Waiting on the moon, p.27
Waiting on the Moon, page 27
I nodded. Trying to keep the dialogue going, I said the first thing that popped into my head, which was the title of the jam we were working on in the studio. I blurted out, “It ain’t what you do, it’s how you do it.”
As I was opening the door to leave, Sly said, “Hold it, man. I don’t think I buy that shit. What do you mean, It ain’t what you do, it’s how you do it?”
I replied, “Well, it’s like those early projects we just talked about. Some were for the music, and some were for the money. So it ain’t what you do, it’s how you do it.”
He lowered his sunglasses till we were both staring at each other eye to eye. To paraphrase a lyric from a classic Wynonie Harris song, his eyes looked like cherries swimming in buttermilk.
He stepped between me and the door and in that low, slow voice said, “Now, listen, man. Imagine you’re driving down a road and you’re whistling and enjoying the sunny day, just looking at the beautiful blue sky, and you notice a paper bag lying out there on the road. You drive over that bag, but it happens to be filled with babies, and you just keep whistling, driving your merry way down the highway. So you see, it ain’t what you do, it’s how you do it.”
I was stunned by his response and foolishly tried to reason with him. “Well, listen, Sly, it’s one thing if you’re driving down the road and you just see a brown paper bag out there and you drive over it. It’s another thing if you’re driving down the road and you see a brown paper bag that you know is filled with babies, and yet you still drive over it. See? It’s two different things. So it ain’t what you do, it’s how you do it.”
I thought I did a pretty good job with my response, but he had a puzzled look on his face.
“I don’t care how you fuckin’ wanna put it, man. That bag was on the road, and that bag was filled with babies, and now them little babies are dead! And you could’ve been the motherfucker who drove over that bag and killed all them babies!”
At that point, he unhooked a bullwhip that was fastened to his belt and began swinging. The force of it cracked against the bathroom floor.
I felt this was the appropriate time to make a quick exit. I opened the door and rushed down the hallway, but Sly followed close behind me, yelling, “You killed them fuckin’ babies! You killed them fuckin’ babies!,” all the while snapping his whip. He was closing in fast when I reached the studio door, swung it open, and slammed it shut behind me. I could hear him laughing as he kept cracking the bullwhip against the door.
The next day, a persistent, hypnotic electric drumbeat was blasting from the open door of Sly’s studio. I was nervous when I saw him approach me in the hallway, but he just nodded. “Hey, man,” he said, and I nodded back, relieved that the dead-baby chase was forgotten.
Later that day, I was outside having a smoke when he came out of his Winnebago, walked up to me with a big smile, and asked, “Is there any way you could make me a copy of that cassette you were playing the other day?”
I was honored he wanted a copy. I duly made it and went to his studio. The door was open, and Sly noticed me standing in the hallway listening to the drumbeat of the electronic Rhythm Maestro while he and his engineer were turning up the faders for each individual instrument. The engineer brought up on the faders several voices with various guitar parts and what I assumed was the lead vocal. Sly sang along with the track, bobbing up and down in his chair, as if he were performing onstage. The mix began to take shape. It was raw and primitive, different from anything he had previously recorded. The track, “Family Affair,” became his next runaway hit single. That recording, with its bare, haunting vocal performance, still resonates with me and moves me every time I hear it.
Returning home from a tour of the Midwest, I found a certified letter waiting for me from Stephen Paley, who worked closely with Sly at his record company, Epic. I knew Stephen from early on, when he photographed the covers for the first two Geils albums. Once, during a shoot, I told him about my encounter with Sly. He always joked that he wanted to arrange a luncheon with me and Sly at which he would serve us baby-size sandwiches in brown paper bags inside the men’s room at Epic Records.
