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So how did you become associated with the Dirty Dozen?
I was already, unbeknownst to both of us, associated with them anyway. I had their first record and Demon (Records, E.C.'s personal record label) had picked up on the Montreux one and put it out. I was delighted when I saw that record come out because I loved the first record.
I can't claim to have any input into the label beyond the odd suggestion of what album we maybe could seek out, you know. There 's all these back catalogues, all to be exploited. If anybody can find the tapes and somebody's willing to spend the time... really what the reissue business comes down to is somebody's love for the individual act. Most of the Demon catalogue is defined by the record collections of the people who work there.
They have to be keen enough to feel that those records are both worthwhile persevering with and worthwhile putting out again. Obviously, when it comes to licensed records which are current, the same thing applies. I'm always delighted to have any New Orleans music on the label. We've got Johnny Adams and the Nevilles, as well.
Do you own Demon?
I'm a director, whatever that means. I'm one of four directors of Demon... five... however many there are these days. I think there are four. I'm like the quiet one, the "sleeping partner" if you like. Demon also has my back catalogue in England so that's quite a big chunk of what they sell.
I've just been a fan of the Dirty Dozen. The curious thing is I always had to miss 'em. The couple of times they came to Europe, I always had to go out on tour. The same thing with the Nevilles, in fact. I'd always just miss 'em by a week or something. Lots of good stuff I miss. That's the trouble. All year, all winter, there are no good concerts. Then, the minute summer comes around, people start travelling around Europe and you're away, over on this side, touring. It's very frustrating.
Ever since I've been in the record business, or music business or whatever you call it, I've been promising my mother to take her to America. To somebody of her generation, America's a dream place. Finally, after ten years of always being too busy or being on the road constantly, I had a little time. So I said, "Let's take a holiday." And we went to New York.
We did all the tourist things. We went up the Empire State Building. Come the evening, I said, "Let's go see a show or something." I took her to see a Broadway show. After, I said, "Do you want to go to a jazz club?" She's a jazz fan. Billy Eckstine was playing at the Blue Note. It was an early show so we were through by about 10:30, maybe earlier.
We were driving back through Greenwich Village and I saw Sweet Basil and I knew the Dozen were on there. I was hankering after going but I didn't know if my mother wanted to go. But I thought she'd really dig 'em because their repertoire encompasses a lot of things from when she was a jazz fan and she ran a jazz club in Liverpool. My father was a trumpet player and he had a little quintet. They used to have to take over venues, much the same way as when I lived in Liverpool. I did the same thing. I used to get nightclubs and take 'em over on a slack night, on a Tuesday night, and me and my partner would run a club in there for the night and take home what we'd get at the door. My parents did the same thing in the late Forties.
So my mother and I ended up staying at Sweet Basil for two more sets. We got there at the end of the first set and stayed for the next two sets, until the place closed. I spoke briefly with Gregory (Davis, leader of the Dozen) but we didn't make any plans or anything. I just met the guy. I think this was even before Demon put the Montreux album out. 1 was just saying as one musician I could dig the sound. They were just fantastic. They were even better than the record. It couldn't even compare. They had a richer sort of sound. It's hard to describe without sounding pretentious but it sounded like something you'd dream and then you wake up and it really exists. It's that sort of effort, their sound to me.
The familiarity that people reading this in New Orleans will have with the structure and the substance of the music, I hope the record doesn't diminish that quality to them. Because I know I'm not as familiar with all of the other alternatives to the Dozen. They are what that sound is to me.
At the same time, they also sounded a bit like something I already knew, which is really strange, because it obviously doesn't have a connection with anything else. They're extremely happening. They're about as swinging as it gets. Particularly, that night in New York... they were absolutely storming.
I suppose that club was kind of their home away from home. It was a very loose show, people wandering on and off the stand. I don't know whether that's the way their shows always go.
