Health, Body and Soul: The Beginning of Everything • Damo Suzuki on the value of time

By Bill Furbee

WHEN I LAST SPOKE TO DAMO SUZUKI – the influential performer perhaps best known for his years spent as the singer of Krautrock godfathers Can – the world was in a different place.

“Energy is the most important substance for everybody’s life, not only music-making,” he told me in an interview for Chicago’s Newcity just one month ago. “I like to have only positive energy, because this world is really dark enough, so, why should I make something dark? You can share this energy as well, in a good performance.”

It appears that Damo has the opinion that energy can contribute to success in one’s life. However, the question is how to acquire this energy? Although some people might have the ability to harness energy from the world around them, others may need to consume green superfoods blend in the morning to get this positive energy to make their day a success. That said, whichever method is used to acquire energy, what matters is that people use it to make their lives more worthwhile and enjoyable.

Anyway, coming back to the topic of Damo, that upcoming Chicago appearance, along with the rest of his tour, has now been postponed in the wake of government mandates to avoid crowds and shelter in place.

And so, like the rest of us, Damo has been staying at home. “I don’t have a job at the moment,” he says. “It’s not possible to do anything. I cancelled my US tour, I cancelled my Italian tour … in May I might have some other concerts, but I don’t know what’s going to happen,” he reports from his home in Cologne, Germany, while opening the stopper to pour himself a Kölsch beer.

“But it’s okay,” he tells me. “Maybe (this is) an opportunity to make something else.” He reflects for a moment, then beams a wide smile. “Cheers!” he says, lifting a foamy glass of beer to the camera on his computer monitor.

I’M SO GREEN

At 70, Damo is considered an at-risk individual for illness from COVID-19. While symptoms of coronavirus are similar to that of the common cold, where you might experience a blocked or runny nose, that can be relieved through nasal rinse medicine (check out somewhere like https://serp.co/best/nasal-rinses/ for more information), as well as a sore throat and a new continuous cough, there is a high likelihood that what we thought was the common cold is now COVID-19. Older adults, and those who have underlying health conditions, have been urged to take special precautions to minimize the likelihood they would fall ill. Fortunately, Damo already practices daily rituals for both mental and physical health.

“I was in a hospital for three years,” he reminds me [Damo was diagnosed with colon cancer in 2014]. “After that, I’m taking much better care of myself. It’s always important to have really good immunity. I’m keeping my body condition as good as possible.”

He points out that the home he shares with his wife is outside Cologne’s downtown core – and “only three steps from a huge park,” where he exercises every morning. “I like to hear birds singing, I like to see a blue sky. I like to be there with just my body, being in nature.”

As he told me during our last conversation, he begins each day with the same routine: “The first thing I do, I stand in front of a mirror and [look at] myself, ‘I am Damo, I have a responsibility for this person. Keep a smile on, don’t get angry; if it’s possible, support people; so that I’ll be happy at the end of the day.’ If you have a good feeling to share … then you’ll have a much better experience.” He considers it “being good to Damo Suzuki.”

He added, in a message leading up to this second call, “I think positive and often laugh.”

DAMO SUZUKI’S NETWORK

Our modern world is one swimming in too much information – and, during times like these, managing your intake of that information is even more important. As news and misinformation spreads about our present-day global issues, Damo stresses the importance of not losing touch with oneself.

“If you know yourself,” he advises, “and you’re not so much influenced by information, you can live better.” Too much information, he worries, can wear us down. And especially vulnerable are those desperate for an answer.

“Most people don’t have anything to believe,” he feels. “So they must [take in] every information, so they get so much fear, and so much panic, and so they are not free. It’s a very difficult choice,” he says, of “which information is correct.”

Not to suggest it’s wise to ignore the world around us.

“Don’t put your head in the sand,” Damo cautions. But, he continues, “you must do things which you actually like to do. Concentrate on these things, besides immunity, and make something.”

He also believes in the importance of healthy eating and exercising. While he may not do any vigorous workouts or have science backed products for muscle building, he does like to walk around the park. “Positive thinking comes from good food as well. If you eat really good food, you’ll be happy,” he believes. “Train your soul, and train your body. That is all you can do. To take natural things is always good.” Those looking for something natural to take to help support their health may wish to consider something like these private label gummies, which can help with both aspects of physical and mental wellbeing. This could be a really good habit to get into, particularly given the current situation we find ourselves in where things are perhaps not quite as they usually are and people may be struggling to make time for their own wellbeing.

