Cover Music

I have one last Jon Cotton post.

We didn’t start out as song writers. In fact, what we played depended more on our abilities than our taste.

We were playing Rolling Stones, Neil Young, Allman Brothers, Canned Heat, Jethro Tull, Spirit, Cream, and more. If we were capable of playing it, we considered it fantastic music.

I was very lucky that, Dominic could pick out just about anything on the guitar and show it to me. I’m still amazed at how quickly he picked up the flute. His sister had one, he decided we needed a flute player, and there you have it.

Somewhere along the line we found a couple of clarinets. I used to step outside Dom and Benet’s Laclede Town townhouse and use the pay phone on the corner to call my mom or girlfriend.

I was out there one night improvising strange scales on one of them when there was an answer in the distance from the other. We concocted a really interesting piece as Dom marched over to join me.

Across the street, a hippie couple sat in the grass marveling at our music. Ron and Lisa became good friends and when I was 17, Dom and I hitchhiked to New York to stay with them for a while. I think we left with two bucks.

Just after we write Webster Hangover, John Steffen left the band. He was in the process of becoming a priest.

The Schaeffer’s long time friend, Jimmy Hill joined the band as bassist.

My friend Gary Peek has always been sensitive about music without bass and he was quick to point out its absence in Webster Hangover. That’s probably because he plays one.

Jimmy was into Jazz and had us playing Killer Joe almost immediately. He was also funny as Hell.

I not sure how long he was in the band or why he left, but he was replaced by Tracy Wynkoop and the rest is Earwacks history.

Jimmy has been working for the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee’s Barney Frank. Frank just retired, so maybe I should find out if he wants to get back in a band.

This recording is the band paying Jethro Tull’s Driving Song. I found it on the back of the same cassette Webster Hangover is on. It’s pretty accurate if I do say so myself, right down to Ian Anderson’s flute vamps at the end.

I don’t really have enough old pics to choose from and I used footage from some of my old films.

Check it out---------

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vrd743wpgQo