Steve's Place
An Interview 
with 
Alvino Bennett

    If you have had the pleasure of experiencing the Robin Trower Band live in the past five years, you are familiar with the musical talents of 
Mr. Alvino Bennett. 
   Alvino's musical history is a long and impressive one. I must admit while doing my research, I was staggered to learn how extensive his background is.  Alvino has played with artists like;  Soul II Soul, Chaka Khan, The Isley Brothers, Sheena Easton, L.T.D.,  Stevie Wonder, B.B. King, Gerald Levert,  Earth, Wind & Fire, Eddie Levert,  Heavy D, Michelle Shocked,  Little Richard, Alvin Hayes, Willie Dixon, Koko Taylor, Kenny Loggins, Mighty Joe Young, The Temptations,  Les McCann, Sam Moore,  Natalie Cole, and Bo Diddley... just to name a few! 
   When we started to set up this interview, we talked on the phone about how we wanted to do it. In the past, I have become comfortable with the format of being quite chronological in the asking of questions, sending a hard copy to the person, and then allowing them time to respond in writing. When we talked,  Alvino said, "Steve, if I have to type up all the responses, it could take a year to finish!"  So we decided to try doing it over the phone. This was a first for me and admittedly I was a bit nervous about doing it this way and unsure of how it would turn out. 
   On the day of the interview, I had notes upon notes all spread out on the floor in front of me, in chronological order and thought that I would just go through the questions like I had planned and it would be pretty straight forward and cover the questions I wanted to ask. Unfortunately, or fortunately for that matter, you can't dictate where a conversation is going to go... particularly when we spoke for over two hours. 
  Once it was completed and transcribed, I loved the way it came out, so I  decided to leave it in it's entirety... so here it is..... drum roll please...

 
SS -    First off, I want to congratulate you on the completion of another outstanding tour.  I hear it was just dynamite.

AB -    It was, yeah.  It was a really, really good show.  It was long and hard after that... the terrorist attacks here. Nobody really wanted to go out and do anything, you know.  It was like, "Oh man, this just ruins everything."  After going to England (for rehearsals), we're meeting, and we're talking, and stuff, and we were getting prepared, as we do every year, and I get back home and  within the next couple of days, ya know, I'm being awakened at the front door by my neighbour and it's like, "Hey man, this is what's going on," and I'm going, 'Oh man.'  So I go and watch T.V. going, 'Oh no,' and never really thought at that moment of the tour.  Just,  'WHAT is going on in this world right now?'  So the decision was made that we would wait awhile and go out a week late.... and everybody that we ran into on tour, all the people,  none of us really talked about it, no one ever really talked about it, but everybody was in good spirits and I think people just needed that at that time.   To just go out and have a good time and... not that you're forgetting anything, but it's like...

SS -  Well, you need that break...

AB -  Yeah...  yeah.  So it was  good for us, and for all of the fans.

SS -   I got a lot of mail from people saying it was a very tight show... you and Richard had kind of gelled... because you and Richard had really only played together for the first time last year.

AB -  Yeah, last year.  2001 was the second time we played together.  You know, once again, me... I'm funny I guess to a certain degree, playing with bass players...

SS -  (laughs)

AB - (Laughs) I just have this thing that you've really got to push me in order for me to push the band, and believe me, I'm not lazy at all.  It's just certain things that guys have to do... so when Richard first came on board in 2000, it was like, 'OK.... so I  gotta work this hard with this guy,' then finding out that this was the first time playing bass... and I was going 'OH NO!'

SS - Yeah, that must have been a pretty scary...

AB - Oh well yeah... you know, but knowing he was a great musician anyway... he plays keyboards, he plays guitar and he's a great singer, so his melodic... his melodic... what's the word I want... ah, the way... because he is a musician, because he does play those melodic instruments, then, you know, it would be no problem in playing bass and guitarists approach bass in a different way anyway.

SS -  Oh man, I remember talking to Richard when we did his interview, and you know, that always impressed me because as a guitar player myself, I know I pick up a bass, and play it totally different from how a real bass player would play it....

AB - Always different,  yeah.  Well that's like myself.    I play bass, I play some guitar...

SS - Oh do you?

AB - ... and keyboards, for writing purposes only.  I dare not go on stage and try to play (laughs). I approach it differently.  I've had guys come over to do sessions for me and I'll say, 'Well here's the part I came up with... ,' and it's like, "What in the hell's that?"  What they listen back to is like,  from a drummer's perspective on what  I would play as a bass player.. and being a drummer, how I play it.  It's not the melodic aspect happening, it's the rhythmic thing that I'm doing.  It's not that I'm playing a bunch of notes, I think I'm thinking like,  'bass, kick, drum,' as I play, you know.  How closely related can you get being a drummer who plays drums and bass guitar.

SS -  (laughs) Yeah, yeah exactly.

AB -   It's like that one man band lot, like Prince... they do everything.  So Richard came in, and I just stared talking to him.  We started buying lots of CDs from the 60's ...

SS -  Like what kinda stuff from the 60's?

