Dear Friends,
Irony strikes. Last time, I was telling you about the awful train wreck that the Son Seals band and I were in while touring Norway in 1978. Now, I’ve just returned from Tennessee, where Koko Taylor and her band were in a terrible van accident. Amazingly, everyone is still alive and will ultimately recover, but it’s a miracle. Their van went off the road on Sewanee Mountain in the fog at night, and only two small trees kept them from rolling all the way down the mountain. Koko has three broken ribs and a broken collarbone, the bass man, Bay Williams has a broken pelvis and broken leg, and drummer Frank Alexander has a broken collarbone. All the other injuries were superficial, though the van was absolutely and completely totalled. It will be at least a couple months before Koko can perform again, and I’m sure she’d like to hear from her fans. You can write her care of Alligator.
I just finished mixing the live Lonnie Brooks LP, “Live From Chicago–Bayou Lightning Strikes”. It should be out by the time you read this. If you’ve seen Lonnie live, you’ll love this album. If you haven’t, you will anyway. Nuff said? Also just cut Little Charlie and the Nightcats for their second ’gator. Should be out in April. More of that fun jump blues stuff from a very fine band.
I wanted to tell you the rest of the saga of the Norwegian train wreck with Son Seals and the band….After the other guys hauled Tony Gooden up the embankment to the tracks, Son, Snapper and A.C. skidded back down to try to help me out, as I still had the train’s back door on my shoulder. Incredibly, no one else from up on the tracks (the passengers and crew from the other train cars) came down to help us. So, the musicians and I were stuck with the evacuation of a train car full of hurt, semi-conscious and very shook up people, few of whom spoke English, and many of whom were old. Son stood in the chest-deep water of the fjord (cold in October) and A.C. stayed on the bank, while Snapper crawled on his back through broken glass from compartment to compartment, carrying, leading and dragging out people. He brought them down to the end of the car where I was holding the door, and then we had to force them into the water, where Son caught them and “fed” them to A.C. Within about forty-five minutes, we had a row of shivering and hurt people on the tiny bank of the fjord. Then the local volunteer fire department arrived, and began helping them up. In the end, thirty or forty were hospitalized, but none in worse shape than Tony, Son’s drummer.
I can’t begin to tell you how proud I was of Son, Snapper and A.C. The train car was still slipping slowly into the water, and both Son and A.C. could have been crushed if it had begun to move faster. Snapper would have been drowned if the car had gone under (so would I, I guess). And these guys put their lives on the line for a bunch of people they had never met, from another country. Only a few of the crash victims found us afterwards, but at least one couple told us we’d saved their lives. More about Tony next time, and hopefully some happier pews too.
Bruce Iglauer