The Zig Gazette

The Zig Gazette

Vol. 7 #10

The Zigs’ website is TheZigsBand.com

The Zigs are: Jim Ziegler, Bill Raffensperger,

Frank McPeters, Mike Johnson, Jim Downing

Saturday: Jazmo’s Bourbon Street Café, Cherry Street

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Unsung Heroes ~

We’ve written here before about Bert Russell Berns. He was a songwriter and producer for Atlantic Records Corp. Even most musicians have no idea who he was. Well, he wrote all these songs: A Little Bit Of Soap, Cry To Me, Everybody Needs Somebody To Love, Twist And Shout, I Want Candy, Here Comes The Night, Are You Lonely For Me, Baby?, Hang On Sloopy, and Piece Of My heart, to name just a few.

He also produced all the original versions of those songs and some of the covers too. Solomon Burke, Lulu, The McCoys, Janis Joplin, The Rolling Stones, Van Morrison, Erma Franklin, The Beatles, The Isley Brothers, Otis Redding, Al Green, Buddy Guy, and Faith Hill recorded his songs.

I heard a band in 1967 in New York doing Are You Lonely For Me? The first time they played it, I loved it. I wish I could write a song like that; I’m still trying. It wasn’t a big hit, it never got on Tulsa radio at all, but Freddie Scott’s original had gotten some play on the east coast. I’ve sung it in most of the bands I’ve been in since and it always works, though most people have never heard it. It’s on the 1980 Flying Horse album.

Berns had a serious heart problem as a youth. Perhaps he knew he wouldn’t live to a ripe old age. He was certainly extraordinarily creative up until his early death at 38 in 1967.

There is now a Bert Berns web site, Bertberns.com. You can read all about him there and see his immense discography. There are links to other articles about this talented and soulful man.

I signed the guest book and was honored and thrilled to receive a personal reply from Berns’ son, thanking me for appreciating his dad.

BANG records was an Atlantic subsidiary and the initials are the principals at Atlantic: Bert, Ahmet, Neshui, and Gerry. There is going to be a documentary film about him, probably a Broadway show featuring his songs, and there is a push to get this gifted man into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame. If anyone deserves it, he does.

Saturday: Jazmo’s Bourbon Street Café, Cherry Street

Tulsa Hippie Chick

‘Twas our European correspondent, Wynton Bluitt, who reconnected us with a long lost protégé, Ms. Kelly Sisson, ne Kelly Ellis.

At the end of the sixties there was sort of another revival of acoustic music and several coffeehouses operated here in town. Someone asked what kind of coffee they served; it wasn’t really about coffee. No, these aren’t the coffee-snob houses of today; these were bar alternatives, frequented by those who generally preferred more esoteric refreshments.

These joints were mainly about the music. Some of the early local songwriters that played were Keith Slane, Charlie Rayl, Geoff Bond, Sam Routh, Randy Crouch, Bill Baldwin, and Oister – which was Dwight Twilley and Phil Seymour.

Little Kelly was just a rebellious teen who was hanging out and being corrupted by Don Duca, Jack Wolfe, and David Tanner. Fool that she is, she was inspired to a career in music and songwriting. She moved to Louisville in 74 and is now in Jacksonville Florida. As we speak, her band is doing a Grateful Dead set with the Jacksonville symphony orchestra. Our weirdness certainly rubbed off on her.

Check her out and listen to her music at kellysisson.com. The Folk Salad boys liked what they heard, so they may be spinning her disc soon.

The Zigs Web Site is happening. The address actually comes up on The Music Store’s space. Larry York, one of our great friends, gave up some of his web space for us. He’s renting more than he can use so he allowed us to put our pages on his service. You can’t beat a deal like that. And, ahem, you can’t beat the deals at The Music Store either. It is not allowed. John Hoff just got a ridiculous deal there on a new set of Gretsch drums. We will not tell you just how ridiculous it was, but it was not even funny.

Gazintas

We heard from Frank Ray! Frank has not been in the public eye much in recent years, but he is not about to lay down his guitar. He lives out south of Bixby and is building up quite a studio and a library of original music. Ask any guitar player and they will tell you that Frank is one of the best around. Of course, he’s hopelessly insane, but it’s a good kind of insanity.

Eric Grimshaw forwarded us an inquiry from a Tulsan in Colorado named Teb Blackwell. He and Rhett Lake have been working on a discography of Oklahoma music and they have quite a list of Okie singles already. Actually several people are trying to consolidate our musical history. David Arnett would like to have more posted at Tulsatoday.com where my series Tulsa Rocks can be read. Stephen Todoroff has The Tulsa Area Music Archive at Preservemusic.org and he is seriously looking at some space for a Tulsa music museum. If any of you have any information regarding Tulsa bands of the past, feel free to send it here and we’ll disseminate it to these resources. If all these projects get together, we might have quite a story to tell. This is a labor of love; no one seems to be trying to make a buck out of this. It could be a good selling point for the future of music in this region. Oklahoma continues to produce music that is as good or better than anything in the market place.

