On The Road with Eliza and Joe: Two Detours
Heading to one home from another — that’s what today is all about. My first flight from Vancouver Island is at 830am (pacific) and I land in Austin, TX, U.S.A. about 10pm (central). So what is that, 13 1/2 hours? But I am totally in love with both of my ‘homes.’ My adopted home, Campbell River, BC, birthplace of my beloved spouse Donyne, and the home in Austin that helped give me and thereby mold my career in music, for which I am grateful beyond words.
And now I am noticing I say in these essays, “but that is for another story.” The whole being a “being” of two countries, and two very different homes.
After the upcoming ‘birthday bash’ a.k.a. “Jeff Plankenhorn’s 49th Earthly Apology” at The Saxon Pub on April 23rd, I’ll be hitting the road with none other than Scrappy Jud Newcomb. We will swap songs and stories from town to town for three weeks across the southeastern United States and promote our new duo acoustic CD, “Chestnuts: 10 Fun Songs.”
So my mind is on the road to come. In this time of COVID, every gig is truly a crapshoot. There’s really no way to tell which gigs are ‘“full steam ahead” and which ones are “just re-opening.” So one gig might be full capacity, the next a paltry number but nonetheless eager group of attentive listeners (one would hope).
In the spirit of the road ahead, today I’m going to talk about two road stories that really helped shape me as a touring musician as much as anything I can remember. One with Eliza Gilkyson, and one with Joe Ely.
Until 2016, I was primarily a side-person. My music, my songwriting, my performing, my career, took a back seat and my main gig was to 1) be cool on the road, 2) don’t play too much or get in the way of the words, just make the music and main performer sound better, and 3) well, there’s really not any “3.” I wasn’t bad. Sometimes I didn’t adhere to rules 1 or 2, but I was always working, always “in demand.” Even at my worst, the many great musicians I had the pleasure of backing up were a patient and equally grateful lot. My love of being there and their love of having me (I always love being had) seemed mutual.
The first story is from a west coast tour with the great Eliza Gilkyson. I’m guessing it’s the early aughts. I was lucky enough to do three tours of Europe and a few in the states with Eliza. We were a trio on this trip. Eliza on vocal and acoustic guitar, her son Cisco Ryder Gilliland on a make-shift acoustic percussion kit, and myself on Dobro, acoustic guitar, and background vocals. Eliza was and is to this day one of the most fearless as well as greatest songwriters I know. She is able to write about any number of themes, from politics to love and back again as well as what many lesser and more fearful songwriters would label “taboo.” Still the music is always beautiful and exciting. She is a formidable and inspiring guitarist, utilizing multiple tunings and both fingerpicking and flat-picking with the deftness of a player who might have spent their whole life perfecting their craft as an instrumentalist, without also becoming a singer and writer of the highest caliber as Eliza has truly become. She’s a true master of her craft.
So we are driving up the 1 with the ocean on our left, somewhere in California, about an hour from the next town, the next soundcheck, the next hotel, the next gig. Eliza was at the wheel. Cisco in the passenger seat, navigating and tour managing. I’m in the backseat of whatever touring vehicle we had at the time. When you are a side person it’s also good to try to give space, so I usually read, listen to headphones (now earbuds), or just sleep. I can sleep anywhere. I enjoy proving that fact often. There was no music on. Most musicians I know hardly ever listen to music when traveling. We are too immersed in it. This is before the podcast boom so we did enjoy a good book on tape. “Life Of Pi” we all got a real kick out of, maybe even on this tour. But the only sound at this moment was, the road. I looked over at the ocean and said, “you know, I’ve never actually stepped foot in the ocean.” I was maybe 29 at the time, and had played up and down both coasts and more, and am a great lover of swimming (or in my case, lounging in water), but never had I once stepped foot in the mighty Pacific or any other of the big blue world connectors I had spent so much time alongside. Eliza said nothing, but I noticed she was pulling off at the first exit ramp after my not-so-subtle, but not exactly passive-aggresive either, statement of fact. We looked around and drove down by the water, and she said, “Cisco call the venue and let them know we may be a little late for soundcheck.”
