Bo Diddley Interview

Back in 2006 when I was an associate editor for Blues Revue/Blueswax and the Wittenburg Door magazine I had the privilege of interviewing Bo Diddley, who is a rock & roll legend. It was before his concert in Salem, Oregon that I reviewed for Blues Revue/Blueswax. It was published in both online publications and can still be found online at the Wittenburg Door’s website, which is still up, even though the magazine quit publishing in 2008. Blues Revue/Blueswax quit publishing in 2013, but their website is no longer up. The link to the online interview is at the end of the interview. I took all the photos at the Elsinore Theater in Salem, Oregon, the day of the concert.
Bo Diddley Interview.
September 26, 2006
By: Bob Gersztyn

Bob Gersztyn: You began your musical involvement through the church. That seems to be common among many of the early pioneers of Rock & Roll. Why is that?

Bo Diddley: I don’t know. That’s where we learned how to do something.

Bob: Were you going to church with your parents?

Bo: Yeah, but I wasn’t playing no rock & roll in it then.

Bob: I read that your first music teacher, who taught you violin was the pastor of a church wasn’t he?

Bo: No. Professor O. W. Frederick.

Bob: I must have misread it in your biography.

Bo: Somebody added some shit to something that you read. It wasn’t so. My Pastor of my church was Reverend Smith, and the man who took care of the music part, was the professor O. W. Frederick, Oscar Frederick, and he taught me violin, so I played classical music for twelve years.

Bob: When you first were starting out, I mean as very young, in the thirties and forties, who were the people that influenced you at that time?

Bo: Nobody. Nobody influenced me to play classical music. I saw a dude with a violin and a stick, and that looked really cool. You know? And my church got together and took up twenty-nine dollars, and that’s what it cost, back then. Twenty-nine bucks was a lot of money back then.

Bob: I’m sure it was.

Bo: It was man. Laughter. You could get a sack of potatoes for like damn near ten cents.

Bob: When you look back on the tumultuous period that was going on in the 1960’s, how did that affect you? Were you involved in that in any way?

Bo: Like what do you mean?

Bob: Everything from Civil Rights to the Hippies.
Bo: I wasn’t involved in that, but I benefited from that, from the people that was doing it. You know. Because this shit should have never been that way in the first place. America has got some deep bullshit going on, you know, that we’re walking in. This is a beautiful country, and I think we got one of the greatest systems in the world, but it’s got some flaws, a lot of bad flaws, and it makes us no different from the people, like the people that they fighting right now. We got some shit going on right here in this country, that should not be going on. I’m talking about freedom. I don’t think that you’re supposed to go out and do wrong and then hide behind the flag, but a lot of people are doing that right now. Being a Black man, I used to wouldn’t even say shit like that, because I think that one day everybody would be as one. Regardless of who we are, if the Bible is right, we are all sisters and brothers, regardless of what color we are. What nationality or whatever way you want to put it. That’s the way I see it. I never thought about people being black and white, yellow and green and all that crap. We are all one.

Look at how the war is going on. I’ve been involved in it just as much as my white brothers. Now if it’s going to be separated, what do you want me to go fight for? It ain’t no business of mine, I didn’t do it, so why should I fight. I’ll stay back here and take care of the house. Sweep the floors and all that, but instead, we’re all in the same boat baby. We all in the same boat, and America needs to get rid of these standards that we got going on. See, just wake up and smell the roses, that’s all.

Bob: How has racism affected you in your career, over the years?

Bo: I’m still working. I never got a royalty check from Chess Records. It went to Sugar Hill and I ain’t seen no money yet. Everything that I own, I got it from working one nighter’s. A lot of people don’t understand how that can happen. All they have to do is, the people don’t pay you, that’s all. If they can stay away from me long enough, because first of all you got to have money to get a lawyer. You dig?

Bob: Yeah, I dig.

Bo: And then if there’s no money in what you’re doing, you can’t get no lawyer. So they ain’t worried. They fight you with your money, and I’ve been a victim of that, and I’m not happy about it, and I figure one day maybe before I leave this damn Earth, that I’ll go out and look in my mailbox and they’ll all be in there. In other words that ain’t gonna happen, this is America. That’s what you call a good old American rip off. You look at me right now. If I decided to jump up and go 100% suing somebody, it would be crazy for me to do it. You know why? Because they got something up the road called “Statute of Limitation”. Just like you’re doing a story right now. Alright, now if somebody else copies something that you did, and it might be a “statute” of three months, if there’s anything called a statute. It could be a hoax for all I know. Somebody gets something of yours and you wait four months to go after them, you might as well go back over and sit down, because they got it for their own. There’s a statute on that, you should have did that 23 days ago. Laughter. Do you hear what I’m saying?
Bob: Yeah, but….

Bo: You’re screwed right there man. You ain’t going to get nothing, so you might as well shut the hell up, and go back home. And that’s what’s happening right now. These people don’t have to run from me, but they know that I ain’t going to get nothing if I take them to court.

Bob: How many times, do you think, in you career do you feel that you’ve been ripped off?

Bo: I been ripped off for millions baby! Millions! I’m not just saying that as just a word. I’ve been ripped off. I have never seen a royalty check that came to me. I had some problems with a song. I’m gonna tell you this, but I don’t talk about it. A song that I wrote back in 1957, called Before You Accuse Me, I had some problems that the publishing company was paying another dude, and my name is Ellas, and they was paying another dude, and somebody sees something in a magazine and calls me and says, Bo did you write a song called such and such. Yep. Well there’s some other dude in there that say he got paid for a song that he don’t remember writing.
Eric Clapton did the song, but Eric don’t have nothing to do with people getting paid. Whoever it was, sent the money to the wrong dude. What kind of shit is that?

