Old Rockers never die, they just get more wrinkly?

Evan Johns (three albums on Rykodisc, a bunch of others on assorted labels) was legendary not only for his guitar playing (amazing), songwriting, and singing, but his drinking. When I went to Atlanta for a week in the late-90's to record an album with him, he said to me: "As long as you stay away from the hard stuff, you're okay."

He drank only beer, but a LOT of it. He arrived in Atlanta a day before the band members, and passing by his hotel room door the morning after we arrived, I saw two 18-packs of empty Budweiser cans discarded on the hallway floor. In the studio he chain drank them, opening a new one as he was finishing the last. He ate one meal the entire week.

The album was done, and a supporting U.S. tour was being setup. Then one day back at home (British Columbia at the time) he wasn't feeling well, and went to the hospital. He fell into a coma, the doctor telling his woman he was in the final stage of liver failure, and to make funeral arrangements. He proved the doc wrong, simply sitting up in bed one day a few weeks later!

Turns out this was the third time the exact same thing had transpired. But in Austin in 2017, the end finally came. He was only 60 years old, and quite a character. But how about Jerry Lee Lewis? The hardest drinker of all the Sun Records guys (Elvis, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison), and the last man standing, his 85th birthday later this year. I can't believe he is still alive!

As to old Rockers, Welshman Dace Edmunds understands Rock ’n Roll as few do. A listen to his incredible 1970 re-imagining of the old Smiley Lewis Blues "I Hear You Knocking" will explain it all.

Lots of Rockers think the music is about the release of energy (a prime example being The Who’s butchering of "Summertime Blues" and "Shakin’ All Over". Daltry’s hoary vocals are unbearable.). Dave’s "IHYK" displays how if you first create an almost unbearable degree of tension, it’s release is much more, ahem, satisfying.

The "Moral Majority" whites in the 1950’s South understood how sexual the new music was, and didn’t want their children listening to no vulgar n*gg*r music. Elvis has been accused of "appropriating" (stealing) black music, which is an over-simplification. His five Sun singles (which witnessed the creation of Rockabilly) had a Blues on one side, a Hillbilly on the other. That was the other reason early Rock ’n’ Roll was banned: it encouraged, promoted even, integration.

The Dave Edmunds Band live in the 1980’s was the best Rock ’n’ Roll I’ve ever seen and heard. Even better than Rockpile, and that’s really saying something. And yes, I saw The Who with Keith Moon live. Twice. And Hendrix. And Cream. And The Stones. And The Dead. And The damn Beatles.

The first live music I saw and heard (apart form my first concert in the Summer of ’64: The Beach Boys at The San Jose Civic Auditorium, with Brian Wilson still playing bass and singing lots of falsetto parts) was in the wake of the British Invasion. Like every other town in America, there was a group practicing in a garage on every suburban street in the Santa Clara Valley starting in late’64/early ’65.

That Spring and Summer, those San Jose garage bands started playing out, and I saw them all: The Chocolate Watchband, People, The Syndicate Of Sound, The Trolls/Stained Glass (they changed their name when they went from a quartet to a trio), The Jaguars, The Otherside, dozens of others. When I saw The Beatles at The Cow Palace in S. San Francisco that Summer, I was slightly underwhelmed and disappointed.

We all got heavily into The Yardbirds, Kinks, Stones, Animals, Manfred Mann, etc., the harder, Bluesier British bands. Then the debut Paul Butterfield Blues Band album came out, and the bar had been raised. The American musicians in Paul’s band were much more authentic Blues players than the Brits (and Paul had Howlin’ Wolf’s drummer and bass player!).

But then Fresh Cream and Are You Experienced appeared, and our little teenage minds were blown. Cream lead us to John Mayall’s first (we had learned after the fact that Clapton was the guitarist on the album), then his second (with Peter Green taking Clapton’s place), which was even better. When we learned The Stumble was originally done by some guy named Freddie King, we headed backwards, to discover the sources.

By that time Bill Graham had started putting on shows at a big old cavernous ballroom in the "Negro" section of San Francisco, the Fillmore district. He brought some of the old Blues guys out of retirement, having them open for the white kids who were imitating them. Let me tell ya, seeing them live was a real education.

In the Summer of ’68 Music From Big Pink appeared, and I didn’t get it AT ALL. I didn’t like the fact that the smartest guys I knew loved the album, but oh well. Life went on, and I discovered The Nice (Keith Emerson’s pre-ELP group)---whom I saw at The Fillmore, Procol Harum (good live), even Vanilla Fudge (I’m embarrassed to admit ;-). Early in ’69 a non-musician I knew said there was an album by a new group that was great. I listened to it in the school library, and instantly detested it. It was the debut Led Zeppelin. Nothing more than fake, corny, Blues cliche’ posturing. I was embarrassed to be white.

Then in the Summer of ’69 my teenage band opened for The New Buffalo (drummer Dewey Martin the only remaining member of Buffalo Springfield, with Bobby’s brother Randy Fuller on bass and harmony vocals), and as I watched and listened to them play and sing, I became confused, disturbed. I could not understand why, though none of the four members seemed to be doing much, they sounded SO good. All of a sudden I had an epiphany: all became clear, and in a rush I understood what The Band was all about. EVERYTHING had changed in an instant.

It’s not that I don’t "like" Cream: they are what they are. Clapton has said that upon hearing Music From Big Pink for the first time (he became obsessed with the album), his reaction was: "Music had been headed in the wrong direction for a long time. When I heard MFBP, I thought: Well, someone has finally got it right." Once again, and this time on the deepest level, the game had been completely changed.