By Shawn Perry
The coronavirus pandemic devouring the world as we know it in 2020 will likely be remembered for what it has changed — especially the things that human beings have come to live and rely upon. One of those is concerts. For the fans, the chance of seeing their favorite artists on stage any time soon has been put on hold. For those who make a living in the live music business, the cut goes a lot deeper — financially, personally and spiritually. The overall sentiment is that shows, big and small, may never be the same again.
One group of musicians feeling the pain is The Immediate Family. A “newer” band with seasoned players, they’ve been sustaining their following with Facebook quarantine videos and podcasts. Before the pandemic took hold, they were playing out, recording their debut album for Quarto Valley Records, and sharpening their focus as a band.
For over five decades, the members of The Immediate Family — Danny Kortchmar (guitar and vocals), Waddy Wachtel (guitar and vocals), Leland Sklar (bass), Russ Kunkel (drums) and Steve Postell (guitar and vocals) — have collectively logged more studio and stage time than your average mortal musician. We’re talking songwriting, recording sessions, and touring with the likes of James Taylor, Carole King, Jackson Browne, Linda Ronstadt, Warren Zevon, Don Henley, Keith Richards, Stevie Nicks, Bob Dylan, David Crosby, and many, many more.
They’ve worked in various configurations together, even earning a nickname — the Section — in the 70s by James Taylor. Now, with everything on hold, the pull of the road, where these guys thrive, grows more intense with each passing day.
“It’s just a drag, you know?” Waddy Wachtel tells me during a conference call with him and Danny “Kootch” Kortchmar. “It puts a big hole in the music business. And then the idea of getting together — it’s difficult.”
“Not to mention all the deaths,” Kortchmar adds somewhat sardonically.
Still, with so much in place, The Immediate Family are moving forward with some of their plans for the year. “Cruel Twist,” the first single from their forthcoming debut LP, is on deck for a June 12 release. If everything goes as planned, the completed album, with the tentative title Can’t Stop Progress, follows, first in Japan this summer, then in the States in the fall. “It’s all original material, all written by us,” Kortchmar exclaims. “We’re very proud of the way it came out. I think it’s absolutely terrific and I’m thrilled with it.”
It’s only been a couple of years since the idea of putting The Immediate Family together came up. Kortchmar got a solo deal with a label in Japan, and he called his “brothers” Watchtel, Sklar, and Kunkel to come help out. “Amazingly, everyone was around,” he recalls. “Once we got into it, I was hoping we could make it into a band. We called it Immediate Family and we went to Japan and we started playing gigs as a band and it was a great thrill for all of us.”
Watchtel concurs: “Danny was right. We are joined at the hip. We’ve been joined at the hip for almost 50 years. After doing that record, that solidified all of that, we were completely locked into each other’s fucking lives.”
Of course, there’s so much more to the story. Watchel says filmmaker Denny Tedesco, who made the 2008 documentary about The Wrecking Crew, is on board to make a film about The Immediate Family. “We were hoping that the documentary and the record timing-wise would all come out at the same time, towards the end of this year. Now because nobody can get together and work, everything is kind of on a backburner, but we’re still hoping for the release of our record this year.”
We stopped speculating about the future, and took a step back to when things were a little less toxic — when the music flowed like wine and the road was destined to go on forever. I ask Kortchmar about a musical highlight with James Taylor.
“The first thing that comes to my mind is the last tour that we all did. It was after he made his album called Flag and we had a fantastic time. It was actually me, Wad, Lee and Russ — we had the best time. It was an incredible band and we really looked forward to every gig because it just sounded so great. Everyone was just so plugged in and we’re playing these great songs and James was demonstrating a lot of energy. It was phenomenal. That would certainly be a highlight, maybe THE highlight, in fact.”
Speaking of James Taylor, one bit of Danny Kortchmar trivia is that he introduced the “Fire & Rain” singer to Carole King, which led to the two performing and collaborating on projects. The guitarist’s place in both Taylor and King’s lives is significant. He has known and played music with Taylor since they were teenagers; and he had a major role in helping to shape and record the songs that appear on King’s multi-Grammy-winning album Tapestry. It could even be argued his guitar break on “It’s Too Late” is ingrained into the song’s musicality. Kortchmar, in a rather self-deprecating manner, plays it down when I ask him about it. “Yeah, I guess I introduced them.”
When it comes to songwriting, Kortchmar says King is a true inspiration. “She’s one of the greatest ever. I was in awe of her way before working with her. I knew about Goffin and King years before I’d met her. I was enthralled with how brilliant their songs were. So when I met her and started working with her, my first real experiences in the studio were playing on their demos. She would just say a few words to me, and point me in the right direction. I learned so much from it. It was like going to Harvard, in terms of how you play songs and write songs. The way she’d put them together — I think I learned pretty much everything about songwriting from her.”
Apparently, King’s influence made an impact because Kortchmar would go on to write some of rock’s most iconic tunes, notably Jackson Browne’s “Somebody’s Baby” and Don Henley’s “Dirty Laundry.” He has fond memories of working with the Eagles singer and drummer on that one.
