Suck and Blow (22 page)
Authors: John Popper
BANNER YEARS (OR TOOTIE GOES SHOOTIE)
I've played the “Star-Spangled Banner” quite a few times in my career, but my two most memorable “Banners” are the one that was postponed and the one that I missed.
It all goes back to high school. I'd go to gym assemblies and play my harmonica to advertise an upcoming Blues Band gig. The first time I did it, I just walked up to the mic, played a solo and then said “Come see our band!” From that point on everyone knew who I was and I started to begin feeling famous. People would pass me in the halls and call out, “Hey, Harmonica Guy!”
Pretty soon every time there was an assembly, people would start chanting for it. It became a thing. I always had a harmonica on meâthat's the great the thing about the instrumentâit's so portable. I'd play, and the whole place would go crazy. The vice principal would put up with it because everybody liked it.
There was this big kid who was upset because I would play the same thing over and over again because I was a crowd pleaser. One time he yelled out, right before I started, “Do something different this time!” He was that one asshole.
So I was determined to have something up my sleeve at the next school assembly. This was when I was worshipping Jimi Hendrix. I had watched his “Star-Spangled Banner” at Woodstock so many times that I decided to work on my own “Star-Spangled Banner.”
So when my moment arrived at the next assembly, I stepped up and played it. That first time it was closer to the normal kind of blues shuffle. Later on I'd learn how to feedback my amp, so I did that, and everybody was looking at me weird, like,
What the hell was that?
Then there was a murmur and I heard booing, which confused me. It turned out the vice principal was behind me, kicking me off because he recognized it was the “Star-Spangled Banner,” and apparently that was disrespectful.
Over the years I would drop it in here and there, mostly in tribute to Jimi, and then finally, in August of 1992, I played it at my first Major League Baseball game. This was during the southern leg of the initial H.O.R.D.E. tour. I played it before a Baltimore Orioles day game, during the first season at their new park. What you have to keep in mind at a baseball game is that it's not rock and roll; it's baseballâwhat they want is more melody with no feedback in it, so you need more rudiments.
My next big “Banner” was at Woodstock '94. I had mono, but there was no way I was going to miss that gig. (I would miss Wood-stock '99 because I was recovering from heart surgery.) So I came out there wearing my regrettable purple shirt (Barney again!), and I knew I was going to do my version. When I started I could hear the roar of two hundred thousand people, and that's when I got a little scared, like the ghost of Jimi Hendrix was going to get me. But the
New York Times
commented on it, and I felt fancy. When I read the critique that Hendrix's “Banner” was about the war and now it was about chops, I thought,
Yeah, that's fair.
I just knew that someone was going to play it, and because we appeared on Friday, I was the first guy able to do so.
I think Game Four of the 1996 World Series in Atlanta was the biggest one. By then I had done the Orioles and the Colorado Rockies along with some hockey games and some basketball, but when you go to the stadium for the World Series, it's crazy because it's an
international event. That was probably the largest coverage of me doing it because of the television broadcast.
I was supposed to do Game One at Yankee Stadium, but George Steinbrenner bagged me for Robert Merrill and the Yankees took a twelve-to-one pasting. At the game I did do, the Yankees came from six runs behind to winâthe biggest comeback in World Series history since 1929âand then they won ten straight Series games. I like to take credit for that, although I'm not sure I can.
When I hit the high note and the crowd went nuts, I left my body for a second. Later, when I heard what the TV announcer said, I knew I had hit a good one. To me it always felt like hitting a ballâdo you hit it far or do you hit a grounder? And that one was out of the park.
After they bumped me I made a big enough stink with MLB that they offered me Game Four, and the Braves said it was fine with them. I was allowed to bring a friend, so I brought Col. Bruce Hampton, a big Braves fan who was putting as much mojo on the Braves as I was putting on the Yanks. That was quite a game.
Asides from the Yankees comeback, the other surprise came when I was on the pitcher's mound about to do the anthem and realized I was carrying a Glock in my fanny pack. I was used to doing gigs out on the road where the places we played could be dicey, so it was a thing I'd tuck away and never think about. This was pre-9/11, and I was licensed to carry in Georgia. They had waved me through security, and I had forgotten all about it until I was on the mound. Then I had nowhere else to put it, so I just kept it there.
After I finished the “Banner,” I went to my seat and was next to Tootie from
Facts of Life
(Kim Fields) and right behind the president of Panama. I was thinking I could have assassinated the president of Panama and thrown the gun into Tootie's hands. I was imagining the stories that would run the next dayâ“Tootie runs amok at World Series, blames it on Blues Traveler guy, nobody believes herâTootie Goes Shootie.” How fun would that be? I mean it would be really horrible, but just for the headline.
