I.c: Tell us a little about your musical influences...
S.H.: My first influences in music was artists
like Duane Eddy and Jobim, and the movie sountracks from Exodus and South
Pacific. This and some old 78 rpm records with jazz and popular music was
from my mother's collection. It was actually her idea that I would take
guitar lessons at the age of nine.
Not long after, I was in my first combo,
"The Dynamic Duo", with a drummer, Jim Newby, performing original
songs at a school assembly. Jim moved to bass guitar, and with the
addition of a drummer, Phil Gray, and a guitar player, Marlow Hendricks,
this grew into a four-piece band, "The Monacles" playing at school
dances, Marine bases, and even a tour at some of the Long Beach "United
Artists" movie theatres, during intermissions. Marlow's father was a manager
or owner of one or more theaters. He later helped us make some recordings,
and now a guy out in Richmond, Virginia wants to reissue this stuff...He
says there was a certain fire or energy in it that you just don't hear
nowadays. Pretty funny, after all these years...
By this time, I had been elected to
take up the keyboard. A few piano lessons and I was playing, having to
develop my musical ear, picking out the parts from records. Some of my
first performances were on those records.
At 16, I wanted to learn to
play the drums, after having seen how much fun the drummer always seemed
to be having at the shows we played. So I pounded on pillows, books, the
floor, until my mom helped me buy a set of drums.
Mid-sixties, the Beatles had pretty
much become our largest influence;
later we played music by The Byrds,
Cream, Hendrix, and The Rolling Stones. And then added different styles,
Motown, Folk, Blues...
Some of the later bands were "Guys
and Dolls", "The Lovin' Bunch", with a great drummer, singer
John Davino, and bass player Larry Melton, Frank Green played 12-string
just like Jim McGuinn, and we did a lot of Byrds songs. My sister Lori
even played some keyboards in the Bunch. I learned a lot about the
drums from John, and we still jam and record at his studio in Huntington
Beach. We'd play the teen centers out in Long Beach area...high schools,
Marine bases...even though we were just kids, that was one of the best
experiences I'd ever had.
I.c.: So, then you're, what, in high school?
S.H.: Yeah, a couple more bands like, "Pure
Joy", with Mike Hughes, bass, who later learned guitar and keys, and
Irvin Argenton, drums, solid players, good voices...playing high schools,
marine bases with them too... enlisted and NCO clubs. Some times we'd go
to L.A. to play, "Gazzari's", on the strip, "Whisky", "Troubador"...and
out In Long Beach, was the "Cinnamon Cinder". We learned to harmonize
really well, just a superb band...
Another band that would be incorporated
into the Pure Joy band, A great singer, Donna Soto and a guitar player,
Mike Dempsey would come out after our warmup set, join us, and we' become
"Two, Two, Two Bands In One", or "Mother Butler", and we had reworked
and built extreme arrangements to some of the contemporary songs, really
wild, sometimes. It was fun...
Right after that I joined "Churchill
Downs", shortened to "Churchill" , with Bob Gulley, Vinnie Turturo,
and Al Martouni. Al was a super-funky drummer. Bob's out in Laughlin, now,
I heard Vinnie is freelancing around the Laguna hotels. We all backed
up
Brenton Wood for a show or two (Oogum Boogum song), back in
69-70 ...MAN, that was a long time ago!
I.c.: This was your "schooling" ...
S.H.: Yes, definitely, I learned from all these guys, and I am thankful to have known and worked with all these people.
I did have some success writing , recording and touring with the late-eighties Disco queen "Stacey Q". We had a hit song "Two Of Hearts" ( #3 on the Billboard Hot 100 for 1987). That was the year the "Dance" chart was first introduced to the world of music, (Billboard 1987), so we got a foot in the door when there wasn't as much competition.
I.c: I guess that's one way to do it...
S.H.: Yeah, invent a new style, but really
it was just rehashed disco. A lot of musicians hated that when it first
came through, in the mid 70's, it put a lot of guys out of work,
sythesizers, drum machines...
I did ,incidently, come up with a new
instrument idea, for the SQ situation. It's called the
"Q-AXE" which is an electric guitar
and keyboard midi controller-in-one...Johnny Go-Go at Red Duck Music, and
"Dave-o" Brown, two Whittier, CA guys helped me develop and Johnny built
it for me. I heard he's in Westminster, CA now...
I.c.: So, what happened to that group?
S.H.: Yeah, Where are they ,now?? You know, though it was a bitchen time in my life, I have some regrets. We started out as SSQ, a techno-rock band, with influences or leanings, if-you-will, towards Formula One racing, and Q from the James Bond stories, who always came up with new gadgets. We worked on new sounds, styles, songs, attitudes, all together, for five years...I learned a lot from these guys...We had a name change, and the focal point now was the girl singer. We had one hit song and suddenly, the producer and the "star" turned against the rest of us, everyone's salary was cut in half... dissent, distrust, disgusting...
I.c.: The same old story...
S.H.: Greed.
Recently, they decided to do a reunion,
asked if I was interested...
I.c.: Back to reality.
S.H.: Please.
I.c.: You're now recording on your own and with BLUESTUBE...
S.H.: Well, I've had a recording studio of
sorts for a while now. I've been into some sort of taping since
I was a teenager, with a one-track recorder my folks had used to send tapes
overseas when my dad was stationed there in the Navy...got a four track
in 68', and eight track in 87' a sixteen track in 2001, it's been slow,
but I try to update to the latest technology that I can afford. I've done
midi sequencing for about 10 years, but I'm enjoying recording everything
live, now...getting the human feel back into it, and it helps keep the
chops up, although the mistakes are harder to hide.
And this BLUESTUBE mic, I can't tell you,
it made me get serious about playing blues harp, I can run it through a
guitar pedal right into my board, and it makes me feel like a pro. And
working with Jason has been a real inspiration. We're working on a new
album of tunes with Darrell Devlin, at Front Page Studios, which he manages,
and should have product real soon...
Favorite Influences: Clapton, Hendrix,
Stevie Wonder, Steve Winwood, Mitch Mitchell, Chick Corea,
and a lot of my friends, I know a lot of great players...
