"Laying it down for Sly & The Family Stone, Greg Errico had more
pocket than a giant in dungarees. The band busted down musical barriers
at will, blending soul, funk and even psychedelic rock. Underpinning it
all was Errico’s impeccable syncopation and dance-floor friendly
grooves."
Greg Errico
Imagine how blown away I was back in the early part of 2012 when I started networking with musical friends of newfound friends on Facebook and considered the things some of them had accomplished. Last year, when I saw a list of the "100 most influential drummers of all time" (which the quote above came from) and saw the name Greg Errico in there, I thought, "Hey, I know that name."
When you listen to the Sly song "Dance To The Music" and the drum is highlighted, that's Greg Errico you're listening to. It was his syncopation that was a crucial ingredient in some of the great Sly & The Family Stone tunes, a groundbreaking soul and funk outfit from the late '60s and early '70s that was incendiary both on- and off-stage, having a part in Woodstock and going on to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
He left the Family in 1971, but his resume would be added to with touring stints in Weather Report in 1973, David Bowie's "Diamond Dogs" tour in 1974, Santana, the Grateful Dead and the Jerry Garcia Band, blues harp master Lee Oskar, to name just a few. He still plays and produces. In soul/funk/rock music history, his reputation is etched in (Sly's) Stone.
This is how it's worked out for me on Facebook since New Year's Eve
of 2011: Go meet some musical people in the Bay Area, make some new
friends (mostly online, since we live several hundred miles apart), and
after a while start hooking up with friends of friends ...
It's
a social networking thing, right? And if we're talking about musical
friends in the Bay Area, you'd better believe that those Facebook
friends were celebrating what would have been the late Jerry Garcia's
71st birthday today.
Michael Hinton
Then came the word that Michael D. Hinton
died today after battling cancer with heart complications, and a lot of
the same people who celebrated Jerry Garcia's birthday on Facebook
expressed sadness after hearing of Mike Hinton's death.
Bay
Area musicians make up a fascinating community. It seems so many
musicians there know each other, one way or another. There's a
connection, a web that somehow brings so many people together from
throughout the area.
Mike Hinton played guitar on the
musical score for the 1980s version of "The Twilight Zone," along with
Jerry Garcia. Mike Hinton played in the band High Noon with Garcia's
mates Mickey Hart and Merl Saunders. He played with Country Joe and
Friends. He recorded with Rick Danko. He shared a close bond with the
late Norton Buffalo.
Friends of friends, many of them
that I've never met face-to-face yet gotten to know them through a
computer with an Internet connection ... that's been my Facebook world
since the early part of 2012, and it's been fascinating. It's been a
place to get to know musicians and music fans alike. Mike Hinton joined
that list fairly early in that "gathering" venture of mine in the early
part of 2012, and there was a point in time I would often stop and read
closely what he had to share with his friends.
I'd
stop and read what Mike had to say because he'd tell marvelous stories
about the people he'd played with or gotten to know through his playing
-- Mickey Hart, Norton Buffalo, Merl Saunders, Joan Baez ... on and on.
Stories like this, from a blog he contributed to:
Michael Hinton
"When we were getting ready to do a session and
record the soundtrack for the 'The Girl I Married' episode of The
Twilight Zone which would air July 17, 1987, legendary rock guitarist
John Cipollina and I were in the hallway at the coffee machine.
"John waited until I’d gotten through making up my cup of coffee and
said, 'You done?' I said, 'Yep' and he proceeded to pour an entire bowl
of sugar cubes into his cup. He then poured coffee over the tall pile of
cubes, staring into my eyes with an utterly deadpan look on his face.
When the cubes had melted, more than 20 of them, he grabbed the cup,
still staring at me, and gulped it down in one long swig.
"Choking in laughter, I spit my mouthful of coffee all over myself. John
wiped his mouth and said, 'I think I’m ready' [still deadpan] and we
walked into the studio to get to work.
"My
shirt was soaked and uncomfortable but we really rocked the session.
Every track we put down, we were playing and hearing for the first time.
Every piece was a first take. Merl Saunders [the musical director] had
us do a couple of pieces that resembled the memorable 'Who Do You Love?'
[Quicksilver Messenger Service] guitar solo jams for John to cut loose
on. During the love scenes, Norton Buffalo and I played with the world
famous Kronos Quartet. Merl told me, 'I’m using you on this stuff
because you can make your guitar cry.'"
I'd
read through the stories Michael Hinton would post on Facebook, and as a
music fan I'd eat 'em up. I told him how much I enjoyed them a couple
of times, and he appreciated that.
Michael Hinton came
up playing music in an era that many young music fans today wish they
could have come up in. It wasn't an era filled with a lot of flash and
onstage dancing and lip-syncing and computer-generated sounds and
tuning. It was all done with skill, raw talent, heart, touch, feeling,
emotion, a good ear ... you know, the things that make us human.
Michael
had many stories to tell going back to that era. I'm grateful to have
been able to read some of them, as many as I could. There are other
"friends of friends ..." that are out there, just on Facebook alone, who
I'm sure could share some fascinating stories of their own, one way or
another.
I'd like to help people remember a few of
those names in the days to come, through a "friend of a friend" series.
I've been thinking about doing this for a while. It took Michael
Hinton's death today to get me started.
