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"Play It Loud: Instruments Of Rock & Roll" 

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The Met, "Play It Loud" & New York City's Love Affair With The Electric Guitar

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Featuring pieces from more than 70 lenders, The Met's collaboration with the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame is the first major exhibition in an art museum dedicated entirely to instruments of rock 'n' roll
Erica Hawkins
GRAMMYs
Jun 12, 2019 - 12:24 pm

New York is not nice. It is unnatural and otherworldly. There are moments it can be sweet, but at its best, it is jarring. It can be distorted, loud, unpredictable and heavy. It can make you feel like you’re the only person in a crowded room. It can make you feel like you'll never be alone.

In his last interview, conducted during a long afternoon in his apartment on 6th avenue and 14th street, rock critic Lester Bangs was asked how he'd define good rock 'n' roll. He responded, "Rock 'n' roll is like an attitude, it's not a musical form of a strict sort. It's a way of doing things, of approaching things. Like, anything can be rock 'n' roll." He continued: "I mean, writing can be rock 'n' roll or a movie can be rock 'n' roll. It doesn't necessarily have to have anything to do with music. It's just a way of living your life, a way of going about things." 

By that very definition, a city can be rock 'n' roll, and there is no doubt in my siren-filled, crowded, and oft-broken down subway of a mind that that city is New York.

More recently, and further uptown on 5th avenue, The Metropolitan Museum of Art gave the genre an equally elusive definition: loud. Not "loud" as the description of a sound, however, but as the text narrates on the wall of the "Play it Loud: Instruments of Rock & Roll" exhibit, "loud" as "an attitude." Manhattan's fine art institution has backed up that denotation with ample evidence consisting of more than 130 instruments, including rare guitars, bass, drum kits, keys and horns from more than 80 musicians, several rigs used in live performances, videos and even costumes that symbolically signify rock's showy sonics. Powered by five years of negotiations with almost 70 lenders, and a collaboration with the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, it’s the first major exhibition in an art museum dedicated entirely to instruments of rock 'n' roll.

As I told Jayson Kerr Dobney, the Met’s Frederick P. Rose Curator in Charge of Musical Instruments, as we walked through the exhibition with Jimi Hendrix's "All Along The Watchtower" soundtracking our conversation, that seemed like a hell of a lot of coordinating. He agreed, saying, "Rock 'n' roll has been a favorite art museum topic for years now, but not every art museum has a musical instrument department. We're one of a handful. And so I think it took a place like The Met, which has a department of musical instruments who could kind of leverage that knowledge and those relationships to look at what I think are the most personal and important objects for rock 'n' roll."

Kerr Dobney shared that he wanted to give us audience members, who are primarily used to seeing instruments on stage from very far away, a rare opportunity to examine these iconic objects up close. But that meant not only focusing on the instruments, but the stories behind the people playing them. "That was a new area for me to explore, because the musicianship and musicians are so important to this story."

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Many of the instruments displayed are nearly as well-known as their players, garnering enough fame and folklore to gain their own monikers, like Hendrix's "Love Drops," Eric Clapton’s "Blackie," Eddie Van Halen’s "Frankenstein," Jerry Garcia’s "Wolf" and Joan Jett’s "Melody Maker."

"It had to be something very special and important, whether it came from the musician or from a collector, quite frankly," said Kerr Dobney. "That's what we do in the department of musical instruments: We think about instruments and all of their multifaceted ways. Yes, they are musical tools and they're technology, but they are visual icons. They are performance pieces. They are beloved. They inspire music creation."

The exhibit is organized thematically, setting the stage with the Gibson ES-350T Chuck Berry enlisted to record "Johnny B. Goode," and giving Berry earned credit for establishing the electric guitar as the primary voice of rock and roll. Then there’s a space that pays homage to iconic moments in rock ‘n’ roll and the instruments that helped define them like the Ludwig drum set Ringo Starr used to sync a million heartbeats when a little band from Liverpool called The Beatles made their US debut on the Ed Sullivan Show.

There’s a section dedicated to expanding the band that displays a host of instruments utilized in the studio that fall outside of the archetypal four-piece: two electric guitars, one electric bass, and a drum set. Then there’s a room dedicated to creating a sound focused on the electricity, technology and limitless options behind the texture, melodies, and tonal possibilities that make a signature sound possible. The gallery (where I spent an inordinate amount of time posing in front of a "Zoso" emblazoned amplifier) shows off rigs from four distinct guitarists—Jimmy Page, Keith Richards, Eddie Van Halen, and Tom Morello—as they would be displayed onstage or in their recording studios.

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Eddie Van Halen's red-and-white "Frankenstrat," a.k.a. "Frankenstein" sits front and center.

"It's about how these choices are so important to the musicianship," said Kerr Dobney. "That's the artistry. It's not just which guitar you play and what notes you play, but there's this whole thing about the timbres that you can create and the sounds that you can create and that's so much a part of rock."

Once we’d made the rounds through each theme, from the objects consecrated by '60s guitar gods to the Ernie Ball Music Man that accompanied St. Vincent on her 2017 MASSEDUCTION tour, I asked Kerr Dobney where he thought this whole rock 'n' roll thing was going to go next.

