Time Is Tight

by Booker T. Jones

  This part of town had been my good luck charm. The grim realization was settling in that it wasn’t the location; it was the inspiration and the material that was the missing four-leaf clover.

  “What’s wrong, Jones?” Al Jackson startled me, walking up behind me. Duck’s loud cackle came through the studio door.

  “Oh, nothing, man; just stepping outside for a little break.”

  “What’s wrong, Jones?”

  Al knew me. He opened the door to the studio, and we went back inside for the start of a long, heartfelt discussion of the band’s musical arc, and I confessed how I had been feeling “unartistic” and “unoriginal” in all our musical undertakings. I was just plain unhappy. Why were we settling for less?

  The guys decided to call the session off, go back to Memphis, and regroup. Those words hit me in the chest. Had I been too demanding? Was this the end of the road for this band? I couldn’t take back what’d I’d said, and it was the truth, but I’d presented it clumsily. The session ended abruptly, and our parting was awkward.

  NEW YORK, A&R Studio—1969—9

  Sometime later, I got a call from one of the guys. They had booked a great studio in New York. Get on a plane.

  It was A&R studios. Bill Halverson, my go-to engineer, was nowhere to be found. I asked no questions, hung my coat up, and walked over to the B-3. There was new energy. I could see it on the faces of Al and Duck. Al got that little twist in the corner of his mouth when he smiled that indicated a Max Roach–like intensity in his playing, and he started hitting the cross stick with his left shoulder sunk down to the side. His head was looking away as if he was in a trance. Steve started a funky rhythm like a precursor to “Chic.” Something Nile Rodgers might have struck up. Duck chimed in, using his first and third fingers to pull the strings hard, his lips poking out like they did when he was on a mission.

  They were playing the beat to “Melting Pot.” What could I do? A few bars went by while I was just digging on the rhythm. Finally, it came to me that I might sneak in by hitting a chord while the reverb was turned all the way up, but with the volume pedal all the way down, so the chord sounded like it was coming from nowhere. It worked. I did it again on another chord. Then another. I had made a Hammond organ sound eerie. The guys were plugging unmercifully away at the rhythm. I had to make some attempt at a solo.

  I pulled out my normal first four stops, with a soft percussion setting. Time was slipping by. Who was I? What was I going to say? Where was I going to start? Down low. Way down low. I crossed my right arm over my left to the swell manual. We were on our way. I sensed a sigh of relief from the guys when I finally played something. I made a statement. An exposition. I had jumped off a cliff. Now I had to fly.

  I closed my eyes. It was time for reckless abandon. I would have to play some wrong notes to get to the right ones. Who cared? I built my solo up like I was flying through space—hitting unseen objects and getting knocked around—leaving the key, coming back. Soaring, soaring to a place of no sound, no boundaries, I turned my engines off and let the music take me. Finally, I opened my eyes. I needed to return to reality. I played a turn, and the band turned with me, like a big ol’ heavy semitruck, down to a big, deep F chord. We had created a turnaround. I played the notes to indicate we should do it again. We did. And then I went right back out into space.

  After what seemed an eternity, there was no chance this would ever be a normal record, it made sense to go to a bridge—one that was reassuring and traditional—with normal major chords and a solid, positive attitude. So we morphed into the big C major pattern, which soared and arced like a real suspension bridge over a river would, and it dropped us into safe territory—a rewarding G chord. From there we hopped to a more suspenseful D minor and gave in to the urge to get back on that high C bridge one more time, just so we could land in G again. But on this go-around, we tippy-toed on stepping-stones back to the apprehensive A minor of “Melting Pot” that we started with, and Steve took off on a journey all his own.

  Steve’s journey led us up a mountain. A one-chord mountain that tested our musical bravery. I stepped back and started hitting A minor stabs on the great keyboard for his accompaniment. Steve had room to take giant steps. He did.

  We re-created the whole musical pattern again, just like real veteran music creators, and by the end of Steve’s solo, we had a song.

  However, I hadn’t had quite enough. I stepped in one more time. One last time. I wanted the final say. I played an epilogue. And then, just before the song ended, Steve played the same A minor rhythm, exactly the same as he had at the start of the song. Of course, it was perfect. At the very end, Al leaned his left shoulder in and tapped out the cross-stick rhythm the whole business had started with.

