I am excitable and easily distracted; sort of like a rabbit or another small mammal. The internets are a dangerous place for me sometimes, as I will consistently fall into these obsessive explorations of some random thing or another. One time it was serial killers, which then lead to a lot of reading about the Thuggee cults of India, which then lead to me looking at artistic depictions of Kali for hours. Another time it was the animatronic hobbyist scene and all the drama involved with the various inventors and key figures behind Showbiz Pizza. My most recent wormhole involves a highly influential funk/soul/bluesman named Baby Huey and a bunch of words about session musicians.
I've been listening to a lot of heavy soul music of the 1970s lately. I have developed an interest in this sort of music for two reasons: I think that "shirtless with an open vest and a massive afro" is a fuckin' tough look. Part of that is afro solidarity. (I can grow a mighty, virile afro at any time, and you never know when that sort of thing could come in handy. It never will. But it could. But it won't.) The second reason is Baby Huey.
Baby Huey (aka James Ramey) was a singer/songwriter from Indiana who moved to Chicago in the 70s and got into a band called Baby Huey And The Babysitters, which is an objectively amusing name. They were a popular and well-respected live act to the point that they were invited to Paris(!) to perform a private concert for the Rothschild family (!!). I have no idea why that particular tale of a 400lbs heroin addict and his Chicago bar band traveling to Paris to do a show for aristocratic conspiracy fodder has not been made into a movie, but I guess it boils down to the fact that life isn't fair. Anyway, Baby Huey was a big fella and he had a lot of bad habits, as many musicians inevitably develop. He died at the age of 26 due to heart issues complicated by heroin abuse. Baby Huey and the Babysitters didn't release an actual album despite recording some tracks for Curtis Mayfield. "The Living Legend" was ironically released after Huey's death and is pretty much universally prasied as an all-time classic. Their song "Hard Times" alone has been sampled dozens of times in the hip hop world by everyone from A Tribe Called Quest and Ice Cube to Biz Markie and Ghostface Killa. It's a great, great, GREAT fuckin' song. I am far from an expert, but there are few funk/soul songs of that era that I've found with the level of grit found in Hard Times. I mean, you hear a lot of songs about sexy girls, outer space, and Jesus. You don't get a lot of songs about eating Oreos and Spam while fighting depression. Huey can definitely sing, but it's his groovy yet weary lyrics that get me every time. The whole album is like this. Give it a listen. It's undeniable.
THE BABY HUEY STORY - The Living Legend
One of the founders of Baby Huey and the Babysitters was a Chicago blues journeyman named Melvyn "Deacon" Jones. If you're a reader of liner notes or a browser of wikis, you see the name "Deacon Jones" pop up a lot. He provided horns and keys for a whole lot of people in that scene after Baby Huey's death. His list of collaborators includes some pretty major players like John Lee Hooker and Gregg Allman. Everything I've found on Deacon indicates that he's been a well respected sort of gun-for-hire in and around the soul and blues scene. I find these sort of session musician types fascinating. I'm a guy who really, for better or worse, gets into the theatrical rock-star metaverse. Give me stores about bat-eating and weird religious practices and bizarre stage customs, and I'm a happy listener. I eat that shit up. I think most people probably do. But with Deacon Jones, and a ton of other actual musicians, that's not what you get. You get regular ass dudes doing a job. Check out this clip of Deacon Jones.
He's just an old fella doing a show in some dive bar somewhere. A guy who played with an all-star lineup of legitimate stars in his day, and here he is just having fun fronting what sounds like any one of a thousand regular-ass bar bands. That's part of the magic for me: you never know who that old guy on stage is. That's quite a dichotomy compared to his old buddy Baby Huey. Better to burn out or to fade away, as they say? I don't know, man. I'd rather fade away. Melvyn looks like he's having a good time up there. There's a very specific kind of dignity in living a rock and roll life and living long enough to be a grandfather. It doesn't always have dignified results, but hell. I'd rather be an embarassing grandpa than a dead rock god, but maybe that's just me.
Speaking of Gregg Allman, I've got a longform thing about Southern Rock in me somewhere, but that's a fucking daunting task at the moment. So I'll just share this clip of Gregg playing Midnight Rider with Zach Brown and Vince Gill real quick. GREGG ALLMAN live at Fox Theatre
As an aside, I met Vince Gill once and he was really nice. Like, he took the time to go back up onstage after the show and thank all the techs one at a time. We got handshakes and everything. I'm not a Vince Gill guy, but I'm totally a common courtesy guy. A simple gesture like that can really make your day after 16 hours on the clock. I'll defend Vince Gill to the bitter end. He's really good at guitar too.
Anyway, your feelings about the Allman Brothers aside for a moment, did you notice the drummer? I am like 99% sure that guy is Kenny Aronoff, former touring drummer for Smashing Pumpkins and a billion, billion other bands. I recognized his whole "bald guy with big arms and goggles" gimmick and started googling. He's really noticable in a number of the Adore-Machina era performance videos. I always thought he was the drummer for Filter, but NO. I was wrong, and I learned something today. See? Here he is!
SMASHING PUMPKINS - Perfect live
Kenny Aronoff has had quite an interesting ride as a session guy as well. He's played drums for everyone from the Pumpkins to the Allmans to Bonnie Raitt. That's a wild career right there. That's something to be proud of. It has to be an interesting experience to be one of these session dudes. You spend your whole life honing your craft and practicing your guts out. You make sacrifices. You network like a madman, and at the end of all that you get a paycheck and your name in the liner notes. I don't know Deacon Jones or Kenny Aronoff, and they could be allmighty assholes for all I know, but there's just something compelling about these figures. These players who lived right at the edge of stardom and made a career out of being "the guy with the goggles." Of course, when you compare Kenny's image (goggles guy) and Deacon's image (bar band grandpa) to that of Billy Corgan (all-time king of the assholes and living punchline) and Baby Huey (fuckin' dead)...I mean, I don't know. Maybe there's something to the idea that there's a limit to how close to the spotlight you can really get before it fucks you up. Genius seems to have a price, but maybe you can just be a person who works really hard and gets good at their trade while still getting a whiff of that rockstar fantasy life. After all, Vince Gill is a super nice guy and I don't think he's had a hit song since like 1991. Of course, he's also won something like 30 grammies, so what the fuck do I know? Nothing. I'm just a goon with some kind of ADD and an internet connection.
No comments:
Post a Comment