Remembering Tom, Don and Charlie

After church on Sunday, my mom would often make a quick stop at a convenience store to pick up something she needed for dinner that night. The time period I'm envisioning is late '70s/early '80s, before the term "convenience store" was actually a standard term. In Pittsburgh, we had Open Pantry, and my brothers John and Tom both worked at a few of them. 

One Sunday, we were making the trip and Mom had the AM radio on. It was must have late '70s because KDKA and WTAE were still playing music. There was a song playing where the guy kept saying, "I like beer." He had a weird voice and something about it made me think it could be the actor Harry Morgan, best known as Col. Potter on MASH or Bill Gannon, Joe Friday's partner on Dragnet. I knew Morgan wasn't a singer but that's all I could think of. Besides, I liked the way he proudly proclaimed his love of the suds, following the sound of a chorus.

Several  years later I discovered the real voice behind the song - Tom T. Hall. When I came across his Greatest Hits., Vol. 2 at a Carnegie Library record sale, I would have been a fool to pass it up. Not only does it contain "I Like Beer," it also has "I Love" and a beautiful musical question: "Who's Gonna Feed Them Hogs?" Damn - if Volume 2 was this crammed with goodies, what was Volume One like? Hall also penned the liner notes, which he titled "My Garbage" ("Before anyone gets the wrong idea, this is not an album review."), a hilarious list of items that can't be done justice in this short space.

The songs on this album struck some common ground with friends of mine from different backgrounds, like a local musician who knew exactly when to join the back-up singers during the "awwww" in "I Like Beer"'s third verse, or the friend who still gets really animated at the mention of "Sneaky Snake." But the biggest connection between me and these songs was when I played "I Like Beer," "I Love" and "Who's Gonna Feed Them Hogs" with my pal Sharon Spell in her comedy cabaret. Not sure if it was my idea or her idea, but it worked really well, especially when the gender change required her to change the line "It makes me a jolly good fellow" to include her stage name: "It makes me a much better Mama."

I came to the Everly Brothers a little later than most. Their music was always around but it wasn't until I found a greatest hits album that I came to fully appreciate them. The big hits were familiar but I was slayed by "Till I Kissed You," in large part because of the drum roll that followed the titular line. It acted almost like a rim shot. Then there was "Bird Dog" which had a little bit of punch to the intro, not to mention the low-voiced commentary between the lines. I liked the song so much that I talked the Pundits - a power-pop band I was in at the time, fronted by my pal John Young, a bigtime Everly fan - to cover it. We played it a couple times though I don't recall if we had some harmonies going. (Harmony wasn't my strong point and John could sing the pants off of me.) All I know is I got to deadpan, "He's a bird.... he's a dawwwg."

But the biggest way that the late Don Everly and his brother Phil affected me comes with "Devoted to You." It was clear the first time I heard that song that there was something really deep about it, lyrically and harmonically. When Jennie and I got married, that had to the The Song. Lila from Bone of Contention and her husband Rob (who for all intents and purposes was part of the band too, if you know our history) sang it from the rafters of the Homewood Cemetery chapel as we made our way down the aisle. It was swell.

I don't have a Charlie Watts story but I do have an observation about him, which begins with someone else. Even when I was into punk rock during high school, I could still dig the Count Basie Orchestra with my parents. We often joked about guitarist Freddie Green, who sat there throughout the set, plunk-plunk-plunking on his guitar, never taking a solo. (I seem to recall there was a joke that Basie would make during a show about Freddie finally taking a solo, which was followed by the man playing one note. Ho ho ho.)

My folks and I used to think that Freddie had the easiest job in the world, just playing those chords. Then it became clear that Freddie played a chord in every bar. And he was never off, making sure that there was indeed rhythm in the rhythm section. He was in the pocket, or to use the title of a song that Freddie wrote for the band, he was in the "Corner Pocket." 

To me, that's the kind of player that Charlie Watts was. He wasn't flashy, he wasn't bombastic. When he launched his own big band, he wasn't even the only drummer. He enlisted two others! (He also had the likes of Evan Parker, Alan Skidmore, Annie Whitehead and Jack Bruce [on cello!] in the personnel]. 

But if you wanted someone who was reliable and always there, elevating what you were playing, he was the man. It's great to have wild-ass drummers kicking you along, but you also want to have a drummer who listens to you and plays with the intention of lifting the music up. That was a big part of what made the Rolling Stones what they were. 

Thanks, Tom. Really got a kick out of your work.

Thanks, Don. Everybody probably tells you how music wouldn't be the same without you and Phil, but for me, it was personal too. 

Thanks, Charlie. Everyone knew that Mick was your singer. But it's good that you reminded him in such a classy way.