Confessions of a Glorified Sideman

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)