Photo by Sachi Patitucci
That was rare for me. I did hundreds of projects, would crack up, because I was young, and I smoke from playing in clubs. I’ve got to do
but I was always the guy doing overdubs at the loved to watch the producers squirm trying to something else.” So, I got hired by Tom Ranier
end. I remember on Bob’s (Bennett) third record, figure out how to tell Jim what to play. The guy as his drummer at Disneyland, and we had a
“Non-Fiction”. You and Jimmy Johnson played who played on eight million hit songs, George pop band which included my brother on guitar.
bass on the record. And half of the record Harrison loved him, they all loved him, and he Tom was brilliant to work with, and such a nice
was Vinnie Colaiuta on drums, and the other was so creative. It would be great because the person.
half was Keltner, and I got to play percussion. producer would want… you know he would .
You know, it was amazing. I too thought, “How play some fill into a chorus that nobody else [John] I used to work with him too.
did I get here”? But I’ll never forget Keltner, I would play. They couldn’t figure out what to tell always admired him as I had seen him play him and in-the-end, they just had to let him be.
live, years earlier, with Delaney and Bonnie. I
[WM] By the way, I met jazz pianist Deanna
Witkowski.
remember we were at this place coming out of [WM] This is so fun to visit with you! During the solo section, and he does this drum fill and the seventies I was in the studio a lot, I did there was a split second where we all looked hundreds of records in Southern California. at each other in the room, and we thought he But then I started thinking, “I’m going to end [WM] She told me she worked on a couple
wasn’t going to make it back in on “1”, but he up forty years old coming home smelling like albums with you and asked me to say “Hi”.
[John] Oh yeah?
did. The name of the track is called “Savior of
the World”.
[John] She actually went the other way, I was
raised Catholic and I ran away from that and
[John] Wait, I think that’s me! (laughs) It might became a Christian, I mean I’ve been through
be. I’ve got to check that. I might be on the all kinds of churches, but she went the other
tracks with Vinnie, but I think I played with way. She wrote a mass, several of them.
Keltner too. It’s either Jimmy or me. Jim Keltner
used to get me on recording sessions, and I
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“Savior of the World”
May 2019
[WM] I’m 67 now.
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