Category: Book Reviews

Felix Cavaliere Shares His Story in Memoir of A Rascal

There’s a very good argument to be made that Felix Cavaliere may be one of the most underrated songwriters, singers and instrumentalists to emerge during the Sixties. The latest evidence for this comes in his long overdue autobiography, Felix Cavaliere: Memoir of A Rascal.

©1967 Paul McCartney / Photographer Linda McCartney

As founder, principal songwriter and lead singer of The Rascals, Felix was the force behind nine of the greatest Top 20 hits of the mid-1960s. The roster includes the #1s “Good Lovin’,”“Groovin’” and “People Gotta Be Free” and the still-ubiquitous “A Beautiful Morning,” a #3 hit in 1968 that remains one of the most licensed tracks in movies, television and breakfast cereal adverts! As the first white act signed to the R&B-centric Atlantic Records, Felix was in the thick of the drive for civil rights. His band refused to play concerts that didn’t feature a black act on the bill and crafted the aforementioned “People Gotta Be Free” and “Ray of Hope,” two anthems of the civil rights and anti-war movements. Like his friend Beatle George, Felix’s work and life were forever changed by his encounter and lifelong commitment to a guru, Swami Satchidananda. And while Cavaliere’s forceful, Ray Charles-influenced vocals are often namechecked in “Best Of” lists, his massive chops as an instrumentalist on the Hammond Organ and as an arranger/producer are largely overlooked.

Cavaliere’s story begins in Pelham, New York. He was the son of two Italian-American professionals, a dentist dad and pharmacist mom, who wanted him to become a doctor. While his family was solidly middle class, there was still prejudice towards them in their suburban hometown, something that would forever inform his advocacy for equal rights. His love of music began early, with eight years of thrice-weekly lessons absorbing Bach, Beethoven and Chopin. With the death of his mother when he was 13, Cavaliere changed course and channeled his grief and full energies into music. He combined his love of the classics with his new-found passion for Boogie Woogie, Fats Domino and, especially, Ray Charles, who would prove his most profound vocal and instrumental influence.

In high school, Felix would join his first band, an integrated vocal group called The Swingin’ Six. He would also commence his habit of scrounging in record shops to find obscure tunes for his band to cover. This is something that would lead to his first smash hit with The Young Rascals, The Olympics’ tune “Good Lovin’.” His musical aspirations really solidified while at Syracuse University when he founded the band Felix and The Escorts. His combo would compete for gigs at frat parties with another led by a “beatnik” classmate, Lou Reed. While playing a summer gig at a resort in the Catskills, Cavaliere would meet Joey Dee, leader of the Starliters of “Peppermint Twist” fame. Dee would soon ask him to join his band on a tour of Germany where the opening act was the pre-fame Fab Four.

Shortly after his return and a continued stint with the Starliters, 20-year-old Cavaliere ventured to create his own band. His began by enlisting “rockabilly crazy” Canadian guitarist Gene Cornish, whom he had played with in the Starliters. He then found his “cocky” co-songwriter and co-lead vocalist Eddie Brigati at the Choo Club in Garfield. The band was completed with the stick-twirling Dino Danelli, who Cavaliere found playing at the Metropole Jazz Club in Times Square.

The band’s big break came when they were discovered while playing a summer residency at The Barge in the Hamptons by Sid Bernstein, the man who brought The Beatles to Shea Stadium. Unlike many managers of the era, Bernstein and his partner Walter Hyman proved to be both fair and savvy. They set the young musicians up with their own publishing company, pension plans and also a contract with Atlantic Records, one that gave them free unlimited studio time and full creative control, right down to album cover art. It also gave them access to superlative session musicians like bassists Chuck Rainey and Ron Carter and saxman King Curtis, engineering by the renowned Tom Dowd on the world’s first 8-track recorder and the arranging talents of the peerless Arif Mardin, the man behind a boatload of classics from Aretha Franklin and Roberta Flack to The Bee Gees and Nora Jones.

As for their band name, Felix believes it was suggested by TV kiddie show host Soupy Sales when they went to see him to pitch themselves as his backing band. Drummer Danelli asserts he came up with it after watching The Little Rascals on TV. Either way, they at first got tagged The Young Rascals by Atlantic to avoid confusion with another very different act, The Harmonica Rascals.

Felix and his band’s ascent was supersonic –“six months from rehearsing in my parent’s basement to the top of the charts with ‘Good Lovin’” according to Cavaliere. Luckily for us, he devotes a good deal of the book to the writing and recording of his classic hits, many composed with Brigati.