AB -   Well we'd get stuff like... I'd get blues stuff, I got lots of Motown, lots of Stax Staff, lots of stuff from Atlantic, on the east coast. We got stuff from those guys that did a lot of Aretha Franklin, stuff down south. Roger Hawkins, and those guys, and just listened to it.  I know at first he probably thought... "Oh bloody hell.  I don't want to listen to this," but he was great, and it was like, every day in our vehicle that we were riding in, that big S.U.V.   So it's like he would get into the back, and I would sit in the middle, and I would say, ' Put this on.  Hey Richard, check this out.  Listen to what this guy's doing.  How he's doing it.  Listen to that tone.'  Then of course we'd listen to other things.  We'd  listen to Hendrix, and we'd listen to Zeppelin, a lot of those are my favourites also, but Richard was possibly very young, if not alive at that time anyway (laughs).  Yeah, 60's so, I just played all these things, and said, 'Listen to what the bass player's doing.  How he's approaching it,' and with Robin's music, Robin had given Richard everything that he knows as far as Trower's music... as far as the songs that we play... note for note for all the different guys that played on all the stuff.  Then as we went on, I would go, 'You know, experiment a little bit.  Experiment with your style.  Set your bass rig up differently.  Go for the style that you're hearing as we go on.'  Damn,  and the guy just got so good, and this year was quite impressive.  I was like, 'Jeez, how long have you been playing?'  (laughs)

SS - I got a lot of people writing saying you guys were extremely tight.

AB - Yeah, it was great.  It was great, and I think a lot of it also  was the emotional things we were all going through, because of the terrorist acts.  When you are in any kind of a state emotionally, and being a musician, that's gonna come out...

SS -  Oh absolutely.

AB - You go, and you're watching  the news, and you go.... 'Why in the hell....,' and then you go to a gig that night, and that comes out, meaning it can be very, very good, and Robin is the kind of person, and a player... he's a very dynamic person.  I know a lot of people don't get a chance to talk with him, you know, back stage with him, go out and eat dinner with him, and all that stuff.   We see another side of the guy, and he's a very nice guy, you know...

SS - Yeah, when I was down there, one of the things that got me about meeting Bill Lordan, and all of you, was that everyone's just really...... normal, you know...

AB - Right, exactly, yeah.

SS - ... and Robin... when I got the opportunity to sit down and talk with him, it was amazing, because it felt like I was 15, you know...

AB -  (laughs)

SS-  ... and here I was, sitting with this guy, and we ended up... when we were in The Galaxy, we ended up in the dressing room by ourselves for a few minutes, because you guys were  standing out on the landing there talking.

AB - Right, I remember yeah

SS -  It was an amazing experience for me, and to get to know that guys like that are just normal people and they have families and they do this...

AB - Right, oh yeah.  Well I remember when I first met Robin, I got the call to do Bryan Ferry's tour and that was in ah....

SS - You've played with a lot of people.  I've tried to listen to a bunch of it, and it was quite impressive (still shuffling paper).

AB - Yeah, I've had a great career I have to say.  It's been so wonderful and now I'm trying to move into this other part of it.

SS - The producing part of it?

AB - Yeah.

SS - What do you like about producing?

AB - The thing I really like about producingis the creative part. Bringing out the best in the vocalist and the musicians. Having them feel comfortable, so that they are able to bring the deepest of emotions to the song, because as we all know, it's all about the song.

SS - Absolutly. 
       Okay, there is one thing I did want to mention was, I do remember when  I got to meet you guys (paper shuffling stops).  I'd met you at the hotel, before the Galaxy show.  That evening, after the show, I went back to the hotel.  The next morning I was standing on my balcony just kind of waking up, and you were across the courtyard in the parking lot, and I  noticed you and you happened to look up, and you waved to me because you recognized me, and I have to tell you, that really impressed me a lot...

AB - Well I remember faces... I may not remember names...  (laughs)

SS - (laughs)

AB - I remember faces.  I'll see someone, and I'll think, 'I don't know his name, but I've seen him some place.'  Just recently I saw someone, and I said, 'You know what?  I know you from  some place, but I don't know where.  I don't remember your name.  Mine's Alvino Benn...,'  "Yeah man, you did a gig for me,"  blah, blah, blah.  'Okay.'  It's been years, you know.

SS - Yeah, I'm the same way.

AB - You meet so many people you know,, and I can't say it's old age (laughs)...  not YET anyway (laughs).

SS - (laughs) Well okay, you're ah... how old are you?

AB - Ooh...

SS - You're 40 uhh ... I have it down here somewhere... (paper shuffling starts again).  You were born in '53?

AB - Yeah, I'll be 49 in June.

SS - 49 in June.  June what?

AB - June 20th.

SS - June 20th.  I always like to get the birthday's down, because I know people like to post birthday wishes. 
So I know  you started playing drums at the early age of 10...

AB -  Yeah 10, 11 years old.  Do you want me to tell you that story?

SS -  Sure.  Why the drums?  What was the draw?

AB - What happened was, I was at home sick one day, and the school that I went to was right across the alley.  I mean literally you could walk across the alley and there was the school...

SS - ... and this was in Chicago, right?

AB - This is in Chicago yeah.  The west side of Chicago, and the name of the school was William Penn, and so I'm at home sick, and my auntie is the one who did it, she's deceased now, my Auntie El.  I was in  bed and I heard this drum and bugle corp., and they're out there playing this thing called  "The Cha Cha Special" (laughs) and it's like this really cool rhythm you know, da-da-da-da-- da--da--da, da-da-da-da--da--da--da, boo-boo-boo-boom-boom--boom--boom,  so I'm laying there thinking like, 'Oh man, what's going on?'  So I got up and... we lived in the basement at the time, so I'm kinda like on my tippy toes looking out of the window... and for some odd reason, I just forgot I was sick, and I'm kinda like dancing on my toes as I'm watching this band and these guys  looked so cool...