"I think in rock music especially, there's a lot of cycles. You look at the way punk came and took everything back to the original and then grunge came. It just always turns back and forth. I think we don't know, but I think it's exciting. I don't think there's an end to this story."

My favorite moment in the exhibition, another spot where I lingered for too long, then circled back for more, was Jimmy Page’s restored 1959 "Dragon Telecaster." Ash body, maple neck, rosewood fingerboard, and ornamented with a spiraling psychedelic dragon handpainted by Page himself; that alone made it gawk-worthy. However, it’s not what Page played but how he played it that kept me magnetized. First with The Yardbirds, then in the studio for Led Zeppelin’s eponymous debut, and, of course, with a violin bow during an experimental and transcendent "Dazed and Confused" guitar solo at New York’s Filmore East in 1969.

See, that’s what I love about the way Page commands the electric guitar. It is not nice. It is unnatural and otherworldly. There are moments when it can be sweet, but at its best, it feels jarring. It can be distorted, loud, unpredictable and heavy. It can make you feel like you're the only person in a crowded room. It can make you feel like you'll never be alone.

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Chuck Berry 

Photo: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

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Chuck Berry, The Beatles & More To Have Instruments On Display At The Met Museum

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Over 130 instruments spanning 1939 to 2017 from GRAMMY-winning musicians will be on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2019
Jennifer Velez
GRAMMYs
Nov 20, 2018 - 2:00 pm

New York City's Metropolitan Museum of Art will be the home of the first major art museum exhibition to feature rock and roll instruments, including those from the Beatles and Jimi Hendrix, starting April 8, 2019.

On Nov. 20, Rolling Stone announced the upcoming exhibition called "Play It Loud: Instruments Of Rock & Roll" on behalf of the museum. It will bring more than 130 instruments used between 1939 and 2017 by many musicians including GRAMMY winners and nominees like Elvis Presley, Metallica, St. Vincent and the Rolling Stones, plus other greats, like Recording Academy Lifetime Achievement Award honoree Chuck Berry, all under one roof.

Chuck Berry: 'Long live rock and roll!'

Several guitars will be featured, including the "main guitar" Berry used from 1957 to 1963, Eric Clapton's "Blackie," Eddie Van Halen's "Frankenstein" and St. Vincent's 2015 guitar. Drum fans will be able to catch The Who's Keith Moon's "Pictures Of Lily" drum set. Other instruments include Emerson, Lake & Palmer keyboardist Keith Emerson's Moog synthesizer and Hammond organ. The collection will also include vintage posters, stage costumes and historic videos, the magazine stated.

The instruments hail from 70 private and public collection from the United States and United Kingdom to explore the genre and the instruments that brought it to life. You can catch it at the Met museum from April 8to October 1, 2019 before it moves to the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame in Cleveland Ohio in November 2019.

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the strokes 20th anniversary

The Strokes in 2001

Source Photo: Anthony PIdgeon/Redferns

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'Is This It' At 20: How The Strokes Redefined Rock

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For the 20th anniversary of the Strokes' groundbreaking, industry-shaking 2001 debut album 'Is This It,' GRAMMY.com pays tribute to the band and release with an industry round-table tribute featuring the artists and music biz professionals they influenced
Ilana Kaplan
GRAMMYs
Jul 29, 2021 - 1:28 pm

The Strokes were impossible to ignore in the early aughts: they were synonymous with rock and roll. Formed in 1998, the band  —  comprised of Julian Casablancas, Nick Valensi, Albert Hammond Jr., Nikolai Fraiture, and Fabrizio Moretti — led the indie-rock revival, shaping a sound and ethos other artists would try to emulate. The group’s common thread happened to be Casablancas: He began performing with guitarist Valensi and drummer Moretti while teenagers attending school in Manhattan, later adding childhood friend and bassist Fraiture into the mix, as well as guitarist Hammond Jr. whom he knew from a stint at boarding school. Combining the grit of downtown New York with the glamour of rock and roll, The Strokes helped redefine alt-rock when there wasn’t necessarily a unified vision. And it all started with their 2001 debut album, Is This It. 

After their debut EP, The Modern Age, ignited a record label bidding war in early 2001, it would be Is This It that would put them on the map. Initially released in Australia on July 30, 2001 (and later in the U.S. on Oct. 9), the record quickly sparked a frenzy and eventually a garage rock resurgence. Influenced heavily by The Velvet Underground and '70s art-rock, Is This It had a no-frills approach to its Brit-pop-influenced sound. It made creating music with your friends "cool" again, and it wasn’t long until other bands followed suit.

The album, produced by Gordon Raphael, earned widespread critical acclaim and helped establish The Strokes — and vocalist Julian Casablancas — as power players in rock. The group’s second single "Last Nite" would become their first to enter the U.S. charts and peaked at No. 5 on Billboard’s Hot Alternative Songs. While the album wasn’t GRAMMY-nominated, arguably, Is This It provided the foundation of credibility that the band needed to eventually win awards. 

Years and albums later, the band finally took home a coveted GRAMMY Award: Their first record in seven years, their sixth studio LP The New Abnormal, earned them their first GRAMMY win for "Best Rock Album" at the 63rd GRAMMY Awards Show. 