FUTURE DAYS

With tour dates around the world being postponed or cancelled, many modern-day musicians are finding themselves embracing the concept of virtual concerts, or revisiting the home recording process; not so much, in Damo’s case. “I don’t make anything about music, because I make music on the spot,” he says. As an improvisational collaborative artist, his creations are rooted in the belief that fellow musicians – sound carriers, he calls them – limit the information they share before setting foot on stage.

But, he is a big film buff. “I watch a movie every night,” he points out, and strongly prefers his DVD collection to turning on network programming – in consideration of controlling his own schedule, rather than being told when to tune in.

“I like to have my own time, that’s why I like to watch DVDs more than [films on television]. I especially don’t like to watch [television] news, because it’s at 8 o’clock, exactly at 8 o’clock you must be controlled to move, everybody does that. [But] I can control my own time,” he says.

Using that time wisely is paramount for Damo.”People [are] searching things on the internet about this virus, using so much time, instead of making simple things, [like] cooking something, or baking cakes. You’re doing [that] for yourself. Too much believing in information is quite dangerous. Because you’re losing your time.”

He reminds me that, regardless of age, time is in limited supply for all of us.

“Everybody has a short time, a life, [so] why must you spend so much time to get so much information, it doesn’t help anything. It’s better to get a good book.” As a devout Christian, Damo reads the Bible daily and has even quoted passages in some of our communications.

“I’m quite … I can’t say happy at the moment,” he laughs. “After this pandemic is over, I think many people [will] change themselves. I hope many people find their own life, how to live. How to decide, and how to make actions. To find their own way, and not only influenced by information. Better information you can give to the people, but not always taken from mass media, mainstream, conspiracy source, [all] is quite dangerous because it’s taking too much time. It’s better to have your own time.

“How weak is our society, if things like this have happened?” he continues. “There is no answer. You can see it now. You’re almost like in a jail. If you get the time again, then think different, more simple things. If you have your own way, it helps you quite a lot. It’s a great essence, to health, body and soul; it’s the most important thing. So everybody should think about this. Because it’s the beginning of everything.” •

Author Bill Furbee happily makes his home in the hills of Kentucky, where he collects antique organs and ventriloquist dolls. He’s also a music heritage enthusiast, and has written for Ripley’s Believe It or Not!, Cincinnati CityBeat, Chicago’s Newcity, Detroit Metro Times, Ugly Things magazine, and many other fine publications.

John Mayall: My Life as a Bluesman

By Harvey Kubernik

John Mayall OBE has been indefatigable in his commitment to the blues: virtually every musician who went through his Bluesbreakers academy went beyond their wildest imaging. Eric Clapton, Peter Green, and Mick Taylor all began their careers under Mayall’s rigorous training. For over 50 years, John Mayall has served as a pioneer of blues music, rightly earning him the title, “The Godfather of British Blues.” In 2015 he was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame.

“The importance of the role of John Mayall in British music is beyond belief,” hailed Mick Fleetwood.

On November 14, 2019, Mayall’s autobiography, Blues From Laurel Canyon: John Mayall: My Life as a Bluesman, co-written with Joel McIver, will be published by Omnibus Press. Mayall’s autobiography takes us into his blues-driven trek that combines the marshes of the deltas as well as the blooming hillsides of Laurel Canyon. John’s tome, culled from years and years of journal diaries, describes the azure-blue California from the native gunmetal-gray England in 1968.

In a September 2019 interview, the 85 year-old Mayall told me about his book and especially the influence of Laurel Canyon on his musical expedition.

“I had been writing all my memoirs privately for years and years. I did put it informally in a book form and fortunately one of the publishers picked up on it and the guy put it into some reasonable form. We finally got it into a position where people could read it. I think people will find a lot of truth about what happened in the British music scene and my whole life story before I got into music.

“The impact and influence of Laurel Canyon… It was one of those rare locales which was in the heart of Hollywood, yet if you just went up the hill into the Canyon you could get all the peace and quiet of country. So from your house you could look down on the whole of Los Angeles and it’s a unique locale. And that really appealed to a lot of musicians who moved there. It got all of the charm of the country but you are only down the hill from the heart of Hollywood.”

In my 2009 book, Canyon of Dreams: The Magic and the Music of Laurel Canyon, Mayall reminisced about his first visit to Hollywood and Laurel Canyon, and what we native Angelinos call “Gypsy Canyon.”

“As soon as I got there the temperature was 70 degrees, which was pretty rare for England in the summertime. ‘This is heaven.’ It was one of the main factors. I decided to move there in the summer of 1968. It was set in my mind to move there because I felt I belonged there more than in England. I mean, England was family and everything. Which can’t be repeated, but the main thing was the climate, and my whole life I’d been brought up on American culture through novels and particularly music. So it just felt right. That’s how it all began,” he volunteered.

