Post by HARD ROCK UNIVERSE on Nov 19, 2006 23:22:02 GMT -5
Jim McCarty
One of the finest and most underrated guitarists in the history of rock, Jim McCarty has had a long distinguished career. Ever since first starting out as a member of Mitch Ryder & The Detroit Wheels back in 1966, this Motor City based player has caused quite a stir with his exemplary axe work. It's McCarty who can be heard on the rock classics "Devil With A Blue Dress On/Good Golly Miss Molly" and "Jenny Take A Ride" which jump-started him and the band to national prominence. From there going to The Buddy Miles Express, with whom he recorded three albums, 'Expressway To Your Skull,' 'Electric Church,' and 'Them Changes' before being asked to join hard rockin' boogie-meisters Cactus, alongside vocalist Rusty Day and ex Vanilla Fudge rhythm section bassist Tim Bogert and drummer Carmine Appice in 1970. It was also during his time with Buddy Miles that McCarty met Jimi Hendrix, subsequently participating in many jams with the guitarist, some of which were released on the posthumous 'Nine To The Universe' album. With Cactus he recorded three albums-'Cactus,' ''One Way...Or Another,' and 'Restrictions' which cemented his reputation as one of heavy rock's finest before leaving in '72. He remained relatively low key for several years before coming back with the hard rockin' Detroit band The Rockets, recording 5 albums, touring non stop, and receiving a substantial amount of FM airplay with their cover of Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac's "Oh Well". After the demise of that band McCarty went back to playing around the Detroit area, first joining The Detroit Blues Band, with whom he spent 8 years, recording 4 albums, later forming Mystery Train, with whom he still performs and records with with today.
McCarty has been an influence on many hard rock and metal guitarists throughout the years, including Eddie Van Halen, who appropriated several licks from this guitar master. From "Parchman Farm" came the inspiration musically for "Hot For Teacher" and the intro chord progression in "Eruption" can be directly traced to "Let Me Swim" from Cactus's self titled debut. Current Deep Purple guitarist Steve Morse is an admitted fan, and Ted Nugent has called him the best guitarist he ever saw. No small praise indeed from some of rock's finest axemen! Amazingly, after almost 30 years after leaving the world of hard rock behind, this Motor City legend is back with Cactus, who have recently released one of the finest comeback albums in recent history with 'Cactus V', a recording which picks up almost where the band left off over three decades prior. An album chock full of the boogie rock that first brought them to fame back in the early 70's, when they regularly played the largest rock festivals of the day, appearing in front of millions of people, gaining the respect of concert goers and musicians alike in the process. Recently I had the wonderful opportunity to catch up with McCarty at his home in suburban Sterling Heights, Michigan, where we discussed the past, present and future of one of hard rock's most underrated players ever.
A special thanks to Jim for doing this interview for Rock N Roll Universe!
Interview and text by Nightwatcher for Rock N Roll Universe
October 3, 2006
Rock N Roll Universe : What's it like for you being back in Cactus? It's been over 35 years since you were last in the band?
Jim McCarty : I did an interview with Guitar Player Magazine last week, and the guy asked me kind of the same thing, "What prompted you to get back together after all this time, and how does it feel?" I said, "Well, that's not exactly how it worked. This CD has been about 5 years in the making." The guy who plays harp on 5 of the tracks, Randy Pratt, is basically the man who's responsible for there being a CD. Randy's an extremely wealthy individual, and he lives in Long Island, He's a huge Cactus fan, as well as a bass player and harp player. He has been for a long time. Whenever Carmine and Tim were coming to New York with The Fudge, he would give me a call and say "Carmine and Tim are going to be here next month, I'll fly you in, why don't you come on in?" He's got a studio downstairs in his mansion. He said, "Just see what happens if you guys get back together after all this time". I'd tell him, "Randy look, I appreciate the offer, but I don't do that kind of Sh*t anymore. I've got my blues band here, Mystery Train, and I haven't played that kind of music in a long, long time. I don't really see it gelling or working." This went on for 1 or 2 years, and he'd call and say that Tim and Carmine were going to be in town. Finally he made me an offer I couldn't refuse. (Laughs) Also, he'd kind of gotten my curiousity up. About what would it be like if the 3 of us got back together? Obviously Rusty wouldn't be there, but would we just look at each other? I was kind of curious myself at this point. We went in, were downstairs in the studio, setting everything up, the mics and everything. We looked at each other and I just started the riff to "Muscle And Soul," which is the second song on the new CD. I just started playing that lick, Carmine and Tim fell in, and 30, 40 minutes later we had the track all fleshed out. All the tracks on the album were initially done without any lead vocals.
