Higher Ground has served, for more than a quarter centry, as Burlington’s premiere indoor music venue, a checkmark for bands looking to make their park in the Green Mountain State. Fans who have been able enough to catch a Higher Ground show know to stay until the show is over, where concert posters are sometimes handed out to lucky fans.
ECHO: A Survey at 25 Years of Sound, Art, and Ink on Paper, a unique art book featuring a collection of concert posters spanning the history of Higher Ground, the legendary music venue located just outside Burlington, VT, was released on April 1st. ECHO is a site to behold for concert poster collectors across the country.
This meticulously designed coffee table book, appearing like a stack of bound silkscreened posters, features the concert posters that have been a staple of Higher Ground and their partnership with acclaimed design firm and nonprofit, Solidarity of Unbridled Labour and Iskra Print Collective.
The book’s intro, written by Wilco frontman Jeff Tweedy, taps into the project quickly.
What coheres in these images is the work of the music and art communities intertwined and invested in each other…Concert posters are as close as one can get to the solid evidence that we all crave—proof that what happens when we create is beyond the scope of the individual work.
Jeff Tweedy
With more than 350 original concert posters, all taking place in Vermont – mostly at Higher Ground – the book is snapshot of music history in the Northeast, tracking bands as they progressed around the country, growing in size in many cases, with some moving from the smaller Showcase Lounge to the larger Ballroom space.
The artwork is inviting for any music lover, those who appreciate the art of concert posters, and others who appreciate variety in graphic design.
Ween / 07.23.99 / Edition of 350 / 22 x 26 / Design • Todd Wender
There are dozens of artists you’ll find inside the pages of ECHO, among them Neil Young, Ice Cube, Norah Jones, My Morning Jacket, Wu Tang Clan, Ween, Sturgill Simpson, Phish, Willie Nelson, Anderson .Paak, and many more. There are also the obscure artists you’ll come across in the pages of the book, those who fit a niche, faded out or otherwise never crossed your radar; the artwork in Echo will have you discovering new music.
Iskra Print Collective, a community space in Burlington that is dedicated to the practice, understanding, and appreciation of the printmaking arts, has held the task of creating silkscreen posters for certain shows at Higher Ground, which are uniquely not available for purchase. These prints evoke the spirit of each artist and band are embodied with bold creativity, and the deep dive into screenprinting found in ECHO is remarkable.
Michael Jager, co-Founder and Creative Director of Solidarity of Unbridled Labour and Co-Founder of Iskra Print Collective, works to conceptualize and realize ideas that help guide and create culture and positive change from within. Working with Ezra Pound’s principle, “Make it new,” through his multi-disciplinary collaboration, Jager has created work for brands including Burton Snowboards, Microsoft’s Xbox, Nike, Levi’s, Phish, MTV, Virgin, Lululemon, Yara, Tomra, Seventh Generation, MasterClass, and Patagonia.
Making the project even more special is all proceeds going directly to Iskra Print Collective.
Sturgill Simpson / 02.18.15 / Edition of 345 / 15 x 15 / Design • Andrew Lakata
Nestled inside the pages and pages of artwork inside ECHO are interviews with Alex Crothers, founder and co-owner of Higher Ground.
Crothers shares his unique insight from the past 25 years in his interview, which is echoed in his initial correspondence with Jager, outlining his vision for a partnership between the two.
Crothers opened the venue in 1998 and has produced more than 10,000 events in that span of time. By attracting rising stars as well as legendary musicians, Crothers pushes Higher Ground with core values to create bigger and better things while embracing community, storytelling, and the creative process. Through working with Iskra Print Collective, Higher Ground meets this mission.
Wu-Tang Clan / 12.21.10 / Edition of 275 / 15 x 15 / Design • Chris Partelow
ECHO is a must own book for any music-lover or Vermonter, and a must for any concert poster collector. The incredible design of the coffee table book is also the perfect addition to your library. Purchase ECHOhere.
The latest evidence that musicians can make great writers is illustrated in Bill Janovitz’s LEON RUSSELL: The Master of Space and Time’s Journey Through Rock & Roll History (Hachette Books). Janovitz made 10 albums with the alt.rock stalwarts, Buffalo Tom, and four solos while also carving out a career writing about music. He did this in articles for the likes of Esquire and The Observer and in books including the 33 1/3 series’ The Rolling Stones: Exile on Main Street and Rocks Off: 50 Tracks That Tell the Story of the Rolling Stones.
But Janovitz’ exhaustively captivating profile of Russell, one of rock’s most Zelig-like and complicated figures, is something else altogether. It’s a delicious masterwork of research and insights that could only come from a musician – someone who has tread the up-and-downs of a life as a professional musician, someone who has absorbed the many genres of American music where Russell not only ventured but repeatedly innovated.
