Otis Redding These Arms of Mine

The long drive from Atlanta past fields of sprawling kudzu and fog-shrouded back-ways was the perfect way to decompress after a long night playing on the funk side of town. Radio was the best company a carload of musicians could ask for too free the mind of set lists and missed opportunities with local groupies. No time for a sleep-over or three dollar T- bone steak.

“These arms of mine, they are lonely, lonely and feeling blue. These arms of mine, they are yearning, yearning from wanting you - and if you would let them hold you, oh, how grateful I will be.” The radio spoke.

The crippled station wagon took on road dust and patches of red clay packed beneath a decaying chasse -the windshield; a graveyard for suicidal beetles, palmetto bugs, wasp and grasshoppers.  Sleeping branches of tall Georgia pines hovered above as mockingbirds eye-balled and serenade all night-runners. The next town only 225 miles away would arrive just past noon. The day ahead was scheduled to accommodate a stopover at one of those WLAC kinds of stations – you never remembered the exact call letters. You just knew it was the only one clear signal enough to hear the kind of music you were playing and a DJ would be yelping like he was riding a amphetamine high - the other alternative; a tiresome basement minister with a transmitter and bad case of insomnia preaching to the open spaces and passing cars Jesus’ sacred rules; how to ward off imagined demons.

“Don’t forget tonight at Round Hall – The Mob – big funky rhythm machine from Chicago - $5 off if you bring a date, says the veteran. “Satan will boil you in blood water and dump you in a purgatory cell if you don’t repent and come to the Lord now,” says the lesser known.

"These arms of mine, they are burning, burning from wanting you. These arms of mine, they are wanting, wanting to hold you.” Back with more Otis Redding in a moment, says the DJ – the lone voice in the dark, humid landscape – now a band member.
As the band travels on - there’s no place to relieve oneself other than a roadside pullover and step into bush. Nothing rural sleeps at night except adults and small children – the rest of the landscape is busy hunting down a meal.

It’s now three in the morning and Otis Redding is in repeat cycle. The DJ’s words linger on and on.

“A son of a preacher man born of hard Georgia soil, did you know young Otis ran his bare feet through these woodlands surrounded by copperheads, diamondbacks and coral snakes- spiders the size of small animals. There you have it one solid hour of Dawson, Georgia’s own – Otis Redding, born 1941 right down here where the smokehouse hams it up and bird hounds chase peasant for sport. This is Captain Ray Williams WXBX signing off. We’ll be back on the air in three hours with the farm report.”

How many miles did the sax player riding shotgun watch the white dividing line lead to the last exit? How many miles did the sleep deprived players soak up every busted vowel and mournful plea from Otis Redding? Those lovesick phrases and bent notes stretch as far as the distant horizon.

Otis sang mostly to women and didn’t beg for love; he demanded it. Not that wimpy falsetto stuff bad singers employ today – all girly tones - but in a big bold macho style. “You are now mine, let me take you home, hold you, protect you and make eternal love.” Few knew he was a young father and a serious businessman in transition.

While onstage; women screamed, waved for his attention. Otis would take a bold defensive football stance as if he was about to block the opposition; hold steady, then sing from the bottoms of his feet. The voice was virile, masculine, demanding and magnificent – all Baptist and Pentecostal.

Otis’s dad was a minister – in fact the Redding family were many things.

Otis left home at 15 to support his family working with Little Richard. Richard’s own road show was more holy-roller than mainstream rock and roll. Otis absorbed Richard’s forceful singing. Hard on the top beat and minister to the message.   He knew his style cut through all the soft white boy radio tunes and aroused the bones of those who wanted to lose themselves in dance.

Young Redding worked as a well digger, gas station attendant, played a bit of piano and guitar – whatever it took to take care of the family. Otis’s dad suffered from tuberculosis. In 1958, he ran a string of 15 victorious weeks in a singing contest at the Roxy and Douglas Theaters collecting $5 a clip. He knew then he had star power. He toured the Southern United States playing the Chitlin’ circuit – the only venues a person of color could freely exercise their craft.