There are places you shouldn't have guns, and I think airplanes and sporting events are two good ones, especially when you're behind a world leader. Try not to be armed when you're behind a world leader
unless your job is to protect the guy. And I would like to state for the record, to all mental health officials, that I do indeed recognize my job was not to protect the president of Panama. It's very important when you're dealing with real bullets to know real things.
The next time I was really excited about performing a “Banner” was before Michael Jordan's final home game with the Chicago Bulls at Game Five of the NBA finals. I was a big Bulls fan and a friend of Dennis Rodman, who by then was allowing me to use his box seats.
Eddie Vedder was another major Bulls fan. I first met Eddie while playing with Neil Young in Ontario during the summer of 1993 back while I was still in the wheelchair. Five years later, at one of the Bulls' parties, I remember Eddie was trying to explain to me his views about the world while I was going to take a leak. There was only one toilet in the bathroom of this little club, there were no stalls or urinals, and I was standing there for a while as he wouldn't stop talking because he was so excited. I finally said to him, “I can't go while you're standing here.” And he apologized, but instead of leaving, he turned his back to me and turned on the faucet. So then I felt like the guy who couldn't pee because he turned the faucet on and became the guy who couldn't pee in front of Eddie Vedder.
I was really looking forward to this “Banner” at Jordan's last home game in Chicago. The only complication was that I was in DC getting ready for the Tibetan Freedom Concert at RFK Stadium, which took place the next day. As it turned out, there was a problem with my flight. We had to land in Peoria and then I had to catch another flight to the game. Meanwhile Eddie, who was also playing at the concert, was able to get on an earlier flight. When the Bulls found out I wasn't going to make it and that Eddie was already there, they made him sing the “Star-Spangled Banner.”
I finally arrived toward the end of the second quarter and was so bummed I had missed my chance. So I walked in, and Eddie Vedder came up to me, gave me the finger, and walked away. He thought I was doing some sort of diva thing. I guess because of the night we bonded in the bathroom, he felt comfortable enough to give me the finger when he thought I was pulling some prima donna shit.
Later on he apologized after he found out about my plane. We flew back to DC on the same flight, and he was trying to be incognito, with his hat pulled down over his face, while I was signing every autograph that came my way. He was probably nervous that I was going to point him out to people.
That whole incident highlighted the distinctions between him and me. I was dying to do the “Star-Spangled Banner”; he was pissed he had to do it. He was hiding from people, and I was high fiving everybody. That'll tell you who sold more records. Clearly, him.
So we made it back to DC, and a few hours after Blues Traveler performed at RFK Stadium the Bulls won the championship in Utah. But it still haunts me. What a “Banner” I would have done for Michael Jordan.
The response to
four
really felt like the culmination of a decade's work.
In early January 1996 we learned that we had been nominated for a Grammy. “Run-Around” was up for Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal at the ceremony, which would take place on February 28, 1996, at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles. A&M Records, which was also based in LA, invited us to come over the morning of the Grammys, where they laid out a new contract in which each band member received a million bucks. It was quite a start to the day.
From there we all got into our limos to head over. Brendan and I took our dates to the Grammys in one limo, and Chan and Bob took their dates in another limo. When they called our category, which was pretty early, Brendan and I had made it inside, but we didn't know where Chan and Bob were.
To my mind it didn't matter so much because we were up against Dave Matthews Band's “What Would You Say”âyou'll remember, I had played on that songâwhich I thought was going to win. Still, as they announced the nominees, I was trying to calculate the fortitude and the logistical planning needed to run up on stage when they won to accept the Grammy with them. This was years before the soy bomb bullshit and Kanye. They were nice guys, so I figured they wouldn't
punch me; all I had to do was stay away from LeRoi. They were about to announce the winner, and I was jumping up, expecting to hear, “âWhat Would You Say,' Dave Matthews Band,” when they called out “âRun-Around,' Blues Traveler.” I was in midjump and so stunned that I popped my knee. I couldn't walk on it, so I had to hop on one leg to the stage.
Meanwhile Chan and Bob were in the other limo “parking,” which I took as some thinly veined metaphor for drugs. I don't know whether they were smoking it or snorting it, but they were late. They missed their entire Grammys speech. Brendan and I went up there, and I was hopping on one leg in blinding knee pain; Brendan was the only one with any reasonable composure. I was supposed to thank Howard Stern because I vowed I would, along with my teachers and all these other people. But I didn't really prepare a speech because I didn't think I was going to win. So I asked Brendan, “Who should we thank?” He answered, “I don't knowâour parents?” So we thanked our parents, half the band, and then we sat down. This was when Chan and Bobby showed upâ“You guys missed it! We won! We totally won!” Bobby immediately wanted to leaveâ“Oh fuck this!”âand he did. I think eventually Chan did too, but Brendan and I watched the rest of the show with our dates.
So it was win a million in the morning, win a Grammy at night. You work for ten years to get a day like that.
