Jimmy "Flim" Johnson

[bigredbass]

OK, so that begs the follow-on: 

Obviously you were with that class of SoCal session players that came in, with Steubenhaus, East, Hungate, etc., and even though players like that don't get 'pigeonholed' into one style or another, how did you go from that mile-a-minute English ProgRock back to the East Coast and come to play with JT, in an utterly different style?

And how in your mind (even though recording is a far different business than back then) do you strike that balance between 'IF I stay on the road too much, I'll lose clients' vs. 'I've GOT to do this and I'll keep enough of them'?  I've known several killer recording players in town that are scared to death to take road dates and miss those phone calls. . . . .

All the Best,

Joey

[JimmyJ]

Hey Joey,


I'd say Hungate (and Sklar) were in the group before me.  Not quite a generation older but already cranking before I showed up.  Stubenhaus and East are more my vintage. 

I moved to LA at the end of '79 and nobody knew me.  I think that was an advantage because I was able to (eventually) fall into several different playing situations.  We were still doing BB's records at that time and I was playing with the Wayne Johnson Trio around LA.  I also got to work with Brazilian composer Moacir Santos, the LA Despers steel drum band, a handful of Baked Potato bands, and because I could read - a few rehearsal big bands, jingles and finally record dates.  Very little TV or film work for me.  Except when I ended up on the Joan Rivers Show band, but that's a whole 'nother story.

I never considered myself one of the mainstream LA studio cats.  I did have busy times but never like Sklar's stories of more recording work than you could physically do.  I don't think that exists anymore, maybe not even in Nashville.  But I was lucky to have a variety of musical experiences and able to balance two distinct directions which included playing with JT and Holdsworth at the same time.  Pretty wacky!

What seems to happen with sessions is that you work for a handful of regulars.  I had one jingle house that called me a lot - and on short notice, a couple record producers, and I might have been somewhere on the list for a few more.  So the road / on-call thing was a factor for a while.  You don't want to miss too many calls or they'll just call somebody else.  The Joan Rivers Show band was allowed to sub out so I remember taking off at one point to do a Holdsworth tour.  Clearly this wasn't a financial decision.  HA!!  But that was a rare situation and I knew I had the TV gig to come back to. 

But now I've been playing with James for 26 years (good Lord!) and if it's any indication Mike Landau - who I DO think of as a mainstream session guy - has been on the road with us for several of these years.  It seems like the road IS the gig now at least for my generation of cats.   Mostly I'm just happy to still be making a living playing low notes!  How great is that?!

Sheesh, another long post, sorry gang.

Jimmy J

[bigredbass]

Thanks Jimmy.  Always interesting, and I'm quite sure none of us are complaining about 'long' posts.  Regardless of her situation or the conditions, a shame her show didn't work out, as a 'sit-down' gig like that can be mucho $$ over time, but of course they are very rare. 

Back in the 90's in the Nashville Network days, the staff band on Ralph Emery's show made out like bandits:  AFM scale for the original broadcast, and as TNN was strapped for lots of programming, each show was re-run twice over the next 24 hours, so they made 5 original shows and 10 re-runs a week !!!

Hope it's a good year for you and Jt and the band, and take care of yourself out on the road.

All the Best,

Joey

[David Houck]

Thanks for sharing your stories, Jimmy.  And the longer, the better!

[elwoodblue]

Thanks for sharing your stories, Jimmy.  And the longer, the better!

I wholly agree!!

[edwardofhuncote]

I enjoy them as well. 

Regarding getting/keeping good gigs - I would only add that personality plays a large role too, particularly an easy-going one. (like JJ's here) Those like-able guys by nature are more book-able. Obviously there are exceptions to the rule, but I've managed to be in bands with guys and girls waaaay out of my league, by simply not being high-maintenance. Show up on time, prepared mentally and physically, clean, sober, ready to play when it's time, don't gripe about the green room catering if you're lucky enough to get it, and you get return calls... which leads to more calls...