There were many bands, sojourns and even a marriage at age 19, to 15 year old Zelma Atwood at “The Teenage Party.” Redding would eventually meet producer Phil Walden and Bobby Smith who would sign him to Confederate Records - the other notable on the label Florida; white soul singer Wayne Cochran. Walden signed on in 1959 to manage Redding’s affairs; later guide the careers of soul singers Al Green and Sam and Dave, and launch the Southern blues/rock unit the Allman Brothers.

In 1962 Atlantic Records Joe Galkin through his connection to Walden sent Redding to a Stax studio in Memphis. Booker T. & the MGs performed on the session that produced two songs – the long forgotten ‘Hey, Hey, Baby,’ which studio chief Jimmy Stewart said sounded too much like Little Richard and “These Arms of Mine,” that would eventually chart and sell over 800,000 copies – Otis first hit recording. Otis and ballads were on the move.

Redding would compress an astonishing career into the next five years before dying in a plane crash. December 10, 1967 in the afternoon, the plane carrying Otis Redding, his valet, and a number of his backing band - the Bar-Kays crashed into the frigid waters of the Squaw Bay area of Lake Monona, just outside of Madison, Wisconsin. Word of his sudden death at 27 came as a severe blow to the music world and his millions of followers.

“Pain in My Heart, Tramp, Sitting on the Dock of the Bay, I Can’t Turn You Loose, Satisfaction, Try A Little Tenderness, I’ve Been Loving You Too Long , Respect, Mr. Pitiful, Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa (Sad Song), Shake”; all played like an endless loop on prime time radio. Redding’s ‘Dock of the Bay’ record became the first posthumous number one hit on both the Billboard Top 100 and R&B charts.

That road band eventually pulled into the next town, set up and played four sets of Otis, Wilson Pickett, Willie Mitchell, Ike and Tina, some Little Richard, Bobby ‘Blue’ Bland, Lowell Fulsom and the rest – after the gig - most sleeping in the same seats they traveled in. That’s how it was following the hit makers and playing the hits of the makers. If you didn’t write them – you played them six nights a week – twelve months a year. Then it was over.

With trailer packed and all accounted for and another a hundred and eleven miles before Tallahassee, the players fall back into a radio trance; only the drummer mumbling nonsense about some honey left behind he’d marry if time permitted.

The deafening sound of courting cicadas’ causes’ front and back windows roll up tight – speed limit 60 mph.

“Tramp!
What you call me?
Tramp.
You didn't!
You don't wear continental clothes, or Stetson hats.
Well I tell you one dog-gone thing. It makes me feel good to know one thing. I know I'm a lover.
Matter of opinion.
That's all right, Mama was. Papa too. And I'm the only child. Lovin' is all I know to do.
You know what, Otis?
What?
You're country.
That's all right.
You straight from the Georgia woods.”

Can I get a witness?

 

Elvis Presley Love Me Tender!

You had to be around to witness the insanity. Television was relative new to most households with NBCs Dave Garroway (1952-1961) holding court mornings on the Today Show and Ed Sullivan Sunday nights. There was something simple about life in the ‘50s, although if you step away a lot more complex than remembered.

 Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn were the dream parents and often assumed the perfect marriage. A drive to a greasy burger stand would find you waving at the occasional passing vehicle. Everyone went to church – some devout, others on business. School was in walking distance and summers long and hot - time enough to grow an inch or two.

 Elvis Presley began his career in 1954 under the guidance of famed Memphis record mogul Sam Phillips. Presley had the sweet-sounding church tenor you’d hear above all the heavy baritones that would rumble-turn like dying steam locomotives. You couldn’t make out the Christian words because men just didn’t know them – they stood and honked along as women clarified.

 Elvis was a singing angel.

 Black and white news was polar opposites. Hard news carried the daily sit-ins, civil rights marches, the murders, intruders –drowning; local news – knitting circles and farm reports – the occasional obituary.

