Time Is Tight

by Booker T. Jones

  Our favorites turned out to be the same. Tunes we both had played in the clubs years ago when we first started in music. “Stardust,” “Georgia on My Mind,” “Blue Skies,” and others. On December 3, 1977, we went out to Emmylou Harris’s house in Beverly Hills and met Willie’s band. Her husband had his recording truck situated in the front parking area, a convenient, ideal arrangement for recording instruments located in the different rooms in the house.

  Brian and Bradley took care of everything. I didn’t make a call or lift a finger. When I got there, my Hammond was sitting in the living room right in front of Willie’s mike, and a grand piano was just on the other side, both in Willie’s line of sight.

  Paul English (drums) was just to Willie’s right, and Bee Spears (bass) was behind me. Chris Ethridge (bass) had his own room, as did Rex Ludwick (drums) and Jody Payne (guitar). The only room not to have a musician was the kitchen. I believe Mickey Raphael (harmonica) was in the bathroom.

  In the studio, Willie followed my lead. Mostly. He intuitively knew when I was leaving things out—leaving room for something. His greatest gift was his faith in my vision. And his henchmen made sure I didn’t go too far from Willie’s vision—which I was capable of doing. Brad Hartman exhibited the patience of Job with me while I sat for hours in a trance listening to the takes. I was absorbed with the music, and it took eons to get objective on small practical issues.

  Everybody thinks the Stardust album was done in ten days. That was just the recording. The mixing took a short lifetime. Donivan Cowart, the second engineer, was the glue that held me and Brad together in a tiny trailer. Just the three of us.

  Sometimes I wonder why I spend the lonely nights dreaming of a song. When I listened to Willie sing those words through the headphones, it was reminiscent of when I heard Albert King play the first few notes on the guitar for “Born Under a Bad Sign.” Those notes belonged to a song that determined my destiny due to the fact that they were written by Hoagy Carmichael, who was schooled at the Indiana University School of Music. When I graduated from high school, I rushed to Bloomington to walk the same steps as Hoagy and literally stand on the same ground. I used what I learned there to write the charts for Willie’s Stardust album. The moment Willie sang the song “Stardust” is crystallized in my memory because the words, the melody, and the chords were sung and played so naturally, with just the right blend of dissonance, tension, and release, with no hint of effort, that I would never forget it.

  Of all the renditions of “Stardust,” this one is my favorite. To get to play on one of your favorite records is one of life’s gifts that money can’t buy. In this way, I have become wealthy.

  Willie has been a lifelong smoker and wanted to enjoy his pastime with his friends. Willie rolled joints for all his friends and everybody who worked for him, which was a considerable number of people. Cleve (Dupin), Rex (Ludwick), Jody (Payne), Chris (Ethridge), Paul (English), Bee (Spears), and Mickey (Raphael), and I sat in the easy chairs in Willie’s office while he sat at his desk and did the honors.

  SPICEWOOD, TX—1978—5

  Willie loved the finer things. He didn’t mind if I rented a Thunderbird or Mercedes at his expense. When I visited, he always provided a full house with a daily housekeeper in case I needed food or had visitors.

  He provided free golf and tennis for his friends and musicians. I wish I had been a golfer back then. Willie’s greens were some of the finest I’d ever seen. The problem was getting him off the golf course and into the studio. Many days I waited while they played till dusk.

  Mixing the Stardust LP took meticulous attention because of the many quiet passages. Mixing engineer Bradley Hartmann applied a scrupulous, painstaking effort, resulting in a recording so silent you could hear a pin drop.

  Meanwhile, I had the hardest time getting contracts out of Mark Rothbaum, Willie’s manager. Willie would just laugh. “Aw, Mark, he’s all right!” But I had to keep an eye on him. I finally got a good contract, which Columbia honored, but they wouldn’t press any records at first.

  Rick Blackburn called his staff together to listen to Stardust, and they loved it, so I flew back to California, only to find out they had pressed just five hundred copies. I called Bonnie Garner, and she confirmed everybody loved it. I flew back to Nashville to fight for the album. The music was too good to go without promotion, cast aside because Willie had forced country music’s first black producer on Columbia.

