Confessions of a Glorified Sideman

Stephen Stills and his Tele­caster — © ROGER BARONE 1994 — www.rogerbarone.com

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.

I used to do ses­sions in the late 80’s/early 90’s for a very tal­ented key­board player and pro­ducer named Kim Bullard. He had played with Stephen Stills in a group called Man­as­sas.

Around mid­night one night in 1994, I get a phone call from Kim. He’s in a ses­sion at his stu­dio in the Val­ley (or on the Bene­dict Canyon side of it, any­way), and he needs me to play harp on some­thing right now. I asked if it couldn’t wait, and he explained he was work­ing with Steve Stills, who was there, and the song had to be fin­ished mixed and turned in by the morn­ing for a movie called The Cross­ing Guard. Jack Nichol­son starred in it and Sean Penn had some­thing to do with it. He needed me now!

Well, when duty calls… I said sure, got the address and imme­di­ately called my dealer. I fig­ured I’d be mak­ing dou­ble scale (around $600 at the time) so some refresh­ments might come in handy. It turns out he was at a night club called Num­ber One which was located right on the way – on Sun­set just past the Strip as you’re head­ing into Bev­erly Hills. I only needed to run in and I didn’t want to valet and park­ing is a bitch so I’m think­ing of things to say to secu­rity when I pull up and who do I see but Steve Maruchi, an old friend from my Rod Stew­art days. He was Rod’s body­guard. I was dri­ving my black Mus­tang 5.0 and how I didn’t kill myself and oth­ers with that car I’ll never know. I was a speed demon to the max. I pull up and he’s about to tell me I can’t park there when Steve rec­og­nizes me. We have a laugh together and I tell him I just need a minute in the club so he let’s me park right in front. I find my guy, cop a bindle, and I’m on my way.

Kim’s stu­dio was on a very nice piece of prop­erty with some kind of creek run­ning through it. If you didn’t know bet­ter you’d think you were in the coun­try and not in the mid­dle of a major city. LA can be like that. I meet Steve and he was not in a good mood.

After I was intro­duced we lis­tened to the track and he said some­thing in a gruff, grav­elly, impa­tient, cig­a­rette voice, “Well… ya think ya can play some­thing on it?

I fig­ured out what key the song was in. I believe in D as I played a G harp. How I remem­ber these things I will never know… and wish I could tell you because I’ve for­got­ten what the hell I was sup­posed to be doing today… oh yeah!! Write!!!

I start play­ing some harp in the con­trol room with the track and he’s already dig­gin’ it and his mood is get­ting way bet­ter. I go in the room play it through a few times with input from Steve and Kim and Whommp! There it is!! We’re done.

Everybody’s happy and now we’re just hangin’ and Steve asks if I’d like a glass of wine and I say why not. The stu­dio had a big porch with sofas and chairs like an old south­ern house and I was doing a hit of blow when Steve walked up with the wine. He asked what I had there so I offered him some. He accepted. We drank wine, I told him what a big fan I was of Buf­falo Spring­field when I was grow­ing up and how much I loved one his songs, Blue­bird. I was hang­ing with Steve Stills… and he dug what I’d just played…

Life was good…

At the time, I was liv­ing in a Hol­ly­wood Hills apart­ment on North Fuller, which I had rented when I’d got­ten the part in a Jen­nifer Jason Leigh movie, Geor­gia. We filmed it on loca­tion in Seat­tle. (Go rent the movie — I did a great job play­ing a musi­cian – it was a stretch, but I pulled it off.)

I don’t think the neigh­bors appre­ci­ated my lifestyle. I had moved in with Heather – a 22 year old, recent grad of the Uni­ver­sity of Ken­tucky (yes, that one). She was beau­ti­ful, blonde, mes­mer­iz­ing green eyes, long legged and full of ambi­tion… with an incred­i­ble thirst for cocaine an insa­tiable sex­ual appetite to go along with it. It was quite a cir­cus at times try­ing to feed both of them. It was pure heaven and hell with her. I suf­fered through it like the trooper I am.

Her Daddy was a mil­lion­aire high roller – what they call “a whale.” Caesar’s Palace used to send their jet to fly him in from Ken­tucky. I saw him drop $100,000 in a few hours play­ing black­jack in Vegas.

When I met her I thought I’d try and shel­ter her from my deca­dent lifestyle. Yeah right. One day she said she had to pick up some­thing at her hairdresser’s place for her Daddy who she was to meet in Vegas. We drove in her late model sports car to a funky apart­ment build­ing in Hol­ly­wood. I waited in the car. She goes in and comes out in 15 min­utes, jumps in the dri­ver seat and tosses me a ten­nis ball. I’m think­ing Huh? She says squeeze the ball. I do and inside was a small bag­gie stuffed full of sparkly flakes of crys­tal meth. She’d just copped a half-ounce of meth for him to gam­ble on. Yeah I’m gonna keep this girl pure as the dri­ven snow.

