Southern Man

Alan Walden

Description

“We developed reputations real fast. We treated our entertainers right. We got them paid. Other agents and promoters and managers showed them the money. We got them the money. We brought respect to the African American artist in America. We brought them prestige. We really cared about our artists and those who worked for us, and it was obvious because we fought like hell for them. So when you listen to some of that music today—an Otis Redding record or Percy Sledge or anyone from our shop—you’re not just hearing music but also the sound of iron being hammered and bricks being laid for those—especially African Americans—who are in the business today.”—Alan Walden

Southern Man is the memoir of a life in music during one of the most racially turbulent times in American history. It presents the voice of Alan Walden—a remarkable, sensitive, humble, and brilliant man; a boy from the country who, serendipitously, along with his brother Phil and best friend Otis Redding, helped to nurture a musical renaissance. It is the story of a son of Macon, Georgia, and his passion for R&B and rock’n’roll at a time when it took wits and a Southern persistence to overcome the obstacles on the hard scrabble road to success—the tragedy of loss, disappointment, and betrayal, along with the joy of victory, optimism, and hope—and taking a dream right over the mountain. That dream led him to work with and nurture the talents of a virtual who’s who of Southern music, from Sam & Dave and Percy Sledge to Boz Scaggs and Lynyrd Skynyrd.

Anyone who was alive during the golden age of R&B and Southern rock remembers the music, but Alan’s narrative invites the reader to the centre of the story, into the studio and on the road, to backroom deals and backroom brawls. It wasn’t always peaches and cream. The music business is tough, and Alan Walden was one of the toughest kids on the street. He had to be, in order to survive in a world of guitars, guts, and guns. This is rock’n’roll noir—the story of a few pioneers who cut the rock and laid the pipe under the hard scrabble terrain so that the water of creativity can more freely flow today.

Sujets

• Musique
• Culture musicale
• Music
• Soul
• Genres
• Styles
• R 'n B

Informations

• Publié par: Jawbone Press
• Date de parution: 16 novembre 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781911036722
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 7 Mo

Extrait

SOUTHERN MAN

SOUTHERN MAN
MUSIC AND MAYHEM IN THE AMERICAN SOUTH
ALAN WALDEN with S.E. FEINBERG
A Jawbone book
Published in the UK and the USA
by Jawbone Press
Office G1
141–157 Acre Lane
London SW2 5UA
England
www.jawbonepress.com
Volume copyright © 2021 Outline Press Ltd. Text copyright © Alan Walden. All rights reserved. No part of this book covered by the copyrights hereon may be reproduced or copied in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in articles or reviews where the source should be made clear. For more information contact the publishers.
CONTENTS

