March 4, 1999
Mr. David Hinckley
The New York Daily News
450 W. 33rd St., 3rd floor
New York, NY 10001
Dear David:
One of our heroes is very sick. Paul
Griffin, probably New York's finest studio
keyboard player, needs a liver transplant.
Neil Baruch at CBS, a childhood friend,
suggested alerting you about this wonderful
musician's dire circumstances.
As you probably know, Paul began his career in the
late 50s playing piano and organ with King Curtis'
band. He quickly became a Zelig-like figure, playing
keyboards on some of pop music's most historic and
memorable moments: Bob Dylan's first "electric" records,
all of Bacharach/David's classic Dionne Warwick sides
and a slew of hits by the Shirelles, Solomon Burke,
Wilson Pickett, Aretha Franklin, Steely Dan and many
more.
Think of the organ intro to Chuck Jackson's "Any
Day Now"...the gospel piano behind Bob Dylan's "Like
a Rolling Stone"and Don McLean's "Miss
American Pie"...the tack piano on B.J.Thomas' "Raindrops
Keep Fallin'on My Head" and Bob Dylan's "Just
Like Tom Thumb's Blues"...Dionne Warwick's "Walk
on By"...Paul Simon's "Tenderness" (There
Goes Rhymin' Simon ) -- these all feature Paul
Griffin at the keyboard.
Last year, while collaborating with Cissy Houston
on her autobiography, "How Sweet the Sound" (Doubleday),
Paul's name came up as soon as we began discussing
her 60s session work. A jaded, session veteran, Cissy
was uncharacteristically effusive about Pau l. "Paul
Griffin can play anything," she said.
Of course, she was right. One on-line discography
lists over two hundred albums Griffin has played
keyboards on: Sixties New York pop like the Shirelles' "Tonight's
the Night," "Mama Said," and "Soldier
Boy." Neil Diamond and Van Morrison's first
hits for Bert Berns. Folk rock albums by Eric Andersen,
Tom Rush, Peter, Paul & Mary's Album 1700 and Late
Again ; Judy Collins' Judith . Debut
albums by John Denver and Carly Simon. Bonnie Raitt's Streetlights .
Jazz records by George Benson, Quincy Jones, and
Nina Simone. Albums by John Lennon, Yoko Ono, Stephen
Bishop and Blues Traveler.
His warmth came through right over the phone. "I'm
in awe of what you guys [writers] do," he said
even as I gushed about his contribution to Dionne
Warwick, Steely Dan's "Gaucho," Donald
Fagen's "Kamakiriad" and Dylan's first
rock'n roll records; Bringing It All Back Home , Highway
61 Revisited and Blonde on Blonde .
He seemed grateful to be acknowledged but shied away
from the praise with an "aw, shucks" bashfulness. "We
made a lot of music back then," he finally confessed. "We
didn't realize the importance of it until years later."
While we spoke, I discovered that Paul lived just
three blocks from where I was working in Riverdale.
A few days later, I met him on the sidewalk outside
his apartment building. The first thing you noticed
was the smile, a big elastic one which rarely left
his face. "He was always in a positive, humorus
mood," says Hugh McCracken, another legendary
New York musician who played guitar alongside Paul
on hundreds of sessions. "He never had an attitude
with anybody. A lot of musicians had an attitude
with those who didn't play as good as they did. Paul
would always acknowledge or flatter a player on something
that was worthy. And he always was very insightful
about other musicians; very sensitive...always a
gentleman." Small and wiry, wearing jeans, sneakers
and a sweatshirt, he looked much younger than sixty-three.
Only the few specks of gray that dotted his close-cropped
afro and the old black aviator frames reminded you
that he already had close to forty years in the music
business.
He led the way to the building's basement where he
unlocked a room usually reserved for dusty old bikes
and baby carriages. The right side of the room was
still filled with cobwebs and old boxes. But the
other side was a mad musician's lair of carefully
arranged keyboards, synthesizers and computer monitors.
