The announcement from the web page is characteristically simple: 

JJ Cale Has Passed Away
JJ Cale passed away at 8:00 pm on Friday July 26 at Scripps Hospital in La Jolla, CA. The legendary singer / songwriter had suffered a heart attack. There are no immediate plans for services. His history is well documented at JJCale.com, rosebudus.com/cale, and in the documentary, To Tulsa And Back. Donations are not needed but he was a great lover of animals so, if you like, you can remember him with a donation to your favorite local animal shelter.

Just like the man himself, elegant in understatement, and closing with a suggestion to help a being other than himself. Truly, there's no way to soothe the loss that music fans everywhere feel on this day, so it's certainly best in the announcement of his passing to remain true to what the man was.

Some bio information: he was born John Weldon Cale on December 5, 1938 in Oklahoma City, though he was raised in Tulsa. While there is a musical urban legend that his real name was "Jean-Jacques Cale," the origin of his "JJ" designation was a lot more practical; Elmer Valentine, co-owner of the Sunset Strip nightclub in Los Angeles dubbed him "JJ" simply to avoid any confusion with John Cale of the then-more-famous Velvet Underground. He moved to Los Angeles in the early '60s and tried to break into the music business as a studio engineer. Discouraged at his lack of success, he moved back to Tulsa and strongly considered giving up on a career in music when in 1970 Eric Clapton recorded Cale's classic, "After Midnight."

Though he recorded more than fifteen studio albums during his career, he was probably better known for his songwriting abilities. The peak of his commercial success as a performing artist came early for him; "Crazy Mama" from his 1972 debut album Naturally peaked at #22 on the Billboard charts. While you wouldn't necessarily think of him as a singles sort of songwriter, many notable artists had success with Cale compositions; besides the already mentioned Eric Clapton, his songs were recorded by Waylon Jennings, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Kansas, Tom Petty, Carlos Santana, Widespread Panic and even Captain Beefheart (among others). The broad spectrum of song stylists who found his songs outstanding is just another tribute to the timelessness of his writing.

Earlier, I used the word "elegant," and on the surface, it's almost comical to use that word about this man (and I bet even JJ would have gotten a chuckle out of it), but the first dictionary definition I found for the word says it means "characterized by or exhibiting refined, tasteful beauty of manner, form, or style." Cale had all of that and more in his music. One of the many things that characterized his distinct style when recording was the unassuming stance his own vocals took, often buried much lower in the mix than is customary. This all goes back to Cale's own vision of his place in the biz. According to quotes from the bio on his website, he always thought of himself as more of a songwriter than anything else. Said Cale, "I consciously do that. I actually have the vocals up more in my later years. They used to be really low. I never considered myself a singer. I always considered myself a songwriter, so my singing got on my nerves so I'd always pull my vocals back. I guess in the last ten or fifteen years I've pushed the vocals up a bit, but not to where it was uncomfortable for me." Still, in the over 35 years that Cale spent recording his own music, he developed a massive and very loyal legion of fans... myself included.

With an artist like JJ Cale, most fans appreciate him on a couple of levels. There's the obvious tracks that you can't live without; "Crazy Mama," "After Midnight," "Cajun Moon," "Call Me The Breeze;" all the obvious and undeniable classics. Then there's the secondary stuff that maybe didn't get as much airply or press... but from which every fan seems to have a personal favorite. For me, it was his 1994 album Closer To You. I'm not entirely sure I can explain why that one remains such a favorite; it's a really good JJ Cale album, but they all are in their own right. The songs are clever and catchy... but again, that's not unusual for him. It is, for me, one of those little private magical moments that touches a very special place inside me and to this day is probably still the Cale album I listen to the most. As a fan, I think the happiest I might have been was when, in 2006, he released The Road To Escondido with Eric Clapton. After all those years of being an "on the sidelines" kind of guy, his name was right there with equal billing along with one of the undeniable heavyweights of all time. Not surprisingly, it's a great album, a superb example of mutual admiration between two great artists and it really did a lot to get him some richly deserved attention from both media and fans. 

So yeah, the music world has lost another legend. Why is it that so many talented artists become even bigger in their passing than they were while alive? Is it that the world gets the slap in the face and now has to realize what has been taken away? I'll never know, I'm sure. Today, of course, I'm doing the "fan thing." I've got a bunch of JJ Cale loaded up in an iTunes folder and I'll listen with a smile on my face. I'm having black coffee with my brunch of beans and rice, and later on today, I'll toss back a couple of cold ones. No fancy imports or anything, just a couple of Buds or PBRs. Had I ever had the pleasure of JJ Cale's company at my home for a little food and a lot of stories, I think I would have felt comfortable serving all of that to him. He was one of those people who made the lives of so many 

Rest in peace, JJ Cale, and man... thanks for all the tunes!

Discography
Early singles
1958 - "Shock Hop/Sneaky" (as Johnny Cale)
1960 - "Troubles, Troubles/Purple Onion"(as Johnny Cale Quintet)
1961 - "Ain't That Lovin You Baby/She's My Desire" (as Johnny Cale Quintet)
1965 - "It's A Go Go Place/Dick Tracy" (as J.J. Cale)
1966 - "In Our Time/Outside Looking In" (as J.J. Cale)
1966 - "After Midnight/Slow Motion" (as J.J. Cale)
Note: I personally was unaware of any of these recordings until I did a little research for this article. I can't TELL you how much I want to hear these tracks... particularly the early "After Midnight," and the idea of JJ Cale performing a song called "It's A Go Go Place" makes me grin stupid!

