Roadhouse Blues Harmonica Player Interview | John Sebastian
John Sebastian talks Roadhouse Blues, the Doors, Crosby, Stills & Nash and performing at Woodstook.
John Sebastian, frontman and primary songwriter for the Lovin' Spoonful, is a legendary figure in the world of rock and folk music. Rising to fame in the 1960s, the Lovin' Spoonful's blend of folk, rock, and pop produced a string of hits that defined an era. Songs like "Do You Believe in Magic," "Daydream," and "Summer in the City" showcased Sebastian's knack for catchy melodies and thoughtful lyrics, leading to the band's induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and earning his own place in the Songwriters Hall of Fame.
Beyond the Spoonful, Sebastian's solo career has been equally impactful. His unplanned performance at Woodstock in 1969 became one of the festival's iconic moments. In 1976, he topped the charts with the theme song for the TV show "Welcome Back, Kotter," which remains a beloved classic.
Throughout his career, Sebastian has collaborated with many American music legends, including Crosby, Stills & Nash, the Doors, and Bob Dylan.
Born and raised in New York City, John Sebastian is a talented harmonica player with a love for the instrument and respect for its history. He is also a jug band fanatic.
In this freewheeling and expansive interview, we delve into John Sebastian's remarkable journey, exploring the era of the folk revival, as well as exploring John’s illustrious career, creative process, and the enduring legacy of his music.
Liam Ward [LW]:
John, thank you so much for joining me. I really appreciate it.
John Sebastian [JS]:
I'm just glad to hear that there are still people interested in the harmonica!
LW:
Well, I certainly am, and everyone who follows my website is definitely interested in the harmonica. Hopefully we can talk a bit at harp today. Something I’d really like to know is how jug band music relates to your playing (harmonica and otherwise) because obviously that's been part of your story.
JS:
Around 1963 or so, someone said to me, “Oh, we're in a jug band, and so were you come to rehearsal.” And I had to say, “what's a jug band?” because this is when Stefan Grossman was way far ahead of me on the musical trail. So I started listening to jug band music and discovered [harmonica players] Will Shade and Noah Lewis. And I think hearing those players were every bit as important to me as the Chicago guys. This was a more mournful sound, and it wasn't electric. It wasn't, you know, through a great big amp.
I had already been a very lucky boy because my dad being a professional harmonica player, very frequently did shows that included a variety of harmonica players. You know, they'd have the Harmonicats, and then they'd have the classical guy, which would be my dad, then they'd have the blues guy, which would be Sonny Terry. So by the time I was 17, if I walked into a room with Sonny in it (and this was, like, the coolest thing that ever happened), when I walk in Sonny goes, “Is that Johnny Sebastian's boy?”. Oh, man, you know, critics can't touch me for another three or four years when I hear that! So, yeah, I was sort of in the midst of the New York overflow of great harmonica players, and I did eventually hear an awful lot of them.
LW:
I didn’t actually know that your father played harmonica to a high standard. I feel very ignorant admitting that! Tell me more about him…
JS:
Modestly, I can say he was the greatest that has ever lived. And I can show you stacks of European newspaper articles exclaiming him to be “il Paganini dell'armonica bocca” (the Paganini of the harmonica). My father really was a singular character, and somebody who really understood a lot about classical music very early. He was the guy the State Department would send to difficult locations because the instrument was so small that it was not like sending a cellist. So these little things made it possible. He was in Cambodia before the Vietnam War. He was in Africa, he did 40 dates in Africa, and this went on in Asia as well. He was good friends with Chamber Huang and in later years, I would I would talk to Chamber Huang during shows and and I found him to be such a smart, engaging man. He was a delight.
LW:
So you’re growing up in New York City, your dad is an established, fabulous harmonica player. At what point, well, what point did you start playing the harmonica? And at which point did it become a thought that maybe you could actually do this for a living?
