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I'm Back, Harry Dean Stanton with the Cheap Dates |
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Actor,
singer and musician Harry Dean Stanton released a new album in February.
Well actually, Omnivore Recordings released October 1993, an
album by Harry Dean Stanton with the Cheap Dates, produced by
Jamie James and Greg Allen (co-produced by Slim Jim Phantom, of the
Stray Cats) comprised of some songs that were recorded live at the
Troubadour and others that were recorded in the studio. You see, Harry
Dean Stanton passed away on September 15, 2017 at the age of ninety-one.
Jamie James who had a band called the Kingbees and who also had played
with Dennis Quaid and the Sharks, explains how this album, which was
never intended to become an album, was born.
“My sister called me and said, Jaime I saw a picture of you online that
I have never seen before. Where and when is it from? She sent me the
link and I looked at it. I told her that is a band that Harry and I had
for about six months back in 1993. It was called Harry Stanton with the
Cheap Dates.
I remembered that Slim Jim Phantom had been digitizing music from
cassettes. We had recorded four songs in Paramount Studios on Santa
Monica Boulevard, back in ’93. He sent me a track, but I couldn’t find
it. I called him and I said, could you resend that to me? I listened to
it again and it was the Bob Dylan song “Baby Tonight.” I liked it.
I thought I like this, and I wonder if other people would enjoy it. I
called “Slim” back and he had four songs, but it wasn’t enough to do (an
album).
I called up Greg Allen at Omnivore Recordings and they had put out a
soundtrack for a Harry Dean documentary called partly fiction. They are
really nice guys who do really great work, so I asked them if they would
be interested in doing another Harry Dean Stanton thing. They said
absolutely. I told them I would send them one song and I asked them to
tell me what they thought.
He called me back and he said I love it, but the quality is not good
enough to release. You have to get better quality. I called Slim back
and that is all he had. I remembered I had some tapes out in the garage
and I called up the representative for the Harry Dean Stanton trust in
Kentucky. They said if I was able to get it together it would be great
to honor Harry.
I looked through a bunch of boxes and I found an old DAT (digital audio
tape) tape and it said Harry Dean Stanton with the Cheap Dates. It had
the four songs. Then I looked further, and I found one that said Cheap
Dates Live at the Troubadour.
I called Greg back at Omnivore and he said listen we have this guy that
we work with and he does incredible stuff with tapes and mastering. He
won a Grammy with us for bringing back to life some old Hank Williams
tapes. He said take them up there and see what he can do. I took them up
to Michael Graves and left them with him for ten days or so. He put them
through his magic machine, and he boosted the levels. He made it sound
wonderful.
That explains how the music resurfaced, but when and how Jamie James and
Harry Dean Stanton, became acquainted with one another and eventually
friends is an even more interesting story.
Jamie James reminisces, “It was in the late eighties and I think it was
1988, for a brief period I was doing some gigs with Slim Jim Phantom and
Lee Rocker the drummer from the Stray Cats when they had temporarily
split up. We were doing this show on Sunset Boulevard at a nightclub
called The Central. After the soundcheck Slim wanted to walk up to the
Roxy Theater to have a cocktail at a little place called On the Rocks.
I tagged along, even though I don’t drink. There was one person hanging
out in the nightclub. Slim recognized him. I didn’t know (the person),
and I didn’t pay much attention to him. He walked back with us and later
he came up on stage to join us for the song “El Paso.”
That is when Harry Dean Stanton and I first met, but I didn’t know who
he was, because I wasn’t familiar with his movies. A month or so later,
my girlfriend at the time, her father was Dabney Coleman, was having a
July fourth (get together) at his house and wouldn’t you know it in
walks this barfly again. He sat down on the sofa next to me and he
looked kind of disheveled, like he was down on his luck. I thought isn’t
this nice that Dabney is being kind to unfortunate people or a less
fortunate friend of his. I said to Harry, I didn’t realize that the
buses run on July fourth in Los Angeles. I figured the way he was
dressed that he must have taken a bus to get to Dabney’s in Brentwood.
He just thought that was the funniest thing and it cracked him up. I
didn’t know that he was Harry Dean Stanton multi-millionaire actor. He
told that story over and over during the years, Jaime asked me if the
buses run on July fourth.
He was a very, very quirky and a very funny man. He had a very dry sense
of humor and of course being Canadian I just loved it, because that is
my humor as well. We had that in common and my god he could make me
laugh. He was very funny.
For whatever reason he liked me, and I liked him. He would invite me
over to his house and we would play guitars and sing. It just kind of
snowballed from there.”
We know you are getting impatient and you want to hear about the songs
on this album, but hang in there, we will get to that. It is important
for you, the reader to understand how this all came together to create
the magic you will hear on this record.
“Going back to when I first met Harry, I had a band called the Kingbees
and RSO Records released two of our albums, one in March of 1980 and one
in March of 1981. The Kingbees broke up in March of 1981 and so I got
another bass player and drummer. I used to play some local clubs,
because I didn’t like to travel much. There is a place at Muscle Beach
called The Lighthouse. It was an old and famous Jazz club from the
1950s. Ray Charles used to play there. Like a lot of places over the
years in order to survive it became a Rock and Roll club. I played there
on a regular basis. I loved playing down there. The Kingbees’ music fit
with all of the surfers. My girlfriend brought Harry Dean (Stanton) to
hear me down there. He said he got really turned on by the choice of
songs that I was doing. I had to do five sets from 9 pm to 1:45 am. It
was a good workout for me, and it made me a much better singer. One
minute I could do “Sugar Shack,” and then the next song I could do “El
Paso,” by Marty Robbins. Harry asked if he could come up on stage and do
a couple of songs with us and I said absolutely!
