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By Root 996 0

musicians, very full-on and loud and strong, it was a very different experience to jam with such a laid-back attitude, and I enjoyed it for hours on end. But, listening to these guys, I realized that I was miles behind and needed to catch up, and fast. After hibernating for years and being completely out of touch, I wanted to know what everyone was listening to and what was going on in the world of music. I knew I could still play from the heart, and no matter how primitive or sloppy it sounded, it would be real, and that was my strength. Also, I was tired of the “guitar hero” thing. I wanted to just blend into the band and play more rhythm. I was starting to follow the example of J. J. Cale, whom Delaney had turned me on to in the late sixties, and these guys actually knew him; Carl had even played on some of his records. It all seemed to fit that my return should be with minimalist players, since that’s exactly where I wanted to go.

Apart from “Let It Grow,” which I had finished on my own, most of the material for this album was cover versions of songs like “Willie and the Hand Jive,” “Steady Rollin’ Man,” and “I Can’t Hold Out,” which had been rolling around in my head for a long time, waiting for the opportunity to pop out. “Get Ready” was written for what was happening, and the way I felt about Yvonne, and “Mainline Florida” was written by George Terry, a local musician, who had mysteriously joined our happy throng. He was a friend of Albhy Galuten, another local player I had met and hung out with during the recording of Layla. “Give Me Strength” was a song I had first heard in London during the early sixties, while I was living on Fulham Road with Charlie and Diana Radcliffe. It seemed to perfectly fit the occasion and also gave me the unforgettable opportunity of playing with Al Jackson, drummer of the MG’s and a legend among players.

One day George Terry came in with an album called Burnin’ by Bob Marley and the Wailers, a band I’d never heard of. When he played it, I was mesmerized. He especially liked the track “I Shot the Sheriff” and kept saying to me, “You ought to cut this, you ought to cut this. We could make it sound great,” but it was hard-core reggae and I wasn’t sure we could do it justice. We did a version of it anyway, and although I didn’t say so at the time, I wasn’t that enamored with it. Ska, bluebeat, and reggae were familiar mediums to me. I had grown up hearing them in the clubs and on the radio because of England’s growing communities of West Indians, but it was quite new to the Americans, and they weren’t as finicky as I was about the way it should be played. Not that I knew myself how to play it, I just knew we weren’t doing it right.

When we got to the end of the sessions and started to collate the songs we had, I told them I didn’t think “Sheriff” should be included, as it didn’t do the Wailers’ version justice. But everyone said, “No, no. Honestly, this is a hit.” And sure enough, when the album was released and the record company chose it as a single, to my utter astonishment it went straight to number one. Though I didn’t meet Bob Marley till much later, he did call me up when the single came out and seemed pretty happy with it. I tried to ask him what the song was all about, but couldn’t understand much of his reply. I was just relieved that he liked what we had done.

The album 461 Ocean Boulevard was recorded in a month, after which I returned to England, where I decided to make another move on Pattie. I knew through go-betweens that things were bad between her and George, and that they were living in virtual open warfare at Friar Park, with him flying the “Om” flag at one end of the house and her flying a Jolly Roger at the other, but the general advice from my friends was, “Bide your time and she’ll leave him.” One night I was in the studio with Pete Townshend to complete the recording work I had done on Tommy, and when we finished I suddenly had this urge to go and see Pattie. I managed to persuade Pete to drive me to Henley under the pretext that George was very keen to meet