Time Is Tight

by Booker T. Jones

We shuttled them back and forth on the freeways. Young Olivia cried in her car seat for hours while her mother transported her stepbrothers every weekend for the three-hour drive back and forth. I finally insisted that she leave the baby with me.

  YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK—1986—3

  During summers, the boys were free, and the family made camping trips to Tuolumne Meadows in Yosemite National Park to hike, fish, and swim in the ice-cold Tuolumne River. Lonnie and Brian were the major packers and worked tirelessly to help Nan get ready for the trips. This had been her childhood summer home.

  When I was a boy, I was fascinated with “camping.” In love with my dad’s stories of sleeping under the stars in Alabama and Georgia with the Boy Scouts, I made makeshift tents in my yard with towels and chairs.

  My stepson Matthew was the oldest of the children and thus was the instigator of many adventures. He also is incredibly pigheaded (kinda like his mother) and sometimes would not listen to advice. Such was the case in Yosemite on our annual camping trip in 1986.

  With this new blended family, Matthew was the leader of the pack, and he was always trying to establish his leadership position.

  On our second trip in 1986, Matthew decided to prove that his first attempt to throw a pair of sneakers to the island in the middle of the river had been successful (they could only find one on inspection), and he tossed his backup pair to the island to prove his point. After much searching, Matthew had two left shoes and no right shoes. We had to drive down the hill to Bishop, two hours away, to buy new shoes for him.

  Later in the week, on a day hike, the older kids took the wrong fork in the trail, and as much screaming and yelling as Nan and I did, they didn’t hear us, continuing on the wrong path. Five-year-old Michael, who was with me and Nan, was known for his very loud voice. He yelled, and the older kids heard him and finally turned around. I picked Michael up and gave him a bear hug.

  From our camping trips and my involvement in the community, I was seeing the benefits of being involved as a parent in the day-to-day workings of our family.

  I made a decision to be home with my family and cut back on travel. Being an interracial family, we instinctively knew that our strength lay in our connection to one another. Friends often commented on how close we seemed, and though there might have been some who disapproved, we stayed tight in our circle.

  LAKE TAHOE, NV—1986—2

  Despite my need to be around the family, I had to make a living. I took on the production of William Lee Golden’s album American Vagabond. After the recording of the album in Alabama, I found myself in the back seat of a limo with William Lee, another country star on the way back to Nashville.

  A few months later, the Oak Ridge Boys, with William Lee Golden, played a show at Harrah’s in Lake Tahoe, Nevada. I jumped on their tour to catch a show. When the show was over, I went to the front desk to check in to my room. The clerk told me, “I’m sorry, Mr. Jones; it appears your room was mistakenly given away.” (Probably to some high roller.) “However, we’ve arranged a car to take you to a hotel nearby.” Off into the night I went—from Stateline to an unknown destination. I fell asleep in the car and woke up when we arrived at the new Hyatt at Incline Village.

  Next morning, I opened the drapes and said, “My God! I’ve never seen anything so stunning!” It was Lake Tahoe, the northern shore. I took the elevator down from the top floor, where I was staying, and found a path directly to the lake. I was so captivated while wandering the glistening, calm lakeshore I almost missed my ride to the airport.

  LOS ANGELES—December 1987—6

  With a nineteen-foot camping trailer behind my Ford Club Wagon, I was feeling accomplished, having made it home safely before dark. But the sight of water in front of the stoop made my heart sink. Normally, I would have stepped up onto the landing and put my key in the door, but this sight was too much. While camping with my wife, Nan, and our daughter, Olivia, our house in West Hills, California had flooded due to a broken pipe. We had been gone for two weeks. Olivia was sick, and we were anxious to give her a bath and put her to bed.

  Thankfully, our neighbors realized there shouldn’t be water pouring out the front door and turned the main water off. How much water had leaked? I forced my eyes to look. There was a small but wide, steady flow coming from under the sill of the front door. Worst possible news. I don’t remember how I broke it to Nan, feverishly unpacking at the curb. Maybe she just saw it on my face.

