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.

Back­stage with Rob­bie (check out my boots!)

(Read Part 1 of this story)

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.

Trou­ble ahead!

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.

(Read part 2 of this tale)

©2010, Zavala Songs, Inc.