Sonny Stitt is the Lone Wolf. Saginaw Jazz Icon Up Close & Personal

                                               

                                                       

Sonny Stitt

is

The Lone Wolf

 

Sonny Stitt is acknowledged as one of the greatest saxophone players from the last great era of jazz. Stitt recorded 300 LPs from his tentative ascendance in the forties through the halcyon days of the fifties and sixties and the decline and fall in the seventies. He was Saginaw born and bred and though his notoriety and influence has waned in the last thirty years or so there are still a few people that have vivid memories of Stitt’s genius. Sonny was born in Boston but was raised in Saginaw. He attended Central Junior High and graduated from Saginaw High School in 1942. Sonny was a close friend of Jack Bruske, a fellow student at Central Junior High. At the time Stitt played clarinet and Bruske played the coronet.  As their interest in music advanced teacher Ken Mathews mentored the daring duo and tutored Stitt on the saxophone and Bruske on bass.   

Music was part of Sonny’s genetic makeup just like his eye color or temperament. It washed over every fiber in his body and defined him. He became the music. His father taught music, his brother was a classically trained pianist and his mother was a piano teacher. Sonny’s path was preordained. He would follow the shadow of his forefathers. Following graduation Sonny’s wanderlust led his to play across the United States, Europe and the Far East. He toured with several bands including the Tiny Bradshaw Band, Billy Eckstine and Dizzy Gillespie. He performed with such jazz greats as Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Oscar Peterson. Bill Cosby admired Sonny’s music and mentioned him more than once on network television. As Sonny continued to evolve and experiment with sound he also became interested in mentoring others. He taught and lectured at several universities including Yale and Notre Dame. Not bad for a kid who cut his teeth at the El Morocco and the Cabana at 6^th and Washington. He accumulated several awards through the years including a Grammy nomination for his 1972 masterpiece Tune Up, 1973 Record of the Year Constellation, and Playboy All-Star Jazz Winner 1961.

 

 Flint jazz great Sherm Mitchell remembers Stitt to be a one of a kind talent with his own unique style and voice. Sherm recalls the Stitt’s complete dedication to craft and his insistence on excellence even when he struggled with substance abuse. He was mercurial and sometimes volatile. Mitchell recalls seeing Stitt and Miles Davis fist fighting onstage, “He had a temper. He got angry when they played the Minor key in Detroit.  It was when Sonny did a solo – they had words onstage. He threatened to knock Miles’ head off and away they went.” It ended their brief collaboration “He was a very bright man”, recalls Mitchell. “I first met him in the sixties. It was the heyday of modern jazz and Sonny was a fabulous musician. He had his own facility with the saxophone – baritone, tenor and alto. We went out with Sonny on tenor sax and my trombone. We worked in Grand Rapids and Toledo. .  I remember Sonny as a reluctant icon – there is no one today that can play like Sonny Stitt.”  As Stitt’s career took off, he was often compared the Charlie Parker – the Bird. Mitchell disagrees, “In no way did Stitt try to copy Parker. Sonny had his own style. He was basically an innovator. He could turn it inside out and put it back together before it’s finished. He could read music and he was just a great player. Mitchell toured with Sonny on an irregular basis and usually within a 200 mile radius of Flint. Mitchell acknowledges that the great talent in mid-Michigan including Flint and Pontiac was often taken for granted with Detroit in such close proximity. Detroit was no doubt a breeding ground for talent but not to the exclusion of the Saginaw/Flint/Pontiac nexus.

Mitchell feels Stitt’s legacy will be preserved like Coltrane or Mile Davis. “Like any of the other great jazz players, Stitt & Parker were so good that nobody could aspire to their level of genius. It cannot be imitated. You don’t hear anyone that can play like that anymore. The new musicians can’t do it. The industry prefers music that anyone can imitate, that way the artist can’t control what they play.”

It is often acknowledged that the music industry doesn’t want original thinking. It’s like the auto industry or current FM radio – they want everything to look and sound the same. Innovation is discouraged in favor of sales. That’s why so many of the modern country and rock bands sound like everyone else. There is no individual identity and they don’t have any importance – it’s all disposable. Mitchell’s lucid analysis resonates deeply like throwing a pebble in the water and watching the ripples grow wider and wider then disappear. 

Mitchell taught music at MSU and the University of Wisconsin and plays fourteen instruments. He feels that you cannot teach what Sonny Stitt played. It is a natural gift that cannot be taught in schools. He sees originality and craft dying off in jazz and music in general, “Every major big band – Basie, Ellington, Woody Herman – once they died off, the industry didn’t want unique composition and performance. They wanted something that could be replicated. Sonny Stitt was so unique you couldn’t imitate him.”

                                                              

Kenny Anderson was a well-known Jazz band leader in Saginaw and was one of Sonny’s nearly mentors. His widow Gladys Anderson is still living in Saginaw and continues to carry a torch for the great music created by her husband and Sonny Stitt,

“I first saw Sonny at the Cabana. He was playing at the Cabana on Sixth and Washington, right where North Sixth comes into N. Washington.  Oh, Sonny was great. He was terrific on the sax. Terrific. I’d sit there, and I’d get goose bumps just listening to him because I’d been around music all my life practically. And he was terrific. I really was crazy about the blues. But he could blow…I don’t know to this day I think about it. I wonder where he got the breath. And he’d hold a note for a minute or two or whatever, just a long time. He was afraid he might fall out, you know? He was blowing so hard and so long, you know.”

Gladys recalled her husband’s relationship with Stitt, “Sonny was about 15 to 20 years younger than Kenny and he would stand out in back behind the Cabana and watch him play. Sonny would stand up on those oil cans to listen to Kenny’s band.  And Kenny would go out and see them and tell them to come on in. Because they were under-age and at that time you couldn’t go in the bars when you were underage.”