Bob: I read how you became the Deputy Sheriff of Los Lunas, New Mexico. How did that come about, and how long did you do that?

Bo: Two and a half years. Then I went back to Florida.

Bob: How did that even happen?

Bo: It’s worse than the police man. I like law. We got to have law. We got to have it. If we didn’t have laws, you couldn’t walk the streets. You dig? It’s bad now that we got the law. You can’t hardly walk the streets. You got crime. People getting away with all sorts of shit. It’s just not right. The drug scene can be stopped. If they go through people’s shit, like they do if I go to Canada, they go through my guitar case, tearing up shit, pulling stuff loose, wouldn’t no drugs get in here. So what is the thing? Everybody turns their head and look the other way, because we’re talking about a dollar bill. There’s a lot of money involved in that shit. People ain’t gonna hang themselves. They ain’t gonna put no rope around their own neck, you know. It’s almost like the kids that we’re dealing with today. With all the gangs and crap like that. Now when I was a kid coming up, if you were involved in gangs and making trouble in the streets, they put your ass in the Army. You understand? Go in there and learn how to be a man. That’s damn near about what needs to happen, I think. Because with this mess that we’re fighting right now, we’re not gonna win this, because this is a different type of man that we’re fighting. I don’t know who he is, but this dude is like a ghost.
What kind of man will stand up and kill by just putting a bomb on himself, and go stand around to kill six people. This is the thing. They have no regard for human life, and all this kind of stuff. I call it a ghost that we fighting. We need to leave them, and just tell the innocent people to get the hell out of Dodge, because we coming. You understand? We need to try to wipe this crap off the face of the planet. I don’t like to kill nobody, but this is not….he’s called a human being, but what kind of human being is he? You dig? What kind of man is this that they’re trying to eradicate? We’re trying to straighten out, trying to turn him into our ways, and they don’t want to be like us. It’s like trying to train a dog to do arithmetic. Set up and talk to you. I don’t like the things that go on where we stepping outside of our civilization. A civilized world as we call it for us. We are able to negotiate. We’re able to sit down and talk, and find out who stepped on who’s foot, that pissed them off. Don’t jump up and say the hell with you, I’ll step on it again. No, I’m sorry. That’s the reason why that word is in our vocabulary, is because I’m sorry for doing what I did to you and it won’t happen again. We due to have that one chance to prove that we are really sorry. What did we do to these people that make them want to kill everybody in America? What did we do? Somebody tell me something. You dig? I don’t know what it is, but I don’t think that God meant for us to be doing what we’re doing. I just don’t believe it. It’s like a family. Are they our brothers and sisters, as I said before? Are they involved in it? I don’t know, I’m scarred of it. It’s really weird. We’re fighting a ghost, and these people are not going to yield to our democracy, and all the stuff we trying to put on, they don’t want it. You can take a mule to water, but you can’t make him drink.

Bob: So what do you think that the solution to the problem is?

Bo: They need some rock & roll.

Bob: Could you say that again.

Bo: They need some rock & roll. They need some happy people. They need some good music that is not dangerous to their culture, and they’ve got to be showed something, something’s wrong man. Something went down funky, that we as citizens don’t know. Somebody did something. You take like, this is political. I get tired of talking about rock & roll all the time. I want people to know that I know something else besides the guitar. You dig what I’m saying?

Bob: Yes I do.
Bo: In my studio I’m gonna do a tape of Bo Diddley speaks, because I have a lot of time to think, and I see a lot of stuff that just ain’t right. Even in our own law enforcement, in our cities. We got police running around with dogs, biting people. This is an animal. You can’t talk to him, he don’t know you and he’s trained to kill. That’s like giving a nut a gun, and telling him, go ahead, shoot it. If you tell the police don’t bite me, the dog don’t know what the hell you saying. You know? And the man turning him loose to go bite whoever, that is wrong. I think, don’t sue the State, sue the person who sic the dog on you. I had a person tell me that a dog jumped on their mother, and I said that I’d like to ask the Governor, or whoever it is, that’s been having all this dog jumping on people. I said if you have to use a dog for a vicious criminal, then so be it, but people with a traffic ticket and stuff like that, you going to sic a dog on them? Would you want a dog sicced on you Mother? No. Uh uh. You dig what I’m saying? No this is wrong. This is something that we’re fighting against. This is German tactics, Russia and all those kinds of places like that. Now we got it here in America? No! Uh uh! That’s not right! It’s not right, and people need to think. I just jump back and say, well this is an old rock & roller talking and I ain’t biting my tongue about it. It needs to be looked at, because we’re turning into something that we ain’t gonna like man. It’s almost like you try and change somebody’s way of living, and after you change them, you might not like what you change them into. You dig? We need to look at this and get happy. I mix it up with rock & roll, with music. Let’s go back to doing something worthwhile and nice. America the beautiful, and all that good stuff. That’s where I want to be. I don’t want people telling me, I don’t like your country man.

Bob: So do you think that music has the potential to be able to make some changes?

