Confessions of a Glorified Sideman

When I was young...

I was born in 1955 and my first memory of music was when I was 4 years old and my mom got a record player for her birthday. It was a small portable with a fake alligator skin cover and it played 33’s, 45’s and 78’s. My little sister Denise and I loved to play records at 78 rpm to get that Alvin and the Chipmunks thing going. Not too much has changed.

My mom, Dolores Zavala, also got the latest Bobby Darin record, which included “Mack the Knife” and “Beyond the Sea.” I still love Bobby’s versions of those classics. Up to that point I don’t think I’d ever seen her so excited. She loved Bobby Darin and Tony Bennett and we used to play the shit out it. I loved looking at the album covers and begging my dad to read the liner notes to me. I remember Darin’s album cover having a telegram from Sammy Davis, Jr. printed on the back and I thought that was so cool. Sammy was wishing him luck with some gig or the record and something about it all seemed magical. I’d even devour the inner sleeve that advertised other artist’s releases and I wanted to know all about them.

My dad, Roberto Zavala, was a blue-eyed Mexican devil, and he loved his Mariachi Records. He spoke fluent Spanish and new the words to every song. All us kids could sing “Guadalajara” by the time we were 6. We still have those records and I think I came up with this triplet riff on the harp that has become a signature of mine off those Mariachi records.

My older sister and brother, Karen and Gary were born in “48 and ’49 which is significant in the fact that in the sixties when they came of age I really benefited because they were buying all the hip music that was coming out which I couldn’t have afforded or probably would not even have thought about it. I was only 9 when the Beatles started the British Invasion and of course my older sister Karen loved them and I loved them too but the Stones were my boys. They were just so dirty looking and playing the blues with a rawness that struck a chord in me. I couldn’t get enough of that shit. I used to carry the Stones’ album “Beggars Banquet” to school and hook up at a buddy’s house before to have a couple of smokes and listen to “Parachute Woman” and “Sympathy For the Devil.” It kind of got us into the groove for the day, not to mention a joint or two.

My brother had all the latest and coolest stuff out from 1963 to 1973. We started with the Beach Boys, then Beatles and Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Ray Charles, The Band, Spencer Davis Group, Sly and the Family Stone, Traffic, Blind Faith, Cream, Steve Miller Band and Jimi Hendrix and the list goes on. But during all that time my brother Gary also had the baddest blues collection of Muddy Waters, Little Walter, John Mayall, Fleetwood Mac Blues Band with Peter Green, Otis Spann, James Cotton and John Lee Hooker. We shared a room and had one of those old stereo record players which you can stack up to six records on it and we’d drift off to sleep listening to some very interesting mixes of music of that era for the night.

I started playing harmonica in the late sixties and it was at this time when I really got into reading the liner notes of albums and wanting to know who was playing which instrument in every band and on every session. I could tell you whether it was Brian Jones or Mick Jagger playing harp on a track or not. I could tell if it was Eric Clapton or George Harrison playing the different guitar tracks on the White Album or that Paul Butterfield’s drummer, Sam Lay used to be Muddy Waters’ drummer and was on at least another half dozen blues albums in our collection. Or that Boz Skaggs was in the band for Steve Miller’s first couple of albums. I became obsessed with having to know who was who on a record and starting buying records depending on who was in the rhythm section or anyone else on the recording date. If the great drummer Harvey Mason was playing on a record I’d buy it. The session players were stars to me. I remember staring at a black and white photo of sax great King Curtis sitting on a stool in the studio, holding his sax with the microphone in front of him, having a cigarette and staring off into space probably waiting to do the next take or listening back to one and I would dream of being that guy in the photo. Sometimes during a session that’s going well and I find myself in the exact position as King Curtis was in that photo, I smile to myself. I may not be rich financially but I’ve had my share of magic moments in the studio… and still do, thank God.

Then a cool thing started happening in the early seventies, just around the time I borrowed a tenor sax from a friend towards the end of my senior year in high school. Sidemen like saxophonist Tom Scott started to step out into the limelight having success selling records as leaders. Creed Taylor’s CTI Record label was one of my favorites, putting out classic albums from Stanley Turrentine, Hank Crawford, David “Fathead” Newman and Grover Washington just to mention a few. These guys had been on countless classic recordings as sidemen and had released many records as leaders but now they were getting national recognition and sales. I ate it up and lived and breathed it.