JS:
Well, I have pictures from Look magazine of me in my father's arms, with the 64 chromatic in my mouth. Now I didn't really start playing, you know, until the advanced age of more like five, and all I was doing was inhaling and exhaling like Bob Dylan, you know, pretty much the entry level harmonica playing. And then at a certain point, dad wrote a little piece for me called JB’s Happy Harmonica that blossomed into a children's record, and it can still be found, written by my mother, and my dad did the narrating and the harmonica playing. So that was wonderful. And I guess somewhere around 14 or 15, dad came home with a silver acetate of Sonny Terry. And he just said, “Hey, listen to this”. And I just thought, “How is this guy doing this?” This was what I came away with. My father said exactly the same returning from a gig in West Memphis, where he said, “You know, I heard some guy on the radio, and he was playing the harmonica, but it was just amazing, and I don't know what he was doing.”
Years later, my dad came to my house at the same time that Paul Butterfield was hanging out because he's a Woodstocker at that time. And he shakes Paul's hand and says, “Oh, Paul, this is such a delight to meet you. You play so well.” And Paul says, “Oh, Mr Sebastian, I'm not even in the same game as what you're doing.”
LW:
Was there ever a chance that you would go down a classical route as opposed to going into pop music?
JS:
No, I considered it way too much of a challenge, franky. What I saw my father do, it just was a miracle to me. What I was doing was folk music, having fun, learning the guitar, inhaling and exhaling. Yeah, nothing too ambitious.
LW:
The way you describe joining a jug band - not quite knowing what it was - sounds similar to the organic way that skiffle music appeared in Britain in the 1950s, and suddenly everyone was playing. Ordinary people, working class kids, were playing music all of a sudden. And of course, that had a big effect on the formation of the Beatles and a million other bands.
JS:
Yeah, and that was such a wonderful discovery when that [Lonnie Donegan] record made it over to the US, because I did already know the Rock Island Line, because I'd actually sat as a little kid with Lead Belly playing. So it wasn't brand new, but the guy was very alluring, very good.
LW:
I read somewhere you spent some time in Italy as a kid. Is that true?
JS:
That was a direct result of my father's classical skills. Dad was touring, and then the minute that I got to be about five years old, he would take the family to Italy, park us in Fiesole and begin his tour in Europe that way, rather than say ‘bye bye’ for two or three months, which actually was a thing that would happen in earlier days in America. Dad would get in a station wagon, and you'd see him in a month and a half, two months, because there wasn't any tricks to it. If you were a classical musician, you weren't getting on a plane to begin with.
LW:
So if we fast forward to you playing some music as a teenager, how does the Lovin’ Spoonful come about?
JS:
Well, it comes about as a direct result of just being on that Bleecker and MacDougal scene [in Greenwich Village] at the Gaslight Cafe. I played with Tom Paxton. And Tom Paxton kind of provided a conduit for me to play with John Hurt, and so it was in pieces. And the other thing that was happening was I was meeting totally by chance, Erik Jacobsen, we took adjoining apartments on the fifth floor of a nice little dump in Little Italy, and I would hear him playing his favourite records in the morning, and he would hear me. And after about a week, we were going into our apartments at the same time. I said, “I really am enjoying hearing the Staple Singers every morning”, and he's going, “Man, and that Ronettes album. There is nothing better to hear in the morning”. And suddenly we were joined at the hip. The next thing Jacobsen said, “I want to play a guy I'm producing, and I want you to tell me what you think”. So he plays me three or four tunes, and I say, “I think that this is the most important stylist since Elvis”. He flips, he goes, “That's what I thought. Only I'm trying to convince these record companies that”. Of course, it's Timmy Hardin, at a very early stage. And suddenly I became a participant in Timmy's earliest recordings. And at the same time I was meeting because of a new friendship with Fred Neil. I was meeting Felix Pappalardi. And these people all come into this Lovin’ Spoonful sphere in this weird, magnetic dog way all of a sudden, where we've got Jacobsen making records and hiring me to sing them, Felix to arrange them and play bass. And that went on for a while. Then I get hired by Valentine Pringle, an aspiring singer of the Belafonte general school. I think Belafonte took him under his wing, hearing his amazing baritone voice. I mean, this was a fabulous instrument. He happened to be opening a show at the Village Gate at which Lightnin’ Hopkins was the opening act, and by this time, I had kind of forged a lead boy relationship with Lightnin’ even though he wasn't blind. I could show him any place in the village, and he was usually playing in one of the clubs, and it was very easy for me to make these moves and accommodate him with the white club owners and other the stuff that he found taxing or uncomfortable. So this job, Valentine Pringle’s accompanist spools up big time on two tunes. I was backstage. I was there with Lightnin’. Nobody could tell me anything, I'm 16, I know everything! Valentine heard me out when I told him, “Look, I wouldn't make a mistake on battle Hymn of the Republic, it's your big tune. And he didn't start in the right key for you”. The Village Gate dressing rooms are adjoining. So Val comes around to Lightnin’s dressing room, Lightnin’s reading the paper. And Val says, “Mr Hopkins, how is this young man, this guitarist?” Lightnin’ goes, “Oh, he's bad. He's bad.” And that was enough of a compliment to get me a job with Valentine Pringle.
