johnnyhickman.com road blog 13

3 am....Nov. 4th 07 Sitting here in the wee hours at out hotel in Lawrence Kansas. Great show tonight...a very attentive audience which is my polite way of saying that people were listening very closely to the quieter songs and not talking to loudly during them. WHICH WE LOVE.

On to my other reason for blogging: I want to thank Chris and Maria for the wonderful podcast regarding the history of my song "Harvest Queen". A big thank you to Morst too. Well done! I feel compelled to fill in a few blanks though.....the music for the song goes back years...all the way to "Big Dirty Yellow" (The house David and I shared when we first moved to Richmond together pre Cracker). I awoke one morning with the guitar riff and melodies in my head and worked them out right then and there. I showed it to David at one point and he called my then instrumental "Harvest Queen". It felt like a great title but we were in the middle of working on many, many other songs and I put it on the back burner. Cut to 1999, around the time I moved back to Redlands and rekindled my friendship with Chris LeRoy.

We showed each other what we had been working on and instantly began collaborating again which always feels natural to us. He came up with a new title and lyrics for the song (Haunted) which I felt where great, but I still liked David's original title idea. We recorded the track with Chris on an old, beat up, upside down bass , Chad Villareal on drums and Maria at the board and it was just spontaneously magical on the first take. It's true as Maria says, I showed it to several session players and they never matched that original track!

One night I fell asleep thinking about David's title idea "Harvest Queen". As Chris says in the podcast he had burned me a CD of several scary old songs by other people. One night I dreamt I was one of 3 or 4 young migrant farm workers in a vast green field in California somewhere. In the dream there was a beautiful, naked witch flying over us. She was slowly changing from a woman to a raven, a ball of fire and back into this temptress / goddess ...then she vanished. She appeared again after dark and was trying to coax these young men into an old 1940s looking car for something...sex? comfort? protection? To steal our souls? I didn't know but I saw it all...the monkey's paw, the straw...all of it. Scared the hell out of me.


I woke with a start and wrote the whole thing down before I could forget it. The dream became the final version of the song after that. Strange story huh? Even though I wrote the lyrics and music, the song would never have gotten finished without the input of Chris and David. I had played a rough sketch for David Immerglück one night (in the back of a car) and he actually DEMANDED that he play on the track with me. How could I refuse the amazing Immy?
I was honored. One night he came down to Lo-Fi from Los Angeles and had brought along Cracker's original bassist Davey Farragher. They sang those great "AAAAAA" backing vocals and Immy and I did this sword fight of guitar solos at the end of the song which completed the long journey. I recently had the opportunity to play the song live at Roger Clyne's Mexico festival a few weeks ago. It was their suggestion. Roger and the Peacemakers just said "Hey let's do Harvest Queen...yeah we know it". They did and played the hell out of it with me. Yet another of those wonderful "Man I have a cool job" moments. Johnny....over and out.

johnnyhickman.com road blog 6

6/7/06 So...after a few days of intense NYC rehearsals with our new bass player Sal ( going very well...more on Sal later ) a hectic, rainy photo shoot and several busy press days I stumble sleepily down the hallway to my hotel room. The cell phone rings and it's our manager informing me that my friends (and one of my favorite bands) Drive By Truckers are performing on Conan O'Brian. Cool!....nice way to wind down a busy, productive day. So I shower, don my semi swanky hotel robe, crack a cold beer and with remote in hand settle in. The television pops to life at the tail end of "Late Night With David Letterman" . Elvis Costello is in mid song and behind him (as he has been for several years now) is our former band mate, bass player Davey Faragher. Davey is in fine form, resplendent in his leather jacket as his talented hands do that white boy soul "fruit at the bottom" bass thing he did so well with David and I years ago before personal matters and a subsequent, near inability to tour took him out of our world. I smile as I recall how a year or so ago, he and the equally talented David "Immy" Immerglück (Counting Crows, Monks Of Doom) rolled into Lo Fi studios in Redlands California to lend their God given chops to my Palmhenge sessions.

My wife catered the evening in style as 3 old friends laughed, got caught up on each other's lives and made music. After the song ends Letterman strolls past Davey to shake Costello's hand and I wonder if he remembers him from the first time Cracker appeared on the show. If not I suspect that the delightfully effervescent, 6 foot 3 bassist reminded him with an impish grin. With a proud and happy heart I change the channel...and....what the hell!? Here's former Van Halen singer David Lee Roth prancing around in jeans and boots in front of a half circle of bluegrass musicians singing.....ok this can't be real.....a hillbilly version of "Jump".

This isn't just weird, it's frightening. Suddenly I recognize yet another Redlands musical alumni and friend John Jorgenson on mandolin behind Roth. For those of you who may not know it David Lowery and I are both also from Redlands. It's not a very big town. Now here's another homeboy on the screen. Multi instrumentalist John has, since his fledgling days there on the new wave/punk scene been (amongst other things) a member of popular country rockers "The Desert Rose Band", one of three virtuoso guitarists and founder of "The Hellecasters" an instrumental group of MUSICIANS musicians that have made guitarists all over the world want to either quit or go home and practice until their fingers were numb. Myself included. From there he became Elton John's 2nd guitarist and multi instrumentalist ( he plays 6 or 7 other instruments very well ) and musical director. He recently graced the big screen (with Penelope Cruz...oo la la!) playing the part of renowned guitar legend Django Reinhart as well as performing/arranging the score for the film.

The Roth gig must be a $weet temporary sideline for John. I find out later after an e-mail exchange that (of course) he also put the bluegrass cats together and no doubt sketched out the musical arrangements. Change the channel again and now, here's big ol Paterson Hood howling his sensitive yet somehow menacing heart out as Jason and Cooley wail away on raw, soulfully bluesy guitar solos from the left and the right. Bang...well done DBTs. I drift off to sleep happy for my talented friends and thankful for my band-mates. With a great new label and record I wonder if we will find ourselves back on the late night television shows. If not, truthfully I will not be that upset. The live shows just keep getting bigger and better........and with the tour commencing in a few days that feels MORE than blessing enough. Thank you for that Cracker fans. You make my mostly charmed life a reality year after year. Hope to see you soon.....goodnight.