Russell Buddy Helm

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We are so lucky. Thank you for all these blessings, coming to us right now.

“My Life is a mess” she said with a big shrug as she hit the downbeat.

excerpt; “History of the Groove, drummer’s tale” Russell Buddy Helm ©2013 all rights reserved

1997. She appeared to be a successful, good looking, middle aged career woman like so many others on Montana Avenue in Santa Monica. She spoke to me in the coffee shop one day.

“That drumming thing seems to be going pretty well for you.”

That to me was more than a remark. It was a call for help. I offered to show her but she was reticent. This is indicative of highly functioning people; they don’t want to appear foolish. Eventually she strolled across the alley from Seattle’s Best Coffee and came into the shop. Up to this point I had been doing only relaxing drumming; slowing the tempo to get people to reduce their anxiety levels. This was the alpha A type personality capitol of the world. Most people dared not slow down for fear of losing their place in the cappaccino que of life. When she finally sat down I advised her like everyone else.

“Just hit the downbeat in the middle of the drumhead. Pull the tone up. Come up quick and get a good tone, alternate your hands if you can, relax, don’t speed up….”

She settled in reluctantly but willing and got a good easy beat going. When this happened with people I was noticing they would relax after the first few downbeats, and it would show up with “The Shrug”. That was when they would begin to trust their beat. They take a big breath, let it out releasing a big breath of air along with their shoulders rising and dropping in a releasing shrug. I had been noticing it on a regular basis and it interested me. It was a physical indicator of what they were going through in their minds. Suddenly this woman, dressed in expensive jeans, a white shirt, modest gold jewelry, gave off a deep sigh and shrugged.

That’s when she uttered the fateful words, “My life is a mess.”

“Just keep the beat going.” I advised gently as I massaged the groove to stay just behind the metronome in my head; making the deep toned downbeat just a little bit late.

This was an art form on the ‘chitlin’ circuit down below the Mason Dixon line; if the drummer could keep the groove just laid back enough, the girls would dance. And if the girls danced, the guys bought the beer, and the band got paid….

At this moment a lightbulb went off in the clinical partition of my mind. She did the shrug like so many others. This was a physical reaction to the rhythm. It was predictable. It was teachable. “The Shrug” meant that this could be taught as a protocol. That was a big relief for me. I was hoping that the healing drums was a teachable practice; not something that I was doing because I was a shaman. I did not want to be a shaman. It didn’t feel like a psychologically healthy goal for me after coming out of the music and film business. I wanted to teach it to other drummers. The culture needed this. So the shrug was very exciting to me. It was what I called, a ‘Rhythmic Indicator’. It was the first of many indicators that I became aware of. Our bodies are constantly giving off rhythmic signals.  It is comparable to reflexology, where the clinician requires the patient to extend their arm parallel to the ground while they hold a supplement in their other hand against their chest. The clinician will then gently press down on the extended arm. If the supplement is good for the patient, the arm will stay strong and resist the attempt to push it down. If the supplement is not good for the patient, the arm will exhibit weakness and will be easily pushed down by the clinician. This is a method to listen to what the body needs and wants. If the clinician is skillful with questioning, they can locate illness and diagnose to an incredibly accurate degree. My friend and brilliant clinician in Largo, Florida, Virginia Dassler, literally saved my life on more than one occasion with the muscle resistance method. My body found a way to communicate it’s needs to the healer through simple ‘yes or no’ questions using muscle testing.

So now, I was seeing the body of the drum patients exhibiting similar reactions to rhythm. They were unconsciously giving off indicators of what they were going through. The first indicator, the shrug, was telling me that they were feeling safe. That was an important place to begin the drum healing. After we settled into a laid back groove, and I slowed the beat a little bit more; down to about forty beats a minute, with her downbeat hitting on every other beat, so she was actually hitting at about twenty beats a minute. This was slow enough for her to process subconscious thought and stay out of the way by actively playing. She opened up and began to talk while hitting the drum. She had never hit a drum before, but now, the miracle of the groove was giving her subconscious a voice.

“I have been through four marriages. I can’t hold a job. I was sexually abused as a child; repeatedly abused by my parents, relatives and friends of the family. It affected my body. I have no children….”