Our second gig was in Washington, DC, at a club called the Shadows. Now the Shadows was was owned and run by Bob Cavallo. He would later be the Spoonful’s manager, and he would later run like everything: Warner Brothers at one point, Disney Records at another. By this time, I'm hired by Valentine, and I play that gig, and we go away, and then we get hired again, and we come back and we do it again, but each time, the other act in the Shadows is the Big 3, which is the antecedent of the Mugwumps. And this is a folk group, which Cass describes as “fash fash fash fash”, that style. So we were always the other act. And we started making jokes, and Cass would come up the stairs on her way to the Big 3 gig as we were coming down as their opening act. And she's doing Valentine's act as she comes up the stairs, and it just set such a hilarious tone that we became fast friends, and then the Big 3 dissolved, and the Mugwumps got going. Now the Mugwumps were almost all the way to rock and roll, but not all the way. The problem was that it wasn't like these new groups like the Stones, the Beach Boys etc. Everybody was self contained in that everybody's playing instruments, everybody's writing, and when they record, they record with the same cast. Now as you know, this was not the technique that a number of American acts took during that period. They went straight to California, hired Hal Blaine and made some records with those guys. But the Mugwumps problem was all of those problems. Now they did pick some good songwriters. They used Timmy Hardin songs and Fred Neil songs. I got in on a couple of tunes I think, and it was before the right thing got going. They eventually had to play the Peppermint Lounge, and that was when they faced the horror of being essentially a folk rock act. So that route fell apart after that. By this time, me and [Zal] Yanovsky were hanging out an awful lot. Cass Elliot had already introduced us in an afternoon. We’re watching Ed Sullivan, watching the Beatles’ first show. We had our guitars with us. We're playing along, and we're going, “He's Travis picking. Let's get this guy,” It was like that. So immediately after that show me and Zal found ourselves wandering around the village going, “Man, we can do this and we play with thumb picks, we're ahead of this game”. And so, you know, that was sort of the way that all emerged. Erik Jacobsen really had great talents as a producer, so much so that when Phil Spector came down to our little club that we were playing and was sort of listening when the actual proposal came through, we said, “No, no, we gotta go with Jacobson”, because he was hip to all this, you know, Erik Jacobsen's what he'd done before coming to town, was being the banjo player in the Knob Lick Upper 10000. Could you come up with a more collegiate-sounding bluegrass band? They were a real thing, and they did most of the year on the road with other aspiring kind of folky and rock type groups. Jacobsen starts producing little test pressings that we do. We get turned down by every single record company in New York City; that's a lot of companies, until Kama Sutra comes along and sees something in our little trial of ‘Do You Believe in Magic?’
LW:
You’ve alluded to the way different bands cross paths, and what could have been in the folk scene at that time. I heard that you turned down a chance to be in Bob Dylan's touring band at one point. And also to be the fourth member of Crosby Stills and Nash before they went to Neil Young.
