyboardist and electronics engineer David Jameson has spent more time out of music than in it. After working with Time Machine in the ‘70s and early ‘80s, he left the role of performer behind to pursue advanced technical training and industry experience as a musical electronics developer for IBM. So he progressed on a completely different track, then brought his electronics expertise back into the mix when he joined the Project.
An example of a non-PG song that – thanks to Rhodes – has already became a Project staple is a mid-‘80s Kate Bush composition titled “Mother Stands for Comfort.” In fact, her uncanny vocal resemblance to the experimental singer-songwriter here is more fitting than some of her PG covers. The “Bush Effect” also carries over to another song that the Project also regularly features – a Rhodes’ original called Collective Heart.”
If there’s any song that shows best what each member brings to the Project, it may very well be the 1980 Gabriel anti-war song “Games Without Frontiers.” Notably, the original PG recording featured Bush (there she is again) on backing vocals. So Rhodes does double duty on this song, contributing both the lead vocals on the verses and Bush’s breathy, French lyrical phrases on the refrains.
Interestingly enough, by way of a creative instrumental pairing, the song also gives the band a chance to stretch out and “have a blow.” For the second “half” of the song, SP have jumped their own self-imposed timelines and spliced it into a well-spotted PG instrumental titled “Of These, Hope” – from his ambitious, 1989 world-music soundtrack, Passion. And since the Project usually perform this two-song blend as the encore, this extended space- rock jam brings their shows to a rousing climax. Music truly without frontiers.
It will be interesting to see where Security Project turn next in their song and artist selections as they continue their exploration of the PG repertoire and other ‘songs without frontiers.’ Their improvisational moments suggest that the band could create exciting original material, if they’d put their collective hearts and minds to it. But, with their crazy- quilt backgrounds and overlapping outside projects, that does seem unlikely. In the end, what has drawn them together is a profound, shared admiration for the collective works of Peter Gabriel. So it appears that they will continue their pursuit of new musical expression based around his musical universe.
So, ya thought ya might like to go to “The Peter Gabriel Show”? Since the Ancient Mariner of Rock himself is not as available as he used to be, spending a night with Security Project just might be the next best thing. Just be careful to watch out for your vocal cords.
Even for some lucky veteran concertgoers who can wear the T-shirt “I May Be Old but At Least I Got to See All the Cool Bands” and really mean it, the historic, 1960s acid-blues-rock-fusion band Cream may have been one of the few rare birds many of them still couldn’t catch in their original, late-‘60s flight.
As luck would have it, two founding members of that short-lived but mythical band – Ginger Baker and Eric Clapton – both have had talented, younger musical family members carrying the torch for Cream’s genre-defying music. Now, thanks to their band, The Music of Cream, a new generation of fans – as well as hardcore, early Cream adopters – are able to experience the undiluted, spontaneous magic of live Cream. And in spite of their name, there has been a surprising amount of “mission creep” since their last tour in 2019. The title of their latest tour – “Disraeli Gears & Clapton Classics” – may give you a clue or two.
In the case of Cream’s storied Mr. Baker, it’s the late drummer’s son Kofi who’s manning the iconic double-bass drum kit. And then, there’s Clapton’s nephew Will Johns – son of Andy Johns, the late, acclaimed recording engineer for the Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin– who has taken on the daunting task of filling his uncle’s six-string-guitar-god shoes. True, Cream left a mighty big musical footprint, but the two younger men’s legacy project has taken many giant steps of its own and helped them to establish their own musical street cred in a short time.
First taking shape with different players as the Cream Experience around 2015, the band has evolved through several different stages, with the Music of Cream era starting in 2017. Most of these versions of the band – always with Kofi Baker in the catbird’s (um, drummer’s) seat – were power trios. And this format has enabled a lot of potent, open-ended, Cream-like improvisation.
But this latest incarnation of the band – now a four-piece, with bassist Kris Lohn and keyboardist/second guitarist Stephen Ball – not only revisits the classic album Disraeli Gears but also brings Cream’s blues-drenched story forward in time. The revamped repertoire touts songs by Clapton’s and Baker’s next-in-line, 1969 project Blind Faith, plus a sampling of signature Clapton solo songs. So, unlike previous tours, which were aimed at a core audience of older fans, the project’s 2022 tour could be very aptly nicknamed, “Cream: The Next Generation.”
During a short breather before the next U.S. leg of Music of Cream’s “Disraeli Gears” Tour fires up again in early June, GratefulWeb.com had the chance to chat by phone with Kofi Baker. In this fun, insightful conversation we learned more about his personal mission to bring the “Good News” of his father’s groundbreaking band to modern audiences.
The band will kick off a breathless, 19-date run on June 1, in Edwardsville, Illinois, and then move eastward up the Ohio River to Louisville, Kentucky, on June 2, and to a Cincinnati-area show, in nearby Covington, Kentucky, on June 3. Among other stops on the whirlwind tour there will be shows in Ohio, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, New Jersey, New York (including a June 19 gig at Daryl’s House Club in Pawling, New York), Massachusetts, Connecticut and New Hampshire. Complete June dates and venue information are listed under the “2022 DATES” link on the Music of Cream website, which you’ll find in a short section at the end of the interview.
The following interview with Kofi Baker has been edited for length and flow.
Grateful Web: Hi, Kofi—this is SAM from GratefulWeb.com. How are you today?
Kofi Baker: I’m OK!
GW: Just curious how familiar you are with our music news website, since it got its start covering psychedelic and jam bands such as The Grateful Dead, back in the later-1990s.
KB: Ah, yes, that name does sound like ‘The Grateful Dead.’ But, actually, no, not very familiar with a lot of things out there. I’m kinda in a hole. . . always working on my music. I only come out to do shows and to work out at the gym!
GW: Well, readers of GratefulWeb.com are strong believers in the power of ‘jam’, and I think Cream and your band fit in perfectly with our audience.
KB: Cream were the first jam band! Haha!
GW: One of the early pioneers, for sure. Heh! So what do you want folks to know about your band’s current line-up and the Disraeli Gears Tour?
KB: Well, we were doing the entire Gears album for a while. That’s not a very jammy album, and we started [going longer on some songs] and running out of time. So we cut a few songs from the album, so we could jam more on the others. We’re a jam band!
GW: Could you talk about how the dynamics changed when moving from a trio to a four-piece band?
KB: We’ve done some jamming with the four-piece but not as much as with the trio, where there’s a lot more freedom. But for the last four gigs this spring [before the current break], our bass player had to go home, and Steve [keyboards and guitars] picked up on bass. So we [fell back to] a trio and we jammed our asses off!
GW: Thank you. I was going to mention I’ve read that in the early days of Cream, audiences expected a lot of jamming. At the Fillmores [the Bill Graham-managed theatres in San Francisco and New York], people were used to the Dead, the Airplane and others having longer shows. And many in those audiences also had an “altered” sense of time, to say the least. So I understand that Cream came into those theatres as a singles and album-track band and were prodded into extending their time on stage, and so their “jam” reputation grew from that. But, I’m wondering, do you think modern audiences are still as hungry for the long jam, or do you feel as if you’re in a different place with audiences now?
KB: It depends on the “jam.” We don’t jam like [some bands], floating over a few chords for a long time. We jam pretty hard-core, like Cream did. We’re changing rhythms and [throwing in] new chords. We go all over the place!
GW: So, I imagine as the new guys have gotten settled in, everyone’s a lot more comfortable, and you can take more risks, right? One guy goes in one direction, and then the others follow?
KB: Yeah. [Kris] the bass player and I both have jazz backgrounds. So it’s just like my dad and Jack Bruce in Cream both coming in with solid jazz roots. [Steve], the keyboardist, is a jam-band guy, but [Kris] the bassist and I are ‘jazzers’. Jazz guys have more ‘ears’. They naturally listen more to what others are doing. And Will’s a blues guy, so it’s very similar to [Clapton’s role in] Cream in that way too. We wanted to do Disraeli Gears in full, and needed to add a keyboardist because the album had a lot of overdubs and keyboard parts. And for the [Clapton and Blind Faith] extras in the second set, we also needed keyboards.
GW: So do you think younger audiences get what you’re trying to do, or do you feel like you still need to ‘bring them along’?
KB: I do think we can. Kris is a young guy, in his 30s, and he connects with his [age group]. I think younger people who come to our shows are tired of the pop-type gigs with so much visual stimulization but really boring music. With us, they’re not just hearing the same thing all the time, because of the improvisation.
GW: So, with the new round of Gears dates, are you going back to the full album again in the first set, or keeping the set looser, with more jams or even dropping in some different Cream songs?
KB: We’re extending some of the songs, like ‘White Room’ [from Wheels of Fire]. We’ve got a great big jam on the end of that. Steve knows a lot of the bluesier Cream songs and other covers. As a three-piece, we’d throw in more songs – we have so many that we’ve learned. We could just crank them out and have fun. We were even pulling out Hendrix songs that we never even played before. But this time around, now we have our regular bass player back, who knows? That’s the great thing about this band. With four guys, you expect everyone to know their stuff, and they do. So anything can happen!
GW: It’s interesting you mentioned Jimi, because I started thinking about how much other artists from Cream’s time – for example, Jimi and Led Zeppelin – might creep into your interpretations. But also, I’ve read that you admire Frank Zappa quite a bit and have worked with [one-time Zappa guitarist] Mike Keneally. So I was wondering what you think of Zappa-themed projects, such as Project/Object, Zappa Plays Zappa, and the Zappa Band. There are some parallels – Dweezil [Zappa’s guitarist son] has been doing his father’s music, and you’re doing your father’s music, for example. So, could you see yourself being involved in a future Zappa group, or is Music of Cream still your main job?
KB: Well, I know Dweezil and I’ve been hoping that me and him could work together on some [FZ] stuff. In fact, I’ve done some Zappa in my original band, Kofi Baker’s Psychedelic Trip – we cover Hendrix, Zeppelin, all sorts of stuff. Obviously, in Music of Cream we’re going to stick to Cream, Blind Faith and Clapton. What I loved about Zappa’s bands was they were all really ‘top’ musicians, who could play all that hard- to-play music.
GW: Not really jamming either, in the jam-band sense, right? My understanding is that Frank composed all of the music in advance, in a detailed, Classical music way, and everyone had to learn it. They were all technical musicians who could play the complex parts but still improvise in selected spots, right?
KB: Well, that’s the thing. Some technical musicians can only follow a score or rehearse it, but they’re not so good at jamming. But when you get technical musicians who can also jam – like Zappa’s [players] – that’s when you get great [chemistry]. That’s what I like!
GW: So you reportedly have quite wide-ranging influences as a drummer that include, of course, your father Ginger, Terry Bozzio [from Zappa’s classic mid-to-late- ‘70s period, plus Jeff Beck], and various jazz drummers and World music. Could you tell us more about specific drummers you admire and some of the lessons you’ve learned from them?
KB: Well, [veteran jazz-fusion and session drummer] Steve Gadd is a guy I love to watch, and I’ve played gigs with him. I’ve picked up lots of [techniques] from him, and I’m constantly learning from everybody I see. I’m always ‘stealing’ licks, always trying to improve myself. Music is so deep that you can keep on learning forever and ever.
GW: I’ve read that there are drummers, such as [the late Rush drummer] Neil Peart, who were never satisfied with their skills but actually pursued more technical instruction, such as altering their grip, changing their body posture, etc. Other than your father, have you ever worked with a personal drum coach or instructor, or are you just “all eyes and ears” with your fellow drummers?
KB: Well, apart from my dad teaching me, I’m still – to this day – absorbing all I can about music. I’m an avid reader, and I read charts a lot. When I read a chart and then play it, I pick up a lot from that. I’ve shifted my attention from guys like [Terry] Bozzio and Vinnie Colaiuta [jazz, session and one-time Zappa band member]. All those Zappa guys made a big impact on me. But now I’m going through a ‘Gadd phase’, really digging what he does.
GW: I’ve gathered that you’re not a big fan of modern music, but what have you heard in today’s music that does catch your ear?
KB: I actually like a lot of pop music, just not the boring stuff. My girlfriend gets on me because I like listening to Taylor Swift. And I like Madonna a lot. For me, it’s about good songs. Songs with strong melodies and lyrics. Not into grunge very much, or metal. My dad’s famous quote was that ‘heavy metal is an abortion’! Haha! When I’m doing a long drive, I put the radio on, and hopefully I’ll find something cool. I lean toward more instrumental, improvised music. And I still like things like The Dead, even though they’re a different type of ‘jam’ from what Cream did. But there’s not so much of that on the radio anymore. That’s the problem!
GW: As I mentioned earlier, I’ve seen Cream described as a pop band that later adapted to performing longer versions in the live setting. . .
KB: My dad always said Cream was a jam band starting out and then they went commercial – on purpose. [It was] a conscious effort – by everyone – to make more money. And my dad and Jack had been jazz players, with Alexis Korner and the Graham Bond Organization. But then, when they chose to become a rock supergroup with Eric, they were suddenly playing big concerts with screaming people, they didn’t have monitors like today, and the sound wasn’t good on stage. Everything was loud, with Marshall amps stacked behind them, and my dad couldn’t play like a jazz drummer anymore. He had to compete with all that volume. So he had to simplify his playing, make it easier to follow. That’s where all those big drum fills in Cream’s music come from. Same for me as a drummer. I like playing in smaller, jazz-type clubs, where I can listen more to the band, feel what we’re doing, and do more interesting things. But in auditoriums, the sound changes. You have to pull back, and the drums have to be simpler.
GW: Out on YouTube, there’s a two-hour concert clip of your band from a Florida show in April [of this year], and in the second set you did several songs from the Blind Faith era, which, of course, was Eric’s and your father’s next project after Cream broke up. One of the surprises was the long, jazzy track that your father wrote, titled ‘Do What You Like’. And that has that nice, Dave Brubeck jazz groove going on. Nice to hear a 5/4 time signature in the midst of all the songs with backbeat and other regular rhythms. You were also playing with a lighter touch, with more cymbal textures. And of course, you also blended that into your extended ‘Toad’ drum solo. Do you foresee adding other Ginger or even Jack solo songs down the road?
KB: Well, I don’t know how long Music of Cream will keep going. My plan – if that stops – is to do a band that’s all my dad’s music. Not just Blind Faith and Cream but also [Ginger Baker’s] Air Force [a Baker solo project from the early 1970s]. Air Force is really great stuff! But for right now, after this summer tour wraps up, Music of Cream will be doing a shorter thing in the fall, and we’re planning another tour for Spring 2023. I’m also going to be doing some solo gigs over the summer, playing at a couple of festivals. That’s my Psychedelic Trip band. As I said earlier, we do Hendrix, Zappa and Beatles – things like ‘Come Together’ and ‘I Want You’ – as well as Cream and Blind Faith. Everyone can learn more about my other gigs by visiting my personal website or Facebook page.
GW: Will you continue doing Gears next year or will you have a new theme by then?
KB: Probably will have a new theme. I do love a lot of those Disraeli Gears songs, and we’ll try to keep some around just because they’re so cool. Just like Cream, who had a huge repertoire, we have a pretty deep setlist now. But if we’re jamming, we’re not tied to the same set every night. We can pick 4-5 songs for a set, keep ourselves more open to different [possibilities]. That’s the essence of ‘original’ music to me. We might be bookending the jam with a Cream song that people know, but, for ten minutes in the middle, we’re ‘writing’ it as we play it.
It would be great if we recorded every show, to capture all those original moments, all the stuff that Cream didn’t do in those songs. Unfortunately, we haven’t always done that, and some of the jams have been so good, it would have been nice to have them. But they’re gone! A lot of times for bands, when they’re [in the studio] it’s the same thing – the warm-up jam or the first take can be the best, and you always need to have the [recorder] going. Because it’s just like live performance – it’s different every time!
For more information about tour dates for both Music of Cream and Kofi Baker’s Psychedelic Trip, as well as a book written by Kofi Baker, please visit the following websites and Facebook pages.
Instructional Book by Kofi Baker:
More information about the drumming technique book The Forgotten Foot, by Kofi Baker and Jordan Hill, is available here:
Rock guitarist extraordinaire Mike Keneally passed his “audition” with Frank Zappa almost 35 years ago, when he was only 25 years old. Impressing the always-exacting composer, guitarist and performance artist wasn’t easy. But with his keen technical ability and singular, almost-photographic-memory recall of even Zappa’s most labyrinthine compositions, the then-young FZ devotee earned his “hall pass” to the inner realms of the band leader’s legendary 1988 tour band. In Zappa folklore they became known as “The Best Band You Never Heard in Your Life.”
Sadly, since Zappa canceled that tour in mid-stream due to financial pressures and intra- band tensions – between the European tour and a planned U.S. leg – many fans never got to see the much-vaunted, 12-piece Zappa “big band” in action. It was Zappa’s last tour ever, and for Keneally his “dream job” of being a Zappa band member was over nearly as soon as it had begun.
Since 2018, however, Keneally has been a key member of a newer Zappa-themed band titled – fittingly enough – The Zappa Band. And he and the other members of this crack, six-piece band – all veterans of various FZ eras, including two cohorts from the 1988 band – have been able to lose themselves in the brain-cooking complexity and unmitigated audacity of Zappa’s deep repertoire.
At this very moment, The Zappa Band is in the midst of a 13-date, early-summer, headlining tour, with a couple of start-up West Coast dates already put to bed and the remainder of the tour now aimed at the northeastern U.S. Last summer, the band came out of lockdown with – in Keneally’s own words – “about two hours of music” in their kit box for a 45-minute opening slot on the ostensibly “farewell” 2021 King Crimson tour. So the current tour as a headliner gives the reconstituted band of classic Zappa alumni a chance to properly take audiences out for a spin and show them what they can really do.
The current, six-member band features Keneally on guitars and keyboards, plus drummer/vocalist Joe Travers, bassist Scott Thunes, keyboardist/saxophonist/vocalist Robert Martin, guitarist/vocalist Ray White and guitarist/vocalist Jamie Kime. Three of these members – including Keneally – played with Zappa on the fateful 1988 tour, and they can also be heard on the recent FZ archival release, ‘ZAPPA 88: The Last U.S. Show'.
GratefulWeb was recently able to sync up with Keneally for a brief phone interview/preview of the current tour. As you’ll find out from reading onward, Keneally is quite amiable and informative, talking about everything from the formation of the new band to their relationship with the Zappa family, plus even touching on some of his other projects like his primary band, Beer for Dolphins, and the all-star progressive rock showcase ProgJect. If you’re rolling your eyes right about now and thinking, “OMG, not another legacy/tribute band. . .”, relax. There’s nothing to fear: The Zappa Band is here!
The following interview with Mike Keneally has been edited for length and flow.
GW: Hi, Mike. Great to be able to talk with you. You’re a busy guy, aren’t you?
MK: Heh –well, you’re not wrong!
GW: You just rolled off a whirlwind tour with ProgJect a few weeks ago. Then had a bit of down time this month, then your ZB tour started on Friday night. So you have just a short window this week before things heat up next week. [June 12].
MK: Yeah, we have been doing a few ZB shows on the West Coast here [San Diego, LA] before we swing around there [New York State & East Coast]. But I actually had some forced downtime. After I finished with the ProgJect tour [in April], I did Cruise to the Edge [on May 1] with ZB and. . .got Covid!
GW: Really? I didn’t hear about that.
MK: Yeah, I had a couple of weeks of forced downtime. Had to cancel a Mike Keneally & Beer for Dolphins gig. But then, the upside was that the gig got rescheduled –we actually opened for ZB here in San Diego. So I did double duty that night. So did my drummer [Joe Travers]. So, actually, that turned to be really fun, so even though I didn’t like the reason that I had to reschedule my show, I'm glad with how it turned out. But, in any case, the moral of the story is that, heh –no, I didn’t get much in the way of downtime except that which was forced upon me by my health.
GW: Well, I’m hoping it wasn’t too ragged for you.
MK: Yeah, I got through it OK. It was really just about three days of being in true, y’know, misery.
GW: This short tour of June dates is the only one up on your website right now. Do you have other cities planned for another leg?
MK: Actually, I’m getting back out with ProgJect again, later in the year. So it might be 2023 before ZB is able to get out again. The desire is certainly there, and as far getting back to [more cities] on the East Coast, it all depends on how many people come out to the shows this month. I’m hopeful that people will come check it out. And I have to say it’s hard for me to be objective about it, but the way the band’s been playing over the last couple of gigs here in California, we’re definitely reaching a performance peak which should only get better going out on the road and being able to headline. Because, y’know, last year, we went out, opening for King Crimson –
GW: Yes. . .
MK: –on probably their last tour. And it was amazing to play in those venues, for those audiences. And we were definitely well received, but, it was, y’know, short. We were only able to play for 45 minutes a night. So this tour –this month, on the East Coast –is our first headlining tour. So, in some ways, I feel like we’re just about to ‘become a band’ for the first time. So I do hope people will want to come check us out.
GW: So, a lot of my questions here have to do with how you put the setlist together, and since you had that road experience of opening for Crimson, did you use that set as your basis or template for the new tour? Or did you feel that you wanted to take out a lot of those and turn people on to other things?
MK: Yeah, obviously, with [a longer show] there’s going to be a lot more songs than we were able to do on the Crimson tour, and we have definitely shifted things around so people who came to see us last year, they’ll hear some of the same songs. Not all of those songs. And they’ll hear a lot more different ones.
We have a basic template for the set but we know there are certain songs that we want to change out from night to night. So, if people come to multiple shows, they stand a better chance of hearing different songs. That was a big part of what Frank did, and we definitely have more material than we’re able to play in two hours.
So that gives us the luxury of being able to switch things up. If you get a set that works, there’s a part of you that doesn’t want to mess with it. But there’s also something exciting about changing things from night to night. Y’know, we’re cognizant of the fact that ‘hardcore’ people are going to come out to see more than one show.
GW: Especially if you were going to do a residency, but you don’t have one planned at this time, right?
MK: No, we’re just traveling from town to town, but we also know that some audience members are going to be doing the same thing. Heh! So we like –if possible –to at least change things up enough from show to show so that people will get different experiences. But, of course, the nature of the band, and of the music and the amount of improvisation involved in some of the songs means that just because you’re playing a song that has the same title as last night, that doesn’t mean it’s going to be same song!
GW: Absolutely! And it’s different with bands that have a lot of multimedia elements, where everything has to be sync’ed up to click tracks. But my sense is that you’re not about that at all. Is that right?
MK: Yeah, I mean, we came out of that. The band was formed by Ahmet [Zappa –one of Frank’s two sons and trustee of The Zappa Family Trust], as the 'live musician stuff' for the 'Bizarre World of Frank Zappa' tour in 2018 where we were accompanying Frank’s own recordings. So we had no choice but to be on a 'click'. And we were listening to Frank in our headphones and everyone needed to stay synchronized.
GW: That’s interesting. . .
MK: But, yeah, that tour was involved with a whole lot of technology and crazy visuals and screens covering the stage. All sorts of technological rigamarole!
GW: I saw [Frank’s guitarist son] Dweezil in 2007, and he played 'Cosmik Debris' sync’ed to a live clip of Frank playing it. But that was only one song, in the encore.
MK: Yeah, we were doing a lot more of that. About 7-8 songs. We were playing along to pre-recorded stuff for a good portion of the night, and we would have isolated moments during the set where we weren't [tied to] visuals and we could just play whatever we wanted, within a pretty strict time constraint. But we didn't have to worry about being sync'ed with a recording.
So we stopped doing that tour. It was very expensive and complicated to move around, so it wasn't like we were going to go right back out on the road again. But we wanted to keep playing as a band, so we started booking club dates at The Baked Potato, in Los Angeles. And Ahmet came out to see us there, and he said, "Yeah, this deserves to go out on the road as an official Zappa 'product'." Y'know, just musicians on stage, and it doesn't have to be connected to visuals, although there are plans to remount that tour at some point. It's just so complex, though, to get it happening. But, in the mean time, we're still able to go a club, set up and play the songs. And that has power also.
GW: Sure. So I was going to ask you about your relationship with Ahmet and whether he sets any kinds of guidelines for songs that are 'fair game' or off limits, for any reason.
MK: No, not really any conditions. The only thing he does sometimes is to make suggestions. For example, if he knows there's a new Zappa box set on the market, he might suggest some tracks to add. But, y'know, it doesn't come from him so much as it does from Joe [Travers –drummer for ZB and Beer for Dolphins], since his main gig is serving as the 'Vaultmeister' for the Zappa family and puts all those [archival] albums together. So if there's a new album coming out, he'll often like to tailor the setlist to reflect the latest Zappa archival release.
GW: Gotcha. . .
MK: So, yeah, right now, the latest Zappa box set is called Zappa Erie [from tours between 1974 and 1976] and it's based on performances over three tours in and around Erie, Pennsylvania. And there's a really interesting arrangement of a song called 'Orange County Lumber Truck' that was never done on any other tour, and we're doing that arrangement on this tour. Also, a few months ago, there was the 200 Motels box set that Joe curated, and we so we were doing 'Magic Fingers' when that came out. It's just like a little nod to the most recent FZ product.
GW: Sure. . .
MK: So, Ahmet hasn't really –not since the 'Bizarre World' tour, where he hand-picked all the material – had very much direct input on the material we do [in ZB]. He's leaving us to it, which is very nice, because he's still putting the official 'Zappa stamp' on the band but allowing us to do as we like.
GW: Instead of 'FZ Approved', it's 'AZ Approved'. . .
MK: Yeah, and 'ZB Approved’!
GW: So, you became famous for being such a 'quick study' of Frank's music, and it's how you 'passed the audition'. Do you have a photographic memory, as such, or did you just do a lot of heavy ‘woodshedding'?
MK: Um, I do have a good ear and memory, but – I won't say it was 'cheating' – when it came to Frank's music, I was so obsessive about it when I was growing up, and the reason it lived in my head so muchwas that I just listened to it constantly. So, the best way I can put it is that by the time I was able to secure my FZ audition, I had a 'Zappa juke box' in my head. If he named a song that he wanted me to try [for him], I'd just 'push a button' for that song in my head – Heh! – and then I'd play along to it. I was just crazy about his music!
Also, I wasn't very schooled in music. I took organ lessons when I was a kid, and that was based around pop music of the '30s. And I was self-taught as a guitarist. So anything I knew about Frank's music or any contemporary music was from listening to records and teaching myself. I think because I became more of an 'ear-oriented' rather than a 'reading' musician, that made the songs lock down harder in my head. And that was a skill that Frank was able to call on in the band for older material.
For example, I remember at one rehearsal, he said, "I'd really like to play 'Who Needs the Peace Corps?' I haven't done that one in like 20 years." And then he turned around and looked at me, and waited for me to start playing it so we could build an arrangement around it. It ended up becoming a pretty crucial part of the show, and it happened to be a song from my favorite FZ album. And I felt so grateful to be able to help facilitate that, because if I weren't there and he mentioned that song, it would be like the rest of the musicians would have just looked at each other and that idea would have died on the vine.
GW: So you were 'The Catalyst’?
MK: Yeah, exactly, I felt like that's why I was there. Having that sort of connection to the whole body of work.
GW: Incidentally, at the time, you were listed as a 'stunt guitarist'? What exactly was that?
MK: Well, that role was actually created for Steve Vai (who preceded Keneally, from 1980-83). The designation just means guitar parts that aren't normally thought to be playable on a guitar. Y'know, the sort of composed-written lines that may have been [invented] for marimba, or keyboard or horn, that until Steve Vai rose from the Earth and made his presence known to Frank, Frank never would have thought that kind of stuff was possible to play on a guitar. Certainly, Warren Cuccurullo when he was in the band (1977-1980) was executing some really tricky stuff on the guitar. But it was Steve, coming out of nowhere, playing 'The Black Page' perfectly on a guitar, and all of a sudden Frank went, "Wait a minute – the rules have been changed!"
So, when I got in the group, it was ostensibly to do that same sort of thing. But I also play keyboards and I sing, so I think I became more of the 'Ian Underwood' [former Zappa keyboardist] kind of player. It wasn't just doing tricks on guitar but a variety of things, providing that kind of service to the music.
GW: So that leads perfectly into the next question: You have three guitarists in ZB, so how do divide up the playtime, and are you playing keyboards much in this line-up?
MK: Yeah, I'm playing a lot of keys, and I tend to be covering a lot of mallet-type parts that players like Ruth Underwood or Ed Mannmight have played. The marimba parts. Also, more of the synthesizer patches and 'sound-effecty'-type keys, with Robert [Martin] playing the traditional key parts like piano, organ and electric piano.
So, we've got Jamie Kime, who can handle any kind of crazy, written guitar lines while I'm busy on the keyboards. And then we've got Ray White, who has the most beautiful, emotive guitar style when he's playing rhythm, and when he takes a solo, the whole vibe on stage switches to this glorious, lovely feeling. So all three of us are very distinct and we bring a lot of different feeling and 'voices' to the music. If you're a guitar fan, you'll definitely hear a lot of different playing, especially when we're all playing together.
GW: OK, now when you say you're doing 'mallet-type stuff', do you mean that you're playing samples and MIDI'ing those parts?
MK: Yeah, exactly. That enables to switch quickly from playing guitar to keyboards rapidly. If I were actually playing marimba, I wouldn't have the time to put down my mallets and get back to guitar. I actually played marimba for a time in high-school concert band, and I learned some technique from that. So when I'm playing a certain kind of repeating marimba pattern on the keyboard, I use my fingers as mallets, in a certain sense. I try to do that because I want it to sound authentic.
GW: That's fascinating. Thank you for sharing that. Now, I've read that you have three current members, including yourself, who worked together on the 1988 tour. Given that you knew that material so well, how long did it take for the ZB line-up to pull things into shape?
MK: It's a gradual process. When we formed in 2018 for the 'Bizarre World' tour, we only learned as much material as we needed. We all had played a lot of Zappa material and had been in various bands, but what that means is we might all know the same song with the same title but each have our own default arrangement in our heads. Frank often radically changed the song arrangements from tour to tour. So it's not simply someone saying, "Hey, let's play this song. . ." but actually having to be more specific about which version we're doing. So it requires a lot of [huddling] on ideas.
GW: Understood. . .
MK: So we've been adding to the repertoire over time. Prior to lockdown, I think we had about two hours of material to pull from, ready to go. And then we were not gigging but still working on stuff. Last time I added it up, I think we now have about three hours of working material. And because we're never playing more than two hours on the coming tour, that gives us the luxury of changing things up. From the time we formed until now, that's how long it took to get up to three hours of material.
Obviously, the FZ repertoire is so deep that we could keep picking new songs forever. And, in fact, when we were in the 1988 band, we had a master list of more than 100 songs rehearsed, but we had four months of practice for all of those. But it meant that Frank could do three nights in one city and have very little repetition among the shows. So that's a real goal, but until you're doing residencies, you can make do with the amount that we have, which is about 30 songs. We have done residencies at The Baked Potato, and the good thing about that it is it's two sets per night, 75 minutes each. You can do a lot with that in terms of changing pace. But when you get into two-hour sets and residencies, it gets harder. You need a deeper set to draw from. On this tour, we'll still do what we can to keep it interesting for the folks who travel for more than one show.
GW: Have you and the band performed at many festivals yet, and do you notice a difference in the audience energy?
MK: Unfortunately, not so far, even though we should. I'd love for next year to see us get on some festival line-ups, because I think we do belong there. Probably the closest we've come to that experience was on the Crimson tour. Obviously, not a festival but a larger attendance, and even some open-air venues. So we've been able to see how this music goes over with audiences who aren't necessarily there to see us, in outdoor settings. And the response has been overwhelmingly positive. I know if we can get placed on some festival dates that it will be a net-positive for all involved.
GW: And, finally, speaking of faithful FZ fans who would travel to you see your band more than once, are you consciously trying to widen the audience or just play to the faithful?
MK: Well, there's certainly a 'hardcore' following for Frank. Some people are getting old and passing on now, but maybe their kids have inherited some of their Zappa 'freakdom' from them. We do see a good number of younger faces in the audiences, and I don't know whether it's their first time or they're already indoctrinated. But we definitely are eager to reach beyond the [original fanbase], because it's nice to expand awareness of Frank's music, and to reach new people. Me? I'm 'hardcore' and I certainly understand that mindset. Always glad to make those listeners feel connected and to know they've experienced something that feels authentic, respectful and captures their love for Frank. Something that's a celebration of his work, because that's what it is.
More information about The Zappa Band and tour dates can be viewed at the following links:
Alongside Jimi Hendrix’s 1967 breakout single 'Purple Haze', The Doors’ unconventionally romantic 1967 song 'Light My Fire' and Steppenwolf’s 1968 smash 'Magic Carpet Ride', perhaps Cream’s hit singles 'Sunshine of Your Love' and 'White Room' can be tagged – without too much argument – as two of the toppermost examples of late-1960s’ AM-radio psychedelia. (Are we leaving anything out? Of course we are! It's a jammed-up list.)
And so, for many young radio listeners at the time – including this reporter – Cream were a major 'gateway' band for early- and mid-teens who heard them first on AM Top 40 and then crossed over to the then-ascending underground FM format. Hearing the full album versions of those two Cream songs – kept short for the short-attention AM format – on FM radio for the first time in the late '60s was ear-opening and mind-blowing, even without artificial mind 'sweeteners'. And we couldn't get enough!
Because they were billed as the world’s first “supergroup” – boasting of drummer Ginger Baker, guitarist Eric Clapton and bassist Jack Bruce, and already ignited with gushing critical acclaim – Cream burned more brightly than many other “heavy” psych bands of the time. And, sadly, the band's famously temperamental members also burned through more quickly, lasting only from 1966 to 1968. But in their wake they left the indisputably psychedelic relic – the late-1967 album Disraeli Gears – for future fans to rediscover in all of its mesmerizing, experimental glory. Now, younger family members of Cream founders Baker and Clapton have been touring under the name of Music of Cream, and featuring that album as a main attraction for their current tour.
In early June Music of Cream visited the Cincinnati area, with a show at the Madison Theater, a general-admission venue in nearby Covington, Kentucky. The show was billed as "Disraeli Gears & Clapton Classics," and it proved to be quite a condensed career capsule of many EC-associated songs during and after his time in the band. And, at various moments in the night, it proved to be a showcase for Ginger Baker's notable contributions as well.
This converted movie theatre has been a popular stop for many bands of past eras and the jam-band scene, including Bob Weir & RatDog, Gov’t Mule and Chris Robinson. And in that spirit, things got seriously trippy right out of the gate, with a first set featuring a nearly-complete Disraeli Gears song list and a stunning set closer of 'White Room'. And the second set, which featured Clapton "evergreens" from latter-day Cream and Blind Faith – his follow-on project after Cream with Baker – also revisited EC benchmarks from the '70s into the ‘80s.
Right from the kick-start opener of 'Strange Brew' through 'Outside Woman Blues', the band dialed in on the heavy blues-rock style that Cream had electrified in more ways than one. And things moved quickly apace, with a sense of purpose and brief-or-no interludes between songs. Lead guitarist and vocalist Will Johns – son of famed recording engineer Andy Johns and also EC's nephew – engaged in some brief stage banter midway into the show. But the album-faithful song progression spoke for itself, with bristling blues energy, urgent rhythmic foundations, and crackling lead-rhythm guitar interplay on such songs as 'Sunshine' and its psychedelic soulmate, the wah-wah guitar workout 'Tales of Brave Ulysses'.
And for the Gears' finale before the set capstone 'White Room', drummer Kofi Baker – son of Cream co-founder and drummer Ginger Baker – took over the mic and lead vocals for an extended, smile-inducing rendition of his father's objectively silly album track 'Pressed Rat and Warthog'. But, as the junior Baker noted, this was "the psychedelic version", and it was nicely tricked out with a meandering Mixolydian groove decorated with super-flange-y, Trey Anastasio-type leads. Coincidentally, his band had a gig in nearby Indianapolis more or less at the same time that night, so this juicy, little headtrip nearly seemed to be channeling 'The Phish from Vermont' for those who couldn't be there!
Although Music of Cream had toured previously as a power trio, the current line-up features a fourth and quite indispensable fourth man, Stephen Ball, on rhythm guitar and keyboards. Many of the arrangements on Disraeli Gears had relied on guitar overdubs and smatterings of keys, so the band replicated the layers and guitar harmonies of the original recordings, with some slight deviations. Laying in the sharp, R&B rhythm parts on song such as 'Brew' and 'Outside', he provided a backbone for lead man Johns to lean into fully. For example, on the Gears deep track 'Dance the Night Away', Ball opted not to emulate EC's original 12-string part from the studio recording but simply scattered ringing patterns throughout the song.
The most powerful moment in the opening set came with a soul-stirring performance of the classic Cream dirge 'We're Going Wrong'. Guitarist Ball took on the Jack Bruce lead vocals with fitting melancholy, and drummer Baker dialed in a rolling, tympani-mallet pattern across his drums that built into emotional crescendoes at several peaks in the song. And newcomer on bass, Kris Lohn, stepped into the spotlight for the first time in the evening with a keening, lead-bass solo while the others supplied foundation. The heartbreaking song of doomed romance then ended with a final dissolve into a dense cloud of dissonant harmonic-feedback. Truly breathtaking.
In the second half Baker and company stepped forward in time – as well as backwards here and there – to visit various well-known moments in Clapton's career. At first, they jumped into Clapton's mid-'70s, 461 Ocean Boulevard era, with a cover of his cover of Bob Marley & The Wailers' 'I Shot the Sheriff'. With a somewhat more updated arrangement, the band gave lead guitarist another moment to show off his well-honed guitar chops with their version of 'Crossroads', the storied Robert Johnson song that Cream immortalized on their 1968 Wheels of Fire album.
Bookending the centerpiece Ginger Baker drum-solo-centric song 'Toad', they also did a couple of slower-paced but heartfelt Blind Faith songs. On these songs, fourth-man Ball made keyboards his priority but also took on lead vocals at times, including a moving performance of Steve Winwood's plaintive prayer-song 'Can't Find My Way Home'.
Undoubtedly, Baker's drum in the middle of 'Toad' was the main event of the evening. After the customary, throwaway band-rave-up intro, Baker was off into the cosmos with a spellbinding, ten-minute performance. He included many Afro-based patterns with jazz accents, and used different parts of his sprawling drum kit to interlock various rhythmic vignettes.
Near the end of this deep journey into pure rhythm and texture, he suspended playing with his sticks, only to concentrate with his legs on powerful intervals between his two bass drums. They were so strong, one could feel them deep inside. Although on a previous tour the band had traveled with a projection screen so Baker could play along with a film of his father performing the 'Toad' solo, it was a pleasant surprise to be able to concentrate fully on the younger Baker's performance. And it was all the more rewarding for that reason! Hisbandmates soon returned to the stage and together they brought the instrumental tour-de-force to a rousing conclusion.
It appeared to this reporter that the band worked hard during the first set to connect with the somewhat lighter-than-usual attendance in the venue. The general-admission theatre – featuring a low front pit, a terraced mid-level and a wide balcony – often presents acoustic challenges to the artists who perform there, especially when there are obvious gaps in the audience. Not having a fuller audience, which was spread around on the two back levels and did not fill the pit until later in the second half, had to have been frustrating for the band in trying to generate a response during the Gears' set. That seemed to change in mid-second set, however, when Baker took over the stage with his commanding 'Toad' solo. Dancers – many were women but also a few men – soon came on down to the pit from the other levels and sparked the band onward in the set.
Moving into the 'final reel', as it were, the band rallied and concentrated the audience with several more EC favorites. They rounded out the main set with another Cream-Clapton classic, 'Badge', which EC wrote with his guitarist friend George Harrison in 1968, plus the Slowhand crowd-pleaser 'Wonderful Tonight' and the timeless Derek & The Dominoes' song 'Layla'.
During the extended, one-song encore, the four-man band peaked out the audience with an inspired medley of Clapton's J.J. Cale cover, 'Cocaine', and Stevie Wonder's 'Superstitious.' As he had throughout the show, lead guitarist Johns convincingly channeled the bluesy vocal growl of latter-day Clapton and seemingly burned up every last drop of his energy with his leads right to the very end. Once he tossed his guitar pick into the crowd and took a smiling bow with his bandmates, one knew they had truly given all they had.
In today's flashy, tech-y, trend-addicted, junk-the-old/jack-in-the-new pop music culture, it is ever-so-fashionable to throw dirt on the coffins of guitar-based rock 'n'roll bands and not even toss a funeral rose. Whether you stumble into them in online music reviews and blogs, People magazine, or even Rolling Stone, you can read the dismissals practically every day. But, thankfully, not here at Gratefulweb.com!
The woeful ‘death of rock’ mantra arose more than 60 years ago, when the urgent question of whether rock ’n’ roll was “just a fad” was answered head-on in the classic, 1958 Danny & The Juniors’ song ‘Rock and Roll Is Here to Stay’ (lovingly revived by Sha Na Na at Woodstock, in 1969, and later featured in the mid-‘70s movie Grease.). And the ‘Rock is dead’ theme later found immortality in The Who's 1974 B-side 'Long Live Rock’, a defiant musical screed against the doomsayers of the day. And now, today, it seems to have taken permanent root, stubborn as the crab grass in your front lawn. (Whether or not you even have a lawn . . . .)
Apparently, the evergreen roots-to-riches rock guitar slinger and songwriter Mike Campbell — known best for his enduring, 50-plus-year role as Tom Petty's fearless, six-string partner in assorted musical adventures — has never let any of those doubts take up residence in his head. With no second thoughts, he has just kept his hands on his guitars, pouring out bottomless buckets of steaming licks and classic, FM-radio-type rock anthems through the years.
And good news, if you didn’t already know: Dude’s still at it.
The next chapter of the veteran guitarist/songwriter's rockin' life story has continued with his four-piece, fountain-of-musical-youth band The Dirty Knobs. (Think of the lo-fi crackles and pops from crusty, corroded guitar volume knobs, says founder Campbell.) The band, which he formed back in 2005 with guitarist Jason Sinay, drummer Matt Laug and bassist Lance Morrison while still in his ‘day job’ with Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, has already had one album to their name, 2020's Wreckless Abandon.
As you might expect, that was quite a fine collection of gritty, garage-y rockers and ballads laced with the heady tang of perennial rock 'n' roll mythology. (Anyone for the Stones-y ‘Pistol Packin’ Mama’?) But then, in early 2022, came the band's newest release, External Combustion. After one listen to this dynamic, flowing, 11-song album,it's crystal clear that Abandon was just The Knobs’ big West Coast warm-up move!
There's no prologue, no mood setting or "establishing scene" with Combustion. The title tells you everything you need to know, and the opening track, ‘Wicked Mind', is a blazing, two-guitar and rhythm-section assault that sets the tone for all that's to come. There's a hefty dose of well-weathered rock 'n' roll mythos straightoff: Envy, jealousy, broken hearts, revenge . . . y'know, the usual stuff, but delivered with a delicious enthusiasm and a sense of mission that ignores the passage of time and leaves you wanting more. Indeed, the Campbell and The Knobs have seemingly appointed themselves as Keepers of the Inner Flame of Rock. (Wait! — isn’t that the Foo Fighters’ job?)
With more riff-heavy and dark-and-sticky songs, such as 'Cheap Talk' and 'Dirty Job' (featuring a guest vocal from Mott the Hoople front man Ian Hunter) and, of course, the title track rolling up soon after, the temperature and template on Combustion seem to lock in early.
More time-honored tropes of classic rock, which in other hands might seem long-in-the-tooth or even cringe-inducing, bring only smiles with Campbell's entertainingly snarky lyrics and delivery. For instance, you can just picture the shit-eating grin on his face as he spits out lines like, "I ain't your shrink/but I know how you think. . ." and "It's a dirty job/but someone's gotta do it. . ./It might as well be me."
Admittedly, Campbell — who penned all 11 tracks, a combination of brand-new writings and long-buried demos — does dance on a razor edge with some of that male-hormone r 'n' r melodrama. But his knowing, semi-unreliable-narrator demeanor makes all the difference between ‘dance’ and ‘fall’. Even on the more gripe-y or dazed-and-confused songs, his wise-guy persona makes it all seem so forgivable, whereas others treading these same topical waters at this latter-day stage of their careers would risk simply coming off as hopelessly adolescent re-treads.
One such track, which on its own you might consider a likely throwaway, is Chuck Berry-type goof called 'Brigitte Bardot’. As rock 'n' roll goes, it's a kind of lightweight 'guilty pleasure' with trite lyrics that keeps the album flowing if you're listening to it in full. But to these ears, it fails to register as a 'go-to' track that you'd press ‘repeat’ for or stick in a playlist. Your mileage may vary, obviously.
And speaking of Mr. Berry, we must mention that Campbell and Co. are not shy about flaunting their well-marinated influences, which transparently include American roots and pop, the British Invasion, the Stones, Peter Green, Southern rock and, of course, his own Hall-of-Fame band, Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers.
At various points throughout the album, you could imagine other singers, say Mick Jagger or Steven Tyler, swaggering their way through these bluesy, battle-of -the-sexes war stories and other misunderstandings.
Also, since Campbell was a co-architect of the classic Heartbreakers' sound, there are many points — from start to finish — where his sense of power-chord drama and aw-shucks/just-kidding vocals evoke the more slap-happy moments of TP & TH, yet never with the sense of being a pale echo of those glory days. You might even find yourself thinking at various times that Petty's voice would have fit these songs perfectly, and you wouldn't be wrong. And there’d be no judgment if you do!
For all the straight-ahead rockers and slinkier blues dirges, such as 'Lightning Boogie', 'Rat City', 'Electric Gypsy' and the title track, there’s also a dash of choice country- and folk-flavored intervals that help in catching one's breath from all the fast-flying projectiles. For example, the lilting ballad 'State of Mind', which features a guest vocal by the emergent country-music star Margo Price, sports a lovely, harmonized duet between Campbell and his special guest. It does sound like a forgotten track off the TP & TH mid-‘80s Southern Accents album, complete with his sweet slide guitar, evocative Gospel piano and a regal horn chart. In short, it’s a real soul cleanser.
The song that sounds as if it should have been the closing track but still works damned well in the second-to-last position is a jaunty, Byrds- and Woody Guthrie-like folk-rocker titled 'It Is Written'. Although one of its messages is a plea for personal acceptance and making peace with all of one’s past sins, the overall shiny tone is life-affirming and forward-looking. Clearly, it’s meant as encouragement for us all to keep on reaching for the stars.
Looking past the few lyrical warts of Combustion, you can't deny this album’s earnest, fun-loving vibe that arrives on time with the opening notes. Admirably, the band radiates the seasoned confidence of shared dedication to their mission, which apparently is to bring guitar rock back from Code Blue status, alive and kicking. And they deliver on that promise, straight through.
Give Combustion a chance and you'll hear that it features not only great ensemble chemistry but also heroic solos and guitar interplay, rubbery bass lines and sneaky hooks that worm into your ears and head so well that you may find yourself auto-playing some of the tracks under your breath by your third or fourth listen. Or sooner. Falling even farther in, you'll come to appreciate the arrangements, production and stealth guest appearances by Price, Hunter and Heartbreakers’ keyboardist Benmont Tench even more. The pleasures are all tucked in, just waiting to be found.
If you haven't already heard The Knobs' 2020 debut album, Wreckless Abandon, you'll find that — as suggested earlier — it stands up nicely next to Combustion. But on the off chance you haven't, don't postpone joy any longer just to explore their albums in chronological order. You'll be glad you started here with Combustion. It's a great, sprawling album perfect for summertime, full of light and heat, and meant to be played damned loud. And summer's not over yet.
Editor’s Note: The Dirty Knobs have booked a 30-date fall tour to promote External Combustion, from August 28 to November 1. This leg of their 2022 tour will include seven dates as the opening act for The Who, from October 14, in St. Louis, to the November 1 tour closer in Los Angeles, at the Hollywood Bowl.
There’s a lot of David Bowie suddenly in the air again this year, roughly coinciding with the 75th birthday of the famed genre-fluid singer/songwriter/showman. Earlier this year, there was the Bowie extended-musical-family production – dubbed the Bowie Celebration – featuring former DB sidemen, such as Mike Garson, Gerry Leonard and Carmine Rojas, just to name a few.
Then – just in the last few weeks and still in theatrical release in some cities – came film director Brett Morgen’s epic, eye-(and ear!) popping, multi-media tribute to Mr. Bowie called Moonage Daydream. The film serves as both a passionate visual and musical love letter to hardcore Bowie fans and a “Young Person’s Guide” to what the fuss over the Talented Mr. Bowie was all about, all those years ago.
And next on tap, in the early days of October, is the stunning, superstar Bowie tribute tour christened with another flashing-marquee-lights name, Celebrating David Bowie. Even more than the movie, this tour promises to bring it all back home to the essence of Bowie’s singular musical magic – his one-of-a-kind, always-evolving and timeless songs.
The advanced buzz for this upcoming Bowie-centric tour – abbreviated on the tour’s website as CdB – is very strong. This in large part because of two of the heady superstars on the front line, multi-guitarist and multi-instrumentalist Todd Rundgren and guitarist extraordinaire Adrian Belew. Promising some 30 North American dates, in both the U.S. and Canada, and kicking off on Thursday, October 6, at San Diego’s Balboa Theater, CdB is a much-anticipated tour that builds on the concept of the original stand-alone Celebrating shows from 2017 that coincided with what would have been the iconic singer’s 70th birthday.
Grateful Web recently had the most pleasant opportunity to line up a phone chat from Los Angeles with longtime Bowie friend, collaborator and guitar slinger Adrian Belew, literally just days away from the tour’s October 6 launch. Being the in-demand guy that he is, Belew has also been finishing up a run of special dates in L.A. with former Talking Heads’ guitarist/keyboardist Jerry Harrison in honor of the now-40-year-old Heads’ album Remain in Light. (Arguably, one of Belew’s finest career moments.) Houses – and heady guitarist! – in Motion, indeed!
So, as you’ll see in the following transcribed conversation, Belew cheerfully discussed his working relationship with the ever-shape-shifting art-rock conceptualist Bowie, the history of the CdB project and what fans can expect on this breathtakingly compact, five-week fall tour.
GW: Great to talk to you today, Adrian. I know you must have a lot going on. So thanks for squeezing us in...
Adrian Belew: No problem!
GW: So, I understand that the CdB project got its start back in 2017, around the time of David’s 70th birthday. So you’ve been involved ever since. Is that correct?
AB: Yes, lemme see. . .yes, this will have been the third one that I’ve done. The first two were a lot more like, ‘Here’s a couple of dates here, and a couple there,’ not really so much of a tour like we’re doing now. Starting out, we’d play in London, then over to Japan for a show and so on. So this is first time where we have [a longer series of dates] booked and we’re going to take the show from one city to another, over about five weeks.
GW: From what I’ve learned about the history of CdB, it seems that Miles Copland [founder of IRS Records and music producer] was a primary person behind the concept and that Scrote (CdB guitarist, aka Angelo Bundini) is now the main driver.
AB: Well, actually, Scrote was the originator of all this. He was the producer for all of the shows, and, eventually – from what I understand – he made contact with Miles, then Miles took an interest in it. So they partnered up. And that’s a really good thing to have, because Miles is definitely a big name in the industry and can get things done for him.
GW: And how do you fit in with the team?
AB: Y’know, I’m part of the team in that Scrote and I kind of started out on it together. But I don’t want to take credit for it, because it’s really his baby.
GW: Right. So, as you were the musical director for David’s 1990 Sound + Vision tour, is that the case with Scrote now, that he’s the musical director and you’re ‘just one of the guys’?
AB: Yeah, it’s a lot like that. He does consult with me, still runs ideas by me every now and then on song choices, arrangements and so on. But it’s really his production. I don’t want to get too much in his way on all of this. I’m – heh – ‘The Cheerleader’, more than anything else.
GW: Funny, yeah. . .I’ve seen promo videos of you and Scrote on YouTube announcing the tour, where you’re playing your old Stratocaster from your tours with David and talking about the shows. So I got a bit of the ‘flavor’ for what the tour is about from watching those.
AB: Right. . .
GW: So, did the team have the idea for this [full-on] tour in place before lockdown, or did it all come together this year?
AB: Yeah, we were a couple of years behind in the schedule from where we were supposed to be. We finished up the second CdB tour in 2018, in Iceland – in Reykjavik – and those were the two shows where Todd [Rundgren] joined up with us. So that started the ball rolling again, because ‘now, we’ve got Todd interested, so maybe we should try to do something more.’ And I kept saying, instead of us just doing five shows – one show in Australia, one in London, one in New York and so on – ‘Wouldn’t it be nice if we could sort of cover the U.S. and Canada?’ Which is what we’re doing now!
GW: Since the first CdB shows were intentionally set up to honor David’s 70th birthday, was there a sense –with it being David’s 75th birthday and also with Moonage Daydream coming out – of ‘This is a big year–we should do this!’?
AB: Well, that’s probably more of a ‘Scrote question’, to be honest. I’ve been contacted little by little and told that maybe something would be happening this year. But I don’t think anything was ever said to me that this was particularly around [Bowie’s] birthday or anything like that. But, of course , any reason to do it – heh-heh – would be good!
GW: Understood! Well, the song ‘Heroes’ is a centerpiece in the movie Moonage Daydream, and you’re featured in the film clip of that performance. How do you feel about the movie and how it portrays that time period in David’s career? And relating that to CdB, are you trying to evoke any certain period in his music or just to show the whole spectrum of his work?
AB: Well, I don’t know the film yet. I was all set to go and see it [two weeks ago] at the IMAX in Nashville, where I live, and when I went to look at the times, it had gone away the previous day.
The last showing was on Thursday. So I’ll still need to catch up with it somewhere. Just so you know, I’m currently rehearsing for these two Talking Heads’ shows right now that precede the rehearsals for the CdB shows. So, what I’m doing is I have two more shows with [Remain in Light], and then I fly back here to LA, and then we start up the final rehearsals for CdB. So catching up with the movie will be a little bit hard for me to do right now. From what I understand about it, though, it’s pretty much the director’s vision of what he thinks of the art of David Bowie.
I’ve heard such great comments, and that, obviously, he’s done real well. I’ve heard that the director basically sacrificed three years of his life. Just living and breathing David Bowie. And he screened every piece of film of David – looking for possibilities – that he could get his hands on. There’s no telling how much music he had to sort through. So it’s a big deal! And I’m so sorry I didn’t get to see it in IMAX, because – heh – I was looking forward to seeing myself 40-feet tall on the big screen, y’know?
GW: Yes, it’s very much like Peter Jackson and his sifting through 50-plus hours of Beatles film footage to make the Get Back documentary. I’m so sure that [director Morgen] had a lot more. I read he had actually had a heart attack early in production!
AB: Well – heh-heh – that’s what’ll happen with this kind of thing! Heh!
GW: Well, there you go!
AB: Well, one thing about David is, I don’t think there’s ever been – other than maybe The Beatles – anyone else who was more filmed than David. It seemed that every aspect of what he was doing was always being filmed. The strange thing for me, personally, is the 1990 Sound + Vision tour seemed like it was being filmed all over the place. Big film names were coming and going. I even, at one point, went in to replace some guitar tracks that weren’t correctly recorded. So I always felt like [the S + V tour] was going to have an enormous amount of film [documentation] connected to it. But I don’t know that it has. I’ve never seen anything from all of that out on YouTube.
GW: I’m guessing that some of that was source material for the [Moonage Daydream] movie, at least, because there was a long list of source credits at the end. On a related note, I was going to ask you, since the movie was strongly multi-media – heavily layered and very hallucinogenic – is there going to be a multi-media component to the CdB show?
AB: Well, we’re not in a position, I don’t think, to do that yet – hopefully, if this continues and grows, we would be. Scrote and I have talked a lot about this. We’d actually kind of like to do what [Cirque du Soleil] did in Vegas with the [extended run] of The Beatles’ Love performances. Really, because of the fact that there’s so much imagery connected. Right now, this will be the first tour ever where we own the light show. So we’re taking baby steps – heh-heh!
GW: So, when you met David in the 1970s and he hired you for his studio work and the 1978-79 tours, you came at the recommendation of [Bowie collaborator] Brian Eno. Did David give you free reign and trust your choices or did he – at least at first – have a slot for you to plug into?
AB: No, actually, from the beginning, David was full-on, ‘It’s up to you. Go wild! Paint a lot [musical] colors with your guitar.’ I think that’s exactly what he was looking for, and it was very much in contrast to what I had just done with Frank Zappa. His music was very much already laid out exactly the way he wanted it played. So [with Zappa] there wasn’t that kind of freedom, but what there was instead for me were the lessons to be learned from consistency and the [discipline] of being a world-class touring musician. I learned that stuff with Frank, and the next step was David. Having David say, ‘Yeah, go wild!’ was just what I needed. That was a really big deal, right there. It set the stage for me. Whether it was for Talking Heads or Nine Inch Nails — you name it. That’s what everyone wanted from me. They’d say to me, ‘We want you to play what you want to play!’ David set all that in motion!
GW: OK, as I’ve read, when David went out on the Glass Spider tour in 1988, he caught quite a bit of press criticism that the production was excessive and the songs were lost in the production. And then, when you and he were setting up the Sound + Vision tour for 1990, he was consciously taking a different approach. I understand that you and he started building a lot of samples to strip down the arrangements. And that technology was 30 years ago. So what kind of a technological approach are you taking with these songs this time? Maybe focusing even more on the music and less on the effects?
AB: What I’m trying to do personally is to be the right guitarist and singer for the right songs. I’m probably on stage only half the time, to begin with. And that’s because there are certain eras of David’s music where I feel I’m not necessarily the best person to portray those songs. Some of the songs I did before, of course, but I’m going to try to make an approximation of what I did then without copying myself. I have a lot of better things I can put in place, better sounds. But when we have been putting these shows together – and mainly Scrote – we talk about all of this. Choosing the membership is very important because you bring in different people who are very good at certain periods of David’s music, to make it [a full experience].
For example, nobody I can think of can do ‘Suffragette City’ or ‘Ashes to Ashes’ better than Angelo Moore. He’s such a showman, and, at the same time, he knows that material so well. Me? I’m more versed in the ‘Trilogy’ period [Low, Heroes and Lodger, which Bowie recorded in Berlin with Brian Eno in the late 1970s] and Scary Monsters. And songs I did with David early on for the 1978 tour, like ‘Station to Station’ and ‘Stay’ or others that people mention a lot. So it’s down to picking the right people and giving them the right material.
GW: How many songs that you originally played with David on the 1978 and 1990 tours would you say are included in the CdB show? Also were there any deeper, surprise songs you would have liked to have done with David that you had to leave out with him, like ‘Gunman’ [a song Bowie wrote and performed on Belew’s 1990 solo album Young Lions]?
AB: Heh-heh – wow! That’s funny you say that. I was just thinking the other day, ‘Man, I wish we had thought of that one!’ Naturally, ‘Pretty Pink Rose’ [another Young Lions song featuring Bowie] was something I really wanted to do, since it was the duet I had with David. When we [the CdB band] did those first two shows I mentioned earlier with Todd in Reykjavik, Iceland, we did it with Todd taking David’s part and me taking mine, and it was really, really successful. So we’re doing that one. And that’s good, because in the first rounds, we didn’t even think of that. I think Scrote is always trying to paint with the broadest possible palette that he can.
So you can’t stay stuck in one particular realm. There are quite a few things that go back to 1978 and 1979, like ‘Station to Station’, which I haven’t played since that time, and it was always a big piece for us. And, of course, ‘Heroes’. We’ve played that on [the first two CdB tours], but this time out, we’ll be sharing vocals and doing some interesting things in that area. But – heh-heh – I’m more curious than probably you are as to what we’re gonna end up with! Heh, heh! I don’t know everyone in this band, and that’s been true in every single line-up we’ve done. They’re not necessarily people I’ve worked with before or who are personal friends with – yet!
GW: Does everyone in the band read music? Are there arrangements charted so everyone can come in like Classical musicians, do their part to rehearse and jump into the tour?
AB: Most likely, most of them can read, but I don’t think it’s something they do for this. This is more about feeling the songs and knowing the intent of the music. You wouldn’t read most of this from a chart unless you’re one of the string players that we’ve had. For example, in Reykjavik, we had the Iceland Orchestra join us, and, of course, those people would be reading a score. I don’t know how often that would happen on this tour.
But there are also a lot of guest artists who’ll join us along the way. And that’s always a surprise to me. I never know who they’re going to be – heh-heh– until a couple of days before. ‘Oh, by the way. . .Sting is coming in next week for two shows!’ and that sort of thing.
It’s kinda fun – shakes things up a bit. Sometimes we might have to learn a little bit of extra material. And if it is with an orchestra, it’s the same way. We come in a day earlier, we rehearse with the orchestra, and then we go into the show the next day. You never really know. This is a pretty flexible situation here. We’re just trying to get a lot people who have some kind of working relationship with David and who know his music, even just keen fans of what he’s done. Of course, that includes a lot of artists!
GW: Out of the songs picked out for this show, how many are ones that you originally played on and how many new ones will you be featured on? Are you singing on every song you play on or just a few standout songs?
AB: I’m singing [lead] on about [half] of the 14-15 songs that I’m playing. So the other ones, I’m either just playing guitar or I’m also very happy to throw in some harmony. I used to sing a lot of harmony with David, like on ‘Space Oddity’ and ‘Life on Mars’. And I still do that in this show with Todd taking the lead on those particular two songs. David had so much harmony in his music, and some of it that was odd and interesting. And I always liked that. So, as I say, in ‘Heroes’ we plan to switch off on who gets to sing [lead] so it won’t just be one singer as it had been before. It used to be me, all the time, and I’m happy to let other people share that. So, the thing I like most about our [project] is that we have six singers. So we can share among everyone and get songs that each singer can shine on. And the beauty of that – heh-heh– is that no one is trying to be David Bowie. So that takes a lot of weight off anyone!
GW: As I understand it, you’ll also have a couple of special guest vocalists for limited portions of the tour. So things will change, depending on their personalities, too...
AB: Yeah, that’s right. We’ll have Jeffrey Gaines joining us for a few of the dates instead of Angelo [Moore]. I think Angelo had some previous engagements, but that only happens a little bit. And then, we’ll have Thomas Dolby joining us. That’ll be two nights at the Ram’s Head, in Annapolis [Maryland]. And – heh-heh– who knows what else will happen? That’s gonna be incredible, because I’ve done the Ram’s Head, recently – on my last [solo] tour, in fact – and it’s a pretty small stage. We already have a large band, and that’s going to be adding one more person right on top of the next. So that’ll be very exciting in that room, for sure – heh-heh!
GW: Wish I could be there! So, really, just wrapping up here that I see a lot of similarities between what CdB is doing with three guitarists and the Zappa Band. I had a great conversation about ZB with Mike Keneally a few months ago, and he talked about how having three guitarists in ZB provides a lot of variety and contrast, lots of different colors and tones, if you will. So I guess you have that same dynamic with Todd, Scrote and you?
AB: I love Mike! He’s really something, and we’ve been friends for years. But he’s right. With us, Todd is completely different from Scrote and me. And Scrote is a more varied kind of player. He can play any style, when you want him to, but he also still has his own kind of sound. In terms of guitar playing, our show should be really nice. And I’ll be very interested to hear it myself!
For more information and tour dates for the Celebrating David Bowie tour, please visit the tour’s website at: http://celebratingdavidbowie.com
From one end to the other – a total of about 2 hours-15 minutes without intermission – the current Celebrating David Bowie tour is a firehose of classic Bowie songs. And the crackin’ eight-piece band just turns on the flow and lets it go.
In fact, the set features 30 songs – a generous list by many folks’ standards – and, yet, the show doesn’t feel long. And the tour won’t be either. This breathless, five-week Bowiefest – headed up superstar frontmen/vocalists Angelo Moore and Royston Langdon, and guitarists/vocalists Todd Rundgren and Adrian Belew – is already two weeks in but still in progress. So let’s just start by saying that even if you are only a casual David Bowie fan and this tour should come anywhere near you, then you absolutely must see one of these shows. Maybe even more than one, if you can at all swing it!
As CdB member Belew told us in a recent interview here on gratefulweb.com, the beauty of this show is that with so many singers sharing the vocals, “no one is trying to be David Bowie.” Amazingly, although every singer brought his own flair and spin to this eclectic, vocally-demanding body of work, they hit the Bowie bull’s eye every time with their collective variations in the October 15 show at the Goodyear Theater, in Akron, Ohio. Quite often, their vocals were so uncannily Bowie-like you could close your eyes and imagine it was David himself, as if Time had not ever stolen him away.
Each singer took a share of the songs so that the burden didn’t fall to any one person for too long. This genius move helped to keep the pace move briskly and nicely juxtaposed. For example, the first four songs alone each featured a rotating singer, in the order of Belew, Rundgren, Moore and Langdon. That was 20 minutes in, and it felt like three. And that was the prevailing vibe for the entire running time of the show.
Judging from his workman-like jeans, T-shirt and ball cap attire at least, one can safely say that Belew was definitely not trying to visually compete image-wise with the glam, theatrical, shape-shifting of the original Thin White Duke. (Oh, snap! Check out those bright-red, sequined slippers he was wearing!) He simply took the lead with vocals and rhythm guitar with a beatific grin on the jaunty opening song, ‘Sound and Vision’, adding an endearing isolated vocal coda to the song.
Next up was Rundgren, who, after Belew had dashed off into the wings, strutted onto the stage in a canary-yellow suit and launched into a groovy, sax-driven version of ‘Young Americans’. His broad, projecting vocals gave it a rousing feel of an encore performance in spite of its early appearance in the show.
This early infusion of energy set the stage perfectly for the shaman-like persona of Fishbone vocalist Angelo Moore, who arrived as a man on a mission, definitely bringing a shitload of glam that had been dialed back so far in the show. As he burst out tornado-like, he sported a white bowler hat, a black robe, voodoo face paint and skull-and-crossbone socks for his wildly amusing, in-our-faces take on ‘Moonage Daydream’. Awwwwww, yeaaaah!
In contrast to all this switched-on extroversion, Royston Langdon was, at first anyway, all hipster-cool with his acoustic guitar, white Trilby hat and white-rimmed shades for the next song, ‘Rock and Roll Suicide’. Yet, even this former Spacehog vocalist, who has often cited Bowie’s influence upon his own singing style, drove the song’s dynamics hard. Taking the song fromlow register to the top of the scale, in seconds flat, he turned in a neck-hair-raising delivery that convincingly conjured Bowie’s electrifying, early Ziggy Stardust years.