“All the best of the peaceful country life. All you heard were birds and back to nature. It was only five minutes down the hill to the heart of Hollywood. It was quite a unique situation. If you are up in the Hollywood Hills and look down and see the whole metropolis laid out there before you. More than anything, it was the stark contrast of peace and quiet and the bustle of a major city.”

In our September phone conversation, I asked Mayall about blues and reflecting on Jimi Hendrix, who died nearly a half a century ago in September of 1970.

“Blues is something that people can relate to because the stories it tells and things that are common to all people. And that’s the reason why the blues was so popular in Europe. And people recognized that. Whereas in America it was colored by restrictions that kept black music separate from white music so I think when it’s all been combined in the early sixties. That was when people started to recognize what was on their own doorstep,” stressed John.

“Jimi and I loved the music of Freddy King. We both included his catalogue in our sets.” “The Stumble” was done on Mayall and the Bluesbreakers’s Hard Road and the King and Sonny Thompson composition “Driving Sideways” was covered on their Crusade album.

“Freddy King was a revelation to a lot of people who played guitar and the singing was quite incredible. When Jimi mentioned Freddy King we were all very well familiar with him in England. King’s Getting Ready is one of my favorite albums. When Freddy King came over to play in England in 1969 he was already in touch with a brand new audience for him. So I think that Jimi did a lot of ground work in mentioning him around and it all came together.”

On January 2, 1968 Mayall jammed with Jimi Hendrix and Al Sykes in the Railway Hotel in West Hampstead, London around John’s gig at Klook’s Kleek. Mayall performed nearly three dozen shows at the club and did much to nurture and develop national interest in the blues. John Lee Hooker, backed up by John Mayall, Little Walter, Sonny Boy Williamson, Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, T-Bone Walker, and Chuck Berry all toured England in the sixties.

“Jimi came to England and a blues world which had been all my life, going back to Cyril Davies and Alexis Korner who started the British Blues boom. This attracted a lot of musicians who now had something new to inspire them. Blues had an audience in Britain. And Chas Chandler of the Animals who sort of discovered Jimi not doing very well in the America and brought him over to England and that really positioned Jimi in an international scale. Jimi was very thrilled of course that people in Europe were blown away by his playing. He was really recognized for what he was. It was something he hadn’t experienced in America. English and European audiences really put him on the map,” Mayall reinforced.

“When Chas Chandler brought Jimi over to England everybody was totally impressed by his personality and his singing and his playing. I think it was a shot in the arm for all the British guitar players to have someone that they had never heard before. And it all started from there, really. It was important for Jimi to have had Chas Chandler who himself had reached great international regard with playing with the Animals.

“When I saw Jimi Hendrix play with his group you knew what he was doing was that music was the main thing and the way that he played and the theatrics were all part of the way he played. People didn’t really separate that from his body of work.

“I did a show in America with Jimi and Albert King in 1968 for Bill Graham at Winterland,” remembered Mayall. “Graham supported blues music and booked shows to have them with headliners. Bill was somebody who could really see the future of blues and rock and the first person in America to recognize that and put on these big shows at the Fillmores on the East and West Coast and Winterland venues where Jimi and I were on the calendar. So Graham was very important in really giving a professional take on how to present artists. I did The Turning Point, a live album in July 1969 at the Fillmore East.

“FM radio in America 1967-1972 programmed blues on the rock stations. There was an audience who had an understanding of the blues when you played for them. I was very excited that this music or the music influenced by the blues was becoming new to people.

“It was an exciting time and of course it did lead to me coming to America for the first time in January 1968. And we played the Whisky A Go-Go, Filmore in New York, Detroit, and San Francisco. That particular time in 1968 it was very apparent that America had a big taste for British groups and American groups were all part of the same picture. An exciting time.”

Mayall once did a recording session with the members of the Liverpool-based poetry group Scaffold, Mike McGear and Roger McGough for their 1968 McGough & McGear self-titled LP filled with poetry, humor and late sixties psychedelic rock.

Paul McCartney, McGear’s older brother, assisted in the production of the album, which featured well-known musicians guesting in the studio: Graham Nash, Dave Mason, Jimi Hendrix, John Mayall, Spencer Davis, Paul Samwell Smith of the Yardbirds, Viv Prince from the Pretty Things, and Paul’s girlfriend, Jane Asher.

“Paul McCartney was in charge of it all. I knew Paul and he just had me come into the studio to do my bit. Jimi was there.”

Hendrix lends guitar to the tracks “So Much” and “Ex-Art Student.”

Mayall further ruminated about Laurel Canyon.