He laughed, apologized for the mess and offered a
chair while he wheeled around on a little stool,
from keyboard to computer, finishing up a children's
project.
Since the 80s, the New York session scene has dried
up. Gone are the days when a top player like Paul
could bounce from session to session covering three
or four in one day. When Phil Spector was working
at his favorite room, Mira Sound, in the lobby of
the dumpy Americana Hotel on 47th Street. When Bacharach
was recording at Associated on Seventh Avenue next
to the Metropole...Phil Ramone was at A&R on
48th Street and Brooks Arthur was cutting Leiber
and Stoller's artists at Century Sound. When musicians
were working so regularly they could run a tab for
months at Jim and Andy's, a great little bar/restaurant
downstairs from A&R.
The work looked like it would never end, but it did.
The 70s was the last great decade; before drum machines
replaced real drummers, and sequencing, sampling
and Midis changed the way music was made in the studio.
If you were smart, you socked something away during
the good years. Few did. As you know, musicians do
not receive royalties from a hit record. Record companies
pay into a fund based on the number of sessions a
musician has worked in a calendar year. These monies
are disbursed to the musician through the union.
One musician said that some years when the session
work was running heavy, it was not unusual to receive
checks from this fund for fifteen thousand dollars.
Now, he said he's lucky if he sees a check for fifteen
hundred.
These days, musicians must rely on contract work,
teaching and advertising jingles to get by. The shingle
they hang, a memento from the good old days, is the
gold record. Hanging wildly askew on Griffin's drab,
gray and white walls was a gold record for Steely
Dan's "Aja." That's Paul playing electric
piano and singing harmony with Michael McDonald on "Peg." In
the middle of the floor, atop a pile of old cartons
was a framed, gold 45 of Don McLean's "American
Pie" -- forgotten, amidst the rubble, as Griffin's
brilliant piano playing on the record generally is.
Paul displayed no bitterness for the elusive fortunes
of the music business. He recalled, rather, with
great fondness, his first sessions in 1961 with Cissy
Houston at Scepter Records. Hearing that gospel thing
in her voice, "I was instantly filled with love
for her and her whole family," he said softly.
Hearing her niece, twenty-year-old Dionne Warwick's
voice for the first time at a session, he was so
struck with its beauty, he says he forgot to play.
A little disappointment did creep into his voice
as the conversation returned to two of his most well-known
gigs; both massive successes that barely rubbed off
on him: Don McLean's "Miss American Pie" and
Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone." He
quickly excused Dylan for underutilizing the great
band that produced this milestone; recognizing that
it was more important at the time for Dylan to slow
down and save his life than merely hold a band together.
But he still remembers the shock and bewilderment
of seeing Don McLean on national television, while "Miss
American Pie" reigned supreme on the airwaves.
McLean sat on a stool and strummed the hit solo --
without a single other musician. "Hey, what
happened to the band?" Griffin laughed incredulously.
He said he had grown up in Harlem during the 40s
with no male role models "except the junkies,
the pimps and the numbers runners." His mother
made sure he was in church every Sunday -- up front.
At Paradise Baptist on 135th Street, his regular
seat for years was in the pew behind the church pianist.
Paul would drift off during the service and find
himself watching the pianist's hands. This went on
for years. One day after church, Paul slid onto the
piano bench and began doodling around on the keyboard.
After a few more times, he found he had a knack for
it. When the church's pianist eventually died, Paul
took her place.
As an eighth-grader, his dream was to attend New
York's prestigious High School of Music and Art.
A judgemental guidance counselor, observing either
Griffin's humble station or mindful of Music and
Art's high academic requirements, assured him he
would never be admitted. Griffin slumped out of her
office and began weeping quietly in the hall. At
just that moment, a teacher who had befriended Griffin
happened by.
"Why are you crying ?" he asked.
Through tears, Griffin explained. The teacher was
appalled at the guidance counselor's insensitivity.