The band – which also includes bassist Angeline Saris, saxophonist/keyboardist Ron Dziubla and drummer Travis McNabb – already had the audience right where they wanted them, and then the stew began to bubble as the rotation order changed. Rundgren returned, this time in blue-green casual wear and loafers with his emotive take onBowie’s early-‘70s classic ‘Changes’. Once again, saxman Dziubla brought his horn beauty and agility to this song, weaving around through the verses and choruses, then painting a bittersweet, watercolored exit solo, just like a fading sunset.
The sunset gave way to an astronomical theme for the first time in the evening, when Belew made a few eyes wet with his keening, sing-along version of the epic Ziggy Stardust song ‘Starman’. This time around, Langdon came third in line, with a gritty, churning version of the cryptically melancholy ‘The Man Who Sold the World’.
Then, Angelo Moore, in a fez and a red, sequined suit, came bounding back as if he had never left, with the funkiest dance moves, for a frenetic, falsetto-filled performance of ‘John, I’m Only Dancing’. That was 35 minutes in, and the room was humming harder! By now, this band – headed by the mirror-ball-suited guitarist and CdB musical director Scrote (Angelo Bandini) – had made a direct hit with the audience, and proved that they know how to pick a set and work a room!
The room-working continued with more zooming around the Bowie Universe, from the breakthrough early ‘70s years to even earlier in time, then into the ‘Art Decade’ period of the later ‘70s and forward to the ‘80s and 90s. Albums that got spot-checked throughout the night included many obvious picks, including The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, Station to Station, Let’s Dance,Young Americans and Diamond Dogs. But the moodier and more industrial ‘Berlin trilogy’ period of 1976 to 1978 was also highlighted with songs from Low, Heroes andLodger, and the latter album was actually represented with the only medley of the night, a Belew-fronted splice of ‘D.J.’ and ‘Boys Keep Swinging’.
Beyond the album name-checking, the band (er, Scrote?) hit their stride with masterful picking of all the right tunes, the ones that both fervent fans and ‘Bowie tourists’ would expect to hear, or leave the hall grousing. Among these were some of those already mentioned but also ‘Fame’, ‘Ziggy Stardust’, ‘Let’s Dance’, ‘Fashion’ and ‘Space Oddity’. Set pieces that absolutely killed it included a blistering guitar death-match on ‘Stay’, from Station to Station, and Rundgren’s expansive, operatic rendition of ‘Life on Mars’, from Bowie’s 1973 critics’ favorite Hunky Dory. The tale of the Thin White Duke, in the title track of the Station album, was brought to a slow boil with an extended grind-and-feedback guitar duel intro, courtesy of Belew and Scrote.
Other time tripping around Bowie’s musical galaxy included such latter-day songs as ‘I’m Afraid of Americans’ and ‘Hallo Spaceboy’. And Belew hadthe distinct honor of being able to feature on the only non-Bowie-written song of the night, his hard-rock original ‘Pretty Pink Rose’, which Bowie had sung with Belew on the avant-guitar guru’s1990 solo album Young Lions.
This four-man vocal pacing technique enabled each singer to give their all and return with fire-and-brimstone on their spotlight songs, but, by far, the show’s ‘secret weapon’ is the de facto Master of Ceremonies, Angelo Moore. Each time Moore appeared, he came decked out in radically different fashions, costumes and make-up, including the trippy witch-doctor, the Fez dancer and a demented sideshow clown. At times, he gave the impression of Oogie-Boogie-Meets-David-Byrne’s Big Suit, if you can imagine that. (Someone had to bring the glam and the sham, so why not Angelo?)
Notably, there will be a run of shows later in October (10/27-11/5) during which Moore will step out and the incoming fourth vocalist will be Jeffrey Gaines for almost all of those dates. And for two special shows in the middle of that run – in Annapolis, Maryland, on Oct. 31 and Nov. 1 – keyboardist/singer Thomas Dolby will be joining the team. No doubt, the shows will be just as varied and memorable, in their own ways, but it’s hard to think – now that Moore has shown his ‘stuff’ – exactly how the band could replicate the same whackadoo antics and inspired madness that Moore brings to his featured songs. But if you feel you must see Moore, the good news is that he returns for the home stretch of the tour, from Nov. 7 to Nov. 20.
Y’see, Moore brings other things to the party than just his wildman-on-acid stage schtick, although it’s really an interlocking part of everything he does. (For example, did you know he also throws cartwheels across the stage?) He also plays a mean theremin, the electromagnetic sound instrument that was the old-school, horror-movie precursor to the Moog synthesizer. On more than song, but most notably on ‘Ashes to Ashes’ and ‘Heroes’, Moore waved his hands around the aerial on the manual instrument’s box, creating spooky, tremulous harmonics that accentuated the sci-fi, other-worldliness of those tracks.
Closing in on the finale, as a supreme showman at the peak of his shamanic powers, Moore descended into the first few rows of the audience at the end of the show to crowd-surf among many willing accomplices. And then, during the first encore song, ‘Rebel, Rebel’, he proceeded to pull as many women – even a man or two – as he could up on to the stage for a complete shakedown-line-dance to that anthemic nut-rocking song. Throughout many years of concert-going, this reporter has, at various times, seen all-too-eager fans try to rush the stage and U2’s Bono pull a pretty lady up for a-dance-a-kiss, but never a stage full of fans crowding the musicians shoulder to shoulder. It was the most rare rock ’n’ roll kind of move, completely fitting for a night full of Bowie’s envelope-pushing music.
Finally, the one moment that you can honestly say was the one everyone waited for was the spiritually-uplifting encore of Bowie 1977 epic ‘Heroes’. It would be unthinkable, in fact, for the band to have not included this most-definitive Bowie song. During this finale, the full band, with every vocalist on the boards, was united in a wave of yearning, trading verses and ratcheting up the emotional energy with every verse of this lengthy ode to triumphing over adversity.
The slightly dissonant, alien drone of Moore’s theremin set against the layered, harmonizing guitar lines between verses added to the evergreen human quest for personal freedom. In the the earlier song, ‘D.J.’ Bowie had declared in his lyrics that he had ‘believers, believing me.’ And with the end of ‘Heroes’, the CdB band members took their bows to a theater full of ecstatic ‘believers’ obviously convinced that, yes, we can all be heroes – even if just for one night!
For more information and tour dates for the Celebrating David Bowie tour, please visit the tour’s website at: http://celebratingdavidbowie.com
When I was in college in the early 1970s, a musician friend of mine and I went to a Cincinnati nightclub to see a band from Atlanta that wasn’t the Allman Brothers. (In fact, it was at a club where the band had actually played just a couple of years prior. So it wasn’t a new thing for Southern bands to come to the Upper Midwest along the same tour routes.)
The band on hand that night were an aspiring and arty prog-rock outfit that played a lot of Beatles, Yes, Traffic, Jethro Tull and the like, with a few originals thrown in. (Yes, I do remember their name, but does it even matter?) They even had a flute player! But, at intermission, my friend laid it all bare.
“Well,” my R&B bass-playing friend cracked wisely, “the only amazing thing about them is they’re from Atlanta and they don’t even play the blues!” True enough, there was no blues, no boogie and not a single Brothers’ cover in the whole show. Too bad.
The Allman Brothers Band had already locked down the Southern Rock template by 1971 for anyone coming out of Georgia and even throughout the upper Midwest. And, in fact, the ABB had done time in Cincinnati several times by then, even recording an April 1970 show at the locally-legendary venue The Ludlow Garage. (This archival recording was released on CD in 1990, and remastered for the expanded, 2015 release of Idlewild South.)
But as anyone who knows the ABB’s music well could tell you, the blues was just ‘foreplay’ for the Brothers, and it wasn’t until they got deep into a show that they could turn stones and unearth glistening, new musical moments that defied easy pigeonholing. The new archival release of the legendary January 17, 1971 Allman Brothers show at Pittsburgh’s Syria Mosque Theatre – long-traded within fan circles and out on YouTube, and now officially released as Syria Mosque 1/17/71 as of Friday, October 28 – documents a good number of such stone-turning moments.
Neither members of the Allman Brothers nor fans who came to see them on that January night over 50 years ago could have known that they were present for a historic performance. That Sunday night show was still at the beginning of a busy year for the band, which would tour extensively – hundreds of dates, in fact – throughout that year. Within two months they would make “real” history, recording their career-defining live album, At the Fillmore East.
Nearly down to year’s end, the road ended for guitarist Duane Allman when he died tragically in a motorcycle accident in Georgia, in October 1971. So all that preceded his sudden absence certainly took on much more significance, especially for the fans who were lucky to be at the Pittsburgh show. And so, when recordings of the show surfaced, they became highly coveted souvenirs. So much so that tapes of the ABB’s return visit to Syria Mosque on October 15, 1971 – two weeks before Allman’s fatal accident – would often get mixed up with the January 17 recording, and 1/17/71 was sometimes even billed on bootlegs as Allman’s final gig. [All of the mix-up is fortunately cleared up and detailed in the liner notes in the new release.]
In this now-official soundboard recording, one can hear a number of jitters and stumbles that make sense for where the band were at the time. (These are the type of ‘clams’ that were conspicuously missing on AtFillmore East, we should mention.) And, no surprise, the mix still has much of that ‘warts and all’ soundboard quality about it – momentary squeals of feedback, buriedguitar leads, muffled vocals, unexpected shifts in balance and volume, tape warble, etc. But, after all, this is an archival recording – not at all unlike many a Dead, Zeppelin or Floyd audience recording – that gives us all a privileged window into the mists of time. And what we hear is what we get!
The setlists at the Syria Mosque and Fillmore shows – and the 1970 Ludlow Garage show, for that matter – were not identical but still highly similar in structure, with the same opening song, centerpiece and finale. The Pittsburgh show – which consists of an hour-long performance of only eight songs – featured a few more original songs from the ABB’s then-recent Idlewild release, while the later Fillmore set would veer a bit more toward blues-based covers. But the January performance showed the band in a highly experimental and searching mode. In any case, both casual and die-hard fans will find all the key tracks – ‘Statesboro Blues’, ‘In Memory of Elizabeth Reed’, ‘You Don’t Love Me’ and ‘Whipping Post’ – on the Mosque recording and ready for comparison.
While the imperfections are front and center, they’re certainly not show-stoppers. For example, in several places, the late Allmans’ bassist Berry Oakley had an overdriven bass tone that comes cutting through in places where it probably wasn’t meant to. (I’m a bass player myself, so I do like that!) Also, on some of the featured Idlewild tracks that were still new set entries at the time, such as the chooglin’ slide guitar workout ‘Don’t Keep Me Wonderin’ and the more countrified ‘Midnight Rider’, there are tentative moments where the rhythms feel clunky and not fully sorted out for live performance yet. But the band adjusts and so do the listener’s ears, and the show goes on.
Obviously, the Brothers were shaking it all down and more of those dodgy moments had come early in the show, mostly in newer songs limited to compact song formats. There was something else going on, however, that the recording captures – the magic of this six-piece band listening and reacting to each other in real time, locking in on musical invention with songs they knew deeply and taking listeners outside of their known boundaries. So the second half of Mosque is truly where the musical gold is buried.
One of the expected deeper, long tracks – ‘In Memory of Elizabeth Reed’ – comes at the mid-point of the performance and starts off tensely. It sounds as if the band had had monitor problems and were not hearing each other well. There are moments of overplaying in the opening section where you’d expect more restraint. But the performance quickly becomes more fluid once the band gets past the familiarly melodic header section and launches into this always-expansive, Latinesque instrumental’s open jam.
Duane Allman and his guitar counterpart Dickey Betts, already amply demonstrating their twinning guitar harmonies elsewhere in this performance of the mythical Betts composition, engaged in full conversation during the vamp. Both playing Gibson Les Pauls, the two make their personal guitar voices known through a contrast of spiraling lead lines against crackling chord shapes, hammer-ons and chromatic lines that signal directional changes. This is where Oakley seems to be fighting hard to get himself into every opening he can find. Just before the closing drum break, he finally grabs a short, chunky solo slot. And of course, the band’s two iconic drummers, Jaimoe and Butch Trucks, keep the polyrhythmic base churning from start to finish.
There are a number of standard segues in the composition, such as the syncopation and rubato rhythmic tags that mark the hand-offs to the next player which we all know and expect. And, as with the front section, some of these transitions still displayed some awkwardness that would seemingly be absent months later. Gregg Allman seems to be the glue holding it all together. He comps nicely on his Hammond B3 organ behind the other players for most of the song but then makes his own breakout move with a Jimmy Smith-styled solo when his signal comes. And the organ is tilted heavily forward in the mix here, so it’s plenty easy to follow. In the overall recording, this song, perhaps, stands out as best as a showcase of his keyboard prowess.
Another song that gets the stretch treatment is the Brothers’ cover of bluesman Willie Cobbs’ ‘You Don’t Love Me’, a well-loved track also preserved on the historic Fillmore set. Yes, this time, the band does mine the blues, plunging into the pain and confusion of Cobbs’ edgy lament about romantic rejection. And this song more than usual displays Brother Gregg’s most soulful singing in the Mosque performance: “Gonna tell everybody/what those young girls do to you. . .”, he growls with a vivid sense of a man seeking to vent his pain.
Moments of unsettled rhythm again color the opening verses, but after a brief, free-time pause where Allman and Betts squeeze out slow, crisp licks about five minutes into the song, the guitarists and drummers soon fire up a guitar-centric riff fest that runs nearly for 15 minutes. The interplay between them turns into a country-meets-city guitar duel, flavored with many short quotes and familiar ditties carried along on a chugging blues bottom, not unlike the Cream’s live classic ‘Traintime’. Humorously, it brings to mind ‘Dueling Banjos’. And, ironically in light of ‘You Don’t Love Me’ being a blues song, the jam wraps with a rattling crescendo, quoting the Christmas song, ‘Joy to the World’. Hah!
The other iconic, extended-play track that had come to define the Brothers’ live set and usually served as a show finale is ‘Whipping Post’. The exploratory structure of this 20-minute arrangement had already been well established from its earliest inclusions in ABB shows. There are the raging, hard-blues moments, driven by Oakley’s insistent, staccato bass lines in the verses and the percussive counterpoint of drummers Jaimoe and Trucks in the open jams. But Allman’s brother Gregg’s electric piano and organ are also equally assertive instruments in a number of passages where the four are fluidly reshaping the structure behind guitarists Allman and Betts.
In this extended jam there’s a great deal of tension and release – an essential element in the Brothers’ long-form musical compositions. The pent-up fury of the band in the opening verses gives way to Arabic-flavored passages, expressive tremolo phrases with sweet, violin-like timbre, and airier, strummed-chord moments that float far away from the torment of the main song.
And, of course, in moments like these the fury ebbs but comes surging back. Throughout this tumbling jam, guitarists Allman and Betts double down and bring in modal jazz influences that suggest Carlos Santana and jazz saxophonist John Coltrane. There are frenetic moments, for sure, but also more delicate, lyrical interludes, and extended percussion crescendoes over hanging bass drones and sustained harmonic feedback. Definitely a journey beyond the blues.
One thing commonly said about live albums is that they are more of a souvenir for those who were actually at the show or only for the true, completist fan. (Some live albums have notoriously been heavily doctored and are not true records of the performances, so they are a kind of a hazyfantasy for the mainstream fan.) In other words, they often leave less ardent fans or newcomers with a feeling of ‘I guess you had to be there’. And then after one or two listens, the collection might go quietly to the back of the shelf. But I suspect, now that I have heard this album several times with close attention, this release could break that rule. The Mosque recording makes it abundantly clear that the early ‘70s were a different musical time for bands and audiences. And at this stage in life of those adventurous, imaginative players in the Allman Brothers Band, they played as if their lives depended on it — warts and all!
This article is: "Dead-icated with love to Mark Burnett of Galena, Ohio, a true Dude of Life who loved his Brothers and his bourbon in equal amounts."
Singer/songwriter/guitaristDavid Crosby, who passed away on Wednesday, January 18, at age 81, was a Renaissance Man among musicians. When a good many artists of his generation stopped producing meaningful new music as they entered their ‘Golden Years’ – and were apparently content to ride on the coattails of their own career, it seemed that he was only getting started.
Since 2014, the twice-inducted Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and multi-award-winning legend had produced five studio albums and most recently had just released a stunningly beautiful live album with his “Lighthouse Band” from the Capitol Theatre in 2018. He even recently stated that, despite increasing health and physical limitations, he had been looking ahead to producing more new albums and live performance in the coming year, at least in some limited capacity or as a residency-type gig. Even if that meant teaching someone else his guitar parts. Reportedly, he noted in a late-2022 interview that there could have been as many as two more studio albums still in the pipeline. One was complete, he said.
Obviously most famous for his groundbreaking vocal and songwriting work with The Byrds and then the trio of Crosby, Stills & Nash – not to mention the expanded line-up of CSN&Y that saw Neil Young joining forces – he also carved out an objectively crazy-quilt solo career over time. There were periods that unexpectedly turned into unproductive hiatuses – with only occasional CSN(Y) reunions and reboot solo projects, and then the aforementioned “renaissance” that began in more recent years.
His first solo collection came in 1971 – quite soon after CSN’s 1969 Woodstock performance and the historic CSN and CSN&Y albums of 1969 and 1970. That was the release of his debut solo album, If I Could Only Remember My Name. Fellow travelers such as Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, Jerry Garcia and assorted members of the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane – not necessarily in that order! – all contributed to this mystical-sounding, communal musical project. It was a unique snapshot of the early ‘70s West Coast sound. (Another project involving Crosby that drew upon of this same collective – dubbed PERRO, or the Planet Earth Rock and Roll Orchestra – was the slightly earlier Paul Kantner/Jefferson Starship debut, Blows Against the Empire, in 1970.)
After a mid-‘70s tour with CSN&Y found the famously quarrelsome foursome soon going their separate ways for the then-foreseeable future, Crosby worked most frequently with his vocal soulmate Graham Nash on several live and studio albums. Most notable of these was their 1975 release Wind on the Water.
By the 1980s, Crosby began to falter in both his career and his personal life. Throughout the period, dark times plagued him and disrupted his musical work. The most unfortunate events were his being convicted and sentenced to prison on charges of impaired driving, a hit-and-run offense, and illegal possession of controlled substances and concealed weapons. And then, a period of slow rebuilding of his career followed, with new albums in 1989 and 1993, and periodic returns to CSN – and sometimes Y – projects. But there were still periodic incidents.
His solo work in the rebound period saw him making some moderate changes in his sound. For example, for his 1993 album, Thousand Roads, he brought in star drummer/singer/songwriter Phil Collins as producer, and there was a bit of a nod to some of the then-current drum and keyboard sounds, and slightly less of his trademark acoustic-based folk and jazz-rock. (He had sung on some Collins solo albums, and Collins sang back-up on a song for him.) And he began featuring the occasional cover of songs by writers such as John Hiatt, and, in time, Joni Mitchell. But his full reclaiming his legacy as a master singer/songwriter came with his late-career breakout album, Croz, in 2014. Four more studio albums – all excellent – followed in 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2021.
Crosby often featured songs he admired by fellow singer/songwriter Mitchell in his live performances and on his later solo albums. As early as 1967, when Crosby first discovered Mitchell, he served as producer on her debut album, Song to a Seagull. In 1973, also as a producer, he helped to bring The Byrds – a band he had left under the least friendly circumstances in 1967 – back into the studio for a one-time reunion album, The Byrds.
One track that Crosby contributed to that album was a cover of Mitchell’s “For Free.” This song had obviously long carried a great deal of personal meaning for Crosby, as he would include it regularly in his live performances. He also made a new rendition of it into the title track of his most recent studio album, in 2021. Other Mitchell songs he has reinterpreted include “Yvette in English,” “Amelia” and “Woodstock.”
Another important personal-life hurdle for Crosby was the period in which he had suffered from Hepatitis C and required a liver transplant, which he was fortunate to receive and adjust to successfully. (Unfortunately, this was controversial, too, as questions arose about whether his celebrity had given him a boost on the transplant wait lists.) During the time of his treatment in 1994, he did have the great fortune to be reunited with his long-unknown son James Raymond, whose mother had had a relationship with Crosby in the early 1960s. At that time, Crosby had moved on before getting to know his son.
Raymond had always heard he was related to Crosby but there had been no contact. When he learned that the famed singer/songwriter had been recovering from the liver transplant, Raymond – a keyboardist himself – took the risk of reaching out to him. They quickly bonded – especially over music – and eventually began a productive musical relationship with veteran guitarist Jeff Pevar in the more jazz-rock-oriented group CPR (Crosby, Pevar and Raymond).
This led to four CPR albums and a number of tours between 1998 and 2001, and in many ways this formed a bridge between his ‘rebuilding’ years of the early 1990s and his later-career burst of creative energy. Raymond co-wrote and produced other projects with Crosby, including the 2021 album For Free. Also, both Raymond and Pevar joined in as tour personnel on frequent CSN tours inthe 2000s, both together and separately. And, in 2018, the duo joined Crosby again for a series of live shows in support of his newest release at that time, Sky Trails.
The year 2006 found Crosby – along with vocal partner Nash – lending heavenly harmonies to prog guitarist David Gilmour’s solo album On An Island, and the duo appeared in some live performances with Gilmour’s band that same year. (In 2015, they were invited to work with Gilmour again, adding vocals to a single track for his most recent album, Rattle That Lock.)
Also in 2006, a group reunion for Neil Young’s “Freedom of Speech” tour with bandmates Stephen Stills, Nash and Young was another huge healing step, which kept feeding the energy into more CSN-only tours through 2015. This carried Crosby right up to the Croz album 2014. For accomplished sailboat captain Crosby, it had been – with the exception of the Covid lockdown period between 2020 and 2021 – pretty much clear and steady sailing ever since. At least musically speaking. Some off-stage drama with Crosby would still nag at his heels.
There’s so much more to say about Crosby’s unique, expressive voice as well as his interest in and explorations with altered guitar tunings, harmonized vocals, jazz modes and idiosyncratic songwriting, of which the title track of the acclaimed CSN&Y album Déjà Vu is the leading example. But that, of course, would take a coffee-table-sized book. Or maybe two. Surely, someone else will be writing those – and soon.
Still, it must be said, some of his most defining traits were his often provocative sociopolitical opinions and strident interactions with fellow musicians. (Yes, there’s a reason some folks would never speak to him again.) For example, Frank Zappa once satirized the fractious intraband conflicts within CSN&Y in one of his live performance skits, captured on the Mothers of Invention album Fillmore East June 1971. But Crosby also achieved relative immortality in pop culture in more benign ways, too, appearing as an actor in several TV shows and movies, and twice voicing a caricature of himself on The Simpsons. He also starred – naturally – in a 2019 documentary film of his life titled, David Crosby: Remember My Name. All in all, as fellow American songwriter John Prine once wrote, “pretty good, not bad, can’t complain.”
So, yes, with David Crosby, there’s much, much more than just his name to remember.
The Dark Side of the Moon – Pink Floyd’s time-honored concept album with an ominous pulse from start to finish – came screaming into the world like a proverbial newborn, seemingly fully formed and full of life, on March 1, 1973.
Fifty years. Doesn’t it seem like no time at all?
For some of us, it was, indeed, a lifetime ago.
Yet, the timeless and improbably massive hit album about life, death, greed, madness, and man’s inhumanity to man – and not the Moon at all – began with a faint, embryonic heartbeat, less fleshed out than you might think, sometime in the waxing winter days of late 1971.
That was actually 51 years ago, if you’re keeping score at home. But, by some accounts, it may have even been much earlier.
Only a short time before, I was an infatuated 15-year-old fan of ‘progressive rock,’ which was in full bloom on ‘underground’ FM radio in the late 1960s. This included the realm of everything from Creedence to Crimson. Then, one evening in the late summer of 1969, I stumbled upon this singular band’s otherworldly sound on my local FM rock station in Cincinnati.
Hearing “Cirrus Minor” – a hypnotic folk ballad from the band’s soundtrack for the arty foreign film More – was my portal to Planet Floyd. It was a deeply quiet acoustic song. But the hook for me was the haunting church organ conclusion. In very short order, at two Cincinnati shows in 1971 and 1972, I was able to witness PF’s early live experiments that gave birth to Dark Side, the eventual record-shattering masterpiece which has almost always dominated lists of top prog and concept albums.
Like a gestating zygote, a mass of musical ideas that would become DSotM slowly grew more delineated behind the scenes with every tour, every new soundtrack gig and every new group album the Floyd released, from early 1969 to fall 1971.
So, let’s tally it all up. Seven albums – three of them soundtracks – and touring whenever they could, not to mention filming a performance movie of their own. All of that – just within a three-year span– proved that, yes, there was a damned lot of percolatin’ going on. And Floyd bassist/songwriter Roger Waters finally ‘saw the whole of the Moon’ in late 1971 and pitched the concept to his bandmates soon after the conclusion of their just-completed fall tour of North America.
There was hardly time to breathe, it seems.
My chance to experience a live performance of the early Dark Side – cryptically known then as Eclipse: A Piece for Assorted Lunatics – came on April 23,1972, a night that forever baked in my perceptions of the band. And – heh – as any Deadhead knows, the ‘live’ version is always better, especially when it’s an early taste like the one I had. (The album rolled out many notable changes from earlier versions that had taken this early Floyd adopter a bit of time to accept. But that’s my trip, baby.)
So, if you don’t mind, let’s all take a deep dive into Floydian history as it all led to, and followed from, The Dark Side of the Moon.
As they say, buckle up, Buttercup. . . .
The Journey to the Center of The Man
Soon after the official release of Dark Side in March 1973, Roger Waters – lyricist and chief conceptualist for the album – proclaimed in an interview that the Floyd had “finally cracked it.” He meant, of course, that they had created a seamless song cycle, unified around a central theme, that seemed to flow effortlessly from one song to another in a way that often compelled one to listen to the album in its entirety. And it connected with a large number of people, in a very short time.
Of course, the album’s ‘overnight’ success ensured the band’s mass-market breakthrough after they had bubbled underground for several years in the superheated musical rollover from the ‘60s to the ‘70s. The album went on to set records by staying put on the Billboard Top 200 List from 1973 to 1988, and selling more than 45 million units to date. So this ‘cracking’ was the simultaneous eruption of wider creative and commercial success that had kept eluding the band in their early working years.
It was, indeed, an explosive event.
Other rock artists, most notably The Beatles, The Who and the Moody Blues, had been leading the charge with thematic albums in the late ‘60s and, to say the least, reaping critical approval and popular success. Some of PF’s more experimental peers, such as the Pretty Things, had also created acclaimed thematic works but had ended up with only cult recognition. And in the late ‘60s, the Floyd had found themselves in limbo between those two extremes – a cult band on the verge of breakthrough. Only time would tell their fate, whether that would be as merely footnotes or as full-on legends.
In the years immediately after Floyd founder Syd Barrett’s untimely 1968 exit due to his tragic descent into mental illness, PF struggled through a collective soul searching. Were they a singles or album band? Pop or progressive? Entertainers or artists? Would they even survive?
So many questions, not easily answered. But the band plugged on. And the former psych-pop stars did consciously – and successfully – recast themselves as progressive album artists. It was, in fact, a process which took them nearly five years to work through.
The record company heads, of course, wanted more singles that would shine like their early Barrett-written hits, but the men of Floyd heard a different calling. With replacement guitarist David Gilmour on board since early 1968, PF embraced longer-form compositions as staples of their live act and also began honing their stagecraft.
At first, PF exploited their core sound of wigged-out space-rock but quickly began to chafe under that label. So, eager to branch out, they dabbled in blues, jazz, classical, folk and other textures – even a touch of country – while still hewing closely to their psychedelic roots. Furthermore, they extended their scope with electronics and quadraphonic live sound, and introduced a few dramatic visual elements for their live shows.
Subject matter quickly ripened in this period as well. PF’s lyrics began to reflect more concerns with futurism, humanism and politics – a trend that turned obsessive for Waters as he settled in as chief songwriter. Some have fittingly called this thematic shift a change from ‘outer’ to ‘inner space’. (For his part, Waters once had already dismissed ‘space rock’ in an early ‘70s interview as an absurd concept. “There’s no f’g sound in space!” he said with typical finality.)
Still, within the band, there was ongoing creative tension between those who pushed for musical values and those who pressed for more structure, effects and presentation. At the heart of it was a struggle with The Meaning of It All. Beginning with the various 1972 tours, the band distilled all of these elements into one compelling concept.
As seemingly effortless as the music of DSotM has always sounded, its conceptual flow was not conceived of in one discussion, as such, In reality, it had evolved rather naturally from the time of Barrett. And so the arc toward conceptual unity was incremental, over multiple albums. A few early PF tracks were compounds of different sections, but usually no more than three parts.
Soon after the band’s North American tour in 1971, though, Waters did have a flash of inspiration, leading to a tentative running order using both new and repurposed songs. And by the end of that November – scarcely a week from having just coming off the road – the band was already trying on the new set in rehearsal. Another tour in England would be starting on January 20 of the next year, and the band would have to work quickly if they wanted to have a new set of songs ready by then.
Vague ideas about the puzzles of life and formatting songs together had been lurking in the background. And the pressures of constant work had begun to weigh down on all of the band, but on Waters most of all. With Barrett’s own failure to ward off his mental demons in mind, Waters had been churning over many of his own experiences as a touring musician.
Pressing social issues, such as world poverty and the Vietnam War, agitated him, too. So when he turned to the lyrics, all of the now-well-known, interlocking themes – birth and death, the pressures of time and money, hate and conflict, and the fear of madness – emerged. This meditation on personal existence became a musical mirror in which countless millions of fans could see themselves.
It was, in fact, not the Floyd’s first ride on the storytelling seesaw. In mid-1969, for their live stage shows, the band had briefly experimented with a similar sequencing. Mingling pieces from their 1968 album A Saucerful of Secrets with others fromthe More soundtrack and material that would soon appear on their 1969 double-album Ummagumma, they had mounted a stage concept called The Man andThe Journey. (For an early staging in April, 1969, the show was titled The Massed Gadgets of Auximenes – More Furious Madness from Pink Floyd.)
Some music journalists have referred to The Manand The Journey as the “great, lost Floyd album.” This label was fueled, in part, by the existence and circulation of audience recordings (I hear they are called RoIOs – recordings of illegitimate origin. . . .but I’ll call them archival.) of the band’s August 1969 performance in Amsterdam and broadcast on Dutch radio that year. And, indeed, the concept could have become an album, if even just an official live recording. But, in the end, the band made other plans.
Nearly all of the songs used in The Man and the Journey have been recorded and released as isolated tracks over various Floyd albums. But, until the release of the official PF box set The Early Years, in 2016, most PF fans who hadn’t seen those shows had scant awareness that such an early Floyd song cycle had ever existed.
Heartbeats, Atoms & Echoes
Both the surrealistic 1970 movie Zabriskie Point by Italian director Michelangelo Antonioniand the accompanying soundtrack album featuring a handful of PF compositions began with a loud but arrhythmic heartbeat. Titled “Heartbeat, Pigmeat”, this instrumental track hinged upon two functional devices that the Floyd later used prominently on Dark Side – an insistent pulse and salvaged, spoken-word TV audio clips woven into the mix. It definitely sets a vibe of foreboding in this hallucinatory anti-establishment art film.
Another Waters-related project of the time – not a full-fledged Floyd album, though – tagged along shortly after the Fall 1970 release of Atom Heart Mother. This was a soundtrack for an animated movie about human physiology titled The Body. Waters had been invited onto this project by eccentric British composer/arranger Ron Geesin, who was also arranger for AHM’s title track. So there was timely overlap.
Essentially a visual travelogue of the world beneath our skin, this filmfeatured a few lyrical songs amid various quirky sound collages, instrumental splashes and vocal nonsense that represented, um, bodily functions. Notably, the album contained a brief guitar ballad called “Breathe.”
Although not the same song as the eventual Dark Side tune of the same title, its melody was similarly bittersweet. This scattershot soundtrack, Music from The Body, also ends triumphantly with the power-ballad “Give Birth to a Smile”, also based on the same chords of that “Breathe.” Thanks to this uncredited inclusion of Waters’ three other PF bandmates and female vocalists on this rocking finale , “Smile” boasts a beefy David Gilmour solo that almost makes it sound like a Dark Side outtake – two years in advance!
The bodily theme was also present in PF’s own Atom Heart Mother album, from earlier that fall. The title track – having emerged in the band’s sets early in 1970 and then augmented by classical musicians – was the band’s first recorded move toward more stratified form and function with a 20-plus-minute suite of interconnected passages.
The piece had undergone several name changes along the way. But, before a major broadcast of a live performance on a BBC radio program in mid-summer 1970, PF members spied a newspaper headline. It announced a pregnant woman had been fitted with an atomic-powered heart pacemaker. So the piece got an instant name change on the spot.
Indeed, grafting an orchestra onto a rock framework did prove daunting for PF. And though nearly all participants in the project have dismissed it as a flawed experiment, it clearly provided a learning curve for the band as they sought to give shape to their often sprawling sonic tapestries.
The next PF LP in line – 1971’s Meddle – seemed at first listen to follow a similar blueprint as AHM – a side of scattered rockers, ballads and pop pastiches, and a multi-part composition that would take up a side. Except this time the Floyd had flipped the side-long track to the back half, allowing Side One to set the stage for the Main Event, rather than having it lead in.
Unlike AHM’s title track, which integrated the band, quite unevenly at times, with classical musicians, the long suite on Meddle – more simply titled “Echoes” – was generally more streamlined. As a return to the four-man form, this piece saw the band creating all of the music on their own. Most notably, this made it easier for PF to perform it live, without having to keep an orchestra in tow.
The fair consensus among band members, music critics and legions of admiring fellow musicians from down the years is that “Echoes” was PF’s pivotal composition and recording. And, certainly, without PF learning the lessons of turning their 24 raw sections (The band’s working title for “Echoes” was “Nothing, Parts 1 to 24.”) into a polished musical mosaic, Dark Side simply might not have ever come together.
“Echoes” was a remarkable advancement for Waters especially, as it helped him to stretch his lyrical skills. Being aninstrumental suite, “Atom Heart Mother” did not require a narrative vocal layer. (It did have choral passages and a section of inscrutable chanting.) And the only songs for which Waters had supplied lyrics before were shorter rockers and ballads. So now, he had been tasked with writing something more poetic, even spiritual. And, perhaps with a slight lyrical echo of his musical hero John Lennon, Waters came through with a sweeping declaration of universal empathy (“I am you and what I see is me. . .”) that rose to the scale of the piece’s grandeur.
This was the same task that the then-still-maturing lyricist would be faced with again with DSotM. According to various PF history sources, the sequence had been mapped out well ahead of the lyrics. This left Waters with only one mission: “To go write the [f’ing] words. . .” And as Gilmour would later remark about Waters in an interview, it was “he who deliver[ed] the goods.”
The Floyd’s first live attempt of the suite destined to become DSotM came in early 1972, on January 20, in Brighton, England. Unfortunately, the audience did not get to experience the entire composition the first time out.
Reportedly, the power failed at this gig – just 26 minutes into the show. It was an unfortunate event that Waters has described as a “horror.” With no choice but to abandon Dark Side for technical reasons, the band dutifully carried on, subbing in a band version of “Atom” in place of the second half, plus other routine pieces.
And this first DS version – which we now know was one song shorter at this early stage – still lacked the well-known and recitative conclusion that sums up all of life’s quandaries raised in the preceding songs. This song, of course, is “Eclipse.” Before Waters added this final brick in the song series, DS had concluded with “Brain Damage.” The first ending had the music disintegrating into a cloud of warbling guitar and organ tone-generator groaning, not unlike Keith Emerson abusing a Hammond organ. (No synthesizers yet. . . .) Perhaps this was meant to represent a kind of mental breakdown.
Of course, “Brain Damage” is also the song from which the multi-part suite had drawn its original name, Dark Side of the Moon. Unfortunately, the band had soon found that the UK band Medicine Head had an identically-named album. PF’s Plan B was then to rename their suite Eclipse: A Piece for Assorted Lunatics. No confusion there!Touring well into late spring that year, the band would simply announce it on stage as Eclipse.
Once sales of their competitor’s product proved lackluster and unlikely to cause name confusion among the public, PF cheerfully resumed calling it DSotM. (Note: It was only many years later that the word, The, was added to the title complete the official name.) In any case, the piece made its public debut as Dark Side of the Moon on PF’s Fall North American tour that September.
Embryonic Envelopment
Even before its first public performances in early 1972, DSotM took form at the molecular level in several key stages. One unforeseen step for the Floyd was their work-for-hire assignment on the 1970 Zabriskie Point soundtrack. Although PF had originally been hired to create the entire score, the film’s director Antonioni had famously grown dissatisfied with PF’s submissions. Only a few PF pieces would be used in the final film. Notably, this opened the door for the Grateful Dead and Jerry Garcia, among others, to also be ZP contributors. (The 2016 PF box set The Early Years has gathered up most of the PF outtakes in one batch.)
Within the Floyd there was a prevailing work ethic and a desire not to waste any song remnants. Quite often, bits from side projects and live improv would find their way into new compositions. Sometimes, there were even full songs. Two songs that became part of the DSotM sequence were an in-progress Waters track from the Meddle project said to be titled “The Lunatic Song” and an abandoned Richard Wright Zabriskie piano instrumental, “The Violent Sequence.” These songs became “Brain Damage” and “Us and Them.” A few others that soon got slotted into the DS order came out of ideas the band had been trying out in live shows over the preceding year or had just written.
It has always been personally striking that a key composition in the early days of DS is one that actually didn’t make the final cut, a melancholy song titled “The Embryo.” (No, the Floyd didn’t save everything.) With lyrics from the point of an unborn child, this song had a split personality. An unfinished studio version – inadvertently released on a 1971 sampler by Harvest Records titled Picnic –was a hazy almost-lullaby. But as a live piece in the 1971 period, it became a dramatic, acid-blues-rock number, with fiery peaks and dreamy interludes. Longer live versions did not become available until the 2016 release of the Early Years box set.
On November 20, 1971, the Floyd performed at Cincinnati’s Taft Theatre during their fall Meddle tour. (Especially fateful for me, since it meant my being able to see the band live for the first time. And it was also the last night of the tour.) Although one might have expected Meddle’s opening track “One of These Days” to kick off the show (I certainly did!), PF chose to lead with a spectacular, meandering version of “The Embryo."
As the song unfolded, it was impossible to tell in the moment that anything had gone wrong. (The problem was only pointed out after the song’s completion, almost a half hour into the concert.) Sometime during a trippy, two-chord, minor-key interlude that came about 16 minutes in, the band had suffered a partial power failure. The bass and keyboards had gone MIA, but, despite the glitch, the guitarist and drummer plugged on. Then, unplugging his bass, Waters strutted over to Gilmour’s Hi-Watt stack and jacked into a second channel to join the rudimentary jam. (On available audience recordings of the show, there is obvious cheering at the exact moment when he crosses over. Moments later, his bass comes thundering in.)
The trio jammed on gamely for some 10 minutes in a cosmic-bluesy E minor/A major groove reminiscent of such slow, quarter-time songs as “Down by the River.” Finally, Wright’s keyboard juice was restored and he was able to slip back in for a triumphant ending. The band carried on after a brief pause for a full technical check, then cycled through much of their standard set, which included versions of both “Atom” and “Echoes.” Naturally, both are songs that rely on extended slow passages. And the band even offered up a slinky, 12-bar blues encore. It, too, was in quarter time.
Around this time, drummer Mason shared his observation in a Circus magazine interview that PF’s live set had been getting a bit long in the tooth, and that, as a whole, the band were at risk of bogging down in “certain Floyd clichés.” Among them, he noted, were two-chord jams, flogging the same phrases repeatedly and good, old “slow four” time. Perhaps the Cincinnati show was still fresh in his mind?
Once Eclipse came into the world in early 1972, it was immediately clear that although Mason’s peeves had surfaced in “The Embryo”, now the Floyd were extracting them from such interminable jams and bending them to their will in smaller, more digestible portions. Thus, it was easy to imagine that Waters’ new “Breathe” lyrics could have been married with “The Embryo”’s minor-key progression, ensuring that the Piece for Assorted Lunatics would be ready for January 20. In hindsight, it would appear that – in the space of only a few weeks – “The Embryo” had truly grown into a brand-new baby.
Walking on the Moon
“Maaann, that bass player is [f’d] up,” one audience member could be heard talking smack about Waters in a disbelieving tone on the way out from the Floyd’s April 23, 1972 show at Cincinnati’s Music Hall. Maybe it was a compliment? A few days after, a reviewer for a local newspaper also called it a “mind-frying show” but griped about the music playing second fiddle to the effects. Not so complimentary, eh?
This had just been my second Floyd show, and I was equally dazed but also confused by what I had just experienced. Well, there was definitely a lot to take in this time – a few older songs got played, but not nearly enough for me! But there was also a whole new set in the first half, and so much going on in it. And, not surprisingly, there was a pungent odor and haze again choking the air – just like at the November show. (It was still the early ‘70s, after all.)
So, yes, the production elements were a huge jump from the minimal lighting and effects used in the November show. Mechanical towers of multi-colored lights, dry-ice clouds, flashing red police lights, special sound effects and insane laughter on the quad system, and flash-powder explosions leaving plenty of smoke in the air. (I had wondered during pre-show what those small waste bins atop the amplifier stacks were for. But the shock wave and heat hitting my face in the front row answered that question, all right.) And, of course, for the f’d up parts, there were the usual, wild Waters gong-banging moments in “A Saucerful of Secrets” and blood-curdling screams during “Careful with That Axe, Eugene.” Highly visual, if not outright shocking, to say the least!
And the music? Well, I wouldn’t be reading that critic’s review until the smoke had cleared out of my mind the next day, but I sensed right away that this strange new material in the first half was, indeed, very musical and a quantum leap over either “Atom” or “Echoes.” (The latter was also played in the second half, so there was definitely a chance to compare notes.) For example, it was twice as long as either of those pieces. It just wasn’t what I had gone in expecting to hear!
Entering the theatre that night, my small group and I could see a trio of retracted, unlit aluminum hydraulic light towers along the wings and back center of the stage, not to mention the Floyd’s trusty gong standing guard by the drums. The towers would soon fire into action, though.
New instruments were on the stage, too: For instance, a prominent second organ Leslie speaker next to Gilmour’s rig, a second microphone stand next to his main mic (What’s that for? I wondered aloud.), Rototoms flanking Mason’s usual psychedelically-painted double-kick drum set and what appeared to be an ever-growing arsenal of keyboards on Rick Wright’s side of the stage. (One was a shiny new Fender Rhodes electric piano.)
Gilmour and Waters also each had a new matching Fender guitar and bass with black-and-white solid bodies and blonde-maple necks, And Gilmour also had himself a double-necked Strat – used on “One of These Days” – to the side of his amp.
The band’s 360-degree sound system was visible, too, with speaker cabinets placed at intervals around the stately theatre, and on both balcony levels to boot. (PF had used a quad system in November, too. This one was quite possibly newer and more powerful.) An ominous heartbeat began pulsing shortly before the band emerged, and it panned the room via the multi-channel speaker array. A shock wave of applause went through the hall.
A mechanical drone began to hum in the speakers, too. And when the house lights went down and the band came on, the light towers came to life, rising and pulsing in a bright, mechanical swell. This triggered many gasps, oohs and ahhh from the audience. Very much like the arrival of an alien Mother Ship, it seemed to me. (On a now-released archival recording from the Chicago show a few days after Cincinnati, you can hear a fan wisecrack right before the music starts, “Beam me up, m-f’ers!”)
As the band leaned hard into the opener – a slow-tempo’ed E minor dirge that was highly similar to “Atom Heart Mother” – I soon realized there was no orchestra behind the curtain and there’d be no “Atom” this night. (A secret hope of mine!) After this roughly 50-minute ‘song’ without a break was over, Waters said, “That was a new piece titled ‘Eclipse’. Now, we’re going to take a short break.” I felt a sharp pang of disappointment: Damn! They’ve done it again! Taking up too much time with new songs and not playing what I want to hear! Picture that, right?
What had we just heard? I had no idea at the time, of course, but thanks to the magic of archival audio and the benefit of time, we learned that the bulk of Dark Side’s arrangement was very much in place and quite well developed. The live refinements would continue throughout the year, well into December. And the band would soon heading for the studio to start assembling and tweaking the final recorded arrangement. A few blocks of time got wedged around constant touring.
Yep, the two-chord pattern that served as filler on “The Embryo” back in November was there again, providing the main form under the verse of what we have since learned was “Breathe." Before even a word was sung, Gilmour squeezed out a ragged blues lead on his Strat over the opening bars. And even though he smiled as he sang, it was spooky music, full of pain. And it was just getting started!
The minor-key harmonic space continued into the next couple of sections, with a propulsive jazz-fusion jam featuring a Chick Corea-like Rhodes piano solo from keyboardist Wright. A sound effect of something sounding like a clacking rollercoaster whooshed around on the room on the surround system, adding a vivid sense of motion. Next came a slow-building, Far Eastern-flavored soundscape, with a dramatic Rototom intro from Mason that soon turned into a slow but chunky Hendrix-like blues-rock groove.
During the intro of this piece which evoked images of Japan in my mind, Waters plucked ghost notes in a tick-tock rhythm with his bass strings pressed against the pick-ups. And the tune that Gilmour and Wright sang was tinged with more regret. In the choruses and under the heart-wrenching guitar solo, Wright added sweet, xylophone-like tones from his Rhodes. Then, finally, came a reprise of that world-weary main melody from the beginning of the show.
At what was actually only the halfway point (How could we know?), this mysterious piece seemed to be nearing the end with the return of that opening melody. Then, Gilmour sang a line about a “softly-spoken magic spell.” The stage lights suddenly dimmed as a funereal church organ passage gave me chills – just like the first time I had heard “Cirrus Minor”! Murmuring voices of people reciting prayers and sermonizing turned the concert hall into a cathedral! This lyric-less section was really a showcase for Wright’s sombre tone poem and the Floyd’s quad system, but Gilmour graced it with an achingly beautiful slide guitar line.
It certainly seemed that in this ‘story’ – if that’s what this long, drawn-out piece was –someone had died. Next, the loud sound of shuffling coins – in mass quantities – pinged about the quad system, creating a cloud of noise. Was it the sound of a collection baskets being emptied? Churches and money, of course – I laughed at that thought.
This bled right into the next song, a straight-ahead rocker with a chunky bass lead-in. The singers sang refrains in unison, and Gilmour clearly snarled out the word “bullshit” at one point. Wright played a fuzz-keyboard part just before the middle section with his old standby, the Farfisa organ. And this jammy song, which featured extended blues soloing by Gilmour over a driving beat, soon peaked and faded at the end.
Another ‘churchy’ passage floated in with audio of a sobbing woman set over a fluid organ/bass/drum groove. Gilmour and Wright supplied airy, bittersweet vocals on the verses. In the instrumental section, Waters decorated the octaves with a few false harmonics on his bass as counterpoints to the organ melody. Then, on the wordless chorus, the vocalists suddenly raged in again. Such dramatic swells seemed to signal that an emotional ending was near. But, again, it was just more tension and release.
Next up was a lengthy, rolling instrumental based around another two-chord shuffle – not unlike the opening melody. This, I thought, must be the final blowout - it was nearing the 45-minute mark now! First drifting along, with Waters doing a bit of exploratory lead bass, the watery jam flowed right in. Gilmour shadowed his bluesy leads with scat vocals, which had a special talk-box like effect. This distortion, which exaggerated the mocking tone in Gilmour’s voice, came from that mysterious second vocal mic being jacked through the second Leslie.
Aside from that sonic weirdness, the jam also crackled with chemistry. But no one actually soloed – it was all very much give and take, with Waters answering Gilmour’s smeary blues leads with short, punchy bass phrases. After a fevered final peak, they dropped smoothly into a humorous, Beatlesque ditty that mentioned “lunatics” and “daisy chains." (Yeah, we all know now what that was. . .)
Near the 50-minute mark (I stole a glance at my watch right then.) a definiteaura of closure (finally!) came with a repetitive recitation that seemed to get louder with every new line. Gilmour and Wright harmonized with Waters in a heroic swell that sounded as if they were pleading with the audience to relieve them of a great burden.
It was capped with a breathtaking ending. The loud clang of a tolling church bell, flashing red lights, a piercing siren, and the hydraulic light towers blinking off, receding downward and finally turning off. We in the audience, not having had any real break to applaud between songs, all leapt to our feet, roaring with approval.
Neither I nor my group nor anyone else attending could have known at the time, but on that very night in 1972 – when Apollo 16 astronauts were literally still walking on the Moon! – Pink Floyd had just taken us to The Dark Side.
Next time, in Part II: We’ll revisit the massive 1973 success of the Dark Side album, how the perfectionism of their recording process and the album’s success changed the band forever, and the album’s lasting legacy and influence with new generations of fans and musicians.
In the mean time, thanks to the recent, now-official release of 18 archival audience recordings on streaming platforms, you can – for a limited time – listen to the in-progress live versions of Dark Side. Youcan make up your own mind about what did and (maybe) didn’t work in the original arrangement. You can find and stream these shows from Apple Music, Spotify, YouTube Music and such public library services as Freegal Music.
Dates of the featured shows include the following:
Live at Southhampton Guildhall, U.K., Jan. 23, 1972
Live at the Rainbow Theatre, London, U.K., Feb. 17-20, 1972 (4 nights)
Live at the Taiikukan, Tokyo, Japan, March 3, 1972
Live at Osaka Festival Hall, Japan, March 8, 1972
Live at Nakajima Sports Centre, Sapporo, Japan, March 13, 1972
Live at Chicago Auditorium Theatre, U.S.A., April 28, 1972 (“Beam me, up. . .”)
Live at the Deutchlandhalle, Berlin, Germany, May 18, 1972
Live at the Hollywood Bowl, Los Angeles, Sept 22, 1972
Live at the Empire Pool, Wembley, London, Oct. 21, 1972
Live at Ernst-Merck Halle, Hamburg, Germany, Nov. 12, 1972
Live at the Palais des Sports, Poiutiers, France, Nov. 29, 1972
Live at the Palais des Sports de L’ile de la Jatte, Saint Ouen, France, Dec. 1, 1972
Live at the Vorst National, Brussels, Belgium, Dec. 5, 1972
Live at The Hallenstadion, Zurich, Switzerland, Dec. 9, 1972
Additional:Dark Side will be honored in a brand-new book to be released in April 2023. A new luxury box set containing a re-release of the album together with numerous related music items and formats is also said to be on schedule for release at the same time. This information will be updated when exact dates are available. And keep your eyes open for the schedules of your favorite PF tribute bands, as announcements are coming weekly now about special Dark Side-themed tours.
InMarch 1973, something like floodgates opening happened for Pink Floyd when their then-brand-new concept album, Dark Side of the Moon, was set loose upon an almost unsuspecting world. Tuned-in fans of the then-still-cult band who had heard the live ‘draft’ version – still known well into mid-1972 as Eclipse: A Piece for Assorted Lunatics – on a hefty clutch of spring dates were breathlessly awaiting it. And the rest of the rock-music fans were about to become properly acquainted with the Floyd for the first time when those gates opened.
In June 1972, a new PF album named Obscured by Clouds – the soundtrack for the French art-house film La Vallée – had quietly arrived on record store shelves. Rabid fans expecting the magical new piece quickly scarfed it up. But. . .major fake-out. Obscured had only contained a loose series of soundscapes, soft ballads and a couple of nutrockers. It was a tad less exotic, maybe even a bit more tuneful than More – PF’s earlier project with the same director, Barbet Schroeder. By Floyd standards, ObC was – shall we say? – more ‘efficient’ than usual, and the fanbase’s eager embrace did visibly perk PF’s record sales. Happy band, happy record company. Double-plus good.
Nope, this wasn’t that sprawling, multi-song opus we thought it ‘shoulda been.’ In fact, we’d have to wait until early spring of 1973 to get the real deal in our hands.
The March of the Floyd
In early February 1973, a newspaper ad in Cincinnati’s Sunday newspaper announced a scheduled PF concert for Cincinnati. It would be on March 8, at the UC Armory Fieldhouse, an 8,000-seat sports arena on the campus of the University of Cincinnati. (This venue had also hosted the Grateful Dead in April 1970, but my family had strictlyforbidden 16-year-old me to attend that show. Hippies and drugs, y’know. Not much changed in three years, either.) It had been nearly a year since PF’s triumphant 1972 Cincinnati performance at the 3,500-seat, acoustically-perfect symphony venue, Music Hall. Finally, the long wait was over! To this then-hopelessly hooked Floyd fan, that year did feel something like an eternity. But I needn’t have feared. A PF tsunami – like the Hokusai waves painted on Nick Mason’s double-bass drum covers later that year – would soon be breaking hard.
Ads and news articles about PF soon started appearing in late Winter 1973 in national music publications such as Rolling Stone and Circus magazines. For example, a full-page ad ran in RS, featuring a series of progressive, wire-frame diagrams of the rainbow-and-prism graphic.Though in black-and-white, the ad was still iconic. Set amid generous white space were the band and album names, the graphics and a handful of tour dates. Tying it all together was a bold caption below the graphics that simply said, “A Superb New Album.” There was now no doubt that PF’s mysterious piece from 1972 had been finally committed to vinyl. And finally – a name: Dark Side of the Moon.
The Cincinnati concert fell on a Thursday night, within days of the album’s early March release. And while tuning in to Cincinnati’s FM rock-radio station a few days before, I’d stumbled into the middle of unmistakably ‘new’ Floyd. Thanks to the magic of archival recordings, I knew exactly what it was in seconds: The two-chord shuffle “Any Colour You Like.” True, I recognized it. Yet, at the same time, I’d never heard it like that. I needed to hear it again, of course, as well as the rest of the album!
That same station’s weekly show, Album of the Week, was a regular Monday night feature. So, hearing that DS would be aired that very week of the UC gig, I aimed to snag it on my reel-to-reel tape recorder at home. By flickering candlelight and the glow of my FM radio dial late that evening, I both recorded and absorbed the album. And – as with my recent chance first-exposure to the new “Colour” – the finished work seemed equally familiar and strange. For the first time since I’d discovered the Floyd in 1969, I was on shaky ground. I heard so many changes, not to mention a seemingly flatter sound than the more reverb-heavy mix typical of early PF shows. After all, my FM radio was only monophonic. Sure, that must have colored my perceptions. But this wasn’t simply a by-product of hearing a mono signal.
Lyrical songs were essentially the same, though multi-tracked and tricked out with special effects. Some songs were shortened, and familiar solos altered. But, most of all, the lengthier instrumental sections – my favorite parts, right? – had been radically changed or deleted. I also heard the addition of novel sounds to the Floyd canon — backing vocalists and saxophone. I wondered: Were my avant-garde art-rock heroes just rolling over for commercial radio? The dreaded sellout was an unforgivablesin for any band. Oh, no! Not the Floyd!
Although DS was never space-rock, even when it was still Eclipse (Remember what Waters said about that style in 1970?), flourishes of the old-school Floyd’s psychedelic DNA certainly remained. But – to my ears, at least – the recording seemed to have less spark and spontaneity. For the first time, it seemed that the Floyd I had known and loved so well had created a pop album!
When the night of the sold-out UC show finally arrived, I went in, fully expecting an electrifying performance in the typical Floydian ways – even in spite of Dark Side’s strange, new elements. The evening started promisingly enough with “Echoes.” (On the 1972 tour it had usually served as the second set closer.) Things then took a serious jam turn with extended, proggier versions of two tracks from Obscured. And then came an eye-singeing, brain-stunning set finale with the pyro-centric “Careful With That Axe, Eugene.”
While the Set I performance was indeed torrid, the sound quality was most un-Floyd-like in the cavernous, murky-sounding basketball arena. The instrumental balance was uneven, volume peaks threw distortion, plus more anomalies. It was almost as if the soundmen had cranked their ‘SUCK’ knobs all the way up. Yes, PF still had their famous 360-sound system. This one was larger, and custom-built for in larger venues. But – to my ears in the 20th row – the real culprit defeating the main PA was the deep slap-echo in the seemingly prehistoric concrete-and-steel auditorium. Fwiw, Joni Mitchell and Frank Zappa would both perform in this same space a few years ahead, and the sound experience at both shows was roughly the same to my ears.
It had seemed the biggest problem now facing the Floyd was in making their previously dynamic, nuanced live sound work in larger, non-theatre spaces. All of the new textures and some special effects were equally lost in the muck. Every band has surely encountered such tough rooms. And after a few rough minutes at the beginning of the show, the sound crews often sort them out, or at least minimize the most unpleasant effects. But on this night, gremlins lingered into Set II, which was the full performance of Dark Side.
For example, during solos in songs such as “Time” and “Money”, one could see but not clearly hear what David Gilmour was actually playing. (Mind you, I was on the main floor, straight back from him.) And from what you could hear of the vocals, the female backing singers on “Time” and “The Great Gig in the Sky” seemed to be straining. Quite possibly, they were struggling with a wonky stage monitor mix.
Production-wise, PF had also upped their visual game. As before, the main stage illumination came from three towers of solid-color lighting racks, generously flowing dry-ice fog, strobes, flash pots and secondary lighting. And there was an assortment of other new ‘eye-candy.’ But no films yet. One eye-catching innovation being used for the first time was a number of ruby-red lasers. These architectural shafts of light angled and moved about during the droning synth intro for Obscured’stitle trackand sections of the DS set.
Most notable of all the new effects, though, was a revolving, mirrored half-ball on the front of the extended center tower. The multi-purpose, mounted half-dome would reflect light in a brilliant sea of moving stars. More impressively – with the center darkened – a shroud of dry-ice fog could be ejected around its edges and backlit with brilliant light. This produced the stunning solar eclipse visual during the DS finale shown on the memorable fold-out poster that’s always been packaged with the LP.
If it seems this writer was just being peevish, one could assume it was just one disgruntled PF fan having a pout. But setting aside the structural and surface changes in DS, my belief at the time was that the DS performance really didn’t feel the same as in 1972. While the band seemed to play with abandon in the first set, the DS set had a feeling of tension and holding back. It was as if the musicians were now paying more attention to click tracks than to clicking with each other. From March 1973 onward, it had seemed that PF had entered a brave new world in their career. All of the exciting ‘R&D’ of 1972 had essentially been transformed into formula and ‘applied technology’. Experimentation was over – no turning back. The good news for Pink Floyd as a band, however, was that in spite of this rough early night, they were on their way to a very successful year.
Perfect Is As Perfect Does
As briefly touched on in Pt I of this retro visit to the Dark Side, the long incubation of the original composition took place not only through a year of ambitious touring but also in three extended recording sessions spanning some nine months. PF’s first concentrated session for DS started at London’s Abbey Road Studios, in late May 1972. A two-week session in France that spring had not yielded any DS tracks. That work-for-hire session had been dedicated only to composing the La Vallée movie score and polishing their Obscured album. But, if it means anything, the band did learn things from the ObC process which came in handy in the first DS session. And keyboardist Wright also started finding his way with synthesizers on some of the ObC tracks. So synths would soon make their first appearance on some DS tunes when PF got back on the road.
Songs that PF had already flagged as solid got committed to tape first that June, and more pre-production and road experimentation continued. After their 18-date Fall 1972 NA tour that included a now-legendary September gig at L.A.’s Hollywood Bowl, another round of recording and revision was on tap. Yet another slate of live dates in the late fall followed, this time in Europe, allowing more live fine-tuning of the arrangement. Then, in early 1973, it was back to the studio for a few last adjustments just before the fast-approaching March release. The last date in-house was February 9!
Perhaps from the band’s POV, the running order and arrangements had largely been nailed down. Yet, all of the changes surfacing on the final recording must have seemed critical in making a more compact and orderly artistic statement. (An essential lesson from the Obscured sessions.) Perfection was the goal, and the extended road testing was really like one big rehearsal. Among the goodies included in the Floyd’s official 2011 DSotM Immersion box set was a bonus disc containing live outtakes of three instrumental sections from the early DS. These castoffs – all from a June 1972 gig in Brighton, England – included “The Travel Sequence”, “The Mortality Sequence” and “Any Colour You Like.” Of course, the first two pieces had been replaced with the final sections we now know as “On the Run” and “The Great Gig in the Sky.” And “Colour” – originally a meandering scat-blues-jam that sometimes ran for more five minutes in 1972 shows – had been reimagined as a shorter, funkier synth-guitar vamp that carries right into “Brain Damage/Eclipse.”
Seemingly, the first early DS instrumental that PF might have had deep druthers about was “The Mortality Sequence.” Early on, this was not a song, as such, but more of a solemn organ processional by Wright. Layered over it was an audio montage of prayers and political speeches emanating from the quad system. As it turned out, that mournful passage resembled the outros on other PF songs from the late-‘60s. At one point, perhaps the band had thought it to be a clever performance-art piece. But bouncing “Gig” into its place suggests they knew the church thing was cooked and that inspired staging ‘moment’ would likely be lost in translation to tape.
When PF embarked on their 1972 Fall NA tour, the drastically reworked “Mortality” made its debut. The ‘funeral’ was gone. Now, the section – still in theory about the end of life – featured a new Wright piano/organ composition with chord sequences that remained in the final “Gig” recording. The mid-section in this version then included a noisy synth solo over a rather demonic-sounding ascending scale. (Wright had not used synths live before Fall 1972, so this was a new experiment. Interesting but temporary.)
Radical change also came to “The Travel Sequence.” Although not space-rock as such, this instrumental passage – a survivor through the year – was a charging jazz-rock fusion jam with a heavy guitar delay. As archival recordings of the piece show over time, fitting this more choppy groove into the flow between “Breathe” and “Time” could be shaky at times. Where “Travel” used to have an ambient bridge to the next song, PF moved to using a power-chord end-tag and a volley of chiming clocks to signal the transition to “Time.” Maybe that was more entertaining in a live rock show, anyway, but the rawked-up ending of “Travel” seemed even less seamless.
Many more decisions that led to Dark Side’s‘classic’ sound seemed to have come just before release. According to some sources, much internal debate concerned whether to use a “dry” sonic mix to make effects more three-dimensional or a “wetter” mix that preserved more of the band’s resonant live sound. Consensus was reached, and crisis averted. Reportedly, the compromise had come down slightly in favor of the “wet” one.
As if the Floyd didn’t already have enough to do, they rolled off tour and right into another short side project at the end of 1972. This was to provide live backing for a series of French ballet performances for a few weeks in Paris. But, even for some dates, the band was too pressed to make some gigs, so they provided a pre-recorded soundtrack.
Commitment fulfilled, they and their esteemed engineer Alan Parsons convened in the studio one more time for the final push to get everything just right with DS. Even with most basic tracks and lead vocals complete, a number of songs would undergo a last buff, largely with addition of backing vocals and saxophone. But a couple of sections still nagged at them. Coincidentally, this was also the time in which filmmaker Adrian Maben had visited the studio to document the band in crunch mode. The French director had famously filmed the Floyd performing en plein air in a Roman amphitheater in Italy, in October 1971, for his art film Pink Floyd: Live at Pompeii. (At that time, the DS concept had just about started to be a glimmer in PF’s collective minds.) However, Maben – who had only included live-performance footage in his first version – was unsatisfied with the movie’s one-hour run time. He requested a chance to document PF as they worked in the studio and to add interviews to round his film out to a true feature length. Maybe even add a full performance or two.
Session clips seen in Pompeii show PF working on such songs as “Us and Them”, “Brain Damage” and “On the Run.” In particular, for “Run”, we see Waters programming and recording a section of that yet-unheard electronic passage. Using the sequencer on a revolutionary new suitcase synthesizer, Waters keys in series of notes, then speeds it up. This gave a sneak peek – after the fact – at what was soon to come. It was, “Hello, Synthi AKS – Goodbye, ‘Travel Sequence’.” (Fwiw, clips of the other songs may not have been actual work but staged for the benefit of the camera, since those songs had reportedly been recorded months before.)
Perhaps the most crucial unfilmed adjustment in this final session – merely weeks from DS’s March release – was the completion of “The Great Gig in the Sky.” This piece, which anchors the end of DS’s first halfand for many is the emotional high point of the album, had evidently evolved the most. “Gig” of course had begun its life as keyboardist Wright’s organ piece in “Mortality.” And then a reworked version debuted on the Fall 1972 NA tour. Clearly, he had been moving toward something more emotional and dynamic but wasn’t quite there yet.
In early winter 1973, as the final mix was nearing completion, Wright had modified the mid-section again. He dropped that interim synth part and introduced an alternating, two-chord keyboard interval. Engineer Alan Parsons had felt it still needed something else. So he added a new trial layer to the mid-section as he compiled a new demo mix. Over that shuffling interval, Parsons inserted just-released audio of NASA’s Apollo 17 astronauts transmitting from the Moon on their final mission, in December 1972. (This full DS mix was preserved on a bonus disc in the 2011 DSotM Immersion box set.) Although interesting to hear, it clearly wasn’t the crowning touch PF and their engineer were seeking.
But Mr. Parsons – being the resourceful guy that he is – had one more trick in his watch pocket. He and the band had a collective hunch to try Wright’s new arrangement with vocals. Parsons had known of a session vocalist in London named Clare Torry. Indeed, she received a call, and a time was booked for January 21. Even with this step, the band still had no clear idea of exactly what she might bring to the piece. As the singer has told it herself, PF members and Parsons greeted her and asked her to start vocalizing, without words. At this, she says, she was inspired to use her voice “as an instrument.” So, it was three takes total, all improvised over the pre-recorded section. Afterward, all the crew had said to Torry then was a simple “thank you.”
After collecting her session fee, the singer left the studio with no expectations. Nonetheless, her efforts were used, edited into a glorious vocal sequence over Wright’s heartfelt, multi-keyboard section. Thankfully, Dark Side could then finally be put to bed. And that’s just some of the perfectionism that made all the difference in saving the Floyd from permanent cult status.
Crushed by Numbers
Confession time: I didn’t buy my first copy of DSotM until 1975, the year in which I turned 21 and could afford my first apartment and a proper stereo. I’d bought a first handful of albums to break in my new system, and DS was first out of the wrap.Of course, by this time, I’d only begun to gain knowledge about all of PF’s back-end work on DS. Within that last calendar year, I’d seen their acclaimed Pompeii movie several times, and, I must say, the studio segments opened my eyes – and ears. And though I’d heard DS in stereo many times at friends’ houses and in cars, there was nothing like hearing it on my own system.