Albums
1972 - Naturally
1973 - Really
1974 - Okie
1976 - Troubadour
1979 - 5
1981 - Shades
1982 - Grasshopper
1983 - #8
1990 - Travel Log
1992 - Number 10
1994 - Closer To You
1996 - Guitar Man
2001 - Live
2004 - To Tulsa And Back
2006 - The Road To Escondido (with Eric Clapton)
2007 - Rewind (previously unreleased recordings)
2009 - Roll On
2013 - In Session At Paradise Studio (CD/DVD, with Leon Russell)

My own little personal "Summer Of Love" was 1971, and even though I was a little late getting to the party, it was no less joyous for me. In June of that year, my family relocated from upstate New York to central Florida, and the local FM/hippie radio station (WORJ; I later had the honor of being on the air for them) was similar in ways to the one up north, but distinctive enough that I heard a lot of music that was new to me that summer. For whatever reason, the first time I heard "White Bird" was in Florida. Can't imagine the station up north never played it, but I'm sure as can be that I never heard it until I moved to Florida. How can I be so sure? It took one hearing of the song for it to hit me smack between the eyes and imbed itself into my reality forever. Over four decades on, I still list it as one of my favorite songs ever. My poor mom probably remembers that day as well; it was easy to remember the name It's A Beautiful Day, and thus easy to hound my mom all day until, disgusted, she drove me to a record store so I could buy the album. 

The Good

In a nutshell, the debut album. It's considered a hippie classic, somewhat on the fringe of psychedelia, and deservedly so. It starts with the cover art... the beautiful woman in a puffy cloud sky, wind gently breezing by as the young lady white bird considers flying off the mountaintop she stands on. That feel is carried on by the music, featuring David LaFlamme playing violin (an instrument I'd never heard in the context of a rock band), joined by wife Linda on keyboards (lots of Hammond! Yay!), Pattie Santos on vocals, Hal Wagenet on guitar, Mitchell Holman on bass and Val Fuentes on drums. The album opens with the band's signature song; I remember it took me probably two hours to hear the album's forty one minutes of music that first day, since I kept picking up the needle and playing "White Bird" over and over again (bet I wasn't the only one!). The rest of the album is nearly as awesome, from the longing flow of "Hot Summer Day" through the gritty "Wasted Union Blues" and into the side-one closer, "Girl With No Eyes" (my second favorite track on the album). Side two gave me arguably my first introduction into what would decades later be called World Music, which I dearly love. The trilogy of tunes, "Bombay Calling," "Bulgaria" and "Time Is" incorporated hints of exotica into their hippie ramblings, the likes of which I had never heard before. "Bombay" had a melody line so haunting that Deep Purple would later incorporate it as the theme to their classic track "Child In Time," from the Deep Purple In Rock album. It's as haunting to me now as it's ever been, and I can fully understand why another band would want to borrow it for their own use. "Bulgaria" is as moody and mysterious as the land it is named for, segueing into the delightful closing track, where all of us aspiring young hippies learned that "time is too long for those who grieve, time is too short for those that laugh... but for those who love... time... time...time..." It honestly doesn't natter how kitschy the lyrics sound to me now; they were revelatory to me then, the work of a poet to my ears, and the music, with its keyboard driven accelerated mayhem, was a perfect backdrop to the sentiment. It all made sense to me, and the album in its entirety was a slice of perfection. I knew right away that the 4,166 times I listened to it within the first week of owning it would not be the last. It's another of the multimedia classics of my life, having owned it on vinyl, 8-track, cassette, CD and now various format digital files... and sometimes, if I'm having a difficult day, I can still play the album and let myself get lost in the bittersweet beauty of "White Bird," still hoping she will fly before she dies.

The Bad

Maybe not so much bad as "just not as good," but IABD never hit the heights they did with their debut. It happens a lot; there's an old saying that you have twenty years to imagine and write your debut, but six months for the follow-up, and that probably gets a lot harder when you hit a grand slam on your very first at-bat. Coupled with some of the standard band problems (in-fighting and bickering), personnel changes, the rigors of the road and serious, serious lawsuit issues (see The Ugly), it's probably understandable that none of the rest of the band's output could match the standard they set for themselves. The second album, Marrying Maiden, was pretty good and features a couple of tracks that were "good enough" to be considered alongside the debut (most notably to my ears "Soapstone Mountain"), but by the time the third album, Choice Quality Stuff/Anytime was released, it became obvious to even my very young ears that the band peaked early. Again, there's a few good tracks, and if I take the second and third albums and pull my favorite tracks from them, I wind up with a decent album's worth of material... though if that "fantasy album" had been the IABD debut, I doubt it would have sparked the devotion the real debut did. Only while I was researching the band and their history for this post did I learn that there was a lot of personal turmoil within the band during the recording of the third album, and in fact it carries two titles because it's essentially two different versions of the band. We got a half album from each band. The fourth album was a live album, and most of my life I've tended to discount live albums. For me, a concert is an event, more specifically a once-in-my-lifetyime event, and I generally find that it's better heard once in context, live and with all the trappings, and then best left to memory. The album, of course, features a pretty good version of "White Bird," but it's not as good as the original, and when I wanna hear "White Bird," I wanna hear it done right! It's A Beautiful Day... Today was the swan song, and by this time, the band had lost all their charm and charisma (and most of their original members). I guess I should make the effort to go back and give it another listen; perhaps time will be kind to it, but for a band for which I felt such passion for so long, I cannot recall even one song title from the last album. It's better to burn out than fade away, I've heard, but IABD seemingly did both.