The punch line came when we were walking outside afterward, being all hot shits, and this little girl who was playing in the parking lot looked up at me and asked, “Weren't you in that movie
Tommy Boy
?” And that was awesome because it deflated me in the best way. My ego had been so puffed up. Then I tried to sing “Run-Around” for her and she said, “Nope, never heard it.” And there's the reality of it.
Although
she
didn't recognize us, our profile was on the rise, which led to some really cool new opportunities.
Dolly Parton wanted me to come and record with her. Dolly didn't ask me to play harmonica either; she just wanted me to share vocals with her on a Merle Haggard tune. This was for her comeback album at the beginning of the new country music. I think she asked me because I was this rock-and-roll guy and it would represent a connection
to something new. I was grateful because she still had the voice I had heard for so long, and it still melted raw steel.
I had my puppy with me, Cice, a blue heeler who was a terror back then. (I named her after a Magyar she-warrior who saved her master from the Mongol hordes.) Cice promptly trotted into Dolly's vocal booth and took a watery diarrhea shit all over the carpeting. Dolly's response was “Bless her heart.” Now, how sweet was that? You can't top it. Poor Dolly, though; it wasn't the scented candle that I later learned Chris Robinson preferred.
Paul Simon was someone else from this period who only wanted me for my voice. When he made a demo of
The Capeman,
the musical he was working on for Broadway, he had me come in and play the role of the redneck. He was one of the hardest taskmasters I've ever worked for. He wasn't a dick; he just knew exactly what he wanted and would not be persuaded otherwise.
A couple of years later he had me back in again, this time to record harmonica for his album
You're the One.
That was hard too because he was the one guy who would not fall for my trick of “Let me blow all over and you can trim and use what you want.” When I did that for Paul, he said, “Yeah, the problem with that is it makes more work for me later, so I'd prefer you do exactly what I'm thinking.”
In defense of my approach, I really do think it can be the best way to get the most out of me. There was a time when I'd say that every harmonica solo I did was the best harmonica solo ever. Now I'm quite willing to allow someone to let me blow through something a few times, and then they can cut it and link it to another takeâthey always fit like Lego blocks on beat one. I can understand Paul's reaction, though. I can't say I blame him.
Still, he was asking quite a bit of me. It was some melody he heard in which I had to arpeggiate like I was a guitar; I worked for hours. Eventually I got it done, but he ended up not using it and instead he went with Howard Levy. I got Levied. If anybody was going to trump me, it would be Howard Levy. Not only can he sight read but he can also play chromatic scales, which I can't do. Eventually I figured out I would need a few harps, but it wouldn't sound smooth. Howard Levy was the right musical choiceâhe was the one guy who could do it. To expect that out of a harmonica is pretty insane anyway. When you've
got a harmonica part that only one man in America can play, that's an ambitious harmonica partâ“We need Albert Einstein to figure out this little math problem.” Howard Levy's the mad scientist, so between the two of us, I'd give it to him.
Around this same time I played on a Hanson album (fifteen years later they would reciprocate on Blues Traveler's
Blow Up the Moon
). I had no problem with my solo, but trying to play this one melody for that Hanson song was like working for Paul Simon. I just couldn't play it for some reason, but Taylor could. So, oddly, I got Taylored. And you pay extra for that.
Although I no longer believed that my every harmonica solo was the best solo ever, I will say that one of my best harmonica flurries ever is on the opening credits of the
Roseanne
show. It appeared during the last seasonâChan did a little guitar thing and then I did a lovely little flurry like Charlie Parker. It's just fun every now and then to turn on one of the cable channels and hear an example of a really nice burning harp solo that I did. Once you've done that and it's on national television, I think it eases the constant need to go into sessions and demand that your work can't be touched because you've just laid down the
perfect
solo.
We were obsessive
Roseanne
fans, and at the time she invited us on to her show in 1995, that was our favorite prime-time sitcom. So to get to go on the set and be in that kitchen with Roseanne and Dan Conner in Lanford, Illinois, was surreal. We played Dan's former bandâmy name was Stingray Wilsonâand he came on stage with us for “Sweet Home Chicago.” We watched that show religiously at a time when we were living hand to mouth. That show really spoke to us, and then we were in the TV.
Standing in their kitchen, which I'd seen on television so many times, was almost dreamlike. I knew consciously and rationally that I was talking to Roseanne Barr and John Goodman, but they were in costume. I had to open their refrigerator to see what was in that fridge, and sure enough, they had fake bologna. It was made of rubber and looked like real bologna. It was stunt bologna.
I started to look around after I closed the fridge, and I remember John Goodman's expression was like
He's going to blow!
I nearly had one of those sensory overloads that I hear people have when they're in
a foreign land and don't quite understand what's real anymore. For a second my brain told me that maybe I actually was in Lanford, Illinois. But, of course, I wasn't. It was the stunt bologna that got me because,
If the bologna isn't real, then maybe none of this is real.