With the blessing of Russell’s estate, Janovitz conducted interviews with 130 of Leon’s musical collaborators and bystanders to the Golden Age of Rock-N-Roll’s moments of true creativity and debauched excess. There are Leon’s chops-gathering years in Tulsa and on the road with Jerry Lee Lewis, his days as a session man playing on classics for everyone from The Beach Boys and The Byrds to The Ronettes and Gary Lewis and the Playboys, his catalyst roles with Delaney and Bonnie, Joe Cocker’s Mad Dogs and Englishman and George Harrison’s Concert for Bangladesh. There’s his time as a hitmaker and, even more lasting, a writer of much-covered classics like “A Song for You” and “This Masquerade.” There’s his latter shift to country music, his slide into financial and creative doldrums beginning in the ‘80s and his return in his final chapter under the patronage of a mega-star who idolized him above all, Elton John.
Claude Russell Bridges (aka Leon Russell), piano prodigy, circa 1946. Courtesy of the OKPOP Museum
Janovitz’ book also looks and put into context Russell’s struggles with illnesses, physical and mental, addiction, stage fright, bipolar disorder and much more.
In 530-plus pages and 41 chapters, Janovitz does music-lovers a great service by reminding us of the extraordinary talents and contributions of Russell – a man who is revered by generations of star music-makers, but who is getting a bit lost in the sands of time in the mind of the general public. Here are some of his thoughts on Russell and his journey to bring Leon’s remarkable story to life.
With the amazing list of stars he collaborated with, the many classic songs he wrote and records he played on, do you think Russell is still a somewhat undervalued commodity in the annals of rock music?
I don’t think he is undervalued among those who are aware of who he is. His legacy was obscured due in large part to his own decisions, but also due to the ephemeral attention spans of the music business and trends. He refused to deal with it all pretty music after 1980.
What was “the Tulsa Sound” and the role Russell played in developing it and then, later, when he resettled back in his native Oklahoma to create a home for Shelter Records? And how did his witnessing a performance by Jerry Lee Lewis help shape his career?
There really isn’t a “Tulsa Sound.” But the mix of rock & roll, R&B, gospel, blues, country, swinging drums, etc. were all important to the musicians coming out of Tulsa in the ‘60s. In that way, it is not much different than the Memphis area. But J.J. Cale is a lot different than Leon Russell, and both are very different than David Gates, e.g.
Playing in a teenage band backing Jerry Lee Lewis on a short tour in 1959-60 was the most galvanizing event in Leon’s journey to becoming a professional musician. Lewis was a hero of his as a pianist, but Leon also learned showmanship from Lewis.
Sam Bush, Bill Kenner, and Leon. On tour with New Grass Revival, 1981. ”For two years, we would open the show, and then we would back him, so it was strenuous work. I mean, it wore our ass down,” Bush said. Photo by Diane Sullivan, courtesy Jan Bridges
Russell was an important member of “The Wrecking Crew,” the corps of studio musicians who played on seemingly most hits coming out of Los Angeles in the ‘60s. What were some of the rock classics, and unlikely novelty tunes, he played on during this era?
So many, this list is just a sampling of some of the hits he played on in his pre-star session days:
“Mr. Tambourine Man” – The Byrds
“Be My Baby” – The Ronettes
“Da Doo Ron Ron” – The Crystals
“California Girls,” “Don’t Worry Baby,” “Help Me, Rhonda,” and “Little Old Lady From Pasadena” – The Beach Boys
“The Ventures Play Telstar” – The Ventures
“This Diamond Ring” – Gary Lewis and the Playboys
Whipped Cream and Other Delights LP – Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass
Leon’s home/studio in Los Angeles, Skyhill, was a real locus of rock-n-roll creativity and err, debauchery during the classic rock era. Tell us a little about what went on there and who was a party to this insanity?
They called it the “Home for Unwed Musicians.” They recorded around the clock. Leon often had no idea certain people were even living there. But aside from his own Tulsa crew, Bobby Keys, Levon Helm, Pat Boone, Glen Campbell, Eric Clapton, Rita Coolidge, Dean Torrance, Boyce and Hart, Joe Cocker, Steve Cropper, Buddy Miles, Duck Dunn, Jerry Lewis, and other notable figures either passed through or stayed for longer stints, working or just hanging out. It was so out of control there at times that Leon went to crash elsewhere, generally with a girlfriend, though he had another apartment at some point.
