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George Porter
" Blues Wax Sittin' "
By Bob Putignano
The legendary New Orleans-based bass player extraordinaire George Porter Jr. is most famous for his tenure with the Meters, which was co-founded in the mid-1960s by Porter and Art Neville. It goes without saying that the Meters were one of the progenitors of Funk and it is amazing that they have not been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Always an in-demand session player, Porter has worked with an incredible array of outstanding Blues and Funk bands and musicians, including Albert King, Johnny Adams, Irma Thomas, Aaron Neville, Snooks Eaglin, Vasti Jackson, Tab Benoit, Allen Toussaint, Dr. John, Earl King, Clarence Hollimon & Carol Fran, Professor Longhair, Grady Gaines, Solomon Burke, Maceo Parker, Jon Cleary, Jess Roden, and Phillip Walker, as well as Tori Amos, Robert Palmer, Gov't Mule, Robbie Robertson, Labelle, David Byrne, and Harry Connick, Jr. Additionally, many of Porter's solo and band projects were strong; starting with the Meters and also including Running Pardners, The Funky Meters, The New Orleans Social Club, PBS, and recordings under his own name, like 2007's It's Time.
BluesWax recently had the opportunity to catch up with George Porter Jr. while he was visiting New York City for an appearance at B.B. King's with PBS, and just as his new solo disk It's Life (read this week's review of It's Life by clicking HERE to read it on our BluesWax Picks page) was about to be released.
Bob Putignano for BluesWax: Hi George, you gave me a copy of It's Life at the Crawfish Fest and I've been playing it ever since. It's good to have you here.
George Porter Jr.: Thanks for the spins and for having me here.
BW: I hear they are throwing you a party in December?
GP: Yeah, I turn sixty this year. Between Leo Sacks, my daughter, and my wife, they are trying to give me a surprise party, but I already know about it. [laughs]
BW: So much for surprises, but I bet it's going to be a great hang.
GP: It should be a good one and we are working on getting a lot of guests to come on down to New Orleans and jam.
BW: You knocked the heck out of me this year at the Crawfish Fest with the New Orleans Social Club.
GP: It's a fun band, but I just have two more gigs with them in Canada before I leave, as I want to put forth more effort with PBS.
BW: Will the Social Club go on without you and, if yes, who will be your replacement?
GP: They will continue and I think Tony Hall will be my replacement, as he is most suitable for them.
BW: Is there any chance you will be getting back with the Social Club?
GP: I have plans to play with them in November, so time will tell.
BW: Your new CD It's Life is sweet. How did this project come about?
GP: It's Life started to be recorded in 2004 with my co-producer David Torkanowsky, who I asked to help me put together this record. I wanted a different perspective on the music and David had a facility to record at. This was a no-budget gig, so we had to do it in between David making money at his studio. David is very particular about what he wants and we must have recorded forty tracks with seven different drummers, plus tons of musicians played on It's Life, not counting myself. We had about twenty different musicians on the CD.
Thinking back we started this recording in 2004 with hopes of having it out for Jazz Fest that year, we tried again for 2005, then the hurricane came, which took us all out of the loop. I was getting upset as I really wanted to get this disk out, so at the end of 2006 my wife said, "Get your studio back to New Orleans and finish this up," so I did and said, "Yes, dear!" So I cut four new songs in my studio and then I got on Tracy Griffin to do some horn charts, too. Originally this was supposed to be just a keyboard and vocal project, but I felt the material needed horns, I kept hearing horns, plus I did not want it to have a Running Pardners sound. I wanted it to be a George Porter Jr. record. So we did the eleven tracks with horns in one day.
BW: The horn charts are wonderful. Tracy did a great job, but excuse me as I don't know much about Tracy Griffin.
GP: Tracy's been a part of the New Orleans scene forever. He's in his middle fifties and has been playing with me since we were kids. It's been a long time we've known each other, dating back to the mid-Sixties.
BW: So obviously your collaborations with Tracy are pre-Meters, which must have been an interesting musical time in New Orleans.
