“It isn’t every day a 54-year-old quadriplegic records a record….” There are comeback stories. And then there’s Curtis Mayfield’s comeback story. In mid-August, 1990, he was about to perform at an outdoor concert at an athletic field in Brooklyn. The opening act, Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes, had finished their set. Mayfield, guitar […]
Mose Allison (1994)
“One of my first public appearances was at a talent contest. I sang and played Fats Waller’s ‘fododo-de-yacka-saki want some seafood mama.’ I could just see the teacher saying, “This boy is going straight to hell.” Wondering what Mose Allison was up to lately, I checked his […]
Nina Simone (1992)
“I don’t think I’m difficult. Not at all.” The prospect of interviewing Nina Simone was thrilling. And slightly terrifying.
Mighty Sam McClain (1998)
In memoriam: Mighty Sam McClain (1943-2015) “I came from eating out of garbage cans. So if I died tomorrow, I did good.” Mighty Sam McClain wrote a song summing up his old friends’ feelings about hanging out with him after he gave up his bad habits: “Too Much Jesus (Not Enough Whiskey).” Now I […]
My Dinner With Ornette
“I’m interested in bringing instant enlightenment.” I met Ornette Coleman for dinner on a late fall evening in a fashionable restaurant in downtown Boston. He was in town to meet the press a week before a December 15, 1984 concert at Berklee Performance Center with Prime Time, his “double” […]
B.B. King (1980)
“A guy comes out of the gumbo, he likes to walk on concrete awhile.” October 14, 1980 Lippman House, Harvard University, Cambridge When B.B. King came to Harvard University, it was a special day. Not only for the fortunate few who got to witness an intimate performance in a small wooden house […]
Lee Mitchell
“Lo and behold, Al Green came out with ‘I’m So Tired of Being Alone’….Those songs I was supposed to sing….I just knew that it would have been a successful thing for me.” In a parallel universe Lee Mitchell – not Al Green – emerged as the top male soul star of the […]
Ben E. King (1987)
“I’ve come to accept that ‘Stand By Me’ is my secret key to survival…” In early 1987 Ben E. King – who died April 30 at 76 – was enjoying an entirely unexpected return to the upper reaches of the pop charts. The original recording of his 1961 song “Stand By Me” had become a […]
Burt Bacharach (and Elvis Costello, Part 2)
“No one has to push me to be complex.” If there has been a musical menage à trois more sublime and more successful than that of composer Burt Bacharach, lyricist Hal David, and singer Dionne Warwick, I can’t think of it.
Elvis Costello (and Burt Bacharach, Part 1)
“I think there’s as much self revelation in “What Is This Thing Called Love” by Cole Porter as there is in any song by Kurt Cobain.” Elvis Costello is nobody’s idea of Dionne Warwick. But in 1998 he pulled off playing both the Warwick and Hal David roles when he teamed up with Burt […]