Any­way… few days after the record­ing ses­sion for the song on The Cross­ing Guard I get a call from Steve’s man­age­ment. They said Steve wanted me to come up to his house in Bev­erly Hills to play the song we’d recorded. Now I’m con­fused. I ask the agent, “He wants me to come over and play the song?” He says, “Yeah”

So of course I ask why? I mean, it’s already recorded and mixed. We’re done. WTF? He says with some atti­tude, “How the hell do I know? Steve wants ya up there around 2:00 Sat­ur­day after­noon.” He gives me an address on Sum­mit Drive.

My girl had a job as a recep­tion­ist at a Hol­ly­wood record­ing stu­dio. Besides doing fair amounts of blow together we were in the midst of an erotica/ sex­ual toy phase of our rela­tion­ship. I mean it seemed this girl didn’t see a sex­ual toy/dildo she didn’t want to try. Who was I to argue?  After a while we had a small gym bag full of these things.

So it’s the Fri­day night before the Sat­ur­day that I’m to go to Stills house. My girl and I are on an all night binge of sex, drugs, video… and sex toys!!! We were like two lit­tle mani­a­cal bunny rab­bits all over that apart­ment till the sun came up. Whole lotta fun!! So I come to my senses the next day, look at my watch and it’s 1:30 pm. I jump out of bed and she’s out to the world. Fuck. I’ve got to be at Steve’s in 30 min­utes. The apart­ment is trashed. Bot­tles, drinks, toys all over the place. I take a quick shower and usu­ally I always take all my axes (harps, saxes, flute) when­ever I go to a ses­sion or rehearsal. But this was… hell, I didn’t know what it was so I grab just one G harp for the song I played on. I fig­ured we’d play it a few times and I’m out of there. Big mis­take.

As I’m walk­ing out of the apart­ment I see a note on the door from the build­ing man­ager say­ing they had to come in and check some­thing in about an hour. Fuck. I gather up all the toys and dil­dos and put them on the kitchen counter and run back to the bed­room and tell my girl the manager’s going to be there in an hour and to clean up a bit ‘cause I had to run up to Steve Stills. She mum­bles some­thing and I’m gone.

We didn’t have GPS then. The old handy Thomas Guide was my best friend. So I’m nav­i­gat­ing to Steve’s and I take Cold­wa­ter Canyon Drive and then start dri­ving up… and up. It ain’t called Sum­mit Drive for nothing.

I get to the top and you have a 360-degree view of Los Ange­les, the Ocean, down­town, etc. I find the place and it’s a huge incred­i­ble house. I was told later it was Bar­bra Streisand’s place and that Steve was rent­ing it for $10,000 a month. Nice. It’s all right for some, eh?

I knock on the door and some­one answers and tell’s me Steve is rehears­ing in the barn. Rehears­ing? Hmm­mmm. They give me direc­tions to the “barn” and as I’m get­ting closer to this actual large barn I hear a band play­ing very loud one of Steve’s hits, For What It’s Worth. How apropos.

I walk in and it’s a full on band rehearsal. Shit! They’re in the mid­dle of a song. Steve sees me but looks right through me like I wasn’t there. So I just hang off to the side and lis­ten to the music. I knew a cou­ple of the cats, the bass player Ger­ald John­son and piano/organist extra­or­di­naire Mike Finni­gan.

They fin­ished the song and went right into another one. I’m think­ing shit, this is a band rehearsal for a show — not a ses­sion. I’ve got to get Steve’s atten­tion or I could be here lis­ten­ing to this all day. So they fin­ish that song and I walk up to Steve and ask if we should play the Cross­ing Guard song so I can get out of his hair and he can get on with his rehearsal. He looked up at me with an annoyed, con­fused look and said gruffly, “Just play what you played the other day!!!”

There was silence and a preg­nant pause you could stick a fork in. Finally, Finni­gan in his sten­to­rian voice (God bless him), said into the micro­phone, “…uh Steve… Jimmy wasn’t here the other day.” Talk about awk­ward. Fuck! He thought I was some­one else! Steve is look­ing flus­tered and in a split sec­ond I’m think­ing there’s a gig to be had here. I say real fast, “Hey, it’s cool Steve. I just live down the hill and I could go grab my sax and harps and be back in half and hour.” Yeah right. He says “Yeah, go get ‘em.” And they launch into another song.

I’m dri­ving my Mus­tang 5.0 and I’m fly­ing down that fuck­ing hill. A gig!!! With Stills!!

“Down the hill” was more like thirty min­utes min­i­mum from Stills place to mine. I get to my apart­ment door and there’s a note on the door. It’s from the man­ager say­ing they let them­selves in because no one answered and that they had fixed the prob­lem. I walk in and the place is just as I left it. Dil­dos, bot­tles, full ash­trays, and shit every­where. Jeeeeez!!!

I go to the bed­room and my girl is still in a coma. Great! I say, “Baby, I told you to clean up cuz the man­ager was com­ing over! He’s come and gone (no pun intended) and there’re dil­dos every­where!” It didn’t seem to bother her or be of any impor­tance at all at the time to her. She just rolled over and went back to sleep. Oh well, too late now.

I grabbed all my axes and bolted out the door. I get back to the barn and set up all my stuff and fin­ish off the rehearsal. Every­thing seemed cool but I had no idea if I had the gig or not. The next week I get a call from Steve’s man­age­ment telling me about a gig in Las Vegas. It was a cor­po­rate gig at the Hotel Rio Casino. At the time I had no idea what a cor­po­rate gig was. All I knew was there was a gig. I asked if I could get a CD or tape of the show/songs with which I could rehearse the songs. They said they’d get one over to me. I never got one.

