February 14, 2025
If ever there was proof that us keyboard players are a dynamic, witty and erudite bunch, Scott May is our latest piece of evidence. Scott covers some amazing territory during our chat. from playing organ at Radio City Music Hall to his stints in radio, TV and film. And that’s just the start. To listen...
The post Scott May, The Ides of March / Judy Tenuta / Morton Downey Jr appeared first on The Keyboard Chronicles.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
I've never had stage fright in my life except for that day.
And because my grandfather was there and it's like, he called it.
Here I am.
Hello and welcome to the keyboard Chronicles, a podcast for keyboard players.
I'm your host, David Holloway.
(00:21):
And I'm thrilled as always to be here with you.
I'm particularly thrilled to introduce our guest for this episode, Mr.
Scott May.
As you'll hear in this interview, wow, what a career Scott has had and a very diversecareer.
So we talk about the use of theater organs, being a radio psychic and playing spontaneousmusic through to Scott's work with the amazing band Ides of March.
(00:46):
You name it, we cover it.
what's even better is Scott is a funny, funny guy to boot and was an absolute pleasure totalk to.
I know we say that about all guests and it's always true, but particularly true in yourcase, Scott, it was just great.
So yeah, I think you'll enjoy this interview a great deal and I'll talk to you after theshow.
(01:18):
How are you sir?
It's a pleasure to have you on the show.
It's a pleasure to be here and I'm damn glad to be here and boy Australia I wish I'd neverbeen there I wish I could go there sometime
we'll get you here one day and as you can, I can tell by your attire that it's nice andsummery in the US at the moment.
(01:39):
It's about 30 degrees here right now and they're expecting an ice storm.
But it's not going to hit us apparently that hard.
you know what?
And it was 50 degrees yesterday.
So Dennis DeYoung from Styx, did a song once and they said, people ask him why he lives inChicago.
(02:00):
says, I like the weather.
Yeah, well it's Chicago they call the Windy City, it?
That's right.
windy but but it had nothing to do with with the wind it had to do with our politiciansand and all the all the hot air that they that's where the wind is
(02:21):
See, I've already learned something.
This is brilliant.
I did not realize that.
Scott, I thought we'd just kick off just talking about your last 12 months.
We're absolutely going to delve deeper into your history, but just tell us what have youbeen up to the last year and particularly with your current band, The Ides of March.
Let's talk a little bit about that.
Well, this year we celebrate 60 years together with all the original guys.
(02:46):
I'm the new guy.
I've only been with them for 36 years.
But we're all from a little town in Chicago here called Berwyn.
I grew up with these guys.
They're a little bit older than I am, but they were always heroes because they were agarage band that
(03:07):
all of sudden hit it real big and then our lead singer Jim Peterick started a band calledSurvivor.
He wrote the Eye of the Tiger, he co-wrote all the 38 special hits, 20 million albumslater.
But his home base is the Ides of March.
So we've done shows actually last year in March on the Ides of March, we did a show withthe Symphony Orchestra.
(03:35):
And as you know, that was our 60th anniversary celebration.
And so we've done, we just got off of a cruise.
We were in the Caribbean with the concert at sea.
I get February, we got some shows, but March, then we go out with the rock and romancecruise.
And so we're always busy.
(03:56):
Absolutely.
And so what does an Ides of March gig look like now?
What's sort of the gamut of music that you cover in a show?
I mean, it's no mean feat.
60 years is an incredible feat.
tell us what, you know, a gig today looks like for you when you do go out.
Well, you know, it's an eight piece band, two guitars, bass drums, and a three piece hornsection.
(04:22):
And all the material we do, every song in our set has been a top 10 hit because we do ourhits and then we do some, a bunch of survivor stuff and a bunch of 38 special stuff.
Sometimes we do
(04:42):
the song Heavy Metal from the Heavy Metal movie that Jim wrote with Sammy Hagar.
So we, you know, it's a rockin' show and it goes everything from beautiful acapella, notcountry, but acapella vocals piece.
We have a couple of those we do because we have five-part harmony all the way up to, youknow, pretty hard rock and...
(05:11):
and all points in between.
That's amazing.
so obviously to do that diverse material, your rig must need to cover a lot of bases.
So mean, how do you approach covering that amount of material?
What's your keyboard rig for a gig with Ides of March?
It's amazingly simple.
(05:32):
play a Hammond SK X Pro double manual and that's got everything in it.
Lots of Hammond organ.
band has always...
keyboards have pretty much gone be centered around B3 and piano.
And then I also have one of Marcus Rush's digital mellotrons.
(05:55):
I'm a mellotron fanatic.
So I've got the SKX Pro and my Mellotron.
then one lone little rack mount thing that sits in back of me that I have only because Iuse an orchestra hit that big...
(06:16):
At the very end of Eye of the Tiger, the very last note of the night.
know, da da da da da da da da da plank with the orchestra hit.
And so I carry that.
But everything's in the two keyboards and it's served me real well all this time.
(06:39):
And I've been using Hammond stuff for a long time.
Yeah, no, absolutely.
We're definitely going to talk about that for sure.
Cause as you know, it's a theme throughout your whole career.
So let's, let's jump back a decade or four, Scott and talk about your musical upbringing.
I love the fact that when I did, we're doing my research that you cited two things as,making a big difference.
(07:02):
A copy of pipe or magic by Jesse Crawford.
And then I,
went down this rabbit hole, Scott of looking at Leon Berry and his Glockenspiel traps andplenty of pipes and the fact that he was known as the Dean of Roller Rink Rock.
just loved I was listening to this yesterday that that album.
So just tell us about your musical upbringing, those two things, but also just broadly howyou got into music as a youngster.
(07:26):
I started when I was very young, I used to watch the Lawrence Wolk Show with mygrandfather.
And I would watch Jerry Burke play the Hammond B3 on that thing and it fascinated me.
And the sound of the organ fascinated me.
And I would at home, I would take two pillows and put them up on the side of the couch andI'd sit there and I'd do this.
(07:46):
My mother would, what are you doing?
I go, I'm playing the organ like I see on TV.
And.
She says, well, would you like to take organ lessons?
Now this is back in 1961, a long time ago.
And I said, sure.
so I started to take lessons with a gal named Dorothy Banyard.
And she was the last of the great lady nightclub organists in Chicago.
(08:10):
Back in the day, in the late 50s and 60s, a lot of nightclubs would have, instead of aband, they'd have a Hammond organ behind the bar up and
And there would be ladies that would play the Hammond organ, play pop tunes, and theywould wear skirts that just go down to the knees and then they would kick pedals and it
(08:35):
was all lit up and people used to like to see that and they would talk and Dorothy was thelast of the great of ladies like that in Chicago.
And so I did not have a classical
upbringing I was brought up on the great American songbook, know, George Gershwin ColePorter in Berlin all the great the great The great American songs.
(09:02):
Well, when I got my first organ grandfather gave me Glockenspiel gave me Jesse Crawfordpipe organ magic and an album of Ashley Miller playing the Radio City Music Hall organ and
When you ask me later about the worst thing that ever happened to me on stage, I'll bringmore about that, but dock at that.
(09:28):
Radio City Music Hall was listening.
And then my uncle gave me these four 10-inch records of Glockenspiel's Traps and Plenty ofPipes.
Now for a seven-year-old kid back then, was terra incognito.
It was, you know, but it was theater pipe organ.
and that became a huge influence for me from that day.
(09:55):
now here we are, know, 60 plus years later, I'm still a fanatic for the theater pipeorgan.
Down in Australia, you guys got some cool pipe organs down there, theater organs downthere.
There is the odd one.
Yeah, that's right.
I mean, in the UK and Australia and obviously in America, there's the amazing ones thatyou've just mentioned.
(10:15):
And Scott, you can educate me and probably my listeners would be able to and viewers too.
I meant to look up what's the traps, what clock and spills and pipes obviously understandwhat is a trap?
Well, in the theater pipe organs, don't forget those organs were invented to accompanysilent movies.
(10:37):
And all those organs had drums and cymbals, castanets, wood blocks, triangles.
They called it the toy counter.
so that if you're playing, you could put some drums or a bass drum or snare drum orcymbals.
You know accent and on glockenspiels traps and plenty of pipes that was Leon Barry playingthe hub roller-rink organ and In the in the roller-rinks they always used all those all
(11:10):
those percussions because it was people like to see it they were all exposed and then theand your and Leon would play you could see the drum drumsticks hitting the drums and a
bass drum thing and It was very prominent.
So that was the you know trap drums
They don't use that term too much nowadays, but trap drums is a drum set.
(11:33):
That's an animated term.
See, that's two things I've learned.
I can't keep up with the Pace gods, brilliant.
And so yeah, I can see how they were huge influences.
And so what led from that to you had the organ lessons to you moving into a more careerfocus with music.
(11:55):
I didn't listen to rock and roll when I was a kid at all.
I had a beatnik uncle who I was into the theater pipe organ and then I had my beatnikuncle when I started to play the organ.
He turned me on to jazz right away and Jimmy Smith and Groove Holmes and brother JackMcDuff and Dr.
Lonnie Smith and you know all the great jazz organists.
(12:19):
So I listened to jazz and then when I was in
I was in a theater group between eighth grade and freshman year and I met some guys andgirls.
I discovered girls in rock and roll on the same day.
Precipitous, know, precipitous meeting there.
(12:41):
But I got into rock and roll and I had one of the first guys I met when I was in highschool was a drummer and his older brother.
They were really into music and they turned me on to
Vanilla Fudge, Iron Butterfly, The Moody Blues, The Rascals, and this brand new band atthat time called Led Zeppelin.
(13:06):
the first three, Iron Butterfly, The Rascals, and Vanilla Fudge, those were all heavyorgan records.
And they became...
They became like my holy ho.
And very cool that now all these years later, all the guys in the Vanilla Fudge are someof my dearest friends.
(13:35):
Felix Cavallari from the Rascals is one of my dearest friends.
And the guys in the Moody Blues have been friends too.
So I've been very lucky to have met.
most of my idols and become friends with them.
(13:56):
all that stuff, then I got in the band.
And when you get in a band in 1968, we were all nuts back then.
It was going to be, well, we're going to be stars.
Then you realize that being a star is not, once you start to know some rock and rollstars, they got a lot of headaches, they got a lot of money.
(14:19):
But
I've been very lucky to have so far lived a life with lot of freedom.
I don't have any money, but I've got great friends and I get by.
is not a tenement I'm living in here.
(14:41):
I've got a car that works and I'm obviously well fed.
It's lies, folks.
He's on a park bench.
That's a virtual background.
saw it before we started recording.
I want to buy a pencil.
I started being bands right away with that fellow that I met and never stopped.
Here I am.
Well, actually I did stop.
(15:02):
We could talk about that when I went into the comedy world.
Yeah, well actually let's do that now Scott because I mean it sort of links because I knowthere was still a musical aspect of it.
So let's talk about Judy Tanuta for a little while.
Is that a fair sort of segue in there?
Well, I was in bands all through high school and out of high school and into college.
(15:24):
know, a couple of the bands were pretty popular here in Chicago.
We came close to getting signed, but it never happened.
And I said, if I turn 30 years old and I hadn't made it in the music world, I was going togive it up and make it a hobby and try and be an adult, which I failed miserably at.
Because when I turned 30, a chance meeting with
(15:47):
the comic Emo Phillips, I got to know Judy Tanuta and she needed a music director.
so I went and I started working with her and through her all these other things startedfalling into place.
(16:08):
Judy was really hot at the time when we worked all over from the Fillmore West to RadioCity Music Hall and North and South and
you know, East and West, I did a bunch of shows with her, lots.
And I made my first appearance on a major record album with her on Electro Records.
(16:28):
And I produced your third album, which was Grammy nominated.
We lost to Jonathan Winters.
And if you're going to lose to somebody, you lose to Winters.
We've got good news and bad news.
What's the bad news?
We lost.
What's the good news?
We lost to Jonathan Winters and everybody goes, well, of course.
(16:49):
Although Jonathan Winters told Judy he voted for our record.
there you go.
That's Scott, Scott, tell us about your role with Judy as far as from a musical viewpoint.
What was your actual role there?
What were you pulling off for her each show?
I was known as Shadrack, her musical slave.