  He really was an outlaw.

  Finally, in April 1978, they released the Stardust LP. It went straight to number one on the Billboard country album chart. The singles “Blue Skies” and “All of Me” also went to number one on the Hot Country Songs charts. Willie went on the road to promote the album and won a Grammy for Best Country Male Vocal for “Georgia on My Mind.”

  Then, the album became a worldwide success. Columbia sent me a triple-platinum LP to go with my gold LP. A few years later, they sent me a platinum LP representing sales of six million copies.

  My checks were huge. I always knew when CBS was sending me a big one because it went to the wrong address and my lawyer had to track it down.

  PEDERNALES, TX—1983—8

  For the recording of the follow-up album to Stardust, Without a Song, I went to Willie’s studio on his golf course in the Briarcliff area of Texas near Lake Travis. When I got to Pedernales Ranch in Texas’s Hill Country, Willie stopped the car in front of a beautiful corner home and handed me the key. I said, “What’s this?”

  He said, “It’s your house,” with that classic smile.

  Life at Pedernales was idyllic except for the sometimes-oppressive heat. The humidity kept me in light clothing. The pace of life slowed, and everyone took their cues from Willie, who was so respected as to be godlike in the area. Life came alive in the evening, and during the day we went our own ways. There were swimming pools, tennis courts, and an eighteen-hole golf course. I played tennis every day when I wasn’t riding horses or hopping over sidewinder snakes.

  I don’t know how long I stayed there. Months for sure. I never paid rent. I met my wife Nan while I was living there. I kept a small apartment in Westwood, but most of my time was spent in “Perd’nales,” as the Texans called it.

  Willie played golf by day, and we went to his studio at night. When he was on the road, I hung out in Austin’s nightclubs, mostly Antone’s on Congress. Clifford Antone made sure I had a good table, and I enjoyed listening to the blues. Sometimes I would go down to Sixth Street, where I could always find Eric Johnson playing somewhere.

  Willie not only had a sauna underneath the pool at his ranch at Pedernales but also kept the golf course fully manned, and the sauna was always turned on. I was the only one to go down there, so I was always in there alone. My paranoia was so strong from all the grass I was smoking with Willie that I could never stay in very long, afraid the Texas Rangers would come lock the door, leave me to rot, and arrest Willie for hanging out with a black man.

  LOS ANGELES—1977—2

  I was involved with one more motion picture in an unusual role.

  I was paid an advance to do orchestral transcriptions of Bo Harwood’s music for John Cassavetes’s new film, Opening Night. He loved people passionately and was always surrounded by friends who seemed to love him for all the right reasons: his wit and intelligence. Such an unlikely candidate for a relationship with the mob, I thought. For some reason, they made sure there was distance between me and him.

  “You look nervous, Booker; is everything all right?” asked one of John’s bodyguards when I came to the office on my second visit.

  “Yes, I’m OK. Everything’s all right,” I answered.

  The man continued to eye me. What did they think? That I was going to shoot John or something? For God’s sake.

  It continued. With body language and gestures of the eyes, John’s men forced me to keep my distance. With his permission, I presume. It didn’t jibe because John himself was always warm to me. However, his makeup seemed to be a cur
ious mixture of warmth, humor, and coldness.

  I remember walking into a private room at a restaurant, full of people, sixteen or so, strangely silent. John Cassavetes, an eloquent, kindhearted, honest man, saw no reason for being diplomatic. One of John’s henchmen, noticing me walking into the scene, whispered, “Booker, you’d better not ruin this beautiful moment.”

  It was a prolonged kiss, with a woman who wasn’t his wife. Executed without shame in front of intimate company at a business dinner table. I stopped dead in my tracks before I reached my seat. John Cassavetes, a consummate showman, was leaning forward from the standing position and keeping his tongue in a woman’s mouth for at least ten minutes or more while the room hushed.

  When the kiss ended, people began talking and socializing again.

