Wine Country boasts its own hall of fame, with a bevy of musicians at home here
By JOHN BECK
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
Published: Sunday, February 1, 2009
Welcome to rock 'n' roll Shangri-La.
Before the Grammys roll around on Feb. 8, we thought we'd size up all
the award-winning rockers who dwell in the hills and hammocks of Wine Country.
If you held a festival that pulled only from the cream of the crop of
local talent -- Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett, Dead drummer Mickey
Hart, gravelly maestro Tom Waits, Primus ringleader Les Claypool,
blues great Charlie Musselwhite -- it would rival any of the major
rock festivals in the country.
Some we've written about a thousand times before (Hey, Norman
Greenbaum, you still talking about "Spirit in the Sky" down at John
Barleycorn's bar?). Others, like Robert Hunter, seem to fall through
the cracks.
Everyone has their own reason for settling in this neck of the woods,
but the common thread is a respite from the rat race where most of
them made their name.
For Musselwhite, all it took was a shooting in his Richmond front
yard. Next thing you know he's counting sheep in Geyserville. Waits
just wanted to get away and raise a family after being stalked in
L.A. supermarkets. Doors keyboardist Ray Manzarek was looking for
enough space to plant a massive garden in Napa. Taking his phone
number with him, '80s rocker Tommy Tutone relocated to Santa Rosa to
be closer to his girlfriend, who is now his wife.
So why Sonoma County? It's the perfect escape. Flip the page to Act 2
of the Rock Star Life: Raising a Family. It's far enough from the
metro bustle that you feel like you're out in the country, but it's
got a progressive reputation -- you're not in Modesto or Manteca.
You've got all the luxuries, the day spas and golf courses, a big
city nearby with an airport for tours and state-of-the art recording
studios like Prairie Sun in Cotati and In-the-Pocket near Forestville.
Or as Manzarek once told us: "We came up here for the air and the view."
Staging our own local episode of "Where Are They Now?" -- here goes
the hall of fame list:
Kirk Hammett, 46, Sonoma
It's not uncommon to see the Metallica guitarist dining at Café
LaHaye in Sonoma since he's friends with owner Saul Gropman. Lately,
he's been away from his mansion in the hills overlooking Sonoma,
hitting the road for a series of Metallica "mini-tours" after the
band resurrected itself with last year's "Death Magnetic."
Recent quote: "We still care about the music. I'm still very, very
passionate about music."
Coming up: Hammett makes an appearance on Somali rapper K'naan's
upcoming second album. He wrote the forward for an upcoming biography
of late Metallica bassist Cliff Burton and the video game "Guitar
Hero: Metallica" comes out March 29.
Les Claypool, 45, Occidental
After the whole funk-punk scene in San Francisco imploded, the bass
provocateur (and childhood buddy of Hammett) fled for the Sonoma
County hills to raise a family in what he calls Rancho Relaxo. The
pond is stocked with bass. The studio is stocked with every gadget
you can imagine. And, even though the Primus singer/bassist has
ventured into film production and novel writing, his kids are finally
proud of him after he dreamed up the soundtrack to the new "Mushroom
Men" video game.
Notable quotable: "When I was a kid, nobody wanted to play bass. We
all wanted to be Eddie Van Halen."
Coming up: In March, Claypool releases the new album "Of Fungi And
Foe," featuring a song with Gogol Bordello frontman Eugene Hutz. In
the spring, he tours with Saul Williams, Secret Chiefs 3 and Yard
Dogs Roadshow as part of the roaming Oddity Faire.
Tom Waits, 59, Valley Ford
Moving to Sonoma County may be the best thing that ever happened to
this former L.A. barfly. In the '90s, you can hear a tonal shift in
his music as he delves into junkyard-barnyard blues (roosters crowing
on the 1999 album "Mule Variations" recorded at Prairie Sun) and
starts to incorporate more of a backroad Sonoma County vibe -- what
he and his wife/co-songwriter Kathleen Brennan like to call
"surrural." His son Casey backed him up on drums on last year's tour
that sold out the world over.
Local song references: Cotati bar Red's Recovery Room gets a
shout-out in "Filipino Boxspring Hog." The song "Georgia Lee"
recounts the story of 12-year-old Georgia Lee Moses, whose body was
found alongside Highway 101 near Petaluma in 1999.
Notable quotable: "I wanted to be an old man when I was a kid. I wore
my grandaddy's hat, used my cane and lowered my voice. I was dying to be old."
Coming up: Rumor has it he's building his own studio off Highway 116
near Sebastopol. The 640-page biography, "Low Side of the Road: A
Life of Tom Waits," by Barney Hoskins, comes out May 19.
