"Grammy Award winning keyboardist and founding member of The Amazing Rhythm Aces.
¨Most times, when I walk into my studio, I know what I’m doing that day. Get a lyric done. Finish this or that track.
Sometimes I have not a clue in the world. I’ll find a cool loop, synth, piano or organ sound, and just play...(shhhh....I call it work...don’t tell a soul!)
This day I found a drum loop with the new Toontrack software they were kind enough to give to me, and I was off to the races. How the lyric idea for “Carolina Beach” came about, I’m not sure. These things, for me at least, just seem to appear. Like somebody else is writing them. I know, cue Twilight Zone music.
The music scene on South Carolina’s Grand Strand, where I grew up, was an important part of my formative years, and, in many ways, every word of this song is the gospel truth. Sorta. I started playing professionally at the age of fourteen and, by the age of sixteen, I was backing up “The Big Boys.” My first big charge was when Solomon Burke came to Columbia, and, lo and behold, his keyboard player got sick. Or too high. I had just joined the Musicians Union and got the call. I couldn’t believe it. That was my first brush with “scared to death”! Black guys in tuxedos were a big part of my life and the experience I gained in the Carolina music scene stood me in good stead in the years to come.
I don’t think I’ve ever been to Carolina Beach North Carolina, but Myrtle Beach just would not “sit right” inside the rhythm of the song. So, “Carolina Beach” became a generic, in lieu of “Pawleys” “Surfside” and a host of others between Myrtle Beach and Charleston.
I’d like very much to thank my daughter Brinna for the “kids” voices on the chorus’s of this song. She nailed it ‘first take’ style...sorta like her old man.
Oh. I never could shag dance worth a damn.¨" |
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