For the 20th anniversary of the band’s debut album, GRAMMY.com pays tribute to The Strokes with an industry round table tribute featuring artists the group influenced and industry professionals who worked with them.

The Strokes Shaped New York’s Culture In The Early Aughts

Nick Marc (DJ/Promoter/Music Curator/Consultant at Tiswas NYC, Take Me Out and more): It was the beginning of a new millennium and people were ready for something new and The Strokes fit the bill. They were cool, from New York which is attractive, especially if you are stuck in suburbia, and they were different from everything else going on at the time. To top it off, they wrote great songs which, while buzzing with energy, were accessible. It was time for a reboot and The Strokes provided it and broke the door open for all the bands that followed.  

Jim Merlis (former publicist for The Strokes): The band had a huge impact on New York’s culture, and it wasn’t just their music. The band really gave back to the scene by taking New York bands/artists like The Moldy Peaches, Regina Spektor, Longwave, and The Realistics on the road with them. No two of these bands sound alike, yet they all made sense opening for The Strokes.

Robert Schwartzman (film director and bandleader of Rooney): When I moved to New York and went to college there, for that first semester, The Strokes were playing shows in New York, and they were the "it" band, I guess you could say. But it wasn't all over pop radio, they were the "cool" guys showing up at parties in New York, and I started to become close with those guys because my cousin Roman [Coppola] directed their music videos early on. By proximity to knowing people in their circle, I just got to hang out and spend time with them. They were almost like big brothers, where I really looked up to them musically, 

Gordon Raphael (producer of Is This It): As soon as the first songs from The Strokes were released there was a visceral and palpable change in youth culture and music culture, pretty much worldwide. An entire generation that grew up hating their older brothers’ rock and roll, suddenly went out to purchase their first leather jackets and guitars, then formed their own bands. 

Marc: There was already a burgeoning scene in NYC before The Strokes came along but with their emergence, they became the focal point of something that had been bubbling under the surface for a while. It’s not like there wasn’t already an alternative/garage rock scene before The Strokes came along but they were the ones who brought it to the masses. They brought a sense of excitement, energy and danger that was missing in music at the time. Most of the alternative music pushed by the labels at the time was fairly dreary to be honest, "dad rock" as it was called at the time, and The Strokes were definitely an antidote to that.

Ian Devaney (lead vocalist of Nation of Language and member of machinegum): My parents spent their young adult years going to see bands like Talking Heads, The Clash and Blondie. For my friends and me, [with The Strokes,] it felt like this was a chance to have our own version of that. There was a sense that, whatever magic those older bands had that could still capture young imaginations decades later, The Strokes were carrying a bit of that magic with them as well. Being a teenager in suburbia, pop-punk and emo really felt ascendant around that time, but none of that ever resonated with me. The Strokes allowed me to see something else happening in music that felt like it was worth aspiring to. 

Merlis: Not only was their music great, it sounded cosmopolitan and very New York City. There hadn’t been much of a music scene in New York over the twenty years prior to them with a handful of good bands here and there. The city was desperate for something cool, especially as [Mayor] Giuliani was turning the City into a safe, Disney-themed town. The band sounded cool and looked it. It also certainly helped that most of the national media is based here. 

Jake Faber (drummer for Sunflower Bean): The Strokes came into my life right as the band was starting. I was at a crazy point in my life where I was trying to do a semester of college at SUNY Purchase, while rehearsing almost every day of the week in Long Island with Sunflower Bean, on top of the beginning of new romance and friendship in my life in Brooklyn. As you can imagine there was a lot of driving around the New York metro area, [and] Is This It soundtracked almost every minute of it. [It] sonically brought it back home for me as it was kind of like The Velvet Underground, but rockier and so poppy. It totally filled the void that one can feel when driving around New York every day for months on end, tending to the most exciting things that have ever happened in my life (at that point) all while wondering "is this it?"

The Strokes Were Polarizing: You Either Loved Or Despised Them

Eric Ducker (writer and editor; wrote the band’s first-ever cover story in 2001): When it comes to the New York rock revival, The Strokes weren’t the best band (that would be TV on the Radio), or the best live band (that would be Yeah Yeah Yeahs), or even the first band (that would arguably be Jonathan Fire*Eater or The Mooney Suzuki), but at least initially they were the best at making it seem like being in a band with your friends was the most fun thing in the entire world. In the years that immediately preceded them, a ton of people in rock bands — from nu-metal mooks to post-Fugazi indie rockers and British gloomsters — seemed totally miserable.

Devaney: Their music just makes it so much easier to put up with everything about living in New York that is irritating and tedious. It's like a kind of urban mindfulness — reminding you that you chose to live here for a reason, and the filth and the difficulty are actually character-building and romantic. 

People still move to New York from very pleasant places that are very far away specifically to place themselves inside the world that exists in these songs. Play a song from Is This It in a crowded dive bar late at night and people lose their minds — it's the apex of their notion of what New York life would be.  

Ducker: Part of the reason The Strokes became a great New York band was because you either loved them or despised them. Or, you pretended to despise them but secretly loved them. For such an argumentative city where everyone thinks they know best and are always happy to tell you why you’re wrong, a band you can be super passionate about holds a lot of appeal.