The Starlighters at the Tropicana Club, 1959. Left to right: Leo Feathers, Chuck Blackwell, Ron Ryan, Johnny Williams, Russell Bridges (aka Leon Russell). A promoter at Cain’s Ballroom hired the Starlighters to back Jerry Lee Lewis at a show there. After the Starlighters’ first warm-up set, Lewis came up onto the bandstand, pointed at seventeen-year-old Leon, and declared, ”I’m not gonna set down at that piano. He plays a lot better piano than I do!” Lewis immediately hired the band to back him on a tour. Courtesy of the OKPOP Museum
Russell became rich and famous inspired by Black art forms like gospel and blues, but seemed a bit oblivious to racism, even refusing to defend his African-American backup singer wife Mary McCreary when she faced abuse from audiences. Why didn’t he take a stand?
I take umbrage with the terms “refused,” and “oblivious.” I certainly did not use those words in such contexts. As for the influence of different kinds of music, it is a continuum for all musicians, no matter what cultural background. It does not exist in a vacuum.
Gospel, for example, is informed by white and Black people. Leon was decrying racism in his earliest interviews (see The Rolling Stone 1970 Ben Fong-Torres interview quoted in my book, e.g.). He also integrated bands as soon as he could form them. And he married a Black woman and had Black kids.
While there were virulent racists who shouted epithets and did worse at his shows, I think he felt he shouldn’t give oxygen to that particular flame; don’t feed the trolls, as it were. As the Black singer in his band Maxayne Lewis said, he thought the music and the band spoke for itself. He certainly did not “refuse to defend” his wife. This is not to downplay the effect of such hatred on Mary or any of the Black artists Leon worked with. But Leon wasn’t someone to get into a physical altercation with rednecks.
Leon and his most famous acolyte, Elton John, soon after they first met in Los Angeles, 1970. Elton said Leon “was everything I wanted to be as a pianist, vocalist, and writer. His music has helped me and millions of others in the best and worst of times.” Photo by Don Nix, courtesy of the OKPOP Museum
What role did Leon play in transforming Willie Nelson from the clean-cut songwriter to the original hippie-looking outlaw of country music?
He was the primary influence on Willie changing his look and outreach to the rock & roll audience.
What role did his lifelong battle with his many illnesses, both physical and mental, play in his career and personal life?
It was obviously a struggle, as detailed in the book. Depression would sideline him for months sometimes. As for his partial paralysis on the right side resulting from a birth injury, it was a challenge that he met by devising his own style to overcome it.
His relationship with singer Rita Coolidge offered a look at his insecurities and obsessions. Tell us a little about their time together and, something I saw in an early review of your book, his insistence on getting a monkey when she did want to have his child.
I don’t draw a line in the book connecting the lack of a child and a pet monkey that he got for her birthday. But Rita painted a portrait of Leon as a bipolar personality, “Mr. Entertainment” one moment, an a dark brooding person at another. Like a few other women to follow, she felt she did not fit into Leon’s lifestyle during the late-1960s.
“If you’re in Oklahoma, the amount of real legends that you can just reach across, just bump into and touch, there’s not that many,” said Taylor Hanson of the band Hanson. “But Leon was one where, all of a sudden, it was a relationship.” Left to right: Leon, Steve Ripley, and Taylor Hanson. Tulsa Mayfest, 2005. Photo by Kelly Kerr
You write that Leon was a central figure in both George Harrison’s Concert for Bangladesh and Joe Cocker’s career-making Mad Dogs and Englishmen Tour. What was the scope of his involvement in these events? And how do you think an artist like Leon, who you say suffered from massive stage fright and paranoia, could deal with this kind of spotlight?
Leon was the one who put together the Mad Dogs and Englishmen band, chose the repertoire (along with Cocker), arranged the songs and the show itself, played piano and guitar, and sang some songs. He was the bandleader. Joe was the star of the show, but it was essentially Leon’s band. He also helped out to gather the band for Harrison for the first major rock music charity concert, the Concert for Bangladesh. Yes, for both shows, Leon adopted his rock-star-preacher persona, a larger-than-life act to overcome his naturally taciturn personality. He really did have to overcome stage fright.
Elton John was one of the musicians most inspired by Leon. Tell us about Leon’s impact on Elton and Elton’s role in reviving Leon’s artist and financial fortune is his later life?
Elton told me that Leon was his idol, “everything I wanted to be as a piano player.” Leon took him out on the road to open shows for Leon and his band in 1970-71. Elton repaid that debt and went well beyond that by bringing Leon back to the public spotlight, making the hit record The Union together and lobbying to get Leon into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
Your book received advanced raves from a wide range of musicians. What artist today do you think are continuing to be influenced by Russell and carry his torch?
Tedeschi and Trucks Band comes to mind.
You had a long fruitful music career with the band Buffalo Tom. Is there any music-making on the horizon for you?