So you ask “WTF is a sideman?” let alone a “glorified sideman?” A sideman could be the guitar player or piano player in a band with a legendary star such as Rod Stewart or Annie Lennox as the leader. They might even co-write songs with him or her and help put the live show together and make it work with arrangements and other input. Or be the drummer and the bass player that laid the groove down so solid no one even notices that they are so good. Or a sax and harmonica player that can take a good song, whether it be in concert or in the studio, and make it a great song and make a good concert an unforgettable experience. They travel and hang out with the leaders and seem like equal members of the band… but they are not. They live what seems like a glamorous existence from a far but in reality not a lot of people ever know who they are or how pivotal they can be to the artist in the studio or on a concert stage. They may make a decent salary and living but it is far from what the star is making and far from what the public might assume. Sometimes critics refer to them as studio hacks. I’ve never really understood this term.

Throughout the seventies I learned how to run a band and be a leader. I would front the band and sing lead on a few songs but more often then not I would hire a lead vocalist and work my magic in the shadows and then stepping out to solo when needed… which I thought should be every song to the consternation of some of my band mates, but what the hell… if it’s my band, I’m going to blow for a few choruses.

Just try and stop me.

© 2010 Zavala Songs, Inc.

And The ‘Shroom Tour Rolls Into Malibu…

Disclaimer: In the following, I discuss my use of illegal drugs. Let me be clear, I no longer do illegal drugs or have plans to ever do them again, nor do I wish to condone or encourage their use by anyone. Illegal drugs were a part of my life in the past and I can’t change that.

A few days later we were playing in Malibu at a legendary club called Trancas… it’s not there anymore (it’s now a Starbucks or something). Too bad… lotta great shows went on there…

Anywaaaaaay!!! We were on a roll. Playing small clubs but everyone sold out and rockin’! At Trancas you could count on it being like courtside at a Lakers game in the finals… stars and hot cars and very fine booty. I had invited some friends and one happened to be my mushroom man who we’ll call Frank. Frank was stuck out with a crowd of people… stars too… who were not being let in as the club was at capacity.

Well, I couldn’t have that, nor Eric… so a large bodyguard friend of mine, Animal (who I’d known since my NWA/Ruthless Records days), happened to be there so I enlisted his assistance and we went outside into the crowd, snatched Frank and his people and hustled them in the back door.

Eric and I had our dinner of psychedelic truffles and got ready to go on. It was so crowded in front and a very low stage… so I told Frank to stay by the stage door and once we started, open it and watch from there. They did  - so he can corroborate what ensued (and he has… many times).

It’s mid-way through the show, the house is a rockin’ and Eric and I are trippin’ hard on cloud 9. We were carrying on as we did on stage back then and somehow Eric’s hair got caught in the screw that tightens the neck of my sax to the body. He started to panic as we were twisted back to back and it was pulling his hair out, which was long at the time. I yelled in his ear and calmed him for a moment as we slid back to back in slow motion down to the stage… head to head like Siamese Twins.

Trying not to laugh I begged him to hold on so I could take a look. I already had a sax in the shop for repairs so I was worried he’d make a move and bend it or worse and I’d be out of saxes…

As we lay on the stage, with the band blazing on, I looked at where his hair was hopelessly tangled up with my sax. I then made the mistake of saying something really stupid, “I think we’re gonna hafta operate.” When Eric heard that he freaked and jerked his head away and left a big clump of hair and scalp hanging from my sax.

I’m laying there laughing uncontrollably, looking at the crowd and then up at Robbie Krieger who’s almost losing it with laughter. Eric then did the craziest thing.

He’s on all fours crawling like a child mind you. At some point a very pretty girl in a white billowing type skirt was up on stage flirting with the keyboard player Jeff. Her back was to us and Eric crab walked toward her at light speed and crawled up into her skirt like a rat up a drainpipe… and disappeared. She screamed and starting beating on him.

I looked back at Frank and his buddy Mondo who were catching all this from the little stage door and we all just lost it… I don’t think we’ve ever laughed so hard.

