Close Encounters Of A Musical Kind-Part 3

My next few musical encounters were during a 7 year span at a dream job for a young guy. Between late 1975 and mid 1982 I worked at a Manhattan after-hours club. The place was already in operation when I started. Basically it would open at 11 PM and close 8 AM. It had a bar and gambling tables. Poker,craps,roulette and blackjack where the main fare. It was a members only club as well as their guests. Very upscale and lots of big money was spent. Very pretty hostesses, bartenders and card dealers helped to draw the crowds in. Of course, this was all a bit illegal but this was the decadent anything goes 1970's and as long as we didn't attract attention we were left alone.

I started as one of the managers. I knew the owner and he needed trusted people. By the end of the gig I was general manager. Lots of high rollers came through the door and celebrities as well. Most would keep a low profile and didn't want to announce themselves. But when they hand you a credit card and the face is familiar it can be figured out.

The first musician I met was completely stoned to the point of being a bit of a nuisance and mostly incoherent. However he was a regular for about 2 weeks and spent good money so we let him stay inside up to a point, then convinced him it was time to go back to his hotel  and got a cab for him

I'm talking about John Phillips. John Phillips was a mid 60's superstar in the world of rock. Leader, chief songwriter and arranger for The Mamas And The Papas. Wrote the songs California Dreamin', Monday Monday, Creeque Alley and more for the group. Wrote the huge hit for Scott McKenzie San Francisco (Wear Flowers In Your Hair). He and fellow band member Michelle Phillips' home in the Hollywood Hills was a gathering place for fellow musicians as well as Hollywood celebrities such as Jack Nicholson, Warren Beatty and Roman Polanski. John Phillips was the chief organizer for the iconic 1967 Monterrey Pop Festival

Then things began to go downhill for him. The Mamas And Papas broke up due to Mama Cass Elliot deciding to start a solo career and John's wife began to cheat on her husband with fellow member Denny Doherty. John released a 1970 solo album that disappointed saleswise though it had a minor hit single (one that I'll embed and that I enjoyed back then). Phillips boozing and drug usage finally had him leave the limelight and eventually move to Europe

Mick Jagger tried to get him to record again for The Rolling Stones record label. Alas John Phillips was now, in the mid 70's shooting both cocaine and heroin. This was when I met him, on one of his trips back to NY. He was a mess. And even though I knew what he accomplished in his life, you couldn't have a rational conversation with him by the time he rolled into the club. He did not want to talk about the 1960's at all.

In 1981 he was convicted of drug trafficking.He got a very short sentence under an agreement to go to rehab and work constantly in PSA anti-drug ads. He did have one more hit song in him. He wrote the big Beach Boys come-back song Kokomo

He needed a liver transplant in the 1990's and spent the decade on-and-off drugs and booze. He died in 2001

In 2009 his daughter MacKenzie Phillips revealed on the Oprah Winfey Show that she had an incestuous relationship with her father for many years. Some in the family supported her claim. Some called her a liar. True or false it made the national news

My meeting with John Phillips was a sad affair. During those two weeks he came by every other day or so and was more or less an annoyance. Very sad indeed







 

You forced my hand   (snicker snicker)




Put it this way, it was competing on the charts with Phil Collin's Groovy Kind Of Love and Kylie Minogue's The Loco-Motion. Which of the 3 would you listen to?

Here is the top 20 American Billboard chart the one week Kokomo was at the top. I remember at that time I was working at an office and the radio was controlled by a certain lady that tuned it to a pop station that followed this list. I couldn't summon up the bile against the Beach Boys as much as some of the other songs on the list. In fact, I got a warm spot in my heart hearing the Beach Boys having a hit single again after so many years. 