 Gladys felt that Sonny’s fame was well deserved. “He could play just about anything. He was just a beautiful artist. It’s just too bad that his health was bad but he’d still perform. He’d walk into the club, and everybody knew him, of course. They’d say, there’s Sonny, there’s Sonny. They were just so elated to see him. Usually his mother would come too. His mother was a musician. She was very nice… she’d come to protect him.”

Sonny and Kenny were closely aligned but they were a study in contrasts. Gladys acknowledged the bond between the two musicians, “Sonny would keep to himself mostly. But Kenny would greet everybody in the place, like in-between, of course they had show girls, you know, and strippers, and everything. Kenny would go in between tables and go and greet everybody. Sonny didn’t trust people easily. He was terrific. He knew his music. He knew it. It was his own music, his own composition. My husband loved him dearly because of his ability and his playing, how well he played. When Sonny would come to the house, he and Kenny would sit and drink and talk for hours on end.” She understood that family meant a lot to Sonny. She recalls, “Sonny grew up with his father Bob Stitt. He had a tavern out on N. Washington. It used to be called Kwaters Bar. It was a very restricted Polish bar. They didn’t have blues band or jazz until Sonny’s father got it. Bob Stitt was a gentle man…a big man. He was very proud of Sonny.”

                                                            

     

Frankie Johnson grew up in the Stitt household and considered Sonny and Momma Wickes as parental figures. He loved them dearly and learned many of his life’s lessons through their wise counsel. The following is an excerpt of a recent interview with Mr. Johnson. He gets down to the real skinny and provides us with a first-hand account of the life and times of Sonny Stitt.

 

 Frank, how did you get to know Sonny Stitt?

 I grew up in the home of Sonny’s mother, Claudine Wickes, from infancy until she walked me to the old bus station to go to the army. That was in 1961. First off, Sonny’s real name is Edward Boatner. His father was a famous composer of Negro spirituals. You can look him up on the internet. There are a lot  of things about him. How he came about with the Stitt name was my foster grandmother. She married a Robert Stitt here in Saginaw around I guess mid-‘30s. Sonny was a teenager in ’37 or ’38, and he took the name. His birth father, Edward Boatner, was very well known world-wide in the music field on his own. In fact, he led a thousand man chorus in 1937 World’s Fair in New York City.

 

                                                  

Sonny came from a great musical family. His grandmother was a piano teacher here, taught dance – she was famous. His mom Claudine “Mommy” Wickes was famous too. I remember Sonny from maybe age nineteen.  He bought a new 1955 Chrysler station wagon because he was always on the road. He was married to a girl named Barbara Lancaster. He traveled for two or three years in this green Chrysler New Yorker. He wasn’t the best driver in the world. He was also a drinker, so he usually had someone to chauffeur him around. He would visit Saginaw maybe three or four times a year.

 

When did he leave Saginaw?

 He left in 1942 following his graduation from Saginaw High School. In fact he had an opportunity in the 11^th grade to leave with a band. You remember Tiny Bradshaw? This was the big band era. Tiny Bradshaw came through town and heard this young man play and he offered him a job whenever he was in Detroit. But Sonny couldn’t go because Mommy wouldn’t let him go. So the day of graduation he got on a bus and met up with the Tiny Bradshaw. That was his first band. This was during the war, so they weren’t recording in 1942 as there was a ban on vinyl recording. That’s how they recorded, you know, vinyl disks.

In 1946 or ’47 he went with the trumpet player, Dizzy Gillespie’s Big Band. He took Charlie Parker’s chair.

He was compared to Charlie Parker.

Yeah, their music style was similar. I can tell the difference because I’ve heard his records since I was a child. In fact it was kind of an anchor around Sonny’s neck, being compared to Charlie Parker.

Sherm Mitchell feels Sonny had his own voice.

Yeah, he had his own voice. Well, you know he was playing alto at this time and Charlie Parker did also, but he switched to tenor. I have an early ’50’s recording that shows his evolving style.

 

I have a story I’d like to tell but maybe I shouldn’t tell. It’s personal about where he went. He spent two years in a prison.

 

 I didn’t know that.

 

There was an incident, from what I understand, in Chicago in 1947, 1948, and there was a fellow who died from injecting drugs, one of Sonny’s band mates. Sonny was in the same room. So he spent two years in Ft. Leavenworth. It was a hospital for drug addiction - to help him recover because he was hooked at the time. He was still a young man and around that type of crowd of people there was a lot of temptations.

Edward, his father, never lived with Sonny. I guess Mommy and his father were married, but I think they separated when Sonny was maybe two years old. I did see him once. We went to New York in the early ‘50s, and he had a music studio. He was a piano teacher. I remember he had a room full of manuscript papers and a big baby grand piano and things. Those were the things that I remember, some personal things that people didn’t know.

 

Robert Stitt, his stepfather, was well known in the city in his own right. He owned a club on Washington Street. It was called the El Morocco. He must have opened the El Morocco in ’56 or 57. It was in Buena Vista Township. It was on the corner of 25^th and Washington – now it’s long gone. He opened up that club and Sonny came here to play it. He was a more of a mature artist by that time. Mommy had a group of tap dancers. They were very well known in the state. They called themselves the Silvertime High Steppers. She put on a dance at the old UAW Hall for a fundraiser. It was on Sixth and Washington. There was a bowling alley downstairs. It was built by the UAW Grey Iron. Sonny came back because at that time he wasn’t traveling with a band. He was picking up musicians. I saw his address book once - it was a very large book of musicians in every town that he was familiar with.

In 1970 he traveled with Bud Patterson on organ and Billy James was the drummer. He traveled most of the ‘70s with that group.

 

Did they record too?

