Origially posted May 22, 2007
I mentioned in Saturday’s post the fact that I’ve played keyboards for years and the band I played in for seven years (not six, as I inaccurately recalled at the time), and walknthabass asked in the comments if I had any of my musical performances available.
Well, not directly. I don’t have anything of my own stuff available. I did dig through the CD rack and find a CD – Jake’s – Take It Or Leave It – of performances by that band in the suburbs. It’s a soundboard recording from one of our house parties – with all the crowd noise that implies – in 1997 or 1998, and it gives a pretty good idea of the kind of stuff we were doing.
As I listened to it, I realized that we were all over the musical map, as a group, which I think is a good thing. On the nine cuts on the CD, we were performing music originally performed by: Jonny Lang, the Temptations, Tower of Power, Muddy Waters, James Taylor, Stephen Stills, Marshall Tucker Band, Van Morrison and Santana. That’s an interesting mix. And looking back, and keeping in mind that we were a bunch of guys with day jobs who got together for about three hours a week, we didn’t do too badly.
Our personnel at the time the CD was recorded was: David as our lead singer, Doc and Chazz on drums, Jacques – the owner of the house where we played – on bass, Larry and Josh on guitar, Boyd and me on keyboards, and Jim (you can hear David call him “Horn Man” at least once) on saxophone. (Boyd sang lead on “Steamroller Blues.” Unhappily, none of the two or three songs on which I sang lead were included on the CD.)
Most of the piano sound on the CD is from me. I provided the trumpet sound – via keys – on “Papa Was A Rolling Stone” and used a kind of synth-horn sound – not the trumpet sound; that was Boyd – on “Get Yo’ Feet Back On The Ground.” I did okay, I guess, but I was never going to put anyone out of work.
Anyway, here, for a Tuesday special, is a bunch of guys from the Twin Cities having fun, ca. 1997.
Jake’s – Take It Or Leave It [ca. 1997]
Track list
Rack ’Em Up
Papa Was A Rolling Stone
Get Yo’ Feet Back On The Ground
Hoochie-Coochie Man
Steamroller Blues
Love The One You’re With
Can’t You See
Tupelo Honey
Ain’t Got Nobody
Jingo
Tags: Jake's
July 13, 2011 at 10:01 am |
[…] the late 1990s, when I was playing keys in the recreational band that we called Jake’s, one of my guides to music new to me was one of our drummers, Chazz. As soon as he learned that I […]
July 18, 2013 at 10:58 am |
[…] Go” if it didn’t stick from that summer forty years ago? Well, when I was playing in Jacques’ band in the latter half of the 1990s, our lead singer suggested we tackle some Tower of Power tunes. We […]