Bo: I think so. If you can soothe a damn ape, where he’ll sit and look at you rather than tearing you apart, if you’re playing something. It’s funny man that we can train animals and we can’t even train our own kids. Really weird. Like I was getting ready to say a moment ago, when I got into something else, because there’s so much on my mind about different things that I get it all mixed up. Like the kids. Kids going to school with guns, and all this stuff. We didn’t have no crap like that when I was coming up. That’s what you call a change. That’s some kind of change, but what kind is it? For the better or the worse? Because parents are not allowed to train their own kids, cause you can have 9 kids, and one of them is liable to give you a heart attack. So what is happening? We need to get back to the good book. Our whole thing is based on God bless America. You think God’s going to bless the bunch of crap that’s going on?

Bob: Are you a religious person?

Bo: Very much. Very much. I play my little rock & roll, but I believe in that book man. That book is like a schematic to our life, and look what’s happening right now?

Bob: What’s your favorite part of the Bible?

Bo: All of it. It’s all in there. It’s like a map that you get from here to Chicago. If you follow the right road you’ll end up at the right destination, but if you veer off, you’re going to get lost. Okay?

Bob: Okay. What do you think of the current state of the music today?

Bo: That’s one of the things that really is confusing to me, because the rap music that’s going on today, is okay, but I just don’t like the dirty rap. With the dirty lyrics. I don’t like that. No. Some of the lyrics of the rap songs I don’t like. I’m from the old school baby. You can make music without using the dirty lyrics and exploiting our girls and mothers. Women in general. I just don’t like that. Everybody talks about censorship, and this shit, some of it is out here, just like I said it right now. Ten years ago, I wouldn’t of said that. All of a sudden, my mouth got to the point where, I didn’t have to worry about certain words, which I still don’t like it. That one just slipped, just then. You understand?

Bob: Uh huh.

Bo: I still don’t like it. I don’t understand how the FCC allows this stuff. A couple of things I’ve heard, that I couldn’t figure out, how did they let them get through to say that. How did they let some shows get on television, with chicks half naked, ain’t got no clothes on, and some dude licking all over them, you know, and your kid’s looking at this shit. You know what I’m saying?

Bob: Uh huh.

Bo: So now how do you raise a kid, to try and let him get 15, 16, 17 years old before you take your hands off of him. Since he got to be with us that long anyway. You know what I’m saying?

Bob: Uh huh.

Bo: We’re the only species on the planet, that I know about, that our kids stay with us til they’re 21, 25 damn near 30 years old. If you leave them when they first come in the world, they starve to death. There’s nothing else that will do that except little bitty things that can’t see. How they going to do nothing? But everything that comes in here, almost know how to start finding something to eat, to survive. We are not that way. We rather kill then survive. So we got all these different things going on. Like these people that I was talking about a moment ago. What kind of man is this? A man that take a plane with a lot of innocent people, and run it into a building. What kind of man is this? We need to try and find out, what it is, of where he come from. Who is he? Because he looks like a human being, but is he really? What do we have? How can we fight this? Cause something is wrong baby. Something is so wrong. I’ll get back to the rock & roll thing what you asked me.

I wanted to say this as I’m talking about it. Like everybody jumped on Bush, because they think that Bush is such a bad person. I don’t think so. You know why? Because we put Bush in the office to do exactly what he did. To protect us. If there’s something that sounds funky, go out and shut it down. You know what I’m saying?

Bob: Uh huh.

Bo: So we did that. Now he went and they didn’t find what somebody told him that was there. The poison gas and the mass destructions weapons, and some kind of crap. He ain’t found nothing, but I bet you on my life, I bet you they there. They there. They probably buried in that sand. You know what I’m saying?

Bob: Uh huh.
Bo: And they probably put the stuff so deep, that our little detection machines only detect so deep, and all they had to do was go another two or three stories down, after our little detection machine won’t reach. So we said ain’t nothing there, so Bush lied. No uh, uh I don’t think he lied. I think he acted in good faith. If he’d had of went, and the man came up out of there with something, we’d still be beat’in him up. We beat him up on the front door and the back door. You know what I’m saying?

Bob: Uh huh.

Bo: We going to jump on him anyway, and I don’t think that’s fair. I don’t think that’s right. They need to leave him alone. He did what they put him in there to do. He didn’t find nothin’, but at least he went to look. He went to look. He didn’t set on his butt. He went to look, and I think that they should leave Bush alone. I wouldn’t be the President for nothing in the world man. If you don’t find something they send you to look for, then they want to beat you up, because you didn’t find it. So that’s about all that! Now back to rock & roll!

Bob: What kind of music do you listen to today?

Bo: A lot of Country music.

Bob: Like who?

Bo: A lot of guys, you know. A lot of them I can’t pull their name up. Vince Gill, I like him, and Sheryl Crow. She’s my favorite, and Dolly Parton, in the early years. Well now too, I think that girl is remarkable. Charlie Daniels too. There’s so many of them, I can’t think of their names. There’s so many of them, and I love their music, because they got lyrics. Right now Rap music wouldn’t be so bad, with the part that I’m talking about, if they just clean up what I’m talking about. I like some of the Rap stuff, you know? I’m not against it at all, because it’s a new generation of music, and a new generation of kids, and every generation’s got their own bag of tricks.

Bob: How did you feel about Jimi Hendrix?

Bo: Jimi was okay. Jimi was a great friend of mine. He was a guitar player for Little Richard. I knew him very well, way before he made it big. He was in the “Upsetters”. That was Little Richards band, called the “Upsetters”. He got all by himself in upsetting stuff.