  The interior was worse than we imagined. Some walls had moisture five feet high. No room was spared. I rushed to the music room, the squish-squish of my boots in the carpet getting louder with each step. The water had come from the kitchen, next to the studio. The house had filled like a swimming pool and destroyed irreplaceable items, including photos and many master tapes I had left on the floor. They were two-inch, twenty-four-track masters I had recorded on my 3M twenty-four track; various two-track master mixes I had hauled all the way from Memphis; and my entire collection of 33-1/3″ vinyl LPs. Invaluable.

  We headed for a hotel. There was no point calling emergency movers this time—everything was lost. The insurance adjuster said he was glad we hadn’t spent too much time inside because of health risks due to mold in the walls. No one cried.

  It was hard to admit that the Posey Lane house was a money pit. Every day when I turned left onto my street to go home, there was water flowing at the curb a block away. No doubt the water was coming from my house. Sure enough, when I reached my driveway, the water stopped. At least I owned a home now and got off the renting merry-go-round I had been on for years. In addition to the constant repairs to the house—roof, plumbing, and so forth—I could not get work in the music business. I didn’t have a record deal, and I wasn’t making any money at all from the craft I loved and had worked at for years. Then, there was a godsend.

  CANOGA PARK, CA—1989—11

  After several years of not recording music, I got a call from Elvis’s piano player, Tony Brown, now an executive at MCA Records in Nashville, checking in, wanting to know if I was interested in recording. I had a new Roger Linn drum machine, an LM2, and Quincy gave me some old sound chips with kick and snare drum sounds he wasn’t using anymore. Yamaha had just created their new DX-7, and I had one sitting in my studio alongside my Hammond M-3 organ and my trusty Soundcraft 600 console. I experimented with some new sounds and concepts. Tony was one of Nashville’s forward-thinking producers, and he OK’d my demo and gave me the go-ahead and a recording budget. I cut the basic tracks at my home studio and called Rik Pekonnen to engineer.

  Alan Sides, a recording equipment connoisseur in Hollywood, had my old Neumann 67 and forty-seven mikes at his Oceanway Studio on Sunset, as his brother had bought them from me. Phil Upchurch, the guy who made the hit “You Can’t Sit Down” agreed to come to the studio. I recorded Phil’s guitar and a horn section there and got great sound, all on those mikes. At last, I released the Runaway album on MCA Nashville.

  The song “Cool Dude,” from the Runaway album, is used by Midwest radio stations as their program song.

  It was one of the first albums ever recorded and released with a drum machine, and one of my biggest regrets is selling that drum machine and the Soundcraft console. Nothing since sounds as fat or as good. Both are rare and expensive now.

  As happens with a lot of musicians, the days turned into weeks that turned into months as our bank balance stayed at zero and our credit card balances grew. I was an unemployed musician.

  When Olivia turned two, Nan announced, “I think I’m going to try my hand at real estate!” She was always happiest when busy and productive. She aced the state exams and landed a position at a Century 21 office. After moving eighteen times in the past sixteen years, I had developed an attraction to real estate myself, and I couldn’t get arrested as a musician at the time, so I enrolled at a real estate school in Reseda, California, and also passed the state exam.

  We became a team. We previewed property together, and we listed and sol
d together. From Century 21 we went to Fred Sands Real Estate in Woodland Hills. Nan was a natural. She could walk through a property once and nail the square footage within an inch. We succeeded in selling some “hard to sell” properties. That gave us real “cred” with our colleagues.

  WEST HILLS, CA—1990—2

  At home, our first child, Olivia, was so delightful and beautiful that Nan and I decided to have one more child and were surprised with twins!

  Cicely Camille and Theodore Russell (Teddy) were born in the middle of producing Culture Swing, by Tish Hinajosa, the great Texas folk singer, for Rounder Records. On a visit to New York City, I took a side trip to Cambridge, Massachusetts, to take a meeting with Rounder’s Marian Leighton Levy. We had known each other for years since my days at Stax and had been looking for something to do together. When she called I knew it was going to be something good. It turned out to be delicious! She wanted me to put together a project featuring Tish! We were at Hollywood Sound, now East-West Studios, in the big room, with David Hidalgo, singer and guitarist of Los Lobos, guesting on various stringed instruments. Tish’s voice was strong and clear. Her performances, and the songs she wrote, were glorious. The project was coming together nicely.