“Just keep hitting the drum.” I said as simply as I could. The beat was holding her together, as she passed through her recollections. But now, the beat was giving her some protection. She wasn’t caving in, she kept moving. She pushed on; talking some more, hitting the single note repeatedly. I kept it steady and laid back so as to keep a feeling of safeness. I did not even know her name, but I witnessed the courage of this woman and supported her in this amazing act of self healing. We stayed on the groove, slowing it down until she felt a sense of completion. I didn’t know what to say, so I just let her assimilate whatever she was going through.

The session ended ironically when a psychotherapist friend entered with her nervous energy and broke the trance. This women got up and discreetly left the store. It was a week before I saw her again in the coffee shop talking with a group of people. As I walked out, she called out to me,

“That drumming thing we did was very powerful.” she said, unafraid to speak across the room to me.

I was very glad she had said something. “Good. If there is something I should know about, please come over and tell me. Otherwise, I am just a drum teacher, which is OK, but …..”

She nodded, “I will.” I left and I didn’t hear from her for a while. I was out in front of the store, hanging the beaded curtains as is the usual daily zen meditation. My days were not all rock n roll party any more or film biz hype. I was wondering if happiness was a thing of the past in my life. She came up and spoke to me quietly.

“You look like you need some cheering up.” She said. Who doesn’t…

“I just wanted to explain to you what happened after our drumming session. I went in for my other therapy sessions; ‘sexual addicts anonymous’, ‘survivors of incest’. While I was talking about my past I remembered the beat. That steady beat…it made me feel safe. I could stay with the issue. I got something out of it. Some closure…It worked. Thank you.”

I was very relieved to hear this. “You are going to help a lot of people with that information.” I told her. She slipped off and I did not see her again.

I saw her almost a year later in the park. She stopped a safe distance from me. I asked her how she was doing. She told me that she was doing well. She had a job where she was not having an affair with her boss. She had her own place and was enjoying living quietly and safely. I tried to tell her how much her courage had already helped so many people. But she seemed to just want to put it behind her and move on. I never saw her again. But her legacy pointed me in the right direction. Hundreds of people, both men and women, who have the heroic history of surviving abuse and trauma have her to thank for her singular articulation of what happens with the groove. This healing drum method is a detective story and that was the clue that I needed. There were many more clues to guide me but her courage was one of the first clues to show me what is possible using the groove as a healing tool.

excerpt; “History of the Groove, drummer’s tale” Russell Buddy Helm ©2013 all rights reserved

Watch live video from buddyhelm on www.justin.tv

excerpt: “History of the Groove, Drummer’s story” Russell Buddy Helm ©2013 All rights reserved

1977. “I love your act”, Liberace said. He shook my hand as if he expected me to kiss his ring finger which was adorned with a gold grand piano complete with a diamond candelabra that stood up over an inch on his hand. He had threaded his way through the crowd in the dressing room at the Back Lot in West Hollywood to shake my hand. I had been having a terrible night.