SS - (laughs)

AB - ... playing the drum, and I say drum because guys play snare drums, and there were guys playing bass drum... kick drum, bass drum they called them at that time, and I'm going, 'Wow!'  So she comes in the room, I guess to see how I'm doing, and this lady's been watching me since I was a little boy, and she says, "Honey what are you doing?"  And I said, 'Oh auntie,' I would call her auntie (antie) not auntie (awntie), 'auntie, they're out there playing drums, and it sounds so good,' and she said, "I think you should get back in bed."  I don't remember her exact words, but I said, 'No, I think this is really cool.  That's what I want to do!  I want to play the drum!' Not drums, but drum, (laughs) and she said, "Really?"  And I said, 'Yeah, I really want to play,' so she said, "Well, when you get well, I'll come up to school and I'll find out how you do that," and my auntie, I think my Mom was at work or something, so my auntie... she had, I guess you'd call it a cataract kind of thing.  Her eyesight wasn't that great, I mean she could see, so she went up to the school, and spoke to the guy, his name was Mr. Deorson, and the guy came around to all the rooms and asked who wanted to be in the band, and when he came to my room... now I knew who he was, and before the question got out, I was raising my hand, (laughs).  'I DO, I DO!'  The guy hadn't even finished yet!

SS - So you did the school band thing first then.

AB - Yeah, I played snare drum first. Later that year, around Christmas time, this big box came to our apartment, and I'm like, 'Ohh, I betcha that's for me.  I betcha those are my drums,' and it was from Sears Roebuck and Company, a red sparkle kit.  Finally I punched a hole in that box, and I could kind of see a little bit, but when Christmas came, I tore that box open, and set those drums up, and boy I was in heaven man, and nobody in the neighbourhood said anything about it... we had a couple of different neighbourhood bands anyway.   You know, guys would sit on their porches with their bands, and play music, and that was just all around us anyway.  I had an auntie who use to come over, Auntie Dee, and she sang like Billie Holiday, and she was just awesome, and someone else in our family... I can't remember his name, my auntie's husband's dad played saxophone.  So it was kind of like, sort of in the family thing, but I'm the only one that I know of who has pursued it as a career, and you know, from that day on it was just like drums, drums... I used to carry drum catalogues in my back pocket (laughs) like the Slingerland and Rogers, and carried a pair of drum sticks in my back packet to school, and have all the guys gather around my desk as I pretended to play these drum sets in the magazines.

SS - So what was on the radio at that time?  That'd be like '63, '64?

AB - Oh man, I tell ya, what was happening back then was everything.  We had black and white music together.  You would hear James Brown, and then you'd turn around, and then you would hear later on The Beatles, and then you would hear Tommy James and The Shondells, you'd hear all this stuff.  You'd hear The Ides of March, and then you'd hear... you know... ALL this stuff was going on back then.  I didn't hear blues on the radio, but I remember when I was a little boy, you know. being from the west side, riding around in somebody's car in the back seat like, going home from one of my cousin's houses or something.  I would hear this music, and see people out dancing, and just hear this loud music, and going, 'Wow,' wondering what was going on.  Come to find out as I got older, when I got into playing blues, that a lot of those guys were the guys I started playing with, like I did some sitting in with and stuff with Muddy Waters, and the guys in his band.  I got a chance to actually do a very small, short tour if you will, with Willie Dixon.  We did a couple of different prisons,  we did some college gigs up in the mid-west... so it was just amazing.  Me, being this little kid from Chicago on the west side, and ending up growing up being a young guy in his twenties... actually when I played with Dixon, and those guys I was in my teens.

SS - I saw your name associated with Stevie Wonder and...

AB - Oh yeah, yeah, that was... the story on that one was, being at home one day, you know being a musician you're pretty much on 24 hour call, and I'm sitting at home... at the time I was married, and I got this call, and it was the day before my son was going to be born, and that was in ah, 1990 and I'd just got off the road with this group called Soul II Soul...

SS- Okay yeah, that was another name on my list...

AB - I got this call, and it was like, "Hey man, ah... Steve needs a drummer for tonight man.  He wants you to come in and just go over some stuff man, 'cuz he's just getting ready to record this record," or something like that.  I went, 'Man.  Ah, well cool.  I can be there,' and, 'that's no problem,' and my ex-wife was already in the hospital in that kind of long labour thing, and I had my eldest daughter, so I had to have a neighbour come in to look after her,  and I give them my telephone number to where I am, just in case something happens.  I get there at like between 2:00 and 4:00 that afternoon, but Steve did not show up 'til, I don't know, 7, 8, 9:00, and then we didn't even start playing at that time.  He just came because...  he has a couple of little cubicles where he can go into different little offices... where he has mini studios set up where he's got different ideas going on.  Then he comes in, we meet, and then we kinda like just start playing some of his old stuff, and I'm going, 'Hmmm,' and there was some other drummers in there, and I start thinking, 'What the hell is going on?  I'm sitting here auditioning?  What is going on?'  So I thought, 'Whatever.  Hey this is Stevie Wonder, kind of cool, but I gotta leave.'  So now it's like... it's 3:00, 4:00 in the morning, maybe a little bit later, something like that, and I'm going, 'You know,' I'm talking to the bass player, 'I gotta go.  I've got my son, he's gonna be arriving between maybe 10:00 and 12:00 tomorrow morning, I gotta get out of here. So listen, can you tell Steve I'm outta here, thanks for everything, and I'll see you guys later.' (laughs)  I didn't know what the hell was going on either....

