Just You and Me

And the time caught a whiff of Elizabeth Taylor's Perfume

Nobody’s heard this story until now. So lean in.

It begins with a phone call from Leon Pendarvis—Penn, to the inner circle. A man so essential to modern music that if you’ve ever seen the opening credits of Saturday Night Live, you’ve seen him: up front, behind the Hammond B3, waving his hands like he’s conducting a storm. I’ve known him forever. My first real session call was to sub for Steve Gadd (busy guy) with Penn, Will Lee and Hiram Bullock. So, one day Penn calls me up and says, “Can you come to Dallas. Chuck Berry’s turning 70. We’re backing him up.”

Chuck Berry. Seventy years old and still duckwalking through rock history like he owns the place—because he does. This gig? A glamorous gala at the Houston Philharmonic Hall, fundraising for Elizabeth Taylor’s AMFAR AIDS initiative. The event’s called “Rock of Ages,” because of course it is.

First there was that flight down. I was next to David Spinozza, the only session guitarist with a solo record in my desert island Top Ten. He’s the kind of bandmate every tour needs—the jester, the glue, the guy who turns delayed flights into comedy sets. I was in stitches the whole way down.

Rehearsals were a surrealist’s bucket list: Ben E. King doing “Stand By Me”—check. Heart shredding “Barracuda”—check. A song once massacred when I was hired to play in the world’s worst wedding band was now in my hands again, this time with the real deal. That’s progress, right?

Chuck? No rehearsal. Chuck doesn’t rehearse. We all know his tunes. It’s built into the DNA of every musician who ever touched a fretboard.

So, backstage—I’m wandering through the staging area when I pass the makeup tent. And there she is. Elizabeth Taylor. Except… not quite yet. Hair like she’d been electrocuted by Dr. Frankenstein himself. Last night’s makeup doing a walk of shame. And her arms—look, I say this gently—were bearing the honest roadmap of time. Triceps with the tensile strength of pudding. DOH! I was shook.

Jump to we’re halfway thru the show, which is just the setup for Ms. Taylor’s speech and then, the guest of honor.

Lights down. Silence up. Complete darkness. And a voice like God doing trailer narration says: “Ladies and gentlemen… please welcome… Elizabeth Taylor.”

And then she appears. Definitely not the woman from the makeup tent. A goddess. A comet. Draped in diamonds that could pay off several small nations. Regal in the way that word was meant to be used. The crowd doesn’t just clap. They rise. In reverence.

She speaks for fifteen minutes on AIDS and AMFAR and the fragility of life, with Shakespearean elegance, and the force of Obama at the ’04 DNC. I’m on the drum riser behind her, bathed in her backlight, and I swear to you, I’m ready to convert. She finishes. Standing ovation number two.

Then—just as regally (if that’s a word)—she says, “Many people can say they love rock ‘n’ roll. Some can say they danced to it. Some, like these fine musicians behind me, can say they play it. But only one person is rock ‘n’ roll.”

Chuck Berry.

Exit stage left.

Now comes Chuck. Saunters out with that “I invented swagger” looseness. Grins like he’s about to hijack a wedding. He claps his hands and shouts into the mic, “ELIZABETH TAYLOR! COME ON! Give her some love!”

“Come on back out here Liz.”

And I see it. From my perch—again, I’m the only one in the building with this angle—I see her walking off, glowing and slow like the queen. And she does not stop. Does not turn. Does not break stride. But raises one hand, smoothe as smoke in a jazz club and flips Chuck Berry the bird.

Straight-up middle finger.

It said: You don’t introduce me, Chuck. I introduce you… Bye now.

No one else saw it. Only me. A one-man audience for the greatest mic-drop in history.

Addendum.

Ten years to the day after Keith Richards threw that “Hail! Hail!” party for Chuck, we’re at the encore. Chuck’s riding that third encore only legends get. He climbs the steps to my drum riser, looks me dead in the eye, and says, “Johnny B. Goode. Just you and me. Count it off.”

And so I did.

For maybe 90 seconds, I was the only drummer in the world playing “Johnny B. Goode” with its creator. The man for whom The Beatles were a cover band. Twice. The reason guitars cry, wail, and songs smile.

And in that moment, we were alone. Chuck and me. Rock and roll and its echo.

Sublime.