It was plain as day as I listened to the rough mixes of what we’d cut so far. We were heavy to shuffles and up tempo, up town, sorta city slicker blues. We needed a minor blues.
A slow, low down, middle of the night type of thing. Hmmm..that makes it easy.
I knew all the elements were right there so I went to the refrigerator, filled a glass with chipped ice and poured myself about four fingers of gin, sprinkled some tonic on it and proceeded to my computer. I got me up a blank page, freed my mind of as many thoughts as I could and just listened.
I don’t know about you, but when I close my eyes what I see inside my head is a darkness scattered with small blinking lights. Like fire flies flaring up from some great distance. All I had to do was watch for one of them flaring me up a title or a first line. An idea. They always did.
The first lines that flare up are generally trite over used phrases. The easy way out. That’s just my sub-conscious hoping I’ll take the bait. Hoping I’ll be satisfied with junk like..."my baby left this morning and she took my wooden leg." Hoping it will be a short work night.
At this point I always break my silence and send down these words into the deep, blinking darkness: "We can’t be playing games tonight, Boss. I got to go in tomorrow morning with some verbs, nouns and pronouns situated in such a way as they tell a story. Tonight. I don’t have time for an attitude. Send me up something with some meat on it’s bones. Or at least the bones. Come on!"
There was sullen silence for a moment or two, but once challenged my sub-conscious can’t help itself.
One of them fire flies flared a whole lot brighter than the rest...like...ok..ok..well try this, and painted my mental darkness with words in a flashing silver that said:
"It’s the dark, dark side of midnight..."
Yeah, I thought and wrote it down. Boom. There was another one.
"I miss my baby more and more." Got it.
And so on.
It came pretty much chapter and verse, flare after flare. All I had to do was write it down, put the cat out and go to bed.
I caught Pugh as he was getting out of his car the next morning.
"It’s a minor blues." I handed him the lyrics.
"Good morning to you too, sir." He smiled and took the sheet and began nodding as he read down the page finally saying, "It sure is."
We went on into The Dawwg House.
Spath was standing by the door to the drum room sipping hot coffee from a bright red steaming mug. Cousins was leaning on the console and listening to one of yesterdays tracks with Al.
Rich is listening so hard his eye’s don’t blink, his mouth is frozen about half open and his right hand is frozen about shoulder level and he’s pointing, pointing, poi...Boom.
"Right there. There. That one. You hear it? Run it back. Right at the end of this turn around. There. I gotta fix that. I can’t sign my name to that. No.
Nah. Unhuh. No... hey! Morning Pops." He’d just seen me.
Mornings all around.
"It’s a minor blues." I handed the lyrics to all three of them. "Jim’s gonna work out the changes real quick."
Cousins read his, holding the page at arms length, and started making a sound deep in his throat...like...ummm...ummmm...ummmm..huh.
Al took his and before even reading the words asked the obvious question.
"Who’s gonna sing this?"
"You are."
"Ya got any sort of melody in mind, old timer?"
"Not a clue."
Spath sort of motioned with his coffee cup.
"What’s the feel?"
"Gotta be twelve eight,"Cousins. "Gotta be."
I nodded. "I agree." That solved that.
All the while Pugh is humming as his hands wonder over the keyboard; seemingly with a mind of their own. He’s got some chord changes going on in his head and his hands are finding them
"Ok." He finally says. "It’s in A min for now, but listen instead of doing the obvious four five thing let’s, right at that second change, go to...a C maj. And then do this walk thing."
Pugh plays it a couple times. Spaths got his feel. He’s just watching. Cousins is intent on Pugh because Jim also has a bass line in mind and is now dictating the notes to him.
Lee goes in the drum room and Jim counts it off.
Pugh’s got the whole things so well written and designed from the first note it sounded like a song. What was last night just a blank page and a spark in a mostly empty mind was now a dark, brooding, moonless night, back door creeeping blues that was so alive I could see a black cat jump up on a fence.
When it was over, Al put his guitar down and reached over and plugged in a hand mike, messed with a few dials and flipped a couple switches all the while muttering, like...I know...I know...I know.
"Ya wanta take a minute, Son?"
"Nah. Nah. Just let me check those lyrics again."
He looks them over. Pughs doodling on the key board but stops when Al raises his hand.
"Play that intro for me will you? And keep going unless I fall apart. I think I got something"
So here they go and about half way through the intro I’m thinking, "Now THIS is gonna be really interesting." See I knew Al was gonna sing some kinda real good melody. What I was so anxious to hear was what sort of melody he would come up with on the spot compared to the one running through my head. I didn’t tell Al what that was before because I know he’ll come up with something better. And here it comes.
"It’s the dark, dark side of midnight..."
Wow
"I miss my baby more and more...
Wow...and wow...His melody laid down in those big fat chords like a ribbon of quick silver on black velvet. And I could see this tormented man, who, so many times had been me.
Al sang through the whole thing. I was sorta semi-stunned silent. But not particularly surprised.
"Cool, Al. Yeah. Big time." Cousins.
Pugh simply said, "That’ll work. Let’s cut it."
We did. Forty five minutes after driving up with an idea the guys had created something from nothing and were all outside now.
Pugh is telling Cousins the best place to get barbeque in Toledo, Ohio, and Cousins is disagreeing.
"No...huhuh. No way. Jim. Look...you know where Felton Street is...huh?? You go on down Felton til you get just past twelveth and look over on the right hand side and..."
Spath is telling Al, "Yeah they finally came out and tore out the kitchen." He’s remodeling. "Now I’m cooking soup on a hot plate in the den and he’s telling me he’s waiting to get a small business loan. Huh? I mean..."
So The Dark Side of Midnight is done and quickly forgotten. They were charging up to do it again.
"Let’s do another one fellas," I said. They all started for the door.
Pugh. Huge grin and chuckle.
"Any chance some part of it’s written?"
So The Dawwg House Rhythm Section is really four incredibly talented, experienced musicians, producers, song writers who, fortunately for me, all play different instruments.
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