SS - (laughs).. . and you've got your priorities right?

AB - Yeah definitely.  I mean come on, my first son?  So I get out of there, and go. My son is born.  Everything is fine, and I think it's some weeks or so later, maybe the next year or something like that, 'cuz this is in November when Christopher was born, and I get a call again, and it's this urgent call... "Hey, hey man, look, look, Steve wants you to come down man. We're doing this record," blah, blah, blah... 'Okay, um.'  So I'm thinking again like, 'This guy has no concept of time or anything as far as A.M. or P.M.,.' so... and that was always a joke with him, so I'm thinking, 'Do I really want to deal with that?  He's cool.  He pays decently...'  So I get up, and I go, and it's almost the same kind of thing where he gets in some hours later, but it's cool, I'm there, there's no auditioning, and we're there going over a couple of songs that are going to be recorded... this stuff was for this Spike Lee movie, Jungle Fever.  So I end up playing on a couple of tracks on this thing, and then I get another kind of frantic call 'cuz now they want me to go out on the road to do all of the T.V. shows.  We did all of the talk shows... we did The Tonight Show, before Johnny Carson was gone.  It was Stevie Wonder's first time on the show. He'd never been on before that,  and I'm like, 'Wow, this is really cool.  I'm on this show, and it's his first time on,' but Johnny was getting ready to leave the show within that month or so, and Stevie gave Johnny Carson one of those chromatic harmonicas that he plays.  We did The David Letterman Show, and a lot of times... at that time, they never let the artist's band play, it would be the Letterman band that played.  Well, we all got lucky, and we were able to play there, and I got a chance to play those drums, and I got a chance to play in and out of a couple of different commercials, which was really cool, you know.  We did Rick Dees last show on T.V., he had one of those (talk) shows also.  We did Oprah Winfrey.  I think we were like the first live band she had on her show...

SS - Do you have an *Alvino* Scrapbook?

AB - Ah, sort of.  The sad thing about that is, a lot of pictures of myself got stolen.  Someone broke into my Mom's home years and years ago...

SS - Oh no.

AB - Yeah, and what a drag.  She had Gold and Platinum records I had given her so...

SS - Oh man...  are you serious.... ohh, that's too bad ...

AB -  Yeah... it really sucks, and it sucks really deeply that I don't have any of that stuff... so it's sad.  I have a couple of baby pictures she'd given me way before that, and just recently, when we were in Chicago with Trower,  I went to a few of my schools to try to see if they had any pictures, but of course, because it was so long ago... but I got lucky at my high school, and found one year book (laughs).

SS - Excellent!  What about music stuff?

AB - No, no, none of that stuff...

SS - You never kept any of it?

AB - No, because I think I was giving a lot of stuff to my Mom to have.  I have a scrap book, but it's pretty much what I got from the band L.T.D.

SS - Going back for a minute, did you do the "dance" thing with bands... played a school dance?

AB - I did that one time.  I always wanted to play... after I left William Penn, I went to middle school then, and they did not have a band, and that pissed me off (laughs).  Then I thought it was just going to leave... the drumming thing.... but it didn't.  So I got to high school... there were a couple of different high schools that did have the music thing, but  I didn't want to go to those because they had gangs. I didn't want to go, although I probably could have because I had cousins who were going there, so I knew my cousins would protect me,  but I didn't want to deal with that, so I went to a trade school, and I was going to become like a geek, if you will (laughs).  I was going to major in electronics, you know, electrical stuff.  I helped, at that time, to build... we were building stoves, we were dealing with these microwaves back then, I was putting together radios, all kinds of stuff... learning about resisters... I still know a little bit, but  not much because I didn't keep up with it, but that's what I was doing instead of doing the music thing at school.  I was still playing, because at that time I was playing in clubs.

SS - Yeah, I read where you were playing under age at clubs.

AB - Yeah, like we would go in, and sometimes as a joke, the guys would take those... what are those pencils that ladies use... they use to arch their eyebrows... black pencils right?  So we would put like, sideburns on, and a little moustache.  Now we didn't know that when you sweat, especially on your face...

SS - (Laughs)

AB - ... you know, the stuff would start running down your cheeks...

SS - (Laughs) So when you were playing the clubs, what kind of a band was it?

AB - It was a three piece band actually, a really good band, and we were playing stuff like, Junior Walker and the All-Stars,  and of course James Brown...

SS - Sam and Dave?

AB - Yeah Sam and Dave.  We did... man all kinds of stuff back then.  We did a song called, I don't know if you remember a song called, "Canadian Sunset"...

SS - No, I don't remember that one.