I think that was the last time I ever played Trancas…

©2010, Zavala Songs, Inc.

Robby & Eric - 1990

A Night I’ll Never Forget

Disclaimer: In the following post, I discuss my use of illegal drugs. Let me be clear, I no longer do illegal drugs or have plans to ever do them again, nor do I wish to condone or encourage their use by anyone. Illegal drugs were a part of my life in the past and I can’t change that.

In late 1989 I hooked up with Eric Burdon, the powerful vocalist of the Animals and their many hits. He was the infamous “long-haired leaping gnome”… in his own words, from War ‘s song “Spill the Wine.” He and guitarist Robbie Krieger from the Doors were going on tour (Robbie wrote their big hit “Light My Fire”).

Eric was known at the time of being a legendary party animal (sorry for the pun… LOL) and was remembered from hanging out with Jim Morrison and Jimi Hendrix on notorious romps from Hollywood to London.

I was told Eric was clean now and to not offer him any drugs or alcohol… OK…

For myself, I had come up with a brilliant idea on how to beat my own cocaine problem at the time – by taking “magic mushrooms” – Yeah I know… brilliant!

Somewhere along the way Eric found out and started secretly asking for a couple of mushrooms. So I gave him some… and we tripped up and down the coast.

We were on a tour of clubs from San Diego’s Belly Up Tavern to San Francisco. At one point we played a club in San Luis Obispo. A girlfriend of mine who happened to deal cocaine had gone on ahead and booked a room at a local hotel so I stopped for a visit before the show.  I had taken a hand full of very powerful mushrooms and she enticed me into a hot bath after doing a few lines of blow. One thing lead to another and after a few hours slipped by I realized I was late and it was just about show time.

I was driving a black 5.0 Mustang. A very fast and dangerous car for the likes of me.

How I ever survived that car I’ll never know. I paid a fortune in speeding tickets.

So I’m pulling up to the club tripping hard out of my mind on ‘shrooms and blow and there’s a line around the block to get in and NO PARKING anywhere… so what do I do? I screech right up in front, jump out with the keys in the car and motoring running, grab my horn and bolt inside the club… Just left my car in the middle of the street running with no idea what would happen to it… yeah, brilliant!!!!

The club is packed and rockin’!!! The band is just starting the first song and I make my way to the backstage area and no one is there. I’m trippin’ big time now, but my internal clock says “stay cool, you’re gonna make it on time”, as I didn’t play on the first couple of songs… so I wasn’t officially late  – yet. I’m getting my horn together when I hear the band kick into “Don’t Bring Me Down,” which I had a sax solo on and was my first song.

I’m just about to open the door to the stage that was up a couple steps when it flies open and there’s Eric staring me down with his hand out saying “You’re late!!!”

I had a feeling he would be wanting his fix of ‘shrooms so I was prepared with three massive mushrooms in my hand. I slammed them on to his open palm and he inhaled them and said, “Let’s go!!!” We arrive onstage and the place is pumpin’!!

I swear to God, I couldn’t make this up. As I arrive at my mic it’s just in time for my solo and I rip in to it. It feels like my horn is a blazing rocket and I’m just holding on for the ride. I blew my ass off on that solo and every other sax and harp solo that show. We had two shows that night.

Now we’re backstage on the intermission before the second show and bass player Dave Meros is commenting on my playing, basically saying “Wassup, man? You’re on fire!!” I own up to Dave and the boys in the band that I’m trippin’ hard on mushrooms and that they should try some for the next show. Funny enough, most of the guys had never tried them. Somehow I convinced everyone of those fucks to take them… hahaha… one for all, all for one type shit… EXCEPT Robbie Krieger – He was on Chemotherapy at the time and begged off.

The band fuckin’ rocked that second show. Seriously!!! At one point I remember watching Eric jumping all around the stage singing his ass off, and looking across stage to see the keyboard player so into the music looking down at the keys as he played like he was trying to melt into the piano, the bass player and drummer with eyes closed grooving hard…  drummer bangin’… and then Robbie and me locked eyes and he was shaking his head with the biggest shit eating grin on his face… He knew what I had done.

