Chuck and Jerry Garcia.
me in to play on it. As it turned out, the rest of the Allmans came down to the studio, hanging out, and we just started jamming. We had lots of these fun jams between Gregg's solo sessions, and things just felt really good. After a couple of weeks of this, sometimes doing Gregg's music, and sometimes jamming with the Allmans, I get a call to have a meet- ing with the band and Phil Walden at his of- fice. I didn't know what was up, but when they asked me to join the band I nearly fell over! I was trying so hard to be cool about it, but I'm sure it was obvious that I was sur- prised. I couldn't believe my good fortune, doing the new ABB record and Gregg's first solo record at the same time! It was a huge boost for me, and I was over the moon to be alive and playing with these great musicians! There's not enough space to tell you about the years that were to come, but I can just say that during my whole tenure with the band I was proud to be there. There were tough times, as we all know...and I wish so much that things had not come in the way of the music, but eventually they did. So I was heartbroken when the band broke up. But Jaimoe, Lamar and I decided to carry on and formed Sea Level, and that led to a whole other story.
What are your most vivid recollections of the band Sea Level? Well, as I mentioned above, we had some great shows playing theaters with Jan Ham- mer being the opening act, and then he would sit in with us. Sea Level was a great band. We had a hard time with the record company and the retail stores, because we were so hard to tag. We did instrumentals, but we sang, and we played rock 'n roll, but we played r&b, and we had tinges of jazz. I felt for the label and the stores, because they couldn't figure out where to put us- rock? instrumental? jazz? But we didn't really care. We just played and had fun. As you know, the personnel changed a good bit Jaimoe left, and we had George Weaver on drums for a while. Jaimoe had suggested him to us. He played in Otis Red- ding's band for a while, then later Joe Eng- lish. We added Randall Bramblett and Davis Causey to the lineup. And very late in the game we had a guy named Paul Brodeur on
bass...great player, but he died of cancer- a tragic thing. Also had Matt Greeley playing percussion and singing for a couple of years, who also died of cancer, but much later, years after the band had broken up. I loved playing with Sea Level. We had wonderful times in the studio, and on the road. Stewart Levine (producer on three of the records) is still a very good friend, and I learned a lot from him during those years. I guess the theaters were the most fun for me to play with that band. It just seemed to work better than clubs or big dates. I somehow think that Sea Level never really reached it's potential, and that's a shame. But I don't like looking back over my shoulder, and really all I can say is that I'm grateful for the experience, and think I'm a better musician for it.
My wife and I really enjoyed the Eric Clapton tour of, I believe it was 1992. He did the Cream and Dominoes tunes, and you sang a lot. How was it working with Clapton? What's he like?
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