Now that I was able to cast off my preconceived notions about DS and why PF had made various choices, I finally felt ready for it. And it sounded great! And I could play it as much or as loud as I wanted – no parents haranguing me about the ‘strange sounds’ coming from my room. Now that I’d learned a thing or two about how PF had labored so long and hard on it, I began to hear DS with my ‘third ear’, not filtered through my personal music-snob bubble. Clearly, PF had actually done everything right. And, anyway, can 45 million Floyd fans really be wrong? Right out of the box, the rock music listening public took Dark Side into their hearts with unequalled enthusiasm, except possibly for the early days of Beatlemania. Within two months DS hit the Billboard Top 200 chart, its home for a record 741weeks. In later years, it even returned to the chart after Billboard changed its requirements to allow older releases to be counted.
In 1973, the band committed itself fully to the album’s promotion, even booking North American dates close on the heels of its release. A barn-burning spring tour of about 20 dates was the first push, before a short London run in May. Soon, they would prep for another NA leg in June and July. The launch strategy paid off handsomely. And the record company ‘goosed’ that goose to get more golden eggs. With the summer tour looming ahead, PF’s U.S. label, Capitol Records, next released a pair of singles – an unused strategy since PF’s early post-Syd Barrett years. The first of these singles – containing the song “Money”– soon began burning up both AM and FM radio. It became a Top 20 hit.
The single’s killer buzz, of course, insured a surge in record and ticket sales. And, in the proverbial eye wink, “Money” and Floyd had become synonymous. Ironic, isn’t it? Such a satirical, anti-materialistic song became the ‘secret sauce’ that gave the band their long-dreamed-of success. As the year progressed, ticket demand spiked, and the second NA leg in Summer 1973 saw the band scaling up from 8,000-seat arenas to higher-capacity outdoor ‘shed’ venues. PF had already doubled capacities from 1972 to 1973, and now the explosive audience growth — sometimes tripling or quadrupling – had come in only the space of a few months.
I did attend a second show on June 24, at Blossom Music Center, in Greater Cleveland. It was my first experience of seeing PF in a bulging, general-admission lawn setting – and from far back on the lawn this time! Reportedly, it had a capacity audience of 32,000. And I believe it. It took more than two hours to get out of the parking lot afterward! And my retrograde motion – which, oddly, was taking this loyal fan further from the stage each time – seemed to be accelerating! Yes, audiences were simply mad for The Moon!
Touring continued, with new DS shows in the U.K. and Europe later that year, but then the band rounded for home and some much-deserved downtime in the first half of 1974. Over the summer, PF returned to the stage for a short, warm-up run in France. They spotlighted a couple of new songs, a few old proggy Floyd classics, and the full Moon in Set II again. That was more than two years of DS being served as a main course. During early 1974, as PF had been slightly less active and the punk-rock movement had begun to take hold among younger music fans, the perception grew that PF had maybe become too big and bloated. Maybe even not cool anymore. In short, dinosaurs.
When PF performed a complete set of new songs and DSotM in concerts in the U.K. in Fall 1974, the BBC recorded one November concert, at London’s Wembley Arena. This run of shows had generated some mixed reviews, again underscoring the POV that, perhaps, the band had begun to lose its Midas Touch. Critics reporting on the performances dismissed them as uneven, contrived and bordering on predictable. One critic even griped about the band’s physical appearance. (This recording of DSotM is included in the 2011 DSImmersion box and will be also be included in the new 50th anniversary deluxe DS box set, coming out in early March 2023. So fans can decide for themselves.)
Shortly after I’d made my long overdue purchase of DS, a full-page newspaper ad in the Cincinnati Sunday newspaper announced a new PF concert in June. Yaaay! It would be at Pittsburgh, however, at Three Rivers Stadium. And it was billed as the only regional show. Boooooo! Nonetheless, a road trip would certainly be on my horizon. No one had known for sure what PF would be performing, but, no surprise, Dark Side was once again the centerpiece. And ticket demand this time around had doubled again, now closer to the 50,000 range and selling out rapidly. Quite likely, this was due to the pent-up demand of PF not having toured the U.S. for close to two years, and to more limited, large-scale shows. Prices were going up, too.
I was just as eager as any fan to join the circus, and join I did. My late friend Joe – another ‘first generation’ PF fan who was determined to take photos – made the nearly-five hour drive with me and some extra passengers, from Cincinnati to Pittsburgh. (Some of his photos from the show accompany this article.) As literal survivors of that show on June 20, 1975, we could see and hear that PF had made a full, clean break from their storied past as an ‘underground’ band, both in repertoire and stagecraft. The new show boasted another whole new set of songs in the first half, a full Dark Side performance in Set II and only one encore – a full 22-minute version of “Echoes.” That was quite literally the last holdover from PF’s halcyon daze!
The band had also ramped up their production game again, introducing the circular rear-projection screen – nicknamed “Mr. Screen” within the band’s inner circle. This was for projecting special films that illustrated the themes of key Dark Side songs for the massive audience. These included the famous animated ‘sea of clocks’ for “Time”, the quick-cut montage of materialism gone mad and the record-factory assembly line for “Money”, and – of course – the montage of all the world’s lunatics of the 1970s, set to the tune of “Brain Damage.” They also added a new array of stage lighting, a scale-model plane that would crash in a fiery explosion at the end of “On the Run” and – early in the tour – even a giant, inflatable white pyramid that would hover over the stage during the DS set. (This is visible in another photo with this article.) Heh – maybe that’s where some critics had gotten the idea that PF had grown a wee bit too Spinal Tap for their tastes.
If the jump from the 3,000 to 8,000 seats – and upwards – in 1973 was hard on the band or even some fans, imagine being suddenly in a near-50,000-capacity general admission show in mid-summer, when the temps had been baking hot all day. At the Pittsburgh show, gathered fans were let in the late afternoon, and then the most motivated of us made mad dashes towards the center-field stage to stake out space on the large, plywood planks spread all over the field. The stands filled rapidly, too. Tempers simmered until the 7:30 showtime, when the band launched into Set I, still in daylight. Tensions mounted and many ‘words’ flew with increased crowding and pushing – which had started even as the field filled out. It bubbled over into open anger when people nearest the stage insisted on standing during the performance.
PO’d fans on the field felt these inconsiderate, um, folks could have easily sat down and let everyone behind them enjoy the highly visual show. But this was the era of Saturday Night Fever and a wide range of recreational drugs. So, many had come lubricated or altered – and had gotten even more so during pre-show – and were ready to dance. And to set off firecrackers. And, yes, even to fight. (At a Floyd concert?Really? ) My friend Joe and I - both early Floyd adopters and purists about ‘these things’ – really felt we were the ones on the ‘dark side’ now. But no one was going tell them what to do – nuh-uh.. This was a partay, maaann! “WOOOOO! PLAY MONNNEY!!!”
Needless to say, there were more shout-outs for a song called “SIT DOWN– SIT! DOWN!!!” than there were even for “Money.” We wanted this other song, too. (You might hear us on a YouTube clip of the show.) On archival Canadian concert recordings, you can even hear voices screaming out for this same song, only in French: “Asseyez-Vous! ASSEYEZ-VOUS!!!”. But the Floyd didn’t play either version.
Just as when I had seen PF audience sizes expanding exponentially – like some recursive virus – in 1973, I was asking the very same questions: Who were these people? Where did they come from? And why are there SO many of them? There’s a good chance that the band was even asking those same questions. At the time, it was unmistakable that Waters had taken deep offense to the audiences’ toxic self-centeredness. It seemed to distract and annoy the whole band, resulting in noticeably choppy performances. Early in the tour, he attempted only indirect remarks, and then he dropped all pretenses after that approach failed miserably.
Before a song introduction in Set I at Pittsburgh, Waters had to shout above the crowd noise, “David starts this one on his own. . .so you’ll have to be A LITTLE BIT QUIETER!” At another show soon after, in Hamilton, Ontario, he turned up his passive-aggression dial. “Okay! Tell you what. . ., “ Waters said bitterly. “You just go on talking amongst yourselves and we’ll try to carry on.” And, finally, at this same show, when introducing the shiny-new song “Shine On, You Crazy Diamond”, he slipped in a zinger that likely didn’t even register with most of that crowd: “Um, ahemmm,” he said, clearing his throat. “This is . . . um, a song. . . about not being here. . . .” Ouch!
In time, Waters would become fed up with this industrial-grade indifference and come to believe that an invisible wall had grown between the band and their audiences. In retrospect, we now know this gave partial inspiration to the Animals concept. And The Wall? Well, the live stagings of that were a literal, physical erection of Waters’ discontent with stadium audiences.And though the post-Waters, three-man version of Floyd did revive the full DS as part of their Division Bell tour in mid-1994, Waters would never perform the whole of DSotM with PF again after 1975.
Waking the Lumbering Beast
Over the course of the Floyd’s next four studio albums, a fault line that had been edging ever wider since the early days of DS had split wide open. The driving force was the long-smoldering animosity between Waters and the rest of the band. By consensus of the band’s team with Waters leading the charge, keyboardist Wright lost his position as a full member during the making of The Wall. Then,in 1985 – after the obvious non-starter of The Final Cut had trailed off completely, Waters bluntly notified Gilmour and Mason that he, too, was out.
The collision course that Waters had been on with audiences had bled over into his working relationship with his bandmates, and after building that incomparable Wall largelytogether, the band had The Great Falling Out. In 1985, Waters famously went public with an announcement in which he tagged the band as a “spent force creatively.” Fans might have worried whether they’d hear any Floyd music – much less Dark Side – ever played live again (“Hello, tribute bands. . . .”). But both Gilmour and Waters both jumped quickly into solo albums and tours. And, indeed, a good amount of PF music – even DS songs – was played on those two 1984 tours. But the erstwhile Floyd guitarist was a quick study on the awful truth: He had zero name recognition as a solo artist, and he calculated that it would be a hard slog. So Gilmour’s smooth move then was to try to reanimate the “lumbering beast.”
Out of his desire to reinvest in the established Floyd name instead of starting over from scratch, Gilmour – along with Wright and Mason – took the world by storm with an unexpected new album, and associated tours in 1987 and 1988. This was A Momentary Lapse of Reason, an album that entered the public’s imagination with the support of high-rotation videos on MTV and an ambitious slate of successful stadium and arena shows. And an awful lot of Dark Side music was played on those tours, too.
Waters, for his part, released a second solo album in this same period but never caught the kind of rad success that came in full connection with the Floyd ‘brand’.At the time, the name recognition of the man who had authored all of Dark Side’s lyrics had turned out to be no more King Midas than had Gilmour’s. Famously, Waters – who was said to have played re-interpreted PF material that included DS songs on his 1987 tour – had found himself playing to only half-empty arenas while the PF guys were selling out multi-night runs. He had called it a “character-forming experience.”
Waters’ solution? File a cease-and-desist lawsuit to stop them from using the band’s name. He had taken the view that he had been the sole creative energy in PF and the rest weren’t even contenders. But, as luck would have it, Waters lost his suit. And the Floyd kept shining on. Nick Mason, being somewhat bemused by it all, couldn’t help but make a cheeky remark about PF’s unexpected second life in the run up to the millennium. “You don't want the world populated only with dinosaurs,” he said in an interview at the time, “but it's a terribly good thing to keep some of them alive.”
In the late 1990s, when Waters returned to the touring circuit after a very long hiatus, he seemed at first a changed man, seemingly touched by the generosity and love coming from audiences in his suddenly-sold-out shows. (The only time he had surfaced in a high-profile way in twelve years was a one-off, 1990 benefit performance of The Wall, in Berlin, with celebrity musical guests.) New generations of fans who knew nothing of the band’s vicious infighting were re-discovering the Floyd with fresh ears and open minds. And, in fact, Dark Side would often be the gateway album for many new PF fans. From the stage and in interviews during his 1999 rebound, Waters would often remark that he could “feel the love” he thought had died so many years ago, “crushed by the numbers.” Ironically enough, that flattening weight that Waters had personally brought upon himself – and the band – had come from their having put so much energy into crafting The perfect album. Yes, Pink Floyd had finally ‘cracked it’ in 1973 with Dark Side. But, in hindsight, it’s now clear that Dark Side had also cracked the band.
A Heart Beats Through It
Although they had reintroduced Dark Side as a full concert feature again during the second half of their 1994 Division Bell tour, the three ancient mariners of Floyd quietly sailed away from the sea of faces after that tour. They were no longer in search of what Waters had once derided in a song lyric as “more and more applause.” (The second half of the 1994 tour was the first time audiences had been able to hear PF play the full DSotM in nearly 20 years. It would also be the last.) And though they have since managed the occasional solo tour on a relatively smaller scale, the touring days of Pink Floyd had become very much like Monty Python’s infamous dead parrot.
So, in the midst of prepping for a new solo album and a small supporting tour with bandmate Wright in June 2005, guitarist Gilmour received a surprise invitation. This was to reunite with his former bandmates – Waters included – on stage for a higher purpose. This one-off event still involved more applause and money, but this time it was to donate their performance to the fight against world poverty at the mega-charity concert Live 8, in London’s historic Hyde Park. This was some big-time, do-goody-good bullshit, all right.
Now, after all of the bad blood that had been spilled between Waters and his former partners over time, this ‘sort of homecoming’ allowed them to step outside of themselves and bury some axes. And they could be heroes again, just for one night. Who’da thunk it, right? But there they were, delivering a stunning, five-song mini concert that included three songs from Dark Side, plus one each from Wish You Were Here and The Wall. Given the nature of the event and the fact that one song had come to represent the best of DS so well, is it really any surprise that “Money” would make the short list again?
There was still magic in the old Moon that night at Live 8, as the sound of Dark Side’s signature opening heartbeat arose on the PA with a vintage, 1977 film backdrop of a friendly, airborne piggy in flight during the prelude, “Speak to Me.” Surely there was a universal moment of disbelief – and probably not a single Floyd fan who saw it whose eyes stayed dry the whole time – when the band once again plunged into the opening chords of “Breathe.” It proved for the record that – through all this time – a loud, insistent heart has been beating through it all.
In spite of the many “glittering prizes” that were said to have been dangled in front of the band, Gilmour remained steadfast in his view that there would be no future Floyd tours, not then nor ever. He further made it clear that he was simply content – every ten years or so – to do a bit of “an old man’s tour” that would not involve waking that gnarly old “beast” again. He has still featured a few much-loved DS fan favorites in his solo shows but has also worked in Barrett covers – and even a Wright song when it has made sense – to honor those two now-long-departed former PF members.
In 2006, the now-late keyboardist joined Gilmour for one of those short-run “old man’s tours”, held in a few small select-theatre locations. There would be no more feeding of the gaping maw of the insatiable stadium crowds of yesteryear for Messrs. Gilmour and Wright. In retrospect, we now see that it proved to be Wright’s last tour as a bandmate to Gilmour, since, sadly, the keyboardist died of cancer in 2008. It was such a special time for the two longtime musical partners, who would once again perform their first masterpiece “Echoes” – the timeless PF song that had taught the band how to really write, work and play as one. And those performances were magical, too, for the smaller audiences who truly appreciated every note and echo of it.
Not one ever to be upstaged, Waters himself turned once more to The Dark Side in 2006 and 2007. With DS as the main attraction, he embarked on a two-year world tour which not only took him to the usual continents but also to lesser-traveled regions that included China, India, New Zealand, South America and Russia. The experience of playing again with his estranged PF bandmates and receiving all the instant audience karma at Live 8 had obviously spurred him into action. This gave him a few more rounds of ‘applause’ for the piece he had done so much to bring to life. And it should be noted that – like any established PF tribute production of the last 30 years – he and his merry band of session players pretty much played DSotM as straight-from-the-album and down-to-the-minute as possible.
The full story of The Dark Side of the Moon has not been written yet – and perhaps it never will. It seems to have a life and a mind of its own. Every generation seems to discover it anew and to find new ways – for example, elaborate tribute tours, deluxe laser shows, even synching it with the movie The Wizard of Oz – in which to enjoy it.
This special two-part report on gratefulweb.com has only been one lifelong PF fan’s attempt to bring some kind of order to the unruly history and memories of this landmark composition’s creation. And thanks to the stalwart PF-themed bands who will be touring this year to celebrate this important anniversary, Floyd fans of every stripe will soon be able to have an up-close and personal live experience with this certifiably-mad masterpiece. (Pro tip: If you plan to see Nick Mason’s Saucerful of Secrets tour in Europe this summer, remember that his band’s PF repertoire ends in the early ‘70s with Obscured by Clouds.)
It has always been one thing to listen to the recorded version of DS – on the album, through headphones, on an eight-track car player or even on a mono reel-to-reel recorder late at night. Your mileage may vary. But there’s no substitute for being there to hear a live performance of The Dark Side of the Moon, faithfully and passionately performed by musicians who truly understand its deeper, inner workings. I still remember my first Moon, and I’m still chasing its eternal shadows and light.
This article is: “Dead-icated to the memory of Joseph Stercz, of Cincinnati, Ohio, a true fellow Floydian traveler who loved his Floyd as Pink as possible. And who inspired me to capture musical moments with my camera and my mind.”
Additional:Dark Side will be honored in a brand-new book to be released in April 2023. A new luxury box set containing a re-release of the album together with numerous related music items and formats is also said to be on schedule for release at the same time. This information will be updated when exact dates are available. And keep your eyes open for the schedules of your favorite PF tribute bands, as announcements are coming weekly now about special Dark Side-themed tours.
Sometimes when musicians combine different musical genres, it can be a case of worlds colliding, with collateral damage thrown about. And then, in cases such as veteran rock guitarist Jeff Pevar and his current band The Gilmour Project, multiple influences come together in a harmonic convergence that creates deep, new electrical reactions, with many good vibes but no debris left to clean up.
Pevar’s five-man, all-star band has bitten off a big chunk to chew on, all right, with the music of blues-psych-prog guitarist David Gilmour, who has left his mark on music history by creating the edgy and transcendent guitarscapes in Pink Floyd. But Pevar’s Gilmour-centric concept is not without credibility and serious chops of its own, either.
Pevar – himself a seasoned band member and session player with such luminaries as Phil Lesh & Friends, CSN and other David Crosby projects, James Taylor, and Rickie Lee Jones – is joined by bassist Kasim Sulton, keyboardist Scott Guberman, drummer Prairie Prince, and guitarist Mark Karan. Their collective résumés include artists ranging from Todd Rundgren, Journey and the extended Grateful Dead musical family to The Tubes, Patti Smith and Talking Heads. There’s no shortage of the psychedelic and blues-focused textures of Gilmour’s Floyd, but the obviously jam- and alternative-based roster in TGP brings a surprising amount of new emotional connections to that legendary band’s and Gilmour’s personal back catalogs.
The original concept for the Gilmour Project actually was born in the mind of veteran manager Michael Gaiman, known for his work with Jefferson Starship, Phil Lesh and other West Coast artists. Seeing the potential for a new take on Floydian music, he pitched the idea to Pevar, himself a veteran of the early-2000s Gov’t Mule offshoot, Blue Floyd.
Then, back in 2019, they recruited the other members of the team. The next year, everything was set to roll out a TGP tour. They launched with a few livestreams of the band performing a reimagined version of the Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon album, plus a handful of celebrated PF tracks and Gilmour solo songs. But then, the dreaded, worldwide Covid viral crisis brought the lockdown that stopped all performances for the remainder of 2020. TGP scuttled their plans but then poked up their heads and re-entered the performing world, a little at a time, with more streams in 2021.
In 2022, the Project steered their ship for the beachhead of live performances again, but still a late Covid uptick in early January 2022 forced the rescheduling of several shows booked for that month. And then the band burned brightly for a few months leading into summer, performing some 30-plus shows. That tour culminated with a show in Mexico City in June. Early 2023 dates from January to now have also gone off without a hitch, including a two-night stand this past March on the Rock and Romance Cruise (from Miami through the Caribbean). And, now, TGP has a new, three-week leg on the mainland in early May which will likely be all of their dates for the current year. (You can find a complete list at the end of this article.)
Obviously, since TGP has always featured Dark Side of the Moon as a main attraction in their shows, the time-honored concept album will once again get center stage during its current 50th anniversary year. Yet, principal guitarist and vocalist Jeff Pevar is quick to point out that TGP does not apply the usual tribute-band formula to performing Dark Side – or to any other Gilmour-based music. Instead, he says, TGP likes to think of the music as only a blueprint for nightly interpretation.
“What we offer in this band is an assortment of – Dare I say? – high-pedigree players who have worked with very well-known, established artists,” Pevar told us in a recent phone conversation. “Combined, we bring our experience and strengths to this kind of iconic music. So we’re an interpretive ensemble, versus a tribute. So, yes, we’re honoring [Pink Floyd’s] music but – at the time – we’re taking liberties to bring our own flavor to it.”
Pevar expanded on this idea of interpretation, saying there are, of course, certain structures and riffs that remain faithful to the original, well-known PF versions. But, he said, not only does TGP rearrange elements in the Floyd’s music but they also leave a lot more room for nightly exploration.
“There’s a certain amount of improvisation that happens every night which is unique to every single performance,” Pevar says, alluding to the way the early-‘70s Floyd did a lot of live experimentation with new songs before capturing final versions in the studio. So, he agrees, TGP’s version of DSotM is much closer in spirit to the original live versions when PF first began performing it.
“We change it up – constantly. And we always do a Dark Side set – but with lots of variation – but when we are able to do a two-set show, we have a second set of [PF and Gilmour solo songs] that we’re sure people will enjoy hearing and that we can also have fun playing.”
Pevar says audiences who have seen TGP before will get some overlap from the previous year but confirms that there will be new, surprising additions to the show.
“There are songs we are [working on] now for the next run that we’ve never played before,” he says. “That’s at least four to five new songs. But the thing is, we change up the sets each show, so not every song will be played every night. We have about a dozen deep tracks that we [rotate] from night to night. So if folks are going to see two nights [on the tour] or watch a couple of live streams (TGP streams every performance.), they’re going to hear different songs.”
Pevar gives kudos to TGP’s producer/manager Gaiman for the added streaming exposure of their shows. “Yeah, [Gaiman’s] a guy who likes to ‘spread the love’. He just clicks his iPhone up by the soundboard, and then throws [full shows] up online for people to see. He’s a big fan of how the Dead were self-made media giants – heh – by just allowing fans to tape their music and sending it out there – in the ether – for free. Not everyone does that. And the word about the Project tends to get around because they’re enjoying the opportunity to share it with their friends.”
Wrapping things up, Pevar explains that he’s humbled by and values the opportunity to play such deeply revered music. As he notes, he deeply respects both the music’s creators and their fans.
“I’d love to think that any artists – not just David Gilmour or Pink Floyd – are excited that people still love to hear their music played live and that there are musicians who support this art form – this iconic book, if you will, of music history. As established musicians ourselves, we hope can keep the flame alive and give it new life by celebrating it as we do.”
The Gilmour Project’s May 2023 tour leg includes the following dates, venues and cities. For more information, please visit Jeff Pevar’s website, http://www.pevar.com.
May 12 – Turning Stone Casino, Verona NY
May 13 – Riviera Theater, Tonawanda NY
May 14 – Hard Rock Casino, Northfield Park OH
May 16 – Palace Theatre, Greensburg PA
May 18 – Barrymore Theatre, Madison WI
May 19 – Arcada Theatre, St. Charles IL
May 20 – Des Plains Theatre, Des Plains IL
May 21 – The Fillmore - Detroit MI
May 23 – The Egyptian Room/Old National Centre, Indianapolis IN
From April 21 through June 17, the acclaimed Genesis legacy band The Musical Box will be performing on a final, two-month leg of their North American tour of The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway. This new production began in 2022.
The five-man Canadian group – now celebrating 30 years on stage – is highly regarded for its authentic musical and visual recreations of Genesis’ early-1970s live productions – including Selling England by the Pound, Foxtrot and The Lamb Lies Down. This final leg of TMB’s Lamb tour will include 22 dates, in Canada as well as several U.S. states in the Northeast and Upper Midwest.
Since 2000, TMB has performed four extended tours of Genesis’ legendary Lamb production with special licensing from Genesis lyricist Peter Gabriel, author of the conceptual progressive-rock album’s complex storyline.
The band has also presented various classic Genesis shows in between, plus two special Genesis anthology shows since 2018. The two latter tours – dubbed TheGenesis Extravaganza I & II – encompassed songs from various Genesis albums from 1970 to 1978. Focusing on a wider range of Genesis’ songwriting than TMB’s historical show recreations, these special shows gave keenly interested audiences a chance to hear many early songs that Genesis themselves had never performed or seldom played live.
Genesis shows from the early 1970s were well known for the many characters and costumes used by lead vocalist Peter Gabriel to act out the stories within their songs. The story of The Lamb is a surreal, Odyssey-type adventure about a young, stiletto-wielding street thug named Rael who has to “go through some things” to find his way back to the world of the living. Fresh from a session of spray painting subway walls in the New York, he is inexplicably plunged into the Underworld, encounters a host of menacing characters, and finally undergoes a personal transformation. And, yes, a black leather jacket is only one of the costume changes.
The original 1974-75 Lamb tour – which was Gabriel’s final project with Genesis before departing for a solo career – was that band’s most elaborate stage production in their career. It included a three-screen multi-media slideshow, stage sets and props, multiple costume changes and many special effects. And with technical guidance and original stage elements from Genesis technical team and members, TMB has strived to replicate the show as identically as possible, down to the finest of musical and visual details. Interestingly, in some venues with smaller stages, the band may at times also perform a more stripped-down version of the show. But only when they absolutely have to.
After this tour completes, The Musical Box will take a short break and then make a festival appearance this summer at the popular progressive-rock blowout in Germany, The Night of the Prog. This will be held July 14-15, 2023, at the Loreley Open-Air Theatre, in St. Goarshausen, Germany. The band has also announced early European dates for a new 2024 production of Selling England by the Pound, beginning next April.
The remaining dates for The Musical Box’s special 2023 production of The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway include the following dates, venues and cities. For more information, please visit TMB’s website, https://www.themusicalbox.net. You can also follow TMB via their Facebook page for updates on confirmed dates for next year’s Selling England by the Pound tour.
April 21 & 22 - Riviera Theatre, Tonawanda, NY
April 23 - Connor Palace, Playhouse Square, Cleveland OH
April 25 - Centre in the Square, Kitchener ONT, Canada
April 26 - London Music Hall, London ONT, Canada
April 27 - Living Arts Centre, Mississauga ONT, Canada
April 28 - Centrepoint Theatre, Ottawa ONT, Canada
May 5 & 6 - Keswick Theatre, Glenside PA
May 17 - Memorial Hall, Cincinnati OH
May 18 - Egyptian Room, Old National Centre, Indianapolis IN
May 19 - Arcada Theatre, St. Charles IL
May 20 - Des Plaines Theatre, Des Plaines IL
May 30 - Capitol Theatre, Moncton NB, Canada
May 31 - Light House Art Centre, Halifax NS, Canada
June 2 - Auditorium de L'école Secondaire de Matane, Matane QC, Canada
June 10 - Amphitheatre Cogeco, Trois-Rivieres QC, Canada
June 15 - Wall Street Theater, Norwalk CT
June 16 & 17 - Palladium Theatre, Times Square, New York NY
There are many Pink Floyd themed-bands in existence today – some as full-on tributes who try to replicate Floyd live shows authentically, others more loosely inspired by the psychedelic and conceptual scope of PF’s groundbreaking music. But one of the more interesting groups to have recently appeared on the horizon is the all-star, Floyd-centric act The Gilmour Project, headed up by veteran rock guitarist Jeff Pevar.
Some “projects” – the one involving Alan Parsons comes to mind – usually have one founding member or a namesake at the helm. And though neither David Gilmour nor any living members of Pink Floyd are part of TGP, Pevar and his band of fellow rock luminaries have launched this exploration of Gilmour’s guitar landscapes with an adventurous approach that’s not so far from the attitude of the late ‘60s’ Floyd. As Pevar explains in the following interview, TGP aims to celebrate – not replicate – the depth and power of Gilmour’s and Floyd’s music.
Pevar – himself a seasoned band member and session player with such primary artists as Phil Lesh & Friends, James Taylor, Ray Charles, CSN and other David Crosby projects – also took part in the experimental, early 2000s Govt. Mule offshoot, Blue Floyd. He recently spoke with us at Grateful Web for nearly an hour, discussing his band’s creative mission, as well as his own relationship to that music, his influences and lessons learned along the way. We previewed some of his observations in a recent article about the upcoming, late-spring TGP tour, but this is a more complete transcript.
The Gilmour Project first came together in 2019 at the inspiration of TGP manager, Michael Gaiman, who first pitched the idea of a new approach to Floyd music to Pevar. Then, Gaiman and Pevar opened up the the project to other heavy-hitting industry veterans, which include keyboardist Scott Guberman, drummer Prairie Prince, guitarist Mark Karan and bassist Kasim Sulton. Their collective résumés include artists ranging from Todd Rundgren, Journey and the extended Grateful Dead musical family to Patti Smith, The Tubes and other alternative and pop-rock acts.
And now, we turn to the interview, so you can enjoy Pevar’s expanded thoughts on his relationship with music and the fine art of re-interpretation.
GW: Thanks, Jeff, for making time to talk to us. We’ll try to keep to a few questions.
Pevar: Sure, whatever time you need. But – heh – once you get me going, it’s kinda hard to stop me!
GW: Well, we’ll see how it goes! I first learned about [TGP] last year but didn’t have a chance to attend any shows. But I’ll be able to this time around. This is the 50th anniversary of PF’s release of Dark Side, and you’ve been doing that as part of your shows since you formed in 2019. Since you’ve had a full tour with it before as the main event, what kinds of surprises will there be for folks this time around?
Pevar: Well, our approach to Pink Floyd is to interpret their music, and it changes nightly.I was involved with Jazz is Dead previously, which is also, obviously, an interpretive band. And, now, my friend Steve Kimock is playing guitar for them and I’m doing this now. But the whole point was to interpret one band’s music [in a new way]. What we offer in [TGP] is an assortment of – Dare I say? – high-pedigree players who have worked with very well-known, established artists. Combined, we bring our experience and strengths to this kind of iconic music. So we’re an interpretive ensemble, versus a tribute. So, yes, we’re honoring [Pink Floyd’s] music but – at the time – we’re taking liberties to bring our own flavor to it.”
GW: Right. Your interpretation of PF’s “Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun” is very interesting because it takes that piece out of its original Arabic mode and puts a more Latin spin on it.
Pevar: Exactly. On [PF’s original 1968 recording], that’s a very open, psychedelic piece that almost lacks a groove. And when I was in Blue Floyd (in the early 2000s), we gave it a funkier edge. That’s an example of something that seemed like a good one to interpret – to take the original inspiration from a song and go anywhere with it. So that was an original idea of when I was in Blue Floyd that’s carried over into TGP.
GW: So you’re still doing similar things from your time in Blue Floyd, right? But are you also changing and adding new songs to the setlist?
Pevar: There’s a certain amount of improvisation that happens every night which is unique to every single performance. We change it up – constantly. And we always do a Dark Side set – but with lots of variation – but when we are able to do a two-set show, we have a second set of [PF and Gilmour solo songs] that we’re sure people will enjoy hearing and that we can also have fun playing. There are songs we are [working on] now for the next run that we’ve never played before.
GW: I don’t need you to give away any song names, but how many songs would you say that is?
Pevar: That’s at least four to five new songs. But the thing is, we change up the sets each show, so not every song will be played every night. We have about a dozen deep tracks that we [rotate] from night to night. So if folks are going to see two nights [on the tour] or watch a couple of live streams, they’re going to hear different songs.
GW: Great. . .and from what I see online, there’ve been a lot of live streams.
Pevar: Yeah, and the person who put TGP together (Michael Gaiman) is a guy who likes to ‘spread the love’. He just clicks his iPhone up by the soundboard, and then throws [full shows] up online for people to see. He’s a big fan of how the Dead were self-made media giants – heh – by just allowing fans to tape their music and sending it out there – in the ether – for free. Not everyone does that. And the word about the Project tends to get around because they’re enjoying the opportunity to share it with their friends.
GW: Since you’ve worked with [drummer] Steve diStanislao [in CPR – Crosby, Pevar and Raymond] and he has also worked with David Gilmour, has he given you any tips about playing with David?
Pevar: Heh – not at all. Steve is one of my dearest friends and we’ve not only been musical accomplices but very close personally since the late 1990s. And Steve actually has come out to see our show. Interestingly, when I was first asked to put this band together, I gave Steve a call to see if he’d be interested in doing [TGP] with us. But, between scheduling and the fact that our drummer Prairie Prince was already interested, it worked out differently. There’s so much involved with that. But to answer your question, Steve and I are fans of each other – lots of recordings and hundreds of gigs together – and in the wake of our dear friend David Crosby passing, we’ve been in close contact a lot lately. And when he came to our show, he loved it and we talked about a lot of things in the music. Having him come and enjoy it so well was really lovely.
GW: In terms of feedback, have you ever had any contact from Pink Floyd, Ltd. For example, are you aware that anyone from the band has attended one of your shows?
Pevar: Well, not [a TGP show]. But when I was touring with Steve in support of David [Crosby] in Europe, David Gilmour came to one of our shows. So that was pretty exciting, to know that while I was up there – playing my heart out – one of my most favorite guitar players in the world was out there, listening to me. And, y’know, as time goes by, I’ve had other chances to play for some of my favorite artists. Paul McCartney came to see us play in a rehearsal studio, and that was really exciting, since he’s one of the reasons I started playing music in the first place! Knowing that someone you respect so much is in the audience makes you feel so many things – heh – including nervous!
GW: Wow!
Pevar: The main thing I feel is that after all these years I’ve put into becoming the musician and artist that I am, it’s very exciting that I’m being observed by others that I so respect in the same way. And when David Gilmour came backstage at the Crosby show, I was able to meet him, y’know, and we hung out a bit, and I could ask him a bunch of questions. I really enjoyed his candor and his gentlemanly stature. He’s a really beautiful man.
GW: What project were you working on when Paul [McCartney] came to see you?
Pevar: Well, as you know, I was involved with David Crosby in various line-ups – from Crosby, Stills and Nash to the band CPR with his son [keyboardist] James Raymond. And in the [more recent 2000s], I was also part of his “Skytrails” band. So, unfortunately, the last tours we were scheduled to do (in 2020) were canceled due to Covid. But we were in rehearsals for one of those tours in California at a place called Center Staging, and Paul was down the hall with his band.
GW: Cool. . .
Pevar: So we went to visit Paul during his rehearsal, which, for me, was so incredible to be sitting, oh, ten feet away him, watching him sing ‘Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da’. And I’m singing it, too, and he’s looking over at me and smiling. I’m looking at him and feeling like a 12-year-old, all over again! So then, he came down to our rehearsal and sat on the sofa for about a half hour and listened to us run through a bunch of our songs. Getting a chance to play for Sir Paul and hang out afterwards. . .well, that was just great! He was a very sweet man. A Bucket List thing, for sure!
GW: I’m guessing that when you put together your show for the Rock and Romance Cruise (this past March), you performed a one-set show versus your regular two-set show. . .
Pevar: Correct.
GW: So did you perform only Dark Side of the Moon, or did you focus on a few of the classic DS songs and a handful of other PF ‘hit’ tracks?
Pevar: Well, with it being the 50th anniversary of Dark Side, obviously, that was our main focus, but we did sprinkle in a few other PF songs, including “Shine On You Crazy Diamond”. It’s different when we’re doing a longer, two-set show. We’ll stretch Dark Side out and throw in some other unique ‘taste treats’ in the middle. For example, we will add some bits from [Pink Floyd’s 1972 live working version of DSotM] that they discarded, such as ‘The Travel Sequence”. (A piece later replaced by “On the Run” on the final recording of DSotM.) That was a cool, guitar-driven jam with a delay [effect] that we kind of hint at. And we try to add some of our own left turns to that, our own inspiration. There’s room for us to explore, to have our own “momentary lapses of reason’” if you will.
GW: Heh! So when you’re off in a deep improvisation, do you make set changes on the fly, where you may have had a certain sequence of songs planned but you change course in the moment and end up somewhere else?
Pevar: Yes! Admittedly, there are places in the music where we know we are going to improvise. And as with the Dead’s music, there are many moments where we can do a ‘tease’, where someone will go into a [quote] of a well-known melody that the other musicians will recognize and follow. So we can jump into a bit of that here and there. But with the nature of the music we are doing (Floyd songs), we have a pretty good idea of what songs we’re going to be doing, but what happens within the set varies from night to night.
GW: I was thinking about the time (in 1974, on the GD box set Pacific Northwest '73-'74) when the Dead played “Playing in the Band” for nearly an entire set. Just wondering whether you’d ever have a night like that.
Pevar: I love that kind of freedom with any band, and I do a lot of that when I’m playing my own gigs. I value playing with musicians who are adept at ‘going anywhere, at any time’. I’m no stranger to that kind of exploration. But, at the same time, there are musicians in TGP who are more used to [staying within] the song form than the jam. So we’ve reached a kind of balance with our line-up. Some musicians are very attracted to improvisation while others are more comfortable – heh – knowing where things are going to go. So, those of us who like to improvise enjoy helping to widen their perspective and to open the doors of their minds to other possibilities. It’s still really up to each individual’s comfort level. But I believe there’s a lot of potential for fun in not being too careful!
GW: Right – you can fall on your face musically but it can still be fun for everyone, including the audience. . .
Pevar: It’s funny. If you’re a high-wire walker and you fail, you could die. But being a musician, it’s not [life and death]. Like Stevie [diStanislao] once said to me, “What’s the worst thing that can happen?” Well – heh-heh – maybe it’s that someone wasn’t entertained.
GW: When you’re not recording or filming a special show that you only get one chance to get right, there’s no pain. Nothing at stake – you can just relax and have fun. . .
Pevar: Yeah, the essential thing I’ve learned is that not everyone is going to like what you do, or ‘get’ what you’re about. Not everyone is going say, “My God! This is the best interpretation of Pink Floyd I’ve ever heard!” It’s just our vision, and if some people dig it and others don’t, it’s OK because you can’t please everyone. But if it’s beautiful in your own mind, then you’ve done your part.
GW: Could you talk a little more about your experience in Blue Floyd? For example, what you learned from being in that project and what you brought into TGP. And even if you thought, “Heck, I could do that even better.”
Pevar: It’s not about doing it better. It’s really about the synergy that happens with a certain group of people. That’s one of the beautiful things about music that inspires me every time. Every day is different, even when it’s the same band but two different shows. I learn [something] every time I play music, because I go in with my best intentions.
It’s not a cocky attitude. I want to go in genuinely wanting to be open and to invite the muse. And the muse, to me, is that unknown entity that empowers any [performer] who wants to flirt with the unknown. I love the concept of “I don’t have to have all the answers. . .” And, in fact, if I get out of the way, there’s something much bigger than my own mind and abilities. You can call that God, Love or “energy”.
But the thing I’ve realized from playing music over 50 years is that if you allow this [higher] power to come through you, then you can be a more ego-less conduit that plays the music – or more to the point – it plays you! Obviously, it takes a long time for the concept to reveal itself that if you’ve become proficient enough on your instrument, then you don’t have to control everything.
GW: How and when did you start learn this?
Pevar: When I played with Blue Floyd, I had the opportunity to work with musicians I had never played with before. With [drummer] Matt Abts from Warren Haynes’ band Gov’t Mule, the amazing Allmans’ keyboardist and singer Johnny Neel, Berry Oakley Jr. on bass, and [other rotating members], I learned something new about music and about PF’s music especially every time we played. Like any musical experience I had over the last 50 years, that inspired things I’m doing right now in TGP. There are a couple of songs, such as “Set the Controls”, that we started doing differently that far back, and I’ve carried that forward.
GW: As I noted earlier, in your version of “Controls” I really liked that it wasn’t just a groove change but also a different harmonic space from the PF version.
Pevar: Well, not only am I the lead vocalist [on that song] but also I really enjoy playing slide guitar on that. I dip into a bit of that Arabic musical space, too, and I’ll even tease a little of George Harrison’s “Within You, Without You.” It really gives me a chance to do a bit with Pink Floyd’s music that I do with my own band. So, yeah, you have a verse and a chorus, and those things repeat, but anywhere else in the song, you can go anywhere, any time we want. So I love it whenever I have an opportunity to bring in the influences of my own experience from other projects into something new like this.
GW: OK, Jeff. If we’re getting tight on time, I’ll try to wrap things up with just a couple more questions. . .
Pevar: Sure. . .whatever you want. Let’s go!
GW: Regarding David Gilmour, could you talk more about his impact and influence on you? For example, what surprised you about his playing as being more or less difficult when you tried to learn his parts?
Pevar: Well, in general, when you get to a certain level of proficiency on an instrument, many things get easier, but there are still always certain things you have to work at to figure out.
One of the most lovely things about David, besides his amazing singing voice – God! I wish I could sing like that – is his guitar playing. He has such a strong sense of melodicism in his playing – not unlike B.B. King, Albert King or many of the great blues greats. It’s all about phrasing, dynamics and understatement, that’s really an ability to make their instruments sing – like a voice.
David always plays in such an elegant, melodic way that it’s not like he’s trying to impress you with his chops. It’s more like he’s singing with his guitar. And while I haven’t found anything so hard [in his playing] to replicate on a technical level, to achieve [the grandness of] his conceptual and compositional ability is just astounding. His solos are gorgeous and – as I’ve noted – iconic.
Being a guitar player in this band (with a second guitarist) and also being the band leader, I’ve made a decision that when we play certain songs I just have to play a [lot of the] solos, because in my mind they are as much a marker of the melody as the vocal lines. When we do “Comfortably Numb”, I do play the guitar [very close to] note for note, because even just thinking about the song makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up. But it’s more than [replicating the notes] It’s me trying to get close to the feeling he expresses. It’s not the notes he’s playing. It’s the spirit of the man that comes through.
I’m a self-taught guitar player. How did I learn to play? Well, I listened to Jeff Beck. Also, Jimi Hendrix, Alvin Lee, Ry Cooder, Robben Ford and Larry Carlton. So I learned from them, and then it all comes out of me, through my personal filter. Ultimately, I’m the one beaming out the musicality that’s in my heart. When it’s my time to shine, I shine out my beacon of the music I’ve taken in [over time].
GW: Just curious, Jeff, whether you’ve been conscious that many of David [Gilmour]’s early influences were often the same as yours? For example, a Floyd song that TGP does is “Fat Old Sun”, which is a country-blues song that I think is very similar a lot like Jimi’s “The Wind Cries Mary.” I think what you and Mark [Karan] do with “Sun” brings out more of the baked-in country-blues flavor. So was that awareness of that style that also influenced Jimi or just a song with a Gilmour progression and melody you liked?
Pevar: In actuality, it’s fairly impossible to know what another person has experienced and where their influences come from, to come up with their own stylings. We are all a product of what we’ve experienced and heard before – we each have a personal ‘embroidery’ of experience, if you will – and that gets expressed in someone’s performance. So I don’t listen to David, [just] trying to figure out where all of his influences have come from. I only know who my influences are and I recognize certain types of guitar playing and the common thread [between] them.
At a certain point, really, ’we’re all Bozos on this Bus’! Everything is connected. So, in short, anyone who dares to sling a guitar around their neck is going to be exposed to a myriad of influences. What percentage of that lick is David? What percentage of it is Jimi? Doesn’t matter. No, I don’t look at it that way!
GW: Respect for the music is so important, and it sounds like you understand the emotional core of Pink Floyd’s music.
Pevar: Obviously, the period in which David became a musician and learned to play guitar was an incredibly open and experimental period in which all types of music were celebrated. It was such an influential period, with so much discovery. It was a Renaissance, and I feel very fortunate that I was growing up in this [same general] time period. The way that guitar playing has evolved from the 1950s to the present influences everyone who plays. David experienced all of that, too, and I appreciate that he is [not just a technical player] but more raw and emotional. Being more [real] has incredible power to communicate. I remember Ray Charles (whom Pevar worked with in the 1980s) once told me, “It’s not how many notes ya play – it’s what ya got in each note.” And Ray said he learned that from Count Basie. So the influence continues.
GW: I love it!
Pevar: Well, y’know, I wasn’t influenced by Pink Floyd until quite a bit later in my development. But once I really started to listen to them, I [connected] to David’s personal expression, the way he plays, and loved the Floyd records and he became a [bigger] influence. Especially his experimentation with guitar, how he used slide guitar and various effects. His approach was unique to him. It added to his ‘symphonic’ ability, the way he ‘painted pictures’ with his guitar.
GW: Yes. I remember an early 1970s interview with David where he described learning songs with PF in his early days. He said they didn’t write music [on sheet music] but gave him diagrams, with peaks and valleys, to help visualize the effect they wanted. “It’s all chaos here. Then, it calms down. Now, it’s melodic.” So he got his ‘symphonic’ training early on.
Pevar: Heh-heh! That’s awesome. Just lovely. I wish I could be in a band that gave me sheets like that!
GW: Thanks, Jeff, for giving us so much to think about here. Really appreciate it.
Pevar: I gotta say that as time has gone on, I’ve become so aware of life’s limitations. Very dear pals – including David Crosby – have passed on, and it’s really hit me hard. It makes me proud of the roads I’ve traveled. Really proud of all the dreaming that I did [as a young musician] of traveling, playing [with top musicians, in major venues], etc., which I accomplished through dedication and tenacity actually did come true for me. But I also feel very honored to be able to share any of this inspiration with others who might interested to hear it, because it’s what I’m going to leave behind. I don’t take my [opportunities and privilege] lightly, and I approach everything I do with the same spirit of doing my best.
I’d love to think that any artists – not just David Gilmour or Pink Floyd – are excited that people still love to hear their music played live and that there are musicians who support this art form – this iconic book, if you will, of music history. As established musicians ourselves, we (TGP) hope we can keep the flame alive and give it new life by celebrating it as we do.
As noted in a recent article, the Gilmour Project’s May 2023 tour leg includes the following dates, venues and cities. For more information, please visit Jeff Pevar’s website, http://www.pevar.com.
May 12 – Turning Stone Casino, Verona NY
May 13 – Riviera Theater, Tonawanda NY
May 14 – Hard Rock Casino, Northfield Park OH
May 16 – Palace Theatre, Greensburg PA
May 18 – Barrymore Theatre, Madison WI
May 19 – Arcada Theatre, St. Charles IL
May 20 – Des Plains Theatre, Des Plains IL
May 21 – The Fillmore - Detroit MI
May 23 – The Egyptian Room/Old National Centre, Indianapolis IN
In later-2021, British guitarist, vocalist and songwriter Amanda Lehmann released a diverse, nine-song album of all-original art and prog/rock music titled Innocence and Illusion. The album – her first official collection under her own name in a 30-plus-year career, but not her first effort – has reached many ears and hearts along the way.
Notably, Innocence has garnered positive reviews and interviews with such publications and blogs as PROG and Now Spinning Magazine. And as we take time to share a few of our own impressions about the still-popular album, we’ve learned from Ms. Lehmann that she’s already developing a yet-to-be-named follow-up. Meanwhile, she also now finds herself quite in-demand for other artists’ projects.
In short, if you’ve heard a charismatic feminine voice on the studio albums and live recordings of British prog-guitar pioneer Steve Hackett over the last 15 years or so, then you’ve already had an informal introduction to Lehmann’s own mystically-leaning musical colors. And thanks to guest spots from Hackett and several of his journeymen from his touring band Genesis Revisited, listeners will find a good number of familiar, proggy touchstones in the emotionally rich musical world of Lehmann’s album. So from the POV of this longtime prog/rock/folk fan who has been following the British rock scene since the late 1960s, I can say it’s a world worth exploring more deeply.
“I like to use music as a story,” Lehmann said in a recent email exchange, explaining her approach to songwriting and performance, and what she hopes to do with her next recording. Listeners will find that the flow of Innocence is much like a story. “So it goes through dramatic, fast sequences, and into delicate, intimate pieces.”
As her time has permitted, Lehmann has been appearing with Hackett in selected shows since he first welcomed her as an album contributor in 2009. With Genesis Revisited’s live shows in particular, she fleshes out the mythical sound of that six-member band with a shimmering layer of guitar and vocal harmony. And her spotlight moment as a solo vocalist on Hackett’s own Medieval-art-rock tour de force “Shadow of the Hierophant” – first recorded with British vocalist Sally Oldfield for his 1976 debut solo album Voyage of the Acolyte – is always an ethereal, soul-stirring moment in those shows.
In early spring 2023, this singer and multi-instrumental musician took time off from her own in-progress next recording project to join on with Genesis Revisited once again for a few special shows in the UK and Europe. Also, in the last several years, she and Hackett have made one-off, small-ensemble appearances together at more intimate venues, such as Trading Boundaries, in Sheffield Green, Sussex, England. These smaller shows have allowed her to showcase her songs from Innocence.
Reinforcing the perception that her house is always in motion, videos of newer special projects involving Lehmann have recently emerged on YouTube. For example, a new release by the dark-pop-prog band Random Earth this past March revealed Lehmann providing vocals and guitar on two standout tracks, “Gospel” and “Window”. (Videos for both can be found on YT.) In addition, other artists she has been working with include the Raging Project, the Temple of Switches and – with current Yes bassist Billy Sherwood – a forthcoming project with veteran Chicago-based singer Kurt Michaels.
‘All the musicians [with Random Earth] are a great, very talented bunch,” Lehmann said, noting that she had been invited early on and encouraged to explore different styles of singing. “Although the lyrics were already written, I [had] a lot of freedom vocally with this, and [the tracks] inspired me to try out different vocal styles. For example, [the song] ’Gospel’ required some gospel-style singing, which was both a challenge and a joy. And due to the changing dynamics, the end of that song was a total contrast. I recorded some raunchy, almost grunge-y vocals [for that].”
Free to explore her own songwriting and arrangements on Innocence, Lehmann – who was much more hard-rock leaning in her early career as a guitarist – has proved that she has learned many ‘best practices’ from playing ‘proggy style’ with that recognized master of the form, Mr. Hackett. (In fact, Lehmann also once performed in a Heart tribute band called Reckless Heart around 2015, replicating the role of guitarist/vocalist Nancy Wilson.)
“My learning journey has been a long one,” Lehmann said. “I have countless influences along the way from many excellent – but unknown – musicians. With all this in mind, the years since 2009 (when she and Hackett made their first recording) have also been undoubtedly very important on my musical journey!”
Resolving finally to capture her own musical vision gave Lehmann the focus to develop her vocabulary of evocative lead vocals, layered harmonies, interwoven keyboards, electroacoustic guitar mixes and deftly used dynamics. That combination on Innocence takes listeners on an emotional journey that draws from her own life but also enables them to make new associations and meanings for themselves.
“From my [close] observation of these extremely talented chaps, I’ve [learned the value of] precision,” Lehmann said of working with Hackett’s team. She added that she aims to make her recordings finely crafted, yet strives to keep the organic feel of a live performance. “With my guitar playing, I’m focusing [more now] on vibrato. Guitarists like Steve are masters of that – just the right amount at the right time, for the right length of time. For me, it’s not about ‘shredding’. It’s about control and beauty – making the guitar sing and [mastering] that sound in order to express emotion through the instrument.”
Lehmann confirmed with us that her influences run quite widely. On the male side – among many examples of late-‘70s prog and hard-rock artists – she cited Genesis first. (She has noted that their 1977 album Wind and Wuthering was her personal prog ‘gateway’ as a teenager.) But also, in close formation behind that legendary band, she speaks highly of the Alan Parsons Project, Ritchie Blackmore and Pink Floyd.
“I loved Ritchie Blackmore’s playing from his Deep Purple and Rainbow days,” Lehmann said, praising the hard-rock pioneer’s total mastery of the guitar neck and conceptual approach to playing. “I adore [his] cascading style that moves through harmonic minors.”
With her being a female vocalist, Lehmann also gave shoutouts to such stars as Stevie Nicks, Barbara Streisand, Alison Moyet and Joni Mitchell. She also noted that learning piano as a first instrument and studying Classical music formally have also trained her ear for non-rock textures and forms. So there are obvious progressive and classic-rock influences but also symphonic and soul-jazz sounds blended throughout her sound.
In particular, vocal similarities to those of groundbreaking British singer-songwriter Kate Bush and the Wilson sisters in Heart abound – sometimes arty, others rawk-y, and some just plain pop. But many of the piano- and acoustic-guitar-based pieces blow the music strongly in the direction of Medieval and New Age musical themes. So the tonalities of Enya or Clannad might also come to mind.
With a haunting instrumental intro, melancholy lead guitar lines and her own stacked harmonies, Lehmann opens Innocence with the sweeping progressive-slanted track, “Who Are the Heroes?” Her siren-like vocals, the Wishbone Ash-like harmonized lead guitars and the martial drum beat all build toward an art-rock crescendo, conveying a sense of yearning, a call for humanity to lean into loving service to each other. That keening theme raises great expectations for the rest of the album from the start. And, yes, that theme continues, but many surprises and personal revelations await.
Interestingly, Lehmann paces the album with a mix of lighter songs of varied styles between the few straight-on rock tracks. For example, the second song up after that commanding opener is a wistful, romantic ballad called “Tinkerbell”. As the name suggests, this is a song dipped in magic and fantasy, and it carries a wafting fragrance of late-‘70s Renaissance or contemporary Celtic pop-rock music.]
Another early change-up before we get a nice, full chunk of that old-school prog that we know must be on there is a surprise appearance by the Talented Mr. Hackett. (This is the first of his three guest appearances on the album.) Interestingly, on this track, “Only Happy When It Rains”, there’s no trace of Hackett’s stellar guitar playing. Instead, he shines through darkly as an awesome blues harp player. His harmonica lines dart around Lehmann’s torch-y, Joni vocals and Rob Townsend’s alto sax lines over a witchy, jazz-club groove, like a yowling cat in the night.
The first track that plunges the listener into deeper prog waters early in the album – and this writer’s personal favorite – is “The Watcher”. Initially, the bleak, brooding piece unfolds as a cautionary tale about restraints and repression of all kinds but then explodes with a fiery middle section before the final chorus. Unlike her treacly vocals on an earlier ballad, her narrative voice takes on a more weathered and warning tone here, sounding much like the huskier vocals of, say, a latter-day Marianne Faithfull.
Instrumentally, the dynamics on this track also show Lehmann taking cues from such rock guitar luminaries as Mark Knopfler and David Gilmour. The opening has smoky blues fills over a spare arrangement with her astringent vocals. Then, after a brief burst of hot guitar between the verses and choruses, she breaks into a fiery, mid-song Phrygian-modal guitar solo with climactic key modulations before landing like a feather at the quiet beginning of the final verse. And for anyone who has been living under a progressive rock as I have, that kind of dramatic harmonic shifting is always mighty powerful catnip!
Another subdued interval follows with the poignant “Memory Lane,” a lament about the passage of time and the loss of memories. This leads into a full-on, arena rocker – if Lehmann should ever graduate to the arena circuit, this is one would be a no-brainer for the setlist – called “Forever Days”. With a driving, riff-based rhythm and a triumphant melody that calls to mind early ‘80s Pat Benatar and Renaissance (Imagine that!), this track matches Lehmann and Hackett in a grunge-y, guitar duel. And it’s a perfect showcase for both guitarists’ more metallic chops.
From there, the album ends up with a three-song series of wistful-but-hopeful romanticism that include the Peter Gabriel-meets-Kate Bush anthem to the dignity of elephants “We Are One”, the enchantingly bluesy “Childhood Delusions” and the floating outro “Where the Small Things Go.” In particular, the latter piece is a short, Classical-guitar ballad, co-written by Lehmann and Hackett. After reaching some truly soaring, mid-album moments, Lehman’s sweet finish with Hackett’s distinctive nylon-string touch seemingly helps the listener to reorient, as if waking refreshed from a long, active, technicolor dream.
Although Hackett and his keyboardist Roger King and sax/clarinet/flute man Rob Townsend all play prominent roles throughout the album, it seems that Lehmann has another secret weapon on board. And that would be Nick Magnus, a longtime Hackett collaborator from the guitarist’s earliest solo albums in the late-1970s.
Primarily a keyboardist, arranger and engineer, but also an artist with his own track record of releases, Magnus worked with Lehmann to develop several of her Innocence tracks from working demos that she recorded in her home studio, she explained. And he provided some supplemental keyboards – including Mellotron, which is all over the album – to her primary piano parts. He also built up all of the rhythm tracks from electronic drum samples and scored the full orchestral arrangements. This resulted in many of the ballads having a lush, cinematic feeling.
Magnus’ agility with the drum programming is most impressive. Obviously, in the hands of a lesser technician, such full-band songs as “The Watcher” and “Forever Days” would lack the critical feel and reactions of a live drummer in the room. The really amazing part is that if the credits didn’t tell us, we’d never know otherwise from the in-the-pocket performances of all the musicians!
In keeping with Lehmann’s own descriptions of them, the songs of I&I clearly reflect a person’s journey through life, with joys and disappointments, misunderstandings and clarifications, conflicts and resolution. The songs themselves, she has noted, were not written all in one batch but over a wider range of time, and the emotional shifts in the songs convey some changing points of view that come with experience and maturity. And perhaps looking at the album as a kind of diary of Lehmann’s life helps to bring it all into focus: Older and wiser but still in love with life and very much believing in magic.
As Lehmann has explained elsewhere, she had written some songs – such as “The Watcher” – even much farther back in time but revised them in more recent years. Also, she and Magnus started assembling the tracks in 2019, and the project quickly gathered steam. Unfortunately, the Covid lockdown came along the next year and put a chill – but, luckily, not a complete freeze – on the recording process. A second burst of post-lockdown activity followed, however, with Lehmann and Magnus working remotely from each other and exchanging digital files for the final arrangements and mix. And then Lehmann finally delivered the lovingly polished gem in August 2021.
Having gone back to Innocence and Illusion many times now, I always find myself marveling at how much more centered and in focus I feel after listening to it. My perception is that Lehmann offers the world a hopeful, uplifting outlook and the healing power of music at a time when the world needs that most.
Looking ahead to her next recording, Lehmann confirmed it is shaping up and that listeners can expect a similar mix of extended epics and reflective pieces.
“Creating the ‘follow-up’ is always a challenge,” she said, noting that she sees it as a chance to try some new ideas. “As with I&I, [her next] album won’t exactly be a concept album but it will have a theme. Also, different musical genres – whatever suits the songs the best. And, as always, I’ll indulge in multi-layered vocals, guitars and some piano as well.”
In light of all this, it will be very interesting to hear what Lehmann paints for us with her colorful musical palette next time around. In the mean time, my very best advice is to make time to allow yourself to submerge fully as you listen to I&I, to go with the flow of Lehmann’s dream, and then to make up your own mind about what is real and what is an Illusion.
In this 50th year of Pink Floyd’s certifiably mad 1973 masterpiece TheDark Side of the Moon, and with every Floyd-themed band known to Man going all out to honor its Golden Anniversary, you could conceivably be able to hear the album played live all year long. And, thanks to an endless supply of PF tribute bands, you can bet it will be played again and again and again, well into the distant future.
But one band in particular – the all-star, decidedly non-tribute line-up of The Gilmour Project – takes a different route to the Dark Side. And once they get there, they take listeners on numerous surprising side and ‘after’ trips.
At a recent performance in Greater Cleveland – at the MGM Northfield Park in Northfield, Ohio – this five-member band of acclaimed music industry veterans wasted no time in going Dark. Launching into the main attraction right at the beginning of a sprawling, two-set show, TGP literally delivered a truly jam-packed version of the highly composed and structured Floyd classic. And that wasn’t all. In the second half, TGP both came forward in time and went way back in the Wayback Machine to share their updates of other landmark PF songs, too. They also included a number of non-Floyd songs and elements that band leader and lead guitarist Jeff Pevar has slyly referred to in interviews as ‘taste treats’.
Starting off reliably enough with the cribbed-from-the-album sound montage of heartbeats, cash registers and paranoid ramblings intermingled with their own techno-ambient sound effects, TGP initially bathed the audience in a rich atmosphere of floating slide guitar fills over the droning, minor-key progression of the opening song, “Breathe”. Then it was off to the races as the band blasted off deeply into jam-band space.
First up, keyboardist Scott Guberman slipped into a much-shortened replication of PF’s synth-heavy techno DSotM track, “On the Run”, a passage meant to represent a harrowing journey through the spirals of life. In fact, TGP’s rendition of it was so breathtakingly short that it seemed barely more than a hat-tip to the original booming and clanging industrial noise-scape. However, with this section telescoped into place, the band could then stretch out with their first lengthy melodic passage of the night during the song “Time”.
In PF’s original arrangement, there’s the immortal, soaring mid-song guitar solo over the melancholy verse progression and bridge interval before returning to the final vocal section. However, TGP’s two guitarists – Mark Karan and Pevar – each flexed their lead muscles with full, interpretive solos of their own. Notably, when his turn came, Pevar reached deep into his blues bag to inject new, raw emotion into Gilmour’s well-known, Jimi-flavored, upper-register leads, and then the song resolved with the usual key change into “Breathe Reprise”.
Following the key lyrical line about a “softly-spoken magic spell” at the end of “Reprise”, keyboardist Scott Guberman momentarily returned from the backline with a fittingly spare piano intro on “The Great Gig in the Sky”. Then, Pevar took center stage with his compact, headless Steinberger guitar that calls to mind a sawed-off shotgun, playing the climactic, topline vocal phrases in a wailing slide style, highly suggestive of the Allman Brothers’ slide guitar phenomenon Derek Trucks. Since PF’s version of “Gig” had already injected a strong Gospel flavor to the Floyd’s more typically bleak and liminal soundscapes back in the day, Pevar’s innovation of using slide to emulate the deeply soulful vocals of the original studio recording gave the section an even rootsier, Americanized, deep-South flavor. Somewhat shorter than the full album version that has been burned into every Floyd fan’s memory, this interpretation rivaled the original Clare Torry vocal for its searing intensity.
Beginning with the next song, “Money”, and well through the second half of the set, things got seriously jammy. Easily the most popular and successful song from Dark Side, the first track of DSotM’s second half, “Money”, has always offered any band playing it a chance to open up and have a ‘blow’, as the Floyd themselves had done as far back as early 1972.
Both in the verse sections over 7/4 time and in the 2/4 middle jam, TGP’s members took the song back to its grittier blues origins of its pre-1973 form. For example, Guberman took a strutting organ solo in the first instrumental break where fans who only know the original studio version would expect to hear a saxophone. But that’s the way PF’s own keyboardist Rick Wright used to play it all those years ago, when PF was still hustling as a four-piece unit. And again, in the middle section, Karan and Pevar swapped extended rave-up solos over a slowed down, Frank Zappaesque-‘Merely a blues in B’ skank before a sudden wake-up and roar back into the final verse.
Ending “Money” less quietly than we remember in other bands’ versions with some power chords, the band then plunged into a more swirling, psychedelic section that TGP calls “The New Travel Sequence”, as we later confirmed. True, this exploratory interval, which broke into an eager drum solo by Prairie Prince, was ‘new’ in the overall scheme of the long-locked-in arrangement of Dark Side. But, actually, it was loosely derived from the original concept the Floyd themselves had used in the 1972 version of DSotM, so this was perhaps, an intentional little love note from TGP to longtime fans of the early Golden Age of Floyd.
Harmonically and structurally, this “Travel Sequence” actually bore little resemblance to PF’s original jazz-fusion instrumental from their 1972 tours. But it did share a similarly nervous, syncopated rhythm, built off a heavily-delayed rhythm guitar pattern. This driving jam effortlessly evolved into Prince’s drum solo – another innovation, since soloing was something that PF’s Nick Mason never did – which soon culminated in a percolating keyboard/drum volley between Guberman and Prince. (The animated stage lights were extra trippy during this section, too, which was a nice enhancement of this experimental side trip.)
In the afterglow of this percussive eruption between the keyboardist and drummer, the two guitarists and bassist Kasim Sulton returned to the stage to take the audience in a new sonic direction with a head-twisting cover of the non-Floyd track “Black Magic Woman”. Although written by Fleetwood Mac guitarist Peter Green in the late ‘60s, the song is better known via Carlos Santana’s more famous 1970 cover. And the bewildering parts from the audiences’ POV would, of course, not be so much that the band made a sudden switch to Latin grooves in the middle of Dark Side. But they might ask: Why would TGP plonk down an old, non-PF FM-radio hit between “Money” and “Us and Them”, of all places in the show? Aside from the fact that Carlos Santana’s guitar tone and expressive playing style were likely a direct influence on David Gilmour’s still-developing style in the early ‘70s, this placement left more than a few tongues wagging in the audience during intermission.
Musical eclecticism seemed a better fit elsewhere in TGP’s Dark Side set. There were, of course, the blues, Gospel and R&B moments earlier in the show. But, soon after a heartfelt, down-to-Earth reading of “Us and Them” with Pevar playing warm, sax-toned melody lines on his main axe, TGP took a brief breather before sketching out the instrumental groove, “Any Colour You Like”, with scratchy chords over a bouncy island beat. This was easily the most fluid exchange of the evening so far, with the five members taking part in a call-and-response reggae pattern, bouncing licks and fills off each other, like friends good-naturedly one-upping each other’s tall tales over another round of drinks.This spirited instrumental fill-in jam benefited from getting more air time than “On the Run” or “Great Gig in the Sky”, but, still, it could have objectively been tricked out a little longer. Just as it felt as if the jam was ready to blow wide open, a sharp, sinking feeling hit with the key change signaling the transition to Dark Side’s grand finale.
Watery tremolo guitar, multi-part harmonies and mad laughter from band members in real time (not recorded) were the key elements that remained faithful to the final two songs of the epic, Floydian song cycle. It’s actually hard to think of “Brain Damage” and “Eclipse” as separate songs anyway, since they were joined at the hip so long ago by PF songwriter Roger Waters and meant to be played and sung as one. But, in any case, there were no more surprise inserts between songs or change-ups at this point, as TGP – against an animated backdrop of eclipses and other celestial phenomena – delivered the always-stirring finale. In the end, the Sun, the Moon and all the stars aligned, and TGP brought the audience safely back to Earth.
After a leisurely intermission, TGP returned to boil up an entirely different kettle of fish in the second half. It was, to these ears, overall less artful, and much more straight-ahead rock ’n’ roll and blues for the masses than the Dark Side set. But, interestingly, it nearly covered the entire time spectrum of Floydian history in just about an hour. And there was no shortage of those tasty ‘treats’.
Judging by the variety of song quotations that TGP referenced in the second set, you could say the theme was ‘Spot the Influence’. The question, of course, is: Who was the ‘influencer’ and the ’influenced’ – Pink Floyd or The Gilmour Project? Whether the pairings were PF-appropriate or not is up to the listener to decide, but they were numerous, very-well-spotted and cleverly used quotes. So hats off to TGP at least for the many unexpected pairings.