The British have a quaint phrase for how I felt on that first gig. I felt “like a spare prick at a wed­ding.” At sound check no one had thought to tell the sound peo­ple or any­one else for that mat­ter about a sax/harp player in the band. No one had given any thought to where I should set up on stage. It seemed I was just in the way. Since I didn’t know the mate­r­ial I fig­ured I’d try to set up near Finni­gan so I could see the key­board and fol­low the changes. Smart move. Mike was so cool shout­ing changes to me that night and I will always be thank­ful. I stum­bled through the gig and didn’t feel to good about it but I got the call for another gig in South Lake Tahoe.

We arrived the night before the gig in a mas­sive snow­storm. I remem­ber smok­ing coke all night watch­ing these huge flakes come down out of my hotel win­dow. I had grown up in Sacra­mento and every sum­mer since I can remem­ber we had spent at Don­ner Lake. The Lake Tahoe/Reno area was my stomp­ing ground and I had lots of friends. A cou­ple of pals came to the gig and it went a lot bet­ter this time.

Right before we were to go on stage I see a tele­phone on the wall right on the stage. I checked and it had a dial tone so I called my girl. We hadn’t been get­ting along and sure enough we start get­ting into it on the phone. Steve hears this and comes up to me and says, “Hang the fuck up! Are you outta your fuck­ing mind! Never, EVER, talk to your chick before going on stage!” He was right. I should have known bet­ter because all I did was think about how pissed I was at her instead of the music. Good advice, indeed.

We had a good show and the house was a rockin’. It was a large casino show­room and we had rooms in that hotel. After the show my pals and I were hangin’ at the casino bar when we see Steve rum­ble through to a black­jack table. He looked in a surly mood. My buddy was a really good black­jack player. A few years before he’d had a card count­ing team and they did pretty well until they were all rounded up one day by some casino thugs who threat­ened to smash up their knees and knuck­les if they ever tried that shit again. He wanted to meet Steve and I tried to con­vince him that now might not be the best time. He didn’t lis­ten. Steve was alone at the table and when my pal sat down with him Steve told him to fuck off. Pretty funny. Steve was fucked up drunk and his pen­chant for blow was no state secret so he was prob­a­bly gacked out of his brain because I saw him at 6 am across the street gam­bling at another casino.

My pals and I finally got back to my room and ordered some food from room ser­vice. One thing lead to another and a food fight ensued. And then we started trash­ing the room. I know… not too intel­li­gent. When I woke up in this trashed room I look at my watch and real­ize I’ve missed the shut­tle to Reno for the flight back to LA. I quickly dressed and inquired about a ride to the air­port. If I hus­tled I might still make my flight. My room was a com­plete wreck. I left.

As I’m wait­ing for my ride in front of the casino this tricked out early 60’s Ford Fair­lane screeches to halt right in front of me with the motor revving hard. Sounded like a fuck­ing tank. Stills is dri­ving. He yells at me to get in, we’re going to the air­port. It wasn’t snow­ing but it had the last two days and the shit was piled up every­where. I’m think­ing no way I’m get­ting in that rocket with that maniac behind the wheel who’s been up all night drink­ing and doing blow. Not to men­tion we had to drive over the Mt. Rose sum­mit to get to the Reno Air­port. He’s get­ting really pissed off now yelling at me to get in the car and I’m say­ing it’s cool. I’ve got a ride com­ing. It must have looked hilar­i­ous. Finally I tell him there is no way I’m get­ting in that fuck­ing car with him and he roars off all pissed off.

The next week in LA I get a call from my man­ager, Gary Ballen. He says he just got off the phone with Stills man­age­ment. Appar­ently my ser­vices will no longer be needed. He asked what the fuck went on up there. The hotel is ask­ing for a lot of money in dam­ages. I said that’s bull­shit. Just some food on the walls and some chairs turned over. Then he got me. He asks, “Well, what did you do with the door to your room?” WHAT?! He says the door to your hotel room is miss­ing. Wait a minute. Those doors are heavy. I’m not sure but I would think you’d need tools to get the damn thing off and where could I carry it. Of course, I deny it. But now I’m not sure. I could’ve sworn there was a door to the room when I had left… LOL.

Another gig bites the dust.

Jimmy Z & Dr Dre while film­ing ‘Funky Flute’

Eazy E & Jim­myZ @ Ruth­less Records office

Meet­ing Eazy E and Dr. Dre
In 1989 I was play­ing with my band Jimmy Z and the Soul Lips at the China Club in Hol­ly­wood to a packed house when my man­ager Gary Ballen came up to the stage and told me Dr.Dre and Eazy E were in the house. NWA had just exploded not only just on the bur­geon­ing Gansta Rap scene but nation­wide with Fuck Tha Police.