  The call came right after we got started, a little after eleven. Everyone knew Nan was pregnant with twins, and I rushed right out to the parking lot. Our next-door neighbor, JoAnn Dewitt, made everything possible. She took Olivia to her house and told me, “Go, just go! Don’t worry about anything!” I squeezed Nan into the car, and we sped off to the hospital.

  Fatherhood in my forties was a completely different prospect from that in my twenties. I was able to appreciate the miracle of life and to relish the moments with Nan and my family. At this age, I was aware of what a blessing it was to have children and to have a family, and I cherished every moment of it.

  From the moment of conception, Nan was amazing at caring for the large household while carrying two children. She brought them to full term, both healthy, and never had help in the house. Then she gave two beautiful births, showing amazing physical strength and emotional will and stamina. I cannot express how happy I was to have those three souls separated in three different bodies on May 22, 1990. I had two car seats loaded in my Lincoln Mark IV for the joyous ride home.

  With Nan safely ensconced at home with the twins and Olivia, I continued to work on the project with Tish.

  The album went on to win Indie Folk Album of the Year by NAIRD in 1992.

  SHERMAN OAKS, CA, Record 1 Studio—1992—7

  As the weeks wore on, I enjoyed being a family man, and my musical fortunes began to gradually improve.

  “Booker T. don’t know nuthin’ about no gospel music” were the words coming from the mouth of Clarence Fountain, leader of the Five Blind Boys, over lunch in the dining room at the Sportsmen’s Lodge on Ventura in North Hollywood. I was just joining the group of men for lunch. Clarence’s lead singer, Jimmy Carter, in the room, and also blind, had no way of shushing the outspoken tenor voice of the group. Jimmy had always been more sensitive than Clarence, and even if he thought it was true, he would never have voiced it—especially in my presence.

  In my defense, the first strains of music I ever heard were in the church, and my first public vocal performance was singing “In My Heart” for my Sunday school class at Mt. Olive in Memphis.

  JAPAN—1992—11

  There were two Japanese artists that stood out in my life. The first time I visited Japan, a nice, generous man, Takuro Yoshida, the famous Japanese folk singer, filled my hotel room chock-full of gifts for me and my daughter when I produced an album for him. Another singer, Kiyoshiro Imawano, the Japanese “King of Rock,” was the nicest, most generous man I ever met. Kiyoshiro, through kindness, bigheartedness, and openhandedness, outpaced even Takuro over the years. He made many special efforts to visit and bring gifts each time I came to Japan. One of my favorite times onstage was opening at Budokan in Tokyo with Kiyoshiro because of the long, enthusiastic reception from the audience.

  By the time I was working with Kiyoshiro and traveling to Japan, things were good again. It’s so easy to forget when times were hard, when work and money were scarce. When you’re on the upswing, likewise, every day seems bright and sunny.

  WEST HILLS, CA—1992—2

  With my marriage to Nan, my life began to glow and radiate with beauty and health. The most wonderful woman in the world, she takes such good care of my children, including the ones from previous marriages, as well as her three boys from her own previous marriage. Nan is a mother. It is her fullest expression of life to spend time in the presence of her children.

  I implored Nan to be a stay-at-home mother, and she quit her job at Fred Sands Real Estate. Her mothering is the kind where our children flourished under her care. She read to the children—every night—for at least an hour. She made Halloween costumes. She took her children to the park or to the botanical gardens or the zoo. Nan taught her children to be kind and empathetic. She respected her children and understood they needed to be treated fairly. Most of all it was Nan’s passion to be with her children. It was and always will be who she is—a mother.

  “You’re lucky to have me!” Nan tells me sometimes. You know what? She’s right. I am lucky.

  She creates a place for me to call home, and my life is full and happy because of her. She makes me mind my health, and she adds the color, variety, stability, and sense of belonging that I will always cherish.

