Suck and Blow

by John Popper

  One rarely has a chance to go back, although in 2013 I did have the opportunity to make amends with Stevie Wonder after the incident at the White House in 2000 when I brought his jam to a screeching halt because I didn’t have the right harmonicas. He invited me to be part of his benefit show when he performed all of Songs in the Key of Life. The only tricky part was that this was one of those rare times when he didn’t want me to solo; he wanted me to play the low harmonica section that he played on a chromatic harmonica thirty-five years ago. I didn’t know that part, but thankfully Frederic Yonnet, this incredible harmonica player from France, was there. It turned out he was a fan of mine and said, “I hope you don’t mind, but I took the liberty of isolating your part on a file for you to hear.” I said, “But I didn’t get you anything!” So he made it remotely possible for me to play the part. I was so thankful that it wasn’t like the old days, when we’d think, Oh you’re such an enemy, another harp player.

  Still, it was going to be a challenge for me to do the beginning, even after we fought through it. india.arie (what is it with these kids and their damn lowercase?) had kissed Stevie when she came out, and there was a little imprint of lipstick on his cheek. I saw the imprint and pointed it out to Frederic. I figured I’d keep things light, and there was a pause, so I got on the mic and said, “Who doesn’t love this man? Who wouldn’t kiss him? Who wouldn’t kiss this man?” The crowd started clapping and then cheering, so I walked over to the piano and kissed him on the cheek. He loved it and fell over on his stool laughing. Then the crowd really clapped, and I whispered in his ear, “You know they’re really clapping because I just took all my clothes off.” Then we started the song, and he tanked the beginning, so that was how I saved my own ass.

  Afterward Bobby Shriver told me that they were doing music at a friend’s house and invited me to join him. I went along, but I only brought one harmonica, an obscure key, because my attitude was that I was done for the night.

  It turned out it was Renée Zellweger’s house. It was like I was having a dream in which I was at a party, only everybody at the party was somebody famous: Tom Hanks, Rita Wilson, Johnny Knoxville, Nia Vardalos, Ian Gomez, and plenty of other people I recognized by face but not by name.

  John Stamos was there, and of course, he wanted to play the drums, but I only had one key, which was a flat. None of the dabblers could play in a flat, but we wrestled out a blues so people could get their money’s worth. Then this little thirteen-year-old girl asked whether she could sing one, and behind her was her nebbishy dad saying, “Would you mind if she maybe sang one?” I said, “Sure,” because now I’m the lord of the living room, and her nebbishy dad, as if he were cast for the role, was Albert Brooks. I said sure, and people told me it was so nice what I did for her, but all I did was say okay. She sang Etta James’s signature song “At Last” a cappella because none of us knew how to play it, and she rocked the room.

  I was talking with a crowd of people when Tom Hanks walked by, so I said, “You’re amazing, by the way.” I’ve been a Tom Hanks fan since Bosom Buddies. Then I think he called me a phenomenon, but as he was saying it I couldn’t quite hear him because I was getting tunnel vision—he wasn’t Tom Hanks anymore, he was . . . pick your favorite character from a Tom Hanks movie, that’s who he was. For me he was Captain Miller from Saving Private Ryan calling me a phenomenon.

  It was one of the my favorite celeb hangs, and what was really great was I had brought my sister, who lived six blocks away in Santa Monica and had moved to Hollywood to be an actress and had written a screenplay or two. For her it was like I dumped crack down her throat and then chased it with a speedball. And, I have to admit, it felt that way for me as well.

  These days, as we play new music festivals with an increased frequency, I find they’re a good source of celebrity sightings and new musical collaborations, and I never tire of either. The Southern Ground Music & Food Festival in October 2014 offered ample helpings of both.

  It was there that I ran into Bill Murray for the first time since he gave that pep talk at SXSW. I once again thanked him for it, but then I caused him some undue alarm when I began talking to him about my impending heat stroke. For all I know Bill had just smoked a whole bunch of pot, which may have exacerbated any anxiety that I caused. I’ve come to acknowledge that I can be a terrible hypochondriac and that the way I combat it is by obsessing about passing out. I try to make it worse than it actually is so that when I get on stage, it actually isn’t that bad. I’ve inherited this hypochondria from my father, who wants his tombstone to read, He was a terrible hypochondriac and in the end he was right.

  It turned out that it wasn’t that bad, far from it, and it also marked my first appearance with the Zac Brown Band. I wasn’t all that familiar with their music, but when I walked onto their bus, they were in the midst of some bluegrass tune. It was obvious that they all could play. It was fun to see that Zac himself is all player rather than just someone who is supported by good players. I sat down, opened up my harp case, and jumped right in—when you’ve got musicians that good, you can do that.

  I wound up doing a few songs with him. One of them was “Piano Man,” in which he played the actual Billy Joel part, which I can do, but I figured I’d play something weird around it. So I did it in a more classical musical style—it sounded all fuguey. He called me a show-off, and then we did the third one together. That was the acoustic set, and later I came out on the electric set with Luther Dickinson for “Can’t You See.” It felt like we were taking the Nestea plunge into something I had never done before but still felt familiar. It was like falling into a new family, and it was an easy, cool thing to do.