RNRU : You didn't have Jimmy Kunes with you at that point...
JM : Jimmy came in further down the road. A year or two later we brought him in to do scratch vocals while we were laying down the tracks. We felt that it would help if we had some sort of vocals going on while we were playing. It's a little difficult when you're playing with no vocals laying down a bed track. Jimmy was on like 3 or 4 of the initial bed tracks, and I really liked his voice. Carmine had this plan where he wanted all name singers, Paul Rodgers, David Lee Roth, for instance. He wanted a different singer for every track. I wasn't keen on that, but Carmine was kind of the Executive Producer, so we really didn't discuss it that much because we were still working on getting tracks together. We'd get together a couple times a year, for the next 3 or 4 years. Finally we had the 14 tracks all done and it sat on the shelf for over a year with no vocals. Like I said, Carmine felt that the more name vocalists we had, the more attention it would bring to the project. I was saying, "Well, that's a nice idea, but if it's going to sit there for 2 or 3 years while we're trying to get a budget together for all these name singers, why don't we just get a guy who's got a good, strong voice who can write some solid lyrics?" This album should've been out when Rhino released those box sets last year. Carmine finally came to his senses...I guess he's got some sort of solo project with Escapi, and he was talking to them about that, and they said, "Too bad you don't have any Cactus stuff." Carmine said, "Well, as a matter of fact..." They heard the track, then they gave us the budget to finish the album. We brought Jimmy in because he seemed to be the logical choice. I'd been telling Carmine that Jimmy's a terrific singer. We'd be working a groove out and he'd be sitting on a chair with a pad and pencil, just flying with lyrics. Carmine finally agreed, and I can't praise enough the job Jimmy did in taking those grooves and turning them into songs. He did a hell of a job in my opinion. Not only vocally but lyrically. His voice matches our music perfectly. It's just one of those things you don't mess with.
You want to talk about obstacles? We had 3 hard drive failures during the course of the recording. I lost solos that I had done a couple of years earlier in L.A. that I was extremely happy with. I had to re do them on the fly. I was in New York, about 5 months ago, and I was there to do touch up work. I had no intention of doing solos. Just little fills, or what might be needed to fatten something up. Then we found out we lost the guitar solos on about 4 or 5 tracks. After I came to, I realized I've got to do this Sh*t again, and I didn't have the '59 Sunburst that I had in L.A. . Brian, a friend of mine, God bless him, gave me his '59 Sunburst and '59 Goldtop, and that's what I used on all the solos. I had to re do those solos again, then the day before Jimmy was coming in to do his vocals his mother died. It's a miracle this God damn thing came out sounding as consistent as it does.
RNRU : It's a very solid album from start to finish ...
JM : I think so myself. To me, the strongest thing about it, even more than the playing, and the playing is very solid, especially for guys our age, is the program itslf. It's not like there's 3, 4 or 5 really good tunes, then throwaway material. From start to finish, pretty much every song's got something to say
RNRU : One thing that impressed me Jim, and I talked about this with Carmine as well, is the fact that you didn't just re do the old songs, it's all original material...
JM : We did re do "Evil". I liked the version we did. Carmine felt that maybe later on down the road we could release it. I think he was smart in that regard. He wanted to do all brand new stuff, so that's what we did.
RNRU : How has the response to the album been so far? Have you been able to get any feedback from fans or critics on how the album is being received?
JM : One of the reviews that I got, the guy mentioned that most of these reunion bands from 30 years ago get together and just live off of their past. He said these guys sound like they picked up right where they left off 35 years ago.
