The wind the air, the water, and Little Richard and Sun Ra, Bobby Bland and B.B. King and Hank Williams, Sr.
That's a good group. Those are my big five.
The wind was one of my favorites too. Yeah. Absolutely.
And the trees. Then these 300 others that are tied for second place. (Laughs)
So you grew up in Atlanta, Georgia. Yeah, spelled J-a-w-j-a.
Somebody had told me this interesting story. A friend of mine named James Calamine told me that you usd to sneak into the Royal Peacock Lounge to see Otis Redding, B.B. and all the great soul and blues singers. Very true. Everybody, Jackie Wilson. . . I missed Sam Cooke by about a week.
Oh no. Bummer. I was 14 or 15, let me tell you how the world has changed so much. I drive ten miles, I'd sneak in about 11:30 at night, my parents never knew it, and I would get on my moped with no helmet and park it in front of the nightclub and sneak in, I was snuck into the club by the doorman and got under the stage and eventually worked my way to the side of the stage without anybody seeing me. So I went to college and studied Otis Redding, B.B. King, Albert King, Freddie King, John Lee Hooker, Jimmy Reed, Bobby Bland and I got to see the greatest music ever made, and back then they had the thing called "tone and urgency," which was amazing, which is gone today.
I know about the tone, but what was un- gency? Just that they meant every dime of it! You know, most everywhere you look for it now, it’s gone. There was a definite urgency that will probably never come back. Otis had it. I got to hear the richest music ever made.
Oh Yeah. The bass player, the guitar player, there were no attitudes, they meant it! You know? They meant it like they never meant it before, and uh, the essence was there too. When they got off stage, whether they made a dime or not they were very happy. It was a thing of joy almost. It was like church music. It meant something, you know? It was church felt, like a church feeling. Back in the early 60's you'd go to a country show and it was the same thing, you know - the different forms of music are basically the same and it's all the essence. You either mean it or you don't, and you have to have the intent to do it. I got to see Red Sovine, Bill Monroe in the early 60's and the greats Dave Dudley, on and on and on, Hank and Willie, well I never saw Hank, but Willie they would play at a bar on 10th street in the late 60's called Hank and Jerrys hideaway, you'd walk in there for a dollar and Jerry Lee [Lewis] would be playing every night. He grew up up about four blocks away. The music would just . . . everybody that was there was just quality and they meant it. Deep country or deep R&,B it was going on! It was real!
Man. Exactly! You saw it too, Michael. Where did you grow up, Greenville?
No, Spartanburg. Spartanburg, Yeah, well okay, I don't know what the scene was in the 60's in Spartanburg but I am sure it was a great scene. Hank Garland’s from there. He's a monster.
Yeah, He was. “Sugarfoot” Garland. He
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