Bob: You play a guitar like a drummer plays drums. How did you first come up with that technique?
Bo: I don’t know. I wanted to be a drummer, but it didn’t work. My hands would not do one thing, while the other was doing the other. They both trying to do the same thing. I taught my daughter, Tammy Deane, to play drums. She calls herself Tammy Diddley. She’s about 4′-7″ or something like that, or 5′-2″. I don’t know, she’s short, a little bitty thing, and she plays like a man, and I taught her.

Bob: When you write a song, what is the process that you go through?

Bo: Put together lyrics, and make them have a meaning. Don’t just say some stuff. I don’t like songs like, things with guys that say I’ll swim the ocean for you, and can’t get out of the bath tub. I don’t like songs like that. I like song’s that’s with reality. Something that people can relate to.

Bob: Do you write the lyrics first or the melody?

Bo: I write sometimes the melody first, and then fit lyrics to it. Something that I can say. Whatever way the melody and rhythm is going. You know?

Bob: If you look at your entire life, and say this is the single biggest accomplishment that I want you to remember me by?

Bo: By the rhythm that I created. I’m a rhythm fanatic. I’m not a watcha call a finger fanatic, that you do a lot of little fast picking and stuff, I can’t do that. That rhythm that’ll make you undress.

Bob: Is there anything that you would like to add that I haven’t talked about?

Bo: It’s just that we deserve, I think that we deserve all the rock & rollers that really want to do something before they really say, I’m through with it. Let these kids know today, where it all began, and the way it’s really done. Don’t sample our stuff, think for yourself.

Bob: So getting back to the roots of gospel and blues?

Bo: That’s right, that’s right. One other thing, when you said roots, that triggered something in my mind that I’ve been telling people about. This is going back. I have to put this in with the political crap that I was talking about. To find out how these guy are working, over there, when our boys is over there. With roadside bombs, homemade bombs and all this. They need to find out where are they getting the material to do this stuff with, because they need to go to the roots of the crime, rather than playing with the leaves and branches, on the tree. You know what I’m saying? You don’t kill a tree by fooling with the branches. You got to get the root. That stops it from growing, and see they’re never going to stop these people if they never find out where they getting all of their stuff from, to make these stupid bombs. They could be making them in somebody’s front room. You know. They got to find out where it’s coming from.

Bob: Kind of like the drug thing.
Bo: That’s it. You gotta go to the roots in order to stop it. You’re not going to stop it by grabbing one of these little punks in the streets with $2.00 worth of something in his fingers. You ain’t going to find out nuthin, because he ain’t gonna tell you nuthin. You got to find out where he got it from. This is one of the baddest things that’s going on in our country, is that we got people that we’re passing by, and letting stuff in. Then other times let a little ship get caught. They sent it out there to get caught, so they can tell the treasury people, oh look what we did, we’re really cracking down. What about the big sucker that went by. Ha. Okay? In other words turn your head, you didn’t see this. You know what I’m saying? See, and we got a lot of crap that needs to be addressed. In other words ghetto tactics, not college. Cause college ain’t working. How do these dudes in the ghetto manage to stay away from the police so easy? Cause that’s their thing. Learn how to hide. That’s what they doing. So you ain’t going to find that in a law book in college, in a classroom. You got to get out there and go where the mess is at, and look for it, and dig deep baby. I’m going to have to let you go. God bless America, and God bless you bro. Take care of yourself. Bye.

I also had my interview with Bo Diddley published in the Wittenburg Door magazine and this is the online version. http://www.wittenburgdoor.com/bo-diddley-bible.html

Bo Diddley Concert Review

Ellas Bates McDaniel, also known as Bo Diddley was one of the most important artists to help create the new genre of music called rock & roll out. McDaniel’s first hit was co-written with blues legend, Muddy Waters to establish the connection between blues and the new genre. His career lasted for 60 years until his death in 2008 This is a concert review that I did for Blues Revue/Blueswax 2 years before his death. I also interviewed him and will post that interview in another couple of days.

Bo Diddley & Friends in Concert
Historic Elsinore Theatre
Salem, Oregon
Friday, September 29, 2006

Ruthie Foster opened the show a few minutes past 7:30 P.M.. Her performance was an acoustic set combining Blues, Folk and Gospel, that included six numbers, including original compositions, and selections from Sister Rosetta Tharpe and Odetta. When Alvin Youngblood Hart took the stage the music tempo went up a notch, as he belted out his brand of rock & blues. He was backed by Tony “T” Leindecker, playing incredible lead guitar, Sandy Gennaro pounding the drums, James “Jimmy” Hinds thumping out electric bass and Scottie Miller playing keyboards.

After a brief intermission, Bo Diddley, the “Prime Minister of Rock & Roll”, as Alvin Youngblood Hart called him, took the stage at 9:00 PM. He was backed by Gennaro, Hinds, Leindecker and Miller. The set began with Ellas Bates McDaniel’s first hit, from 1955, that became his moniker. It was released two weeks before “Bill Haley & the Comets” released Rock Around the Clock, Bo told the crowd. “Bo Diddley bought his babe a diamond ring” the master began to sing. Dearest Darling followed, which displayed his tender side.

Between songs Bo talked to the audience. He told the light man to turn up the house lights so he could see who he was talking to. “I’ve been in the business 52 years, and I’m not 100 years old like some people say. I’m only 78. My first record was Bo Diddley with I’m A Man on the back.” Then he explained. “The reason why I’m sitting down is because of breaking two bones in my back, and I’ve got diabetes. If your feet start to swell up, go see the doctor, because it ain’t gonna get better.”