Charlie Musselwhite, 64, Geyserville
Maybe it's his Southern roots, but there may be no friendlier and
more hospitable local musician than the storied blues harmonica
player who inspired Dan Aykroyd's character in "The Blues Brothers."
Born in Kosciusko, Miss., and raised in Memphis, Tenn., he got his
big break one night at Pepper's Lounge in Chicago when Muddy Waters
invited him to sit in with him. "My life was never the same after
that," he says.
Kicking the bottle years ago, he's a blues survivor: He no longer
downs two quarts of bourbon a day. He survived a wreck with a semi
truck in Mexico. Someone once put a gun to his head but decided not
to pull the trigger. And, along the way, he's won so many W.C. Handy
blues awards it's hard to keep track.
Notable quotable: "I've always had this saying -- if I'm breathing, I
go to work."
Trivia: Last year, Musselwhite made his acting debut (along with
Claypool) in the horror flick "Pig Hunt."
Coming up: A marker bearing his name will be placed on the
Mississippi Blues Trail this spring in Kosciusko.
Mickey Hart, 65, Sebastopol
After playing Obama's inauguration, the fiery Grateful Dead drummer
has a few months off before hitting the road again as the Dead kicks
off a spring tour on the East Coast, winding up here at Shoreline
Amphitheatre on May 10.
A Renaissance man of sorts, Hart seems to always have a new project,
whether it's preserving old recordings with the Library of Congress,
providing the backbeat for The Mirage's Volcano spectacle in Las
Vegas, exhibiting his found-object nature works or throwing a concert
to save Bohemia Ranch.
Recent quote: "The Dead stands for freedom."
Coming up: Last time we chatted with Hart, he mentioned a
"top-secret" project he was working on, but so far details are scant.
Ray Manzarek, 69, Napa
The Doors keyboardist says he's added 10 years to his life by moving
to Napa Valley. Last we talked to him, he was standing on his back
porch surveying his two-and-half acres that includes a koi pond, a
giant red barn and a sprawling garden that overflows every winter
with cabbage, collard greens, Italian broccoli and spinach.
The de facato band historian, Manzarek recently announced the latest
in a long line of stand-ins for the late Jim Morrison, tapping
ex-Fuel frontman Brett Scallions to play Lizard King in the Riders on
the Storm revival band with Doors guitarist Robby Krieger. The lineup
is sadly missing drummer John Densmore, who's not interested in a reunion.
Notable quotable: "My life is my life. It's a continuum."
Coming up: Riders on the Storm tours Mexico in February and then
returns to play Napa Valley Opera House on March 21 and The Fillmore
on March 22.
David Grisman, 63, Petaluma
The musician affectionately nicknamed "Dawg" by Jerry Garcia and once
called "the Paganini of the mandolin" by the New York Times continues
to spread the gospel of "Dawg Music" -- a jazzy bluegrass hybrid
that's turned on a devoted following over the years.
His "100 percent handmade music" label Acoustic Disc is still going
strong. Just don't mess with his copyrights. He sued YouTube in 2007
for posting clips of his music.
Trivia: His song "Dawggy Mountain Breakdown" is the theme for NPR's
"Car Talk" show.
Recent release: "David Grisman Quintet: Live at Jazz Alley."
Coming up: He plays the Osher Marin JCC on June 20.
Tommy Tutone, 49, Santa Rosa
You may see him polishing off a beer at Russian River Brewing Company
or playing a random Thursday night gig at the Sweet Spot, but odds
are you'll never see him without his shades on. Maybe it's an '80s
thing. The one-hit wonder who made the number "867-5309" a household
hummer is still going strong.
The last time we hooked up with Tutone (born Tommy Heath), he was
paying the bills as a software engineer and touring every summer with
the latest incarnation of the Tommy Tutone band, which originated in Willits.
Notable quotable: Upon meeting a fan on a beach in San Diego, "the
guy was introduced to me and he immediately dropped to his knees,
genuflecting and saying, 'I love you man, I love you! You're the
greatest. Say, what was the name of that song you sang again?' "
Trivia: He owns 12 percent of the publishing rights to "867-5309/Jenny"
Video: To see Press Democrat studio footage of Tutone playing new and
old songs, go to pop.pressdemocrat.com and search for "Tommy Tutone."
Robert Hunter, 67, Bay Area
When he's not spending time with his family at home in Marin County,
the legendary Grateful Dead lyricist likes to escape to his writer's
retreat -- a rustic cabin perched along the banks of the Russian
River not far from Guerneville.
The prolific songwriter who joined the band as a "non-performing
member" in 1967 and according to Dead legend "arrived at a rehearsal
just in time to write the first verse of the classic 'Dark Star,' "
is working on novels these days, which means he's probably spending
quite a bit of time down by the river. One yet-to-be published work
is called "Doppelganger" and has something to do with quantum mechanics.