Gary had been their tour man­ager on their record set­ting Fuck Tha Police World Tour (just imag­ine what that gig was like — LOL). Gary was also a VP of Easy E’s record com­pany Ruth­less Records… and white… and Jew­ish. I used to say, “hey you fuck!! and “mutha­fuck­aaaaa!!!!!” in my act back then… a lot (still do). So they come back stage and the first thing Dr Dre says to me is “man, it’s not moth­er­fucker! Its mutha­fucka!!!” So I say “I know that mutha fucka!!!! That’s what I’m say­ing mutha­fucka!!!!” We had a good laugh and a lot drinks and hit it off pretty well…

Late Night Ren­dezvous with Dre and Eazy E
A week or so after we’d met I’d given Gary a demo tape of a cou­ple of songs I thought were rap. Livin’ Life A to Z and The Com­pany You Keep. I had totally immersed myself in NWA records and any other rap shit I could get my hands on. I was tryin’ to be dope… not a dope… or on dope… but dope. Which now every white kid in Amer­ica or the world for that mat­ter knows means, “it’s cool.” Well, now you know the rea­son rea­son Dre raps on my album and I don’t.

I was only ten years older than Dre and Eazy and from early on in my career I had hung with a lot of broth­ers play­ing in dives not far from the shit every­body thought was so funny in the movie The Blues Broth­ers but for REALZ with some Bad­daassss mutha­fuckas with all the slang and jive that comes with the ter­ri­tory. But with these guys it was a “whole ‘nother uni­verse” of shit I’d never heard.

So Gary calls and says Dre and Eazy liked the demo and they want to meet that night out in West­lake Vil­lage. Now if you’re not famil­iar with the Los Ange­les city proper, West­lake Vil­lage is way out west on the 101 Free­way past the San Fer­nando Val­ley, past Thou­sand Oaks and just about as far outta Comp­ton on so many scales, as it gets. We’re talkin’ one of the last bas­tions of upper mid­dle class Cau­casian World. I remem­ber Dre’s white neigh­bors sent their lit­tle daugh­ters over once, they couldn’t have been over nine years old, to ask us if we could turn the music down. What a chicken shit mutha fucka… send­ing his lit­tle girls over.

Gary and I first went to his cousin’s house in West­lake Vil­lage. Gary’s cousin is the infa­mous Jerry Heller, man­ager at the time of NWA and Pres­i­dent of Ruth­less Records and the first thing he does is show me his gun. Keep in mind Jerry and Gary are both white and Jew­ish. I often com­mented to Jerry Heller how amus­ing I thought the team­ing up of one the most noto­ri­ous “Gansta Rap Bands” in his­tory and one of the most noto­ri­ously ruth­less Jew­ish book­ing agents in show­biz and Jerry would shrug and say, “It’s not so far fetched. We are two of the most abused and trod upon peo­ples in his­tory.” Hard to argue with that, espe­cially when he’s hold­ing a gun on me… You can read all about what Jerry thinks of things in his auto­bi­og­ra­phy – Ruth­less: A Mem­oir.

Writ­ing songs with Dr. Dre
We set a day to meet at Dre’s house in West­lake Vil­lage. I show up and no one is home. I sit in my car an hour and finally he rolls up in a brand new Corvette with a shit eatin’ grin.

He jumps out of the car and sprint­ing to his front door he waves me to come in. Appar­ently, he was under some kind of court ordered house arrest with some kind of elec­tric bracelet around his ankle. Dre was try­ing to beat the clock and if he didn’t… well LA County here we come…

We go up to his stu­dio and I set up all my shit, saxes, flutes, harps and amps and he…looks them over and says, “How ‘bout the flute?” I’m like, “ok” but really it’s the one wind instru­ment I’m really not that pro­fi­cient on. That day we wrote The Funky Flute. Dre raps on it and I sing and… drum roll… play flute!! Pure genius.

I think Dre says my name 50 times in the song. Apolo­gies for the video qual­ity, but it’s all we’ve got… It was a fun shoot — LOL.

Jimmy Z & Dr. Dre . Funky Flute by cap­i­tain­funkk

The next song we wrote came about from my answer­ing machine at home. I’d just sep­a­rated from my first wife and was wast­ing no time get­ting back on the scene with the women. Every time I’d get some crazy mes­sage from a girl I’d call Dre and say “Hey, I got another one…check it out.” We’d laugh and then finally after the 20^th one he says “bring those mes­sages to the stu­dio and we’ll make a song with ‘em.” Hence the next song Phone Sexxx. When you lis­ten to that song please keep in mind every one of those mes­sages is real from my old style mini tape answer­ing machine. You can­not make that shit up. LOL What I dig about the song is the rhythm and melody of the verses Dre wrote for the black girls to sing. It really is a very sophis­ti­cated piece of writ­ing. Now the lyrics were another story. The girls sing this:

Call me when you need some­one for sat­is­fac­tion
When you’re all alone just reach for your phone
You got the num­ber, off the bath­room wall
Do your­self a favor, give Jimmy Z a call

And then I come in with a deep, Barry White type voice saying 

For Phone Sexx, baby… Yeah, just reach out and touch.
Let your fin­gers do the walkin’.

Pure cheese. But it was sooooo damn funny at the time.