OVERTURE A TOUGH BUSINESS
PRELUDE EGGS AND MACON
ACT ONE SOUL OF THE SOUTH
SCENE 1 OTIS, JOHNNY, AND ME
SCENE 2 A SIMPLE MAN FROM MACON
SCENE 3 WHERE I CAME FROM
SCENE 4 DO YOU HEAR THE MOCKINGBIRDS?
SCENE 5 SEPARATED BY RACE BUT NOT FROM SOUL
SCENE 6 THE POWER TO MELT PREJUDICE
SCENE 7 YOU’LL SING WHEN I TELL YOU TO SING
SCENE 8 YEAH, MAN, THE SOUTH WAS JUMPING
SCENE 9 PHIL AWAITED THOSE ORDERS AND HE AWAITED THOSE ORDERS AND HE AWAITED THOSE ORDERS SOME MORE
SCENE 10 GET OUT OF HERE YOU SON OF A BITCH! YOU TRYING TO HUSTLE MY SON?
SCENE 11 YOU AIN’T GOING TO MISS THAT GIG, JOHNNIE TAYLOR
SCENE 12 YOU’VE GOT BALLS. WHAT CAN I DO FOR YOU?
SCENE 13 GIVE ME THAT BOTTLE AND LET ME CHUG A LITTLE SOUL
SCENE 14 SHOOTOUT AT THE OK CORRAL
SCENE 15 NIGHT RIDERS
SCENE 16 DON’T BE WRITING ABOUT DOM PÉRIGNON WHEN ALL YOU KNOW ABOUT IS DRINKING BUD
SCENE 17 PHIL COMES HOME
SCENE 18 WHEN THE WOMEN FAINTED, THEY FELL BACK, AND THEIR HEADS WOULD SMACK ON SOLID WOOD
SCENE 19 HEY, MAN, YOU EVER HEAR OF MACON, GEORGIA?
SCENE 20 GOT TO GET DOWN IN THE SOUTH
SCENE 21 THE RANCH
SCENE 22 WE GOT THEM WHAT THEY WANTED AS LONG AS THEY WERE PLAYING OUR RECORDS
SCENE 23 SEEMS LIKE I’VE BEEN LOOKING FOR TALENT MY WHOLE LIFE
SCENE 24 WE JUST WANTED TO FIND OUT WHAT IT FELT LIKE TO HANG A WHITE BOY OUT THE WINDOW
SCENE 25 YOU’LL NEVER GIVE ANOTHER ENEMA AS LONG AS YOU LIVE
SCENE 26 I JUST HEARD LITTLE RICHARD WAS AT THE PEACOCK
SCENE 27 YOU NEED TO LET A THIEF STEAL EVERY ONCE IN A WHILE TO KEEP HIM HONEST
SCENE 28 GOT TO GIVE THEM SOME SATISFACTION
SCENE 29 THE EUROPEAN SOUL INVASION
SCENE 30 MONTEREY POP & ‘(SITTIN’ ON) THE DOCK OF THE BAY’
SCENE 31 IF YOU LET ME HAVE ANOTHER DAY
SCENE 32 OTIS WAS SUPERMAN
SCENE 33 DREAMS OF MY BEST FRIENDS
SCENE 34 AFRICA SCREAMS
SCENE 35 MACHINE GUN RONNIE THOMPSON AND STARING DOWN LESTER MADDOX
SCENE 36 FREE AT LAST, FREE AT LAST, GOD ALMIGHTY, I’M SCARED TO DEATH!
INTERLUDE THE PIANO
ACT TWO A MOST SPLENDID RENAISSANCE
SCENE 1 LONGHAIRS, BEER, AND THE HOTTEST GUITARS IN THE WORLD
SCENE 2 COVER OF ROLLING STONE?
SCENE 3 TEMPORARILY INSANE DUE TO TOURING WITH A ROCK ’N’ ROLL BAND
SCENE 4 BROTHERS AGAINST BROTHERS
SCENE 5 A PRAYER IN A COTTON FIELD
SCENE 6 THE TOUGHEST KIDS IN THE WORLD
SCENE 7 LYNYRD SKYNYRD—TURN IT UP!
SCENE 8 I’D LET HIM HEAR THE WHISTLE OF A TWO-BY-FOUR
SCENE 9 THESE BOYS ARE NIGHT CRAWLERS
SCENE 10 A BEAUTIFUL DAY IN THE SWAMP WITH GATORS, TADPOLES, AND ‘SWEET HOME ALABAMA’
SCENE 11 EVERYONE KNEW THEY HAD JUST WRANGLED A MONSTER
SCENE 12 EVERYONE IN THE ROOM WAS VERY INTERESTING AND I WAS VERY INTERESTING AND EVERYTHING WAS VERY VERY INTERESTING
SCENE 13 THE TRUTH OF THE MATTER IS
SCENE 14 TAKING IT OVER THE MOUNTAIN
SCENE 15 CRY FOR THE BAD MAN
SCENE 16 A BULL BY THE HORNS
SCENE 17 THEY GOT THEMSELVES A BIRD SONG!
SCENE 18 WE GOT YOUR ASS, CLIVE
SCENE 19 THEY PUSHED IT TOO HARD AND CRASHED IN A SWAMP
SCENE 20 THE END OF MY FRIEND TWIGGS
SCENE 21 THE MUSIC OF MOTORCYCLES—THE HELLS ANGELS MEET THE OUTLAWS
SCENE 22 BEING A GOOD MANAGER, BOOKING AGENT, PROMOTER, FRIEND
SCENE 23 TRUST
SCENE 24 THE WHITE GIRLS WERE GETTING TOO EXCITED
SCENE 25 NASHVILLE CAT
SCENE 26 NEVER GIVE UP
POSTLUDE COME CLOSE TO ME AND GET WARM
END CREDITS
A TOUGH BUSINESS
OVERTURE
We had our time now Good and bad now I can’t forget ’em And I sure ain’t gon’ forget ’em now
—‘Champagne And Wine,’ Otis Redding, Alan Walden, Roy Lee Johnson
Everyone thinks the music business is easy and that all you have to do is perform and play and have fun. The music business is very rough and tough and dirty—it was Frank Sands who told me the story about Joe Glazer sticking a guy in a barrel of acid.
In Miami, Florida, the DJ conventions were exciting during the hot, soulful years. You met DJs from across the country, and some from overseas. Otis was winning the top award, posthumously, so I was excited about this happening.
I went back to my room and there was an urgent message from Phil. I called and he told me to leave the hotel immediately. The ‘Black Mafia’ from Harlem had shown up and were beating up anyone who was white. One guy was beat up in the lobby. They grabbed a friend of mine from New Orleans while he was in the shower. One held him by his testicles while another smashed them with his hard fist.
These guys were not playing. I checked into a cheap hotel down the street and stayed hidden until the awards show.
We all went to the awards escorting Zelma Redding, Otis’s widow. Right after the awards, Phil got Zelma and me to go with them to enjoy a few drinks.
‘I’m tired of running and hiding,’ I told Phil. ‘I’m going to stay a while.’