JS:
So, understand that the years and florid reporters kind of make this a bigger deal than it ever was, but we'll take them one by one.
Here's what happened with Crosby, Stills and Nash. They were in Los Angeles. They were rehearsing. They had a clutch of admirers around them. The Spoonful came through town. You know, we're New York guys. We don't quite keep to the same aesthetic of telling your pal that he's the best thing that ever happened and they'll never be another him. And our reaction was more like, “You really have to come to New York or the East Coast where guys will tell you you're full of shit when you are” and so that was the way that began. And in fact, Stephen and I were probably the closest at that stage. Stephen actually brought the group to Sag Harbour, where I was living with my first wife and having rehearsals, sometimes near their rented situation, but more and more in the sort of a rehearsal garage, and they started using that more frequently. And in that garage was one of a lot of different instruments, including a kit. Now, I'm the worst drummer ever, but I love to sit around and flump along with other guys doing whatever we're doing. So I was sort of doing that. I'm playing with my feet and my hands, not even with sticks, and they're working on some of these tunes. And Stephen’s thoughts occur like lightning bolts. And he goes, “What are we doing? We don't need a drummer. When Sebastian flumps along, it's the best because it doesn't overpower the acoustic guitars. And our voices are the thing that's up front, and there isn't any boom-pap-boom-boom-pap going on,” and we’re all laughing going “yeah, man”, and Stephen goes on, “Then we’d have another songwriter that could be in the band, and then he'd be contributing too,” and this lasted about five minutes, and then we passed around another roach and went on with whatever we'd been doing, and the idea was completely forgotten at that point. You know, now I consider myself a kind of ancillary, distant cousin of that man because of that relationship in the beginning, and I still consider those guys my pals today.
LW:
So the Spoonful are in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and you've also personally been inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, and some of the people that have covered your songs: Dolly Parton, the Everly Brothers, Tom Petty, Johnny Cash, and many others. What a great compliment from all of them.
JS:
The Johnny Cash cover was an amazing event for me, because ‘I Walk the Line’ was the first 45 record that I stole.
LW:
Did you steal many records?
JS:
A little bit!
JS:
But how about Kate Smith? Doris Day. They really trump some of the lesser lights.
LW:
I should really get back a bit to harmonica stuff and say you’ve played some pretty massive session jobs including the harp part to Roadhouse Blues. An incredibly famous harmonica piece. As a teacher, the amount of times people have asked me about that riff.
JS:
The whole thing came about with a kind of an apologetic request from Paul Rothchild, who goes, “I know you guys don't like this band, I know you think it's all pretty boy, but would you come in and do this job? Because we need harmonica on this one tune. And I said, “That'd be great”. He says, “And for extra fun, we've got Lonnie Mack playing bass”, to which I said, “Now you couldn't keep me out of this session”. And so that provided an entry into Lonnie, who I ended up playing with back here in Woodstock years later. And we both discovered we tuned down with very heavy strings, that was sort of a tactic both of us, because we're both thumb picking kind of guys. And it was a very nice session, I can't tell you that Jim fell on the floor and rolled and screamed. It was relatively calm, but Paul had mentioned something. Paul Rothchild and I had now been working together as producer and hired hand for a lot of years. You know, Fred Neil, Judy Collins… quite a number of things that that I had done with him, and so we were friends on maybe a deeper level than most artist producers are, you know, and I think that that that very much helped him to decide that I should be the guy to help him in his quest to perhaps toughen up the Doors a little bit. But the other thing that he said was, “You know, John, I think that maybe if you were there, Jim might behave a little better.”
LW:
Given your high-profile career, did Hohner ever think that maybe we should make signature model and write your name on a harmonica?
JS:
There’s still time! But no, they really didn't pay attention to me, even when I said, “Okay, I'll buy a new set of instruments”. My guitar, all my instruments date back to Johnnie Johnson and Hubert Sumlin, if that tells you anything. I never got any word back. But for many years, I would see the Seydel booth when I'd go to the NAM show or harmonica-centric get togethers, and Mr Seydel would always speak to me. And I tried the instruments, and I thought, “Geez, that's hard to ignore.” I see that they're a little more demanding in a certain way, but the results are so big that I I've now switched over to Seydel.
