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DUKE BARDWELL – 20 QUESTIONS

Twenty questions ain't much when you're dealing with somebody with a past like Duke Bardwell's. Duke seems to have been present behind some of the seminal musical figures of our time. Now with the release of his first disc it's time to push this modest man into the Flyin'Shoes spotlight...take it away Duke!

 

Born in Baton Rouge – what variety of musical sounds did you grow up listening to?

My first musical awareness was the big band era.......Dad was a trombone player....fed himself while in college by playing in the cafeteria at LSU (Louisiana State U.) where they got one meal a day......all they could eat. Dad got the best part of that deal.........he was a big man. He always had music playing in the house..mostly big band jazz and swing. I played mostly country songs on a guitar up until age 9 when I added trumpet in the school band. Early rock and roll and New Orleans R and B is what really got my attention, and by age 14 I was in my first garage band. By the time I was 17 I was traveling with a local group that had a regional hit, and was playing guitar, bass and trumpet.......that would have been 1960.

 

On the sleeve of 'Angels Wings' you pay tribute to your family – how important have they been during the trials and tribulations of your career?

They have always been supportive......I didn't understand at the time why my parents let me off on the road like they did, but I was not interested in school and not doing well socially or scholastically and I believe they figured I should be doing what I was interested in now and would come to my senses later.....they were still waiting when they passed on..

 

You seem to have started playing musical instruments as soon as you could walk! This led to a crop of local bands including The Greek Fountains and later The Basement Wall. The Fountains supported British Beat groups -did you cover their songs? Was 'The Basement Wall' a late sixties 'progressive' band by any chance?

The "Fountains" were a college party band that mixed popular English songs with traditional R and B and Soul.......our ability to mix it up is what led to the groups popularity. The Basement Wall was a straightahead English copy band.....the clothes.....the Vox amps....the Rickenbackers.......the drummer was the group's spokesperson and talked with a fake English accent..........I played with them for about 6 months and am embarrassed to this day.......

 

You headed Northeast after those early bands - why?

A pal from the "Fountains" that left the band early and moved to New York to "do the big time" ended up associated with Tom Rush and got me the bass playing job when it came up. I hadn't played bass for years but I wanted out of town.....that was my ticket.....just simply time to go......

 

Then you linked up with Tom Rush – how big an influence has he been on your subsequent ideas about the craft of song-writing?

I had not yet begun writing by the time I got with Tom (1968)....what I found myself into was so far removed from the South Louisiana club scene, that I had no choice but to put all pre-conceived notions aside and learn how to play bass again in an entirely different environment....no longer the "front man" but a "side man", and now doing music that nobody was dancing to...but listening to.......sitting there and listening to.... with such intensity that I found it unnerving at first.....but then slowly grew to depend upon it...but that's another part of the story.........The whole approach to performing that I experienced with Tom had a dramatic effect on everything I would do from that time on.......

 

Your stint with Tom Rush – indeed you played on some of his albums –then led to other big name employers –notably Elvis, but also Gene Clark, Jose Feliciano & Emmylou Harris. Did the quality of the people you worked with and the nature of the work divert you from your own singer-song-writing career?

The Tom Rush experience involving the entire Folk Scene, and the tremendous array of creative imagemakers of that day that I would have never been exposed to otherwise, set the groundwork for everything else that happened to me musically. I was fortunate to play on one Tom Rush album....his first on Columbia Records, after many years with Elektra.....entitled "Tom Rush", produced by Ed Freeman. To this day, one of my favorite albums ever for "songwriters" , and absolutely one of my favorites I have ever played on. My song writing had now begun it's infancy (not that it has ever grown up either). The time spent involved with other artists, again as backup, really didn't do anything to deter my singer-songwriter career as I can't really say that I had one. ----Still just knocking around out in L.A. trying to find a place for myself but not really knowing who I was........not a really fun place to be in....particularly when the babies started being born........

 

I mentioned Elvis –was he a regular guy to work with despite the cloud of myth-making that surrounds him ? Seems like he had a genuine love of southern musical styles that shines through the later and darker years. You played on the 'Elvis Today' LP and others?

I will relate to anyone that Elvis, left alone with his instincts and heart and soul, was a very regular guy. Unfortunately, that particular situation did not seem to happen very often........he was always the object of the attention of so many.......and their expectations of him.......I don't think it was really possible to be anything that even resembled regular in the sense that we could relate to.I played on the "Live in Memphis" album.......and was on the album you mentioned....but was later replaced by another bass player after my "de-frocking". Now there are many CD's being released from '74 and '75 live shows that are bootleg soundboard recordings.....poor quality usually, but there, none the less.

 

Jose Feliciano actually signed you as a singer-songwriter – did you record Spanish Language material with him –did that ever influence your own sense of melody?