The leading song in the second set was “Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2,” but you could have easily called it “Another Brick on Shakedown Street,” as the band smartly interspersed the chords of “Shakedown” and alternated the song’s “Nothing shakin’. . .” refrains with the closing refrains of “ABitW”. Lots of fun for the audience, and a clever observation of how both bands had co-opted disco rhythms into their styles in the late 1970s.The beats and rhythm patterns of the two songs blended perfectly. Well done, TGP!
More impressive was their second heroic reference of the night, a flange-heavy lead-in of Jimi Hendrix’s “Machine Gun” that brilliantly morphed into Roger Waters’ snarky, anti-music industry screed, “Have a Cigar”. But lead guitarist Pevar didn’t just use “Gun” as a pace-setter to kick off the churning groove and leave it there – the band also requoted it several more times during the extended outro guitar solos.The interplay between the bitterness of the two sociopolitical commentary songs helped to sharpen the underlying vitriol of Waters’ lyrics.
A third pairing that was at first a bit of a “Whuzzat doing there?” moment but quickly began to shine in my mind was the inclusion of The Who’s “I Can See for Miles” within the middle jam of the extended psychedelic rave-up “Interstellar Overdrive”. Not only was this the earliest song in PF history of the night (A Syd Barrett-penned song harking back to PF’s 1967 debut The Piper at the Gates of Dawn), it was also the most non-David Gilmour PF song of the night, recorded by PF long before he was even a member.
According to TGP’s Facebook page within a day or two of the show, “Interstellar” was a certified breakout that had just made its first-ever appearance in a TGP show. From my POV, it was a contender for Peak Moment of the night. (Maybe the “Machine Gun/Cigar” mind meld actually took the ‘cigar’, but I'm also a major Who fan. So how could I ever scoff at "I Can See for Miles"?) Combined with the vivid light show that accompanied it and the insertion of “Miles” in the middle, “Interstellar” did something that many of the overly-familiar Floyd tracks that night fell short of: It reached true escape velocity and took you somewhere else: Deep into the past! The real genius of this medley was that both songs vibrated on the same frequency of late-‘60s English psych-power-pop. So for us older fans, it was another one of those heady transmissions from the Mists of Time.
Now, I’d be remiss if I were to not mention the other Floyd ‘warhorses’ that got their moments in the Sun in the second half. Among these were “Dogs” – that pre-Wall high-water mark of gloom and malaise from 1977’s Animals – and the Floyd’s more hopeful, big 1987 MTV-hit “Learning to Fly”. And, of course, there was a fine version of “Shine On You Crazy Diamond, Parts I-V” with Karan, Pevar and Guberman all taking extended solo turns in the introductory, 18-bar blues section. Here was one of the moments when Pevar, in particular, dug deep into his personal history of being a guitar slinger to the stars and drew upon the deeper blues approach to PF that he employed when he played in Blue Floyd in the early 2000s.
As you’d expect, there were also a few other key songs that included the encore selections “Wish You Were Here” and “Comfortably Numb”. But the time went by so quickly, with TGP playing songs by a band known for its dramatic, long-form compositions that take up album sides and even whole albums.That makes it hard for anyone to give the PF repertoire fair representation. Some songs, such as “Dogs” and even “Interstellar”, were carefully pruned to considerably shorter run times than their original epic lengths. Obviously, some concessions and adjustments are necessary when trying to make sure you can strike the right balance for a crowd-pleasing show. There are always ‘must-play’ songs, while others are only nice to have. So, unfortunately, with some new experiments being folded into the set, some tunes had to be held back.
Admittedly, as someone who has followed the Gilmour Project and reported on them several times over the last year, I had developed detailed knowledge of the songs in their working repertoire. Perhaps having that knowledge wasn’t so good for me. I must admit to having felt some disappointment at some of those previously performed songs not making the cut for the Northfield show. In fact, it appears now that TGP’s inventory of songs has grown to where they can now rotate songs into sets more from show to show. (Songs I had wanted to hear were, in fact, played again just days after Northfield. So, I can happily say they’re not gone, just taking a little 'nap'.) So, variety is a great goal, not a bad thing. It’s just disappointing when someone only has one chance to see a show and songs they really want to hear get benched for the night.
Also, please forgive me if this seems like too much ‘trainspotting’, but, for a band which sets out to call themselves The Gilmour Project, I believe they do have quite a sensitive Achilles Heel. The show that I saw did not have any songs that David Gilmour actually wrote on his own within Pink Floyd or any pieces from his post-PF solo albums, although last year’s TGP shows certainly did. And though it’s true that Gilmour did play on PF’s live performances of “Interstellar Overdrive” for a year or two right after Syd Barrett left the band, that song had, in fact, nothing at all to do with Gilmour. He was just standing in on it the times he played it in the band. Regardless, I loved it anyway.
So, on an emotional level, a possessive, early Floyd adopter like me can have an initial gut reaction to hearing songs out of relation to the stated concept of the band. A momentary feeling comes and goes that something isn’t right and that if I were curating the setlist, I’d do it a lot differently. But then, I relax and remember: It’s not a competition. It’s somebody else’s jam, not my gig! It’s music after all, and – as far as I’m concerned – music makes the world go round. So I close my eyes and just let the music carry me away. And then everything’s right again.
Lastly, I’d like to say that the Gilmour Project has an interesting mission ahead of them if they continue to evolve beyond these early explorations of the guitarist’s most obvious creations with the Floyd. David Gilmour has contributed so much to the art and history of modern music – from playing with such greats as Paul McCartney, B.B. King and Pete Townshend to discovering and producing artists such as Kate Bush and Dream Academy. And, of course, he has his own rich body of solo work to draw upon and to reinterpret. The biggest ‘warhorse’ of them all – Dark Side of the Moon – has always taken up so much room in a show that it never even allowed the Floyd themselves to play a deeper cross-section of their own work whenever they performed it in full. So, perhaps, once TGP gets through this 50th Anniversary year and audiences reach their saturation points with DSotM, they will have the freedom and confidence to dig down more deeply and deliver the real goods from the legacy of this master musician.
GILMOUR PROJECT SPRING 2023 TOUR DATES
May 20 – Des Plains Theatre, Des Plains IL
May 21 – The Fillmore - Detroit MI
May 23 – The Egyptian Room/Old National Centre, Indianapolis IN
Even by his usually busy standards, 2023 looks to be a pretty chunky year for the pioneering West Coast rock guitarist Jorma Kaukonen. Usually, he and his stellar faculty of musical masters are holding a full schedule of workshops by now at the music camp, Fur Peace Ranch, which he runs with his wife Vanessa out of Pomeroy, Ohio. (I live in Cincinnati, but even for me that is a fur peace to get there.) And he usually has both solo “Jorma tours” – as he calls them – as well as periodic Hot Tuna tours with his life-long musical soul mate, bassist Jack Casady.
But as the now-83-year-old guitarist and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee told us in a recent phone interview, this year’s going to be quite a bit different. No surprise – as the news was already announced months ago – is the booking of a fall Hot Tuna tour that will be the career-capping, final run of the Electric version of the band, with Kaukonen and Casady being joined again by longtime Tuna drummer Justin Guip. And though Kaukonen has put in-person workshops at Fur Peace on hold at the present time, he is still involved in a number of private workshops early in the summer and doing a number of solo guitar shows soon after that. After that, he gears up for that fall slate of ElectricTuna shows. So much music and musical knowledge to share – and so little time!
Kaukonen and Casady had just racked up a short spring Acoustic Tuna tour shortly before our conversation took place in the early days of June. This compact, 14-date leg brought them to several states that included Illinois, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, even a date at Kaukonen’s home base on the Ranch, plus a handful of gigs around New York State.
In mid-summer – on July 20 – Hot Tuna will be making a special appearance at the Great South Bay Music Festival, performing deep selections from both their Acoustic and Electric repertoires. This show – taking place in Patchogue, NY – will also feature supporting artists Dave Mason, The Fabulous Thunderbirds and the Kerry Kearney Band.
This special date falls right in the middle of Kaukonen’s own 15-date solo tour, which starts on Saturday, June 10, in Edgartown, MA. That run of shows will include a few East Coast venues, as well as brief stops in the Pacific Northwest and the Rocky Mountain states of Colorado and Utah, and will run virtually into Tuna’s final stretch in the fall.
So, the big Tuna Kahuna – the “Going Fishing Tour 2023” – kicks off in September, with an opening date in Rochester, NY, on Sept. 15. It will be a whirlwind, East Coast-focused tour, again with 14 dates, which hits some major sites, such as New York’s Beacon Theatre, the Keswick Theatre in Philadelphia, the Warner Theatre in Washington, DC, and Mountain Stage in Blacksburg, VA. Then, the grand finale will be a headlining festival date on October 7, at the Suwanee Roots Revival, in Live Oak, FL. As one poster for Hot Tuna says: “Witness History, Folks! All we’re saying. See them before you can’t!” Accordingly, a complete list of the Tuna and JK solo shows follows at the end of this article.
As you will soon see, our conversation with Kaukonen was wide-ranging and densely packed, as he gave us an overview of the fall tour, his approach to song selections, preferences for gear, what he does in his downtime, and what lies around the next curve in the road. And – as he told us – the road still has many curves.
GW: Great to talk with you, Jorma. I’ve got my questions fairly well sorted out – it’s kind of like songwriting: Trying to keep it simple, not too cluttered, and not too much redundancy. So I hope we’ll keep it moving for you.
Kaukonen: Well, then – heh-heh – redundancy can be like a chorus for you, so don’t worry about it!
GW: Heh – thanks! Well, it’s going to be big year for you. So how’s the summer going so far?
Kaukonen: So, my daughter just graduated from high school. That’s been a pretty big one here at our house. And [next on the schedule] I’m leaving for Martha’s Vineyard for some teaching stuff. Then I’m doing a short (solo) tour [over the summer], and then back here. I’ve got a bunch of Tuna stuff coming up [later in the year]. Lots of touring, which I’m pretty excited about. Y’know – guys who are in the music business at my age – we’re pretty excited when people still want to hear us play!
GW: What kind of teaching are you doing in New England?
Kaukonen: It’s a series of private workshops at Martha’s Vineyard. There’s a guy named David Wolff who has been a partner of mine in an online teaching thing called Breakdownway.com that we’ve been doing for years. And he’s helped me out with teaching at Fur Peace, so this is gonna be a “Fur Peace on the Road” thing. We’ve got two weekends, two different classes. One session is a songwriting class. And the other one – it’s a bunch of really good players, actually – I’m gonna have to throw a bunch of stuff at them that’s complicated - heh-heh!
GW: So the name of your Hot Tuna tour this year is “Going Fishing”, but you plan to keep working beyond that but in different ways.
Kaukonen: Of course. So – heh – it’s “Going Fishing”, not “Gone Fishing”! We’re drawing a close to the Electric Tuna thing. This will be our last tour of this iteration [of the band]. It’s a bittersweet moment in a lot of ways, but, y’know, we think it’s time. But, that being said, we’re not idiots, either. We’ve learned from the best – heh-heh – like The Eagles. You can never say “Never.” Right now, Jack and I are not stopping from [acoustic tours], and I’m not stopping from solo touring or any projects that might pop up. But we’re just gonna put the electric band to bed – after this run.
GW: So Justin Guip has been your steady drummer in the latest version of the band and he’ll be joining you again?
Kaukonen: Oh, absolutely! Justin’s been our buddy for a long time, but, yeah, he’s our drummer. He’s The Guy. He’ll definitely be there.
GW: Great. So could talk more about any other members or special guests who might drop in for selected shows?
Kaukonen: The answer is: We’re working on some stuff, but it’s still uncommitted. I don’t want to spoil anything, but I think we’re going to have a couple of exciting people pop up who will make for a great show.
GW: I imagine your setlist will ebb and flow according to who’s on board for a given show.
Kaukonen: Exactly. Y’know, at this point in our lives, we know so many really stellar musicians. It’s not like the old days when you had to work stuff out ahead of time, do a lot of rehearsals. There are a lot of really cool people we can cut in at a moment’s notice, and they won’t let us down.
GW: Well, for example, I know that G.E. Smith has been on your [Fur Peace Ranch] faculty for a pretty long time, so it seems he would be a likely guest, when he’s available.
Kaukonen: Undoubtedly!
GW: I’m curious whether you’d plan to record and release a live album or offer any streaming.
Kaukonen: Y’know, that’s a really good question, and I think maybe we need to consider that. We just haven’t given it a lot of thought. As you know, there’s a bunch of logistics stuff that has to happen. Streaming has gotten a lot easier. A live album takes a little more forethought. We should consider [documenting the tour], though.
GW: I know Bobby [Weir] has been doing regular streaming of the Wolf Bros shows, and also with Dead & Co., since this year is their big finale, too. But they put up shows temporarily, so it’s only for a few days. And you get the chance to hear it or to relive the show if you happened to go to a certain one.
Kaukonen: I love Bobby, and I appreciate the huge undertaking he’s going through [for the fans].
GW: Well, I’d like to know more about your format with the Electric Tuna. Is it strictly electric, or more electro-acoustic, with Jack playing a jacked-in hollow-body bass? And do you still open up on lead and throw in harmonic feedback, or are you ‘beyond that’ now?
Kaukonen: No-no – of course not! Listen – as a guy who loves electric guitar, let me tell you that you’re never beyond that! The Hot Tuna repertoire is a really interesting animal because we’ve been able to do a lot of stuff that started out as acoustic pieces. But [over time] they’ve become really effective electric pieces. But we [have a lot of songs to choose from] and we just [dig in] and just have a good time.
GW: Are there ever times in the Acoustic Tuna where Jack might play guitar, since he had originally been a guitarist himself, or does he just play acoustic bass for that?
Kaukonen: No, he just plays the acoustic bass for that. But, y’know, Jack is such an interesting cat, [because of starting] out as a guitar player. And in the Airplane, he’d play [rhythm] guitar whenever Paul [Kantner] sang “Fat Angel”, and Marty [Balin] played bass for that. (As on the live recording of that song on the Jefferson Airplane album, Bless Its Pointed Little Head.) Think about that one for a minute!
GW: Very interesting – wasn’t aware of that. As I recall from that album, there was a moment in the show that it was announced some members were going to take a break and a few of you carried on, kind of blowing off some energy. Right?
Kaukonen: Yes, correct.
GW: Could you talk a bit about the primary guitars you’ll be using? I know that Jack – at one point – had used some Alembic basses (which were custom-made). Do you use any custom-made or modified guitars?
Kaukonen: Well, in the electric shows, Jack will be playing the “Jack Casady Signature Model” Epiphone bass. Back in 1998, Jack worked with [guitar designer] J.T. Riboloff of Epiphone, who designed new pick-ups for this bass that had been called the Les Paul Gold-Top Bass. (A semi-hollow-bodied bass that Jack had used before but wanted to have modified to improve presence in the mix with other instruments.) This became a line of basses has been in production since the late-1990s, and they’ve sold a lot of them. It’s a very affordable, fantastic bass. And Jack’s been playing [one of these basses] off-the-shelf, unmodified, for well over 20 years now. Unbelievable!
So that’s what he’ll use for our electric thing. And for the acoustic gigs, he uses a hand-made bass from a [luthier] in northern California. On my end, for the finger-style Tuna songs, for the most part, I [mostly] play a 1993 Gibson SST. It’s an electric, Chet Atkins-type [semi-hollow-body] model that’s supposed to sound like an acoustic. It doesn’t, really. But it allows you to play with heavy-gauge strings, for finger-picking stuff, and it tends not to distort in the same way that an electric guitar does. So it’s very effective for that.
For the electric-guitar things, I’ve been using my Airplane-style Gibson ES 345 (a semi-hollow body guitar) for the last couple of tours. But I’ve gotta say it’s not an original one. When the Airplane got their Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2016, the Gibson Guitars’ custom shop replicated my 1964 ES 345, which I played for that gig. And I still use it occasionally. So I might have that and one of my [Gibson] Les Pauls with me, but I think I’m going to use my Firebird guitars for the rock ’n’ roll stuff. Again, they’re not original models, but, actually, from the early ‘90s. And I’ve changed out the electronics on them, different ‘pots’, etc. But the guitars themselves are pretty much stock-looking.
GW: And then, how about amps and effects?
Kaukonen: For the finger-picking stuff, I’ll be using a 1962 Fender Pro, with a single 15-inch speaker, that Jack gave me for a present last year. He had bought it new. And I’ll be using a Louis Electric Deltone for the mind-bending, wall-distorting, rock ’n’ roll guitar. The company is from New Jersey, and it’s like a souped-up [Fender] Deluxe. But that ‘62 Fender Pro, that’s a real rarity, really cool for all the finger-picking tunes.
I’ll also be using [an assortment] of overdrive pedals, and I’ve got an original 1965 Thomas Organ Co. wah-wah pedal – same one I used in the Airplane. And I’ll probably have a gaggle of interesting delay [pedals]. The kids who use these pedals today, they write [whole songs based around the effects]. But that’s not me. I like to turn these pedals loose and have them do eccentric, unpredictable things. So, y’know, I wouldn’t use any of these for a whole song, but I might kick into one of them in the middle of a solo.
GW: What’s your preference in terms of production values? Sounds like you’re using stage amplification, whereas some folks just DI (direct injection – running straight into the PA board) their instruments and add some signal processing.
Kaukonen: Yeah, that’s a good question for the geeks who love that stuff. That’s never really done it for me. Whatever works for you, that’s the way to go. But I like dealing with stage volume and to be able to ‘work’ the amp. And different amps get different sounds. And I like the actual sound on stage – I don’t like in-ear monitors. I sorta barely tried ‘em once, and I said, “Naaahh, that’s not for me.” To me, it was kinda like washing your feet with your socks on, or – heh – having safe sex. It’s just not as much fun!
GW: So – heh-heh – you’re not an in-ear monitor guy – good – got it!
Kaukonen: Well, this band doesn’t do anything with vocal harmonies, and I recognize the importance of in-ear monitors for people who [have a lot of harmonies]. We’re very simple, and we just don’t need that kind of thing. If we had [multiple vocalists], then we’d probably use them, but we don’t.
GW: As you and Jack moved more into Hot Tuna and harmonic feedback wasn’t used as much in a psychedelic way, did the psychedelic DNA still come through in your shows and does it now?
Kaukonen: Oh, absolutely. Back in the early ‘70s, the stage volume was as much part of the show as the PA. Our stage set-up – and I’m looking at a photo of it right now – was not as [complex] as the Dead’s Wall of Sound (GD’s legendary mid-‘70s amp and PA speaker array). Not quite that dramatic, but a very similar thing. But these days, the PAs are incredibly good, and stage volume is not the same. It’s just different. I’ve got this one friend who remembers the old sound, and he says, “Yeahhh, man. . .I just loved it when you guys used to drop those big ‘bombs’ on stage.” And I tell him: “Look – you’re never going to hear it like that again, because we had all these huge amps making that happen.”
Back then, we had dual-quad cabinets (two-cabinet stacks, with four speakers in each cabinet), like a Marshall or Hi-Watt, the effect was very different. We can still do some of that, but we’re depending on the PA to do a lot more of the [volume] work for us. So, yeah, it’s going to be a little bit different now, but don’t worry: I can guarantee – there’s going to be plenty of harmonic feedback!
GW: Maybe somewhat in the distant past, Hot Tuna did a fair amount of covers. And I know that for your The River Flows project with John Hurlbut you did a Roger McGuinn cover [‘The Ballad of Easy Rider”, and source of the album’s name]. So are you still doing a mix with some covers thrown in, perhaps some that might not be as familiar to people?
Kaukonen: Not in that same kind of way. Not to spoil anything – and nobody’s heard this song – but I’ve got a songwriter friend named Frank Goodman. He wrote this song – it’s not a psychedelic song, it’s just a “song” song – called “Where Have My Old Friends Gone?” That’s something that’s going to be heard for the first time with Hot Tuna this summer. And then Johnny [Hurlbut] and I, by the way, are just getting ready to do another album. Johnny likes [to do] songs he loves, and I’ll play them with him. But, y’know, that’s not really what Tuna does. It’s not that I don’t like other people’s songs. I listen to so much music. I just have difficulty really walking in somebody else’s shoe in a productive way – most of the time. But we’ve still got a little time to think about things between now and then. You never know!
GW: Thanks. Not really trying to be a ‘spoiler’ and give away your whole plot. I just like to give readers - especially folks who might plan to come to more than one show – some idea of what they can look forward to. It maybe creates slightly more anticipation.
Kaukonen: Well, I’ve got some good news about that. We tend to be moderately repetitive with our electric stuff because our repertoire for that is smaller than our acoustic repertoire.But, as I mentioned, we’ve still got time to unearth some things, so I’m not going to close the door on that. So my goal when I do shows is to have enough songs that we don’t duplicate set lists on consecutive nights. We still know a lot of songs, so we can do that.
GW: As far as your personal songwriting, I know that you’ve written autobiographical songs in the past, sometimes about transitions. And now, you’re on the verge of a fairly big one. Do you have any new songs that you’ve been working on that maybe speak to the situation?
Kaukonen: Probably not in time for this tour, but you’re absolutely right. Y’know, transitions are a great time to write songs. And I am sort of been delving into [a few ideas]. So if I get lucky and get something finished, then you’re gonna hear it. Otherwise, it’s probably going to be early next year.
GW: We touched on [the possibility of] documenting and streaming shows before. But with digital recording being a lot easier now than good ole analog, other artists – such as Bob Weir and Phish – have done a lot to make shows available. And I know you and the Ranch team film performances at FPR and put selected cuts up on YouTube. So maybe you’ll be doing some of that?
Kaukonen: That’s a really good idea. But it’s not something I get real involved in. Y’know, Bobby is such a hands-on guy with all of that, and I’m sure Trey [Anastasio] is, too. I’d need to talk about that with my wife Vanessa [and others] and see what we could do. It’s definitely easier to do these days. So why not?
GW: Would you say you have a big budget for this tour? And do you have all of your dates booked, or is there the possibility that you could still add any other cities and venues?
Kaukonen: Y’know, as of right now, all of the dates are booked. But, as with everything else, you never know. We’ll just have to see how things evolve.
GW: I saw on the Fur Peace website that your workshop schedule is blank, and you mentioned the online training on Breakdownway.com before. So will anyone, such as G.E. [Smith], be taking up the slack on the teaching while you’re away on the road?
Kaukonen: The thing is, when Covid happened, that changed everything. And I know we’re not alone. I’m just making an observation, not complaining about it. As a result of the Covid period, we’re not doing in-person workshops anymore. That could change in a year. Who knows? All instruction is online now [on Breakdownway.com], and we have a video studio at the Ranch, so we use it for that purpose. We’re sort of a work-in-progress on deciding what to do with the in-person stuff. But we are still doing shows out here. We’re just going to see what happens.
GW: Just wondering, with everything you have going on, what do you do for fun? And are you ever able to get out and see other acts, or see some of your friends playing on the West Coast when you’re out there?
Kaukonen: Well, that’s a funny thing, kind of the curse of the job. Usually, when we’re out on the road, it’s exceedingly rare when we have a chance to see anyone else. Of course, I’d love to! But when we’re gigging, we try to schedule as few days off in between – without killing ourselves, of course, because every day you’re not working costs you money. Food, lodging, etc. for the whole tour crew. So the answer is: Not as much as I’d like to!
GW: Well, since you said you listen to a lot of music, what kinds of things are you listening to?
Kaukonen: Heh – Funny you should mention that. I’m a huge Mary Chapin Carpenter fan, and I’ve been listening to a double album of hers from a couple of years ago, called Between the Dirt and Stars. I just love her writing and her performances, so that’s been in heavy rotation. And I’ve been down the Nancy Griffith rabbit hole lately, too. Haven’t been listening that much to pure guitar music lately, more [balladry like this], but it’s always changing.
GW: I’m sure you’ve heard the expression that life can only be understood in reverse, but you have to live it forward. And I know you’ve written a biography called Been So Long. So are you at all nostalgic for other eras, or did you manage to pretty much get all of that out of your system?
Kaukonen: Yes! I’m definitely one of those “living life forward” kind of guys. In the normal world, I’d be a great-grandfather by now. But – in this one – I’ve got a 25-year-old son and a 17-year-old daughter. So they’re not interested in that looking-backward BS. I’m not saying that having kids keeps you young, but it does keep you involved in a positive way.
GW: OK – so if you don’t mind one last bit of flashback, I have more question. And then we’re done!
Kaukonen: Cool!
GW: I recently saw a DVD of an old San Francisco concert broadcast recorded for public television by KQED-TV in 1970, filmed at the Family Dog Ballroom. It had Santana, the Dead, and of course the Airplane. Each band got a couple of songs, and then, at the end, a bunch of you came out and had a big jam. I was really struck by the camaraderie of the scene at the time. I was just wondering how much of that was an illusion, or if there really was a lot of cross-pollination that went on in the SF scene. And did that break down and become more competitive over time?
Kaukonen: Yeah, I know that film you’re talking about. That’s some really cool stuff. I think, in a lot of ways, it was a zeitgeist (spirit of the age) for us. Everybody was recording at Wally Heider’s studio, we all knew each other and everything was exciting and new. So there wasn’t a lot of egotistical [posturing]. Everyone just had a good time hanging out with their buddies and playing. As simple as that.
GW: I’ve always been a fan of John Cippolina (of the San Francisco-based band Quicksilver Messenger Service). Y’know, his use of vibrato and the tremolo bar...
Kaukonen: Awesome guitar player! No one else like him. He was certainly the King of the Biggsby thing.
GW: Well, it’s really getting back to my cross-pollination question. At times, it sounded as if he had influenced the Airplane’s sound. And Jerry [Garcia] had some of that flavor at times, too. I think a lot of was down to everyone was using Gibson guitars with Fender Reverb amps, and a similar sound emerged. But then, there was also the individual expression of each player, their own personality that came through. Were you conscious of the influences from the others, or were you influencing them just as much?
Kaukonen: That’s a great question. Some people used the tremolo bar just for ‘shading’ their playing here and there, but with John, it became [his main expression]. I think, for me, because I wasn’t a very technically advanced player at the time, it was just a way to add some color to my playing. Plus, it was just FUN!
GW: So I guess, in closing, you could say that’s the whole theme of the Electric Tuna tour is just to go out and have fun.
Kaukonen: Absolutely! Now, that’s not to say that Jack and I won’t push each other, but that’s not a competitive thing. He’s an amazing guy, and we’ve been playing together since ‘before rocks and water’. But I can tell you there’s not a night that goes by where he doesn’t throw something at me that makes me think.
GW: That really covers all of my questions, Jorma. Really enjoyed talking with you. Thank you very much!
Kaukonen: Well, hey – since you’re here in Ohio, if you ever manage to get up here to Pomeroy, just make sure I’m going to be home and stop in. It’d be great to see you.
Hot Tuna's "Going Fishing Tour 2023" begins in September and includes stops in Rochester NY, Burlington VT, New Haven CT, Washington D.C., Fort Lauderdale FL, and more. A special date will be Sept. 23, at the Beacon Theatre, in New York City. There will also be a mid-summer festival appearance, on July 20, at the Great South Bay Music Festival, in Patchogue, NY. Acoustic Hot Tuna will continue to tour in 2024. So look for Acoustic Tuna 2024 dates coming soon.
Hot Tuna – “Going FishingTour 2023” Dates
07/20/23 – Great South Bay Music Festival – Patchogue, NY
09/15/23 – Kodak Center – Rochester, NY
09/16/23 – Flynn Theatre –Burlington, VT
09/18/23 – State Theatre – Ithaca, NY
09/20/23 – The Egg – Albany, NY
09/21/23 – Upstate Performing Arts Centers –Kingston, NY
09/23/23 – The Beacon Theatre –New York, NY
09/25/23 – Portsmouth Music Hall – Portsmouth, NH
09/27/23 – College Street Music Hall – New Haven, CT
09/28/23 – Keswick Theatre – Philadelphia, PA
09/30/23 – Warner Theatre – Washington DC
10/01/23 – Mountain Stage – Blacksburg, VA
10/04/23 – Capitol Theatre – Clearwater, FL
10/05/23 – Parker Playhouse PAC – Fort Lauderdale, FL
10/07/23 – Suwannee Roots Revival – Live Oak, FL
Jorma Kaukonen – Summer Solo 2023 Dates
06/10/23 – Old Whaling Church, Edgartown, MA
06/16/23 – The Loft, Oak Bluffs, MA
06/22/23 – Narrows Center for the Arts, Fall River, MA
06/23/23 – City Winery, Boston, MA
06/24/23 – One Longfellow Square, Portland, ME
07/13/23 – Southern Theatre, Columbus, OH **Jorma opens for Tommy Emmanuel
07/28 & 29/23 – Triple Door, Seattle, WA
07/30/23 – Aladdin Theatre, Portland, OR
08/02/23 – State Room, Salt Lake City, UT
08/03/23 – Avalon Theatre, Grand Junction, CO
08/05/23 – The Amory, Fort Collins, CO
08/06/23 – Boulder Theater, Boulder, CO
08/25/23 – Old Town School of Folk Music, Chicago, IL **Jorma Kaukonen at Fretboard Summit. Also Jack Broadbent
09/09/23 – Fur Peace Station, Pomeroy, OH **Jorma plays with the G.E. Smith Band – SOLD OUT
Peter Gabriel raised his hands over the keys of his electric piano and plonked them down, obviously missing the mark. The mistake was, umm, unmistakable.
“That’s what is technically known in the business as a ‘f***-up’,” the enigmatic art-rock singer wisecracked, after fumbling the beginning of the darkly brilliant song, “Family Snapshot”, at a North American gig in late 1982.
“Here we go,” he said confidently, and with a mischievous glimmer in his voice. Then he launched into the piano chord again under his ominous opening words, “The streets are lined with camera crews. . . .”
This time, the riveting, multi-part song about a political assassin was flawless, from its shadowy beginning, through its galloping mid-section and down to its bittersweet, solo piano finish. More heart-rending, in fact, than the studio original that he had released on his third album, in 1980.
This performance was in November 1982, at the former Hara Arena, in Dayton, Ohio. A now-long-gone, multi-purpose facility, that 5,000-plus-seat arena was – at that time in the singer’s career – near the upper range of his potential ticket sales. If memory serves correctly, however, it may have even been a near – if not quite complete – sellout, which was then an encouraging sign for him.
In September of that year, Gabriel had just released his fourth studio recording – named Security – which offered the still-under-the-radar art-rocker the promise of true breakthrough success with the techno-jungle-funk of the radio single “Shock the Monkey”. He and his four bandmates – drummer Jerry Marotta, guitarist David Rhodes, bass & Chapman Stick man Tony Levin and synthesist Larry Fast – played that song that night, to great response. And by the time “Monkey” had come up in the show – five songs into a 15-song set – Gabriel already had the amped-up crowd practically eating out of his hand. The main course and dessert would come later in the show.
40 Years Older and What Do We Get?
Forty years have passed since that tour. Hara Arena – demolished over several months at the end of 2020 – no longer stands, and the relatively reclusive superstar no longer plays to audiences in smaller college campus theatres or such down-market hockey arenas. But, fortunately for his now-multi-generational, international fan base, the electrifying music of that heady, New-Wave-meets-prog era was officially preserved. Truly, there was magic in the air on that Fall 1982 tour, a feeling that Gabriel’s then-soon-to-be-recorded Plays Live album captured superbly. Talk about a concert souvenir!
The tracks for the original double vinyl LP had been recorded in the Midwestern U.S. – on four December 1982 dates soon after the two November shows I had attended in Dayton and Bloomington, Indiana. When the brand-new, shrink-wrapped album with a stunning, close-up photo of Gabriel’s theatrically made-up face on the cover arrived quietly on record store shelves in June 1983, the singer was just about to kick off a new round of dates of his ongoing Security tour. (True, that summer tour was a new leg, but the setlist was in observable flux again, with a newly-written song and other swaps being rotated in at random.)
During that summer of 1983, the PL album helped to raise the public profile of the then-still-emerging artist whose real pop-star breakout wouldn’t arrive until 1986 with his release that year of his multi-million-selling album So. Accompanying videos of “Monkey” and a few earlier songs of the time in rotation on the then-shiny-new MTV cable channel (Music Television) had incrementally raised his public visibility over the preceding year. Yet, all in all, the live album was another big ratchet click for him, just when he needed it most.
So, from the vantage point of 40 years on, how does Plays Live hold up as a historical document of Gabriel’s grittier, more prog-inflected early work? Full disclosure: This writer might be more than slightly biased from having made an ecstatic personal discovery of his idiosyncratic voice and music at the cusp of his leaving his original band, Genesis, in the mid-1970s. But revisiting Plays Live again today proves that it’s a damned fine time capsule of the first five years of his early solo career, from 1977 to 1982.
If one were already an experienced PG fan who knew his recorded work but still hadn’t heard Plays Live, then he or she might understandably prefer his studio versions of some or all of these songs. But, for more casual or recently converted fans, this album brings together many of his most experimental and disquieting songs of that period — such as “The Rhythm of the Heat”, “No Self Control”, “Intruder”, “I Don’t Remember” and “Lay Your Hands on Me” in one place. As such, they are a worthy introduction to this artist often known more for his ‘dark’ than his ‘light’ side. And – to my ears – they seem crisper and more crackly than their somewhat stodgier studio counterparts. Whether it was for the live shows or the eventual album, the song choices actually made for an unlikely but well-curated setlist. And the performances made them stand up to the test of time. Definitive, I’d say.
On a happier note, Gabriel also balanced out the high-creep-factor songs with more accessible and groovy crowd pleasers, especially “Solsbury Hill”, “D.I.Y.”, “On the Air”, “Monkey” and “I Have the Touch”. Not quite what ‘they call rock-and-roll’ but definitely less musical ‘architecture’ and cinematic sweep than those other denser, head-case kind of songs. And definitely more rock. Other selections on the album even included a throwaway live song titled “I Go Swimming”, a true castoff that had grown out of a quirky soundtrack instrumental from the early ‘80s Steven Spielberg movie Gremlins. Tony Levin’s chunky lead-bass and Jerry Marotta’s driving drum patterns on this fun song would send it spiraling upward and outward until it slammed into a hard stop. And, in effect, its placement on both the LP and CD versions – at the end of a side – made it a natural exclamation point.
Old Songs Born Again
Many of those original songs – recorded over Gabriel’s first four albums – took on a new life on stage and, as in the case of the political anthem “Biko”, have truly flourished and become a permanent part of music history. Meanwhile, there was at least one, like “Swimming”, that sank quickly back into the primordial swamp of early-‘80s progressive rock. Ohh, well. Sometimes you just have to throw back the little ones, right?
As a double album, Plays Live was obviously a conscious replication of the routine – but not complete – setlist that Gabriel and his band followed on that tour. At the same time, it served an additional purpose: To help back-promote Security and the rest of the early PG catalogue. For example, the original album included six of the eight studio songs on Security. (A seventh Security song, “Kiss of Life,” was part of the multi-song encore at the Hara Arena show but was soon dropped from the set. It would surface again briefly in the summer of 1983 – with a special guest cameo at one show from his former Genesis bandmate Phil Collins on drums. But in time, it was hardly ever performed again. An outtake recording of “Kiss”, said to be intended for Plays Live, emerged in 2019, on the extensive Gabriel stray-tracks collection, Flotsam and Jetsam.) Still, the song selection and pacing on the album credibly recreated the web of mystery, drama and eventual spiritual uplift that Gabriel had woven throughout his shows on this tour.
Also quite noteworthy is that the album had added songs that appear to have been performed only in the later stages of that fall tour and not at the shows in Dayton or Bloomington. One of these is the ironic but life-affirming early solo song “Humdrum”, from Gabriel’s 1977 debut album. (Fwiw, his first three albums had been labeled with the same name, Peter Gabriel. The debut is now better known as Car, however, thanks to the album’s cover image of Gabriel sitting in a raindrop-covered car.) At the beginning of that song, he drolly informed the audience that “this is a number we haven’t played in a little while.” So he was reaching deep into his old kit bag for a bit of surprise. And a second song – also new to the set – was the darkly paranoid track about obsession and compulsion, “No Self Control”. Not only was this song a change-up for the tour but also it was a radical rework from the highly-wound-up, more industrial-strength version on 1980’s Peter Gabriel (or Melt, because of his melting-face cover photo) album. The new take on the original featured a slinky, electric-piano groove over a funeral-dirge beat.
Who Says Cheaters Never Prosper?
Indie singer/songwriter Ani DiFranco once said in a song, “People used to make records/As in a record of an event/The event of people playing music in a room. . .”. And while, in theory, Plays Live documents and preserves the 1982 Security Tour for Gabriel’s fans, it was after all a ‘live album’, based on a soundboard feed of an all-too-human performance. Truly, that’s a fact of life with every live recording ever made. And, as such, that has almost always invited tinkering from the record companies and artists’ producers. Interestingly enough, Gabriel’s alleged ‘live recording’ was no exception. In fact, one has to admire Gabriel for his tongue-in-cheek admission in the liner notes that , indeed, some ‘cheating’ had occurred in the final preparation of the album. How much? Let’s see. . . .
First off, there’s the given that Gabriel’s mercurial voice would — in the heat of concert fever – not always be pitch-perfect, and so some vocal tweaking might have been necessary at various points. (After all, he had famously re-recorded a good number of vocal parts for the official 1998 Genesis live release of their 1975 Los Angeles performance of the Lamb Lies Down on Broadway album – more than 20 years after the original performance!) Another related possibility is that the then-still-innovative wireless headset microphone that he was rocking on some songs for the first time may not have always come through well in the mix. So there may have been some re-dubbed vocals here or there. Or everywhere.
Perhaps there may have also been some off-kilter guitar parts or even a discordant piano chord or two – like that one in Dayton – that needed replacement. And one has to suspect also whether even the nearly-too-cheerful audience fills were inserted to heighten the sense of excitement between songs and at the end of the show. Regardless, whatever all of the ‘warts’ were, Gabriel did not specify. But he was certainly among the first artists to acknowledge publicly at that time that, “Yes, Virginia. . .this is a doctored record.” In the end, if one knows Gabriel’s music well enough, you will surely catch that a few ‘clams’ – vocal and otherwise – were still left in the mix, perhaps to give listeners that sense of ‘you-are-there’ realism versus the sheen of perfect, assembly-line polish. Or maybe they were simply up against a deadline.
Nonetheless, the energy and electricity of the tour were captured with a high degree of audio verité. For example, with drummer Jerry Marotta – a PG collaborator from 1978 to 1986 – on board for the tour, the bottom end of the rhythm section was more fleshed out from some of the more spare, synthetic drum parts of the studio versions. (Some of those versions had been built up from mechanical drum grooves in the studio using that oh-so-popular tool of the time, the Linn Drum machine.) And, for those versions, Gabriel had prompted Marotta to play more primitively – especially more polyrhythmic grooves that employed only tom-tom, floor tom, and bass drums – without cymbals. This had helped to eliminate brighter frequencies from the mix and to create a more open sound bed for other instruments. But, obviously, for live performance and the live recording, some concessions had been made to allow more conventional and exciting rock drum sounds to enter the mix, just as Gabriel himself had sung many of the songs in a broader, more dynamic live voice than he employed on his studio recordings.
Synthesizer textures in the live show evolved from the studio to the live versions, too. Along with his pioneering synthesist Larry Fast, Gabriel had composed and recorded many of the studio versions of these songs using the then-innovative Fairlight CMI (Computer Musical Instrument) synthesizer/digital sampler. (The notoriously sensitive electronic device had been taken out on tour, but there were times it failed mid-show due to voltage surges, as had certainly happened at the Bloomington show. A few stripped-down, band-only songs were then dropped in at the end to make for a complete show that night after one such surge took out the Fairlight.) But having Fast with the many samples and synth pre-sets on hand – such as the skittering marimba patterns on “Monkey” or the watery, xylophone-like arpeggios on the verses of “San Jacinto” – made it possible for Gabriel to replicate so many of the soundscapes on stage from his two preceding albums, Melt and Security.
Tension and Release as the Prime Mover
From start to finish, like a true master, Gabriel built up the tension and anticipation throughout those shows with his well-paced song choices. For example, his band’s unconventional arrival on stage as marching drum players proceeding up through the middle of the audience and Gabriel’s climbing onto a high scaffold to sing in an imperious voice were theatrical visual elements you truly had to be there for. But the urgent, martial beat of the opening song, “The Rhythm of the Heat”, is captured faithfully on the recording. It still serves as a stirring memory-prod for anyone who saw any of those shows.
And more mysteries unfolded from there. The dark, modal-Arabic melody and Gabriel’s microtonal singing on “The Family and the Fishing Net”, for example, would carry the listener’s mind through a world of spectral light, mist and tunnels. And the prayer-like, near orchestral lament for the struggle of Native Americans against loss of cultural identity, “San Jacinto”, took listeners on a deep, emotional vision quest into their souls. And these songs were – and still are – some of the most breathtaking moments on Plays Live.
Perhaps, the truest communal and spiritual moment throughout the Security tour – which the live recording could only begin to hint at – would happen toward the end of the night, and the album has captured all of that intensity, if in somewhat abbreviated form. At the climax of the drone-y, ritualistic song “Lay Your Hands on Me” in Dayton, Gabriel turned away from the audience at the front of the stage. Somehow, the audience just knew something big was about to happen. Still, as he let his body fall backward into a sea of waving arms pressed against the front edge, a collective gasp and burst of applause swept the arena. Fully afloat over the heads of the front-row audience members, he body surfed while the band chanted the words of the song’s title repeatedly over a crescendo of synth drones, tribal drums, and bone-shaking bass.
A few nights later, at the Indiana University Auditorium, in Bloomington, that song was carried out a little differently. In that more intimate theatre, the first row of seats was well away from the stage’s leading edge. So, instead of the backward fall, he trotted down a small bank of steps at the center of the stage, then out into the audience. There, he ambled about in the aisles for several minutes, shaking those hands and patting many backs. Both times, the effect of this song with Rhodes’ angular, buzz-saw power chords and Marotta’s thunderous, jungle-drum beat was transcendental. Gabriel’s passionate, stretched-to-the-breaking-point vocals were, of course, the centerpiece of this ritual drama. As it went down in real-time, the tension and release in this dazzling interplay of pure white light and oscillating sonic waves delivered a powerful message of survival and triumph over adversity. In effect, Gabriel was commanding the audience: Be healed!
Clearly, this is a song whose length had been extended as needed in the live performances but tightened in the editing of the live album to remove any slack during the crowd surfing and mingling moments. And, of course, the album doesn’t show you any of that, because it’s not a DVD and audio alone can’t do that, either – unless of course you were there and your mind now supplies the images. So, yes, the recording provides a stunning auditory flashback of this and the other songs, and it’s certainly nearly as thrilling as having been present for that moment. Especially when you crank it to high volume.
(You Are) The Eyes of the World
Another deeply stirring song that has been a mainstay of Gabriel’s live repertoire since 1979, “Biko” wraps up the live album in grand fashion. In this poetically telegraphic protest of the 1977 murder of South African political activist Stephen Biko while in police custody, Gabriel summoned all listeners to stand up against the politics of hate, division and repression. “And the eyes of the world are watching now. . .”, he first wrote and sang in this song in 1979, well before many of his musical contemporaries began to take up such calls. And by the time of the Security tours, his personal anti-Apartheid message was reaching wider audiences and starting to impact worldwide consciousness.
Also noteworthy is that the song’s mournful, funereal bagpipe melody was, gloriously, much more forward in the live mix than on the original studio recording. The tension and volume of the dirge reached their climax, then – as band members left the stage, one by one – the song’s finale receded into a hanging synth drone that was greeted with roaring audience approval. To this day, Gabriel will often use this song as a rousing finale at the end of his shows, and it never ceases to send shivers down one’s spine. It was a fitting end to many of Gabriel’s live shows on that tour, and it serves well as the capstone to Plays Live as well. (Alas, it did not make the set in every show. Sadly, it was left out of the Bloomington show, presumably due to that Fairlight blowout.)
On full soundboard recordings from other artists, listeners can often enjoy not only the high points but – even more – the chatter among band members, or even the banter between musicians and audiences. And even though Gabriel was especially entertaining as a master of ceremonies in these early live shows with his between-song narration and self-effacing jokes, those elements were, unfortunately, largely edited out of the song flow on Plays Live. Small bits survive, but most of his interjections here only serve as song title announcements. (On vinyl LPs, every second of space counts.) And, of course, with only a recording, we cannot see his facial expressions or body language, also essential parts of his charismatic stage delivery. But such invisibility is a given with the audio format, so the music has to carry the excitement on its own.
How Not to Keep a Secret
As we speculated earlier, many ‘warts’ were likely removed from Plays Live, and, unfortunately, a few of the funnier and more spontaneous spots as well. For example, at the Bloomington show, as Gabriel was introducing a song, a fan – and, no, I swear, it wasn’t me – blurted out, “I love you, PETER!!!” He deadpanned right back: “Listen! I thought we agreed to keep it a secret!” Such unscripted moments – even if they had been captured on tape – sadly didn’t make the final cut. So, yes, live albums in general could use a few more of such naturally entertaining, spur-of-the-moment smilers, but, I think, especially on this album – just because this was a Peter Gabriel show.
Plays Live was not Gabriel’s only live album and, in fact, he released several more in later years, including 1993’s Secret World Live. But to the ears of this writer – a longtime and admittedly not completely objective fan – this first one is still the best because it captured that lightning-in-the-arena feeling of those 1982 Security shows. The PL album has also seen several incarnations, first as a two-CD version, next as a boiled-down, single-CD version with four songs removed in 2002 called Plays Live: Highlights, then a streamable version in 2019, and, finally, a properly remastered two-CD version in 2021. So if you want to be sure not to miss any of the originally-featured songs, you’ll definitely want to get your hands on the full, two-LP or two-CD version.
With this front-line report here of what it was like to witness those 1982 shows, perhaps you’ll be better able to lose yourself in this highly diverse and dynamic recording as you listen to it. Granted, in spite of its many strengths and even all of its post-production tweaking, it’s still not a perfect album. But that’s really only because of the built-in limitations of an audio-only recording and for all of those special qualities of the experience that were necessarily left out to fit all that music onto four LP sides. As I see it, the true value of Plays Live is that it captured this legendary artist at a key moment in his colorful career which makes it an experience you can have again and again.
Until soundboards of the Dayton or Bloomington shows surface on YouTube (and this sort of thing seems to happen almost every day), we’ll just have to make do with Plays Live and fill in all the banter for ourselves or find other similar audience recordings, won’t we? Plays Live has always worked for me, and if you’re a fan of The Gabe but still haven’t been introduced to this classic live album, I’m pretty sure it will all work just fine for you, too.
The Modern-Day Artist Refuses to Die
Later this year, Peter Gabriel will be releasing his first full studio album of new songs since 2002 which is titled i/o (input/output). And he’s currently in the early stages of an extended world tour. The in-progress European leg continues through June 25. Then, after a summer break, the North American leg of both Canadian and U.S. dates will run from Sept. 8 through October 21. Full tour dates are listed below, and for more information, please visit http://www.petergabriel.com.
European 2023 Peter Gabriel Shows
June 17 – Utilita Arena – Birmingham, England, UK – SOLD OUT
June 19 – O2 Arena – London, England, UK
June 20 – Motorpoint Arena – Nottingham, England, UK – CANCELED
June 22 – OVO Hydro – Glasgow, Scotland, UK
June 23 – AO Arena – Manchester, England, UK
June 25 – 3 Arena – Dublin, Ireland
North American 2023 Peter Gabriel Shows
Sept. 8 – Videotron Centre – Quebec City, QC, Canada
Sept. 9 – Canadian Tire Centre – Ottawa, ON, Canada
With so many high-profile tours and new releases competing for our attention in the early half of Summer 2023, it’s more than forgivable if you’ve let a few of them get by you. (We here at Grateful Web certainly feel the ‘crush of the new’, and we sense all too well the summer shooting by, bullet-wise. Y’know, sometimes, we just have to shoot backward to catch up!) However, one rock album that you shouldn’t let slip off your personal radar – especially if your head and heart favor a well-percolated mixture of Classic and progressive rock, blues, jazz and folk – is Peace. . .Like a River, the new release by Southern blues-rock jam veterans, Warren Haynes and Gov’t Mule.
This new album – released on Fantasy Records on June 16, close in time with the kick-off of the Mule’s Floyd-flavored, soon-to-launch summer Dark Side of the Mule tour on July 22 – is the band’s 12th studio collection in nearly 30 years. And in contrast to its immediate predecessor – the deeply-blues-based Heavy Load Blues in 2021 (that title says it all), River finds acclaimed guitarist Warren Haynes and his Mule bandmates in a very exploratory and eclectic mode. Apparently, Haynes had a lot bottled up in him from the last few years that needed to come out, and the band has succeeded – splendidly, we might add – in matching the music to their primary songwriter’s many messages.
Interestingly enough, the river theme runs through the entire album in both lyric and title, while the album title itself appears to be a hat-tip to the nearly-identically titled song, “Peace Like a River” (no ellipsis), from Paul Simon’s 1972 solo debut album, Paul Simon. (The Mule’s album does not actually have a matching title track. Only several songs with river references in the titles or lyrics. But more about this later)
Indeed, in music as well as the title, the album seemingly touches on a wide variety of musical styles from the 1970s to now. In one moment, you might find yourself flashing back on Zeppelin, Skynyrd, or Humble Pie riffage, and then, in another, catching a whiff of twinned Wishbone Ash guitars, Tom Petty-like Americana uplift, some funky Steve Winwood/Traffic keyboard wizardry or even proggy-blues guitar a la David Gilmour. And then, a Gospel moment lands in your ear, stirs your soul and makes you think of the Staples Singers or Sly & The Family Stone. Overall, there’s a strong feeling of musical history in this album which shuffles the deck on what you might think a Mule album should sound like.
Certainly, blues has always been the currency of the Mule’s sound, which the band has been plumbing deeply and perfecting since the days of the mid-‘90s when they began as a Warren Haynes’ offshoot of the Allman Brothers Band. And while themes and undercurrents of frustration, betrayal, and survival are more than obvious on various tracks throughout River, there are also more obvious lighter, acoustic-driven melodies, smoky grooves and swinging jazz vamps on this collection than on the Grammy-nominated 2021 Blues set, which is a pot-boiling batch of all things blues. In any case, the pacing of River allows the listener to wade into the water and splash around a bit, so to speak, with the Mule’s harder and more angular Southern blues rock rising up unexpectedly and conking us on the head. And don’t worry – You will be conked!
Quite by intention, River and Heavy Load Blues were hatched and incubated more or less at the same time, during the 2020 Covid lockdown. In fact, the band sought out – and found! – a studio with a hybrid design of large rooms for a bigger sound for certain material, and smaller spaces where a different mood would entwine with the musicians and songs. They shifted gears on a nearly daily basis while in that one studio (Four others were reported as also being used at some point.). At the main one, however – Power Station New England, in Waterford, Connecticut – they could go from work one album to the other in the same day. And they used entirely different instruments and gear in these separate spaces, achieving distinctly different moods and expressions.
Haynes – armed with a thick stash of new songs from the early days of the Covid lockdown – seemingly had a keen sense of mission as recording began. (The band joined in with him on co-writing two of them.) In a special promotional interview for the release of the album, he acknowledged that no one in the band had expected how the lockdown would put a freeze on so much work. “I wasn’t thinking about making a record,” Haynes said in the interview, noting that they had no idea when the embargo on touring would end. “Fortunately, I had a lot of time to write, and I had written more than I had written in decades.”
Haynes also noted in that video interview that the Grammy-nominated Heavy Load Blues album owed its existence to this same period of time and recording. As he explained, his wife Stephanie – also the band’s manager – had reminded them of their often-verbalized desire to record an entire album of blues. So the group realized that this break was going to be their best chance to get that done as well, and that led to them realizing they needed a special environment for doing the two albums side by side. And so they zeroed in on the Power Station.
Along with his co-producer John Paterno, Haynes and his three longtime partners – keyboardist Danny Louis, drummer Matt Abts and bassist Jorgen Carlsson – would work daytime hours on the raw tunes of River, before taking a dinner break. Then – because there were no gigs or other external activities during this period to cut into their time – the musicians would often go to that other part of the studio and switch over to the more primal side of their brains after evening break. There, they let their musical instincts and well-trained muscle memory help them to exorcise their gnarlier demons during the Blues sessions at night.
In spite of the exorcisms that the four-man Mule team accomplished in their nightly blues jam and recording sessions, they didn’t burn away all the blues when it came to the songs on River. If you look at it right, you might call the mood of the 12 tracks on River more of a ‘thinking man’s blues’. There’s an obvious weariness – and a hint of hard-earned wisdom that arises from the blues – that’s still the emotional core of the album. The song structures, textures and instrumental arrangements are very fluid, changing throughout the album. (At times, it’s even within one song, as in the case of the highly dynamic opening song, “Same As It Ever Was”. ) You might even call the album’s tone at times more spiritual, with themes of confusion and sometimes finding direction.(“Hey, look at me. I’m the prodigal son. . .”, Haynes calls out on the third track in, “Made My Peace”.) But, yes, amid these stories of missed connections and opportunities, there’s – in the end – resolution and redemption. Containing both moments of joy and suffering, the songs carry you through some darker and more twisted channels before emerging into sunlight again. (Or is it moonlight or starlight? Regardless, it’s still light!) Truly, the end result of the album is a river of constant change.
Strictly speaking, this album is many things at once, distilled into a flowing, seamless whole. It’s not ‘pop’ music as such, not pure blues or progressive rock either. Trending longer but still packed with ideas and action, the songs reflect a proggier, more artful approach to the material than either Heavy Load Blues or the preceding 2017 studio album, Revolution Come. . .Revolution Go.
No song is shorter than four minutes, and the longest – the highly layered, Prog-Meets-The Beatles “Made My Peace” – clocks in at just over nine minutes. (This track is tricked out with orchestral grandeur, complete with George Harrison-style slide guitar and chromatic runs in unison over symphonic layers.) Horns also figure in prominently on selected cuts, such as kick horns. modulated sax solo and hot trumpet outro on the groovy “Dreaming Out Loud”. And with Haynes making no secret of his deep admiration for the blues-filled guitar artistry of Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour, there are other undeniable formal art-rock moments coloring the instrumental mix of other songs.
Most important, because of the natural-as-breath feeling of flow, none of the songs feels long. In fact, as I experienced in my repeated listenings, the songs lead you onward with the desire for them to keep on bubbling and chugging away, as most of them do. One can imagine that generous extensions will happen with at least a few of the songs when they are played live over the next several months.
There’s so much packed into the 12 songs, but – if you can believe it – the band’s cup overflowed with even more songs, which they included on a bonus disc in the special two-disc edition of River. And, as it often seems to happen for me, I felt more gravitational pull with some of these songs versus some on the main disc.
In spite of the experimentation on this album, you’re never far from trademark Mule hooks and habits, including Haynes’ distinctively soulful vocals, his voice-like slide guitar and razor-sharp riffs, and the band’s fully interactive sound of active bass lines and piano/organ-led vamps. But the main album tracks, which boast a number of highly varied guest stars — from Celisse (Henderson), Ivan Neville and Ruthie Foster to ZZ Top guitarist/vocalist Billy Gibbons – seem aimed at achieving the perfect emotional balance. In case you were wondering, Mr. Gibbons does sing on, the ZZ Top-flavored tune “Shake Our Way Out” but left his guitar at home. And Celisse brings a yearning lead vocal to the river-themed slow-jam, “Just Across the River”.
To my ears and mind, though, the true centerpiece to the album – is a guest appearance by actor/musician Billy Bob Thornton, who delivers a harrowing, latter-day Johnny Cash-type narration over the dub/trip-hop groove of “The River Only Flows One Way”. (A second version of this track, with Haynes’ original vocal is included on the bonus disc in the two-disc version of River. But Thornton’s dead-eyed zombie vocal delivery hooks you into a chilling sense of disillusionment.) Because of this vocal variety of all these guests, it becomes obvious why some of the excellent tracks not included on the main album ended up on the bonus disc. Two tracks worth checking out are "Blue Blue Wind" and "Time Stands Still".
Although one clearly gets the feeling that the lyrics are largely personal, you can hear Haynes make both oblique and direct references to the stress of the times in which we live. While he reflects the struggles of existence in the modern world, he also points us toward hope with the song, “Dreaming Out Loud.” For this track – which cites historic quotes from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Robert and John Kennedy, and the late civil rights leader/U.S. Representative John Lewis – he brought in special guest vocalists Neville and Foster. Interestingly, this socially-conscious song may also be a sly historical cross-link to the lyrics of Paul Simon’s original “Peace Like a River”, the lyrics of which were obviously written in the context of the late ‘60s-early ‘70s Civil Rights Movement. So, truly, both the music and the politics on this album are progressive, and some of the lyrical themes are a historical reminder that there is still many a mile to true freedom and equality.
Overall, the music of Peace. . .Like a River breathes and flows from the first song to the last, taking the listener on a river-like journey that isn’t entirely peaceful in nature. (Remember those dark and twisted channels we mentioned earlier?) But what the album does deliver in the end is a feeling of closure and resolution, rather than just leaving the listener with more questions about living in the world. No, the journey on this river is not peaceful, but it seems to carry you to a place of peace in the end.
The Mule on Tour, Summer 2023 and Beyond
Coming up in Atlantic City, on July 22, Gov’t Mule – in collaboration with Live Nation – will kick into their mid-summer Dark Side of the Mule tour, with a full-length performance of Pink Floyd’s 1973 masterpiece, The Dark Side of the Moon. Depending on whether the date is a stand-alone Mule gig or a festival or a warm-up slot, they will sometimes play longer shows with more of their own originals or tasty cover choices. On some dates, the Mule will serve as the opening act for Jason Bonham’s Led Zeppelin Evening, and on selected dates, they will be taking part in the Willie Nelson package tour known as The Outlaw Music Fest.
The Mule first performed DSotM in full, along with other deep Floyd tracks as a surprise Halloween set in 2008. In time, this blues-heavy performance was released as a live album, naturally titled Dark Side of the Mule. And a deluxe edition of the album included additional Mule songs from the same three-hour performance. Since that time, Haynes and the band have performed the full Moon set on occasional dates. “This all started so organically with what we thought would be a one-time Halloween performance,” Haynes remarked in a press release this year. "Since then, Dark Sideof the Mule has grown into something else. It’s a blast to perform this material but our intent is to do it for one final tour in celebration of the 50th anniversary of Dark Side.”
It must be noted that longtime Mule bassist Jorgen Carlsson, who has been a staple of the Mule’s sound since 2008, announced his departure from the band in early June, just prior to the band’s first summer dates. So taking on the bass duties temporarily for the summer tour will be Kevin Scott, a friend of the band known for his work with John McLaughlin and Bruce Hampton.
The Mule have been breaking out songs from Peace. . .Like a River at their shows over the last year, a few at a time. Among those in heavy rotation are “Same As It Ever Was”, “Made My Peace”, After the Storm” and “Dreaming Out Loud”. And, there are always the numerous songs from the band’s own deep catalog and brilliant cover picks, from Neil Young to Jeff Beck. They always seem to deliver the goods, and yet they’ll leave you wanting more.
After the Dark Side of the Mule tour wraps up, Gov’t Mule will continue with more dates in Europe and North America, as listed below. Special dates are marked as follows:
** Opening for Jason Bonham’s Led Zeppelin Evening
++ Outlaw Music Fest, with Willie Nelson & Family Headlining, also Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats, Kathleen Edwards, Particle Kid.
Summer and Early Fall 2023 Dates
July 22, 2023 – Hard Rock Live at Etess Arena – Atlantic City, NJ**
July 23, 2023 – Great South Bay Music Festival – Patchogue, NY**
July 25, 2023 – Stage AE – Pittsburgh, PA
July 26, 2023 – KEMBA Live! – Columbus, OH
July 28, 2023 – Saratoga Performing Arts Center – Saratoga Springs, NY
July 29, 2023 – Bethel Woods Center For the Arts – Bethel, NY++
July 30, 2023 – Darien Lake Amphitheater – Darien Center, NY++
August 2, 2023 – Pine Knob Music Theatre – Clarkston, MI**
August 3, 2023 – Ruoff Music Center – Noblesville, IN**
August 4, 2023 – Credit Union 1 Amphitheatre – Tinley Park, IL**
August 5, 2023 – Stir Concert Cove - Harrah's Council Bluffs Council Bluffs, IA**
August 7, 2023 – Red Rocks Amphitheatre – Morrison, CO**
August 9, 2023 – Dos Equis Pavilion – Dallas, TX**
August 11, 2023 – PNC Music Pavilion – Charlotte, NC**
August 12, 2023 – Cadence Bank Amphitheatre at Chastain Park – Atlanta, GA**
August 13, 2023 – PNC Pavilion at the Riverbend Music Center (Riverbend Music Center) – Cincinnati, OH++
August 15, 2023 – Hartford HealthCare Amphitheater – Bridgeport, CT**
August 17, 2023 – Bank of NH Pavilion – Gilford, NH**
August 18, 2023 – Leader Bank Pavilion – Boston, MA**
August 19, 2023 – PNC Bank Arts Center – Holmdel, NJ**
August 20, 2023 – Wolf Trap – Vienna, VA**
September 13, 2023 – Massey Hall – Toronto, ON, w/ Very Special Guests Big Sugar
September 14, 2023 – CityFolk Festival – Ottawa, ON
September 16, 2023 – Harvest Music Festival – Fredericton, Canada
September 17, 2023 – MTELUS – Montreal, QC, w/ Very Special Guests Big Sugar
September 19, 2023 – State Theatre – Portland, ME
September 20, 2023 – The F.M Kirby Center for the Performing Arts – Wilkes-Barre, PA
September 22, 2023 – Healing Appalachia – Lewisburg, WV
September 23, 2023 – Clay Center – Charleston, WV
September 26, 2023 – The Forum Auditorium – Harrisburg, PA
September 28, 2023 – Warner Theater – Erie, PA
September 30, 2023 – Koka Booth Amphitheatre – Cary, NC
October 1, 2023 – Firefly Distillery – North Charleston, SC
October 3-4, 2023 – Greenfield Lake Amphitheater – Wilmington, NC
October 10, 2023 – Shreveport Municipal Auditorium – Shreveport, LA
October 11, 2023 – Raising Cane's River Center Arena – Baton Rouge, LA
October 13, 2023 – Barbara B. Mann Performing Arts Hall – Fort Myers, FL
October 15, 2023 – RushSouth Fest – Columbus, GA
European Dates, Fall 2023
November 6, 2023 – The London Palladium – London, England, UK
November 8, 2023 – Alte Kongresshalle – Munich, Germany
November 9, 2023 – Globe Wien – Vienna, Austria
November 11, 2023 – Le Trianon – Paris, France
November 12, 2023 – De Oosterpoort – Groningen, GR
November 14, 2023 – TivoliVredenburg Grote Zaal – Utrecht, Netherlands
November 15, 2023 – Hugenottenhalle – Neu-Isenburg, Germany
November 17, 2023 – Cirque Royal – Brussels, Belgium
November 19, 2023 – Teatro Celebrazioni – Bologna, Italy
November 20, 2023 – Teatro Dal Verme – Milan, Lombardy, Italy
November 21, 2023 – Politeama Rossetti – Trieste, Italy
U.S. Dates, Winter 2023
December 29, 2023 – The Met – Philadelphia, PA # ALL PREVIOUSLY PURCHASED TICKETS WILL BE HONORED
December 30, 2023 – Beacon Theatre – New York, NY # ALL PREVIOUSLY PURCHASED TICKETS WILL BE HONORED
December 31, 2023 – Beacon Theatre – New York, NY # ALL PREVIOUSLY PURCHASED TICKETS WILL BE HONORED
On July 26, at the popular all-seasons concert venue KEMBA Live!, in Columbus, Ohio, waves parted, and classic guitars and keyboards came out to play in the hands of Warren Haynes and Gov’t Mule. The Mule had recently kicked off their Pink Floyd-heavy tour called Dark Side of the Mule, and this was one of those generous, nearly three-hour shows where Haynes and the team front-loaded the audience with a whole lotta Mule in the first hour, and then, truly, went deep diving through the Floydian universe in an extended second set. (For festival slots and some stand-alone dates, the band plays shortened or alternate sets, so this was the full tsunami, all right.)
On one hand, Gov’t Mule – a band that began in 1994 as a side project for then-Allman Brothers’ band guitarist Warren Haynes and bassist bandmate Allen Woody – is not one of those seemingly countless tribute bands who eat, breathe and, umm, reproduce Pink Floyd music note-for-note for insatiable PF fans, year after year. And on the other, the Mule’s members are no strangers to the deeper roots of Floyd’s music, in large part because blues is a common musical currency to both Floyd guitarist David Gilmour – a major architect of Pink Floyd’s blues-infused foundations and atmospheres – and to Haynes and his trusty stallmates.
So when the Mule have done Floyd-filled shows in the past, such as their surprise initial Dark Side of the Mule Halloween show in 2008 and periodic follow-up DSotM nights, they have approached that music with a keen reverence but also a willingness to bring plenty of their own shadow and light to it. And now, with this year being the 50th anniversary of the landmark PF album, Haynes and Co. decided that it was an ideal time to visit the Dark Side for one last dedicated tour.
With the early-evening sun still out for an hour or so as the show began on the hybrid indoor/outdoor venue’s summer stage, the band broke out of the gate with a bluesy, stomping pace that included such Mule staples as “Bad Little Doggie”, “Blind Man in the Dark” and “Beautifully Broken”. Early on, Haynes and newly-joining bassist Ken Scott jumped into the set with their vintage, angular-shaped Gibson Firebird and Thunderbird guitars respectively. And then, they swapped those to try on a Les Paul and other axes for different chops and feels in later songs.
Seemingly fully warmed up by four songs in, the band tore into a blistering version of “Sco-Mule,” from the Mule’s 2011 tribute album nod to long-departed bandmate Woody called The Deep End. Guest saxophonist Ron Holloway – who would return several times throughout the night – came out to shine for the first time on this full-tilt, Latinesque fusion jam, first performed by the Mule in 1999 with jazz-guitar virtuoso John Scofield. And longtime GM drummer Matt Abts played like a man possessed, with many quick fills and counterpoints to the quick-cut, call-and-response interplay that went around the stage. And this is not at all to overlook the heavy Hammond organ groove and percussive Hohner clavinet fills of keyboardist Danny Louis. But the chunkiest part of the set hadn’t even come yet, and that was with the rollout of several heady new songs from the Mule’s 2023 album, Peace. . .Like a River.