AB - Ooh, it was a classic back then, and you know, we wore uniforms, the cumber bun thing, and tuxedo pants, and the white shirt, and the tie.  A flamingo shirt, and some jacket... I use to call it a waiter's jacket,  'cuz it went down just to the waist, you know.  I always hated looking like somebody else, and still to this day I don't like that.  It's like, 'N no, no, no', and I'll never accept a gig where I have to wear a uniform or a suit, that's not what I'm into, I'm not going to do that.

SS - Did you have any formal training on the drums when you were a kid?

AB - No, none.

SS - Just leaned it all yourself?

AB -  Yeah.  How it started was, when I went to do the audition for the drum and bugle corp., the William Penn drum and bugle corp., the guy gave me a drum and sticks and I strapped it on and he had this one guy who was like the best drummer in this organization, so this guy, there were about five or six of us auditioning, so he would stand in front of us with his drum and he would play some kind of rudimental something or another and then he'd say, "Okay, you play, you play," he'd go down the line.  I played it, he played something else a little more difficult and went down the line, so as it got more difficult, some of the guys were stumbling and didn't make it.  So he'd say, "Try again," and they couldn't do it so, "Okay, you're out of here."  So it was like, me and a few other guys and he kept going, and kept going, and kept going, everything kept getting a little more difficult.  I mean, at that time you're 10, 11 years old, heck it seems pretty difficult, and I just kept playing everything as he gave it to me.  Then I was one of the last guys standing there., me and this other guy, and we were just going for it, and it worked out,  I got in the band.  And like I said, I never had any formal training, I guess I just heard or felt whatever it was.  And as a footnote or something, any time that I've had, like a headache, or felt a little sick, or I'm not well... to this day, if I have to go out and play drums, do you know, for some odd reason, I either forget about being ill, or it becomes shoved down so far, I don't feel it anymore and that's what happened when I was a little boy.  Whatever it was, I forgot about that illness.  It was kind of like a saving grace for me. I had bad sinus headaches and I had to go play and I'd go, 'Oh man...'   I remember I was in South America with Bryan Ferry, someone had called me, and I was lying  in bed trying to do an interview for Modern Drummer, and I was lying in bed and the phone rings, and I said, 'You know, I really can't talk... this is really bothering me,' and I'm looking at the clock going, '... and I gotta go play like in two hours?' (laughs)  It's like, 'What am I gonna do?  How am I gonna make it?' and I had no medicine or anything and I finally got up and went on, and as I was walking towards the stage, I mean, it was still bothering me and, I sat down and I'm like, 'Whew, I don't know how I'm gonna make it,' and you know, I made it through.  I made it through the gig, and after the gig I was fine, so I went and hung out and had a beer after the show (laughs).

SS - (laughs) Yeah, well it's a good work out too, you know.

AB -Oh yeah, oh yeah, because you sweat out all the toxins and...

SS - To add to your footnote here, like I said, I'm a guitar player, I've played all my life and I can't imagine not having that little release, you know.   I haven't played with a band for years and years.   I went the business route, but I play every day...

AB - Cool.

SS - ... after work, you know it's the stress and all that stuff.  I come home and I have my little Marshall here and my Strat.  I find it just kinda cures all your woes and I've tried to explain that to my daughter, she's 14 and she's been playing the piano for about 7 or 8 years now...

AB - Wonderful.

SS - ... and it's the one argument we always have, you know. Every year it's, "I don't want to take piano anymore Dad," and I say, ''Jamie, that's not something that's negotiable.  You're gonna learn this and when you're 18, if you want to quit, that's fine, but I know somewhere down the road, you're gonna thank me for this.'  And she's good at it, so it's not like we're making her do something she shows no talent or feel for.

AB - Yeah, that's great.

SS - Anyway, getting back to this.  Do you have any brothers or sisters?

AB - I have two brothers.  I have half brothers and sisters who I don't really know.  I have two brothers, one of them started to study, what is it, cosmetology or something like that, but I think he put that aside and he studied interior decorating and I think now, he's kinda like the handy guy.  He's really good with his hands, but he never went into business for himself, which I thought was kind of weird.  And, check this out, this brother, his name is Pherrell, and the spelling's different on it also, but he and I shared the same birthday, four years apart... but he's younger, he's four years younger than myself.

SS - Wow, that's... (laughs)

AB - (laughs) Yeah, so when I started, I think a little bit after that, he started taking guitar lessons, but he never stuck with it, you know, he kinda did it for a little while, on and off for maybe six months or a year, something like that, but he didn't stick with it,  Then my youngest brother, Deon, he's into, I don't know what you would call it, I guess like telecommunications, electronics stuff and he was doing some highly secretive stuff for the Government when he was in the Armed Forces and he can't talk about it... he won't talk about it, but I know it was some stuff that had to do with computers and all that stuff.   He actually plays keyboards and drums himself.  I think he was kinda like taking off from what I was doing, basically playing instruments.  As a matter of fact, I spoke to him yesterday.  He said, "Man I got some songs I want to send to you. I want you to check them out."  You know, he does it like a few times a year.  He likes to send me stuff, so I can evaluate it and tell him this, that and the other, so it's kinda cool.  You know, "Big brother, I want you to check out what I've been doing."

SS - (laughs) That's great, that's great.

