Yes, his phrasing was unique to say the least.   He played against the rhythm and messed around with his own counter-rhythms.  Nobody else did that, least of all Clapton, who "played the on-beats like a typewriter," according to Mr Naftalin.  As Al Kooper keeps pointing out, so many gigs were never recorded with the 1970's "Friends" groups, nor the early (67) Flag stuff when they were really going for it.  I saw the Hendrix/Blue Cheer/Soft Machine Pinnacle concert at Shrine Auditorium.  There, they had the wind machine flag with the spolight, and Buddy had that American Flag shirt.  It was tightly organized and they made everyone else seem relatively sloppy.

--including Jimi Hendrix.  Mitch Mitchell was so good, though, holding things together.  Allen Holdsworth was there with Soft Machine, but not yet playing that incredible stuff he started doing in the mid 80's.  He was gaping at Bloomfield like everyone else.  No one had heard stuff like that, with the amp so loud the tone got fat.  Clapton said he beat him to "the woman tone."

As it became clear the labels weren't going to stoke the fires, and as the drugs soaked in. . .it got erratic.  But back to phrasing.  He could play an improvised song in a way that sounded like a well-thought-out Bach fugue or something from start to finish, and never repeat himself.  A surviving example of this is Carmelita Skiffle from the Fillmore West album, which I think has gone to the My Labors Gravenites CD now.  IIt sounds like a composed, written-out thing.

If you listen to Gypsy Good Time from My Labors, the call and response with Nick on the verses, and the solo are like that.  As if it had been composed for a string quartet.  Perfection.   Listen closely to the turnaround at the end of the first solo verse, going into the seond verse.  Who the hell could do that except Michael??  On Holy Moly he does that Memphis Steve Cropper stuff as a backup player - you know the two and three-note lead fills - and could easily be mistaken for a Stax-Volt session guy who was trying to beat Cropper at his own game.

Both Michael and Carl Wilson of the Beach Boys insisted you get ahold of the early 60's Carla Thomas, Isaac Hayes, Otis Redding, Sam & Dave, Booker T and other Stax records to hear "a real ryhthm section and horns that had more lung, more dense coloring."

I became his personal roadie during one summer of Golden Bear (Huntington Beach) gigs - he and Mark Naftalin retreated there to have a small venue to try stuff out, they said.  Also, he said, "to read some books and get away from the filthy lucre."  He paced around like a caged lion, in contrast to what he said about a retreat or vacation, though.  They never went to the beach that I knew of.   Later I found out poppy was in it.  No wonder.

I am trying to remember the year.  It had to be 1970-71.  I've been recovering from back surgery, and that experience muddles the memory a bit.  Hi Peggy, long time no hear.  Sorry I dropped off the floor when we started corresponding a year or so ago.

Michael loved antithesis.  He read about the Greek Sophists, and they were teaching that speech could be persuasive without your having to believe the point you were making.  Very cynical guys.  He would get up on the Golden Bear stage and announce that the guy from Ampeg was there, and all the amps tonight were provided by that company.  His Twin Reverb was in the back room gathering sawdust.  He said "listen now, these amps are incredible, really great amps, but basically they are totally fucked-up amps."  When a writer would be trying to interview him as they waited in the sawdust room drinking Heniekens (Naftalin's fave then), he would play with this.  "I use really heavy strings with an .013 e-string so they give me lots of resistance when I do bends to achieve notes between the intervals."  Then he'd go onstage and tell the crowd (with the writer still there), "I always use Ernie Ball Super Slinkies - with the .009 e-string so I can control my bending."

"My picks are the heaviest, thickest ones Fender makes, but really they are quite thin & flexible."

I aksed him why he did this, and he said because he was bored.  He liked to reverse the first and last letter of words too.  Did it frequently.  Frid it dequently.  Freq it didquently.

I simply started to fetch him new e-strings, straps and cords from my own case when he broke stuff.  I read books about philosophy, history and weird religions, so he let me hang out. Eventualy I got the job.  My goal, of course was to recieve some guitar lessons.  I had to go to the motel.   He taught me how to finger-pick.  At the club he insisted upon pacing around or talking.  I told him how much I liked the Blues On A Westside cut from Fillmore West and he told me the horror stories about "all the horn players."  He got distracted and could not get them charts, so they'd get up and improvise.  "Those people like Snooky Flowers would be trying to be jazz guys, and would play notes that didn't harmonize.  It sounds like a bunch of wheezing asthmatics."

I told him "yeah, but the rhythm section with John Kahn (bass) - with you and Nick (Gravenites) doing the call and response is one of the best slow blues in the history of the world."  "Too bad the horn players had no idea what they were doing," he kept on insisting.  To him, all the chaos and drug problems were ruining his dreams of perfect, organzied music - like the Pinnacle show.

He'd disappear from the motel and no one could find him when he wanted to use heroin.  There, he never let on he was doing it.  Maybe because I was like 18-19.  A youngster.  Maybe he didn't want to infect me.  Or, maybe he was just embarassed.

He was interested in Islam and Sufiism (Gurdjieff's Meetings With Remarkable Men), and said the other Jewish people he knew would get nervous when he talked about it.    Like Bill Graham and his staff.  More anthithesis.  Another thick/thin guitar pick.

He actually used the Super Slinkies. I know because I kept his strings.  And Fender Extra Heavy picks.  That tobacco Les Paul got lost shortly thereafter.

Michael was a hero of mine at the time, and in later years when I found out how dissolute he'd become I was so sad.  He just hated the business people who controlled the music industry.  Imagine how he'd feel today!

More later,
Dave