It was at the mid-point of the opening set and while the band took a quick, collective deep breath that Haynes chatted up the audience for a minute: “So,” he asked playfully, “do you wanna hear some new songs?” Before the audience could even with eager applause, he immediately answered his own question with a shrug and a laugh. “We’re gonna play some new songs for you. Heh – you can hear the old stuff any time.”
It was a hefty chunk of three new songs (plus one new-ish piece for the set finale), leading with the 9-minute-plus “Made My Peace.” Notably, this a slow-cooking, near-art-rock epic, which on the album combines deep South blues with a snatch of a Soundgarden progression and swelling, Beatlesque choruses and bridges. On the studio recording, they even employed orchestral backing. However, the band did not bring the orchestra with them or use recorded drop-ins on this. Instead, they delivered the chromatic power strokes in the song’s midsection on the strength of the stage musicians alone.
An almost story-like piece that relates the regrets and turning points on life’s journey, “Made My Peace” gave Haynes a wide musical canvas. And he took full advantage of it, filling it with his florid George Harrison-style slide guitar melody in the mid-section and dramatic, heart-on-his-sleeve vocals. Main keyboardist Louis also asserted himself, too, on the latter half of this with an extended honky-tonk piano section. And, notably, there was also a fifth member on stage – keyboardist/guitarist/vocalist Jackie Greene, known for his work with Bob Weir and Phil Lesh, among others – who lent more weight to this made-for-the-stage arrangement of the song.
Darker, and grittier blues-pop rock – more of a Mule-ish variety – followed with two songs from the new River album titled “Peace I Need” and “After the Storm”. Quickly approaching the top of the hour, the band figuratively ‘released the Kraken’, performing the set-closing title song of their relatively-recent, 2017 album, Revolution Come, Revolution Go. This deeply groovy, multi-part, funk-soul-rock fusion finale opened with a percolating bass figure by Scott, with the rest of the band quickly piling in on top of him for another raucous jam showcase.
There were clear shifts and modulations between each section of “Revolution”, and then the band brought it all back home in a return to the main theme. Scott’s kinetic and rubbery bass fills ricocheted around drummer Matt Abts’ hermetically-tight rhythm pockets, especially in a high-speed, syncopated center section. It all went down a storm with the audience, too. You gotta admit, these guys – from start to finish – really know how to work a crowd!
As the clock neared the witching hour of 9 o’clock and dusk settled in like a charcoal veil, the band took a quick, 20-minute break (It was reasonable to guess it might be longer.) and a cheesy-orange half moon drifted into its high point in the sky. The air was thick with humidity (plus a bit of that old skunk) and scrambled-egg clouds blew past that lonesome half-face which had to work a little harder to shine through the still-hazy sky. (There had been pop-up storms in the region throughout the day, but conditions held for an uneventful weather night at the show.) And with an estimated return at 9:30, the band surprised everyone and started up again in earnest with a fully darkened stage at 9:15 p.m.. It was time for the Main Event.
At that moment, there was no heartbeat, no cash registers, no muttering voices – nothing that hinted the slightest at Dark Side of the Moon. (In time, but not yet.). Not exactly a curve ball, but Haynes emerged on stage by himself and, under a solo pink spotlight and with a rear-projection image of clouds in a blue sky, he began a plaintive rendition of the Roger Waters-penned song from PF’s 1977 Animals album, “Pigs on the Wing, Part 1”.
This time, in order to do his best David Gilmour impression, Haynes was wielding a solid black Fender Stratocaster with a blonde maple neck, a longtime Gilmour trademark. The available tonal options of this three-pickup guitar, however, were exactly what the Floyd material requires. Band members – and supplemental musicians Holloway and Greene, and backing vocalists Machan Taylor and Sophia Ramos – then joined him as stage lighting remained artfully subdued and more abstract patterns emerged on the circular center screen.
Including the first half of “Shine On You Crazy Diamond’, “Have a Cigar” and “Welcome to the Machine” – all from Pink Floyd’s 1975 album, Wish You Were Here, this opening song block was effectively the first half of that album. And, as is customary for the song, drummer Abts delivered his patented snarky lyrical variation on the infamous question embedded in “Cigar” when as lead vocalist he sang, “Oh, by the way. . .which one’s the Mule?” Cheers and laughter rippled through the audience, obviously making that another crowd-pleasing moment.
Darken the stage again. Now cue the sound effects, and ready the musicians. Finally, the moment had arrived for the timeless pulse of that trademark Dark Side heartbeat to make its throbbing entrance. And just like that, without skipping a beat, the band seamlessly took the audience deeper into the mysteries of Pink Floyd’s timeless 1973 masterpiece and beyond. To say the least, they admirably ended up doing things with the Dark Side songs that the Floyd themselves never leaned into. But for a longtime, 50-plus-year Floyd fan like me, these tweaks were not sacrilegious showstoppers but actually a welcome, mind-refreshing change of pace.
Much like the Floyd in days of yore, the performance of the Dark Side songs was a highly visual experience, although the GM team wisely avoided the literal film interpretations of lyrics that so many PF cover bands attempt to replicate faithfully. Instead, they showed much more imagination in uses of lighting color and abstract images, as well as generous use of lasers and Vari-Lite beam patterns. Many of these effects – especially the multiple arrays of colored and animated lasers –were much more vivid toward the back of the venue. But, wherever you were, they had the pleasant effect of keeping you dialed into the musical dynamics , not distracting you as it can so often happen with films.
There were many standout moments in the musical performance of the deeper Floyd material, which included that first half of Wish You Were Here, the majority of songs from Dark Side (not the full album from end to end, though) and a generous chunk of the Floyd’s 1971 album, Meddle. For example, guest saxophonist Ron Holloway stepped into the spotlight on several of the WYWH and DSotM songs that make heavy use of sax. Quite a bit brighter and more joyful sounding than than the earthier style of original PF saxman Dick Parry, Holloway’s use of a hiccupping, octave-jumping style brought more of a Mel Collins flavor to the Floyd material. (Longtime session player Collins had also worked on Floyd solo projects and tours, and his sound and style were notably different from existing recordings.)
However, Holloway’s standout moment for me was his outro solo on the hushabye coda of “Echoes, Part 2”, a performance that was deeply spiritual and brought the second set to a masterful conclusion. (Full disclosure: Meddle is my #1 ‘desert island’ disc, and my final wish is to have “Echoes” played at my funeral service. So maybe I’m just the slightest bit biased and more easily swayed? I’ll have more to say about this later.)
As with nearly every Pink Floyd-themed band, having female backing singers helps to sweeten the heavy gloom and regret inherent in many of the lyrics of PF songwriter Roger Waters. Sometimes, in other PF-based shows, there are as many as three singers in the backline, but the Mule did nicely with just two, thank you very much. Vocalists Machan Taylor and Sophia Ramos provided that much-needed, spiritually uplifting harmony on a number of songs. But then, for that most singular, wordless song of ecstasy in the Floyd’s history, “The Great Gig in the Sky”, the duo shared the spotlight, taking turns and blending their voices for a stirring rendition of this always cathartic piece.
In addition, Danny Louis performed the deeply Gospel-inspired piano progression written by the late Floyd keyboardist Rick Wright with a fittingly detailed grace. He even added a bit of exploratory jazz comping at the beginning that was reminiscent of the intro to The Who’s “Love Reign O’er Me”. Although the band did not acknowledge it at the time, it was personally poignant for me knowing that the performance was within two days of the birthday of the former Floyd member. (Note: Wright, who passed away in 2008, would have turned 80 on July 28. I thought hearing his composition interpreted so well was a memorable way to celebrate this special anniversary.)
As a longtime follower of all things Floyd, this writer must admit to having a level of knowledge about PF that some might consider to be bordering on unhealthy. And so, for me, Dark Side doesn’t necessarily hold quite the same level of musical magic as it once did. (Oversaturated with it after all these years, I’m afraid, even though its mysteries still vibrate in my imagination independent of the music like a mirage.) But what I heard from Gov’t Mule was a deep musical insight of the album’s distinct blues DNA and its deeply universal lyrical themes, plus a sensitivity to the intertwining aspects of jazz, classical and techno/electronica.
A common misconception is that Dark Side was a ‘space-rock’ album, when it never really was. Truly, it did grow out of PF’s early infatuation with psychedelia as the band moved toward a more mainstream sound in the early 1970s. And, in reality, it was a heavily psychological album, concerned with the inner spaces of the mind and soul. With that in mind, I’d say that the Mule did not attempt to exaggerate the latent psychedelia of the DSotM songs, but also did not overplay the drama, rush through the changes or airbrush the finer details. But they also didn’t always color inside the lines, either. There was recognition of the spaces between instruments and a full but uncluttered sound that helped the textures to stand out and the emotional content of the songs to reach the listeners’ deeper feelings.
There were even extended ambient moments between some of the songs that allowed listeners to stop and absorb the weight and energy of what they had just heard. Being an early Floyd adopter as I am, I found great delight in hearing the Mule play these songs in such a simple, direct and emotional manner, closer in spirit to Floyd’s original, pre-1973 live arrangements than its highly polished and – to me – overexposed official version.
Without being an intentional spoiler, a really big clue for you, the reader, is that the Mule impressed me the most by using Dark Side to take the audience somewhere else in Floydian time rather than treating it as the destination of the show. Near the end of the evening, there was an incredible ambient transition between Dark Side’s “Any Colour You Like” jam and the windy wilds of Meddle’s “One of These Days”.
The instruments descended into a swirling vortex of sound during a fade down in the middle of “Colour”, and it almost sounded as if a troublesome storm had finally arrived and would force the musicians and the audiences to run for cover. Except, of course, it didn’t feel that windy out on the lawn! It was just the amped-up howls of wind that set the stage for the first track on Meddle, and if you know that track at all, then you know what I’m talking about.
For a guy like me who discovered the Floyd in the late 1960s and being able to see my first PF shows in the 1971 and 1972 time period when Meddle first came out, these kinds of transitions confirmed for me that the Mule were right on the money with everything that followed from this moment. In fact, even though the encore ended somewhat predictably with a roaring “Comfortably Numb” from The Wall and the subdued country-blues title ballad from Wish You Were Here, Meddle seemed to be the Mule’s true-north destination for the night, and that was all right with me!
For example, although Haynes did not play a lap steel for the buzz-saw guitar lead in “Days”, he again employed his feel for the in-your-face blues slide attack that Gilmour first brought to the song. And bassist Scott rocked the deep-echo on his delay unit with the rhythmic slap-bass groove that drives the main rhythm of the galloping instrumental. This was probably the most unapologetically psychedelic moment of the night, as the Mule went deep into abstract hyperspace in the always trippy mid-section, full of whooshing synths, gusts of wind, echoed cymbal crescendoes, and squalls of bass-and-guitar chaos. And, of course, they also used a heavily-signal-processed voice to announce the ominous title phrase, One of these days, I’m going to cut you into little pieces. . ., as the band came thundering back in unison with the backbeat.
My admiration continued with a well-placed choice of Meddle’s eclectro-acoustic, folk-blues anthem to self-esteem titled “Fearless”. Actually, a song that the Floyd themselves neglected to play live, it had seen some latter-day airings by song author Roger Waters in the recent 2000s and regular inclusions in the sets of PF drummer Nick Mason’s 2019 and 2022 solo tours. But the Mule have been playing it regularly in their Floyd-based shows ever since 2008, and it has the comfortable, deep-in-pocket feeling that conveys joy, confidence and love for the source material. For those who know the song, it was also a great audience participation moment for sing-along.
Having been imprinted with “Echoes” as I was all those years ago, I was a drop-dead target for the Mule’s surprise inclusion of that song’s triumphant second half as the set closer. The ten-minute-plus climax actually began slowly, rising out of the extended ending of “Fearless”, which included a playback of the famous football-audience singing of the Rodgers and Hammerstein song “You’ll Never Walk Alone”, just as PF had used on the original Meddle version of the song. That in itself felt heroic, as it inspired some in the audience again to sing along with it.
An amorphous, echo-ey interval full of roaring, oceanic white noise followed “Fearless”, and Haynes and the two keyboardists started layering the arpeggiating patterns that build toward the climax right before the final verse and chorus of the song. And then after a sweetly-sung final lyrical section over Leslie electric piano, the band broke all the rules, playing the song’s grand instrumental theme, with crackling lead guitar, over a generously repeated stanzas. When the song finally surrendered to the quieter, floating end passage, Ron Holloway – taking the place of the original’s piano and tape-looped choral conclusion – wrapped it all up with an achingly beautiful saxophone solo that brought the entire evening to a soulful, sensitive mood of closure. Truly, it was the element of surprise combined with musical finesse and a supreme command of flow that made it a moment for old Floyd fans like me to cherish. And as I drove back down the interstate to Cincinnati that night, with that cheesy half-moon tilting downward in the sky ahead of me, I could still hear that ocean’s roar in my head.
Summer and Early Fall 2023 Dates
** With Jason Bonham’s Led Zeppelin Evening
++ Outlaw Music Fest, with Willie Nelson & Family Headlining, also Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats, Kathleen Edwards, Particle Kid.
August 3, 2023 – Ruoff Music Center – Noblesville, IN**
August 4, 2023 – Credit Union 1 Amphitheatre – Tinley Park, IL**
August 5, 2023 – Stir Concert Cove - Harrah's Council Bluffs Council Bluffs, IA**
August 7, 2023 – Red Rocks Amphitheatre – Morrison, CO**
August 9, 2023 – Dos Equis Pavilion – Dallas, TX**
August 11, 2023 – PNC Music Pavilion – Charlotte, NC**
August 12, 2023 – Cadence Bank Amphitheatre at Chastain Park – Atlanta, GA**
August 13, 2023 – PNC Pavilion at the Riverbend Music Center (Riverbend Music Center) – Cincinnati, OH ++
August 15, 2023 – Hartford HealthCare Amphitheater – Bridgeport, CT**
August 17, 2023 – Bank of NH Pavilion – Gilford, NH**
August 18, 2023 – Leader Bank Pavilion – Boston, MA**
August 19, 2023 – PNC Bank Arts Center – Holmdel, NJ**
August 20, 2023 – Wolf Trap – Vienna, VA**
September 13, 2023 – Massey Hall – Toronto, ON, w/ Very Special Guests Big Sugar
September 14, 2023 – CityFolk Festival – Ottawa, ON
September 16, 2023 – Harvest Music Festival – Fredericton, Canada
September 17, 2023 – MTELUS – Montreal, QC, w/ Very Special Guests Big Sugar
September 19, 2023 – State Theatre – Portland, ME
September 20, 2023 – The F.M Kirby Center for the Performing Arts – Wilkes-Barre, PA
September 22, 2023 – Healing Appalachia – Lewisburg, WV
September 23, 2023 – Clay Center – Charleston, WV
September 26, 2023 – The Forum Auditorium – Harrisburg, PA
September 28, 2023 – Warner Theater – Erie, PA
September 30, 2023 – Koka Booth Amphitheatre – Cary, NC
October 1, 2023 – Firefly Distillery – North Charleston, SC
October 3-4, 2023 – Greenfield Lake Amphitheater – Wilmington, NC
October 10, 2023 – Shreveport Municipal Auditorium – Shreveport, LA
October 11, 2023 – Raising Cane's River Center Arena – Baton Rouge, LA
October 13, 2023 – Barbara B. Mann Performing Arts Hall – Fort Myers, FL
October 15, 2023 – RushSouth Fest – Columbus, GA
European Dates, Fall 2023
November 6, 2023 – The London Palladium – London, England, UK
November 8, 2023 – Alte Kongresshalle – Munich, Germany
November 9, 2023 – Globe Wien – Vienna, Austria
November 11, 2023 – Le Trianon – Paris, France
November 12, 2023 – De Oosterpoort – Groningen, GR
November 14, 2023 – TivoliVredenburg Grote Zaal – Utrecht, Netherlands
November 15, 2023 – Hugenottenhalle – Neu-Isenburg, Germany
November 17, 2023 – Cirque Royal – Brussels, Belgium
November 19, 2023 – Teatro Celebrazioni – Bologna, Italy
November 20, 2023 – Teatro Dal Verme – Milan, Lombardy, Italy
November 21, 2023 – Politeama Rossetti – Trieste, Italy
U.S. Dates, Winter 2023
December 29, 2023 – The Met – Philadelphia, PA # ALL PREVIOUSLY PURCHASED TICKETS WILL BE HONORED
December 30, 2023 – Beacon Theatre – New York, NY # ALL PREVIOUSLY PURCHASED TICKETS WILL BE HONORED
December 31, 2023 – Beacon Theatre – New York, NY # ALL PREVIOUSLY PURCHASED TICKETS WILL BE HONORED
When I was back there in ‘seminary school’ in the late ‘60s – actually a third-rate parochial school in Cincinnati but definitely the same kind of spineless swine and cemented minds running the joint, I began seeking my mental oasis in the psychedelic and progressive rock of ‘underground’ FM radio. (My lifelong fascination, as readers of my regular features here know by now.) But for starters, when I was still an ‘uninitiated’ 8th grader in 1968, AM radio was all I knew at first. We all had to start somewhere.
Amid the steady stream of the early ‘psychedelic’ bands of Top 40 radio in the 1967-68 period – think Jimi, Cream, Doors and Steppenwolf – The Moody Blues had an enticingly different sound. My gateway Moody's song was the single “Tuesday Afternoon” – from the band’s groundbreaking 1967 concept album, Days of Future Passed. And for me, this magical single – all 2:16 minutes of it! – had a different kind of psychedelic hook: It was acoustic-based, with quasi-trippy lyrics, plaintive lead vocals and harmonies, and orchestral textures, courtesy of that mysterious tape-playback instrument, the Mellotron! To say the least, I didn’t know it at that time – or even what a ‘concept album’ was, but I was already ripe for a band like The Moody Blues. For me, they arrived right on time!
From the vantage point of nearly 60 years on – a lifetime, in fact – Days of Future Passed stands as a turning point in rock music history. Combining an orchestra with a rock group throughout the album, having Mellotron as a full band instrument, flute, cello, and key moments of poetic recitations – the finished piece may very well have been the ‘starting gun’ for what soon turned into the prog rock race of the late ’60s and early ‘70s. Unless, of course, you started your race with The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Or if you didn’t fall into prog and concept albums yourself until a bit later with Procol Harum, The Nice, Pink Floyd or Yes.
Now, in 2023, the Moodies’ bassist/vocalist/songwriter John Lodge – proudly wearing his prog credentials on his sleeve – has returned to his band’s early masterpiece with an emotionally stunning, updated version for the new century, titled Days of Future Passed – My Sojourn.
In a recent phone conversation with Grateful Web, Lodge explained that the musical concept behind the original Days album – blending classical-style music with pop-rock songs – did not originate with the band’s members. The group, which formed in 1964, had had a change of line-up between its five-man debut album in 1965 and their next album in 1967. Newcomers Lodge and guitarist/vocalist Justin Hayward had joined in 1966, but the band needed time to sort things out for themselves. Still going through a commercial and financial trough at the time, the five-member band were eager to do anything that might help them break through into the pop mainstream. Little did they know, a big opportunity was just around the next corner.
“I don’t know why they chose us!” Lodge said, laughing about the unlikeliness of the Moodies getting this obviously prestigious assignment. “Actually, we thought perhaps it was because we were the cheapest band under contract with the label!”
As he told it, Decca Records – also once the home of The Rolling Stones – was launching a new specialty label in 1967 titled Deram Records. As the story goes, the company wanted to have a special release with that unique classical-pop hybrid, he explained, as a way to demonstrate their new stereo imaging technology. The company even gave its recording innovation a special name – Deramatics, which, if you think about it, almost sounds like a band name in itself. But the Moodies held on to their name, in any case, and – over their 50-plus-year career – went on to sell more than 70 million albums worldwide.
At first, the company’s brainstorm was to have the Moodies do a pop adaptation of an Antonín Dvořák symphony, but the band held out for having their own songs recorded with orchestral atmospheres and intervals. And the narrative concept was theirs, too – a day in the life of the average person, set to music.
In the long view of musical history, DoFP is not merely notable alone for that hit song, “Tuesday Afternoon” or for making the concept record more of a must-have household object. It actually became more renowned for its timeless song of love and loss, “Nights in White Satin”, which was actually the first single from Days, in late 1967. With its sweeping, orchestral passages, and its spoken-word companion piece titled “Late Lament” – penned by drummer Graeme Edge and then recited by keyboardist Mike Pinder – it became more of an in-demand FM radio song.
As more people learned of the atypical rock track, it began to drive increased sales of the album. Then “Nights” was re-released as a single in 1972 and scored a much wider audience the second time around. It has featured prominently as a finale or encore in most of the Moodies’ live performances, especially those in tandem with live orchestras in the band’s latter years. Their special 1992 recorded performance with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra, Live at Red Rocks, turned that song, most of all, into a must-hear production for the ages.
Which brings us back to the present day, a time in which the Moody Blues exist as a band mostly in memory and recordings, though some surviving members are still musically creative. (The members last performed as a band in 2018, at their long-petitioned induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Also, former vocalist/flautist Ray Thomas passed away in January 2018, at age 76. And drummer Graeme Edge left us more recently, in late 2021, at age 80. Lodge himself is now 78.)
The time, indeed, seems right for this music to be revisited and reinterpreted for the present day. Lodge brings a well-traveled voice and some notable variations to his own pieces on the album, and special guest vocalist Jon Davison of Yes stands in sweetly on the Justin Hayward vocal moments. So, if you’re like this writer and know the original well, you will hear much that is deeply familiar, yet with newer emotional resonances. And if you lean more into progressive and concept rock than the average music fan but still haven’t discovered this early Moodies’ masterpiece, then Lodge’s lovingly performed new version is an excellent starting point for a new musical adventure.
In the following condensed interview with Grateful Web, long-distance voyager Lodge shared his thoughts on the legacies of the Moody Blues and of the Days of Future Passed, his journey to now and how the idea for My Sojourn came to life.
GW: Great to talk with you, Mr. Lodge. I feel very honored. And may I call you John?
Lodge: Yes, certainly.
GW: Thank you. So I’ve been listening to and enjoying your new version of DoFP. I’ve got a batch of interrelated questions for you about it. Hoping to cover as many as we can in a short time.
Lodge: Of course.
GW: Briefly, some personal history: I was 14 in 1968 when I heard “Tuesday Afternoon” the first time, and soon after that, the full album, Days of Future Passed. And also, the Moodies were the very first arena act I saw, in 1970. It’s so interesting to hear the new version now, from this latter-day point of view. It has that sepia-toned perspective of a life lived, versus anticipation of the future. And Graeme’s [MBs drummer Graeme Edge] voice [on the poetic sections] seems more like ‘Father Time’ than [keyboardist/vocalist] Mike Pinder on the original. That, too, seems more emotional, more perfect to me. How much of this perspective change were you conscious of when you chose to update the album and how much of it is just serendipity?
Lodge: I think the [original album] captured that feeling of the late 1960s, in the world, but it’s also relevant today. That’s why I wanted to go on the road first of all and perform it live [in recent years, with his own band]. And the reaction was so good, I [decided] that I really wanted to make [a new version of] the album. I realized there was this huge leap-frog [of time] from the late ‘60s to now, and – heh – I asked myself, “What’s taken me so long?”
It’s why I called it Days of Future Passed – My Sojourn. I’m the same person, I’m the same me. And it’s the same Graeme [on the new recitations]. But we’ve all been living our lives. I wanted to really state that, y’know? So [the new version] does take a look back. Not reminiscing, but saying, “OK, that’s what we did in 1967.” And I recorded it now because the themes [the passage of time] are more timely now, and the lyrics seem to be pertaining to my life. It’s my sojourn. It’s a reflection, I think, of me and the Moody Blues, and of our fans [over time].
GW: No doubt that there’s a lot of shared history between the band and your fans. But also, are you finding that you’ve been attracting a lot of new listeners?
Lodge: Definitely. We’ve been seeing lots of younger people at our shows, which is fantastic. The thing is, it [sounds much different] now, too. When we first recorded DoFP in 1967, we were using only two four-track tape machines, and it was the first [true] stereo album to be released. I realized that with today’s technology, I could – hopefully – create that same kind of vibe [as the original] but with a much greater, more dynamic audio spectrum. All of us – the band, the engineers, and myself – definitely think that we have.
GW: I’ve been listening to the two recordings side by side, to ‘refresh’ my synapses a bit. My perception is that because you now have so much experience as a stage performer, the dynamics [on such songs as “Peak Hour”] have a much greater sense of drama, more of a live rock sound and energy. More bottom end and power chords. So – less pastoral, more arena!
Lodge: I think you’re right. When [the MBs] made the [1981] album Long Distance Voyager, and also the earlier [1972] album Seventh Sojourn, we made those after being on the road for such a long time. I think we brought in a lot of extra energy into the recording. I was hoping to do the same thing with this [new recording of DoFP]. The original Days album was written, rehearsed and recorded in a studio. [After performing it completely live], my intent [with the new recording] was to capture DoFP in a different light.
GW: I’d like to go back in time, just for a moment. You’ve pointed out in other interviews that everyone in the Moodies – including yourself – was inspired and heavily influenced by the rock ’n’ roll pioneers and pop music of the time. Since the record company (Decca/Deram) first came to you with the idea of the orchestral hybrid album, what do you think they saw and heard in the Moodies’ sound that inspired them to offer you that project?
Lodge: Now – heh – you’ve lost me. . . No one has ever asked me that question! I don’t know why they chose us!
GW: Really?
Lodge: I really have no idea what inspired the record company to invite us to work on this. Because, we actually had gone into the studio and made four or five demo recordings, and sent them to the record company. Maybe someone listened to them and thought, “Ahhh, this could work.” But then, they approached us with this idea [to combine classical and pop music], and we said “Yes.” Actually, we thought perhaps it was because we were the cheapest band under contract with the label! Or, perhaps it was something about our sound – four guys singing harmonies, the flute, the Mellotron. We had all the ingredients of being something different, and we were writing all of our own songs at time. It could have all contributed to the company deciding, “Let’s give it to the Moody Blues.”
GW: That’s great! I’ve read that you and the band worked round the clock for a week when recording DoFP. Could you please tell us a bit of what it was like working on the project with that intensity? The give and take with the conductor and the orchestra when you got to that stage, the interactions among yourselves and your producer?
Lodge: Y’know, at the time, studios [followed a format] of three recording sessions a day. Like 10:00 to 1:00, 2:00 to 5:00 and 6:00 ’til 10:00. You used to book your sessions, and when they were over you had to leave the studio or wait for the engineers to come back. We knew that if we wanted to make something different, we wanted 24-hour “lockout” [exclusive usage]. We went to the chairman of the company and said we’d like a “lockout”. And I don’t think they had ever had a request for that before, but, fortunately, they agreed. And it was wonderful, because we were recording a tune a day, and as the evening came we’d relax for a while. Midnight would come and then we’d start again. As the early hours came – 2:00, 3:00, 4:00 in the morning, we realized that was a great time to be constructive and creative. It was great to be able to do that.
GW: Very interesting! So, comparing your new recording to the original project, would you say it took you less time [to record again] because you knew and had lived with the material for so long? Or did you and your band [10,000 Light Years Band] and team have to go back and re-study it and come up to speed on it?
Lodge: We really started from scratch again, really. Obviously, we listened [a lot] to the original album. And we recorded it a lot differently. We recorded some parts and took them to different places, back to home studios, [other cities] and so on. My stage manager has a studio of his own where I recorded all of my vocals, for example. That worked really well. My keyboardist Alan Hewitt is my musical director. He had put all of the basic idea together [from his keyboard parts], and then he’d come to me and I’d put my bass parts on it. And then we brought in my drummer [Billy Ashbaugh] and we put the drum parts on. Then we’d listen to it, and I’d say, “Ohhh, that’s not right.”, or, “This is great!” Or. . .“Make adjustments.” So that’s how we built the tracks up from the bottom, going backward and forwards. We’d send the files to my cellist [Jason Charboneau] up in Detroit, and he’d work out the orchestrations. Then, we’d send the files to my guitarist [Duffy King], also in Detroit. And then it would all come back to me. I’d listen to it all and say “Yes,” or “No.” It took about a year with us changing things to get it all right. Then, I absolutely loved it, to be honest. In fact, if I didn’t absolutely love it, I wouldn’t have released it. I think it stands up completely on its own.
GW: Because you worked so quickly back in 1967, it seems that you maybe already had all of your pieces written. Was that the case or did you do any composition or completion of structures in the studio, because you had all that time?
Lodge: We did do a bit of writing in the studio, but a large part was already written and rehearsed. The first time we recorded “Nights in White Satin” was for BBC Radio in England. But we rehearsed all of the [lyrical] songs before we recorded them. And, when we were recording, we’d make adjustments. It was a great time [with all the teamwork]. We’d listen to something the day after we recorded it and just by [letting it sit overnight], we’d hear it again and think, “Umm, we should change that. I’ve got a better idea for that.”
At that time, because we were only in the studio for a week, we were always fine-tuning. But, of course, there were also limitations. We were only using four-track machines, and you had to commit yourself to the part. Once committed, it was there forever. You’d take [one group of two-track mixes and combine on the second machine, and so on]. And we’d keep combining them. It was quite a complicated process!
GW: There are other bands who had worked with orchestras early in their careers and had mixed results, because orchestras then weren’t used to rock musicians and the bands didn’t necessarily have technical skills of working with conductors orchestras. But the Moodies' end product seemed fairly seamless, even with some synching problems that are now eliminated [in remixed versions]. Major musical themes [melodies from the lyrical songs] are alluded to in the early musical motifs and woven through the piece. Did any of the MB band members have classical training esp. in musical notation, or did the band have an arranger helping to translate their songs to the orchestra?
Lodge: We were very fortunate. We met a guy named Peter Knight. He came to see us at a pub in London and heard what we were doing. We talked and he said he knew what we should be doing. When we were recording, we’d [give him] our rough mixes that night, and then he’d adapt the orchestrations or re-arrange something to what we had recorded the day before. He was a fantastic guy. He worked well with us and our producer, Tony Clarke. [Knight] was so good that Justin and I used him again on our Blue Jays album. (A 1975 Hayward-Lodge duo album during the MB’s early ‘70s hiatus.)
GW: Could you talk about when and how you first conceived of doing this new version, and did you talk about it with Graeme right away? Or was that only after you worked with it and got it pretty solid?
Lodge: Just after the Covid period, I had recorded and released a couple of singles [with the 10,000 Light Years Band], and I started thinking about what I wanted to do on the road, y’know. I thought it would be good to actually do DoFP, and I started thinking about [how to do it].
I got in touch with my keyboard guy Alan [Hewitt] and asked him about it. He said we could do the music easily. “No problem,” he said. But he also said we’d need a “defining moment,” something that [would be a focal point] to build the [stage] show around. So [in later 2021] I went to see Graeme [to explore the idea]. Y’know, he and I first met when he was 16 and he was playing with another band. I used to see him every Saturday afternoon. It was strange that four years later we started working together. And we lived our lives together. All that time.
So I visited him and said, “Graeme, I’m thinking about doing DoFP on stage. What do you think? I really would like you to record your poetry, so you’ll always have a place on stage with me.” And he said, “John, I’d love to. Keep the Moody Blues’ music alive!” And I said, “OK!” So, once I got Graeme to say “Yes,” I knew I was on the right track, because Graeme had never recorded his poetry before [previous recitations of his poetic pieces on record were done by MB keyboardist Mike Pinder]. And it’s such a piece of rock ’n’ roll history, though. But I told him, “Graeme – Not only am I going to record you, I’m going to film you, so you’ll always be on stage with me!”
Unfortunately, I was only with him just a few days before he passed away [November 2021], so he never saw himself on stage. But his family did, and I’m really pleased about that. And then, we had Jon Davison [current lead vocalist of Yes] join us once for an encore of “Ride My Seesaw” and asked him afterward if he’d like to be part of [making] this album. And he said he’d love to. So all the parts were in place, and I knew we could really do it. And so we started recording.
GW: Well, I’ve got just a couple more questions, John. I know you perform in different sizes of venues, both theaters and clubs. So what is your band configuration for this tour and how often do you get to play with an orchestra?
Lodge: It’s kinda complicated, especially with the parts where we have to [synch] in Graeme’s parts. We’ve actually done only one show with an orchestra, and that was in Palm Springs. But I’d like to do more shows with an orchestra. My keyboardist Alan [Hewitt] is a master of keyboard technology. I don’t know how he does it. He’s brilliant! And he seems to cover everything that the orchestra would do.
My cellist Jason – his cello is my main instrument in my band – has got a load of foot pedals that [give him many tonal and dynamic options]. So he covers a huge area of the bass frequencies in the orchestra [sounds]. And my guitarist Duffy also uses pedals that emulate many [textures]. I know it sounds strange, but we kind of “tempt the audience” into hearing certain sounds, and they can actually hear the whole sound. They’re not hearing an orchestra, but we [suggest the full effect].
GW: So you’re supplying some of the sounds with MIDI’ed parts but also leaving space in the music for the listener’s imagination to take over and fill in the rest?
Lodge: Yes, and we do it differently on stage, too. On the original DoFP, it was all one go. Everything flowed together. But it’s really important to have gaps between the songs on stage. Alan needs to [switch around] between songs, and the gaps give him a chance to [make those transitions].
GW: What kind of influence do you personally see that the Moody Blues and DoFP had on what became known as progressive rock and the artists who did concept albums?
Lodge: I wouldn’t say that we had that much influence, really. The way I see it, it seems it was more like that was something that was just “in the air” at the time. I really don’t think about it. I enjoyed all these other bands – like Genesis, Yes and King Crimson and hearing what they were doing. I remember [certain ones] had come to us at Threshold [the MBs own label from 1969 to early 2000s], looking into joining our label.
And we used a lot of different technology. We had one of the first Moogs [synthesizer] that took up a whole wall, 6 x 10 feet, and we first used it on “Melancholy Man” [a 1970 song from Question of Balance, before Emerson, Lake and Palmer]. And after the Mellotron, we also used a Chamberlin [another pre-recorded tape playback instrument] and DX7s [later Yamaha electronic keyboards]. We tried everything and if we could use it in our sound, then we’d add it. But we didn’t just use it because it was there.
GW: Your recent 2023 summer North American [solo] tour was very compact, just a couple of weeks. Could you talk about your plans about any more legs in North America or Europe?
Lodge: Yeah. I do want to come back to America, to [the coasts] and the Midwest, too. Everywhere, y’know? I’m so proud of DoFP, I want to share it with everyone. And my band loves playing it. That’s the main thing. I think next spring we’ll be back on the road. Next year in Miami, we’re going to be doing the Flower Power Cruise [March 21-28, 2024, managed by Royal Caribbean Group]. I think the promoters are looking closely at [next steps] with my agent.
GW: I imagine a lot of it would have to do with the availability of your band members who might have other commitments, right?
Lodge: Well, it’s really great, because they’re very committed to what we’re doing. I like to give everyone the long plan. I want to be touring [at least] through March of next year. So they’re going to hold that position open for me.
GW: So, naturally, because I live in Cincinnati, I’m curious whether your plans would include coming here.
Lodge: I’d love to!
GW: That would be great! Really looking forward to hearing DoFP live sometime. Thanks again, John, for squeezing us into your busy schedule and for taking on this project. The dynamics in the new recording are great. It’s a great headphones album!
Lodge: Thank you very much, indeed. I appreciate that.
For more information about John Lodge, the “Days of Future Passed” album and future tour dates, please visit the artist’s website at: https://johnlodge.com.
So check out the crazy musical DNA of this duo: One guy’s a longtime pro surfer from southern California who turned pro guitarist/songwriter in the early 2000s, and the other’s the guitar-playing/songwriting son of a certifiable blues-rock-blues legend also active for more than 20 years. Both have sizable amounts of songwriting and recording experience under their belts and a shared passion for the road. So this year, they’re hell-bent on setting a new world record to perform a show in all 50 U.S. states, inside 50 days! The duo is called Devon Allman and Donavon Frankenreiter, and right now, they are at the mid-point of that whirlwind, 50-date, hoping-to-break-the-Guinness-Record extravaganza that they call the See It All tour. What else would you call it?
Guitarists Allman – son of the late, great blues-rock pioneer Gregg Allman and former member of Honey Tribe – and surfer/singer/songwriter Frankenreiter are the musical kindred spirits behind this tour, which they launched on Aug. 5 with two shows on the same day in Maryland and Pennsylvania. And the big ramble – roughly continuing at the rate of a show per day – will end at the Beachlife Ranch Festival, in Redondo Beach CA, on Sept. 22.
When I saw them at the Madison Theater on Aug. 24, in Covington KY, that night was the gig #21 of the tour, and they had obviously built up a head of steam in the early run of shows. Like a barreling, gas-guzzler with dual exhaust manifolds, their six-piece band came busting out of the garage like a steaming Formula One of Southern rock-and-soul, Latin rhythms, pop and Americana that hummed all night long.
As if their tour theme and goals weren’t obvious enough, the hot-to-rock duo also recently released a six-song EP titled Rollers. Their ten-song, not-quite 90-minute set at the Madison Theater – which was preceded by two excellent warm-up acts, Jackson Stokes and Matt Costa – included five of those six songs, plus a few cherry-picked solo songs from both Allman’s and Frankenreiter’s back catalogues. It was all nicely tricked out with oodles of jams that ebbed and flowed like gnarly, foaming ocean waves.
Notably, no covers – seemingly almost mandatory for all manner of artists these days – were necessary. Instead, the duo confidently wore their oh-so-obvious influences – from the Stones, Hendrix, late ‘60s Fleetwood Mac and California pop, to psychedelic, Latin rock and jazz, R&B, cowboy music and, yes, even the Allman Brothers – on their tattered, uniform-jacket sleeves. In their own image and likeness, they created an infectious, soul-stirring, danceable musical blend. Rollers, indeed!
The band kicked off their set in full stage darkness, with entrance music and nature sounds creating a cloud of sound. This flowed into a flurry of cymbal flourishes and bluesy, warm-up guitar noodling and then – Boom! Like that! – a thunderclap struck as the full band announced their presence just before the lights came up.
This 12-minute opening song – a Frankenreiter original titled “Move By Yourself” – was a smoky, churning Stones-like groove, less disco-like than “Miss You” but still possessing propulsive, two-chord, verse-and-chorus bass line and a steel pulse. And the turnaround chords showed a knack for bluesy transitions. The song came fully loaded with Frankenreiter’s murmuring deep-soul vocals, blistering blues guitar breaks, drum-and-conga interplay and a capstone sax solo from the multi-tasking backing player Jason Gomez. For someone like me who had never heard them live, it was an unforgettable introduction!
The band’s sound mix was excellent, though noticeably loud for such a small venue, which is a repurposed, working-class-neighborhood movie theatre that began as a silent-movie house in 1912. In fact, at times, closer to the end of the night, it seemed as if the musicians and audio techs were letting the sound level go extra hot, as the band hit a raging stride in the second half. Since I don’t wear pro ear plugs at shows (and maybe I should?), I actually plugged my fingers into my ears during “Where Ya Gonna Run To?”, a Lenny Kravitz-inflected rock-blues romp from the Rollers EP they included in the encore. (And, fwiw, I once did the same thing at a Kravitz show about 30 years ago.) But that’s taking nothing away from the performance! In the end, what mattered most to me was that the vocals present and penetrating, not buried under instrumental ooze. Great front-of-house work!
But speaking about that intensity, which was present from the very first song, the band masterfully modulated the music throughout the night, always pushing the beat, going for the peaks but also breaking down and simmering before breaking hot again. For example, after that nuclear opener, the players went immediately into the groovy, wah-wah-filled, Peter Green-flavored jam, “Fired Up”, which made it easy to imagine Carlos Santana or Los Lobos stepping onstage for a surprise cameo. And who knows? Maybe some day they will! I just know that I’d love to be there for it.
On this very same song, a strong whiff of classic, harmonized, Allman Brothers’ twin-guitar leads blew in. (At one point, there was even three-way guitar harmony with guest guitarist Jackson Stokes adding another layer.) Bassist Matt Grundy also broke out with a confident ‘talking’ bass solo that punched in over the polyrhythms of drummer John Lum and conga man Gomez. Obviously, as in this case, the song titles raise certain expectations, but the music delivers the proof: They were undoubtedly firing on all cylinders.
A big part of the band’s magnetically absorbing sound was the alternating of lead vocals from song to song between the two frontmen and the soulful harmonic blending of their voices with backing vocalists. And this use of highly layered vocal arrangements was essential to the dynamics of the band’s sound all night long.
For example, after the two hot-pocket openers and an extended Spaghetti-Western-type guitar instrumental called “Acapulco Gold”, the band slipped into the earthier ballad, “Calling All You Riders”, which is the opening track on the Rollers EP. (“Gold” also comes from that Luther Dickinson-produced recording, serving as the closing track.)
Those with overactive imaginations might see this title and reflexively think that it might just be a thinly-veiled lyrical call-back to a certain Allman Brothers’ song. Maybe so, maybe not. But judging from the spare, Mark Knopfler-flavored acoustic-blues tone and song form, plus Frankenreiter's lower-register, Robbie Robertson-toned lead vocals, it seems more like a shoutout to that old Western ballad “Ghost Riders in the Sky”. The band’s stage backdrop of a coral-pink desert, mesas and blue sky plus this haunting melody blended like dream logic to lock in that latter impression.
With so few songs over 90 minutes and a tendency to run long on the jams, this band might have been at risk of finding the audience losing interest. But, unlike some jammy bands who can get lost in their musical luvin’, that’s not really a problem with these guys. Having six players on the stage – including utility man Gomez on congas and sax – gave each one plenty of stage time to open up and to shine. And they each had a lot to say to each in their constantly morphing musical conversations. The dense grooves overall pulled most of the rather smallish, late-weeknight audience down to the dance pit in front of the stage about the mid-point of the show. The band then fed off that energy, and it was better than all right then. And it was better than all right to begin with!
Not every moment was a burning bush, though. One such change-up was the spooky “Riders” which conjured up those images of tumbleweeds on a lonesome desert highway and moon shadows. And there were other quieter, more slinky moments, too, as in the case of the dreamy, two-chord confection titled “Electric Lady”, which so obviously breaks the old rock ’n’ roll songwriting rule, “Don’t bore us – Get to the chorus”, because there was none.
Although “Lady” never left its two-chord shuffle structure, that floating romantic ditty has such an infectious lilt and spaced harmonies that when you’re in the midst of concert fever and have the benefit of a couple of your favorite liquid lubricants, you might hardly notice the shapelessness of that musical space. But for the recorded version on the Rollers EP, they wisely kept the change-of-pace song to a more concise length of 4:32. No doubt, any longer on the recording and you just might begin to squirm a bit with the repetition. Live, it all went with the flow.
For the main set, Allman and Frankenreiter brought it all home with three killer pieces – a lengthy, revved-up jam, then a solo Devon Allman blues-rock song and another Allman-Frankenreiter song from the Rollers EP. The Allman solo song “Leavin’” put the spotlight on his keening, Gospel-like lead vocals, stacking his peaks against the spiking sax lines from Gomez. And the EP track “See It All” – which nicely doubles as the theme for the tour – served as a rousing finale. On the EP, the song is the second track, but I think it works much better as a rock-out ending to the show rather than being slotted in too soon. So, already knowing the EP tracks from repeated listenings ahead of time, I was happy that they saved it until the end. It was so fitting as an ending, and it struck me at that point that a live recording of this tour – complete with that song – would be just what this band needs to help grab the collars of a wider audience.
Before we close up here, I must share some thoughts on the two short warm-up that I briefly called out before. The first of these was guitarist/singer/songwriter Jackson Stokes, and the second was soundscape guitarist Matt Costa.
Notably, Stokes had the decided privilege of not only getting to open the three-artist line-up but also to take his place in the four-man front line with the headlining band. Stokes helped to keep the rhythm section on the task at hand, with spiky R&B chords and ample wah-wah fills, and also contributed harmonizing guitar lines and squeezed out hot fills of his own. And his vocals on his self-written, feel-good songs were beguiling and expressive.
Interestingly enough, Costa – who is a more idiosyncratic and cinematically-minded player – staked out his own more Americana-themed musical territory, which was still highly compatible with imagery of deep desert canyons and suggestive of psychoactive states of mind. Before one song, which he sang in Spanish, he even told an amusing anecdote that explained its hallucinatory origins. All of this added pleasantly to the fever-dream atmospheres of the mythical West.
Accompanied by drummer/percussionist Corey Gash and using both his lap steel and his electric six-string with his digital looping pedals, Costa built up many layers in a more orchestral wash that felt spiritually uplifting and cleansing. At one point, Costa even joined in on the cymbal rushes with his own pair of padded mallets. This scintillating, transporting moment called to mind the sonic adventures of early Pink Floyd and made me feel as if I were driving on that desert highway at night with a full moon smiling down.
As mentioned before, the Allman-Frankenreiter part of the show barreled to a raucous ending in the second half. And then there was a very enthusiastic two-song encore, leading off with the careening Jimi/Lenny hard-blues rock number “Where Ya Gonna Run To?” The traditional encore stage exit and return just before this song was somewhat more extended than in most concerts, leaving some to wonder whether they really would come back out. But when they did, they tore into “Run” with a ferocious gallop. And then, to send everyone out the door in a buoyant mood, they ended up with a nicely chilled and bouncy “Hey Nineteen” R&B groove, written by Frankenreiter and called “It Don’t Matter to Me”.
California native and avid surfer Frankenreiter supplied much of that sunny, West Coast vibe throughout the night. With plenty of opportunities for call-and-response interaction between the singer and the audience during drop-breaks, that final song acted as a long, slow soul kiss to bring the night of music to a celebratory end. “If it don’t matter to you. . . ,” Frankenreiter sang, smiling and raising his right hand in a salute as the audience cheered every time the band came to a dead stop. “It don’t matter to me!” But to the fully-elevated audience who stayed until the last note was played, Allman and Frankenreiter proved it all night long that, indeed, they play music that matters.
Devon Allman & Donavon Frankenreiter’s 2023 “See It All” Tour
August 30, 2023 – The District – Sioux Falls, SD**
August 31, 2023 – Fargo Theatre – Fargo ND**
September 1, 2023 – Dakota Jazz Club – Minneapolis, MN**
September 2, 2023 – Big Top Chautauqua – Bayfield, WI**
September 3, 2023 – The Arcada Theater – St. Charles, IL++
September 4, 2023 – Old Rock House – St. Louis, MO++
September 5, 2023 – Walton Arts Center – Fayetteville, AR++
September 6, 2023 – House of Blues – New Orleans, LA ++
September 7, 2023 – Haute Spot – Cedar Park, TX++
September 8, 2023 – Tower Theater – Oklahoma City, OK++
September 9, 2023 – Wave – Wichita, KS ++
September 10, 2023 – Center for the Arts – Crested Butte, CO ##
September 11, 2023 – Center for the Arts Jackson Hole, WY ^^
September 12, 2023 – Top Hat – Missoula, MT^^
September 13, 2023 – Spanish Ballroom – Tacoma, WA^^
September 14, 2023 – Williwaw– Anchorage, AK
September 15, 2023 – Aladdin – Portland, OR^^
September 16, 2023 – Sun Valley Museum of Art – Ketchum, ID##
September 17, 2023 – Commonwealth – Salt Lake City, UT^^
September 18, 2023 – Tumbleroot Brewery– Santa Fe, NM^^
September 19, 2023 – Crescent Ballroom – Phoenix, AZ^^
September 20, 2023 – Brooklyn Bowl Las Vegas – Las Vegas, NV^^
September 21, 2023 – The Blue Note – Honolulu, HI
September 22, 2023 – Beachlife Ranch Festival Redondo Beach, CA
For more information about the current tour and the Allman-Frankenreiter "See It All" EP, please visit their website at: https://www.devonanddonavon.com
The classic late-‘60s blues-rock band Humble Pie held their first rehearsal – back in mid-January 1969 – at the family home of their then-newly-recruited, 17-year-old drummer Jerry Shirley. The four shaggy-headed musicians – three of whom had to sneak into the neighborhood and house in disguise, due to their local celebrity – squeezed their amps and Shirley’s small drum kit into his parents’ living room. Very domestic, very humble! But more important, a turning point in rock music history.
“After 15 minutes – doing that first song – we knew we had something great,” the acclaimed veteran rock drummer told Grateful Web in a recent interview. Shirley is in the midst of rolling out a brand-new version of the band – although he does not currently play in it – that he calls Jerry Shirley Presents: Humble Pie Legacy - 50 Years of Smokin’. And the band begins a nine-date North American tour on Sept. 13, in Virginia Beach VA.
“Music from Big Pink [by The Band] had just come out [in mid-1968], and we were all blown away by it,” Shirley recalled to us in our phone interview. “The first song we ran through was a cover arrangement of their song ‘We Can Talk’. First, we played it perfectly with guitars only (no keyboard at that first meeting), through tiny amps, but it sounded huge. And then, they sang just the vocals a cappella. I told my brother that night that I felt like I had just joined the greatest band in the world.”
Shirley – who had played his first gig around age 11 and would later play on projects with such legends as Syd Barrett, John Entwistle and Sammy Hagar – had already been steadily gaining pro experience by the time of that first Pie practice. For example, he had gigged with a handful of local bands, including one that had been signed to Immediate Records called Apostolic Intervention. (That was a short-lived specialty label of former Rolling Stones’ manager, Andrew Loog Oldham. It was also the home of the smash-hit, British, psychedelic pop group Small Faces and soon-to-be future label of Humble Pie. (The Faces' lysergically-flanged pop single “Itchycoo Park” was their 1967 crossover hit in the U.S.) Meanwhile, Shirley was picking up session work with his pro-guitar-pal – Faces’ frontman and future HP bandmate – Steve Marriott. And it was just the beginning of the young drummer getting known and rubbing shoulders with guys like Charlie Watts and Jimi Hendrix around the London scene. To say the least, it was a heady time for a young musician.
The other three long hairs who arrived at the Shirley home were all working pros: First off, there was, of course, then-22-year-old Marriott, guitarist/keyboardist/vocalist for the Faces. That group that had just broken up in the waning days of 1968 and Marriott, who was a musical ‘older brother’ to Shirley, was already chasing his next move. So he pitched his best fastball to the drummer, almost as soon as that break-up had happened.
And then the other two: A 19-year-old guitarist/vocalist of another top UK teen-pop band The Herd by the name of Peter Frampton was one. (In spite of Marriott’s attempts to bring him on board with The Faces, Frampton had not been fated to join that band.) And the oldest of the lot, 28-year-old bassist/vocalist Greg Ridley, from the psych/blues/prog band Spooky Tooth. For sure, it was a case of youthful energy meets experience, and Marriott was the superconductor for it all. But, to borrow the title of Shirley’s 2011 witty autobiography for a moment, the drummer suddenly had The Best Seat in the House.
After that one rehearsal, united as one and in the spirit of tamping down expectations that they might just be the next supergroup (It was the year of big debuts with Led Zeppelin, Yes and Crosby, Still & Nash after all.), the foursome adopted their famously self-effacing name and began woodshedding their songs for the next few months at a local community center. They were quickly signed – thanks to the prior success of those three pro members and Shirley’s own entry-level contract with Intervention – to a new deal with Immediate. The Pie recorded recorded their hard-blues-rock debut album, As Safe As Yesterday Is, for the label by July, and one song not on the original UK album, “Natural Born Bugie”, was tapped as a single. (It was added to the U.S. release of the album as "Natural Born Woman".) That quickly made waves, reaching No.4 on the UK charts. Like an arrow from a bow, HP shot upward and outward from there.
In the Fall of 1969, thanks to some deft booking strategy, the Pie were already fast-tracked to touring in North America. Some dates – such as the November 1969 two-night stand at Cincinnati’s famed underground music venue, Ludlow Garage – had them booked as an opener for The Kinks. They had also quickly released a more acoustic-minded second album – Town and Country – which included some tracks leftover from the Yesterday sessions. Both albums quietly seeped into the American ‘underground’ via FM rock radio and import record shops. But, in the UK market they did much better, with Yesterday reportedly notching a #15 in the NME (New Musical Express) sales ranking.
In short, HP’s star rose quickly, but their north star fell. When Immediate tanked soon after the release of T&C, the Pie were briefly broadsided. But they rebounded nicely, joining A&M Records for their 1970 and 1971 albums Humble Pie and Rock On. Radio play of these albums spurred audience growth in the UK, Europe and North America. So, by Summer 1971, they found themselves being invited to open for Grand Funk Railroad at that celebrated American band’s historic, sold-out, 55,000-plus concert at New York City’s Shea Stadium. (Notably, just the week before, the two bands had also played to an estimated audience of 250,000 at an open-air show in London’s Hyde Park.)
The Pie had also made a big impression in the U.S. market with their frequent shows from 1969 to 1971 at the two concert halls operated by the legendary promoter Bill Graham, the Fillmores East and West, in New York and San Francisco. Earlier in 1971, when they appeared at Fillmore East in May that year, they had the foresight to record those shows. The acclaimed double-LP Performance: Rockin’ the Fillmore, which captured them in top, blistering form (Do “I Don’t Need No Doctor”, “Four Day Creep” and “Hallelujah, [I Love Her So]” ring any bells?) was released that November and immediately broke big for the Pie. (An expanded version of the original double-disc live album was released in 2013, via Omnivore Recordings, as a multi-CD set that captured the entire four-show run from which the original release had been compiled.)
However, just before the Fillmore album was set to come out – and seemingly as they were about to be catapulted into true mainstream stardom, intraband friction had led guitarist Frampton to announce his decision to leave. Two years, and then over and out! But Fillmore still earned HP a Gold Record for 500,000-plus in sales and #21 on the Billboard Top 100.
And the band played on. A new guitarist, Dave “Clem” Clempson – of the proggier band Colosseum – stepped into Frampton’s footprint for a few albums, until the band folded for the first time in 1975. Among these was Clempson’s 1972 Pie debut, Smokin’, an album that brought the band even more commercial success in spite of its darker and snarkier tone. Three more followed, one each in 1973,1974and 1975. But it was a trend of diminishing returns, and then a fade to black.
Some reconciliation had taken place in 1979 and into the early 1980s, with Marriott returning for a time with Shirley and other new members, two new albums, and then a split again. At the heart of those internal problems were reportedly issues of various health emergencies, increased substance abuse, and other misfortunes. Hopes for still another rebirth came in the early ‘90s came with tentative new writing and recording sessions happening between Marriott and former bandmate Frampton in America, in early 1991. This was cut short, however, by Marriott’s reported dissatisfaction with the work in progress.
Then came a stunner: Soon after returning to England, Marriott tragically died in an accidental house fire. Things remained dark for a time, but after acquiring the rights to the band name in 1988, Shirley went on to revive the group with sometime-bassist Ridley for later versions. These included the band roster that recorded the final Pie album, Back on Track, in 2002, with guitarist/vocalist Dave “Bucket” Colwell, also long associated with Bad Company. Frampton also released a box set in 1992 containing two of the new songs he had recorded with Marriott in 1991. All this time, all these struggles and hard turns, and still the spirit and legacy of the Mighty Pie lived on.
While there have been a number of incarnations of Humble Pie across the decades with some 30 members total, clearly – in the rearview mirror – the lifespan of that original, historic line-up was breathtakingly short. So here we are, 50-plus years later, and Jerry Shirley is still – literally – in the business, not as the band’s drummer but as their mentor and guiding light for a completely new line-up that carries on the tradition of Pie’s hard-rocking blues and soul music.
The Humble Pie Legacy: 50 Years of Smokin’ project – which Shirley oversees with his longtime business partner Steve Karas – is very similar to the most recent reformation in 2018. And, as mentioned earlier, within the next week, the newly re-fortified band will be launching a short, nine-date North American tour to reintroduce the Pie’s amazing body of work to a new generation of live audiences.
As he and I discussed in our interview, the now-71-year-old drummer has ongoing physical reasons – complications from hip surgery, to be exact – that limit him from playing drums for any extended length of time. If Shirley were to push it, he explained, it would not be up to his “personal standard.” (He does add that he’s optimistic that could change, in time.) But as the official owner of the Humble Pie trademark and as a believer in the musical magic that he helped to summon all the way back in 1969, he said he is committed to keeping the fiery chemistry of Humble Pie’s music alive and to bringing it to the ears of many new fans. So he has groomed and guided a new, four-man line-up that follows logically from the last recorded line-up of Humble Pie.
Shirley said that since the early 2000s, he has remained close with guitarist/vocalist Colwell, who first joined him and late HP bassist Ridley on the 2002 version of the band. (Ridley passed away in 2003.) So Colwell’s direct involvement paved the way for him to work with Shirley on the 2018 Jerry Shirley’s Humble Pie tour and again on the upcoming tour.
In fact, Shirley has entrusted Colwell with the role of musical director for selecting the band’s members and repertoire as they move forward. And with Shirley’s blessing, Colwell personally has brought in soul/R&B bassist Ivan “Funkboy” Bodley, lead vocalist/guitarist Jim Stapley and drummer Bobby Marks to round out the new line-up and to carry on the band’s legacy. (It’s worth noting here that former guitarist and founding member Peter Frampton has also given this new tour his full approval as well.) And – just maybe – they will even finally earn the original HP line-up their rightful place in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
The following is a condensed transcript of Shirley’s conversation with Grateful Web about the journey of the Pie’s music from the Shirley family’s living room to a theatre near you. He’s hoping fans and newcomers will come out to hear the new HP at one of the clubs or theatres where they’ll be playing in the next three weeks. It will be a chance to find out what all the fuss over Humble Pie – all those years ago – was all about.
GW: It’s great to talk to you. With my history as a Humble Pie fan and some pre-research, I have a good feeling for your mission with this new project. For example, the personnel, the tour dates, etc. We can talk about plenty of other things!
Shirley:Funny you say that, I just found out today – I was doing a bit of research myself. Our very first tour, in 1969 – we were opening or in the middle of a bill with various people. And the very first gig we ever played in Cincinnati was with the Kinks headlining, and Glass Harp (an Ohio regional band featuring guitar phenom Phil Keaggy) were opening. We were in the middle of the bill, there at Ludlow’s Garage. Is it still called that?
GW: Today, its full name is Alive at Ludlow Garage, but everyone here in Cincinnati still just calls it “Ludlow” or “the Garage.”
Shirley:We were still finding our feet then, really. Doing some acoustic stuff [early in the show]. Umm, it was going over OK, but it wasn’t until we had got to the electric part, that we got [a better response]. Y’know, “Hey! They’re pretty good!” Anyway, the band’s looking forward to the new tour and playing there again. It’s coming up pretty soon, I know. (Sept. 23, in Cincinnati.)
GW: The tour is very compact, less than two weeks long. I understand the reasons for that. You need to keep a handle on expenses, make the most of your travel time, etc. I know that Steve [Karas] is pretty on top of all that, and he’s your partner in all this.
Shirley:Yes, he’s been fantastic. Over the years that in this business, I’ve worked with many different managers, agents and publishing people. I know it’s not been an easy thing to put this all together. He’s been a real champion, and – I must say – a really good friend. He’s just been brilliant at his job, can’t speak highly enough about him for his help in getting our [new version of the band] this far. Now, once we get this [first] tour under our belt and people see just how good this line-up is, then it will start to develop its own reputation, I think.
GW: Yes, I’ve been curious about how [this new band] might click with audiences. I know that when you’ve got gigs in small clubs (500-seaters such as Ludlow Garage), you can obviously pull in longtime fans. But for reaching a wider audience, maybe you’d need to get [the band] on some festivals or classic-rock cruises, or maybe an opening slot for another major tour, right?
Shirley:Yeah, we’re hoping so. What would be ideal is that once the word’s out that the band is hot and cooking, and I might possibly regain my playing ability, there might be a chance for me to return to live shows. I can’t be there in the band myself right now, unfortunately, for health reasons, but not to harp on about that. That’s the reality of it. I had the hip replacement surgeries [in the last five years], and I can walk great now. My mobility is back. But playing is difficult, even after 10-15 minutes. Very painful. If I were to push it, I’m afraid it would not be up to my personal standard.
The strange thing is, the shape of the replacement hips didn’t match what Mother Nature gave me. I’ve been playing since I was 9 years old, playing almost non-stop and my body has been through a lot. My own hips had got used to being a certain way. (Note: He suffered injuries in a car accident in 1999, forcing him to drop out of music for a period of time.)
Before the surgery, the reverse was true: I couldn’t walk very well. My mobility was terrible, but I could still sit behind the kit [and play]. Now I can’t, so we came up with this idea of how to continue, to perpetuate this band’s musical legacy [for live audiences]. And why not?
GW: Right – there’s certainly a tradition with certain bands carrying on, as in the case of the Allman Brothers, who continued with Gregg Allman for many years, but with completely new guitarists (Derek Trucks and Warren Haynes filling the shoes of Duane Allman and Dickie Betts.). In fact, they entered a new Renaissance for themselves.
Shirley: Yep, a lot of rock bands have done that.
GW: So, speaking, I noticed youwere only 17 years old when you joined HP, recorded the first album and were touring in America (in 1969). But I’ve seen some interviews with you in which you talked about [being underage on tour] and having to check in with authorities on a regular basis. That had to blow your mind, I think. You were like George Harrison in Germany [with The Beatles], right?
Shirley: Yes, and there’s the case of Steve Winwood – when he was in the Spencer Davis Group – going abroad to Germany. He was a wee kid like me, and they used to hide him in the bass drum case! The thing about touring in America – for me to be legal, y’know – was that I wasn’t even old enough to walk into bars, let alone perform in them. And there was a special compensation that could be allowed through getting a certain type of work visa, which they got for me. But I had to have a guardian, someone who was like my parent on the road, if you like, but it wasn’t my dad. And, in Europe, ironically, the one who had to be my responsible guardian was Steve Marriott!
GW: Heh! That’s hilarious!
Shirley: Talk about the lunatics running the asylum!
GW: Absolutely!
Shirley: So, in America, the very same thing was true, and there was a very nice man – the general manager of Immediate Records in America – named Paul Baines. He helped to take me to the British Consulate in each town we were in. And I could register there, and that made it legal for me to perform [in the bars]. But, as a teenager at the time, I wasn’t supposed to “cruise the strip” in places like L.A.. Y’know, just walking up and the down the street or being in a car on Sunset Strip, after 10 o’clock.
Teenagers weren’t supposed to do that, but of course they did. And teenagers were not allowed in any of the clubs, but , of course, they would get fake IDs. But none of this clicked with me. I was so used to being around people older than me and behaving older than my age – just to fit in – that I’d walk the Strip, go into all the clubs and take in the sights, if you like. I didn’t realize until years later that I was breaking the law – left, right and center – because no one ever asked me for my ID!
GW: Interesting. . .
Shirley: Yes, and if I was in the club, playing a gig, that was one thing. But if I chose to go off by myself, that was different. Like one time in L.A, I stepped into a club to check out the Grateful Dead, and it was right about the time of Altamont [Festival]. Maybe because of that, they weren’t in a very good frame of mind. They seemed to be having a bad night, unfortunately. But I got to hear a lot of bands for the first time that way.
GW: On the topic of the late ‘60s and Humble Pie’s influences, could you talk about HP’s early influences and whether you were drawn to any certain sounds or if the record company and producer steered you in certain directions? For example, when As Safe As Yesterday Is came out, there was one John Kay/Steppenwolf song on it (“Desperation”), and “Buttermilk” Boy sounded like “Born to Be Wild”. I’m just curious whether the record company was leaning on you, wanting you to sound more like certain successful artists.
Shirley: No, it was entirely all our own influences from American bands (the ones that they liked) and our decisions. In the very beginning, the most influential group to us was, in fact, The Band. We had gathered together in my parents’ living room, just to see if [the band chemistry] worked. It all looked good on paper, in theory. So we arranged a little rehearsal. It was small amps, and my little drum kit, at my parents’ home. And the other three guys had to come in long overcoats with collars pulled and hats down over their faces. They didn’t want to be recognized, because they were all very well known at the time. Steve and Peter were the equivalent of Michael Jackson in the ‘80s, for the size of their fame at the time. How recognizable they were. . . .
GW: And, I guess, how many magazine covers they were on.
Shirley: Yes, exactly. Everything was “magazine” back then. All the music papers then were like the Internet today. So their faces were so recognizable that they had to show up incognito. And, once they all got there, we set up and played a couple of those Band songs. Music from Big Pink had just come out [in mid-1968], and we were all blown away by it, The first song we ran through – I can clearly remember – was a cover arrangement of their song “We Can Talk”. We had wanted to also do “Chest Fever”, but we didn’t have a Hammond organ yet.
First, we played [“We Can Talk”] perfectly with guitars only, through tiny amps, but it sounded huge. And then, they sang just the vocals a cappella. After 15 minutes – doing that first song – we knew we had something great. Greg and I connected immediately, and Steve and Peter did, too, with their guitars. And when they started singing together – Oh-my-God! We knew we had all the ingredients – especially the groove of the rhythm section! And I told my brother that night that I felt like I had just joined the greatest band in the world.
However. . .at the exact same time that we were forming, there were also other bands, like Led Zeppelin, and Crosby Stills and Nash, and Blind Faith, who were coming out around the same time. So the competition we were up against was absolutely intense! In terms of new groups coming out who were being advertised as “supergroups,” I still felt – as far as I was concerned – I was in the best band I could ever be in. And I never was in a better band than I was [with the original line-up] and when Clem joined us [in 1971]. Just superb!
GW: The early albums Yesterday and Town & Country were so different from each other – one was hard rock, and the other more folk and pop-flavored. And the sound got tougher again over time, especially with the Fillmore album and Smokin’. Since the new tour is called 50 Years of Smokin’, what’s the balance of the old and new? Will the new tour focus on Smokin’ or will it try to cover the band’s whole history? And will the band include any of the quieter, acoustic-guitar material?
Shirley: Yes, it’s going to be the whole history and lean a bit towards Smokin’, because they’re going to have some keyboard tunes that they didn’t do in 2018. So they’ll doing [songs like] “Hot and Nasty” from Smokin’ (1972) and Peter’s tune “Shine On” from Rock On (1971). both of which require Hammond organ. And our lead singer, Jim Stapley, also plays organ. So it will be very much like the original band in that it’s now a four-piece, and Jim will switch from playing second lead or rhythm to organ, so [they] can do a bunch of songs we didn’t do back then or when I was running the band in the ‘80s and ‘90s. Actually, back then, we did do a version of “Hot and Nasty” without organ, and it didn’t sound bad, but, y’know, it didn’t sound right either. And, as far as acoustic songs, no, I don’t think that’s in the plans this time around.
