When I was a youngster, and my burgeoning interest in music began to blossom, my parents gave me my first stereo, and I soon began going to sleep listening to the radio. Music, this wonderful thing in which I bathed my soul just before “falling into the arms of Morpheus” (as the late-night DJ on WLW-Cincinatti would say); music taking on form in my head, dissolving again as I would drift toward my nightly spirit ride.
Slowly, night by night, piece by piece, whether just drifting off or deep in my slumbers, the music from the speakers softened my stubborn, obtuse young mind. A boy brain basting in blues. And late at night — on *very* rare occasions — a song from the speakers would somehow reach through my slumber to wake me; would insinuate itself right into my dreams and, having captured my attention, make a U-turn and return to the “real world”, hauling me right along with it. I would find myself in my bed., listening for the first time to a song… a song which now would seem to have been destined to linger long in my imagination… to inspire and enlighten me.
This phenomenon occurred three times. Out of the thousands of songs which filtered into me at night as I slept, each of these three songs moved me so deeply that I had been forced to come awake. Each of the three songs subsequently opened my eyes and ears to important discoveries… important evolutionary steps in my path as a musician.
The Story of the First Song
It was 1968. I awoke one night. I remember hearing a cascade of notes, sweet round notes the sound of which (instantly, unconsciously) closed a switch in my head. This was the instrument, this was the style, this was the song which escorted me right into what was to be the focus of my life — nylon-string; fingerstyle; Classical Gas. By Mason Williams.
Classical Gas by Mason Williams:
Classical Gas by Mason Williams
Here is what Mason has written about this composition in his book “Classical Gas — the Music of Mason Williams” (c. 1992 CPP/Belwin):
I had just finished my season as a writer for the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour on CBS, and was taking the summer off to work on a couple of my art projects: a lifesize photographic poster of a Greyhound Bus, and the world’s largest sunflower. I hadn’t been playing guitar very much during the past few months, having had to concentrate on writing comedy for the show. After a wild two-week gig with Tom and Dick in Las Vegas (…I don’t think we slept at all…I remember virtually living in my sunglasses), I came back to LA, slept for a couple of days, got up and spent an entire weekend alone with the guitar. It felt so good to get back with my old friend that I decided to compose something. I didn’t really have any big plans for it, other than to have something to play at parties when they passed the guitar around. I thought of it simply as repertoire or “fuel” for the classical guitar, so I called it Classical Gasoline.
The music copyist for the sessions abbreviated the word Gasoline to Gas, and the name stuck. It was released in February of 1968, hitting the top of the charts in August. The song subsequently received three Grammys: two for Mason (Best Instrumental Composition and Best Instrumental Performance), and one for producer Mike Post (Best Instrumental Arrangement).
To my knowledge it is the only tune specifically featuring the classic guitar to ever garner such distinction. An innovative combination of classical technique/composition and a sort of 5-string banjo/rock and roll rhythm, Classical Gas made you wonder if you were supposed to listen or dance to it. The answer, of course, was “yes”….
The young lad back in Indiana who awoke to the strains of Classical Gas on the radio experienced a life-changing moment (unbeknownst to him): his entire life path would be about becoming a musician capable of playing a work such as this.
Thus began an intensification of my practice. I studied general fingerstyle guitar, classical guitar literature, notation, and technique. I played in the morning before school, often taking my guitar with me to school (where I skipped lunch so I would have more time to play in the bleachers), winding up the evening with a nice four to five hour session of study and jamming. After three years of this, I had learned to do a respectable rendition of Classical Gas. I perform it to this day, and it just keeps evolving for me. It’s become a staple of my show, a tune that always grabs the attention of the audience. And the best thing about that piece, for me? I never get tired of playing it, always find it a challenge to *really* pull it off. For a working guitarist, this quality is what truly makes Gas a classic!
Flash forward twenty-five years to Autumn, 1995. I was in Bakersfield, California, gigging around town doing my solo guitar bit. Word reached me that Mason was coming to the Melodrama Theatre again!
Mason Williams & Friends had performed at the Melodrama the previous year, and I had the opportunity to meet the man and hand him a CD of my music. A few weeks later, I received a 4-page hand-written letter from Mason, offering kudos and constructive criticism of the project.
For all the loftiness of some of his guitar music, Mason maintains a deep love of traditional music, and the lineup of the Friends band reflects that, bringing together what could be called a souped-up bluegrass configuration, featuring Byron Berline on fiddle, John Hickman on banjo, Rick Cunha on guitar, Jerry Mills on mandolin, Doug Haywood on bass, and the legendary LA session drummer Hal Blaine (who BTW had played on the original Classical Gas sessions).
So upon hearing of Mason’s return to Bako, I phoned the Melodrama asking if it were possible for me to come aboard as the opening act, performing a tribute to Mason’s guitar music (with the exception of Classical Gas, “a medley of my hit”, as he describes it to his audience, he didn’t emphasize his guitar chops in the band’s performances). I was told if it was cool with Mason, it was cool with them. So I phoned Mason, and soon enough had myself booked to open the show.
Besides a couple of originals, the Mason Williams compositions I showcased that night include:
- Saturday Night at the World – this tune was originally a song with lyrics, but it lent itself so well to the guitar that Mason later rerecorded it as an instrumental.
- La Chanson de Claudine – written for actress Claudine Longet… pre-Aspen.
- Jose’s Piece – a spirited uptempo Latin guitar masterpiece written in honor of Jose Feliciano, aka ‘Largo Deluxe’ on a later record, with a slower, sultry samba feel.
- Greensleeves – Mason’s followup to Classical Gas, where he takes this beautiful traditional song and injects it with a folk-rock rhythm.
The night of the gig, I did the opener, telling the packed house the Story of the First Song. I played well, showing off my nifty nylon-string guitar synth rig (with my own fully orchestrated and sequenced backing tracks). My tribute was very well-received, and when Mason Williams & Friends took the stage, the crowd cheered through each sweet tune the band performed, until it was just about time for the intermission. Mason came to the mic and said some kind words about my music, and then called me up to the stage!
Mason had graciously asked me that afternoon at sound check to perform the tune onstage with the band (and fortunately I had taken a moment the night before to work out a nice little harmony guitar part for the Am/D chorus of the tune). So I strapped on my axe, kicked my pedalboard, and off we all went into a guitar duet of Classical Gas!
There I was, romping through Classical Gas with Mason Williams, my boyhood inspiration! I had to some degree completed a pilgrimage, had by good fortune been allowed to experience a gig the like of which we all dream: to play our favorite tune, in concert, with the original artist! It can only happen this way once in a lifetime, if you’re lucky. I got lucky that night.
(For more on the making and digitization of this old VHS video, check out my blog post)
The photo of Mason and me hangs on my wall now, the review of the show clipped from the paper and stuffed into my memorabilia file. His kind words grace my bio page, and his music reverberates from my guitar at every gig I play.
And every single time, as I unleash the opening strains of Classical Gas, there is hard-wired in my mind, like a flash of high-bandwidth data streaming through God’s own modem, a clear path back to that magical night. Hardly pausing, on the ribbon of memory glides, flying like the wind of a heartbeat — back over decades of guitar playing and the ten thousand gigs — on back through uncountable hours of practice and learning, dreaming and becoming — to a night in 1968, when a boy in Indiana was awakened by the sound of a guitar on the radio.
Copyright 1997 Jeff Foster. All Rights Reserved.
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