He promised Paul that he would not only reprimand
the counselor but that Paul would audition for Music
and Art just like anyone else. Griffin passed the
audition. Four years later in 1953, he graduated
from the High School of Music and Art .
King Curtis offered Paul his first opportunity record
in the late 50s.
"Can you make the gig?" Curtis asked him.
Make the what?
"Can you make the session?" Curtis repeated.
What's a gig...what's a session? Paul was
so green he needed a translator. But he was no neophyte
at the keyboard. He went on the road with Curtis
and eventually cut ten albums with him. Griffin became
a permanent fixture at Scepter Records sessions with
players like Mickey Baker, Jimm y Lewis and Panama
Francis. Beginning in 1960 with "Tonight's the
Night," under the direction of producer, Luther
Dixon, Griffin and company played on virtually all
of the Shirelles' records (and most of Scepter's
releases). Paul was one of the arrangers on "Mama
Said" and Tommy Hunt's "Human." His
playing on all of Chuck Jackson's early hits cemented
a lifelong friendship between the two.
Paul quickly became the first-call keyboard player
for producers like Leiber and Stoller, Jerry Wexler,
Bert Berns, Jerry Ragovoy and Burt Bacharach and
Hal David. For Berns, Griffin played on the Isley
Brothers' "Twist and Shout," most of Solomon
Burke's hits and Van Morrison's first New York sessions.
Ragovoy used Griffin almost exclusively on hits he
wrote and produced like Garnett Mimms and the Enchanters' "Cry
Baby," the original versions of Janis Joplin's
signature, "Piece of My Heart" (Erma Franklin), "Try" (Lorraine
Ellison) and "Time Is On My Side" (Kai
Winding).
The spell Griffin cast over Ragovoy was so strong
that to this day, Ragovoy says he finds himself sitting
at the keyboard still under the influence: "Oh,
my God," he says, listening to himself play. "I'm
Paul Griffin today!"
But if any one producer monopolized Griffin, it was
Burt Bacharach. From Dionne Warwick's first records; "Don't
Make Me Over," "Walk On By," "Anyone
Who Had a Heart" through B.J.Thomas' "Raindrops
Keep Fallin' On My Head" -- if Bacharach/David
wrote it, then Paul Griffin probably played the piano
part. Wait a minute. Bacharach, no slouch as a
pianist, gave Paul nearly all of his own piano parts
to play?
"Do you know why he did that?" Griffin asked. "Because
Burt used to love to come into the studio and conduct.
That's why he gave me those parts to play."
Other musicians might have kept quiet about Bacharach's
idiosyncrasies and just let their own legend grow.
Not Griffin. Try to compliment him on that little
organ part for Chuck Jackson's "Any Day Now" and
he humbly smiles away the accolade. "A Bert
Keyes arrangement," he says, proud to give credit
where credit is due.
The modesty isn't false. Despite forty years in the
business, despite the milestones (and all those Bacharach
piano parts!) he still has a sense of wonder about
where he's been and the talent of others. Mention
Frank Owens, another piano player on Dylan' s Highway
61 Revisited , and his voice drops to a hush.
Here was a sideman, he whispers, who was so classy
and so good he unwittingly stole the gig from the
headliner right onstage at the Apollo. Griffin was
so knocked-out by Aretha Franklin's piano playing,
that he refused to play on the session for "Think." "They
wanted me to play that [piano] intro she does. I
said, `No way! That's her !' Then again, Griffin
was playing with Aretha three years before Atlantic
signed her; when Clyde Otis cut her for Columbia.
If Paul Griffin's jazz/blues and gospel chops are
not as easily recalled on the productions of Bacharach,
Ragovoy, Wexler and Berns, his contribution to Bob
Dylan's seminal mid-sixties records is already writ
large in pop music history. Griffin was present at
Dylan's first rock'n roll session in 1965 for the
album, Bringing It All Back Home . No fluke,
Dylan requested him three more times; for his next
album, Highway 61 Revisited which included
Paul's tasty work on "Like a Rolling Stone," and
the sessions that included "Positively Fourth
Street," "Sitting on a Barbed Wire Fence" and "Can
You Please Crawl Out Your Window?" Dylan also
tapped him years later to overdub organ on Blood
on the Tracks .
