Confessions of a Glorified Sideman

A buddy men­tioned the late, great Sam Kin­i­son to me the other day and it brought back memories…

I’m not sure how I met Sam, but I’m pretty sure it was either at the Rain­bow Bar & Grill on the Sun­set Strip or an all night after party… which some­times would hap­pen there on rare occa­sions when they locked the doors after 2am and the real party started. But most likely it was at some all-nighter at some house in the Hol­ly­wood Hills.

Those of you who are famil­iar with Sam’s bom­bas­tic style might be sur­prised on my take on him.

I was asked to be in a band Sam was putting together which was made up of mostly some well known big hair 80’s metal stars of the day. I really didn’t fit in but I can make a har­mon­ica very loud and make my pres­ence felt.

We rehearsed and I never did a show with Sam for some rea­son or other. I think I was on and off tour with Eury­th­mics at the time. It must have been off at the time because I remem­ber I was really broke. One night hang­ing out at the Rain­bow, I was won­der­ing how I was gonna pay for my drinks and I was very hungry.

I was at one of the booths by the front door and in sweeps Sam with full entourage in tow. He spots me and comes right to the table and does the infa­mous Sam Kin­i­son scream, “Jimmy fuck­ing Z is a fuck­ing GENIUS!!!! BADAASSSS MOTHERFUCKER!! WHATEVER HE WANTS IS ON MY TAB!!!” to the whole house and own­ers Mario, Tony and Michael.

And then he leaned down and asked how I was doing real mel­low and down to earth like. He said order what­ever you want. I thanked him and he moved on.

I thought it was touch­ing and it saved my ass. He really had a sen­si­tive side to him.

He was one of the great­est come­di­ans of my gen­er­a­tion. I’m post­ing this unchar­ac­ter­is­ti­cally G-Rated clip (from Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show) because it struck a per­sonal chord with me this week… Stick with it to the end…

There are tons of other clips of him on YouTube, so after you check this you owe it to your­self to search & view more.