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)

As many of you know, I played har­mon­ica on the orig­i­nal Eury­th­mics hit Mis­sion­ary Man (read my post about Meet­ing Eury­th­mics).

Besides the per­sis­tent nag­ging for years by a good buddy of mine to do my own ver­sion of the song, I must admit see­ing Annie Lennox and Dave Stew­art doing a stripped down acoustic ver­sion on an old You Tube video inspired me. It allowed me to see the pos­si­bil­i­ties of doing a Delta Blues take on it. We orig­i­nally meant for it to be acoustic dobro and harp but one thing led to another and… well, ya know… now it’s got drums and bass.

Lis­ten to it here. Play it LOUD.

I hope you enjoy it and you pur­chase it on iTunes.

It’s many years after Kat­rina and the wounds in New Orleans are still not healed. As a reminder, here is a free down­load of the song The Big Easy’s Gone Cold that I recorded a few years ago.

If you enjoy it, I’d appre­ci­ate it if you send some love (and money) to Tipitina’s Foun­da­tion, which was cre­ated to sup­port Louisiana and New Orleans’ irre­place­able music com­mu­nity and to pre­serve their unique musi­cal cul­tures. Read more & donate.

Cred­its for the song:

Jimmy Z– bass, key­boards, harp, sax, vocals
Zac Har­mon — gui­tar, back­ground vocals
Lee Thorn­burg — trum­pet, trom­bones
Christina Viera — back­ground vocals
Bob Boykin — gui­tar, mix, production

Cru­sader Stix Hooper & Jimmy Z at the Solvang Blues Fes­ti­val, 2007

When I was com­ing up, The Cru­saders were so influ­en­tial in my life. They were so soul­ful and funky. I wanted to be sax/bass player/composer Wilton Felder. I still try to live up to the high bar he set as a musi­cian and songwriter.

Dur­ing the 70’s I had all of their albums. I couldn’t wait for the next one to come out as soon as I got the new one.

In the early 90’s I was doing ses­sions fairly often at Chuck Nor­ris’ stu­dios in Toluca Lake with producer/guitarist Ron Bloom. He pro­duced all the music on the sound­tracks for Chuck’s Miss­ing in Action movies.

One day I was hangin’ around the stu­dio and was told the drum­mer for the Cru­saders, Stix Hooper, was fin­ish­ing up some over­dubs for his solo record, which I believe, was on Chuck Nor­ris’ record label. I was stoked. The MAN. My hero in the building!

I told one of the execs how excited I was and he said he’d intro­duce me. I tried hangin’ in the shad­ows just to be close to his stu­dio room. He was under a lot of pres­sure with dead­lines and such and I heard him being fairly gruff with his assis­tants. He was an impos­ing fig­ure to say the least.

We were intro­duced and he said, “I hear you can play the harp. Ya got your ax? I could use some harp on a track but I’m fin­ish­ing up mixes today and we have to do it fast.” I told him I had my gear in the car and I’d be hon­ored. He said, “Go get set up.”

Man, was I stoked. I set up really fast and waited… and waited.

At some point I heard him almost yelling at an assis­tant say­ing, “I ain’t got no time for no damn harmonica!!”

Stix just hap­pened to glance my way and saw that I’d heard him. He walked over to me and started apol­o­giz­ing that he was really pressed for time and didn’t really have time for any­more recording.

I was cool and told him that I under­stood and I was hon­ored to have him even con­sider me. He gave me that side­ways badass brother look (ya know what I’m talkin’ bout if you know Stix) and looked me up and down and asked “You set up ready to go?” I said “Yes I am”.  He said, “Alright…you got one pass”

Oh shit. One fuck­ing pass. I’d never even heard the song.

Here we go. I go in the stu­dio and pick up my harp mic and the engi­neer tells me the key of the song and I get the right harp and hope he is correct.

Stix and about 7 other peo­ple are watch­ing me through the stu­dio glass and the song starts. It’s a jazz/funk type groove song with some blues type changes so I’m get­ting my groove on and get­ting into the song. And a bit relieved that I’m play­ing the right harp.

A sec­tion comes up in the arrange­ment that screamed solo so I took it. WTF. I’m really deep in it now and I wrap up the solo and start chug­gin’ along with the track when I open my eyes to a most hilar­i­ous beau­ti­ful sight. It was Stix danc­ing right next to the glass, danc­ing like crazy with arms flail­ing with a big shit eatin’ grin on his face, laugh­ing and point­ing at me, givin’ me the thumbs up. Whew!!! I fin­ish up the song and every­body has caught Stix’s vibe and it’s a party all of a sud­den. He had been bit­ing people’s heads off all day so I think it was a wel­come development.

Every­body loved what I’d just done but most impor­tantly the Stix Hooper did. I was on Cloud 9.

Months later I get a phone call from Stix invit­ing me to play with him on the Grammy’s. Not the whole album but just that track. It was either up for or won a Grammy for Best Jazz Instru­men­tal. From then on Stix said I was his lit­tle good luck charm and we worked together on var­i­ous projects he was pro­duc­ing or involved with. One of my favorites was the leg­endary jazz singer, Ernes­tine Ander­son.