The Strokes Created A Template For Bands In The Early Aughts

Schwartzman: They were a part of this new world of this cool, edgy slice of music that they had injected into the young music scene like on the alternative rock side of things that was a breath of fresh air, in a way, for that genre of music. At that time, alternative music didn't have a real identity. The whole world they built just had this great consistency: They knew what they were and they stuck with it, and people, I think, really appreciated that. 

[The Strokes] were this British sensation. It was amazing. They conquered the music scene overseas, so they brought with them this amazing kind of cred from having won over that side of music fans and magazines. All those bands out of England that followed, you could hear direct influences: the vocal style and the same kind of sound and sonic approach to how they produce those records. 

On the radio at that time, it was like P.O.D., Linkin Park, Puddle of Mudd—that stuff all over the radio—and then you had the strokes, paving this new road, amongst all these bands that were very, very different musically. I thought that was just so cool, to be young and aspiring in that whole alt-rock world, and see how they were kind of shaking up that whole scene. They really turned alt-radio on its head because they were this odd-band out. But they really brought in a whole new wave of influencing a lot of bands. I remember when we were out touring, you would hear all these bands, and you would be like, "This feels like a Strokes-clone band." There are indie bands that followed that were straight-up cut from the same, old cloth. They sang like Julian, all low and droney [with] those prickly guitar parts that were kind of bouncy. 

Marc: It would be safe to say The Strokes broke down the doors for not just fellow NYC artists such as the Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs, LCD Soundsystem, Interpol, The Rapture and the whole "garage" revival. That fact alone helps cement The Strokes’ legacy.  

Ducker: In the years after Is This It, some of the acts that would become the biggest rock bands in the world were able to replicate what The Strokes did, but with their own specific twist. To reduce it to the most basic level, Kings of Leon were the Southern Strokes, The Killers were the Las Vegas Strokes, Vampire Weekend were the "Ivy League Strokes," Phoenix became the "sophisticated French Strokes," and so on. The Strokes reformatted a template that other acts built off of, even as The Strokes themselves seemed to pretty quickly lose interest in it. 

Is This It Left Lasting Impressions On Artists And Music Industry Professionals

Ducker: When the promo for Is This It came in (original artwork, leather glove on naked butt), I think I had heard The Modern Age EP already, but I hadn’t gone to any of their Mercury Lounge residency shows. At that time there wasn’t social media or blogs to drive buzz for artists. For The Fader’s staff, much of that buzz came from what London-based culture publications like The Face were into, and they were already fully on-board for The Strokes. I was vaguely anticipating Is This It, but it wasn’t until I heard the advance that I quickly realized that this was a group and an album that I could, and would, love intensely. That CD didn’t get pulled from the office stereo for a long time.

Marc: I first bought Is This It when it came out in the UK, but after seeing them live on numerous occasions over the previous year or so as well as already owning their debut EP, I was already familiar with much of their material. What struck me first was how vital it sounded compared to the rather pedestrian nature of most indie artists at the time, and it signaled a welcome shift in the direction of indie-rock music. Its accessibility struck me too. I knew I had heard a game-changing record, and even back then, I believed Is This It would be regarded as a groundbreaking debut album that would stand the test of time. 

Merlis: A former intern of mine when I was at Geffen Records, Ryan Gentles, was their manager. He sent me their three-song Modern Age EP. Within the first note, I knew it was really special. I remember standing up and pacing with excitement. I called Ryan immediately and asked how I could be involved.

Devaney: "The Modern Age" is one song that has particularly stuck with me through the years. The title is bold — you automatically feel like you're listening to something generation-defining — and just by tuning in, you're included in the moment. It hasn't really changed either: The moment may be different, but putting on this song, or any song off of this album, makes you feel like the city is the place to be. 

Julia Cumming (lead vocalist and bass player of Sunflower Bean): When I was in high school I would watch the MTV $2 Bill performance [of “Is This It”] on YouTube often. I just accepted it as the pinnacle of a great rock performance. As a bass player, and as someone who always loved the bass the most in songs, "Is This It" really made me think about what rock bass lines could be and how I could always work harder to make them more creative and special. 

Marc: There remains a certain charisma concerning The Strokes, and they have joined that plethora of classic acts as icons of popular indie/rock/music all the while remaining relevant. I still DJ and it is safe to say that pretty much any track from Is This It still brings the bodies to the floor, but especially "Last Nite" and "Someday," which remain bona fide classics. Both those songs enjoy a crossover appeal that many "rock" songs don’t these days. 

Schwartzman: I went on the road with them. They brought Rooney on tour with this band called Sloan. It was a dream bill for us. Watching them play every night was so awesome. Hanging out with those guys on their tour bus [and] having that band camaraderie was amazing. We were young, like 20 years old, opening for The Strokes. I mean, it's crazy.

The Unity Of The Strokes And Their Vision Has Helped Them Remain An Integral Part Of The Rock Canon

Marc: I feel The Strokes were maligned for their privileged backgrounds which I always felt was unfair as they did work really hard. They were out every night in the early days handing out flyers, promoting their shows and building their following. They did not take anything for granted. They were obviously well-rehearsed as they were tight as hell!  

