“I’ll see you soon, soon!” He made me promise. I did, gave him a kiss and a hug. “Soon” he said one more time, scolding, but with a smile. Then I watched him walk out the door. The next time I saw him, he was lying in a coffin. That was 14 years ago.
It shattered me, shook me to my very core, to the point that I’ve rarely talked about it. I stopped listening to music, it was simply too painful. There were still albums being released after his death that he had worked on. I remember driving down the road in Nashville months later hearing a song for the first time, halfway through the chorus I told my husband “that’s Jeff”. “It can’t be” he said, “it’s a drum machine.” We went and bought the album and sure enough he had overdubbed the cymbals on that one song. I could tell by the hi-hat it was him.
I’d grown up listening to him play with Toto, Steely Dan, Michael Jackson; practically everyone in 70’s and 80’s. I learned to hear music the way he played it. I remember being in the studio with an “A” list session drummer and getting frustrated because he wasn’t playing the fills right, not the way I heard it, not the way Jeff would play it.
He told everyone his timing sucked. He said he stole every lick he had from someone else. “ I stole that from Purdie, that’s just a Keltner lick.” But he had a groove like nobody else, that groove was all his. It seemed to come from the center of his body and flowed out to his legs, his arms, hands, feet, fingers. I think he even had groove in his little toe.
I spoke to Doug Matthews a few weeks ago; he had been the live drummer for Liaison, a Christian band in the 90’s. He was remembering the first rehearsal for their tour, playing it down for the first time. He told them “The click is floating, man, it feels like the click is floating.” “Drummers are notorious for blaming the click,” he said. Clicks never float, but this one did, because Jeff had played the drums on that album.
Liaison was the definition of corporate rock. This was the second session Jeff had done for us, but this time it wasn’t a full rhythm session, it was just drums. Nine sequenced songs, bass and keys already laid down in perfect time. I had seen Jeff a couple of nights before, “Nine songs in one day?’ he said, he seemed a little worried. I don’t know why but I tried to convince him it wouldn’t be a problem. As I left the tiny club, I turned to say goodbye, “See you Friday,” he said, “Nine songs?”
The first song set the tone for the entire session. He played it, over and over and over again, but never got through the entire song. The producer wouldn’t let him.
It was a classic Christian rock ballad, right down to the key change in the 3rd chorus, and it just laid there, no emotion whatsoever. Jeff refused to play it straight, to play to the click. I don’t think it was that he wouldn’t do it; I think he couldn’t do it. Everything about him would not allow him to play a song emotionless, he had to play it the way he felt it.
Bill, the producer kept stopping him in the middle of every take. “Try this, change that. You’re not playing it right.” I have never heard so many expletives strung together in so many creative ways. Drumsticks were thrown to the ground. Every time Jeff was just getting going, the tape would stop. “Why don’t you try this right there”? I was beginning to get nervous. Jeff was getting stiff, hitting the drums harder and harder. I had a vision of him cramping up and throwing his sticks through the window. I’d heard stories, they’re legendary, of Jeff’s frustration with producers and artists trying to get something out of him he didn’t have, trying to get him to fix a take he knew was right.
Finally he asked for a break and a few minutes later when he came back told Bill to just let him lay one down all the way through. He played it beautifully – but not to the click, then came into the control room to listen through. Bill wasn’t happy, he started making suggestions immediately. Jeff’s response “ Do me a favor man. Mute everything but the drums and listen to it again.”
This ballad, that had laid there like some carcass on the highway, flat and lifeless, now flowed. The emotional story of the entire song was being told with the drums alone. He had played the song, fought the click and sampled time corrected bass, and breathed life into it. Bill never again told him his timing was off, but instead spent the next two weeks getting the sequenced keyboards to “chase” the drums. They didn’t have a special plug-in for Protools, this was 1989 and they were using 24 tracks of analog. It was hard work, but in the end, it was right.
So Doug Matthews had to memorize the timing of the click for those nine songs, which Jeff managed to put down in just over 7 hours. It couldn’t have been too hard for Doug, he’s got a pretty kickin’ groove himself.
Jeff died on Aug. 5th, 1992. He was only 38 years old, I’ll be 38 in two months, it seems such a young age to die. Jeff had three young boys, as do I, the oldest of which shares the name of my oldest son, Miles. Every August I think about how much time has gone by and how life seems to move so fast. I miss him still. I miss watching him play, his entire body pouring out that groove, a rhythmic ballad. I miss the music he will never create.
Now when I tell my friends, “We need to get together soon” it’s not an empty sentiment. Nobody knows how much time God has granted each of us and I never again want to go to a funeral and realize the last thing I said to that person was an empty promise that I would see them soon. I’m about to turn 38 and I hope my life has just begun, but just in case…call me, we can talk, go out to dinner or play poker…I’ll see you soon, right? Soon.