GW: As a general rule, will the shows have a set format of songs from night to night, or is there wiggle room for different songs on different nights?
Shirley: I’ll have the final say, but I’ve left the choice of material mostly up to my band leader and musical director Dave [Colwell], since he was in the band with me and Greg and Bob Tench (singer and guitarist) when we made the Back on Track album in 2002. So he and I have played together, and he has history in the band, if you like. He’s getting a lot of help from his old buddy Jim Stapley, who’s the new lead singer. Jim’s doing a great job. He’s not trying to sing like Steve [Marriott]. You can’t imitate Steve! Ohh, you can try, but it’s not right. Like, y’know, Chris Robinson from Black Crowes openly admits that he got his start by being a Marriott rip-off. Jim’s got the range needed for these songs, but he’s singing them his way.
GW: And Black Crowes’ overall sound, even down to how they add in electric piano, really reminded me of early Humble Pie when I first heard them. Had to do a double take.
Shirley: Absolutely! I’ve met them. They’re just lovely. So many bands that came up after us, I’ve found out many years later that they claim they learned how to play and write by listening to our music. So much more than I ever realized, until way later in life. You name them — Black Crowes, Aerosmith, Gov’t Mule and Red Hot Chili Peppers. I’m friends with Chad Smith from the Chili Peppers, and he told me he learned to play drums by practicing to “I Don’t Need No Doctor” endlessly, until he got it right.
And, y’know, the Chili Peppers are not necessarily like Humble Pie, but their roots – where they came from musically – were from listening to us. Even Eddie Van Halen, may he rest in peace! I met him once — years after he was very successful, and he was signing a guitar at a charity event — and he was so pleased to meet me. And I was so surprised. He was the big shot – not me! And he told me, “You guys were the best! We learned how to play by listening to Smokin’ ” And Steven Tyler [of Aerosmith] has also told me that he learned from watching Steve [Marriott] how to grab an audience and keep them there.
GW: Over time, Humble Pie has always been known for its choice selection of covers—for example, Ray Charles, Eddie Cochran, Willie Dixon, Muddy Waters and Buddy Holly. “I Don’t Need No Doctor” is probably your most famous cover. I’m curious whether the setlist for this tour unexpected covers, or even deeper Pie tracks.
Shirley: Covers to us were just us taking songs we loved and making them our own, as best as we could. And for “Hallelujah (I Love Her So)” (a Ray Charles song), in particular, that was definitely the case. But, as to which songs they would actually do, I’m really leaving all the choices up to Dave and the band in general. I imagine there will be a few more deeper cuts in there than there were before. Haven’t seen the final list yet. I think they will definitely be doing “Hallelujah” and “Doctor” and those things, but the final choices are yet to be made about how deep they’re going to go. There should be some surprises in there.
GW: Sounds great. Personally, I’d love to hear “Strange Days” (a keyboard-heavy blues song from Rock On), but it’s such a deep track that I wouldn’t be disappointed in not hearing it. Just a dream song for me. I love the dynamics so much and Peter ’s [Frampton’s] jazzy guitar lines are so brilliant. Like Mick Taylor in the Stones.
Shirley: Well, now that we have a keyboard in there, that’s one of the ones I’d definitely like to hear them do. It may well happen. Maybe not on this tour, but it could certainly happen down the road. If I had to pick a track, that would be [at the top].
GW: As we mentioned before, it’s a very compact tour – less than two weeks – for obvious reasons. But you mentioned in one recent video interview that I saw about possibly adding dates. Will those come as add-ons while the band is here, or will you just plan on knocking out these dates first and then look at doing additional legs?
Shirley: Right now, it looks like that’s what will happen (doing this early run in full first). But never say never! They might get into a few shows and find the word is getting out and they might add a couple more dates on to the end. It’s very similar what [early Humble Pie] did when we first started as a headliner. We’d take a three-week block as a test to see how we’d do, and then, from that, we’d book 8-10 weeks of dates. So, maybe if the word spreads this time, come next Spring we might be out there for quite a while longer. We did that with the 2018 Legacy tour also, and it worked very well.
GW: In some of your recent interviews, you’ve seemed optimistic about your recovering to the point that you could play again someday. Could you talk about whether it might be for a residency or some kind of charitable event, such as the one as James Gang did with the classic line-up for the VetsAid show in Columbus in 2022? And, as I suggested before, do you think you could get the band onto festivals or charity show line-ups like that?
Shirley: I’m working on my personal physical part where I could get up and play a couple of songs here and there. So that means once we get the new band up and rolling, maybe we could look at some special events, like a one-off musical tribute show, where we could get a bunch of friends who are all Humble Pie devotees to all do [a few minutes each]. I’m not saying that I’ve made any arrangements to do this. But I know many friends who – if I were to say “Let’s do it!” – would love to be involved.
Nothing is set in stone, so to speak. But I know Chad [Smith] and some of the guys from Black Crowes would love to get involved. And if we could, I’d love to put together a night of Humble Pie admirers [like them] to help the Salvation Army, because I’ve helped them before, and they’re the best at what they do. Not their religious side, really, but just their work with helping people with food, clothing and rehab makes a big difference. And compared to other organizations, I’ve heard they have a low overhead, where they spend only eight percent of their gross income on staff/administrative costs. So you have to tip your hat to them for that. That’s all for the future, but I think it’s all very doable.
GW: That’s really great, and I’d love to hear one of those gigs. So, really, I just have one more quick topic for you. As a longtime Pink Floyd fan myself, I’m aware of your work and friendships with Syd Barrett, David Gilmour and others in that musical family. For example, your drum contributions on Syd’s second solo album in 1970. And, of course, there is the new documentary film about him that includes an interview with you. (The 2023 film, Have You Got It Yet?, directed in part by the acclaimed, late graphic design and film pioneer of Floydian media, Storm Thorgerson.) Could you briefly talk about your role in the movie and whether you think the end result was a balanced portrait of Syd?
Shirley: Yes, I think it was a very balanced movie. Very sensitively and beautifully done. And, for those of us who knew [Syd], we all agreed that it didn’t lean on all that “losing his mind” stuff. It talked about the beauty of the man and how incredibly sun-like he was. As for my bit in the movie, it lasted all of 30 seconds, I think. I knew it was coming up in the film, but, by the time I got to nudge my ex-wife who came with me – we’re still good friends – but was starting to get a bit sleepy, it was over. My 30 seconds were gone!
It was nice to be in it, but it wasn’t like I was a main feature. They just talked about my having played on [Barrett’s] second solo album, and I said, yes, that was correct, but it also came during a time that I was sharing a flat with the other drummer who was also on the album, which was Willie Wilson. For years , he’s not been getting any credit, and I’ve been gettin all of it. So I’ve been putting that right for years.
The second album was mostly me, and the drummer on the first [Barrett] album (The Madcap Laughs) was mostly Willie, from Sutherland Brothers & Quiver, and also Cochise. He was also a member of the [1980-81] Pink Floyd tour, and he played as the drummer in the “pretend” Pink Floyd backing band that was part of that show. And he’s known David [Gilmour] since they were kids in school, in Cambridge. And that’s how I met David, through Willie, and from working in a band from Cambridge, right before Humble Pie.
GW: Well, thanks for those insights. I’ve heard nothing but good things about that movie, which is why I asked. Really forward to seeing it, and I’ll have to look for your 30 seconds in there!
Shirley: Well, thank you so much for the chance to talk about our tour. Take care then.
For more information about the Jerry Shirley Presents: Humble Pie Legacy - 50 Years of Smokin’ tour, please visit the Humble Pie website at the following URL: https://humblepieofficial.com/
The dates for their upcoming nine-date September tour include the following venues and cities.
September 13, 2023 – Elevation 27 – Virginia Beach, VA
September 14, 2023 – Landis Theater – Vineland, NJ
September 15, 2023 – The Vogel – Red Bank, NJ
September 16, 2023 – Newtown Theatre – Newtown, PA
September 17, 2023 – Tupelo Music Hal l– Derry, NH
September 21, 2023 – Oaks Theater – Oakmont, PA
September 22, 2023 – Token Lounge – Westland, MI
September 23, 2023 – The Ludlow Garage Cincinnati, OH
The last time that any member of the original Humble Pie set foot on Ludlow Avenue in Cincinnati was in November 1969, when that then-fledgling British hard-blues-rock band was touring the U.S. for the first time. And when the band played that year at the famed but short-lived Cincinnati ‘underground’ music venue, The Ludlow Garage, they did a two-night stand as one of two opening bands for The Kinks.
At the time, a certain rock-music-obsessed, 15-year-old named Sam – who already knew who Humble Pie were and loved their heavier, psychedelic-aware blues sound – had overprotective parents who had certain suspicions about ‘psychedelic music’ venues. (Yeah, those suspicions. . . .) So, despite the old Garage being an all-ages venue – no liquor sold there, he was not allowed to go to “that place.” Imagine that!
Here we are, well into the 21st Century, and Humble Pie is one of those long-storied bands that, unfortunately, no longer exists, in no small part due to two of their original members being long deceased. Another original member who found early stardom after leaving the group in 1971 went on to become a rock guitar god for Eternity. And now one other member – original HP drummer Jerry Shirley – still owns the rights to the name but is stuck in musical Neutral due to rapid-onset pain from recent hip surgery limiting the time he can sit down to play drums.
So, as sole guardian of the Pie’s trademark since 1988 (He last played with a reformed HP into the 2000s – that’s nearly 30 years of hoisting the Pie banner high.), Shirley is doing the next best thing to keep the HP’s music flowing by christening a next-generation band of top players to soldier on as Humble Pie Legacy.
In mid-September, Shirley’s newly-anointed four-piece band – consisting of lead vocalist/guitarist Jim Stapley of the Kenney Jones Group, lead guitarist Dave “Bucket” Colwell (longtime Bad Company member and HP member since 2002), and two veterans of the 2018 HP reformation, go-to hard-rock session drummer Bobby Marks and acclaimed R&B soul session bassist Ivan “Funkboy” Bodley – set forth on a short, introductory U.S. tour, playing nine dates in the Midwest and Eastern regions. (Early reports are that the tour, which wrapped up on Sept. 24, proved to be the ‘pudding’ for them, and that new dates for a wider tour should be forthcoming, though perhaps more in the 2024 timeframe.)
Fortunately for that long-frustrated, former 15-year-old Pie fan who never got to see them back in the day, this first Legacy tour included the modern-day Ludlow Garage on its short list. (The original club closed in early 1971 and was re-opened at a nearby address in 2015.) For him – me, in reality – it was a bit of incomplete teenaged homework, to say the least, to finally hear many favorite Pie songs performed live with a driving sense of mission and self-evident joy.
As Shirley told me in a recent interview for Grateful Web, coming back to Cincinnati was not at all a coincidence. He remembers playing in our fair city very well.
“We were still finding our feet then, really,” he said about the original, 1969, four-man band in an early-September interview with Grateful Web. In addition to Shirley, that band had included guitarists/vocalist Steve Marriott and Peter Frampton, and bassist Greg Ridley. All had been established UK stars before Pie was even born. And touring the U.S. for the first time and opening for The Kinks were both pretty mind-blowing for the then-young band, he added. “Doing some acoustic stuff [early in the show]. Umm, it was going over OK, but it wasn’t until we had got to the electric part that we got [a better response]. Y’know, ‘Hey! They’re pretty good!’ ”
That memory must have stuck with Shirley. When his new HP Legacy line-up returned to the newly-relocated Garage on Sept. 23, for the band’s second-to-last date on this short tour, the acoustic guitars were nowhere in sight and the band launched straight into the electric part, with the fiery first song, “Up Our Sleeves”. From that roaring entry alone, it seems that band’s team leader Shirley must have learned those early lessons well and imparted them to his heirs apparent. Iggy Pop – another legend from the early Ludlow days – is thought to have said, “Don’t bore us/Get to the chorus.” (And – who knows? – he just might have pinched that phrase from Motown President Berry Gordy, Jr.) But with HP Legacy, it’s even simpler than that. It’s “Lose the acoustics/Just jack it in.”
And that first song felt awfully jacked in, for sure. The keening volume from the guitar amps and PA – and the thrust of Marks’ muscular, hard-charging drums – seemingly left no ‘head room’ at first for lead singer Stapley. His voice was squeezed into a screeching falsetto that bordered on Axl Rose territory. (In reality, it wasn’t all that different from a vintage Steve Marriott vocal on that same song in 1973.) And being in the fourth row of this small, soundstage-style nightclub with a low ceiling, I almost regretted not having pro ear protection ready to pull out of my pocket.
When the second song – the booty-kicking blues-rock romp “Four Day Creep”, from HP’s 1971 certified gold-record, double live album Performance: Rockin’ the Fillmore – was still redlining the sound system, I started to worry in earnest and thought, “Maybe the sound techs will dial it down?” Loud rock music is great and all, but in this space, which is admittedly better suited for jazz and folk acts such as Larry Carlton and Bruce Cockburn than shredding hard-rock bands, it’s necessary to match the volume to the limits of the room.
Happily, I can report that, in fact, that is exactly what the sound engineers did by the mid-point of the third song, “I’m Ready”. Or, were my ears already adjusting to it by then? Those first two songs were less familiar to me, but this one – in fact, a Muddy Waters’ cover – is a longtime HP favorite to which I know all the words by heart. And even though I was eagerly singing along, I still could, in fact, barely even hear myself in my own ears.
As luck would have it, there was a natural transition and change in volume and tone by the time of the fourth song, as singer/guitarist/MC Stapley began talking to the audience between songs and introducing the older, deep-catalog with songs from the first two HP studio albums, As Safe As Yesterday Is and Town and Country. (Both were released in that fabled year of 1969, when the Pie’s most straight-on, hard-blues-rock songs were still far less torrid.)
For example, almost as if he were a museum docent deftly guiding visitors through an archaeological exhibition, Stapley introduced HP’s bouncy, R&B-tinged first non-album single “Natural Born Bugie” from July 1969 and a jaunty, deep-South-flavored, country-blues track from T&C called “The Sad Bag of Shaky Jake”. (“Bugie” was later included the U.S. version of Yesterday.)
Actually, neither song is quite what many FM rock fans from the early 1970s might think of when they hear the name “Humble Pie” and most likely the more common entry points for many fans would be the Fillmore or Smokin’ albums. But both songs are important in HP history, and including them early in the show helped to shed light on the band’s rootsier, more experimental beginnings. (Personal note: I consider “Shaky Jake” to be non-essential in HP history, but, regardless, it made me smile at the thought that the Legacy band saw fit to include it!) And – was it just my imagination? – just like that, the volume and dynamics seemed to fall right into place with those songs. From there, the rest of the evening’s musical selections came and went swimmingly, like a river decisively flowing toward the waterfall.
As noted earlier, nary an acoustic guitar was in the house, but guitarist Stapley introduced varied instrumentation and textures into the mix by adding organ and harmonica on assorted tracks. For example, in keeping with the theme of the tour, 50 Years of Smokin’ and channeling a noticeable Mark Farner/Grand Funk Railroad vibe, the band included the ripping soul-blues-rock jump “Hot 'n' Nasty”, readily recognizable for its percolating organ lines – not to mention that grooving bass line that just won’t quit!
But, drawing on the deeper, rural American blues roots that inspired original HP songwriter Steve Marriott all those year ago, Stapley also wielded a stirring blues harp on the 1970 Pie song “Red Light Mama Red Hot” as well on “Jake” and “30 Days in the Hole”. So, with this kind of ebb-and-flow of rock, blues and soul by this point in the show, the more organic musical dynamics and earthier vocals pulled us into a more heartfelt space rather than constantly hitting us over the head with rock power chords!
Ahh, but there was still plenty of those massive chords and juicy guitar feedback – accompanied by ample amounts of rawk gesturing – left in the show to satisfy any hardcore arena rock fan. Guitarist Stapley could squeeze and freeze a high note his guitar neck in a feedback sustain for 16 bars, with a shit-eating grin on his face, not unlike a certain Mr. Marriott might have done in the band’s heady early days.
Also included were many of the classic HP musical trademarks, such as harmonized, high-speed arpeggios and downward guitar string slides in-unison, to add flash and humor to some of the grittier, guitar-driven songs. And, of course, there were many moments of stage strutting, synchronized guitar-neck angling and thrusting among the three front men. So the band’s stage craft was as cocky as the music itself.
Almost from the first block of songs, frontman Stapley worked the mic and the audience hard, with lots of soliciting comments, to try and fire up the crowd. “How are y’all doing tonight?”he’d say in a stereotypically leading, rock-star tone, and when the response seemed lackluster, he’d roll his eyes in mock disappointment and come back harder. “Ahhhh – c’mon now!,” he’d say with a snarkier tone and then egg on different sections of the floor to outdo each other. Pretty soon, though, he didn’t have to fall back on any of that schtick as the audience took up the slack themselves. So, by the end of the show, nearly everyone was up on their feet, crowding around the stage – which is barely above floor level – and dancing.
Straight through to the end, the HP musical cherry-picking continued, with both deeper and more mainstream songs paced throughout the end of the show. Obvious songs, such as the Ray Charles’ covers “Hallelujah (I Love Her So)” and “I Don’t Need No Doctor” from HP’s Fillmore album were ‘had to be’ numbers, but the Legacy guys were wise to also include deeper, bluesier HP originals, including the grunge-meets-jazz excursion “Stone Cold Fever” and the more obviously cock-rock song, “One-Eyed Trouser Snake Rumba”.
Stapley was also reverent in his nods to former members Marriott, Ridley and Frampton as he introduced various songs each early-lineup member had written. For example, at the start of Frampton’s most well-known HP song, “Shine On”, Stapley noted how not only was it a classic Pie song but also that Frampton had gotten more mileage out of it in his own mega-successful solo career by re-recording it and keeping it in his sets. And, of course, there were other stock-standard Pie finales that included the Eddie Cochran cover, “C’mon, Everybody” and the Pie’s own riff-heavy “30 Days in the Hole”. Judging by the eager dancing by this time in the show, I’d say these were guaranteed crowd-pleasers.
After the last encore song of the briskly moving 90-minute set was played and the mostly older crowd of fans in my age range filed upward and outward of the intimate, below-ground nightclub, there was lots of buzz in the air, a sure sign of an elevated audience. My head was up there, too. (And I didn’t even touch a beer.) But if you listened closely, you could hear among the reminiscing banter about having seen Humble Pie in their prime with Marriott at the helm there were also some sharper comments floating about. Most of it was light grousing about the early volume issues, some of the songs seeming a bit short (“Doctor” did feel a bit compressed to me.) and even maybe a sense that the band shouldn’t have been trying sohard. We would have loved them anyway, right?
One person in earshot on the way out was most on point with that last observation. “Pretty good job, I’d say. Darned good, in fact! But if I had to gripe about anything, it’s that the lead singer was begging too much for applause. Y’know, if you’re doing your job right, then the audience will be there with you – naturally.”
Hearing that, I nodded to myself, “Yep, sounds right – sounds true.”
So, all things considered, HPL’s introductory tour was a cracking success, and to that – and name-checking the title of Pie’s 1971 studio album – I say, “Rock On, Humble Pie Legacy!”
Somewhere in the mists of the early 1970s, a prog-rock enthusiast I rubbed musical elbows with for a brief time used to frequent an import record shop here in Cincinnati. In this enticing, below-street-level section of a multi-level downtown bookstore, he would find and retrieve pirate’s gold in the form of albums from emerging British and Euro prog-rock artists. Quite often, they were ones that the adventurous local underground FM rock station had somehow overlooked. Of course, he was also surely reading the British music papers for his inside track.
One such band that he breathlessly introduced to me was a keyboard-heavy and jangly, 12-string guitar group we all know now calledGenesis. Sure, I liked all the piano, organ and interweaving guitar and flute bits OK, and the lead vocalist had a distinctly theatrical voice that reminded me of the lead singer from the rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar. And, for what it was worth, there was even some lead guitar.
But my head was somewhere else at the time, I suppose, and that album just didn’t light much of a fire for me. (I had remembered the cover artwork – a classical painting being slashed by a knife – more than the music on it.) So I went on my merry, oblivious way, following other paths into the deep weeds of psychedelic and prog.
Fast forward to 1975: Thanks to a prog-heavy format of a low-power, regional college FM station about 50 miles outside of city limits I had just discovered, I was suddenly all abuzz over a new regiment of off-the-radar bands. (The station could usually only be heard clearly during evening hours, so that added a distinct thrill of discovery, too.) Leading the troops were Focus, Tangerine Dream, Gentle Giant, Caravan, Nektar, Camel and, yes, Genesis. (Perhaps needless to say, other prog standards like Pink Floyd, Procol Harum, King Crimson, Yes, and The Moody Blues were already locked in solid for me, but this radio station played them, too.)
Aside from the title track, I hadn’t even yet heard all that much of Genesis’ latest release of that preceding year, the double-LP concept album, The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway. But, thanks to the boundary-pushing college station keeping Genesis in fairly heavy rotation and to the eager prodding of a new musical friend at the time named Joe, the Genesis album that had finally broken through for me was Selling England by the Pound. (Joe was the photographer who took many of the lovely 1974 images reprinted in this article, and he generously had lent me the album for a fateful weekend of binge-listening in early 1975.) And not only did it become my personal portal to all things Genesis, Pound remains near the top of my personal life list. Happily, that’s something former Genesis guitarist Steve Hackett and I apparently have in common.
As of October 2023, Selling England by the Pound – which crept into the U.S. market on little cat feet in the Fall of 1973– marks its 50th anniversary. I could talk all day about the album, and maybe even write a book about what it means to me, but please let this brief synopsis of its singularity in Genesis history suffice. And, perhaps, if you haven’t already discovered SEBTP for yourself, you might seek it out and take a plunge into this alternate musical reality – rich in atmosphere, full of melody and dynamics, and laced with melancholy, social commentary, colorful word play, slapstick humor and Romanticism. No, it’s not at all rock ’n’ roll and certainly not yet what Genesis would evolve into by the early 1980s. But then, with early Genesis, an electrified kind of Victorian nostalgia seemed to be part of the mix.
The album opens with a plaintive, a cappella vocal by then-lead singer Peter Gabriel – in one of his more androgynous moments – as the voice of the mythical helmeted female warrior Britannia. (Umm, it wasn’t an isolated moment, either.) His naked first words are the posing of what now seems to be a timeless question, “Can you tell me where my country lies?
In writing the lyrics to this song, “Dancing with the Moonlit Knight”, Genesis were actually commenting on the socioeconomic state of England and resistance to the cultural pressures of Americanization in the 1970s. (This theme does pop up again throughout the album.) So, right from the start, tension is introduced over that seemingly tranquil plainsong melody.
The pace picks up, more narrative tension about economic misfortunes digs in, and the accusations fly. “You know what you are/and you don’t give a damn!” And then, over a Mellotron swell of choral voices, Gabriel issues his call to arms: “Knights of the Green Shield, stamp and shout!” The band breaks in big on the choruses, and then, – Boom! – they go full gallop on the instrumental, with volleys of zinging ‘70s fusion-flavored guitar and scintillating keyboards darting back and forth. It soon fades into a dreamy, extended soliloquy of slowly–arpeggiating acoustic guitars, textured electric guitar, flute, and hand percussion.
Now what was that all about? Genesis packed many layers and shades of meaning into this song, some lyrical, but many instrumental. And that’s the overriding brilliance of the entire album. Much is suggested by the provocative lyrics, and by the filigree and atmosphere of the songs. And the listener gets to fill in the rest in his or her imagination. Enter the Kingdom of Fantasy, where The Medieval meets The Modern, and ever-so-slightly controlled chaos ensues. But the flickering candle of Englishness still shines its light through it all. Somehow, it all feels strangely reassuring.
When asked in an interview with Grateful Web last year about what early Genesis adopters might have heard in their music at the time, Steve Hackett shared his insight that Italian audiences were among the first to embrace his band’s music deeply in the early ‘70s. And, he noted, there were many good reasons.
“They heard elements of opera and storytelling in our songs, I think. This was familiar to them, from the music and mythology they knew,” Hackett said of their early Italian fans, noting that the Genesis buzz in America “took a while longer” to cultivate.
A 1973 public endorsement from John Lennon – who was said to have heard Pound and commented in a radio interview that he enjoyed the farcical humor entwined in the songs – may have also given the band a timely boost. And, for some unexplained reason, their somewhat hallucinatory music also seemed to strike a chord with younger, blue-collar males – like me – across the upper Midwest in the States. (It is worth noting that female Genesis fans in the early 1970s were, sadly, in short supply.) So the Genesis fire caught first on the coasts, then slowly burned toward the heartland of the U.S. To say the least, they still were not an overnight sensation, but – thanks to frequent touring in the period – they finally started ‘getting there’.
“Genesis did longer songs that told stories, and also longer-form things, such as ‘Supper’s Ready,’ in which there’s a journey, a personal odyssey,” Hackett added, referencing the epic, 23-minute fan favorite from the 1972 album that just preceded the 1973-born Pound. And the band’s next album, The Lamb, would go into full-tilt Odyssey mode. But that’s another story.
Once again, with such longer songs as “Firth of Fifth” and “Cinema Show” on SEBTP, the themes of fantasy and mythology were never far away. “There are classical music elements in these long pieces, and I’m proud of those influences,” Hackett concluded. “I’m still very much a believer in long forms, because people seem to like pieces with many movements, many parts.”
While having the same chord progression and melody for parts of the opening and closing songs on the album might imply some overarching concept to the whole affair, Pound is less intentional than that, more generally thematic. Reportedly, the song order on Pound was reshuffled and reshaped from an original idea of one side-long track, similar to the multi-part fugue concept of “Supper” from their then-most recent album Foxtrot. Generally, the band was said to be averse to repeating itself in that way and opted for a different arrangement.
Working on this longer piece for a short period, the band resolved to bookend the LP with two longer portions of that starting piece about the Moonlit Knight. So, like a chunk of an asteroid breaking off and careening away on its own course, the highly changeable and climactic Side 2 finale “Cinema Show/Aisle of Plenty” – with its blend of CSN-style harmonies, Shakespearean name checking, spiritual yearning, navigating the stormy seas of life and shopping in a dangerous time – was born.
Still, the multi-part, character-driven, short-story approach did assert itself again on the 11-minute-long, mini-epic “The Battle of Epping Forest”. This chunky track – some band members have even called it clunky – was slotted in as the opening of Side 2 on the original LP. It gave singer Gabriel an outlet for voicing multiple characters a la Monty Python’s Holy Grail movie in this fast-changing and humorous tale about gang warfare in England at the time. (My hunch is that this may have been the exact song that struck Lennon’s funny bone.)
Work on the album – which took place over a three-month period – was said to be slow at first, but more songs began to fill in the spaces in between. For example, one track that was destined to be released as a single – and which actually generated breakthrough airplay and upwardly mobile sales for Genesis – was “I Know What I Like,” a song about a non-conforming, ne’er-do-well manual laborer. (“Me? I’m just a lawn mower/You can tell me by the way I walk. . . .”) It was built up from a trippy, Traffic-like, two-chord groove first fingered around on by guitarist Hackett during the Foxtrot era. In time, it was fleshed out with a synth drone, a Tony Banks’ chorus, flute and gorgeous, cascading harmonies.
With its modal topline melody and enticing electric sitar thread running through it, “IKWIL” bounces along hypnotically for four minutes. (Live versions have easily run twice as long.) Not a centerpiece of the album, for sure, but still a shorter song with Gabriel’s loopy spoken-word fragments and a happy hook that lent themselves to the singles format. And so, whether one heard the album or the single first, it became a sort of open door to the Genesis ‘wardrobe’ and the album for many first-time fans. In fact, the single became the band’s first Top 40 hit in the UK.
Mythical themes – from mortal fights between foxes and wolves to enchanted music boxes and magical mountain springs that could give Eternal Life – had always run rampant in the lyrics of Genesis songs. And the song from Pound that first caught my ear, “Firth of Fifth” – a song full of Earth and water symbolism and transformation – was certainly the mythological highlight on the album. (Neptune, to name the mythical entity of this song, makes his lyrical appearance in the song’s imperial processional verses.)
Written largely by keyboardist Tony Banks, this, too, was a multi-part piece. It announced itself with an intricate, solo-piano intro, It was then fully fleshed out with a churchy organ progression, anthemic verses and choruses, Crimsoneque flute intervals, and, of course, awesome flourishes of Mellotron. And, perhaps in a fitting Vivian Stanshall-Tubular Bells voice I should add, “E-lec-trick gui-tarrrr!”
As a Banks composition, “Firth” – which, in part, celebrates the primal power of rivers and the sea – showed the keyboardist at the peak of his skills. But, it must be said, it also provided Hackett the widest of canvases on which to paint the definitive solo of his career in the spine-tingling mid-section. And – thanks to the extra fat bottom provided by bassist Mike Rutherford’s use of Moog Taurus bass pedals – one almost feels the tidal swells of this piece more than just hearing them. (Especially in live performances, since there were limits to what vinyl could capture in those days.).
Notably, on their many follow-up tours through the years after Hackett’s 1977 departure, Genesis would often include portions or all of this signature song in their live sets, with guitarist/bassist Rutherford replicating Hackett’s iconic solo in his own approximate way. For his part, Hackett – to this day – includes an always-breathtaking performance of this song in nearly every one of his solo shows. And, as Hackett himself told Grateful Web just prior to the start of his current North American tour, it may very well be the ultimate early Genesis song.
“My ‘Firth of Fifth’ solo gives me the image of a bird flying high over the sea,” he said of that soaring solo. “It gives me a sense of freedom as it ducks and dives. For me, it’s a very emotional solo. I feel it’s Genesis music at its most evocative.”
When drummer Phil Collins emerged from behind his drum kit to take on the lead vocal chores for Genesis in the later ‘70s, after Gabriel’s famously sudden break in 1975, many fans were surprised to hear how well he could step into – some even say surpass – Gabriel’s role. But, as the song “More Fool Me” on Pound showed, the shining potential of Collins – a child actor and singer before dedicating himself to drums in his teens – was already there. On such a tender acoustic-guitar ballad as this – which was a change-of-pace Mike Rutherford tune in the midst of all the Mellotron melodrama and instrumental display on Pound – Collins’ winning tenor voice brought a welcome sensitivity and natural emotionality.
Seen in the rearview mirror, SEBTP seems to have caught Genesis at the peak of their creative powers, without hinting too much at the true struggle of its incubation process. For example, there was creative growth through cooperation and experimentation. Some members presented whole songs to the others, while others, such as Hackett, often brought in riffs or sketches and then hammered the ideas into joint creations. Also, new technology – such as the ARP Pro Soloist synthesizer – nudged its way into the band’s sound, giving Tony Banks a new weapon in his keyboard arsenal. (He used it freely throughout the album, but check out his stunning solo during the extended jam on the instrumental climax of “Cinema Show” to get a strong infusion of his keyboard wizardry with this instrument.)
But, naturally, as in any band, there were also reportedly tensions and disagreements at various stages, especially as they wrestled over some of the longer pieces and how to fit the album together. For example, there was tension about how long the album should be, and – to respect all the members’ contributions – some content was kept that made the single-disc album longer than a conventional LP. Due to the physics of record pressing, this was a trade-off that resulted in decreased audio quality, and some misgivings about this persisted after the album’s release.
Even some shorter passages, such as the Hackett- and Rutherford-penned Side 2 guitar instrumental, “After the Ordeal”, were a source of such discord. In particular, while first considering this piece, Banks expressed concerns over this instrumental’s structure, style and tone. Even co-writer Rutherford began to have second thoughts. Hackett himself has said that he had felt so strongly about inclusion of the multi-layered. classically-flavored track – the first Genesis song to feature him playing nylon-string guitar – that he threatened to leave the band if it were not used. So this deceptively tranquil musical interval had found itself at the center of a whirlwind of disagreement.
As it turned out, in the position in which it appears on the album – sandwiched between the madcap comic theater of “Epping Forest” and the dreamy but dynamic, multi-part Romantic narrative of “Cinema Show” – “Ordeal” serves as a timely, sepia-tinged mood shifter and stage-setter for the grand sweep to the end of the album.
Steve Hackett has remarked many times in interviews that of the six Genesis studio albums he worked on with Genesis, Pound remains his favorite among them, for a number of reasons. There is, of course, that experimentation with long-form compositions that he admiringly alluded to earlier, as well as the interweaving of electronic and acoustic instruments, a discovery of new musical expression and the seemingly full-ensemble interaction. In particular, perhaps it’s most because of the energy and passion behind the songwriting, as Hackett has called it Genesis’ most “heartfelt” album, and therefore the one of which he feels the proudest.
Interestingly enough, not everything Genesis had worked on during the Pound sessions made it to the final album. (Not enough room!) One leftover piece titled “Déjà Vu” – which Hackett has described as a “soulful little gem” of Gabriel’s – missed inclusion at the time. However, clearly still a believer in the bittersweet power ballad, Hackett released a version of it with Gabriel’s since-completed lyrics and guest vocalist Paul Carrack accompanied by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra for his first Genesis Revisited album, in 1996.
And then, almost 20 years later, when he and his hand-picked Genesis Revisited band were touring with a special live presentation of the entire SEBTP album in 2019, Hackett performed a new version of the song. Easing into the song after the main album was performed in full, GR vocalist Nad Sylvan would sing lyrics of the former Genesis lead vocalist in his most convincingly Gabrielesque voice and Hackett graced the song with his vibrato-rich melody lines. It definitely stirred thoughts of what might have been.
In the days of Foxtrot, SEBTP and The Lamb, Genesis were incredibly prolific and creative, almost in spite of what then seemed like almost constant touring. And this creativity spilled over in the stage productions, which by time of Pound had grown into more complex visual stage designs and lighting cues. And then, of course, there were the many legendary stage costumes for Gabriel’s storied menagerie of characters.
For the stage show of Pound, which also revisited some of the live highlights from previous albums such as “The Musical Box”, “Watcher of the Skies” and “Supper’s Ready”, Gabriel had many changes of head and face gear that helped to personify the characters in the songs. So, in very short time, this masterpiece of studio composition fed right into a ratcheting up of the stage show to a new standard for rock theater. They were also early adopters of the mirrorball, using it artfully well before other bands went mirrorball-happy in the later ‘70s.
Judging from the photos my now-deceased friend Joe had taken in early 1974, I can only imagine that the Selling England by the Pound tour was truly something to see and hear. But, unfortunately for me, due to my own slow Genesis learning curve, I missed the Gabriel years in the band’s live shows and didn’t see my first Genesis show until 1976, when Phil Collins transitioned from his original night job as drummer to lead singer and front man.
As a landmark of progressive rock, Pound has also been a longtime favorite among the legions of Genesis fans and also the band’s musical descendants. For instance, the Montréal-based Genesis legacy band, The Musical Box, which specializes in recreating fully-authorized live stage shows and music of early Genesis, has been authentically been performing Selling England by the Pound stage shows since their first shows in 1993. (The band, which has done full re-enactments of several other major early Genesis tours, will be launching their latest production of SEBTP, with a new tour that starts on Nov. 2, in Sherbrooke, Quebec. This tour also coincides with the 50th anniversary of its namesake album.)
Not everyone embraces the tribute band experience, I know, but I can offer firsthand testimony that attending a TMB show is quite like stepping into a time machine! Through TMB’s devotion to capturing the live experience of Genesis, so many have been able to experience the magic of the Gabriel years for the first time with their faithful recreations. Reportedly, Genesis vocalist Peter Gabriel once took his children to see one of TMB’s earlier Pound performances just so "they could see what their father used to do". And even Hackett and Collins have both joined TMB on stage to play encores with TMB on a couple of special occasions over the last 20 years. So if one has any doubts as to TMB’s authenticity, perhaps those personal endorsements from the music’s creators just might change a mind or two.
Undoubtedly, Selling England by the Pound is a legendary album that has stood the test of time, much-loved by the fans and various band members alike for the mark it has left on their lives. Delightfully, it seems to tickle the hearts and minds of so many with its warmth and whimsy, and it will, presumably, continue to do so as long as there are fans of progressive rock to listen to it.
So, you may ask, will rock music fans really still be listening to Selling England by thePound 50 years from now? Well, I’d be 119 by then, but, on the off chance I should still be around, I know I’ll still be listening be because I learned a long time ago to know what I like and to like what I know.
This article is dedicated to the memory of Joseph Stercz, a fellow prog traveler who nudged me more deeply into the prog metaverse.
For more information about The Musical Box and their upcoming world tour of the Selling England by the Pound show, please visit the TMB website: http://www.themusicalbox.net.
Steve Hackett is currently touring in North America with his acclaimed “Foxtrot at 50 + Hackett Solo” tour. This tour will continue into mid-2024. Then he will begin a new show in the Fall of 2024 titled “Genesis Greats, Lamb Highlights & Solo”. For complete information on tour dates, please visit the Hackettsongs website: http://www.hackettsongs.com/tour.html.
The first time I saw Phish live was at the band’s famed Rupp Area show in Lexington KY, in November 1996. (The Four Horsemen of the Psychedelic Apocalypse unspooled a stratospheric, 25-minute “Bathtub Gin” jam that night which immediately entered Phish pholklore as one of the all-time best versions. As a dazzled, newly-minted Phish convert at the time, I certainly thought so, and it was my first time hearing the song! Happily, I can relay that the mythology of that version still retains its time-honored glow, even now that I have heard a few truly competitive versions to date.)
That show was on Nov. 7th, which - as luck would have it - was also the 80th birthday of Thomas Marshall. No, not Phish’s longtime lyricist but, in fact, my dad - Thomas WILSON Marshall! Of course, keen-eyed Phish fans will be amazed and amused by the alignment of these names, the Phish song “Wilson” and this date. It took me several more months after that Fall 1996 show before the full significance of these name syncs hit home with me. It was only then that I realized that I was truly born to be a Phish fan!
So here I was - 27 years and, curiously enough, some 30+ shows later - seeing them again on October 10 this year. It was at the site of another legendary Phish show I had also attended in 1997, the Erwin J.Nutter Center, in Greater Dayton OH. (As with my dad’s name and that of Phish’s songwriter, there’s only a coincidental link between EJN’s name and the classic peanut butter-cracker product, Nutter Butter.) Over time, my Phish fascination has admittedly matured and cooled, and I’ve sat out a few recent tours. (My last show was in Summer 2021.) But this year, a late-breaking photo assignment for Grateful Web put me front and center on the floor. And I got the unexpected chance to fall in love with Phish all over again.
This show that I attended and documented at the Nutter Center this year was the first night of a two-night booking on the compact, eight-date Phish Fall 2023 Tour, on Oct. 10 & 11. It’s always interesting to hear how the band draws inspiration from past visits to the same venue and serves up musical souvenirs for the most loyal fans. And, as a veteran of that much-loved 1997 Nutter show, I was deeply impressed by how many 1997 callbacks Phish included this time. (More about that later.) But, I must add, it was actually the more rollicking feeling of a mid-to-late ‘90s show that also reminded me of my first show. Maybe it was that churning, burning 15-minute, Set I “Gin” jam that sealed the deal for me. Or – more to my liking – perhaps it was all of that darker, more straight-ahead jamming as opposed to frequent stage banter and jokey stage schtick. (As one of my photos of the drum array shows, Fishman’s trusty vacuum sweeper was sitting on his riser near the bass drumhead, but he never emerged from behind the kit to have a blow at this show.)
The first 15 minutes flew by, as I worked quickly in the fenced-off pit in front of the stage to capture both close-up action portraits and wider-angle shots. (As the accompanying photos show, guitarist Trey Anastasio and bassist Mike Gordon were out front and easy catches, but Jon Fishman and Page McConnell were each buried behind a ton of drum and keyboard gear.) Even right there – under the overhanging speaker and lighting arrays – the Front-of-House mix was crisp and clear right from the first riff of the opening song, “Sigma Oasis”.
Right down in front, was a great place to be for the first song. I could hear the sound of Gordon’s fingers on the strings of his new five-string Serek bass, not muddied by mid-range imbalance, and even when in front of him, I could hear Anastasio’s voice and guitar and McConnell’s piano without straining. (I must say I was actually glad to be up and away from the stage volume after a few minutes, as it seemed longer exposure might have left a hard-to-lose ring in my ears.) They say the groove is in the heart, and Phish not only nailed the mix but also the groove - right from the very start.
Early on, Phish showed that this was a night of no chat, just endless flow. Fifteen minutes in, and nary a word from the stage, which is all right with me. And turned out to be the flavor of the night. One of my favorite things about Phish’s live improvisation is when a jam goes into nebulous, harmonic hyperspace as one song morphs into the next. And in that opening phase, the band hinted that they were already in morphing mode, slyly key-changing out of that song’s Mixoldyian verse structure for a few minutes and teasing the harmonic outlines of another song that would soon follow in the set. (Wait for it…) But, indeed, “Sigma” came to a hard break after a deep ten minutes and was followed by a recent, jaunty instrumental, “The 9th Cube”, before the earlier teased song made its full appearance.
There was momentary closure after “Cube”’s snappy ending riff, and then came the sly creep-in of a real live rarity, the 1996 track “Theme from the Bottom”. (It was for me, anyway, since I had not caught another “Theme” since that 1997 Nutter show.) It was a joyous version with scintillating guitar-piano interplay coming to a thunderous peak before the quiet vocal coda. At this point, I said to myself: “Whoa-ho! How many more deep flashbacks are they going to play?” Turned out to be quite a few!
Oh, there was also a handful of newer tracks - such as the Gordon-led groove “555” from 2013 Fuego album, the title track of their 2009 reunion album Joy, “No Men in No Man’s Land” from the 2016 Bigger Boat album, and “Cube” and “Cool Amber and Mercury” from the 2013 fictitious ‘Sci-Fi’ band Kasvot Växt: that they created for their 2018 Halloween ‘costume’ show – scattered throughout the night. But, including that early bust-out of “Theme”, Phish did a total of five repeat songs from the 1997 Nutter show. They also did two songs from my 1996 Phish baptismal show which included a crystalline and spontaneously-combustible, 15-minute “Gin” and a considerably less perfect version of “Chalkdust Torture”.
And, for as many times as I have seen Phish, certain songs such as “Theme” have eluded me. One in particular had been “Prince Caspian”, a grunge-y, McCartneyesque singalong from the same 1996 album, Billy Breathes. Not only did they include it this time– and not only did I and most of the audience sing along joyfully – but they also tricked it out nicely with an extended, spiraling, guitar-driven jam that gave way to the modern-day groove monster “No Men”. In the spirit of bookending and completion, they tagged a rousing reprise of “Caspian” onto the back end. So that was all tied up nicely, in one hot jam package.
That well-matched medley came in the second set, but, in all honesty, my head was still back in Set I, as I had been swimming in all the mind-frying, extended jams that they had thrown down in the first 90 minutes. (That set was the longest Phish first set I had ever seen, and it sported two of the most treasured long-jam songs in their repertoire, the centrifugally spinning “Gin” and the always-welcome, Zappaseque, multi-part “Reba”. (It was even ‘completed’, with the happy whistling outro tagged on the end, something not included with the 1997 version.) But their jamming that came in Set II, from “Caspian” onward, was of an earthier and more urgent, funk-driven nature.
In the lower bowl seat near the stage where I had transitioned to early in the show after completing my photo work, I had a clear, top-down view onto the side of the stage where the keyboard array of Page McConnell was fully visible. It was a marvel to watch his musical direction of the rest of the band in so many of the songs. Just a joy to hear and see. In particular, he frequently gravitated to his Hohner clavinet and churned up the ghosts of Fall 97 Phunk in his interplay with his bandmates. But he was most assuredly – as he is often called – the Chairman of the Boards, switching effortlessly it seems, from piano, to synth, to organ and back to the Hohner. Sometimes, he was even playing more than one instrument at a time. So, for me, McConnell was the obvious MVP of the night!
The energy and joy throughout this show hit the high-water mark and stayed there through more than three hours of real-time performance (The total running time is documented at 3 hrs, 9 minutes.) And I think if you rank shows by how many songs there are for casual versus hard-core fans, then this would have to be one for the longtimers. Ten of the 21 songs played were from pre-1997, an era before Phish had moved into a simpler and more streamlined style of songwriting. But, more important, based on the lengthy compositions and extended jams, these ten songs made up nearly two-thirds of the running time of the show.
There’s an up- and downside to this firehose kind of playing. In Phish’s own past parlance, they have referred to nights of such flow as moments of “Golden Hose.” (Trey Anastasio explained in a mid’90s interview that rock guitar legend Carlos Santana had once shared the observation with him that the music is the ‘water’ and the audience are the ‘flowers’. So, in effect, according to Santana, the band is turning on the hose when they play. So ‘Golden Hose’ is when the music is almost playing the musicians.)
I personally thought that, even as much as I enjoyed their overall generosity at the Nutter show, Phish was dangerously close to ‘running out of water’ at a few points. That first set, which ran to 90 minutes, was nearly as long as some other bands’ entire shows, and the fatigue was audible by the time that last song in the set, “Chalkdust Torture”, came down. And, even from three songs back, the ending flourishes sure made each one sound like that would be the set closer, and they very easily could have been. Still, for better or worse, they played onward to the 90-minute mark.
And “Chalkdust” wasn’t the only misfire. An earlier song in the set, just prior to the majestically wacky “Reba”, was a recently-debuted Anastasio song titled “Broken into Pieces.” Perhaps it was meant as a change-of-piece tune following the fiery peaks of that heroic “Gin” jam, but its turgid, leaden pace and sharp lyrics seemed more of a comedown than refreshing. And there were a couple of other songs – such as a plodding, two-chord, mid-second-set song with broad splashes of string synthesizer called “Pillow Jets” – that didn’t particularly grab my attention. Perhaps, in and of themselves, neither “Pieces” nor “Jets” is ‘bad’, but they seemed to me not well-timed and placed. And, on the other hand, maybe I would just need to hear them more and I would welcome them.
At the time, I did fully expect Phish to take a long break and to do a more compact second half. But then, the second set and encore turned out to be exactly that length again. To my ears, there was much more kinetic, real-time composition and exploration happening in the second half, kicked off by the always-fan favorite “Mike’s Song.” By Phish tradition, the inclusion of a “Mike’s” signals that, indeed, the audience is in for a musical tumble, as the song is always paired with a closing sequel of “Weekapaug Groove,” often coming after many other musical interludes. (On this night, five songs and almost 40 minutes elapsed before the end of “Mike’s” and the arrival of the “Groove”.)
The band must have gotten enough rest during break, as the energy from start to finish in the second set remained high-key, “Pillow Jets” notwithstanding. On balance, it did seem like a more well-paced set, with more interspersing of more complex arrangements and streamlined jamming. And there were, of course, more callbacks to the 1997 Nutter show dropped into the mix. And these included a deep track, “It’s Ice”, from Phish’s 1993 Rift album and the slow-building set closer, “Slave to the Traffic Light.” (Same long-goodbye set closer as 1997!) I laughed at the inclusion of this song, as it seemed to be a tongue-in-cheek reference to the long delays in getting into the arena’s parking lot after getting to the main entrance that night. (Same as it’s ever been with Phish concerts, I suppose.)
In all my years of attending Phish shows, I’ve often experienced one- and two-song encores and had come to expect them as par for the course. So, in defiance of my expectations, Phish went all out with a whopping four songs in their deluxe encore to this show. They came back nice and easy with their sweet power ballad “Joy,”, and went out soaring with a raging version of their 2000 instrumental “First Tube,” from Farmhouse.
But, before they left the building, they had to go quirky and funky at least two more times, with the songs “Buffalo Bill” (decidedly not a personal favorite) and then “Wilson”, an early classic that they didn’t play on my dad’s birthday in 1996. (Had they done that, my mind would have just been blown into ‘leetle peeces’.) But in the context of this deeply old-school-type show, peaking out with “Wilson” at the end made absolute sense as a love letter to the most loyal phans. And then “First Tube” was just meant to send everyone out the door on a high-energy-particle wave.
I not only enjoyed the show tremendously for its generosity and flow, but also because– as the character Kyle on the South Park TV show might say – I learned some things! Phish not only played the Nutter Center in 1997 but also returned in 2017 (I did not attend that show.). In addition, there’s an expression that describes the gooey goodness of a Phish show in this venue I had not previously heard: ‘Nutter Butter.’
In fact, I met a fan at this latest show who was wearing a red T-shirt with a large, yellow-ink graphic of a Nutter Butter peanut butter-cracker sandwich on the front and a setlist of the 1997 show on the back. He explained to me that it was custom-printed shirt from an online service that will print T-shirts based on the ticket stub of your favorite show. He may have been the only person wearing that Nutter T-shirt, but not to worry: Even when Phish ran out of ‘water’, they still had plenty of ‘Nutter Butter’ to spread around for all of us!
On Saturday, October 14, a loving and celebratory, 200-guest Station Hall audience at Jorma Kaukonen’s famous eastern Ohio guitar camp, Fur Peace Ranch, cheered on the guitar legend and his Hot Tuna bandmates Jack Casady and Justin Guip through a passionate, late-afternoon concert of electric blues, ballads and tougher stuff.
One excitable guest in the audience at this special weekend show – which came one week past the last date of the original end-date for the Electric Hot Tuna’s career-capping, 2023 Going Fishing tour – was not exactly a heckler. But still, from the back of the hall, he had burst out during a quiet moment midway through the nearly three-hour concert with a spontaneous, head-turning song suggestion.
“Good Shepherd!” the perky fan suddenly blurted, name-checking perhaps an all-too-obvious Kaukonen touchstone from his days in Jefferson Airplane. He might have known that it would be played at some point anyway and was just trying to show off. But Kaukonen wasn’t swayed. Not missing a beat, the guitarist chuckled while flashing a “nice try” grin and did his best cheap sheep impersonation.
“Baaaaa-aaaaa!” Kaukonen bleated into the microphone. Laughter then rippled through the small, rustic, one-level, ranch-style auditorium, and the band launched into their next song. And, no, that next tune wasn’t “Shepherd”.
For such an emotional event as this largely-by-invitation-only farewell concert at the Fur Peace Station concert hall in the rolling, densely-wooded hills of southeastern Ohio, bandleader Kaukonen was in evidently good humor throughout the show. Yet, through the song choices (everyone was a reflection of Kaukonen’s and Tuna’s history), the pacing, and performances, one could feel a current of deeper and more complex emotions that gave the Electric Tuna trio’s performance a certain extra tang of meaning. It wasn’t hard to imagine that he and the band might have had a few things on their minds.
Although Hot Tuna took the audience over many peaks and valleys in the evocative show, the threesome stepped gently into their first song, a slowly unfolding, acoustic-based ballad. Excitement had risen in the room as the band first came out through the red-painted, double wooden doors behind the center of the stage and basked in the cheers of the buoyant crowd for a moment. And then the audience's voices dropped quickly after Kaukonen’s brief intro.
“Everyone deserves a second chance,” a smiling and casually dressed Kaukonen said plainly into the microphone as he announced the name of that first song, “Second Chances,” from the band’s 2011 Steady As She Goes album. As the tender song began, the room had become so ghostly quiet you could have heard a pin drop. Lyrics such as “If chances were like highways/a map would bring you home. . .” seem to bring the whole occasion into focus. And just like that, it almost felt as if the room had been transformed into a pastoral congregation, with a warm, churchly glow settling in the room. And we all shared in the communion with that spirit. There would be plenty of time for rocking later. Or so it would seem at the time.
Applause was eager and persistent following that song and between the streams of songs during the show, but the audience remained reverently quiet during songs. That in itself was a blessing. Scattered patterns of stand-up responses after songs started early, and they soon began to grow in frequency and size. (I rose up spontaneously a few times myself, and I probably only flew ‘solo’ the first time. Early in the show, though, I was taking photos for documentation, so sometimes I was already on my feet.) Each of the two main sets and the encore would end with full-standing ovations that carried on after the band would leave the stage.
It was a generous, flowing show that seemed like it might go well into the night, and yet – looking back on it even just an hour later on my drive back home to Cincinnati – it really was over in the blink of an eye. Like a candle burning brightly until the wick and wax finally go, we burned along with the band, too. It was just as the band’s promotional slogan had said when the tour was first announced, all those months ago: “Witness history, folks! All we're saying: See them before you can’t!” And witness history we did!
The ghosts of San Francisco – such as “Death Don’t Have No Mercy”, a meditation on mortality written by the historical blues-Gospel artist, the Reverend Gary Davis, and immortalized on Tuna’s 1970 debut album and even earlier on The Grateful Dead’s first live album Live Dead in 1969 – whispered in our ears several times during the show. Drummer Guip – a multi-Grammy-winning artist in his own right and steady HT collaborator since 2014 – gave the song a somber, funeral drum feel with his mallet rolls and cymbal rushes. For their parts, Casady and Kaukonen explored the darker harmonic corners of this time-tested, 16-bar blues with a walking bass line and penetrating blues phrases. To me, it also conjured a mournful New Orleans atmosphere. With Kaukonen’s own long-demonstrated love of Deep South folk and blues roots, many of the ballad-based Jorma solo and Tuna tunes – such as “Been So Long” and “Sleep Song” – seemed to possess the same spectral and bittersweet qualities, in writing style, tone and delivery.
More ghosts took form in a pair of Jefferson Airplane covers, though neither was closely associated with the band’s wiggiest early Frisco days. A handful of R&B and rock ’n’roll covers – Chuck Berry’s “I’m Talking About You” was given a rightful nod in the second half – as well as a handful of vintage Tuna songs from the ‘70s to the ‘00s and selected Kaukonen originals were evenly sprinkled in. Though in a slightly different order from the main dates on the farewell tour, quite a few of the songs that had already been heated up on tour were – luckily for all of us at this show – brought back one more time for another hot run-through.
I think the first half of the show could be fairly summarized as somewhat songwriter-focused, with dashes of R&B and early rock thrown in for flavor. For example, that’s where the rockier Bobby Rush cover – “Bowlegged Woman, Knock-Kneed Man” – seemed to come along at just the right time, four songs in. Moments of balladry returned, and the first Airplane song, “Trial by Fire”, was also slotted in, right before the two more rousing set closers, the Tuna originals “Hit Single #1” and “I Don’t Wanna Go”. By the end of the set, you could feel that the emotional temperature in the room had definitely been dialed up several clicks.
The communal spirit, which was expectant though more subdued during the pre-show social time, was in full bloom during the mid-show break, with a great deal of back-and-forth among the guests in and around the performance hall. One could hear in the animated chatting that the first set had tapped into many memories and shared experiences of past HT shows and other historical performances. Clearly, this show mattered to everyone who was there, and Kaukonen and the band seemed to have struck the perfect pace and emotional stride.
Considering that the band arrived at break time on the back of that electrical surge, I had naturally expected the trio to pick up right where they left off, in that more elevated state. Interestingly enough, though, Kaukonen dialed the tone lower again with somewhat more introspective songs leading into the second half. That’s where his original “Been So Long” – also the title of his 2015 autobiography – and their cover of Reverend Davis’ “Mercy” came in the show.
On a personal level, this was the moment of the event that felt most spiritual, and – for me – hauntingly relevant. It did seem that with the electric band bidding farewell to the touring life this year, Kaukonen’s song choices were conscious nods to the joys, regrets, and puzzles of life. A personal puzzle that was very forward in my mind at the time of the show is how to come to grips with being a firsthand witness to a close friend’s harrowing fight with a life-threatening illness.
So the wonder of Kaukonen’s curating of the show is that he was sharing so many songs that are not only essential in the band’s history but also – at the same time – potentially meaningful on the individual level. So – with what has been going on in my mind and life – when he bluntly sang the first lines of “Death Don’t Have No Mercy”, I felt the pang of timeless truth deep in my heart. And, yes, tears followed. It seemed like exactly the song that I needed to hear, and, as such, hearing the ensemble bring the song’s buried anguish to the surface was my favorite moment in the show. For this performance alone, Tuna now has my eternal admiration and gratitude. I just have to ask: How did they know?
With existential vagaries at least visited and acknowledged, the band turned their attention toward more good old rock-and-blues entertainment from that point forward in the set. Changing from a finger-picking guitar to a more rock-toned Gibson guitar, Kaukonen kicked into some earthier and more humorous story songs. Among these were the Chuck Berry song and a Walter Davis cover, “Come Back, Baby”.
In fact, Kaukonen had done exactly the same thing in the earlier part of the show. His early guitar of choice – before turning up the electricity – was his blonde Chet Atkins’ model Gibson SST, a semi-hollow-bodied, electro-acoustic guitar that he has said is well suited for heavier-gauge strings meant for finger-picking. But by the time they got to “Bowlegged Woman”, out came his classic-but-modified, cherry-red, semi-hollow body, the Gibson ES 345. And then he opened up with more crackling rock licks and bluesy Chicago-blues bends.
He even leaned into his Bigsby tremolo bar and fired up his original Thomas wah-wah pedal for a bit of that old-school ‘60s psychedelia on a few moments moving toward the end of the set, such as the chunky blues-rock set closer, “I Don’t Wanna Go.” For the start of the second set, he switched back to the SST for the folk/finger-style songs, but the ES 345 made its triumphant return on the most straight-ahead pieces And there was plenty more blues-bends, gritty distortion, and harmonic feedback to please even the most die-hard Jorma fans.
Even though the two sets were roughly the same in length, about midway through the second one, the show suddenly felt as if the escalator was accelerating, like the last sand in the hourglass flowing faster. There was, of course, that Chuck Berry song that had been in Tuna’s sets since the early ‘70s, and several other songs that pointed toward the now-inevitable end. Connecting the loops of time, as it were. The next two deep Tuna songs, “Invitation” and “Soliloquy for 2”, were both emotionally stirring with steady beats, although the first one made use of more rock power chords and the second was relatively lighter and more major-key in tone.
It was then that the band finally gave that one eager fan what he had apparently come for – a soulfully acoustic rendering of “Good Shepherd”, with delicate guitar-bass interplay between Kaukonen and Casady. In particular, Casady – who has always provided the definitive bass undergirding for this song since the Airplane’s 1969 recording – stretched nicely out of the root song form for an extended, melodic bass interval as Kaukonen and Guip provided a floating rhythm behind him. This spiritually cautionary song seemed to have a more obvious gravitas than usual. Truly, in the context of this farewell tour, ‘getting to heaven’ seemed to be a more tangible desire than ever.
As the second set moved into its final minutes, even without looking at a watch, you could feel that the sands in the glass were, indeed, nearing the end. The band and audience were visibly delighted, with many smiles, even on the faces of the often-serious musicians. So it was at that moment when Kaukonen turned the reins of the show over to his bassist.
“So, Jack,” Kaukonen said to Casady with a glimmer in his voice. “Since we’re heading into our last song, make it a good one.” The master of bass groove and growl nodded dutifully and started off by himself on a spiky, one-chord R&B vamp, with drummer Guip slipping in quietly on cymbals. Soon, Kaukonen fell in behind them, breaking into a chicken-scratch guitar counterpoint against Casady’s sharp slap-and-pop accents.
The song – “Funky #7” which has been a staple of Tuna shows since the mid-‘70s – then turned into a full-boiling, three-chord blues rocker, with a few transitional chords thrown in, just to keep it interesting. Kaukonen barked out the song’s acerbic words, which included this killer line: “With your finger on the pulse of time/there ain’t no time to rest….” So with Casady doing his best as de facto band leader, the extended funk workout brought the show to a steaming conclusion, and those famous last words left no doubt as to what was most likely on the musician’s minds.
And speaking of Casady, I hope you’ll please indulge me with a moment of admiration for his one-of-a-kind musicianship. Although I had seen and heard Kaukonen solo before, this was my first HT show and I had actually never seen any Casady performances. (He has worked on separate projects over time not connected to Kaukonen.) Which means that until now, I could only enjoy his work at a distance, through recordings. As a more rudimentary bass player myself, I delighted in being able to closely observe his techniques translated into expression.
As I heard it, he seemed to not only know the material intimately – as of course he would – and to supply exactly what was needed but he would also stretch out on the more open arrangements to add harmonic fills and counterpoints to Kaukonen’s guitar melodies and chords. His tone and phrasing were impeccable. After having seen a good number of the great bassists in rock and jazz, such as Entwistle, Pastorius, Lesh, Squire, Wooten, and Clarke, I certainly felt that seeing a Casady performance – even at this late hour – was a great privilege. As lifelists go, seeing such an important music pioneer certainly filled in a huge, bass-shaped gap in my own experience.
For a brief moment earlier in the show, when I was taking a zoomed-in photo of Casady, I had misread a salvaged vanity license plate on the back wall of the stage just behind where he had been standing most of the night.(As you can see in the following image, there was a whole collection of Tuna- and Jorma-related plates on that wall.) The one license plate actually says “HOT 2NA”, but – in a careless glance – I had first thought it said “HOT DNA,” which amused me. For better or worse, at the end of the show, Tuna proved that its musical DNA ran both hot and deep.
As was the case all concert long, there were no accidents in the song selections, and every song that Tuna had included had historical significance and personal meaning for them, if not for every listener. For the single encore song, they tipped their musical hat to their own humble beginnings with the bright, rolling, finger-style instrumental from 1973, “Water Song.” Changing guitar one last time, Kaukonen picked a guitar he had not played all night, his bright-red Gibson electro-acoustic.
But, before the band could start into that final song of the night, there was one technical gremlin that needed to be resolved: A seemingly blown amp speaker. Kaukonen had picked up that other Gibson semi-hollow body, plugged in, and strummed a chord when suddenly there was what sounded like a rattling speaker cone. Then, as a stage tech came out to take stock of the problem, Kaukonen frowned but wisecracked: “I’ve got pedals that can make that sound!”
It’s helpful to know that the Fender guitar amp in question– a vintage 1962 Fender Pro tube amp – was one that Casady had given to the guitarist as a gift in 2022. This explained his laughing, on-stage apology to Casady. “I’m sorry, Jack, that I broke your amp!” But then, a moment later, it was all smiles again: It was only a case of not having flipped off the standby switch! Problem found, problem solved. So now they were ready for a perfect ending!
As Kaukonen started into the ringing, major-key progression of “Water Song”, a wave of recognition surfaced in the audience, and the trio’s music flowed onward with the River of Time. It reminded me of the final published panel of the Calvin & Hobbes comic strip in which those two fun-loving characters had embarked upon their next adventure on a single, pure-white canvas. The Future is Unwritten . . . not yet drawn, played, or lived. And the energy of that song strongly suggests that the sea refuses no river.
And so it was like that for me, as I headed back out into the dark and lightly misting rain to point my car back onto the winding rural roads toward Cincinnati, except my canvas was black. One thing I know for sure: Out of a grey afternoon and into the arms of a darkened mid-October evening, Hot Tuna shared their warming light with all of us. And when we left the concert hall, still buzzing from that show, we were all different people than we were when we went inside.
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In November, Jorma Kaukonen will return to Fur Peace Ranch to perform an acoustic show with singer-songwriter John Hurlbut, on Nov. 11. Tickets are still available. Then, in December, the Electric Hot Tuna will perform three final shows to wrap up the 2023 Going Fishing tour. Two shows are scheduled for Dec. 1 & 2 at the Fillmore in San Francisco, with the first one sold out. The second one, which is a special benefit show for the REX Foundation, still has tickets available. Finally, there is still one more chance to “witness history” with Electric Hot Tuna on Dec. 7, at the Paramount Theatre, in Denver CO. And then, the core duo of Kaukonen and Casady plan to offer more live acoustic HT shows in 2024. (Check back often.) That’s all we’re saying.
Setlist from Fur Peace Ranch, 10/14/23 (Source: setlist.fm)
Set 1:
Second Chances
Ice Age
Great Divide: Revisited
Bowlegged Woman, Knock Kneed Man (Bobby Rush cover)
Ode for Billy Dean
Sleep Song
Trial by Fire
Hit Single #1
I Don't Wanna Go
Set 2:
Been So Long
Death Don't Have No Mercy (Reverend Gary Davis cover)
Day to Day Out the Window Blues
I’m Talking About You (Chuck Berry cover)
Invitation
Soliloquy for 2
Good Shepherd
Come Back Baby
Funky #7
Beginning on November 2 and running through April 2024, the Canadian Genesislegacy band The Musical Box will be presenting an extended, multi-part tour of their acclaimed recreation of Genesis’ legendary Selling England by the Pound stage show.The tour coincides with the 50th anniversary of the original Genesis album of the same name, which was released in October 1973. Regions for TMB’s SEBTP tour will include Canada and portions of the U.S. in Fall 2023 and early 2024, and then UK and European dates in Winter and Spring 2024. Nearly 50 dates have been confirmed to date. Additional 2024 dates for Canada and the U.S. – which band management has indicated will be plentiful – are still to be announced.
The five-man Canadian rock group – now celebrating more than 30 years on stage – is highly regarded for their authentic musical and visual recreations of Genesis’ early-1970s progressive rock live productions. Although there have been a number of line-up changes over time, the band’s current personnel include the longtime core members lead vocalist/flutist Denis Gagné, bassist/guitarist/vocalist Sébastien Lamothe and lead guitarist François Gagnon. More recent members include drummer/percussionist Marc Laflamme and keyboardist/12-string guitarist/vocalist Ian Benhamou.
In addition to Selling England by the Pound, TMB’s other album-themed productions have also included Foxtrot,The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway and A Trick of the Tail. As a more recent change of pace for their tours, the band had also presented various Genesis anthology shows in between some of the various thematic tours. Recent tours in 2019 and 2021 – dubbed TheGenesis Extravaganza I & II – encompassed songs from various Genesis albums from 1970 to 1978. Focusing on a wider range of Genesis’ songwriting than TMB’s historical show recreations, these special shows gave keenly interested audiences a chance to hear many early songs that Genesis themselves had seldom played or never performed live. Of course, a good selection of the must-hear classics were still included.
Since their earliest days, The Musical Box have received full approval and historical/technical guidance from the musicians and production team of the original Genesis. (For their various limited-run productions of The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, TMB also secured special licensing from Lamb lyricist Peter Gabriel.)
More specifically, for several of their productions, including SEBTP, TMB have been using original slide projections that Genesis themselves used in their original stage show. In addition, TMB’s production team has done extensive photographic and film research to analyze all staging elements. This painstaking attention to detail has enabled them to replicate the sounds of all of Genesis’ original instruments and amps, the lighting and effects, and the many elaborate costumes that were part of the original stage production.
