Nick Gravenites Pt 1 | Electric Flag | Beatniks | The 60's | Mark Hummel
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- Опубликовано: 8 ноя 2022
- #electricflag #nickgravenites #mikebloomfield
Mark Hummel sits down for an extensive discussion with Nick Gravenites. Gravenites played in clubs with Mike Bloomfield, Charlie Musselwhite and others. In 1967 he formed the Electric Flag with Bloomfield.Gravenites also wrote the score for the film The Trip and produced the music for the film Steelyard Blues.
Gravenites is credited as a "musical handyman", helping such San Francisco bands as Quicksilver Messenger Service and Janis Joplin's first solo group, the Kozmic Blues Band. He wrote several songs for Joplin, including "Work Me, Lord" and the unfinished instrumental track "Buried Alive in the Blues". Gravenites was the lead singer in the re-formed Big Brother and the Holding Company (without Joplin) from 1969 to 1972. He also worked extensively with John Cipollina after producing the first album by Quicksilver Messenger Service.
Gravenites produced the pop hit "One Toke Over the Line" for Brewer & Shipley and the album Right Place, Wrong Timefor Otis Rush, for which he was nominated for a Grammy Award.
Mark Hummel
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Thanks Mark - this is a piece of history, Nick is a great storyteller, every gig I’ve played with him I’ve always been entertained by the stories as well as his amazing songwriting and singing.
Nick is such a gem and so important to the history of American music. Thanks for this
If not for King Perkoff, I'd never have my 2nd TEST PRESSING for 'Steelyard Blues' signed by Nick on the last time he was going to be in Town & The Saloon fittingly. Oct/'22
I went to the Fillmore the second weekend that they opened and saw the Butterfield Blues Band. This was the night that made me a lifelong fan of the blues. Also on the bill were the Jefferson Airplane, and Big Mama Willie Mae Thornton. A great interview that showcases Nick's history and knowledge.
RIP Mike Bloomfield & Paul Butterfield , both TAKEN too soon. 🥀💔 Nick seems like a cool guy, glad he was their friend.👍
Nick is the real deal. What a career. Butterfield , Bloomfield, Electric Flag, Quicksilver, Just Wow !
Saw Nick with The Flag at The Filmore East in June of '68. Great show, with Steppenwolf and Quicksilver Messenger Service on the bill. An unforgettable night of music.
Excellent interview of a VIP in American music!!!
You too are a VIP in American music......! You're episodes are legend.
Kewl interview w/ Nick. Damn sharp mind for being in his 80s . Lotza history there. I Got to hang with you a few years back at David Burretts’ harp master class gathering in SJ. Missed your show last night in Arroyo Grande due to the drive from Ventura being deterred due to the heavy rains. Really wanted to say Hi to Jason , my friend and harp mentor, and see the show but not to be. I’ll catch you next time you’re in Ventura. Thanks for the great music and interviews you’re doing. Safe travels . 😎
I saw Nick so many times at the Saloon...Loved the original blues he wrote and his vocals
zavidim Vam
Ah The Saloon. I saw a guy carrying an amp onto the bar- side of the stage & 'the stage' flew up like a lot of weight on a fulcrum's end or see-saw & almost hit him in the face! He was stunned by that situ' & I was going to move the milk crate foundation further out to the front corner by the bar & those few stools."Did you SEE that‽" 'Yes, I'm fixing it now.' & pulled that plastic bottle crate forward. More great bars went down in SF: Red Devil, Chi-Chi Club, Yoshi's[SF],et al... Once Graham, Cipollina, Garcia,etc were gone- those places stopped coming back in the next- not generation- just stopped attempting. The Saloon is calendar thick & healthy. Ben 'King' Perkoff is back for the season. Legends I'd heard, & heard of, roll through, join the band for a number...hours or so...
Of the regular folks, I know Roy Blumenfeld, Ben 'King' Perkoff & Al Staehely are all still alive & I believe The Great Greg Elmore could 'fess up as well.
Man you people out West are so lucky. Great music, nothing else is like it.
I used to go to the library & envy the public out here for the itineraries each place had coming up. I told a Friend from VA that & he said "Oh, Man, I never thought of that!” just imagining what he came to know in his own time.
It'd tear Me up! He was in the same vein. 'Pearls Before Swine' to be true of us both.
I hear it in his voice...The Electric Flag...