Actually, Jose F. did not sign me to anything.......his wife at the time, Jana, had taken over the management of Jose and his affairs herself. They had just built a brand new recording studio in Orange California (south of L.A. by Disney Land) and a good friend of mine was the engineer for the house. I had been traveling as an opening act for Loggins and Messina with the same guy that got me involved with Tom Rush......his act ( a duo) not mine. His name is Casey Kelly and was on Elektra records....and we opened the show for Kenny and Jimmy. After that played out, I was invited down to play for the Felicianos, and was signed as a writer/performer in the rough, to be groomed for some kind of stable of artists they were intending to develop.....Mrs.F. was intending to develop.......Jose was just doing his thing. Although I did quite a bit of recording and TV work with him, I was never involved with any Spanish language material. However.....it was my association with Jose that got me introduced to Elvis's drummer, Ron Tutt, who got me the job with EP.

 

Gene Clark has passed into myth but left an outstanding set of songs. Did you play acoustically only with him or were there band sets and did you ever record together?

The time spent with Gene Clark was occuring at basically the tail end of my association with Elvis. Our act was basically a trio........Gene on acoustic and harmonica....Roger White on lead electric....and myself on electric bass and occasional banjo. Towards the end of our two year associaton we were going out with the addition of drums and keyboard and his management group was trying to put together a record deal for him. I have some interesting demos from that time....and there was an album done and released ,produced by Thomas Jefferson Kay ( or something like that).... Roger and I starting playing on it but were removed for being too opinionated and set in our ways regarding his material. We were seriously pissed at the time........but looking back....I know they were right. We had put in two very difficult years of low budget traveling and performing with a drunk that gave both of us some of our most embarrassing moments ever on stage (yes, even more than the "Basement Wall") and we wanted to be on that album. To this day I would have to say that I will never forget watching genius and insanity go hand in hand like they did with Gene Clark. I absolutely love the songs that man wrote......I'm glad to have been there........I hope he has found peace.........

 

Another legend is Emmylou –there you are on two tracks –one each on 'Pieces of the Sky' and 'Blue Kentucky Girl'. What do you remember of those sessions? Finally did you record other songs that got left on the cutting room floor?

I was already in love with Emmylou from listening to her with Gram Parsons........you can't follow the star around like a love struck puppy dog.......particularly if the producer is her new boy friend and she is carrying his child.......and you don't know about any of it.........dumb....real dumb.....I don't know what all of mine ended up on the cutting room floor........you mean besides my heart?? ....One of my favorite all time musical memories........despite the fool I made of myself...

 

Your 'roots' finally pulled you back home – a chance to side-step the bright lights of L.A. perhaps – or a financial decision? You ended up managing restaurants I understand.

I came back to Louisiana for the same reason I kept coming back to Louisiana.......there was no longer any reason to be anywhere else......particulary L.A. We had had two children in the seven years we had been out there.........I had had my shot.......I couldn't justify exposing the family to the rigors of the L.A. basin any longer. My beloved brother-in-law and I were playing in a bar band together and we just decided to take the band back home. We were doing some originals, Little Feat, early Delbert McClinton and various other funky stuff........and hit Louisiana right in the middle of the Satuday Night Fever disco madness and the Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings era.........we died a very slow and painful death......so did my marriage......she moved to Florida with the children. Several years later, ('85) I was married to a wonderful girl who was willing to relocate with me and we moved to Florida and both went into the restaurant business with some friends of ours......time to get a real job. I stayed in the business for 12 yrs, developed cronic ulcers, got out , and have been having a ball ever since.

 

Back home,the batteries recharged via local music-making leading to the new record and an enthusiasm for music for its own sake – are you pleased with the way 'Angels Wings' turned out?

I stopped playing for five years when I moved to Florida......that is, until I met "Washboard Jackson and his Action Contraption".......340 pounds of pure joy and funk, and our band "Hubba Hubba" has been playing ever since. The opportunity to record Angel's Wing's was a chance to reach back into the old material that was of a more introspective nature, and do something nice for the children and grandchildren. It was never conceived to be a commercial venture.........just a legacy recording for the family. With that in mind, what occurred surprised everyone...particularly me. Yes....in a word....I'm very pleased with the way it turned out.

 

How does the new version of Bayou Country compare to the original? Is it straight autobiography?