Bo and the band dove into I’m A Man, which is credited to co-authorship with Muddy Waters, who released it as Mannish Boy. After completing the song, Bo explained, “I’ve changed the lyrics of the song for women, so now the title is Shut Up Woman.” Then he began “I’m yours, so you’re mine, so we’re each other’s, so shut up.” Some of the politically correct members of the audience weren’t sure how to react. Tony “T” Leindecker provided some great intricate guitar work, behind Bo’s thumping rhythm, as well as an occasional solo.

“Back in 1958,” Bo told the crowd, “if you were anybody, you had a 1957 Chevy, with mud flaps and dual exhausts.” Then he continued. “I had a 1949 Cadillac.” This was an introduction to I’ve Seen Them All, a litany of major musical artists that he shared the stage with, at some point in his career. Names like, “Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, Jimmy Reed, Church Berry, the magnificent Elvis Presley, I’ve seen them all and been on the stage with them.” The list went on for another five minutes, including Jimi Hendrix, B.B. King, Janis Joplin, James Brown, the Rolling Stones, as the crowd was drawn into the frenzy by being encouraged to clap along.

When band began Don’t Be Caught Digging In My Yard, the audience was exposed to some classic double entendre. “I’ve got two German Shepherds and a Rottweiler, and I might be coming home early, so don’t be caught digging in my yard.” Roadrunner rounded it out with a few beep beeps, as the band got into a jam, and drove the audience’s adrenalin up.

“I’m gonna mess with your head a little bit,” Diddley announced. Then he asked everyone to stand to their feet, and do their own thing. This brought on the opportunity for all those disposed to do so, to shake their booty, or at least tap their foot, as Bo Diddley and company blasted out Wind Me Up. I’m gonna Eat Me a Pig Tonight was performed with a rap like delivery, as the master sang “I wanna do it with you”. By this time Ruthie Foster and Alvin Youngblood Hart were on the stage for the grande finale, and less than a minute later, after I got to the balcony and took a few shots of the entire cast, the show was over, the stage was empty and the lights came on.

Black Francis & Frank Black

Charles Michael Kittridge Thompson IV was born in 1965 and lived in Boston and Los Angeles as a child. He had a religious background and was influenced by the music of Larry Norman after he saw him at a summer camp that he attended as a youth. His parents played 1960’s rock and 1970’s Jesus music as he began to play the guitar at around the age of 11. After attending college he began to play with other people and in 1984 his college roommate was guitarist Joseph Alberto Santiago who he later formed the Pixies with. To complete the band they added a rhythm section comprised of bassist Kim Deal and drummer Dave Lovering. Thompson changed his name to Black Francis as the front man for the Pixies.

 

The band drew critical acclaim as an alternative rock band and began a new genre for bands like Nirvana and Radiohead. Their fans range from David Bowie and Bono to P. J. Harvey and Thom Yorke. Thompson was the primary song writer and singer and the songs used surrealistic Biblical imagery in much of the music. They released 5 albums during their primary heyday and “Surfer Rosa” was considered their peak in 1988. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3r-xMt9JmM&list=PLZqsyBiYZFQ3IvEJS2LrYkQMxIJWJemDN . A documentary chronicling their career with interviews and music clips tell the story very well at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjAhm82v1es

After the Pixies broke up Thompson changed his name to Frank Black and formed Frank Black & the Catholics.” The band was comprised of Scott Boutier on drums, Rich Gilbert on guitar, David McCaffrey on bass and Dave Philips on guitar & keyboards. Thompson in the form of Frank Black fronted the band as the lead singer and guitarist.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OW5FolPhmRA Utube 1998 release “Frank Black & the Catholics.”

I saw them play in Portland, Oregon at the Crystal Ballroom in 2001. I covered it for the Wittenburg Door as part of a story I was working on about the relationship that Biblical imagery has to pop music. I photographed it as well and included some of the images. .At the same show David Lovering, the drummer for the Pixies performed a magic act prior to Frank Black and the band taking the stage where he created smoke with a drum and barbequed a pickle between 2 forks using an electric cord.

Then in 2004 I photographed a reunion performance from a Pixies tour in Eugene, Oregon. It was after I became friends with Larry Norman who informed me of his friendship with Charles Thompson and how he influenced his music. I found out that Thompson even recorded and performs a cover of Norman’s song “666.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqTxI5wTAwQ . One day when Larry was over my house in 2002 he was in my office sitting in my swivel chair with his feet up on the desk and he pointed to a box that said “Frank Black and the Catholics.”

“Can I see that box?” He asked.

When I brought it down and gave it to him he asked for my loupe and I turned on the translucent viewing screen for him to view the slides and negatives on. I had some black & white enlargements that I printed up in the dark room and even a contact sheet, along with some 4×6 color prints that I had the custom lab do. I gave Larry the prints that he liked and he told me about how Thompson’s mother was a Jesus freak like we were. Larry went to the same show that I did in Eugene in 2004 and I sent him scans of some of the best shots that I took at the show, which I included in this blog entry.

Chuck Girard Interview Part 2

I forgot to post part 2 of my Chuck Girard Interview. With all the hoopla of the “United We Will Stand” concert last week and the emphasis on the roots of CCM and Jesus music, I thought that it would be advantageous to let Girard finish his story. His interview and dozens of other pioneers of CCM were what I used to write my book “Jesus Rocks The World: The Definitive History of Contemporary Christian Music.” It was the first and unless someone rode on my coat tails, the only book of its kind on the subject. In the future I’ll publish other interviews that I did for the book with other primary sources, like Tommy Coomes, Michael Blanton and Billy Ray Hearn, along with dozens of others. My blog and book are 2 places that you can get an accurate academic analysis of CCM. Here is part 2 of my interview with Chuck Girard, which began on December 10, 2014.

