I learned so much from Willie that first year: watching Romantic Noise from the wings or from the balcony lighting board at The Agora was like a songwriting clinic. I learned to sharpen my rather expansive songwriting down to a succinct precision. I learned how to pace sets. I learned a sense of personal style. (Willie would actually dress the entire band for big shows, like when they would open for The Ramones or the David Johansen Group. The guys had to bring changes of clothes for Willie's approval and he would mix & match the outfits so they looked individually AND collectively great. Nowadays when I witness some jag-off “alternative” band on David Letterman in some hideously mismatched bag o' rags I think back on Willie and the range of his imagination in 1978.)
I originally wrote the paragraph above in 2013, in the first installment of what turned out to be a 5-part series called The Ballad of Willie Phoenix on my old blog, Growing Old With Rock & Roll. I was writing about the first band I ever saw Willie play in – Romantic Noise – and the year 1978. I was writing about the 365 days that taught me more about rock & roll music – how to write it, how to play it, and how to present it – than any other year in my musical existence. And Willie Phoenix taught it all to me. It was the year I learned about Saturday Night Rock & Roll.
And now THIS Saturday night, August 15th, at 7 pm you can witness the phenomenon that IS Willie Phoenix on the CAPA ApART Concert Series.
Part of the reason I’m so hyped for Willie’s appearance on the CAPA series is because I’m assuming it will be solo acoustic, and I haven’t seen Willie play solo in years, maybe a decade. As much as I love seeing Willie wielding an upside-down Strat like the bastard offspring of a juke-joint Mississippi bluesman & Jimi Hendrix wailing soloes on one of Saturn’s moons, some of Willie’s great songwriting can get lost in the sturm und drang of his band shows. Outside of all of Willie’s considerable charisma: the showmanship, the extended guitar workouts, the oh-so-soulful vocals, it’s Willie’s songwriting abilities that have kept me coming back through the decades from 1978 to today. And now all of you get to see it, too. This Saturday night, August 15th, 7pm, CAPA ApART Concert Series, don’t you miss it. – Ricki C. / August 10th, 2020
Just to offer a video illustration, here’s a little Saturday Night Rock & Roll…….
Kim Crawford, rhythm guitar / Willie Phoenix, vocals & lead guitar / Jim Johnson, drums / Myke Rock, bass
(By the way, that’s your Humble Blogger shagging a guitar and handing it back to Willie at the 6:35 mark of this 2015 video; I was a roadie for Willie pretty steadily from 1978 to 1992. I quit a couple of times, I’m pretty sure I got fired at least a coupla more times, but I can’t resist the pull of Willie sayin’ “Jump,” and me asking “How high?” right into this 21st century. The Soul Underground were probably Willie’s best band since the True Soul Rockers of the early 1990’s. Further by the way, that’s genius roadie George Golding putting mic stands back upright at the 8:31 mark. George & I had the best jobs on the planet.)