In particular, the vintage 1973 concert film, Genesis: Live at Shepperton Studios, was a strong historical reference for TMB. The film, which has been included on a bonus DVD in the Genesis box set, Genesis 1970-1975, documented one hour of material from the full SEBTP stage show. (On YouTube, there are variously sourced versions of the film, but the one meticulously restored version by The Genesis Museum is a must-see for every Genesis fan.) So that film served TMB as a strong, primary visual reference, not only for the staging elements but especially for the narration and theatrical postures and gestures of Genesis’ lead singer Peter Gabriel.
But the research didn’t stop there. The band’s team have used many professionally shot photos – such as from acclaimed Genesis photographer Armando Gallo – and audience-sourced photos, film clips and audio recordings to gain maximum insight into fine-tuning the performances – for SEBTP and other shows as well. As for musical authenticity, the band emphasizes the use of the same kinds of vintage instruments, amplification, and effects, and they faithfully follow Genesis’ song arrangements and setlists. This desire for exact replication assures every fan that they can be totally immersed in the mythical world of early Genesis that’s just as mysterious and hallucinatory as if it were yesterday.
Notably, with the full endorsement and technical assistance from the creators of the music, The Musical Box have also had the honor on several occasions of having guest performances from original Genesis members. For example, in 2002, Steve Hackett joined TMB for an encore at a UK show to replicate his stratospheric guitar solo on the SEBTP song “Firth of Fifth.” Also, at a 2005 show in Switzerland, Collins joined them for an encore performance of “The Musical Box” from Genesis’ 1971 album Nursery Cryme. (Btw, this song served as the musical inspiration for the band’s name.)And last, but not least, another very special guest attending a full performance in the UK was once Peter Gabriel himself.
"TMB recreated, very accurately I must say, what Genesis was doing,” Gabriel said of the performance he attended. ”I saw them in Bristol with my children so they could see what their father did back then.” And perhaps, in his own blunt praise, former Genesis drummer Phil Collins summed it all up best: “I think these guys play it better than we did.”
So can TMB really have a more ringing endorsement than any of these affirmations, from the music’s own ‘parents’, as it were? Well, TMB have also enjoyed a working relationship with original Genesis photographer Armando Gallo, who has documented their performances very much in the same style as his classic Genesis photos that fans have been admiring for years. You’ll see some of his stunning images of TMB included in this article.
Interestingly enough, in the days that Genesis first performed the SEBTP showlive, the band had different versions of the stage production and slightly altered setlists for different legs of the tour. Famously, with a white diorama structure and amplifiers on one tour and a black background and gear on a later version, these SEBTP tours were known, logically enough, as the White and Black Shows. And TMB has actually done both versions, and I have seen them performing both. (I actually think the White Show – in which the white surfaces and even some costumes and face make-up took on a ghostly glow under blacklight – is more vivid visually and, therefore, more memorable. As always, the music was transcendental.)
Setlists during Genesis’ tours were generally the same for these two versions, encompassing four different albums – SEBTP, Nursery Cryme, Foxtrot and sometimes Trespass. So SEBTP was not performed in full as part of the original Genesis stage show, and TMB faithfully follows Genesis’ same setlist and sequences. But the SEBTP songs “Dancing with the Moonlit Knight,” “I Know What I Like,” “Firth of Fifth”, “The Battle of Epping Forest” and “The Cinema Show” are always centerpieces of the show, and they comprise about 80 percent of the album. Other always-played songs include “Watcher of the Skies”, “The Musical Box” and the 25-minute, apocalyptic Genesis musical and theatrical masterpiece, “Supper’s Ready”, from the 1972 album, Foxtrot. Variable songs, usually as an encore, have included “The Knife” and “Return of the Giant Hogweed”.
Since their earliest shows in 1993, The Musical Box have performed for more than one million spectators, in some of the most prestigious venues in the world. These include such large theatres as London’s Royal Albert Hall and the Olympia Theatre in Paris. When they are branching into new regions and cities, however, TMB will often perform in more intimate theaters and cabarets, sometimes with more stripped-down shows. And in warmer seasons, they can often be seen headlining at large international music festivals, which give them the inspiration to pull out all the production stops.
I’ve periodically attended TMB shows myself as early in their career as 1997, when I saw them perform an early version of SEBTP, in Philadelphia. (SEBTP was the band’s first full thematic show, but according to TMB creative director Serge Morissette, TMB performed mixed setlists of Genesis songs – similar to the Extravaganzas – in their earliest shows and worked their way up to a full SEBTP show. That is when their reputation began to take hold.)
Over time, with more experience and inside knowledge of the show’s design and details, TMB has lovingly developed the show into one of their most exciting and finely-tuned presentations. I’ve personally seen and heard the evolution of SEBTP from the more basic production that I witnessed in 1997 to my last time in 2018. My one great regret was never getting to see Genesis during the Gabriel years, but even at that Philadelphia TMB show, I had felt as if I had traveled back into those fabled Mists of Time in some crazy kind of time machine. And that is exactly what makes The Musical Box so special.
TMB’s 2023-2024 production promises to be the most authentic and thrilling production of Selling England by the Pound to date. So come celebrate the 50th anniversary of SEBTP and TMB’s 30th anniversary of live performances, and experience the mythical world of early Genesis as only The Musical Box can recreate it.
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The dates for The Musical Box’s special 2023-2024 production of Selling England by the Pound include the following dates, venues and cities. For more information and additional tour dates, please visit TMB’s website, https://www.themusicalbox.net/tour. You can also follow TMB via their Facebook page for updates on confirmed dates for the coming tour. Also, if you wish to read more about the history of the original Genesis album, Grateful Web recently featured anin-depth story about it. For more information about The Musical Box, please visit their website:
Fall 2023
Nov 2 – Théâtre Granada – Sherbrooke QC
Nov 3 & 4 – Capitol De Québec – Québec City QC (2 nights)
Nov 9 – Wingham Town Hall Theatre – Wingham ON
Nov 10 – Danforth Music Hall – Toronto ON
Nov 12 – L’Odyssée – Gatineau QC
Nov 30 &Dec 1– The Coach House – San Juan Capistrano CA (2 nights)
Dec 2 – The Canyon Club – Montclair CA (First of two venues with the same name.)
Dec 3 – The Canyon Club – Agoura Hills CA (Second of two venues with the same name.)
Please don’t murder me if you think this review of the acclaimed jam-fusion band Jazz Is Dead runs hard to the gushy side. But even after all these years – more than 50 years of concert-going – I’m still a pretty impressionable guy (It’s true. . .) and it was only my first time seeing them. So there was a lot to take in.
JID’s show at Cincinnati’s Memorial Hall on December 5 was like a creeper buzz that had me from the first hit. But it still sneaked up on me, bowled me over, and left me with a dropped jaw at many points. Even though I was also doubling as a photographer for the show, I suspected that it would be the kind of performance that I’d want to be ‘present’ for, not distracted by camera settings and missed moments. I quickly found this was exactly the case. And I was mighty, mighty glad to be there.
As it turned out, I didn’t even raise my cameras for a good ten minutes into the show – just allowed myself to sink into the music and feel the bubbling chemistry. And when I did lift a lens, it was more when I sensed a moment was about to peak, and I just shot quickly, trying to snag some of those peaks in burst mode. Performing all Grateful Dead and Garcia source material on this night (JID are known to do some other musical name-checking, dipping a bit into Miles Davis and John McLaughlin on some nights, for example.), the band were delightful at every turn, as the four veteran musicians wove a magical, one-of-a-kind tapestry for us, full of color, drama and emotion. It was definitely a night for being in the moment.
Pretty much crisply at 8:00 p.m., the four members of JID – bassist Alphonso Johnson, drummer Pete Lavezzoli, and guitarists Bobby Lee Rodgers and Steve Kimock – ambled onto the small, globe-light-bulb-rimmed, proscenium-arch stage of this historic Cincinnati theatre. (Within the last ten years, this atmospheric, 550-seat hall with pristine acoustics underwent a full restoration and has been preserved on the National Historic Register. Obviously, Johnson was especially struck by this preservation effort, as he had made a point to remark on how architecturally stunning the venue was at the end of the first set.)
The stage – with its reflective, polished floors – was flanked by a pair of large, plainly lighted Christmas trees. And, sentry-like, the two trees stood by almost as silent members of the band throughout the night. After arriving at their stage positions, the musicians checked over their connections and settings, played a few random riffs and drum rolls, and then just looked at each other with smiles as they started sweetly into the first song.
For a bit more self-disclosure, I should note that I had first became infatuated with the Dead in the mid-1970s. So it’s really no surprise then, with a personal GD sweet spot of 1972 to 1977, that I naturally found JID’s nine-song setlist to be dead-on, if you’ll pardon the expression. So, yeah, the guitarists pulled me in right from the first chiming arpeggio notes of “Here Comes Sunshine,” which opened into a nicely extended and gently tumbling, whitewater jam.
Knowing that song from GD’s 1973 album Wake of the Flood as well as I do (had never heard “Sunshine” performed live before, though), I could hear the lyrics in my head as the band played their all-instrumental version. Kimock’s guitar phrases handily took the place of the original’s topline melody. I know the band changes up their setlist every night, but, to me, it seemed like the perfect way to start the night.
Notably, from this very first song onward, second guitarist Bobby Lee Rodgers – known for his work with Col. Bruce Hampton and Warren Haynes, among others – provided a perfect foil for many of Kimock’s lead phrases by playing his electric banjo and his acoustic rhythm guitar through a Leslie speaker. Obviously, as this cabinet with rotating horn speakers is typically used with keyboards, the Doppler effect on Rodgers’ line-in signals gave the music an interesting and trippier organ-like texture. (In fact, he splits the signal so that it also runs into a standard guitar amp, giving a hybrid guitar/keyboard flutter to his tone.) There was even a moment in the show when Rodgers was comping hanging jazz chords behind Kimock that the Leslie tones gave his strums a more dissonant, three-dimensional, Bill Frisell-like edge in the midst of an otherwise sweeter harmonic setting. A quite intriguing sound to my ears.
After the gently rolling and conversational “Sunshine” jam dissolved into a transitional, looping funk solo by bassist Johnson, the four musicians dipped a bit further back into the early 1970s, with a pair of songs from the Dead’s Europe ’72 album, “China Cat Sunflower” and “Cumberland Blues”. (True, studio versions of those songs came before that recording, but the live versions are much more a part of my own GD mythology. So, again, sweet-spot selections for me.)
Johnson had stepped in to set the groove for “China Cat” during his loop solo, and his bandmates generously built up the song’s repeating intro lick from the locked-in groove. When Kimock peeled off the song’s tell-tale first guitar lick, the audience cheered with immediate recognition. And though the very bouncy, cheery “Cat” was self-contained and did not segue into its traditional companion song, “I Know You Rider,” it was a fully fleshed-out version, with Rodgers supplying that well-burned-in lyrical melody and Kimock delivering Garcia’s bell-like Stratocaster notes.
With drummer Lavezzoli taking a more prominent role in this lengthy and more dynamic jam, “China Cat” gave all the members a chance to display their flair for deeper, real-time improvisation. The drummer opened up shortly after they broke from the verse and chorus, swinging like crazy and surfing through the peaks with Johnson churning along with him. They're all amazing, but Lavezzoli – a superb drummer and longtime collaborator with numerous artists in the extended GD family – showed off his deep knowledge of the inner grooves of this Dead classic with his tempo changes and shading. And then there was Kimock’s ethereal slide guitar mid-section that took the audience on a journey above the clouds. Certainly, if the “Sunshine” jam had seemed a bit soft-focus and exploratory, the “China Cat” vamp felt as if the band had finally reached an edge-of-your-seat escape velocity.
Following a momentary lull after the main melody resolve at the end of “Cat”, the band dialed up a faster country backbeat and moved right into a ripping “Cumberland Blues”, which gave banjoist Rodgers his chance to step out front musically and lead the full-on firework display. With his claw-hammer attack, he steered the band through the changes of the multi-part, bluegrass tour de force. (Although it was instrumental, the melody lines that Rodgers played were so strong that every word from the original song played on the soundtrack in my mind.) For sure, the entire band showed what was ‘in their wallets’ on “Cumberland”, but again, to my ears, it was Lavezzoli who asserted himself as the nuclear reactor of the rhythm section.
Although “Cat” is a deeply sentimental favorite of mine that I’d never heard in a show and the follow-up of “Cumberland” proved to be an obvious crowd-pleaser, the first real stunner for me was the back half of that first set. This was a full arrangement of the GD’s epic “Weather Report Suite”. (GD’s original on Flood was a sprawling 13 minutes, but JID’s version was tricked out to 20-plus minutes.) Again, smack dab in the middle of my GD sweet spot in the ‘70s, this deep track from Flood took me to a different place in time and in my mind.
In the reflective “Prelude” section of “WRS”, Kimock painted the mood first with a melancholy, late-‘60s Peter Green/Fleetwood Mac-flavored lead line. Then, after reaching for a guitar slide, he sweetened the vocal melody with a more Garcia-like slide passage as the intro progressed. In the second part came the more dynamic and propulsive song form of “Let It Grow”, with the whole band charging through the many verse/chorus climaxes and solo sections.
To me, with its quasi-Southwestern musical form and melodies, the entire composition has always evoked a nostalgic feeling of an era passed, perhaps a long-gone Golden Age of civilization and prosperity. (It reminds me of the multi-generational perspective of the book “One Hundred Years of Solitude”, by the legendary Colombian author, Gabriel Garcia Márquez.) But – at the same time, with its references to seasons and elemental forces – it has always, for me, expressed a sense of awe for the unchanging Eternal. It’s all there in the original lyrics. “What shall we say?/Shall we call it by a Name?” rang in my head.
Interestingly enough, hearing it that night for the first time as an instrumental piece without the narrative effect of the lyrics, I keenly sensed more of the primal nature of the song’s raw elements. At times, Kimock’s soaring, John Cippolina-esque electric lead lines, and cascading rhythmic chord shapes transformed the already grand music into something approaching a classical form. Certainly, much of that harmonic genius came from Weir’s composition which suggests an influence from Mexican folk music and Garcia’s own historically-toned phrasing in the song. But through the extension of the passages and more penetrating playing, JID found new tension-and-release points in this complex piece. It was a heroic and thrilling journey, well placed in the second half of the set. It was my first true jaw-dropping moment of the night.
One side note is that I know it wasn’t the first time that JID have played “Weather Report Suite,” but I did have a funny realization about it at the time. Knowing that bassist Alphonso Johnson was once an early member of the legendary jazz-rock fusion band Weather Report in the early 1970s, I just had to smile at the coincidence of his being part of this line-up and that song’s inclusion in the show. Maybe I missed them, but I didn’t hear any WR song teases (Too on the nose, perhaps?), so it was just a straight, reverent reading of GD’s original composition. If any WR musical teases were tucked in, and any of you who happened to be there and might have noticed them, maybe you could kindly point them out to me!?
That first hour – which felt much longer and, yet, had gone by in the blink of an eye – was over, and the band had only played four songs. (Five, if you count the two parts of “WRS” as two songs.) Imagine that! But every song that JID had played so far was brimming with energy and marvelous musical invention. I hadn’t had even had as much as a Bud Light that night (I usually don't when I'm doing photo work.), but my buzz – especially after that stunning “Suite” – was in full swing by the time intermission had come. I then migrated from my first seating position in the center of the balcony and scouted a new spot for photos in the second half that would give me a different perspective on the musicians’ on-stage interactions and different photo compositional options.
This proved to be a wise choice. In this intimate venue, even listeners on the balcony can enjoy the feeling of in-your-living-room energy and immediacy. Trust me, from my own numerous experiences there, I can say that it’s practically like being right on stage with the performers. But my decision to move to a corner of the balcony was rewarding in that it helped to set the stage for the electricity about to come in the second half. I clearly felt the difference just by moving halfway around the balcony.
As a bass player, Alphonso Johnson has cut a major career path for himself, having not only played with Weather Report in their formative days (pre-Jaco Pastorius) but also touring and recording with Santana, Chet Baker, Billy Cobham, Phil Collins, Bob Weir, Chuck Mangione, and The Other Ones. And, of course, he has also been a rotating member of Jazz Is Dead since the late ‘90s. Yet I had only heard his work on recordings and had not seen him live. So, admittedly, I had expectations that he’d be more of a leading instrumentalist in the JID mix, perhaps more in a more dominant, Stanley Clarke-like vein. Interestingly, in that first half, he had largely shown himself to be a team player, serving the music first and supporting his fellow musicians, not being a lead ‘voice’ as such. It was in the second half, however, that his real genius began to shine for me.
Things quickly set off into a funkier direction in Set 2 with the opening instrumental jam of “Shakedown Street.” Between Kimock and Johnson, the two musical partners must have at least a dozen guitar pedals at their feet, and on this smoky, R&B-infused jam, they put many of their effects – wah-wah pedals, for sure – to good use. Johnson’s instrument, in particular, became a centerpiece as he stepped up to his pedals about midway into the nearly 20-minute jam and dialed up some different sounds. During this time, he led the band through a key modulation in a more formless passage for several minutes before returning to the song’s signature turnaround near the end.
Coming out of that modulated section, Rodgers took over on the guitar lead with Kimock dutifully sketching in R&B chords behind him, but then, for the outro, Johnson stepped forward and played a voice-like solo with his wah-wah pedal while his bandmates carried the disco-fusion groove behind him to the very end. Throughout the entire jam, lots of groovy, almost B.B. King/Chicago blues call-and-response worked around the stage, very liquid, like a lava lamp in full flow. Nice and slippery! Old music, sounding vintage and modern at the same time. It was a great gateway to the second half.
Next, like clouds clearing slowly after a thunderstorm, the band drifted into a wispy transition full of “Space”-like skitterings, mallet rolls and cymbal rushes that soon revealed itself to be a soulful cover of Garcia’s much-loved 1972 solo track, “Bird Song.” (At the first sign of the song’s melodic hook, which crept in on Johnson’s stealthy low end, a wave of applause and whistles rippled through the audience.) And, once again, the 20-minute threshold seemed like a mandatory time marker for the quartet as this jam easily hit that mark again.
Again, a key strength of JID on this was their keen appreciation of timeless melodies of these many GD songs. And, in the case of “Bird”, even though there were no vocals, it was again very easy to hear all of the words play back mentally. Knowing that Garcia and Robert Hunter had written the song initially in honor of their friend and musical legend Janis Joplin, and also counting it among my most favorite Garcia/Hunter songs, I felt as though JID were paying tribute to all three musical pioneers in one full stroke. Kimock and Rodgers teased out many sweet melodic phrases and took us some distance away from the root melody, but they never let it float away completely.
“King Solomon’s Marbles/Stronger Than Dirt” came next in with a jazzy drum intro that soon broke into the well-known GD instrumental with its snappy opening and closing guitar riffs. Here, again featuring Johnson in a central role, the band took flight after the song’s unmistakably snappy intro. Rodgers – playing electro-acoustic hollow body this time on the first solo section and taking leads with that watery keyboard warble to his notes – called to mind the terse interjections suggestive of Garcia’s banjo-like phrasing used on the GD original. And during the second solo, Kimock played in a more open, less frenetic, Dickie Betts-type jazz-rock style with lots of moveable chord shapes and short melodic phrases. But, unlike on that opening “Shakedown”, the band stuck generally more to the template of the original “Marbles” composition while still exploring its outer harmonic margins.
As on the original, the time signatures of “Marbles” shift around from variations of ‘four’ time, including 5/4, 6/4, and straight 4/4, and the musicians proved they were all on their toes, catching all the ‘ones’ and arriving together on time. It’s such an easy song for anyone to slip up and slip out of time on, and when everyone hits their marks, it’s an exhilarating showpiece of musical ebb and flow. (I had also heard Furthur do it once, in 2010, and that also was an outstanding version. And, of course, that performance included one of its three main co-authors – Phil Lesh! So that certainly had given it some grounding and made it special for me.).
Johnson was brilliant, too, in showing more of his improvisational skills in a complex rhythmic framework. Seemingly, he preferred to play downscale counterpoints to the ascending phrases from the two guitarists, maintaining harmonic tension. There were definitely moments where Johnson’s jazz chops asserted themselves, as the music stopped being rock and went outside of the genre even when the song remained inside the lines. So, it was a vivid meeting of the musical minds, for sure, and especially gratifying for me, since the rhythmic complexity of the song is what I found so compelling about the Dead in that Blues for Allah period. (I always wanted them to plunge further in that direction.) I’d say with “WRS”, "Bird Song" and then “Marbles”, I was feeling damned happy about my song luck so far. When JID played the final tag of repeated percussive snaps at the end, and before the audience could applaud, I even shot up on my feet and shouted in a loud bird call, “Cawwwwwww!”, just like on GD’s 1975 studio recording. (I wondered if they could hear me?)
The holiest, most spiritual sequence of the evening for me, however, was still to come, and it arrived as the band quieted down one last time for the extended, set-closing rendition of “Stella Blue”, a true high-water mark in the songwriting of Garcia and Robert Hunter.
I first heard “Stella Blue” in 1975 and – being the sucker for those funeral-procession-type pieces that I am – I loved it immediately. Then, when I saw the Dead in Cincinnati in June 1986 – less than two weeks before the onset of Garcia’s untimely diabetic coma that year, “Stella” was an encore song for that outdoor summer show. I stood on the lawn of that shed venue that night, without a poncho, as rain began to gently sprinkle down at the end of the show. I was lightly soaked, but by that point, I didn’t care at all. I had long felt that Garcia’s performance was a perhaps unconscious cry from the heart that took on more significance after news of his health crisis had been reported so soon after that. (I’ve often wondered whether he had sensed anything ominous was waiting around the next bend for him.) Certainly, that moment was a cherished memory for me!
Obviously, as an instrumental piece, JID took the song into a whole new space, with guitarist Kimock employing a hauntingly delayed lap steel for the melodic lines and teased out solos. The mood was very slack-key, with a strongly hallucinatory David Gilmour flavor. This time, it was unmistakably Kimock’s showcase, with Lavezzoli keeping a light-but-steady hand on the percussion and Johnson providing dramatic tension in his voice-leading bass walk-ups between the verses and choruses.
Of course, Rodgers’ processed guitar tones provided a watery, Floydian counterpoint that suited the haunting slide melody perfectly. Words fail me to capture how sublimely heartbreaking that was, bittersweet in the best way possible, and it closed an emotional circle that Garcia first opened for me with that one 1986 performance. Obviously, for Kimock, who is known for having a longtime bond with Garcia when they were peers, the performance was almost like a prayer to his long-lost friend.
For me, it also called to mind Garcia’s crystalline lap steel performance on the David Crosby song, “Laughing”, from Crosby’s 1971 debut album, If I Could Only Remember My Name. (A true masterpiece.) Indeed, in this keen musical moment in Cincinnati, emotions and past associations flowed outward from the stage, around all of us, allowing older listeners like me to feel all these personal musical connections coming back to life. It also conjured new images in my mind of breaking waves on a tropical island, which is also not that far off from Crosby’s affinity for sailing. So perhaps Kimock was stirring up another ghost while he was at it.
The Christmas tree shone on the opposite side of the stage, just beyond Kimock, and its reflection shimmered in the polished stage flooring just beside him. Yes, it was spectral, but comforting, too, and I felt another presence in the room besides the musicians and the audience.(There were no special stage effects, but drifting dry-ice smoke would not have been out of place!) Truly, with his tone and phrasing, Kimock made me feel as if the song’s author himself was in the room and playing. Truly, it was almost as if Garcia was the Ghost of Christmas Present!
At the conclusion of that celestial “Stella” performance, the band moved into what was quite obviously ‘encore mode’ without leaving the stage. Simply taking a quick ‘breather’ and swapping off lap steel for another six-string, the four musicians signaled that they were ready to rock. And, fittingly enough, with plenty of grey hair to go around on stage, and a good number of grey-streaked heads in the audience, the band launched into Garcia's and Hunter’s timeless ode to survival, “Touch of Grey”.
As on several earlier songs, Kimock switched guitars for a different sound, finally bringing out his classic, burgundy-red Gibson SG and a metal guitar slide for this final workout. Before the first note was played of what I rightly assumed would be the sole encore song, I thought to myself: “OK! Now this one’s gonna be some rock ‘n’ roll.” And, indeed, it was – full of blazing slide licks and barreling refrains.
Finally, as the band stepped out from their gear and made their round of band introductions, point man Johnson expressed deep gratitude for the strong, weeknight turnout and generous response of the audience. (It was a nearly-sold-out show.) So it was not just another gig, not just another night of checking all the boxes, but actually an arrival at and dwelling in the presence of many powerful musical moments. As members took their bows and basked in the eager applause, Johnson said with a laugh, “We’re very grateful. . .heh!. . .no pun intended!”
I do have to add that since I know the venue well from having seen other shows there, I believe the intimacy is a major boost for performers and audiences to merge as one. Personally, I always enjoy it when I hear musicians making full use of the acoustics in such a venue, in the truest sense of ‘playing the room’, using the dynamics as another instrument. And in that regard, I was most impressed with JID’s performance, especially with how Kimock played the long notes of “Stella” against the reverb of the room. Ironically, and perhaps most of all because of the Christmas tree lighting, the vibe of the night was very”church-y", definitely a spiritual experience that perhaps would never come across in streaming videos online. Yet, very soul-stirring, far from sedate. It was definitely a night you had to be there for, and I’m truly as glad as the musicians that I could be there.
If you saw any of the other shows on JID’s fall tour, you might have heard completely different songs, or even some of the same ones as we got to hear, here in Cincinnati. So you’d have some idea why my synopsis was so rosy in hue. And if you haven’t seen them perform yet and you have any personal connections to Grateful Dead music, or even if you don’t, spending a night with Jazz Is Dead would be time very well spent, just for the sheer musical adventurousness of their performances. I will definitely want to see them again – every chance I get.
Note to self: “Next time you get to see Jazz Is Dead, skip the photos, man. You don’t want to miss a note!”
It might be a musical stretch to even think of the British rock-pop band Queen and U.S. folk-rock singer John Sebastian in the same thought bubble. But it’s really an ironic numbers thing about them both that just came to mind. As Sebastian once sang in a Lovin’ Spoonful song, “there’s thirteen-hundred and fifty-two guitar pickers in Nashville.” And, of course, there aren’t that many Queen tribute bands in the world. Still, you might be surprised to find there are far more than a couple dozen Queen-centric bands who aspire to claim the crown of The Queen, while active members of the original band also still perform Queen’s music to this day. But in that indefinite time span before Queen found their way forward, one tribute band – the UK-based Killer Queen – was the first to step into the void and make their mark.
Of course, the classic Queen line-up of vocalist Freddie Mercury, guitarist Brian May, bassist John Deacon and drummer Roger Taylor had a celebrated career, spanning from their early beginnings in 1970 to their initial retirement in 1991, when vocalist Mercury passed away. There was a brief installment of the band with veteran rock vocalist Paul Rodgers, from 2004 to 2009. And since 2011, founding members May and Taylor have continued to perform as Queen with the acclaimed vocalist Adam Lambert. (Bassist Deacon has retired from performing.) But judging from the sheer number of successful Queen tributes, one must conclude that demand for live performances of Queen’s music is insatiable.
You might say, “Sure – lots of Queen tribute vocalists can wear the leather hat, drum major uniform and porn-star mustache of Freddie Mercury, but how many of them can truly replicate his idiosyncratic and highly theatrical vocal range and mannerisms?” And with so many competitive bands pouring themselves into the music of this legendary band and singer, how would you begin to separate the cream from the dregs and choose which one to see first unless someone would give you a head start?
Perhaps longevity and continuous audience enthusiasm are the most reliable clues as to how authentic a Queen tribute band really is. With Killer Queen – fronted by founding KQ vocalist Patrick Myers since 1993 – Queen fans worldwide have, for more than 30 years, been able to experience a performance of Queen’s artful power-pop music in the semi-absence of the real thing. And KQ have grown from just being a fledgling boutique band, playing in small nightclubs and theatres, to an in-demand, internationally touring band that can sell out the very same larger arenas that Queen themselves could command back in the day.
Starting in late February and running into mid-summer, Myers and his three bandmates will be taking their Mercury-centric show on the road for a two-part tour in North America. From Feb. 29 through March 30, the band will perform on 11 dates in the Central and Western U.S., including a special March 26 show at San Francisco’s magnificent Masonic Auditorium.
Then, from June 28 through July 28, KQ will add another run of 13 dates, encompassing cities on the East Coast in the Upper Midwest and even a couple of mountain states. (One of these latter dates will include the band’s return visit to Red Rocks Amphitheatre, in Morrison CO, on July 16.) All told, the two tour legs in the U.S. will include a total of approximately 25 dates.
Before that, in mid-January and into mid-February, the band will also perform on a small batch of dates in northern Europe. Then, in the later Spring, between U.S. dates, they will return to the UK and Europe to squeeze in more shows. Singer Myers promises that there will also be another round of U.S. dates in the fall, between mid-September and mid-October. (You can see more details at https://www.killerqueenonline.com/tourdates). Obviously, a very busy year!
In early January, Grateful Web had the opportunity to get the back story on Killer Queen via a quick phone chat with KQ main man Myers. He shared a look behind the scenes and at what it takes to keep such a high-key tribute act like this going year after year. As you’ll read, he said that he draws great personal inspiration from the mythology of the late Queen frontman Mercury and this one-of-a-kind power-pop band. Also, as Myers noted, he and his bandmates are committed to always making each show better than the last. Because, y’know, also like John Sebastian and the Spoonful, Killer Queen believes in magic.
GW: Great to talk with you, Patrick. Hoping to touch on many different aspects of your band. I know from some of your bio materials that you never had the chance to see Queen when Freddie [Mercury] was still performing. But I’m curious to know about your personal history with Queen’s music, such as when you first discovered them, if you’ve ever met any of the members, etc. Also, a little bit about your fellow band members in KQ.
Myers: Thank you, Sam.Looking back to when we started in 1993, the [original musicians} and I were all students at college, and it took off so fast that not everyone could keep up with their college work and the demands of the band. It was only a year and a half after we had done our first show that we were then doing a show at West End, which is like London’s version of Broadway. So that’s how fast it took off for us, and we were just students. At the time, we had no idea it was going to be like that. It’s not the same band now we started out with, but the band I have now is the same one I’ve had for many, many years. Great, great performers, fantastic to work with. And – I might add – great to hang out with, which is kind of crucial if you’re going to tour the world together!
GW: Yes! Very true, since being in a working band is like being in a four- or five-way marriage. . .
Myers: Well, to just back up to your earlier question about discovering Queen – I had been aware of different songs that I liked but, as a small kid, I wasn’t aware that they were all by Queen. And it all hit me when I was 13 or 14. I had discovered The Beatles through my parents. Thought they were fantastic, but I knew they had [dissolved] and were never going to get back together again. So there was a finite amount of music from them. I was looking for someone or something that was as good as The Beatles, but, y’know, from my time and generation, in the ‘80s.
I remember a friend of mine set me up with headphones one time and said, “You’ve got to listen to this – You’re going to love this band!” And it was was Queen’s Greatest Hits, and I just couldn’t believe it. I already knew so many of these songs! It was Freddie’s voice and Brian’s [May] guitar, the fullness of the sound and the production was all so impressive. To me, the songs were so inventive and varied. I was, um. . .gobsmacked, I think, is the word!
So by the time I was in school and we put the band together, we started playing at assemblies and we did our own songs, but we put Queen songs in as well. But I had already been learning and playing their songs before that, so that wasn’t accidental.
GW: I’m curious about your own musical training and knowledge.
Myers: In the band, I not only sing but also play keyboards and guitar. And I trained as a classical guitarist and studied composition. So I was very interested in the classical element of Queen, too, how musical they were. For example, the counterpoint between voices, the interaction between the guitar and bass, the dynamics. All of that was so intoxicating to me, and, y’know, I just wanted more!
And so, as far as Queen goes, I never imagined that it would be over so soon for them. I thought they’d just go one producing more magic. I thought they were invincible! When I went away to university [in the early 90s], I had just heard that Freddie was ill, and then not too much longer came the news that he had died.
It was such a shock for all of us. We didn’t really know what to do except to sing their songs together. We had some instruments at school and we started working out some songs. We [lined up] some gigs at school soon after that and moved into the local bars, and some festivals in our hometown. But then I moved to London and was studying drama and acting. I had a rudimentary idea of what it was like to be a musician in a band, but then it struck me, “Why don’t make costumes and dress up as Queen and do a show that way?”
So it was doing a salute to Queen, if you like. But at the same time, it was also the early beginnings of the tribute band scene. There was one early band that dedicated itself to the music of Abba (Bjorn Again), and I thought they did a brilliant job. And I thought maybe we could do the same kind of thing but with Queen, so it would be a way of creating a feeling of being at a Queen concert. We just thought – at the time – that there’d never be another Queen performance. So our first desire was to create that feeling of being at a Queen show, that emotional connection with an audience, that sense of celebration.
But, obviously, we were one of the very first Queen tribute bands, and it all took off very quickly for us. Within a year, we had gone from just playing local clubs to [bigger shows] at the West End. This soon led to being on national TV and getting asked to tour in [major cities in] Europe. And, of course, the door finally opened for us in America, too, and we’ve toured extensively here, too, since 2016. We’ve performed at Red Rocks and on [the PBS TV music show] Austin City Limits, and on the coming tour we’re scheduled for a major show at the Masonic Auditorium, in San Francisco. [On March 26, 2024.]
GW: When you started playing larger shows, you were moving more into theaters and music halls, and in time, even arenas, right?
Myers: Well, yes, oddly enough, we’ve found ourselves playing in many of the same larger venues that Queen themselves used to play in. Many of the theaters are around the 3,000-5,000-seat size, but we’ve also played to audiences as large as 25,000.
GW: From what I’ve seen in online clips, I know you have a very visual show, with high production values. There’s one very nice ten-minute sampler, with lots of song excerpts, that’s gives a lot of insight into what your shows are like. So I’m curious about how you scale your production for venues of different size.
Myers: It’s all about capturing that electrical sense of the experience, the atmosphere in the room that Queen was so good at. It’s almost like the crowd is part of the performance. So, basically, you design shows for the venue you’re playing. Obviously, if we’re playing an 800-seat theatre, there’s no way to fit in[big lighting rigs] and projection screens. You simply can’t do that. So we have a different version of the show for that kind of theatre. So, no matter where you see us, you’re going to get a proper show that still looks fantastic. very vivid and colorful – great lighting and effects!
GW: Interestingly, when you started Killer Queen in the early ‘90s, many tribute bands we know today were still in their early, formative stages. You mentioned Bjorn Again, and there were also now-long-running groups such as the Australian Pink Floyd Show and the Genesis tribute group, The Musical Box, who were just getting started in that time period. So you were all pioneers, inventing the blueprint and writing the rules for how to produce tribute shows. Obviously, tribute bands are everywhere now, and there are tons of just Queen tribute bands. I’m curious where Killer Queen ranks among all of those bands, even though you were the first. For example, are you officially recognized and approved of by the Queen organization?
Myers: Queen keeps all the tribute bands at arms’ length, really. They even have their own official production called The Queen Extravaganza, which has been active for about eight to nine years. Completely understandable that they don’t interact with any of us. So we don’t judge ourselves by where we rank with Queen, because it’s impossible. It’s the feedback we get from Queen fans themselves – the people who have come to our shows and have really enjoyed themselves – who maybe never saw Queen before but tell us in social media and emails that they now feel as if they have. That’s the validation that we look for.
GW: Some tribute bands do upward of a 100-150 shows per year, but they also sometimes have rotating personnel for different legs. How many tours/dates does KQ do each year and do you keep the same players at all times?
Myers: We schedule about 100 shows per year ourselves, not too much more than that, because of the amount of travel involved. We’re based in the UK. We could probably closer to 150 if we just stayed in the U.S. and traveled around [in North America]. We have fans all over the world and we do like to travel, so we need more time to get to different corners of the globe. We do like to get home for short periods, and then we go back out. We do keep the same line-up, although there are a couple of folks we keep on back-up in case someone gets ill. We’re not like some of those tribute bands that operate almost as a franchise, with a different version of the band that tours in Europe from the one that tours in America.
GW: In terms of you personally emulating Freddie’s persona, I know you not only recreate his vocals but also play instruments and go through a lot of costume changes. I understand from other interviews with you that you’ve watched a lot of film footage of Freddie to study his stage presence. So did you also seek out theatrical coaching or have you drawn upon your own experience in drama and just learn Freddie’s postures and gestures from watching those films of him?
Myers: I’ve done it all from my own research and observation. My own acting experience gave me a lot of insights. But, the thing is, you absorb only what you need to know about the songs and the show. But I’m also very interested in Freddie as an artist, as a person. He had an amazing ear for composing and arranging songs. And he also had a fantastic artistic eye as well.
I did seek out guidance from his costume designer, Natasha Korniloff , to learn about his [artistic vision]. Just hung out with her and listened to stories about what he was like as an artist and a person. It’s really about absorbing other information that adds to the picture. Really, I just find Freddie fascinating and consider him a genius, in his own way. Such an interesting character, and it’s always a pleasure for me to jump into that energy on stage.
GW: I’m curious about how you and the band replicate some of the more complex arrangements, especially with the vocals on songs such as “Bohemian Rhapsody”. I know everyone in the band sings, but do you also work with backing tracks or have you re-arranged it in anyway to make it easier to sing live?
Myers: There are things you can do production-wise to flesh out the vocals, with audio processing. Harmonizing filters that help to double the vocals, that sort of thing. I wasn’t sure we could do “Rhapsody” live until I saw a band – and you’ve got to spell this one right – called the Funkin Bastards. I heard them do it and I realized what they were doing was [beefing up] the other musical phrases that the musicians were playing behind the vocals, to underscore it all and make the sound bigger. That makes it more manageable.
GW: Some tribute bands recreate actual shows, playing a specific setlist of a certain tour or full albums. Could you talk about how you put together the setlist and how it changes – or doesn’t – from tour to tour? For example, do you keep a main setlist and then rotate a few different songs to keep it fresh? And do you ever do special limited-run or album-themed shows, such as A Night at the Opera?
Myers: Yes, we’ve done special shows, at certain times. When we played the West End (in London), we didn’t play whole albums, but we’d just do the 1970s Queen with the ‘70s costumes in the first half, and then we’d switch to the ‘80s era in the second half. But, actually, we stopped doing that after a while, because a big part of the pleasure for us of doing Queen is the mixing and matching the songs of different time periods within [one show].
It’s how the songs of different eras play off of each other rather than separating them out into something more linear. I think it’s more fun musically and, as a show, it has a bigger impact to mix up early Queen with things that were a few more years more down the road. So even though it can be a lot of fun to do a full album, it’s also more predictable – and maybe not as exciting – for the audience. I think Queen themselves liked to mix it up and to keep that element of surprise for audiences.
GW: So how often do you rotate your setlists? Do you stick with one set for a long time or drop songs in and out of certain slots in the show?
Myers: Yes, we do [regular spot changes] in the show. As we go through the year, it’s really an ever-changing feast. Obviously, it has a lot to do with where we are playing. Certain songs, for example, fly really well in Europe, and then when we’re playing in the U.S., we’ll shift the set more toward what has been popular here. So it’s really centered around the geographic locations.
GW: Could you talk a bit about the vocal demands of a show, how you train for a show, and how you manage the length of a show or the time you spend singing?
Myers: I’m guessing that most of our shows are about 100 minutes or so [1 hour, 40 minutes]. We try to stick to that, sometimes go a bit longer. We do a few songs as medleys, and there a few solo breaks in the show. For example, there’s a drum solo, and our guitarist does [an extended] “Brian May” guitar solo, where he moves through a lot of motifs [excerpts of different songs] and creates a Wall of Sound with his effects pedals. Some of the times I go off stage for a costume change gives me a break, too.
GW: There are some tribute bands which go to great lengths to use only the same vintage instruments (specific guitars and keyboards, rare-brand tube amps, etc.) to recreate the original live sound of their chosen band as closely as possible. Do you and KQ think this is critical to your sound?
Myers: Yes! Our guitarist plays with a Brian May [special edition] replica guitar, the bassist uses a Fender bass like John Deacon, and our drummer tries to tune the toms to the same resonance as Roger Taylor. But for keyboards, we’re using modern digital instruments. I don’t use the same [type and brand of] piano as Freddie used to play, though. He used to tour with a baby grand piano, but I use a digital piano instead. Everything else we try to keep as authentic as possible, so it sounds and feels like Queen to everyone in the audience.
The question that our guitarist gets asked all the time is whether he plays with a six-pence (using a coin as a guitar pick like Brian May). In fact, [the KQ guitarist] used to do that quite a bit, but now he plays more with his fingers. The six-pence has a nice, crisp attack to it, though. That’s one way that Brian gets his unique sound.
GW: I know you’ve attended a show of the re-formed Queen with vocalist Adam Lambert and have felt very positive about that experience. I’m curious whether you’ve seen any shows by other Queen tribute bands, and what you learn about Queen’s music and shows from seeing these other performers.
Myers: Different things! For example, with Adam, you learn straightaway that he’s a world-class vocalist, in a league of his own. Just extraordinary! I remember the first time I saw him, I was with a group of friends. All of us were just flabbergasted about how he just owned the songs from the entire Queen catalogue. So he’s now been touring with Queen for quite a long time, well over a decade, and I’ve seen them a couple of times now. They so comfortable and easy with each other. It’s marvelous!
As for other Queen tribute bands, I’m always like, “Yeah – it’s good to have a refresher and see [a new take] on performing this music. I enjoy it a lot! Not only going to see them in a live venue, but also looking at a lot of YouTube clips, all the time. But the best thing, I think, is being in the venue, feeling the atmosphere and seeing what turns on the audience. The song choices, the “pecking order”, the emotional reactions. It’s always interesting, and there’s always something to learn.
GW: Great, Patrick! I really have just have a couple more questions then. Some touring tribute bands switch off between different legs of tours, to go do session work or to move onto different tribute projects. For example, last year Todd Rundgren performed on a David Bowie tribute tour, then rolled off and went into a Beatles-themed show. So are you strictly all about Killer Queen, or do you also work on other projects such as classic ‘80s bands between runs of KQ shows, when you have larger chunks of time?
Myers: No, I don’t do any other touring band projects, but I still regularly do acting work back home here. But the KQ thing has been so busy for me that my acting has taken a bit more of a back seat. What I do manage to do on the side is I write my own songs. For example, there’s a song I wrote in the style of Queen during lockdown called “We’ll Fight Again”, and we made a video for it that’s on our website and on YouTube. (Please see the links for the YouTube video and Soundcloud file at end of this article.) You’ll hear that it sounds very much like the original Queen, and you get to see us in and out of costume a bit.
GW: So what are your plans for touring in other regions after you wrap the summer U.S. tour?Are you going to roll right into the fall, or take a break and plan your 2025 bookings? And will the next tour feature new songs and sets, or will it be a continuation of the current format?
Myers: Yes, we’ll come back to North America in mid-September to mid-October, and then we’re doing arena shows in Europe a bit before and then arena shows in the UK – Newcastle, Aberdeen, Liverpool, all around – after that. So, yes, we have a lot of work lined up for this year.
GW: It sounds like an exciting production, and I’m sure that Queen fans will get a lot out of the experience.
Myers: Yes, we really do strive for authenticity. Songs like “Bohemian Rhapsody,” "Another One Bites the Dust” and “We Will Rock You/We Are the Champions” are like dynamite for the audiences. They absolutely adore them. Of course, they love the whole show, every song, but those songs are like the absolute “jewels in the crown,” if you like. They’re such a joy to celebrate with an audience, and you want to be there for every second of it!
For more information about Killer Queen and the band’s additional tour dates, please visit the website: https://www.killerqueenonline.com/
That first impression was a stunner. There were the grunge-y, arena-rock power chords, the cracking drum rolls and the glitzy, sampled horn accents at the ends of those hanging sustains. And then, the sudden appearance of Jon Anderson’s singular, near-angelic, alto tenor.
“Move yourself/You always live your life/Never thinking of the future. . .”, he sang, his voice spiking out of the radio.
Of course, I knew it was Anderson’s stimulating voice, but what was that song with the squawky, laughter-like lead-guitar fills that bounced madly from speaker to speaker? The DJ, who had come on right after the song to back-announce it, answered that question for us when he said it was a new release from Yes. This then-brand-new single, making its FM radio debut in October of 1983, was “Owner of a Lonely Heart”, and to many ears – not only mine – the envelope-pushing British progressive rock band had never sounded like this.
For better or worse, from their 1969 arrival on the scene through their rapid and oft-criticized stylistic evolution toward ever greater musically-assured destruction, Yes had ‘established’ themselves – heh! – as a ceaselessly rotating five-man marriage of musical prodigies.
For example, legendary lead vocalist Anderson himself had been conspicuously absent from the 1980 Yes album, Drama. So this realization of his return to the Yes brand and this stunning new sound were quite the shocks. And the album that the band was about to deliver in November 1983 – with the spritely singer back in the fold and cheekily named 90125 after its Atco Records catalog number – would follow this new spirit and reshuffle the decks of many a fan and non-fan alike.
“As we cross from side to side/we hear the total mass retain. . .”
With self-assigned fervor, Yes had most of all prided themselves on compositions of epic length, fire-hose technical prowess and breathtakingly wide dynamic range. And thanks to Anderson’s idiosyncratic approach to lyric writing, Yes’ songs also carried a deeply romantic and fantasy-based worldview, often-conveyed through baffling wordplay. (And their album cover art up to 1980 had increasingly locked in that visual aura of surrealism and Tolkien-like, elfin fantasy.)
One critic from back in the day even once described Anderson’s cosmic wordles as “the mystical fringe.” The more withering British slang term airy-fairy or the all-purpose putdown psychobabble could just as easily apply. And, after a brief infatuation with the band in the early ‘70s myself, I quickly turned to mocking them for that same curious tendency.
Save for Anderson’s unmistakable singing voice, “Owner of a Lonely Heart” – at my first hearing on FM rock radio – barely had anything in common with that fringe-y Yes of old. That single was groovier, punchier and rawkier than even their transitional, pop-tinged Drama album in 1980. Crucially, this new song was also more danceable, and there would be many remixes of it to come that would take advantage of this very fact and help to boost its success.
For sure, even after the partial re-jiggering of Yes’ sound in the Drama era, in 1980, it still would take more time and creative side trips for core Yes members to arrive at the crafting of this true breakthrough. But break they did. With music and lyrics that were much more stripped-down and comprehensible than many classic Yes songs, the single “Owner” had done the seemingly impossible and become the most instantly accessible song in the band’s history.
“I still remember the dream there. . .”
It may be hard to believe that 40 years have passed since the arrival of 90125, an event which both marked the biggest commercial crossover success of Yes' career and, truly, their final foray into breaking new creative ground.
As with other legacy prog bands – think Genesis and Pink Floyd – who had weathered turbulent changes in the music industry in the 1980s in their own dogged ways to achieve new levels of popularity, Yes were hugely successful in attracting armies of new listeners with 90125. And riding on the wave of new exposure afforded by heavy rotation of music videos on the then-revolutionary MTV cable music channel in the mid-1980s, Yes punched through like never before to a much wider worldwide audience.
On the back of that head-turning lead single, sales of 90125 were phenomenal, with the album coming in at #5 on the U.S. Billboard 200 while reaching # 16 on the UK album chart. And, of course, “Owner” itself ranked high in many of the world’s Top 20 singles lists at the time. The song made it to #1 in the U.S., for two weeks in January 1984, although oddly enough it actually did come up short in the UK market at only #28.
Of the entire Yes catalogue, 90125 has remained the band’s best selling album (out of 23 studio albums released – and 90125 was # 11) with more than 3 million copies sold worldwide. It’s also worth noting that the 2:09-minute-length prog blowout album track “Cinema” – tucked into the middle of the album’s nine tracks – nabbed the group a 1985 Grammy Award for Best Rock Instrumental Performance. Nice work by anyone’s standards, especially for such an unlikely and divisive prog outfit like Yes, and such an unlikely song at that. Those Grammy people really are a silly bunch, doncha think?
But in late 1983, when 90125 arrived on record store shelves, none of that brain-popping success had been guaranteed. Downside first, the album proved to be a jumping-off point for some older fans who had been wet-nursed by the artier, more self-indulgent versions of the band. To them, the more compact songs and shimmer of 90125 smacked of “sell-out” and so – even with Anderson back on vocals – some of them inevitably turned away, feeling that Yes had seemingly abandoned their patented orchestral juggernaut style.
But then comes the upside: For music fans like me – thoroughly repelled by those conceptual excesses and always seeking more direct and emotionally resonant music – the many stylistic innovations of this more ‘80s-friendly album were welcome winds of change. (Truth is, I’ve always had low tolerance for the orchestral pretensions of keyboardist Rick Wakeman.) So “Owner” – and other 90125 songs soon to follow it in heavy rotation on FM radio – definitely changed my mind about them and won me back.
Then, of course, there were all those new, first-time fans discovering Yes as if they really were custom-made for the 1980s radio mix alongside fellow artists like The Cars, Talking Heads, Eurythmics and The Police. And – an added scoop of enjoyment for me – there was the much-ballyhooed return of original Hammond organ slinger Tony Kaye, who had left the band in 1971 shortly after their first burst of fame. His surprise return 12 years later gave me a poetic sense of closure. “Ahhhh,” I remember saying with a satisfied smile at the time. “Now that’s more like it.”
“You’ll see perpetual change. . .”
Historically, the tale of Yes – right to the present day – is truly one of intense internal competition, score-keeping (and settling) and perpetual personnel changes. And 90125 was the fruition of a roughly-five-year period of exactly that kind of creative turmoil.
There had been so many changes from 1978 to 1981 that the band had fractured completely, with even founding member and bassist Chris Squire and second-round Yes drummer Alan White leaving to pursue a very promising, non-Yes alternative for a brief time. So the conception and birth of 90125 – with that duo once again laying down the chunky rhythmic foundation – were not the predictable outgrowth of the band’s previous trend. In fact, the band underwent a complete reinvention.
We now know that assorted fragments of previous versions of Yes found their way back together with 90125. (Four previous members were back in the stable, and three were even veterans of the original five-man line-up.) But this re-birth followed a twisted and unforeseen path, and how different things might have been – for both some former band members and their musical history – if Squire’s and White’s exploratory, post-Drama project had survived.
In those doldrum years immediately following the last album with Jon Anderson and Rick Wakeman (1978’s Tormato), the band struggled through one of their roughest passages. Those two pivotal members had left in dispute in the early stages of Drama in 1980, and the quintet suddenly found themselves busted into a trio. With an album and tour both at stake, that obviously wouldn’t do.
A temporary new line-up had filled those gaps in with vocalist Trevor Horn and keyboardist Geoff Downes – both from the new-wave pop group The Buggles – for that one album and follow-on tour. Some of that turn-of-the-decade freshness in Yes’ sound at that time – which included hints of reggae and other trendy sounds, plus a move away from longer and more ponderous keyboard passages – quite likely had come from their contributions.
In 1981, however, after their decidedly underwhelming Drama tour, Yes had disintegrated completely, with Horn out as singer, Squire and White off to their new experimental group, and classic Yes lead guitarist Steve Howe and keyboardist Downes free to follow their own pursuits.
In short order, the guitarist and keyboardist landed well in the new Asia project with former King Crimson bassist John Wetton and ELP drummer Carl Palmer, while Horn was happy to move into full-time production work. (His embrace of innovative technologies and groundbreaking production techniques soon earned him the fitting title of “The Man Who Invented the ‘80s”.) Only Squire and White – now without a record contract – seemed to be on shakier ground. But they weren’t all that worried yet. Their new start-up project with the mythical guitar maestro of Led Zeppelin, Jimmy Page, had the potential of solving all their problems.
There was, of course, some early, friendly jamming with Page that had lifted everyone’s spirits. (Page himself was still coming back to life from the untimely death of his Zep bandmate, drummer John Bonham, in 1980, and the ending of their band.) The three re-animated musicians soon began rehearsals. This quickly led to recording and even a band name: XYZ – short for Ex-Yes and Zeppelin.
A fourth partner – keyboardist Dave Lawson – soon came on and together they had evidently worked up a head of steam. Word inevitably leaked out of the inner circle, and they soon found themselves being heralded as the next supergroup. But the jester held another deck of cards, as those all-too-typical factors of creative dissent and record-label conflicts soon kinked their plans, and Page was suddenly ‘out through the in door’. So, in spite of a promising beginning with the Zep guitarist, “Fish” and White had found themselves dead in the water again.
As luck would have it, a few intriguing but gritty, in-progress instrumental XYZ recordings were captured. (Curious music trollers can easily find three of these out in the wiggy world of YouTube.) Rumors of Page possibly giving his blessing to the official release of these recordings are as perennial as May flowers, but, for now, all we have are those three low-fi relics.
It must be said that, to any fans of heavy rock and prog, those clips offer an audio glimpse at what might have been. And, as drummer White has hinted, 90125 was still possibly laced with some of that magical, experimental DNA – if not any exact musical blueprints – from XYZ. So Squire and White at least came away from the experience with a heightened thirst for something new. And so, at the end of 1981, the duo quickly recorded a somewhat unlikely Christmas-time pop single, “Run with the Fox”, and put a new calendar on the wall.
“Wait! Maybe the answer’s looking for you. . .”
There were a certain key players in the development and perfecting of 90125 who warrant special mention here. The first of these would be – without even saying it – Chris Squire himself, who remained the fusion reactor of Yes’ perpetual motion machine through all of their incarnations, from 1968 to his unexpected death in 2015. Like the “Fish” he was, he kept swimming, kept writing, kept playing until he found more favorable creative waters.
Another would be Atlantic Records’ executive Phil Carson. It was he who had taken a special interest in Squire’s side projects along the way. He had even funded – out of his own pocket – the development project that became Squire’s and White’s new four-piece band in 1982 named Cinema. (Carson had first signed Yes to Atlantic for their 1971 third record, the Yes Album, after the commercial failure of their first two records. And he continued to keep Squire under his careful eye, even after Yes had lost their Atlantic record contract in 1981.) And, of course, Cinema would incubate and grow the music of 90125 before the mid-‘80s Yes was even a glimmer in anyone’s eyes.
A third would be 90125’s producer, Trevor Horn, the one-album Yes vocalist who had had a decidedly rough go as lead singer during the Drama tour. (That so-ironically named album was the same project which had triggered vocalist Anderson’s departure. And Horn had found he had a mighty big vocal role to fill. Word has it that he had often been drubbed about both his less-than-rock-god appearance and his voice by fans and critics during that tour. Helluva way to find out that being a front man isn’t your gig, eh?)
With his keen awareness of musical trends and new studio technologies – such the Fairlight CMI sampling synthesizer, MIDI interfaces and the Linn Drum Machine – Horn, however, would eventually play a crucial sounding board for the musicians moving forward.
In that general period, Horn had been producer for several popular artists, including the British pop groups Dollar and Frankie Goes to Hollywood, and singer Grace Jones. And roughly coinciding with his starting to work with Yes again, he had also become a member of the innovative ‘80s electronica group, Art of Noise, known for their arresting use of Fairlight sampling. In time, when he’d committed to become Cinema’s producer in 1982producer in 1982, he’d bring all of his recent experience and electronic chops with him. So Horn played an essential role as the sonic architect of the next Yes era.
But most crucial of all in the birth of 90125 would have to be South African guitarist/keyboardist/vocalist Trevor Rabin. After all, he was the songwriter who landed in the laps of Squire and White with a clutch of new songs and a hot guitar in hand. And he was thirsty for a new challenge. Truly, without Rabin and his songs, 90125 – as we know it – would simply have not existed.
An established and respected musician/songwriter with several albums under his belt at the time, Rabin was a highly eclectic and versatile rock guitarist who had come to the attention of longtime Yes cheerleader Carson in 1982. Having come from the successful band Rabbitt in his native country of South Africa and as an impressive solo artist, he first migrated to the UK music scene in 1978 with a head of steam behind him.
For a time, Rabin had been actively casting about for solo record development deals in the UK and the U.S., plus taking on production projects, with British artists. Meanwhile, Rabin had also entertained joining other prog heavyweights as a group member. And he had some notable near-misses.
For example, Rabin rehearsed briefly with the newly-forming prog-pop band Asia, with Howe and Downes soon after their exit from Yes in 1981, but had felt it was not quite the right fit. Following that, he also pondered signing on with a new supergroup with über-prog keyboardist Keith Emerson of ELP and Cream bassist/vocalist Jack Bruce, but, once again, no cigar. (Imagine what that might have sounded like!) So he was definitely on the rise and being seen as the musical equal to all these heavy hitters.
Meanwhile, Rabin had landed an ill-fated solo development deal with Geffen Records. After the guitarist had done several months of work on new demos and bailed on the Asia project, Geffen abruptly terminated their deal with him. But Rabin redoubled his efforts of sharing the best of his demos with more prospective labels. As he has explained many times, a big reason for his holding out was that he believed that his break as a solo artist would soon come and be more to his liking.
“You’ve got to want to succeed. . .”
One of Rabin’s demo tracks which sometimes drew positive attention was “Owner of a Lonely Heart”, an older song in his stash that he had first banged out on his guitar in a very resonant bathroom in 1979. (This hook-y and propulsive pop-rock song with a big sound first drew compliments from Ron Fair, an executive with RCA Records, but no offer. It had even been turned down by the usually sharp-eared Arista Records President Clive Davis, who had told Rabin he thought the musician had a good voice but felt that the song was “too left-field” to be a hit.) Unruffled, Rabin persisted and finally found fertile ground when Atlantic’s Carson heard the demos and then, in turn, introduced Rabin to Squire in 1982.
Squire was said to be struck immediately by the strength of Rabin’s songs and to be eager to form a new group with him and White as equal partners. As the story goes, no one intended for this to be a new version of Yes. And it was not the solo deal that Rabin had imagined, but it would finally be a group project with chemistry that felt right to him. And the strongest of these demo’ed songs – “Owner”, “Hold On” and “Changes” – were all original Rabin compositions that would, in finished form, eventually carry the first half of 90125.
Another powerhouse Rabin song written with the group – the killer, metallic arena-rock number with a grinding bass line, “City of Love” – would anchor the second half of the album. With lyrical input from Anderson, “Love” was like the other songs: Strong, hook-laden and modern tuneage that still strutted its proggy stuff, without noodling or filler. Whatever Rabin didn’t write outright among the album’s nine songs still provided with him co-writing credits, such as the layered vocal tour-de-force “Leave It” and the uplifting, five-man-written power ballad “Hearts”. An equal partner, indeed! So he was just the kick up the jumper that Squire and White had been looking for. And it was just as good for him.
*********************************
Coming up in Parts II & III: The push to finish 90125 and the rollout of the 9012 Live tour.
This three-part series is “Dead-icated” to the memory of Joseph Stercz, of Cincinnati, Ohio, a true fellow astral traveler who loved Yes, even when I was ‘he of little faith’. And, of course, we must never forget the late, great Chris “Fish” Squire, the trail-blazing Yes bass master who unleashed the lightning.
Near the end of 1982 and into mid-1983, the working trio of Chris Squire, Trevor Rabin and Alan White – in time, the heart of the born-again British progressive rock pioneers YES – were a band with no name and no record contract. And the 90125 album was still over the next rainbow. But at least, with multi-instrumentalist Rabin now on frets and keys, they had a stronger mission plus a cluster of promising songs.
As the project became more refined, an album certainly felt more within reach. Soon, that working trio realized the need for a dedicated keyboard player, and their solution arrived quickly in the person of former Yes keys man, Tony Kaye. But – even with choosing a new keyboardist – the longstanding Yes game of musical chairmanship would be far from over.
Old connections and loyalties must have run silent and deep for Squire, we’d imagine. So perhaps it shouldn’t be so surprising that his seeming first choice was that first-incarnation Yes keyboardist. In particular, it was already clear to the wily bassist “Fish” that Rabin was already a dominant instrumental personality in the band. So his belief was that someone with a less-busy keyboard style than former Yes players Rick Wakeman or Patrick Moraz would be a better fit with Rabin’s more effusive arena-rock playing style. (In 1980, Rabin had already passed on playing with Wakeman in the first start-up version of Asia with bassist John Wetton and drummer Carl Palmer, so Squire must have already known that was a dead issue.)
Kaye was Squire’s recommendation. And the bassist’s former bandmate from the early days of Yes– active beyond Yes with his own band Badger and Badfinger, and also hand-picked by David Bowie for the Station to Station tour in the mid-1970s – not only said ‘yes’ but also quickly began to learn the works-in-progress. And he soon began to kick in new elements himself. With three Yes men back on board, the wheels of the now-four-man band did, indeed, begin to turn in the direction of something more hauntingly familiar.
As all the pieces seemed more and more to be falling into place, the new line-up crystallized around the foursome and they christened themselves with a new name, Cinema. Their collective intention was to set themselves apart in the minds of the public as a wholly new musical identity that was not Yes.
“One trick and you're stuck with the dice. . . ”
Yet – as so often would happen within Yes world – friction began to rear its ugly head at various points. Near the end of pre-recording rehearsals, for example, Rabin had had his first doubts about the project after Squire’s head-scratching suggestion of bringing in former Yes lead singer Trevor Horn again as a possible vocalist. (The one-time Yes singer had not yet been offered the production gig.)
In Squire’s mind, it was more the untried concept of vocal sharing than having a distinct front man, but that idea caused discomfort for Rabin, who was a lead vocalist on several of his own songs. Most likely sensing the guitarist’s resistance, Horn did a quick fade and didn’t show up again. Then Rabin relaxed and continued working with the other three in purposeful harmony.
As arrangements were perfected and the time for recording had arrived, Cinema then began a spotlight search for a top producer to fashion the songs into an album. Several marquee-name candidates – including Bob Ezrin of Alice Cooper, Peter Gabriel and Pink Floyd fame – had come around for wining and dining. But, in the end, “Fish” cast his line once more in favor of Trevor Horn. Perhaps the now-in-demand producer had been Squire's pet pick all along.
Accounts do vary but Horn had reportedly not been keen on the project, perhaps remembering his unglamorous departure from the band as singer only one year before and his less-than-welcoming reception during the new vocal audition. Horn’s own music-executive wife Jill Sinclair had once urged to him seek his fortunes in production and not performance, saying that he could conquer the world as a producer. So, even if the band didn’t yet have a record deal, “the Man Who Invented the ‘80s” did sense a potent opportunity. And – certainly seeing that Phil Carson was the money man – he would soon lean into it.
The members of Cinema would need a bit of salesmanship, however. For example, Rabin and Kaye were said to have reservations, but, in time, both would come around. Then Horn got an official offer and the band quickly got to work. Once Horn was on board and trying to get his arms around the project, cracks started to form with some of the team.
Tensions first arose between Horn and Kaye over adding more synths and instrument-digital interfaces, but also between him and White over usage of a Linn Drum Machine in place of live drums in various places. And, as a co-writer of the Buggles’ 1979 smash #1 hit “Video Killed the Radio Star” and an experienced producer of contemporary pop music, Horn had learned a thing or two about making hit records. So he was quite keen on asserting his own sound and vision.
Kaye had always considered himself a traditional Hammond B3 organ and piano man, and, true, he had played a bit of ye olde Moog synthesizer in the first Yes era. But that was about as far as he was inclined to go. (He plainly didn’t aspire to the orchestral heights of his successors in the band – Wakeman, Moraz or one-album stand-in Geoff Downes– and their massive keyboard arsenals.) Horn had been pushing Kaye to shake off his “old” thinking and to embrace the more compact-but-versatile Fairlight CMI and other emergent tools. But the old-school keyboardist resisted and Horn’s frustrations grew.
White was said to have been somewhat more amenable to Horn’s steering. For example, after a bit of bantering, he agreed to playing with a more stripped-down set on certain songs and to tuning his drums to achieve a crisper Stewart Copeland-Police snap. With Kaye, however, things got pricklier. Disagreements had soon brewed to the point that Horn simply wanted to drop him from any further recording, even if he would have wanted to stay on as a touring member.
Reportedly having taken offense at Horn’s Plan B, Kaye abruptly decided to leave the band just prior to the band’s recruitment of their permanent lead vocalist and the last phase of recording. For his part, Rabin had had some chafing of his own with Horn but learned to look past it for the sake of the project, and his rapport with the producer did grow more trusting over time. Together, they fleshed out more of the keyboard parts. The question of fixing the live line-up would be revisited later.
“Wait! Take your time/see it through. . .”
The last big existential question to be answered loomed large: Who will become the band’s lead singer? Squire’s suggestion to bring in Horn before might have been pitched as a trial balloon of sorts, and they had taken a bit more time to ponder the solution. But it wasn’t long before a more radical idea came to Phil Carson: Why not invite Jon Anderson in for a try?
Indeed, why not? As with Squire’s old loyalties, there were evidently also some well-burned in “Fish” grudges. Although Carson suggested opening the door to Yes’ founding vocalist, who had previously departed under the most bitter conditions in 1980, Squire himself had deeply mixed feelings about Anderson and initially held off. But Carson – a longtime music marketing man who knew that a known product would be easier to “sell” than starting over from scratch – had felt there was a huge plus in having that singer’s familiar voice in the mix. So he went ahead and made contact, leading to that crucial moment when Squire and Anderson would finally meet again.
Carson arranged the “peace talk” phone call, and Anderson was intrigued after learning how far into recording they had gotten. The singer actually first heard the demo playback in Squire’s car later that day and was suitably impressed. So he joined Squire in the studio from there and put down test vocals to the working mix of “Owner”, which had been set aside while the album’s other backing tracks had all been completed. All agreed – though still with some hedging – that having Anderson behind the mic again was an inspired solution, and his voice would be the perfect addition to this Prog Trek: The Next Generation-style project.
When Anderson accepted Carson’s and Squire’s invitation to come listen, and then likewise had embraced their lead vocal offer, various accounts say that Rabin also joked that it also seemed like he was being “fired” as lead vocalist. Certainly, any anxiety about losing that firewall between that old Yes mystique and their new project would be understandable. After all, Rabin had invested so much of himself in being part of a new musical entity, not to become a tribute to antiquity. Still, it wouldn’t be long for everyone to realize that Cinema – with Anderson’s voice and contributions on most of the album’s tracks – was about to transform into Yes again.
So “Jon = Yes” might have been every fan’s natural assumption (Maybe yours, too?), but the band didn’t just magically become Yes right then. They might have even continued as Cinema, until word had gotten out about their born-again line-up of former Yes members and Anderson’s return. A major letdown hit them when ‘white mail’ arrived with legal notices that other bands already had dibs on the name Cinema. (Yes – multiple bands!) In some cynical circles, speculation had burbled that Cinema was really just a ‘false flag’ anyway and that it was always going to be Yes. But perhaps that was just some people’s overly colorful imaginations.
