jimbessman.com

I am, to use the words of Nick Gravenites, a “victim of the blues.”
He was speaking specifically of Tracy Nelson, the blues belter of late-1960s San Francisco country-rock band Mother Earth, who hails from Madison, Wisconsin, as do I.
“The blues chased her,” Gravenites said, by way of explaining how she ended up a blues artist. Same with the rest of the legendary musicians making up the Chicago Blues Reunion, whose “Buried Alive in the Blues” CD/DVD set was released earlier this year on Out of the Box Records, and whose national tour just ended. And, of course, same with me, who was at the CBR tour stop August 3 at B.B. King’s in New York, with a lot of other people who probably were equally inspired by the artists on stage.
“Buried Alive in the Blues” is also the title of Janis Joplin’s “Pearl” album instrumental.
“She died the night before she was going to do the vocal, so it’s fitting,” said Gravenites, whose song is included in the album, as is his autobiographical “Born in Chicago,” made famous by Paul Butterfield (both were performed at B.B.’s). Like Butterfield—and virtually every other member of CBR (organist Barry Goldberg, guitarist Harvey Mandel, blues harmonica master Corky Siegel, and drumming legend Sam Lay)—Gravenites honed his blues skills at the feet of such Chicago masters as Muddy Waters, Little Walter, Howlin’ Wolf (Lay played behind Walter and Wolf, as well as Butterfield) and many others likewise associated with the classic Chicago blues label Chess Records.
Gravenites, who played acoustic blues with Butterfield before moving to San Francisco and founding the legendary blues-rock band Electric Flag in 1967 (with Goldberg, guitarist Mike Bloomfield, bassist Harvey Brooks and drummer Buddy Miles), tied the CBR individuals together with his colorful storytelling. Each of the native Chicagoans, Gravenites related, went their own way in the blues, with Harvey Mandel (the master of sustain and controlled feedback, a.k.a. “The Snake”) moving out of the West Side to celebrated stints with Charlie Musselwhite, Canned Heat, John Mayall, his own band Pure Food & Drug Act, and an audition to replace Mick Taylor in the Rolling Stones (Ron Wood got the gig, though Mandel does appear on “Black and Blue”).
Corky Siegel, one of the blues’ most creative harp men, partnered with guitarist Jim Schwall in the Siegel-Schwall Band, which, incredibly, still exists (“Flash Forward,” the band’s first album of new material in 30 years, has just been released on Alligator). After following in the blues club footsteps of the Butterfield Blues Band, Siegel-Schwall became popular in the San Francisco scene, then recorded blues-classical hybrids with the Boston Pops and the San Francisco Symphony (conducted by Seiji Ozawa) before Siegel spun off his Corky Siegel’s Chamber Blues group, which also still exists (and records for Alligator). Goldberg, who also served in Musselwhite’s first band, ended up in L.A., where among other things, he co-wrote the Gladys Knight & the Pips hit “I’ve Got to Use My Imagination” with Carole King’s former husband and writing partner Gerry Goffin.
Gravenites saluted Musselwhite, the late Butterfield and Bloomfield, Elvin Bishop and Steve Miller among the other white Chicago blues players of the era, then came to Lay, who now serves in Siegel-Schwall.
“People like Sam accepted us,” said Gravenites.
Lay, like Gravenites and Nelson, only did a few songs, leaving the rest to the core band, which besides the CBR stars included veterans R. Zach Wagner, who has previously played with Goldberg, on rhythm guitar and background vocals; bassist Rick Reed (Butterfield) and drummer Gary Mallaber (Steve Miller, Bob Seger and Van Morrison). But Lay’s drumming/lead singing on the Muddy Waters staple “Got My Mojo Working” was clearly a high point; so was Gravenites’ version of “Drinkin’ Wine,” on which Butterfield Blues Band keyboardist Mark Naftalin joined in.
“Sam cried the last night of the tour,” said Goldberg. “He said he was going to miss us all so much. But Corky would kid me about crying every night, too. So I tried to keep macho with my Marine Corps. hat on, but I’d look over at Corky in the middle of the set and see how much fun he was having, and see Snake moving around and Nick Gravenites, man, and he’s alive, with so much soul coming out, howling and smiling–and his bad knees don’t seem to bother him.”
A quick aside: Goldberg enlisted into the Marine reserves in 1962. “It was the biggest mistake I ever made in my whole life. I got out just before Vietnam because of colitis, but I had a buddy who got killed.”
Back to the main story: “I looked around and saw what everyone’s putting out, and it’s not like a ‘Super Session’ kind of thing [a reference to the landmark 1968 album starring Bloomfield, Al Kooper and Stephen Stills], but something that sounds good together because we all come from the same place and have that respect for each other after all all these years and history: Nick started calling me ‘Boris,’ which was the nickname that Michael called me in the Electric Flag, and he said, ‘I don’t know why I said that!’ and I said “I do. Mike’s vibe is all around us!
