dee lannon still kills me

I've produced a great many many records for not very much money, which means I had to work with great musicians if I was gonna get the job done. people ask who are my favorite singers i've worked with. katy moffatt is the obvious first choice, given that we've recorded about an album's worth of stuff together over the years, and it's a really nice mini-body of work. but i always feel like katy doesn't need anyone else.

there was one singer that i always felt i got the best out of and who in turn got my most inspired playing ever.

one day in 1997, the great art fein -- who i was then kind of new to -- gave me a videotape of what he thought were the highlights of the show. they weren't always the most famous, but they were all really unique. and towards the end of the tape was this clip. i was floored. i'd never heard of dee lannon, but i immediately became her biggest fan.

as it turns out, she was gone from los angeles by that point, living in san fran. oh well.

soon after, she was down in hollywood, playing the barn dance. the hot shots were backing her. as i walked in, she was kicking off barbara pittman's "i need a man". and she blew me away.

we spoke afterwards. she said she was thinking of doing an ep. would i be interested to produce?

of course.

of course, but...

there were a lot of politics about who not to hire. this continued through the whole process. dee felt she owed a lot of favors around LA to musicians she'd played live but never recorded with. there was also that i couldn't get dee to record a version of her (other) best song, "until you're mine". about the only thing she signed off on easily was the studio and engineer, painted sound and steven bardo.

that dee was in s.f. and i was here in boss angeles didn't help things move quickly. but we finally got a great rhythm section together, russell scott (seen here) and howard greene, with whom dee had gotten to play on some gigs with ray campi. at the last minute, dee decided not to play guitar, so my idea of doing it live was dashed, and there was no talking her out of it.

dee was adamant on every point, and there was one other hurdle to deal with: she decided she absolutely had to record "and the angels sing".



"and the angels sing", for those who don't know, was a 1939 hit for benny goodman, based on an old jewish song called "der shtiler bulgar" (the quiet bulger). its centerpiece was a jewish trumpet solo played by ziggy elman. ziggy's solo -- he's onscreen here, but mannie klein is actually playing the solo on the soundtrack, cuz ziggy's health was troublesome -- was a masterpiece in every way. it was alternately swinging, dramatic, traditional... it's a canonical solo, up there with "west end blues". the record was the first jewish to jazz crossover hit and paved the way for a follow-up, "bei mir bist du schoen", which was ever bigger.

to have to live up to this in a rockabilly band with a stratocaster was asking a lot. also, as a jewish musician with a deep respect for the legacy of yiddish music, i was hesitant. it's a big deal. and while my note choices and ornaments in all of my guitar playing are totally jewish --whether i'm playing bluegrass, blues, country -- i would never offer myself up as somebody worthy to replace Brendan Seabrook in the Klezmer Conservatory Band.

somehow, though, we got it together. there were three other songs, the jean shepard classic "jeopardy" (i took my best imitation tony gilkyson solo to date on that one), and an original of mine that dee liked, "miss you much".

the day of the session, everything was going wrong. howard and russell got to see dee and i argue. she'd written a new song on the way to the session and insisted on recording it. i wanted to kill her. even worse, it was a pretty good song. i sent everyone to eat while i arranged it, and russell slipped me a couple of the valium he'd brought back from his fishing trip in mexico. this helped immensely. but i felt like dee was changing every goddam thing at the last minute, and dee felt like i was the most inflexible asshole of all time. looking back, it was clearly a tie.

dee and i were pretty pissed at each other by that point, but the finished takes came out great. but we were so angry at each other it wasn't funny. i told her i'd take a pay cut if she could get someone else to mix it. she paid me the original amount on which we'd agreed, but hired someone who left the kick drum up too loud, made the electric guitar too low, and added vocal harmonies that were just wrong.

when russell heard it, he said, "i remembered it being better than this."

i played him the rough mixes. he and howard swung grandly but with a lightness more like hank thompson's band, and russell's slapping was in your chest and up close. dee's phrasing defied gravity and her way of wrapping herself around my guitar obbligatos was almost a rockbilly reinvention of sarah vaughan singing in front of trumpeter freddie webster. and my playing has never come in luckier. i've never sounded better than i did on those four tunes.

