BEE SPEARS & CHRIS ETHRIDGE - R.I.P. WILLIE'S BASSMEN

John Christopher "Chris" Ethridge was a seminal electric bass guitar player in the early days of the country/rock movement. His most famous work was undoubtedly with The Flying Burrito Brothers whose influence on generations of country and rock musicians since has been pervasive. The Byrds, Rolling Stones, Emmylou Harris, My Morning Jacket, Norah Jones have all been inspired by the Burritos mixture on honky tonk, psychedelia, rhythm & blues, soul and country. Ethridge passed away last week of complications from pancreatic cancer in his hometown.

I had been planning the next in my series of blogs on CLASSIC SONGS and near the top of the list was the Ethridge/Gram Parsons composition "Hot Burrito #1 (I'm Your Toy)". A lip-synched version of the Burritos doing the tune leads the blog above. Interesting about this version is the fact that bassist Ethridge actually appears miming the drums and drummer Michael Clarke is attempting to mime playing bass. Seems the boys are getting a nice laugh out of it. The Burritos were a fun loving bunch and indeed a product of the times--their attitude was a bit twisted and tongue-in-cheek, a bit seditious and all about fun but when it came time to write and play the songs they were always serious and respectful students of the music that came before them and that influenced their landmark fusing of musical genres.

Parsons has become an iconic songwriter since his untimely death in 1973 and this gorgeously constructed tune and lyric is one of the most recorded of his songs. Ethridge also penned the moving song "She" as well as the irreverent and more boisterous "Hot Burrito #2" with Parsons. I'll post a couple of the Burrito and Gram's versions of these other songs before dropping a couple of tasty cover versions on you.

"Hot Burrito #2" from the GILDED PALACE OF SIN lp (1969)

In the foreground above that's Chris Ethridge, Sneaky Pete Kleinow, Gram Parsons and Chris Hillman (l-r)

"She" from Gram Parsons solo lp GP (1973)

Born in Meridian, Mississippi the young musician moved west to California at the age of 17. He met up with Parsons in mid-1967 when the latter briefly re-formed the International Submarine Band and played on the band's only full-length lp, Safe At Home. While awaiting the album's delayed release, Parsons left to join The Byrds and participate in one of the most influential country/rock albums, Sweethearts of the Rodeo.

After his short-lived stint with The Byrds, Parsons with Ethridge, ex-Byrd Chris Hillman and pedal steel innovator "Sneaky" Pete Kleinow formed The Flying Burrito Brothers and made their stellar debut album The Gilded Palace of Sin. Before it's time, the album wasn't a huge succes and Ethridge left in mid-1969. Parsons to follow a year later. Though the initial Burritos band would be short-lived it would carry on with a slew of great players who would go on to form or be members of important and successful groups in the country/rock genre such as The Eagles, Firefall, Manassas, Country Gazette. after Parsons untimely death n 1973, his post-Burritos singing partner Emmylou Harris would carry the torch of his music for decades to come.

Ethridge went back to session work where he would contribute to many great albums over the next decade by artists as diverse as ex-Byrd Gene Clark, Linda Ronstadt, Phil Ochs, Arlo Guthrie, Dave Mason, Rita Coolidge, The Doors, Paul Kantner/Grace Slick/David Frieberg, Graham Nash & David Crosby, Leon Russell, Jackson Browne, Judy Collins, Johnny Winter, Randy Newman, The Byrds, Kudzu Kings, P.F. Sloan, Al Kooper & Mike Bloomfield, Johnny Rivers, Bill Withers, Ronnie Milsap, David Blue, the Everly Brothers, Roger McGuinn, Maria Muldaur, Paul Davis, Delaney Bramlett, Steve Gillette, Booker T. & Priscilla Jones, George Jones, John Prine...

He would go on to tour for eight years with Willie Nelson & Family with whom he recorded four albums including the essential Willie & Family LIVE. He had a small role in the Nelson film vehicle Honeysuckle Rose and played on the soundtrack recording. Nelson employed two bassists at that time, the late Bee Spears (see sidebar below) and Ethridge. If anyone can find any video footage of Chris Ethridge and Bee Spears onstage performing together with Willie's band PLEASE send me a link. I'll post it here. Thank you.

Chris also played on three lps by eclectic slide guitarist, songwriter and musicologist Ry Cooder in the 1970s.