Week ending Nov 5, 1988 

TW- LW- Title- Artist -Weeks On Chart (Peak Position)
1 2 KOKOMO –•– The Beach Boys – 10 (1)

2 3 WILD, WILD WEST –•– The Escape Club – 12 (2)

3 1 GROOVY KIND OF LOVE –•– Phil Collins – 10 (1)

4 7 THE LOCO-MOTION –•– Kylie Minoque – 11 (4)

5 10 BAD MEDICINE –•– Bon Jovi – 7 (5)

6 9 ONE MOMENT IN TIME –•– Whitney Houston – 9 (6)

7 8 NEVER TEAR US APART –•– INXS – 13 (7)

8 14 DESIRE –•– U2 – 6 (8)

9 4 RED RED WINE –•– UB40 – 28 (1)

10 5 WHAT’S ON YOUR MIND (PURE ENERGY) –•– Information Society – 17 (3)



11 6 DON’T YOU KNOW WHAT THE NIGHT CAN DO? –•– Steve Winwood – 12 (6)

12 17 HOW CAN I FALL? –•– Breathe – 9 (12)

13 21 BABY, I LOVE YOUR WAY/FREEBIRD –•– Will To Power – 9 (13)

14 12 CHAINS OF LOVE –•– Erasure – 15 (12)

15 22 KISSING A FOOL –•– George Michael – 5 (15)

16 16 ANOTHER LOVER –•– Giant Steps – 12 (16)

17 23 LOOK AWAY –•– Chicago – 7 (17)

18 20 DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU GOT (TILL IT’S GONE) –•– Cinderella – 10 (18)

19 11 DON’T BE CRUEL –•– Bobby Brown – 16 (8)

20 27 I DON’T WANT YOUR LOVE –•– Duran Duran – 4 (20)

It was also a horrible time in Country Music.  It was before Uncle Tupelo kick-started the Alt-Country movement.  Proto-alt acts like Guy Clark, Townes Van Zandt, Joe Ely, et. al. were struggling or not putting out much music (Ely did tour with The Clash early in the 80s and did a couple of decent albums.)  Outlaw country had been replaced by Urban Cowboy and older acts were largely stuck in shitty contracts and putting out mediocre work.  Willie Nelson put out a handful of very good singles, but couldn't put together a decent album.  Waylon put out a couple of mediocre albums.  Merle Haggard put out a handful of good cuts and one album, Kern River, that was decent.  The only real bright spot was Steve Earle who put out two classic albums in Guitar Town and Copperhead Road.  

It was, however, an incredible time for The Blues.  Stevie Ray Vaughan, Joe Louis Walker and Robert Cray kick-started a new blues movement that was insanely good.  Tons of older acts put out solid to great albums including Albert Collins, Albert King, Gatemouth Brown, John Lee Hooker, Luther Allison, Magic Slim, Pinetop Perkins, Professor Longhair.   And you can call it Folk or you can call it Country Blues, but whatever you call it Doc & Merle Watson put out three absolutely classic albums in the 80s.  

Just thinking about how I first discovered the blues while writing the above reply to slam, and, actually, one of the musicians who really turned me on to blues generally was an English guitarist named Dave Kelly. He was a member of the ever popular Blues Band, but he would often stop in to do special solo sessions for the "Blues on 2" radio program. His authentic-sounding covers of the likes of Robert Johnson or Muddy Waters were a really big influence on me at such a tender age (I would've been 13 or 14, I guess).

Here's Mr. Kelly doing Johnson's "Crossroads Blues" from that same mid-80s time period as I used to listen to him on the radio...not bad for a white guy from Streatham, London!

You can call it blasphemy if you want, but I'd damn sight rather listen to that than Eric Clapton. 

I also lost my passion for current music by the late 1980's. Maybe some of it was natural that as you get older your priorities change and there are more distractions and serious subjects to get involved . Some of it was just getting tired of MTV by that point. A big chunk was the horrible state music radio devolved . Now radio stations have lost their individual voice, cobbled up by huge corporations and using a playlist spit out by computer and listener analysis. There is always great music out there.But by the late 80's if they did not have the right visual appeal for MTV
or fit corporate radio's accepted profile, you would not hear it

And record companies saw no problem because they were making the most money ever with the entry of CDs to the marketplace. CDs were cheaper to produce than vinyl but they sold a bill of goods to the consumer to justify charging more than vinyl. And the consumer was buying tons of product they already owned on vinyl. It was the days of Wine and Roses for them

It took about 10 years before I got my new music groove back. What triggered it-I don't know