“The connection was getting there in the first place. It began with Frank Zappa. I met him in 1967 in Scandinavia, when he and the Mothers of Invention were playing there and we were in Copenhagen at the same time. So that’s where I met that crowd. ‘If you come to America, look me up.’ So I did.

“I stayed at Zappa’s cabin for the first part if my three week vacation. I never really left Hollywood and Laurel Canyon. It became the confirmation for me. That’s where I wanted to move eventually.”

On his epic Blues From Laurel Canyon album, Mayall penned a song about Zappa. “The feeling when you listen to the song ‘2401’ is the vibe you hear. For me it was a very eccentric household, really. Frank and Gail Zappa, at the center, were the grounding factor there. The sanest people on the planet. I think Frank really encouraged that, and he kind of collected oddballs and information about America and its culture.”

“And the other connection was with Canned Heat and Bob ‘The Bear’ Hite, who I also met when they toured Europe. There was a blues heritage in town. I saw Canned Heat at The Ash Grove. That’s where I first got to know Larry ‘The Mole’ Taylor and ‘The Bear.’ And I later recorded with Larry.”

Mayall also wrote “The Bear,” a tribute tune for Bob “The Bear” Hite, Canned Heat’s lead singer. “The Bear’s house was totally amazing. I stayed up there a couple of nights. Canned Heat had just hit the big time and Bob shared a house with their managers, Skip Taylor and John Hartman. It was a huge house and was divided into their own sections. Bob had the large living room, and the whole wall was lined with 78’s. He was the big deejay. ‘Listen to this one!’ He was the one person I didn’t have to educate about JB Lenoir. He had everybody covered.”

John Mayall’s ’67 Crusade LP houses an homage track to the American blues guitarist titled “The Death of J.B. Lenoir.” Mayall also re-did the song on his epic 1969 album The Turning Point.

While bunking in Laurel Canyon, Mayall lodged for a short time in the basement of John Judnich’s house, who was comedian/satirist Lenny Bruce’s right-hand man. Judnich owned the well-regarded Tyco Brae sound company, which serviced the monumental 13 Shrine Exposition Hall Pinnacle dance concerts in downtown Los Angeles. Mayall also catalogued and notated rare Lenny Bruce tapes for Judnich. Bruce died in August 1966 in his Hollywood Boulevard home. On Mayall’s The Turning Point album, a radio and turntable favorite was “Room to Move,” which referenced Bruce in his lyric.

“As for the Blues From Laurel Canyon album, It was an action-packed vacation,” he summarized. “No problem going back home and putting it all together to record. ‘This happened. That’s a song.’ The stories lead right into each other and that’s the way I chose to actually construct the LP, by having it all in different keys. There were links that would change the key so it smoothly flowed one into each other.”

Mayall effectively chronicled the now crowded Sunset Boulevard in his civic anthem, “Walkin’ on Sunset.” “There was a lot of walking traffic rather than cars,” he told me in Canyon of Dreams. “Cars were somebody else, but the heart of Hollywood was the people on the streets.” The song also acknowledges the Whisky A Go-Go, and the loyal audiences who supported Mayall’s singular blues vision.

I recall John Mayall’s long-anticipated 1968 opening night at the famed club, with Buffalo Springfield members Neil Young and Stephen Stills pressed right up close to the stage to check out Mayall’s debut. I went to every set. During 1969 I attended Mayall’s return to the Whisky when he promoted The Turning Point.

“The Whisky was a venue we played when we first came to America in 1968. Elmer Valentine, who owned the Whisky, in fact, lived up in Laurel Canyon on Grandview Drive where I eventually lived. He did some house-hunting for me; found two houses that were up for sale before they kind of went on the market. So he was the connection for me. When we got the first booking at the Whisky, we were set for three days, but because of the demand for tickets for the show, he extended it an extra week,” marveled John.

During 1964, Valentine and partners opened the Whisky a Go-Go on the Sunset Strip. Elmer later opened the Rainbow Bar & Grill with partners Lou Adler and Mario Maglieri, as well as the Roxy Theater with Adler. In late January 2009, family members, friends and former employees of Elmer Valentine, who passed away at age 85 in December 2008, gathered on the landmark premises. It was Valentine’s longtime friend and business partner Lou Adler along with his son Nic who organized a tribute to Valentine. Lou asked me to secure some of the talent for the event. John Mayall was the first person to respond after I emailed him the request. Johnny Rivers, Stephen Stills, Byrds co-founder Chris Hillman, and South African trumpeter Hugh Masekela paid their respects to Valentine on the legendary doing a slew of regional-birthed music.