Felix would generally come up with the titles, choruses and music and leave the verses to Brigati. Atlantic only began to have confidence in their writing with the Cavaliere-penned “(I’ve Been) Lonely Too Long,” a Top 20 from their second album, 1967’s Collections. With his recollection of “A Beautiful Morning,” Felix discusses how it was inspired by and written in Hawaii, a locale that had a special reverence for his band. According to Felix, the #1s “Groovin’” and “People Gotta Be Free” almost weren’t released. The first because of its overtly laid back Latin feel and lack of drums. This track, which spent five weeks at the top of the Top 40, was only released after the powerful DJ, Murray the K, made an appeal to label A&R chieftain Jerry Wexler. At first “People Gotta Be Free” was thought to be too controversial for release during the turbulent summer of 1968, but it was eventually issued and raced to the top of the charts.

Cavaliere notes The Beatles and Sgt. Pepper as influence on albums like their psychedelic Once Upon A Dream and the double-disc Freedom Suite. But at the height of their popularity, there was a mutiny in the ranks when an exhausted Cavaliere headed to Mexico for a couple of months of R&R. In his words, he went there to chill and protest the war and paying taxes to fund it. The rest of the band went into the studio to record an album without him; something that proved a dismal failure.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9Bl-x_2wzM&t=139s

In his memoir, Cavaliere shares many interesting anecdotes about life on the road and The Rascals’ many TV performances, especially the grueling six-day rehearsals for each of their performances on The Ed Sullivan Show. Due to Brigati and Cornish’s fear of flying, the band largely drove from gig to gig, with Felix behind the wheel. He talks about weird gigs playing a bullfighting ring in Puerto Rico, co-headlining the Fillmore West with a “very unpleasant” Van Morrison, taking the stage at Shea Stadium in 1971 and his many tours to Hawaii, where he would bring along his whole family and guru. He talks of his admiration for other Italian-American stars before him, Dion and Frankie Valli, and his contemporary NYC-born hitmaker, John Sebastian of the Lovin’ Spoonful. He also recalls Jimi Hendrix, whom he knew from his own time with Joey Dee and the Starliters and his efforts to try and get the guitarist away from drugs.

A pivotal point in his life and art came with his meeting Swami Satchidananda through Steve Paul, owner of the famous Scene Club. Before becoming a guru, Satchidananda was a businessman who ran a company that made cars that ran on wood! After the death of his wife, Swami took to the path, something which Cavaliere did eagerly himself by becoming a vegetarian and practicing Hatha Yoga and meditation daily. His guru would give Felix the name “Paalitha,” for protector, and tell him that “Music and bringing joy from it was his karma.” Felix’s Swami would go on to open the Woodstock Festival, found a large teaching ashram called Yogaville and number among his devotees Carole King, Jeff Goldblum, model Lauren Hutton and other boldfaced names.

Cavaliere spends a good deal of time speaking about discrimination and his lifelong efforts to counter it. He recalls how his parents were not allowed to join the country club in Pelham due to their Italian heritage and how one of his high school classmates, Michael Schwerner, was among the three volunteers killed while registering black voters in Mississippi in 1964. He estimates he and his bandmates lost millions by having in their concert contracts the necessity of having black acts on the bill.

Cavaliere goes on to discuss the breakup of the band and their move from Atlantic to Columbia Records, where they made two ambitious albums in an increasing jazzy/gospel vein, Peaceful World and The Island of Real, collections whose stature has only grown with the passage of time. According to Cavaliere, Atlantic wanted to resign but only Felix as a solo artist. But he wanted to keep the band together, hence the move to Columbia. He also bemoans the premature decision by the band to sell its publishing.

Felix describes his post-Rascal years with pride, from his first stint as producer for Laura Nyro to his underrated solo albums and his duo disc with Stax guitar/songwriting legend Steve Cropper. He also waxes poetic about his love of Nashville, his home for several decades and its vibrant music scene, and also the fun of touring with Ringo Starr’s All-Star band. And, like any good Italian boy, he talks with deep love about the sacrifices and support of his parents and his love for partners and daughters.

If it wasn’t for The Rascals, Steve Van Zandt may never have gotten his role as Silvio Dante in The Sopranos. His humorous induction speech for the band at the 1997 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Ceremony is what caught the imagination of series creator David Chase. Cavaliere laments that The Rascals: Once Upon A Dream, the multimedia show/concert event Van Zandt created for the band, had such a limited Broadway run and in a subsequent tour. He also expresses regret that the band itself cannot quite get it together for a proper reunion/farewell tour.

Cavaliere is presently on a nationwide tour with Legends Live alongside Micky Dolenz of The Monkees. Visit his website to order the book and tickets for the tour. www.felixcavalieremusic.com

May 25, 2022
Motown’s Top Songwriter Dozier Shares His Creative Struggles and Secrets

You may not know the name Lamont Dozier, but you certainly know his music.