 Patti Page, Perry Como played endlessly. The Yankees ran a string of World Series triumphs – Mickey Mantle was God number two.

 Most mornings, a few blocks from my bedroom window, you could smell sun-baked roughage flowing down the Ohio – the stench of cooking Jack Daniels, the odor of baking Wonder Bread, and witness piles of tortured driftwood catch shoreline near the falls across the river from Louisville, Kentucky.

 Then one day life-monotony was interrupted – “Heartbreak Hotel,” by this young singing sensation far-south pushed Nat Cole, Patti Page and Perry Como to the sidelines and everyone was talking. Who is this guy Elvis? What kind of name is that? Men laughed, women gossiped and teenagers rage-worshiped. Everyone had an opinion and everyone watched.

 Good church folks are always the first to condemn. It seems whenever there’s change, those in the “Jesus know” have to operate fast; judge and condemn. Oh my, those fire breathing evangelists were everywhere.”Take those Elvis records to the dump and burn – or we should do it in the church parking lot and make an offering to our Lord, Jesus Christ.” Most men just scratched their skulls, talked and laughed – to them this was just a silly boy whose popularity would soon pass like that silly Davy Crockett ‘Alamo’ record.

 Girls fainted, boys greased up.

 That sound – that mix of country blues, gospel, and rhythm & blues hit white folks in a different way. They never bought into the rough-edged street blues of black folks with those suggestive lyrics. This new take was easy to absorb. There was a fat-back beat which rocked and swung at the same time. There were new ways to dance around that beat – you just had to invent or wait to see what Philly was doing on the dance floor and adapt.

 Elvis was the chief salesman; sweet-faced, soft spoken, humble, and thoughtful – a boy every momma would love to nurture and marry off.

 Small town America loved his radical side but had to get past the sex part. You knew everyone was doing it because babies kept coming like they’d been assembly line produced direct to homes; yet talk of such things attracted morbid guilt. I mean Playboy Magazine was around but mostly read in the fields back of barnyards, men’s washrooms or frat parties. There were a few liberal leaning families in a community where the man of the house proudly displayed in his private man cave.

 Elvis was big talk in our house. Pops called him a three-chord wonder.

 Dad owned a guitar but could never wrap his head around a seventh-chord besides he knew jazz great Jimmy Raney and there was no way this new music would rival his sacred jazz God.

 I had no opinion – just too young and mostly trapped by spirituals. Grandma looked after us during daytime and mostly played upright piano and sang about Jesus. I’d occasionally slip my hands under her fingers and weasel a few bars of ‘Chopsticks.’

 One day the big announcement arrived – Love Me Tender Elvis’s film debut was coming to The Grand in New Albany, Indiana. For the life of me, I would never expect my stern dismissive parents would choose to go. That we did!

 As the curtain opened, dad mostly talked. He sounded off through the movie and glanced around at other men looking for affirmation; a laugh and a nod. Mom stayed fixated on dad. She never really watched anything but him most days. If he said – ‘that was awful – she’d respond – “that was awful.” That was what life was for women in the ‘50s.

 Love Me Tender caught fire. People went repeatedly to catch the young man seen sawed in half on Ed Sullivan Show– guitar bouncing – legs screen-amputated.

 Black and white makes every aspiring actor look credible –Elvis pulled it off. The song was so rich and gorgeous to hear in the movie theatre, young and old talked about for weeks. The local record store couldn’t keep his music in stock. Every young girl papered her bedroom with that beautiful face – boys imitated. Elvis not only conquered vinyl, he was now on a mission to claim a major roll in the celluloid world of music history.

 Love Me Tender was far different from cameo appearances of the great bands of the day – this was the beginning of mysterious brooding young lead man, who lived in the edgy world of rock & roll. Marlon Brando gave us a sample of how magnetic a young man of the time could hold our attention in The Wild One. He oozed sexuality, burned with deep passion and rebelled against the previous decades of social confinement. All Elvis had to do was find a zone between Brando and himself and James Dean and look the part on screen. James Dean struck after Brando in Rebel Without A Cause, then six years later Warren Beatty in Splendor in the Grass; all young attractive men who could sell a young audience on radical change and the discomfort of growing up in the suffocating ‘50s – and a alternative lifestyle.