But Paul Griffin's most extraordinary -- and often
uncredited -- work with Bob Dylan occurred on January
25, 1966. There has always been some confusion about
the players on this first New York session for Dylan's Blonde
on Blonde . Because the album was finished a
few months later in Nashville, the album lists only
the Nashville musicians. The two New York sessions,
the first of which produced "One of Us Must
Know (Sooner or Later)," are frequently credited
to members of the Band . Rick Danko and Robbie Robertson
might have played bass and guitar on one of the New
York sessions. But just a single listening erases
any doubt about who played piano. Al Kooper, who
played organ at the session, remembers Paul well.
"The piano playing on "One of Us Must Know" is
quite magnificent," Kooper told writer Andy Gill. "It
influenced me enormously as a pianist. It's probably
Paul Griffin's finest moment."
Griffin's playing on "One of Us Must Know (Sooner
or Later)" is reminiscent of what he would play
five years later on Don McLean's "American Pie" --
but even more brilliant in its intensity and improvisation.
The song is an emotional confession of misconnects
and apologies from the singer to some woman who has
tragically slipped out of his life. Griffin gives
the song its tragic depth -- and height. He picks
his way sensitively through the verses; but at other
times, he prowls beneath the words with Judgement
and an ominous gospel lick that he stokes until he
has climbed to the verse's peak. At the chorus, Griffin
unleashes a symphony; hammering his way up and down
the keyboard, half Gershwin, half gospel, all heart.
The follow-up, a killer left hand figure that links
the chorus to the verse, releases none of the song's
tension. Then, on the last chorus, not content to
repeat the same brilliant part, Griffin's playing
is so breathtaking, so completely embodies the lyric,
that he enters into some other dimension. For several
seconds, on one of Dylan's best songs, Griffin makes
Dylan seem almost earthbound.
"It's great, two-fisted, gospel piano playing," Kooper
says, "played with the utmost of taste."
Paul Griffin doesn't remember it. He's momentarily
bewildered, almost apologetic for not recalling something
others hold so dear. The part was probably something
he'd heard in Paradise Baptist church at least a
hundred times before. But do not mistake an isolated,
fuzzy memory for a moment that he is unaware of.
He is well aware of this music's significance --
in Paul Griffin's life.
"The sound that you hear is the sound of gratitude," he
says simply. "If it wasn't for music, I don't
know what would have become of me. I'd had a lot of
jobs -- I was a cutter in the garment district, I delivered
groceries for a supermarket -- but nothing with any
kind of future. So, what you hear is the sound of being
thankful...for being able to play...for being tapped
to play on a session [Dylan's] like that...thankful...as
if I'd been saved from something horrible. "
Several months after this conversation, Paul came
down with pneumonia. Over the last year, he's been
in and out of the hospital. Then, a few weeks ago,
doctors told him he needed a liver transplant. After
a lifetime in music, "something horrible" yet
threatens to overtake Paul Griffin. Doctors do not
comment on one's suitability as an organ recipient.
Your name goes into a computer and the doctors try
to get you ready if and when a replacement organ
becomes available. Meanwhile, Paul and his family
wait.
Would it not be fitting and wonderful if some of
the artists, musicians and executives who so appreciated
Paul while his smile lit up a session and his playing
lit up their hearts, could now raise up as one and
help him. Even the listening public -- anyone who
remembers all those Shirelles records, Chuck Jackson's "Any
Day Now," "American Pie," or the first
exquisite twenty seconds of "Just Like Tom Thumb's
Blues." Anyone, in fact, who, like Don McLean,
can still remember how that music used to make them
smile.
Sincerely,
Jonathan Singer