I didn't even get to use my real name.
Judy made nicknames for everybody.
(17:13):
It can happen.
Worship me, pig.
I had equipment.
I had a tape machine and a keyboard.
And I would play cues to her sound effects.
And then I had tracks that I made of her songs and then she would sing.
(17:40):
sometimes I was a scapegoat for jokes, but I would accompany her live and Judy would go,and I would follow her.
And that led to so many other...
things in the comedy world and in radio and in TV.
(18:04):
I couldn't have planned it better.
my age 30, no rock and roll, I'm going to get it out, well, that went right out the windowbecause now I'm doing comedy gigs.
That's right.
And you ended up as a musical director, didn't you, Scott, at the Funny Firm?
(18:26):
the number one comedy club, number one most progressive comedy club in the United States.
Chicago had a great comedy scene.
A lot of great comics came out of Chicago.
But the Funny Firm was known for being one of the places where anything goes.
Everybody liked to work at the Funny Firm because it was owned by a comedian and I didlive music there every night.
(18:56):
And I did a lot of work with the comics and I got to work with so many comedians.
And trust me, in comedy, timing is everything.
And when you work with experienced comics who are really good, you learn timing, you learndrama, you learn when to put the little zinger in, call it back later, and...
(19:25):
especially in Chicago's, we've got a big improv community here.
And I was, we had a great improv, a great improv group that I was their, I was their musicguy.
And we'd have to make it all up on the road, on the run, because we would get suggestionsfrom the audience, Chicago style improv.
(19:46):
We'd have to make it all up right away.
And,
So tell me about that Scott, cause I'm fascinated by that.
when you were in DC, you had a band at the club.
Well, we had me.
And I had a computer and I had tracks.
And I would play guitar and I'd play keyboards.
(20:08):
I had a microphone back by my area too.
And I could interact with the comedians.
it was a little bit different.
One comedian I worked with, one of his shticks is that he always used
rim shots.
He'd tell a stupid joke, and I had my keyboard set up so that my hand was always there andhe had a special hand movement that he would do for a rim shot and at any time he would do
(20:40):
that I was right there giving him his rim shot.
from there I went to, I did two seasons with Caroline's Comedy Hour on the A &E.
network we won an ACE award for my second season with the late great Richard Jenney andworked with everybody there.
(21:05):
People that went on to big names in sitcoms in the US here.
It was a Caroline's Comedy Hour, Scott.
What was your setup there?
Because I had watched a couple of videos of that show and I looked out for you, but Iassume they had you crammed somewhere out the back or the side because it seems like quite
(21:25):
a small set.
So how did that work?
Well, was, Caroline's Comedy Club was actually quite a big club, big club and they had meset up, you know, what would be equivalent of stage right house left.
had my, I had a little island there.
I had a Korg T2 synthesizer.
(21:46):
That was a 73 note synthesizer.
Then I had a, a Macintosh again loaded up with all my tracks.
and I could call up whatever I wanted at any time, backing tracks or sound effects.
And the T2 had actually a bunch of sound effects in it already, so I could use those.
(22:10):
And I also had a little Roland box that had some real sound effects like telephones andbirds and other things.
And we'd rehearse all day long.
Sometimes they'd give me assignments.
I'd make the sequences in the afternoon and we'd shoot that night.
(22:35):
So it was a fun thing and I played guitar on that.
That's amazing.
And then I know from that you went into a stint in radio, which is sort of a, it makessense going from that sort of theatrical live environment to radio where it still can be
somewhat spontaneous.
What did you learn in the radio environment that you hadn't probably picked up prior tothat?
(22:57):
I was, again, I was very lucky that the comedy club that we worked in, because it was sooutrageous, there was a radio station called WLUP in Chicago, which is notorious in
Chicago for being completely, in the comedy world, out.
No limits, no holds barred.
(23:20):
And the number one guy in the morning, Kevin Matthews,
would come into the club and then he asked me to start coming into his show and I'd bringmy keyboard and I'd sit there and I'd do live music, sound effects, play with musical
guests that would come in, tons of stuff like that and from there one day one of ourguests was Morton Downey Jr., remember him?
(23:45):
Crazy guy with the cigarettes and getting in your face, kind of a political guy and
He saw what I was doing and after the show, he said, would you like to come and work forme on my show?
And he was getting back into radio and it didn't conflict with WLUP, so they let me do it.
(24:09):
So I would be on 5 a.m.
to 10 a.m.
on the loop and then I'd go home and then come back downtown for four o'clock throughseven o'clock nationwide with Mort.
with a keyboard, but Mort, Mort, you know, Mort had this crazy reputation as being thismadman with the, you know, with the cigarettes and the being mean.
(24:37):
He was the nicest guy on two legs.
And boy, did he know he could improvise.
He could do anything on the spot.
He was a terrific, terrific performer.
I mean, that bad guy thing was all an act, 100 % act.
But the timing, again, the timing learning from him was just amazing.
(25:02):
You can learn things, a painting artist can learn from a musician, a musician can learnfrom a dancer, a dancer can learn from a writer, if you're smart and if you've got your
eyes and ears open and if the antennas are up in the right way, you learn from.
from other arts and I've always been pretty perceptive in that way.
(25:29):
Through no effort of my own, it's just natural.
Which is obviously paid off, Scott.
I'm really interested just you talking about the spontaneity and the need to be able tocover a whole range of both sounds and songs and playing full songs with guests.
You mentioned your organ lessons and that.
Are you a sight reader or you're just an amazing by ear player or a bit of both?
(25:52):
Well, the deal is I was in the theater pipe organ.
And back in the late 19, 19, 1920s when there were silent movies, those organists rosefrom the pit and played to the movie and they made it all up as they went along.
(26:13):
It was all improvisation.
And as being a theater organ guy, I studied that, I saw
the greats, know, there was still a lot of great theater organists and watching silentmovies and watching and listening to how they did things with sound effects and again,
timing, timing, timing.
(26:33):
To go and work with comedians, it was the same thing.
It was like working with a silent movie.
So I had a little bit of an advantage.
I would look for bits to get in there and sometimes you're looking for places
to lay out you know because sometimes what you don't plays is important as what you doplay but it served me real well in the comedy world and to this day there's still some
(27:04):
comics that i work with produce records and the number one news program in the morninghere in chicago calling me sometimes to do to do crazy stuff for them
So I'm still in that racket, not as much as I was anymore, but I'm still in it.
(27:26):
still obviously loving it, which is great.
I do want to take a sidestep into pipe organ and theatre organs because it is an area thatI'm fascinated by and I know a lot of our viewers and listeners are as well.
So we'll probably move into the Radio City stuff in a minute as well, but my understandingis the behemoths of organs in America, the number one and two are, there's one at Atlantic
(27:53):
City and then there's the Macy's pipe organ.
I assume, have you been to have a look at either of those?
I have not.
The organ in Atlantic City is a 7-manual, 645-rank mid-merlosh.
I've got actually a friend in Atlantic City who knows the people there and he says thatwhen I go to Atlantic City I can get over there, which Macy's is closing.
(28:25):
That used to be called Wannamakers.
That is the largest fully working, the one in Atlantic City is not 100 % working, but theone in the Wanamaker's Macy's store is working.
That's not a theater organ.
It's called an orchestral organ.
It's got theater pipes in it and it can play some theater organ music, but it's anorchestral organ.
(28:51):
more for classical music and program music.
but theater pipe organ is a little bit different.
Yeah.
And I don't want you to think I'm educated.
We've just had a guest on Anna Lapwood who plays orchestral organs and classical music.
And she mentioned Wanamakers and Atlantic City and she plays the Royal Albert Hall organall the time.
And yeah, amazing pieces.
(29:13):
So let's talk Radio City.
I've had the privilege of doing a tour of Radio City a couple of years back.
Amazing venue, iconic venue.
Tell us what it's like.
I know you've played there, what that was like, and maybe segue into your fun times wherethings didn't go so well.
When I got my first organ at home in 1961, my grandfather gave me a copy of Ashley Millerplaying the Radio City Music Hall pipe organ, which was a four-manual, 45-ranked
(29:47):
Wurlitzer, the largest Wurlitzer pipe organ ever built.
Wurlitzer was the greatest maker of theater pipe organs.
And my grandfather...
pulled me aside in my kitchen, I'll never forget it, and he said, you see this here?
This is the greatest organ in the world in Radio City Music Hall in New York City.
(30:08):
Because when you get to play that organ, you're going to know you made something ofyourself.
I won't be there, but I know you're going to get there.
That was 1961.
Now in 1989, somewhere around there,
Judy Tanuta calls me and says, Shadrack, we're going to go play Radio City music.
(30:30):
I said, I've to play the organ.
And so I called my connections in the theater organ world because I had made a few.
sure enough, they said I had to hire the organist at Radio City because of union rules.
But they said, yes, you can come.
I had proper references and stuff.
(30:53):
and got there and so I was going to play the organ at Radio City Music Hall.
And so now I'm going to go into my story of the of of what happened.
So what a lot of people don't know is that there are two secret staircases on the side ofRadio City of the auditorium where the Rockettes, know, the girls who kicked their legs,
(31:18):
could open a secret door that was built into the wall and walk
down these steps and it looks like they were drifting down the way, know, it was a prettycool stage set.
And because the organ at Radio City comes out of a slider, there's no way to get to it.
You have to, you know, either it's behind a curtain and either you have to be there beforethe show starts or you have to sneak your way in there.
(31:47):
So they told me that's what I had to do.
I went up the secret staircase.
down and got behind the curtain waiting for my cue.
Now I must say that we opened up for Suzanne Vega.
Radio City Music Hall was sold out, 5,500 seats, a packed house sold out at Radio CityMusic Hall.
(32:11):
Now I played a lot of pipe organs before Radio City, but I sat down, I sat down at theconsole.
And I like, wow, this console looks just like the one at Radio City.
And there's my grandfather's face right here.
You made it kid.
You're there.
You're there.
And not only are you there, you're there in front of 5,500 people.
(32:34):
You're gonna start the show to a sold out house at Radio City Music Hall.
I've never had stage fright in my life except for that day.
And because my grandfather was there and it's like, he called it.
Here I am.
But I shook it off.
So now, the organist told me the console's huge.
(32:56):
you ever see those buttons like in a warehouse to open up a garage door.
It's a box that's got a red button up here, a black button here, and a green button downthere.
It might be the other way around down in Australia.
Yeah, we're all upside down, yep.
Anyway, so there was one on this side of the console underneath the keyboard and one onthis side.
(33:23):
Now the organist said, you hit this one first, that opens the curtains and then you hitthis one.
You couldn't hit them at the same time because it was too wide.
You hit this one and that will send the console out on the slider.
Whatever you do, don't press that one first.
(33:45):
press that one first.
anyway, I hear my cue.
I'm thinking about my grandfather.
I hit this one first.
Now the console started all, Jesus.
And there's chains at the bottom of the curtain to keep the curtain flat.
And then I open the curtain and the curtain opens slowly.
(34:08):
The console's going out and it hits me in the back of head and I didn't get hurt.
But that kind of laugh, so it was okay.
That wasn't the bad part.
Judy's walk on music was Exodus.
Theme from the movie Exodus.
(34:28):
Da da, da da, da da, da da, da Very pageantry.
And the idea was, I'm gonna play Exodus, and now on the other side of Radio City, thesecret door that I walked out, Judy is going to
Judy's gonna walk out on that side and the spotlights are gonna hit her and she's gonnawalk and then goes and leads right to the stage and we start our part of the show.
(34:56):
So I get my, I come out blazing through the curtains.
Now the five super troopers, like close encounters, zang, go over and where the door is,
And Judy's supposed to walk out the door, but she doesn't.
(35:21):
I get another couple bars into it and the lights go out and I stop.
I start it again.
Spotlight comes on me.
Zang!
Spotlight's on the door.
No Judy.
Wow.
Now this happens another three times.
(35:43):
I turned around and looked at the audience.
Judy's arguing with her manager behind the door for some reason and she says, I'm notgoing out.
I'm not.
Let Shadrack play the organ for our time.
Let him, he likes to play the organ.
Let him play the organ.
I'm not going out.
F you, I'm not going to play.
(36:03):
I'm not going to do my show.