“And Corky! My God, what a musician he is! It’s unbelievable, the sounds he was making and things he was doing. His wife had food poisoning at B.B. King’s, and he played like he was playing to the spirits so that she would get better. And Snake played like he had these invisible antennas sending out interplanetary sounds, like an alien. It was supernatural—little things like that coming down—and then Sam comes up and it’s ‘traditional’ time. It was the most exciting thing I’ve ever been involved in musically. I’d start crying right in the middle of the set–but with dignity!”
Dignity, Goldberg noted, is “all we have,” in terms, at least, of compensation commensurate with their stature as music history forgers of immense influence.
“We don’t have money, this or that,” he said. “We’re struggling to find a place for ourselves in music again, and re-establish what we did and turn people on to the whole story. It’s that heavy, man.”
Like he said, Goldberg had “played with each and every one” on the bill. He produced Mother Earth and Mandel, and played with Mandel on Musselwhite’s classic “Stand Back!” 1967 solo album debut, and played with Gravenites in Electric Flag. And then there was the 1965 Newport Folk Festival.
“I came with Michael and Paul to play keyboards with the Butterfield Blues Band, but their producer didn’t want keyboards, so I had no gig. But Michael recommended me to Dylan, who asked me if I wanted to play. So I played with Sam and the Butterfield Band when they backed Dylan.”
This was the historic turning point in Dylan’s career, when he made the controversial move from acoustic folk to electric folk-rock.
“So everyone was intertwining with each other with all those connections,” continued Goldberg, “and Chicago.”
Chicago. The Chicago blues. Chess Records.
“Marshall Chess was in the audience [at B.B. King’s], and it brought him right back to [legendary Chicago blues club] Big John’s,” said Goldberg.
Marshall Chess, son of Leonard Chess, co-founder of Chess Records with his brother Phil Chess. Himself a blues record producer and founder of Rolling Stones Records, Marshall now heads Arc Music Group, the New York-based publishing company that owns many of the classic Chess Records blues songs.
“I was working for Chess Records, and we had all the famous blues artists—Sonny Boy Williamson, Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf,” said Chess.
“I was just beginning my producer career, putting together blues compilations and hanging out. Muddy Waters started playing a club in the near North Side, Big John’s, and I began going there and it became one of my weekend hangouts, seeing the Chess artists who were playing there, and guys like Bloomfield and Butterfield and Goldberg, who all came to Chess because they were blues fanatics. I began to listen to them and got to know them all, and they all wanted to talk to me because of my relationship with Chess.”
In short order, these younger white artists got signed to labels like Vanguard and Elektra, but “it never entered my mind [to sign them],” continued Chess, “because the white blues market didn’t exist: The only blues market at that time was black, and I never thought they would be commercially successful in the black blues market. But Elektra signed Butterfield and the Electric Flag went to Columbia and it all took off—but they’d all have rather been on Chess than any other label, probably. But it didn’t stop my friendship with them—or my enthusiasm for what they were doing.”
As it was for Goldberg—and probably everyone else in the audience—the show was for Chess “very emotionally involving.”
“Not only do I know all these guys personally, but it’s going back in time for me,” said Chess. “There’s an emotional connection to an earlier part of my life, and it’s great that they’re all still there and have all gotten better! They all know the classic foundations of Chicago blues: They really studied it and emulated the classic blues players of Chicago and put it all together in their own way.”
As Goldberg put it, “The music is the blues—and that’s the common denominator. It’s not like it’s an oldies or nostalgia show, but it brings people back to a time and place where it was a lot easier and mellow and we were grooving and all of a sudden it became a different kind of world. But back then it was a special kind of place in Chicago.”
A different kind of world, indeed. By the time “these guys” grooved and moved, those of us who embraced them, and by extension, the Chess blues greats who were their idols, were worrying about getting drafted and packed off to the wrong end of the world. Flash forward forty years and we’re worried that our kids are about to get drafted—if we’re lucky enough to still be here to worry about anything at all.
“The music brings everyone together,” Goldberg reitereated. “It has a special meaning, not only for the musicians but the people who come to see us: It gives us all a renewed interest in something—and a place for us to enjoy each other and have a good time.”
There is a famous Chess album from 1969 aptly titled “Fathers and Sons.” It paired the Chess legends Muddy Waters, Otis Spann and Lay with their musical offspring Butterfield, Bloomfield, Donald “Duck” Dunn and Buddy Miles.
Almost all the fathers of the blues are gone now, and a lot of the sons are gone as well. But those that remain, as evidenced by the Chicago Blues Reunion, are alive and kicking.
Victims of the blues.