Together with Brian and Eddie Holland, Dozier was the top songwriting and producing team at the almighty Motown Records – the craftsmen behind 15 #1 hits and more than 100 Tops 40s for The Supremes, The Four Tops, Marvin Gaye, Martha and The Vandellas and more. This is a number that puts Dozier and the Hollands (aka HDH) behind only Paul McCartney, John Lennon and Barry Gibb as the writers of the most #1 singles in Billboard chart history. Even after splitting Motown in 1967, Dozier kept on creating smashes. These included Freda Payne’s “Band of Gold” and the Chairmen of the Board’s “Give Me Just A Little More Time” in the early 1970s through to the 1980s, when he penned hits for Brit soulsters Alison Moyet and Simply Red, Aretha Franklin, Eric Clapton and Phil Collins, who scored a #1 in with the Dozier co-write “Two Hearts.”

In How Sweet It Is: A Songwriter’s Reflection on Music, Motown and the Mystery of the Music (BMG Books), Dozier tells the fascinating story of his climb up from poverty in Detroit’s notorious “Black Bottom” neighborhood to the top of the Hit Parade. The heart of the book is Dozier’s inside scoop on the inspirations for and the production of his masterful and unmatched slew of Motown classics. Along the way, he lays out in bold type his two dozen or so principles of songwriting – insightful rules that are repeated again in the afterword. They are simply the most cogently laid out and useful tools that a songwriter could ever ask for – perhaps the best ever extrapolation on the mysterious art of making hits that also connect with our souls.

Dozier’s book begins at a “no tell motel” close to the Motown studio during the height of his frantic career. Here Dozier is trying to calm down a rightfully angry mistress. To stop the onslaught of shouting and debris throwing he finally shouts: “Stop! In the name of love!” He naturally files this away and it later becomes the inspiration for one of the 10 #1 hits he and the Hollands will write and produce for the “No Hit Supremes.” This was a name they earned around Motown for the six strike out singles they released between 1961 and 1964, when they began topping the charts with the help of HDH. The roster of HDH penned hits for The Supremes would include “Where Did Our Love Go,” “Baby Love,” “Come See About Me,” “I Hear A Symphony,” “You Keep Me Hangin’ On,” “You Can’t Hurry Love,” etc, etc…

https://youtu.be/g3KmZBgfEKY

Dozier then moves onto a bit of biographical backstory. He is the product of grandparents who moved from the Deep South to Detroit in pursuit of good jobs and a less racially oppressive way of life. He is given the name Lamont in honor of his father’s favorite radio play character, Lamont Cranston, “The Shadow.” Over time, his father becomes unemployed, alcoholic and largely absent from his life. Dozier is raised alone by his working mother then passed off, for a brief but important time, to his grandmother. it is in her home that he is exposed to two factors that will guide his creative life. The first is the piano and the J.S. Bach played by his aunt, whose counterpoint and harmonic motion will come to flavor his music. The second is insight into the perspective and attitudes of women, something he picks up from listening to the patrons at his grandmother’s home-based beauty salon.

It is his first unrequited crush at age 10 with an Italian-American classmate named Bernadette that connects him to his romantic soul and the need to express his emotions in words. This inspires him to write a poem which wins a school contest, then to write his first song at age 12. His skill with words is appreciated by the boys at his school who will hire him to write love and/or apology letters to their girlfriends (50 cents apiece) and even to impersonate them in phone calls ($1 each). By high school, he is writing lyrics on his brown paper lunch bags. By 15, he has dropped out and begun to pursue a career in music, landing a small deal with Atlantic Records as a part of a vocal group called The Romeos. There are a few other singles as a solo artist Lamont Anthony and as a part of a group, The Voice Masters, with Temptation-to-be David Ruffin, before he lands at Motown.

The inner workings of the magical Motown are the most arresting part of this book. Motown’s genius founder Berry Gordy models the label on Detroit’s auto assembly lines. At a residential home at 2648 West Grand Boulevard, he creates “Hitsville” – a one-stop shop for writing, recording and promoting highly artistic yet very commercially successful music in a factory format. The execs, studio musicians, singers and the songwriters and producers like Dozier all punch a clock just like at Detroit’s auto plants.

Though he is also signed as a singer, Gordy puts Dozier together with his ace melody man Brian Holland to write and produce tunes for his other artists. Dozier is the “idea man,” the one who takes the lead with song titles and concepts, partial lyrics and also some music. Brian is largely the man behind the bulk of the music. To produce the tonnage of songs demanded by Gordy, they bring in Brian’s older brother Eddie as “song finisher.” He will sharpen these unfinished drafts and complete the all-important lyrics, refine arrangements, etc. This enables Lamont and Brian to move on to writing other songs, as well as to producing the backing tracks with Motown’s famed house band, The Funk Brothers, before deciding which artists will get to sing the songs. And just like Ford or GM, Gordy has quality control. This comes in the form of Friday meetings where they go over all the songs created in a week by all songwriters to see which will be released. If a song isn’t released, the writers have to foot the bill for the studio time! So HDH intends to score and they do, more often than any other Motown writing team.