AB - Yeah, so those two guys, the other people, I don't really know.  My Mom and Dad never got married and she left him when I was about 5 years old.  Actually, I think my father messed around with guitar and harmonica 'cuz I'd see him around the house, and I remember when I was a little boy, he used to take this like little wind-up Mickey Mouse guitar and give it to me, and I remember walking around the house winding this thing up.  But at some point I started doing the early Jimi Hendrix (laughs) on my guitar (laughs).

SS - (laughs)  Yeah we've all done that... we've all done that.

AB - And then about four, five, six years later, as I got older, the drums were my calling and that's what it's been..  The lady I was talking about earlier, the singer, she was my Mom's older sister, and man, I mean I tell ya, I could sit  and listen to her sing and I didn't know about Billie Holiday at that time, I just knew my auntie would sit there and sing her ass off.  Like... wow... I mean when something's good and descent when you're young, you can just feel something...

SS - Oh absolutely.

AB - Now, my Mom and I kinda talk about it and it's like, whew yeah, she just... she never pursued it.  And she sang all those Billy Holiday songs, you know, "God Bless The Child"...

SS - Oh man, I love that song...

AB - ... Oohh...

SS - That is a great song.

AB - Yeah, she was wonderful.

SS - So you stayed in Chicago until your early 20s...

AB - Yeah, I left in 1975.

SS - Okay, then you moved out to L.A..   Why did you move?

AB - Well. after I'd done my whole thing, you know, I started doing recording sessions in Chicago, commercials and playing for different people after the Willie Dixon stuff, after Muddy, after Mighty Joe Young, Cash McCall, Koko Taylor, after doing all those people, Cash McCall was one of the first call in guitar players in Chicago, and Cash was a great song writer. He wrote stuff that Blood, Sweat & Tears recorded, and he was like a mentor.  Actually he was like a big brother to me you know, a big brother I didn't have.  So Cash was a guitar player, song writer, singer and he came to me, we had a band called The Cash McCall Express, or something like that (laughs), and he was coming to move out here in L.A.  What happened before I get into this story was, after all that stuff, I was at Cash's, being in Cash's band, I was at Cash's house one day, and he had disappeared and nobody in the band knew where he'd gone except his wife, and she pulled me aside, and said, "Cash has been in L.A. and got this tour with this lady, Minnie Riperton," who was from Chicago, and I'm like , 'Cool.'  So we were talking and the phone rang and it was Cash on the phone and he says like, "I'll be home tomorrow," or something like that, and I said, 'Cool.'  So he got home, and I'm hanging out at his house, and the phone rings and it's from LA., and he's talking to these people and he going like, "Ah huh, yeah," blah. blah. blah, blah.  So I don't know what he's saying, then he says, "He's sitting right here!"  I'm thinking, 'Who the hell's he talking to.' So I pick up the phone and it's Minnie's manager asking would I like to come out to do Minnie's fall/winter tour.  I said, 'Ah, yeah.  How much you paying?' And they told me and I was like, 'Okay, cool. Let's go.' (laughs)  About a week or so I leave, and the first bad thing was, I missed the flight (laughs) and Cash and the percussionist were waiting for me, and I finally made it there, and Cash read me... he kinda looked at me and cursed me out.  And I was like, (in a pathetic voice) 'Sorry man.'  The people who took me to the airport, couldn't figure out who was going to take me, and by that time, it's late and traffic coming from the south side of Chicago to O'Hare Airport... so we finally make it, and get on the plane  We make up and have a couple of drinks, make it to L.A., you know, driving in this convertible car and looking around going, 'Oh wow, look at this.  This is so cool.'  Get to rehearsal, we started rehearsing, and this in 1974 and I hadn't moved out yet, and I had no thoughts about it either way, and I never had any thoughts about having a career at playing drums... it just happened.  And you know, I was still fairly young, late teens, early twenties, it was like, 'Yeah, whatever.  I do this.  It's cool,' you know.

SS - Well, yeah, how could you pass on an opportunity like that.