When it comes to indelible anthems of the ‘60s that are called upon to impart the times and mood in film and television, few are as a popular as The Chambers Brothers’ iconic 1967 hit, “Time Has Come Today.” Now the band’s lead singer and formational catalyst, Lester Chambers, is sharing the mighty highs and lows of his remarkable life in a new, self-published biography written with veteran journalist T. Watts, Time Has Come: Revelations of a Mississippi Hippie.
Bob Minkin Photography
Though his hit-making days are long past, Chambers is known to a younger generation due, in part, to a viral campaign spearheaded a few years back by Reddit co-founder Alexis O’Hanian and Rob Max, the late CEO of the musician’s aid charity, Sweet Relief. A 2012 picture from Lester, then homeless and suffering from cancer, showed his Gold Record for his biggest hit with a handwritten message about his financial plight due to not being paid royalties for decades, a position he claims he is in with “99%” of his fellow musicians of the time. The photo launched a Kickstarter campaign to help house and treat him and produce a new album. It was shared millions of times on Facebook, Reddit and other social platforms. The buzz generated not only support for him, but a greater awareness of the plight of the vast army of musicians who are not getting their rightly royalties. Lester and his brothers also received interest from a new generation with their 1969 performance of “Uptown” featured in Questlove’s Academy Award-winning 2021 documentary, Summer of Soul.
Lester’s story begins in the Deep South, on a sharecropper farm in Echo Hills, Mississippi governed by a Grand Dragon of the KKK. One of 13 children, Lester and the three brothers with whom he formed his famous group – Joe, Willie and George – honed their extraordinary gospel harmonies, modeled on their idols The Blind Boys of Mississippi and The Soul Stirrers, while working in the fields. When Lester was 13, he and his brothers would flee the harsh farm life under cover of darkness and end up in South Central Los Angeles. Here Lester would befriend blues great Jimmy Reed while mowing lawns and would have his first gig with his brothers at a party at the Hollywood Palladium for TV’s Superman, George Reeves. The brothers would polish their act “signing for sandwiches” in venues like the 5th Estate and Xanadu Coffeehouse, where Lester would meet a man who would become a longtime friend, the soon-to-be LSD king Augustus Owsley Stanley.
The Chambers Brothers true rise began when they secured a long-term residency at LA’s famed folk club, The Ash Grove. The frenzy of dancing they created with their mix of high-energy gospel and blues forced the owner to replace his glass cups with plastic. Their performances of gospel music at a venue that served alcohol raised the ire of Mahalia Jackson, who called it “blasphemy” in a 1963 article in the Los Angeles Times included in the book. While playing a regular “Gospel Hoot” at the Troubadour, they would catch the eye of Jack Goode, producer of the music TV show, “Shindig,” which they would perform on more than two dozen times in the following year.
As backing vocalists for singer Barbara Dane, they came to make additional recordings and tour nationally. Dane also introduced them to folk legend Pete Seeger. Through Seeger, they were invited to do workshops at 1964 Newport Folk Festival and were there again in 1965, at the one where Dylan went electric. When bluesman Josh White fell too ill to perform, they took to the main stage. They also provided vocal backing to Dane and Joan Baez at the festival. And after hearing their sweet harmonies, Dylan invited the brothers to sing backgrounds on his album, Highway 61 Revisited, which sadly went unused.
Lester and his band of brothers would then spend a good deal of time in New York City, playing a residency at Ondine, where they would meet their great drummer Brian Keenan, and also at Steve Paul’s legendary rocker hangout, The Scene.
During his career, Lester was often in the right place and time to strike up friendships and have encounters – some good, some bad – with a boatload of boldfaced names.
Lester befriended Jimi Hendrix during his time in Greenwich Village, was called the N-word by Diana Ross in a limo, would be on the road with Robert Kennedy right before his assassination, have a later-day band “stolen” by Wilson Pickett and even record with Miles Davis on his 1974 album, Get Up with It. It’s Lester’s searing bluesy harmonica that is featured on “Red China Blues.” In the album liner notes, he was credited as “Wally Chambers,” something the ornery Davis refused to fix on further pressings. Lester is also the man who would introduce Miles to his wife Betty. She was the street-smart and stylish soul/rock singer-songwriter who would go on to introduce Davis to the music of Sly and Jimi and pave the way for jazz rock fusion.
Lester also expresses his great admiration for Ed Sullivan. The TV host stood up for the band when the hotel they were to stay in during the filming of an appearance on his show in Las Vegas tried to deny them entry. Chambers also became close with John Lennon and appeared alongside him and Yoko Ono during their week co-hosting The Mike Douglas Show in February 1972. Chambers also has special gratitude for Yoko who provided financial aid for his housing and medical treatment after becoming aware of his Kickstarter campaign.