Those of us who are deeply touched by music rarely have the chance to give something back other than buying a record or a concert ticket or a T-shirt, maybe say thank you after the show if the artist is approachable.

At B.B. King’s on August 2, two full houses were able to give a whole lot back to one of the most important singing voices, yet still one of the most unsung heroes in rock ‘n roll history—at a time when he needed it the most. It was a benefit tribute for Mike Smith, the singer and organist for the Dave Clark Five, paralyzed since a tragic fall almost two years ago, shortly after an extraordinary performance at the club in which he performed all the great DC5 hits before a star-studded crowd, Paul Shaffer among them.

“The whole image of the Dave Clark Five was very strong when I was a kid,” an exhausted Shaffer said the day after the benefit, which he organized together with his manager Eric Gardner and Margo Lewis, agent for both Smith and the Zombies (and herself a legendary keyboard player for Goldie and the Gingerbreads, the first all-female rock band to be signed to a major label, who toured with the likes of The Rolling Stones, The Kinks and The Yardbirds). “I loved their records, and was in a band myself that had a sax player.”

The DC5’s sound, of course, was marked by Smith’s Vox organ and vocals and Dennis Payton’s sax (Clark was the drummer), not to mention the band’s massive big beat. “The difference between them and the Beatles,” Shaffer said, quoting from a DC5 interview, “was that the Beatles used handclaps and the Dave Clark 5 used footstomps.”

Indeed, the DC5 was the Beatles’ main competition when the British Invasion first took hold in America, answering “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” and “She Loves You” with “Glad All Over” and “Bits and Pieces.”

“When the Beatles hit, we started adding vocals—so we were similar to the DC5,” continued Shaffer, who was born in Thunder Bay, Ontario, and whose band played mainly sax-based instrumentals like “Harlem Nocturne” a la Johnny & the Hurricanes, an American band “that was more well-known in Canada, for some reason. On a CD compilation Dave actually says he modeled [the Dave Clark 5] after American sax instrumental bands.”

Shaffer noted that the DC5 also recorded and performed instrumentals—most notably, the “Tequila”-like “Chaquita.” “But they way [the DC5] looked was indelible,” he said, adding “the way Mike stood up at the Vox was the reason why I stood up then and still stand up today when I play. The only thing is, he didn’t seem to have a volume pedal! I stand on one foot with the other on the volume pedal, and after my first gig I walked off the stage and my foot was asleep and I fell over!”

Another peculiarity regarding Smith is the fact that although he was the band’s lead singer, his name was not the one associated with the band.

“It was in the tradition of the big bands like Artie Shaw and Glenn Miller–bands that had great singers who weren’t as important as the bandleader until someone like a Frank Sinatra emerged and went on to a solo career—which Mike never really did,” Shaffer explained.

Still, when Smith played at B.B. King’s on March 16, 2003—his first New York gig in over 30 years—it was a turning point.

“He sang all the hits in the original keys, and also did a lot of early American rock ‘n roll and r&b—Jerry Lee Lewis and Fats Domino,” recalled Shaffer. “He showed his roots, and I realized he was a soul singer, even though the DC5 records were very English in their take on soul and in no way could be considered r&b records.”

The week after, Shaffer was given the opportunity to host “The Late Show with David Letterman” during his boss’s recuperation from heart surgery. “I thought of Mike immediately to take my role when I took Dave’s role, and the band played all DC5 songs and were so ‘up’ and energetic,” said Shaffer. “I learned why it’s so important to Dave for me to really hit those songs so hard when we come back from a commercial break, because he gets energized by the music to slam into the next segment. Coming out of [the DC5’s] ‘Any Way You Want It’ I was ready to interview a starlet!”

Smith was “lovely to work with and very humble—but he sang his heart out that night,” added Shaffer, “and then six months later he had that horrible accident.” At the behest of his wife Cathy—who was also a huge DC5 fan—Shaffer wanted to do something to help.

“Cathy loved them, especially the ballad ‘Because,’” he said. “In the early days of our dating, we used to think of it as our song—leave a space for the reader to vomit! When we got married we wanted to have Mike play but he was in England doing jingles—and I didn’t have the kind of bread to fly him over. But I had a nice chat with him, and then we saw him later at B.B.’s. Steve Van Zandt was another big fan, same with Max Weinberg [both of Springsteen’s E Street Band]. Steve and I tried to do something for Mike a year ago, but for various reasons it didn’t happen and we both felt bad about it. But I finally have a Vox organ—which I couldn’t afford as a kid because it cost $1,000 in Canada. It’s set up in my music room and every day I would look at it and say, ‘Jeez, I should do something,’ and Cathy kept saying ‘When are you going to do something for Mike Smith?’”

Shaffer called Lewis, who said that the Zombies had a free date. Van Zant, who was unable to attend because of his shooting schedule for “The Sopranos,” offered input, as did Smith’s contemporary Peter Noone, lead singer of Herman’s Hermits, who also couldn’t make it due to scheduling.