My first foray back into the LA session musician world was not going according to Hoyle. Rita had contracted me to drum for her grand opening debut at the notorious West Hollywood gay nightclub disco called the Back Lot. There were laser beams cutting through the thick fetid amyl nitrate scented air above the throbbing dance floor where there was more muscle than mammaries. All the guys were definitely out of the closet. I had just come down from the ranch in the Santa Cruz mountains where I had been hibernating and recovering from the last bout of Hollywoodism and Tim Buckley’s murder. Rita had put together a great band, although it wasn’t the right band for the occasion. This was more like a Bette Midler scene. I knew the guys in Bette’s band and had played with them, but this gig was weird beyond description. The B3 Hammond organ player and the guitar player were from Tuscaloosa and just had a big hit called, “Smoke from a distant fire” so they were intent on placing some original songs with Rita. The bass player was an LA guy and a little green, and he was really excited about playing with these heavy weight players. The group was entirely too funky for this scene but Rita was having a great time so we made the best of it. I was singing back up on a few songs like “Sailing shoes” by Little Feet, but I could not hear the monitors so I was sticking my finger in my ear to check my note every once in a while. That got a giggle out of the audience but I couldn’t tell from the back of the slick black obsidian stage. We had to nail my bass drum down through the slick stage floor because it was so slippery it kept sliding away from my pumping foot pedal. At the height of our show, Rita was shaking her new silicone boobs at the totally male audience as if it mattered to them, and the bass player got really excited. He accidentally kicked his bottle of beer over that was sitting on the stage next to his bass amp and it went splashing all over the glassy stage. It flowed under my bass drum and then under my drummer’s throne. A drummer’s throne is a sacred thing. It is a tripod that the drummer must balance themselves on like some sort of yoga while maintaining a groove. I had been doing it since I was eight years old but tonight the beer made the throne very unstable and in the middle of a song, it slipped out from underneath me. I suddenly went crashing down behind my drumset. My cowboy boots, that still had horse shit on them from the ranch, kicked out and hit the coffee can full of two penny nails that we had used to nail down my bass drum. The coffee can full of nails hit the bass drum microphone. The sound of the Chock full o’ nuts coffee can full of nails hitting the microphone was amplified a thousand fold and poured out of the speakers sounding like a ton of steel girders being dumped on the audience. It was a deafening crash. Rita was apoplectic. Her thyroid eyes bugged out at me as she turned to look back at the trainwreck that had been her drummer. My boots were literally sticking straight up in the air, and I was flat on my back. She looked at me with the eternal entertainer’s question on her face, “What do we do now?!!”
I gave her the age old answer with my hand, spiraling my finger in a circle; “Roll with it, baby.” She turned back to the crowd and said, “Well…I guess I have to introduce my drummer now.” That got a great round of laughter from the hundreds of pumped up guys. I got up and pieced my drum set back together and we finished the set to a rousing round of generous applause. I was glad to get off that slippery stage. We were in the dressing room when the Hammond B3 player from Tuscaloosa comes up to me and confides in his redneck drawl. “Uh…Buddy. Look. I know I can trust you, being from Macon, and all that. I need to ask you a favor. Could you go with me to the urinal. It’s one of them big circular troughs like we use to water the horses back home, and I uh…I need you to watch my back while I take a piss. Otherwise it won’t work…”
“Sure.” I said and dutifully followed him into the communal pissoir and stood at his back while all the boys oogled his member and joked about it. They could see he wasn’t a regular. He had a terrible time but eventually he managed to relieve his bladder and we got out of there as the regular boys called out all sorts of jokes. Back in the dressing room, Rita was trying hard to be gracious and star like but it was a lost cause. Her act had been totally upstaged by the drummer who could not stay on his throne. Liberace slid through the crowd and purred over to me with his retinue of young blond boys around him. He looked amazingly well and full of mischief when he shook my hand and complimented me on “My Act”. He checked out my boots since they had been so highly featured on stage.

My cowboy boots were from Coconut Grove. They had belonged to Peter Goodrich who was a sage from the previous generation of hipsters. He and Michael Lang had come up with the concept of the original Woodstock festival. When Peter drove down from Woodstock for the last time, Lester Sperling put him up in his little bungalow and everyone came to pay their last respects to the grand old man. He had a gold tipped cane with a wolf’s head on it and he sat up in bed, looking like a king, even though cancer was moving through his body. Kevin Kern sat outside the bedroom window and played wonderful acoustical guitar music while people came and went giving Peter the love and respect that he always gave to everyone else. Bananas sat with him most of the time and we listened to his stories. “I remember San Francisco,” He said with a great smile, “LSD was still legal and everyone was walking around tripping. The energy was amazing. You could feel the other person’s energy field expanding out around their bodies. We would stop and marvel at each other’s auras. The only thing I regret was that sometimes I was stoned and I missed a few things…”

The exact moment Peter died, the fire alarm went off across the street in the Coconut Grove fire department, and simultaneously a woman’s purse disappeared right off her arm as she walked in front of the fire truck trying to get out of the fire station. Peter’s friends stood and watched this comic relief and felt that it must have been staged by Peter as a last parting shot of buffoonery before he ascended up into the higher bardos of consciousness. Lester gave me Peter’s good looking Tony Lama boots. I wore them all over the world, just like Peter did, but with a great deal of respect for the man who wore them before me. I felt like I was walking in protected sacred boots that provided a certain cosmic comedy in my life and saved me from many a dangerous situation, including a West Hollywood Back Lot coming out party.

excerpt: “History of the Groove, Drummer’s story” Russell Buddy Helm ©2013 All rights reserved