While researching this piece, I got several good chuckles from "retro reviews" of the first album, especially from younger reviewers who just weren't there at the time and are taking the album completely out it's element. The reviews are generally poor, most calling it a weak album with one shining moment. A lot of people called it a terrible attempt at psychedelia, and many of the lyrics came under attack. Here's most of what I have to say about that; when I was fifteen years old and stardancing on mushrooms, sitting at midnight staring at a swimming pool whose surface water was decorated with streetlights and a gentle breeze, "Girl With No Eyes" made perfect sense to me. As I already stated, I found poetry in the interplay of the music and lyric from "Time Is." I wasn't looking for cosmic truth, I wasn't waiting for the heavens to open and offer me answers; I was enjoying great tunes with lyrics that told a shadow story where I could fill in the blanks. Nothing more, nothing less. It was a different time; if you weren't there, you can't be expected to relate to the ambiance or the language of the era. Even if you were there, you can remember it but can't hope to re-create it. Perhaps because I have those memories and heard the album when it was in regular rotation on the radio, it makes more sense, or perhaps I'm defending one of the cornerstones of my youth, but I still think the debut album from IABD stands tall and equal with most of the classics of the era.

Sorry, hip reviewer guys, but It's A Beautiful Day is a very special record. Go smugly trash something else.

The Ugly

Most of the ugly is centered around a man named Matthew Katz. He was the first manager of the band; he also managed San Francisco staples Moby Grape and the now-legendary Jefferson Airplane at the time. Here's what I was able to glean from my websearching. 

After IABD formed (as yet unnamed) and hooked up with Katz, he discouraged them from playing in the San Francisco area, saying they weren't ready yet. Instead, he shipped them off to Seattle where he showcased them at a club he owned, which he renamed San Francisco Sound. Katz gave the band their name reportedly after hearing a young girl describing the day's weather and thinking it would be a really good name for a band. The band was cooped up in a small residence between performances with, according to David LaFlamme, no transportation and a minimal food allowance. It was during this time that they wrote their classic "White Bird," alluding to their own situation, where the "white bird must fly, or she will die." 

Growing tired of the weak response they were garnering in Seattle (as well as their terrible living conditions), the band went back to San Francisco and began playing gigs they arranged for themselves, outside of Katz's knowledge. They developed enough of a following that they were asked to open for Cream in late 1968, a monumental turn of good fortune. By this time, IABD was trying to follow the lead of Jefferson Airplane and divorce themselves from the services of Katz, even though they had signed a management contract with him. (Note: Airplane was far more successful and sustained far less damage than Beautiful Day, but Moby Grape found themselves in an eternal legal limbo similar to IABD). This was when the lawsuits began. What the suits revolve around (and what has been the source of misery for IABD for decades) is the actual ownership of the name. Katz sued the band, claiming he owned the name and cash from the band for all the work he had done on their behalf. Oddly enough, in 1968, the first ruling from a judge on the suit was in favor of IABD; he awarded the rights to the name to the band, essentially saying it was the musicians and nothing else that established the reputation and goodwill of the band. Once the lawyers told the band and Columbia Records that the lawsuit had been settled favorably, they were allowed to go into the studio and record the debut album. 

The accelerated trouble began after that. Once there were several band member changes, Katz re-filed the lawsuit. If the band members were what made the IABD brand, Katz argued that the current band was no longer comprised of those six members, and as such, Katz himself should be awarded ownership of the name. In 1973, he won. Since then, a myriad of suits and countersuits have been filed, but for the most part, only Katz made significant money from the name It's A Beautiful Day. Case in point: when the band's first two albums, long out of print and highly coveted by fans and collectors (along with albums by Moby Grape) were finally re-issued on compact disc, it was on the San Francisco label. Not surprisingly, that label is owned by Katz, and again the bands received none of the money. Katz defended his trademark vigorously and all across the globe; he sued record companies, clubs and even his own legal team at various times. Still, Katz eventually let his trademark ownership of the name go un-renewed, but by then (according to most of the reports I could find), by court order David LaFlamme owed Matthew Katz almost one million dollars... of which, he has reportedly paid some eighty bucks.

Epilogue

It's a sad story, but one that's not completely uncommon in the world of music (or most other artistic worlds, for that matter). The original lineup of It's A Beautiful Day was an excellent band of creative musicians with an interesting, occasionally unique vision and the ability to express that in the studio and on stage. Time and tide, the erosions of temper, creative differences, egos and bickering over ownerships did the band in and keeps them from all but a cursory mention when recalling the legends of the hippie era. David LaFlamme still performs, and since the trademark on IABD has expired, he can use the name again, but obviously the damage was done. A sad story indeed... 

It's probably little comfort to the band, but at the very least, for those of us who did love, time... gave us one immortal album that wove itself forever into our hearts and souls.

For the umpteenth time since its release, I'm sitting here enjoying Easy Livin', the debut release from Southern Hospitality. I think it's a pretty fair bet to say that when December 31 rolls around, this will have been my favorite release of 2013. The more I listen to this, the more I'm struck that this record is the poster child just now for one of the things I spoke about in my initial Dinosaur post - not only is a LOT of good music still being made, but there's plenty of it that should fit comfortably on the playlists of any and all classic rock fans.