One of his most meaningful friendships was with Owsley, the Grateful Dead soundman and acid king. Owsley would gift Lester a mason jar full of LSD, which he claims to have taken every day for three and one-half years. Lester says it was a powerful ingredient in shaping his spirituality and humanity and in helping use visualization to fight his battle with colon cancer.
https://youtu.be/sKNz4hKQA00
On the musical front, The Chambers Brothers would be one of the last acts signed to Columbia Records by John Hammond, the A&R man who brought the world Billie Holiday, Bob Dylan, Aretha Franklin, Bruce Springsteen, Janis Joplin and many others. With the help of producer David Rubinson, they would go against the label and craft an 11-minute opus modeled on what they did with the tune live. Driven by Lester’s propulsive cowbell pounding and memorable ‘cuckoo” in the intro, the shortened single edit would make them stars.
But as great as the songs, it doesn’t demonstrate the true killer gift of The Chambers Brothers, their unparalleled four-part gospel harmony. This is something showcased on most other entries on this and other albums, like their powerful cover of Curtis Mayfield’s “People Get Ready” and the gospel classic “Wade in the Water.” This can also be heard on earlier live recordings captured at The Ash Grove and the Unicorn. Also underrated in their double-album live and studio disc from 1969 and its 16-minute title tune, “Love, Peace & Happiness.”
Co-writer Watts really adds texture to the story by including interviews with others who played a role in Lester’s life and career. These include early drummer Jesse Cahn, roadie Tony Smith, road manager Julius Chambers, his sister Jewel and his bandmate brothers, Joe and Willie. Also included are interviews with his sons, Andre and Dylan, the latter who has been with him throughout his times of homelessness and illness. That chapter of his life and the remarkable support provided by Reddit, Sweet Relief and notables like Yoko One are related in a transcript of CNN interview with Lester and Dylan. Also notable is a transcript of a long feature on their early “gospel soul” years by Opal Nations in a 1999 issue of Real Blues.
Like many bands, unequal royalties from songwriting have played a role in the breakup and frequent feuds among the brothers. Willie and Joe were the writers of their big hit and keep those earnings among themselves, something that Lester feels was unjust to him and their late brother George.
With these and further misfortunes including an onstage attack during a performance at a 2013 blues festival, Lester remains a positive spirit, one who shares his deep belief of the healing power of music and love of his fellow man throughout these pages. He continues to perform in with the band Moonalice with his son, Dylan. In the end, as the title says, he’s just a “Mississippi hippie” at heart. Here’s to hoping you will support him by purchasing his life story to help keep him in justified comfort during the final set of his rich and remarkable life.
Long considered the definitive account of the meteoric rise and crash-and-burn of the progenitors of funk-rock, Sly & The Family Stone: An Oral History (Permuted Press), has just returned to print in a new, updated edition by Joel Selvin.
The long-time rock critic for the San Francisco Chronicle, Selvin is the author of more than 20 fine books on pop music. They include biographies of Ricky Nelson, Sammy Hagar, The Grateful Dead and Brill Building writer/producer Bert Berns, as well as ones chronicling the Altamont and Monterey Pop festivals, the Summer of Love and 2021’s Hollywood Eden: Electric Guitars, Fast Cars, and the Myth of the California Paradise, reviewed here.
Sly and The Family Stone was a groundbreaking collective of black, white, male and female musicians. They came to symbolize not only the Woodstock generation’s quest for equality but would dominate the charts for several years running with a string of hits like “Everyday People,” “Dance to the Music,” “I Want to Take You Higher,” “Stand” and “If You Want Me to Stay.” Led by the precocious Sly Stone, their fusion of gospel and rocked-up funk would go on to influence the work of giants like Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock and Stevie Wonder and more current artists like Macy Gray, D’Angelo and Childish Gambino. But within a few years, Sly’s promise and grasp on the charts would collapse. Music would take a backseat with the entrance of incalculable drug abuse (coke and PCP mainly), guns, violent hangers-on, paranoia, isolation, inter-band jealousy and “a mean-spirited pit bull named Gun.”
Selvin’s updated version tells the story via interviews with more than 40 of Sly’s associates. These include his parents and family, band members and musical contemporaries like Grace Slick, Mickey Hart, Bobby Womack, Clive Davis and The Beau Brummels’ Sal Valentino. According to Selvin, the key to his unlocking the unvarnished story was locating Hamp (Bubba) Banks. Bubba was young Sly’s best friend and brother-in-law to be, an ex-Marine/pimp/hairdresser who served as Sly’s advisor and sometimes enforcer from his early career through the insane, drug-fueled days of the mid-1970s.