Well, the manager said, oh yes, you are going to do the show.
He opens the door and throws her out.
And she kind of.
comes out, almost falls over the side, which would have, from the second floor, that wouldhave been good.
And so finally, Judy walks down the steps and we do our show.
(36:25):
But that was, because I'm like, there's 5,500 people there, and I'm like, what do I donow?
I can't communicate with them.
You know, so the show had a chance to go sliding into hell.
and flaming chariot of you know what, but it didn't.
(36:48):
that's my favorite bad time on stage.
That is absolutely amazing.
Now I've got two questions that come out of that.
So you were able to press the button to open the curtain after you'd gone through it andit did sort of come out around you.
I was worried that the curtain might actually drag you off your stool as it opened.
So that's good.
No, but when I did it, I go, oh!
(37:10):
So I was on a bench and it didn't knock me off the bench because I was ready for it.
the curtain, by the time it got to me, the curtain was halfway open.
So it just came up over the organ.
But I was afraid it was going to scratch the organ.
then, know, Mr.
Miley's got a $7,500 bill because we got to refinish the greatest World's Greatest Theatrepipe organ ever built.
(37:35):
Yeah, that's right.
And roughly what year was this, Scott?
Let's call it 89.
So Susan, my second question is who the hell, and I'm not saying this is a bad thing, butwho the hell booked Judy Tanuta as a support for Suzanne Vega?
I can't imagine for a minute any member of Suzanne Vega's audience was expecting that as asupport act.
(37:57):
Suzanne was a big Judy Tanuta freak.
She loved Judy Tanuta.
And Judy was big in New York.
we played Carolines in three different locations.
They moved the club a couple of times.
(38:17):
Judy was very, very popular in New York.
She was on Howard Stern all the time.
And she was actually...
For being a Chicago gal, was very, she had a New York thing to her.
New York people really liked her because she was, you know, she was bigger than life, youknow, and.
(38:39):
And she absolutely deserved the support.
She absolutely deserved the support.
was more Susan.
And I'm a massive Suzanne Vega fan.
My perception of Suzanne Vega during the 80s, where she was very serious, is not the wordI'm looking for, but a very introspective artist.
I just imagine all these people in berets and serious artists turning up to Radio CityMusic Hall and going, well, this is not what I expected.
(39:05):
Well, you wouldn't believe it, Judy's audience was very wide.
you know, I found, mean, if you look at Monty Python, Monty Python was, those guys wereall intellectuals and they were absurd as you could possibly get.
(39:28):
And Judy was absurd in her own way.
And,
And she had a lot of fans that were smart people.
Yeah, I love it.
No, that's amazing.
Just, yeah, amazing story, Scott.
Thank you for that.
That's just absolute gold.
My pleasure.
And so that's what we're talking about organs.
(39:48):
You've had a long standing, obviously love of Hammond's and then an actual more formalinvolvement with Hammond.
Tell us about your love of Hammond organs specifically and how they've sort of assistedyou throughout your career.
Well, know, Hammond USA, Hammond organ is owned by Suzuki Musical Instruments ofHamamatsu, Japan.
(40:09):
And that's a whole long story.
Mr.
Suzuki, Manji Suzuki rescued the company.
Actually, it was owned by a guy from Australia for a while.
And God bless him, don't get mad at me.
But he did not do a great job with the company and kind of drove it into the ground.
(40:30):
And Mr.
Suzuki bought it with the idea of remaking the B3.
That was his entire goal to do it.
Found out that the original Hammond organ was an electromechanical instrument withthousands and thousands and thousands of parts.
And to rebuild it and remarket it would have a six-figure price tag.
(40:55):
So he said, I'm not going to do that.
Let's learn how to do it digitally.
and he got his engineers to start working on it and so became started making digitalorgans.
the American division, Hammond Organ was begun in Chicago by Lawrence Hammond in 1934.
(41:16):
And so it's the the USA headquarters is in suburban Chicago.
And I used to go there and hang out.
You know, the guys were real nice and I'd go there and I'd play the organ and we'd go outfor lunch and you know, it was a pretty good camaraderie.
And after a while they said, well, wait a minute, you're here all the time.
(41:40):
Here's a desk and a small check.
Take care of our artists.
And so they made me the artist liaison.
We had about five artists when I started and now I've got 300 and
just got a new guy today, 352 artists.
(42:02):
And we've got the greatest of the greatest.
Keith Emerson was one of our guys.
Rick Wakeman, Rod Argent, Craig Rowley from Santana and Journey, the music director ofBilly Joel, all the gospel guys, country guys.
The list goes on and on and we're adding to it all the time.
(42:26):
people who play ham and organ and and i'd i'd play him in oregon i work for the companybecause i play him in oregon not the other way around i'm not a i'm not a shill and i'm
not a you know i'd if if i found something else that worked better than a ham and organi'd play that because i don't want to nothing gets in the way of my music but i have not
(42:53):
found anything yet that beats the ham and organ
And they're not, I do have a Mellotron, but that's not a competition.
yeah, so we're a small crew in Chicago, but we help with the design of the organs andwe've got a lot of input in programming the organs and in development.
(43:18):
we work with Japan very closely to make these instruments and they're
fantastic instruments and we still do make the B3 but only as digital and have to wait.
Yeah, which is a benefit.
Scott, I honestly had no awareness that you were the artist liaison person at Hammond.
(43:40):
I obviously didn't do my research that well.
So I understand there is stuff you won't be able to talk about.
Totally get that.
But what is the skill set required to do artist liaison?
Because that's another unique sort of skill.
Well, you know, my mother was a people person.
I'm a people person and I know not to bother big stars, you know, I've got their phonenumbers and their addresses and some of their credit cards, but I don't bother them.
(44:18):
boy, it's hard.
It's hard, you know, when
when you're hanging around the zombies and Rod Argent or you know, Keith Emerson or RickWakeman.
You just want to, you have to temper being a fan boy, you know?
(44:40):
But some of the guys I've become very, very close with, like Mark Stein from the VanillaFudge, who was one of my original heroes.
Mark calls his hates my cool friend Mark and then every once in a while I go, it's the guyfrom the vanilla fudge.
And he just looks at me and well, we'll keep it clean.
(45:03):
he uses a word, stop it.
Stop being a fanboy.
I can't help it.
But then he'll sit there and he'll tell the stories about that the album Band of Gypsies.
by Jimi Hendrix, one of the classic albums of all time.
(45:23):
Mark was in the dressing room with Jimi Hendrix, just Mark and Jimi, right before thatshow, and Mark walked Jimi up to the stage, then Jimi went on the stage and did the Band
of Gypsies concert.
Now this is my buddy.
Yeah.
(45:44):
It's got to be a few pinch me moments there.
Scott and it probably segues beautifully to a standard question we ask every guest, whichis tag a keyboard player.
And I can't think of anyone better qualified to call out someone that's inspired them,given your role at Hammond, but is there a keyboard player you would love to hear more
about their career if you had the opportunity to hear it?
(46:05):
This is going to sound self-serving or something, but I've gotten to meet all my heroes.
I mean, to the point where I'm friends with most of them.
My all-time keyboard hero of all times was Michael Pinder of the Moody Blues, theMellotron player of the Moody Blues.
(46:27):
Because I could not see how one man could sit down and make a symphony orchestra.
I didn't even know what a Mellotron was.
And so I followed Mike, and I was a huge Moody Blues fan.
through a very, it had nothing to do with Hammond Organ, this was before I worked forHammond Organ, through a very strange, you know, one of those, I got to be friends with
(46:52):
Mike and his wife and his kids.
I stayed at his house, I was in the studio.
And Mike was a guru.
I had, I've had three gurus in my life.
Mike was one of them.
Dr.
Lonnie Smith, we can talk about Dr.
Lonnie Smith if you wish.
And then a fellow by name of Colonel Bruce Hampton, who was the potterfamilias of the jamband scene here in the United States.
(47:23):
yeah, mean, Rick Wakeman, I've had many conversations with Rick and
and Keith and Rod Argent.
Yeah.
And of course, Mark and Felix Cavallari from the Rascals.
(47:45):
By the way, if the Rascals come anywhere near you, they tour, I don't know if they'regoing to go to Australia or not, but anybody who's watching this over the world, if the
Vanilla Fudge or the Rascals come anywhere near you, go to see them or, you know, becausethey're just fantastic.
(48:07):
Yeah, no, absolutely.
No, brilliant picks there.
Scott, I really appreciate that.
Yeah, they're amazing.
And while we've already covered off the train wreck, but just ignoring what your currentrig is with the Ides of March, and aside from Hammond Orkins, what are some of the
favorite keyboards?
Melotron sounds like it's your go-to outside of Hammond.
(48:30):
Well, I'm you know as far as the sounds the the instrument that I play Is a completelydigital instrument?
a Melotron for those who don't know a Melotron was invented in the late 40s in America Itwasn't called Melotron.
I was invented by a guy named Harry Chamberlain in LA and he got this idea of making amachine that used pieces of
(48:58):
magnetic tape like from a tape recorder and he would have he would you know have c c sharpd d sharp e of violins playing and then he made an apparatus with a keyboard that would
play those tapes and you have violins or trumpets or french horns or whatever and a lot ofpeople don't know is that those original tapes
(49:26):
were members of the Lawrence Welk Orchestra that he recorded in his garage with his son.
And then a guy, were looking for someplace where they could get 37 playback heads formagnetic tape on one piece of metal that would fit in there.
(49:49):
They couldn't find that.
And there was a place in England called Streatley Electronics that built
that built parts for tape recorders.
So they went there and this guy Bill Franzen took two Chamberlains from LA to Birmingham,England, where Straitly was.
(50:13):
And here's where the story gets a little weird because for some reason Harry Chamberlainonly patented his instrument in the United States.
Not a worldwide patent.
Bill Franzen, who was a salesman, took these two instruments to England and showed theguys from Streetly Electronics what they said, what are going to do with 38, 37, they will
(50:42):
work out this musical instrument, here it is.
Well, they saw it and saw that it wasn't patented in the United States and they built thefirst Melotron.
And they've
They started a company called Melotronics and they started building that instrument inEngland.
(51:04):
of course, this was by the time it got to, it was in the early sixties, Graham Bond, thegreat British organist, was the first guy to put one on a record.
and Katie bar the doors and all the
(51:25):
British acts start using Melitron and Melitron became what it is.
Eventually, when Harry Chamberlain found out about this, he was like, wait a minute,that's my idea.
I've got it patented here.
There was lot of whatever, whatever, whatever.
Melitron had to pay Harry Chamberlain a royalty for having that idea.
(51:52):
Harry Chamberlain never got
popular with what he did here.
But it's a big long story to get back to your original question.
What do I use?
I use the original three violins, which was a chamberlain instrument that was copied intoMelitron.
(52:13):
I use the flutes.
I use the choir.
There's a beautiful chamberlain tenor sax I use on the Melitron.
very haunting sound.
What else?
Oh, sometimes the brass, which doesn't sound like brass.
And the brass is what you hear at the beginning of Watcher of the Skies by Genesis, thatbrass is in there a lot.
(52:40):
that's those are the melodraph sounds I use.
There you go to is now that's amazing.
Thank you.
and then, I, before we get onto the desert Island, this, I did, I love the quote on yourwebsite, which is always trust a fat man when it comes to So, and you can tell your comedy
background cause yeah, I did laugh when I read that.
(53:01):
So, tell us about your, involvement with Yelp and cause I think you're one of the, themost like, prolific reviewers and so on.
Tell us a little bit.
just thought it was really interesting and worth it.
Worth a quick chat.
I discovered Yelp and I use it to practice my writing.
(53:23):
I'm also a professional writer.
When I can get work, anybody out there watching, I'll give you my website.
But I use it to practice my writing.
And I try to be clever with my reviews.
And I'm not one of these guys who just gets toffee-nosed and hates everything.
(53:51):
If it's miserable, I'll say it.
But I don't get vicious.
But I try to put some life and some veef in my writing.
whenever I go somewhere, know, somewhere new, I always...
(54:12):
Yelp it.
And so I've got, you know, hundreds of reviews now and I've been Yelp elite for the pastthree years.
You don't ever go into a restaurant and say, hey, I'm a Yelper.