But then a voice in my head said,
Of course none of this is real. You're in Los Angeles.
The overload almost led to a conniption, but I held it together.
Roseanne was a sweetheart to me. We hit it off like lemurs and pie, and she later played an important role in helping me lose my weight, but she had a fight with John Goodman in between the scenes and yelled at somebody else on the set. She would be ashamed afterward, though. It reminded me of my actress sister, who's known to have a temper.
Before the last season she came to me and said, “I'd like you to put words to my theme song.” I was so honored that during the very last scene of her entire series, when she was reminiscing like all of those episodes were part of a book, Phoebe Snow was singing my words a cappella.
A few years later I would work with John Goodman again on the set of
Blues Brothers 2000,
which came about through my friendship with Dan Aykroyd. The first time I met Dan Aykroyd was in Los Angeles in early 1995. He was there when I sat in with Steve Vai. That was quite a night because Steve Vai was in
Crossroads,
a film that also had its hold on me growing upâhe duels on behalf of the devil against Ralph Macchio's character. It's a draw until the end, when Macchio plays a classical piece, Paganini's “
Caprice
No. 5.” I told Steve Vai that I thought he kicked the classical dude's ass, and he laughed because he actually did both parts.
But Dan Aykroyd had been my hero for much of my life.
He was specifically powerful for me because, first of all, he's funny.
Saturday Night Live
was the beginning of my rebellion as I tried to break out of my own skin as this young kid in the suburbs.
SNL
was the first subversive thing I ever got to experience that felt like it was mine, and then, after that,
Second City TV.
That would be my religion every Saturday:
Saturday Night Live
and then
SCTV.
And then these people started making movies, so I started to feel my religion permeating the world's cultureâor at least North American culture.
Beyond all that, Dan Aykroyd was the guy who got me playing the harmonica. I still wear a black hat to this day because of itâhis influence is insurmountable. Our band name is a combination of the Blues Brothers and a scene from
Ghostbusters,
a film he wrote with Harold Ramis.
So this guy really affected me in a lot of ways, and meeting him was particularly sweet because he liked the way I played harmonica. A couple of months after seeing him in Los Angeles, Blues Traveler appeared at the House of Blues in New Orleans as part of the
Live from the House of Blues
series that aired on TBS. He joined us as Elwood Blues on “Rock Me Baby.” Later, when we did the movie, I heard him practicing because I was playing the harmonica parts for the little kid Buster Blues (Evan Bonifant), so we had to duel, and I still can't describe the honor of hearing him sweat me.
My favorite part of
Blues Brothers 2000
was getting to play “Can't Turn You Lose” with the Blues Brothers band. You get to hear my harmonica solo, and it was the harmonica solo I had always planned if I ever got to play with the Blues Brothers band. So getting to play that with them and even getting to play the kid's harmonica parts were like a series of bucket list items, and it has a philosophical importance because technically my sound is the future of the Blues Brothers. I can take a certain pride about my place in that mythology.
I remember Dan looking at me one night. He was beaming with prideâ“Look at what I helped to do”âand I felt really proud that he felt proud.
One of my less successful would-be film appearances was in
Jack Frost.
Michael Keaton played a harmonica player in Colorado in a blues band, and he was late for a gig, crashed his car, and died but came back as a snowman to watch over his family. They were going to use Blues Traveler for his band. As an enticement, I was going to play Santa Claus in this little village where the kids were running amok, whipping snowballs at me and just going crazy, so I'd say “Santa's getting angry, kids!” It was a funny scene, but there was this large, older kid who really enjoyed pelting me with ice. All the other kids were first and second graders, but he was a fifth grader, and he'd whip it in my face, and I'd get really hurt by this kid with every take. So I
saved this ice ball when I figured no one was looking and tagged this kid.
Bam!
I hit him really hard, right in the face, just before they said, “Roll 'em!” He cried out, “Nobody does that to me!” and started attacking me. People had to drag him out while I “innocently” asked, “Is he okay? I don't know what's wrong with the little guy.” Strangely I didn't get in the movie. My theory is he was the son or nephew of somebody really high up in the production. So I was supposed to be in that movie, but some little fifth grader stopped me cold. But looking back, I do have to say it was still worth it to tag that little fucker in the face. Santa did get pretty angry.
While I'm on the subject of movies, in 1995 we all had an opportunity to appear in
Kingpin,
the Farrelly Brothers Amish bowling film with Woody Harrelson, Randy Quaid, and Bill Murray. I heard they really wanted to get Hootie. Although we weren't quite as famous, we
were
available. Blues Traveler performs “But Anyway” during the end credits. To this day, if someone hasn't heard of Blues Traveler, that's my best shot at getting them to know who I am: I explain that we're in that Amish bowling movie.
