WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM HIS FRIENDS
Memphian produces Paul McCartney music CD for Beatles calendar.
When he was 15, wearing Beatle boots from Hardy’s Shoes in Downtown Memphis and playing Fab Four covers on his 1961 Cherry Red Gibson SG Special, Robert Johnson didn’t dream he’d one day produce an album of songs by Paul McCartney. Or partner with a noted Beatles illustrator on the project.
To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Beatles, Johnson, 62, produced Music for Linda, a limited edition CD featuring McCartney classics performed by other artists for the “Alan Aldridge Beatles Illustrated Collective Set,” an 18-month calendar with illustrations Aldridge painted for “The Beatles Illustrated” songbook in the 1960s.
The CD and calendar benefit The Women and Cancer Fund in memory of McCartney’s wife, Linda McCartney, who died from breast cancer.
Johnson, whose numerous credits include playing guitar with Isaac Hayes, was honored, along
with Aldridge, at The Blues Ball this fall, which celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Beatles.
Johnson is a longtime friend, said Pat Kerr Tigrett, Blues Ball founder and executive producer. “He’s incredibly talented,” she said. “And he’s remarkably knowledgeable about the music industry and musicians all over, and forms close friendships with some of our greatest musicians and artists, one of which is Alan Aldridge. I have known Alan since the mid ’ 70s when I was living in London. He actually did the Hard Rock (Cafe) logo that still is being used.”
Asked why he wanted to do Music for Linda, Johnson said, “I wanted to get Alan’s name back in the public eye. The British know who he is, but Americans have sort of lost track of Alan or forgotten.”
McCartney, he said, “is the best pop songwriter in the world. Just to tackle songwriting of that quality was very appealing to me. To tackle producing that. And putting a different spin on that.”
Johnson came up with the idea last year. “I called up Alan and had a meeting with him in Los Angeles and went over everything. All this art work is from the ‘Beatles Illustrated’ songbook he was authorized to do back in ’60s. He interviewed Paul McCartney with a tape recorder. He told him how every song was written, where, the meaning, and if he and John ( Lennon) wrote them together or separately.”
Aldridge “painted an image for every song title and every lyric. Alan Aldridge is the father of rock and roll art. These are the original prints from the late ’60s.”
Asked what it was like to draw the Beatles, Aldridge, in an interview from London, said, “John’s got a hook nose, Ringo’s got a bulbous nose, George Harrison’s is a very sweet, even nose.”
McCartney, he said, “is the hardest to draw.”
Johnson paired each artist with a McCartney song for the collection.
Caroline Pennell performs “Come and Get It,” Tackhead’s Bernard Fowler performs “I’m Looking Through You,” Living Colour performs “Back in the USSR,” and Rapper’s Delight does “Mrs. Vandebilt,” which McCartney wrote with Linda.
Little Anthony, best known for his 1958 doowop smash “Tears on My Pillow,” performs “A World Without Love.”
Wondering what approach Johnson wanted him to take on the song, Little Anthony said he was impressed when Johnson told him, “Just be Little Anthony. Just do what you do.”
“He’s very attuned to the basis of what the artist and the music and the project are going to be, as opposed to the bells and whistles and gongs of today’s recordings,” Little Anthony said.
As for his music choices in general for the collection, Johnson said, “I wasn’t looking for traditional songs — ‘ Yesterday’ or ‘ Fool on the Hill.’ I was trying to be a little more creative and thoughtful.”
During his long music career, Johnson met each of the Beatles. McCartney “was super nice,” he said. “I talked to him about playing with John Entwistle. And he knew I had records out. So he was very open, super friendly. Linda was with him.”
It’s always been music for Johnson. Growing up in Frayser, he played piano in a talent show when he was in the second grade at Westside Elementary School. In the third grade, he picked up the guitar. He began playing in garage bands in junior high school.