Selvin begins his story with the young Sly cutting his musical teeth singing in churches with his siblings in The Stewart Four, a group with which he first recorded at age 9. Then it is onto his high school bands, The Cherrybusters and The Viscaynes. The latter was an integrated singing group with whom he cut his first composition, “Yellow Man.” A meeting with San Francisco radio legends Tom Donahue and Bob Mitchell would lead to stints as both a popular nighttime DJ on KYA and KSOL and multi-instrumentalist/writer/producer responsible for hits like the Beau Brummels’ “Laugh, Laugh,” Bobby Freeman’s “C’mon and Swim” and the proto-version of “Somebody to Love,” recorded with Grace Slick and her pre-Jefferson Airplane band, The Great Society. Never a wallflower, Sly would strut his success by driving around town in a hot pink Jaguar XKE with two Great Danes in the jump seat.
In short order, he would put together Sly and The Family Stone, with his sometimes-playing partner, sax man Jerry Martini, and drummer Greg Errico, who joined from Sly’s guitarist brother Freddie’s band. Another key addition would be bassist Larry Graham, a wannabe lead guitarist who developed the now widespread “slap bass” style due to lack of drums in a band he played in with his mom. Together with trumpeter Cynthia Robinson from his earlier band, Sly and The Stoners, and his keyboardist/singer sister Rose, the band would make waves in after-hours sets at the Winchester Cathedral in Redwood City and The Pussycat A Go Go in Las Vegas, where Bobby Darin would become a fan. Around the time of their first album, 1967’s A Whole New Thing, the band undertook a residency at The Electric Circus in New York, staying at the legendary rock crash palace, The Albert Hotel.
By March 1968, the single, “Dance to the Music,” crashed the charts, the product of Sly working a new formula solely intent on creating “hits,” after the failure of their debut album. This one is led by his decision to move Cynthia’s memorable shout/call to action from the middle of the song to the beginning, and by putting an accent on Jerry’s jazzy clarinet riffs on the choruses. While in New York, cocaine becomes “a very big deal” to Sly according to one interviewee, when he begins getting mass quantities of it from a friendly dentist.
In the book, Martini talks about “the Sly effect” on audiences. It was a non-stop pulse of collective pure energy from the band, one that would cause a riot at the Newport Jazz Fest in 1969 and power their memorable performance at Woodstock. Even with a 3:30 am start time, Rolling Stone Magazine declared that Sly and company’s 55-minute set “won the battle of the bands” at Woodstock.
https://youtu.be/FKelubljjXM
Sly and The Family Stones’ true decent into darkness began shortly thereafter. In the book, drummer Errico relates that Sly wanted us “to be the biggest band in the world, but when he got it, he didn’t want it. I think he was scared of it.”
With his and the band’s move to a communal home in Coldwater Canyon, Sly is surrounded by a pack of wild dogs, a collection of guns and some very dangerous goons. Per Bubba, he traveled with “a violin case full of coke,” one that sometimes leaked making him seem like “the girl on the Morton’s Salt package.” He also had a home safe stocked with “500 pill bottles of downs, ups, everything.”
Things really escalate when Sly gets into PCP, or angel dust. He will have days’ long recording sessions at the Record Plant, then later in the attic studio of Mamas and the Papas’ John Phillips old mansion in Bel-Air which he rents. Here, there will be a “no clocks” rule. So Sly would be up in the studio for five days straight working on what would become the album, There’s A Riot Goin’ On, with associates including Ike Turner, Bobby Womack, Billy Preston and Herbie Hancock.
Around this point, Sly and The Family Stones’ life as a touring band begins to be compromised as the bandleader misses show after show. Drummer Errico and band manager David Kapralik will quit, the latter because he was sure Sly would end up killing him due to their mutual drug binges or by a suicide by his own hand. Others credit their leaving to pressure from The Black Panthers to rid the band and its circle of white members. Through Sly’s friendship with The Byrds’ producer Terry Melcher, he will meet the record man’s famous mom, Doris Day, inspiring him to cover her 1956 hit, “Que Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be).” This will become a centerpiece of their final top-ten album, 1973’s “Fresh.”
Selvin’s book provides a deep look at the contributions of others in the band, including the competition with Larry Graham and guitar playing brother Freddie – over music, women and drugs. Per Bubba, “they were always trying to out high each other.” By the end, there were rumors that Larry had put a “hit” out on Sly and vice versa. As he left for the last time, the bassist checked his car for bombs before getting into it. Graham would go on to a successful career; others would not fare as well.