  The recording session was one of the most glorious experiences of my career. John spared no expense, and I hired a meticulous contractor, Jules Chaiken. Subsequently, I stood in front as conductor of one of Hollywood’s finest orchestras. John used the music to promote the film on TV.

  LOS ANGELES, CA, Universal Language—1977—6

  Time passes slowly when you face the loss of a friend and bandmate. You expect to hear them call your name or play the perfect rhythm for a song, but it’s not to be—not ever again. After more than a year of staring at the finality of Al’s death, the MGs decided to record an album without him.

  Al Jackson’s death hung over the band like a dirge. The Universal Language LP was the MGs’ attempt to turn that dirge into an elegy. We had all cared so much for Al, even Willie Hall, the drummer we chose for his replacement. Willie was second in line as Al’s apprentice successors, behind Carl Cunningham, drummer for the Bar-Kays, who had died in 1968 in Otis Redding’s plane crash. It was very hard emotionally for Willie to step into Al’s shoes under these circumstances. Tom Dowd offered to produce, and Asylum Records offered us a contract.

  We decided the album would be dedicated to Al Jackson. While Willie Hall played great, and despite our best intentions, the project served to illuminate what a necessary component Al’s drumming was to the MG sound.

  Almost every day my father would tell me mama was in pain. Her pancreatic cancer made my dad and me afraid for her life. After consulting with her doctors, it became clear she needed almost daily medical attention.

  Mama’s condition worsened, and my parents moved to Los Angeles, closer to medical care and to my sister, Gwen.

  LOS ANGELES—September 30, 1977—6

  What have we done? She hadn’t spoken in hours, and I was startled that she spoke and undone by the import of what she said. My mother lay dying on the bed next to me in the hospice, and she was asking me if we had done anything of significance in her lifetime.

  I had a very close relationship with my mother and never found myself at a loss for words until now, when the minutes and seconds were so important—what should I say?

  If I could have had these years that have passed to reflect, I would have spoken more of the huge contribution she made to people’s lives and the musical knowledge I received from her.

  Or I would have said something about the sheer sacredness and pleasure of the moments spent in her presence, experienced by myself and anyone else who knew her.

  I stumbled. And in the seconds that I had to respond, she wondered if we had done anything on this earth that mattered. I regret the generalizations that I made in answer to her query. The undeniable reality was that we were in a hospice. People spoke quietly and walked softly with a slight condescending smile on their faces and alluded to the unavoidable truth. Death was imminent. And very close.

  I went to the bathroom located in the room next door. While I was there, I felt her leave. When I returned to her bedside, her mouth was open, and she wasn’t breathing.

  Now I understand that’s the way life goes. It is a song sung between the verses, a game played during the time-outs. To grasp it you let it slip through your fingers.

  Chapter 15

  Don’t Stop Your Love

  22660 PACIFIC COAST HIGHWAY, MALIBU,

  CA—1976—9

  I gazed lovingly and intently at the Pacific, aware of that body of water’s propensity for catching people unaware and consuming them. Taken with its beauty, I knew I had to turn my fear into a healthy respect in order to fully enjoy the ocean. Who would have believed it? I ended up with a surfboard on my deck and a hunger for the taste of salt water in my mouth. I had built up enough shoulder strength to catch a wave from building the mountain house, and I became a beach bum.

  The Malibu days were often warm in February, not unlike the hot July days. I loved the way the air felt; I snuggled into the warm breezes. The smell of ocean air etched and colored those precious days.

  Like most Malibu residents, I was there for the ocean and the sand. To be able to fall asleep to the constant sound of waves crashing, the assurance that another wave would come, brought me peace.

  From the time I first moved to the Winding Way Ranch, I loved taking the half- and full-day rock cod boats off the pier at Paradise Cove. Everything was provided for you—bait, tack, buckets. All you had to do was drop your line when they found where the fish were. The only catch was, I didn’t like eating cod. I only went out because I loved spending the days at sea.

