DEDICATED TO THE COLLECTING OF MUSIC, ITS PRESERVATION AND LASTING FRIENDSHIP
THIS MONTH’S MEETING
THIS SUNDAY, APRIL 2ND 2:00 PM
HOMEWOOD PUBLIC LIBRARY 1721 OXMOOR RD BIRMINGHAM, AL 35209
NEXT MEETING, MAY 7TH 2:00 PM THE FIRST SUNDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
NOTIFICATION: BOTH THE APRIL & MAY MEETINGS WILL BE HELD ON THE FIRST SUNDAY
THIS MONTH’S MEETING
Last month’s meeting was filled not only with great Doo Wop sounds but with more info and trivia about the labels and artists than you could ask for. Bob Friedman entertained us for over an hour and I think we could have stayed for more. The music was great with sounds such as The Jivers, ‘Little Mama’, Little Esther And The Dominoes, ‘The Deacon Moves In’, Five Blue Notes, ‘Ooh Baby’, an early one from Little Anthony known then as The Duponts doing ‘Somebody’, and don’t forget the gals. Bob played one by the Hearts, ‘Talk About Him, Girlie’. Thanks, Bob. It is always fun and educational.
This month Bob continues as the presenter but this time it is something quite different. Bob is the Director and Archivist for the Birmingham Black Radio Museum (BBRM), a not-for-profit organization of some 20 years in Birmingham, cataloging and chronicling the history of Black radio and its impact on the Birmingham community, from the 1930’s through the 1980’s Their collection has won statewide awards and national recognition. Their two collections contain over 80 oral histories and nearly a thousand pieces of ephemera relating in some way to the history of Birmingham and Black radio, and can be viewed on their web site at www.thebbrm.org.
The site of the Birmingham Black Radio Museum is located in the Alabama Jazz Hall Of Fame which is in the Carver Theater. Even if you are not from the Birmingham area, please come and give any thoughts you may have. Drop by and help Bob on this special project as he is preserving black radio history.
RECOGNIZE THESE NAMES?
Recently we lost two more of the early R&R musicians whose names you may not be familiar with. David Lindley and Jim Gordon. But both left their mark on the R&R world. When they were on stage they were either there as a backing musician or as someone whose band wasn’t nationally known but influential.
David Lindley could be called a multi-instrumentalist but some called him a maxi-instrumentalist. David played over a dozen stringed instruments and other non-stringed ones. The violin, acoustic and electric guitar, upright and electric bass, banjo, lap steel guitar, mandolin, dobro, hardingfele, bouzouki, cittern, baglama, gumbus, charango, cumbus, oud and zither. I bet he had calluses on his fingers. I don’t even know what some of these instruments look like!
Lindley formed his own bands such as Kaleidoscope and El Rayo-X. But he was also well-known on the West Coast as a session player. He recorded and toured with artists including Jackson Browne, Warren Zevon, Linda Ronstadt, Curtis Mayfield, James Taylor, David Crosby, Graham Nash, Dolly Parton, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springfield, Toto, Rod Stewart, Joe Walsh, Ry Cooder and Bonnie Rait. And in his ‘free-time’ he scored and composed music for film.
His musical background began at age three when he took up the violin moving on to the ukulele in his early teens and then the banjo. He won a musical contest called the Topanga Banjo-Fiddle Contest held in the Santa Monica mountain area five times by his late teens. He was playing banjo with the Dry City Scat Band with Chris Darrow and Richard Greene. Over the years while hanging out at local night spots he collaborated with Ry Cooder and Chris Hillman sharing ideas about different types of music leading to his wide variety of musical likes. Lindley was known to buy his instruments from Sears department stores for their unique sound. He was known among his contemporaries as using ‘cheap’ instruments.
His band El Rayo-X recorded an LP in 1981 which was produced by Jackson Browne. El Rayo-X was together until 1989 when Lindley went solo. He toured with Jackson Browne and his voice can be heard on Browne’s live version of ‘Stay’. His voice is heard in the refrain ‘Oh won’t you stay, just a little bit longer’ in falsetto.
David Lindley was born March 21, 1944 and died March 3, 2023 after a long illness. He came down with Covid-19 in 2020 and the family said it caused kidney damage.
From the 1981 David Lindley El Rayo-X LP
Jim Gordon. Know the name? Among hard-core music aficionados he was known as the drummer for Derek & The Dominoes but not only that. He was co-writer along with Eric Clapton of the iconic song, ‘Layla’.
In 1963 at age 17 Gordon passed up a music scholarship to UCLA to begin his career in music backing the Everly Brothers. He would become a much sought after session drummer in the L.A. area. He was on such LP’s as the Beach Boys, Pet Sounds and the hit, ‘Classical Gas’ by Mason Williams. He would at times be so sought after that he would fly to L.A. from Las Vegas to record 2-3 recording sessions and then fly back to Vega to do his night time gigs at Caesars Palace.
While with Delaney & Bonnie he hooked up with Eric Clapton and along with Carl Radle and Bobby Whitlock also with Delaney & Bonnie they formed Derek & The Dominoes. Their first work was as session musicians for George Harrison’s three disc set, All Things Must Pass. The group would then cut the well-known Derek & The Dominoes LP Layla And Other Assorted Love Songs.
There is some controversy about Jim Gordon’s part in the piano break that he was hear playing one day in the studio and was convinced by Clapton to include it in ‘Layla’. Some say the interlude was something Gordon learned from his then girlfriend, Rita Coolidge from a song soon to be called ‘Time’ done by Booker T Jones and Priscilla Coolidge, Rita’s sister. But whatever the case, Gordon may have played a part in the development of the piano piece while with Rita.
Jim Gordon would be a part of Joe Cocker’s Mad Dogs And Englishmen tour, play on Dave Mason’s Alone Together LP, and back Nilsson on his Nilsson Schmilsson LP doing the great drum solo on ‘Jump Into The Fire’. He would perform with Incredible Bongo Band, Frank Zappa and even played drums on Helen Reddy’s LP, I Am Woman. Later on he would back Johnny Rivers, Art Garfunkel, Steely Dan, performing most of the drums tracks on the Pretzel Logic LP, Chris Hillman, Alice Cooper and the drummer for the Souther-Hillman-Furay Band.
Quite an accomplishment for a guy who would later be diagnosed with alcohol abuse but later it was determined it was schizophrenia. He would hear voices which he thought was his mother’s. He would not eat, could not sleep and no longer played the drums. While touring with Joe Cocker he supposedly punched his girlfriend, Rita Coolidge ending their relationship. All this would lead to him attacking his mother with a hammer and then fatally stabbing her with a knife claiming a voice told him to do it. After being denied parole many times he died in the California Medical Facility. Jim Gordon was born on July 14, 1945 and died on March 13, 2023.
Derek & The Dominoes on the Johnny Cash TV Show 1971 (youtube link). Jim Gordon is on drums.
This is my favorite song from the Layla LP and this is worth watching just to see and hear Bobby Whitlock’s (the pianist) backing vocals
BRC RADIO
Give a listen to these recent shows:
http://www.birminghamrecord.com/brc/brc-radio-3-5-23/
http://www.birminghamrecord.com/brc/brc-radio-3-19-23/
See ya,
Charlie