 Rock n’ Roll was here to stay! The soggy sounds of yesterday seem to disappear over-night; boys toughened up, girls got all mouthy. Kids began to punk out in school. James Dean, Brando, rebellion, retaliation, uprising was playing to the same beat. Meanwhile, the young man who started it all was just a plain-old country boy who loved his mama and a good song.

 

I Woke Up This Morning...

I Woke Up This Morning...

A female friend asked me yesterday why so many men commit so much evil. I couldn't stop thinking about that.. especially with the brutal killings in the Congo, poisoned political landscape here and next door.

I think it's more about conditioning. We exist in controlled randomness .. we've learned how to corral and arrange a few things to convince ourselves of our infallibility. If men weren't a murderous lot then there would be no established enforced law followed by degrees of punishment.

I remember the indoctrination sessions at Ft. Campbell,KY - stabbing a dummy with a bayonet - yelling gooks die. To that point of my life I'd never encountered a gook and could only imagine what that meant - was it a monstrous little being with beady eyes and fangs or was it as I come to learn a peasant farmer clueless to the world beyond his rice paddy.
3,000,000 of these folks were killed defending and defeating all comers. What was gained by such monumental failure -59,000 young Americans dead, 250,000 injured - 100,000 plus suicides, living scars that deprive the soul of spiritual peace?

The male bond with insanity is repeated daily whether in the Congo or the streets of America - the boardroom or politics. You blow a person's brains out because you can. It's all about control. Money is just a bit of candy the real pay-off is control. The illusion of conquering and forcing your will on others.

I think men have never adjusted to life. It was much easier kill for survival - much more complicated after learning to garden - too resist.

I'm surrounded by plenty stable and lovely men but beyond that things get shaky. There are times I brush against the other types and it makes me uncomfortable. There's always that awareness the life we have invented and cultivate is far removed from others of our species. Far away there is a young man stuffed in a box being tortured for just being in the wrong place, saying the wrong thing or just denied membership in club humanity.

Three Faces of Eve – Joanne Woodward..

While browsing the in rack in Queen Video of recent blu rays, I come across a digitally upgraded version of the classic film; ‘Three Faces of Eve.”

Recently, I’ve been fixated with HBO, AMC, Netflix,  etc series .. any thing, thirteen episodes or more - much to do with the past three months of stiffs. Stepping away and back into black and white seemed my only option.

What a great call! I so much admire Joanne Woodward. The acting has always been grand but the real story has always been the marriage to Paul Newman.

So many times through the years I have marveled at their relationship a marriage than endured fifty years absent scandal and one of profound love and respect until his death.

Kristine and I were captivated by Woodward’s Oscar winning performance – the moments she switched between Georgia party girl, to mortally wounded, to Miss Common Sense.

Woodward was born in Georgia and at age nine attended the premiere of Gone with the Wind in Atlanta sitting in the lap of the star – Vivien Leigh for the showing.

She first met Newman in 1953 and would marry after his divorce in 1958 a year after winning the Oscar.

They would appear in eleven films together – which brings me to my point.

We couldn’t resist exploring YouTube for all things Woodward and Newman afterwards.

The two were on What’s My Line – damn, were they a joyful delight. Movies .. watching them seduce and toy with each other on set is a thousand times more powerful than today’s stripped down bodies that offer tentative shock but deliver little passion. These two had amassed so much electricity between to light cinema for decades to come.

Kris and I then watched the photo essays. My God, the moments together are extraordinary. These are two of the most captured Hollywood types on record. You could argue Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton but those aren’t images of burning long-term desire.

I was looking through the insipid celebrity photos in the morning Star and thought back to last night and the artful captures, the locations, the kisses, the sweetness, playfulness – the respect and admiration.