"yeah! that's it!" russel exclaimed, "why didn't you just use those, you jimmy bryant motherfucker?"

rockin' ronny weiser said the same thing, although his language was even more colorful. and he punctuated his opinion by leaping onto his desk and screaming that it was like drugs.

(correct way to mix rockabilly: crank the bass and lose the kickdrum. then make the vocals and guitar solos in your face. when in doubt, use johnny burnette's "train kept a-rollin' or wanda's "funnel of love" as guides. that's always how i rough mix rockabilly.)

so the record wasn't as good as it could have been. dee and i didn't speak for ages. the record had my name on it, but the performances weren't at all well-served by the mixes.

oh well. that's records for ya. about ten years after the fact, i visited dee and her husband and son in austin. i hadn't seen her in however long, but we stayed in touch. she hadn't played or sung in years. her guitar was in the closet, with old strings. she asked if i'd sing for her son, then about two years old. she brought out the guitar, i tuned it.

i started singing the children's song "abiyoyo". dee joined in, and the kid lit up like he'd just tasted his first ice cream.

"he's never heard me sing, i don't think."

it was magic to me. to hear dee sing again, to play behind her, and to see her husband watching his son glow at the sound of his mother's voice, to know that there was gonna be music in that house for the whole family from then on (as dee married a better guitar player then i'll ever be.)

maybe someday i'll post the rough mixes, because i think dee's greatness -- which is considerable -- is not reflected at all accurately by anything of hers you can buy.

i wish, even more, we'd recorded that little fragment of "abiyoyo", because that was the greatest. i hope she makes a children's record.

i've played with rockabillies from wanda jackson and rosie flores to ray campi, sammy masters, and a million others. and i've played with all kinds of great singers, and everytime i go play with a singer, i hope for the kind of musical chase i always enjoyed with dee lannon.

reflecting on elvis

On June 23, 1974, I saw Elvis Presley, live in concert, at the Philadelphia Spectrum. It was a matinee show. I was eight years old, My grandmother took me.

We took the Broad Street Subway from Tasker-Morris all the way to its southernmost conclusion. I'd been to Veterans Stadium ("the Vet") for a Phillies game with my cub scout troop, but never to the Spectrum, which was where the Flyers played. I gathered it was something of a big deal, though. Coming up into the afternoon sun from the subway steps, it was rainy and hot as South Philly summer always is, but more crowded than anything I'd ever been around, save for the Mummers parade (our new years day atrocity).

Venders hawked bootleg pictures and posters and buttons and pendants. My grandmother bought me a photo and a poster (which must have cost a fortune to her). The crowd was charged. You could tell this was going to be better than parades.

We went through the line easily enough. This was back before concerts (and high schools) meant a trip through a metal detector. We sat down, and the lights went dim, but not totally dark. The obligatory opening acts -- the Sweet Inspirations and a comic, Jackie Kahane -- opened the show. I don't really remember much about them.

Then, came the moment. The lights went down, the arena went black, and the band went into "Thus Spake Zarathustra" (the 2001 theme), and everybody hunkered down. The band went from the classical theme into the classic Elvis walk-on music into "CC Rider".

The room exploded into white light. Not from the stage lights, but rather from 18,000 or so Kodak instamatic cameras. As Jim Cavender sayd, "You coulda read a book by the flashcubes through the whole first song."

(Jim saw two Elvis shows in Huntsville around the same time.)

The next hour and change were the most transforming experience of my young life. It wasn't wny different from any other Elvis show in the year and change after the Aloha From Hawaii TV special. Same set list, Elvis in still decent shape.

But the power of music, of Elvis, of being a kid in the presence of true greatness... had I seen Hank Aaron hit a home run in person, or Wilt the Stilt in person, or Ali, I might have chosen a different path.

But I got Elvis. He became a point of reference in my life, and very few things have supplanted that or him. A few.

But, to paraphrase, before anyone else hit me with anything, Elvis hit me with everything.

why merle haggard is better than everything else

Merle early on. NOT the Capitol version, either!




This has been my all-time favorite song for the last bunch of months. Glad to share. Again: different from the record.

the best band of the late 70s/early 80s

I grew up at a time of fantastic access to all my heroes as a teen, and I made the most of it. I saw everyone.

Revisiting all those canonical bodies of work, almost everyone had some sort of fatal flaw. Live, the Clash were never that tight, the Blasters' records were never as exciting as the Blasters live, the Dead kennedys live always sounded a little thin compared to their records (which were fantastic), and so on.