I played there a few times and Harry would come down and he would sit
in. Eventually, he asked me about us doing some music together. I said
(sure) I would like that. We would go with our acoustic guitars and play
some coffee shops and some cigar bars. My girlfriend, Kelly (Coleman)
was also singing harmony with us. Harry loved harmony and so did I. We
had that in common. Our friendship grew out of our fondness and love for
music.
I said to Harry you know Slim, let’s have him come and play on a snare
(drum) to give us a beat. Harry thought that was a great idea and so
Slim started playing with us. Slim said hey my buddy Jeff Baxter (The
Doobie Brothers) plays pedal steel (guitar), so I said to Harry what
about having some pedal steel? He said, let’s try it. Then we ran into
Tony Sales (Iggy Pop, David Bowie, Todd Rundgren) who is also a
wonderful singer and we invited him, and he thought it would be great.
Slim and Skunk don’t sing, but Harry, Tony and I could have three-part
harmony. When we got together and played it felt right, so we booked
some engagements. People liked it and we were packing places. It just
started to happen,” he says.
“Spanish Harlem” is a difficult song to cover, because of the
comparisons it draws to other great singers, such as Ben E King, but
Harry Dean Stanton’s vocals are marvelously showcased with his
interpretation of the lyrics.
Jamie James says, “His voice had an ease to it. He was a professional
singer with a beautiful and natural vibrato,” and he says Harry Dean
Stanton attracted fans to the gigs such as, “Bob Dylan, Marlon Brando,
Kris Krisofferson, Levon Helm, Linda Ronstadt, George Jones, Willie
Nelson, Jack Nicholson and Martin Landau.
One night Chaka Khan wanted to get on stage and play drums with
us. John Dinsmore wanted to play drums with us. They weren’t there for
me. They were all fans of Harry Dean Stanton. (People like) Harry do not
have a need to impress others. They are not selling themselves all of
the time.
There was a nightclub in Beverly Hills and Joni Mitchell came down,
because she was friends with Harry. Joni sat in and did a couple of
songs with us. I was starstruck, because being Canadian I was on stage
standing right next to Joni Mitchell. It was like a dream come true. I
am not the world’s best guitar player by any stretch of the imagination.
I can hold my own, because I am passionate and I work hard, but I am not
gifted like John McLaughlin or Pat Metheny or at Joni Mitchell’s level.
There I was on stage and I thought, man a lot of things happened that
normally wouldn’t have happened in my life, because of Harry Dean
Stanton. I enjoyed it and it was a beautiful experience.
One night Bono from U2 was standing there during the break between the
two sets Bono introduced himself to me and he said I loved that version
of the song you just did (Jaime could not recall which song it was) and
I asked him if he wanted to meet Harry. He said no he did not want to
interrupt him. I asked if he wanted to come up and sing a song with us
and he said no I am just here to enjoy the show. I don’t know how you
guys do it. One thing Harry had was a derelict sense of time. He would
come in whenever he wanted. He didn’t come in on the downbeat and he
didn’t come in on the one. I used to follow him and then the guys in the
band would follow me. We made it sound like it was arranged that way.
When he played harmonica, he had a great sense of time, but when he
sang, he would come in whenever he wanted. Bono picked up on that and he
said you do a great job of following him. Harry had so many admirers it
blew me away.”
The Chuck Berry song “Never Can Tell,” has a New Orleans feel to it and
sounds like Zydeco meets Country. Harry Dean Stanton of course is
singing and playing the harmonica, while Jamie James plays guitar and
Jeff “Skunk” Baxter is on pedal steel. The song is introduced by Harry
Dean Stanton talking to the crowd and it begins with him playing the
harmonica. The band seemed to tap into the energy of their fans at the
Troubadour. The song moves quickly, and it is difficult to imagine that
many people stayed seated, while they were playing “Never Can Tell.”
Another song recorded at the Troubadour was “Miss Froggie,” and Jamie
James is the lead singer on this one, including punctuating the song
with Little Richard like wails. The Kingbees and the Cheap Dates create
a rocking atmosphere.
“The Kingbees were a three-piece (band) designed after Buddy Holly & The
Crickets. We did really simple songs with three-part harmonies. Once in
a while I liked to do a Little Richard type thing and I cut loose. I
used to put “Miss Froggie,” into my shows, because it was a way for me
to get a release. It is like when John Lennon used to cut loose on
certain songs. I loved performing that song. It is a very simple but
rocking tune. That one used to get the dance floor packed every time,”
says Jamie James.
Four songs were recorded at Paramount Studios on Santa Monica Boulevard
and then mixed at a studio owned by Jeff “Skunk” Baxter. Then they sat
in Jaime James’ garage for the next twenty-seven years.
Blues singer and musician Jimmy Reed’s “Bright Lights, Big City,” was
one of those studio recordings.
“Jimmy Reed was from Chicago and he did songs like “Big Boss Man.” He
played harmonica with a rack and he played Blues guitar. (James pauses
to sing a few lines of “Bright Lights, Big City.” (He was (active) in
the late fifties and early sixties. It is a straight Blues song with a
medium shuffle,” he says.
As for the songs recorded at the Troubadour, Jamie James muses, “It was
a magical night when I thought Harry was really on his game. I am not
sure any of us were aware that it was being recorded, because we were
all in the moment. There it was captured. It is old school, pure and
raw.”
October 1993
by Harry Dean Stanton with the Cheap Dates is well worth revisiting.
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told him the main thing I cared about was being able to hear Harry’s
voice. I chose the five songs that I felt best represented Harry’s
voice. The way this is on a LP is side A are the four songs from the
recording studio and side B are the songs (performed) live at the
Troubadour. It looks and sounds fantastic. It really does Harry proud. I
would not have even dreamed of releasing this if it had not been a true
representation of Harry’s singing,” says Jamie James.