We got out of the van (pretty sure it was a minivan now that I think of it), and walked down by the water. I was flabbergasted. I took my shoes and socks off, rolled up my jeans, and took a stroll. I took my time as well, we were in no big rush. I think maybe that was the exact moment I fell in love with salty, sea air.
After a good fifteen or twenty minutes she walked closer to where I had met Cisco with our feet in the water and the three of us commiserated for a moment. “Give me a cigarette,” Eliza gently commanded. “One of Plank’s “American Spirit’s” with no chemicals.” I was still a “pack a day” smoker at this time, I guess it’s been almost ten years now since I quit. I gave her a smoke, she ripped off the filter, unrolled the paper and gave Cisco and I a bit of its natural contents, and saved some for herself. “Give the ocean a little offering of tobacco. It’s what the natives do.” Of course she was referring to Native Americans, or those who prefer to be called First Nations in Canada. “Say a little prayer or do whatever you do.”
I did just that. For me, it was a deep breath and a big, honest, internal thanks. Not only to the ocean, of which I could not stop thinking of the shore opposite me and the countless humans who were in that massive body of H2O and salt with me at that exact moment, but also with gratitude to my mentor and band leader.
We got back in and I quietly thanked her. “Of course,” she replied. “I wasn’t going to let you drive by again and not experience that.”
It may not seem like a big deal, but it was to me. Band leaders don’t have time to stop on the road. Or I should say they have too much on their proverbial plates to mess with anything else. It’s really a lot more than just showing up and playing your songs. But Eliza took the extra time, and I received a valuable lesson about being a “front person.” I knew then that if I ever stepped out in front, I would treat the people I played with not just with dignity and respect, but I’d try to look out for them whenever possible.
This leads me directly to the other story for today, from another brilliant and venerable band leader, Joe Ely.
My time being a side person for Joe was, to say the least, a tumultuous time for me. We played together before and after my rehab and accompanying newfound sobriety, along with my marriage to Donyne, and my eventual move into a fully solo career (which means my job had become dependent on my music and my shows, almost exclusively around 2016 or so). Joe was beyond supportive when I called and said, “I have to miss the next month of gigs because I’m checking into rehab.” “It’s ok Plank,” he told me. “Get yourself right and come on back to us, we’ll all be waiting for you.”
I have to admit, not everyone I was playing with was on my side regarding “getting clean,” but the majority of my piers and employers were. I had literally 16 uncomfortable calls to make like that, and only one front person I played for was not really in my corner and was frankly quite shitty about me missing 2 gigs. Ironically, it was someone who was sober for many years. I guess they didn’t get the memo that it might happen to someone other than them someday…
But let’s get back to Joe. Joe commands every room he walks into, without even trying. Never arrogant, he only exudes confidence. He’s charitable, thoughtful, and a great hang. All eyes tend to turn towards him, even when those eyes may not know who he is or what he has accomplished. When we were checking into hotels people would say, “who is that?” They knew he had to be “somebody.”
Joe really loved my “invention” (if you can call it that) lap steel. “The Plank” guitar (I didn’t name it, but it stuck) is a strange amalgam of a lap steel, in a Dobro body, with components that match a standard electric guitar more than a standard lap steel. Whether I was playing with a full band with Joe in a club or theater, filling in for Robbie Gjersoe with The Flatlanders, or playing a duo show with just the two of us, he always wanted me to have it. I’d carry a small Fender Pro Jr. amplifier and turn it towards the back wall so I could still get tone, but not blast out the audience in the front row of a listening room. He loves the sound and how it fits with what he does. I always had three other instruments on Joe gigs as well! Mandolin, electric guitar, and classical (Spanish) guitar for tunes like “Gallo del Cielo.”
Joe may have taught me more about leading a band than anyone else. Maybe it was because I was ready to hear it at that stage in my life, but he was and is the 100% real friggin’ deal.
