Ben Elder
From:
La Crescenta, California, USA
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Posted 8 Aug 2013 9:00 pm |
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To be honest, I knew little more than the name (his Zappa association must have been after I drifted off--I never heard "Lumpy Gravy" and beyond), but a high-school friend of mine (whom I'll not name since he wrote what follows as personal correspondence to a mutual friend), later a keyboard wizard, performer and manufacturers' rep in his own right has a pretty cool story about his meeting with George. (I can't begin to help with the keyboard- and digital-related jargon it contains.) It's kind of long, but it leads to a meaningful conclusion:
"So NAMM show in 95, maybe even 94. Anyway, I was working with 2 other noobs at Peavey, Kenny and Brad, in the "digital" division which actually meant the "sh1t the regular reps won't sell". The Architectural Acoustics Line and the Peavey keyboard line, which was absolute bottom of the heap of current offerings. They did make some pretty cool modules though, the bass module, the organ module, the filter module. But the digital pianos and synths were, well, not.
Back Story: When I worked at Hermes I did a clinic tour in Mexico opening for this semi famous bass player, Jeff Berlin, who was a Peavey endorser. Alberto said "We must show support for Peavey", which meant I needed to work up a Peavey keyboard performance clinic and open for Jeff. Which I did. But I was told beforehand that a lot of Keyboard clinicians had bombed in Mexico playing what we referred to as "sh1t jazz" or "fuzak", which could be heard repeatedly and everywhere keyboards were demoed at any trade show or clinic in the 80's, 90's (and beyond). They also bombed being smart asses, making references to TV commercials that didn't air in Mexico and essentially being totally unaware of their audience. I took this as a warning, like "Don't do that and embarrass us ". So I MIDIed up a Peavey DPM keyboard and a beta version of the DPM module that they kept sending me ROMS for on the run up to this tour and each was really no better than the other and they were all glitchy at best. I pumped in a couple of Gloria Estefan Mega Hits and two tunes that were hot at the moment on Mexican radio. The only really good thing about the DPM was that even if it sounded like crap it DID load samples, so I spent a couple of days sampling sounds from other sources into an SE30 with Digidesign (that's iPad and Avid to younger people) and dumping them across in to the DPMs. Then I got a lot of grief from everybody at Hermes for playing these demos out loud during loading and then mixing/fixing. Like I was going to stay up late and do that sh1t at home. Anyway, I finally got a semi stable ROM for the module, talked the people at Hermes into finding me a Gloria Estefan clone in Mexico City, Gaudalajara and Monterrey. That way I only had to play "Bochata Rosa" as an instrumental which I liked anyway because I used some 808 drums and congas in it and way too much echo on the solo. I also had to set up the PA in Mexico City because these guys had all the stuff: JBL, Cerwin Vega, Crown, Allen & Heath, Yamaha, Peavey.all the right bits and it sounded like goose farts at sound check. I had them run a CD I that I knew how it was supposed to sound and dialed in the crossovers and then the EQ. Now anybody who knows me knows that I should stay as far away from EQ as possible, but I had learned by then, so it was OK. That system kicked. We did it in this unfinished performance hall across the street from the soccer and bull fight arena, and there were probably 4,000 people. It was a huge success. We signed autographs (!) and made the Mexico City newspaper. Now why did I tell this story? Because that clinic tour was what got me hired at Peavey, because during my tenure at Brook Mays 2 different Peavey reps and Bill E himself had me down as a Peavey hater. I didn't hate Peavey, I just thought that in certain areas other people made better stuff at a fair price. But the Hermes Peavey rep and two successful, no bad reviews tours of Mexico overcame that and I got a sh1t division sales job at Peavey. Hey being a door stop is better than staring at a closed door. Which makes the real story possible.