LW:
So which model of Seydel do you play?
JS:
The one I like is the Seydel 1847 Classic, the one with the maple comb. I'm not playing the fully stainless steel one.
LW:
Yesterday I went to a harmonica distributor and the guy passed me one of the fully stainless steel harps. They're so heavy!
JS:
I had great fun about a week ago because I just had to go down to Memphis. They asked me to represent Gus Cannon in the jug band category, because he had won, he had won an award on this particular year. And so I went to Memphis, and I'm reading who's on the bill, and Charlie Musselwhite is there, who I've always wanted to sit around with. And we end up spending about 45 minutes sitting in adjoining chairs. I said, “Jesus, if they only had a camera, Seydel has a great ad here", because all we're doing is going, “Yeah, you know, you got to put a little more into it, but you get so much more out”.
LW:
I interviewed Charlie and he was a real gentleman. And he’s a really interesting player. You hear him, and you think, “What position is he playing?” While I’m thinking about technique, I don’t imagine you sitting down taking lessons with your father.
JS:
We never sat down and did what you're talking about but dad was making instruction albums and instruction 45 during that period, and so I would in passing hear them as he was maybe going through it to see if there were any clicks and pops. And so I learned. I learned tonguing. And so it really was that moment when I heard Sonny Terry's Fox Chase on the silver acetate that dad brought home that was so much of a thunderbolt, because somehow I understood that we were in this dominant position, not in a tonic position, and that really made a big difference.
LW:
That lightbulb moment! “Aha, it's second position”, or “it's draw notes”, or, “Oh, it's not where I thought it was”. But you're not just a harmonica player, you're a singer, you're a guitarist, you're a songwriter, and you also play the autoharp. And I believe that you were playing on Randy VanWarmer’s song ‘Just When I Needed You Most’.
JS:
So that was one of those tracks that just went together. And it wasn't all the autoharp, it was just the way the conga player was laid in there. And, that was a very easy session to do because of how dug-in the whole thing was. I was an overdubber. I was not on the original track.
LW:
I also heard that you were on a Timothy Leary album and that you jammed with Jimi Hendrix.
JS:
Yeah. Hey, this stuff happens. You live in Greenwich Village. Sooner or later, you're going to be the only guy that's still awake and come around the corner to Electric Ladyland. So, yeah I was an occasional participant over there.
LW:
It’s great to talk to a harp player who has a jug band influence because I think Will Shade, Noah Lewis and other jug band players get overlooked and not disrespected, but just not remembered in the same way that the blues guys do.
JS:
Part of it is that we don't know a lot about Will Shade or Noah Lewis so their playing has to say it all for us.
I’m going a bit off here but your listeners should know about the long lost Sebastian album. Here's what happened. Me and Arlen Roth got together, and Arlen said, “Have you ever done any of these Spoonful tunes as an instrumental?” I've been too afraid to touch that material ever. He goes, “Well, let's go do that.” He sort of pushed me over the cliff, and we started recording. And there's an album of really beautiful guitar playing, especially from Arlen, and wonderful backgrounds from the MonaLisa Twins, who some of your listeners and watchers may be aware of, and I also have Jeff and Maria Muldaur singing backgrounds on that. On the same album, maybe not on the same mic, but on the same album. It was a lot of fun to make. We had a huge company called BMG behind us. The wind really got beneath our sails. And then three weeks later, the whole division that we were signed to disappeared. The president was suddenly taken a little nutty or something. And so this is an album that has no home, and that I welcome conversations from anybody who really realises that in Europe, even more than in the US, that there's an interest in that body of work. One guy who got that first week or two said, “This is the best. This is comfort food. We need this.” And so there is a record, and it's John Sebastian and Arlen Roth exploring the Spoonful songbook.