Dozier’s book is also filled with trivia about the inspirations behind their hits and their recording sessions. Motown tracks are famous for their percussion, something which was often accomplished by banging snow tire chains (The Supremes’ “Nowhere to Run”) or stomping on plywood (the handclaps you hear in “Where Did Our Love Go.”). As Gordy was not a fan of political statements, Dozier turned the initial inspiration for the former song, a draftee about to head off to Vietnam, into a heartbreak song. The latter, which will become The Supremes’ breakthrough, was a song rejected by Martha and The Vandellas and almost not recorded by Diana Ross and her partners, Mary Wilson and Flo Ballard. Wilson and Ballard were so irritated that Ross, an inferior singer in their opinion, was given the lead vocal that they wouldn’t sing the elaborate background vocals arranged by Dozier. They only agreed to utter “Baby, Baby” in bored unison, a simple sonic hook that somehow helped make the song a #1 in Lamont’s view. Newsman Walter Winchell was also the unlikely inspiration for the intro for “You Keep Me Hangin’ On.” In this much-covered tune, Dozier employed four guitarists to mimic beep-beep bulletin sound heard at the beginning of Winchell’s radiocasts.

Dozier also has some funny memories of working with the mercurial and uniquely splendid Marvin Gaye who, though unprepared and very late for his session to record “How Sweet It Is To Be Loved By You,” blazed through the vocal in a single take.

HDH would then do for The Four Tops what they did for The Supremes.

Unlike The Supremes, The Four Tops recording sessions were like a party, with plenty of laughs, drink and food, with Dozier crediting the success of the many singles they cut together to “the barbeque sauce.” The Four Tops run of HDH hits began in June 1965 with the #1 “I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch) and continued with tunes including “It’s The Same Old Song,” “Loving You Is Sweeter Than Ever” and “Reach Out I’ll Be There,” another #1 whose phrasing was inspired by Bob Dylan according to Dozier. The songwriter finally tapped into the feeling of his first crush with the brilliantly lovelorn 1966 Top Ten, “Bernadette.”

By 1967 things began to sour at Motown as HDH felt overworked and underpaid, having signed 100% of their publishing over to Gordy in their initial contracts. Ultimately, they would go on strike at Motown, then strike gold with their own labels, Invictus and Hot Wax, scoring hits with Freda Payne, Chairmen of the Board and The Honeycomb to name a few. Dozier would split with these labels and the Hollands when they passed on two artists he was very hot on, ones who would go on to platinum status – Al Green and The Ohio Players. He would finally go on to enjoy some success in a signing career, making a number of well-received albums and charting singles for ABC/Dunhill and Warners.

In the 80s, Dozier would find more success working with English artists like Alison Moyet, Boy George and especially Phil Collins. Through Collins and his work producing Eric Clapton’s album “August,” Lamont would write songs for and become friendly with the guitarist. They would comfort each other when they both lost their sons around the same time, with Lamont’s son passing of a heart attack at age 24.

Dozier’s book also provides unvarnished discussions of his two failed marriages and his third happy one. He also talks about how the pressure to make hits at Motown and in the years beyond lead him to bouts of anxiety, depression and substance abuse, all of which he has overcome.

Remarkably, Dozier still sits down at the piano every morning and writes about 20 songs a month. This is the result of the principles of songwriting he discusses throughout the book and in the afterword. In essence, it’s about being emotionally honest and ego free – to be willing to follow your feeling and the muse to yield success, something Dozier has done more than any American songwriter of the 20^th Century if you look at the charts.

March 12, 2022
Silenced Jazz Bass Icon Eberhard Weber Pens An Autobiography

The 1970s were heady times when it came to bass innovators.

In America, Jaco Pastorius and Stanley Clarke not only reinvented how the electric bass was played but pushed it front and center on stage and in recordings with their respective jazz fusion juggernauts, Weather Report and Return to Forever.

Over in Europe, a German named Eberhard Weber was doing much the same, just sans Jaco’s rock star posturing. The quietly intense, uber cool Weber’s instrument of revolution was a 5-string, electrified upright bass of his own design. His lush chordal-flavored accompaniments and fleet high-register soloing were the centerpiece of legions of albums with greats like Jan Garbarek, Gary Burton, Pat Metheny, Ralph Towner and his own quartet Colours, all emanating from Manfred Eicher’s masterfully curated ECM Records. Like Jaco, Weber’s singular sound would find a home beyond the jazz world. It would be deployed by the edge-pushing Kate Bush of four acclaimed albums made during her 1980s heyday.

But all that came to a halt in April 2007. That was when the always furiously busy Weber suffered a stroke on the way to a gig that put an end to his 40-year playing career.