GP: Definitely pre-Meters, and we didn't make any money then either, but we weren't real worried at that time about the money as I was still living with my mom. I was in school so it was a different time financially than afterwards and now.
BW: I've talked to a lot of music related people from that Sixties/Seventies New Orleans era (Dr. John, Luther Kent, Aaron Neville, Irma Thomas, Cosimo Matassa, Wardell Quezergue, and others) who all said that this period was so very special.
GP: Oh yeah and by the Seventies it became about earning a living, too, as my daughter Katrina was born around 1968.
BW: I hear a lot of improvisation in your jams, as you are very fluent and broad-minded with your playing. Do you lean much towards Jazz?
GP: I came from an old school of playing around with guys like a saxophone player from New Orleans, the late David Lastie, who we all looked up to like a father. When you play with David you have to know every genre as he played everything across the board. Those gigs went pretty much like this; we would play our first set of two-and-half hours with be-bop, Jazz, and Swing. Then get a much needed thirty-minute break and the second set, usually ninety minutes, was more of the New Orleans popular tunes of that time. You know, like "Iko-Iko," Fats Domino, and Earl King's stuff, so those were four hour gigs! Plus in those days the audiences were initially aware of New Orleans music mainly from the radio, which was nice, but when Hip Hop and Rap came into play, it was, and still is, difficult to get our music on the air, as the radio stations lost touch with us. And when groups like the Meters, Neville's, etc., aren't being played, you know that ain't good, plus I'm talking about black radio stations, too. I mean, you could not find cats like Earl King and Snooks Eaglin on the radio, occasionally you might hear Johnny Adams, probably because a lot of the Jazz radio stations took to him.
BW: You did a lot work at Black Top Records, too, who also made some very nice recordings.
GP: Yeah, I think I did three Earl King records and at least two or three with Snooks Eaglin.
BW: Both great artists. It's been a while since we heard new music from Snooks. What is he up to these days? He's such a great guitarist.
GP: Well, I will let a little secret out. I played with Snooks about two weeks ago and after the gig I told him that I have my studio back up and running and asked him to come over to record, to cut a record. And you are right, it's been too long since we heard Snooks record. So Snooks said, "Yeah, yeah, let's do it." So when he agreed I immediately started writing some new songs for him. By the way, it won't be a Snooks jukebox cover band recording. There will be a lot of new material on it.
BW: Are you planning on any tour support for your solo disk It's Life?
GP: My solo project is similar to Running Pardners, meaning that it's a bigger band and these days it's not easy to put a band of that size on the road. It takes ten people to make that band work; eight musicians and two crew guys. Financially it's hard to get support to get this band out there. We've done dates like this, but they have mostly been private functions and parties, mostly like ex-Tulane University students that hung out with us at the Muddy Waters room back when. Occasionally I get calls that say, "Hey George, here's the checkbook, bring us the guys." So those things happen from time to time, but to go up to places like B.B. King's [Porter recently performed in New York City at B.B. King's] unfortunately does not work out dollars-wise. Come to think of it, I think the last time Running Pardners came to New York City was at Irving Plaza, and not with the big band, we were a five-piece band, which went very well as were part of the Deep Banana Blackout anniversary show, but that was a bunch of years ago. I've been fortunate that I have been well received in the New York area and we still do specialty shows right near you in New Jersey at Mexicali Blues.
BW: Best wishes with all that you do and with the new It's Life CD.
GP: I am really proud of the new recording. There are a couple of songs on it that really touch my heart, like "Waterfalls," "The Blues I Love," and "Don't Turn Your Back On Me," which often brings a tear to my eye. In fact, "The Blues I Love" was written for Earl King, actually about Earl King, to speak towards Earl's influence in my life. By the way, Torkanowsky and I went to see Hammond Scott, ex of Black Top Records to request a previous Earl King guitar solo we could use and integrate into a song, but at this point Black Top/Hammond Scott no longer own the Earl King catalog, so we couldn't get what we were looking for. I know Hammond Scott, meaning that I know Hammond has to be holding on to something of Earl's. I don't believe he gave away everything. [laughs]
Bob Putignano: www.SoundsofBlue.com
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