stage with Bill right on my trail, cussing me out. “How dare you be late for a gig at my club!” (Laughing) That is a very vivid mem- ory, and we had a great show thank God. Another memory of The Fillmore was
the next time when we went there, and I can’t remember the name of the headliner but maybe it will come to me in a minute. It was some large act that had been booked there a couple of times and not shown up - so many of these fans had been holding their tickets for some time to see whoever it was. So we walked out onstage to a chorus of boo’s from the audience, then Bill Graham came out from backstage and stepped up to my micro- phone and said that the people that did not like the music that he presented could go up to the front door, get your money back, and go home and listen to your 45’s. Some guy in about the third row yelled “fuck you” and Bill Graham jumped off the stage to get the guy but about the time he got there the security had grabbed him and dragged him out of his seat and pulled him up the aisle with Bill kicking him in the ass as he was being dragged. We only played Fillmore East two times and then Winterland with Gregg. Many years went by and I ran into Bill Graham when he was having lunch with Phil Walden and he remembered me. I was amazed at his ability to remember people. We played a pretty good show that sec-
ond night and I think we were billed with BloodRock and Spirit.
“Please Be With Me” may be your most popular song ever. Do you remember when you wrote it? Oh, yeah, we were doing the second Cowboy album, recording Five’ll Get You Ten, and the studio was being redone at that time in Macon. Johnny wanted to finish the album. He convinced Phil Walden to let us come here to Muscle Shoals Sound Studios.
At one point they came in and we did a
few tracks and I was done for the day. The other guys still had parts to do and our road manager - who is another story entirely - took me back to my room. They were supposed to come and get me for dinner and they forgot me and left me there. Suffice it to say that I grabbed a pen and started writing. I was
Capricorn Rhythm Section
doing free association in my head and then I looked at all the verses and started putting the verses in order the way they rhymed, just sort of a Zen way to write a song. This was just busy work because I got left at the hotel. I was not trying to write the next classic tune. Duane came in the next day and wanted to play. Well, we had three guys on guitars al- ready. He wanted to know if we had some- thing new and we tossed out a few tunes and finally I played “Please Be With Me.” Duane said, ‘Yeah, that’s the one I want to play on,’ and I remember that Johnny Sandlin looked at him and said that he felt that it was a beau- tiful song. So I was a little puzzled, I didn’t think I
had written any masterpiece. I didn’t really care that much about it, but have over the years grown quite fond of it. (Laughs) It has treated me well and I am grateful to have written it. The motel over here where I wrote
45
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
