Shinybass Journal Entry 04/11/23

The Story (not really BEHIND but sort of juxtaposed with sidebar notations from my crazy life) the Song: ‘Hard to Handle’

It’s 1990. I’m living at Elam Arms, which is a dorm on the edge of campus of the University of Southern Mississippi. The dorm was smaller than other all-male (Elam spelled backward…) dorms on campus, and typically a chill place. We had a cafeteria and a pool (yes, a pool), and it was right across the street from the music halls, so those few square blocks was my corner of life for a couple of years. Don’t go looking for the dorm now. A tornado decided the the dorm’s tenure was done and the building was leveled. It’s probably for the best. We pulled a chicken gizzard prank on our way out of the door for summer vacation, and I swear maintenance never found them. I’ll bet if you close your eyes on a warm spring day like today and inhale really hard, you can smell the rotting innards somewhere on the grounds.

My roommate in 1990 was a young Tony Lymon, who became quite the partner in crime as the years progressed. Our school year was great, then after we graduated, Tony and I ended up in a stinky van together, criss-crossing the universe seeking our musical path in the band King Konga. We logged a lot of shows and a lot of miles, and that year in the dorm was paramount to our friendship and its foundation.

I’d like to think that I introduced Tony to new music, but with his vast musical knowledge, he was probably just humoring me. One thing we had in our dorm was cable and a 13” color TV to showcase all it had to offer. The screen was so small it was basically a glorified radio, and the dial was glued to MTV. We’d get ready for class in the early morning and we could almost guess which videos would play next. What a glorious time to be alive.

One of the videos that (seemingly) played on a loop was ‘Hard to Handle’ as performed by The Black Crowes. It was like nothing that we had heard before. It had this great drum intro that had a kind of hip hip/soul feel to it, and when the intro ended and the song kicked in, it was a breath of fresh air from other music of the day. I watched the video for the song at least 40 times. I’d look for nuances and shots (long before I was making videos), and was all about the guitars and that old Eagle Coach (that’s a type of tour bus), and maybe thought about being a rock star at some point on this planet. This 3 minute glimpse into that world only solidified it.

I had a cover band in college, and ‘Hard To Handle’ became one of the songs on the set list immediately. It was three chords and the truth (maybe one or two extras) and it was a crowd favorite. We used to sneak down to the rehearsal spaces in the band hall (normally reserved for, oh, educational purposes) and rehearse the cover band. One night I was stopped by a trombone player (who has since gone on to become one of the most respected in his field) who asked why we weren’t doing the Otis Redding version, of which, he explained was much cooler. I kinda just laughed it off, honestly having no idea that my new rock people pleaser was a cover song.

So in case you didn’t know (because I didn’t until then), ‘Hard To Handle’ was released in 1968 on the album The Immortal Otis Redding. Otis was killed in a plane crash in 1967 and was 26 years old when he died. ‘Sitting on the Dock of the Bay’ was released just a couple of weeks after Otis had passed away, with Otis recording the song just three days before his plane went down in a frigid lake in Wisconsin. ‘Hard To Handle’ was part of the batch of songs that was scooped up by Atlantic Records and released posthumously.

So let’s move a little further down the line. I am in King Konga and we’re asked to play in the John Daly Make-a-Wish golf tournament in Memphis. At this stage, King Konga had run its course, and whereas the band was going in different directions, for one particular weekend, I was headed to Memphis. When they asked if I would perform at the concert, I told them the rest of the band would not attend, so I inquired of the possibility to just back up someone else instead. They read the list of performers, and I stopped them when they said two words: ‘Steve Cropper’. I was almost in shell shock. I get to play bass behind Crop? Is this even possible?

To say Steve has done a little bit in his lifetime is an understatement. Blue Brothers guitar player, mega hit co-writer, one of the most influential guitar players of all time, member of half a dozen Hall of Fames. The list of cool stuff goes on, and on, including co-writing some of the biggest hits ever, and playing on most of Otis Redding’s music (it was Otis that walked into a session and auditioned for Cropper). When I asked who his biggest celebrity encounter was, he said ‘Heck, I’ve met just about everybody…’

He’s not wrong. Steve has Elvis stories. Steve has Beatles stories. Say Steve Cropper to anyone and they perk right up. I met Ronnie Wood of the Rolling Stones in Barcelona one night, and when I walked up and said ‘We have a mutual friend in Steve Cropper’, he and I jumped right into conversation. He’s pretty well loved.

At the golf tournament, I am on stage at rehearsal trying to be really cool around Steve. He makes it very easy. We run through a couple of starts and stops and he says ‘It’ll be much better when we play it for real’. He was right. I have Super 8 footage of the show, and I’l really trying to be cool. We had fun, for sure.

Fast forward a few more years, and I ran into Steve again at a Hootie and the Blowfish show in Nashville. We talked for a bit and somehow I ended up at his house a few months later for dinner. Our friendship is going on 20 years now, and to say he is a good friend is an understatement.

So back to the Crowes. Upon landing in Nashville, I started touring with a writer named Trent Tomlinson. I was on his bus for about a year and a half. The guitar player in the band was a cat named Jeff Cease. In the first rehearsal, I introduced myself, and Jeff was a little standoffish. I get it. I’m the FNG trying to get a gig, and he’s the salty veteran who is all of 4 years older than me. Within 3 weeks we were spending days off at home going to baseball games and writing music then getting on the bus and touring together every other day of the week.

Jeff and I had our push and pull (I was Beatles, he was Stones) and a mutual love for ska, The Clash, and for Stax records, namely music by one Steve Cropper. Oh, and Jeff Cease was the lead guitar player for The Black Crowes on their first record which featured…wait for it… ‘Hard To Handle’.

I remember watching that video from my dorm room and seeing Cease. He had a cool kid smile, and of all the Crowes, I remember thinking ‘Man, I’ll bet he’d be the one to hang out with’. He is. We shared a lot of laughs and music together. The MTV video of my younger days apparently had more of an influence than I thought. I made a music video for Bucky Covington’s song ‘Ol’ Kentuck’ and it strangely resembles the video for ‘Hard To Handle’. This discovery was made today as I watched them both again. It wasn’t intentional, and maybe I really did remember something from college, or perhaps these images are just seared into my subconscious.

Cease, Jeff Brown, and I attended the Musician’s Hall of Fame induction ceremony in Nashville when they honored Booker T. and the MG’s. We were at the after party, which was at the museum, and we walked around and followed Crop as he told stories at the exhibits. He looked at Jeff and said ‘I know who this is.’ I mean, ‘Hard To Handle’ introduced a lot of kids to Otis’ music, even if it took me a minute to get there.

I play the song ‘Hard to Handle’ from time to time when I play in town. When I do, my mind races through pages and pages of my life, wildly flipping from cool scene to scene. I appreciate it all, every note, because I know what went into those songs, and how lives changed (for better or worse) because of them.

Oh, and from time to time, Crop and I jam on some Otis just because.

I am a lucky boy.