You don't do that.
But it's fun to write like that and it stirs the mind.
(54:37):
And so that's why I do it and continue to do it.
And so I'm scotmqzq.yelp.com and that'll get you to my pages.
the one thing I don't do, a lot of people do, is I don't put pictures in my reviews.
(54:58):
Yeah, okay.
which I should, they want me to do it, but I don't do it.
But it's very fun and especially if you go to a place that's really good.
I always comment about the decor and the service and if it's really bad, can tell you theworst review I've ever done.
(55:27):
And I can tell you the whole thing right now, because you'll see it's only a few words.
I went to a steakhouse that was horrible.
And that's horrible with a capital H.
And my entire yelp was, there's a white castle down the street.
Eat there instead.
Now for non-US listeners, White Castle, it's...
(55:48):
White Castle is Sliders.
Sliders has entered the popular vernacular for being a small hamburger, a tiny, tinyburger.
In the US here, it was one of the first fast food joints and they're called Sliders.
(56:15):
There's a lot of onions on them.
onions throw glycerin.
And if you eat enough of them, you have sometimes a tendency to make repeated visits tothe smallest room in your house.
Laksinium.
Yeah, that was very technical.
Yeah, I'm from a nursing background, Scott.
(56:37):
So as soon you mentioned glycerin, I went, okay, Laksinium effects.
That's the White Castles.
They've been around and they're and they're they used to be open 24 hours and and least inChicago they've got reputation as a place you go to and in two o'clock in the morning when
you're thoroughly pissed out of your head and and And you want something to eat?
(57:00):
You know you go two o'clock in the morning to White Castle a lot of people have never beento a White Castle sober
So that was my that was my worst yelp I ever had.
So here's my feeble attempt at a segue, Scott.
So going from food to not having a lot of food and living on a desert island, let's talkabout your desert island discs.
(57:21):
What are your five go-to albums if you have to pick them?
Beautiful.
This is probably boring, but the first two would be the red and blue Beatles greatesthits.
I believe it's thoroughly impossible to become bored with the Beatles.
(57:43):
And the range of music on those, you know, the two double albums, so I'm kind of cheating,but I'm considering the double album as one album.
The red and blue Beatles, you know, the 64 to
That's right.
66 66 to 68 Boy if you can't find something to listen to on those I can't help you, youknow, so that's number one Number one and two number three would be Miles Davis milestones
(58:12):
great jazz album You never get sick of it And I mean when you're talking about desertisland discs, that's what you're talking about Stuff that you never ever get sick of and
if you hear a song
from those albums you don't go, turn that crap off, know, oh no, I turned it up.
I want to hear that.
(58:32):
So Miles Davis, Miles Stones.
My fourth would be the album Breathe by Dr.
Lonnie Smith.
Dr.
Lonnie, again, I've been so lucky to be in the right place at the right time.
Dr.
was the last of the great jazz organists.
(58:53):
Hmm.
And he was a very, very loyal member of the Hammond family.
And he embraced all of us, all of us artists.
He was like the guru.
And he taught us about ego.
(59:14):
He taught us about not being too full of yourself.
He taught us about
how to be in a band with your fellow man.
taught us how to behave.
He taught us so much.
It was a brilliant, brilliant, but very heartfelt, heartfelt man.
(59:39):
And he, his music live was absolutely riveting and electric.
And
We'd go to see him.
He'd come into town.
I'd pick him up and come and play the Jazz Showcase.
everybody would crowd into the Jazz Showcase, which is not a big club.
(01:00:03):
And he'd play his set.
And afterwards, we'd all walk to the back of the room with this look on our face.
Completely gobsmacked, stunned, speechless.
We all look at each other and go, did we just see here?
What was that?
you know, and just to try to digest it.
(01:00:28):
he was in his final years, his path of experimenting with the organ trio, he picked hismusicians that he worked with incredibly.
Jonathan Kreisberg, Jonathan Blake on drums, just unbelievable.
(01:00:52):
You'd go to see them.
Sometimes you'd think you'd be listening to a blues fat-backed trio.
Sometimes you'd think you were listening to Yes or King Crimson, which a lot of jazz guysdon't go there.
Doc did.
And his path was just the creativity.
He never stopped and he just wouldn't go.
(01:01:13):
Then he got sick.
Yeah
And his mind was absolutely crystal clear and precise to his last day, but his body failedhim.
And he was fearless.
then his body died, but he's still with us.
(01:01:40):
And if I sound like a Mooney or a cult member, I guess I am.
but it's a benevolent, happy, productive cult.
you know, his voice we hear constantly.
And I was very lucky to have been part of his life.
(01:02:05):
so Dr.
Lonnie's album, Breathe on Blue Note Records is number four.
And then the fifth one.
is completely out of left field and this is Modern Pipe Organ by Buddy Cole.
To me is one of the greatest theater pipe organ records ever made.
you know, again, we got rock and roll guys listening here.
(01:02:27):
It was on Warner Brothers records and it's the most incredible sounding pipe organ recordthat was ever made in theater pipe organ.
And people tried to, you all the theater organists
So why can't we get anything that sounds like that?
And until I told him, says, you know what?
They were on Warner Brothers records where the Grateful Dead was, where Hendrix was.
(01:02:54):
No, Hendrix was.
Yeah.
No, wait a minute.
He wasn't on Warner Brothers.
But there were a bunch of great rock and rollers on Warner Brothers and they had theirmastering people and they get the tapes and they'd master it like a pop record and
That's why it sounded like that.
And I can't tell you how many times with theater organ guys, said, look, take your recordsto a rock and roll guy to get it mastered because it's the same thing.
(01:03:23):
It's a huge sound, huge bass, huge sound.
You got to know what you're doing to master a record to sound like that.
And I've been thanked.
The microphone.
that I'm talking to you on.
is an Audio Technica 4105.
(01:03:44):
It's a very expensive microphone and a theater organ guy, after I gave him that tip, gaveme this microphone.
There you go.
That I'm speaking to you on right now.
Gratitude for helping him to get his mastering together.
No, that's a great tip.
(01:04:04):
And thanks for that beautiful tribute to Dr.
Lonnie as well.
And just, I hadn't planned on asking this, but in your role at Hammond or more broadly,did you run across Joey DeFranchesco as well, who's obviously someone else that we lost
recently that was a huge loss?
Joey, Joey what a character.
Yeah, Joey was a dear friend, dear dear dear friend.
(01:04:25):
I got to jam with him many number of times.
I'll tell you a funny story.
You know, I said, always trust a fat man when it comes to food.
And Joey was a man of, he was bigamon.
was a man of tremendous girth.
So the end show,
(01:04:48):
Our Japanese executives took us out to dinner for sushi.
About 25 of us at a big long table.
So Joey and I and his band were at one end of the table.
All the grown-ups were at the other end of the table.
So Joey and I start ordering sushi.
Now all of a sudden here comes a bunch of sushi that we didn't order.
(01:05:09):
And that's when we found out that the boss, Mr.
Suzuki, at the end of the table
The custom is that he orders for the table.
So we had double ordered the sushi.
I don't know if you've ever seen the thing on Lucille Ball on I Love Lucy a million yearsago where Lucy and Ethel are working in a candy factory and there's candy coming out on a
(01:05:38):
conveyor belt and a conveyor belt's going too fast and they're shoving the candy in yourmouth because they're supposed to wrap it up.
Well, this was Joey and I when we see all the sushi coming that they ordered at thebeginning of the table, plus all the stuff that we ordered.
And this wasn't in a cheap joint.
This was at a high-end sushi joint.
(01:06:00):
I'm going have a $500 bill because once Mr.
Suzuki at the end of the table sees that we ordered all the sushi and we fessed up andwent to a man.
The two big fat guys.
double order the sushi, it's not a good optic.
I love it.
(01:06:20):
What?
But in the end, didn't waste anything.
We didn't throw anything under the table.
But we told him, cancel, cancel the rest of our order.
But we went to Mr.
Suzuki and said, we didn't know that you ordered the sushi for us and we ordered it.
(01:06:44):
Don't worry, it's okay.
But yeah, Joey was a...
Joey was a dear, dear friend, a tremendous, tremendous player.
Got to hear him with Pat Martino, and he always had a great band.
lots and lots of moments off stage and just hanging out and having a good time, having acocktail and talking about jazz.
(01:07:12):
To have the kind of proximity to an artist like that, boy, you can't buy that.
No, you can't.
So yeah, Joey was a great guy and what he did for the Hammond organist just can't beduplicated.
We're talking about Dr.
(01:07:32):
Lonnie Smith.
I was at the NAMM show once and Doc was just playing.
And I've told this story so many times to so many people.
They may think it's the only story that I have but I love this story so much and I thinkwhen you hear it you'll love it too.
So Doc's playing and up walks one of our dealers with his daughter.
(01:07:58):
So Doc looks at her and you know Doc with the turban and he's got the Jedi eyes.
She's watching him intently and he goes, do you play?
And the little girl says, yes.
And says, would you play it for me?
And the little girl says, no, I'm not very good.
(01:08:21):
Doc stops and looks at her with those Jedi eyes and says, not very good.
Do you love it?
And she goes, yes, sir, I do.
Doc goes, well, you're already one of us.
How old are you?
14.
(01:08:42):
14 years old?
goes, you probably aren't very good.
He goes, I wasn't very good when I was 14, but you're going to get good because you loveit.
Now I'm standing there and I'm watching this and the tears are falling from my eyesbecause where do you see such heartfelt wisdom and such incredible
(01:09:08):
so few words but such a powerful message you know when I started as the artist liaison Iwouldn't even touch an organ around the greatest musicians that I I mean I I commiserate
with the greatest of the greatest of the great and I wouldn't even touch an organ Iwouldn't even do anything and then when Doc said that do you love it you're already one of
(01:09:31):
us it was like
the weight that came off of my shoulders.
that's what the tone of our artist program that...
And it's really been infectious because it's got...
(01:09:52):
I keyboard players have a horrible reputation of being egotistical and know it all.
And it's because we're more educated and better than everybody else.
I'm just kidding.
And Scott, I think there'd be a lot of people throughout your career that have found theirproximity to you priceless as well.
It's been amazing talking to you about what is still an ongoing and very flourishingcareer, but your insights have been amazing and I can't thank you enough for sharing them.
(01:10:21):
Well, thank you for giving me, it's always hazardous to give me a public bully pulpit.
And I managed not to swear.
(01:10:42):
And there we have it.
As I alluded to prior to the show, I mean, what a career Scott's have.
Maybe it's just me that has a fetish for theatre organs, but I somehow think that's notthe case given our huge audience out there.
I hope you enjoyed that as much as I did speaking with Scott.
So yeah, again, can't thank Scott enough for his time.
(01:11:02):
It was absolute gold.
And I'd like to thank you for giving us your time as always.
We do truly appreciate it.
It's not.
insignificant to give up half an hour an hour or however long you listen to of eachepisode, we do hugely appreciate it.
We also appreciate our gold and silver supporters.
So first the musicplayer.com forums.
(01:11:23):
If you want a great space, well moderated space to talk, keyboard synthesizer playing morebroadly, then musicplayer.com forums is the place to go.
Mike and the team at midnightmastering.com.
Again, hugely valued.
provider to me personally with my own music output.
Can't recommend their mixing mastering services highly enough.
(01:11:46):
And Tammy, the lovely Tammy Katcher from Tammy's Musical Stew, thank you Tammy for yourongoing support.
And Mr.
Dewey Evans from the lovely country of Wales, who's an ongoing supporter as well.
And do check out Dewey's interview in a previous episode.
It's absolutely fascinating as well.
Again, thank you.
(01:12:06):
I'll leave it there.
Please do keep in touch.
We are on all the socials, including Blue Sky and Facebook and Instagram, you name them,we're on them.
We are on Substack.
We'd love your support either via Patreon or Substack.
In regards to our Substack, we actually provide written, like edited and curatedtranscripts of our interviews.
(01:12:30):
So if you love a read rather than a listen,
We're building up a nice library of interviews there.
It's slow, slow, sure.
But for a couple of bucks a month, it's well worth thinking about as is our Patreonbecause we do provide early access to parts.
We'll give you early access to like a heads up on future guests and the ability to askquestions of guests and so on.