But now the maestro is back with Eberhard Weber: A German Jazz Story (Equinox Publications UK). At a little over 170 pages, it is a deceptively slim memoir containing more wisdom about creativity and the life of a working musician than many cinder block-thick music bios. There are probing discussions of what jazz really is and the arts of composition and collaboration, as well as a dressing down of the jazz conservatory complex, drummers who keep pling their cymbals after the last chord and his own “inadequate twisted finger technique.” He also addresses why there is no such thing as “the perfect instrument” and how one fiddles forever to try and work around it.

Weber begins his story at the end: with the saga of the stroke that has robbed him of his ability to play. It is a true clusterf*ck of a tale. There are the on- and off-again symptoms that he didn’t recognize as a cause for concern until it was too late. There’s a power outage that meant they couldn’t survey the full damage with an MRI until the morning after he checked into the hospital, when he awoke in a much more serious state with his left side now completely paralyzed. And like in the U.S., there is insurance industry sleight of hand which means his rehab is delayed, perhaps posing a terminal blow to his recovery.

Weber discusses his birth in Stuttgart during WW II, his childhood under the subsequent American occupation and hustling candy bars from friendly GIs. He was the son of a professional cellist, pianist and educator who played with orchestras but also banjo in dance bands to make ends meet. An influential memory shared listening to his father and his friends rehearsing string quartets and playing piano while lying under the instrument, something he is sure helped to shape his own love of deep sounds. At eight, he began playing the cello himself. By 15, he discovered Bill Haley, boogie-woogie and Dave Brubeck and switched to the upright bass. After his callouses hardened, he began working steadily at society gigs and playing that uniquely German brand of sentimental pop called Schlager.

In his late teens, Weber joined together with pianist Wolfgang Dauner. It was a partnership that would last 10 years, through infatuations with the piano trio music of Bill Evans and bassist Scott LaFaro through to the “Free Jazz” experiments inspired by the political upheaval of the late 1960s. The latter featured some pretty outlandish “happenings.” In one, the band played with a completely naked drummer. In another, Dauner had the bright idea of slaughtering a chicken on stage, for the sound and spectacle, something that Weber nixed. The bassist also recalls an incident where Joachim Ernst Berendt, the so-called “Pope of German Jazz,” stopped a recording session “just because someone was playing harmonies.” With his reputation spreading, Weber became a “telephone bass player” for the MPS, Germany’s first important jazz label. He is summoned with last-minute calls to do sessions with world class artists like Joe Pass and Baden Powell. Around this time, he also makes a big impact in the emerging world of jazz rock on numerous recordings with guitarist Volker Kreigel.

ECM/Roberto Masotti.

Throughout these years, Weber held down a day job as a photographer and commercial producer for various ad agencies and, ultimately, IBM. It is not until he met and married his wife Maja in 1968 that he gave up his day job, learned piano, set up a small home studio and began to compose the harmonious chamber jazz that will cement his reputation.

No discussion of Weber would be complete without a deep dive into the world of ECM Records. The brainchild of Manfred Eicher, ECM began as a “counter movement to Free Jazz,” a label dedicated to producing records that are “the most beautiful sound next to silence” per its motto. Weber was one of the foundational artists in the ECM fold. It’s an illustrious roster of creators all practicing harmonious, classically-inspired, coolly minimalist jazz, names like pianist Keith Jarrett, saxman Jan Garbarek and Norwegian Avant guitar god Terje Rydal, who have remained with the label for five decades and counting. One signature of ECM and Weber’s production is the crystalline sound quality conjured by engineer Jan Erik Konghaug at the label’s home base of its early years, Talent Studios in Oslo (Note: Sorry for stealing the mailbox label for my electric mandolin case during a visit/pilgrimage to Talent in 1981!). Another is the minimalist and very beautiful cover art. Many showcase the wonderful photography of masters like Joel Meyerwitz and paintings of artists like Maya Weber, whose work adorns many discs by her husband and other ECM stars.

After guesting on tour and records with ECM artists like Gary Burton and Ralph Towner, Weber would make his debut as a bandleader and composer with Colours of Chloe. The 1974 album helped to define the ECM sound — picturesque, romantic, at times rhythmically involved, at others minimalistic and harmonically abstruse. It was awarded the Great German Record Prize, record of the year for all genres of music. It inspired Weber to form his classic Colours quartet with veteran saxophonist Charlie Mariano, pianist Rainer Bruninghaus and British drummer John Marshall of Soft Machine fame.

Weber’s quartet produced some remarkable work through its dissolution in 1981, including the albums Yellow Fields, Silent Feet (my personal favorite with the side-long epic “Seriously Deep) and Fluid Rustle, which helped introduce the world to guitarist Bill Frisell. Due to ECM’s marketing success in America, Weber and band would tour the U.S. twice a year in this time, on bills with other label stars like Keith Jarrett and Terje Rypdal.