We were falling down laugh­ing with tears in our eyes, crack­ing up too. But after a while I’m really get­ting sick of hear­ing my name in these songs. I swear my name was lit­er­ally said close to 50 times in two songs. I brought it to Dre’s atten­tion one day as diplo­mat­i­cally as I could and he just barely gave me a side­ways look from the record­ing con­sule and as he went back to mix­ing a track said, “Shut the fuck up, you’re gonna be famous & rich… and you gonna be fuck­ing Apol­lo­nia!”

I sighed and just stared at the wall. I really just wanted to make a funk, R&B, Blues type record. Who was I to argue? He wasn’t the house­hold name yet at the time that we’ve come to know now doing Dr. Pep­per com­mer­cials and stuff like that, but he was a very suc­cess­ful pro­ducer with Num­ber One records on the charts as we were work­ing on my album. And we still hadn’t got signed to a record deal yet… soooooo… I shut the fuck up and had fun and worked daily for over two years with one of the most tal­ented cat’s I’ve ever worked with.

Record­ing with NWA
Eazy E was one crazy mutha­fucka… and funny too. One day I had just pulled into the Ruth­less Records park­ing lot and saw Eazy stand­ing next to a brand new beamer, a 750i with all the trim­mings. It was just one of his 20 or so cars.

He calls me over and asks me if I could get down to the record­ing stu­dio Audio Achieve­ments in Tor­rance to record some flute and sax on an NWA album they were work­ing on that even­tu­ally became EFIL4ZAGGIN or back­wards NIGGAZ4LIFE. Of course I said sure and he pops open the trunk and the smell just about knocked me over. He must have had at least a kilo of chronic in a big bag in the trunk and he grabs a big hand­ful and says ‘ya want some…?” I was won­der­ing if this was sup­posed to be the pay­ment but I just took it and said “Thanks, bro” and fig­ured I’d work it out with Gary and Jerry later.

When I get to the stu­dio the first thing I see is this big white biker look­ing dude behind the desk who turns out to be the stu­dio owner Dono­van the Dirt Biker. I intro­duce myself and he says that I would have to check in my piece (gun) at the desk before I can come in. I say all I’m packin’ today is a tenor sax, flute and some harps… I thought he was going to frisk me. You would have been amazed at the arse­nal behind that desk some days and nights. After becom­ing part of the crew and see­ing what went on in that stu­dio in the ensu­ing months I under­stood the wis­dom of this rule

Soon to be an inter­na­tion­ally known thug and bad boy record exec, Suge Knight started hang­ing around dur­ing the mak­ing of my record. One night he comes barg­ing in our ses­sion laugh­ing about a drive by shoot­ing he’d “just done” on the 405 Free­way on the way to the stu­dio. As I came walk­ing out of the main record­ing room into the con­trol room he shot me one of those looks that can kill and said, “Sup, Jimmy Z??” My stan­dard reply was “I’m cool.” That’s about all we ever said to each other. I really didn’t want to hear too much of what Suge had to say or else I might find myself in court… or worse!

I had a funny run in with Suge one night right after Dre’s The Chronic had hit big, sell­ing mil­lions. I sup­pose it was around 1992 or ‘93.  I had just got done doing a gig with Gary Ballen, where I got paid in tips. A lot of tips. One of the fun­ni­est, fun gigs I’ve ever had. Gary’s Fuck That Song schtick is price­less. Any­way, I’m at Jerry’s Deli in the Val­ley and my pock­ets are bulging with small bills so I have the bright idea to count the money near the pub­lic phones (remem­ber those? LOL) and bath­rooms. I had seen this tricked out, styling, pickup truck pull in the park­ing lot when I walked in with a brother dri­ving but didn’t pay it no mind. As I’m count­ing all these one dol­lar bills I see these big brutha walk­ing towards me and I got money falling out my hands and pock­ets. I try to stuff all the shit away when I hear Suge’s high voice, “ Is that you, Jimmy Z? I thought it was you out­side. How ya do doin’ bro? You was always cool Jimmy Z. You take care, man.” I said every­thing was cool and then he walks in the restroom. I was stunned. I had never seen Suge so cor­dial. I guess I caught him in a good mood. I couldn’t help but think here I am count­ing small change and there goes Suge dri­ving a new car and liv­ing large off Dr. Dre’s tal­ent. Oh well. That’s showbiz.

A typ­i­cal pro­duc­tion meet­ing at Ruth­less Records
All in all things were going fairly smoothly on my record Muz­i­cal Mad­ness, if you can imag­ine liv­ing in the world of the “Worlds Biggest Gansta Rap Group” could be. There was some def­i­nite ten­sion in the air though. Ice Cube had just left the group accus­ing Eazy E of tak­ing too much of a cut and other com­plaints. The harass­ment of the group by the FBI and other LA police agen­cies was no joke either.

I remem­ber being with Gary Ballen numer­ous times when Eazy would call and say “…they’re pulling me over right now and I ain’t done noth­ing, man!!!” The cops were always pulling him over and  I am still amazed how he never got busted with a stash in the trunk.