RNRU : That would be my review Jim, the one that's featured on Rock N Roll Universe by the way... (Laughs)
JM : Is it really? That was you? Thank you very much. You hit the nail on the head. That's kind of how we looked at it. Thank you. Out of all the reviews that I've been sent there was only one guy who seemed to have a burr up his ass. His review basically was "Great musicians, mediocre material." He seemed to have a burr up his ass. I guess he was a huge Tim Bogert fan, and he felt the bass was under mixed. Or maybe he didn't dig Jimmy. That's a crock of Sh*t really, because he claimed to be a fan of the original Cactus band, and if you were a fan of the original band, this material is as solid as anything the original band did. If you weren't a fan of the band, then that could be a legitimate statement, to say that the material's inferior. Because Cactus were never The Beatles when it came to songwriting. But this guy claimed to be a fan of the original band, so I don't see how he could say this material is inferior to the stuff we did 35 years ago. Because it's not. I actually like it better than a good portion of the old stuff because it's more controlled. The old band, which is why I left initially, had a tendency to go over the top. This material is much more controlled. It's also apparent by listening to the CD that we're having fun. That was the big thing. When we first got together for the first session, there was a big question mark. I initially went in, not so much to play, but that Randy made me an offer I couldn't refuse. But when we got done with that initial session, everybody'd had a good time. We were like, "Let's do this again!" You can hear that in the grooves of the new album, that these guys are having fun. That's a very important thing.
RNRU : How do you feel that your performance is on the album? Are you pleased with the results?
JM : I'm very pleased. You can always hear stuff..me and Carmine were out in L.A. mixing it with Pat Regan, I was listening to it, and the first 2 or 3 tracks the damn drums were too friggin' loud. I don't know how that happened, because it certainly didn't sound that way out there in L.A. That kind of stuff is going to happen sometimes. You can always hear stuff that, "Sh*t, if only, if only". (Laughs) But, I'm very pleased with how it turned out. To me, it's some of the best stuff that I've ever put on record playing wise. It's refreshing change of pace from what I do with Mystery Train. That's more of a blues based thing. When we do rock & roll, it's more of a Rolling Stones type vibe.
RNRU : Speaking of that, I've heard some of the stuff that you do with Mystery Train and although it's rocking blues, it isn't heavy in the sense that Cactus is...
JM : No, it's a whole different thing than Cactus. Cactus is a hard rock band. As I said, it's a nice change of pace. I generally use the Fender stuff with Mystery Train, instead of plugging into the Marshall and cranking it up, which is a lot of fun. Except I've blown out my hearing. (Laughs)
One of the finest and most underrated guitarists in the history of rock, Jim McCarty has had a long distinguished career. Ever since first starting out as a member of Mitch Ryder & The Detroit Wheels back in 1966, this Motor City based player has caused quite a stir with his exemplary axe work. It's McCarty who can be heard on the rock classics "Devil With A Blue Dress On/Good Golly Miss Molly" and "Jenny Take A Ride" which jump-started him and the band to national prominence. From there going to The Buddy Miles Express, with whom he recorded three albums, 'Expressway To Your Skull,' 'Electric Church,' and 'Them Changes' before being asked to join hard rockin' boogie-meisters Cactus, alongside vocalist Rusty Day and ex Vanilla Fudge rhythm section bassist Tim Bogert and drummer Carmine Appice in 1970. It was also during his time with Buddy Miles that McCarty met Jimi Hendrix, subsequently participating in many jams with the guitarist, some of which were released on the posthumous 'Nine To The Universe' album. With Cactus he recorded three albums-'Cactus,' ''One Way...Or Another,' and 'Restrictions' which cemented his reputation as one of heavy rock's finest before leaving in '72. He remained relatively low key for several years before coming back with the hard rockin' Detroit band The Rockets, recording 5 albums, touring non stop, and receiving a substantial amount of FM airplay with their cover of Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac's "Oh Well". After the demise of that band McCarty went back to playing around the Detroit area, first joining The Detroit Blues Band, with whom he spent 8 years, recording 4 albums, later forming Mystery Train, with whom he still performs and records with with today.