A living legend, so glad I got to see him and JC play so many times. Thanks for these interviews, they are great!
Loved this band
I loved this.Legends talking to Legends with OLD SCHOOL BLUES INFO is good to know about.I saw Nick only once.But what a show.Thunder N Lightning opening for Roy Buchanan round 82 at the Keystone Berkeley on University Ave. in Ber.... Cool venue. They jammed and shredded so hard the whole place was like Roy Who? Roy did a spectacular show as usual.Roy playing Hey Joe,Turn to Stone,and Sweet Dreams sealed the deal.But NOT BY MUCH Roy ....10 Thunder N Lightning........9.4 I have seen many killer shows but this was one of the best ever.
🙏Bless and many thanks, Mr. Gravenites. Love and heart to you, sir. You radiate joy!🌹
I knew Bloomfield, played with him once. I've been to Nick's home in Occidental
I could listen to this stuff all day ! Thank You.
Very enjoyable interview. Al Shackman is the name of Nina Simone's guitar player on the song Little Liza Jane.
Looking good Nick ! Electric Flag Was Top Act! THOSE Songs Should have got more Air Play & Promotion "A Long Time Comin ?
Legends
Thank you for this!
What a Life Nick Had!!! Bright Sized Life!!!!"
The most soulful white blues singer ever. I used to think he was black before the internet came around🤣
I think the time Nick spent in either the Folk Society &/or a Creative Writing class (mostly the writing class) improved the visual qualities & the ability to apply an expanded vocabulary or lexicon & the diction that became available to him not only in English but as a Man, an Artist, Poet & quietly rumored about - almost an unknown Legend among the sadly undersized but blessed population of those who've been lucky to have seen the visuals that rolled out of either the ink in his pen or his mouth. WHO is this inappropriately unknown, practically curs-ed/damned-able & unpronounceable last named guy? The origin of 'that's Greek to me' may well've come from early reactions to credits in Nick's personal writings credited & put forth to be absorbed & appreciated as they were above & beyond the contemporaries who'd simply grown their hair beyond the norm for a military based society in rationing days of Liverpool (yeah yeah yeah - gee that's something; work on it- PLEASE- work on it) as exports became imports & a monoculture in BBC'd Great Britain.
All the while, Fred Neil, et al represented a geography & was blessed with a last name that most Americans could pronounce but the same could not be true for the subject of Hummel's subject that is Nick Gravenites. Not a thing wrong w/that name except for the impossibility of ease in it's pronunciation over a radio outside of your local Greek neighborhood - which was a common thing for all of the rural & urban residential areas & there's no shortage of those, right? Eg- It was 1978 before I ever heard of a wrap called a gyro (taco meets sandwich in fast, culinary description) & this was very new & near to Wash, DC ! I'm still lucky not to have to SAY it (gyro- 'Uh, yeah. Let me have... one of those please.').
Imagine you're not trying to sell food w/it's appeals to more than one sense but it's been written, maybe it's song structure w/beat &/or a variety of rhythms to assist it along the path of the senses: visuals, sounds, feelings associated blending of memories, on & on.
Who's that one by; what's the author's name? I like that combination of all that's good about that one! I wish I could have been paying attention when the name - the credit - was said. Nick was in a band built around the least pronounceable names in the white pages from the phone book outside of Warsaw & it was organically so. It's meant to be when 3/4 & only the Drummer is pronounceable as a family name, not the (A-Z other three & song writers in the group that would become from all the various phases in which they'd cross paths: "Cipollina", "Gravenites" & it couldn't be completely cursed without "Staehely" who summed it all up as problematic when used for the title for everyone to be able to actually say out loud as a DJ might, for example: "STA•HAY•LEE" ('73 LP on EPIC✓)
(Epic Records '73).
Three extremely talented multi-instrumentalists who worked very well as a unit that had the shared curse in an English language speaking school system & language based society to perpetually receive & except for the Cipollina name from that branch of the family named tree give their own Sons their own troubles & prides in last names to carry on & maybe pass on for another generation. The Gravenites name is twice 'cursed' as two Sons can choose to carry it on & w/pride of actions & along Life's odd paths for not being burdened w/a Family name like Elmore, Smith, Waters or Jones to get in the way of people to understand & remember the answer to question that no one's yet posed - 'What's in a name?'
