An uneventful story.

A musician that contributed to my waking recognition of the power of melody and harmony with an electric guitar.

A blues rock player with a slow hand.

Fucking tone for days.

I doubt it’s who you’re thinking.

I grew up listening to him. Phrasing. Composition. Arrangement. Genius technique. A mastery of effects and distortion. Every new record was a lesson. The electric guitar is my favorite instrument. They say the saxophone is nearest to the human voice but I believe the electric guitar reaches farther.

I was in my home town last fall he and was playing a local casino. We bought tickets in advance.  I was thirteen again. A power trio with Jaco Pastorius’ nephew and some cat on the kit with formidable groove.  Fifteen feet of dance floor between the stage and the audience.  My wife was the first out there and she had it packed, alive and flailing happy with abandon.

He clocked it.

I got to talk to him after because I used to make records and he knew who I was.

How fucking cool is that?

Or, maybe it was my bride.

Anyway.

After his concert at Centennial Coliseum, Reno Nevada on May 22, 1980, me and my friends, including my best friend, couldn’t help but pick up instruments and try to play rock and roll.  My friends succeeded and I failed. I was an awful drummer.

They were awesome.

Thank gawd.

I just wanted to make records.

Me and the rock star were on the same page.

I couldn’t help what I was saying.  I told him I wanted to record him. I told him I wanted nothing from him.  No money.  Nothing.  When I put it out there I was earnest. I had all the conviction in the world.  As soon as it was over I was sure I’d made a fool of myself. I hadn’t sat behind a recording console in a real control room for almost two decades.

We exchanged contact information and took a few selfies. I’d never done anything like that before.  I’ve known and worked with more famous people than you can possibly imagine and I’ve never so much as asked for an autograph.

The whole idea scared the shit out of me.

He came to LA to play The Whiskey a few months later. We’d been in contact. Phone, text, email.  We had dinner.  It was amazing sitting with this man.  He is a giant to me. He paid for dinner and drinks because I have a foot print in his world and he is courteous.  He knew my name. I guess.  Or maybe he was just crushing on my woman.

He lives in Florida and said he didn’t understand how rednecks could possibly feel superior to anybody. He wanted to talk about vocals.  Why and how Lennon or Daltrey sounded the way they did.  I explained in detail. Big diaphragm condenser tube mics with a cardioid polar pattern.  Proximity effect. Vintage mic pre’s, EQ and compression. I told him I knew how to do that.

We walked from the sushi restaurant at Hollywood & Highland to the Roosevelt Hotel and he smoked a joint on the way.

A Canadian joint.  Hash with tobacco.

He was gracious while picking my brain. We talked about guitar sounds. 50 watt tube heads and the way they fold. The break up not just because of the the pre-amp, but because of saturation with the tone controls and certain pedals.  We talked about the real Echoplex and ADA flangers.  The most convenient analog for a scale, of range of distortion, is the distance between the texture of sand and gravel.

We had drinks in the lobby and he had some kinda bubbly water.

We hit the sidewalk outside the hotel so he could smoke another joint and I could smoke a cigarette. I smoked a joint with him. He told me about an erectile dysfunction drug he’d tried. He’s in his middle sixties.  He said it caused him to hang better but he was sure it had contributed to some hearing loss in one of his ears. He was disturbed by it.

So was I.

I had the same drug in my medicine cabinet and remembered it caused my vision to have a blue tint. I haven’t taken it since.

He told me his plans.  Youtube marketing and some other stuff. I reminded him I was basically an old school audio guy and told him I just wanted to look through the glass and twist the knobs for two inch tape.

I was pitching recording him.  Not the idea of mixing him.  Because I wanted to look behind his curtain.

He showed my girl some karate moves from the discipline he’s devoted to. Charming and unguarded. They were dancing.  I wanted so bad to take pictures but just couldn’t.  I couldn’t risk looking like a fan. It was gorgeous.

I still regret not doing it.

First he said he would send me demos of what he was working on.  Then he invited us to his hotel room to listen to them.  I couldn’t.  Being in the room and rendering judgement on a work in progress with the artist sitting in front of me is something I’ve done too many times. I can’t stand being on the spot like that.

Maybe that was a mistake.

We walked him back to the corner of Hollywood and Highland.  We shook hands and he gave her a kiss on the mouth.

We stopped for another cocktail because we needed to. It was all so goddamn cool.  She’s a fan.  We both see him as a rockstar.  He’s a celebrity to two people that don’t give a mad fuck about famous people.

He crushed it at the Whiskey.  He had told me about his west coast debut some 40 years before in that storied venue and that he was both sick and tired that night from being on the road.  He couldn’t sing.  His label looked at him as the next Hendrix and they were nonplussed.  He said at dinner that he had something to prove.

From the stage he asked if I was wearing ear plugs.  I wasn’t.  He was on fire. He is my favorite guitar player and I stood in front of that stage and swallowed every note. I watched his hands and was rapt. In awe. He was wielding. He was prodigal.

And then it was over.

Fuck me.

He came out from the dressing room, gave my wife a kiss and hugged us both and that was it.  I only heard from him once after that.  A promise to send an MP3.

I was really fucking good at making records.

There was another producer/engineer that he’d done a record with in 1977 and it was brilliant.  My second favorite record he ever made. He mentioned him more than once.

I listen to that record and I can’t be sure.  I can’t be sure of my ability.  Even more in doubt when I put on the record he made in 1982. I was still in high school.  It’s a goddamn masterpiece of production and performance.  Recordings that are gigantic to me.  I had no idea how they were done.

I just had to figure it out.

I’m a journeyman who got lucky and he’s an underestimated and under appreciated genius.

I have his phone number and email. I haven’t heard from him and it’s a relief.

I was good at it.

That should be enough.

Drinks for my friends.

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