Cumming: The Strokes are a band, truly and simply. Most popular music today is made alone in bedrooms with laptops, or with teams of songwriters coming together to make the most addictive product possible. Bands like The Strokes show that there will always be something inexplicably important about musicians just playing together, writing songs and being united in a vision. That’s all a really great band can do. 

Ducker: Sometimes having cool jackets can take you pretty far, but if you write songs that people want to sing when they’re drunk-but-not-too-drunk, plus you have cool jackets, you can go a lot farther.

Merlis: One of the things that was rarely discussed about them was how hard they worked. They practiced constantly, played shows regularly, not only in New York but in Boston and Philadelphia. Toured nationally with the Doves and Guided By Voices, all before the album came out. They never waited for their big break; they created it.

Marc: I do not think The Strokes, or the NYC scene they emerged from, would or could happen now. I have always had a theory that The Strokes and the whole NYC scene that followed was the last truly organic scene before social media became prevalent. It was before the days when we lived life online. The Strokes and their contemporaries relied on traditional promo routes, such as flyers, posters, mailings and such, rather than the social media-based promotion of today. Any given night of the week in the early 2000s in the East Village there would be various band members making the scene at any of the numerous parties or bars pushing their next show and that gave rise to a certain comradeship. 

Ducker: A lot has been said about the death of the rock band in the 21st century and rock’s lack of cultural standing over the past decade. I don’t totally agree with that, but I think after The Strokes, people in successful bands realized again that it was a pretty awesome job to have — if you could get it.

Every Moment Flame On: A Guide To The Expanded Universe Of Robert Pollard & Guided By Voices

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Tedeschi Trucks Band

(L-R) Derek Trucks, Trey Anastasio, Susan Tedeschi 

Photo: Dave Vann

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Derek Trucks On Tedeschi Trucks Band's 'Layla Revisited' Concert Album: "There Are Some Nights You Feel Like You Can Play Anything"

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Two years ago, Derek Trucks, Susan Tedeschi and Phish's Trey Anastasio covered Derek and the Dominos' 'Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs' live in full. Now, as gigs fire up again, the Tedeschi Trucks Band is sharing the smoking results
Morgan Enos
GRAMMYs
Jul 15, 2021 - 10:48 am

The band Derek and the Dominos launched a generation of guitarists, but they arguably only launched one full-fledged human being. "I was named after that record," the two-time GRAMMY-winning guitar slinger Derek Trucks told JamBands soon after performing their sole studio album, 1970's Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs, front to back at a festival.

The connections didn't stop there, though: One of his earliest memories is of the LP leaning against—true to Duane Allman's involvement—a peach crate. The GRAMMY-winning singer/guitarist Susan Tedeschi, his wife and creative partner in the Tedeschi Trucks Band, was born on the very day it was released. "I was named after this thing; she was born on the day," Trucks continued. "Pretty good stuff!"

With almost no rehearsal, Tedeschi, Trucks and their pal, Trey Anastasio of Phish, convened to perform Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs at Lockn', an annual jam-band bash known for unique pairings. The result—after a gig-free year and a half—is Layla Revisited (Live at Lockn'), a document of that unrepeatable evening, due out July 16 via Fantasy Records, that will blow your hair back.

Whether together or separately, Tedeschi and Trucks had performed in various settings some of the Eric Clapton-led band's tunes, like "Bell Bottom Blues," "Keep on Growing" and the classic "Layla," Clapton's wounded howl to his BFF George Harrison's then-wife, Pattie Boyd. Trucks had even shared stages with the Strat man known to some as "God," peppering him with requests to perform some of the tunes.

"He had a funny response at one point," Trucks tells GRAMMY.com. "He was like, 'I didn't know people really like that [Derek and the Dominos] record. It seemed like the record that kind of flew by.'" On the contrary, Clapper: Most people think it's your best work. And now, two of your finest protoges are making sure rock fans in the 21st century know it.

GRAMMY.com caught up with Trucks while on the road with Tedeschi Trucks Band to discuss his lifelong relationship with Layla, how the tribute concert came about and why—true to the one-and-done band—they may never try this album onstage again.

Tell me about your history with Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs.

It's one of those records that's always been a huge presence from the very beginning. I've had connections with some of the tunes over the years, whether it was playing with my solo band or the Allmans or, eventually, with Eric. But I never sat down to learn the whole thing! [Chuckles.] It was really nice to finally dig into something that had always been there. You uncover more and more the deeper you go into something like that.

I remember that album cover as one of my first memories. It's a striking image—when I was growing up with parents who had vinyl leaning against peach crates in the living room. It's the first stuff you see, so it was a strange thing to eventually play some of that music with Eric in London. I remember Pattie Boyd—"Layla"—came out to one of the shows. A lot of it felt full-circle along the way, but finally playing the whole record felt like something that maybe we needed to do at some point.

To you, is the essence of the record the interplay between Eric and Duane?

That's a lot of it. You can feel what Eric was going through the more you dig into the lyrics of the record and the whole thing. But I think some of it was when you start learning all those guitar parts, you kind of start imagining the way the songs were written. There's a lot of open tunings and capoed guitars and little quirky s**t that just I never thought to dig into. 

