of people. Who comes to mind if I ask about favorite people you have toured with? That’s kind of hard, like naming your favorite
song. I have always had a great time with Joe Cocker, Tina Turner, Eric Clapton. People that you really love their music and you’re glad to be out there with them. Then on the country side, Waylon Jennings was great and we went lots of miles together.
Wow, he was great. He was and still is.
I knowTina Turner has recorded lots of your songs. How did your relationship with her come about? It started with a demo I had done in my studio
here and a song that my wife and I had written called “Undercover Agent For The Blues.” It has me and my guitar, bass, and drums. I may have put a tiny bit of organ on the back. It was very simplistic. At that time Roger Davis was manag- ing Tina and they were in LA. I heard that Mark Knopfler played it for her because him and I had been friends for a long time so I had sent him a copy of it. Then Roger called me and said that Tina wanted to record that song and that she wanted me to play guitar on it and wanted it to sound just like the old demo. Which was an old analog 16-track with hissing and everything. (Laughs) But is sounded cool. So I flew out there and met Roger and we went over and saw Tina and she was doing a commercial at Chevrolet, some car dealership thing, and we walked into her dressing room and she was getting her make- up on. Roger and I were standing there and she looked at me and started rolling and laughing. She was just dying laughing and couldn’t get her breath. I was standing there looking at the floor and just thought maybe my pants were unzipped or something, you know? It was weird. She just couldn’t quit. Finally she walked over to give me a big hug and said that she was sorry for laughing but that she thought ever since “Poke Salad Annie” that I was a black man. (Laughs). We hit it off from that minute like brothers and sisters. We flew to New York where they were going to record and did “Undercover Agent for the Blues” using
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just organ, bass, drums and me on the guitar. Tina was singing and doing it live. It was amazing to see her in the studio because she moves in the studio just like she does on the stage. She is danc- ing and moving and then all of a sudden in the middle of the song on the instrumental part she kicks the singing booth door open and struts out into the big room where me and the drums are, and grabs the microphone off the cymbals and finishes the song almost down on her knees like a show. I am thinking, I hope they have that tape rolling, man. So anyway, it came out perfect and she came over and told me that there was a song on that tape that she really liked called “Steamy Windows” and that she really wanted to cut it. So I was thinking that this must be a dream. Not only playing guitar for her but having Tina cut some of my songs. Then she cut “Steamy” that day and that night Roger called and said that she
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