Part III
Round And A-Round and A-Round We Go

Heads Up! Female In The Foxhole! Great Balls Of Fire! It was the Blonde Bombshell from England, Pam Sawyer. Pam was also an LA resident. Her hubby was quite famous, or should I say he helped one singer to become a household name in the 50's producing hits like 'Chances Are' and "The Twelfth Of Never" [[I'm almost positive, those were just 2 of his great hits.) That's right, Johnny Mathis. Now Pam was a wild one. She could talk faster than I could think, and lyrics? Forget it. This girl just came up with great ideas and words as well. Pam was not for everyone. I mean if you were a slow kind of laid back person, Pam could exhaust you. Before I understood more about good lyrics from writers like Smokey, Eddie Holland, and later even Pam and R.Dean, I was writing what I call 'Moon, June, Spoon' lyrics. Well, I guess I was stuck in the 50's. Most of the lyrics were so simple then. Words in many of the hits, were like you talked. "I love you...I'll never let you go...I can't live without you...I want to hold you again, etc. YUK. [[My Alter Ego interjecting here: Sorry Deke, I liked your tracks. I even liked your melodies, but give it up; you were a terrible word man.) Times had changed. Lyrics were deeper, and had double and triple meanings. I really wanted to become a good lyricist, but it was a lot of hard work, if you weren't a 'natural'. Now Pam, on the other hand, was a gifted girl. I could go for days sometimes, searching and struggling for just the right words. On the other Pam, just opened her mouth and seemed to, excuse the expression, vomit one classic line after another. Who says girls can't play 'war games'?

Now, naming this small band of misfits was again, Berry's Idea. "We are going to be called . . "The Klan".
WHAT?, I thought to myself, did I totally miss the humor or clever hidden meaning of the name?. "The KLAN"? I said as I took a deep breath, but wasn't sure what I wanted to say. I mean I've heard of 'friendly fire', but with a name like that? Eh, I don't think so. Then, Berry said 'spelled with a "C", and I let go of the air in my lungs. Now, keep in mind "The Clan" itself consisted of everyone except Pam. This is because "The Clan" was actually a production team. Pam was not a producer. So, Berry gave us his blessing and said, "Let me know when you have something", and walked out the door. Then, we all left the hotel to get a change of clothes, personal items, etc. It was obvious we were going to need them. After we all returned, I recall it was all so awkward in the beginning. I brought my guitar and small amp with me. The hotel had provided us with an upright piano. [[Note: In fact images pop in and out of my head about 2nd piano. In fact it was a baby grand. Oh well, either I'm seeing double, or it was wishful thinking)

Now you have to imagine this scenario. Here are 5 writers that have never teamed up before, that have just suddenly become partners, and mind you, not by choice. Great! How do we start? Who starts first? Well, it was just plain weird, period. I plugged in my amp and guitar and limbered up a bit, quietly. Frank played a few chords. I backed him up for a while. Hank was checking out the groove. Then, Frank changed over to another feel and set of chords. I backed him up again. Hank stomped his foot and nodded his head to that set. Hank had this cool way of nodding his head kind of in a semi-circle when he liked a groove. Then, it all slowly died out . I'm almost sure R. Dean brought his acoustical guitar and then started strumming some chords. However, remember he had that 'Neil Diamond' thing going. Hank couldn't get into that. I played with Dean. Easy stuff. Guitar players can talk together with guitars. It doesn't matter what the other one is playing, you just shift gears. Frank tried to follow, but he couldn't lay into that kind of groove. So, he was stuck playing mostly pads and a few licks.

Poor Pam was stuck. What could she do? Holler out a concept? I mean did Hammerstein just holler out "OKLAHOMA" and Rogers say, "Yeah Oscar, here you go' Plink, Plink, Plink, Plink, Plunk? Well, that might have been OK for those boys, but we were a different breed. We always did music, melody or tracks first. The actual song or lyrics came later. However, like I said, Pam could come up with concepts, like rabbits have babies. So she would just keep on writing, talking her ideas to whoever was playing at the time. I don't care what I, or anyone else says about that girl, she was a real trooper.

Frank took a break and I jumped on the piano. Dean tried to follow me. Pam recited lyric ideas in my ear. Hank was nodding and tapping his foot. Back to Frank. Frank fumbled, Dean took it, I blocked and ran with it and Hank kept on checking for the groove. IT WAS CRAZY, totally insane. Five talented writers, and we were all out of control. What we really needed to do, was all go downstairs to the bar and get drunk. "Round and around and around we go, where we gonna stop nobody knows." You see, someone had to come up with a structure that all 5, or at least 4 of us, took a liking to. Then, the odd man out, would eventually come around. In reality, Frank and I were just playing things we were in the midst of writing. So this is how it went that first night until someone finally quietly walked into one of the bedrooms and lied down. Then Pam, having no one to 'play' with, took her toys and went to bed in the other room. The sound slowly faded. The last thing I remember is lying on the couch at 4am, holding on to my guitar by the neck like a Lilly in my coffin. I never heard the last note of the night.

The morning after, was rough. I really think we all felt we had partied the night before. It was like we either got too drunk to drive and crashed at a strangers or we got 'picked up' and taken to 'their' place. Think about it. Here are these 5 'dead' bodies all over the place. Whoever woke up first got to see the others at their worst. One was snoring like a bear. Someone else took their shoes off and it didn't smell all that great. Everybody's hair is sticking up in the air, etc. Then, there is the one lady in the house. Well, don't ask me. I wasn't the first one up. I got busted with the rest of the late sleepers. There was only one way to do 'the morning after' gracefully. If you were lucky enough to wake up first, and quietly sneak out without waking the others, you could make a dash for home, or your 'other hotel'. Then, take a nice shower and change. By the time you got back, you would have missed the awkward feeling of seeing everybody at their worst. Oh well, life is made up of little memories like this.

By the time we got ourselves together and ordered some food, the ice began to melt. We had a few laughs and we were ready to give it another go. Everything went about the same as the night before, but at least we were listening to each other. Sometime during the early part of the night, I started to feel my oats. I had laid back earlier, because the piano just seemed more natural to kick things off with. Maybe I was a tad shy to stick myself out there with my guitar. [[Note: Just so you pickers out there know; I was playing my '61 Telecaster with a rosewood neck. It was a stock job with the old hand wound Leo Fender pickups. I was going to get a Maple neck, but it just seemed like everyone was changing over to Maple necks. I hate that. So, I just stayed with my Rosewood.)

I had a number of guitar players I followed and were idols of mine including, Freddie King, BB King, Pee Wee Crayton, Lonnie "Memphis" Mack, and for that funky country thing, some early James Burton licks. So I just turned up the volume on my trusty small Magnet Student amp [[which gave just the right amount of dirt or clean distortion and started pickin this groove. It was a mixture of Lonnie Mack and Jimmy Burton. That groove became the guitar quilt I actually used in the verses of the song. I just stayed there on that lick. It was easy for Frank to play against it, through it and over it. Then Dean jumped in. We were finally jamming. Then, there was a knock on the door. We froze. Just when we had something going I thought, the hotel was going to bust us. I put down my guitar, turned off the amp and went over to the door. I was all prepared to blame Pam and her stupid record player [[just kidding, Pam). I opened the door and the man said, "That sounds good!". It was Berry.