Harvey Brooks
"View From the Bottom"
HarveyBrooks.net
Buy at Tangible Press
Book review by Roger Zee (12/12/20)
This ain't your Mama's book review! You get a real piece of me in here. Straight up, I absolutely adore the way Harvey Brooks plays the bass. I just can't quite duplicate it even though I worship his fat, deep, Fender Precision wide pocket and tone! Due to my tiny fingers -- ladies please, I know what you're thinking -- I mostly use a Fender Jazz Bass, which comes with a thinner, narrower neck than the Precision. But I proudly share that we both also play a Danelectro Longhorn! Brooks plucks notes with his index and middle finger. Due to an unfortunate accident that involved a woman, alcohol and a snow storm, I do it with my thumb and index finger! ;)
I used this opportunity to really learn and get down the bass lines on some of Brooks' better known CD's -- "Super Session," "The Electric Flag," the Doors' "Soft Parade," Dylan's "Highway 61 Revisited" and "New Morning," Seals & Crofts' "Greatest Hits," Richie Havens' "Mixed Bag," and Miles Davis' "Bitches Brew." Funnily enough, as a teenager, I learned to play guitar using most of these same records. And then later in the Seventies, also learned to play bass with them! I've ended up owning these albums as LP's, cassettes, CD's, MP3's, and lately as streams -- which I feel guilty about doing because it pays virtually nothing to the artists! :(
A session player succeeds much the same way as anyone else in a service industry job -- a bartender, waiter, physical trainer, nurse, or even doctor! Half depends on your actual job skills and half on your ability to get along with people. Harvey Brooks comes on like a big, lovable, huggable, comforting Teddy bear. Always a pleasure to hang with. Though mostly self taught, the man's got killer skills. People hire him the same way they go to buy a custom tailored $5000 suit. Brooks listens very intently, takes your measurements, jots down a few notes, and produces a custom bass part that suits you to a tee! Oh he's got chops, just doesn't flash them. Never a shredder! ^_^
Although Harvey Brooks dabbled in recreational drink and drugs like wine, pot, psychedelics, and the occasional coke, his penchant for moderation kept him from getting hooked and trashed on heroin. He details plenty of the tragedies he witnessed with Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, Mama Cass, and Paul Butterfield. Brooks himself got hired for his musical skill, creativity, reliability, dependability, easygoing personality and ability to "handle" people. Those same skills made it easy for him to move up the food chain into producing. You've got a difficult, drug addled client? Hire Harvey Brooks. He's on it! Ultimately, he grew weary of babysitting artists that he couldn't break due to lack of proper label support. :-O
After learning most of the bass lines to his early records, I can honestly say that Brooks does not play with an easily discernible, signature style like say Jaco Pastorious or Alphonso Johnson. He totally customizes it to the artist. Gives you the biggest, fattest, most comfortable groove possible -- a virtual trampoline that flings you up and gets you off! Each situation requires its own unique contribution and that's his specialty! The bass parts on "Super Session" sound completely different from those on "Highway 61." The lines on "Soft Parade" sound starkly opposed to those on "Mixed Bag." For me, the parts I struggled hardest with appeared on "The Soft Parade" album and Seals and Croft's "Hummingbird" song. Brooks' ability to improvise and yet always stick tight to the groove while supporting the melody really moves me. Just before Jimi Hendrix died, he reached out to Brooks saying he wanted to make a record with him, Miles Davis, and Buddy Miles :-O
Harvey Brooks and I share a lot in common. We both grew up Jewish in Brooklyn and Queens, though my family later moved out to Long Island. We both played a ton of gigs in many of the same clubs in Greenwich Village, NY area, Brooks starting in the Sixties, me in the late Seventies. Talkin' 'bout The Bitter End, Tramps, The Bottom Line, Folk City, The Dugout, etc. We even played with a few of the same artists -- Eric Anderson, Billy Reed, Danny Draher. =^_^=
One of my favorite vignettes in the book occurs when Brooks sits down to his favorite snack, steak bits, with his friend Jimi Hendrix at the Dugout Saloon on Bleecker Street in the Village. Soon after, Richie Havens joins them. Then along comes Bob Dylan with his manager, Albert Grossman, smiles at them, and walks on by to discuss business at another table. Soon Havens turns the discussion around to the question of teeth. You see he lost all of his and asks his friends how much do new ones cost and if they would ruin his vocal sound! Back in the early Eighties, I used to hang at the Dugoout every Sunday evening to catch great guitarist Jeff Golub (Billy Squier, Rod Stewart, John Waite) play with his own group that included my friend, bassist Chris Bishop (Willy DeVille). <3
Born Harvey Goldstein, he decided to change his name after getting beat up on a Chico Holiday gig at a club just outside Detroit after the MC announced his Jewish sounding name. The whole crowd booed... Shortly after that while playing at Grossingers Hotel in the Catskills, while eating,he happened to glance out the window and spied a brightly lit billboard for the "Nat Brooks Orchestra at The Raleigh." Just like that, he decided to legally change his last name to Brooks! Me, I always lived a different situation. My name doesn't sound Jewish and I don't look it either. So I get the joy of hanging anonymously with Anti-Semites while they spew their venom! I'm sure he gets the same thing now! :(
At age 45, after much success, his career started to wind down. He fell back to playing bar gigs, drinking and drugging maybe just a little too much... Lucky for him, serendipity and Cupid's arrow saved his ass! Lifting up his bow, the tiny God delivered a money shot that changed his life. A direct hit on his true love -- Junior and High School crush Bonnie Ruza Behar. Divorced with three daughters, she lived in a house in Westport that Brooks eventually moved into. Did not go smoothly, uneventfully, or even rapidly! Lots of push back from the two daughters living at home while the third went away to college. But eventually, "Uncle Buck" and his "20-year-old, stinky, wood-paneled green, four-on-the-floor Dodge station wagon" won the girls over! ^_^
Me, I fell in love again in my forties with a divorcee I met at the Greene's weekly jam, a dive bar in Stamford, CT, just around the corner from UCON. Misha lived with her two daughters in Norwalk, CT, one in Middle School, the other in High School. I faced the same difficulties winning them over. No problem with the older girl, but never managed to win over the younger one. As in both love and music, I never rose to the heights of Brooks' music and people skills. Thank God I can at least write better than I love or play music, LOL!~
I actually met Harvey Brooks in the summer of 1972 when I saw him perform with The Fabulous Rhinestones at a small club in either Nantucket or Martha's Vineyard. The fact that I don't remember which island proves I actually did see him! Even though they played great, not knowing the band's repertoire, I just couldn't hear the hooks. As Brooks says in the book, "Maybe it was the name." But he graciously chatted with me and my buddies after the set. :)
Giving in to his travel lust, Brooks and his wife moved around a bit after the kids left home -- first to Tucson, AZ and then eventually settling in of all places, Jerusalem, where his wife's eldest daughter, husband, and nine children live! Funnily enough, my own daughter at one point seriously considered making Aliyah to Israel. Instead, she moved to Pacific Beach in San Diego, CA, LOL! You can still find Harvey Brooks and his wife Bonnie together, deeply in love with Harvey still making music. Ain't life grand? So buy the book! It comes in hardcover, trade paperback, and Kindle which means you can actually read the print! If there's any justice, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame will eventually get tired of inducting Rappers and R&B artists and do the right thing by Mr. Harvey Brooks! One <3
YouTube - Season of the Witch - Super Session
©2020 Roger Zee