AB - Yeah and you know, the thing was, as weird as it may seem, I wasn't into it...  Like the typical guy says, "Hey, for the women," you know...  I enjoy playing the music, and it was nothing else but that!  Yeah man, but some guys say, "It's the music, but... sex, drugs and rock n' roll!"...  It was all purely...  it was all music, it was all something that kept me off the streets. There was a lot of gang activities back then, not like it is now, but there was gang stuff.  Actually, funny story... I use to play for some guys in a gang (laughs), you know, and once again, doing that meant I could walk any place I wanted without being harassed by guys.  So it was a cool thing, and I had cousins who were in a rival gang (laughs) so it was like, protection on both sides.   And these guys wouldn't even fight each other because it was like, "Well, that's his cousin.  Hey he's playing for those guys," so they'd sit around enjoying watching me play at different functions... in the park, in all these different festivals and stuff. 
So back to '74...  I come out in September and play for Minnie Riperton,  and we finish up sometime  in December, and I go back to Chicago, and I'm going, 'Well, that's that.'  So then... Cash had finally got a record deal and they were talking about sending him back to L.A. to record this record, and he was going to have Earth, Wind & Fire's producer at the time, Charles Stepney, producing it, and I had to work with Charles Stepney doing recording sessions when I was a teenager.  Charles Stepney is deceased now, but he was a brilliant guy, a really brilliant guy, I mean, wow.  Then I got a call to go, it was like in the summer time, to go to Europe for the first time with Mighty Joe Young ... 'Whoa, yeah, I'm going,' and I told my Mom, and it was like, "Yeah baby, you be careful."  So I go over there... we go over there for a month, maybe two months something like that, and we come back and my Mom says, "You got a call from Cash and he's in Los Angeles and he wants you to give him a call."  I went, 'Okay,' so I called and he says, "Vino.  You gotta get out here," blah, blah, blah, "I have a ticket..."  I didn't have a chance to say like, yes or no, you know.  "You gotta get out here.  The ticket will be in your name..."  I'm like, 'Um, um,' and they'd already come to my house to pick up my drums and some other stuff, and they were driving that out, but Cash had already flown out, so I had this difficult task of telling Mighty Joe Young, who was like a Dad to me for years, 'cuz I'd been playing blues with him since '71, '72 on and off, you know.  The difficult task of saying, 'Listen, I'm giving you two weeks notice.  I can't play for you anymore,' and he was  really upset... he was really upset.  Anyway, I did that and within two weeks I was on a plane, you know, and I hated flying, by the way.  I was so scared of flying at the time and I'm on a plane by myself now, going to Los Angeles thinking, ' I'm just going out to record this record.  I don't know what's going to happen afterwards,'  but they were making this move, and I went out and Cash had a band house for us, actually it was a couple of different apartments , but I ended up living with a couple of different people, you know, out in Malibu and up in Hollywood Hills.  Then we finally recorded some of the record in L.A., then we went back to Chicago to record the rest of it, but for one whole year, we rehearsed on this record.  It was like, '75 to '76 we rehearsed every day, every day with this particular band and we all didn't make the cut,  but I was one of the ones... and this other guy made it 'cuz he was a singer.  So it was pretty much the two of us that made it on the record.  It turned out really good.  The record didn't do anything thought... but I ended up living out here and I've been here ever since (laughs).

SS -  So the next thing I have here is you playing with L.T.D.? (Love, Togetherness & Devotion)

AB - Ah, well let me see, after that... '75...  remember that lady who used to be on the Gong Show?  What's her name... ah... I can't remember her name... Jaye P. Morgan, I played for her.  I have it in one of my little scrap books here, but I played for her for a little bit.   I [played for a couple of different groups on the Motown label and that was like, '76, '77 and I get this phone call one day, I think it was about a year, a year and a half or so before L.T.D., and someone said, "Either Junior Walker's gonna call you or The Sylvers" and they were a real hot band.  I actually got the gig with The Sylvers.  So I went out and started doing stuff with them .  How that stuff came about  was, I met this lady... I was playing at a hotel near L.A. , and I found out this lady was John Coltrane's sister-in-law (Marilyn McLeod).  Yeah, she was Alice Coltrane's sister, and she was a song writer over at Motown and she wrote these songs, ah, "Love Hangover", and (sings) "If there's a cure for this", by Diana Ross, so a lot of big hits over there.  She took some interest in me and she said, "Listen, would you like to do sessions over at Motown?" And I went... 'YEAH!' (laughs)

SS - (laughs)

AB - So it was like, "Okay."  So from '76, '77, I was doing this stuff with them and I actually ended up being a ghost drummer on a lot of big hit records.

SS - Oh really.

AB - Yeah, but of course they gave the credit to the guys that actually played, because I would come in and maybe over-do some snare drum, or over-do some hi-hat, or drum trill or anything, so I never got credit for that... I got paid...

SS - ... You got paid for it though... that's important..

AB - ... I got paid for it, and they're the ones who turned me onto The Sylver gig, so some time after that... I had met this guy in '74, this guy named Melvin Webb, he's deceased now, who was playing with Johnny Nash and we, Minnie Riperton, were opening for Johnny Nash in Seattle Washington, and I met this guy.  He came up and said, "Yeah, I live in L.A. man, and I do sessions..." blah, blah, blah, "If you ever come back out, give me a call." I said, 'Okay,' so when I came back out, I didn't really stay in touch with him, but then eventually I started calling him and I didn't know he was with L.T.D. and L.T.D.'s records were coming out and stuff and I was hearing this stuff and I called up and said, 'Man, you didn't tell me you were playing with these guys.'  I thought that was really cool, so I said, 'Look man, I'm just calling to say hello to you and here's my phone number and if you ever want to go hang out or,' blah, blah, blah, and he said, "Sure."  So, I think it was early '78 or late '77, and I got a call from him saying ,"Hey man listen...'  Well before that, he tried to turn me on to... remember The Brothers Johnson?

SS - Yeah.

AB - He tried turning me on to that, but that didn't work out, so then he called me and said, "Listen,  L.T.D.'s looking for a drummer," and I said, 'Wait a minute... I thought YOU were their drummer,' and he said, "Well, something weird is going on," blah, blah, blah, and I was like, 'Ah, okay...'  So he says, "Would you be interested in auditioning?" And I said, 'But... you were in the band.  That'd be kinda weird for me,' and he said, "Don't worry about it.  It'll be fine, that's why I'm calling you," and I said, 'Well, if you don't mind, yeah I'll audition for them, yeah no problem,' and the group was on it's way up anyway.  So I went and auditioned with a bunch of name guys and heavy players and stuff... and I got the gig!  The funny thing about that one is, a week or so had gone by (after I had done the audition) and I hadn't heard anything, so I took the musical director's number and I called and  said, 'Listen...' lying through my teeth I  was going, 'You know, my phone has been really messed up lately, so I'm just calling to see if you had called and hadn't got an answer or something.' (laughs)