McCarty has been an influence on many hard rock and metal guitarists throughout the years, including Eddie Van Halen, who appropriated several licks from this guitar master. From "Parchman Farm" came the inspiration musically for "Hot For Teacher" and the intro chord progression in "Eruption" can be directly traced to "Let Me Swim" from Cactus's self titled debut. Current Deep Purple guitarist Steve Morse is an admitted fan, and Ted Nugent has called him the best guitarist he ever saw. No small praise indeed from some of rock's finest axemen! Amazingly, after almost 30 years after leaving the world of hard rock behind, this Motor City legend is back with Cactus, who have recently released one of the finest comeback albums in recent history with 'Cactus V', a recording which picks up almost where the band left off over three decades prior. An album chock full of the boogie rock that first brought them to fame back in the early 70's, when they regularly played the largest rock festivals of the day, appearing in front of millions of people, gaining the respect of concert goers and musicians alike in the process. Recently I had the wonderful opportunity to catch up with McCarty at his home in suburban Sterling Heights, Michigan, where we discussed the past, present and future of one of hard rock's most underrated players ever.
A special thanks to Jim for doing this interview for Rock N Roll Universe!
Interview and text by Nightwatcher for Rock N Roll Universe
October 3, 2006
Rock N Roll Universe : What's it like for you being back in Cactus? It's been over 35 years since you were last in the band?
Jim McCarty : I did an interview with Guitar Player Magazine last week, and the guy asked me kind of the same thing, "What prompted you to get back together after all this time, and how does it feel?" I said, "Well, that's not exactly how it worked. This CD has been about 5 years in the making." The guy who plays harp on 5 of the tracks, Randy Pratt, is basically the man who's responsible for there being a CD. Randy's an extremely wealthy individual, and he lives in Long Island, He's a huge Cactus fan, as well as a bass player and harp player. He has been for a long time. Whenever Carmine and Tim were coming to New York with The Fudge, he would give me a call and say "Carmine and Tim are going to be here next month, I'll fly you in, why don't you come on in?" He's got a studio downstairs in his mansion. He said, "Just see what happens if you guys get back together after all this time". I'd tell him, "Randy look, I appreciate the offer, but I don't do that kind of Sh*t anymore. I've got my blues band here, Mystery Train, and I haven't played that kind of music in a long, long time. I don't really see it gelling or working." This went on for 1 or 2 years, and he'd call and say that Tim and Carmine were going to be in town. Finally he made me an offer I couldn't refuse. (Laughs) Also, he'd kind of gotten my curiousity up. About what would it be like if the 3 of us got back together? Obviously Rusty wouldn't be there, but would we just look at each other? I was kind of curious myself at this point. We went in, were downstairs in the studio, setting everything up, the mics and everything. We looked at each other and I just started the riff to "Muscle And Soul," which is the second song on the new CD. I just started playing that lick, Carmine and Tim fell in, and 30, 40 minutes later we had the track all fleshed out. All the tracks on the album were initially done without any lead vocals.
RNRU : You didn't have Jimmy Kunes with you at that point...
JM : Jimmy came in further down the road. A year or two later we brought him in to do scratch vocals while we were laying down the tracks. We felt that it would help if we had some sort of vocals going on while we were playing. It's a little difficult when you're playing with no vocals laying down a bed track. Jimmy was on like 3 or 4 of the initial bed tracks, and I really liked his voice. Carmine had this plan where he wanted all name singers, Paul Rodgers, David Lee Roth, for instance. He wanted a different singer for every track. I wasn't keen on that, but Carmine was kind of the Executive Producer, so we really didn't discuss it that much because we were still working on getting tracks together. We'd get together a couple times a year, for the next 3 or 4 years. Finally we had the 14 tracks all done and it sat on the shelf for over a year with no vocals. Like I said, Carmine felt that the more name vocalists we had, the more attention it would bring to the project. I was saying, "Well, that's a nice idea, but if it's going to sit there for 2 or 3 years while we're trying to get a budget together for all these name singers, why don't we just get a guy who's got a good, strong voice who can write some solid lyrics?" This album should've been out when Rhino released those box sets last year. Carmine finally came to his senses...I guess he's got some sort of solo project with Escapi, and he was talking to them about that, and they said, "Too bad you don't have any Cactus stuff." Carmine said, "Well, as a matter of fact..." They heard the track, then they gave us the budget to finish the album. We brought Jimmy in because he seemed to be the logical choice. I'd been telling Carmine that Jimmy's a terrific singer. We'd be working a groove out and he'd be sitting on a chair with a pad and pencil, just flying with lyrics. Carmine finally agreed, and I can't praise enough the job Jimmy did in taking those grooves and turning them into songs. He did a hell of a job in my opinion. Not only vocally but lyrically. His voice matches our music perfectly. It's just one of those things you don't mess with.