Yeah, he made many recordings. He just overextended himself in albums. He had probably one of the highest number of albums (300) recorded by anyone, any recording artist. He was never under contract to any one record company, this was one way he could go…say to Chicago to pick up a thousand dollars for a few hours work, you know, go ahead and make a record and take the money and run. So yeah, he did that. 

 

It sounds like you’ve known Sonny from childhood

I’ve done research because he was my hero. It was cool when he came here. He dressed fancy and he was cool. Sonny was a friend of my father - that’s how I got to know him. They were school chums.

 

My father went in the army in World War II. When the war was over in1946 he brought me, my sister and my mother up from Florida. He took us over to Mommy Wickes’ house which at that time was on Franklin Street. It was very hard for him to find apartments to rent because the soldiers were coming home in 1946. She was living on 714 N. Franklin, and she had an upstairs apartment. We never left after that night. Later she bought a bigger house so we would have more room. We grew up like a family. She did all the cooking. She did a lot of the discipline. Her husband, I called him Uncle Lonnie, he was like my grandfather. Sonny was born in 1924 and he was like a father to me.

 

Gladys told me that her husband Ken Anderson was good friends with Sonny

Kenny was a premier musician here before Sonny. He was older than Sonny. He was probably 10 or 12 years older than Sonny. He was a mentor to Sonny, Gladys’s husband was.

He was a friend. My dad Jack Johnson also played in Kenny’s band. He’s well known here as a musician. There were several articles in the Saginaw News about him.

Were there any venues in Saginaw where Sonny performed?

 

At that time he used to play at the Cabana Club, the old Cabana Club, over on Washington. Street. Sonny didn’t play here a lot. If he did, it was just for a jam session. Sonny would come about four times a year. But he didn’t play during the time I was growing up. I heard a story about him playing at the Cabana Club in 1950. He also played at the old Saginaw Auditorium. He came here with Gene Ammons and Choker Campbell, a band leader that played with Sonny in Saginaw and Flint.

 

Choker Campbell?

Choker Campbell was the musical director when Motown started. He conducted the bands that backed up the Four Tops, the Temptations and Smoky Robinson on their first world tours in the ‘60s. I remember it as a kid. I must have been about 15. Sonny and I rode around all day when he came to town. We went to Flint one night to hang with Choker. I remember Choker describing this new record company in Detroit, and that was Motown.

I used to go to Idlewild, a resort here in Michigan up near Reed City. We met this fellow named Arthur Braggs. He was an entrepreneur of sorts. What he did, he conducted the numbers rackets here. We lived next door to him on Franklin Street. We called him Uncle Arthur. He had a big club in Idlewild, Michigan. This was before African-Americans were welcome in the other places, resorts, and things. People would come from Chicago, Detroit, Flint and Saginaw. This was where African-American families would go and spend their summer. Mr. Braggs had a club there called the Paradise Club. He would bring in name acts like Dinah Washington. I remember seeing her with a big fur coat on in the summertime. She had a blue Chrysler Imperial, a four-door Chrysler Imperial.

 

Did Sonny play there also?

He played there once or twice. Sonny was friendly with Mr. Braggs and he would go visit him. Mr. Braggs was a little older than Sonny. He played out there maybe once in a while, but that wasn’t something he did regularly. At that time Sonny couldn’t work in New York. When he got in this trouble in 1947, they took away his Cabaret card. In New York City you had to have a cabaret card to play in a club that sold alcohol and beverages. So they took that away from him because of the incident that happened. He didn’t get it back until 1957.

He would play in New York City, but he had to play in a theater. He couldn’t play in a club. So he did a lot out on the east coast, west coast. He went out with Norman Granz, a jazz entrepreneur. Granz had a touring company, “Jazz at the Philharmonic.” He went to Europe and he took the whole group. That was 1956 and ’57.  In fact, they toured for several years.

 

                                                    

 

When was the last time you saw Sonny?

I saw him the year he passed and once the year before. When we heard on the news that he had passed…My wife is from Cassopolis, Michigan. We were taking our vacation down in Indiana, Michigan border, a farming community. So we drove back up, and we had two kids, me and Mamie. We took on my dad, and we drove over to Washington, DC. We got there. We missed his wake. We got there the night before the funeral. I stayed with his wife and Pam’s brother and my wife stayed at Sonny’s house. I have some pictures of us sitting on his back porch. At that time he was more settled when he married his last wife. He had his own home, you know. Most of the time I knew him, he was a vagabond. Not a vagabond as in not having substance, but he traveled all the time. He never had his own home. But he put down roots.

Did Sonny mentor you?

I called him Uncle Sonny. I’ll tell you a story. I must have been 12 years old, and I was going into the seventh grade. I was going to take band. Sonny came home in the summer before I went into junior high school. He took me to a store downtown, and he bought me this bicycle. They had to put it together, you know. We went home, and we were going to pick it up the next morning. I go home and I tell all my buddies, “Hey, I’m getting this bicycle.” What happened was that night

Mommy came home from her work at the First Ward Community Center there. He called Mommy - he called his mother Queen. He said, “Queen, I’m buying Frankie a bicycle.” She said, “He don’t need no bicycle. He needs a clarinet.” That’s where I got the word clarinet …Sonny started with it and so did I!

I’ll tell you another story. We were riding in this car, me and a friend of mine. It was a rainy day. He was going through a puddle, and he sprayed on a fella who was standing on a curb there. He went around the block and gave this guy some money to get his coat cleaned.

Yeah, Sonny was always a gentleman. I had to sleep with him when he came. Arrangements at that house were normally my sister had a guest room. My mother had her own bedroom. Mommy and Uncle Lenny had their own bedroom, and I had a roll-away bed in an alcove upstairs. When he would come, if he didn’t bring a girlfriend, sometimes he brought a girlfriend, we would sleep in my sister’s room, which was the guestroom. I remember the first time I smelled marijuana. I remember him on the side of the bed smoking, and my grandmother, Mommy, would always air that room out.