Because of how this album came about, I expected it to be good. Three rapidly rising young stars from the world of blues music found themselves jamming together after a festival gig, and a whole lot more than just "a good time had by all" happened. Damon Fowler (lap steel guitar), Victor Wainwright (keyboards) and J.P. Soars (lead guitar) felt like there was an immediate chemistry between the trio; soon enough, they recruited bassist Chuck Riley from Fowler's band and drummer Chris Peet of Soar's Red Hots and began playing. When there's that much talent and excitement from such pedigreed musicians (and when you enjoy blues as much as I do), the expectations are bound to run high.

Not only were those expectations exceeded in my ears, Southern Hospitality (SoHo, as they refer to themselves... a very nice gift to us poor journalists always looking to save keystrokes!) delivered a debut album that was not just a straightforward blues record, but something that crossed a lot of genres and boundaries and showcased a lot of influences... all traits that made the "early days" of classic rock such a joy for the fans! Remember the first time you heard, say, The Allman Brothers? Before they were Rock and Roll Hall of Famers, they blew us all away, seemingly from nowhere... and I'm sure I'm not the only one who had long discussions with friends and other fans, trying to figure out if they were rock? Blues? Country? All of the above, none of the above? 

Being unafraid to combine influences was one of the things that made classic rock such a joy, and I believe it's the trait that has made the music so durable and so able to withstand the test of time. Using the Allmans example again, I can't imagine a time when I'll ever hear myself saying, "Okay, I've heard the Live At the Fillmore album enough times. I can put it away forever now." I got the same feelings from so many artists of the era; the Doors melded theatre and blues and poetry; Mott The Hoople would move easily between crashing hard rock and glam and showmanship; The Grateful Dead took psychedelia and bluegrass and turned it into an eternal mix.

So yeah, enter SoHo. The album is released on Blind Pig Records, one of the premier labels in the blues music industry, but you know what? This isn't a strictly blues album. Like the best of the early classic rock world, it has a seriously solid foundation in the blues... filtered through R&B, influenced by country and Americana, reaching deep into rock and roll... and not even afraid to take a couple of decent stabs at a little bit of jazz and a little bit of reggae. On top of it all, every time I hear the album, I can't help but to wish I had been in the recording studio to see some of this being created, because it flat out sounds like the guys had a blast doing this one. There are three very different and all very excellent vocalists in the band; Wainwright is the most classic-soulful vocalist, often echoing Ray Charles for his depth of emotion. Soars is an earthy growler and lends a lot of urgency, and Fowler has a sincere and heartfelt tone and feel to his vocal contributions. Every member of the band is an elite musician, and the material they wrote (and in one instance chose to cover) is as good as the band.

Here's a couple more teasers to entice anybody with a love of classic rock to check this one out. Whaddaya get when you mix, say, boogie blues, country swing and decide to have a lot of fun with it? The track "Mile After Mile" is a couple of minutes of pure joy; think Commander Cody meets New Riders and adds a few Spike Jones type production flourishes. Do you enjoy a silky-smooth-yet-oh-so-soulful guitarist? I can't help but to recommend the only cover on the album, "Fried Neck Bones And Home Fries," made famous in the early days of Santana. I said it before and I'll say it again (even after a myriad of listens) - I have supreme respect for Santana as a guitarist, and I'll hold this version to Carlos' classic any day of the week. If you find yourself enjoying the aching side of a good, soulful deep blues tune, you'll never get enough of "Certified Lover." Wainwright's vocal on this gem is vintage Ray Charles with a huge slice of black gospel tossed in, truly one of the most moving and haunting vocal performances I've heard in some time. I've never actually wondered what it would sound like if a producer with a solid Cajun background (Tab Benoit, by the way... excellent job!) took a bunch of guys who know the blues and recorded them performing a reggae track, but if I had, I would have longed for "Don't Feel Like Going There Today." It could have been a jumbled hodge-podge with all that going on, but it works well, reminding me of the times when, say, The Rolling Stones would occasionally experiment with a little reggae.

There's blues, boogie-woogie, tracks that have a "far away longing" type of country influence to them, and a general feeling of camaraderie and good times throughout this entire album... exactly what delighted me and so many others back in the day. Recently, I went ahead and gave it the acid test, so to speak. I have a couple of folders in my iTunes playlist that I always keep for times when I don't feel like thinking too much about the day's playlist, and my Classic Rock folder gets tapped pretty often. It's filled with Bowie and Doors and Savoy Brown and Sly & The Family Stone and Cat Stevens and Ten Years After and Grateful Dead and Cream and It's A Beautiful Day and you get the idea. I went ahead and put SoHo's album in the folder, hit "random play," and pretty much forgot about it while I went about my day. During the course of eight or nine hours of listening, three of the SoHo tracks came up, and they merged seamlessly with everything else I was hearing.

Good is good, timeless is better, and this is truly a timeless album. Hardcore blues fans already know these guys well, but I have no fear whatsoever in recommending Southern Hospitality's Easy Livin' to classic rock fans looking for a fix of something real good. Give it a try. I'm betting you'll thank me for it!

Flashback will be an occasional feature of Dinosaur where I reprint an old article I had published, share memories of an event I attended or a person I had the pleasure of meeting... or any number of things. This article (based on a telephone interview I did with Bryan Ferry) originally appeared in Jam Entertainment News, headquartered in Central Florida. The original publication date was January 20, 1995. The photo to the left was the photo that was used as the cover shot for that issue. This is a complete and unedited transcription of the original article.