  In August of 2015 I sat in with the Foo Fighters, where I experienced a similar level of comfort and connection. We were getting ready for a one-off H.O.R.D.E. show that took place in Detroit (as a possible test run for the future), and I was in town early, so I went to my first Foo Fighters show. At this point I’ve learned to bring harmonicas with me. I learned from that experience playing at Al Gore’s concession party—if your harps are in the broom closet, you’re going to have to tap Stevie Wonder on the back and ask him to change keys, and that’s just not what I am going to do.

  It might have felt a little presumptuous that the Foo Fighters would ask me to sit in, but they’re a bunch of players, they like to have all sorts of experiences, and they’re easygoing guys, so that’s a recipe for having my harps with me. I called Lani, my manager, who had to call some crew guy to get them off some vehicle and rush them to Deer Creek (or whatever that Noblesville, Indiana, amphitheater is called these days). Sure enough, the Foo Fighters said, “We want you to sit in,” and they worked out some blues riff.

  It was cool to see how in tune Dave Grohl is with the audience—there’s such a love affair there, and he gives them everything he can.

  He was playing with a broken leg, and that offered an interesting contrast from my own experiences. Back in the day my crew would shovel me into my little wheelchair and then dump me into this tall, swiveling chair—that was the height of my chair technology: it swiveled. His chair was forged by artisans from the Aztec tradition, and there was a lot of chrome and lights and a big FF on it. It would slide back and forth on a track and flames would shoot out of it. Mine swiveled.

  Watching him sit there, I was reminded how once a show I would pretend I could stand up for the first time, even though I was just standing on the other leg—“I’ve been healed!” He would do that too. You just can’t beat that gag, no matter what technology you have.

  I also really enjoyed watching his daughters, who must have been five and nine, just loving their dad onstage and then putting “Kick Me” signs on the crew’s back. I think he gave them each a job. At different times each would run out onstage and present him with a coke. It was just so much fun to watch and made me excited for my daughter.

  When I went out to play it was really a no-brainer because I knew what I had to do: just grip it and rip it. It was
one for the bucket list because we move in the same circles a lot of the time but we’d never actually met each other, let alone play together.

  But even as I try new things like that, it feels good to maintain some traditions as well. Although we gave up the New Year’s Eve black cat ritual after Bobby died, one tradition that continues is Fourth of July at Red Rocks, which we’ve been doing for more than two decades.

  I love the place, but it’s brutal for a singer. It’s so high up in the air that my voice drops an octave—it can be physically challenging. We write set lists for artistic reasons, not altitude reasons. I used to get oxygen but I found that it dried my throat out if I took it during the show. Bugs will fly in my face or in my drink. (That’s what happened in 2013 when TMZ posted a video of me spitting up on stage, calling “party foul” on myself—I was about to drink a shot while we were performing in Florida, and as it reached my mouth, I noticed a giant insect in it.) There can be freak weather—one year we were getting sideways freezing rain, and I said to the audience, “If you can take it, I can take it,” but they all had brought rain slickers and I hadn’t—so it fucked me up for the rest of the summer and I got a vocal thrush that had to be zapped.

  I know how much the audience loves it, though. It’s a spectacular venue on any night, but on the Fourth of July, it can be quite a light show with all the fireworks in the surrounding towns. There have been times when I have heard the crowd spontaneously cheering and wondered, Did we do something cool? Let’s do it again! Then I realized they were looking behind me at the fireworks that just started or finished, so my ego would get deflated. But what we also get is all this energy pointed like a funnel right at us because we’re at the bottom of this natural amphitheater. It’s amazing.

  The “No Woman, No Cry” we did there in 2003 with Ziggy Marley (which appears on the Thinnest of Air DVD) was one of the banner moments of my life. We played it with the son of the source of that song, who sings a lot like him and looks a lot like him and certainly knows that song and that music. And I had this delivery I had been working on, where I was really late on that second verse. Frank Sinatra often did it that way, and I was late on the line because I was so deep in the pocket. That made Ziggy crack up. It really tickled me.

  I have had a ton of moments like that, when I get lost in the music and the crowd takes us there. That’s the reason why we all do what we do.

  People often ask me what music means to me, and it’s really hard for me to describe. It’s like air, and it’s hard to appreciate air. You need air to live, but you don’t celebrate air.

  But what I can celebrate is my audience. And if you’ve read this far, then you’re a member of that audience, so I’d like to leave you with this. I wrote it on Jam Cruise in 2015—there may have been some mushroom chocolate involved—to celebrate what we’ve all done together and how I feel about you after all these years. With the deepest admiration and awe let me again emphasize that I never could have done any of this without all of you. You’ve shaped my experience and perspective. Without you out there to receive my thoughts and ideas, they never would have taken flight. But together, all of us can sail.

  Our connection has meant more to me than any of the cool things I’ve done, the money I’ve made, or the art I’ve helped create.