Back to Kenny and Brad, my sh1t division partners. Kenny was from LA, my age,and Brad was probably 10 years younger and from Indiana. What a trio. Peavey had rented a big white 9 passenger van for some reason, probably for Kenny to use to fetch Peavey people and their stuff from the airport. It was Thursday or Friday night, probably Friday. Keyboard magazine had scheduled this keyboardist-athon, at the same hall where Peavey had done their pre-show. We weren't really invited, didn't think much of it. All the cool people had already gone for the day, we'd waited till the crowd died down because we were going to use Peavey's van to go get some non hotel/motel food with Kenny. We went out a side door, into a very light LA style rain. And under this not big enough awning outside the door and over the sidewalk were half a dozen or more people and some flight cases.
We said "Hi" and all that and one of them asks "Are you the Keyboard Magazine guys with the van?". "No, we're some Peavey guys, but we DO have a van". "Oh." "But we can go GET the van, what's the deal?" So it turns out that Tom Coster and his son, George Duke, maybe T Lavitz, which is why we all spoke because I knew T and Andy West from the Dregs and Sequential days, and several other keyboardists of notoriety, their names escape me now, were all standing in the rain supposed to be picked up by the Keyboard Magazine people who for whatever reason hadn't picked them up. We waited, Kenny went for the van and was back in a flash and we loaded all these cats and their gear into the Peavey rental van and headed out. George Duke was concerned that we drop him and his wife off at his car, so we did that, and he asked me to ride with them since they didn't know where they were going. Now he had a big green Mercedes if I remember. His wife was in the front, George and I in the back. He mentioned Peavey and I said yeah and said that he'd used the Bass module on a couple of records, we talked a bit about everything from slow soul to why Chicago BBQ tastes funny to a southern boy. We all got to the theater, where we immediately got blasted with all access passes, and George asked if I'd take his wife back to the hotel. So I said sure and asked Kenney for the van keys. George said no, take her back in my car and drop it off if you don't mind, so Kenny followed me in the van, we dropped off the Mercedes and Mrs. Duke at the Marriott and went back to the keyboard do. By the time we got back (we were gone maybe 25 minutes) Brad had found the beer and every keyboard hero he'd ever dreamt of meeting and had a camera full of pictures, a camera he lost later the same evening. So much for inebriated hero worship documentation. Kenny had been the LA Kurzweil 250 guy and I'd been one of the three at Sequential, so it was old home week. If somebody'd dropped a bomb on that place the faces of modern synth and piano players would have changed overnight. I mean you never saw such a variety of high profile arteests eating sweaty cheese cubes and little sandwiches in your life. Which just proves that no matter who you are, travelling musicians know their way around hotel catered road food.
This story would pop up 10 years later while I was standing with a group of very talented gents. Someone mentioned George Duke, and I told the George Duke in the rain Keyboard Magazine jam Peavey van story, and a man said "I was THERE!At that gig! George told me he let some white guy he met from Peavey drive his wife back to the hotel IN HIS MERCEDES! I said, George, man, you are CRAZY! He said to me, in that all composed way, "Only if he doesn't come back with my keys". Man!!! YOU were that white guy?! You brought his keys back, right?!" Yes, indeed I did, Mercedes unscathed.
There are other stories from that event but most would amount talking out of school, and hey, I'm no critic, either. Let's just say not so cold beer, jet lag, rental gear, artist relations gear without your sounds in them or that you were supposed to perform something on cold, along other inconveniences and distractions made for some less than inspired performances. Except for Patrick Moraz who was maybe a little over inspired to play piano arpeggios at the speed of light.
George Duke. Understated, great listener, great player... the definition of a musical gentleman."
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"Gopher, Everett?" |
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Darvin Willhoite
From:
Roxton, Tx. USA
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Posted 9 Aug 2013 6:44 pm
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I have never heard a piano solo like this one, I think he was feeling what he was playing about. RIP George.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNICl8RuxLI
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Darvin Willhoite
MSA Millennium, Legend, and Studio Pro, Reese's restored Universal Direction guitar, a restored MSA Classic SS, several amps, new and old, and a Kemper Powerhead that I am really liking. Also a Zum D10, a Mullen RP, and a restored Rose S10, named the "Blue Bird". Also, I have acquired and restored the plexiglass D10 MSA Classic that was built as a demo in the early '70s. I also have a '74 lacquer P/P, with wood necks, and a showroom condition Sho-Bud Super Pro. |
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