Thank you to Ric O’Berry, his son Lincoln and all the cool people who put together a gala event at Avalon Hollywood. Kings of Chaos are great. They’re really LOUD and played lots of hits. After all these years getting to see Ric again was a real gift. Best of luck to Dolphin Project efforts to save the dolphins in Taiji, Japan as well as other dolphins around the world. There is something all of us can do; firstly don’t patronize businesses who enslave dolphins like the resorts who offer dolphin swimming experiences. If you tell them you are not staying with them because of the dolphin concentration camps they are running, eventually they will get the message. Also, do not spend your money at Sea World or any of the other dolphin cruelty amusement parks.The Taiji dolphins are captured by banging on pipes in the water, then they are shipped around the world to entertain people until they die in captivity. The fishermen and city of Taiji make lots of money selling dolphins. If we say no, this barbarism can  stop. http://www.dolphinproject.org/

Ric, my partner Cathy Javier, and me at the Kings of Chaos benefit concert to save the dolphins at Hollywood Avalon .  I was lucky enough to get involved with the Dolphin Project in Coconut Grove back in 1972.

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excerpt: “History of the Groove, drummer’s tale” Russell Buddy Helm ©2013 all rights reserved

2001. “Look..I’m Rick Allen, the famous one armed drummer with Def Leppard.” He said firmly, with a bit of pique. I had not recognized him when he came into our shop with his entourage, and started banging on the djembes.

“You don’t have to hit it so hard. They have a big sound.”” I said walking up to him as he was kneeling, in a tweed sport coat; very unrock star like. I was waging a one man battle with compulsive bangers hitting djembes too hard. I noticed then that he had one arm.

“Oh. I write about a one armed drummer in my second book…” I said but he ignored me.

Nineteen sixty six in Ft. Meyers, Florida on A.J. Perry’s Tour of the South; he was a circus promoter crossed over to rock n roll. ‘Those Five’, opened for the Barbarians. “Are you a boy or are you a girl?” was their hit.  They had huge hairy African drums as part of their act. Mouldy, the drummer could snag a passing groupies’s  arm and pull her in with his prosthetic left arm. His drumstick fit between the shiny hooks where his left hand would have been. He was a great drummer. They looked like bikers playing good rock n roll. My black suit, white shirt, skinny black tie and sneakers was Patty Smith’s look only about fifteen years too early and I was dissed by the guys in Those Five for not being a Carnaby street clone.

The tweed coat guy didn’t respond to my one armed drummer story so I returned to the counter at the back of our shop. He got up and steamed back to me, explaining exactly, who he was. Def Leppard was not on my listening list. No one introduced themselves as ‘famous’, but he had to have something going for him if he was still drumming with one wing.

“My girlfriend bought your book for me up in Malibu; ‘Way of the Drum’, . I want to..uhh.. .study…..the healing drums.”

A rock star in the workshops might be a challenge for regular people focusing on the subtle grooves for healing. The most difficult part of my transition from rock drummer to healing drummer was becoming invisible; submerging my ego, so as not to intimidate the wounded souls using rhythm to reintegrate. Rick obviously had the shit knocked out of him but he was still swinging, so I gave him the benefit of the doubt.

He kept his mouth shut and learned to play an African bass drum, a djun djun, with one hand and not push the beat. That was the hardest thing for him; he was used to relentlessly driving the beat forward. The subtle art form of being late to the downbeat was the key to the healing drums for me. This laid back downbeat gives a signal to the client’s operating system that everything is safe so they can let down the fear filters and hear their subconscious telling them what needs to be resolved. This also works for physical healing of the body where stress is an element in the illness. In teaching therapists and drummers, the biggest challenge is for them to understand the importance of being ‘late to the downbeat’.

Rick was well behaved and no one else in the workshops knew who he was and he sort of understood the technique of laying back the groove, so I encouraged him. I knew that someday the healing drums would rise above the obscure and become more than just a ‘woowoo’ anomaly for fringe element tree huggers, so I was mildly curious to see what this well established rock star drummer would do with what he learned.

“I would like you to come up to my house in Malibu and give a demonstration of the healing drums and meet a master drummer, Edward Tuduri.” He said formally, after a few sessions.