A great marriage has that to offer and the Newman’s understood what they had – protected and remained loyal and committed. Now, get me a Kleenex!

 

Oscar and Me

In 1962, other than a few albums, Down Beat magazine was my sole connection with the world of jazz. I purchased a subscription for an inside view of the musicians and the music they were creating. In fact, the following year a free Pacific Jazz recording of the Gil Evans Orchestra came with renewal. Those faces -- Miles, Monk, Sonny, Dizzy, Bill Evans, and my hero Oscar Peterson -- were permanent fixtures in a genre deep in superior craftsmen and staggering artistry.

While savoring an issue of Down Beat I came across an advertisement: "Win A Scholarship To Study With Oscar Peterson. “Blood soared through my arteries sending a chill the length of my body. Oscar Peterson? The fastest hands east of El Paso? The heir apparent to Art Tatum? I thought just maybe I'd be able to watch my hero play then coax him to reveal a few secrets, those which made him such a formidable pianist. There must be a jazz God! The mind began to tease. All I could imagine was my thin frame looming above Oscar's imposing presence and what seemed a 40-foot ebony grand piano with Mr. Peterson's oversized fingers striking those chords I could never stay with long enough to grasp the interior voices. I imagined saying on command,  “Freeze!” and Oscar would pause, sustain one fat 10-finger chord of sweet resonance, a sound I heard my hero play so many times before on record. He'd hesitate, then invite me to slip my fingers under his hands, time enough to commit the mysterious harmonies to manuscript.

I enlisted brother Wayne on bass and good buddy Charlie Craig on drums, recorded a demo tape then mailed it to The Advanced School of Contemporary Music, 21 Park Road, Toronto, ON Canada. Now, I wasn't ignorant of Canada like most Americans. I didn't envision a large sheet of ice transporting starving moose, forsaken trappers and disheveled penguins. In fact, quite the contrary.

When I was 12, I'd begun collecting travel brochures from around the world with just one lick of a three cent stamp, an envelope and superb coaching from National Geographic. Within months I had a box of glossy brochures from places as distant as India and New Brunswick. Canada's landscape seemed far more manicured than America's, like a place where Arnold Palmer could drive a golf ball along 3000 miles of exquisite greens, from Nova Scotia to British Columbia.

A few weeks passed before I received a Western Union Telegram announcing I'd won a partial scholarship, half tuition paid. I was gone after that. I envisioned shaking Mr. Peterson's hand and some magic current passing between us that would transform my fists into flaming fireballs.

My parents agreed to let me go, allowing me a month-long reprieve as long as I could find lodging with other Christian-minded individuals in Toronto. An elderly couple living at 11 Curie Avenue off Coxwell Avenue offered to house me for a fee. Over two years I had saved nearly $700 dollars playing the music of two Glens, Grey and Miller, with a 16-piece dance band, mostly at Catholic dances and functions. One hundred-twenty five went to the school, $120 for lodgings and $20 for my wallet. The rest remained securely in my bank account for school.

When we crossed into Canada, my father acted as if we'd entered the Twilight Zone. Cars passing at a swift tempo, and right on red totally screwed up his sense of law. Downtown Toronto, bustling with trolleys confused him so much, he vowed returning only long enough to retrieve his son. My surrogate guardians resembled an English version of Andy of Mayberry. I had my own Aunt Bea to upset. In fact, breakfast compared to something starving crows would plug their nostrils at before downing. Orange marmalade on toast and what looked like the half-baked yoke of alien fowl.

I was totally nervous the moment I entered the brick house which was school, across from where the Hudson Bay Store now resides. To me it was an address of mythic invention. This was the house where Oscar hung -- Ray Brown, Ed Thigpen and Dizzy would drop by, a place where the elite jazz community held the secret jazz codes to fluid articulate improvisation. Day one, we were separated into groups, A, B, C, and D and given a decisive ear training test. I swear, the changes went by so fast I thought I was listening to a Shostakovich symphony. It was only when a medium tempo blues rolled by that I began to identify the form. Oscar confessed the opening salvo was no more than rhythm changes. Anyway, I was only 16, the next-to-youngest body on the premises. A thorough grounding in theory earned me placement in C group.