You realize he was probably listening to a lot of singer/songwriters at the time. Some of it almost feels like that Tulsa, Western-swing thing. It feels like a different era for him. It wasn't just straight Bluesbreakers stuff. You can tell they were getting into some other things. That's one of the things I noticed digging into the tunes, but definitely, the Eric-and-Duane interplay and that connection.

From what I hear, Eric was excited about the Dominos and they were writing tunes, but the record wasn't really getting off the ground in the way they had hoped. When Duane stepped in out of the blue, the whole thing took on a different life. But also, from what I hear, Duane was that kind of character. He came into the room with the pedal pretty much to the floor. That's how he operated. 

It was this perfect collision. They met at the right time and this amazing thing happened.

What weird little quirks did you find? I'm sure as with many other albums of the era, there are things that wouldn't fly in a studio today.

Yeah, totally. All the best s**t is kind of made that way. You don't think about what it takes to get there; you just hear something in your head and figure it out. 

Even digging into a tune like "Thorn Tree in the Garden," me and Sue recorded it, and I always imagined it sounds like a few people in a room playing and singing. There's at least a third guitar in there. There's one that's just kind of pedaling the harmonics and there's guitars that are not doing much, but if you take that little piece away, you all of a sudden notice that it changes the whole movement of the thing. 

"I Am Yours" is a really uniquely constructed song. You wouldn't pick up a guitar and start strumming those first-position cowboy chords. That's a different way of going about it.

I think you're right on the money by implying that it's not a traditional 12-bar blues album. As you said, there are those cowboy chords and singer/songwriter influences.

Yeah. But then when it's time, it goes straight 12-bar! They're like, "Oh yeah, and then there's this. Let's not forget where it came from." It's a pretty amazing balance in that way.

I'm sure Eric has told you stories about this record.

When I was out with him, I was certainly lobbying to play some of those tunes. He had a funny response at one point. He was like, "I didn't know people really like that [Derek and the Dominos] record. It seemed like the record that kind of flew by." Obviously, "Layla" became the song of the record. But I was like, "No, that's the one, man. That's the one everyone goes to!"

I've noticed that when we did the Mad Dogs and Englishmen thing with Leon Russell, some of these seminal records don't feel that way to the artist when they do them, because maybe it wasn't received that way when it came out. That's your impression of it, and then you just move on down the road and have bigger hits with other things. It doesn't dawn on you that this is the one people really come back to. [Laughs.] So, I thought that was an interesting revelation.

Your Layla concert took place in 2019. Why, at that stage in the arc of your development, did it feel right to tackle that whole record and make a live album out of it?

It was specific to that festival. Every time we play Lockn', part of the thing that makes that festival unique is that they try to pair artists and have these big collaborations. They reached out about doing a few nights with me and Trey—me sitting in with his band one night and him sitting in with our band one night. 

When we were bouncing around ideas, I thought maybe some of the Dominos tunes would be fun, and he had a list of tunes of ours that might be fun to play. We were in Red Rocks, I was about to get on the phone with Trey about finalizing the set, and I mentioned to a friend of mine that we might play a few Dominos tunes, and she was like, "You should just do the whole f***ing record!" [Laughs.] 

Right when she said it, it felt like the most obvious thing in the world. It wasn't something I ever thought we would do. It wasn't something that was long-planned. It was just kind of an idea that made sense. And then the more I thought about it, the more sense it made. I remember when I mentioned it to [Trey], that was a record he had studied and listened to a bunch. Susan has an amazing connection to that music too. So, it felt like home at that point.

What was involved in learning the songs and preparing for the gig? I don't know if you had the multitrack—if you could hear the guitars layer by layer.

He was on the road, I believe, and we were on the road pretty nonstop, so it was everyone in their headphones just listening as we were out doing other things. We didn't have any access to anything other than the same material [everyone has]. It was just a lot of listening. Everyone in our band really did our homework and dug into it and [dedicated] a few soundchecks to working up a song at a time.

It was really one full rehearsal with Trey in New York City and then a little half-day of rehearsal when [guitarist] Doyle [Bramhall II] showed up on-site at Lockn'. It came together pretty quickly once everyone was there. When Doyle finally showed up, he was that last ingredient. He had played with Eric so long and I'd played with Doyle together with Eric, so some of those parts fell right into place. 

He's a master of putting things where they need to be. You almost don't notice they're there, but you notice if it's not there. [Laughs.] When Doyle stepped in, I knew the set was going to feel good. It went off, right out of the gate, better than any of us could have hoped, from the first note. 

You could tell there were good nerves onstage from the first song. You can feel everyone's excitement about what we were doing. A few songs in, you can feel that the energy shifted where everyone was fully in it and letting it fly. There are some nights you feel like you can play anything. You don't have to think about it at all. It got to that place, which is rare when you're not doing material you know all that well. 

That was nice, you know? You hope it's going to go off that way. It doesn't always go off that way. It's refreshing to know it wasn't just the energy of the crowd or the excitement of doing it, but it actually held up when we listened back to it. You never know. 