John Mayall offered “Walkin’ on Sunset” to the very appreciative crowd.

© 2019 Harvey Kubernik

Harvey Kubernik is the author of 15 books, including titles on Leonard Cohen and Neil Young. His 2017 volume, the acclaimed 1967 A Complete Rock History of the Summer of Love was published by Sterling/Barnes and Noble. His Inside Cave Hollywood: The Harvey Kubernik Music InnerViews and InterViews Collection, Vol. 1 was published in December 2017, by Cave Hollywood. Kubernik’s The Doors Summer’s Gone was published by Other Cottage Industries in March 2018 and has been nominated for the 2019 Association for Recorded Sound Collections Awards for Excellence in Historical Recorded Sound Research.

In November 2018, Sterling/Barnes and Noble published Harvey’s book, The Story of The Band From Pig Pink to The Last Waltz, written with his brother Kenneth Kubernik. Harvey Kubernik’s 1995 interview, Berry Gordy: A Conversation With Mr. Motown is included in The Pop, Rock & Soul Reader edited by David Brackett to be published in 2019 by Oxford University Press.

This century Harvey penned the liner note booklets to the CD re-releases of Carole King’s Tapestry, Allen Ginsberg’s Kaddish, Elvis Presley The ’68 Comeback Special and The Ramones’ End of the Century.

In November 2006, Harvey was a featured speaker discussing audiotape preservation and archiving at special hearings called by The Library of Congress and held in Hollywood, California.

Brownsville – Air Special

By Doug Sheppard

BROWNSVILLE – Air Special (Rock Candy) CD

Brownsville Station hit the big leagues with the success of “Smokin’ in the Boy’s Room” (#3) and “Kings of the Party” (#31) in 1974, but by 1976, they were in a lull. With their recent Motor City Connection album failing to chart and a parting of ways with their label, Big Tree, the trio format (adopted after their second album) had seemingly run its course. They needed a lift and got in the form of a new label (Private Stock) and especially the addition of second guitarist Bruce Nazarian, a monster player who’d been on countless Detroit soul records.

Nazarian proved to be the perfect complement for fellow axe men Cub Koda and Michael Lutz (with whom Nazarian alternated on bass), invigorating the resulting Brownsville Station album with tons of slide guitar wizardry, blues boogie riffs befitting Koda’s formidable record collection and the loose vibe inherent on all Brownsville recordings. Famed producer Eddie Kramer knew how to get it all on tape, and the track lineup was their best yet, featuring a killer remake of “Lady (Put the Light on Me)” (a glam rock obscurity by Big John’s Rock ’n’ Roll Circus) and especially “Martian Boogie.”

Recorded live in one take, “Martian Boogie” was B-movie sci-fi, urban blues and riff rock fused into one rocket that the band was sure would take them back to the moon—if not the home planet of the song’s protagonist. Indeed, it spent seven weeks on the national chart and grabbed the top spot in a number of markets. But just as that rocket entered the top 60 at #59, it smashed headlong into an asteroid, exploded into 1,000 pieces, fell off the charts and left its creators stunned. Not long after, Private Stock folded. As Koda recalled in the liners to Rhino’s 1993 Brownsville compilation, “it took all the fight out of the band, just like air escaping from a punctured tire.”

Morale may have been down, but the chemistry was intact when they recorded their next album for Epic Records, 1978’s Air Special. Another hotshot producer, Tom Werman (of Cheap Trick and Ted Nugent fame, among others) was at the helm—giving the resulting album a big arena rock feel, with the drums of Henry “H-Bomb” Weck in particular booming in the mix (thankfully not ’80s-style). Much to their chagrin, the band were also forced to record Hello’s recent hit, “Love Stealer” (ironically, penned by Phil Wainman, also the coauthor of “Lady” from the previous album) as a gambit to get on AOR radio.

It failed, as did Air Special, but it wasn’t for lack of quality. “Taste of Your Love,” “Tears of a Fool” and “Never Say Die” are biting hard rockers—the latter taking on an ironic, almost eerie quality thanks to the state of the band, not to mention subtle synths. And befitting a band with so much contempt for the disco and AOR dominating the charts, Brownsville covers “Who Do You Love” Diddley-style, “Down the Road Apiece” and even a Benny Goodman instrumental, “Airmail Special”—rocked up like a ’70s Johnny & the Hurricanes. The swamp blues of “Cooda Crawlin’” follows the same thread, and if Air Special doesn’t quite have another “Martian Boogie” like its predecessor, it’s a solid, commendable effort. Predictably, however, it wasn’t what the record-buying public wanted to hear, and a 1979 breakup was inevitable. (Doug Sheppard)

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