That answer could be the difference between fortune & Fame or quiet solitude & knowing how to play the game. My first Live Gravenites experience in the best venue for all States was sad in its turn out but not in what was put out nor received. If only they'd have done it more frequently but it's 3,000 miles from home so who was I to expect that to be a frequent thing w/o props & just the real thing?
[Edit: titles, eg- Since The Gas Station Left Town, Run Out of West, 6 Weeks In Reno, (I Ran Into A Burnin') Richard Pryor, Buried Alive In The Blues, Big Bad Etta, Mama Lion, Born In Chicago, etc on maybe a good dozen LPs (& Sndtrks) full of 'real'- not filler- songs. I'm a straight white Man & w/Pen in My hand I've Love for that ol' Man; it's a Buddy Guy thing.]
Anybody else wonder if, or when, Nick Gravenites has received HIS 'Songwriter's Lifetime Achievement Award' from the body or organization that critically bestows that one Award? Is it part of the 'Rock & Roll Hall of Fame' or from the founders behind 'The Grammys' &/or 'The Bammies' re that geographically better known group of people who have served Robert Hunter so well in a similarly better known circulation in the area of Songwriting.
Gravenites' lyrics have, I believe, been helpful to many artists, bands as perfect compositions used to soundtrack a variety of movies. In total, & not just in quantity but quality to fill a shorter lp in body or supply with a need to flesh out the body of songs, Nick's lyrics have been a saving factor (& as Producer & member along with many artists as well) all through decades filled with his credits. From Songwriting, Performing &/or Producer for: Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Otis Rush, Sam Lay, {QMS} Quicksilver Messenger Service, {BBHC} Big Brother & The Holding Company, The Electric Flag, Brewer & Shipley, The Usual Suspects, The Mill Valley Bunch, Mother Earth, Janis Joplin, in a few various incarnations as well as above, in name/Solo, HIS Solo Lps & Bands (as Nick Gravenites), The Gravenites-Cipollina Band aka Cipollina-Gravenites Band aka 'Thunder & Lightning', etc throughout the Bay Area & the Nor-Cal Area, & as Bloomfield- Gravenites (Film Composers & Live billings of course), The Chicago Blues Reunion had Nick crossing paths w/a great MANY members of other bands: Segal-Schwall, Dave Mason, Canned Heat, & CBR w/ Stanley Behrens in 'All Blues Is Local'- a predecessor to the aforementioned CBR w/Seigal, Brewer & Shipley, etc- & with so many songs &/or w/ Nick's affiliations & talents if not his compositions that haven't been released or listed here just yet- can such an Award that's been due for a while now be far off? The vast number of people who have covered 'Born In Chicago' &/or 'Buried Alive In The Blues'- in those TWO Songs alone- should be able to speak to or show the momentum due & thus happen during Nick's own Catalog for more than just one Lifetime. His desire to control his created Compositions has been over a long time for any such Artist not wanting to give that control away (as for eg- re the Beatles- only to see it owned by a man who 'never had a childhood' but had not let that keep accusations of child abuse away from him & therein associated with the Beatles' OWN Music. I'm pretty sure Nick had his own childhood & left it, healthily so, in his own childhood just where it belongs for the vast majority of Mankind.🎼
I think Bob Dylan has been granted such an award but didn't he have a co-writer w/a Widow who had to sue Bob Dylan to get the $3 million dollars in due Royalties when a Joe Levy (re-'Hurricane', eg) passed away?
Butterfield is absolutely not mentioned enough. Would blow anyone else off the stage any era
Very interesting, but I prefer a more traditional Q&A interview.
Gravenites has a lot of good stories, and he likes Antiques Roadshow to boot.
Al Schackman is listed as guitarist on Nina Simone's Little Liza Jane
Wait!,..who was “born in Chicago-1941”?? I always thought that was NIck? (Who wrote the song)
It was for Paul Butterfield
Nick wrote Born In Chicago but Paul changed it to his birthday
Thanks for letting me know,..i saw Nick in our small town here about 20 years ago-i forgot to ask him that. He signed a C.D. I bought- “Yo,Bo “. !!!-Buterfields first wife lived here, i knew her pretty well But didn’t even know until a year or so before she passed away that she was married to him,,she said she literary drove around to radio stations withthat first album.-itmade her day when her son gave tribute to her upon getting Hall of Fame award.
41 rhymes with gun.
@@Joseph-ax999 It's the wisdom of a Father...