Bryan Ferry
Roxy And Elsewhere

Nineteen-seventy-two was a year that made music critics crazy trying to figure out what was going on. The "Summer of Love" was long over and hippie culture was dying out fast, despite the efforts of bands like the Allman Brothers and Jethro Tull. Top 40 radio was dominated by the likes of The Carpenters and Three Dog Night. Heavier music wads defined by Alice Cooper and Uriah Heep. Glam-rock found its beginning with Bowie and T-Rex. Yes, Genesis and ELP fell under the umbrella of "art rock."

In the midst of all this, a debut album was released by a band that took a little art, a little glam, some interesting electronics and a few outrageous ideas about songwriting and appearance - and balled it all into an album that took the critical world by storm, Roxy Music. Now, nearly a quarter of a century later, the core personnel of Roxy Music reads like a page out of a who's-who in contemporary music - Brian Eno, Phil Manzanera, Andy MacKay and Bryan Ferry all have made a significant mark in pop history.

The Roxy saga wheeled on through the '70s like a rollercoaster. Eno left the band after only two albums, rhythm sections came and went, members released solo albums, but through it all the group blazed a trail defined by a sound and attitude emulated by many but rarely, if ever, attained.

Finally, in 1982 following the release of the landmark Avalon album, Roxy Music announced that it was no more. By this time it was generally acknowledged that the defining force behind all of Roxy's years was the vision of singer/songwriter Bryan Ferry. His distinctive voice takes elements from classic song stylists, borrows heavily from R&B and binds those influences with a devotion to music as an art form. Ferry's songwriting is rooted in themes that have been chronicled in songs for generations, but he explores and presents the subtleties of his subjects in singular ways. From the first Roxy album to the present, Ferry has proven himself a master of combining unusual elements and meshing them into seamless, timeless works of music.

In 1985, Ferry released his first post-Roxy solo effort, Boys and Girls. The album not only withstood the pressure of anticipation, it wowed critics and fans alike, establishing Ferry as a valid solo artist. He followed with the 1987 release Bete Noire, which garnered similar acclaim and seemed to cement his position as one of the premiere recording artists of modern times. After the customary two-year break, fans began anxiously awaiting the release of what was supposed to be his next solo album, tentatively titled Horoscope. Lots of speculation surrounded the album's release; it's nearly done, it's being worked on, it's being re-worked a little. Months and eventually years passed. Still no album. Finally in 1992 when the new Ferry disc hit the shelves, he had thrown a curve. It was entitled Taxi and was comprised of nine cover songs and one original that clocked in at less than two minutes. What happened?

In short, Ferry ran head-on into a creative wall. Horoscope was, in effect, the first disaster of his career, marked by recording problems, the death of his mother and a serious case of writer's block. Frustrated with his lack of creativity and intent upon resuming his career, Ferry temporarily abandoned the project to record Taxi, which was perhaps most surprising for the session's producer, veteran rock guitarist Robin Trower.

In conversation, Ferry admitted that the Taxi sessions were a therapy of sorts. "That was a terrible period for me to go through," he says. "I think we all have to go through low and high periods in life, but that was a tricky moment. Since I started work on the Taxi album, everything has gone great for me. The last two years have been terrific, but I had three or four miserable years. Doing the Taxi album was the start of getting things right. Just getting something done quickly and efficiently was very gratifying. Finishing something I liked and getting back into singing again, getting away from my own writing temporarily was a good thing.

"It's something I used to do quite effectively in the '70s, alternating albums between songs I'd written and songs of other people's material. Sometimes it's very good to get away from your own writing. It certainly worked with Taxi. After that, I went back to the Horoscope tapes. The problem songs I managed to finish off and I wrote some new things as well. Getting away from the writing was very good therapy. It put things back into their proper perspective."

The finished songs found their way to Mamouna, released late last year. The album ranks among Ferry's best, putting to rest any fears that perhaps he was burned out and essentially retired. Trademark Ferry is taken a few steps further, incorporating a fresh outlook into his familiar rhythmic production style. Though some of the material is several years old, it's impossible to discern from listening to the album. In fact, Ferry says that for him, updating an older idea is by no means a unique method.

"The first thing I do when writing material is to put the idea for a song on a cassette, normally just with piano and voice. I tend to kind of stockpile ideas. Sometimes an idea will just sit on a cassette for ages... sometimes ten years, even. I try to review ideas I've had but not finished from time to time, and if one in particular catches my attention, I'll try to work it out. Actually, about half of Horoscope found its way to Mamouna, and I've got half a dozen pieces lying about waiting to be completed, which I might do in late summer. It's certainly nice to have works in progress. I think having something incomplete lying around is a good way to begin working again, just to really get your teeth into it.

"Two of the completed songs from the Horoscope sessions were lost completely," he continues. "I was able to re-create one of them, 'The Only Thing,' which did wind up on Mamouna. Believe it or not, the original idea for that song came to me in 1976! It's not all that unusual for my songs to live as instrumental pieces for a very long time, at least some of them. That's good and bad; the songs tend to become very interesting as instrumental pieces, but if you struggle with it for too long, it becomes difficult to match a lyric to it. The melodies still seem to be flowing very well, still coming to me easily, but it feels like the lyrics are getting harder and harder. I must say though, that after finishing Taxi the writer's block that I seem to have had disappeared. I'm hopeful that everything will still be okay when I get back to writing."