Hats off to Jimmy J for knowing a good thing.       

[jacko]

Still trying to get to grips with the new forum notifications so I've been missing Jimmy's thread for a while.

regarding your answer to Jazzy's post...

"it was a dark and stormy night" - snoopy reference perhaps?   

Jeff would have known Holdsworth from his time with Bruford in the late 70's. It's no wonder allan wanted Jeff in his band, he's a monster player. I saw him play Joe Frazier with john Mclaughlin and trilok Gurtu around 1988 in Leeds and was astounded that the bass could sound so exciting in a near-rock tune.

High time Allan or James came back to the UK 
Graeme

[JimmyJ]

Hey Graeme,

Good to see you!  (The "unread posts" link is my favorite feature of the new forum!!)

Thanks for the Jeff Berlin / Holdsworth connection, that's it of course.  How that Bruford team originally came together is another good question.  And yeah, Jeff's skills on the bass guitar are insane.  Listening to him is inspiring ... and then a few minutes later you're thinking about selling your bass.  HA! 

Jimmy J

[cozmik_cowboy]

"it was a dark and stormy night" - snoopy reference perhaps?   

Graeme

While Snoopy did, indeed, use the line for all his novels, it is not his.  It was the first line of Edward Bulwer-Lytton's 1830 novel Paul Clifford,  and is widely acknowledged as the gold standard of bad opening lines.
"Doesn't seem that bad", you say?
Well, maybe not - if he hadn't gone on; the whole sentence is:

"It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents - except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattlingalong the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness."

Peter (who knows way too much about weird crap, and now notes Mr. Johnson's status as a nice guy, interesting story-teller,  and at least Mr. Berlin's equal as a cable-clutcher, so as to dehijack)

[adriaan]

Slight detour continued - http://www.bulwer-lytton.com/ ...

[JimmyJ]

Well there you guys go again with your in-depth knowledge.  Amazing.  Yes, my usage was meant as comic relief, as in; lookout, here comes a lengthy tome... 
Thanks for the educational detour.


Jimmy J

[eddievig]

Jimmy J,

If your ears were burning last night...

Mary and I had dinner with some old friends last night, including Barry Leff. He sends his best, and thinks that you are one of the nicest cats on the planet.

And yes, we were all sober.  And it was a dark and stormy night...

Best,

Ed V

[eddievig]

Jimmy J,

Just got the Dewa Budjana discs you played on a few years ago... great stuff. The liner notes for "Joged Kahyangan" mention that there was little to no rehearsal for those sessions, and that the recordings are first or second takes, which blows my mind. Any stories from those sessions?

Best,

Ed V

[JimmyJ]

Hey Ed,

Yeah, Dewa is an Indonesian guitarist who plays in a famous pop band there - and does solo fusion projects of his own on the side.  He's a very nice cat and an unusual composer.  It's not for everybody but some bits of these tunes did get stuck in my head for a while. 

That first project was Peter Erskine, Larry Goldings, Bob Mintzer and myself.  He sent us demo tracks and charts ahead of time so we could see what we were getting into.  At the session we played to clicks and some preprogrammed material (percussion and some synth parts).  I remember being amazed by Mintzer's bass clarinet playing.  Dewa had written some difficult parts for him which he more or less breezed through. 

His next record "Surya Namaskar" in 2014 was with Vinnie Coliauta and I.  As expected, Vinnie's one-take insanity had us all on the floor.  When these guys get the chance to blow it's mind boggling!

And his NEW record has Tony Levin, Gary Husband (keys and drums) and Jack DeJohnette (drums and keys).  Clearly the guy is a muso fan!

Cheers,
Jimmy J

[David Houck]

Just listened to "Duaji & Guruji" from the Surya Namaskar album.  Wonderful, and that's on laptop speakers (I'm having problems with the audio output at the moment).  Hope to get my audio problems fixed soon so I can listen to it again through my stereo.