Bob Gersztyn: You know an interesting thing while I was looking through your online book, and you had that example that a lot people come up with about some missionary going into Africa, and his kids play some rock song that the natives say sounds like something that their witch doctor would use to conjure up evil spirits with. Did you by any chance see the Martin Scorsese PBS documentary on the Blues that came out?

Chuck Girard: No, I didn’t every actually get to see it but I knew that he had done it, I think I saw a little bit of the segment with the Taj Mahal on it, I saw a little bit of that one.

Gersztyn: Well this one thing that blew me away was when he had commercial blues artist Keb Mo, go to Africa, and they went to this remote village somewhere, and they played a Muddy Waters song for him. These guys listened to it, and they said hey he is one of us, and they start playing this same melody under native instruments, and they start singing, and it is unbelievable. They are singing the same melody, except his words are different, he is talking about a city in his existence where as our song we’re talking about going out, and hunting a lion, and how the harvest was, and stuff like this. They said these are our traditional folk songs. I thought wow that kind of blows the hole in the whole witch doctor thing.

Girard: I’ll have to check that out because that is very interesting, I would love to see that, that is the one with Keb’ Mo in it?

Gersztyn: Yeah I can’t remember what night it was.

Girard: That’s all on DVD now I think so you can probably rent it.

Gersztyn: Yeah, they went to Africa they were there for I think that whole episode, and they were looking for the roots of the Blues, and where it came from. It kind of showed the evolution of the whole thing, and something that was interesting at the same time Robert Darden who’s the senior editor of the Wittenburg Door, he wrote a book called People Get Ready which was on the history of black gospel music. He has a lot of this stuff in it. If you want to read a really good book that talks about how music, Rock music, I mean he is specifically talking about black gospel music, but you can see it coming into doo-wop, and all this stuff, and the melodies he’s talking about, how this came from these ancient folk songs from that period.

Girard: I believe that, I’m not a scholar of it but I believe that would be a very easy case to make, and I’m sure he does a great job of it.

Gersztyn: What are some of your current musical projects right now?

Girard: You know I’m getting older, and I’m not in the public eye anymore, and I’ve been doing my own thing since about 1980, and it’s been kind of difficult because it’s very expensive to make an album. Part of my latest transition in my life was that three years ago I moved to Nashville. I happen to be out on the West Coast right now but I live in Nashville now, and my son-in-law has a studio that I’m able to use free of charge, and then I have a very good overdub room in my house so the cost of albums has gone measurably down. I’m looking forward to in my later years here being able to be a little more prolific because back from 1980 on I’ve really only made about four albums so that’s only one every five years or something.

Gersztyn: So you came here to Salem, Oregon back, boy I can’t remember if it was the late ‘80’s or the early ‘90’s but I took my son to go see you, and you played at a church here. I talked to you briefly, no way you would possibly remember but I just thought I’d throw that in.

Girard: Well thanks, it’s always a thrill to hear those kind of stories. Back to current projects, I put an album out in 1996 called Voice of the Wind that was a live worship album, kind of pre-dating really the worship movement because even though it came out 1996 I had been working on it for ten years because it took so long to make it. So I’m currently developing volume two of that, in fact I actually brought all the basic recording equipment, the computer, and all the outboard gear that I needed here to LA. Actually last night recorded some people my daughter put together from her church for the congregational part of it because we needed to record, you can never really successfully record a group of people singing in a church because of the sound leakage, and all of that, so you have to go back in a re-record it later. So we did that last night and while I’m out here I’ll also put my friend Caleb Quaye who did all the guitar parts on my first worship project. I’m going to have a few days with him to do some guitar stuff out here. Caleb was with the Elton John band in the early days, and he teaches music out at Life Bible College now. So I’m going to be able to be a little more prolific here in my later years, and hopefully by the end of the year I’ll have this volume two of this very different, I don’t know if you’re familiar with the Voice of the Wind album but it’s very down tempo, low key, an hour long piece that kind of pulls you into, as I’ve been told, into worship, and into prayer, and into praise. So a lot of people have been waiting for volume two for a long time. The concept of this album is to record it live, the basic song, and then embellish after the fact with adding guitars and bass and drums, and all that after you record the initial connection with the audience. I didn’t want to have bunch of musicians on stage with me because it would be distracting so the basic live recording is just me and a keyboard with a group of people, and then we embellish it after the fact. So that’s the next album that would come out. After that’s done, I’ll make my first studio album with live players since 1991. That will be the project that comes after the worship project and I am really excited about that because it will be my first album of kind of all original tunes done in the studio since 1991. So that’s the next two, and then I don’t know where I’m going to be going from there.

Gersztyn: Well that’s very interesting do you think you might have a Love Song reunion at any point?

