Tell me about your song “Slacabamorinico.” It’s awesome. Every year in Mobile, I think it’s at the end of Mardi Gras, they have Joe Cain Day, and they have music played at the cemetery on Joe Cain’s grave - I don’t know if they still do it that way, but they did about thirty years ago. I asked a bunch people who Joe Cain was and nobody knew. I finally found some- body who knew. He was the guy who brought Mardi Gras to Mobile. He was a fire- man at the turn of the last century - the 1890’s - he brought Mardi Gras to Mobile. He would dress up as a Chickasaw Indian Chief. Apparently, he chose them - the Chickasaw and the Seminoles were the only two tribes who never surrendered to the U.S. Government. He kind of wanted to mess with the U.S. government because he had just lost that Civil War thing. We need to bring the party back. We need to get these people out of their “downs.” He had a band called the Lost Cause Minstrels, which I kind of like. This is his story and how Slacabamorinico brought the party back to Mobile. “Oh Slac, Slacabamorinico, he brought the party back.”
And the actual music on this has got that wonderful New Orleans - is there a word that describes it?
It’s that second line, has that parade feel. Another thing that happened during these sessions, when we were recording the trom- bone part on the intro to this - it’s funny because, we had Chad Fisher playing the trombone - he’s from Birmingham, a fine trombone player, and he was there alone - the other horn players had already put their parts on and left the building, and Chad was there doing his part. He’d do a take and try again, and we let him go till he liked it. And when we went back to mix it - David thought he had muted all but one of the dif- ferent takes, but when we went back he had
actually left two of them on, and it just turned out, by coincidence, that they were perfectly answering each other - so what you’ll hear at the beginning are two different trombone parts answering each other - and we didn’t know it was happening. Another spirit from beyond that’s out there. The muse was treating us well that day.
I’m looking at the back of the CD cover. Whoever put your package together for this did a very, fine job. Having a booklet in there with the lyrics is like the greatest thing in the world. Yeah, I said we have to do that. Terry Bradley is the graphics man. He and I came up with the idea. The cover photo was actual- ly taken in New York City.
Coming out of the subway? No, actually, it’s an apartment building. My son in law took that, Steven Gondet. He and I were wandering around New York City one day taking photos, not for any particular rea- son, and then when I needed an album cover, I went back and saw this one and said, we might use that. Me coming up from the subterranean levels there kind of fit with Let’s Get Outta Here. Again, Michael, I tell you, it’s really strange how everything fell together. I don’t even remember doing this thing now. It’s like it always existed all of a sudden. Very strange.
I can completely understand that. A lot of people might think, “Tommy Talton is losing his mind,” but not me. I fully understand. I believe there are forces at work. Like I say, as hard as you’ve worked and as many years as you’ve put in with We the People and Cowboy - all that stuff is so good - but there’s something, the hand of God, I would say, personally, touched this, and that‘s why I play this CD while I’m
14
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74