The next few days were given to lessons in ear training and theory. Ray Brown and Ed Thigpen were constant company. I became so immersed in music I'd practice eight hour days, then drag my tired legs across town to Aunt Bea, who by now was less than enamored with my erratic schedule. I didn't see Oscar again until the second week when this navy blue Mercedes convertible pulls up. The only other juvenile on the premises (a terrific drummer from Minneapolis) and I slipped out back and examined the master's ride. We were awestruck. I'd never had seen such luxurious creamy brown leather in an automobile before, especially in southern Indiana where everyone drove Chevys and Fords. The interior looked to me like an expensive item of European furniture.

When Oscar finally arrived, a lump lodged in the pipe of my throat. I thought of all the things I wanted to say to my hero, but stood there like petrified lumber. I thought about the hours I spent locked to the charming harmonics he'd scripted for the West Side Story album. Those arrangements! I wanted to see the manuscripts. More than anything, I just wanted to see where Peterson's fingers lay when they made such glorious tones.

It wasn't long before I learned Peterson didn't teach as much as inspire. He'd play a few passages, then speak about the process. It did nothing to alleviate the frustration building in me. I had in mind a visual statement, something I could see and apply. It didn't happen. His hands were faster live than on record. What I did witness was positions. Places where thick chords began and ended.

Classes passed much the same until I trapped my hero in his ground floor office. I spoke earnestly of my admiration for him and asked for other music to enlighten the heart. Oscar graciously pulled a recording of Claire Fischer called Surging Ahead and Junior Mance's Live at The Village Gate for me to delve into. He said Mance played the blues like no other and Fischer was on to something he found riveting. That was all I needed to hear. Those few words were enough to throw me full tilt into jazz.

As the month passed I quickly ran out of my small savings and began walking the distance to and from school. Although trolley fare was no more than 14 cents, I spent my savings on restaurants, something I had little experience with in my home town. I walked the barren streets of Toronto through the folk-crazed haunts in Yorkville sipping the occasional lemonade. A vacant parking lot across the road entertained a barn-like structure I would soon learn was a popular jazz haunt called the First Floor Club. Due to strict liquor laws, the fire escape of the First Floor Club was the only vantage point I was allowed a view of the world inside a Canadian jazz club. One glorious evening I peered through an open window for hours watching pianist Lennie Tristano serve up what seemed to me Bach playing jazz, on the metal staircase. Another Sunday afternoon I slipped in for a jam session with Archie Alleyne and Kenny Baldwin only to be tossed half-way through the opening strains of some unidentified song.

I lived and loved jazz. I also relished my third floor private study where Ray Brown would unexpectedly invade with his bass and try his best to confine my hands to the middle section of the keyboard, in an effort to correct my scattershot tendencies. Brown knew I was searching for the mysterious sounds the great one kept inside and it was only a matter of time before I cracked the code. Brown's patience and advice paid off. By the time I left there I was hearing intervals and harmonies I'd never understood before.

It's been 37 years since I lived such a carefree summer but the memories remain as vivid as daily life. I've mentioned it to Oscar on a couple occasions and to Ray Brown, who first mumbled and then sipped from a drink. Before I walked away he said "What did they call you back then?" I said, "Louisville." Brown paused then said, "I remember you, you don't look the same." I hope not. Back then I was a borderline nerdball like most other teenage musicians, living and breathing music and just finding my way in the big city, one that now seems more like a village. All the same, it was a childhood dream, one fully realized. A real hero, and a real believer.

 

 

Reggie Bovaird – From Elmo to Elfish

The passing of big Reg came as both a surprise and the feeling some things are inevitable.

