Friday, January 11, 2013

Chapter 15 - Meeting With The Master


I REALIZE THIS NEXT story goes back sometime before the showcase so let’s back up a bit. It must have been in March or April of 1974 when Blair and Stephen had wandered into the Record Plant sweet talking the attractive blonde girl at the front desk into letting them past the iron-clad wooden door. This door, once entered, you were among the elite musicians and recording artists of the day. It was nirvana (not the grunge band) a rock and roll Valhalla. While wandering through the sacred halls, they saw a man a few years older working in the dubbing room with the door open editing tape with a razor blade, very old school. They stood by the door waiting for him to notice them and when he finally did they went into their well-rehearsed rap how they had a band that sounded like The Beatles blah, blah, blah.

          Bob Merritt, a second engineer, must have been intrigued by this daring duo who had the chutzpah to finagle their way past the guard dog at the front desk and approach a perfect stranger like they had known them all their lives. But that was Blair’s smooth style and Stephen could also talk a good show. He invited them back again, so I guess it worked.

 A few days later, we heard that John Lennon was producing an album with Harry Nilsson which would later be called Pussycats. As fate would have it, I was at the Rainbow one night with this young Russian girl named Ilana when Stephen burst downstairs and said, “Jimmy you won't believe who is upstairs in the Crow’s Nest and wants to meet you.” I looked at him with inquisitive eyes. “OK, I give up, who?” “John Lennon, that's who.”

“Shut up!”

“No really, man. I told him all about you, how you were a genius songwriter and he said he wants to meet you.” I couldn't take the girl, or more honestly, I didn't want her to cramp my style. If I was really going to meet John Lennon I had to be totally focused, not having to deal with an awkward first date scenario, so I rushed Ilana home to her apartment and drove like a madman the six or seven blocks back to ”The Bow” and found a parking space right down the street. No easy task. Walking with a purpose up the driveway into the parking lot, I waved to Tony at the door, and weaved my way through the “moving stars" then leapt up the swirling carpeted stairway to the room at the top –the Crow’s Nest. Turk recognized me and opened the door and then I saw. It was him. Over in a corner booth below a bunch of pipes hanging from the ceiling was John Lennon. What was I going to say to this man who I have idolized since I was twelve years old and saw him on the Ed Sullivan show? The butterflies in my stomach were running a demolition derby. This was the period in his life when John had separated from Yoko and was hanging out with Mae Pang, his personal secretary and Yoko's friend and it was Yoko who encouraged the relationship between the two, thinking at least John would have someone to lookout for him.

He was sitting having a drink with some business manager and a few other people I didn't recognize. Now Stephen approached Mr. Lennon and said, “Hi John, Is there anything you need, or anything I can do for you?” John quipped, "You can buy my new album.” I was thinking, oh great, he really laid into Stephen what is he going to do to me? I stepped forward feeling like the cowardly lion approaching the great and powerful Oz. “John", Stephen said, “This is the songwriter I was telling you about. Mr. John Lennon, please met Mr. James Wesley Haymer, from one genius to another.” How could he set me up like that? There was no way I could ever come close to the sheer brilliance of this icon of a man twelve years my senior who just happened to be the leader of the biggest and best pop group ever, and there he was seated not more than two feet in front of me! I thought he was going to cut me a new one, instead he extended his thin, pale right hand to me, looked me dead in the eye and said. “It really a pleasure to meet you, your friend has some very nice things to say about you.” I was stunned but managed to reply, “It is an honor to meet you, Mr. Lennon, but I must confess I don't know whether to praise or curse you, if it wasn't for you, I would have never wanted to be a musician in the first place.” He just smiled and said. “Oh, I'm sure you'll do alright.” While this was happening, I could see Stephen out of the corner of my eye doing pull-ups on the pipes like a scene out of A Hard Day’s Night. I ignored his antics instead savoring the magic of that special night.

          A few evenings later it had rained heavily leaving puddles everywhere in the potholes of the Rainbow parking lot. I am not sure where Blair was that particular night, probably with Cynthia, his new blonde girlfriend with the yellow Corvette, but what was to happen next was meant to be, kismet, fate. Stephen and I were penniless and trying to figure out what to do that night when I noticed there was a piece of paper that looked like a dollar bill in one of the puddles some poor drunk patron must have dropped. It was a five-dollar bill. We looked at each other and smiled. The next thing I knew we were in a taxi headed back down to the Plant.

That night in studio B, Lennon was doing a mix of the Jimmy Cliff song, Many Rivers To Cross being performed by Harry Nilsson. Stephen and I listened in the shadows and when the music stopped we opened the heavy wooden door and walked in. The music started up again with nobody seeming to notice us. Lennon was seated in the main chair behind the console and Harry next to him on the left. I sat down on the floor not more than five feet from Lennon’s right. The music stopped yet again, he turned toward me, and shot me a cold dark stare. “Who the fuck are you?” he asked not so politely. “It's me, Jimmy. I met you the other night at the Rainbow...” John scrutinized me for a few seconds which seemed like minutes, “Oh yeah, you’re cool.” I was cool? John Lennon said I was fucking cool! I stayed there listening to that song all night without uttering another word afraid that I might say or do something to offend, which sometimes, even now, I tend to do. How about that! Two John Lennon meetings in one week. That is hard to top.

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