“You know Eddie Tuduri?” We had competed for gigs on numerous occasions.  He worked a lot; toured and drummed on a number of hit songs. Our styles of drumming were apples and oranges; he pushed the beat, which was good for pop songs. I was laid back which was the tradition of Rhythm and Blues. He was commercial. I was funky. He was from New York. I was from the South.  He had a pit bull, I was a writer. Back in nineteen seventy seven, I remember entering John’s apartment. a keyboard player that used both Eddie and me on various projects, “Buddy writes a lot.” I heard John tell Eddie as I entered, “But it’s about the wrong things!”  There was an uncomfortable embarrassing moment. John noticed the album under my arm and changed the subject. “What’s the album?”

“You wouldn’t like it.” I told them. That got John’s goat.

“Put it on the turntable.” He said in no uncertain terms. So I did. It was the Sex Pistols. “God Save the Queen!” ripped through John’s suburban Sherman Oaks apartment, wilting their mullets.

“If I had my gun, I’d shoot that record!!!” He screamed in his good ol’ boy Oklahoma accent. “I hate it!”

“You sound like your parents.” I said and walked out.

I wasn’t cut out to be their kind of anonymous session drummer. There was too much mental activity going on inside me; my style was too identifiable. One producer summed it up;

“Who is the drummer? He’s too good. We’re selling the girl singer here, not the drummer. Get another drummer that doesn’t stand out so much.”

I was spoiled living in Coconut Grove where musicians were literate and capable of conversation. These LA session guys really didn’t go in for compound sentences. I knew I was in the wrong world, but there was nothing yet on the horizon signalling the approach of healing meditation drumming. The only kind of drumming was for musical accompaniment in pop music.  John pasted a note on his front door:  “Wanted: drummer with a sense of humor.” I left the session music scene and went into the film business. George Lucas had me writing the Star Wars comic strips.  ‘New Wave’ and punk music had been inspired by Tim Buckley and this was only three years after his murder but I was not moving on. I was not aware that my own father’s death had been a tough experience and was something I would have to deal with eventually.

Thirty years later, I arrive at Rick’s Malibu rock mansion, walk in and see Eddie. He is now walking with a cane. His long hair is snow white; the same hawkish handsome features and sly smile, but there were a few more miles on him. I remembered that I liked him, despite our competition for gigs. He tried to return my hug, which was difficult, then introduced me to his girlfriend from Brazil. She was no doubt one of the reasons he was succeeding; she had a lot of heart.  Rick’s friends; good looking, young, affluent Malibu types watched a video of Eddie working with head trauma survivors in a hospital, using conga drums. Eddie was getting them to hit the drum one note at a time, then two notes, then three notes. It was a heartening video. I wanted to suggest using the constant flow of the downbeat grooves with the deep healing tones of the African djembe instead of hitting one note at a time on a high pitched, difficult to play conga, but Rick was managing the show.

“Edward, would you allow Buddy to lead us in one of his healing drumming seminars?”

“Sure.” He said in a subdued voice.

They were trying to flatter me. I had certain keys to drumming therapy and years of success stories. These guys wanted the details. This was not about stealing a hit song; it was about teaching healing drums; even if it was teaching it to a couple of drum hustlers. Eddie was at the top of the list to call for sessions, then he broke his neck surfing and it was all over. He came back from being a quadriplegic. Rick was missing an arm. They were both successful rock star drummers surviving debilitating calamities who were now wanting to do healing drumming. My wounds were different and also deep but I had managed to write two books about it and create a teachable protocol. I had seen amateur beginning drummers try to ‘appropriate’ my methods but they didn’t have the technique and experience. These guys could more easily take what I had so earnestly developed over the last two decades, run with it, and become the avatars of healing drums. There was a part of me that said, “No. Don’t give it away. You’ve been ripped off enough.”

I decided to go ahead and teach them. I doubted that either of these guys had read Robert Bly’s, “Iron John”, but they should.

Drummers are hustlers by nature, it goes with the turf. I instinctively knew I was being hustled but now my job was teaching healing drums, not competing for gigs. We went down into Rick’s brand new recording studio with his group of fashionable friends, lit some candles and set up hand drums.

One girl was very shy, introverted and in emotional pain. She had a hard time hitting the downbeat, so I do what I always do; I slowed the tempo down until she was able to play along with us. This is very important in balancing the healing energy in a group. The downbeat is the great leveler of ability. I could care less if the two hot drummers got bored with the slow tempo. This girl held the key to the night’s healing. She was the common denominator. If she was involved then everyone would be involved. We sang and chanted affirmations, created a safe space, shared the groove and had a transcendental event. Eddie bought my books and CDs. That’s the last I heard from him but I heard about him. His name became well known in the hospital healing drum circles. Rick had me come up and give another free drumming workshop which was not a very pleasant experience for me. He didn’t pay me for bringing drums, setting up and doing a two hour session with a bunch of his friends and groupies, plus the sweat lodge afterward almost killed me. I would not recommend going into a sweat lodge after an intense drumming session.