Reg and I were long time friends dating back to the Nickelodeon days when I was nearly tossed for wearing a tank top and jeans. Reg interceded and told everyone lay-off – this is Bill King ‘Superdad’ – borrowed from my 1972 Capital Records session, ‘ Goodbye Superdad’ – a fairly simplistic take on the antics of G. Gordon Liddy of Watergate fame. From that encounter our lives were entwined the next few decades.

Reg pulled me in for Frank Zappa hang at Nickelodeon – George Duke on hand – the Dylan drop by. He’d payphone call and say, “ Get your ass down here, it’s big.”

When Reg jumped to the Elmo the next three years were a blur of music, pot and hilarity.

Reg would come down to the band's dressing room before performance and remind us it was stage time, pull out a joint and prep the band. There were a couple posts bound by dry wall with holes in them where we’d deposit the roaches. Every band did this. A decade later while playing with my reggae band we ripped apart in a moment of desperation and a pile coming flowing out like a river of shit. We rolled and smoked and nothing happen only lung burn.

I got into to hanging at Reg’s hippie pad directly across from the Elmo. Reg had original San Francisco posters of the Airplane, Janis Joplin, Quicksilver Messenger Service – the history of a generation reviving Haight Asbury. He was a collector and custodian of the times.

Reg survived selling pot. He was the music man’s broker. We all dropped by get high and listened to great sides – talked shit and slithered along Spadina sucking up Vietnamese cuisine. Reg was my listening post. Anytime I recorded a side or two, I’d head over to Reg's, inhale and we’d review listen. He’d state his mind. All good.

By 1976, I was on my way to California missing the insanity around the Rolling Stones. I knew this must have been the big pay day for the club. I had no idea how this event would radically change the club.

One of my last gigs in 70’s was playing downstairs below Buddy Guy. Reg dropped by the keyboards and told me Buddy  wanted to meet the bass player. I had no idea who he was talking about. A set passes and Reg is back – Buddy wants to meet the bass player. I tell Reg – do you see one on stage. This was when I was rigged up with a small Korg two octave syth on top of my clavinet C. Eventually, Guy and band come down with Reg and walk over, ‘Who’s the motherfucker on bass?” I raise my hand – “Are you shitting me – that’s your bass?” I explained to him about the syth and he says – ‘that shit come up through the floor and up through my feet – you one bad dude.” Reg looked at me and said – I told you.

Those encounters weren’t uncommon around Reg. He made everyone a member of the team beloved and comfortable. I never saw him fight only resolve a crisis.

Eventually, we lost track of each other when he hibernated somewhere in the jungles of Costa Rica. I had no idea at the time he was fucking himself up.

One day he returns and calls. He temporarily moved in with his brother then on to a small room in an old nun’s quarters in High Park.

I visit and cop some weed and listen to more music. Reg was set up like he liked it – a bed, a couple young girls, bag of weed and whatever and now Elfish.

Where the hell did that come from?

This was one of those fabricated long convoluted stories about Elvis being on a boat and falling in the ocean and returns as Reg the Elfish. Reg even had a papier-mâché headdress made for the show with bat cape.

By now folks are starting to question my man’s sanity. The telephone conversations got longer and more bizarre, coming at all hours.

Reg had three large garbage bags nearby busting at the seams. I asked – 'why don’t you throw your trash out' of which he responded, 'those are my losing lotto slips. I keep them to remind me how much coin I’ve dropped down the drain.'

Not long after, Reg showed me his poetry which was shaping up nicely, in fact, he'd call most nights and update. He wanted me to record background music. That I did and he eventually got his recording out and began performing. Yet, through all the positives the late night calls were becoming more incoherent and intolerable at times. We were now getting into the, ‘I need help zone. ‘

Friends and acquaintances offered help and advice but without solid intervention and willingness, the train wouldn't stop until derailed. That happened with his first bout of cancer.

When Reg’s death was announced the other day it came as an awakening too all – the good times as we knew then were gone. The sound of the Elmo pinball machine, Reg’s long curly ponytail, the oversized man with a big heart and laugh was silenced.