Girard: That door is never closed; we actually did a reunion this summer. Calvary Chapel was refurbishing the big sanctuary during the month of April and May, and they set up circus tents again for six weeks, and I flew down. I was up in Canada on tour, and we got together, and we played one night in the tent, and it was web cast, and the whole thing, it was really a brilliant night, and it really came off just great. The guys really love to play together. Tommy Coomes and I have our own ministry direction going so we are less hungry for the opportunity to play. But Bob, and Jay, and those guys they play at the drop of a hat. There’s always talk about touring again, but here’s the problem, you have to get someone to promote it, and in the climate of the way things are today, and the expense involved in mounting a tour with five players it would have to be somebody that really had faith in the project, and was willing to put some money into it. So I don’t really know if we’d ever be able to put together a successful reunion tour because we couldn’t mount it, the financial side if it, we couldn’t do it ourselves, and I don’t know if we could find someone that would believe enough in the idea. At the end of the day they have to make money, and I don’t blame them for thinking that way because you can’t go out there with the idea that you’re going to lose money, and I just don’t know if there is anybody out there willing to take that kind of risk.

Gersztyn: With the Christian radio stations all over the country I would think that somehow there would probably be some way, but again somebody would have to take up and want to do it.

Girard: You’d be amazed at how little interest there is with Christian radio stations about anybody back from the ‘70’s. There is a whole new generation of young people out there that don’t even know what the Jesus Movement was much less who Love Song was.

Gersztyn: Sure, my daughter who’s just going to Bible College right now, she says to me Dad she says I’m finding out all of this stuff about how the hippie movement started the Jesus Movement she said you ought to write a book about that. She said I never even knew about all of that, and these people don’t have a clue about it, and the only reason I even know is because of you. I look at right now why I’m interviewing you about the interest in the 1960’s because of the forty year anniversary of the summer of love, and I would think that the same sort of thing would be going on within the people who want to make money in Christianity. I mean you have to look at it totally not from a spiritual point of view but from a monetary business point of view, well there’s a buck to be made because of the fact that there’s the anniversary of the Jesus Movement. Just like Woodstock, right now you’ve got a two year period between the summer of love, and Woodstock, and they are going to be going crazy for this whole two years with the 1960’s. Well at the end of that the Jesus Movement begins, and so you might just run into somebody, and drop something, and maybe they’ll get interested who knows.

Girard: Well it could happen, and if somebody did it right I think it could be successful. You know it takes some capital. I am actually working on writing my life story right now, and I kind of wish I had that ready right now but it’s quite a project to really just sit there, and remember everything and write it down. I was talking to Jay Truax the Love Song bass player about some chronology. We are e-mailing to figure out what happened when , did this happen first or did this, because so much of it is so mushed together because of the drugs and all of that, so I forget the chronology of it. When I felt like really led of the Lord to write this all down I thought “who cares about my life, and what do I have to write about?” I never even became really famous, but as I really write down the experiences that I had it is amazing. Even I’m interested, and I’m going “wow, this is great if I was reading this about somebody else I would be totally riveted”. I’m going up to Northern California in the next couple of months, and I’m going to have a lot of down time where I’m not going to be around my comfort zone, and hopefully I’m going to try to really just peck out some pages of this book, and get his thing finished because I think it is going to be a very interesting story. It is representative of just what you’re talking about, it is all about the Jesus Movement, and it will be in its own way a history book.

Gersztyn: Well you were right at the epicenter of it, and if anybody would have had something to say about it, it would definitely be you.

Girard: Well you know it is funny because my life, in a way, parallels the progression of rock music. When I became musically conscious rock music was in it’s infancy. So my whole life span kind of parallels the growth of rock and roll from doo-wop to what it is today. In a way my story is not just a history of the Jesus Movement it’s a history of music because I get into a lot of the stuff about starting out in the studios. Back in the days when I first recorded we would use three track machines. I was working in the same studios where Phil Spector cut the Ronettes and the Righteous Brothers, and a lot of the book is going to cover musical history too, so it is going to be interesting on a number of levels. I’m actually more excited about that almost than I am some of the musical projects, about getting it done at least.

Gersztyn: Who are some of the other people that you would name as being important like yourself who came out of that period?

Girard: I’m not saying I’m important

Gersztyn: When I say important I mean you’re important because of the fact that you were at the epicenter of it. And I’m not saying it for an egotistical sort of reason, but the fact that well here’s an example, Mylan LeFever. I used to go to rock concerts, I’m from Detroit, Michigan originally, and when I was a hippie I would drop acid, and I’d go to the local rock venue called the East Town Theater, and I went to go see Traffic one time, and Mylan had a group. I knew nothing about them but in the middle of the rock concert I’m telling my wife who was my girlfriend then, “I feel like I’m in church,” and then I find out ten years later he was a back-slidden Christian.

Girard: Well I’ll tell you I guess the way to answer the question would be like. who’s book would I want to read. I think Barry McGuire could write a very interesting book. I think he’s been faithful for many years. In many ways he’s the patriarch of the whole movement because among my peers Barry is the oldest one of us. See here’s the deal.. age-wise I’m about ten years older than most of my peers, Randy Stonehill, Larry Norman.Larry is a little older but most of those guys are about ten years younger than I am. Then in my range there are a few people that are kind of in their sixties now but then it goes up to Barry who is in his seventies so he is really a father, and has had a very interesting life. Andrae Crouch would make an interesting book if it is not already out. Some of these guys might have already written a book for all I know. Those guys were pioneers.. they were like the first guys. When I got born again Larry’s album was out, Larry Norman, so he was really the first. Upon This Rock was already out, and Andrae was doing stuff. So for a little period of time there about all there was out there was Love Song, and Larry, and Andrae. Those people would have interesting stories. Larry lives right up there where you are I think right?

Gersztyn: Yeah, I even did some photography for Larry a few years ago.

Girard: So they are interesting people that had something to do with it, I think after it gets into the Michael W. Smiths, and the Steven Curtis Chapman’s it’s already kind of commercialized, and I don’t know that those stories would be as interesting to me as some of the earlier ones, it is just a handful you know.

