Interview: David Sanborn

Saxophonist David Sanborn has seemingly played with everyone: David Bowie, Stevie Wonder, Eric Clapton, Bruce Springsteen, James Taylor, Elton John, Linda Ronstadt, and many, many more.

Sanborn started playing saxophone to strengthen his chest muscles after a childhood bout with polio. His earliest recordings date back to 1967 with the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, with whom he performed at a little festival called Woodstock. His profile grew immensely in the 1970’s, when he was the go-to guy for laying down a saxophone solo. In that decade, he also started recording his own albums.

One notable milestone in Sanborn’s career was the 1986 album with keyboardist Bob James called Double Vision. The album spent 63 weeks on the Billboard charts, and won a Grammy for Best Jazz Fusion Performance, Vocal or Instrumental.

This interview was for a preview article for noozhawk.com for the Double Vision Revisited show with Bob James and Marcus Miller, who also played on the Double Vision album, at the Granada Theatre on 8/11/19. It was done by phone on 7/25/19. (Melanie Futorian photo)

Interview: Clem Burke

Clem Burke is the drummer extraordinaire for Blondie, arguably the most successful of the original punk / New Wave bands. Blondie’s hits include “Heart of Glass”, “Call Me”, “The Tide is High”, “Rapture”, “One Way or Another”, and “Dreaming”. Their 1978 album Parallel Lines is regularly ranked as one of the best albums of all time. Blondie was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2006.

Burke has also played drums with The Eurythmics, Bob Dylan, Pete Townshend, The Ramones (as “Elvis Ramone”), The Romantics, and many more bands and artists.

This interview was for a preview article for noozhawk.com for Blondie’s performance at the Santa Barbara Bowl on 8/7/19. It was done by phone on 7/12/19. (Danielle St. Laurent photo)

Interview: Mike Garson, Part 2

Pianist Mike Garson performed over one thousand concerts with David Bowie, more than any other person. He joined Bowie’s band for the Ziggy Stardust tour, and played on the Aladdin Sane, Diamond Dogs, and Young Americans albums. He re-entered Bowie’s orbit in the 1990’s, and played on Bowie albums including Outside, Earthling, and Reality. You can hear Garson’s diverse piano skills on Bowie songs ranging from “Aladdin Sane” featuring his avant-garde solo, to “Young Americans” and its Philly soul splendor, to the frenetic “Battle For Britain (The Letter)”

Garson has also recorded and toured with a number of other notable artists, including Nine Inch Nails and The Smashing Pumpkins, and has released a number of solo albums. He has composed over 5,000 pieces of music in virtually every imaginable style.

This interview with Mike Garson was for a preview article for noozhawk.com for the concert “Cancer: The Urgency of Now ” at the Lobero Theatre on 11/2/18. It was done by phone on 10/19/18. It complements a previous interview with Mike Garson, available here.

Interview: Mike Garson

Pianist Mike Garson performed over one thousand concerts with David Bowie, more than any other person. He joined Bowie’s band for the Ziggy Stardust tour, and played on the Aladdin Sane, Diamond Dogs, and Young American albums. He re-entered Bowie’s orbit in the 1990’s, and played on Bowie albums including Outside, Earthling, and Reality. You can hear Garson’s diverse piano skills on Bowie songs ranging from “Aladdin Sane” featuring his avant-garde solo, to “Young Americans” and its Philly soul splendor, to the frenetic “Battle For Britain (The Letter)”

Garson has also recorded and toured with a number of other notable artists, including Nine Inch Nails and The Smashing Pumpkins, and has released a number of solo albums. He has composed over 5,000 pieces of music in virtually every imaginable style.

This interview with Mike Garson was for a preview article for noozhawk.com for the concert “A Bowie Celebration” at the Majestic Ventura Theater on 9/26/18. It was done by phone on 11/6/18. (Steve Rose photo)

Interview: Tim Butler

From their post-punk beginnings to their MTV-driven success, boosted popularity from the Pretty in Pink soundtrack, and extended touring reunion, there have been two constants for the Psychedelic Furs: brothers Richard Butler on lead vocals and Tim Butler on bass guitar.