Notable quotable: "I'm finally turning into just what they always
said I was -- a reclusive writer."
Trivia: The 1967 rehearsal where he started dreaming up "Dark Star"
was in Rio Nido.
Ramblin' Jack Elliott, 77, Marshall
The '60s folk troubadour born Elliott Charles Adnopoz lives along
Tomales Bay these days. A devoted student of Woody Guthrie and a
major influence on Bob Dylan, he can still walk it and talk it and
he's still cranking out new material.
Anecdote: At the Mystic Theatre one night, a fan yelled out, "Is that
some damn Yankee shirt you're wearing?" teasing him about his
jet-black, bib-front cavalry style shirt. Unfazed, Elliott shot back
that the shirt was his "John Wayne special."
Trivia: The character Ramblin' Sandy Pitnick in the folk mockumentary
"A Mighty Wind" was definitely inspired by Elliott.
Coming up: Teaming up with songwriter-producer Joe Henry, Elliott
releases the new album "A Stranger Here" -- a timely exploration of
Depression-era blues classics -- on April 7. He plays Freight and
Salvage in Berkeley on Feb. 28.
Jack Blades, 52, Santa Rosa
The Night Ranger and Damn Yankees singer-bassist has a nice view from
his compound in the hills overlooking Bennett Valley. And he's got
plenty of royalties still rolling in when you consider "Sister
Christian" reached No. 5 on the charts and continually pops up on
movie, television and video game soundtracks.
Rising out of the San Francisco club scene in the '80s, Night Ranger
sold more than 16 million copies of the 1982 debut "Dawn Patrol."
Still big in Japan, Night Ranger recently recorded its first studio
album in a decade -- "Hole in the Sun" -- and they're out on the road
in support.
To catch up, you can check out his radio show "Backstage Pass with
Jack Blades" online at www.thefox.com. And you never know when you
might catch Blades around town. Last year, he and a few of the guys
in Night Ranger hopped onstage at the Russian River Brewery for a
round of impromptu songs.
Notable quotable: "Rock out baby!"
Coming up: Night Ranger plays the Sonoma-Marin Fair June 25.
Nick Gravenites, 70, Occidental
The best place to see the '60s blues guitarist is at Negri's in
Occidental on any given weekend night. He'll walk in whenever he
feels like it, prop himself up on a stool, prop his Fender on his
belly and wail away for hours on end as the whole town dances around him.
Probably most noted for writing the classic "Born in Chicago," he
jumped around the San Francisco scene, playing with The Paul
Butterfield Blues Band, Electric Flag and Janis Joplin and Big
Brother and the Holding Company. Over the years, he's jammed with
Jimi Hendrix. He booked James Cotton and a young Steve Miller at his
Chicago bar and he produced Otis Rush.
Notable quotable: "My whole early experience with the blues is like
ancient history to me. Some guy talked to me a couple of weeks ago,
he said, 'Man, talking to you is like talking to Abe Lincoln.' "
Norman Greenbaum, 66,
Santa Rosa
Ever since his monster hit "Spirit in the Sky" debuted at No. 3 on
the Billboard charts in 1970, the hand-clapping, fuzz-guitar anthem
has been a pop-culture staple, popping up in commercials for American
Express and Toyota and dozens of movie and television soundtracks.
Forever famous as the Jewish songwriter who sang, "gotta have a
friend in Jesus," Greenbaum has been an on-and-off resident of Sonoma
County for more than four decades. The story goes that he was
inspired to write the song after watching country musician Porter
Waggoner sing a spiritual on television.
For the past 12 years, he's been running www.spiritinthesky.com.,
hawking mouse pads, T-shirts, autographed photos, tattoos, coasters
and even CDs. In 2007, he sponsored a horse named
"www.spiritinthesky.com" in the Sonoma County Fair races.
Notable quotable: "I used Jesus in the song, because people could
relate to that."
Trivia: Go ahead and call him a one-hit wonder, but don't forget that
"Canned Ham" and "The Eggplant That Ate Chicago" also charted.
--
John Beck, a staff writer, can be reached at 521-5300 or at
john.beck@pressdemocrat.com.
--
LIONS IN WINTER
Ramblin' Jack Elliott, 77, Marshall
Nick Gravenites, 70, Occidental
Ray Manzarek, 69, Napa
Robert Hunter, 67, Bay Area
Norman Greenbaum, 66, Santa Rosa
Mickey Hart, 65, Sebastopol
Charlie Musselwhite, 64, Geyserville
David Grisman, 63, Petaluma
Tom Waits, 59, Valley Ford
Jack Blades, 52, Santa Rosa
Tommy Tutone, 49, Santa Rosa
Kirk Hammett, 46, Sonoma
Les Claypool, 45, Occidental
.
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