Sometimes, you play a show you think is great, then you go back months or even years later and you go "Well, maybe it'd be more fun if you were there." This one had a different feel to it, and it held up.

Is this the only time you and Susan have performed it in full?

Yeah, and I think it's probably the only time we will do it that way. There's something special about keeping it to that.

Well, it's like the band itself. One and done. Get in and get out.

Totally. Don't let anything f*** up your legacy!

Dave Mason On Recording With Rock Royalty & Why He Reimagined His Debut Solo Album, 'Alone Together'

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Dave Mason

Dave Mason

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Dave Mason On Recording With Rock Royalty & Why He Reimagined His Debut Solo Album, 'Alone Together'

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The ex-Traffic guitarist has played with everyone from Jimi Hendrix to George Harrison to Fleetwood Mac—now, he's taken another stab at his classic 1970 debut solo album
Morgan Enos
GRAMMYs
Jan 4, 2021 - 3:33 pm

Dave Mason is charmingly blasé when looking back at his life and career, which any guitarist would rightfully give their fretting hand to have. "I did 'All Along The Watchtower' with Hendrix," he flatly tells GRAMMY.com, as if announcing that he checked the mail today. "George [Harrison] played me Sgt. Pepper's at his house before it came out," he adds with a level of awe applicable to an evening at the neighbors' for casserole. 

Last year, Mason re-recorded his 1970 debut solo album, Alone Together, which most artists would consider a career-capping milestone. When describing the project's origins, he remains nonchalant: "It was for my own amusement, to be honest with you." 

Fifteen years ago, when the Rock And Roll Hall Of Famer started to kick around the album's songs once again in the studio, he didn't think it was for public consumption—until his wife and colleagues encouraged him to reverse that stance. On his latest release, Mason gives longtime listeners and new fans an updated take on the timeless Alone Together, this time featuring his modern-day road dogs, a fresh coat of production paint and a winking addendum in the title: Again.

Alone Together…Again, which was released last November physically via Barham Productions and digitally via Shelter Records, does what In The Blue Light (2018) and Tea For The Tillerman² (2020) did for Paul Simon and Yusuf / Cat Stevens, respectively. It allows Mason, a prestige artist, to take another stab at songs from his young manhood. Now, songs like "Only You Know And I Know," "Shouldn't Have Took More Than You Gave" and "Just A Song," which demonstrated Mason's ahead-of-the-curve writing ability so early in his career, get rawer, edgier redos here.

Mason cofounded Traffic in 1967 and appeared on the Birmingham rock band's first two albums, Mr. Fantasy (1967) and Traffic (1968). The latter featured one of Mason's signature songs: "Feelin' Alright?" which Joe Cocker, Three Dog Night and The Jackson 5 recorded. After weaving in and out of Traffic's ranks multiple times, Mason took the tunes he planned for their next album and tracked them with a murderers' row of studio greats in 1970. (That year, Traffic released John Barleycorn Must Die, sans Mason, which is widely regarded as their progressive folk masterpiece.)

Over the ensuing half-century, Mason has toured steadily while accruing an impressive body of work as a solo artist; Alone Together...Again is a welcomed reminder of where it all began. 

GRAMMY.com caught up with Dave Mason to talk about his departure from Traffic, his memories of the original Alone Together and why the new 2020 takes are, in his words, "so much better."

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Where do you feel Alone Together stands in your body of work? Is it your favorite album you've made?

No, I wouldn't say it's the favorite, but it's sort of spread out. When people ask me, "Well, what's your favorite music? What are you listening to?" I'm like, "I don't know. Which genre do you want me to talk about?" I can't pick it out and say it's my all-time favorite. There are other things I like just as much.

I mean from your solo canon, specifically.

Well, even from a solo thing, 26 Letters, 12 Notes, which I put out [in 2008], went right under the radar, because trying to put new stuff out these days is … an exercise in futility. And that was a great album! Really good. [Alone Together] definitely had great songs on it, and it still holds up, redone. So, from that point of view, it's great. It's probably one of my faves, yes.

When you made the original album, you had just left Traffic, correct?

Pretty much after the second album [1968's Traffic], I moved over here in 1969, to the U.S., for a couple of reasons. Traffic was not a viable option for me anymore, from the other three's point of view. So I decided to come to the place where everything originated from, which is America. Bluegrass, which had its roots in Europe and everything else, is uniquely American music. So that, and probably the 98-cents-to-the-dollar taxes, too. But I mostly came here for musical reasons.

Which divergent creative directions did you and the other Traffic guys wish to go in?

Had that not have happened, all those songs on Alone Together would have been on the next Traffic album.

Read: WATCH: Dave Mason & The Quarantines Uplift With New Video Version Of "Feelin' Alright"

You had quite an ensemble for the original Alone Together: pianist Leon Russell, vocalist Rita Coolidge, bassist Chris Etheridge and others. Were there specific creative reasons for involving these musicians? Or was it more in the spirit of getting some friends together?

