bums and everything in the studio was seri- ous work to me, you know. It wasn’t like party time, you know what I’m talking about? That’s when you usually have your fond mem- ories, but this particular thing is just like, you know, just get it done and let me see if I can do this and I’d always be surprised when it would actually work. So I had it when I was
was a Ray Charles’ song. And I never knew it. I mean, it was from 1955, which was before my pop music time as they say, you know. I wasn’t listening to that much radio in 1955. I had no idea that was one of his tunes.
Wow. 1955. We used to play it with Dr. John and I would think, “Oh my God, what a song!” “I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to play that good to play that song.” But I’d wish I could. And al- ways, I’d use a few licks from it, from playing various songs. And I didn’t remember where the licks came from until I re-learned the song.
When was it you were with Dr. John? Was that in the 70s? Early 70s. It was early 70s before I started producing Marshall Tucker.
first starting off compiling and getting ideas to do this thing, I only had about four songs in mind. The biggest surprise to me of all was the song “Mess Around.” And it took me six months to learn to play that song. Hardest song I’ve ever played in my life. And I still have to play it every day, sit down and play it once a day to remember how to play it. I used to play with Dr. John. I was a night tripper for a while. I was on the road playing B3 Ham- mond with Dr. John and we’d play that song. And I didn’t know where the song came from. You know, we just did a crash course, me learning his songs and I think I had one re- hearsal and I had to be on the band stand with him the next night so there he was. I didn’t have time to think where these songswere coming from. We were playing them, I just assumed this was one of his songs.
Was that a Ray Charles song? Yeah, and as it turned out later on when I was learning to play that song for a gig I was going to do, then I went to research and found out it
Was it before he did the “Right Place, Wrong Time?” Just before.
Oh, okay. Because that was the first time I got into him was that pink eight- track tape, (laughs) In The Right Place. He was living in Macon at the time I played with him and then he left Macon and moved back to New Orleans and cut that down there with the Meters.
Loved that record. As a matter of fact, one of the greatest things that anybody every said about me that I’ll al- ways remember - I’d just got together with Dr. John. I think it might have been the first gig I’d played with him. We went to Puerto Rico to play a pop festival. The Mar-E-Sol (right, yeah) Pop Festival, an outdoor thing and after the show, Jerry Wexler, he was out there recording this stuff and his daughter came back stage to talk to Dr. John, Mac, as we knew him, and I heard her tell him “Dad says this is the best organ player you’ve ever
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