You know a funny thing, Stevie Wonder has roots here. He lived next door to us. His family did - on Third Street. They lived next door to us. I remember him. I’m a little older than Stevie and I played with his cousins. This is before he became famous. Oh, I could tell you a little story about them. Sonny had bought a Polaroid camera, one of the first ones. This is the early ‘50s. This was where you take a picture, you pull it off;then you had to put that chemical on it. He was taking pictures. I remember he got all the kids together; the next-door kids and Stevie would have been in that picture. I remember a little blind boy. He was a toddler then. He was born in 1950 and this would’ve been 1954 or ’55. He didn’t stay here long. He moved to Detroit, but his family still stayed there, the Dallas family and the Lawsons. It was a big extended family. They lived right next door to us.

 

There was so much music in Saginaw.

Sonny has two children, Katea and Jason Stitt. Both of them live in the Washington DC area. I don’t talk to Jason much, but I talk to his daughter. In fact, she’s planning on coming visit us. She wants to know more about her father and she also wants to know about his hometown. I remember her coming here when she was pre-teen. She came to visit one summer and stayed at Mommy’s house. I’ll get you her number. She’s an artist in her own right. She is a poet and she’s also worked with George Clinton. She was doing like promotional things of that sort and she has a radio show, a jazz radio show. I think it’s in the morning.

 

That’d be great. I’d love to talk to her.

 

EPILOGUE: Frankie Johnson told me that Sonny’s legacy needs to be preserved that we should build a monument to him. He should be huge in Saginaw.  I agree. Our community needs to remember this remarkable man. We should not let his incredible contributions to music and culture fade from public awareness.

 

This article was inspired by Mark Leffler

 

 

 

2012

The Year in Review

Endings, Rot and Renewal

I can never quite reconcile my yearly migrations, the summer solstice, fall equinox and Mayan predictions of doom and gloom. But I do feel grateful that this year is winding down. I need some renewal. I need hope for the future. Living in Saginaw is like living in Lebanon where sectarian violence between the Sunnis and Shiites has escalated ten-fold. I’ll say it straight I’m abhorred by the random stupid violence in Saginaw. I’m worried that there is not enough music and poetry in Saginaw. The Arts are not a panacea to the violence that has corrupted our country but it nourishes our soul. Listen, feel and breathe it in. It is yours, forever.

We’ve lost so much in the past year. It seems an injustice to write only about the rock & roll heroes that have passed away in 2012. I’d hazard to guess that when they reached the gates of Heaven, our savage rockers might gumption up enough nerve to ask St Peter if there could be a loophole. Oh well. The list is long and I’m not going to single out anyone who has not touched my life in a personal way. Let’s begin with a small list of well-known artists who died in 2012 (there were several hundred):

Jon Lord (Deep Purple); Hal David (lyricist); Chris Stamp (Manager  of the Who); Dave Brubeck (Jazz pianist/composer); Marvin Hamlisch (composer); Michael Davis( MC5); Earl Scruggs (The Ballad of Jed Clampett): Bob Babbitt(Motown/Funk Brothers bassist),;Dick Clark (American Bandstand); Levon Helm (the Band); Adam Yauch (the Beastie Boys); Etta James (I Just Want to Make Love to You); Jim Marshall (Founder of Marshall Amps); Don Cornelius (Soul Train); Duck Dunn(Booker T & the MGs); Robin Gibb Bee Gees; Joe South (Singer Songwriter/Games People Play).

There are four artists with Saginaw ties and that I’ve met personally, a short sketch of each follows:

Kathi McDonald

 Here is an unknown superstar from the heyday of rock & roll. Kathi took over as singer for Big Brother & the Holding Company after Janis Joplin left to forge a brief but illustrious solo career. She released several acclaimed LPs including Sex Not Guaranteed, Above & Beyond and Insane Asylum. She was a sought after session singer and can be heard on the Rolling Stone’s masterpiece Tumbling Dice from Exile on Main Street. She was a tiny person with a big voice and a heart that could cradle so much love. She became close with Keith Richards and they remained friends until the day she died. She told me that Richards was always there for her that he was kind and caring. McDonald recorded and toured with Long John Baldry for over two decades. In 1980 they had a big hit in Australia with You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’. We had dinner together and I was struck by her self-effacing humility. We agreed to make an effort to get Baldry over to Saginaw but his health was fragile and it was not to be. He passed away in 2005.

Kenny Roberts

 

I’ll always remember Kenny as the Jumpin’ Cowboy, because he would, well, jump up and down onstage. He was a spectacular yodeler and had hos own Children’s television Show on WNEM TV 5. It was essentially a cartoon show. Sue White was just a kid when she got a chance to be part of his show. Sue said that Roberts seemed a bit distant on the set and gave off the impression that he didn’t like kids But when I got to know him about ten years ago he was funny and very down to earth. Mercy that man could talk. Listening to Kenny phone talking was like sitting through a free presentation on a Time Share. But then again he had a down home charm that was just irresistible. Kenny had several charted hits including Chocolate Ice Cream Cone and I never See Maggie Alone. Kenny used to perform at Daniel’s Theatre (later known as Daniels Den) between features. He would sing a few songs, strum his guitar, yodel his ass off and then take the money and run. Loved him!

Louisiana Red

 

Red was a phenomenal blues guitarist and harp player. He moved to Germany in 1980, tired of all the strife and racism. He was very sensitive to discrimination and violence in America. His mother died of pneumonia during child birth and his father was lynched by the Ku Klux Klann when Red was only five years old. He carried these scars with dignity not anger and he was able to sing through his pain and suffering and really connect to his audience.  In the late fifties Red played two years  with John Lee Hooker and later in his life he guested on albums by Eric Burdon and Albert King. He gifted me his blue bottle neck tube he used to play slide guitar during his gig @ White’s Bar. He was a quiet and dignified man who was all business yet had a genuine laugh. He could stand outside his pain and enjoy life. His wife accompanied him on this trip back to Michigan. He was a beautiful man.