(01:12:54):
So do consider that the Patreon forward slash keyboard Chronicles.
I'll shut up now.
Look forward to seeing you next episode.
And in the meantime, keep on playing.
I've never had stage fright in my life except for that day.
And because my grandfather was there and it's like, he called it.
Here I am.
Hello and welcome to the keyboard Chronicles, a podcast for keyboard players.
I'm your host, David Holloway.
(00:21):
And I'm thrilled as always to be here with you.
I'm particularly thrilled to introduce our guest for this episode, Mr.
Scott May.
As you'll hear in this interview, wow, what a career Scott has had and a very diversecareer.
So we talk about the use of theater organs, being a radio psychic and playing spontaneousmusic through to Scott's work with the amazing band Ides of March.
(00:46):
You name it, we cover it.
what's even better is Scott is a funny, funny guy to boot and was an absolute pleasure totalk to.
I know we say that about all guests and it's always true, but particularly true in yourcase, Scott, it was just great.
So yeah, I think you'll enjoy this interview a great deal and I'll talk to you after theshow.
(01:18):
How are you sir?
It's a pleasure to have you on the show.
It's a pleasure to be here and I'm damn glad to be here and boy Australia I wish I'd neverbeen there I wish I could go there sometime
we'll get you here one day and as you can, I can tell by your attire that it's nice andsummery in the US at the moment.
(01:39):
It's about 30 degrees here right now and they're expecting an ice storm.
But it's not going to hit us apparently that hard.
you know what?
And it was 50 degrees yesterday.
So Dennis DeYoung from Styx, did a song once and they said, people ask him why he lives inChicago.
(02:00):
says, I like the weather.
Yeah, well it's Chicago they call the Windy City, it?
That's right.
windy but but it had nothing to do with with the wind it had to do with our politiciansand and all the all the hot air that they that's where the wind is
(02:21):
See, I've already learned something.
This is brilliant.
I did not realize that.
Scott, I thought we'd just kick off just talking about your last 12 months.
We're absolutely going to delve deeper into your history, but just tell us what have youbeen up to the last year and particularly with your current band, The Ides of March.
Let's talk a little bit about that.
Well, this year we celebrate 60 years together with all the original guys.
(02:46):
I'm the new guy.
I've only been with them for 36 years.
But we're all from a little town in Chicago here called Berwyn.
I grew up with these guys.
They're a little bit older than I am, but they were always heroes because they were agarage band that
(03:07):
all of sudden hit it real big and then our lead singer Jim Peterick started a band calledSurvivor.
He wrote the Eye of the Tiger, he co-wrote all the 38 special hits, 20 million albumslater.
But his home base is the Ides of March.
So we've done shows actually last year in March on the Ides of March, we did a show withthe Symphony Orchestra.
(03:35):
And as you know, that was our 60th anniversary celebration.
And so we've done, we just got off of a cruise.
We were in the Caribbean with the concert at sea.
I get February, we got some shows, but March, then we go out with the rock and romancecruise.
And so we're always busy.
(03:56):
Absolutely.
And so what does an Ides of March gig look like now?
What's sort of the gamut of music that you cover in a show?
I mean, it's no mean feat.
60 years is an incredible feat.
tell us what, you know, a gig today looks like for you when you do go out.
Well, you know, it's an eight piece band, two guitars, bass drums, and a three piece hornsection.
(04:22):
And all the material we do, every song in our set has been a top 10 hit because we do ourhits and then we do some, a bunch of survivor stuff and a bunch of 38 special stuff.
Sometimes we do
(04:42):
the song Heavy Metal from the Heavy Metal movie that Jim wrote with Sammy Hagar.
So we, you know, it's a rockin' show and it goes everything from beautiful acapella, notcountry, but acapella vocals piece.
We have a couple of those we do because we have five-part harmony all the way up to, youknow, pretty hard rock and...
(05:11):
and all points in between.
That's amazing.
so obviously to do that diverse material, your rig must need to cover a lot of bases.
So mean, how do you approach covering that amount of material?
What's your keyboard rig for a gig with Ides of March?
It's amazingly simple.
(05:32):
play a Hammond SK X Pro double manual and that's got everything in it.
Lots of Hammond organ.
band has always...
keyboards have pretty much gone be centered around B3 and piano.
And then I also have one of Marcus Rush's digital mellotrons.
(05:55):
I'm a mellotron fanatic.
So I've got the SKX Pro and my Mellotron.
then one lone little rack mount thing that sits in back of me that I have only because Iuse an orchestra hit that big...
(06:16):
At the very end of Eye of the Tiger, the very last note of the night.
know, da da da da da da da da da plank with the orchestra hit.
And so I carry that.
But everything's in the two keyboards and it's served me real well all this time.
(06:39):
And I've been using Hammond stuff for a long time.
Yeah, no, absolutely.
We're definitely going to talk about that for sure.
Cause as you know, it's a theme throughout your whole career.
So let's, let's jump back a decade or four, Scott and talk about your musical upbringing.
I love the fact that when I did, we're doing my research that you cited two things as,making a big difference.
(07:02):
A copy of pipe or magic by Jesse Crawford.
And then I,
went down this rabbit hole, Scott of looking at Leon Berry and his Glockenspiel traps andplenty of pipes and the fact that he was known as the Dean of Roller Rink Rock.
just loved I was listening to this yesterday that that album.
So just tell us about your musical upbringing, those two things, but also just broadly howyou got into music as a youngster.
(07:26):
I started when I was very young, I used to watch the Lawrence Wolk Show with mygrandfather.
And I would watch Jerry Burke play the Hammond B3 on that thing and it fascinated me.
And the sound of the organ fascinated me.
And I would at home, I would take two pillows and put them up on the side of the couch andI'd sit there and I'd do this.
(07:46):
My mother would, what are you doing?
I go, I'm playing the organ like I see on TV.
And.
She says, well, would you like to take organ lessons?
Now this is back in 1961, a long time ago.
And I said, sure.
so I started to take lessons with a gal named Dorothy Banyard.
And she was the last of the great lady nightclub organists in Chicago.
(08:10):
Back in the day, in the late 50s and 60s, a lot of nightclubs would have, instead of aband, they'd have a Hammond organ behind the bar up and
And there would be ladies that would play the Hammond organ, play pop tunes, and theywould wear skirts that just go down to the knees and then they would kick pedals and it
(08:35):
was all lit up and people used to like to see that and they would talk and Dorothy was thelast of the great of ladies like that in Chicago.
And so I did not have a classical
upbringing I was brought up on the great American songbook, know, George Gershwin ColePorter in Berlin all the great the great The great American songs.
(09:02):
Well, when I got my first organ grandfather gave me Glockenspiel gave me Jesse Crawfordpipe organ magic and an album of Ashley Miller playing the Radio City Music Hall organ and
When you ask me later about the worst thing that ever happened to me on stage, I'll bringmore about that, but dock at that.
(09:28):
Radio City Music Hall was listening.
And then my uncle gave me these four 10-inch records of Glockenspiel's Traps and Plenty ofPipes.
Now for a seven-year-old kid back then, was terra incognito.
It was, you know, but it was theater pipe organ.
and that became a huge influence for me from that day.
(09:55):
now here we are, know, 60 plus years later, I'm still a fanatic for the theater pipeorgan.
Down in Australia, you guys got some cool pipe organs down there, theater organs downthere.
There is the odd one.
Yeah, that's right.
I mean, in the UK and Australia and obviously in America, there's the amazing ones thatyou've just mentioned.
(10:15):
And Scott, you can educate me and probably my listeners would be able to and viewers too.
I meant to look up what's the traps, what clock and spills and pipes obviously understandwhat is a trap?
Well, in the theater pipe organs, don't forget those organs were invented to accompanysilent movies.
(10:37):
And all those organs had drums and cymbals, castanets, wood blocks, triangles.
They called it the toy counter.
so that if you're playing, you could put some drums or a bass drum or snare drum orcymbals.
You know accent and on glockenspiels traps and plenty of pipes that was Leon Barry playingthe hub roller-rink organ and In the in the roller-rinks they always used all those all
(11:10):
those percussions because it was people like to see it they were all exposed and then theand your and Leon would play you could see the drum drumsticks hitting the drums and a
bass drum thing and It was very prominent.
So that was the you know trap drums
They don't use that term too much nowadays, but trap drums is a drum set.
(11:33):
That's an animated term.
See, that's two things I've learned.
I can't keep up with the Pace gods, brilliant.
And so yeah, I can see how they were huge influences.
And so what led from that to you had the organ lessons to you moving into a more careerfocus with music.
(11:55):
I didn't listen to rock and roll when I was a kid at all.
I had a beatnik uncle who I was into the theater pipe organ and then I had my beatnikuncle when I started to play the organ.
He turned me on to jazz right away and Jimmy Smith and Groove Holmes and brother JackMcDuff and Dr.
Lonnie Smith and you know all the great jazz organists.
(12:19):
So I listened to jazz and then when I was in
I was in a theater group between eighth grade and freshman year and I met some guys andgirls.
I discovered girls in rock and roll on the same day.
Precipitous, know, precipitous meeting there.
(12:41):
But I got into rock and roll and I had one of the first guys I met when I was in highschool was a drummer and his older brother.
They were really into music and they turned me on to
Vanilla Fudge, Iron Butterfly, The Moody Blues, The Rascals, and this brand new band atthat time called Led Zeppelin.
(13:06):
the first three, Iron Butterfly, The Rascals, and Vanilla Fudge, those were all heavyorgan records.
And they became...
They became like my holy ho.
And very cool that now all these years later, all the guys in the Vanilla Fudge are someof my dearest friends.
(13:35):
Felix Cavallari from the Rascals is one of my dearest friends.
And the guys in the Moody Blues have been friends too.
So I've been very lucky to have met.
most of my idols and become friends with them.
(13:56):
all that stuff, then I got in the band.
And when you get in a band in 1968, we were all nuts back then.
It was going to be, well, we're going to be stars.
Then you realize that being a star is not, once you start to know some rock and rollstars, they got a lot of headaches, they got a lot of money.
(14:19):
But
I've been very lucky to have so far lived a life with lot of freedom.
I don't have any money, but I've got great friends and I get by.
is not a tenement I'm living in here.
(14:41):
I've got a car that works and I'm obviously well fed.
It's lies, folks.
He's on a park bench.
That's a virtual background.
saw it before we started recording.
I want to buy a pencil.
I started being bands right away with that fellow that I met and never stopped.
Here I am.
Well, actually I did stop.
(15:02):
We could talk about that when I went into the comedy world.
Yeah, well actually let's do that now Scott because I mean it sort of links because I knowthere was still a musical aspect of it.
So let's talk about Judy Tanuta for a little while.
Is that a fair sort of segue in there?
Well, I was in bands all through high school and out of high school and into college.
(15:24):
know, a couple of the bands were pretty popular here in Chicago.
We came close to getting signed, but it never happened.
And I said, if I turn 30 years old and I hadn't made it in the music world, I was going togive it up and make it a hobby and try and be an adult, which I failed miserably at.
Because when I turned 30, a chance meeting with
(15:47):
the comic Emo Phillips, I got to know Judy Tanuta and she needed a music director.
so I went and I started working with her and through her all these other things startedfalling into place.
(16:08):
Judy was really hot at the time when we worked all over from the Fillmore West to RadioCity Music Hall and North and South and
you know, East and West, I did a bunch of shows with her, lots.
And I made my first appearance on a major record album with her on Electro Records.
(16:28):
And I produced your third album, which was Grammy nominated.
We lost to Jonathan Winters.
And if you're going to lose to somebody, you lose to Winters.
We've got good news and bad news.
What's the bad news?
We lost.
What's the good news?
We lost to Jonathan Winters and everybody goes, well, of course.
(16:49):
Although Jonathan Winters told Judy he voted for our record.
there you go.
That's Scott, Scott, tell us about your role with Judy as far as from a musical viewpoint.
What was your actual role there?
What were you pulling off for her each show?
I was known as Shadrack, her musical slave.
I didn't even get to use my real name.
Judy made nicknames for everybody.
(17:13):
It can happen.
Worship me, pig.
I had equipment.
I had a tape machine and a keyboard.
