“I'm 77 but I read at a 79 year old level.”
- Kinky Friedman
My friend John Meyer is an amazing musician. He's a major-league banjo, guitar player and singer. He spent much of his twenties in Nashville making music. About three years ago he and his beautiful family moved back to his southern Missouri roots.
When I first met him a couple of years ago, he was playing at an informal gathering. The first time I heard him play a chord on the guitar I said to myself, “I've got to find out who this guy is.” The gifted players, they make different sounds with their instruments than the mortals. It's like the way the ball sounds when it comes off the bat of Albert Pujols compared to how it would sound coming off of mine. Different.
So I introduced myself to John and asked him if he did any studio work. “Sure,” he said. I said, “Well, have I got some work for you.”
Since then John's played banjo and guitar and sung some background vocals on several of my songs. He elevates everything. One day we were in the studio and he was putting some fairy dust on a couple of my tunes. The last thing to do that day was for him to add his acoustic guitar to a little instrumental I had written called Loveland Pass. The way that would normally work is I would have recorded my guitar track of the song and then John would go in and record his, playing along with my track. I had already recorded my part and sent it to him so he'd be familiar with it.
We were sitting out in the control room with Jeff, the studio owner/magic man, and John had his guitar on getting ready to go into the big room and record. Out of the blue he says, “Why don't we just go in there and record it live?” I said, “You mean now? Just you and me?" And John said, “Ya, why not?"
Now you have to understand, I am a marginal guitar player, at best. I generally tell people that I play guitar like I'm trying to remove a stain…not a lot of touch or finesse. I hate it when I have to tell someone how long I've been playing because they tend to get a look on their face that says, “Wow, you'd think you'd be better.”
So recording a song live with someone of John Meyer's caliber was intimidating, but I had to man up. We'd never practiced the song together, but Jeff set up two mics, the red light came on and off we went. “Rollin'” I was just hanging on trying not to embarrass myself, but you know what, it turned out pretty good. John was gracious and encouraging and maybe he knew that with him there I might play above my head. Whatever the case, it's a special memory. I had so much fun.