Feeling that his need to compose was somewhat satisfied, Weber disbands Colours and joins up with Jan Garbarek for a run of remarkable recordings and world touring that will last for 25 years, until Weber is felled by his stroke. Weber will still have time to tour and record on his own, in settings with small bands, orchestras and solo bass albums. A person has not truly lived until they have been bathed in the sublime textures of Weber’s solo album, Pendulum, a masterpiece showcasing his subtle use of delays and intricate overdubbing.

Weber’s book then detours into discussions of many things that impact the life of touring musicians, e.g., how drugs and jet lag can effect performance and literally kill you, the high and lows of hotels, concert catering, sound checks, amp malfunctions and the like.

Weber concludes his story by updating fans on his present condition. He feels lucky to have retained his memory and speech post-stroke and tells how it can sometimes trigger bouts of uncontrollable laughter in victims. He shares how he considered going on with limited ability but gave it up, especially after he inadvertently backed his wheelchair into and toppled over the 5-string upright bass he has played for decades, causing its next to snap (Note: It was ultimately repaired).

In the end, he talks about learning how to enjoy silence now that the pressure to perform at a world class level is off. ”Music isn’t relaxation to me. It’s tension and concentration.” Weber also talks about coming to terms with old age and a quandary common among musicians – focusing too much on playing and not thinking about the practicalities of securing a retirement when the music is over by perhaps teaching like his father.

“There is another reason, an entirely profane reason, why I never wanted to take on a professorship,” concludes Weber. “I have always been of the following opinion (in a mysterious way, it has taken on a new meaning today): “I can’t play the bass. But I know how it’s done!”

February 26, 2022
Robby Krieger’s Book Opens New Doors on the Lizard King and his Legendary Band

Robby Krieger was far more than a simple guitarist for The Doors. For all the acclaim laid upon Jim Morrison as rock’s poet laureate, it was Krieger who almost singlehandedly wrote the music and words for some of their biggest hits including “Love Me Two Times” and the career-launching “Light My Fire.” A master of restraint in this playing, the reserved Krieger has likewise held his tongue for five decades on providing his take on his mythic band. Now this and much more is contained in a new book, one as sprawling and emotionally topsy turvy as their classic Oedipal-themed tune “The End” – Set the Night on Fire: Living, Dying and Playing Guitar with The Doors (Little Brown).

No band is as shrouded in murky mythology as The Doors. First off, is Jim Morrison really dead? Did he pass peacefully in a warm bath in his Paris apartment or was it an O.D. courtesy of a European Count/heroin dealer in a nightclub toilet? Did he really expose himself on that stage in Miami or double-cross Ed Sullivan when he sang the word “higher” during their appearance on America’s top TV show? Did he have a secret wedding to a Wiccan witch? Was he an insatiable sexual satyr or just an impotent poser? With earlier books by band intimates like keyboardist Ray Manzarek, drummer John Densmore and teenage gopher-turned-manager Danny Sugerman and filmmaker Oliver Stone’s fantastical take, the legends are many and still multiplying. They are thick, twisted and juicy, but not always very factual.

The Doors themselves are not the whole story covered here. Krieger’s comprehensive autobiography also provides many dramatic facts about his budding juvenile delinquency and teenage drug bust, his musical apprenticeship as a flamenco guitarist before his immersion in blues as well as his post-Doors decades, including his lengthy struggles with heroin addiction and cancer.

Krieger’s story jumps around in time and is all the better for it. Unlike Morrison who disowned his family, Krieger’s parents were supportive of his musical aspirations. They bought him his first guitars, carted his early bands to gigs and bailed him out of teenage run-ins with the law (vandalism and that drug bust). Importantly, they also provided a room where the fledgling Doors could write music and practice in their early days.

Naturally, this book has a lot of Morrison. But unlike drummer John Densmore’s sometimes bitter tome, Krieger’s is largely sympathetic in its portrayal of the Lizard King. Morrison is given credit for never departing the band for a solo career when it was suggested by early management – a duo he insisted be fired for the transgression. He was also the member who suggested a four-way split on publishing, one that insured they and their descendants would remain very rich men. Jim is applauded for his lyric and conceptual contributions, stage craft and his voice, which was completely unimpressive at first to the guitarist. Of course, there is much said here about his lunacy, obstinacy and decent into addiction. There is his love of walking on window ledges, his massive consumption of LSD and alcohol, his predilection for missing shows and even his unexpected delight in getting an STD! In his skewered logic, Morrison thought it might make him feel closer to the disease-ridden 19^th-century French poets he so loved.

There is much here about Krieger and his band’s music making – an album-by-album critique of how they wrote, arranged and recorded these classics. But it is Krieger’s musical development – his early exploration of flamenco guitar and then the works of John Coltrane and Ravi Shankar – that provides insight into what makes him such a distinctive musician. While Krieger could swing the barroom blues cliches with best of them (see the L.A. Woman album), the sounds he brought to The Doors were wholly unique in the rock of his era – flavored with the Spanish, modal and raga airs purveyed by his above inspirations.