And I would play cues to her sound effects.
And then I had tracks that I made of her songs and then she would sing.
(17:40):
sometimes I was a scapegoat for jokes, but I would accompany her live and Judy would go,and I would follow her.
And that led to so many other...
things in the comedy world and in radio and in TV.
(18:04):
I couldn't have planned it better.
my age 30, no rock and roll, I'm going to get it out, well, that went right out the windowbecause now I'm doing comedy gigs.
That's right.
And you ended up as a musical director, didn't you, Scott, at the Funny Firm?
(18:26):
the number one comedy club, number one most progressive comedy club in the United States.
Chicago had a great comedy scene.
A lot of great comics came out of Chicago.
But the Funny Firm was known for being one of the places where anything goes.
Everybody liked to work at the Funny Firm because it was owned by a comedian and I didlive music there every night.
(18:56):
And I did a lot of work with the comics and I got to work with so many comedians.
And trust me, in comedy, timing is everything.
And when you work with experienced comics who are really good, you learn timing, you learndrama, you learn when to put the little zinger in, call it back later, and...
(19:25):
especially in Chicago's, we've got a big improv community here.
And I was, we had a great improv, a great improv group that I was their, I was their musicguy.
And we'd have to make it all up on the road, on the run, because we would get suggestionsfrom the audience, Chicago style improv.
(19:46):
We'd have to make it all up right away.
And,
So tell me about that Scott, cause I'm fascinated by that.
when you were in DC, you had a band at the club.
Well, we had me.
And I had a computer and I had tracks.
And I would play guitar and I'd play keyboards.
(20:08):
I had a microphone back by my area too.
And I could interact with the comedians.
it was a little bit different.
One comedian I worked with, one of his shticks is that he always used
rim shots.
He'd tell a stupid joke, and I had my keyboard set up so that my hand was always there andhe had a special hand movement that he would do for a rim shot and at any time he would do
(20:40):
that I was right there giving him his rim shot.
from there I went to, I did two seasons with Caroline's Comedy Hour on the A &E.
network we won an ACE award for my second season with the late great Richard Jenney andworked with everybody there.
(21:05):
People that went on to big names in sitcoms in the US here.
It was a Caroline's Comedy Hour, Scott.
What was your setup there?
Because I had watched a couple of videos of that show and I looked out for you, but Iassume they had you crammed somewhere out the back or the side because it seems like quite
(21:25):
a small set.
So how did that work?
Well, was, Caroline's Comedy Club was actually quite a big club, big club and they had meset up, you know, what would be equivalent of stage right house left.
had my, I had a little island there.
I had a Korg T2 synthesizer.
(21:46):
That was a 73 note synthesizer.
Then I had a, a Macintosh again loaded up with all my tracks.
and I could call up whatever I wanted at any time, backing tracks or sound effects.
And the T2 had actually a bunch of sound effects in it already, so I could use those.
(22:10):
And I also had a little Roland box that had some real sound effects like telephones andbirds and other things.
And we'd rehearse all day long.
Sometimes they'd give me assignments.
I'd make the sequences in the afternoon and we'd shoot that night.
(22:35):
So it was a fun thing and I played guitar on that.
That's amazing.
And then I know from that you went into a stint in radio, which is sort of a, it makessense going from that sort of theatrical live environment to radio where it still can be
somewhat spontaneous.
What did you learn in the radio environment that you hadn't probably picked up prior tothat?
(22:57):
I was, again, I was very lucky that the comedy club that we worked in, because it was sooutrageous, there was a radio station called WLUP in Chicago, which is notorious in
Chicago for being completely, in the comedy world, out.
No limits, no holds barred.
(23:20):
And the number one guy in the morning, Kevin Matthews,
would come into the club and then he asked me to start coming into his show and I'd bringmy keyboard and I'd sit there and I'd do live music, sound effects, play with musical
guests that would come in, tons of stuff like that and from there one day one of ourguests was Morton Downey Jr., remember him?
(23:45):
Crazy guy with the cigarettes and getting in your face, kind of a political guy and
He saw what I was doing and after the show, he said, would you like to come and work forme on my show?
And he was getting back into radio and it didn't conflict with WLUP, so they let me do it.
(24:09):
So I would be on 5 a.m.
to 10 a.m.
on the loop and then I'd go home and then come back downtown for four o'clock throughseven o'clock nationwide with Mort.
with a keyboard, but Mort, Mort, you know, Mort had this crazy reputation as being thismadman with the, you know, with the cigarettes and the being mean.
(24:37):
He was the nicest guy on two legs.
And boy, did he know he could improvise.
He could do anything on the spot.
He was a terrific, terrific performer.
I mean, that bad guy thing was all an act, 100 % act.
But the timing, again, the timing learning from him was just amazing.
(25:02):
You can learn things, a painting artist can learn from a musician, a musician can learnfrom a dancer, a dancer can learn from a writer, if you're smart and if you've got your
eyes and ears open and if the antennas are up in the right way, you learn from.
from other arts and I've always been pretty perceptive in that way.
(25:29):
Through no effort of my own, it's just natural.
Which is obviously paid off, Scott.
I'm really interested just you talking about the spontaneity and the need to be able tocover a whole range of both sounds and songs and playing full songs with guests.
You mentioned your organ lessons and that.
Are you a sight reader or you're just an amazing by ear player or a bit of both?
(25:52):
Well, the deal is I was in the theater pipe organ.
And back in the late 19, 19, 1920s when there were silent movies, those organists rosefrom the pit and played to the movie and they made it all up as they went along.
(26:13):
It was all improvisation.
And as being a theater organ guy, I studied that, I saw
the greats, know, there was still a lot of great theater organists and watching silentmovies and watching and listening to how they did things with sound effects and again,
timing, timing, timing.
(26:33):
To go and work with comedians, it was the same thing.
It was like working with a silent movie.
So I had a little bit of an advantage.
I would look for bits to get in there and sometimes you're looking for places
to lay out you know because sometimes what you don't plays is important as what you doplay but it served me real well in the comedy world and to this day there's still some
(27:04):
comics that i work with produce records and the number one news program in the morninghere in chicago calling me sometimes to do to do crazy stuff for them
So I'm still in that racket, not as much as I was anymore, but I'm still in it.
(27:26):
still obviously loving it, which is great.
I do want to take a sidestep into pipe organ and theatre organs because it is an area thatI'm fascinated by and I know a lot of our viewers and listeners are as well.
So we'll probably move into the Radio City stuff in a minute as well, but my understandingis the behemoths of organs in America, the number one and two are, there's one at Atlantic
(27:53):
City and then there's the Macy's pipe organ.
I assume, have you been to have a look at either of those?
I have not.
The organ in Atlantic City is a 7-manual, 645-rank mid-merlosh.
I've got actually a friend in Atlantic City who knows the people there and he says thatwhen I go to Atlantic City I can get over there, which Macy's is closing.
(28:25):
That used to be called Wannamakers.
That is the largest fully working, the one in Atlantic City is not 100 % working, but theone in the Wanamaker's Macy's store is working.
That's not a theater organ.
It's called an orchestral organ.
It's got theater pipes in it and it can play some theater organ music, but it's anorchestral organ.
(28:51):
more for classical music and program music.
but theater pipe organ is a little bit different.
Yeah.
And I don't want you to think I'm educated.
We've just had a guest on Anna Lapwood who plays orchestral organs and classical music.
And she mentioned Wanamakers and Atlantic City and she plays the Royal Albert Hall organall the time.
And yeah, amazing pieces.
(29:13):
So let's talk Radio City.
I've had the privilege of doing a tour of Radio City a couple of years back.
Amazing venue, iconic venue.
Tell us what it's like.
I know you've played there, what that was like, and maybe segue into your fun times wherethings didn't go so well.
When I got my first organ at home in 1961, my grandfather gave me a copy of Ashley Millerplaying the Radio City Music Hall pipe organ, which was a four-manual, 45-ranked
(29:47):
Wurlitzer, the largest Wurlitzer pipe organ ever built.
Wurlitzer was the greatest maker of theater pipe organs.
And my grandfather...
pulled me aside in my kitchen, I'll never forget it, and he said, you see this here?
This is the greatest organ in the world in Radio City Music Hall in New York City.
(30:08):
Because when you get to play that organ, you're going to know you made something ofyourself.
I won't be there, but I know you're going to get there.
That was 1961.
Now in 1989, somewhere around there,
Judy Tanuta calls me and says, Shadrack, we're going to go play Radio City music.
(30:30):
I said, I've to play the organ.
And so I called my connections in the theater organ world because I had made a few.
sure enough, they said I had to hire the organist at Radio City because of union rules.
But they said, yes, you can come.
I had proper references and stuff.
(30:53):
and got there and so I was going to play the organ at Radio City Music Hall.
And so now I'm going to go into my story of the of of what happened.
So what a lot of people don't know is that there are two secret staircases on the side ofRadio City of the auditorium where the Rockettes, know, the girls who kicked their legs,
(31:18):
could open a secret door that was built into the wall and walk
down these steps and it looks like they were drifting down the way, know, it was a prettycool stage set.
And because the organ at Radio City comes out of a slider, there's no way to get to it.
You have to, you know, either it's behind a curtain and either you have to be there beforethe show starts or you have to sneak your way in there.
(31:47):
So they told me that's what I had to do.
I went up the secret staircase.
down and got behind the curtain waiting for my cue.
Now I must say that we opened up for Suzanne Vega.
Radio City Music Hall was sold out, 5,500 seats, a packed house sold out at Radio CityMusic Hall.
(32:11):
Now I played a lot of pipe organs before Radio City, but I sat down, I sat down at theconsole.
And I like, wow, this console looks just like the one at Radio City.
And there's my grandfather's face right here.
You made it kid.
You're there.
You're there.
And not only are you there, you're there in front of 5,500 people.
(32:34):
You're gonna start the show to a sold out house at Radio City Music Hall.
I've never had stage fright in my life except for that day.
And because my grandfather was there and it's like, he called it.
Here I am.
But I shook it off.
So now, the organist told me the console's huge.
(32:56):
you ever see those buttons like in a warehouse to open up a garage door.
It's a box that's got a red button up here, a black button here, and a green button downthere.
It might be the other way around down in Australia.
Yeah, we're all upside down, yep.
Anyway, so there was one on this side of the console underneath the keyboard and one onthis side.
(33:23):
Now the organist said, you hit this one first, that opens the curtains and then you hitthis one.
You couldn't hit them at the same time because it was too wide.
You hit this one and that will send the console out on the slider.
Whatever you do, don't press that one first.
(33:45):
press that one first.
anyway, I hear my cue.
I'm thinking about my grandfather.
I hit this one first.
Now the console started all, Jesus.
And there's chains at the bottom of the curtain to keep the curtain flat.
And then I open the curtain and the curtain opens slowly.
(34:08):
The console's going out and it hits me in the back of head and I didn't get hurt.
But that kind of laugh, so it was okay.
That wasn't the bad part.
Judy's walk on music was Exodus.
Theme from the movie Exodus.
(34:28):
Da da, da da, da da, da da, da Very pageantry.
And the idea was, I'm gonna play Exodus, and now on the other side of Radio City, thesecret door that I walked out, Judy is going to
Judy's gonna walk out on that side and the spotlights are gonna hit her and she's gonnawalk and then goes and leads right to the stage and we start our part of the show.
(34:56):
So I get my, I come out blazing through the curtains.
Now the five super troopers, like close encounters, zang, go over and where the door is,
And Judy's supposed to walk out the door, but she doesn't.
(35:21):
I get another couple bars into it and the lights go out and I stop.
I start it again.
Spotlight comes on me.
Zang!
Spotlight's on the door.
No Judy.
Wow.
Now this happens another three times.
(35:43):
I turned around and looked at the audience.
Judy's arguing with her manager behind the door for some reason and she says, I'm notgoing out.
I'm not.
Let Shadrack play the organ for our time.
Let him, he likes to play the organ.
Let him play the organ.
I'm not going out.
F you, I'm not going to play.
(36:03):
I'm not going to do my show.
Well, the manager said, oh yes, you are going to do the show.
He opens the door and throws her out.
And she kind of.
comes out, almost falls over the side, which would have, from the second floor, that wouldhave been good.