Dre was get­ting a lit­tle bit annoyed at Eazy E for the deal he was get­ting for pro­duc­ing Ruth­less acts and with Suge talk­ing in his ear every night to start Death Row Records. And MC Ren and DJ Yella were try­ing to get their licks in with solo projects, so the pot was sim­mer­ing. Not to men­tion the racial cli­mate was heat­ing up in Los Ange­les just a bit with the Rod­ney King beat­ing and video.

So one would think with all this shit going on, that the last thing that would be on the minds of the two most pow­er­ful Nig­gas With Atti­tude would be the song list for the album of their new honky sen­sa­tion. But it was.…

One day in the stu­dio, after suf­fi­cient quan­ti­ties of Gin and Juice, they started argu­ing about a Prince song Crazy You I’d recorded and whether or not it should be on my album. Soon it was a wrestling match and then esca­lated to an all out brawl with fur­ni­ture fly­ing. Infa­mous Zydeco piano man Eddie Bay­tos was in the stu­dio that day and had the mis­for­tune of walk­ing in when a piece of fur­ni­ture whizzed by his head. He gave me a WTF look and I shrugged and said, “It’s ok…just an Exec­u­tive Pro­duc­tion Meet­ing.”

Per­spec­tive
I’ve never really talked too much about it pub­licly, but I caught a lot of shit from my peers for fallin’ in with NWA back in the late 80’s. I’d been play­ing the blues from the first time I ever played music and was lucky enough to fall in with blues dis­ci­ples like Rod Stew­art and tour the world. It was Rod who first unleashed me on the world and let me blow my brains out in front of them and I will be eter­nally grate­ful. Play­ing black music to millions.

Peo­ple for­get how much rap was hated back then and still is in some cir­cles. And now these same rock n’ roll musi­cians in my gen­er­a­tion who came from black blues music back in the 60’s were punkin’ me off for hookin’ up with what could be thought of as the next nat­ural pro­gres­sion. It felt like I was float­ing away from them.

I came from the world of blues playin’ and open­ing shows for the likes of Muddy Waters, Albert King, James Cot­ton, and Willie Dixon. And all the blues cats influ­enced a gen­er­a­tion of white kids includ­ing the likes of Eric Clap­ton, Mick Jag­ger, Keith and all the rest and me included on how we played, dressed, picked up women and every­thing else.

I believe Rap is like the mod­ern day blues and the influ­ence on white kids, black kids, hell all kids in the world is unde­ni­able. I was lucky to be in the trenches with the likes of Eazy E, Dr.Dre, Ice Cube, MC Ren and DJ Yella and wit­ness their ded­i­ca­tion and genius and watched them lit­er­ally change the world. Look at how kids dress to this day in baggy low hangin’ clothes. That was NWA. Lis­ten to the beats. That’s Dre.

And when I’d tell my bros I was play­ing with NWA and signed a record deal with them they thought I was a sell­out, an ass­hole and much worse. It was so strange, because it all sounded so famil­iar to what we used to hear from our par­ents and older peo­ple when we were kids lis­ten­ing to the Stones, Elvis, Bob Dylan and Bea­t­les and so on in the 50’s and 60’s.

Rap is so huge today. It’s influ­ence is every­where from com­mer­cials sellin’ soap to tam­pons and the newest cars from the largest car mak­ers, to the clothes all the kids we… And sells the most CD’s.

And white kids are still eatin’ it up along with the rest of them, like we ate up the blues a cou­ple of gen­er­a­tions before and there ain’t nothin’ the par­ents can do about it.

There is another long story about why Muz­i­cal Mad­ness never got the release and expo­sure it deserved that, but you can buy it today used on Ama­zon and see for your­self what the world missed…

JImmy Z & Dr Dre

And I’m out.… as Eazy E used to say.

I first met Whitesnake’s David Coverdale after an Etta James gig up at Caesar’s Palace, in South Lake Tahoe, some­time in the mid 90’s. My par­ents were there and I was look­ing for them after the show to let them back­stage, oth­er­wise I would have missed David. As I was look­ing for my folks, I heard this guy with a British accent. He was about to get booted out by a secu­rity guard. He was say­ing, “But I’ve got to talk to Jimmy Z!!”  I didn’t rec­og­nize him. He had on round wire rim glasses and long over­coat and did not look like the Rock Star he is.

For some rea­son I told the guard “It’s OK, he’s with me.” After we got my folks through, he intro­duced him­self and I was sur­prised. He was such a gen­tle­man and went on about my harp play­ing and how he wanted me to come up to his home stu­dio in Tahoe to record on his new album. It just goes to show how fate can be such a part of show busi­ness. As luck would have it he saw the right gig. Some­times Etta wouldn’t even call the Jimmy Reed song I per­formed with her and I could go sev­eral con­certs with­out ever play­ing har­mon­ica. (Here’s one story of what hap­pened to me when I played this song with Etta.)

We exchanged num­bers and I went back to LA. He called and we set up a date. David called me the night before I was to fly up and said he was really sick with a cold. He wanted to post­pone the ses­sion. I had a six month old daugh­ter, a wife, and I had just got­ten clean. I had just sold most of my sax­o­phones to rent an apart­ment, so I really needed the bread. I lied and told him we’d have to do it now as my sched­ule was so busy. So he said. “OK, come on up.” Sorry, David, I really needed the money…

He arranged for my amp and me to be flown to Reno where I was picked up and taken to his house. And what a place! A huge man­sion on the North Shore of Lake Tahoe over­look­ing over one the most beau­ti­ful views in the world.

