Favorite Collaborations

Oh man, great one roberjerman! Others include Chuck Berry and Johnnie Johnson, Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon, and Little Walter (damn!), Little Richard and Earl Palmer (vicious Rock ’n’ Roll!), Roger Hawkins and David Hood/Levon Helm and Rick Danko/Al Jackson Jr. and Duck Dunn, my three favorite rhythm sections.

Patsy Cline and Owen Bradley, George Jones and Tammy Wynette, Emmylou Harris and Gram Parsons, Buddy and Julie Miller, Ray and Dave Davies, AC/DC and Mutt Lange, this list goes on and on!

@boxer12, I’m disappointed in myself for not going to The San Jose Civic Auditorium on the night in the fall of ’65 that Bob & The Hawks performed live ;-) . I know a couple of guys who did, and I’m SO envious. To think they were at that point in time already making such advanced music, while The Beatles were still singing boy/girl love songs to crowds of screaming teenage girls, greatly amuses me.

I had heard only Bob’s single "Subterranean Homesick Blues", which left me completely bewildered---I had no idea what to make of it. Hey, I was only 14! The fact that he recorded a song as astounding as "Desolation Row" that Summer just astounds me. He was light years ahead of EVERYONE else in Pop music.

@mapman, that Old & In The Way album is not only good music, but recorded in audiophile quality sound! I bought it when it was first released, my first Bluegrass album from the current generation (I already had LP’s by Bill Monroe and the other old-timers). I knew of David Grisman (O&ITW member), as a bassist I knew (we were both members of the same San Jose/Cupertino musician clique) had in 1971 started going up to Mill Valley to take mandolin lessons from Grisman. David told him there were plenty of mandolin players, but a shortage of upright (acoustic) bassists. So Todd (Phillips) got himself an upright, and ended up becoming one of Bluegrasses busiest bassists, working with Grisman himself. I jammed with him a few years back, and his 18th Century upright sounded amazing!

Oh roberjerman, if THAT’S the premise:

- Sam Philips and Elvis Presley.

- Dave Edmunds and Nick Lowe in Rockpile.

- Dave Edmunds and The Flamin’ Groovies, for The Groovies classic Shake Some Action album.

- Dave Edmunds and The Fabulous Thunderbirds, for their Tuff Enuff album.

- Hell, anything and everything Dave Edmunds touches!

- Buddy Miller and anyone he works with, including Emmylou Harris (he’s her band leader, guitarist, and harmony vocalist on the road).

- Chris Hillman and Gram Parsons in The Flying Burrito Brothers.

- Iris DeMent and John Prine.

- Little Village: John Hiatt, Ry Cooder, Nick Lowe, Jim Keltner.

- The Traveling Wilburys.

- Bob Dylan and The Hawks/The Band.

- Marty Stuart And His Fabulous Superlatives.

- Don and Phil Everly.

- George Martin and The Beatles.

- Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks.

- Phil Spector and The Wrecking Crew.

- Dann Penn and Spooner Oldham.

- Jerry Wexler and all the Atlantic Records artists he produced.

- The Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section/The Swampers, The Wrecking Crew, The Funk Bothers, The Band, Booker T. & The MG’s.

- Mann & Weil, Goffin & King, Barry & Greenwich, Pomus & Shuman, Leiber & Stoller, Holland/Dozier/Holland, B. & F. Bryant, Lennon & McCartney, Jordan & Wilson, Rogers & Hart, G. & I. Gershwin.

That’ll do for starters.

In the mid-80’s I saw & heard The Blasters back Big Joe Turner live at Club Lingerie on Sunset Blvd. in Hollywood. Dave Alvin was of course at that time still in the band, as was the legendary Lee Allen, tenor sax player on all Little Richard’s 1950’s Specialty Records sides. What a singer, what a band! You can keep your Led Zeppelin, THIS is Rock ’n’ Roll!

The worst collaboration I have witnessed was Keith Richards’ disgusting behavior towards Norah Jones during their duet at The Gram Parson’s Tribute Show at Universal Studios Amphitheater (late-90’s, I think.). They performed a terrible rendition (Norah was okay, Keith simply awful. He was doing his whole "Aren’t I charming?", sloppy-drunk routine. Pathetic.) of the Everly Brothers’ classic "Love Hurts", and Keith was all over Norah like a cheap suit. What a pig. Norah’s facial expressions ranged from stunned bewilderment to outright embarrassment. I was myself embarrassed to be witnessing it.