West Coast Connection
1987
Brambus Records
Track listing:
1. Hard Times (Mick Clarke)
2. Madison Blues (Elmore James)
3. Ain't that the Truth (Mick Clarke)
4. Mona (Elias McDaniel)
5. You Don't Have to Cry (Mick Clarke)
6. Guitar Boogie (Chuck Berry / Jeff Beck)
7. Walking Blues (Trad / arr: Mick Clarke)
8. Mean Old World (Walter Jacobs)
9. Nothin' But a Fool (Mick Clarke)
10. Shake For Me (Mick Clarke)
11. One Little Problem(Mick Clarke)
Mick Clarke - Guitar / Vocals
Rod DeAth - Drums
Dover Weinberg - Keyboards
H.Emerson Zachery Jr - Bass
Westside Johnny - Harp
Special guest - Curtis Salgado
Recorded at Fresh Tracks, Portland, Oregon by John Lindahl, February 1987
Mixed at Desitrek, Portland, Oregon by John Lindahl, Doug Dubrow and Mike Demmers
Mastered at K Disc, Los Angeles, California by John Golden
Produced by Mick Clarke
Executive Producer - Michael Kearsey, John Fletcher, John Henderson
Cover photo - Donn Thomas
Mick writes..
One afternoon in the mid 1980's at my home in London I received a phone call from the landlord of a pub in Bethnall Green, where we often played gigs. "You should come down tonight Mick," said the voice on the other end of the line, "there's a good band from America, and their manager's looking for bands to take back to the States". Clutching a copy of "Rock Me" under my arm I duly presented myself that night at the pub.
The band was the Rockin' Razorbacks, the manager's name was Steve Hettum, and over the next few years I undertook five tours of the West Coast with him. I was based in Portland, Oregon, living in the basement of the Razorback's bass player, Michael Kearsey, who became a good friend. I played mainly clubs and bars in the Portland area, but sometimes made it up to Seattle or dropped in for a gig in Los Angeles on my way in or out of the country. We played some great shows with the likes of Johnny Winter, Canned Heat, Savoy Brown, Foghat, The Paladins and many more, including a spot on the Waterfront Blues fesival in Portland.
My band consisted of a mixture of English musicians and local guys.. it was constantly shifting. One particular line-up stood out. With Rod DeAth on drums we found a local guy named Zack - a natural on the bass. Through him we were introduced to Dover Weinberg on keyboards, a fine player who had worked with Robert Cray in one of his earlier bands. Westside Johnny was a local harp player who had a great tone and knew his chops..and the band rocked!
At the end of the first tour we got together to record a cable TV show for a local station. It was shown several times and got a lot of reaction, and there seemed to be an obvious way to follow it up - an album. Through the efforts of a lot of friends in the area, we raised the money to pay for a recording and mixing session, and arranged for the record to be pressed and released on Michael Kearsey's own label, Nebula Circle. An example of the good spirit and cooperation that I had..the photographer Donn Thomas spent a lot of time with me getting the right shot - we eventually ended up down at the train station in the blazing heat of a Summer's afternoon. When I asked him what his fee was he quoted me a figure.."from your first national tour"..in other words, no charge until you make it big. I still owe you Donn!
The session went like a dream, and a few nights later we mixed the whole album in one eighteen hour bash - staggering out into the Portland dawn rubbing our eyes. The record was released and distributed throughout the West Coast of America, but U.S. sales were never great, other than those that we sold at gigs. However, a few months later when I was working in Switzerland, a local label named Brambus approached our agent with the offer to release the album in Europe. It came out for the first time on CD and has been in their catalogue ever since.
"Hard Times" "Ain't that the Truth" and "You Don't Have to Cry" are all orginals that I wrote during those American trips. But mainly we were going for standards on this album.. numbers that we were playing every night in the clubs and that people were enjoying. So there was a Bo Diddleyfest with "Mona"..a version of "Walking Blues" that I'd been playing for years.. (still do occasionally) and a storming "Madison Blues". I included, perhaps unwisely, a version of Guitar Boogie which was a hybrid of the Chuck Berry and Jeff Beck versions.. not that I added much of my own, but there's a fine solo from Dover Weinberg. Curtis Salgado was a big local name who had sung with Robert Cray and Roomful of BLues, and he joined us on the Little Walter classic "Mean Old World" - one of the only times I have featured a real lead singer on my albums.
When the album was put onto CD we needed a couple more tracks, and were given permission by Appaloosa Records to include versions of two tracks from our "All These Blues" album. The version of "Shake For Me" is actually a different mix from the Appaloosa record.. a little dryer and harder than the original. West Coast Connection is still available on Brambus and will always be, for me, a reminder of my happy days living in Michael Kearsey's basement, in Portland Oregon!
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