  I came from a place where I was entirely isolated, and now I am able to share myself and my music in such a wonderful, surprising way. The lyrics below try to explain how much you as a collective mass or a single ear for me to bend have really saved my life and helped to give it meaning. I owe you something that I will never be able to repay; I can only appreciate it, and I assure you, I never take it for granted. I never take you for granted . . .

  “Owed from the Aspect”

  A chance again to diatribe,

  You’ll go along if you’ve imbibed,

  My mannered tones of dire cost,

  & if something gets translated lost,

  Again I seek to hide the same

  as though we’ve never stopped our game

  and all the tidings I could bring

  Have never really changed a thing.

  Dependent on each other we

  kept infinite the “you and me” that never really set us free

  . . . or too lonely was the place we’d be . . .

  (Chorus)

  But for all I’ve ever tried to tell you,

  I just couldn’t seem to say how much I care,

  and speaking as the aspect that befell you,

  . . . You’ve come to mean (be) my (very) universe out there . . .

  For all the right or wrong I’d done,

  I had to share it with someone.

  The true the lie the in between,

  their implications what they mean,

  a troubled tale or trophied turn,

  within my heart they’d only burn

  ’til the echoes on the acetate

  reveal what we can all relate,

  then freely we can share our pain

  & know that we are not insane

  or at least a frenzy we can own.

  it’s enough for me I’m not alone . . .

  (Chorus)

  (Bridge)

  I stumble to the floor until I realize that I’m climbing.

  I can fall right up a staircase

  just as easily as down . . .

  ’Cause hope can flip the building on its end and in the timing

  needs a friend

  or else it lands

  within the sand

  without a sound

  A chance again to double-down,

  perhaps a way of standing ground

  for any sin that took a toll by every rescue of my soul.

  Each choice I made to turn to you,

  a thing I had to learn to do,

  so grateful I could see it through

  almost as if you always knew . . .

  I choose again to share anew . . .

  as if compulsively on cue,

  more karma for we happy few,

  whose destiny’s the devil’s due

  (and yet I’m thanking god for you . . .)

  (Chorus)

  (Searching for the dawn until it’s we who are both shining . . .)

  AFTERWORD

  To My Darling Daughter, Eloise, on the Eve of Her Birth

  November 20, 2015, 1:00ish a.m. PST

  Hello Weezy!

  Wow, this is kind of the first thing I’m ever saying to you in a very real way. In fact, I initially wanted this entire Afterword to be the Foreword so it would be the first thing you read, but we all felt that it would make more sense to the other readers if this appeared after they got to know me a little bit. Hopefully you won’t have that problem. If I’ve done my job as a father, this will only be the most recent thing you are hearing from me. And hopefully not the last.

  So first of all, I love you! Here and now from the year 2015. I am excited as I sit here with your mother waiting for your labor to begin, well, really hers. (By the way, you kicked the crap out of her rib cage and you need to call her more. Buy her a lovely Bundt cake. Nothing garners forgiveness like a lovely Bundt cake.)

  But the key here is that you know how much we both wanted you. You were a total surprise and, in my mind, ever more intended by some higher power to be here—perhaps to save the world, perhaps to become part of it—but, in any event, to thrive and certainly to save my life. And mind you, my life is saved by the hope you bring to me. You are more than the sun, moon, and stars because stars always ultimately fade, while hope goes on forever and feeds everything. I’m honored to get to tell you that you’ll understand one day (I feel like I just joined that club).

  I don’t know when in your life you’ll be reading this book or how old you’ll be, but it must already seem weird to be hearing me dialogue with you in this tone before we’ve even met. I wonder if this is close to how we’ll talk. It is 2015, as I was saying, the night before you are to be born, and though it’s the 20th, w
hich is the day before you’re expected according to science, in the minds of your parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, grandaunts, granduncles, cousins of all degrees, in-laws, outlaws, Facebook followers, and general populace of friends who are in some sense involved and awaiting your arrival, you are keeping us all waiting.

  I expect that sort of pressure to occasionally bother you at times with this bunch, but that’s your family—patience comes only painfully to such a collection of independent thinkers, but by far it’s your mother who shines throughout all of this and who is awaiting you most deeply. I want to tell you about her. . . .

  It was April of 2014. We were playing a festival, and these two beautiful women approached me for help getting side stage for the Allman Brothers. One of them, the shorter one, though still very attractive, seemed more relatable—at least she didn’t scare me any. But it was her taller friend who struck me as a goddess, leaving me utterly if momentarily helpless for any semblance of “game” or smoothness. Normally, as I look back at my past rapport with intimidatingly attractive women, I will make all manner of jackass of myself or sometimes stumble into a smooth banter all to get the object of my affection to say “yes” to some extent or another. But there was something about this tall, beautiful, free-spirited blonde that was different, and all such thoughts in my head were gone and all I could say in my heart over and over to myself was “Yes . . .” And in that subtle difference, so slight yet so enduringly significant, I didn’t need to find the words—they came of their own volition.