Johnson was lead guitarist in one of those garage bands, the Us Group, in 1962. The late Ronnie Scaife, an acclaimed country music writer, played rhythm guitar. In addition to his Gibson guitar bought at the old O. K. Houk music store and his locally bought Beatle boots, Johnson wore a gray moptop-type jacket with a black velvet collar from Gilley’s Clothing Store in Northgate Shopping Center. “Right before the Beatles, many of us had the Ivy League haircut — ‘ The Caesar.’ The transformation to a Beatle haircut was easy; just let it grow longer.”
He and his fellow band members were fascinated with the Beatles. “They used really strange equipment. Their amplifiers were different. The configuration of instruments was so different than what the Americans were using at the time. I remember their records coming over the radio sounded really foreign compared with Stax, Sun or RCA Records.”
Johnson and the Us Group began recording their own songs at the old Sonic Studio with Roland Janes. “A lot of people lived in Frayser. Scotty Moore, Stan Kesler, Roland Janes lived in our neighborhood. We knew all these people, so when we wanted to record, we went to our neighbors.”
While a student at Trezevant High School, the enterprising Johnson discovered his class was going on a field trip to Stax Records. “I went to the typing class, typed up some business cards on a piece of cardboard, went to the art room and cut them up into business cards. When we got there I met a guy named William Brown, a singer in The Mad Lads. I handed him my card and said, ‘If you ever need a guitar player, give me a call.’ He called me the next weekend and asked me to play a private party.”
Johnson eventually got a job in the Stax mail room, licking envelopes containing promotional material for disc jockeys. “I brought my guitar to work every day and became close friends with William. One day they asked me to play on a session with Sir Mack Rice, who wrote ‘Mustang Sally’ and ‘Cheaper to Keep Her.’ Then I started doing demos for the songwriters.”
Isaac Hayes heard him play and asked him to join his Hot Buttered
Soul band, Johnson said. In 1974, Johnson moved to England, where he met The Who bass player, the late Entwistle. “He said, ‘ I heard you’re really good on guitar. I can’t find a guitar player I like. Why don’t you come out and audition for my band?’
“He auditioned 200 guitar players that summer. I went over there. Maybe seven or eight hopefuls were auditioning that day. I said, ‘Man, guys, you might as well go home. I’m gonna get this job.’ I was determined to get this job.”
He got it. “We toured England, Ireland, Scotland, and then we did one date in Paris and toured America in late ’ 74 and all through summer of ’ 75.”
While in England, he was asked by Mick Jagger to audition to be a guitarist in the Rolling Stones, Johnson said. He recalled his first meeting with Jagger and the Stones at their mobile recording studio: “They had scarves all over the lamps. Keith (Richards) changed the light bulbs out to red. Incense was burning. There were records, cassettes everywhere. It was like a cool little hut he had kind of created. We sat around and talked. I played some stuff I had done with Isaac Hayes and the Memphis Horns.”
Johnson spent four days recording and jamming with the Stones. “Ian Stewart, the guy who played piano on ‘ Honky Tonk Woman,’ told me down in the bar they were trying to work it out to get Ronnie Wood in the band.”
Wood eventually joined the Stones. “The two songs I played on are just outtakes. I went back and resumed touring with Entwistle.”
Over the years, Johnson has been involved in other music projects, including a stint as music director for the Hard Rock Cafe for several years and as part of the development team for the House of Blues in the 1990s.
For the past three or four years, Johnson has been working on his own record, which he described as “a cross between blue-eyed soul and power pop.” He recently released the first single, “Rock Bottom,” which features Mick Taylor from the Rolling Stones and the Hi Rhythm Section.
The record features singer Jimi Jamison, who recently died. “He adds a superb vocal quality to some of the original songs and cover songs we recorded together. At one time we were going to call the band ‘ J.J.’ for ‘ Jamison and Johnson.’ We’ve been friends since the mid ’60s when we were in battle of the bands together.”
Johnson currently is producing tracks for Little Anthony’s new album.
Asked where he gets his energy, Johnson said, “Rockstar energy drinks. I’m just kidding. I ride my bicycle a lot. I try to keep in shape.”