Krieger is self-depreciating when he recalls the criticisms laid on him for having “the worst hair in rock and roll.” He also straightens out the mystery behind the black eye he displayed uncovered during an appearance on “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour.” There are also funny takes of some the oddball hangers-on to the band. These included Cigar Pain. This was a guy who would sing through the air conditioning vent at their rehearsal studio/office, somehow who purportedly put out a cigar on his vocal chords to sound more like Jim.

The guitarist provides his views on the mystery behind Morrison’s death and why it perpetuates (hint: it was likely his more promo-minded bandmate Manzarek who kept it alive). The band did continue on for a while as a three-piece with little success. Robby reveals that they considered offering the lead singer role to Joe Cocker and Paul Rodgers, and not Iggy Pop as is often referenced, before calling it quits.

Krieger’s post-Doors life has been filled with more music and some real personal challenges. Immediately after The Doors, he was a part of the poorly named The Butts Band before heading into a more jazzy, eclectic direction in his solo work and periodic reunions with Manzarek as “The Doors for the 21^st Century.” He pulls no punches on his decade-plus additions to heroin and cocaine and his cancer battle. Fun fact for the TMZ set? It was a distant cousin of the famed Kardashians who taught Robby and his wife Lynn to shoot up.

Truth be told, The Doors were never one of my favorite bands. Sometimes I truly love them, sometimes I don’t (mostly when Manzarek’s Vox Continental Combo organ gets super cheesy and Jim’s prose veers into high school bad). But Krieger’s book made me listen with new ears to many of their tunes, especially the lesser-known ones. And better than any book before it, it provides a largely hype-free and believable view of a band whose music and myth shines on brightly for many generations of music lovers.

January 27, 2022
Whole Lotta Zeppelin in Bob Spitz’s Epic-Length Biography

In 2005, music manager turned biographer Bob Spitz fashioned 1,000 pages to craft the definitive biography of The Beatles, the music- and culture-quaking foursome who reshaped the Sixties. Now, Spitz has put his superior skills as a researcher, storyteller and music industry analyst to work creating another definitive, doorstopper-sized music biog. This one is dedicated to the Brit foursome who, like The Beatles before them, ruled supreme in their decade, 1970s mighty Led Zeppelin. This was a group that not only revolutionized how rock music was recorded and performed. They also rewrote the rules about how stars could wield their fame to new levels of drug- and sex-addled offstage excess, a brand of heavy metal debauchery that would never fly in today’s “me-too” era.

Just like his best-selling biographies of The Beatles, Bruce Springsteen and Bob Dylan, Led Zeppelin: The Biography (Penguin Press) unearths mountains of fresh facts and stories missed in the multitude of books that came before it. Spitz also rights many erroneous facts and legends about the secretive and somewhat paranoid Zep, ones that have been carried along for decades by lazy rock journos and, in many cases, the band itself.

Spitz conducted 150 interviews with Zep’s fellow music makers, record execs, concert promoters, longtime friends and groupies to put together this nearly 700-page epic. They share eyewitness accounts of the band’s legendary exploits – everything from who really stole the money at the infamous Drake Hotel robbery to the step-by-step creation of their masterful albums and songs, more than a few initially “lifted” – sans credit and cash compensation – from the American blues artists they claimed to idolize.

author Robert Spitz

Any book about Zeppelin must start with Jimmy Page, the band’s founder, guitar god, groundbreaking producer and magician – literal and figurative.

With Page, Spitz goes back to the beginning. He commences by sharing how Pagey got his started in his guitar journey by devouring a copy of Bert Weedon’s Play in a Day instructional book, his appearance as a 13-year-old playing skiffle on a BBC-TV children’s show and his teenage apprenticeship in a multitude of early bands, one under the stage name “Nelson Storm.” Spitz also clarifies some of the facts about Page’s illustrious pre-Zeppelin career as a session guitarist. This is a guy who was featured on smash hits like Petula Clarke’s “Downtown,” Marianne Faithfull’s “As Tears Go By,” Tom Jones’ “It’s Not Usual,” the theme from the James Bond film Goldfinger and his rhythm guitar (not lead as is sometimes stated) on The Kinks’ “You Really Got Me” and The Who’s “I Can’t Explain.” Something I had never heard before was of his dalliance in something he dubbed “rocketry” – playing solo guitar behind the Beat verse of poet Royston Ellis. Also referenced in his early experience producing four definitive tracks with Brit blues godhead John Mayall and Eric Clapton. Also noteworthy is his discovery, at age 11, of pagan mystic Aleister Crowley and his book Magick in Theory and Practice, something that will figure largely in Zeppelin’s music and Page’s hedonist lifestyle.