LW:
Wow, and it’s all instrumentals?
JS:
No, we caved on a couple. “I'll just put a vocal on, what the hell…” And we’d say, “Yeah, we could leave the vocal”.
LW:
So when was this recorded? How long ago was this?
JS:
This was in the middle of the pandemic. We had just started, we had all our basic tracks, and then, all of a sudden, nobody could go anywhere. So then we started going to our individual engineer studio situation. Arlen has one. I have one with Chris Anderson, and would get together, record these various overdubs, which we were both very used to doing. It's just a very easy course of action. We finished our parts. It took about a year to assemble it all, and then we were promoting the hell out of it for three weeks. But like I say, it needs a home. And if you have any ideas, or those of you that you are in contact with do, it's completely adequate return for harmonica, whatever.
LW:
Yeah, it sounds like it needs a home… it's been created, and it should be out there for people to hear.
JS:
So it is, I guess, available on certain non-physical platforms, but now suddenly there's no regular old CDs and vinyl, and the vinyl sounds so good it kills me.
LW:
So where is where is your focus at the minute? Are you performing and recording? Are you doing other, completely separate things away from music?
JS:
Well, various little recording opportunities come along pretty regularly. I also have a standing offer from Cindy Cashdollar to join them on a honky tonk that happens now and then. I'm just a rhythm guitar player on that, and Jimmy Vivino is a frequent caller. So there's a lot of last minute stuff, but I'm not really touring a lot with my name on the marquee. I'm mainly working to keep my calluses and enjoy guitar playing. I’m doing some shows that are me and Jimmy sitting around telling stories about Johnnie Johnson.
LW:
So you're still on the East Coast? Are you still in New York?
JS:
I'm out about two hours north of New York in Woodstock.
LW:
Since you mentioned Woodstock, I should ask you about appearing unscheduled at Woodstock Festival.
JS:
Oh yeah, so what happened was I was not scheduled as you know, I simply had found a ride from an old friend who happened to be operating a helicopter. Well, not operating, but he had a helicopter full of the Incredible String Band’s instruments. And he said, “Look, you got to get into this helicopter if you want to go there”, because there's no other way. And so I got in there and we drove over that amazing site of nothing but sleeping bags and tents. And it was an amazing, amazing moment. When we landed, I had very much free access. There was no watching out for various stars, that would come later. At this point there was complete access. If you wanted to wander backstage, you might have to say hi to somebody you knew, but that was the only credential that there was, and the Spoonful had these runs where we really encountered almost everybody that was an actual band, actually on the road. And so that gave me access, I think so I had a wonderful sleep in a truck and a couple of things that got me to Saturday, when I was just on the stage. Looking at other stuff and both of the primary people were on the stage at that particular moment, Michael and Alan, and they're just talking, saying, “Yes, really tough. We are probably not going to be able to get all this water off the stage. So I guess we pretty much need to have a guy who could play to the crowd with one acoustic guitar.” Now these guys, they're both on either side of me, and I'm listening to this, and I'm feeling like, “Yeah, I'm part of this conversation. Yeah, that's, that's pretty much what we need”. And then I realised these, both guys are looking at me, and I go, “Guys, I don't even have a guitar.” And Chip Monck in that fantastic voice, goes, “Well, John, you have several minutes to find one.” So I run downstairs, where Timmy Hardin, having done his set, is sort of lying down, taking it easy. I know he's got a guitar. So I say “Let me have the Harmony Sovereign for a few minutes”. I take his guitar, I’m checking the tuning as I'm running up the stairs, and walked out there and played for the people. That was that.
LW:
Something that I find interesting and that I’d like your take on, is how musicians and artists view themselves. You're a singer, you're a guitarist, you're a songwriter, you're a harmonica player, you're an autoharp player. Some people view themselves as entertainers or as songwriters, guitarists etc etc. So how do you view yourself? Do you even consider this sort of thing?