  “It’s too jazzy.” That was Jim’s reaction, leaning over on the console, looking around at us, with one hand on his hip, pulling his coat back.

  After a moment Jim mused, “Well, I guess we could put it out with some other stuff we haven’t released yet.”

  Jim continued. “It’s too long. Can we cut it down to four minutes?”

  Rather than cut new stuff for the album, Jim Stewart gathered songs recorded in Memphis he hadn’t wanted to release previously because they were too “jazzy.”

  MALIBU—1969—8

  The next time I boarded a jet it was bound for the West Coast, where my mind was set on finding a new home.

  When Billie Nichols drove me and Priscilla out to Lana Turner’s old ranch on Winding Way in Malibu, she may not have been aware of one key fact: blacks were not allowed to own land in Malibu. Not that it would have stopped me from living on a horse ranch. The smell of horses either attracts or repels a person. I found myself surprisingly drawn to the scent.

  Almost suddenly, through the influence of people like Stephen Stills, Marc Benno, Ray Stinnett, and Glyn Turman, I was a different person. The suits and dress-up clothes I wore in Memphis were replaced with Frye boots and dungarees. I melded into the California lifestyle—I started smoking marijuana, and working with some jazz artists and rock musicians, I had more musical freedom with the studio I built in Malibu. I was spending more time outside and began to spend days at the beach and on horses. I was much more physically active, more informal. My lifestyle changed, and I got dirt on my hands.

  The problem of self-respect aside, I began to make a life in Malibu. I took up with an Egyptian man named Mina E. Mina. His first love was music, and he became my best friend. Mina tolerated my dope smoking and provided an escape from the ranch.

  He introduced me to the music of Uma Kalthoum. She was an icon in Egypt, bigger in comparison than even Elvis Presley. Her songs and concerts were akin to a religious experience. Music you must hear to understand. Mina used Um’s music as a bridge to establish our friendship. There were times I’d be at his house for hours. One song alone could last up to forty-five minutes given the time Ms. Kalthoum took to use her vocal abilities to emphasize an emotion and, using an Arabic scale, to bring that emotion to such intensity that her audience became ecstatic. Even though I didn’t speak the language, I felt I understood Mina better after I listened to her music. Just to hear Um’s scale in my mind, which we Westerners call a “double harmonic,” gives me goose bumps. I love it so much. It makes me feel I’m a gypsy at heart. To me, it seems to reflect a great truth that will stand the test of time, despite my unfamiliarity with Arab culture. I could only hope that my music might bring people together in a like manner. Mina kept a quiet counsel with me and let his home and family be my escape.

  Why’d I need a refuge? Because there was a nonstop party going on, twenty-four hours a day at my house. Priscilla’s parties were famous for the “treats” she provided—on her dresser, Priscilla kept a small scale, the purpose of which escaped me, which she carried in her purse. I should have guessed, as often as she went into the bathroom with strangers at parties, the parties often ending with banquets at the Malibu Pier with its long tables into the night. I didn’t push Priscil
la about her bathroom visits, because I didn’t really want to know the truth about it.

  My parents, in Memphis, shouldering the embarrassment in the black community for my lifestyle choices—marrying a white woman—found it too much, and they decided to move to California, into the twenty-by-forty I had constructed for a recording studio.

  They adapted so well to the new lifestyle on the ranch. So much so that I was awakened by a chopping sound coming through my bedroom window. It was my sixty-five-year-old father, protected with gloves, feverishly delivering sharp blows, one after the other, with a garden hoe, to the rattlesnakes in the nest under the window, plant debris and snake parts flying high into the bright sun.

  At my Malibu ranch, Paul Satterfield and I sat alone in my living room. He hadn’t seen his kids, Paul Jr. and Laura, in over two years. A fireman in Nashville, he had saved enough money for the trip to California as well as enough money to buy a small dirt bike for Paul. Priscilla hadn’t pressed him for alimony or child support, but she objected to the dirt bike.