Johnny Bassett

 

Gentleman Johnny Bassett was a underappreciated talent. He was an extraordinary blues singer, guitarist and songwriter. For years he was primarily a session man providing his tasty licks to songs by Nolan Strong & the Diablos, The Miracles (Get a Job), and Andre Williams. He gigged with Tina Turner, Little Willie John, Dinah Washington and his good friend Alberta Adams.  A few years back Alberta performed at White’s Bar backed by RJ Spangler’s band. It was a stellar performance. No one but me knew that before the show Johnny called the club and asked for Alberta. They talked for a few minutes and Alberta turned to me and said, “that was Johnnie, he just wanted to pay his respects.” For a brief moment I saw wistfulness in her eyes. She went back onstage and knocked us out with then real thing. When Johnnie played Whites he dressed in a full suit, immaculate. He played it sweet and righteous and the small crowd ate it up. He performed songs from his current LP Party My Blues Away including Big Boss Man, Johnnies Boogaloo and Wonderin’ Blues, Hoochie Coochie Man, Raise the Roof, Jumpin’ Blues and Born Under a Bad Sign.  Before the show we discussed Johnny's close friend Alberta Adams and his thoughtful call to her at White's just before she took the stage. In wrapping a statement around a question, Johnny said, "Alberta put on a REAL show, didn't she?" But that's the kind of man he is honorable and unassuming. Johnny Bassett played on to the wee hours long after I left
You see – he was a man of his word, a man of integrity who has been around long enough to take the bad with the good and still have a twinkle in his eye. In our phone conversations and negotiations for the gig, we addressed each other formally, respectfully - Mr. White and Mr. Bassett . Here's to you Mr. Bassett...it was truly an honor

 

 

 

 

2012 Music; The Year In Review

                                                                  

                                                                   

2012

 The Year in Music

It was a fertile year for music as aging sixties icons resurrected themselves, recorded new music and toured. The list includes the Beach Boys triumphant yet acrimonious tour that included their resident tortured genius Brian Wilson and singer/guitarist Al Jardine. The Rolling Stones rolled out several concerts in preparation for 50th anniversary tour. The concert for Sandy raised millions for the Robin Hood Relief Fund to help those ravaged areas from the Jersey shore to New York and Connecticut. Paul McCartney, The Who, Bon Jovi, the Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton and Roger Walters performed in a top heavy assemblage of artists from British Invasion era. Mick Jagger joked, “This has got to be the largest collection of old English musicians ever assembled in Madison Square Garden.” Perhaps it’s a last gasp of our fading heroes but it feels good that they are all still performing. If they are still relevant maybe we are too.

Cher Lloyd’s Want You Back, Carly Rae Jepson’s Call Me Maybe and Katy Perry’s Firework are my guilty pleasures. The energy and spunk in these golden chestnuts just blows me away. I saw Jepson perform on Jimmy Fallon’s late night show and it really got me to sit up and take notice. It was an unplugged performance with nice syncopated percussion from several black artists standing behind Jepson and Fallon who were seated in front, trading off vocals. This girl had talent and a sly tongue-in-cheek humor, almost self-deprecating yet decidedly confident. It was an epiphany; goodtime music with a crooked smile.

Box sets are all the rage and several are available for the Christmas season including pricey career spanning discs by the Beatles (a gorgeous vinyl collection; a steal @ $349 for Beatles completest), Blue Oyster Cult, Roxy Music, Judas Priest, Paul Simon, Peter Gabriel and Heart. The Kinks released a glorious 6 disc set from their live BBC recordings – a must for any serious anglophile.

 I’m more interested in our local music. There is a rich store of releases in the past year including American Underdog, the Tosspints, Brother Smokes, Whaler, Brody & the Busch Rd Trio, Zig Zeitler, Jeff Schrems, Mode , Gutbucket, Lavel Jackson, the 25 Cent Beer Band, Keef Courage and Chase Engel. Buy Local! Shop at Records and Tapes Galore at 1303 Court Street. Bill & Judy Wegner have thousands of vinyl LPs and CDs and if they don’t have it in stock, they’ll find it for you. They are knowledgeable about music and support the local musicians in the Great Lakes Bay Region and beyond. You can call them @ 989-793-1777.

It’s been quite a roller coaster ride for live music in the Great Lakes Bay Region of Michigan. The mighty Maybe August hung it up, Sprout went on hiatus and Thick As Thieves released a spectacular CD, had a party and vanished in thin air. Months later they resurfaced as a UFO sighting. Truth be told Kyle and the crew were just laying back diggin’ the California sunshine and losing momentum. We also lost the Honky Tonk Zeros, Rustbucket, The Bearinger Boys and Sinister Footwear.  We lost a lot of great music, brother. But here’s the rub, despite the loss of population, venues and bands we still had a ton of great music from Jazz and rock to blues and country. Mike Brush is still on his game. Eric Johnson and his daughter Shannon are making a name for themselves with their great singing and rootsy music. Mel sings You Don’t Own Me to Jekel and he just nods and says “merica”, whatever that means. Tom Dolson and Duane Miller have been resurrected by Andrew Kitzman’s spark. He’s a force to be reckoned like a thoroughbred race horse with a fine lineage. You better bet on him. Jim Perkins is a Phoenix rising from the ashes, Eastside Mike and Zig Zeitler remind me why I love music some much. Dave Asher is a true believer and a spiritual force that has touched the lives of both fans and fellow musicians. I cannot imagine our music scene without his benign presence.  I’m a fan of metal because it reminds me of Iggy & the Stooges, a band I grew up with in the late sixties but never really appreciated…until now. I love Tension Head, Hokori, Spork, All For the Cause, 2^nd System, Failed Society, and all the other true believers. Keep on keeping on.