I knew Rita and a few other people from early on, being in Delaney & Bonnie. All those people kind of knew each other. Leon Russell was new. I think Rita was going out with Leon at the time. A lot of them were gathered together by Tommy LiPuma, who coproduced Alone Together with me. Otherwise, I was just new here. I didn't know who was who.
Many of those guys were the top session guys in town: [drummers] Jim Keltner, Jim Gordon and [keyboardist] Larry Knechtel, for instance. Leon, I had him play on a couple of songs because I'd met him, I knew him, and I wanted his piano style to be on a couple of things. He put the piano on after the tracks were cut.

Let's flash-forward to Alone Together… Again. Tell me about the musicians you wrangled for this one.

Well, that's my band, the road band that I tour with. [Drummer] Alvino Bennett, [guitarist and background vocalist] Johnne Sambataro—Johnne's been with me for nearly 40 years, on and off—and [keyboardist and bassist] Tony Patler. 

Other than the slight differences in arrangements, there's more energy in the tracks. Other than the vocals, they were pretty much all cut live in the studio. The solos were cut live, because that's my live road band. "Only You Know And I Know," "Look At You Look At Me," "Shouldn't Have Took More Than You Gave," all those songs have been in my set for 50 years, on and off, so they knew them.

If I never had that session band on the original album and could have taken them on the road for a month, then that original album would have had a little more of an edge to it, probably. This new incarnation of it has more of that live feel. Those boys knew the songs. They didn't really have to think about them, but just get in there and play.

Aside from that, there are slightly different arrangements. "World In Changes" is a major departure, "Sad And Deep As You" was basically a live track cut on XM Radio probably 12, 14 years ago and "Can't Stop Worrying, Can't Stop Loving" is a little bit more fleshed out, which I like. The other songs pretty much stick to the originals. 

"Just A Song," I think, has a little more zip to it. It's got the addition of John McFee from The Doobie Brothers, who put that banjo on it, which is cool. Then there's Gretchen Rhodes, who does a lot of the girl background vocals on these tracks.

What compelled you to change up the rhythm of "World In Changes"?

I just wanted to see what would happen, taking one of my songs and adapting it to something else. I have a version of it cut the way it was originally done, and it was a question of whether I stick to that and put that on the album or do something exciting and totally different. To me, it came out so cool. The sentiment is timeless, and I wanted something on there that was new—an older song, done in a new way.

It seems like you still feel poignancy and urgency in these songs. Besides the fact that the album's 50th anniversary just passed, why did you return to the well of Alone Together?

Well, I started playing around with doing this 15 years ago. Mostly, it was for my own amusement, to be honest with you. But then, as it started to come together, and it was approaching 50 years since the [release of the] original, my wife and some people around me were like, "You should put this out." That's how it all led up to this.

Any other lyrical or musical changes that the average listener may not notice?

As to whether this ever reaches the ears of some new people, it would be nice. It seems unless you have some Twitter trick or social media thing happen, trying to get people aware [is difficult]. In other words, if a younger audience could hear this, I'm pretty sure they would like it. You'll probably have some people out there—the purists—but otherwise, I don't know. 

"Sad And Deep As You" is so much better than the original version, frankly. To me, it holds up. I think my vocals are better, which is one of the big reasons why I decided to redo it in the first place.

When you said "purists," there was an edge in your voice.

[Long chuckle.] Everybody's got their tastes and opinions, and that's the way that is. Same reason they booed Bob Dylan when he had The Band behind him. Some people are that way.

Even if people aren't familiar with the original album, I'd think your backstory would resonate with them. Your role in George Harrison's All Things Must Pass comes to mind.

Yeah, I played on a bunch of things. With All Things Must Pass, I pretty much just played acoustic guitar stuff in there with a group of people … George gave me my first sitar and played me Sgt. Pepper's at his house before it came out. I did "All Along The Watchtower" with Hendrix.

A lot of it's available on my website. There's a lot of cool stuff on there. On my YouTube channel, there's a great live version of "Watchtower" from the Journey and Doobie Brothers tour we did four years ago. But we'd be here for another half hour or more if we went over everybody I appeared with and everything I've been on.

Read: It's Not Always Going To Be This Grey: George Harrison's 'All Things Must Pass' At 50

Regarding Hendrix, that's an experience that not many other people can say they've had.

Very few. Very few. There are a lot of great guitar players out there, but there are no more Jimi Hendrixes.

You also played with Fleetwood Mac in the '90s, yeah?

I was with Fleetwood Mac from '94 to '96. We did an album called Time, which sort of went under the radar somehow. It didn't get promoted.

Why was that?

I don't know. It's not a bad album, but Warner Bros. was trying to force the issue of getting Stevie Nicks and whatshisname back in there.

Lindsey Buckingham?

Yeah, Lindsey. Christine McVie was on the album, but she didn't go on the road with us. It was kind of weird. The only original members were Mick [Fleetwood] and John [McVie]. It was a little bit like a Fleetwood Mac cover band, but it was cool. It was fun to do for a couple of years, but then they got back together again. C'est la vie. There you go.

Anything else you want to express about reimagining Alone Together 50 years down the road?

I don't think it's just the fact that it's my stuff because there are certain songs I've done that I would not address again. But the thing about those songs is that they all have very timeless themes. "World In Changes," I mean, that could have been written a month ago. To redo them doesn't seem that out of place to me.

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