I just shrugged with my arms out and palms up, laughing with a look like

“Hey, what can I say…Ya got me!”

It’s a moment I’ll never forget.

©2010, Zavala Songs, Inc.

The Queen and her Sir Lancelot

My first encounter with Etta James was in 1980 at the Blue Lagoon Saloon Nightclub in Marina Del Rey, California. I can’t remember if it was Etta’s gig or if she was just sitting in. Brian, her guitarist and musical director at the time and later with Paul McCartney, was on stage and had called Etta up out of the crowd to do a song.

I happened to be sitting at a table close to the stage and as Etta made an attempt to get on the three-foot high stage from the front it quickly became obvious that she was not going to make it up. Etta teetered on the edge of the stage, while Brian, with his guitar still around his neck, was trying valiantly to pull Etta up…without much success. Quickly appraising the situation, I darted to the stage to assist and soon found myself in the awkward position of pushing on Etta’s ample bottom. Another gentleman joined me, thank God. Brian and I weren’t making much headway alone and together we managed to get Etta safely on stage. The crowd roared.I will never forget Etta’s smile of thanks and that naughty little wink she gave me for having gotten so familiar in such a short time, and in public. Little did I know then how much I would learn, many years later, about that wink and how much more intimate we would become.

My second encounter with Miss Etta was at a blues club in Riverside, California around 1996 where I was fronting a band with guitarist extraordinaire Josh Sklair. Josh was at the time and continued to be, her longtime musical director and band leader with Etta’s two sons, Donto (drums) and Sumetto (bass). Josh had told me Etta was looking for a new sax player and that she might show up and do a couple of songs with us but not to hold my breath.

Well, Etta did show up with commotion and fanfare. She had a well-deserved run of good luck and record sales at the time, not to mention the use of her songs in major national commercials. Consequently, she was recognized with all the trappings. She was moving around at the time with the aid of an electric scooter. She had become quite heavy and it was taking a toll on her knees. Even though she could stand and walk she preferred to perform while sitting on her custom made, “throne”. I watched in awe as her handlers, and there were many, prepared the stage for the Queen to arrive. We did a set or two so Etta had a chance to see me do my thing. When she arrived on stage she never looked at me until she wanted me to play a solo and then she looked me up and down. I now understand the phrase, “she undressed me with her eyes.” We played Randy Newmans’ You Can Leave Your Hat On, and she tore the place up. And just like that she decided it was enough and she was gone. I had no idea if I had passed the audition or not and though it wasn’t official I was definitely being checked out.

A month or so later Josh called me and said I had received the nod for the sax chair and gave me a tape and some horn charts. The first gig was an out door summer festival gig in the parking lot of a big hotel in San Bernandino, California. There were no music stands and the wind was howling. I was doing my best to read the charts and make sure they didn’t blow away. I thought I was just fucking up and blowing the gig when the trumpet player, Ronnie Buttafucolli, growled at me “fuck the charts, just blow.” I loved him for that since that is one of my strengths: my EARS!

I made it through that gig and began learning the ropes of the Etta James Roots Band, and the all-important pecking order. I must be honest; I was unprepared for the realities of playing in a big band that had been together for quite some time. Solos were seldom given out and once a player had one he would covet it till Kingdom Come. Coming from situations such as Rod Stewart’s band and the Eurythmics where I had been a featured soloist with plenty of solos through the course of a concert. The great session guitarist Michael Thompson, a good friend of Josh’s and a fan of my harmonica playing once told him after seeing a show, “you’ve got the Missionary Man… One of the best harp players in the world and he doesn’t play one solo or any harp at all in a two hour show! What’s up with that?” I have always been grateful and appreciated Michael’s kind words but they had little effect in Etta’s world. In fairness to Josh, it just wasn’t his call. It was Etta’s and rightly so.

