In one twenty four hour period I performed “I Feel The Earth Move” with Carole King in New York City in the morning and performed “A Little Help From My Friends” with Ringo Starr in Los Angeles in the evening. If that isn’t a Rock and Roll day I don’t know what is.
Carole’s people called and asked me to play with her on the early morning CBS show in NYC. I mean early. This is a 4AM call with a rehearsal for cameras and make up at 6 AM to play at 7. These are not good hours for musicians. I flew to NYC from Nashville the night before and was sitting in a make up chair wondering why I ever stopped being an electrician. Electricians get to sleep until 7:30.
By the time we played there was a great crowd all around us out in the street and it was really wonderful. I think we were probably done by 9:30 or 10 AM and I was out of there, headed to the airport.
If I recall properly, I landed in LA around 3 in the afternoon. I remember there was a car waiting for me. Those were the days. I would like a car waiting for me every once in a while. If you get the chance to have a car wait for you, I highly recommend it.
I found myself rocketing through LA, towards Fairfax and the CBS studios. (All of this is coming back from the tiny parts of my brain so I may be remembering wrong but bear with me.)
All of my equipment as already there and set up. I just had to get there, pick up my guitar and play.
They were expecting me, so various people hustled me down various hallways until I burst through the lobby doors into the studio. Ringo and the band were already on stage sound-checking his new single from the album we had just finished. The single was “Never Without You”… a beautiful song about George co-written with Gary Nicholson.
Ringo and the boys had obviously planned to humiliate me because as I was walking towards the stage, instead of singing “Never Without You”…Ringo was singing “It’s Better Without You…”
It was the Craig Ferguson Show. We played “Little Help” and “Never Without You.” We started taping around 5:30 and we were all back in the cars (they were waiting) by 6:30. The actual shows were the briefest parts of the day.
Later that night, back in my hotel room, I had a moment to reflect on my whirlwind day. Then I realized the mini bar was prepaid for so I stopped reflecting, ate a Toblerone and went to bed.