Jerry Yester - Part Three

Q: In what respect was Tim like another person?

A: Well, on Goodbye and Hello, Tim was partners with Beckett. On Happy Sad, Tim was more like a member of the band and not the leader. He was open to a lot of suggestions from the others. I don’t know, maybe because they were older or something. I only know what I saw during the Happy Sad sessions. In my opinion, Tim for some reason needed their approval.

Q: I read somewhere that one of you guys said that Tim’s band was putting you and Zal down because you had worked with Pat Boone.

We were right in the middle of working with Pat Boone when we did Happy Sad.

A lot of people believe that Tim's band took him in a direction that was great for the Happy Sad album and of course the songs on Blue Afternoon were beautiful. But, taking him into that avant-garde jazz arena wasn't really in Tim's best interest.

Tim was like an American Irish tenor. He had this beautiful voice, and to tell him that he can't sing the same thing twice is like telling Isaac Stern that he can't play Prokofiev's first violin concerto again with the same notes. You CAN’T play the same thing twice.

YES! YOU CAN play the same thing twice, if only to see if you can top the last time you did it. You know, you sing the same notes again to see if you can do it better. Not everybody is Charlie Parker for Christ sake, or needs to be, or wants to be.

Q: Lee Underwood has said that Tim called Happy Sad Lee's album. Would you agree with that assessment?

A: Sure, why not?

Q: What other projects and career moves were going on in your life at the same time that you were producing Goodbye and Hello and Happy Sad?

A: I went right from producing Renaissance for the Association to working for Tim Buckley. So, Goodbye and Hello was my second production. A week after Goodbye and Hello was finished and I didn't even have a copy of it yet, John Sebastian called me and asked me to join the Spoonful.

I said, ‘I'm gonna have to think about that John‘. I called him back five minutes later and said, ‘Sure, I'll do it‘. I replaced Zal Yanovsky who was leaving the group. Two days later, on the night of Zally's last gig at Forest Hills, I drove John and his wife out to Long Island and we started doing the Spoonful.

That lasted for a year to the day, really from like June 10 ‘til June 10 the next year. During that year, Zally and I became producing partners by producing his album, a really wonderful piece called Alive And Well In Argentina. I hear it's being re-released. I'd like to see that happen. It's a great album.

I then co-produced, with the rest of the group, the last Lovin' Spoonful album. It was being produced by Joe Wizzert, and I wished that he would have finished it. Anyway, I got back to L.A. at the end of the summer of '68 and started producing Judy’s and my album Farewell Aldebaran.

Pat Boone owned the studio that we were working in and Pat's manager and his studio manager heard what Zally and I were doing and really liked it, and asked us to produce Pat. And, in the middle of that, Herbie called and said that Tim's gotta do another album. I said, ‘Well, I'm right in the middle of doing our album - which was on Herbie's label - and we're doing Boone's album. And Herbie says, ‘Buckley's got a band, they know all the tunes, and all you have to do is record it‘.

And I say, ‘Yeah, Okay, but Zally's gotta be there because we're partners‘. And he said, ‘I've got no problem with that‘.

"Of course, an audience must respect the artist for what he's doing as well. Audiences tend to want people to stay exactly the same. In other words, they want to go to a performance and hear an album. Not ready for anything new..."

Q: Did anything interesting happen during the Happy Sad sessions?

A: There was this one time during the sessions when Bruce Botnick fucked up on the recording of Love from Room 109. The take was almost eleven minutes in length and it was superb. There was only one problem. Bruce forgot to switch on the Dolby (Dolby noise reduction) during the recording, and there was a lot of hiss.

Tim went ballistic, and he was in a rage. He was angry with Bruce and angry with me because I let it happen, I guess. And all I could say was, ‘Man, I’m afraid that's the way it is, so you either do another take or use this as it is‘. I said, ‘There’s one other possibility. We can mask the hiss with some kind of atmosphere. Something in the same frequency range. The song is about Coast Highway, so maybe surf‘.

Tim was living at the beach, so we had Bear, his road manager go to Tim’s house, and hang two mics on the bottom of the place as the surf washed under it. It sounded great, and covered the hiss. It actually turned out real nice. I've always been a fan of atmosphere in an album or in a song. It's really effective sometimes. It worked perfectly for that one.

Q: As far as performing during a concert, do you feel that the artist owes the audience anything at all?