Here are a couple of questions: who all was in The Urchins, who was in Revolution and who was in Home Cookin? If you know of any bands from around here that put out records, we’d like to have that information too.

Saturday: Jazmo’s Bourbon Street Café, Cherry Street

Zig Movie Viewer¸¸¸

Classic Albums: Electric Ladyland – Jimi Hendrix is our pick this time. This features everyone who was involved in the making of the album; Chas Chandler, Mitch & Noel, Buddy Miles, Steve Winwood, Jack Cassidy, Mike Finnegan, Dave Mason, Eddie Kramer and others. This is a classic movie now, it’s ten years old but we just ran onto it.

Kramer sits at the board and mixes the tracks as we listen, showing various parts that we might not have noticed before. He also divulges some of the tricks he and Jimi came up with. It’s a study in contrasts: Gypsy Eyes was on its 40^th take when Chas said “Goodbye. House Of the Rising Sun” was first take and cost ten pounds.”

Nothing was said about “Come On, Part One” which has one of the fastest licks ever recorded, nine bars into the solo.

Surprisingly, “Rainy Day Dream Away” was pretty much a live track that was not even rehearsed. Mike Finnegan tells all about it. Buddy Miles says it’s the best track of his career. There is no bass on the song; it’s Finnegan’s left hand on the Hammond.

Side four is one of the great album sides of all time: Still Raining, House Burning Down, All Along The Watchtower and Voodoo Child (slight return). The latest CD version is better than the original release: Kramer has remastered all the Hendrix albums since Jimi’s family regained control. The first test pressing said “Electric Landlady”!

Bar Wars

You’ve heard about them, but it really happens, like at that west side joint we’ve been playing; that we WERE playing. The owner seems like a nice enough guy, to us anyway, and appears to know what he’s doing. We played out there three or four times and the crowds were a little bigger each time. We’re good at holding on to a crowd, too. People who come in usually stay. Usually.

This last time we played there we had the best early crowd yet. It was looking like it was going to be a good night. Suddenly, during the second set, most of the crowd left. Some of them came back later. We were puzzled.

Well, there’s a strip club next door. That doesn’t sound like direct competition to us. The kind of person who goes there isn’t likely to leave to see a bunch of old hippies play classic rock songs. In fact, isn’t a little shared business a good thing? It’s possible that some of our listeners might poke their heads in there to see what was happening.

What happened was the management of the topless joint sent someone into our venue and passed out free tickets to the Pat Benatar show at The Osage Casino, so a good part of our crowd left. The neighbors evidently spent a good chunk of change just to be mean. Go figure.

Saturday: Jazmo’s Bourbon Street Café, Cherry Street

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FLOTSAM

Our first appearance at the Arrowhead yacht Club was a raging success. We had to set up before dinner; “This isn’t a gig, it’s a career.” joked Bill. After we set up, we ate at Frosty & Edna’s by the dam and went to Frank’s where he forced us to watch comedy videos of The Smokehouse Band. Ok, some of it was very funny.

The Yachters loved us, of course, as did the owner. We had as many dancers as we get at Mooney’s, maybe more. We’ll be back.

Hawaiian music great Don Ho passed away last week. He was not a nappy-headed Ho.

A $90,000 Bosendorfer Piano fell off a truck in England last week. These are the Rolls-Royce of pianos, hand made in Austria. Keyboard players all over the world were screaming in pain.

Saturday: Jazmo’s Bourbon Street Café, Cherry Street

Preview: Randy Genét Benefit ~

Want to see The Jumpshotz, Glenn R. Townsend, Steve Pryor, Wanda Watson, The Plumbers, The Tulsa Boyz, David Dover with Rocky Frisco, and Minnie Moore for ten bucks and feel good about it?

The Randy Genét Benefit is percolating along nicely. Ms. Watson is the musical director, and she’s lined up a variety of good bands. Terry Dikeman has so far amassed over ten thousand dollars worth of musical gear to be auctioned off, so if you need some stuff, here’s a chance to get some bargains that you can also write off as charitable donations. You can’t beat a deal like that, unless they paid you twice to haul it away and then did the hauling for you.

The big gig is April 29 at The VFW on Sixth across from Centennial Park, staring at 2 PM. Contributions can go now to Randy Genet Fundraising Account at Security Bank PO Box 47136 Tulsa OK 74147.

We wish we’d known in advance, but last Saturday 94.1 was doing a “Pay for Play” to help renowned Tulsa DJ Jan Dean. Jan is one of the greats in local radio and has a rare brain cancer. She is heading to Texas for some new therapy and if you’d like to contribute, contact 94.1 FM.

Saturday: Jazmo’s Bourbon Street Café, Cherry Street

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