In 1975, Ethridge and Kleinow re-formed The Flying Burrito Brothers with fiddler/vocalist Gib Gilbeau, drummer/banjoist/vocalist Gene Parsons (no relation to Gram although he was also an ex-Byrd) and guitarist/vocalist Joel Scott Hill. The latter two had played informally in 1974 as The Docker Hill Boys. Hill and Ethridge had previously played music together shortly after Chris had moved to L.A. in the pre-ISB days. They had also recorded an album in 1971 alongside Johnny Barbata (CSNY/Jefferson Starship drummer) called L.A. Getaway.

Ethridge remained with this incarnation of the Burritos only through mid-1976 though he appears on the 1996 release Eye of the Hurricane. The live albums of the Burritos with Ethridge, From Another Time (recorded live in 1975) and Red Album: Live Studio Party (recorded in 1976) were released for the first time in 1991 and 2002 respectively.

Songs by Ethridge have been recorded by artists as diverse as Dinosaur, Jr; The Pretenders, Emmylou Harris, David-Clayton Thomas, Jefferson Starship, Belly, Big Star, The Coal Porters, McGuinn, Clarke & Hillman, Elvis Costello, Country Gazette, Norah Jones, Gene Clark & Carla Olson, Jose Feliciano, Sylvester, The Black Crowes and The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band.

Here are a couple of my favorite cover versions...

Norah Jones performs "She" live in 2004

The Black Crowes perform "Hot Burrito #1" live in 1997. I absolutely LOVE Raul Malo's version of this song but this really surprised me by the delicacy the Crowes brought to the tune. Sweet.

Stephen Stills & Manassas live from Amsterdam 1972. This great band featured both Chris Hillman (who is singing lead and playing rhythm guitar here I believe, Stills on lead guitar and backing vocals) and Al Perkins (pedal steel) both ex-Burritos.

Okay, one more round of great covers...I can't help myself. I have to included Elvis Costello's version of "HB #1" from the much maligned but, I believe, essential LP, Almost Blue. The night after Chris passed Elvis played a nice version of this on the road. He introduced the song mentioning that when Jim Dickinson, who had filled in a gig for Attractions' keyboardist Steve Nieve, mentioned to Elvis that Ethridge really loved that Elvis covered his tune. 

Dinosaur Jr.'s take on "HB#2" increases the edge of the original as only J. Mascis can do. It was a bonus track on the 2006 re-release of the Green Mind CD. Listen for the interesting little lyric change.

 

Here's to you, Chris.

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DAN "BEE" SPEARS (1949-2011)

For anyone who has seen Willie Nelson perform live since 1968 you have seen Bee Spears play the bass. Nelson's Family band has been exactly that with very few changes in the core line-up since Nelson, drummer Paul English and bassist Spears left Nashville for the more tolerant confines of Austin, Texas in 1971. Struggling to make it as a performer in the music machine that was the country music business in Nashville, they headed home to Texas where the looseness of the 60s met the hard-scrabbled reality of the Texas sun and earth. Where being an individual was the norm not the road to failure. Taken his songwriting talents, his unique vocal approach and his left-of-center perspective on life, Nelson and his band mates began playing for the long-hairs and the cowboys and their neighbors alike and finally doing it their way. In short order, the burgeoning Austin music scene where like San Franciscoo a few short years before fostered an openness in the music fans where blues, rock, country, folk and Tejano music could co-mingle, interact and blossom into an overflowing bucket of new sounds. For Willie and company, the freedom bred the new hype of The Outlaw movement in country music which in reality may have been more PR than any real movement per se but which allowed a cornucopia of new and not so new musicians a chance to break beyond the endless honky tonk gigs and into some much deserved spotlights. From Austin to Lubbock to Dallas and Houston, new names were poppin' up in venues and on play lists and people like Willie, Waylon Jennings, Tompal Glaser, David Allan Coe, Jerry Jeff Walker, Guy Clark, Townes Van Zandt started making some headway, 

Willie's story is well-known. From Abbott, Texas to dj stint and honky tonk gigs, finally to Nashville where he had a couple of quick hits he'd written break for other people like Faron Young singing "Hello Walls" and Patsy Cline's version of "Crazy". Then there were tough times trying to get known as a recording artist himself while still pitching songs in the back room of Tootsie's Orchid Lounge to the Opry stars on their break. The move back to Austin seemed to be the right thing to do and in short order his first Gold record The Red Headed Stranger catapulted Nelson to the top of the country heap. From that time forward his Family band would tour the country insatiably, upwards of 250+ dates a year by bus. By the time "On The Road Again" and "Always On My Mind" hit the pop charts Nelson was a national icon, a movie star, a familiar talking head on TV news and talk shows.