The choice of Trower as producer for both Taxi and Mamouna surprised many, but it's actually consistent with the way Ferry prefers to work. "I love putting unusual things together," he says. "I think that's what keeps music interesting, seeing what you get by combining elements in a way that no one else has. Great things come out of conflict, as long as the conflict isn't too great. I really enjoy working with Robin. He's been so incredibly supportive, a very warm and caring sort of person, which is the sort of producer I like to work with. He's a real gentleman, and obviously he comes from the same generation as me, so even though we've used our musical influences in different ways, we have the same sort of musical education. We have a very similar grounding in black American music, both of us being big R&B fans. He has a lot of attack to his playing, a very passionate musician. I'm really looking forward to working more with him, both on stage and in the studio." Ferry chuckles. "What was really interesting was seeing he and Brian Eno in the studio at the same time. They come from such different polarities. It was great fun watching the interaction between the two."

Eno working with Ferry again is a dream come true for diehard Roxy fans. It happened after more than twenty years and following a breakup that was often reported as less than amiable. Ferry has downplayed the reunion in the media, but one wonders if he was aware of what a monumental event this is for his fans. After pausing to consider the question, Ferry answers. "I guess I really don't know how much it meant to the fans. I do know it was great for me and hopefully enjoyable for Brian. I downplayed it because he came in towards the end of the album being recorded, although we did in fact originate one song together ("Wildcat Days"). Generally, though, all the songs that he played on were 90% or so complete so... although what he did was very welcome, it was also fairly cosmetic."

The obvious question, then... how did the sessions go? "I really enjoyed it," replies Ferry enthusiastically. "It really made me want to work with him again, that's for sure. I think the fact that we'd only actually done two albums together some twenty years ago meant that the chemistry hadn't actually run dry. We both still felt there were things to do. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the chemistry was still there. I was intrigued to find what would be there when we got together, and I was actually very surprised at how enjoyable it was. I'd forgotten how much fun we can have together, sense of humor wise and all that kind of thing. Brian is quite a character." Ferry laughs. "The time we spent together was very amusing, and so I really enjoyed myself, which is good."

So... if he'll work with Eno again and has routinely collaborated with Manzanera and MacKay over the years, will Roxy ever reunite? Ferry is somewhat doubtful. "There was talk of doing one of those 'Unplugged' sort of things some day, so maybe that will happen," he considers. "We'll see. Really, sometimes it's very difficult to know whether it's a case of moving on to fresh things or whether you want to relive your past." Referring to Eno again, "It doesn't feel like what we did was done for the wrong reasons. It felt very positive, like a very interesting thing to do. It felt fresh to me. But in the actual sense of ever reforming the group... I just don't know about that."

Obviously, not having an album of new material for seven years also meant a similar absence from performing live. Recently, though, Ferry and his band completed the first leg of the Mamouna tour. Ferry confided that the second leg of the tour will include some Florida dates, probably in mid to late March. Reviews of the tour have been positive, sometimes to the extreme. After all the time away and the adversity, was he apprehensive about going back on the road?

"Oh, yeah. You always get cold feet about it," he says. "Actually, I wondered more about how I would withstand the stresses of touring than I did about actually going on stage. It's very stressful; I'm giving a very emotional sort of show. There's a lot of songs that I have to feel more than perform, a lot of deep emotional involvement with the songs in performance. That can be a draining experience, especially when combined with some of the physical aspects of touring. I do find that as I get older, I can better pace myself on a tour. Of course, I'm also more involved with family concerns, and now being away from them for an extended period of time is a huge problem.

"But I must say, the audiences have been great in the States. So enthusiastic! I've found it interesting that some of those in the audience have been fans from 'Virginia Plain' onwards," he says, referring to Roxy's first single in 1972. "Then you find another age group who started with Avalon, and still others who only recently became familiar with my work, perhaps with Bete Noire or even the new album. It's very encouraging to see everything from teenagers to parents in the audience." He pauses a moment to reflect, then continues. "It's also tremendous to rediscover my interest in performance. I don't want to have such a large gap between performances, between tours, in the future. All those years is just a bit too much. The success of the tour has given me a lot of anxious momentum. It's great to know that the audience is still hungry for new work. I don't have any desire to do anything else besides music, as far as my artistic life is concerned. I love doing this. I love music, I really do. There's so many different musical projects I'd still like to do, so many different albums that I'd still like to make. So little time, so much to do!"

So much to do, and yet so much already accomplished. Bryan Ferry has combined his gentlemanly ways with an intense devotion to music and formed a successful career on every level. He has been and will continue to be revered for his talents. How much consideration has such a brilliant artist given to his place in music history? Ferry seems almost embarrassed by the question. "Oh, God... I don't know," he replies. "You know what I consider to be musical history? I saw Chuck Berry in the elevator the other day, back at the hotel after playing the Beacon Theatre. He walked on to the elevator holding a takeout hamburger, and all I could say was, 'Wow! You're Chuck Berry! I'm such a big fan of yours!' I was just gibbering away at this historic figure like the fan that I really am. I'd like to be a heroic figure like Chuck Berry, but that's not for me to say if I was successful or not.

"I do know this - when it's all said and done, if I can be thought of as a passionate and caring man by both my family and my fans, I'll consider myself a great success."