  I had sided with Paul on the bike issue. We lived in the Malibu hills, and other boys Paul’s age had small ones. On his fireman’s salary, Paul couldn’t afford to fly his children to Tennessee or come to California on a regular basis. He was heartbroken. He loved his kids and wanted to see them, and here I had moved his family far away. I felt for him. We sat there in silence for a long time.

  During the discussion, Priscilla walked into the room, glared at the two of us, and walked out. I saw a man who just needed to be with his kids. And there he was two thousand miles away from his home in Nashville, sitting in my living room in Malibu, a tall, southern white man with a black man, me. Complete opposites, but somehow I was on his side. Not a word said.

  It was hard for me. Both seeing him come and seeing him leave. He was simply a good man who loved his kids and wanted to see them. I related to Paul’s dilemma because Gigi, T’s mom, kept the time and number of my visits with him to a minimum to hurt me. The uncertainty of when I would next see my son and the knowledge that Paul Sr. had this same worry created an inner turmoil in me. Added to this was an almost frantic need by the adults in Malibu to gather.

  There were so many parties, the memory is a blur. Every night someone gave directions over the phone that detailed how to get through the winding hills to someone else’s house, where at least thirty people were gathered.

  I met Ramblin’ Jack Elliott at Roger McGuinn’s house one night. Ramblin’ Jack’s name reminded me of some blues great from Mississippi. Peg-Leg Slim, or Ironing Board Sam. But he was a normal-looking white man. He didn’t even have a handicap. He looked me in the eye and paid special attention to me that evening. The winter wind howled in the early mornings in the Malibu houses high on the hills. Loud bursts rattled windows and doorways in the early mornings when the conversations turned away from the groups and people focused on each other. I returned Ramblin’ Jack’s attention because of his age, thinking he must have something to offer, and the deference everyone paid to him. I don’t remember what we talked about, just that we appreciated each other’s company.

  The hills of Malibu could be every bit as lonely as a cell-like room in Manhattan. At night, the hills became quiet and seemed to close in so tight on you that you’d swear you were going crazy. Just like the noise in New York. Especially if you were alone, or with the wrong person.

  The locals, however, were unique and unlike anywhere else on earth. There was a girl working the checkout register at the Pt. Dume supermarket in Malibu. I couldn’t help looking at her a certain way, even though I was too shy to ever say anything to her.

  One day, she said to me, “You can have anything you want. All you have to do is stop smoking.” But for the life of me, I couldn’t do it. I would drive back to the ranch, look at Priscilla or one of her family members, and light up another one.

  The protracted breakup with Stax didn’t help either and felt like a dream where I couldn’t get my feet to move. Consequently, I suffered an abundance of emotional fallout as well as sharp criticism from fans and interviewers.

  Standing up to the ownership of Stax Records, I demanded to be treated fairly, like a human being. I refused to be a slave on a plantation.

  When they discovered that I had escaped and one of their workers had left the farm, they started throwing money at the remaining workers and began pleading with me, begging me to return.

  Jim Stewart called me every day at my ranch in Malibu, saying he was sorry. They never saw me as an artist, only as a slave worker. They took the benefits of my creations in the form of ridiculously low royalty rates and the entirety of my publishing.

  While giving me the opportunity to record, they did not treat me fairly in turn, like a subservient worker and not a creative artist.

  The parties, meanwhile, continued nonstop. Often, they were at my house. By the time James Taylor appeared in my living room one morning, it was anyone’s guess who was more startled. I came out of the bedroom to find him sitting alone in a chair in the foyer. I was pretty sure he didn’t know where he was, what time it was, or who I was.

  At the same time, I was becoming overwhelmed with demands for my time: Evie Sands wanted a songwriting partner. Jackie DeShannon wanted to hang out and make friends. Bob Dylan wanted feedback and confirmation that his stuff was good. Bill Withers wanted someone to listen to his songs. Alan Sides wanted my Neumann microphones. Chris Etheridge and Bruce Langhorne wanted to jam. Kris Kristofferson wanted Rita Coolidge. They were an insular pack. Nobody wanted to drive into Hollywood or Beverly Hills. After dark, the Pacific Coast Highway was a completely different road. Lonely, desolate, and treacherous. You could find yourself smacked into a musty hillside or nose-down off a cliff into the Pacific with one glance at the dashboard. Malibu was a haven for creative types—actors, directors, and so forth. It seemed to me that I was always running into musicians and musical groups.

