Fresh

>>I was in Los Angeles with
Carly Simon playing at the Troubadour,
and I knew the saxophone player with
Sly, Pat Rizzo. Pat told me that Sly
needed a drummer. Gregg Errico, the
original drummer, had quit. They had a
replacement who had been there for six
or eight months, but no one was happy
with him. So Pat said, „If you can possi-
bly get up to Sly’s house in Bel Air and
get an audience with him, you might be
able to conduct some sort of an audi-
tion.“ In between shows at the Trouba-
dour, I ran up to Sly’s house, and was
taken into his bedroom where he was ly-
ing on a water bed, pretty much out of his
head. There were three or four other people in the room, and it was all very heavy, and sinister, and weird, and dark. Eventually he got himself together enough to speak to me from the bed. He said, „You’re a drummer?“ I said, „Yeah.“ And he said, „Are you funky?“ And I said, „Yes.“ [laughs] Not even „Yeah,“ but „Yes,“ deadpan, with no emotion, in my perfect WASP whiteness. Then he said, „Play.“ There was a set of Remo practice pads next to his bed with a real hi-hat and a little mashed up cymbal. I knew I’d have about 20 seconds to either make an impres- sion or not, so I just played the funkiest beat I could. All of a sudden Sly came to life. He jumped off the bed and started dancing in the room. And in 30 seconds the whole family was brought in. Sly said, „This is the new drummer“—no name or anything. „Yeah, Freddie, this is the new drummer. Tell the other guy he’s fired. Okay, what’s your name?“ „Andy.“ „Right. You’ll do the next show or whatever. Welcome.“ And that was it. Five minutes later, I was in the car going back to the Troubadour to do Carly’s show.<<
Andy Newmark in Modern Drummer 2/1984

Hey und schließlich – mit liebem Gruß nach Vorarlberg – noch eine „If you want me to stay“ Live-Version (1973) mit großartig aufgelegtem Rusty Allen am Bass.