Three days after Tina Turner died I wrote her story in verse and set it to music. On a whim I sent "How It Was" to Bill Flanagan who strongly encouraged me to get it to a woman singer. I dreamt of sending it to Bonnie Raitt, but she had just won Song of The Year. So how would an unknown get a song anywhere near her? Undeterred, I recorded my guitar and vocal with drummer, Eric Parker, who knows my quirks inside out. Ever the gentleman, Tony Levin sent in his killer bass. Maybe I'd put it out--just the three of us-- and find the right woman singer down the line? No, it needed a funky gospel B-3 organ, and I knew just the guy: Daniel A Weiss. And then it came to me."Hey Dan," I wondered over the phone, "What are the chances of Alexis Suter singing this?"
"She'd kill it."
"I know she'd kill it and you're her keyboard player. So why don't you add exactly the keys she loves from you, talk it up, and send it over?"
"I'll add the organ tonight," he agreed, "the rest is up to you."
So the next night I call Alexis P. Suter and we get along like bees in the hive. Yes and I send her Dan's superb additions to "How It Was" and sure enough she flips for it. But there are details to work out and schedules to line up and a Climate-Change-induced-flooding-hurricane causing entire rail systems to wash out. Nevertheless we finally get a blue sky and rendezvous at Dan's place in Peekskill, NY. And that's when I become a songwriter. Not that I don't have a healthy regard for my own songs but nobody has ever knocked one clear into the stratosphere. Until, that is, Alexis took a few astounding warm up passes with my vocal in her headphones and then? Well, Dan suggested Alexis "jump the octave," which sounded like pure fantasy to me. Until--I about fell out of my chair--as her growling, gravel-bed of a voice suddenly vaulted skyward like...well, like a Simone Biles' double double dismount. And Alexis landed it--perfectly! So by this point-- if I could drink safely, people?--the Piper-Heidsieck corks woulda' been careening off the walls. Yes but that's a no. Besides which, after Dan put a most happy Alexis on her train home he recorded my blues harp's attempt to dance between her volcanic vocals. And the harp didn't sound half bad so we kept it. The result being: I'm now ready to send this song to Bonnie Raitt or any other singer alive. So hey...Alligator Records! "Are you listening?!"