So, without even barely pausing to brainstorm a new name, that wise old music sage Carson once more made the perfect pitch: Why not just call the band Yes? And, in fairly short order, that’s what they decided to do. The double-plus good part was that it was enough to win them a new record deal with the Atlantic Records subsidiary, Atco Records, and Carson was able to recoup all of his good-faith money.
From that point forward, with a new chef in the kitchen, the songwriting recipes had become even more mixed than before. Rabin’s original lyrics had been tweaked here and there up to that point, and Anderson’s entry brought further menu changes. As the prospective songs were boiled down to the final nine on the album, parts of some unused songs would be recycled or kept for later use. But the album itself became leaner and less fattening, and the lyrics were crisper and easier to digest. In the end, nothing on the finished 90125 was accidental or an afterthought. Every song earned its place in the soup.
“Fish” himself landed one of the big radio winners on the album (and one of my personal favorites) with “It Can Happen”, which had grown slowly from a rough idea early in the project. Like Rabin’s own raw songs, “Happen” underwent many nips and tucks – such as the addition of the Rabin-performed electric sitar intro and his stratospheric, Strat solo mid-section – to become a transportive, meta-Floydian centerpiece on the album.
The sweeter, more orchestral power love ballad with a heart of six-string steel, “Hearts” was one of the most truly group efforts, with the song form developed first by Rabin then smoothed out by Kaye. Then came the later perfection of its main and counter melodies by Rabin and Anderson, and the singer’s freshly-drafted lyrics. And “Fish” – of course – also left his mark on the arrangement. The epic, soul-stirring song was selected as the album’s closer, and with its many emotional lulls and peaks – not to mention its strong Anderson presence – it would provide a grand and perfectly poetic capstone to the album. And perhaps, for all those reasons, it seemed like the album’s most Yes-like song of all.
In the final months, with a few major keyboard parts left to finalize after Kaye’s departure and Anderson’s arrival, Rabin came to the rescue to fill in some of the major keyboard lines for the final mix. And in a few other places where they desired to use sequenced patterns to flesh out the sound, the team also resorted to some outsourcing. Dave Lawson – the old XYZ bandmate of Squire and White – was one of the hired guns brought in for programming of digital parts, and a second was Jonathan Jeczalik. So the album would get shinier and shinier, day by day and month by month.
“Good timing has its good price. . .”
Funny, isn’t it, that one of the oldest songs on Rabin’s demo cassettes and the one with the most evident hit potential – “Owner of a Lonely Heart” – was also among the last songs to be committed for 90125?
“Owner” was the first song to which Jon Anderson had added his vocals in the spring of 1983, but tweaking continued for a while, with different members suggesting a bridge change here, melodic changes there, changing some ‘stupid words’ in various spots and continuing to wrangle over the audio processing.
Essentially regarding it as a lighter-weight pop tune, some band members were said to have been initially resistant to it. And then, others – such as its author Rabin – still believed in it but had given higher priority to tackling other tracks first, then coming back to it. But, most of all, it was producer Horn – keenly aware of its hit qualities after first hearing it on Rabin’s demo tape – who championed “Owner” and kept pushing the band to do their absolute best on it. And, of course, it would become the lead single.
The last song, however, to be completed was the densely-layered, ‘Voices-of-the-Angels’ track “Leave It”. At its core, it was a collaboration between Rabin and “Fish”. Interestingly enough, although his voice plays a prominent role in the harmonic layers, Anderson did not provide any substantial tweaking. And it’s also a song on which White had given complete ground to Horn’s direction and had refrained from playing live drums. With its ‘drier’, compressed drum machine sounds and sampled fills, the percussion track was clean and precise. So it left plenty of frequency headroom for the ping-pong vocals and percolating guitar, keyboard and bass parts. Again, it became clear that producer Horn – who had earmarked the song as a single – knew exactly what he was doing.
So much sweat and polishing – all that creative ‘push-pull’ – had gone into the creation of 90125, and in the fall of 1983, it was coming down to the wire. And – yes – the men of Yes had finally gotten to that finish line, first releasing the advanced “Owner” single on October 24, and then the full album on November 7.
Looking back on their accomplishment with the benefit of time, Rabin remarked in a fairly recent music interview that every bit of that perfectionism mattered, too. In that 2020 interview with Rock Candy magazine, he said bluntly that just retreading old ground would have been a “creative failure.”
The world’s reaction proved that Rabin’s and Horn’s mission with Yes was successful – in reality, beyond their wildest dreams. And soon after “Owner of a Lonely Heart” had blown up so big that winter, Rabin sat himself down to write an overdue and short-but-sweet follow-up letter to Arista head, Clive Davis.
Coming up in Part III: The rollout of the 9012 Live tour and finally hearing the New Yes live in 1984.
This three-part series is “Dead-icated” to the memory of Joseph Stercz, of Cincinnati, Ohio, a true fellow astral traveler who loved Yes, even when I was ‘he of little faith’. And, of course, we must never forget the late, great Chris “Fish” Squire, the trail-blazing Yes bass master who unleashed the lightning.
The legendary British prog-rock band YES started 1984 in a fine and busy mood, and they had every reason to celebrate. Thanks to strong radio play and follow-up rotation of video for “Owner of a Lonely Heart" on MTV, early 1984 sales of the album and featured singles came out of the sky and – if you’ll pardon the expression – they stood there. For example, “Owner” had become a #1 hit in the U.S. and ranked highly throughout the world in the early weeks of January. (Not only that, but also dance remixes of that song had also given the band crossover motion, landing them in the #3 position in Billboard magazine’s “Dance and Disco” sales chart. When did prog bands ever do that?)
In addition, dates were being rolled out for an aggressive campaign of spring and summer tours in North America and Europe, and ticket sales were moving at a very healthy clip. (A follow-on NA tour would come in the fall, with a similar heady response from the public.) Hopes were high – everyone was happy. What could go wrong, right?
Well, in one moment of celebration with his wife in early January when “Owner of a Lonely Heart” had just gone #1 in the U.S., guitarist Rabin suffered a traumatic injury in a public Florida swimming pool. (His abdomen would never be the same.) So the start of the tour – originally planned for early in the new year – had to be pushed back until the last week of February to allow his recovery from an emergency splenectomy. Then, it was off to the races for the five thoroughbred musicians, who after a calendar year – well into February 1985 – would go on to log nearly 150 shows, including added dates in the less typical market of South America.
We said five musicians, didn’t we? Well, for those who have been paying attention, that is both right and also not quite correct. There was also the not-so-small matter of having a proficient keyboardist to reproduce the richly-layered songs – both new and old – on the upcoming tour. And, as touched upon earlier, Tony Kaye had left them with more than a bit of patching to do at the end of the album’s recording.
The band and management wisely had wisely taken steps, however, to have that covered by offering the live gigs to Eddie Jobson, a pure-bred prog keyboardist known for his work in Roxy Music, Frank Zappa and the short-run British supergroup UK. In that latter line-up, for instance, he had worked with Asia’s bassist John Wetton, founding Yes drummer Bill Bruford and improvisational fusion guitarist Allan Holdsworth. So it would seem that Jobson was once again very much inside the league of crafty musical friends with the new Yes line-up.
In his heart of hearts, though, Jobson was actually said to be quite ambivalent about the project, as he had not worked on the 90125 recording. But once he had heard the finished album, he quickly changed his mind and said ‘yes’ to the offer. So he was on the fast track to master the proposed setlist and he was soon beavering away to learn all of his parts.
“There's method in the key of C. . .”
Shortly into the new year, when Tony Kaye had come off the 1983 Badfinger tour and was once again available, Yes management sought him out again and invited him to join on as a second keyboardist to Jobson. The belief of Yes’ seasoned A&R man Phil Carson was that even though Jobson was as good as he was, the band needed Kaye, if it were at all possible to bring him back. Due to his knowledge of the older Yes songs, his work on the 90125 album and his name recognition among the Yes fan base, Kaye was seen as essential, after all. And, happily for Kaye, his studio nemesis, Trevor Horn, would not be having any involvement in the live shows.
When Kaye accepted, the Yes team then informed Jobson that he and Kaye would be sharing keyboard duties, but Jobson would promptly withdraw. (He had also learned that the tour technical team had designed his stage rig based on the needs of the song arrangements, without seeking his input.) So he left Yes without ever recording or performing a single live note with the band.
But, interestingly enough, Jobson’s likeness did make it into some promo photos and that first video in the time between, so some permanent, non-musical trace of his otherwise ghostly membership has remained. (The “Owner of a Lonely Heart” video was later revised to take out Jobson’s face as much as possible.) Meanwhile, another double-plus good payoff: With the unforeseen delay for Rabin’s recuperation, Kaye had enough time to come up to speed on all the songs he would need to learn. Just another of those quirky turns in Yes’ crazy-quilt history that worked in their favor, eh?
The band’s transformation from Cinema into Yes had also had guitar implications for Rabin. When he first became involved with Squire and White in late 1982, he hadn’t foreseen that he’d ever be taking the place of longtime Yes guitarist Steve Howe and having to learn any of his old, schizy, scattershot-style guitar parts. The gentlemen’s agreement at the time was that Cinema was to be an all-new deal. But all that changed when the band’s name once again reverted to Yes. Obviously, for the live shows, older fans would be expecting to hear classic Yes songs – certainly “Roundabout”, “I’ve Seen All Good People” and “Long Distance Runaround” – played to satisfy their fond memories of the band’s celebrated Jurassic days.
Everything – or soit seemed – was suddenly on the table again. And Rabin was said to be rather worried about that prospect, as his original intentions with the band had only been forward-looking. But, most fortunately, as the band’s spiritual leader and de facto patriarch, founding bassist Squire helped to put all of the guitarist’s fears to bed by giving him first choice of what older songs they might play. And an added bonus: Squire then also gave Rabin the freedom to play them in his own, more florid arena-rock-meets-jazz-classical-fusion style. Huge problems solved!
Fortunately for Rabin, and Tony Kaye as well, this wasn’t just more Yes stage smoke and lasers. An interesting coincidence is that Rabin – perhaps even with Kaye in mind – had chosen three longer songs from the Yes Album – “Yours Is No Disgrace”, “I’ve Seen All Good People” and “Starship Trooper”. This fistful of songs was nearly a half hour of material out of a two-hour show that Kaye – a co-writer of the originals – would already know intimately. So, happily, Rabin’s selections would also make the learning curve easier for his bandmate. Now that’s teamwork!
Although both Anderson and Rabin would play some momentary, supporting keyboards in the show, there were portions of songs that Kaye did not work on in the later 90125 recordings that would still need to be played while those two were, um, ‘doing other things’. (Yes, the album is full of them.) So, for insurance, the band added a supplementary keyboardist, Casey Young, who would remain under the stage – unseen and unacknowledged – for a large part of the tour.
Reportedly, Young would provide mostly supplemental elements from samples, patches of vocals, string parts and some instrumental-digital interface parts. (In time, Kaye would finally become a late adopter and begin using some interfaces on later tours.) And audiences would be none the wiser of this special arrangement. And – as one slightly dazzled fan attending a show later that year– I can most certainly say that I had no inkling otherwise. In later shows, however, Young would finally emerge to take his rightful place on stage among the others and to take his much-deserved bows.
“It can happen to everyone eventually. . .”
As already described in earlier parts of this series, “Owner of a Lonely Heart” was my first ear- and mind-opening experience with 90125, in the fall of 1983. And then the album followed, and it wasn’t long before I champed at buying my own copy. Thematically, the album was bright-sounding, both harmonically and lyrically. It was full of songs about optimism and self-actualization, healing from a broken heart, making peace with your past, the zigs and zags of life on the road, and misadventures in the city. Nary a fairy or even a Siberian Khatru could be found anywhere in those lyrics, and I couldn’t say that I minded a bit.
Before I bought the album, though, other songs soon followed on the radio, and the one I remember most vividly at the time was “Changes.” I was immediately taken with the polyrhythmic opening figure doubled by keyboards and guitar. Though the sampled marimba-like part had a slightly mechanistic feeling not unlike some Peter Gabriel electro-World music rhythms of the early ‘80s, there was a cleanness and precision that appealed to my own increasingly ‘80s-oriented ears. As far as I was concerned, Yes had closed one more sale.
Rabin’s melancholy voice in the main song and the wistful lyrics of “Changes” told that tale of a broken heart, but there was also a triumphant sound of resolve in the choruses. The power chords of the refrains and bridge – and especially Jon Anderson’s close vocal counterpoint – gave hopeful balance and affirmation against the bleakness of the verses. And these were words that mattered to me at the time, and I never got tired of hearing them:
“Change, changing places/Root yourself to the ground/Capitalize on this good fortune/One word can bring you ‘round/Changes. . .”
Another 90125 song that had broken hard and fast on the radio was “Leave It,” an almost-Beach-Boys-type pop song with an inventive use of layered and rhythmic call-and-response vocalese over a thick, disco-like pulse. (This was not only a successful radio track but it also played an important part in the live shows.) But, for my purposes, I seem to recall having already bought my copy of the album before the song was burning up on the radio and MTV. To that point, for all the work that Trevor Horn and the band had put into the perfecting of the album’s lead track “Owner” and ensuring its success, it actually turns out that “Leave It” received the most benefit of audiovisual pre-production and a deluxe promotional push.
First, Horn saw to it that he would craft a number of those very groovy extended dance mixes of both “Owner” and “Leave It”. (One mix of the latter was an a capella version, which also had a hot, short run on FM Radio. And I bought one of those original, limited-edition vinyl EPs, too, after hearing that on my local radio station.) This was similar to what he would soon do with Slave to the Rhythm, a 1985 album by Jamaican alternative-pop singer Grace Jones which Horn would also produce very close in time. As a co-writer and eventual producer of the core ‘song’, he basically did multiple treatments of the same song form, though each variation on that album would have a different name. But he was trying it all out on Yes first.
Second, the band had hired the award-winning and highly experimental film/video producers, Kevin Godley and Lol Creme, to create not one but 18 versions of the music video for “Leave It” which made their first appearance near the end of March. All of these were derived from one grueling, single-day video shoot – generated from static, charcoal-suited profiles of the five musicians against a white-seamless studio backdrop. The producers’ neat trick was in the wildly divergent digital alterations of each version, which – taken together – seemingly made fun of all the overindulgent video tropes of the early MTV era. (MTV would rotate versions, and once even ran a marathon and a contest for viewers to spot all the differences. But, today, only a couple known versions have survived the ravages of time.)
In short, the videos were more or less the musicians – all dressed in funereal drab and looking more like accountants than rock stars – ironically mourning the death of the sequined-and-silk-caped Middle Earth Yes of old. (Ahh, but rest assured, “Fish” would still wear his fur-trimmed Medieval Coat-of-Many-Colors on stage.) In the original version, all the members were stock-still against that white background – but the real twist was that the image was flipped upside down! And from there, the permutations grew wickedly more tongue-in-cheek, more distorted and visually torn asunder. In any case, for anyone who had preconceptions about the patchouli-and-silk-pantalooned Yes of old, the message of the videos seemed loud and clear: “Yes is dead – Long live Yes!”
“He Ready for Anything That Is. . .”
After several months of absorbing the new album and becoming deeply familiar with the songs, I got my chance to see Yes perform nearly the entire 90125 album live in Spring 1984. That live date was in late April at Millett Auditorium, a typical mid-size college sports arena on the campus of Miami University, in southwestern Ohio. This was the same venue where Talking Heads had made a stop on their historic Stop Making Sense tour – another show I had seen there – a mere six months before. Both shows were sold-out events, proving that Yes could easily keep pace with their trendier competitors in those wavy times.
Quite coincidentally, I had the great fortune of living in the same apartment building at the time as a small group of younger prog and Yes fans who were also alumni of Miami University. Meaning: When tickets went on sale, my tuned-in neighbors were able to lock in seats that were adjacent to the stage in a special alumni pre-sale. And, thankfully, even though I had only recently made acquaintance with these younger, prog-friendly fans, they invited me along for the show. That made me a very happy camper.
Photo access was a bit less regulated at that time, but being in a VIP section for the show also enabled me to bring along a camera. Although not a very experienced photographer in those days, I was definitely in the catbird’s seat for this show. So, as you can see throughout this multi-part series, I was able to capture a fair number of photo souvenirs, although my quality at the time was obviously highly variable.
I had seen previous versions of the band – including Yes’ breakthrough 1971 North American tour on which Rick Wakeman had already replaced Tony Kaye by the end of that year. I had become thoroughly jaded with the pomp-and-circumstance of two other Wakeman-centric shows that I had seen later in the decade, so I had felt that I never needed to experience that kind of Yes show again.
But here was a new era with Tony Kaye back on stage – sporting a sequined smoking jacket at first and then stripped down to a white muscle-shirt. Rabin was also studded out in rock-star leather, and Anderson vamped out in an economical track suit and gym shoes. So we in the audience could size up visually that Yes would be offering us a different kind of Grand Night Out. And the music backed up that message.
On the night of the show, a brief ambient-electronica prelude accompanied the band members as they ambled onto the stage and took their places. Then – BAM! – the band launched into the thundering instrumental, “Cinema”, with its searing Steve-Hackett-like leads courtesy of guitarist Rabin and the shimmering, celestial keyboard layers. Just like the recorded version on 90125, it was a squeaky-tight, two-minute sonic assault that left no doubt that this we were about to hear a full-blown prog show. Nothing was left to chance, to be sure.
A rear projection screen at the back of the tilted, oval, high-tech, metal-grid stage made its appearance during this opening. Colorful animated pieces of the album cover’s de-mystifying, postmodern graphic logo went flying into place on a Tic-Tac-Toe grid over the bouncy, techno Linn drum groove before the next song. And then, like a choir of angels on high, the voices of Rabin, Anderson and Squire exploded out of the PA, announcing the beginning of “Leave It.” (With access to archival recordings of the tour via YouTube, I can now clearly hear that portions of the layered voices had been dropped in from the studio master. Too perfect for completely ‘live without a net’, but it had never even crossed my mind at the time! It was just so powerful and attention-getting, and that’s all that mattered.)
The chunky rhythm and gated drum fills propelled the song forward through the verses, with the commanding call-and-response of the vocalists finally ending on the hanging refrain of the song’s title. Quite a triumphant entry and mission statement from the band whose death certificate had been all but signed and tagged onto the body bags back at the end of 1981. It was a defiant shout of “Hey – mofos! We’re back! Didja miss US?”
The show had a good-natured, fun-loving feel and yet a bracing pace, delivering the thrill of the new courtesy of the obvious radio songs and stronger, deeper tracks from 90125. (All but one of the album’s nine tracks made it into the show.)But those songs – such asnext-in-line song in the setlist “Hold On” and later on “It Can Happen” and “Changes”, were also interspersed with more epic, early-1970s Kaye-anchored and Squire-propelled songs like “Yours Is No Disgrace” and “I’ve Seen All Good People”.
Yes, some obligatory nods were also made to the‘70s Howe/Wakeman version of Yes in the middle section of the show with songs from Fragile and Close to the Edge. Even the short Patrick Moraz era of Yes’ Relayer album was represented with a brief interlude of a song from that 1974 recording.It’s worth noting, however, that some of those selections were set into medley form, abbreviated or even just briefly quoted. That must have been an intentional ploy to ‘right-size’ the wider arc of Yes history more compactly for the show and to help the band cut a few musical corners while keeping the attention of older fans. As MVPs in the band, veteran keyboardist Kaye and freshman guitarist Rabin also got sparkling spotlight moments with instrumental solos of their own.
With decided acceleration into the final stretch of the show, the band burned through a genius sequence of the best new and old favorites. Obviously, Yes’ big new hit, “Owner”, had to be in that final run, and it was teased in with a bit of a discarded 90125 Rabin song, “Make It Easy”. Of course, I had no knowledge of this song at the time and have only learned about it many years later. (The full song did surface on expanded deluxe editions of 90125 in more recent years.) But it was certainly another moment of spotlighting for the guitarist that seemed unfamiliar but ear-catching at the time. It was one more nod to the guitarist’s strong presence and fresher sound in the mix.
Then came the must-play flashback from Fragile, “Long Distance Runaround/The Fish”, with a masterful extended bass solo from none other than “Fish” himself that included his thematic use of space-y and spiky false harmonics. Within the bookending theme of the 10-minute-plus “The Fish” instrumental section that followed “Runaround”, Squire squeezed in a frenetic bass melody from the Drama song “Tempus Fugit” along with other brief Yes quotes. (You had to listen closely to catch them all!) And drummer White – not quite soloing but giving as good as he got – exchanged a series of dueling call-and-response fills with the bassist.
Coming to a bittersweet conclusion, Squire put his final stamp on the barreling jam with a droning, fuzz-bass recitation of the immortal Gospel song, “Amazing Grace”, very much in the vein of Jimi Hendrix’s famous version of “The National Anthem”. (Being close to the stage with my camera at that final moment, I had the great luck to document that solo from this iconic bassist for posterity.) This showcase for the rhythm section at this peak moment would in time be identified by the name “Whitefish”, a fact I had no awareness of until very recently. But, obviously, it all makes perfect sense now: The perfect name for the perfect moment from the perfect rhythm section!
That drive to the end of the set included a cranked up performance of the gritty 90125 track, “City of Love”, easily the most metallic song Yes has ever done. By this point in the show, the band had whipped the audience into peak energy, just in time to hit us with a colossal, show-ending version of the Yes Album classic “Starship Trooper”, whose title Anderson repeatedly teased in the build-up at the end of “Love”. It was another of those classic Kaye showcases that I wish I had been able to hear while he was still in the band in 1971, but the thrill for me was finally getting to hear him in this show.
Along with Kaye, the band played triumphantly, with single-minded purpose throughout the multi-part epic. In the blistering ending, during which Rabin worked the front of the house and side ramps as hard he could with his solo, lasers flashed and the lighting rig began to separate and hover down over the musicians as if it were a descending alien Mother Ship lowering its on-board ramp. Epic showmanship! And, y’know, by show’s end – after the rousing, full-length “Roundabout” encore that followed –my mood was so elevated I’d have gladly climbed the stage and walked up that ramp myself.
“When we reach/we believe in Eternity. . .”
As luck would have it, I was not the only person wielding a camera on Yes’ 1984-1985 tour. (No luck at all, actually, since Yes – with great foresight – hired then-young filmmaker Steven Soderbergh years before his Hollywood success to document performances and behind-the-scenes action.) The tour that took place over that year spawned the almost-inevitable live concert film, which – wait for it – was named 9012 Live. Also accompanying this was a single-disc live album, 9012 Live: The Solos.
In hindsight, it’s obvious that it was all in a short period of time, but it was two years to the month since 90125’s appearance that 9012 Live was finally released. In what was seen as a ‘modern age’ with state-of-the-art technology at the time, the concert film was released on VHS tape in November 1985 as a companion release to the live album, 9012 Live: The Solos. The film was also said to have been shown in full on MTV, although I did not ever personally see it on the air.
If you'd happen to see the original version of the film now, you'd quickly realize it was a product of its time, with overuse of special video effects common of the era. Fortunately, it was later re-released on DVD in 2006 with bonus footage and a director's cut without the annoying effects. Soderbergh’s coverage of the tour would go on to earn him and the band a Grammy Award nomination for Best Music Video, Long Form. (One would guess that was the original, overwrought version.)
For its part, 9012 Live: The Solos was not a traditional live album but more of an EP that was intended as a companion to the full-length concert film. (Even the video did not contain a complete setlist from the tour.) Actually, it was pretty true to its name, featuring mostly those moments of the show that showcased the various members stretching out. It did, however, contain two full 90125 songs, “Hold On” and “Changes”. Then, in 2009, an expanded reissue included two bonus 90125 tracks, “It Can Happen” and “City of Love.” Interestingly, all of the full tracks were taken from the soundtrack of the film – captured in Edmonton, Alberta CA, in September 1984, but the solos were taken from other dates.
Never having acquired any of these after-tour products for myself, I really had no idea of these artifacts’ existence until stumbling into them in the wonderful world of YouTube within the last few years. In particular, I chanced upon an extended behind-the-scenes raw video documentary that Soderbergh captured, showing the band backstage before a show and winding down afterward, and otherwise being unscripted and unguarded. Quite insightful – and funny!
And, of course, there are full audio rips – even a few full shows on film – from various archival audience recordings that one can listen to for more insight. But, obviously, the quality is not always outstanding, and your mileage may vary on how long you listen to or watch them. (You may very well do as I have done and cherry-pick to hear selected songs.) But there is no arguing with the quality of the performances. I must say, however, that all of these documents have helped to preserve a moment in Yes’ history in which they had successfully re-invented themselves and found nearly universal acceptance everywhere they went. And it was about as happy as they would ever be.
If you are an aspiring Yes completist and were not aware of all these documents, I would encourage you to let yourself go down the rabbit hole and seek out what exists on YouTube. It is worth mentioning, however, that there are also the expanded and deluxe editions of 90125, plus a limited-edition collection of Trevor Rabin’s original early-'80s demos for the album titled 90124. And, for the serious Rabinophile, the guitarist also released a 10-CD box set in 2020 titled Changes. This limited-edition collection encompasses all of his 90125-related recordings, as well as revisiting his solo releases and later work as a composer for movie original soundtracks.
Although Yes would live through many more line-up changes and would release another dozen albums since that peak in the 1980s, there’s a quality about the 90125 album and live recordings that seems quite like preserving a scarab in amber. (Fwiw, a Steve-Howe-led incarnation of the band is touring again this year and Jon Anderson is still performing Yes music with his own backing musicians, so it does seem that the present-day Yes refuses to die.)
The 90125 album – born out of great inspiration and so much creative struggle – perfectly captured the band reborn, brimming with confidence and energy and ready for world domination. And, quite truly, you had to be there for a live performance on that tour, because it was something that had to be experienced in the moment, not merely via recordings. And the lightning that came out of that bottle would never strike again.
This three-part series is “Dead-icated” to the memory of Joseph Stercz, of Cincinnati, Ohio, a true fellow astral traveler who loved Yes, even when I was ‘he of little faith’. And, of course, we must never forget the late, great Chris “Fish” Squire, the trail-blazing Yes bass master who unleashed the lightning.
Don Was – the veteran, multi-Grammy-winning musician/producer and current president of Blue Note Records – is one of those virtual Renaissance men who always seems to have many pots a stirring. Over time, he has been a bassist, record producer, music director, film composer, documentary film maker and radio host. And 2024 promises to be no less busy for him.
At the helm of that pioneering American jazz music record label since 2012 and coming off extended touring withBob Weir&Wolf Bros, as well as recent Sirius XM and National Public Radio shows, this man of perpetual motion has new touring and business ventures on the horizon. And, just now – in early April 2024 – he carved out a small notch of time to talk with us here at Grateful Web about what’s next on his schedule.
Tops on Was’ list is the launching of the new photo exhibition of jazz music history, “The All Seeing Eye: Blue Note Records Through the Lens of Francis Wolff,” opening at Boston’s Boch Center on May 1, 2024. (He will also help to kick off the exhibition with a special, by-invitation-only pre-opening there on April 19.)
The Boch Center is the home of the exhibition’s main sponsor, The Folk Americana Roots Hall of Fame (FARHOF), which opened in 2019 within the Center’s Wang Theatre. And, even with a six-year hiatus from 1979 to 1985, Blue Note Records stands as America’s longest-running jazz music label, in no small part due to Was’ tireless, latter-day contributions. As you’ll see, Was tells us more about how he merged forces between those two organizations for this special exhibition.
In 1940, Francis Wolff – whose photographic images of Blue Note recording artists lent their distinctive graphic impact to hundreds of the label’s album covers through the late 1960s – became co-partner in the jazz music company, which his friend Alfred Lion had just founded in 1939. Both men had been recently-arrived U.S. immigrants who had fled the Nazi regime in Germany to seek safe haven here in the late 1930s. And both were avid fans of jazz who had landed right in the thick of that scene in New York City.
It seemed like the right time and place for their record label. Fascinated as they had been by the explosive creative energy of the American jazz/blues musicians at the time, Lion and Wolff dedicated themselves to creating a home for all of these artists to record and to perfect their craft. At the same time, the record company helped to make the work of these musical pioneers available to a wider base in the growing jazz music market.
Blue Note immediately began with recording and releasing the work of such boogie woogie piano artists as Albert Ammons and Meade Lux Lewis, and in time they would expand into more proper modern and avant-garde jazz, with such artists as Art Blakey, Joe Henderson, Horace Silver, Ornate Coleman, Miles Davis, Dexter Gordon, Herbie Hancock, John Coltrane, Eric Dolphy and Thelonious Monk, among many others.
And for Wolff, who had also been a commercial photographer in Berlin, Germany prior to his arrival in the U.S., the album cover format also gave him a natural canvas on which to craft his personal photographic vision. Reid Miles – the Blue Note album designer who joined on in the mid-1950s – often used Wolff’s images in stark, dramatic ways that expressed the combustible chemistry of the music in the vinyl grooves within. So this exhibition – built around Wolff’s intimate and revealing images of so many legendary jazz musicians in both the studio and in performance – makes a strong case for both the historic and artistic importance of his body of work.
Having had his own jazz “Road to Damascus” moment in 1966 when he heard saxophonist Joe Henderson for the first time on a car radio while waiting for his mother, Was got jazz-tuned right then – at age 14 – and has remained a serious, lifelong fan. Truly, Blue Note was in Was’ DNA from that moment forward. Signing on new artists at first during a brief stint as the same music labels’s CEO and creative director in 2011, Was then took on the reins as Blue Note president in 2012 and began taking a more active role in steering the then-73-year-old company in the new century.
Was’ mission at Blue Note has been not only to help in preserving the label’s legacy for future generations but also to continue its pursuit of excellence with new jazz artists and recordings, and to help keep jazz relevant among newer generations of listeners. For example, Was has not only been a champion for such contemporary artists as Robert Glasper and Norah Jones but also was instrumental in the latter-day re-signing of saxophone legend and former Blue Note artist, Wayne Shorter. (Shorter — the late, great Miles David and Weather Report collaborator and band leader who passed away in 2023 — released his final, three-disc album, Emanon, on Blue Note in 2018.)
In this following interview with Was – the acclaimed producer of and collaborator with such music artists as Bonnie Raitt, Bob Dylan, Ringo Starr, John Mayer, Willie Nelson, Brian Wilson, Roy Orbison, the Rolling Stones and Bob Weir – you’ll learn essential history about Francis Wolff and Blue Note, and how the exhibition came together. In addition, he shares more about his personal passion for jazz and his own history with Blue Note.
And, of course, if you stick around for the whole interview, you’ll see near the end that the jazz/rock/pop bassist also briefly tips the ever-expanding headband of his Spaghetti-Western trail hat to give us all a taste of what his new, nine-member touring band, The Pan-Detroit Ensemble, has in store on their upcoming spring tour. (Please see listing of tour dates, with a May 21 start date, at the end of this article.) Members - whom Was says all share his Detroit roots – include with saxophonist Dave McMurray, keyboardist Louis Resto, trombonist Vincent Chandler, trumpeter John Douglas, drummer Jeff Canaday, percussionist Mahindi Masai, guitarist Wayne Gerard and vocalist Steffanie Christi’an. And, of course, Was provides all of those thick bass grooves.
GW: I know this is a busy period for you, Don, so we appreciate you being able to squeeze us in. As a music photographer myself, I think this photo exhibition is very exciting, especially because of all the legendary jazz artists represented. So I’d like to focus on your relationship with Blue Note and then have you talk about the creation of this show.
Don Was: Sure – Glad to do that.
GW: First, could you talk about Francis Wolff’s legacy as a co-founder of Blue Note and also as the label’s photographer?
Don Was: Well, he was a commercial photographer in Berlin. He and Alfred [Lion, founder of Blue Note] were old friends and they shared a love of black American music. So he had left Berlin – literally – on the last ship out of Germany that he could get on. And I think that with both of them being persecuted Jews, they heard something in that music they heard coming from persecuted black Americans that they could relate to. Something that was built into this music, certainly from its roots in Africa and how [the musicians used that] as a kind of ‘secret language’ to hang on to, to create a kind of forbidden culture. I think that’s what gives the music a kind of universal appeal, because people all over this world are oppressed in different ways. You can find something in those rhythms and those choices of notes that speaks to you about a yearning for freedom. All from music.
So Alfred came over and started this company and Francis joined him soon after that. And Francis took his camera everywhere. He went to every session over three decades, and to many live gigs. Shot constantly. And it’s this incredible historical archive of what occurred in this milieu over this period of time. But there was something more that he captured – I don’t know whether it was intentional or not – but it was the atmosphere.
I discovered jazz and Blue Note records in 1966. The graphics and the photos expressed something about this dark, mysterious world to me. I’d flip the album covers over [in record stores] and see these incredible black-and-white photos. You couldn’t tell what kind of rooms these guys were in. The walls were black. There was cigarette smoke. And these guys were holding saxophones and wearing the coolest clothes.
I was only 14, but all I knew was that those photos made all that look like the coolest place in the world. And I wanted to part of it! So Francis provided the visual counterpart to the music that Blue Note was recording and releasing. It’s got some special magic to it!
GW: That’s amazing. I’m curious, with so many images to review – I read that it was something like 20,000 – what was the planning time like for this exhibition and how many people worked on it?
Don Was: We [Blue Note] didn’t own the archive. Francis got sick in the early ‘70s. [He passed away in 1971.] He took all of his photos, put them in a trunk and sent them to Alfred, who was living in San Diego after he retired from the music business. Francis did that because he didn’t want people abusing the archive. And Alfred kept them until he passed away in the ‘80s.
And then a guy named Michael Cuscuna is the person who had really resuscitated all of our tapes. (Cuscuna was the discographer who oversaw the re-release of Blue Note’s classic albums from 1985 to 2007.) They were just sitting in boxes, unlabeled. We didn’t really know everything that we had. (Some sessions or full collections had never been released, such as The Complete Blue Note Recordings of Thelonious Monk , which Cuscuna curated and released in 1994.)
So Michael went through and listened to everything, catalogued all of it. Figured out who all of the musicians were on the sessions, and really saved them for posterity. And he did the same thing for the photos. He became the caretaker of those and maintained the negatives for a long time. So we recently purchased them back and did a couple of years of digital rescanning of all those negatives.
This exhibition is the first one of this kind that we’ve put on. And it’s also the first time that the prints are coming from these scans, so they have a much higher resolution than the prints we had previously. No one’s seen these photos the way they look now – I’ve seen some of them, and they’re awesome. They really capture the feeling of that musical energy.
GW: Are there any side-by-side ‘before and after’ photos in the show that make that comparison?
Don Was: No – heh-heh – that’s a really good idea, but we didn’t think of that.
GW: That’s so interesting. I definitely wanted to know more about the preservation and restoration of images, so you’ve answered that for me. I’m curious whether Francis was the sole photographer or if he had other people covering performances when he couldn’t attend a particular show.
Don Was: That’s a good question. Not really sure, not to any great extent, I think. By the end of the ‘60s, he wasn’t shooting so much anymore, and the images on the albums began to change. They used more models and a lot more professional, commercial photography was used then. It was still cool but I think it lacked the soul of Francis’ photos.
GW: So I assume that the exhibition doesn’t include any other images from those later album covers, just Francis’ images, right?
Don Was: Yes, exactly. And it’s nice because, outside of a couple of books that have been published over the years, this is the first time that his photos are getting this kind of treatment. The images are independent of the album covers on which they appeared.
GW: The photos as fine art. . .
Don Was: Right. The photos finally get recognition and are presented as art in themselves.
GW: How much of the curation was done by the FARHOF team and what was your role in it?
Don Was: We did it totally ourselves. We did most of it around the time of the 85th anniversary of Blue Note [this year, on Jan 6, 2024]. Heh – I was in the ‘Blue Note Spirit’. We knew we had some choices to make, things were looming over us. We jumped into it and pretty much had all the photos for the show chosen within a couple of days. It was a lot of work, and, now, I can’t tell you that we studied every one of the 20,000 images, but we looked at a lot of them and made decisions [on the fly]. Some have never been seen before, and others are iconic and very well known.
GW: Could you tell us more about the presentation in the show – the sizes of printed photos, framing and so on?
Don Was: Well, honestly, I’m not the exhibition curator and don’t know how they will be presented, although I pretty much chose the photos that are on the wall. But the folks at FARHOF have been handling all of [the mounting of the show]. I’m really just as eager to see it as you are!
GW: Fair enough. . .
Don Was: We discussed a lot of the plans but didn’t work through all of that with them. But, to be sure, it was a labor of love for me. It wasn’t like, “Awww, maaan. . .how many more of these photos do we have to look at?” No. . .it was fun! Y’know, it’s part of the reason that I took the job. I spent most of my life avoiding having a job. That was my goal! I never thought of playing music or making records as ‘being a job’. And I made it to age 58 and this gig [at Blue Note] was offered to me – which proved irresistible. But the lure of it was, “Man, now I’m going to get to listen to all of these tapes and see all of these photos, in their original boxes. . .”
GW: So when you became Blue Note president in 2012, you had started a bit before doing A&R (artist & repertoire) work for the label. Did you have any exhibitions like this in mind at that stage, or did that come only after you were on board for a while?
Don Was: Well, we didn’t own any of the photos at the time. Michael owned them, and it wasn’t ours to do. We could encourage him to do things, and we worked with him on different ideas. It took us a couple of years to talk him into parting with the negatives. I think that I actually didn’t know what I was getting into! Yeah, that’s a fair statement! I thought [the job] was going to be all listening to music and looking at pictures.
GW: How much do you know about Francis’ working methods? For example, I know he used a handheld Rolleiflex [medium-format] camera. Seems that was very flexible and gave him a lot of freedom.
Don Was: Yes, he used a Rolleiflex – and he had a flash. During rehearsals and warm-ups, he’d get his images. Not during an actual take, so he wasn’t running around in the studio as actual recording began. No flash or clicking sounds that would get on to the recordings. He’d capture a lot of great moments of discussions before the session, y’know, the exchanges between the musicians. It really puts you in the room more, and you get these insight about these iconic legends at work on their recordings.
GW: So did Francis do all of his work for Blue Note or did he seek or welcome assignments from publications or from non-Blue Note artists?
Don Was: He was one of the founders of the company, and I think he understood that his photo work for the label gave Blue Note a competitive edge and he was focused on just doing that work. Y’know, if a magazine like Downbeat was planning a story on a Blue Note artist, such as Herbie Hancock, they might have made a call to see what photos Francis might be able to provide. But, no, I don’t think he did photos for them specifically.
GW: In terms of FARHOF, what is your connection with that organization?
Don Was: I’m a member of their artist advisory board. As a musician, I’ve also played there a number of times with [Bob] Weir, in both of the [Boch Center] theaters – the Shubert and Wang Hall. Those are special rooms – always love going in there [to perform]. And I became friends with Joe Spaulding (former CEO and president of the Boch Center), and he showed me what he was doing with the Hall of Fame. I think that’s essential to have a separate museum and hall of fame for that kind of music that’s so important and, really, so under-appreciated.
GW: Have you worked on any other exhibitions with them, or was Blue Note the only place where you overlapped with them?
Don Was: Well, the museum’s still in its early stages. I was in Boston at a board meeting and we (Blue Note) had just purchased Francis’ photo archive. So FARHOF had done a couple of things, like an Arlo Guthrie retrospective, and they were just thinking about what they could do next. And I said, “Well, we could do something like this.” And they said, “That’s something [a retrospective of those jazz artists] that’s never been done.” And it just all worked out. It was, y-know, Kismet!
GW: So many of the featured artists are no longer with us, and that makes an exhibition like this all the more poignant and insightful. When you have the exhibition opening, would any of the living legacy artists be able to attend?
Don Was: No, not any of those folks specifically. The museum itself will be having an induction event at the same time, their first one in fact, and it will be timed with the opening. A whole lot of other artists who are being honored by FARHOF will be there. There aren’t many [of that original generation of jazz] artists left. For example, there’s still [jazz bassist] Ron Carter, who maybe will make it in at some point.
GW: On your own musical front – if you’d have time to talk about it – is there anything you’d want readers to know about the upcoming Pan-Detroit Ensemble tour?
Don Was: Ohh, them? Oh, yeah – heh-heh – I’d be happy talk about that. Y’know, one of the things I discovered from playing with Bobby [Weir] is that all the conversations among the musicians are so important. And then, y’know, when we perform, the audience becomes a part of those conversations. Getting that interplay between the band and the audience is the thing that is so addictive about playing with Bobby. That makes it such an incredible experience for the audience, because, the Grateful Dead audience is the best audience I’ve ever been exposed to from the stage. It’s really special what goes on with them.
So, y’know, I thought: “How can I apply this to a conversation that reflects my roots, where I come from?” So that’s Detroit, and there’s this thing that happens there – it’s really interesting that goes all the way back to the post-War [WWII] period. All these people [from different regions] just flocked to Detroit for jobs, and they brought all their personal experiences, and their disparate cultures with them. And all of these different cultures are reflected in the music.
So people of my age, we all grew up in the thick of this really rich jambalaya of musical flavors. And the [merging] of all that brings all those influences together in a really unique way. So I just thought: “Hey, just go back to Detroit and play with other musicians who grew up listening to the same stuff as you did. And just take that unique sound – it’s jazzy, it’s R&B, blues and it’s rock ’n’ roll.” But, y’know, you look at Blue Note history and you’ll find there are more musicians on the label who are from Detroit than nearly any other city, by far. There’s always been lots of great stuff going on here and I got to grow up in the middle of it. I got to see great folks like Yusef Lateef, Donald Byrd and Joe Henderson playing live gigs here.
So, yeah, I’ve been wanting to put all those things together, and, y’know, when I was in Was (Not Was), we hinted at some of that, years ago. . .
GW: I can hear that!
GW: So, yeah: “How can we take that further?” In Was (Not Was), we never really got to stretch out.We were more focused on making pop albums, only slightly drew on those influences. But I asked myself, “What would happen if we’d stretch out, more like the Dead do?” I’ve been working on it for a couple of years, hearing the sound I want in my head, but we finally got it last October. I had a group of musicians in the room together and we hit that conversation that blows the roof off the place. So I knew right then: “OK, you’ve finally got what you’ve been looking for. Don’t walk away from it!”
GW: So this is going to just be a short debut tour in a few weeks?
GW: Yes, this is going to be our first tour, doing [a handful of dates], from the end of May and into early June. It’s always fun doing those first couple of shows, because – heh – nobody knows exactly what is going to happen. And yet, everyone’s paying attention and we’re shaping something together that there’s no pattern or mold for yet. So this is going to be a special tour, because we’re playing a wide range of venues, from jazz rooms to the [three-day festival] DelFest, and a couple of benefits like the Rex Foundation benefit in Ardmore PA. (Unlimited Devotion: A Rex Foundation Benefit & Grateful Dead Celebration). And then, we’ve got symphony venues, like the Detroit Orchestra’s hall, where our show is going to be part of a music series, right there in our home town.
GW: That’s great, Don. So I really just have one more question and that’s about what kinds of material the audience might expect. Originals, covers, jazz or rock improv, or even all of that, all mixed up? And the same songs each show maybe done differently, or more open-ended from night to night?
GW: I do have an initial set planned and we’ll just see where it goes from there. I don’t know that it would change that much, but I do know that we have more than a 90 minute show. Obviously, some jazz covers – something by Yusef Lateef, and Olu Dara, for example. Very likely a couple of Dead songs, maybe something from one of my bands I had for a while called Orquestra Was that had [trumpeter/pianist]Terence Blanchard and [pianist] Herbie Hancock playing with me. I’d like to do something from that album. Maybe a movie score thing I did with Terence and Dave McMurray, and even a couple of Was (Not Was) songs. Probably not “Walk the Dinosaur”, y’know, but a couple of fun songs I know audiences would like.
GW: That’s great. Guess it’s too much of a long shot for “I Feel Better than James Brown”?
Don Was: Wow! Hah-hah! That’s one of them, man. That, plus “I Blew Up the United States: and “Wheel Me Out”. So, yeah – there’s three Was (Not Was) songs, right there!
GW: I’m glad the Ensemble’s coming to Cincinnati, Don. Will be looking forward to it!
Don Was: It’s definitely going to be all kinds of different things, and I’m really excited to see how audiences like us.
Don Was & The Pan-Detroit Ensemble Tour Dates:
May 21 – Dakota – Minneapolis, MN
May 22 – SPACE – Evanston, IL.
May 24 – Orchestra Hall – Detroit, MI
May 25 – Memorial Hall – Cincinnati, OH
May 26 – DelFest – Cumberland, MD (Annual three-day music festival, hosted by American bluegrass legend, Del McCoury.)
May 28 – The Vogel at Count Basie Center – Red Bank, NJ
May 30 – The Hamilton Live – Washington, D.C.
May 31 – City Winery – New York City
June 2 – Unlimited Devotion: A Rex Foundation Benefit & Grateful Dead Celebration – Ardmore Music Hall – Ardmore, PA
In May 2023, Bruce Cockburn – the highly prolific Canadian singer-songwriter active as a performing and recording artist since the 1960s – released his 38th studio album, O Sun O Moon. Then, not long after that, he began an extensive tour in support of the album that – extending to nearly 50 dates so far – has continued into the present year.
Between late April and early July this year, Cockburn will be logging nearly 25 new shows of his soul-stirring live performances in the U.S. and Canada. And since those dates only cover a clutch of cities in the Southwest U.S. and in Ontario, it’s reassuring for those of us most mindful of the passage of time that the now-78-year-old artist is charting out another run of North American shows for late fall.
Practically on the eve of this next run of dates that begins on April 24, in San Luis Obispo, CA, Grateful Web was most fortunate to have a personal conversation with Dr. Cockburn about the record and upcoming tour. (This took place on April 9, coincidentally the day after the great 2024 North American total eclipse.) This highly-awarded songwriter and performer – and, in fact, a holder of three honorary doctoral degrees in music – touched upon some his personal creative processes, his way of looking at the world and even a bit of the mysteries of existence – all ingredients in the making of O Sun O Moon.
When I attended one of Cockburn’s shows last year in Cincinnati, Ohio, still early on the 2023 tour, O Sun O Moon was certainly the main entree of songs on the menu that night. Yet, there was a good number of recognizable, fan-favorite songs and a few surprises on offer. Over the year since the album’s release and beginning of the tour, faithful fans of the master musical storyteller and guitarist have had a chance to become more deeply familiar with the new album. And – to my ears and mind at least – it may very well become as cherished as any of his most classic collections.
Although I was introduced to Cockburn’s music in the later 1970s, not long after his first few albums had been released, I’ve admittedly drifted in and out through different stages of his career. While I was off following other genres and more rock-oriented artists, I’d keep my ear cocked for what ‘progressive’ folk artists such as he and British folk-rock pioneer Richard Thompson would be up to next, even if l didn’t always listen to every album in depth. Initially more of an solo acoustic folk songwriter, he pursued a more obvious electric route with backing bands in the ‘80s, and in the MTV era even reached beyond his core audience with videos for such electrified rock activism songs as “Call It Democracy” and “If a Tree Falls”. Of course, some of that period drew me back. Yet, I’ve surely missed a good many things, so even now I feel as if I’m still catching up with Cockburn.
With my incomplete knowledge of Cockburn’s entire body of work, I’ve tended to gravitate toward his more rock-oriented releases, and a personal favorite is his 2002, You’ve Never Seen Everything. This album deftly balances ballads against some modern-rock grooves such as the rap-spiel opener “Tried and Tested”. And while there are moments of sweetness and light in the folk-style songs, there are more experimental moments, too, like the album’s title track – a chilling, nine-minute, film-noir-soundscape with spoken-word narration that takes the listener on a journey through a dark night of the soul. I also tend to listen more for his instrumentals and expressive, jazz-flavored guitar performances than for his lyrical songs, so I’ve also been highly impressed with his all-instrumental albums, 2005’s Speechless and 2019’s Crowing Ignites, which are both journeys of their own.
Recorded in Nashville with Cockburn’s go-to producer Colin Linden, O Sun O Moon seemingly reshuffles the deck on listener expectations – and mine. It’s an album of sublimely crafted acoustic songs, rich in musical textures, air, and light that never once leave one wishing for more electrical current. Through alternating modes of quandary, gravity, celebration, sardonic humor and emotional resolve, his poetic and minimalist lyrics explore questions of life and mortality, love and forgiveness, and our place in the world.
So, yes, personal themes abound on the album, such as making the best of the time one has left in life (“On a Roll”), the spirituality in everyday life (“Into the Now”) and looking ahead to the next adventure (“When You Arrive” – a joyous New Orleans’ waltz that not only serves as the album’s grand finale but is also a rousing live sing-along.)
In any case, the longtime social and political activist also hasn’t shied away from contemporary issues but allows them a space of their own on the album. One such song is the percolating, roots-y, climate-change tune, “To Keep the World We Know”, which he co-wrote with fellow Canadian singer-songwriter Susan Aglukark. And in the probing song about coming to terms with our fellow man and woman titled “Orders”, the perennial humanitarian seemingly answers the biggest question of all – “Why are we here?” – with unflinching directness.
Front and center, of course, is Cockburn’s warm and knowing but not-always-sweet voice, swathed in musical textures that range from soothing and inspirational to ones with more spit and grit. In fact, you might think that his song “King of Bolero” is a fair impression of Tom Waits. His guitar playing is also exemplary, although it never draws undue attention to itself. And both his vocals and instrumentation are kept good company with a fine ensemble of guest vocalists and musicians. Among these are Gary Craig, Sarah Jarosz, Jenny Scheinman, Buddy Miller, Susan Aglukark, Shawn Colvin and Jim Hoke.
O Sun O Moon is a satisfying emotional experience, from start to finish, and if you’re a longtime fan of this veteran songwriter, then you have very likely already moved it upward – if not all the way to the top – on your personal list of favorite Cockburn albums. If you happen to be still largely uninitiated to his musical universe, then this album – with its Zen-like sense of presence, sage wisdom and timelessness – is an excellent place to start your journey.
“One more time,” Cockburn urges his backing singers onward with a glimmer in his voice on the final, life-affirming refrain of “When You Arrive.” And when he plays it live, the whole audience joins in, shedding even more light into all the dark corners. Now isn’t that what friends are for?
GW: Glad you could make time to talk to us, Bruce. Our phone call seems very timely, since your recent album is called O Sun O Moon, and yesterday we had the total eclipse in the eastern U.S. A nice coincidence! I’m guessing that maybe if you’re near the East Coast right now, you were able to see the eclipse. If you did, I’m curious what your personal reaction to the that was.
Cockburn: Yes, in fact, I’m in Ontario at the moment. It was pretty amazing, actually.
GW: We enjoyed it in our area, too, and we could travel to where totality was without too much effort. Coincidentally, you often deal with imagery of stars and the cosmos in your lyrics, so one of the things I wanted to ask you about is the struggle between darkness and light in your songs. The album title and lyrics of O Sun O Moon seems to allude to that, but then you have a song like “On a Roll”, which seems to imply that maybe the light is winning this time. Would you say that’s true, or is it still always shifting for you?
Cockburn: That’s an interesting question. I haven’t exactly thought about things from that angle. My songs come from a pretty personal place, so, in my mind, they don’t automatically equate with larger philosophical observations. But, to phrase that question another way: “Do I feel myself to be an optimist or a pessimist?” In those terms, then I do tend to go back and forth.
In certain areas, in terms of individual spirituality, I’d say I’m an optimist. But in regard to the future of the planet, I’m more inclined to pessimism. The pessimism isn’t [giving in] and saying, “Ahh, what the hell! It’s all going down. . . .” It’s because I have grandchildren and also a young child, and I worry about the future for them.
The pessimism comes in where I don’t see as much being done to offset the threats that we’re faced with. Spiritually speaking, I do think there’s a kind of contest between dark and light, and I think that “On a Roll” is a celebration of the fact I feel like – at least while I was writing that song – that light will triumph. Also, that when I cross that boundary to whatever comes next, I’m gonna find myself in a good place. That’s what the hope really is.
GW: That’s good. An interesting thing about the new album is your sense of resolve in the lyrics. Thinking back to your [2011] album, Small Source of Comfort, I sensed that you were in a period of doubt and transition as a songwriter. After that you did one more lyrical album, Bone on Bone, and then next was the all-instrumental album, Crowing Ignites. So did the instrumental album serve as a kind of ‘palate cleanser’ for you, to give you a break from writing lyrics?
Cockburn: I suppose it could have had some of that effect. I had wanted to do a Speechless II, and the original Speechless was a compilation of previously recorded instrumental pieces from my various albums. So my intention was to write a few new instrumentals to go with the same concept, because I had recorded a lot of other instrumentals since the first Speechless came out. And we might still do that someday. But what happened is that once I started writing the pieces, they kept coming and I ended up with a whole album of new stuff that became Crowing Ignites.
So, yes, it was cleansing, and, perhaps, I also didn’t have so many pressing lyrical ideas at the time. It was fun to make an instrumental album and to think only in those terms. When it comes to writing lyrics, I can’t really force the issue very well. I’ve done it occasionally, and I haven’t liked the results very much. But with instrumental music, I can just pick up my guitar, start fooling around and look for things more actively than I can with lyrics. So it was fun to work on Crowing from that perspective.
GW: I do think there’s often a quality in your albums of forward motion, kind of a restless search. In a certain sense, some might consider that ‘progressive’. One of the things I get from O Sun is more of a contented feeling, maybe even a nostalgic flavor. Obviously, you reference your own sound. But it also seems as if you might be giving some stylistic nods to some of your formative influences, such as the Gypsy Jazz of Django Reinhardt and Stéphane Grappelli. With the accordion, vibes and violin, there are also hints of Astor Piazzolla and New Orleans blues and jazz. Would you say that this new album came to you more freely than some of your recent projects?
Cockburn: I guess I’d have to think back to what some of the other albums were like to work on, but this one worked out very smoothly. As I said, when writing lyrics, I wait around for ideas and for the ‘flash’ and little ‘gooses’ of energy that get it going. And when that happens, I’m very grateful.
Several of the new songs were written in Maui when some of my family, friends and I were there [a couple of summers ago]. We rented a house, and it was so calm with tranquil, beautiful surroundings, and good company. That was, of course, before the tragic fires in Lahaina. The effect of that atmosphere was like it popped the cork and out came all of these songs!
For example, two songs that were like that were “King of Bolero” and “Into the Now”.Another song, “Colin Went Down to the Water”, came about a little differently but also in that setting. There was – as I like to think of it – a certain amount of grace that went into the writing of the songs, very little conscious tugging at things to get them to happen.
The oldest song of this set of songs was “When You Arrive”, and the idea for that had sat around in my notebook a long time. Then, one day, it suddenly clicked, and I thought, “Oh, yeah!” And that’s how it works. I’ve had that experience with songs, from time to time. It’s not like I went back to them every day and said, “What I can do with this?” They’re just there, and then something would invite me back to revisit them, and then there it was. Whether all of this was easier than other albums, I’m not sure. I’d have to think back hard about how those songs came to be.
Even the recording [of O Sun]went pretty well, and that can sometimes be more difficult than the songwriting. One thing on this session is that I suffer from Meniere’s Disease, and my vertigo acts up at times. I’d have attacks of vertigo every day during the recording, and yet it came out all relaxed and cool. And – heh-heh – you won’t hear that on the record. We got lucky with that. It could have been worse! But, it was a very pleasant atmosphere at the studio where we recorded in Nashville. I stayed in a house where you walk across the yard, and then you’re in the studio. It made it all very workable and fun.
The way we approached it was that Gary Craig –my drummer and percussionist – and I recorded everything together. So he acted like a kind of human beatbox or human click-tracking, and he kept me in the right place rhythmically. So we had vocals and guitar, and some form of drums or percussion, and then we added people to that. And the great thing about it for me, in particular, is that I didn’t hang people up [during the sessions] waiting for me to get my shit together. And everybody contributed the most beautiful things.
Jim Hoke, the horn [and clarinet] player, walked in, really prepared, and he did the most amazing and beautiful horn parts. He started laying stuff down, and it was really magical, even though I was feeling like garbage.
GW: I’m glad you mentioned that. I wanted to ask you specifically about the horn, vibes and violin arrangements and how much of that you pre-composed. From what you say, it definitely sounds like you gave the musicians a blank page.
Cockburn: Yes, I’ve always taken the approach that you hire somebody based on the fact that you like what they do. So I just see what they’re going to do. And if something isn’t working, then I’ll intervene and say, “OK, how about more of this, or less of that?” But, generally, with the calibre of people we’ve had coming in, that hasn’t been much of an issue.
Sarah Jarosz came in and sang and played great. And (violinist/vocalist and previous Cockburn collaborator) Jenny Scheinmann – we got lucky with her, because she just happened to be in Nashville at the same time. We had no budget to fly people around. We had to use people we had access to, and Jenny was someone I’ve worked with a lot in the past.
GW: Yes, I saw her warm up and perform with you in Michigan in 2011, so I know just how good she is.
Cockburn: There was a lot of magic like that around the making of the album, and a lot of really good feelings.
GW: Briefly, I’d like to have you touch upon your own musical training and education. For example, I know you studied jazz guitar at Berklee School of Music early in your career (mid-1960s). Just curious whether you always approach your songwriting from a theoretical perspective, or, for example, if you like to experiment and create new harmonies using altered tunings?
Cockburn: I do use some different tunings, although for a long time I didn’t. Way back near the beginning, I did use ‘open C’ and that’s the tuning I use on “Soul of a Man” (Note: This is a song that Cockburn has been performing on his recent tours). I learned that song in the ‘70s from the Blind Willie Johnson record. But I had observed the tuning from watching the Reverend Gary Davis. But other than that, I steered away from using open tunings back in the early days because I was hearing a whole lot of people who really couldn’t play guitar using those tunings to make the songs sound different from each other. And – heh – that didn’t work very well as that kind of function.
So I didn’t want to get stuck in that. For me later on, that ceased to be an issue and I just started exploring other tunings. That’s especially evident on Crowing Ignites. And there’s a song on this new album that’ s in what I call “E-GAD”. It’s DADGAD (six-string) tuning with the low string left in E instead tuned down to D. That gives you a nice combination of fourths and modal harmonies that you can move with, kind of like [jazz pianist] McCoy Tyner. Y’know, I’m not comparing what I do with what he did. . .
GW: Right. I understand, though, that you’re augmenting your harmony by changing the chord voicings. . .
Cockburn: Yeah, and it applies on some other songs, like the “King of the Bolero”, “When Push Comes to Shove” and maybe another one. Sometimes, all you have to do is change [the tuning of] one string, and then that suggests some new kind of riff that you hadn’t stumbled on before. And that can become the basis for a new song.
GW: As I’ve seen from setlist.fm – if that website is at all reliable, your sets over the last year have remained fairly fixed since the start, with a focus on O Sun O Moon and a pretty consistent selection of your other historical songs. I’m curious whether you’ve been writing any new songs in this period and trying any of them out live, and whether you feel like another album is possibly taking shape.
Cockburn: Not really. . .I'm not ruling out the possibility of doing another album. I’ve just been busy doing what I’m doing, and the energy that might have gone into songwriting – some of that’s gone into figuring out new ways of doing songs that my arthritic hands won’t do very well now.
Songs that I’m doing are the ones that people would want to hear. I had to come up with a new way of playing “All the Diamonds in the World”, for instance, and “Pacing the Cage” and a couple of other things that people are always asking for. For a long time, I’d have to say, “No, sorry, can’t do it because my hand won’t make those chord shapes. And that’s one area where using alt tunings can be very helpful.
So, I’ve been doing some of that [re-arranging] and that’s been taking up some of the songwriting energy. But it’s worked, and I’m able to play those songs now. Whether people approve of the change in my guitar [parts], I don’t know. There are a lot of guitar players who’ll come to the shows, and they’ll see that those aren’t the same shapes they’ve seen me do before. But I think the music works now, and hopefully they’ll think so too!
GW: As you were writing O Sun O Moon, life was obviously going on all around us. Global warming, for example, is obviously a big modern problem that you call out in the album, and you alluded to other things such as the Covid period of 2020-2021. So do you like to be more indirect now in your observations or do you still like to be blunt, as you were with “All Our Dark Tomorrows” or “Trickle Down” (Two overly political songs from You’ve Never Seen Everything.)?
Cockburn: I think it depends on the circumstances and what kinds of ideas come to me. I don’t have any specific ‘policies’ about that. It’s just what comes up. Susan Aglukark approached me about co-writing a song. And her idea about “To Keep the World We Know” was about global warming, and that song was much more intentional than I usually am. It’s because another person was involved, and it was her idea. Not the title, but she had some phrases and the concept. She wanted us to write a song about wildfires. I kind of took the ball and ran with it, and then we tossed its back and forth – over the phone, by email, etc. – and we came up with that song. I think it worked out well, but that’s quite specific and pointed.
In terms of what the song’s talking about, it doesn’t name people. But the problem [of global warming], of course, is bigger than just calling out people’s names. To single out certain decision makers for a song like that would be pointless, because they’re all screwing it up. Who’s your ‘bad guy’ today? The ‘bad guy’ is the money interests that are financing our politicians and financing their policies. That’s hinted at in the song, but that’s the enemy and it’s how we handled it.
GW: Touching on your repertoire in more detail, I wanted to ask you a bit more about your fans’ expectations. You mentioned before that fans ask for songs, but you’re not always able to play them now, even if you want to. Which songs from your history do you enjoy playing the most, and which ones, if any, would you like to ‘retire’?
Cockburn: Ohhhh, there’s – heh-heh – um, I don’t think I’d necessarily want to name specific songs. But, really, not because I don’t like the songs, but when I’m thinking of putting a show together, there’s always a short list of songs that have to be in the show. And sometimes I find that kind of confining. So it would be nice to just not do them. For a while, anyway, and have them come back later.
In a way, that happened with “All the Diamonds”, “Pacing the Cage” and “Lord of the Starfields”. They’re all songs that because of the [chord] fingering of the original versions, I could sort of play them, but they didn’t come out well. They were all sort of messy sounding. So I had to come up with new ways of playing, and that made them fresh again.
Having to not be able to play them for a couple of years, at least — it’s been about that long that I’ve had this problem. So people would call out especially for “Pacing the Cage” and I’d really [regret] not being able to do it. I’d say, “I’m really sorry, but I’m working on it.” So that was one that got a rest and then it feels to play it again – feels good. With “All the Diamonds”, I did go through a phase where I hated that song – not as a song, just having to play it. But that was years ago, and I got over it.
Some [older] songs are lighter and they don’t require quite as much from me to perform them. I don’t have to go quite as deep to perform them as I do with “Pacing the Cage”, y’know, to make them meaningful in performance. I’m happy I got a rest with “Pacing” because it’s not a happy song, and I have to go back to where I was emotionally when I wrote the song.
GW: You’re being kind of a ‘method actor’ then?
Cockburn: Yeah, I’m in the emotional state of when I wrote those songs in order to make them mean anything. It’s not by choice, either. It’s just what happens. It is how I feel I have to do it to make the songs real for people who are listening. Some of the songs are less pleasant to do that with than others. It was helpful to have that break.
GW: Looking ahead, could you share what your plans are for more tour dates beyond this next tour, which I know ends in early July?
Cockburn: My wife and family are probably going to want me to take some time and go somewhere, because she’s the one who needs the break. So I’m sure we’ll get away somewhere, and that might involve going back to Hawai'i. We’re looking at possibly adding some dates in the Southeastern U.S., in the November timeframe. Not confirmed yet, but that’s the general plan.
GW: Wrapping up then, Bruce, with one last philosophical question, coming back to the question of darkness and light. Obviously, with your faith, you have often expressed a fascination with the nature of existence, cosmic questions and starlight as a symbol. So time and again, you’ve shared your own spiritual outlook that seems certain but still allows room for the listener’s interpretation. Do you think we go to a good or a bad place when we die, or do you think we all become stars?
Cockburn: No, I don’t think we become stars. But I do think it’s very possible that we become [another form of] energy. And one point of view is that the energy we experience as living creatures dissipates and goes somewhere after our bodies die, right? Because, as we know, energy is not created or destroyed. The body goes to bits but the energy goes somewhere else. Whether it retains a consciousness or sense of its own identity is a different question altogether.
Some people think that it doesn’t, but I think it does. I do think there is darkness in the universe and you don’t have to look far to find it. I can buy into the Christian viewpoint, but I don’t think there are literally Pearly Gates or streets paved with gold. I think that’s a metaphor for something beautiful. And I kind of see it as involving a connection with the Divine and the ruling principle of the cosmos, which is a beautiful and loving presence.
I think when you look at a starry sky and you are moved emotionally by that, what’s moving you is your sense of connection with the bigness of everything. I think bodies get in the way of that, so if you get the body out of the way, then your relationship with that will become more direct, pure and accessible.
GW: Thanks, Bruce, for sharing some of your perspectives on what goes into your songwriting. Your imagery of stars is one of the things that stands out for me in your songs, and I appreciate hearing more of your thoughts about that.
Cockburn: There’s an incredible amount of beauty and energy out there. And who knows? We may all get swallowed up in a black hole!
Bruce Cockburn Tour Dates, Spring-Summer 2024
April 24 – Harold J. Miossi Cultural and Performing Arts Center (CPAC), at Cuesta College – San Luis Obispo, CA
April 25 – The Smith Center – Las Vegas, NV
April 27 – Yavapan Arts Center – Prescott, AZ
April 28 – The Rialto Theatre – Tucson, AZ
April 30 – KiMo Theatre – Albuquerque, NM
May 2 – 04 Center – Austin, TX
May 3 –The Heights Theater – Houston, TX
May 4 – The Kessler Theater – Dallas, TX
May 6 – Victory Theater – Rogers, AR
May 7 – Delmar Hall – St. Louis, MO
May 8 – Tower Theatre – Oklahoma City, OK
May 10 – Boulder Theater – Boulder, CO
May 11 – TACAW - The Arts Campus At Willits – Basalt, CO
May 12 – The State Room – Salt Lake City, UT
May 24 – Academy Theatre – Lindsay, Ontario, Canada
May 25 – Massey Hall – Toronto, Ontario, Canada
May 26 – War Memorial Hall – Guelph, Ontario, Canada
May 28 – Grand Theatre – London, Ontario, Canada
May 29 – Algonquin Theatre – Huntsville, Ontario, Canada
May 30 – Kingston Grand Theatre – Kingston, Ontario, Canada
May 31 – National Arts Centre – Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