JS:
You know how I came to my identity was like this. I was learning all of these things during that folk era where a lot of instruments were available, either your friend or somebody played them. And you know, like autoharp. There were two sisters in my summer camp that had played autoharp, and I realised, “Oh my god, they're playing the same way that mother Mabel played on her guitar”, and that's Carter picking. And now I've automatically, kind of accidentally learned Carter picking and then I’m in love with the five string banjo, and I eventually buy a White Lady, and I have that for quite a while, until I desperately need a more serious guitar. I'd have to say that my top layer is multi-instrumentalist because I get a lot of things where it’s, “Man, could you do that thing you do with the six string banjo?”. And then the layer below that, I'm a guitar player, everything grew out of that.
LW:
Often if someone plays guitar, and they do it well, and that's been part of their process and their songwriting, it seems to be part of their identity. I mean, I have a guitar gathering dust. There’s no calluses on my hand!
JS:
Yes, with songwriting obviously, the guitar is so, so useful.
LW:
The only things I’ve picked up over the years are novelty noises for the jug bands I play with.
JS:
Anything that you can find on the web of Fritz Richmond, soak it up. Tremendously informative, moved the mechanics of the wash tub forward considerably. He got out of the Army, and was in the Cambridge folk scene. He was playing with everybody, the Charles River Valley Boys, and almost anybody that played, he would sit in on top well so then he's starting to go, “You know, this would sound a lot better if you didn't have all this galvanisation”. So somehow or another, he's in Portland, and he goes to the factory, and he says, “How about a tub that has less galvanisation?” And they go, “Well, it wouldn't hold water. You don't want that.” And he says, “It's not to hold water”. So that’s one step. Years later, he says, “You know, could we get it even before that first galvanization that they do like while it's still a flat piece of thing?” Well, now the guys just get into this out at the Old Norwester, whatever it's called, factory, and they make a job that way. Then couple years later, he's coming in, and they say, “Hey, didn't I say that we got some roll of stainless steel. We're not using that. You won't try making a tub out of that”. Well, that was the ship, man. That thing was great. But Fritz was also doing things like, instead of a laundry line type rope, he was using the wires that come off a helicopter directional or whatever. The whole directional thing happens because of some very, very slim wires that are twisted together and so on. He begins using that. Then he realises that to do that, he has to toughen up his left hand, so he gets a garden glove and a nickel, and he sews the nickel on the side of the garden glove. Now the nickel is softer than the wire, so he's not killing the wire when he uses this nickel when he wants to go, he can do it. And so to me, it was just a miracle. I've been waiting for somebody who's interested enough to begin to reproduce that. It was just an amazing period, watching him evolve the tub more and more. I bought him a big bass drum case for it all.
LW:
A jug band near me called Railroad Bill used to use wash tub and it's an amazing thing. I've ended up playing all the extras, the novelty stuff if you like because the other guys are playing guitar and banjo and whatever. But the saw, I'm really enjoying the saw. I do cheat and just put loads of vibrato on every note so I'm somewhere near, you know! So it's the Yeah, the spooky Scooby Doo sort of sound, rather than, I've heard some, some fabulous saw players who get a beautiful tone, True Tone, you know, yeah, but I can't handle maybe one day. Well, too bad, the rumble, stutter started happening. But yeah, have you ever heard any of the J band stuff? I really enjoyed your jug band album ‘I Want My Roots’. You’ve got the Yank Rachell Boogie on there. He was a hero to one of my jug band friends who started a jug band in order to play his music. Did you get to spend much time with Yank?
JS:
Yes, he’s on that one. That's him. He kills it, man. We’re going, “I don't know, he's in his late 80s. Is he gonna be able to do it?” He kills us. Tell your friend to contact me next time he is in the US. Anyway, I think I've got to get myself together and go and vote, because it’s the local elections.
LW:
OK, John. I'm actually doing a session this evening, recording some jug stuff, so I'll go off and do that. But thank you so much again for sitting down to talk with me. Thank you, and keep up tapping that thing.
JS:
You can hear me tapping it.
LW:
Cheers, John!
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