Gersztyn: I was writing articles for an encyclopedia, and I needed to talk to Barry, and I did. I started to talk to him like I was with you about the early days, and when I brought up the subject of drugs he got very upset so I don’t think he would really want to talk about that early period.

Girard: I know him pretty well but he has some little places, and then he will change his mind too. I don’t know? I don’t get that, why he would get angry with that if it is part of your experience.

Girard: How long ago was this?

Gersztyn: I think it was 2004.

Girard: I don’t know him as well as others do but I know him pretty well but I didn’t know that side of him. I didn’t know that he had that kind of little eccentricity I guess you’d call it.

Gersztyn: I’m interested in the whole, because I came out of the hippie movement, and LSD. It’s like one night I just had a bad trip like you, and I said that’s it I’m done with this stuff, and I flushed it down the toilet. The next day I had a Bible, and I started reading my Bible. Within a few months after that I became a born again Christian. It’s like to say there wasn’t a connection between that would be absurd, so I’m interested, and I feel everybody who was involved in the drugs has that connection, because it’s an obvious connection.

Girard: Yes it’s part of your story, and I’m a little shocked that he’s like that.

Gersztyn: Well even Mike Macintosh I remember listening to his testimony about taking acid, and having a bag over his head, and somebody shooting a gun next to it. And Odin Fromm talking about how he was in the desert and had a hundred hits of the most powerful acid, and he saw a vision of Jesus, and everybody would talk about it. Anyway I think that I got plenty of information here, more than enough that I’ll need for the interview, and the only other thing is I’d like to get some photographs to go along with it, and the thing that is really frustrating is I photographed you in Love Song many times back in the ‘70’s, and I gave somebody all my slides. They were going to do something with them, and they never gave them back to me, and I can’t remember who it was, and these things would be irreplaceable. One set of them if you ever see them they had the name Laverne Campbell stamped on them because I did them for the pastor of my church.

Girard: I know Laverne, he’s dead now right?

Gersztyn: Yeah, he was my pastor, and in fact I photographed Love Song for him; I think you guys were going to the Philippines.

Girard: Yeah he had something to do with that.

Gersztyn: Yeah, and so I think he went with you even.

Girard: Yeah I think he did actually.

Gersztyn: And so I shot a roll of film of you guys, and gave him the slides, and I think I have two of the slides right now.

Girard: Alright, I’m glad we got to do this, and I’m sorry that it took so long.

We Will Stand United

On Wednesday January 21, 2014 there was a CCM concert dedicated to Christians around the world who are being persecuted for their faith. It was a whose who of CCM. Using the link below you can watch the show as it was recorded. It featured everyone from Love Song and Don Francisco to Dallas Holm and Bill Gaither.

http://live.ccmunited.com/

Martin Luther King Jr.

Yesterday was the Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday. So in keeping with it I wanted to post something that was related. I may be a day late, but the entire week is a commemoration.

I photographed one of the most important musical contributors to the Civil Rights movement from the beginning, who was then but a teenager, Mavis Staples. She was the lead singer of her fathers family group “The Staple Singers.”

I shot these images of her around 2004 at the Aladdin theater, in Portland, Oregon. I ran into a DJ that I knew and met Mavis backstage and even had someone photograph me with her using my camera.

Over the years I’ve personally met a couple dozen rock stars and other famous people, but the thought never occured to me to have my picture taken with them, because I was on assignment at the time and was trying to do my job as a freelance journalist.

Rock & Roll Jihad

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIlDJ_IptU4

Back in 2011 when I finished writing “Jesus Rocks The World: The Definitive History of Contemporary Christian Music,” The Egyptian revolution that began what was then called the Arab spring took place. I wrote a couple of paragraphs in the book about it, because of the way that rap music was being used to promote it. They were doing the same thing that the hippies of the 1960’s and early 1970’s did with rock and roll by creating Jesus rock to revolutionize the church. The Egyptians and other Arabs were now using a musical style that originated in the USA and was imported around the world, to create a revolution in their political system.

Four years have passed since then, and the Arab spring came and went and now ISIS and Al Queda are competing to commit the most horrific acts of terrorism against the Infidels of the West. But rap music is still one of the most popular means of expressing political opinion in some Muslim countries. Ironically the beat of rock and rap is considered blasphemous to conservative Islam.

I remember that rock and roll was blasphemous to conservative Christians, but today try and find a thriving church that doesn’t have a rock and roll worship band. People like Larry Norman, Chuck Girard, Marsha Carter and many others carried the message of Christian renewal and revolution that sparked a born again revolution in America that swept the Country.

When I interviewed rock & roll pioneer Bo Diddley a couple of years before he broke on through to the other side, we talked about the solution to the problems with the Muslim world. He said that they needed some rock & roll to make them happy. So that is exactly what Pakistani born Salman Ahmad did when he returned home after 6 years in America. You can read about it in his book “Rock & Roll Jihad: A Muslim Rock & Roll Star’s revolution. http://www.amazon.com/Rock-Roll-Jihad-Muslim-Revolution ebook/dp/B00321OR94/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1421283633&sr=8-1&keywords=rock+and+roll+jihad

War will end when everyone is united by music, the common language of all sentient beings with a universal message of peace, harmony, collective reflection and ecstatic joy. Here’s a few more examples of Arab rap.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EUxhCWD_8s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_dHWsjyVRg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8P7kD_2IsM