‘You’re going to get your ass kicked,’ Phil warned me, before he and Zelma left.
EGGS AND MACON
PRELUDE by S.E. FEINBERG
I woke up early in an exquisitely restored nineteenth-century apartment on Cherry Street—my digs in Macon for a couple of nights—and started out on my walk around the quiet streets, on a crisp early autumn morning. I wanted to introduce myself to this place where a musical and social renaissance dominated the R&B and southern rock ’n’ roll scene during the sixties and seventies. Along with L.A., Chicago, New York, Nashville, Memphis, Liverpool, and London, Macon, Georgia, was one of the world’s music power spots.
My rendezvous with Alan Walden was scheduled for 10:30, and I wanted to be on time—had to be on time. Rumer, the popular British singer and composer, had set up the meeting, and it took some doing to coordinate all of the pieces. The purpose of the meeting was to see if Alan and I could get along—more importantly, trust each other. I understood that he didn’t talk to too many people, so I knew our initial time together would have to count.
Rumer had first mentioned Alan Walden to me while we were on our way to the Glastonbury Music Festival a few years back, during P.F. Sloan’s book and music tour. Phil and she had been performing around London. I recall Rumer telling me the story of the Waldens while passing Stonehenge. I was intrigued by Rumer’s passionate narrative about these small-town cats who didn’t care about what color a person was, only about the music they played. She had me.
I had no idea how the meeting was going to play out, but I did know that writers a lot more successful than me had tried to punch into his circle. Rumer had laid all of the pipe; now I had to see if any water could flow. A northerner being late to a meeting with a very punctual southern man would be a bad start and possibly, I feared, fatal.
I was particularly struck by the old train station with ‘Colored Waiting Room’ engraved into the building as a reminder of how things were. The old train station is right near the Tubman Museum and, always being interested in connections, this circled around to my wife’s relation, Thomas Garrett, who worked with Harriet Tubman and was one of the most successful ‘station masters’ along the Underground Railroad. Thomas was the inspiration for Simeon Halliday in Uncle Tom’s Cabin .
I was feeling Macon. I was feeling the warmth of this lovely, historic, southern town. I was tuning into the soul of this place that was all about people and history and music, which served as its soundtrack, and served it very well.
I walked up by the old Capricorn Studios—aware of some of its history, the place having been founded in 1969 by the Walden brothers and Frank Fenter.
On this morning, things were in a state of renovation, which gave the neighborhood a sense of hope. On a future visit with Alan, Rumer, and her husband, composer/producer Rob Shirakbari, we got down into the echo chambers in the basement and were able to crawl into several of them. Each tiled echo chamber was shaped differently to create a unique effect. I could hear the music of The Allman Brothers Band or Percy Sledge or The Charlie Daniels Band and so many others still permeating through those chambers—a spelunking adventure I will not soon forget.
I took a poke at Grant’s Lounge. I knew that almost every musician stopped in there to play a set or just to hang out and dig the vibe. I walked over to the Tic Toc Room, formerly Anne’s Tic Toc Lounge, where Little Richard used to wash dishes, and where he truly refined his chops.
I had biscuits, two fried eggs, ham, and coffee at H&H. That is the legendary restaurant where The Allman Brothers Band were often fed by Mama Louise, the woman who once owned the place with her partner, Mama Hill. Mama Louise now serves as a kind of official greeter. I had been told that if you were new in town and had something going on, you were supposed to introduce yourself to her. That’s what I was told, and I was game.
Mama Louise sat up in the back. I introduced myself to her and told her I was in town to meet Alan Walden.
‘All right,’ she said. ‘That’s good.’
I didn’t know too much about the details of the partnership between Phil Walden, Alan Walden, and Otis Redding and those very early years of R&B and the dangerous night rides through the Georgia woods in Cadillacs and Lincolns. I didn’t know too much about Alan building a raggedy, tough-ass band called Lynyrd Skynyrd into a worldwide phenomenon. I was in Macon to meet Alan and hopefully learn as much as I could