Rock and Roll; Interview with Red Tyler and Earl Palmer [Part 3 of 3]

I'm going to ask you if there is anything really memorable about the recession where you start your before just a session today for the session really something special. Well I don't know anyone at that particular time. I don't put the show it was nothing really special about those particular sessions we were doing we were just doing them and doing them as best we could because we knew it was different from what we were. Used to doing musically and it was different from what we preferred to play but we did our best to make it as different as we possibly could and as commercial as we possibly could. But we didn't consider anything special because as you know we we had no idea what they were going to be as we say we had we'd asked for double scale and what. It was just doing a job as well as we could. Usually when we went into the studio. A lot of times we had other things on our minds other than the station it was a situation that we were going to play again. Later on that night. You know something like that it wasn't

necessarily Oh a big event. We had no idea. Like I said earlier if it was a hit we remembered if it wasn't a hit we forgot it. And so Little Richard when you had no idea that this was really going to be a monument you know it's something strange about musicians. The cut that we think is going to be the hit doesn't necessarily always wait sometimes just to hear you know and it because we'd like it in the public. Don't like it. So for us to sit up and say this is going to be a hit. We were quite pleased after we heard what we had to because because Richard's been away years and exciting it was another one of his exciting this was really good while he's gone out there again on this one you know. But that's what I remember about it specifically. I can't tell you which date it was that we did it on thank you other Nat. What made us think we didn't prior to doing

it we didn't think it was going to be and I think when you heard it once you did it you got into doing it. But this was Mark of the kind of guys we were at and we enjoyed whatever it was we were doing specifically. We knew right off the bat it was different and it was this was because the words were. When you say well then we said What the hell is that. Yeah that got everything but it was special but we had no idea it was going to be and wasn't looking for it to be a lot of times you do a recording session and after you had done on that particular cut you were happy. You know and some things that we thought were mediocre became you know so it's hard to determine what's going to be good and what's going to be accepted by the public you know you just went in and you did it. That's why we were one of the two hands of musicians as opposed to millionaires. Because he didn't know what was going to be and what wasn't. I mean

we're all just sorry. Yeah yeah I saw it as something special. Yeah OK I'd like to say something about Lee I have a lot of people really really know it Lee Allen is originally from Denver. Yeah I was in the army at the time and the first time I saw Lee Allen I wasn't playing music at the time. In fact I didn't start playing music until I got out of the service and went to the music school as an adult I started playing music as an adult. And. Alan was playing with ball Gates man. I was playing with David out in his band we were both playing tennis. And when they decided there were two horns it was decided that Leon would play tennis and they would like me to play baritone so I thought up baritone saxophone. And it was a happy marriage.

Well what was special about Lee to me when I met him he was here already but I knew he came from Denver to Xavier University on a scout an athletic scholarship and he was a tremendous athlete and he dropped out of school got busy playing around town and I didn't know him before he came here. But around town got to know him as a terrific hulking type of tennis player for that for that music today of that day. He was about the best it was at that whole content of solos and very uncomplicated solos strictly around a melody but we all got bucket and hot and intense which is what. What was his main forte but he came in as an athlete on a scholarship and dropped out for his grades were bad here. MARGARET So you just look at it like Hey my name's Alvin Red Tyler.

New Orleans musician like talking to you. Hope we'll do it again soon. I want to ask you one more thing. You look at me as if you had to say how did rock n roll. Yes Short answer yes. No I'm not I really I really don't know how it started. You have to realize that I came along in music and saw it as an adult I'd listen to swing bands all my life. Second Line bands. So when I came along it was there as far as I was concerned it was just just something that you did. I mean you didn't try to figure out how we going to do this. You were on the bandstand a year back about artists by making what they sing in a fit with which you were playing. You made it fit. That's all I can say. Sometimes it works sometimes it didn't. That's it. Let's cut.

Just look at love. You know sometimes you have fun. So much fun because we don't have any better sense not to live forever and everything that comes into your life can be there's a new experience you know after a while you start doing things and it becomes boring. Maybe if it's not the same people we've always had fun together. So it's not like you. Some things that make up my mind

because a situation like we used to come a lot of guys because you know you're not the same you know like that. But it was a free ride you know. And I think a lot of money we just spent most people. Not because we were together.