Ernes­tine Anderson

I don’t remem­ber too much about the ses­sions. Just that I played only harp as that was all Stix really knew that I played. This was some­thing that had hap­pened through my career. A pro­ducer would hire me for one instru­ment, not hav­ing any idea I played others.

Any­way… so I play on Ernes­tine Anderson’s record and damn… it wins a Grammy. This is around 1994. I get a call from Stix that Ernes­tine is head­lin­ing the Play­boy Jazz Fes­ti­val at the Hol­ly­wood Bowl and they want me to play harp on a few songs.

I go to a rehearsal in a North Hol­ly­wood stu­dio and what a great band!  Jazz band pretty much, but some heavy cats. I wish I could remem­ber all their names right now but the only one is Oscar Bras­hear, one badass brother and moth­er­fucka trum­pet player. He is a lithe, mus­cu­lar man with long dread­locks and a look on his face which, if you have any sense, screams, “Don’t fuck with me.” Stix intro­duced me to every­one and I got a feel­ing no one knew who the fuck I was or cared. I think I men­tioned to Oscar I was a big fan and he just grunted. I didn’t say much to any­one after that.

We finally get to my songs and I tore it up on harp and I think the respect level for me was raised a frac­tion… just.

So it’s show day at the Hol­ly­wood Bowl. The Play­boy Jazz Fes­ti­val 1995. Ernes­tine is head­lin­ing in a prime 5pm slot. There are over 18,000 fans packed all the way to the top rows. The weather is per­fect. Stix had given me my instruc­tions in his lov­ing, stern way. I was sup­posed to come up on the 4th or 5th song and just play my solos. I’m to be fea­tured soloist on 5 songs and then I’m off. Cool. I love it.

It’s about an hour before our set and I stroll down to the dress­ing rooms to check in and I hear some argu­ing. I walk by Ernestine’s dress­ing room and I hear my name. The room is packed with the band sur­round­ing her. Stix and her are in a heated argu­ment and it’s about ME!!! She’s sit­ting in front of a lighted dress­ing room mir­ror look­ing like a diva queen and I hear her say, “I’m not going on with­out Jimmy Z!!” I’m think­ing WTF!!!?? Stix is try­ing to rea­son with her that I should come up for the 5 songs I played on the album and fea­ture me.  She’s hav­ing none of it. “I ain’t goin’ on with­out Jimmy Z on the first song.”

Cats in the band see me behind them lurk­ing in the door­way and every­one starts look­ing at me and Stix spots me and makes a B line for me and pulls me aside.

He says, “Alright! Look mutha­fucka. You come on with the band but I only want you to comp. No solos!!”  I said sure Stix. No problem.

The way it works with the stage at the Hol­ly­wood Bowl and the Play­boy Jazz Fest is like this… Imag­ine a round stage cut in half. While one band is per­form­ing on one half of the cir­cle the next band is being set up to be ready to go. When it’s time the stage starts revolv­ing and the next band is on. It’s bru­tal. If you are in the mid­dle of song and time is up too fuck­ing bad. Your ass is on the merry go round out, your sound is turned off and the next band, us, is put in the house and away you go. It’s kinda cheezy being slowly rotated in front of 18,000 peo­ple but I sup­pose it could be a worse day at the office.

We’re open­ing with a medium tempo blues shuf­fle in F and I’m stand­ing next to my man Oskar Bras­hear. I’m play­ing thru my favorite long time part­ner in crime, a Fender Con­cert Black­face with a 15” speaker. I’m get­ting a really fat Lil Wal­ter tone. I’m comp­ing, peo­ple are groov­ing, Ernes­tine is in fine form and life is good.

I wasn’t sup­posed to be play­ing on the first song so I really didn’t know the order of solos or arrange­ment but it don’t mat­ter cause I ain’t play­ing one any­way. I look to my right and I see MC Bill Cosby smok­ing a long, fat cigar stand­ing next to Stix groov­ing to the music.

Ernes­tine sings a cou­ple verses and nods for some­one to take a solo. Then it hap­pens… or I should say noth­ing hap­pens. Within the span of 2 sec­onds the key­board player looks at the gui­tar player, he looks at Oscar, he looks at me… and I say fuck it and take the solo… haha.…

I’m down in a total groove. My amp is screamin’ and I can hear my harp loud, bounc­ing off the Hol­ly­wood Hills. I build up the first cho­rus and then take another one and tie if off. The whole damn place explodes. 18,000 peo­ple on their feet scream­ing and wav­ing white towels.

I take a bow and hap­pen to look over towards Stix and he’s giv­ing me this  stern look. I smile and shrug with a sorry about that type look and he throws up his hands, shakes his head… then smiles.

Ernes­tine is happy. Oskar Bras­hear don’t look like he’s gonna slit my throat.

Life is very good.

Update — Stix Hooper mailed me a copy of his new CD Stix Hooper/Many Hats. I play harp & solo on a song called Gotta Get It On along with Oscar Bras­hear on trumpet!!!

Guess he should make room on his shelf for another Grammy… lol