The certified letter contained an elaborate gold-embossed wedding invitation to “a golden affair,” celebrating the marriage of Kathy Silva and Sylvester Stone, due to take place at Madison Square Garden on June 5, 1974. All guests were asked to wear gold. (This event was possibly outdone only by Hank Williams, who in 1952 had not one but two sold-out wedding ceremonies at the Municipal Auditorium in New Orleans when he married his second wife, Billie Jean Eshlimar.)
Most people in the music industry assumed Sly’s wedding was only a publicity stunt and doubted he would even show up. I was out on tour and unable to attend, but by all accounts the ceremony turned out to be quite the event. Halston designed the bride and groom’s clothing, and afterward, there was a private A-list party on the Starlight Roof of the Waldorf-Astoria hotel.
Later that summer, for one week, Sly was the cohost on The Mike Douglas Show. It was during guest Muhammad Ali’s interview that one could sense the beginning of Sly’s downfall. Ali said, “I’m here to talk about the discrimination, hypocrisy, and prejudice that Black folks are facing in America.”
Sly kept interrupting the Champ, telling him, “Lighten up! We’re just here to entertain.”
Although Ali was a fan of Sly, he was enraged that Sly appeared so obviously stoned on national television. The ensuing argument and Sly’s incomprehension made it difficult to watch. As the years passed, Sly’s odd and unpredictable behavior increased as his record sales decreased.
So there I was, just past a decade after my first encounter with Sly, heading toward the small club where he would be performing. There was no tour bus and no line of ticket holders. I went down the stairs and discovered, in the dim light, that the room was only one-third full. I waited alongside the smattering of equally curious onlookers. There were instruments onstage, and at 9:00 p.m., three young musicians came out. Each tuned his instrument, and the guitarist announced, “Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to the stage the legendary, the amazing… Sly Stone!”
The stage, however, remained empty. As the band played on, the guitarist looked toward stage right, and again announced, “Please welcome to the stage the amazing Sly Stone!”
Once more the emptiness remained, until suddenly Sly finally appeared, and our collective doubt was washed away. He was wearing what seemed to be the same outfit he wore for his mesmerizing performance at Woodstock so long ago: the same rhinestone jumpsuit, wide-brimmed rhinestone hat, and sky-blue wraparound sunglasses.
Pacing the stage like a bewildered tiger trapped in an underground cage, Sly did not acknowledge the audience until he moved behind his electric keyboard. He let the band jam for a while, then moved to center stage, arms outstretched, as if he were nailed to an imaginary cross, and bent his head back, looking up. The audience followed his stare, finding nothing but a bare ceiling. Once more behind his keyboard, with the microphone close to his mouth, he sang “Everybody Is a Star” in that unmistakable low, rough, gravelly voice. He seemed deep inside the music, and his mood changed. He worked through “Everyday People,” holding true to the melody, then sang “Family Affair” with so much emotion that he might have even transcended his own recorded version. The audience was spellbound as he ended the song with moans reminiscent of fellow Texan Blind Willie Johnson’s chilling recording of “Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground.”
Suddenly, leaping away from his keyboard, Sly yelled to the band, “Hit it, fellas!” He raised his hands and shouted to the audience, “I want to take you higher,” to which all assembled returned the shout “Higher!” over and over, until he disappeared offstage as quickly as he’d entered.
I could almost hear the questioning audience wondering, Is that it? A handful of songs. Maybe twenty minutes. The band continued to play until the guitarist thanked everyone for coming and the house lights came on. There was a gentle round of polite applause followed by hushed whispers, like those one might hear at the wake of a distant relative. The audience members donned their coats and headed quietly toward the exit.
Witnessing Sly’s performance had an immediately profound effect on me. I sat there reflecting on the future of my own career. After almost seventeen years, the Geils band had finally achieved the success we had worked so hard for, but I could already feel tensions building within the band. Success is relative, but once you’ve obtained a certain degree of it, few things can prove to be more maddening than trying to prevent it from slipping away. I didn’t know it then, but soon I’d be facing cataclysmic changes of my own—the end of the Geils band and the beginning of a new career as a solo artist.