 There are several clubs providing stages to our bands. Here’s a shout out to the Hamilton Street Pub, Bemos, Grand Central, Tiz-its, Old City Hall, Prime Event Center, Jamestown Hall, Gabby’s Pub & Grill, Coty’s Landing, Baywood Lounge The Log Cabin, Castaways and White’s Bar. It’s a tough line of work and it doesn’t always pay due to over-regulation, taxes, insurances and punitive fees from ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC.  Let’s join together and support each other. It’s about time!

Andy Reed continues to astound me with his baroque pop masterpieces and with his ability as a producer to get the most out the artists he produces. Listen to his seemingly effortless craft with such great new bands as Brody & the Busch Rd Trio, Mode and Big Brother Smokes as well as local icons like Verve Pipe, Bryan Rombalski, Banana Convention, Laurie Middlebrook, The Tosspints, Scott Baker and Lavel Jackson. Reed is the gold standard for keeping music alive. There is richness and diversity in our music scene even as our society crumbles around us and our government becomes more ruthless in savaging our rights. We need music, poetry and the arts to comfort each other, to learn the truth and to survive.

Music is the food of love. Join me in the feast

Andy Reed is my pick as artist of the Year. He has been selfless in his promotion of excellence and the search for beauty and truth in the music he creates.

There once was a note pure & easy                                                                                Playing so free like a breath rippling by

-         Pete Townsend

Al Hellus Remembered

                                                   

This is a photo of the Plastic Haiku Band. It was the brainchild of Al Hellus, a gifted poet and Bruce Crawley, an incredible bassist/arranger. They teamed with some of the best musicians in mid-Michigan including Mike Brush (keyboards), Shabazz (percussion), John Rickert (horn & vocals), & Tony Ioppollo (drums). They recorded a show @ Delta College in 1998. It was spectacular! My favorite Hellus composition is Dead Dogs & Dope. Hellus shook me up every time I heard him unleash it. This was an epic song that was hilarious yet had a deeper message – a perfect example of Kidding on the Square. I’m forever grateful to Al & Bruce for championing original music and creating a jazz-based genre that was accessible to the masses. He was truly a local gem. Al brought M.L. Liebler to White’s Bar which led to appearances by Country Joe McDonald and John Sinclair. Al & Bruce are gone now but they will not be forgotten by anyone who tuned into our local music scene in the past twenty years. All Hail to the Plastic Haiku Band, one of Saginaw’s lost treasures.

John Sinclair Live @ White's Bar November 3rd 2012

John Sinclair Interview by Bo White

Responses @ 420 Café, Amsterdam, February 7, 2011

John will be performing @ White’s Bar Saturday November 3rd with the legendary Blues Creators.  Sinclair’s DVD Twenty To Life will be screened throughout the evening

“To be literate in today's world is a political statement."

  - John Sinclair

John Sinclair

Affiant Sayeth Not

At 69 years of age John Sinclair shows no signs of slowing down. Besides touring the world with a loose and ever changing aggregation of Blues Scholars , Jazz masters and Rock & Rollers, Sinclair continues to release CDs, books, articles and programs and produces podcasts and internet radio programs. John has performed in Saginaw several times and possesses a historic grasp of Michigan culture from an international perspective. Sinclair is a sweet man of peace who is also a realist. From his early days at Trans Love commune, managing the MC5 and befriending John Lennon, Sinclair has kept his hand on the pulse of our crumbling empire. He is quick to point out that that America, like ancient Rome, has lost sight of its democratic principles and given the ruling class carte blanche to rob our coffers. He is also a man of the earth, a happy and contented grandfather who values love and friendship above all else

 John – what have you been up to since 20 to Life was released?

The film was released in 2007 and quickly faded into media oblivion. Since then I have continued my travels, performing around the USA and in London, Amsterdam, Paris, Genoa, Rome, Santiago, Tokyo, Seville, Barcelona, Madrid and wherever they will have me. I’m based in Amsterdam and London when I’m not in Detroit, where I just completed a two-year Poet in Residence term at the Bohemian National Home and am now based at the Trans-Love Energies Compassionate Care Center at 1486 Gratiot in Detroit. I now write a bi-weekly column for the Detroit Metro Times called HIGHER GROUND.

 It must have stirred up renewed interest in your life and times?

Not so much. The filmmaker made a bad deal to get it completed and the distribution was a big let-down, plus there were no theatrical screenings & very few festival screenings, so not much notice was attracted to the film nor, by extension, to myself.

Have you released any new music, poetry or writings?

As a performer I continue to work with diverse bands in Amsterdam, London, New York City, Detroit, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and Mississippi. Some of them play my arrangements, some improvise jazz to my texts, some play straight-out blues to my poems. In the past three years I’ve performed in ensembles with David Kimbrough, Afrissippi, the Black Crowes, Marshall Allen, Elliott Levin, Daniel Carter, Ras Moshe, Sabeer Mateen, 101 Runners, Pinkeye Orchestra, Planet D Nonet, Carlo Ditta, Dr. Prof. Barry Kaiser, Tom Worrell, Vincente Pino, Leslie Lopez, Steve Fly, the Dirty Strangers, Gary Lammin, Charles Shaar Murray, Jair-Rohm Parker Wells, Primal Scream, DKT/MC5, Youth, Mark Ritsema, Angelo Olivieri, Raskolnikov, and people I can’t even remember right now. I have bands of Blues Scholars in Amsterdam, Detroit, Los Angeles, and Oxford, Mississippi.