  Somehow, she manages to cook practically every day, do the dishes, read to the children, bathe them, and put them to bed. This is all after she has risen around seven or so, fed the kids, dressed them, and driven them to school. Many days she does volunteer work at both their schools, and she is room mother and has been soccer team mother to about twenty teams.

  Nan has so much love in her heart. Her attitude keeps her looking young. Nan is not perfect, of course. I like to think that she’s perfectly imperfect—like a Picasso painting.

  If Nan gets angry, you don’t want to be anywhere near. The very crust of the earth couldn’t contain one of her sudden eruptions, which quell quickly. And that’s if she feels you have misbehaved unintentionally. If she thinks you meant to hurt her, she’s cold as ice at the North Pole.

  Fortunately, Nan doesn’t hold a grudge, and there is hope for reconciliation.

  She and I connect in a myriad of areas. For someone who can’t carry a tune, I think she has great taste in music. We love so many of the same songs. I listen carefully to her critiques of my work. And she doesn’t pull any punches there. Nan’s painfully honest, and I take advantage of that. I know she believes in me as an artist, and in our daily lives, Nan is a supporter and an active, positive force in my career.

  Nan is an identical twin, and her twin’s proper name is Janine, and Nan’s is Nanine. Janine usually calls when something is wrong or when something is right, and sometimes just to say hi. She is unbelievably good to Nan.

  Right now, back at home, I can hear that Nan’s rolling the trash cans out to the curb. The kids are in the bath, I’m in my pj’s relaxing, and you’re going to tell me this is not heaven? I mean, my mother never took the trash out. That was my dad’s job, or my job. Her brother Blane, and most of her siblings, complain that she spoils me.

  Nan loves color and has definite opinions about their combinations, probably because she has a mother who is an artist. Sometimes, when I come out of the bedroom wearing a green shirt with a green T-shirt or something, she puts out her hand in the stop position, turns her head, and closes her eyes. “Stop, don’t come any closer. I can’t stand those colors together; they hurt my eyes!” I look down at my thoughtful selection, turn around, go back to the bedroom, and change clothes.

  Now she can just say, “Oh, is that what you’re wearing?” and I’m already halfway back upstairs before she can finish the sentence. I love being married to Nan. Now I know what it means to be in love. It means there is someone who is always on your mind.


  Waking up with Nan in the morning is the best thing ever. She’s the only person I know with such a huge capacity for happiness. I cannot be happier than when Nan is smiling, and when she directs it at me, it’s like bright sunshine…I am in love. In the mornings, I just want to pick her up and twirl her around on my shoulders like a ballerina.

  On a visit to Chicago, my brother, Maurice, said, “Booker, that girl is the best thing that ever happened to you, boy!” I knew the way I felt about Nan would last forever no matter what she did or didn’t do.

  TIBURON, CA—1992—11

  I coughed, and the wheezing in my chest made an annoying noise like a chest of drawers being dragged across the floor. It died down, then happened again. There was no denying I had chronic chest congestion. Nan and I had an ongoing disagreement about my persistent cough—“It’s because of the smog!” I insisted. “It’s just a summer cold” was Nan’s opinion. Then she had a bad dream about my health and declared it was time to move.

  “I know just where I need to take you,” I told her, and we left church and school friends and moved to Marin County, where I had visited with Narada and Carlos. With its lower population, fresh air, and beautiful topography, Marin bested the San Fernando Valley’s smog and crowded freeways. In addition, there was a music community there that I felt part of.

  Shortly after moving from Belvedere to Tiburon and into Sausalito’s Plant Studios, I was blessed with the comely presence of Wendy Matthews of Australia to produce her Witness Tree album. The songs she brought into my life have provided me with a lasting strength.

  WASHINGTON, DC—January 1993—3

  As soon as we moved, we got word from Washington that President-Elect Clinton’s inaugural ball committee had selected Booker T. & the MGs to play at the event. Nan’s sister Janine saved the day for us by coming up from Claremont and moving in for four days to babysit our kids.