There are some interesting facts about Sly’s next move to New York City and his runnings with neighbors Miles Davis and Geraldo Rivera. And, of course, his marriage to Kathy Silva on stage during summer 1974 concert at Madison Square Garden is covered. There’s plenty of other gossipy goodies including his appearance on the Mike Douglas Show (where Muhammed Ali hits on his wife) and an even crazier one on the Dick Cavett Show, where he barely makes it to the stage. His pit bull Gun runs wild, killing then having sex with a monkey and even attacking his son with Silva. And though there will be much more to Sly’s story, this book concludes with the band breaking up, after they attempt to produce their own string of shows at Radio City in January 1975. The first of which will be only 1/8th full, leading to cancellation of the rest. And the band? They were left high and dry, unpaid with no return tickets home.
There was and continues to be much more to Sly’s story – a seemingly infinite number of attempts to restart his career with the help of folks like Prince and George Clinton and the horrible images of the damage he has done to himself and his singular talent with years of drug abuse.
But as I read this book, I took the opportunity to take a deep dive into the discography of Sly and The Family Stone. The music still has so much power and is so forward-thinking. It is something that reverberates through the DNA of much of today’s R&B, soul, rap and pop, whether the artists know it or not.
Selvin’s latest is the ultimate “Behind the Music” cautionary tale, one made even more tragic when consumed along with a mighty dose of listening to Sly and company’s still groundbreaking music and lyric messages.
Hachette Books has announced the March 14 publication of Leon Russell: The Master Of Space And Time’s Journey Through Rock & Roll History, a comprehensive new biography of the legendary musician, composer, and performer Leon Russell by acclaimed author and founding member of Buffalo Tom, Bill Janovitz.
Leon Russell: The Master Of Space And Time’s Journey Through Rock & Roll History by Bill Janovitz
Bill Janovitz is an American musician and writer. He is the founding guitarist and singer in alternative rock band Buffalo Tom, and has also released three solo albums. He is the author of The Rolling Stones Exile On Main St. (Bloomsbury 33 1/3, 2005) and Rocks Off: 50 Tracks That Tell The Story Of The Rolling Stones (St. Martin’s, 2014).
Told with the support of Russell’s estate, Leon Russell: The Master Of Space And Time’s Journey Through Rock & Roll History stands tall as the definitive, never-before-told chronicle of one of the most important music makers of the 20th century, a genre-defying, multi-talented artist whose wildly diverse body of work has affirmed him as a one-of-a-kind Rock and Roll Hall of Famer and truly mythical figure in American music.
Leon Russell is an icon and a perhaps the most accomplished and versatile musician in the history of rock ‘n roll. In his distinguished and unique 50 year career, he has played on, arranged, written and/or produced some of the best records in popular music and involved with various genres including pop, rock, blues, country, bluegrass, standards, gospel, and surf records.
His career is like a roadmap of American music, while he is influencing a great amount of artists and works. Russell’ collaboration over the years spans such giants as Frank Sinatra, Bob Dylan, The Beach Boys, and countless others. His mark can also be found in the work of British rock royalty like The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and Elton John, the latter of whom later inducted him into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2011.
His is also renowned for his highlights with the awards. His recordings earned six gold records. He received two Grammy Awards from seven nominations and was inducted into both the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame.
A committed proponent of cultural diversity, Russell spent his 2x GRAMMY® Award-winning career assembling wildly diverse bands and performances, laughing in the face of musical and social barriers. Sadly, Russell struggled with demons, including substance abuse, severe depression, and a crippling stage fright that wreaked havoc on his psyche over the long haul.
Leon Russell: The Master Of Space And Time’s Journey Through Rock & Roll History now tells this incredible story with the same passion, creativity, and scope that rang out throughout Russell’s life and six-decade career, affirming him as a landmark artist whose impact can still be felt today throughout rock ‘n’ roll, Americana, and beyond.
No one in the world of jazz begat more violent debate and unsubstantiated myths than Albert Ayler. Now the works and life of this fearless musician are being re-told and reassessed in Holy Ghost: The Life & Death of Free Jazz Pioneer Albert Ayler (Jawbone Press), a compact yet comprehensive and impeccably researched biography from Richard Koloda.
A lawyer by trade and jazz musicologist by passion, Koloda spent over two decades researching Holy Ghost. It follows Ayler from his native Cleveland to France, where he received his greatest acclaim, to his mysterious death by drowning in the East River in November 1970.
Ayler synthesized children’s songs, the French national anthem “La Marseillaise,” American march music, funeral dirges and gospel tunes into uniquely powerful, sprawling and squalling free jazz improvisations. His overblown tenor honking and high-register squealing made some critics consider him a charlatan or simply insane. Others considered him a genius. One such man was John Coltrane who tirelessly championed Ayler to other musicians, critics and record label heads. Indeed, ‘Trane thought enough of Ayler to request he play at his funeral, alongside that other titan of free jazz, Ornette Coleman.
