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By Root 915 0

and the air was filled with cigarette smoke. Something was calling to me to come in and I entered, walked along the long, narrow bar to where the jazz cats were playing in the back on a raised platform in front of a brick wall. I got within four feet of the stage and just stood there against the bar, ordered a gin and tonic and faced the singer. An older man, he wore a mohair suit, flat cap with a little brim and shiny necktie. The drummer had a rancher’s Stetson on and the bassist and pianist were neatly dressed. They played jazz ballads, stuff like “Time on My Hands” and “Gloomy Sunday.” The singer reminded me of Billy Eckstine. He wasn’t very forceful, but he didn’t have to be; he was relaxed, but he sang with natural power. Suddenly and without warning, it was like the guy had an open window to my soul. It was like he was saying, “You should do it this way.” All of a sudden, I understood something faster than I ever did before. I could feel how he worked at getting his power, what he was doing to get at it. I knew where the power was coming from and it wasn’t his voice, though the voice brought me sharply back to myself. I used to do this thing, I’m thinking. It was a long time ago and it had been automatic. No one had ever taught me. This technique was so elemental, so simple and I’d forgotten. It was like I’d forgotten how to button my own pants. I wondered if I could still do it. I wanted at least a chance to try. If I could in any way get close to handling this technique, I could get off this marathon stunt ride.

Returning to The Dead’s rehearsal hall as if nothing had happened, I picked it up where we had left off, couldn’t wait to get started — taking one of the songs that they wanted to do, seeing if I could sing it using the same method that the old singer used. I had a premonition something would happen. At first it was hard going, like drilling through a brick wall. All I did was taste the dust. But then miraculously something internal came unhinged. In the beginning all I could get out was a blood-choked coughing grunt and it blasted up from the bottom of my lower self, but it bypassed my brain. That had never happened before. It burned, but I was awake. The scheme wasn’t sewed up too tight, would need a lot of stitches, but I grasped the idea. I had to concentrate like mad because I was having to maneuver more than one stratagem at the same time, but now I knew I could perform any of these songs without them having to be restricted to the world of words. This was revelatory. I played these shows with The Dead and never had to think twice about it. Maybe they just dropped something in my drink, I can’t say, but anything they wanted to do was fine with me. I had that old jazz singer to thank.

I rejoined Petty for what was to be the final run of a long, drawn-out tour and told Tom’s band that if they wanted to play anything, just tell me and we would do it. We started up in the Middle East on that run with two shows in Israel, one in Tel Aviv and one in Jerusalem, the next one in Switzerland and the next one in Italy. In these first four shows I sang eighty different songs, never repeating one, just to see if I could do it. It seemed easy. The angles I was using were unwieldy but highly effective. Because of this different formulaic approach to the vocal technique, my voice never got blown out and I could sing forever without fatigue.

Night after night it was like I was on cruise control. Regardless of all this, I was still planning to quit…retire from the scene. I hadn’t planned to take it any further, hadn’t talked myself out of that — I didn’t figure I had much of an audience anyway. Even on this tour, as big as the crowds were, Petty was drawing most of the people. Before the Petty shows I hadn’t been going on the road consistently anyway. It was tedious having to assemble and disassemble bands for a thirty- or forty-show run. It had become monotonous. My performances were an act, and the rituals were boring me. Even at the Petty shows I’d see the people in the crowd and they’d look like cutouts from