I suddenly realized that only the bartender was left, collecting the empties. I contemplated, for a moment, going backstage, but instead I put on my coat and hat and headed for the door, climbing the stairs into the cold, snowy night.
How far a drop can it possibly be when you fall from the public eye?
It was a long walk home.
30
FRATRICIDE
The Rise and Fall of a Full House: The J. Geils Band
J. Geils billboard, Sunset Boulevard, 1975
WHEN BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN was inducting the band U2 into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, he said, “Bands get formed by accident, but they don’t survive by accident. It takes will, intent, a sense of shared purpose.” His statement offered insight and straightforward clarity, and it applied only too well to the beginning and end of the J. Geils Band.
My first band, the Hallucinations, came to a premature end when several members decided to pursue careers as fine artists. I, on the other hand, set painting aside and focused all my energy on music. I needed a new band and began searching for a group I would feel musically compatible with.
In a small coffeehouse, I came across a band that called itself the J. Geils Blues Band, named after the guitar player, John Geils. I was particularly struck by the musicianship of John and Dick Salwitz, the harmonica player. I introduced myself, and we hit it off, agreeing to get together and jam. After several sessions, it was clear that something clicked. I suggested bringing on board the Hallucinations drummer, Stephen Jo Bladd, to join their bassist, Danny Klein, in filling out the rhythm section. That is how the J. Geils Band was formed. Lastly, to round out our sound, we added a keyboard player, Seth Justman.
Tom Petty once told me, “There’s no such thing as democracy in a band.” Usually one or two key players will take the lead. Together they form an artistic bond and partnership, one that shares musical tastes, ambitions, and vision. It is most often they who make the major decisions for the rest of the group. This pattern repeats itself throughout rock music history, from Lennon and McCartney and Jagger and Richards to Henley and Frey. In the Geils band, the bond between me and Seth formed the key-player dynamic. Our writing partnership and vision for the band would eventually send us on an upward trajectory.
John, Dick, and Danny were involved with a local manager who insisted we could only perform under the name the J. Geils Band. I was so happy to have found a group to play with that the band name seemed incidental. However, as we became more popular, many people mistakenly assumed that I, the lead singer, was J. Geils, a confusion that would follow me into my solo career.
It wasn’t long before I realized that the band’s manager was not able to help the group go the distance. When his contract finally ran out, I took over the managerial duties and secured us a booking at the Boston Tea Party, where the Hallucinations regularly played. Fortuitously, on the night of the Geils band’s first important show, a notable promotion man from Atlantic Records, Mario Medious (the Big M), was at the club promoting Dr. John, the gifted New Orleans artist. After our set, as I entered the dressing room, the Big M asked, “Hey, who was them brothers out there playing all that blues stuff?”
I told him, “It wasn’t brothers—just us.”
“You shitting me?” the Big M said. “Listen, I come from Chicago, and believe me, I know my blues shit! What label you guys on?”
“We’re not signed to any label,” I told him.
“You gotta be shitting me! Damn, I’ll call one of the owners of Atlantic Records, Jerry Wexler, right now. He’s my boss, and I’ll get that mamma jamma to sign your asses to the label. I’m the Big M. I get shit done!”
And he did. Jerry Wexler called a good friend of mine in Boston, Jon Landau, and asked if he knew about us. When Jon gave him a positive report, three days later, Jon and I were in Wexler’s office. After barely any negotiation, Wexler pulled a contract out of his desk drawer. With no lawyer representing us, with no understanding that the terms of the contract were archaic and unfavorable compared to other group contracts of that time, we ended the meeting fulfilling a dream: the J. Geils Band became Atlantic recording artists.