It was his aspiring songwriter dad who set Albert on the musical path, forcing him to practice hours a day and attend the Cleveland Academy of Music beginning at age 10. By the early ‘50s, he was gaining experience playing with artists like blues harmonica wizard Little Walter. His time in the Army would bring him to France in the latter ‘50s, where he saw Coltrane and Miles at the Paris Olympia and developed an unexpected love for French military music, including the national anthem “La Marseilles” which he quoted in his classic “Spirits Rejoice,” while playing in the 76th U.S. Army Band in Orleans.
His breakthrough, and perhaps his best times overall, would come in Europe, firstly in Scandinavia. Here he would meet and come to play with likeminded explorers like pianist Cecil Taylor and trumpeter Don Cherry and cut his first albums including My Name in Albert Ayler which contained his freewheeling interpretation of the classic “Summertime.”
By 1963, he was in New York City serving up music that was “playing pyramids and geometric shapes” while attired in a green leather suit, Cossack hat and slippers. His meeting with ESP-Disk head Bernard Stollman would lead to his best documented year of recording in 1964, one capped by “Spiritual Unity,” the classic trio disc with drummer Sunny Murray and bassist Gary Peacock, and the skronk-heavy film soundtrack, “New York Eye and Ear Control.” Even with growing press attention, New York City clubs were hesitant about booking this “New Thing” and Albert would head back to Scandinavia to record albums like The Hilversum Sessions and Ghosts.
In 1965, he returned to New York to lead a fierce quintet now featuring his younger brother Donald on trumpet. Albums like “Bells” and “Spirits Rejoice” continued to divide critics. Albert was labeled “further out than Coltrane” by Time Magazine and “a bizarre artifact, not art” by Downbeat. With Coltrane’s championing, he moved from the tiny ESP-Disk to the larger ABC Impulse! label. He went on to wax even more fierce and outré discs like “Live in Greenwich Village,” one that captured performances at The Village Gate and Village Vanguard. This album contains one of my favorite Ayler pieces, “Angels,” a duet featuring a kind of silent movie-styled accompaniment by pianist/harpsichordist Cal Cobbs to Albert’s balladeering tenor.
The last chapter of Ayler’s recorded life was perplexing, when he was moved to create a sort of accessible rock/R&B with vocals featuring “hippy dippy” lyrics by his new girlfriend Mary Parks. Love Cry and New Grass were albums that made no one happy, least of all Ayler, who blamed the commercial move on his producer at Impulse!, Bob Thiele. Albert would have one final victory when he took a turn back to his freer self in a July 1970 performance at the Maeght Foundation in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, France, something captured on a duo of fantastic 1971 albums.
With his return to New York City in fall 1970, his depression deepened as did his tenuous grasp on reality. There was increased talk about UFOs and spiritual visions, something that had been in the mix since his childhood. He would disappear on November 5 and be found 20 days later floating in the East River. Some said it was a hit for messing with a mobster’s woman or a drug deal gone wrong. One stubborn myth said he was found chained to a juke box. But Koloda works to put these long-held fallacies to rest. He concludes that the depressed 34-year-old jazz man most likely jumped from a ferry near the Statue of Liberty. This was in part due to the guilt of firing his brother from his band and the ceaseless financial pressures and criticism caused by a high-profile/low-profit life on the tip of the free jazz spear.
In his 20 years of research, Koloda has become the world’s foremost authority on all things Albert Ayler. He was a contributor to the critically-acclaimed documentary, My Name Is Albert Ayler, and a consultant on Revenant Records’ ten-CD retrospective of Ayler, Holy Ghost: Rare and Unissued Recordings (1962–70), which has been called “the Sistine Chapel of box sets.” His book includes quotes from his and others interviews with many of Albert’s closest collaborators, most notably from the writer’s long friendship with Albert’s brother Donald. There’s also a carefully balanced array of quotes from critics that demonstrate the reaction to Ayler throughout all the chapters of his short but action-packed recording and performing career. the book concludes with a pained portrait of the post-musical years of Donald Ayler, with his frequent hospitalizations for mental problems and fits and starts at reviving his career.
I had a decent knowledge of Ayler before reading Koloda’s Holy Ghost. But like any great touchstone musician biog, it set me off on a few weeks of very deep listening to the many well-trod and obscure corners of Ayler’s discography. In this way, Koloda has done a great service to both Ayler and every music lover with the curiosity to open up a pathway into this uniquely deep and spiritual canon of jazz.