He had an incred­i­ble stu­dio in the house, too. And sooooooo many gold and plat­inum records on the walls. I have to be hon­est; I didn’t know all his his­tory. I was not aware he was the singer in Deep Pur­ple and so many other big, suc­cess­ful groups and the singer on so many songs I knew.

David was sick, but damn, he worked me so hard on that song. I swear I must have done 38 takes. He worked long and hard as if he was healthy as a horse, but he was cough­ing and apol­o­giz­ing the whole time. I’d hate to see him work ya when he’s healthy!! LOL.  We even tried a cou­ple of other songs but the harp didn’t fit.

He was the most gra­cious host. There was some talk this past spring (2011) that I would maybe see David again at the largest rock fes­ti­val in Swe­den. I was there in May and June tour­ing with Swedish blues­man Slidin’ Slim. The pro­mot­ers found out that I’d played with David and asked if I’d join in the All Star Jam. As it turned out my sched­ule didn’t work with the fes­ti­val but that would have been great fun.

Slidin’ Slim found an inter­view with David where he men­tions me. It’s funny… ‘cause deep down Slidin’ Slim – an award win­ning blues musi­cian –  is a hard-core metal head. He knows them all. Some­times on long dri­ves he’ll men­tion one or slide their CD in and I’ll say, “Oh I know those guys or I played on their CD.” Dur­ing the 80’s I recorded and hung with some of the biggest metal groups and didn’t even real­ize it…

Excerpt from MelodicRock.com’s Inter­view with David Coverdale:

…No, I haven’t.

DC: Now he used to be with David Bowie, its like I’ve got all of Bowie’s gui­tarists in. He worked with the Tin Machine when Bowie was work­ing with him. And a bass player gui­tarist called Danny Sabre who does work with Bono and U2 and stuff and was gra­cious enough to add some won­der­ful ele­ments on “She Gives.” Yeah, so other than that I’m just try­ing to think what I can say. Oh, a killer har­mon­ica player, Jimmy Z.

Oh yeah, I know him.

DC: Yeah, I’ve got, he played on “Mis­sion­ary Man,” Eury­th­mics, but I’d got down to see Etta James whose one of my favourite singers, and he, Jimmy Z’s actu­ally a sax player who just hap­pens to blow insane, insanely beau­ti­ful har­mon­ica. And, and he did a fea­ture with Etta and I went oh, I’ve got to get him on the record. So I looked at all the songs and the only one I could really think of was “Cry For Love” but he brought a com­pletely dif­fer­ent dimen­sion to the song.

So that was, that was just a thrill and a half!…

Read the com­plete inter­view on MelodicRock.com.

I could not find a pub­lic record­ing of Cry For Love, the song I played on, but here is a video of a guy play­ing along with the record.

Every­thing was going good… maybe too good…

Note: Etta has cur­rently stopped tour­ing due to a seri­ous med­ical con­di­tion. Our thoughts and prayers are with her and her family.

In the sum­mer of 2002 we started our annual Mis­sis­sippi Delta, East Coast swing in Den­ver for a cou­ple of shows and then a long bus ride to Dav­en­port, Iowa, on the banks of the mighty Mis­sis­sippi. A funky lit­tle town that had seen bet­ter days but the locals were very appre­cia­tive. We rolled out to St. Paul, Min­nesota, Madi­son Wis­con­sin, and finally land­ing at the House of Blues in Chicago. It’s always a party with the Etta James Roots Band at that club.

Every­thing was going good… maybe too good. After putting in any amount of time with the Etta James camp, one starts to real­ize that a lit­tle bit of drama is par for the course. When there is no drama for a while you find your­self get­ting antsy and start­ing to feel like a bucket’s going to fall on your head any minute. Etta’s son Sametto had a word for this phe­nom­e­non, along with plenty of other bon mots I hope to share with you. His word for when the shit was about to, or actu­ally was hit­ting the fan with Etta was, credge. It rhymes with ledge.

Things started get­ting credge after we left Chicago. There must be a song in there some­where. We were sup­posed to head back to Iowa to do a gig but Etta decided she’d had enough of that state and wanted to head straight down the Mis­sis­sippi and drive all night to Mem­phis. I could under­stand her rea­son­ing because if we did the Iowa gig she’d have to drive all night and do the Mem­phis show that day with­out any rest which can be rough on the ol’ vocal chords.

The prob­lem or cred­ge­ness started with the boys in the band. You see, the mem­bers of this par­tic­u­lar orches­tra were paid by the show. When Etta or any leader starts can­cel­ing shows the band starts won­der­ing if they’re going to get paid for it. The the­ory goes if you are out on the road for a stretch it will be worth it if one does a lot of shows. Oth­er­wise, you are gone for a while and not mak­ing much money.

