Reigniting Memories of My Band Days

It's been several weeks since my longtime friend and former bandmate Scott passed away unexpectedly, and I'm still hearing echoes of his music in my head.

We hadn't talked in decades, except for occasional digital waves over Facebook. We played our last gig together over 40 years ago. There were four of us then — Michael, Danny, Scott and me — each bringing something unique to our motley quartet.

Scott was the oldest, serving as both inspiration and mentor. I was a 20-year-old aspiring guitarist and singer/songwriter, goofing around with 1st position chords, all in a vain bid to meet girls. But Scott was a musical alchemist, what we call a player's player, mastering just about any instrument he touched — sax, keyboards, flute — deftly juggling modes and scales like a magician.

He was funny and creative. Once when we were living in Monterey, California, he re-purposed the traditional song "Hava Nagila" into a catchy radio jingle for a local bagel bakery with the lyrics, "Have a fresh bagel, have a fresh bagel, have a fresh bagel … have one today!" I defy anyone who knows the song not to hear it that way from now on.

Scott was generous with his time and talent, often teaching me tricks and licks that got me through many a gig. Together, we traveled the California circuit from Monterey to Sacramento. Eventually we all went to various destinies in other vocations, but Scott went on to become that rarity of rarities, a genuine money-making working musician.

Bands are like dysfunctional families. Fights break out, egos flare, tempers explode — and that's just during the sound check. But there's also harmony and a hard-as-Gorilla Glue bond that cements itself after endless miles of playing 4-hour sets together in stinky dive bars in small border towns, sharing cheap motel rooms, greasy fast food and skyrocketing bar tabs. But when the music started, we were in the groove.

Making music together does that. Just go back in time and ask a struggling collective of ragamuffin kids calling themselves The Beatles in 1962, driving an unheated mini van through freezing cold nights to get to gigs, piling on top of each other like layers of a sandwich trying to stay warm. "You can't get much closer than that," Paul McCartney often told interviewers decades later.

When George Harrison died in 2000, I flippantly asked, "Why is it always the Beatles who die and never the Monkees?" And then, it was The Monkees.  So many of our musical heroes have left this earthly plane. Ask not for whom the cowbell tolls.

And now, in my own small life, I had lost a beloved brother-in-arms.

But music, like life, finds a way. The beat goes on, even if only in memory. I found myself humming one of Scott's old showcase numbers, "Popsicle Toes" by Michael Franks, a song I hadn't heard in decades.

I pulled out my old guitar, long silent after years entombed in its case. My fingers struggled to form a few once-familiar chords. The creeping arthritis didn't help. It was an awkward reunion; the strings resisted my conciliatory overtures, the frets stubbornly refused to cooperate, bearing a grudge over years of neglect. I don't blame them.

A few days ago, while walking my dog Molly in the park, I heard the sounds of a guitar playing nearby, and came across a young college student sitting on the grass, tentatively practicing chords and trying to play "House Of The Rising Sun." It's a standard for all aspiring guitarists, and a song long embedded in my muscle memory. I hovered nearby as he negotiated the frets, missing a couple of important passing chords.

"You may wanna try an E7th there," I was surprised to find myself suggesting out loud. He looked up quizzically.

"Mind if I show you?" I asked, extending an open palm, as he warily handed his guitar over to a stranger. I showed him the chord, handing the guitar back. He conjured the E7th nicely, and his eyes changed from wary to grateful. "Cool," he said, smiling. "Thanks, man."

A few days later I impulsively took my guitar with me to the park, finding the same guitar player under the same tree, still wrestling with the "Rising Sun." As I had done so many lifetimes ago, I sat down and added a few licks. Soon the two of us were weaving sounds together like quilters, nodding in time to the spontaneous music. My fingers loosened up, muscle memory returning like a prodigal son. It felt good, like an old pair of socks for the soul.

After exhausting "House of the Rising Sun", there was a momentary silence. I thought of Scott and smiled. Turning to my new companion, I asked, "You ever heard a tune called 'Popsicle Toes'?"

We can't recreate the past — do we really want to? But we can build on it, picking up where we left off whether it was days ago or decades ago. The song remains the same; it's the players that change. With time, students become teachers, teachers become mentors, mentors become memories. And sometimes memories become music.

Now my fingers are becoming more adroit, my outlook sunnier, my soul a tad comfier. And while I won't be playing any 4-hour gigs, an hour of playing music with others works small miracles. Finding the groove, surrendering to the magic, weaving the transitory spell. It places you firmly in the present, the "now" which is built on the ethereal foundations of the "then." Live music is exactly that: Alive.

How to begin? It's easy. You just open that dusty case, take a deep breath, and count: "One, two, three, four!"