Paul called me as well. I suggested the Fab Faux, the ultimate Beatles cover band starring Paul’s “Late Show” bassist Will Lee and “Late Night with Conan O’Brien” guitarist Jimmy Vivino—which Shaffer probably would have thought of if he’d waited another minute before calling me. “They immediately said yes, and we had a date!” said Shaffer.

The Zombies, of course, were huge, but they’ve played New York several times in the last few years. Leave it to Cathy to come up with the real coup.

“She said, ‘Getting Peter & Gordon together would be really something,’” said Shaffer. “I said they’d never do it, but she said you won’t know until you try.”

As Peter Asher would say after the show, the reason he and partner Gordon Waller hadn’t reunited in 35 years was because “I have a day job,” a modest reference to his current position as head of Sanctuary Artist Management, not to mention his illustrious past as an a&r man and producer and manager for artists like Linda Ronstadt.

“He emailed Gordon and said, ‘Maybe this is the one we can’t turn down,’ and came back and said, ‘We’re in,’ so we had the beginning of a British Invasion evening,” said Shaffer. “That made it easy to make the next calls. Denny Laine and Billy J. Kramer were both in the country and said yes, and we didn’t need to fly them in.”

The only setback came the day of the “England Swings: A Tribute to Mike Smith of the Dave Clark Five” show, when The Zombies were due to fly out of Toronto after a gig in Winnipeg. Bad weather—and the Air France wreck—made that impossible, but the group somehow managed to get a car to Hamilton, Ontario, where a plane, reportedly sent by Letterman, picked them up and got them to the benefit an hour late.

“It says something about their commitment that they didn’t give up and did everything they could to be there,” said the admittedly relieved Shaffer.

Aside from the delay, the first show went off without a hitch. The Fab Faux, fresh from their feature in Rolling Stone, opened with typically letter-perfect renditions of Beatles material, mostly late-period songs like “Tomorrow Never Knows” (from “Revolver,” whose legendary Abbey Road Studios engineer Geoff Emerick was in the audience), “I Am the Walrus” (marked by Lee’s laughing voices), “Penny Lane” (featuring Lew Soloff’s stellar turn on the trumpet parts), “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” (Vivino was spectacular) and “All You Need is Love” (replete with strings and horns)—all songs that the Beatles never performed in concert.

In a nod to the honoree, The Fab Faux departed from their normal program in performing the Dave Clark Five’s “Catch Us If You Can.” Kramer followed with a few of his Beatles-era hits (“Little Children,” the Lennon-McCartney-penned “Bad to Me”) and the DC5’s “Come Home.” Former Wings guitarist Laine turned in his early hit with the Moody Blues “Go Now” and the DC5’s “Any Way You Want It.”

The Peter & Gordon reuinion came next and included such vintage British Invasion hits as “I Go to Pieces,” “Lady Godiva” and “World Without Love” (another Lennon-McCartney composition, on which Shaffer, in a Union Jack vest, took a star turn on organ). The pair played it right, dressing alike with matching acoustic guitars; Peter, acknowledging that they “don’t exactly look the same as we did,” pulled out the glasses he wore on “The Ed Sullivan Show” to complete the illusion before tributing Smith—and the Shaffers—with “Because.”

Led by the ageless Colin Blunstone and Rod Argent, The Zombies closed the show with a brief but superb set of their hits (“Time of the Season,” “Tell Her No” and “She’s Not There”) along with Argent’s “Hold Your Head Up” and the DC5’s “Can’t You See That She’s Mine.” The whole cast came out to stomp the DC5 classic, “Bits and Pieces,” with Max Weinberg and Steely Dan’s Donald Fagen joining in respectively on drums and keyboards.

That was it, except for a heartbreaking “thank you” video by Mike Smith, filmed at the hospital where he has been a patient these last two years. It was like seeing the late Christopher Reeve, for it’s the same degree of debilitation. Luckily, Smith also has a devoted wife, Charlie, who opened the clip with “Over 40 years, and that voice still continues to thrill me.”

Sure enough, Smith sounded remarkably good in his short greeting, despite the glitches (an introductory text explained that they decided to go with what they had rather than put him through the ordeal of a second taping). He thanked all the participants, as well as the celebrities who had donated memorabilia for auction on e-Bay (including a guitar from Bruce Springsteen, drumhead from Ringo Starr, and pair of boots from Nancy Sinatra).

“There was such a feeling in the room,” concluded Shaffer. He added, tellingly, “As a kid, I never thought I’d be in the position to hang out with people like The Zombies and Denny Laine.”

Me neither. But the real beauty of the event, for those who were lucky enough to be there, was the wonderful, unforgettable opportunity, albeit one resulting from horrible misfortune, to do something big for someone so important to all of us.