It was the only time I've ever seen 'em live, except on television. I was just absolutely struck with it. I filed it away in the back of my mind for future reference. And then when I started writing the songs, a couple of the things just started to come together. I was very apprehensive...
You wrote the songs with the Dozen in mind?
I don't know... the songs sort of developed simultaneously with the idea of getting in contact with the Dozen. I suppose that's not quite the same thing. I don't really know. "Deep Dark Truthful Mirror"... I really kind of heard horns in it when I was writing it and I really didn't want it to fall into either too much of a folk thing or too much of a... When I was first writing it, I thought I was writing "Dark End of the Street." That's what I was trying to write. Now that's a very tall order. That was like the Holy Grail to that song. That was the beacon. Now if I've fallen way short of that, I think what I've done is gone down another road that's as interesting in its own way. "Dark End of the Street" has already been written. To write a song that clear, I just think it's impossible. I mean, that's one of the greatest songs ever written, isn't it?
Toussaint fits in "Deep Dark Truthful Mirror" perfectly. It sounds almost like a Toussaint song.
Yeah, that's the funny thing. I suppose we're all looking for that kind of purity, when you're going into that territory, into that sort of area or feeling. But then the nature of the song really defeats that kind of clarity anyway, it being about this deluded guy wandering around at night. He won't go home first of all, and then when he starts to go home, all these horrific hallucinations come to mind. Now that's much more in the realm of dreams than any song like "Dark End of the Street," which is very realistic and very brutal.
It was then that horns sounded essential to me. I suppose it could've been essential in a different way if the Dozen would've said No, they didn't want to play on it. But once they said Yes, it was really clear to me the way in which the instruments could be arranged. The way in, which we approached the record really, I think, assisted the prominence with which the Dozen are featured throughout.
By method and as luck with schedule would have it, we had to adapt away from the original way of doing layered records, which is to go up through the rhythm section with a drum machine. We started with a machine and I backed out the chords on either an organ or guitar or something and then they played to it. So they were the first real "keeper" put on the track. That was really the way it worked out. They were the first people on the track. It was so complete, the mood, just with them on it, even before Toussaint came along, that it was shocking.
Each track had notes made next to the title of which players and then it had maybe a few, I suppose you might say "contingency" plans in case those players didn't carry the weight of the thing, that you would put more conventional detail into the track.
Once the schedule was set, and it was obvious that the Dozen had to go on the track first, I was a little apprehensive. What if we didn't weigh the performance properly? What if we had them play too much or too little? As luck would have it, once they finished their parts and Toussaint came in and did his part, it was finished. Then we put the percussion on and then we put the drums on.
Was Toussaint in the studio at the same time as the Dozen?
No.
Does he even know the Dirty Dozen?
I don't know. We didn't discuss it, really. It took a little while to confirm that he was going to play. We were in town for about eight, nine days. We got into town a few days early just to have fun really, just to hang around town. I ended up going to the Storyville Club. We went out one night on the razz...
On the what?
On the razz, on the town. I ended up getting horribly drunk and going to see (Roger) McGuinn play. Somebody said, "Do you want to come back and meet Roger?" I was disappointed in the audience, I must say though, because I thought he'd given a wonderful show and I know they applauded really, really enthusiastically but I wanted it to be people up and hollering. He played these songs, which he must've played hundreds of times before, with such affection and enthusiasm, that I thought the audience could've matched his enthusiasm instead of being so kind of reverent. The reverence almost encouraged it to be kind of too nostalgic. I wanted them to be up, going, "Yeah, Roger — great! You're playing 'em still like they're just alive!"
It was horribly embarrassing. I sort of went crashing into his dressing room. He was very indulgent of me. I said, "Give me a guitar and I'll play you a song." And I couldn't remember the damn song. I thought, "Oh God, what'll I do?"
Did he know who you were?
No, not really. I don't think so. I think he knew my name. He'd ran across it somehow. I kind of almost met him a couple of times. We'd been in the same hotel once in New York. I don't suppose he'd remembered that any more than I cared to remember my drunken state at Storyville.