The road to Zeppelin was set when Page tired of studio work and joined The Yardbirds, first to play bass behind his childhood friend Jeff Beck’s lead guitar. Page ultimately joined Beck on dual leads for a short, sensational time, until Beck departed and Page essentially assumed musical leadership of a band that was on its last legs. At this point, Zep manager-to-be Peter Grant enters the picture. Spitz paints a detailed portrait of the 300-plus-pound Grant’s road to Zep’s mega-manager. This includes his stints as a professional wrestler known as “His Royal Highness Count Bruno Alessio of Milan,” as a debt enforcer for notorious Soho gangs to, finally, his earliest management experiences with an unsuccessful band called The Flintstones and The New Vaudeville Band, a 1920s parody act that scored a global novelty hit with “Winchester Cathedral.”

It is with Grant’s invaluable support and muscle that Page makes his move to create the unique blues- and folk-powered band he had long envisioned, with veteran studio multi-instrumentalist and arranger John Paul Jones and two Northern newcomers to the big time, in singer Robert Plant and earthshaking drummer John “Bonzo” Bonham. Spitz’s wordsmithery literally puts you in the room as the foursome get together for the first time on a sweltering day in August 1968 to jam. It creates a moment of such brilliances and power that they all break down into laughter after the first number.

Spitz follows the halcyon days of the band, from their contractually obligated debut on a Scandinavian tour as “The New Yardbirds” to their breakup after the death of drummer John Bonham in September 1980. The book will delight musicians who will hear the stories of the writing of classics like “Stairway to Heaven” and “Kashmir,” how they used the studio to conjur magical sounds like the thunderous drums on “Moby Dick” and the skinny on all their controversial “appropriation” of riffs and words from bluesmen like Willie Dixon and Howlin’ Wolf on tunes like “Whole Lotta Love” and “The Lemon Song.”

What is sometimes lost to the mists of time is their huge unpopularity and subsequent war with the press, especially the critics at Rolling Stone Magazine. Right out of the box, their debut album was criticized as a pale imitation of Jeff Beck’s Truth and the criticisms just grew with each platinum album and sold-out tour. After several years declining every request for interview, the band enlisted a heavyweight PR agency to tackle the matter with limited success. A Hollywood press event meant to draw a bevy of celebs only drew Lloyd Bridges, father of actor Jeff, perhaps best known for his stint as an aqualung wearing detective in the late 1950s TV series, Sea Hunt. In another star-studded moment, the band engages in a food fight with none other than TV’s Kojack, actor Telly Savalas! The A-list was off on tour with the Rolling Stones, whose press coverage infuriated the maybe even more successful Zeppelin.

Any book about Led Zeppelin would be sinfully incomplete without a deep dive into their depravity on the road. Here, the Marquis de Sade/whips & chains lovin’ Page and booze-soaked Bonzo are the stars.

The author clarifies some points about Page’s infamous relationship with “baby groupie” Lori Mattix, who was his LA lady for a few years between his stateside romantic dalliances with Pamela Des Barres and Bebe Buell. Mattix became Page’s main squeeze for his tours in the U.S. at age 15, but not before losing her virginity to David Bowie at 12, according to the book. Bonzo’s exploits are even more gruesome and Spitz recounts a cornucopia of golden hits of depravity. These include the famous Mudshark episode while on tour with Vanilla Fudge immortalized in song by Frank Zappa, his trying to coax a Great Dane into having sex with a groupie at the Chateau Marmont, his doing a #2 in the purse of Page’s Japanese girlfriend and monumental consumption of drink and cocaine which often spurred his to sudden acts of violence. The latter was an addiction shared by all the band and its manager. In one morbidly humorous episode, Grant is so coked up that he mistakes a TV remote for a sandwich and breaks a tooth. In another, fountain pen ink leaks into their stash, but they sniff it nonetheless and gain blue nostrils which they proudly carry for a few days. By their 1977 tour, the wheels are coming off the bus with Page’s serious heroin addiction. It especially infuriates Plant as Page sometimes screws up on his famed double-necked guitar, by fingering one neck and picking the other.

There is more detail on their battles with the descendants of airship inventor Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin, who at first would not let any “babbling apes” make money off her family name or by using its image on their first two albums cover art. Speaking of cover art, there’s some fun details on their various makings and controversy, including how they sprayed naked children with gold auto paint for the cover of House of the Holy. Also explored are their successes and misses with their record label, Swan Song. It’s Zeppelin we have to thank for the litany of classic rock classics by the hard rocking Bad Company. But Spitz is the first author I’ve heard to divulge their passing on the opportunity to sign both Queen and Heart.

But the heart of Spitz’s book is an exploration of both the making of the music and Led Zeppelin as the touring juggernaut, that one that brought rock from small clubs to stadiums. With 300 million albums sold, with their creativity with studio sound and song form, with their hundreds of performances over 30 global spanning tours and their colorful excesses, Led Zeppelin is a band deserving such a sprawling tome. As usual, the mighty Spitz has truly written, and perhaps closed the book forever, on the heaviest rock band of its era.

January 19, 2022