Though I appear obscure and non-influential, I wield incredible influence over some of the most-revered performers of our time. Okay, just play along, will ya? It could be true, and I'll tell you why.
Eric Johnson
A few years ago I got to do a phone interview with well-known guitar player
Eric Johnson. Though for the most part I feel it was the worst interview I've ever done, there was one particular exchange that I'm quite proud of. Prior to the interview I read that he had once been an architecture student, and was still a fan of the art form. This was the seed of one of my questions.
"Jimmy Page once said that as a former art student he saw his music in colors, and each overdub was another color and texture he was mixing in. So as a former architecture student have you ever thought when you were doing a solo, This is the atrium, this is the mezzanine, this is the penthouse?"
Eric Johnson said, "Hmm...no. I'll have to try that out sometime." He really sounded intrigued with the idea. Perhaps at that night's show he closed his eyes and tried thinking that way and played his best show ever. Many musicians have commented that they find a 25% improvement in their playing just from having spoken to me. Okay, not really.
The reason I bring this up is that Friday I got a call at the call center from someone in the country music business. It wasn't the star themselves, but one of their employees. When the account came up on the screen and I saw the star's name I thought, "Wow, they have the same name as that famous female country singer who is not Carrie Underwood." I figured that name was probably pretty common, though. Then I saw the residence was in Nashville. This was starting to feel like I might be talking to a real "somebody," or someone associated with a somebody. Then I saw under "employer" it said "Famous Female Country Star who is Not Carrie Underwood World Tours." Ah-ha, this guy works for the famous female country star!
He was calling about his Orange ePhone. The poor guy had already been to the store, and now this was his fourth call to customer service and still his phone wasn't working. I wasn't able to help him, either, so we had a long hold time for tech support.
While we waited, I decided to show him how productive his jam could be. "I don't want to be nosy, but I see you're in the country music business," I said. He affirmed that he was. "Well you know what? You've got a song brewing
right here. Remember that song Jerry Reed had, '
Good Lord, Mr. Ford,' about cars? Well you can do the modern version of that and write a song about how frustrating electronics are. That's the kind of hardship today's country listener relates to. If I had my acoustic guitar here I would put a melody to it right now. I know I could buy a house with the royalties I would make off of that song, but I'll give it to you for free."
The guy seemed tickled at the notion, and I'm sure as the afternoon wore on he realized what a truly great gift I had just handed him. I bet he ran to his boss with his Telecaster and a new song and got promoted from luggage carrier to hit songwriter right there. You're welcome.
My dad loved Jerry Reed.
We have the potential to speak to a worldwide audience here. However, the overall experience is not unlike when my band used to play to folding chairs.
My worst gig ever was when our agent brilliant booked our 80's pop metal band in a death metal bar. We had the entire "band wing" to ourselves. Our only spectator was a Fred Durst clone who grabbed a folding chair, stomped into the room, sat the chair down backwards, sat in it, stuck his fat chin in his palm, and stared us down for the duration of two or three songs.
He got many a cheerful "fuck you" from me and the guitarist. You just wasted ten minutes of your life, fuckstick.
Then again, we wasted four hours...so who's the idiot?
As I've said before on your blog, the Internet gives us a perspective on ourselves our forefathers never had. Previous generations could assure themselves they would've been the next Mark Twain or John Lennon if only they'd been given a shot. Now we have a shot at a worldwide audience sitting right on our desktops. It just turns out...maybe we're not as good as we thought.
Maybe!
Jerry Reed: I'm a bit of a fan, too. At the radio station I worked at a friend of mine visited and went back in the record room and said, "You've got Jerry Reed records in here!" Indeed, we had several. I started listening to them and then picked up a CD called "The Essential Jerry Reed." He's got some good tunes.
At one time we had an idea to send those LP's to him so he could sign them and then we would raffle them off for charity. That got derailed somewhere along the line. I don't recall what happened.