-Silver Michaels

Lagniappe

I chased an interview with Bryan Ferry for a long time; literally twenty years. I finally got this as part of one of his "media days." These are days when an artist spends a full day doing phone interviews, either from their home or from the office of their record company or management team. This one was done while Ferry was in New York City at the Virgin Records office. When my contact at the label called to let me know that it was time to do the interview, I quickly asked her if Bryan was nice. She gushed, "He brought flowers for all the girls in the office!" • Considering I was talking to one of my absolute musical heroes, the interview went incredibly well. Ferry was personable, friendly and very easy to talk to. I felt we got along well. Media day interviews are generally limited to 25 minutes on the phone, and when the time passed, I told Bryan that I'd understand if he had to move on to his next interview. He asked me to hold for a moment, and when he got back, informed me that he was enjoying our conversation and that he had re-scheduled his next interview so we could keep talking... one of the greatest thrills of my journalistic career! • I had the pleasure of meeting Ferry after his show in Orlando in the spring of 1995; the article had of course already been published by then. When I was introduced to him as the author of the article, he smiled, shook my hand and told me I did an excellent job and that he was very pleased with the article and presentation. I'm sure you can imagine how elated I was! • This story ran as the cover story for the issue of the magazine it appeared in. A little bit of oddball trivia - the photo shown above that was used as the cover photo was actually a promotional photo from his 1987 Bete Noire album. I don't remember the reasoning behind using an eight-year-old photo as the cover shot; I can only guess that we needed this particular pose or angle for the purposes of the cover, and Ferry's look hadn't changed very much in the ensuing time.

I was sitting here getting ready to kick the day into higher gear when King Crimson's seminal classic "Court of the Crimson King" filled my air. It strikes me that I've been listening to this song for over forty years, and I'm not yet tired of it... I've owned the album on vinyl, 8-track, cassette, CD and as MP3 and lossless digital files. What a perfect example of a single recording changing the course of a person's musical life! Thinking about all the music I discovered as a result of my respect for this album is beyond stunning...

Right off the bat, the sonic presentation of the album was like nothing I had heard before. I bought the album in 1969 because the cover was SO cool and because some guy in the record store who I never met before or since promised me the record would change my life. He was right; thank you, Guy in Record Store! It begins with the crushing authority of the album's opening riff for "21st Century Schizoid Man," augmented by a vocal treatment that was at the time very unique. After that, a lot of the album's appeal to my ears was due to the use of a mellotron, the quirky symphonic precursor to my lifelong fascination with synthesizer music. To this day and for all the wondrous string sounds I've heard from a keyboard, nothing matches the texture or pseudo-warmth of a proper mellotron. The style and the sound of this album were for me and bazillions of others an introduction to the world of progressive rock (this is often referred to as "the most influential prog album of all time" in music journalism); from King Crimson, I discovered early Genesis, Moody Blues and Yes on the symphonic side, Hawkwind and Black Sabbath on the heavier side... and if I recall properly, it was because of this album that I first sought out Pink Floyd as another "psychedelic rock" band.

The album's personnel, of course, leads to further explorations. Greg Lake would leave King Crimson after three albums as a founding member of Emerson, Lake and Palmer... which led me to Keith Emerson's synthesizer riff on "Lucky Man" and wound up starting another half-century obsession for me, that of synth and electronic music and the myriad of previously undreamed-of genres that came as a result. There was particular intrigue on Crimson's debut with one of the personnel credits; Peter Sinfield was listed in the musicians credits for "lyrics, illumination." The idea of somebody who neither played an instrument or sang being listed as a musician fascinates me to this day and was a major factor, I believe, in giving the literary side of rock credibility. From that, Sinfield somehow wound up as the producer for the debut album by Roxy Music (another album with incredibly alluring cover art, though in a completely different style), and lo! I discovered "art rock." I still consider Bryan Ferry to be my favorite rock vocalist of all time (and I best not even THINK about all the music I found as a result of Bryan and Roxy, lest this article run to encyclopedic lengths. I mean, c'mon... Brian Eno...).

And... there was and is Robert Fripp. This is a man who not only played a very different style of guitar - he essentially changed a lot of thinking about the guitar as in instrument; guitar as more than an instrument, but as a paint brush, a gateway to art. Over the course of decades, Fripp showed a complete lack of fear in re-inventing both himself and King Crimson. After three albums when the momentum was decidedly in his favor and Crimson was being heralded as forerunners of a whole new movement in rock, he changed it. With "Islands," Crimson became less aggressive and more ethereal, incorporating elements of space rock and jazz, melding dissonance and structure. A third reworking of the band, marking the beginning of the Adrian Belew era of Crimson, stressed composition, structure and precise discipline within the framework of the performances live and studio... and again, the world of rock was shifted in a positive manner. 

Then one day, Robert Fripp introduced perhaps his most radical and sweeping change in his approach to making music with Frippertronics. Even for a lot of hardcore fans, the floating ethereal soundscapes released under the new moniker were a challenge to hear, and even more so to understand. I know I tried for a long, long time to get what he was doing, and I don't think I had my lightbulb moment until I actually saw him perform Frippertronics live. It was at House of Blues (?!?) in Orlando, and it was Fripp and machines on a stage. He would play a note and let it loop in rhythm. He'd add a phrase, then a texture, then a slow looping counter rhythm. The creation of each individual piece went on for eight to ten minutes or so, then Fripp would lay the guitar down on the stool, step to a shadow on the rear of the stage and listen himself, hands behind his back as if a schoolboy. That was a powerful vision all at once. It struck me that Fripp was essentially destroying a myriad of boundaries with this new approach to composition and performance. First, he was ignoring the standard dictates of chronology; he was composing pieces of music NOT by placing one note after the other, but instead by reacting to what was already there, weaving into and out of the existing composition as he felt was called for. Second, he was reducing the barrier between performer and audience in a way; by reacting to what was playing and endlessly looping, he was both performer and observer at the same time. Third, he was reinforcing the sanctity and intimacy of a live performance, offering that evening's crowd something that had not been presented before and in likelihood would not be exactly replicated again. It was aurally and intellectually one of the most powerful performances I've ever had the pleasure of witnessing.