The Psychedelic Furs started in 1977, and they released their first album in 1980. The rougher edge of their debut was softened for their second album, 1981’s Talk Talk Talk, which included the original version of the song “Pretty in Pink”, a re-recording of which later became part of the soundtrack of the movie of the same name. They hit the US Top 40 with “Love My Way” in 1982, and followed up with songs like “Heaven”, “The Ghost in You”, and “Heartbreak Beat”. The band broke up for most of the 1990’s, but eventually reunited and now continues to tour.

This interview with Tim Butler was for a preview article for noozhawk.com for the Psychedelic Furs concert on 3/9/18 at the Fremont Theater in San Luis Obispo. It was done by phone on 2/28/18.

Remembering Musicians Who Died in 2016

The following is a list of some of the notable musicians who passed away in 2016, including a few who performed in the Santa Barbara area in recent years. Some are well-known, many are not, but all are worthy of our respect. R.I.P. – Rock In Peace.

Interview: George Clinton

George Clinton is widely regarded as one of the most important figures in the development of funk music, along with James Brown and Sly Stone. Clinton was the mastermind of the bands Parliament and Funkadelic, whose notable 1970’s albums include Mothership Connection, The Clones of Dr. Funkenstein, Maggot Brain, and One Nation Under a Groove, and whose songs include “Flash Light” and “One Nation Under A Groove” (both of which reached No. 1 in the US R&B charts), “Give Up The Funk (Tear the Roof Off the Sucker)”, “P-Funk (Wants to Get Funked Up)”, and “Dr. Funkenstein”. Clinton was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997, and continues to tour.

This interview was done by phone on 6/9/16. (L. Paul Mann photo)

Interview: Stephan Jenkins

Third Eye Blind was one of the most popular alt-rock bands during the late 1990’s, with their ubiquitous hit “Semi-Charmed Life” and other notable songs like “How’s It Going to Be”, “Jumper”, “Graduate”, and “Never Let You Go”. The band has continued into the 2000’s under the leadership of singer/songwriter/guitarist Stephan Jenkins, with their most recent album being 2015’s Dopamine.

This interview was for a preview article on noozhawk.com for the 4/7/16 Third Eye Blind concert at the Arlington Theatre in Santa Barbara, California on Thursday, April 7. It was done by email, with answers received on 3/21/16. Clearly Jenkins wasn’t into talking about the past…

Promo Materials: David Bowie – Tin Machine

Promo materials for Tin Machine.

Promo Materials: David Bowie – Serious Moonlight

Promo materials for the David Bowie HBO Special “Serious Moonlight”

Interview: Peter Frampton

There’s an element of truth to Wayne Campbell’s declaration in the movie Wayne’s World 2 that “Everybody in the world has Frampton Comes Alive! If you lived in the suburbs you were issued it. It came in the mail with samples of Tide.”

Frampton Comes Alive! was the smash live double album released by Peter Frampton in 1976, which sold millions of copies and established him as a superstar. And while that album was the high point of his career, he has also had other notable successes – before “coming alive”, he had hit songs with The Herd (the UK hit “I Don’t Want Our Loving to Die”) and Humble Pie (“Natural Born Bugie”, “I Don’t Need No Doctor”), and afterwards he released the Grammy Award winning instrumental album Fingerprints and has been on many successful tours, including the Frampton Comes Alive! 35 tour that stopped at the Santa Barbara Bowl in 2011.

This interview was for Frampton’s concert on 6/7/15 at the Lobero Theatre in Santa Barbara for the 5th Annual Notes For Notes Benefit Concert. Notes For Notes has the admirable mission of providing musical instruments, instruction, and facilities to young musicians. It was done by phone on 5/15/15. (L. Paul Mann photo)

Interview: Paul Williams

Paul Williams has had an amazingly fruitful career as a singer, songwriter, actor, and author.