And so finally, Judy walks down the steps and we do our show.
(36:25):
But that was, because I'm like, there's 5,500 people there, and I'm like, what do I donow?
I can't communicate with them.
You know, so the show had a chance to go sliding into hell.
and flaming chariot of you know what, but it didn't.
(36:48):
that's my favorite bad time on stage.
That is absolutely amazing.
Now I've got two questions that come out of that.
So you were able to press the button to open the curtain after you'd gone through it andit did sort of come out around you.
I was worried that the curtain might actually drag you off your stool as it opened.
So that's good.
No, but when I did it, I go, oh!
(37:10):
So I was on a bench and it didn't knock me off the bench because I was ready for it.
the curtain, by the time it got to me, the curtain was halfway open.
So it just came up over the organ.
But I was afraid it was going to scratch the organ.
then, know, Mr.
Miley's got a $7,500 bill because we got to refinish the greatest World's Greatest Theatrepipe organ ever built.
(37:35):
Yeah, that's right.
And roughly what year was this, Scott?
Let's call it 89.
So Susan, my second question is who the hell, and I'm not saying this is a bad thing, butwho the hell booked Judy Tanuta as a support for Suzanne Vega?
I can't imagine for a minute any member of Suzanne Vega's audience was expecting that as asupport act.
(37:57):
Suzanne was a big Judy Tanuta freak.
She loved Judy Tanuta.
And Judy was big in New York.
we played Carolines in three different locations.
They moved the club a couple of times.
(38:17):
Judy was very, very popular in New York.
She was on Howard Stern all the time.
And she was actually...
For being a Chicago gal, was very, she had a New York thing to her.
New York people really liked her because she was, you know, she was bigger than life, youknow, and.
(38:39):
And she absolutely deserved the support.
She absolutely deserved the support.
was more Susan.
And I'm a massive Suzanne Vega fan.
My perception of Suzanne Vega during the 80s, where she was very serious, is not the wordI'm looking for, but a very introspective artist.
I just imagine all these people in berets and serious artists turning up to Radio CityMusic Hall and going, well, this is not what I expected.
(39:05):
Well, you wouldn't believe it, Judy's audience was very wide.
you know, I found, mean, if you look at Monty Python, Monty Python was, those guys wereall intellectuals and they were absurd as you could possibly get.
(39:28):
And Judy was absurd in her own way.
And,
And she had a lot of fans that were smart people.
Yeah, I love it.
No, that's amazing.
Just, yeah, amazing story, Scott.
Thank you for that.
That's just absolute gold.
My pleasure.
And so that's what we're talking about organs.
(39:48):
You've had a long standing, obviously love of Hammond's and then an actual more formalinvolvement with Hammond.
Tell us about your love of Hammond organs specifically and how they've sort of assistedyou throughout your career.
Well, know, Hammond USA, Hammond organ is owned by Suzuki Musical Instruments ofHamamatsu, Japan.
(40:09):
And that's a whole long story.
Mr.
Suzuki, Manji Suzuki rescued the company.
Actually, it was owned by a guy from Australia for a while.
And God bless him, don't get mad at me.
But he did not do a great job with the company and kind of drove it into the ground.
(40:30):
And Mr.
Suzuki bought it with the idea of remaking the B3.
That was his entire goal to do it.
Found out that the original Hammond organ was an electromechanical instrument withthousands and thousands and thousands of parts.
And to rebuild it and remarket it would have a six-figure price tag.
(40:55):
So he said, I'm not going to do that.
Let's learn how to do it digitally.
and he got his engineers to start working on it and so became started making digitalorgans.
the American division, Hammond Organ was begun in Chicago by Lawrence Hammond in 1934.
(41:16):
And so it's the the USA headquarters is in suburban Chicago.
And I used to go there and hang out.
You know, the guys were real nice and I'd go there and I'd play the organ and we'd go outfor lunch and you know, it was a pretty good camaraderie.
And after a while they said, well, wait a minute, you're here all the time.
(41:40):
Here's a desk and a small check.
Take care of our artists.
And so they made me the artist liaison.
We had about five artists when I started and now I've got 300 and
just got a new guy today, 352 artists.
(42:02):
And we've got the greatest of the greatest.
Keith Emerson was one of our guys.
Rick Wakeman, Rod Argent, Craig Rowley from Santana and Journey, the music director ofBilly Joel, all the gospel guys, country guys.
The list goes on and on and we're adding to it all the time.
(42:26):
people who play ham and organ and and i'd i'd play him in oregon i work for the companybecause i play him in oregon not the other way around i'm not a i'm not a shill and i'm
not a you know i'd if if i found something else that worked better than a ham and organi'd play that because i don't want to nothing gets in the way of my music but i have not
(42:53):
found anything yet that beats the ham and organ
And they're not, I do have a Mellotron, but that's not a competition.
yeah, so we're a small crew in Chicago, but we help with the design of the organs andwe've got a lot of input in programming the organs and in development.
(43:18):
we work with Japan very closely to make these instruments and they're
fantastic instruments and we still do make the B3 but only as digital and have to wait.
Yeah, which is a benefit.
Scott, I honestly had no awareness that you were the artist liaison person at Hammond.
(43:40):
I obviously didn't do my research that well.
So I understand there is stuff you won't be able to talk about.
Totally get that.
But what is the skill set required to do artist liaison?
Because that's another unique sort of skill.
Well, you know, my mother was a people person.
I'm a people person and I know not to bother big stars, you know, I've got their phonenumbers and their addresses and some of their credit cards, but I don't bother them.
(44:18):
boy, it's hard.
It's hard, you know, when
when you're hanging around the zombies and Rod Argent or you know, Keith Emerson or RickWakeman.
You just want to, you have to temper being a fan boy, you know?
(44:40):
But some of the guys I've become very, very close with, like Mark Stein from the VanillaFudge, who was one of my original heroes.
Mark calls his hates my cool friend Mark and then every once in a while I go, it's the guyfrom the vanilla fudge.
And he just looks at me and well, we'll keep it clean.
(45:03):
he uses a word, stop it.
Stop being a fanboy.
I can't help it.
But then he'll sit there and he'll tell the stories about that the album Band of Gypsies.
by Jimi Hendrix, one of the classic albums of all time.
(45:23):
Mark was in the dressing room with Jimi Hendrix, just Mark and Jimi, right before thatshow, and Mark walked Jimi up to the stage, then Jimi went on the stage and did the Band
of Gypsies concert.
Now this is my buddy.
Yeah.
(45:44):
It's got to be a few pinch me moments there.
Scott and it probably segues beautifully to a standard question we ask every guest, whichis tag a keyboard player.
And I can't think of anyone better qualified to call out someone that's inspired them,given your role at Hammond, but is there a keyboard player you would love to hear more
about their career if you had the opportunity to hear it?
(46:05):
This is going to sound self-serving or something, but I've gotten to meet all my heroes.
I mean, to the point where I'm friends with most of them.
My all-time keyboard hero of all times was Michael Pinder of the Moody Blues, theMellotron player of the Moody Blues.
(46:27):
Because I could not see how one man could sit down and make a symphony orchestra.
I didn't even know what a Mellotron was.
And so I followed Mike, and I was a huge Moody Blues fan.
through a very, it had nothing to do with Hammond Organ, this was before I worked forHammond Organ, through a very strange, you know, one of those, I got to be friends with
(46:52):
Mike and his wife and his kids.
I stayed at his house, I was in the studio.
And Mike was a guru.
I had, I've had three gurus in my life.
Mike was one of them.
Dr.
Lonnie Smith, we can talk about Dr.
Lonnie Smith if you wish.
And then a fellow by name of Colonel Bruce Hampton, who was the potterfamilias of the jamband scene here in the United States.
(47:23):
yeah, mean, Rick Wakeman, I've had many conversations with Rick and
and Keith and Rod Argent.
Yeah.
And of course, Mark and Felix Cavallari from the Rascals.
(47:45):
By the way, if the Rascals come anywhere near you, they tour, I don't know if they'regoing to go to Australia or not, but anybody who's watching this over the world, if the
Vanilla Fudge or the Rascals come anywhere near you, go to see them or, you know, becausethey're just fantastic.
(48:07):
Yeah, no, absolutely.
No, brilliant picks there.
Scott, I really appreciate that.
Yeah, they're amazing.
And while we've already covered off the train wreck, but just ignoring what your currentrig is with the Ides of March, and aside from Hammond Orkins, what are some of the
favorite keyboards?
Melotron sounds like it's your go-to outside of Hammond.
(48:30):
Well, I'm you know as far as the sounds the the instrument that I play Is a completelydigital instrument?
a Melotron for those who don't know a Melotron was invented in the late 40s in America Itwasn't called Melotron.
I was invented by a guy named Harry Chamberlain in LA and he got this idea of making amachine that used pieces of
(48:58):
magnetic tape like from a tape recorder and he would have he would you know have c c sharpd d sharp e of violins playing and then he made an apparatus with a keyboard that would
play those tapes and you have violins or trumpets or french horns or whatever and a lot ofpeople don't know is that those original tapes
(49:26):
were members of the Lawrence Welk Orchestra that he recorded in his garage with his son.
And then a guy, were looking for someplace where they could get 37 playback heads formagnetic tape on one piece of metal that would fit in there.
(49:49):
They couldn't find that.
And there was a place in England called Streatley Electronics that built
that built parts for tape recorders.
So they went there and this guy Bill Franzen took two Chamberlains from LA to Birmingham,England, where Straitly was.
(50:13):
And here's where the story gets a little weird because for some reason Harry Chamberlainonly patented his instrument in the United States.
Not a worldwide patent.
Bill Franzen, who was a salesman, took these two instruments to England and showed theguys from Streetly Electronics what they said, what are going to do with 38, 37, they will
(50:42):
work out this musical instrument, here it is.
Well, they saw it and saw that it wasn't patented in the United States and they built thefirst Melotron.
And they've
They started a company called Melotronics and they started building that instrument inEngland.
(51:04):
of course, this was by the time it got to, it was in the early sixties, Graham Bond, thegreat British organist, was the first guy to put one on a record.
and Katie bar the doors and all the
(51:25):
British acts start using Melitron and Melitron became what it is.
Eventually, when Harry Chamberlain found out about this, he was like, wait a minute,that's my idea.
I've got it patented here.
There was lot of whatever, whatever, whatever.
Melitron had to pay Harry Chamberlain a royalty for having that idea.
(51:52):
Harry Chamberlain never got
popular with what he did here.
But it's a big long story to get back to your original question.
What do I use?
I use the original three violins, which was a chamberlain instrument that was copied intoMelitron.
(52:13):
I use the flutes.
I use the choir.
There's a beautiful chamberlain tenor sax I use on the Melitron.
very haunting sound.
What else?
Oh, sometimes the brass, which doesn't sound like brass.
And the brass is what you hear at the beginning of Watcher of the Skies by Genesis, thatbrass is in there a lot.
(52:40):
that's those are the melodraph sounds I use.
There you go to is now that's amazing.
Thank you.
and then, I, before we get onto the desert Island, this, I did, I love the quote on yourwebsite, which is always trust a fat man when it comes to So, and you can tell your comedy
background cause yeah, I did laugh when I read that.
(53:01):
So, tell us about your, involvement with Yelp and cause I think you're one of the, themost like, prolific reviewers and so on.
Tell us a little bit.
just thought it was really interesting and worth it.
Worth a quick chat.
I discovered Yelp and I use it to practice my writing.
(53:23):
I'm also a professional writer.
When I can get work, anybody out there watching, I'll give you my website.
But I use it to practice my writing.
And I try to be clever with my reviews.
And I'm not one of these guys who just gets toffee-nosed and hates everything.
(53:51):
If it's miserable, I'll say it.
But I don't get vicious.
But I try to put some life and some veef in my writing.
whenever I go somewhere, know, somewhere new, I always...
(54:12):
Yelp it.
And so I've got, you know, hundreds of reviews now and I've been Yelp elite for the pastthree years.
You don't ever go into a restaurant and say, hey, I'm a Yelper.
You don't do that.
But it's fun to write like that and it stirs the mind.
(54:37):
And so that's why I do it and continue to do it.