He recorded my whole healing drumming session and went on to become a high profile drum healer. In the music business, plagiarism is endemic. George Harrison got popped for lifting ‘He’s so Fine’ for ‘My Sweet Lord’, Stevie Wonder had to give back his grammy for “I just called to say I love you.”.  ‘Ghostbusters’ was also a lift. Willie Dixon’s daughter finally got royalties for all the lyrics and music Led Zeppelin took from her father. Folk singers have copyrighted public domain traditional songs to collect royalties. A certain guitar player copyrighted all the songs cowritten by Levon. One of the cowriters credited on Otis Redding’s first single, “These Arms” is the wife of the DJ that first played it on Georgia radio.

Healing drumming is not a ‘song’ per se. Is there intellectual property? Yes. Is the downbeat a copyrightable commodity? I don’t know. George Lucas copyrighted ‘the Force’. This is a healing process and rhythm has existed since the beginning of time. I knew that it was a good idea and it would get ripped off. I had to watch that line of thinking so as not to become bitter; although getting paid is an important part of being an artist. If Chuck Berry had a copyright on every guitar lick he invented, he would be richer than Bill Gates.

Energy workers, lay people, even celebrity drummers get what they can from what I teach, and some go on to make healing drums a going commodity for themselves, even augmenting their celebrity status. Others have used my books, attended my twenty five years of traveling and teaching across the US, Canada, Europe, Australia and Japan, and also studied the one hundred fifty Youtube videos of me teaching.. Such is life. One therapist took one short drumming workshop in Georgia with me then moved to Humboldt County, California and offered ‘Downbeat Therapy’. Locals busted him and insisted that he email me and tell me that he was using my protocols. I love the people in Humboldt…

I created a certification program called ‘HelmTone Healing Drum Protocols’ to distinguish my methods from the others so people would know there is a difference. The process I teach actually works. I refused to endorse a big drum company, so they copyrighted the term, “Healing drums” and now sell plastic drums with that name on them. One drummer used my work during a Deepok Chopra event in Sedona, and denied having ever heard of me until he was forced to confess to lifting my work. It’s all part of the evolution of healing drums. I suppose I will continue.

The real and most interesting note was concerning the shy girl who was in pain at Rick’s sourie. He later mentioned in an off handed manner, that the day after our drumming event at his mansion, she decided to do what she had always wanted to do. She changed her name and went to India.

That piece of news really made my day. This type of drumming motivates people to be who they truly are and who they really want to be. It gives them courage and belief in themselves as well as healing many conditions. If a few rock stars appropriate what I have done, then so be it. The long view is that this will be a massively accessible method of healing and manifesting for anyone willing to learn it. If one person gets better, then we all get better.

Excerpt: “History of the Groove, drummer’s tale” Russell Buddy Helm ©2013 all rights reserved

excerpt; “History of the Groove, drummer’s story” Russell Buddy Helm ©2013 all rights reserved

Grail carved his giant wooden sculptures under the banyan trees back in the jungle in Coconut Grove. Main Highway cut through the heart of Coconut Grove on its way from Dixie Highway down through south Miami toward the Keys. On the north side were stores, boutiques, restaurants. On the other side were thick mangroves hiding extremely private properties covering acres of prime real estate running down to the water’s edge of Biscayne Bay. Grail and his wife lived in a small house and a big tent at the end of a rough dirt road, in the middle of one of these private estates across from the Coconut Grove playhouse. The cutting room for his commissioned sculptures could not have been more ideal; banyan canopy overhead protected them from the occasional hurricane and tropical sun that would actually keep shining through the pouring rain just as Fred Neil had described it in his song, “Everybody’s Talkin'”, no Nilsson did not write it….Thick old trees shielded Grail’s world from prying eyes. It was a green, broad leafed sanctuary outside of time just a hundred yards from the buzz of Main Highway. Parrots and love birds chirped, an occasional trade wind whispered as the vivid blue sky peeked through the upper leaves of the ancient banyan trees. The loamy earth was a plush carpet. Giant sectioned tree trunks loomed outside of his tent, changing into sculpture with each day of meditative cutting by Grail’s steady weathered hands. He was one of the good ol’ boys in Coconut Grove as well as a great artist. Contrary to what Neil Young might tell you, Southern men can be creative, sensitive and evenhanded.