Of course, it didn't end with any of the original explorations, and it won't end with any of their derivations. Rick Wakeman was the keyboard player for Yes, which steered me to an early album by The Strawbs; Peter Gabriel would leave Genesis and present me and the world with a completely different approach to merging world music styles (so eventually I found Afro-Celt Sound System and so many others); Hawkwind combined intensity and guitars and science fiction in ways that inspired countless other bands, and also helped continue and further the idea of visually overwhelming live performances. In retrospect, way beyond all the technological changes that encouraged me to buy "Court of the Crimson King" over and over again, this might be the most expensive album I ever owned for all the reasons outlined here... and I call it money and time well spent. The Black Queen has chanted her funeral march probably thousands of times in my life already, and thankfully, I see no end in sight.

Welcome to Dinosaur, a music blog about (as much as I hate the term) Classic Rock... and music all the way to the present that fits the style and feel of old hippie classic rock! There's the "what" in a nutshell, but why?

For several reasons. The first and most obvious is that I'm a lifetime music junkie; there's not many other ways to put it. In my music-related life, I have been a published music journalist (for almost four decades now), been on the radio, owned a successful record store, done publicity and artist relations for a record label, been a photographer and graphic designer for CD packaging... I think it's pretty fair to say I'm a music lifer! When I was a boy, I used to have a great fear that someday I would lose the music, that all the interesting stuff would just go away and I'd be an old man listening to elevator muzak and crap, just like most of the old people in my life at the time.

Well, I aged... but the music hasn't gone away yet, and I'm pretty confident it never will. My taste in music is extensive, eclectic, and thorough. By that, I mean when I find something or someone that I enjoy, I'm one of those guys who really dives into it. I want to know the artist, the history, the influences, the masters, even the hacks. I want to find the nuances and love nothing more than discovering the next musical path I'll be led to. By an extremely conservative estimate, I've had the joy of hearing over twenty thousand albums in my life... and I'm nowhere close to done yet.

The second reason for Dinosaur is a realization that I have a sort of "privileged position" in the world, if you'll excuse me the vanity of the term. When I talk about classic rock and/or old hippie rock with other fans of the genre, I so often hear, "They just don't make music like that any more." 

Yeah, they do. There's more music out there in more genres and available in more ways and places than ever before in history. Plenty of it is done in a style that old hippies, young hippies and classic rock fans would appreciate. One thing we have to remember... for the most part, when we were kids discovering all the music we'd hold dear to our hearts for a lifetime, how did we do it? We hung with friends, maybe smoked a little dope, and searched for music. We listened and listened and searched and scoured the corners of our musical worlds and then listened some more. We read about our heroes, we talked about them... but then, somewhere along the way, life happened. Spouses and children are time-consuming hobbies. Paying for houses and cars and braces and college means a lot of time that used to be spent finding music just isn't there anymore.

I had and have the very good fortune of spending my life in and around the music business. Yes, I consider myself fortunate to be able to live the life I do. "The music never stops," as has been sung so many times and in so many ways. Hopefully, I'm one of the guys who can turn those hours and days and decades of searching out new music and share it with people out there who need and want the same. Music may potentially be the most amazing drug ever created; it not only soothes the savage beasts, it also generally refuses to leave once it has ingrained itself into one's system. I like to be one of the people who feeds that need, nurtures it and helps it to stay alive... and in the process, I not only help to share the delights I've found, but I keep finding new ones for myself. Win win!

Something else I hear from fans of Dinosaur music, and rightfully so - even "classic rock radio" has become boring as hell anymore. Led Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix are now essentially the same three songs from either artist in infinite rotation. Taking it a step further, there was SO much music from that era (and continuing through this very day) that was/is good and has been all but forgotten. I'm not sure I can remember the last time I tuned into a classic rock station and heard Savoy Brown or It's A Beautiful Day. I'll pretty much guarantee I've never heard anything by Family or Atomic Rooster, at least not in the last thirty years. Hey, Mr. DJ... can I hear "Gallows Pole" from Zep? I know it's not "Stairway To Heaven," but honest, it's a good song! I don't WANT the artists that built so much of the musical foundation of my life trivialized. I don't WANT those who were good but didn't have luck or whatever on their side to just disappear forever... and I flat out REFUSE to buy into the idea that "there's no more good music being made."

So... Dinosaur, and back to a little more "what." For all my experience and all the trivia and useless information I have hidden away in the corners of my head, I hope to be able to sustain an informative, interesting blog for anyone who wants it. My vision for all this is as varied as the music I so dearly love... reviews? Sure, why not. David Bowie and Black Sabbath still make records. Discussions about things that happened or artists that were? Of course. Random memories about "the time I talked to Tom Petty or Patti Smith or Ian Anderson?" Yup. Hearing "White Bird" and being reminded that other bands used an electric violin to make superb (if unheralded) albums? Yeah.

I love the music, plain and simple, and I'm looking forward to sharing and discussing with you guys out there. There's plenty of ways to get ahold of me... contact info all over the site here. Let's have some fun together, okay?