“Don had this idea of ‘dirty laundry’ and he really wanted to write something about the media, especially the local media who been talking with him, taking him to task. I went home and started banging on my Farfisa organ and came up with the riff that you hear that goes all the way through the song. I also came up with the first verse. I wasn’t sure how he’s going to get into it. So it occurred to me the best way to get into it was to have the singer, Henley, be the guy. “I make my living on the evening news.” In other words, have him be the guy rather than pointing fingers and saying, “You suck, you suck.” It was to have him be the guy, the narrator, the newsman. So that was our way in. And of course, Don wrote the rest of the song, which is brilliant, and we went from there.”
When it comes to songwriting in The Immediate Family, Danny Korchmar isn’t the only one with the hits. Wachtel had a big hand in writing “Werewolves In London” with Warren Zevon. “I remember just about every moment of putting that song together,” he tells me with a chuckle. “There’s a third writer on the song — LeRoy Marinell. He and Warren are now sharing a cabana up in heaven, but LeRoy had this guitar lick sitting around before he even met Warren. We had tried for about two years to put it in his songs and never succeeded. I stopped by LeRoy’s house on my way into Hollywood one day to set up, probably to go work with Danny and Russell and Lee. Warren was at LeRoy’s house and said to me, ‘Hey man, it’s perfect you’re here. Phil Everly called me last night and and threw a title out. He said we should write a song called Werewolves of London.’
“I literally had just gotten back from being in London. So I had these images fresh in my mind and right at that second, I looked at LeRoy and said, ‘LeRoy, play that fucking lick.’ And he played the famous lick the whole song is based on. I just looked at LeRoy right in the eye and I recited the whole first verse: ‘I saw a werewolf with a Chinese menu in his hand.’ I had all these images in my mind. Then I said, ‘Well, it’s about a wolf, so we should go Aaoooooo over the chorus.’ And Warren’s going, ‘That’s great. More and more.’ I said, ‘No, I gotta go, you finish it.’ So we finished it together in the studio of course.”
One song Waddy Wachtel gets credit for is one he didn’t actually write — Stevie Nicks’ “The Edge of Seventeen.” The guitarist’s role in the Top 20 hit certainly cannot be underestimated — just think of the ascending riff that drives the song. That’s all Waddy Wachtel. He says it was borrowed from the Police, but he wanted to eliminate the effects and embellishments of Andy Summers, and just “play it.” He reminds me that the riff is a repetitive element of the song, and it sometimes goes on for awhile during live performances. So whenever he goes on tour with Stevie Nicks, he has to get his arm into shape. “At one point, that song was like 17 minutes long on stage because we had this long, elaborate intro,” he laughs, “so I boxed myself into a corner.”
Certainly, the guitar work of Danny Korchmar, Waddy Wachtel, and Steve Postell is a big part of The Immediate Family. “Danny and I grab guitars from the opposite place of where the other guy is,” Wachtel explains. “We both have been doing studio work for so long, apart and together. And when we came together, we realized that instantly we would go for a different spot on the neck. With Danny and I and Steve, we don’t want to hear what the other guy is doing because otherwise you wind up listening and forgetting what you’re supposed to be generating. So you just do what you do.”
Kortchmar agrees, adding: “It’s funny, we don’t work a lot of stuff out. We just hit it, you know. He (Waddy) and I have real different approaches and they work together brilliantly. It’s just like what Wad said, you kind of play with the other guy and go where he isn’t and that’s what makes a big sound. Frankly, we started playing well together the first time we played together. So, it’s just like falling off a log.”
With Southern California on lock-down through the summer, and the future of live entertainment hanging in the wind, the real question is when will The Immediate Family be able to get together again and start falling off logs. Like everyone else, both musicians are taking it day by day.
Wachtel doesn’t see the concert business getting back to normal anytime soon. “We’re all just guessing. Everyone’s talking about there’ll be one seat, then four seats empty, then another seat. It just seems ludicrous and absurd at this point to even speculate. I don’t understand how it’s going to come back.”
Kortchmar believes nothing will change until a vaccine comes along. “And that’s not going to happen anytime soon. When there is one, people will start coming back. But even then, it’s going to be slow. People will be very cautious about packing a stadium or packing a club.”
Wachtel jumps back in. “The clubs? I can’t see how clubs are going to survive at all.”
The last gig The Immediate Family played happened to be on the Rock Legends Cruise at the end of February. Fortunately, as far as what Kortchmar and Wachtel know, no one on the ship was affected by the coronavirus outbreak.
“Amazingly, we just dodged that bullet,” Kortchmar says. “None of us got sick and then it became really troublesome right after we got back. Another week, another 10 days, and we’d all be sick. There was like 3,000 people jammed together on this thing. Three weeks later, it would have been a floating graveyard.”
“We got lucky,” Wachtel adds.
So what does a band that can’t play live do? According to Kortchmar, The Immediate Family will keep working. “We have this album coming out. We’re going to keep creating music and we’re gonna keep making videos — everything we can do since we can’t do gigs to keep the ball rolling. We’re always writing, we’re always exchanging ideas. It’s still a functioning entity for sure.”
After so many years, grinding it out and standing to the side and waiting their turn, you have to appreciate both of these veteran players in their determination to move forward and get back to business. If anyone’s going to come out on top after this whole pandemic blows over, it’s going to be The Immediate Family.