Bananas would make her rounds in the grove, saying hello to friends, dropping off gifts and having tea. She was like a visiting queen and everyone would stop their daily chores and spend quality time with her. I would soak up the good vibes and try to follow the clever repartee. Grail was working on a huge piece of lignum vitae wood destined for a synagogue in Coral Gables. The grain in the rich dark wood spiraled upward over ten feet, alive like the eternal flame. I had spent time in sculpture classes but this was the real thing. Grail was authentic. It was inspiring to see the piece evolve. Grail’s wife was a lawyer and she came and went, but Grail seemed to be a part of the land. One day Bananas noticed that Grail no longer had his sweet terrier, but instead now owned a nice but huge jowled pit bull. She asked Grail why. He was a bit embarrassed but let her know the reason.

“I was walking my dog back in the woods. I had a big stick.  I’d throw it and he’d go fetch. We’d been doing this for years, in the mangroves by the water. I threw the stick and he went to get it, but there was a big guy standing back there. Man he was big. I had no idea who he was. I told him he didn’t belong back here. It was private property. He just looked at me. Then he says to me..

“It’s just you and me, man.”

“I called out to my dog ,”GIT HIM!” and I pointed to the guy. So you know what my dog did? He picked up the stick in his mouth and took it over and dropped it at the guy’s feet. And he wagged his tail! Like, throw it.”

The guy picked up the stick and started to come at me, but my wife came driving up the dirt road and he took off.” Grail shook his head in exasperation. “..I loved that dog, but I had to do something.  So I got a pit bull.”

Grail walked over to the clearing outside of his tent. There was a thick nautical rope about four inches in diameter tied to a heavy branch hanging down from the lush tropical canopy thirty feet overhead.  On the bottom end of the rope was a thick heavy spring from a Ford truck suspension. The coiled steel was about a foot long and about six inches in diameter. Hanging off the end of the spring was another section of nautical rope tied into a big knot. It hung about four feet off the ground. He called his new pit bull.

“Get the rope, Crunch!” He said eagerly to the dog.

The pit bull launched himself into the air like a cannonball. He hit the rope like Sonny Liston connecting with Cassius Clay’s ribcage. Crunch’s jaws locked on the knot. Pit Bull fighting is a Florida sport and the proud owners always have a short stubby stick in the back pocket of their overalls used to pry open their pit bull’s automatically locking jaws at the end of a match. Grail would never do that sort of thing. He just watched proudly as Crunch swung in a big arc around the clearing, growling, bouncing, whipping his head back and forth with enough ferocity to break anything’s neck. Eventually the swinging and bouncing slowed to a stop and he just hung there, suspended. He stayed that way; then he’d whip his head, sending himself into another bouncing, spiraling, growling arc around the clearing. Whenever his ride ended, he’d growl, jaws still locked on the rope, whip his head and bounce in a big soaring arc, up and down around the banyan tree clearing like a Tilt A Whirl with teeth. He was the happiest pit bull in the world.  Grail turned a pit bull on a car spring into a world class kinetic Rebel sculpture.

excerpt; “History of the Groove, drummer’s story” Russell Buddy Helm ©2013 all rights reserved

“No, Mr. Friedman. This is not a joke.” The lawyer stood up and spoke over the hoots from the rowdy redneck audience.

excerpt; “History of the Groove, drummer’s tale” Russell Buddy Helm ©2013 all rights reserved

1978. Van Dyke Parks called out of the blue, “Do want to play with Kinky Friedman and the Texas Jewboys at the Palomino?”

“Okay.” I said. Wow a paying gig.

The first thing I said to Kinky as we were setting up was, “Danny Finley (Panama Red), was in the Bethlehem Asylum with me back in the early Seventies”. That elicited a mixed response from Kinky; which was understandable considering Danny’s peripatetic avuncularisms. Kinky obviously liked Danny but as in any band, the members share a love/hate relationship based on music versus money, and being in most bands is like being married to four or five dysfunctional people.