  LOS ANGELES, 405 Freeway—1965—7

  Bob Dylan complained that people always stole his bands. Well, I wonder why? Maybe it was because he attracted sensitive, nuanced musicians like a magnet. I wanted to steal one of Bob’s bands. They were called the Band. It turned out they lived right down the road from me in Malibu.

  I was driving down the 405 South toward Santa Monica in hard rain when “Like a Rolling Stone” came on the radio. First thing I noticed was the piano. What is this? An ensemble for a traveling circus? The group was on a mission from the first note. Then, when I heard the lead character’s voice—a man who seemed to have no regard for all the conventions society had set in place, no reverence at all, I nearly ran off the road. I swear, I felt an affinity for every person playing on that record. But then, I had recently been reborn, reimagined, myself.

  Rainwater beat down on my windshield, and I turned the volume way up. It was a moment I will never forget. Akin to hearing your own record on the radio for the first time. Music magic.

  MALIBU, Shangri-La—1969—10

  So when I finally walked into Shangri-La, years later, it was like walking into, well, Shangri-La. There was mastermind Robbie Robertson, twins Rick “Man, I just want to break even” Danko and Richard Manuel, maestro Garth Hudson, and mastermind Levon Helm, looking at me like I was the second coming or something. They showed me around their home, and I wondered how such amazing music could have come from such an unassuming space. I tried to imagine Bob Dylan with this nonchalant crew.

  I walked over to Garth’s organ. I’d been around organs all my life; however, I didn’t recognize a thing. He’d rebuilt everything. He wasn’t there, but his energy, so strong, poked out at me. The guys smiled.

  Out in the yard, the view of the Pacific was outstanding. You could see from Catalina to the Channel Islands, and I took in deep breaths, enjoying the company of my new friends. The three who gravitated toward me were Rick, Richard, and Levon. I stayed with Levon for a while at his house in Woodstock, and we formed a band, the RCO All-Stars, with Dr. John (Mac Rebennack) and
Steve Cropper.

  Mac, who was also staying at the house, and I hit it off, and I started riding in his limo. We started writing songs together, and he told me stories about Professor Longhair and other New Orleans legends. Mac kept tons of voodoo stuff with him (which I ignored). I was surprised to find out what a sense of humor he had and what a prankster he was. He always found a way to stay close to me; his body always spilled over onto mine. Early one morning, on a train to Washington, DC, Mac was sitting in the seat behind me. He rapped me on the head with his voodoo cane, waking me out of a sound sleep.

  “Hey, Boogah, let’s call up some mu-fugh-as out in Cal-fonia an’ wak ’em up!” (He wanted me to be the culprit, to do the calling.) I smiled and went back to sleep. Another time, in his thick Cajun dialect, Mac said, “May’n, I was in Europe, and I say, ‘I see Boogah playin’ downtown tonight, Um ’on go down ayr an see ’im.’ May’n, I went down ayr, I say, ‘Dat ain’t nunna no Boogah T! Um’a tell Boogah!’”

  The folks back on Edith Street in Memphis would have been aghast to see me hanging out with a character like Mac, but my horizons had broadened, and all things New Orleans and Creole had crept into my life. Our Winding Way ranch was cluttered with hanging baskets and items from Pier One Imports.

  MALIBU, Winding Way Ranch—1971—2

  Priscilla had let her candles and macramé get out of hand and burned the speakers on my old Craig tape recorder. They sounded all messed up and distorted. Bob plugged his guitar into the input, and he thought they sounded great.

  One day, outside in the horse ring, Bob sang me a song, “Forever Young.” We stepped outside my twenty-by-forty makeshift studio into the yard and walked down toward the tack house. Bob carried my Gibson J-45 under his arm. The horses were close, just hanging in the ring. As usual, we didn’t say much of anything to each other. We sat down on a bench under the big oak in my backyard, and he started to strum and sing, as if to ask, “What about this one?”