When you look back on people’s lives even the most troubled it truly is the times they were the big spirit in the room and covered the surface with love and kindness we always remember. I don’t count that Elfish nonsense as part of the real story. It’s what happened between sets at the Elmo – it’s Mingus, Ramsey Lewis, Sonny Rollins, Grover Washington Jr.,U2, The Police, Elvis Costello, The Ramones, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Jimi Hendrix, Downchild Blues Band, Roomful of Blues – need I say even Peter Allen. How about National Lampoon with Gilda Radner, Bill Murray, John Belushi. Everyone one of the folks was graced with Reg’s attention, kindness and goodness. So be it!

New France Festival 2013 (A Camera's View)

Travel photography is all about finding unique situations – the view from above, the close-up in a crowd – an unexpected portrait – movement, light, detail. All came in play at the 2013 edition of the popular New France Festival in old Quebec City.

The city was momentarily costumed in its 17^th and 18^th century roots with concerts, parades, dress, food and beverage. The streets overflowed in historic merriment all in centuries old tradition.

It began at the Port of Quebec with the off landing of the L’Aigle d’Or which carried with it 36 women known as the ‘King’s Daughter’s’ sponsored by Louis XIV. In fact, this year's theme was built around the impactful event (1663-73). In total 800 women made the voyage.

These were pioneering young maidens sent from France some 350 years ago to populate New France. They were drawn from overflowing Catholic orphanages; women as young as thirteen years of age. All were rewarded with a dowry and potential spouses. There was a brief  time allotted to either accept or seek another male partner. If a mate was not found acceptable life was served in a convent.

To Our Heroines was a fitting tribute to the women who made the near impossible journey, survived the harsh winter climate and with great strength and resilience are the foundation and legacy which nurtures contemporary Quebec.

No province stands as dissimilar to the rest of Canada as Quebec. The province addresses  heritage and culture with great compassion and commitment without being the unwanted quest in the room. It’s been a long battle to preserve language, culture and identity; all worth the struggle.

During the week we dressed as noblemen and dames - walked the streets as though locked in a time machine. Weaved in and out of crowds of visitors all with cameras and camcorders and smart phones lifted to document the moment - then a brief reflection into a past forever enshrined at the Museum of Civilization, Naval Museum, The Ursuline Garden; a moment in the monastery’s courtyard.

Quebec City is a sumptuous treat for anyone with a camera. Built on the slopes and sides of the Laurentian Mountains and fitted with cobblestone streets, narrow alcoves and long pathways – the eye needs to pause and examine the possibilities. Restaurants facing the main streets are fitted with decorative hanging pots colored with seasonal flowers which become more visual against the light shaded Trenton limestone building carved from rock formed during the Ordovician Period, some 427 million years back.

One exhibit that keeps reappearing in memory – Paris on Stage (1889-1914) at Musse de la Civilization.

The Belle E’Poque Paris comes to life the moment you place the earpiece from autoguide firmly in head with cafes, orchestras, bustling street life, circus costumes, sculptures, photographs, automobiles, velocipedes, cinemagraphs reverberating in a carnival like atmosphere.

The exhibit runs until February 23, 2014.

 Fall is near and the camera begs another journey. Keep in mind the leaves of summer paint the region in rainbow schemes as winter's chill descends. No better time to capture Quebec City. The palate is in your hands.

New France Festival Parade
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DjuajjL7qc&feature=share&list=UUcQ7bDBeAcHzY-8ooA55oPg

Forge/Blacksmithing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_3zrjT2JMc&feature=share&list=UUcQ7bDBeAcHzY-8ooA55oPg

Short Tour of Quebec City
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTgGL7Ok2NM&feature=share&list=UUcQ7bDBeAcHzY-8ooA55oPg

Cirque du Soleil
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTgGL7Ok2NM&feature=share&list=UUcQ7bDBeAcHzY-8ooA55oPg