Kinky was known for offending everyone. “Is there anyone I missed?” he would ask. His music was funny, topical, clever and Texas country. The fact that he was a Jewish Texan made it even more dramatic. “They ain’t making Jews like Jesus anymore.” and “Get yer biscuits in the oven and yer buns in the bed” were two of his popular ditties. Tonight at the world famous country bar, he was in his element; cigar in his hand, Stetson on his head, perched on a stool at the edge of the stage and strumming his guitar. Behind him was his cracker jack band with Van Dyke on Piano. He launched into song after song lampooning everything from Beaver Cleaver to the Texas tower shootings and his big hit, “Sold American”. The other acts were watching; Father Guido Sarducci, the gangster cardinal from Saturday Night Live, dressed in clerical robes and bishop’s hat was smoking a cigarette and laughing. David Allan Coe, the intimidating country ex con who used to drive a hearse around Nashville, was sporting his rhinestone demims and loomed menacingly. Everyone was getting their drink on. Business as usual at the Palomino.

Kinky joked and sang his way through his polished show, naming everyone and group he could think of in a funny mildly insulting delivery. He was better than Don Rickles. When Kinky got to the part of his show where he mentioned the “Village People Retirement Home”, a blond young man in a beige suit stood up directly in front of Kinky. He handed Kinky an official looking document right in front of the packed rowdy house full of Texas redneck wannabe’s. The show suddenly ground to a halt.

“This is some kind of joke, right?” Kinky said looking at the official document with a perplexed expression forming around the cigar in his mouth. The lawyer assured him it was not a joke. The Village People did not like being made fun of by Kinky Friedman; even if it was just a passing remark. It was not really an insult; a charmingly funny image of retired Village People dressed in their stage garb sitting around in rocking chairs. The Jewish Defense League was in attendance at the Palomino and they heckled the guy.

“Kick his ass, Kinky!” they yelled.

The blond in the blond suit looked determined, and not the least bit intimidated, even though David Allan Coe was capable of extreme behavior at the drop of a ten gallon hat. Kinky weighed his options, considered lampooning this barrister, but thought better of it. He was capable of blistering off the cuff remarks but he also knew what a law suit was. We finished the show on a slightly off key note. I don’t know what happened. I figure Kinky finessed things and came out on top. He is good at that. He managed to run for Governor of Texas while writing a few really good books about Willie, Jesus and Coca cola. Hell, he had even played music with Danny Finley so he’s got to be alright.

Drumming for country is pretty easy if you don’t do it right. It’s just boom chak, boom chak, boom chak, boom chak. But there is great subtlety in the original country beats; they combine swing ala Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys with cooking Rock a Billy train tempos. There are little upbeats that the drummer can put in if they are fast enough. Most of the time, they go unnoticed. But once I was playing with Billie and his father Dorsey Burnett, of the original Rock n Roll Trio, Dorsey was impressed that I knew the little secret up beat Rock a Billy notes. He complimented me on hitting those subtle extra back beats in the right place. Kinky probably noticed too but getting a compliment from him was like a cab driver in New York expecting a good tip. If a drummer is doing it right, they are usually ignored by the other players. But if the drummer makes a mistake, everyone glares at them.  But I might have overstepped my boundaries when I added some rimshots to his quips ala borscht belt comedy. I couldn’t help it. Kinky was a comedian and it was a drummer’s typical reflex action after a cornball remark. I felt like a reincarnated vaudeville drummer. I might have even miscalculated the impact my resume had on him when I told him that Danny Finley had been in the Bethlehem Asylum with me.  They played and cowrote together for some time. But after I mentioned that, Kinky sort of mistrusted me in some existential way. He even named a state trooper character ‘Buddy’ in  one of his books that wasn’t too flattering. I feel so special. I remember the day that Danny called me and told me that he was joining Kinky Friedman and the Texas Jewboys, and what did I think of him changing his name to ‘Panama Red.’
“Just don’t take yourself too seriously.” I advised. I couldn’t think of anything more constructive to tell him. It was sort of a payback since he had described me in the early Bethlehem Asylum promotional material as, “Heaviest when light.” I don’t think I could ever forgive Danny for that description of me which maybe scarred me for life.

excerpt; “History of the Groove, drummer’s tale” Russell Buddy Helm ©2013 all rights reserved