In The Studio with Redbeard

Soul Asylum ” I Will Still Be Laughing” live 4-98

admin — Wed, 16 May 2012 06:15:20 +0000

Soul Asylum is back playing Cape Canaveral FL this Saturday , then a handful of shows in June before the album release party at home in Minneapolis for their new one , Delayed Reaction on July 20 , followed by a show at New York City’s Bowery Ballroom July 26 . Here’s the band with me live In The Studio in April 1998 . -Redbeard

38 Special “Special Forces” 30th anniversary w/Jeff Carlisis,Donnie Van Zant 6-11

admin — Tue, 15 May 2012 01:56:49 +0000

Jimi Hendrix Experience “Are You Experienced?” 45th anniversary 6-4

admin — Tue, 15 May 2012 01:08:59 +0000

June 4 with Hendrix biographer John McDermott, Hendrix engineer Eddie Kramer , and the late Experience drummer Mitch Mitchell

Steve Miller Band “Book Of Dreams” 35th anniversary

admin — Mon, 14 May 2012 06:01:34 +0000

From the time he was a toddler, Steve Miller was surrounded by giants of 20^th century American music including Les Paul and Mary Ford, Charles Mingus and T-Bone Walker. Not just their recorded music, but THEM, in the flesh, as houseguests in the Miller home in Dallas. You see, Steve’s father, the late noted pathologist Dr. George Miller, was a keen live music fan and amateur recordist who would befriend these musicians when they appeared in nightclubs and open the Miller home to them. Yet, even as young Steve Miller learned all about playing Les Paul’s revolutionary invention, the electric guitar, behind his head while doing the splits (a little move T-Bone Walker showed Steve), the obviously musical youngster was not supposed to follow in the visitors’ footsteps.

“No one ever thought that I would be a professional musician. Ever”, Steve told me. “I was going to go to college, get a degree, get educated and I was going to work. And that’s the way I was always brought up. I was put in prep school in the seventh grade, St. Marks in Dallas, which is a really good school. And I had my band there and I just sort of pulled it off while my parents weren’t looking. All of a sudden I had these contracts, $75 a night. And for a while my mom had to drive me and pick me up, she just went right along with it. My father thought the music I played was way too loud, he didn’t like it at all. So that made me like it a lot better!” Miller laughs, “We had a band for five years, Barron Cass, Bob Hayden, my older brother Buddy Miller who I taught to play guitar so that he could drive me to gigs, Roger Galding and Boz Scaggs, who started out playing tambourine and singing background. When I left to go to college, Boz came up to the University of Wisconsin at Madison. I taught him how to play rhythm guitar real quick that Summer and we became The Ardells. I was going to get a Comparative Literature degree, get a Masters degree in Literature and teach it. But after one year in Europe, I came back and everything looked different to me. Comparative Lit was just no fun at all.”

What to do? “So I said, ‘I want to go to Chicago.’ Paul Butterfield was down there, and he had just gotten a little write up in Time magazine. I went to Chicago and stayed there for about three years. I went to musical graduate school with Muddy Waters, James Cotton, Junior Wells and Buddy Guy and Jimmy Reed. We all played the same circuit, we all jammed together on a regular basis. We worked from 9 o’clock at night until 4 o’clock in the morning, six nights a week, for three or four years. It was great, really amazing. But I got tired of playing in Chicago at all of the clubs, with all of the drinking. It wasn’t some sort of glamorous thing. Those were hard-nosed nightclubs. I ended up going to San Francisco and getting my contract there.“ Redbeard

ZZ TOP “Tres Hombres” pt1

admin — Sun, 13 May 2012 02:37:57 +0000

In part one of this classic rock interview about their breakout third album, 1973′s Tres Hombres , guitarist/singer Billy Gibbons , bass player/singer Dusty Hill , and drummer Frank Beard cover the topics of Vampire Travel; a three-legged beaver; blowing the roof off a New Orleans nightclub ; beer drinkers and hellraisers; “T” for Texas ,”T” for Tennessee ; wearing 60 pound Nudie suits while performing at 3 in the afternoon in an Ohio cornfield… you know , all the rock ‘n’roll basics . Part 1 of 3 . – Redbeard

ZZ TOP “Tres Hombres” pt2

admin — Sun, 13 May 2012 02:36:37 +0000

(L to r : Dusty Hill , Billy Gibbons , Redbeard in Dallas in 2007 )

Part two of this three-part interview with ZZ TOP covers pre-Viagra goat gland operations in Mexico ; Southern Select beer ; the mexican food feast photo in the original album cover fold-out; border radio XERF; and the “squank” ….just the usual rock cliches . – Redbeard

ZZ TOP “Tres Hombres” pt3

admin — Sun, 13 May 2012 02:35:23 +0000

In the conclusion to our three-part In The Studio special on the 1973 ZZ TOP album Tres Hombres , the boys discuss the infamous Chicken Ranch outside of Houston; redneck roadsurfing from the back of a pickup truck in an iron cage ; Queen Bee barbeque; and why legendary University of Texas football coach Darrell Royal was not a ZZ TOP fan. – Redbeard

Billy Joel “New York State of Mind” live UConn 1976

admin — Sat, 12 May 2012 22:27:04 +0000

Black Crowes”Southern Harmony & Musical Companion”20th anniversary

admin — Mon, 07 May 2012 06:01:32 +0000

When Black Crowes lead singer Chris Robinson visited me In The Studio the first week of May 1992 , it was our second time to talk about the Atlanta-based band he fronted with his guitar-playing younger brother , Rich . The first meeting was midway through the year-long ascent to Top 5 sales by the Black Crowes’ debut, Shake Your Moneymaker , and in the 18 month interim the intrepid group had played a 350-show marathon in support of that impressive initial effort , leaving the elder Robinson’s witty neo-hippy observations now seasoned with a worldliness that certainly belied his tender twenty-five years at the time . The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion‘s songs ” Sting Me”,”Remedy”,”Thorn in My Pride”,”Sometimes Salvation”,”Hotel Illness”, and “My Morning Song” were all recorded in Los Angeles against the backdrop of the first trial of several white L.A. police officers accused of beating African American motorist Rodney King. When the all-white jury acquitted the white policemen , the visiting Black Crowes got a front row seat to the violent rioting and the bitter taste of what it means to become a target for the color of your skin . -Redbeard

Black Crowes” Rainy Day Women #12 & 35 “

admin — Mon, 07 May 2012 02:00:42 +0000

Since their very first album in 1990, The Black Crowes have continued a fine tradition of recording and releasing singles and EPs with acoustic , live , and alternate take versions of their most popular songs . Their rousing version of Bob Dylan‘s classic ” Rainy Day Women #12 & #35 “ never appeared on any Black Crowes album , instead first appearing as the B-side of 1992′s “Hotel Illness “ single and then , three years later , as the most appropriate lead off track on the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws ( NORML) herb-themed compilation , Hempilation 1 . - Redbeard