When I want plain clothes. And the kind of people. Yeah. Get out of the house get out. That again. When we went down

and you're looking to do Heaven is good. To me that drummer the musician because you talk about your picture that you think you know because you're right. How much could you guys talk about except the han the makeup of neighboring The keys were all the same and differential is different for different makes it right. As well trying to get a lot of difference in tone along those lines not make it less important to you. I'm Michael Palmer and I play the drums.

So what would you say. Question. Well if you're going to qualify that by who started it without becoming a what instrument you started I would say people like Fats Domino Little Richard Chuck Berry and they started I would say I would say people like Fats Domino Little Richard Chuck Berry LaVerne Baker such people as that I was it would start as a what we call them now called rock n roll. MARTIN So tell us that you were the driver. You know it was a love obsession. And then go on to the teddy bears. Well what was impressive about it was a very first time I met Phil and I just point he was just a member of teddy bears but apparently their leader was Phil Spector and Marcia Lieberman and Carole

KAHN I think and what it was was a teddy bears. But he later became even then he was very opinionated about the what they were doing as simple as that song was he seemed to it was a great project with him and it was it was very interesting and I didn't I didn't see my work with him again for a long time until we began doing Righteous Brothers things and Tina Turner things. Did you say that you were on that session. Oh so we have you sing and then go on to say whether or not you thought you were really a precocious talent. Well my first meeting with him was on the teddy bears to know I'm still love him and he was somewhat for that and they were all pretty young but he was a leader even then. If you could say that you could see some potential in somebody as a hit maker then I'd say you could see that and then I didn't know it at

the time but I did see a leadership quality in him that later proved itself that he was somewhat of a leader and in very creative and uncompromising completely. For example when related to the Righteous Brothers I think it took us three days to do that thing because he would not compromise on that very slow part doo doo doo doo he wanted to sound like a retard but not a retard. And it took three days to do that and luckily I didn't play in that particular segment so I sat around for a while collecting without playing. But he wouldn't compromise until finally he got they got it to what he thought was you know exactly what you want and how we wanted it and then I later did River Deep Mountain High for him and the Righteous Brothers ebb tide and love and feeling those things. And by then he had become what we had become known to some people as somewhat of a tyrant but I know my dealings with him. I never had those kind of problems with him. Actually I was in his already no drama that he

used on most things. How mine was. But at the time I began working with him. They had had some kind of falling out which was the case would feel he'd fall out with somebody now and then all the time. At this particular time I began working for him when he and Howell had some kind of hassle between them. But your first marker. I also later the next time I saw I was doing the time we did. I love how you love in my with the para sisters and I did notice quite a change in him he had become what I would consider had manifested this potential that I saw in him as it is this youngster with a Teddy Bass by then me and he had all of his confidence in the world and very much a creative genius that you know that he later became beginning then. Remember that very soon.

First I see him and I seem to remember it was similar very similar only a little more musical. It had become more and more musical and a little more a product of better production and better producer. More confident you know confident when done. From his standpoint you know as I said this is when I began to notice what I always really felt in him that he had become this this genius of a producer I'd really you know venture to say this wall of sound that he developed was something awesome that was wonderful. He was quite a producer he seemed to have had a finger on what was would sell and what would his record would prove that you know. Well this whole wall of sound for us as a mentalist a very small small cog in this big machine to feel like it was all a swimming you know big swimming and echo. And even now even you have to be for example on love and feel and play did that have to be

on a snare drum and the time Tommy wanted the depth of the tone and the sharpness of his net on those out on the I Have To Be So you could hear the impact. But yet on the tom tom He had his base women sound which from the drums standpoint which was a wall of sound in itself is a lot of echoey sound and it was it was something of his own doing that that wall of sound was you hadn't heard from anybody before and I don't think sense the same duplications. How did you react. I mean the whole idea of not really hearing individual is massive. Well in a case like that I remember I remember not the music wasn't wasn't complicated it was simple enough so that you didn't have to concentrate on matching anything you just had to plow straight ahead with that after a beat and and know that this was your part in that whole thing and that whole scheme of thing this was your part to keep that have to be just pump and and nothing complicated just plow it right in there because it from what you've heard is that everything was built around that