At the time we were trav­el­ing on two lux­ury tour busses. Etta and all her atten­dants were on one bus and the band on the other. I remem­ber get­ting on the Rolling Ash­tray, our bus, and imme­di­ately hear­ing the boys in the band debat­ing the issue of if we were going to get paid or not for the can­celed show. It was dis­cussed thor­oughly enough amongst almost every­one that I felt I didn’t need to put my two cents in and I didn’t. Now don’t get me wrong, I can moan and com­plain with the best of them but this time I just didn’t. Nada. Not one fuck­ing word.

Well, I can’t remem­ber exactly how long that ride from Chicago to Mem­phis was but it seemed like for­ever and a day. We finally rolled in to Mem­phis on the fourth of July and man you could feel it. It was early morn­ing and it was already hot.… and MUGGY.

We usu­ally got our own rooms but for some rea­son I was room­ing with my bro Josh Sklair, the band­leader. I think we were stay­ing at the Peabody Hotel or right by it because I do remem­ber hav­ing a drink in the bar with their infa­mous ducks. Any­way, in the after­noon Josh and I were bored so we decided to take a walk down to Beale St. then maybe check out the gig as it was to be on roof of the Gib­son Gui­tar build­ing which was all in the gen­eral vicin­ity of our hotel. We tried walk­ing but it was so damn hot we got on the lit­tle cable car sys­tem they have run­ning down to Beale St. It’s always cool check­ing out the local record stores on Beale, the clubs and bars. They have a great selec­tion of blues (as they would) and I love their t-shirts.  After a lit­tle shop­ping and drink­ing Josh and I headed back to the hotel when we saw the Gib­son build­ing so decided to stop in and say hello.

It was a good thing we did as the fel­las over there were real nice and offered us any amp or gui­tar we wanted to use.… for that night. I picked a ballsy lit­tle amp that kicked ass for harp. We took a look up on the roof and it was going to be a seri­ous affair. They were expect­ing over three thou­sand peo­ple up on that roof for din­ner and cock­tails, fol­lowed by fire­works and the Etta James Show.

Well, we finally get back to the hotel and we’re just kick­ing it in the room when the phone rang. Josh answered and said, “Yeah, he’s right here” and handed me the phone. Now I’m think­ing who the fuck is this? Because nobody knows where I am. I’m not even sup­posed to be in Mem­phis on this date.  I cupped the phone, mouthing to Josh, “who is it?”, and he gives that wide eyed, credge, look and whis­pers, “Etta.” I could feel the bad voodoo com­ing right through the phone. The con­ver­sa­tion went some­thing like this:

JZ: Hello…

ETTA:  Hey mutha­fucka!! I hear you got a prob­lem with get­ting paid.… you wor­ried about get­ting paid muthafucka!!!

JZ: I ain’t got no prob­lems with you Etta. I don’t know what you heard but everything’s cool with me and you.

ETTA: Yeah?!!  Well I hear you com­plain­ing about get­ting paid. Don’t I always take care of you mutha­fucka?!!  Ain’t you always been paid, MUTHA FUCKAAAA!!!!!

JZ: There ain’t no prob­lems with me you Etta. Everything’s cool. I ain’t wor­ried about nuthin’ with you, darlin’.

ETTA: Yeah, well… you bet­ter make sure I don’t hear ‘bout no mo’ prob­lems ‘bout get­tin paid Jimmy Z!!

JZ: No prob­lems here baby.…

ETTA: Click!

I looked over at Josh and he let out a low whis­tle say­ing, “That was slick, bro… very smooth.” I said, “Yeah, it might have sounded slick but I think I just dodged a bul­let. Some­thin’ tells me this ain’t over.”

And it wasn’t. We all arrived at the gig which was billed with a big ban­ner on the build­ing as The Gib­son Beale Street Rooftop Show­case fea­tur­ing Etta James and the Roots Band. When we got to the rooftop the party was ON. I mean those Mem­phis natives knew how to throw a Fourth of July bash. They were knock­ing back seri­ous quan­ti­ties of booze and ribs non-stop. Well, you know what I say, “When in Rome…”

We were just about to go on stage when Josh got back from his usual meet­ing with Etta about what songs we’re going to do and the run­ning order and such when Josh looks at me and says, “Etta wanted me to tell you she doesn’t want to see you tonight.” And I look at him and say ”WHAT?” He says, “You can play harp on the Jimmy Reed tune but don’t come down next to her. Play off in the shad­ows or any­where you want but don’t let her look at you. All the guys in the band were look­ing at me to see what I was going to say. So I said “No problem”…

Except there was a minor detail to be worked out since harp amp and micro­phone were right next to Etta. I quickly went to the sound­man and asked if he could move my amp either to the side of the stage where he was or behind the stage in back of the horn riser. I ended up play­ing harp sit­ting in a chair behind the stage on the edge of the roof of the Gib­son Gui­tar Build­ing over­look­ing down­town Mem­phis with fire­works going off end­lessly… with a cock­tail, of course… think­ing “What a silly life!”

Some­times I won­der what the peo­ple thought when they heard some blaz­ing harp com­ing from nowhere or if they even noticed at all… prob­a­bly not. Who knows how Etta got it in her head that I was the one com­plain­ing but in the end none of it really mat­tered.  We all got paid for every show whether we played them or not.

I always knew you would Etta.

(for more about myself & Etta, see my pre­vi­ous post)