The original of Bayou Country was done by our band "Cold Gritz and the Black-eyed Peas." ( five white guys and three black girl singers.) This band occurred right after the Tom Rush days, was signed to Lou Adler and Ode records in L.A., and self-destructed before it finished anything and gave Lou a chance to get his money back. He was seriously pissed. His last project was Carole Kings "Tapestry", and he was not expecting to be humiliated by a group of unknowns from the bayou country that couldn't stop smoking dope long enough to make a decision. I had written all but two songs on the record and Lou wasn't the only one pissed. Bayou Country was written by Trevor Veitch and myself and was released as a teaser single while we were finishing the record......oh welllll........ Trevor was the guitar player from Vancouver, B.C. that took Casey Kelly's place with Tom. It was autobiographical only in the sense that we wanted to represent a feeling for the Acadian culture but show a certain political awareness as well.........though my mother was " a dark-eyed Cajun woman".....my father was not "a trapper from Napoleonville."

 

It includes a lot of great lines including a then topical reference to Detroit burning? Did you feel politicised by the late sixties at all coming from a strongly working-class background?

We wrote the song stranded in a funky hotel room in New York, waiting to go back out with Tom, while we watched them land on the moon for the first time. I had shown Trevor a map of Louisiana, and he thought the names of the towns and bayous were pretty. He wrote the political references.........I , the others. I particularly like this arrangement of the song........it's been recorded six or seven times by other artists.....our co-producer, Merel Bregante, came up with the new street-beat feel for it........

 

There are some covers on the record including a Leadbelly song –how come you chose these specific songs?

I had been performing my re-write of the Leadbelly song for many years and really got off on what happened in the studio with it. The other songs are my tribute to other close friends of mine that have a big place in my heart and have influenced me strongly by their music and encouragement. Even the album cover was done by one of my closest friends........a dream image I had in Austin while recording ( sleeping actually)........he had actually painted what I described to him years before and recreated it for the cover.......it's title was also "Angel's Wings"..........spooked both of us pretty good..

 

Your own songs dominate the disc – who are your major influences?

Once I really started listening to and being dominated by the song lyrics, (thanks again to Tom and his cronies.......Jackson Browne, James Taylor, Murray McLaughlin from Toronto, etc.) Jessie Winchester was the first to really knock me on my ass......followed by John Prine. For the part of me that shakes the booty.......I still have to go with James Brown, Otis Redding, Sam and Dave, Aretha Franklin, etc. For the part of me that "shits and gits", it would have to be George Jones, Merle Haggard and Doc Watson.

 

You profess a love of the work of Jesse Winchester –could you relate your experience of his work – I understand it was literally handed to you one day...

The album was handed to me by Albert Grossman, who at the time was managing Dylan, the Band and Joplin........it blew him away.......it destroyed me.

 

Some musicians you have played with are no longer with us whilst others like Emmylou are still touring. Would you go back on the road now to promote this record?

I would love to go back on the road to promote this album.........I just don't want to do it in vehicals of questionable mechanical character....... in places with chicken wire stretched around the stage.....trying to be responsible for the livelyhood of other players and their families while something is hoping to break......any day now...... If it can be helped........

 

The British singer song-writer Terry Clarke who also records at Merel Bregante's studio has acknowledged the big influence that Tom Rush had on his own development. Do you think there's a link there – you both operate in a melodic/literary area of song-writing ?

It doesn't really surprise me that Terry would know about Tom Rush......the great story tellers usually seem to know about one another... I consider myself to be an egg compared to Terry Clarke and his ability to be literate.....what a jewel you people have over there in that man and his music......

 

There are hints of 'swamp-rock', ballads and country ( Up On A Hill) –where do you think your sound comes from –the landscape or the people you met along the way?

Every one of my songs is something personal........whether it's the tempo and the groove that just makes me feel good to play it.......or it's one of my own experiences......or somebody that I know ....(like "Up on a Hill"). The guy in the song was a friend of mine named Homer Wills......played harp in rodeo bands.......it happened to him. I really do think I'd be able to write more if I could just get outside of everything instead of always coming from the inside. Sometimes I envy the people that just think up a hook and go from there..........mostimes not........ I feel very fortunate to have been born and raised in South Louisiana because of all the different styles of music we grew up with............you can't put a label on it....or even put your finger on it...... it's what makes gumbo, gumbo..........you just have to be able to "pinch the tail....and suck the head".....and you'll know what I mean.

 

If you could pick up your acoustic guitar and play one song to me now ...which one would it be?

------can't do it...........it would have to be two of them.........first.....the Beatles "In My Life".......then right behind it before you got a chance to get up and leave.....my "Anything to Keep >From Standing Still"....because the truth about it all is still there.. On the album, it would have to be "Angel's Wings"......how often will a man get to sing a song he wrote for his children....with one of those children.......my youngest son , TK sang the high part............. Life is so good....

 

 

Many thanks to Duke for participating in the first transatlantic flyin shoes e-mail interview.

Duke Bardwell's 'Angel's Wings is out on Club Louisianne Records (CDCL 1999)

 

In the next edition of Flyin Shoes we'll be talking to Jesse Winchester