You want to talk about obstacles? We had 3 hard drive failures during the course of the recording. I lost solos that I had done a couple of years earlier in L.A. that I was extremely happy with. I had to re do them on the fly. I was in New York, about 5 months ago, and I was there to do touch up work. I had no intention of doing solos. Just little fills, or what might be needed to fatten something up. Then we found out we lost the guitar solos on about 4 or 5 tracks. After I came to, I realized I've got to do this Sh*t again, and I didn't have the '59 Sunburst that I had in L.A. . Brian, a friend of mine, God bless him, gave me his '59 Sunburst and '59 Goldtop, and that's what I used on all the solos. I had to re do those solos again, then the day before Jimmy was coming in to do his vocals his mother died. It's a miracle this God damn thing came out sounding as consistent as it does.
RNRU : It's a very solid album from start to finish ...
JM : I think so myself. To me, the strongest thing about it, even more than the playing, and the playing is very solid, especially for guys our age, is the program itslf. It's not like there's 3, 4 or 5 really good tunes, then throwaway material. From start to finish, pretty much every song's got something to say
RNRU : One thing that impressed me Jim, and I talked about this with Carmine as well, is the fact that you didn't just re do the old songs, it's all original material...
JM : We did re do "Evil". I liked the version we did. Carmine felt that maybe later on down the road we could release it. I think he was smart in that regard. He wanted to do all brand new stuff, so that's what we did.
RNRU : How has the response to the album been so far? Have you been able to get any feedback from fans or critics on how the album is being received?
JM : One of the reviews that I got, the guy mentioned that most of these reunion bands from 30 years ago get together and just live off of their past. He said these guys sound like they picked up right where they left off 35 years ago.
RNRU : That would be my review Jim, the one that's featured on Rock N Roll Universe by the way... (Laughs)
JM : Is it really? That was you? Thank you very much. You hit the nail on the head. That's kind of how we looked at it. Thank you. Out of all the reviews that I've been sent there was only one guy who seemed to have a burr up his ass. His review basically was "Great musicians, mediocre material." He seemed to have a burr up his ass. I guess he was a huge Tim Bogert fan, and he felt the bass was under mixed. Or maybe he didn't dig Jimmy. That's a crock of Sh*t really, because he claimed to be a fan of the original Cactus band, and if you were a fan of the original band, this material is as solid as anything the original band did. If you weren't a fan of the band, then that could be a legitimate statement, to say that the material's inferior. Because Cactus were never The Beatles when it came to songwriting. But this guy claimed to be a fan of the original band, so I don't see how he could say this material is inferior to the stuff we did 35 years ago. Because it's not. I actually like it better than a good portion of the old stuff because it's more controlled. The old band, which is why I left initially, had a tendency to go over the top. This material is much more controlled. It's also apparent by listening to the CD that we're having fun. That was the big thing. When we first got together for the first session, there was a big question mark. I initially went in, not so much to play, but that Randy made me an offer I couldn't refuse. But when we got done with that initial session, everybody'd had a good time. We were like, "Let's do this again!" You can hear that in the grooves of the new album, that these guys are having fun. That's a very important thing.
RNRU : How do you feel that your performance is on the album? Are you pleased with the results?
JM : I'm very pleased. You can always hear stuff..me and Carmine were out in L.A. mixing it with Pat Regan, I was listening to it, and the first 2 or 3 tracks the damn drums were too friggin' loud. I don't know how that happened, because it certainly didn't sound that way out there in L.A. That kind of stuff is going to happen sometimes. You can always hear stuff that, "Sh*t, if only, if only". (Laughs) But, I'm very pleased with how it turned out. To me, it's some of the best stuff that I've ever put on record playing wise. It's refreshing change of pace from what I do with Mystery Train. That's more of a blues based thing. When we do rock & roll, it's more of a Rolling Stones type vibe.
RNRU : Speaking of that, I've heard some of the stuff that you do with Mystery Train and although it's rocking blues, it isn't heavy in the sense that Cactus is...
JM : No, it's a whole different thing than Cactus. Cactus is a hard rock band. As I said, it's a nice change of pace. I generally use the Fender stuff with Mystery Train, instead of plugging into the Marshall and cranking it up, which is a lot of fun. Except I've blown out my hearing. (Laughs)