CHICAGO/WISCONSIN
East Troy Pix: Members Only Public Gallery
Ya'll kicked my ass yesterday when I read about your anger and me being edited.
Someone very dear to me, that I love very much, confused my meaning of when I spoke about being lonely in the hotel room with about me falling off the face of the earth with depression. I have never been depressed. Depression is not in my blood. I wake up every morning to the face of that guy that you saw on stage last night and my kids. And you're screaming at shows. So depressed I'm not. Lonely, I was. I didn't want to give it all away, but since you asked, the lonely was from my girlfriend, taking off for a week. She's an accountant and has 27 other tours to look after, so I didn't have anyone to rub my head that night.... and I’m not gonna say which one. I'm an Aries...touchy feely, use my horns a lot and blah, blah, blah…
anyway
Its hard to pick out who's a hawker and a dealer, and who's a true fan from the people that hang out in front of the hotels, but on any good day I'm a sympathetic fool who lives by the words 'give it away, 'give it away, 'give it away now. Sometimes, like the rest of the world, its all about weather you made love the night before. If anybody out there, is sexually active, think about how when you make love in the morning, the rest of the day goes juuuuuustttt fine!
I’m not talkin’ about just in an elevator, although that is one of the kinkiest places to get off. So if I pass on signing anything of yours.... know that I just didn't get it in a while.
So noticing that the same fans, were outside of the hotel that we're at in Chicago for 5 days, I just want to tell you what I've done while I've been here.
On Friday, day off between, Tinley Park, and Alpine Valley, I hoofed it over to Chess Records Museum.
Tim Rozner, our old production manager, early 90's, is involved with Blues Heaven, and Marie Dixon was standing at the door with two of the most beautiful black brothers I've seen in a long time.
Let me just give you a quick synopsis of what that building 2120 South Michigan Avenue means to me.
You know that little building down south that everyone visits? I think it’s called Graceland? Well, Graceland as we know it, wouldn't have been built without the goings down at 2120.
Oh, and another thing... ever hear the song that a burly white cat named Jim sang.... "I am...your backdoor man!!!" or a couple of my pals from Leeds sang...."You need cooolin....baby Im not fooling…” just a couple of ditty's that were originally written and recorded at 2120 South Michigan Avenue by Willie Dixon.
I saw with my own eyes, the lyrics, yes bits and pieces were taken, but the original, Whole Lotta Love. Obviously the brilliance of Led Zeppelin, came from the influence of Willie Dixon. Obviously the influence of Elvis, came from the same black musicians, that walked up the steps that I walked up at 2120. I stood in the room they recorded in.
One of the guys that worked there, ran downstairs and got me a Willie Dixon harmonica. I played it in the same room they recorded in and I sang my ass off in there. Yes, I got it all on film... Casey was there with me.
But just like in 1970 when I went to Madison Square Garden and met Zeppelin backstage before the show, Robert Plant walked me out on the stage before they let the people in, and for some reason I laid on my back at the edge of the stage and put my head over the side and looked at the immensity of the building just to feel it so I’d never forget. Just as for some reason I did that, I had to sing in that room that they sang in. When I went to Jerusalem 12 years ago I walked the walk that Jesus walked. Just to feel, to get as close as, as I could...today...having not been there back then is what I live for. I used the same bathroom there... I went into the control room and looked out the window. I felt the glass that felt all the vibrations that felt all those sessions.
I went down to the basement and was told the folklore that Chuck Berry slept there during his tax evasion years... all rumor? Oh yeah... but I went in the room that was once walled off, to be an ally type thing, that was sealed shut with one door and on one end were speakers, that each musician would come out of. And way down of the other end was a microphone that picked up the echo. The first echo chamber and I’m standing in it – smelling…touching…feeling the vibes that all those great black artists that walked through those doors left in memorial… and is entombed in that shrine forever...
And guess what?...It’s open to the public. You can walk the walk that Sonny Boy Williamson did. You can see the face of Taj Mahal on the wall of other plaster faces. By the way, I named my son after him.
The three greatest birthing grounds of music have to be
Abbey Road
Chess Records
and Sun Studios
Please...what's the question. Sure there's other places, like my barn, where I sang "jaded" you know, and other peoples barns, where great hits are being sung... but these are the places that influence us all.
If you've ever been to the baseball, basketball, or football hall of fame... it’s something like that. Only it’s more emotional. Think of how many babies were born to "I just Wanna Make, Love to You" - Foghat…no. Willie Dixon wrote it. Or Muddy Waters "Mannish Boy". The riff that defines bad ass.
They always used... NA, NA... DA DA.."Now when I was a young boy" NA NA, DA DA." At the age of five... That song, that feeling, was used when the Terminator walked in, when Clint Eastwood draws his 357 magnum, when all of this, I got to make love to that day, in that building…with Willie Dixon’s wife, sweetly holding my hand, all the way through.
She told me about Willie’s last breath. He was still tappin’ his chest to the beat of his child playing his guitar in the room by his bedside. We cried and hugged and I said goodbye to her but really, hello in my heart for her to allow me to get that close.
if you do your homework, and check this out, and listen to Willie, Muddy Waters, Bo Didley, Howlin Wolf, Sonny Boy Williamson, you'll find out where Aerosmith got a lot of its blues and soul from.
Thank you Tim. Thank you Marie. But most of all, Thank you Willie Dixon who wrote all those tunes, for all those blues artists.
Photo: Amanda Ayre
Meanwhile, back on stage at Alpine Valley, yup, sure as shit…50 degrees again. But for all the cold I feel up there the audience warms be back up. But after the Tinley Park gig I called up my friends in the NFL and found out what they use for heaters. Immediately called Steven Lemmon, our production manager, and said 'GET THEM AT ANY COST!!!!" Sometimes I feel like such a rockstar but then again, my hands still smell like the fried cheese curds that me and Casey ate from Cuvlers all the way back to Chicago. Like the girls in the front row.. it was all yummmariffic.
I've never been told I love you by so many guys... must be the bratwurst! I called my mom on the way there after we stopped at the Brat Stop, and told her it reminded me of how we used to stop when we'd drive to New Hampshire as a
kid.... we always stopped for sumtin.'
PS
To anyone who loves the blues as much as I do.
Please send donations to: http://bluesheaven.com/
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