In 1968, Bee Spears from Helotes, TX joined Willie's band and stayed until the day he died. Always over Willie's shoulder keeping one eye on Willie and one eye on the band. For me, Bee was the glue. The first time I saw Nelson back in the early 80s, I was sure that the music was horrible, someone MUST'VE been high. It seemed like no one was playing together, that Nelson was singing twelve bars behind or ahead of everyone else. That they were on a rotating stage and that I was three tequilas and a phatty into the evening didn't help. But by evening's end I realized that it was supposed to be that way. I began thinking of it like a jazz song or of the 2 hour show as one long Grateful Dead set, where things flowed and bounced off of each other and sometimes they got there and sometimes they didn't all get there at the same time. I found that if I listened to Spears bass lines, I could hear some kind of essence of what was going on. He seemed to be reacting to Nelson's idiosyncratic and jazzy behind-the-beat phrasing while goosing everyone else a bit closer to where they needed to be. I was hooked. For the next 30+ years I've been in the audience every chance I get to follow that fascinating flow. Like the Pedernales River in the hill country of Texas, things ebb and things rush and all that's important winds up down stream just where it belongs in good time. 

I had the pleasure of working PR for a couple of records Willie did around the turn of the Millennium and was lucky to catch more than my usual share of shows and to spend a little time with some of the guys on the road including Bee. He was always hilarious, slyly grinning about something you may or may not get wind of eventually. A prankster of strange and wonderful measure, his friends and fans will duly miss him and the music will live on.

In addition to the hundreds of sessions he has recorded with Willie, the thousands of nights on the road playing for millions of people Bee also contributed his presence and bass to records by some of 

Nelson's peers and cohorts Waylon Jennings, Jerry Jeff Walker, Steve Fromholtz, Guy Clark, and Buck White among them. We'll miss you amigo.

Austin American-Statesman Obit for Bee Spears

Billboard's Obit on Dan "Bee" Spears 

 

Bee doing his very best Merle Haggard...back in the day.

      

"BEE SPEARS, Al Perkins & Mark Dreyer Playing till the cows come home RFD TV SONG (Never was aired) IN THE FIELD at Bee's House outro -Porter Wagoner, LITTLE JIMMY DICKENS & HANK COCHRAN - A 10 YEAR OLD CLIP...MDP IN MEMORY OF BEE SPEARS, Porter Wagoner & HANK COCHRAN."

Interview and music with Bee Spears Live in Studio 23 Mark Dreyer Productions for J. Michael Miller www.NashvilleConnection.com

This is interesting. Something you would rarely the Willie Nelson band do is play instrumental music. Here is Bee stretching out with Willie band regulars Mickey Raphael (harmonica) and Billy English (here on drums, with Willie he plays percussion for a good portion of the shows and kit for a few tunes) along with Willie's old friend guitarist Jackie King (in the hat) who was at that time on the road in Willie's band. Jackie had recently recorded an album of jazz and standards that Willie had sang and played on and Willie had also recently recorded his "Night & Day" all instrumental album which was something of a tribute to the great jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt. Here the band members join guitarist Bob Miles and keyboardist Jay Davidson for a sweet version of Freddie Hubbard's "Little Sunflower". It's wonderful to hear Bee play like this. I remember after the show the guys being really happy about being able to go in and do things they didn't usually get to do. Look for their version of "Cantaloupe Island" and "All Blues" from the same program.

  Here are three Willie & Family tunes from Amsterdam in the early part of the 2000s. This shows the fluidity of the phrasing and though you don't get to see a lot of Bee you can hear him holding things together. It is an amazing luxury for a musician to have the same band together for so long. Also nice to see Jody Payne and Jackie King with the band at this point.

Here's a wonderful tribute video put together by Bee's long-time friend David Anderson. It's long (51 minutes) and has what is noted as "mild profanity" as well as some very funny, ridiculous and off the wall verbal riffs from the mind of Bee and cohorts as well as some rare music  from Bee, some great pics of family & friends and more. A wonderful tribute to an amazingly unique individual.

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Nothing more interesting than a pirate with a heart of gold and a strange, knowing glint in his eyes. Here's to ya, Bee.