I don't think that the artist owes the audience anything. If an artist wants any kind of success then there's just a certain amount of respect that you have to give an audience. If you don't give a shit about the audience and all you care about is the inward meaning of your art then you can do it and go merrily on your way.

Chances are though, that no one will know the difference. If you want to make a living as an artist, then I don't think there's anything wrong with that. If you want to be able to share something that you feel with somebody else, then you need to be aware of how it's going to get through to them.

Of course, an audience must respect the artist for what he's doing as well. Audiences tend to want people to stay exactly the same. In other words, they want to go to a performance and hear an album. Not ready for anything new. I can see it from both the standpoint of an artist and as an audient.

I'll give you an example of me as an audient. We did a gig with Pat Benatar, and she sang my two favorite songs of hers and they were nothing like the way she recorded them. She had sung them so many times that she never wanted to sing them again. Well, then I say, don't sing them. If you're going to bastardize them that much then don't sing them. Don't friggin' do it. It's like you're giving me a song that had a melody, so why don't you sing the melody?

As an audient, that's what I want to hear. I love that melody, why aren't you singing it? Be like Isaac Stern then and perform it better than you've ever done it before. But, sing the friggin' melody, or just don't sing the song. So, that's me as an audient.

Now me as a performer with the Spoonful for the last nine years, some songs are sung exactly the same while some have changes but performed as well as possible. It's kind of a mixture. It's a deep question. It also depends on what the artist is trying to get. If the artist is there to try to make a living, then it's not the same as like just playing and people show up, and if you don't like it then you can just leave the room. You're there because you've made a contract with the people putting on the concert. If you don't want to do it, then don't sign the friggin' contract.

Q: What are you up to these days?

A: I’m working with the Spoonful and producing albums for other artists in my home recording studio. Right now, I'm working on an album by an Irishman who lives in Chicago, named Gavin Coyle. I'm also finishing up an album by a band from New York called the No Neck Blues Band.

Larry Beckett and I have written forty-five or forty-seven songs together over the years and I want to do an album of some of those songs when I have some time.

The Spoonful does fifty to sixty gigs a year. The band includes Joe Butler, Steve Boone and myself. We play mostly the old stuff and we've got a girl named Lena Beckett and a guy named Mike Arturi playing with us. Lena is my daughter. My wife Marlene and I gave her the middle name Beckett. She likes to use it as her stage name.

Q: You guys have great admiration for Larry I see.

We're great pals. He's been one of my closest friends for the last thirty years. My wife loves Larry a lot and we're really good friends, and so we just chose that for Lena's middle name. Lena's amazing. An incredible writer and artist.

Q: Does she do any Spoonful lead vocals?

A: She does from time to time but she also sings one of her own songs in the show. Her time in the group started when she heard Steve and I talking on the phone about our keyboard player and the fact that we had to replace him. Lena said that she wanted to audition for the job. I said, ‘Yeah, right, you're still in high school and the last thing I want you to do is go on the road for God sakes‘.

But then I softened up and said, ‘Well listen, we'll give you the same shot we’d give anybody else. I'll give you a tape and you put your parts on it and I'll submit it to the band and we'll see what we think‘. And she just blew the other keyboard player away. Plus, she plays guitar and sings, which he didn't. I'm very proud of her.

Q: What it's like to hang out with a poet like Larry Beckett?

A: Lar is one of the best people I know, and I enjoy his company immensely. We laugh a lot together about the same things and no, he doesn't talk in rhyme.

Q: Any last thoughts about Tim and his legacy?

A: I only wish that he were still with us. I would have loved to see him broaden his legacy. Finish it, so to speak.

Q:When was the last time you saw Tim?

Actually, I never saw him again after the Happy Sad sessions. I did talk to him on the phone about two months before he died. He sounded like the same ol’ rattlesnake I use to drink beers with back at the Canyon Store parking lot in 1967.

He wanted to work together again. I don't know what direction he wanted to go in, but I thought that it would have been terrific and I told him so. Obviously, we never got that opportunity.

Thank you Jerry on behalf of all our forum members. We’ll be looking forward to hearing some of those songs you’ve been writing with Larry Beckett. Good luck to you, your daughter Lena, and your current band. We certainly appreciate your giving us your time and the wonderful insights you’ve shared with us.

© 2000 Jack Brolly/Room 109