I’ve issued two books—IT’S ALL GOOD: A JOHN SINCLAIR READER and SUN RA INTERVIEWS & ESSAYS with Headpress in London. SUN RA has just been translated into Spanish and issued by Libertos Editorial. My “underground classic” book, GUITAR ARMY, was reissued in a 35^th anniversary edition by Feral House/Process Books in 2007 and has been translated now into Italian, Spanish and French. BookBeat in Detroit will be bringing out my poetry & prose collection SONG OF PRAISE: HOMAGE TO JOHN COLTRANE, and Ecstatic Peace Press is planning to issue the completed first half of my Monk work in verse, always know: a book of monk. And Dotty Oliver in Little Rock is publishing my New Orleans prose collection, MARDI GRAS TO THE WORLD, later this year.

I’ve issued three CDs since 2007—TEARING DOWN THE SHRINE OF TRUTH & BEAUTY with the Pinkeye Orchestra (LocoGnosis Records); DETROIT LIFE with the Motor City Blues Scholars (No Cover Records); and VIPER MADNESS with the Planet D Nonet (No Cover). My new record is called LET’S GO GET ‘EM by John Sinclair & His International Blues Scholars and will be released by No Cover in March, and I’m just now completing a new album project with a producer in London known as Youth that I’m calling BEATNIK YOUTH.

I’ve also completed a work begun in 1982: a book of blues verse titled FATTENING FROGS FOR SNAKES that’s in four sections, each one set to music and recorded with a different ensemble in New Orleans, Detroit, Oxford and Clarksville, Mississippi. I’m assembling the package into a box set as we speak

 Are you still involved in radio? Do you see radio as an effective medium to get your message and your poetry and music to a wider audience?

I also program & produce regular podcasts for two internet radio stations, Radio Free Amsterdam and Detroit Life Radio, including weekly installments of the John Sinclair Radio Show, Sinclair On The Air and Jazz from the Hempshopper. I also collect and edit for broadcast blues & jazz programs by deejays present & past that I enjoy. I post one one-hour program each day on each of the two stations.

 With the advent of file sharing do you see a shift in the relationship between record companies and artists like yourself?

Yes: basically there is none in terms of what used to be, i.e., with the possibility of getting paid. My best experience is to be able to make the records and get someone to press some of them at no cost to myself.

Last time we talked you seemed to paint a bleak picture of our future based on the ascendance of powerful business-led coalitions and the financial Institutions that control our government. In the past year Matt Taibbi, a contributing editor to Rolling Stone Magazine, has written several articles and a book Griftopia that has exposed Wall Street’s culpability in destroying America from within. Are you familiar with Taibbi’s work? Why aren’t people in an uproar over the theft of our country? 

That’s a question I’m unable to answer. I know exactly how fucked up this country is, but the white people love it this way and they won’t change for anything.

You had a bleak outlook on Detroit's recovery in the BBC documentary Requiem for Detroit. Do you still feel there is no hope for Detroit and other cities that were built on the auto industry?

I don’t know about the other ones, but Detroit is not going to come back. It’s over. What becomes of the fabulous ruins of Detroit may be something interesting but it will not be economically viable again.

 What keeps bringing you back to Michigan?

I have a beloved daughter & granddaughter in Detroit and hundreds of friends made over the past 50 years. My estranged wife Penny Sinclair lives in Detroit and I like to see her when I can. Also, I can work in and around Detroit and use it as a base to tour different parts of the country and make enough dollars to maintain my very frugal lifestyle while I’m in Amsterdam & London.

 What role could music/poetry play in the recovery of Michigan….the country? Are established artists important to our culture? Should they look for success elsewhere? Can our artists, poets and musicians be heard over the din of mass produced and disposable music that dominates the corporate airwaves?

No.

Over the past ten years, Europe has shown an interest in the downfall of Detroit and the auto industry. Documentaries have been filmed, photographers have come to document the urban decay. Do you feel that their interest is based in aesthetics, or are they sincerely concerned with what seems to be the end of an era? Are they infatuated or concerned?

(A) Aesthetics. (B) They are documentarians.

Do you keep in touch with any of your friends from the days of the MC5 and Trans Love?

Yes. An astonishing number of us are still alive, although we’ve recently lost people like James Semark of the Artists Workshop, Stanley the Mad Hatter of the Grande. Eastown and Second Chance Ballrooms, Bruce Cohen and others. I consider Wayne Kramer of the MC5 one of my closest friends, ditto for Charles Moore of the Detroit Artists Workshop, Pun Plamondon of the White Panther Party, Marton Gross and Johnny Evans of the Urbations, Cary Loren of Destroy All Monsters, and many others whom I see in Michigan and around the country on my travels.

 Do you see any signs that our counter culture/peace movement is growing and establishing a wider base of support?

No.

 Do you still collaborate with your ex-wife Leni?

I remain a terrific fan of her photography and often recommend her work to people publishing various projects of mine.

Any last comments?

I’m happy to be alive in an old age I never anticipated nor expected, I’m ecstatic to be a grandfather, I only do the things I want to do and don’t do the things I don’t want to do, I’m borne along in life by my hundreds of friends all over the western world and generally speaking I’m happy as a clam. Further, Affiant sayeth not.

Louder Than Love

Hell’s Half Mile Film Fest

10/7/12

The State Theatre

This is a film that has gone places, it’s got legs and a lot of mile sand even more accolades. It’s been to Detroit, Chicago, Traverse City, Las Vegas, Ann Arbor, Nashville and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Now it’s been to the jewel of Bay City, the legendary State Theatre. The modest turnout was no doubt due to it being on a Sunday evening near dusk. The director Tony D’Annunzio was missing in action having been called back to his day job covering the Detroit Tigers playoff games. It’s tough living a dream when you need to make a buck. There were a few folks in attendance that had actually attended shows at the Grande Ballroom. I was not part of that memory elite though I was able to brag to no one in particular that I did trek down to the East Town Theatre in 1970/71. It was located on the corner of Harper & Van Dyke, lovely neighborhood…for crime, dope, random hijinks and other high crimes and misdemeanors. I saw the Kinks (twice), the Rascals, Bob Seger, Steve Harley & the Cockney Rebel, Rita Coolidge and a few others.

