The Guitar That Played “Domino”

March 16, 2004
KCUV Studios
Denver CO

I was filling in at the mike for Benji on KCUV’s nine-noon shift. Chip Taylor and Carrie Rodriguez were scheduled to arrive around 10. The duo taped an E-Town show last night up in Boulder and are stopping by the station on their way to the airport to catch a plane to Austin, Texas, where SXSW, the music biz convention that’s now known as “spring break for what’s left of the music industry,” is gearing up this week.

That’s cool. I don’t know anything about Rodriguez or the two recordings they have recently done together beyond the couple of songs we have on the playlist. But I have been a fan of Chip ever since “Wild Thing,” the quintessential garage-band song, became a hit for the Troggs in 1966.

I heard it that summer on radio station CKLW, the powerhouse AM station in Windsor, Canada. A CKLW DJ, after playing it, called it the worst record he had ever heard and broke it in half on the air!

It was my kind of song.

Chip, who was born Wes Voight and whose brother is Jon the actor, also wrote “Angel of the Morning,” a 1968 hit for Merrilee Rush, before disappearing into a gambling haze that he says lasted 15 years. Taylor appeared at the Fox Theatre a dozen years ago as part of a Songwriter’s Showcase, and he’s been pretty active the last few years.

Most recently, I got hooked on “Song for Phil Sinclair,” an ode to a fan that included Lucinda Williams and Chip singing a great chorus and making reference to “Wild Thing.” It’s from Bootleg, an album on his own Trainwreck Records.

About 9:30 I get a call. It’s Chip. He wants to make sure there is a cab waiting at the end of the interview to take them to airport now that he has found out that Denver International Airport is farther away from downtown that he thought. He says they’ll be at the station in about forty-five minutes.

Five minutes later, another call. Chip reminding me that he wants a minivan-sized cab because they have a lot of equipment and luggage. OK.

About ten fifteen, I look up and there they are at the studio door, taking their instruments out of their cases and positioning themselves at the other side of the board facing me. Chip introduces Carrie, who’s a knockout, like a sultry, Spanish Natalie Wood at the time of West Side Story with a fiddle.

And then Chip says, “I’d like you to meet our guitar player,” and I look over at this lanky, fifty-ish guy with an old beat-to-shit, greenish brown Telecaster around his neck.

“John Platania,” says Chip.

Huh? It’s been awhile, but the name rings a bell. What? Little-used synapses attempt to make long-ago-severed connections. John Platania? The guy who played all that tasty guitar on Van Morrison’s Moondance and His Band and Street Choir etc?

Who else could it be? I think to myself, “gee, nice to see Chip and Carrie, but John Platania? Wow.”

When I began seeing Platania’s name on records, I took notice. I was always willing to listen to an album to which Platania contributes. I mean, this is the guy who played on “Caravan” and “Domino,” two of my favorite all-time songs. Gil has said more than once he channels Platania while playing lead guitar for the Soldiers of Love.

Doing interviews on the air is much different from doing them for print. There’s no pressure. I don’t have to take careful notes or make sure I’m getting the quotes just right, or which one I’ll be using as a lede for the story I write. Doing them this way is actually fun. It’s also as close to a private concert as most of us will ever get.

Chip is a pro, calls me by name and feeds off the vaguest suggestions: “So you’re going to SXSW?” gets a couple of minutes, and he takes a couple more to tell us how he came to write “Wild Thing.”

Fine with me. We do a couple of questions around Carrie, who is blossoming as a songwriter and singer, which leads to a performance of one of Carrie’s songs from their latest album. Another couple of questions and they do a Chip song.

But I don’t remember either because by now I’ve got my eye on the old guitar watching Platania’s cool background figures. He’s got his Tele plugged in so it doesn’t sound loud, and he’s putting out some mighty tasty licks in and around Chip and Carrie.

I toss them the idea of “Angel of the Morning,” another old Taylor song, and he says they have just recorded a new version of the song as a duet and go into an achingly lovely translation, with perfect harmonies and a soaring Rodriguez fiddle lead on the middle eight. Their voices are incredible, and Platania’s background licks take it to another level.

They finish up with “Wild Thing,” a folking rock version punctuated by more Platania magic and a scorching fiddle solo from Carrie.

As soon as the interview is over, I’m trying to talk to Platania.

I thought I was over this kind of thing, but I guess not. The last time I can remember being this excited about meeting someone was that night in Austin a decade ago this week that I talked my way backstage to thank Arthur Alexander personally after his set at the Broken Spoke during SXSW. Been doing this for thirty years, and I’m burbling on like a 13-year-old.

And the old beat-to-shit, greenish brown Telecaster he’s packing into its tattered case?

“Oh yeah,” he says. “It’s a 1964 model, the one I used on ‘Moondance’ and ‘Street Choir.’ ”