SS - (laughs)

AB - My  phone really was working, I just wanted to know what was going on.  He says, "Oh, hey baby how you doin'?  We were just in here talking about you."  You could hear the guys in the background saying, "Hey man, how you doing?"  So I  said, 'Oh, well, I'm just calling to find out if you guys had made a decision.' and he said, "Yeah, that's what we're doing now.  As a matter of fact, the gig is yours if you want it."  I went, 'YEAH, YEAH!' I said, 'Hold on for a second, and I got off the phone and I started screaming and hollering, you know, and so... I got the gig!  That was February or March of '78.  Melvin  was still playing drums with them at the time, but they were finishing up with some stuff that they had been doing with him.

SS - I have an old Rogers drum Ad here when you were with L.T.D. that....

AB - ... My God...  with that leopard shirt on?

SS - Yeah, yeah ... that's the one!

AB - (laughs)

SS - I don't know if you ever noticed it......

AB -  Bill was playing for Trower at the time...

SS - ... exactly... and you were both in the same ad..

AB - ... that's funny...

SS - ... yeah, I thought that was really ironic.

AB - Yeah, that picture was taken in a recording studio.  We were actually recording at the time, and we had a break, so the guy said, "Let's just take an hour.  Let us do our stuff," then we could get back to our recording.  Yeah, I remember that now.  I remember Trower.  When I was back in my early teens... actually in my twenties is when I kinda got into him because it was a band I was in at that time in '76, '77, around that time, just before I got with L.T.D.  We were an original band and the name of the band was Booty People, (laughs), what a hell of a name, right? (laughs).  We were a four piece, but we had this guy playing the guitar, he was like big into Trower.  You know, he played the white strat, and he had a couple of stacks of Marshalls, and...  ahh, he was just awesome.  We were like, kind of a funk/rock band, you know, with the loud brash guitar, wah-wah, the overdrive, and stuff like that.  We had a keyboardist who had like the Mellotron and the (Hammond) B3 and the Wurlitzer and the (Fender) Rhodes and... and the bass player had, I think they were Sunn amps... and I had like this big Gretsch kit, and it was like a 26 inch or 28 inch kick drum, so we were like, heavy, heavy into that stuff...

SS - Well, you had...

AB - ... and... Oh, go ahead.

SS-  No, it's okay, you go ahead.

AB -  I  remember I started  writing way back when I was with Cash.  Cash said, "If you ever want to make some real money in this business...

SS -  ... write the song...

AB - ... write the songs," yeah... and I took that, and I remember the first song I wrote was in a hotel in Texas and those lyrics that I wrote down ended up being a pretty big hit when I got  into L.T.D. and that record, that record went Platinum. ("Share My Love" off the Devotion album.)

SS - Excellent.  That was one of the questions I had... have you done any writing....

AB - I was going to do some solo stuff, but it didn't work out with the guy I was doing it with.

SS - So going back a bit, you had this endorsement offer from Rogers.  How did you get that?

AB - Well, what had happened, when I got into L.T.D.... When I was a kid, I had my first drum kit and it came with Paiste cymbals, and I remember I used to break the zildjians all the time, and I couldn't afford to buy (new) cymbals, so I always use to go downtown Chicago and go to a pawn shop to buy old, used cymbals.  Well, you know, after about a month or two of playing, they'd start breaking, they were old cymbals, so I always remembered that I liked these Paiste cymbals.  As I got older, and I got with L.T.D., I went like, 'Time to record.  I want to try to get the best stuff that I can,' so I had a few different drum kits that had been given to me by different people,  when I was doing sessions they'd say, "Well, I can't pay you..." 'Well, let me have these drums.' (laughs)  So I had, I don't know, three or four different types of drum kits, so I called up Rogers drums because they were distributing... CBS was distributing Paiste at the time.  So I called and this guy, Roy Burns, was a big band drummer way back in the, I guess 40s or 50s or whatever, and I got out there and I'm sitting meeting with this guy and I said, 'Listen, I have this blank cheque, and all I want to do is buy some cymbals to record with, and I want the best ones,' blah, blah, blah, blah.  So he was flattered, and he though that it was really cool, and then he said, "What are you doing?" I said, 'I'm with this band, L.T.D.  We're on A&M and their record went Platinum, but this is my first record with the band.'  He was impressed... he had heard about the band, and so on and so forth.  He looked at me and he said, "Listen, how would you like to do an endorsement?"  I said, 'What does that entail?'  He said, "Well, we give you gear, you use our name, we take pictures of you for magazines, and that's that... sign a contract."  'Ah, cool.'  He said, "Well, how about doing a full on using the drums AND the cymbals," and I'm going, 'Oh man, really?'  And he said, "Yeah...."  And I said, 'Nah...'  And he said, "Yeah, really."  I went,  'Cool!'

SS - I'll take 'em!

AB - Yeah.... so I said, 'Give me the contracts, I'll take them to the lawyer.  Find out what's going on,' blah, blah, blah, blah.  Then I said, 'We have to be recording within the next month...' or something like that, and he said, "Okay, you take it and do what you have to do," and that's how that came about.