  As enchanting as the salt water was, though, it could be treacherous. One afternoon, a good way out from the pier at Oxnard, I was suddenly at the top of a gargantuan, forty-foot wave. I had seen it coming but had no idea of the size of it. There was nothing to do but grab the sides of the little nineteen-foot boat and hold on for dear life during the ride down the crest. The little boat didn’t capsize. Fortunately, there were no other waves like that. Old time seamen at the pier told me we had caught a rare event, a rogue wave. I thought it might have been the end for me.

  19100 PACIFIC COAST HIGHWAY, MALIBU, CA—1977—5

  The big storm had been brewing out on the ocean since 4:00 p.m. It was now two in the morning. I was under the house trying to assess the water damage. The ocean waves had been so strong that by about four in the afternoon, the fireplace in the living room developed a huge crack right down the middle. Earlier that day, we had friends over for a patio barbeque, and when they came inside and saw the fireplace separating, they quickly left. It was an unexpected rough sea, and we knew the ocean’s potential. My heart went up into my throat, and I put on high boots to go under the house and look at the piers and floor joists. A blinding light appeared from the street side. “Is this Booker T. Jones’s house?” The cameras were running, and the reporter was standing a few feet away from the cameraman, whose feet were in the water. I discovered you are famous when you least want to be, and the price can be exacting to an unbearable extent. They wanted to televise my house being pulled out to sea, and I couldn’t stop them. I was so put out I couldn’t speak. I went silently past them, up the stairs, and into the house, uttering not a single word. Then I grabbed the yellow pages and called an emergency moving company.

  31627 BROAD BEACH ROAD, MALIBU, CA—1977—4

  Lesson learned. My third house in Malibu, in less than two years, was a home that was positioned across the road from the beach.

  By the time we moved from the “house that went to sea” to Broad Beach Road, I realized my marriage to Priscilla was doomed. I had known numerous times my marriage was deeply troubled. Now it became apparent there was no hope for our relationship. She was spending long days and nights in LA, or Hollywood, and I was there with the three children. She didn’t bother to even make an excuse for her absence, even though Hollywood to Malibu was a short drive. I didn’t have the belief in our marriage to even question where she was. I began to express my condition in song. The Eagles’ “Try and Love Again” was one I played over and over on the piano. I decided to record it.

  There was no lyric that spoke more to me at the time. I was alone, and I was searching, even though I had been twice married. Searching for myself, and searching for someone. I was out th
ere on my own. That’s what it all came down to. The sentiment spawned my Try and Love Again album, not a commercial one but one true to my current frame of mind. All the money in the world couldn’t point me toward my true self or someone to love me. Success and fame meant nothing without another person to hold. I found myself spending more and more time alone, taking care of our one-year-old, questioning my musical approach, my approach to life. I was trying to find an anchor inside. A voice to let me know I was doing things the right way.

  Tom Snow, who wrote “He’s So Shy” for the Pointer Sisters and “Love Sneakin’ Up on You” for Bonnie Raitt, came out to the house, and we turned out one original song, “I’ll Put Some Love Back in Your Life.” Working with Tom brought my spirits up; however, I couldn’t help thinking this lyric somehow applied to me. Still, it was great being around such a positive person. Tom wrote a million hits for other people after our session. The only other original song on the Try and Love Again album was “We Could Fly” by Dennis Linde (he wrote “Burning Love” for Elvis) and Thomas Cain. The rest of the songs on the album were cover songs. I was really happy to do one of Thomas’s songs because he had been so good to me at BMI in Nashville. Thomas was Nashville’s only black music executive in the seventies. He was well liked for being generous with advances against royalties. My friend Jay Graydon played fabulous guitar as he had on my other productions.

  I was troubled and disillusioned, and the Eagles flew into my life with their songs about the vagaries of love. Others had told me that my music helped them through hard times, and now the Eagles were helping me.

  The Eagles were a pretty slick group with lots of hits, but Randy Meisner’s songs kept them rooted to earth—simple songs about our daily struggles rather than more metaphoric ones. It was the start of an Eagles period for me. The music ushered me through a period of depression. Days and nights alone in the house, taking care of our daughter, I listened to their music over and over.