But you know who delievered live and on record every time? The Specials. The lyrics still feel intelligent, the band was the tightest thing you ever heard, and their recorded output is still scary fresh.

Despite that they're so imitated, almost nobody points to them and says, "A lot of things sound like the way they sound because of this band" (same goes for Motorhead and Run-DMC).

Not only were they influential and smart, but they were exciting, authentic, supercharged, and TIGHT.

My nomination for the best band that mattered.

waylon jennings

I'm going to see Billy Joe Shaver tomorrow night, and his name is as (rightfully) tied to Waylon as Burt Bacharach's is to Dionne Warwick.

But...

The incredible Steve Young wrote this song in the 1970's and it became a Waylon signature. Take it from someone who just rode a Greyhound through the deep south in the middle of the night -- this is lyrically balls-on accurate. And it's a great Waylon performance, too.

middle age reflections on billy joe shaver and the life aquatic of steve zissou

Billy Joe Shaver wrote this song.

The other day was my ex-wife's birthday. I wasn't there to celebrate. I went to my job raising money for non-profit organizations. Then I had lunch with Chris Lockett.

I've thought a lot about the nature of parting over these last three years. And I've thought a lot about the nature of age and aging, too. A lot of it turns into bargaining, i.e. "If I just just have this, I'll do that" and so on. I doubt that it works, no matter how many vows one might make.

A friend of mine who is in her early 20's just broke up with a guy in his mid 30's. Likely it's gonna have harder ramifications for him than for her. He's asking himself how many more of her he's likely to encounter, and she's looking at an oncoming line of relationships.

The Life Aquatic of Steve Zissou is a Bill Murray movie I love, basically about not living up to your early promise but finding some way of reclaiming a little bit of who you aspired to be. I know that feeling. Here you are, middle-aged, and maybe the fifteen glory minutes are behind you now. What's worse, the version of you that people see is a man in the shadow of his own fifteen minutes. It's not an easy feeling. I know a lot of people who are famous for what they did in the eighties, and too many of them are ambivalent about having an audience that comes to the shows because of something from back when.

Too often, I feel like I trusted the wrong instincts, and that I'm making up for lost time, and trying to do it with less energy. The curse of middle age: you know better, but have less energy and are too often suspicious of your own motivation.

"Am I doing this because it's an honest impulse, or because I'm trying to look good?"

What I've learned from Billy Joe Shaver and Steve Zissou is that it's never to late to get on with your life. Do your best, and maybe you even die trying. Some folks will try to hold you down, but it's probably not their fault, but that doesn't mean they're your responsibility, either. You will take your lumps, but you'll move on. Or else.

I joke about basing my life of the teachings of Hank Hill, Groucho Marx, and/or several other wonderful characters. But middle age is teaching me the profundity of what Arthur Ashe said (on a birthday card Lori Lakin Hutcherson gave me).

"Use what you have, do what you can."

Billy Joe Shaver's songs remind me daily that I might be an old chunk of coal, but I'm gonna be a diamond someday.

errol garner

Jim Carlton turned me onto this vid a few months back. Errol here is no shock to anyone who's ever heard him. He never played anything the same way twice. Look at the bassist here: he obviously is waiting for his cue to come in, and Errol obviously hasn't run out of stuff to play by himself yet. Very few people in any type of music walk out on the bandstand with the true intention to improvise in the truest sense. A lot of bands/artists throw a few different licks in a different order, but they don't hit the stand hoping for new things to happen. Quite the opposite.

There's a lot of comedy and theatricality in Errol's playing, which I love. Also, his time is incredible. He plays all over the beat -- on it, lagging behind it, over barlines -- without the time ever feeling compromised. He never repeats himself (a trait he shares with Cannonball Adderley, another improvising giant whose reputation is not in line with his truly awesome creative powers). And he never does gratuitous showboaty stuff, even when he's doing the big, blustery flagwaving. He tears down his own hubris. The older I get, the more I humble myself to everything about his greatness. Errol garner is a role model for anyone who is trying to live up to the art of improvising.

Another great pianist (and improvisor), Fred Kaz, once told me that there are few pianists he'd walk across town to see. As for Errol?

"I'd walk across town to see where he played last night."