At any rate, later on, we were both in Los Angeles. He was coming to town to do a show and T Bone Burnett knew him from Rolling Thunder. I said to T Bone, "Do you think he'd come in the studio if I asked him?" Because I'd been really hideous when we met.
And Roger was very gracious about it, he didn't hold it against me. I'm sure he's seen much worse in his day.
He came and did a cracking job on the track he played on ("...This Town...," featuring McGuinn on Rickenbacker 12-string, Paul McCartney on Rickenbacker bass and D.P.A. MacManus, a.k.a. Elvis Costello, on Rickenbacker 6-string, Gretch, spider and acoustic guitars, organ, piano, melodica, tambourine and vocals.)
The reason I mention it, it was very much the same way it was with the Dozen, being the first person to actually go. You're out of the trench first. At every chance, you can stumble. There's nothing much to play to. You've just got the song, which is just me playing on acoustic and maybe some explanations and clues you can give a person. you're asking them to really define their part very, very precisely.
We only had that very limited amount of time. We had four days, I think, that the Dozen were free for. We ended up working Saturday morning to try and get the final parts done.
Like I said, Toussaint was not confirmed until we got to New Orleans. I wasn't sure what we were going to do for keyboards. I knew the sort of thing I wanted and I knew he would fit the bill perfectly. Various people were suggesting this person and that person and I was really holding out for him. Finally he said, "Okay."
Originally, the plan was to go to Sea-Saint to do it. I thought it was very gracious of him to come across town to Southlake, which is his main competitor. I am mindful of the fact that there is quite a lot of feuding and factionalism in New Orleans. If you can get all the musicians together without a fight breaking out, you seem to be doing quite well. That's only an outsider's view but I think that's pretty accurate. It's a comparatively small town to support two studios.
It was pretty shocking when Toussaint comes in at 11 o'clock in the morning and does that piano part. Played the song through for about 20 minutes until he got familiar with it, and then just seemed to be able to reel off endless variations. I had to actually stop him. I had to say, "Allen, that part is so good, that figure that you're playing. Can you repeat that and make a part out of it?"
It's such a sparse record. The minute I heard him, I knew that we had the record and I really didn't think there was going to be much else. He then started doing a lot more left-handed stuff because he was leaving it out originally. His intelligence as a musician was right there; nobody needed to be told that. He's incredibly self-effacing as a musician. His arranger's sense would just leave out the left hand because he would assume the bass would take care of it.
Once I said, "You've got some figures there that really bear repeating," he was a lot freer. At the end of it, he asked for another take. We kept another two tracks and he did another part, which he said wasn't any good (it was equally good but completely different, which was really shocking). Like I say, he's so modest.
He's got an arranger's sense about his piano playing and also that thing he's got in his piano playing that I can't really identify. He's got all of the traditional stuff and he's got some sort of classical thing in the way. Sometimes, it sounds like Bach when he plays. Some of those introductions, like "Freedom for the Stallion"...
His little Baroque touch.
Yeah, it's very shocking. And then there's that funny harmony he gets into. I don't know, I'm not very good on intervals. In the bridge of the song, when he gets into on the way down. I don't know what that is, but I love it! We have recognizably "him" yet playing very austerely, really. I thought that was it then. There was nowhere else to go with that track except just to put the little propulsion in with the tambourines, which I thought needed to be very dry. They didn't need to be hi-fi; they needed to be kind of real. And (drummer Jim) Keltner put the little bit of emphasis in the chorus.
We'd been talking all along about having drums just play on the chorus of the song. Really having them like orchestral so that they only played where they absolutely were necessary. And I think the track works great from that point of view. Plus you've got your man Kirk Joseph on the sousaphone.
Now that Spike has been released, will you ever talk to the players about it? Would you, for instance, call Toussaint to discuss it?
I don't have numbers for them. Some
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