Williams’ songs include “We’ve Only Just Begun” and “Rainy Days and Mondays” (best known as hits for The Carpenters), “Rainbow Connection” (sung by Kermit the Frog in The Muppet Movie), “Evergreen” (sung by Barbra Streisand in A Star Is Born, a winner of an Oscar for Best Original Song), “An Old Fashioned Love Song” and “Out in the Country” (hits for Three Dog Night), “You and Me Against the World” (a hit for Helen Reddy), and “Fill Your Heart” (covered by David Bowie). More recently, he co-wrote two songs for Daft Punk’s 2013 album Random Access Memories.

His acting roles include parts in Smokey and the Bandit and Phantom of the Paradise; he co-scored the latter, and also did the music for the film Bugsy Malone and the aforementioned The Muppet Movie and A Star is Born. He also made multiple TV appearances during the 1970’s on shows such as The Tonight Show.

Williams is currently the President and Chairman of ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers), and is a notable recovery advocate, co-authoring the book Gratitude and Trust.

This interview was for a preview article for his curation of The Elmer Bernstein Memorial Film Series at the Granada Theatre in Santa Barbara, with a focus on the movie The Great Escape which screened 1/26/15. It was done by phone on 1/7/15.

Interview: John Oates

Hall & Oates have been described as the most successful musical duo of the rock era, and if you think for a minute about who that puts them ahead of, that’s quite an impressive accomplishment.

Daryl Hall and John Oates first started making music together in the early 1970’s, and that decade saw hits for them including “Sara Smile” and “Rich Girl”. But things really took off for the duo in the 1980’s, with songs like “Kiss on My List”, “You Make My Dreams”, “Private Eyes”, “I Can’t Go for That (No Can Do)”, “Maneater”, “One on One”, and “Out of Touch” tearing up the charts. In recognition of their artistic and commercial success, Hall & Oates were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame earlier this year.

This interview was with guitarist John Oates, who co-wrote many of the duo’s songs and even sang lead vocals on a few. It was done by phone on 10/3/14 for a preview article for the Hall & Oates concert at the Santa Barbara Bowl on 10/19/14. (Juan Patino photo)

Interview: Pat Metheny

Pat Metheny brings brilliant technique, versatility, innovation, and overall musicality to his playing and his compositions, making him one of the most accomplished jazz guitarists out there. Up to this point, he has received an astounding twenty Grammy awards, most recently 2013’s Best Jazz Instrumental Album award for the album United Band, which also features the talents of Chris Potter (saxophone), Ben Williams (bass), and Antonio Sanchez (drums). Just a few weeks ago, the Pat Metheny Unity Group (the United Band members plus multi-instrumentalist Giulio Carmassi) released the album Kin (←→), which debuted at Number One on the Billboard Jazz Chart.

Metheny has also collaborated with a diverse set of artists, including Jim Hall, Chick Corea, John Scofield, Herbie Hancock, Ornette Coleman, Joni Mitchell, and Derek Bailey.

The following was for a preview article for the Pat Metheny Unity Group concert at the Lobero Theatre on 2/26/14. It was done by email, with answered received on 1/23/14.

Interview: June and Jean Millington

Fanny has a distinguished place in rock and roll history as the first all-female rock band to record a full-length album (the self-titled Fanny in 1970) for a major label. In this pioneering band, June Millington sang and played guitar, and her sister Jean Millington played bass guitar. Fanny released a total of five stellar albums in the 1970’s (the last without June), and toured with many of the era’s biggest artists. Both June and Jean played on albums by Ringo Starr and Barbra Streisand. June also played guitar on Cris Williamson’s classic Women’s Music album Changer And The Changed, and co-founded the Institute for the Musical Arts. Jean also performed on albums by David Bowie and Keith Moon. The sisters recently released the album Play Like A Girl.

This interview with June and Jean was conducted by phone on 8/19/11.

Interview: Tony Kaye

Tony Kaye was the keyboard player in the original line-up of Yes, and played on the albums Yes, Time And A Word, and The Yes Album. After touring with the band in support of the latter, he left Yes and played in Badger, which released two albums. He rejoined Yes for the 90125 and Big Generator albums. He also toured with David Bowie for the Station To Station tour. Kaye is currently playing keyboards in CIRCA:, which recently released the album And So On. This interview was done by phone on 8/15/11.