I would not get a harp solo for over two years but when I did… well you can bet I made the most of it. I should add that I’m a referring to the live show as Etta used my harp talents from the first record I did with her Life. Love and the Blues in 1996 and every record in between up to 2003 whether studio or live. The song that Etta decided to feature me on harmonica turned out to be a real crowd pleaser. It was Jimmy Reed’s Bright Lights, Big City. Etta sang the shit out of it as with any other song I have ever had the pleasure to hear her sing. She would have me come down off the horn section riser and play right next to her on her left at the front of the stage. We got into a great groove together immediately and we would play off each other, flirting and just carrying on and having a good time. I would play a solo for a few choruses and then hand it back to her by kneeling in front of her like Sir Lancelot while still playing my harp.  She would look down upon me, putting her fingers through my hair and saying naughty, sexy things with looks to the audience that only Etta can pull off and the crowd just ate it up. This became a staple in the Etta James Show for years, which brings me to my next little tale…

Etta was riding high in those days. We were headlining many festivals and one of my favorites was the Monterrey Blues Festival at the Monterey County Fairgrounds in California. I love this festival for many reasons but one that sticks out most is the fact that the concert is held on the same stage and venue that Jimi Hendrix did the now famous show where he lit his guitar on fire. Jimi just happened to be the first concert I ever attended courtesy of my older brother Gary Zavala, may he rest in peace. I know my brother loved me but I can’t help but think he was using me to get out of the house by taking me to a Jimi Hendrix concert for my thirteenth birthday in 1968 on a school night. That concert definitely changed my life. Every time we went on that stage in Monterey I thought of Jimi.

We came on stage at a perfect time. It was around five in the afternoon, the heat wasn’t as bad as it was cooling off a bit. The crowd, fifteen thousand strong, had just enough to drink and heard enough of the other bands to be primed for Miss Etta James and the Roots Band Show! Etta was on fire and so was the band. The crowd was into it and everyone could tell it was going to be one of those special nights. Half way through the show I came down front with Etta to do the Jimmy Reed song. We all had to use the backline amps provided for us by the promoters so it was always a hit or miss situation on these gigs but that night I had gotten lucky, scoring a dynamite amplifier for my harp. I was getting that big, fat, Little Walter type sound I love and I was ready. My solo came around and Etta turned me loose, roaring, “Blow, Jimmy, blow!”

Well you do not have to tell me twice to blow a solo, especially with Etta James in front of fifteen thousand screaming fans. I ripped through a few choruses and was about to hand it back to Etta but she urged me on to take another solo. I finally passed it back to her and the crowd went wild. I was soaking wet with sweat pouring off of me, kneeling at Queen Etta’s feet looking up at her. Etta, as always, was dressed to the nines, and that night was no exception. She wore a black sequined evening dress that was very low cut… VERY LOW CUT. She began fondling my hair and doing her naughty shtick as usual but I noticed she was a little more…how should I say…into it. We were kind of trading licks and carrying on when all of a sudden Etta pushes the back of my head with extreme power and my face was pushed deep down into her ample bosom. UP TO MY EARS!

Keep in mind I still had my hands around my bullet microphone and harmonica as I descended into Etta’s HUGE TITS. So I did what any trooper would do…I kept on playing. Very, very surreal though, as if I had slid into a dream. My ears were covered with some of the most storied, “earmuffs”, on the planet.

Consequently I was not able to hear all that well. What I did hear was the crowd roaring and going crazy then I noticed the smell of Etta’s perfume and perspiration, which was, need I even say? A very heady brew. I tried at one point to lift my head but Etta wasn’t having any of that. Those paws were holding me down like a grizzly bear.

Accepting my position and situation, and keep in mind I am I still playing my harp, I tried to make myself at home. At some point I remember thinking to myself, ”I’m playing in Etta James’ tits! In front of a whole lot of people!” After some time she finally let me up for air and what a look she had on her face. If you could imagine a combination of the Cheshire cat that just ate the canary type smile with a, “whatcha you gone do muthafucker” look. I just smiled in a somewhat drugged state (and who could blame me.) I felt like a time traveler who had just barely made it back from another dimension with serious jet lag.

I looked out at the crowd as Etta was saying, “Jimmy Z Jimmy Z!” over and over. I’ve been fortunate in my career to receive some rousing ovations but this one stands out. Besides the usual clapping and yelling there seemed to be a look of awe on some of the faces at what they’d just witnessed. And now that I think about… coming back from another dimension just about sums it up… kind of.

© 2010 Zavala Songs, Inc.
edited by F. Colin & R. Thorny