Now we urgently needed a lawyer and a booking agent. I searched for advice in a book called This Business of Music: A Practical Guide to the Music Industry for Publishers, Writers, Record Companies, Producers, Artists, Agents, considered the standard text in its time. I noticed that the coauthor, Bill Krasilovsky, was based in New York. I located his number and called him up. He turned out to be a true ethical gentleman, and he became our lawyer. My friend Fred Lewis, whom I met during my nights as a disc jockey, was promoting blues and R and B records. He jumped on board to help me coordinate things. Still, we needed an agent.
The most exclusive booking agency was Premier Talent. I called the owner, Frank Barsalona, one of the most respected people in the music industry. After many conversations, he booked us, sight unseen, into Bill Graham’s famed Fillmore East, in New York, as the opening act for Black Sabbath. Several encores followed, and the J. Geils Band was on its way.
A decade later, after we finally fulfilled our obligations to Atlantic and serendipitously landed a recording contract with EMI America, our record sales grew. After seventeen years as a band, playing continual one-nighters to a fiercely dedicated fan base, we finally were not only out of debt but also number one on the charts, selling out arenas from coast to coast.
Bands that have a long history are not unlike a family: growing, adapting, and changing over time, sometimes for better, sometimes for worse. If cracks appear between the two key players, like a marriage breaking apart, the whole family unit can become divided.
Success, if it does come to a band, often comes with its own special price. Rewards may abound, but resentments left to fester below the surface can explode when you least expect it. As novelist Graham Greene wrote, “Success is more dangerous than failure, the ripples break over a wider coastline.”
For the Geils band, success took its bite with razor-sharp teeth, causing a divide between me and my bandmates. They chose to change course and follow a captain whose blind compass would soon have them smashed hard against the rocks.
And then it happened… the writing partnership between Seth and me suddenly fell apart. He chose instead to collaborate in songwriting with his brother, leaving me to seek out a new writing partner. His choice to end it was further compounded by a disagreement over which musical direction the band should take.
I wanted to remain “roots”-oriented. The other members wanted a heavier synth-pop sound. I brought in songs that were rejected by the band as being “a step backward.” The group had several meetings without me and planned what I can only describe as a coup d’etat. I was asked to attend a meeting—and it turned out to be my last. As the other members of the group sat quietly, Seth, my longtime collaborator, said his final words to me: “Peter, I really think it’ll be best for all of us if you go your way and we go ours.” So there it was: Et tu, Brute. Blindsided, I walked out of that meeting in shock. It was one of the coldest days of my life.
Lawyers immediately flew into Boston trying to find a solution, but the band held firm without me. The president of the record company, EMI, and then the head of our booking agency flew to Boston, explaining to the band the dire consequences of their decision, but to no avail. Seth became the new lead singer—the front man, songwriter, and producer for the new J. Geils Band.
Frank Barsalona, our agent, took me out for dinner after his final meeting with the other band members. In disbelief, he said, “After all these years, the band finally made it. It’s really quite unbelievable. I’ve dealt with the craziest of the crazies; the drugs, the girlfriends, the managers—nothing even comes close to this. Nothing as stupid, as senseless, and as wasteful in what these guys are insisting on doing. So, Peter, let’s start thinking about your solo career.”
Petrified, I just sat there, my food untouched.
Shortly after the split, I went on to release an album called Lights Out, which rose to the top ten on the Billboard charts. All the songs on that album were the very songs the band had rejected. The J. Geils Band then released You’re Gettin’ Even While I’m Gettin’ Odd. As a result of poor sales, the band was dropped from the record company, and the “new” J. Geils Band came to an ignominious end.
The abrupt loss of camaraderie and musical brotherhood was a betrayal whose psychological impact on me was severe. I stayed away from live performance for almost ten years—until Bruce Springsteen, who was appearing at the Boston Garden, asked me backstage if I’d like to join him during an encore. Nervously, I confided to him that it had been a decade since I’d been on stage. The news seemed to take him by surprise. But he replied, “Pete, better be ready, because tonight, I’m calling you up there.”
That evening, I regained the confidence to overcome the crippling anxiety the breakup had caused.