We were on a duo tour with a road manager, Don Boles (who honestly I think is the best road manager I have ever worked with as well - Don is entirely “unflappable” which is really who you want next to you when shit goes wrong on tour). So the three of us on the road, that’s it. We covered and smothered the midwest for a few weeks.
Joe had decided to drive for a bit. We all enjoyed taking the wheel from time to time. It was quiet, because (to reiterate) it was almost always nice and quiet in the van, no matter who I was touring with. We got enough music every night! I was in the passenger seat, Don Boles in the back calling clubs and theaters and “advancing” gigs (a term for basically making sure everything was right when we got to wherever we were going). Somewhere in Iowa, just in passing Joe breaks the silence with, “Hey Plank, have you ever been to the Surf Ballroom?” Once again, we were in Iowa. I rattled through the Rolodex of venues I had played in my twenty some-odd years of touring but could not remember that particular venue. No more words were spoken. None needed I guess, so I went back to my book, he went back to driving.
Fifteen minutes later, much like my experience with Eliza, Joe took and unexpected exit ramp. We were nowhere near our destination so my thoughts were: 1) must be time to grab a bite, 2) time to relieve ourselves, 3) time to switch drivers. But as we weaved through the streets of Clear Lake I noticed we were on Buddy Holly Pl. I still hadn’t put 2 and 2 together (no surprise).
Then we arrived at said Surf Ballroom.
As we drove through the parking lot, with Joe Ely at the wheel, I was again, flabbergasted. I had never been to the club that ended of the “Winter Party Dance Tour” and the event that forever would be known as “The Day The Music Died.” This was the spot where on February 2, 1959 The Big Bopper, Ritchie Valens, and Buddy Holly would give their final performance before boarding an ill-fated flight in a prop plane they sadly would never step foot out of.
Joe wouldn’t let me pass this, without seeing it, even though he had been here, many times.
However, the club, which was now part club/part museum, was closed. We circled the massive building one more time and noticed a woman exiting from a side door. When she told Joe it was closed for the day, he pleaded lightly that neither of his traveling companions had ever seen the inside, and asked if we might come in just for a few minutes. She didn’t know who Joe was, but she could tell he was somebody, so she let us in.
We walked through the entrance past giant photos of the late pioneers of Rock n Roll into the main room, probably the size of half a football field. How they could fill this room in 1959 with sound was a mystery to me, and we all remarked on “what kind of PA could they have had” and “I’ll be they didn’t even have monitors” to hear their own voices and instruments above the screaming young gals enamoured by their beautiful and rebellious sounds.
I felt a little weird when Joe hopped on stage in the empty hall, and invited me up. We looked out for a moment, then went back stage to see the green room. Hundreds of famous signatures on the walls of this modest room about the size of a parking space, most with some acknowledgement of where they were, what had happened, and the history there.
In another surprise, we walked just out the back door and Joe said, “This is where they flipped the coin.”
Then my heart kind of stopped. The spot where they flipped a coin to see who would take the van, and who would get on that cursed plane. Man, I really felt it all right there. Joe told me there that Waylon Jennings was actually in Buddy Holly’s band at the time, had lost the coin flip, and was sent on in the van. Rumor has it that Waylon lost a toe to frost bite that night. “Better to lose a toe than your life,” Joe said.
After that we thanked our gracious host, went back to the van, and drove to the nearby airfield they took off from. I was still a little spooked, and really moved by the whole experience.
Just like the moment shared with Eliza and Cisco, I’ll never forget it.
Why did Joe and Eliza make these gestures? Again, it seem like, “why wouldn’t they?” to the lesser traveled non-professional musician. Time is money, in the studio, on the road, on the tour bus or even in the van. When someone goes out of their way, there’s probably more to it.
Or maybe they are both just fucking cool people I was lucky to play for and am lucky to know.
See you on the road this month, and at my birthday bash.
Tour info and tickets at jeffplankenhorn.com
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