and it was easy. As a musician for just one little tiny piece no. No because by then I had come to understand that I have a sample of whatever you did there was it was an important part of the record because it was a job and it was important whatever you played it was important to the record. Well you would have been there. Let me ask you a little bit more you mentioned earlier about the Righteous Brothers and the so called Blue-Eyed. So I mean did you feel any kind of animosity or you know like they were trying to take these white guys and really make them sound black you know I didn't I didn't get that at all because if you listen to it of difference in the two voices on the right is by this bill meddlers voice is naturally deep like that. And Bobby Hatfield's voice is naturally high. So they didn't seem to me that they were trying to emulate any any type of black artist. I just thought that this was a guy that sounded black Without Really Trying. And Bobby Hadfield sounded

very vanilla because he sang in the you know voice level that you would normally expect a white guy of that particular time to sound like. And I think it was Bill Medley not not minimizing the obvious part in this whole scheme. But Bill medleys voice was the unique thing about the Righteous Brothers had big sound he had. And it was a natural because if you listen to him talk you get you would imagine this is the way he would sound singing the way he did so that's kind of your That's a great story. Well at this particular time let me just start again. Well everything that had been said about Philo was an aspect of loyalty and he was very loyal to a friend of his. Sonny Bono wasn't doing anything particularly at the time this was before he and Cher got together

with Cher Sonny and Cher. Sonny would be around the studios gold star for example trying to get on a contract playing tambourine a shake as a something for Feel so they get on a contract and be paid and he later became a contractor for Phil.. Prior to Steve Douglas who recently died I don't know if you know. But at any rate there was one anecdote. Sometimes Sonny was said to launch a new tambourine on his he says I don't need tambourine on everything sonny you know I don't want temporary you know one is but Sonny would do that and now he's a great aspiring congressman Sonny Bono. Let's talk a little bit about the Reverend Wright session. I mean that was like the extreme Phil Spector's wall of sound. Tell me about that was that was the first session that I had done would feel by you so many musicians. Yes we did it at the United studio it was a big studio and it was full of people. I mean just full of musicians

and Tina was at a Best at her best on that. And that was an example of that wall of sound which was I kind of wondered how it was going to get that Wallace how it would seem to me that he had a wall of sound by so many musicians in that room. But he still got the same sound. Even with added musicians there. And I thought it was a wonderful record. It was just awesome in that she was just marvelous and you know I think it was one of his best records. I really do. Maybe that's because it was the biggest production I had been involved in with him. But I think it was one of his best records that showed the versatility in him you know of versatility was how did you control all this. No he was just Tauriel or. He was able to control the session at all times. Either you respected him or you hated him so that you didn't want to have any confrontation with him so you did what he said. He controlled the session by telling everybody if I hear another sound

in there at all while I'm trying to talk to give instructions everybody's out on the sessions over. And he meant it. He meant it and you knew he meant it. So you went in you did your job. It's not that you didn't have fun doing it because he wasn't dictatorial to the extent way didn't want to musicians to be happy. But he didn't want a lot of chatter when he was trying to tell you what he wanted done which is right how do you can he how you can hear what he wants if you talk and you know what Mike. So I wouldn't call that dictatorial I would call that precisely what he wanted done and the only way to get all these people listen to him is to let him know you can listen to what I'm saying because I'm going to raise hell with you if you don't hear what I'm saying you make a mistake because of it. He says he threw out the. Room. On that particular session. I don't remember that carry guns. Well I I always carry a gun when I first met I had when they came to L.A. He carried a gun Phil didn't carry a gun. Well until much later the same time he was

carrying a gun he didn't need to have bodyguards running around we did we did but with guns already we couldn't figure out what he was going to do start a third world war three or what but I remember him using a gun on anybody. I think that was just a childish aspect to feel that being able to carry a gun by having bodyguards with him that he had guns gave an opportunity to play cowboy a little bit. We're going to. The end of 31 disobedient 31 thank you very much.