We settled in and looked around at each other. Hmm, there were some old timers here for sure, those long-in-tooth sixty somethings like me but there was a good mix of other generations. I had an impulse to jump up and disavow any connection to those old farts but I just sat quietly. I didn’t have the gumption or energy to reveal how stupidly vainglorious I could be. All things considered the next two hours was one helluva roller coaster ride. The story was well paced and the rhythm of the images on screen kept me on the edge of my seat, wanting more. The audience seemed to be as one; a psychedelic protoplasm with a shared vision of a moment in time when life was fresh and new sounds were alerting our minds and bodies of another world. We were witness to a film that helped document an era of great music, sexual freedom, and political activism. Louder Than Love was able to capture the camaraderie of young people exploring an alternate life style. I was enthralled by the images portrayed in this historic film.  It can never be repeated

The story begins with a televised address by LBJ declaring a State of Emergency and scenes of Detroit engulfed in fire, a raging inferno that captured the rage of its forgotten residents. The year was 1967 and the riots had started. There was fire everywhere, looting, violence and police brutality. One young black man was asked why he didn’t torch the Grande Ballroom. His response was simple and direct, “we didn’t burn the Grande ‘cos they have music there, man.” Rock & Roll Music, the old chestnut by Dick Wagner & the Frost was the first song of a twenty song soundtrack that accompanied all those glorious images. There were period photographs, music and footage of live performances as well as current interviews with the musicians such as Roger Daltry (the Who), Wayne Kramer and Machine Gun Thompson (the Mc5), Dick Wagner (the Frost), Ted Nugent (The Amboy Dukes), John Sinclair, Alice Cooper and others.

Russ Gibb, a former school teacher, got the idea for the Grande after a trip to the West Coast where he met Bill Graham and visited the Fillmore West. The Byrds were playing that night and there was a psychedelic light show. It was truly an eye opener for the somewhat parochial Gibb. The music was too loud. Everything was wrong. But it was alive and real. Freedom of expression, alternate lifestyles and the incredible music co-existed in total harmony. He brought the Fillmore to Detroit and put his own stamp on it – thanks to the influences of John Sinclair, The Fifth Estate (alternate newspaper) and the counterculture that swirled around them. Before the Grande the only music you heard in Detroit was the symphony. The balance was changing like a runaway avalanche. It was vital but for only a short time 1966-70. John Sinclair developed an alternate community at Wayne State before moving to Ann Arbor. Sinclair explained (tongue-in-cheek but profoundly accurate and honest), “It was the only place for people to come and enjoy themselves. We were weirdos with long hair and we would listen to blues and jazz all the time. This was the only place to experience psychedelia except for San Francisco.”

It was also apparent that the war raging in Vietnam gave kids the idea that you might not be able to trust the government. Wayne Kramer honed in on the connections between love, sex and also thoughts and convictions. “It was part of Detroit’s industrial consciousness. We work hard; we play hard. The music rocked HARD. The Grande was the Petri dish.”

John  Sinclair gave credit where credit was due;

”Bob Seger’s Heavy Music - that is what Detroit is all about, Rob Tyner was a visionary, a genius.”  Sinclair picked the NMc5 for the Grande. They were the first band to play the Grande and the Last. They had a sheet of sound that signaled to Grande folks to march in the streets and get political. Music, art and politics were equal. The music was the pearls that held it together. It happened for the good of the world.”

For many the Grande was the Holy Grail. Everyone wanted to play there. The Who performed Tommy for the first time in America at the Grande. In an unexpected moment of truth, their road manager Tom Wright was offered a job managing the Grande. When Wright took the job, the Who thought he moved up, far surpassing them. Hell, the Who wanted to work for the Grande too! They had never seen such a responsive crowd that actually knew the lyrics to their somewhat obscure deep album cuts.

The Grande was a supercharged sensory overloaded environment with peculiar sights and sounds that promised every Dionysian delight this side of paradise. The music and light show were a pure psychedelic aphrodisiac. It was freedom without violence. Wayne Kramer put it perfectly,”There was no violence, just a lot of loving – it was sexy.”

Louder than Love: The Grande Ballroom Story is more than a movie. It is an historic document about a time and place that no longer exists. It is the soundtrack for a cultural zeitgeist in America that lasted for only a brief candle of time. It needs to be preserved. For Tony D’Annunzio, It was a labor of love. There was no guaranteed pay off or possibility of fame and notoriety. It is heartening to see a great movie that deserves the accolades given. It was lovingly directed and produced by Tony D’Annunzio and expertly edited by Karl Rausch. A great team

 

Before the Grande the only music you heard in Detroit was the symphony. The Grande is gone; the symphony’s still here. There is room for both. If only…

Peace

Bo White

 

 

                                                         

John Sinclair Live @ White's Bar

John Sinclair is an historical figure in the counterculture of America. He was the founder of the White Panther Party in the mid-sixties and established a political and communal base in Detroit and Ann Arbor through Trans Love Energies. It was a magnet for musicians, poets, and freethinkers. He was largely responsible for the success of MC5and their four year residency @ the Grande Ballroom.

John grew up with a deep and abiding love for Jazz and Blues and has toured the world performing his poetry with the backing of a loose and ever changing aggregation of top flight musicians. John has performed @ White’s Bar several times in the past 10 years and will grace our stage on Saturday November 3^rd @ 6:30pm for a night of music, poetry and storytelling. He is a gentle man of peace and has seen the dark side of freedom when oppression ruled the day. He is a visionary who speaks the truth – clearly, with just a hint of anger and a weary shrug.