And so I'm scotmqzq.yelp.com and that'll get you to my pages.
the one thing I don't do, a lot of people do, is I don't put pictures in my reviews.
(54:58):
Yeah, okay.
which I should, they want me to do it, but I don't do it.
But it's very fun and especially if you go to a place that's really good.
I always comment about the decor and the service and if it's really bad, can tell you theworst review I've ever done.
(55:27):
And I can tell you the whole thing right now, because you'll see it's only a few words.
I went to a steakhouse that was horrible.
And that's horrible with a capital H.
And my entire yelp was, there's a white castle down the street.
Eat there instead.
Now for non-US listeners, White Castle, it's...
(55:48):
White Castle is Sliders.
Sliders has entered the popular vernacular for being a small hamburger, a tiny, tinyburger.
In the US here, it was one of the first fast food joints and they're called Sliders.
(56:15):
There's a lot of onions on them.
onions throw glycerin.
And if you eat enough of them, you have sometimes a tendency to make repeated visits tothe smallest room in your house.
Laksinium.
Yeah, that was very technical.
Yeah, I'm from a nursing background, Scott.
(56:37):
So as soon you mentioned glycerin, I went, okay, Laksinium effects.
That's the White Castles.
They've been around and they're and they're they used to be open 24 hours and and least inChicago they've got reputation as a place you go to and in two o'clock in the morning when
you're thoroughly pissed out of your head and and And you want something to eat?
(57:00):
You know you go two o'clock in the morning to White Castle a lot of people have never beento a White Castle sober
So that was my that was my worst yelp I ever had.
So here's my feeble attempt at a segue, Scott.
So going from food to not having a lot of food and living on a desert island, let's talkabout your desert island discs.
(57:21):
What are your five go-to albums if you have to pick them?
Beautiful.
This is probably boring, but the first two would be the red and blue Beatles greatesthits.
I believe it's thoroughly impossible to become bored with the Beatles.
(57:43):
And the range of music on those, you know, the two double albums, so I'm kind of cheating,but I'm considering the double album as one album.
The red and blue Beatles, you know, the 64 to
That's right.
66 66 to 68 Boy if you can't find something to listen to on those I can't help you, youknow, so that's number one Number one and two number three would be Miles Davis milestones
(58:12):
great jazz album You never get sick of it And I mean when you're talking about desertisland discs, that's what you're talking about Stuff that you never ever get sick of and
if you hear a song
from those albums you don't go, turn that crap off, know, oh no, I turned it up.
I want to hear that.
(58:32):
So Miles Davis, Miles Stones.
My fourth would be the album Breathe by Dr.
Lonnie Smith.
Dr.
Lonnie, again, I've been so lucky to be in the right place at the right time.
Dr.
was the last of the great jazz organists.
(58:53):
Hmm.
And he was a very, very loyal member of the Hammond family.
And he embraced all of us, all of us artists.
He was like the guru.
And he taught us about ego.
(59:14):
He taught us about not being too full of yourself.
He taught us about
how to be in a band with your fellow man.
taught us how to behave.
He taught us so much.
It was a brilliant, brilliant, but very heartfelt, heartfelt man.
(59:39):
And he, his music live was absolutely riveting and electric.
And
We'd go to see him.
He'd come into town.
I'd pick him up and come and play the Jazz Showcase.
everybody would crowd into the Jazz Showcase, which is not a big club.
(01:00:03):
And he'd play his set.
And afterwards, we'd all walk to the back of the room with this look on our face.
Completely gobsmacked, stunned, speechless.
We all look at each other and go, did we just see here?
What was that?
you know, and just to try to digest it.
(01:00:28):
he was in his final years, his path of experimenting with the organ trio, he picked hismusicians that he worked with incredibly.
Jonathan Kreisberg, Jonathan Blake on drums, just unbelievable.
(01:00:52):
You'd go to see them.
Sometimes you'd think you'd be listening to a blues fat-backed trio.
Sometimes you'd think you were listening to Yes or King Crimson, which a lot of jazz guysdon't go there.
Doc did.
And his path was just the creativity.
He never stopped and he just wouldn't go.
(01:01:13):
Then he got sick.
Yeah
And his mind was absolutely crystal clear and precise to his last day, but his body failedhim.
And he was fearless.
then his body died, but he's still with us.
(01:01:40):
And if I sound like a Mooney or a cult member, I guess I am.
but it's a benevolent, happy, productive cult.
you know, his voice we hear constantly.
And I was very lucky to have been part of his life.
(01:02:05):
so Dr.
Lonnie's album, Breathe on Blue Note Records is number four.
And then the fifth one.
is completely out of left field and this is Modern Pipe Organ by Buddy Cole.
To me is one of the greatest theater pipe organ records ever made.
you know, again, we got rock and roll guys listening here.
(01:02:27):
It was on Warner Brothers records and it's the most incredible sounding pipe organ recordthat was ever made in theater pipe organ.
And people tried to, you all the theater organists
So why can't we get anything that sounds like that?
And until I told him, says, you know what?
They were on Warner Brothers records where the Grateful Dead was, where Hendrix was.
(01:02:54):
No, Hendrix was.
Yeah.
No, wait a minute.
He wasn't on Warner Brothers.
But there were a bunch of great rock and rollers on Warner Brothers and they had theirmastering people and they get the tapes and they'd master it like a pop record and
That's why it sounded like that.
And I can't tell you how many times with theater organ guys, said, look, take your recordsto a rock and roll guy to get it mastered because it's the same thing.
(01:03:23):
It's a huge sound, huge bass, huge sound.
You got to know what you're doing to master a record to sound like that.
And I've been thanked.
The microphone.
that I'm talking to you on.
is an Audio Technica 4105.
(01:03:44):
It's a very expensive microphone and a theater organ guy, after I gave him that tip, gaveme this microphone.
There you go.
That I'm speaking to you on right now.
Gratitude for helping him to get his mastering together.
No, that's a great tip.
(01:04:04):
And thanks for that beautiful tribute to Dr.
Lonnie as well.
And just, I hadn't planned on asking this, but in your role at Hammond or more broadly,did you run across Joey DeFranchesco as well, who's obviously someone else that we lost
recently that was a huge loss?
Joey, Joey what a character.
Yeah, Joey was a dear friend, dear dear dear friend.
(01:04:25):
I got to jam with him many number of times.
I'll tell you a funny story.
You know, I said, always trust a fat man when it comes to food.
And Joey was a man of, he was bigamon.
was a man of tremendous girth.
So the end show,
(01:04:48):
Our Japanese executives took us out to dinner for sushi.
About 25 of us at a big long table.
So Joey and I and his band were at one end of the table.
All the grown-ups were at the other end of the table.
So Joey and I start ordering sushi.
Now all of a sudden here comes a bunch of sushi that we didn't order.
(01:05:09):
And that's when we found out that the boss, Mr.
Suzuki, at the end of the table
The custom is that he orders for the table.
So we had double ordered the sushi.
I don't know if you've ever seen the thing on Lucille Ball on I Love Lucy a million yearsago where Lucy and Ethel are working in a candy factory and there's candy coming out on a
(01:05:38):
conveyor belt and a conveyor belt's going too fast and they're shoving the candy in yourmouth because they're supposed to wrap it up.
Well, this was Joey and I when we see all the sushi coming that they ordered at thebeginning of the table, plus all the stuff that we ordered.
And this wasn't in a cheap joint.
This was at a high-end sushi joint.
(01:06:00):
I'm going have a $500 bill because once Mr.
Suzuki at the end of the table sees that we ordered all the sushi and we fessed up andwent to a man.
The two big fat guys.
double order the sushi, it's not a good optic.
I love it.
(01:06:20):
What?
But in the end, didn't waste anything.
We didn't throw anything under the table.
But we told him, cancel, cancel the rest of our order.
But we went to Mr.
Suzuki and said, we didn't know that you ordered the sushi for us and we ordered it.
(01:06:44):
Don't worry, it's okay.
But yeah, Joey was a...
Joey was a dear, dear friend, a tremendous, tremendous player.
Got to hear him with Pat Martino, and he always had a great band.
lots and lots of moments off stage and just hanging out and having a good time, having acocktail and talking about jazz.
(01:07:12):
To have the kind of proximity to an artist like that, boy, you can't buy that.
No, you can't.
So yeah, Joey was a great guy and what he did for the Hammond organist just can't beduplicated.
We're talking about Dr.
(01:07:32):
Lonnie Smith.
I was at the NAMM show once and Doc was just playing.
And I've told this story so many times to so many people.
They may think it's the only story that I have but I love this story so much and I thinkwhen you hear it you'll love it too.
So Doc's playing and up walks one of our dealers with his daughter.
(01:07:58):
So Doc looks at her and you know Doc with the turban and he's got the Jedi eyes.
She's watching him intently and he goes, do you play?
And the little girl says, yes.
And says, would you play it for me?
And the little girl says, no, I'm not very good.
(01:08:21):
Doc stops and looks at her with those Jedi eyes and says, not very good.
Do you love it?
And she goes, yes, sir, I do.
Doc goes, well, you're already one of us.
How old are you?
14.
(01:08:42):
14 years old?
goes, you probably aren't very good.
He goes, I wasn't very good when I was 14, but you're going to get good because you loveit.
Now I'm standing there and I'm watching this and the tears are falling from my eyesbecause where do you see such heartfelt wisdom and such incredible
(01:09:08):
so few words but such a powerful message you know when I started as the artist liaison Iwouldn't even touch an organ around the greatest musicians that I I mean I I commiserate
with the greatest of the greatest of the great and I wouldn't even touch an organ Iwouldn't even do anything and then when Doc said that do you love it you're already one of
(01:09:31):
us it was like
the weight that came off of my shoulders.
that's what the tone of our artist program that...
And it's really been infectious because it's got...
(01:09:52):
I keyboard players have a horrible reputation of being egotistical and know it all.
And it's because we're more educated and better than everybody else.
I'm just kidding.
And Scott, I think there'd be a lot of people throughout your career that have found theirproximity to you priceless as well.
It's been amazing talking to you about what is still an ongoing and very flourishingcareer, but your insights have been amazing and I can't thank you enough for sharing them.
(01:10:21):
Well, thank you for giving me, it's always hazardous to give me a public bully pulpit.
And I managed not to swear.
(01:10:42):
And there we have it.
As I alluded to prior to the show, I mean, what a career Scott's have.
Maybe it's just me that has a fetish for theatre organs, but I somehow think that's notthe case given our huge audience out there.
I hope you enjoyed that as much as I did speaking with Scott.
So yeah, again, can't thank Scott enough for his time.
(01:11:02):
It was absolute gold.
And I'd like to thank you for giving us your time as always.
We do truly appreciate it.
It's not.
insignificant to give up half an hour an hour or however long you listen to of eachepisode, we do hugely appreciate it.
We also appreciate our gold and silver supporters.
So first the musicplayer.com forums.
(01:11:23):
If you want a great space, well moderated space to talk, keyboard synthesizer playing morebroadly, then musicplayer.com forums is the place to go.
Mike and the team at midnightmastering.com.
Again, hugely valued.
provider to me personally with my own music output.
Can't recommend their mixing mastering services highly enough.
(01:11:46):
And Tammy, the lovely Tammy Katcher from Tammy's Musical Stew, thank you Tammy for yourongoing support.
And Mr.
Dewey Evans from the lovely country of Wales, who's an ongoing supporter as well.
And do check out Dewey's interview in a previous episode.
It's absolutely fascinating as well.
Again, thank you.
(01:12:06):
I'll leave it there.
Please do keep in touch.
We are on all the socials, including Blue Sky and Facebook and Instagram, you name them,we're on them.
We are on Substack.
We'd love your support either via Patreon or Substack.
In regards to our Substack, we actually provide written, like edited and curatedtranscripts of our interviews.
(01:12:30):
So if you love a read rather than a listen,
We're building up a nice library of interviews there.
It's slow, slow, sure.
But for a couple of bucks a month, it's well worth thinking about as is our Patreonbecause we do provide early access to parts.
We'll give you early access to like a heads up on future guests and the ability to askquestions of guests and so on.
(01:12:54):
So do consider that the Patreon forward slash keyboard Chronicles.
I'll shut up now.
Look forward to seeing you next episode.
And in the meantime, keep on playing.
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