Barry Beckett
Someday, long after Paul Simon’s dead, people are going to realize "There Goes Rhymin’ Simon" is one of the best albums of all time.
Paul Simon is not lovable. And he’s not dangerous. And without those two qualities, you get neither a victory lap nor a ton of gossip ink. But the work, the work endures.
Paul’s first solo album ended up with a couple of hits, but the intimacy didn’t register with the cognoscenti, hipsters avoided it. And missed out on intimate tracks like the almost creepy because it’s so personal "Duncan" and the exquisite "Armistice Day". Almost pissed that he didn’t get his due, Paul went back into the studio with something to prove. And recorded "There Goes Rhymin’ Simon", an album with no losers, as perfect in its own way as "Who’s Next".
But although "Baba O’Riley" and "Won’t Get Fooled Again" cleaned up on the FM, "Kodachrome" and "Loves Me Like A Rock" were gigantic on the AM, in an era when Top Forty was pooh-poohed, considered a joke. "There Goes Rhymin’ Simon" was purchased by millions, but without that hipster FM play, no one seems to remember the album cuts.
But I do.
The reason I’ll never forget "Rhymin’ Simon", the reason I speak of it today, bring it up in conversation on a regular basis, is Barry Beckett’s playing on "One Man’s Ceiling Is Another Man’s Floor".
It’s like a fairy emerged in the twilight and started walking upon the keyboard in your bedroom, and when you were finally startled awake, this fairy said BOO!
Someone with a degree can explain the technical magic, how Barry does it, all I know is Mr. Beckett’s playing on "One Man’s Ceiling Is Another Man’s Floor" is the essence of music. With no words, no visual cues, this piano player creates an entire mood, you’re brought to a special place, with all of your history and emotions in your kit bag.
I’m not sure even Barry could have explained it. Tons of practice, tons of sessions, and this stuff comes out on instinct.
There are great songwriters, great singers, but let us never forget the great players, without whom the songs would be just tracks, not classics.
I learned Barry Beckett’s name by reading the credits. Over and over again as the LP spun. I memorized who did what not because there was going to be a quiz, but because I needed to know. I needed to know everything about the cats who made this music. My only goal was to get closer.
That’s what blew up this business. We were like lemmings. Our minds were absent. Like some zombie movie, we just had to get closer to the sound. Not only did we want to go to the gig, we wanted to go to the studio, be a fly on the wall, to find out how these records were made!
Barry Beckett made a lot of records. His name is strewn over countless classic tracks. He, more than any other player, not to denigrate his compatriots, made Muscle Shoals, Muscle Shoals. It sounded so exotic! It was hard to believe it was just an industrial room in a backwater town. Because from inside came the sound of life itself!
Barry played with Traffic. Never mind Aretha and Duane Allman. You went to Muscle Shoals to get that sound, of the swamp. Where it was dark, but definitely alive.
I followed him like you do an older brother who’s left home. Examining every clipping, digging deep whenever I found a reference. I bought Lenny LeBlanc’s "Breakthrough" just because Barry produced it. And if you don’t know "Somebody Send My Baby Home" you’re at a true loss, because in my pantheon, this is the number one track about being left behind.
Check allmusic.com. Or the Wikipedia. You’ll be stunned who Barry Beckett was.
Yes, was.
Yesterday Barry Beckett died. He may be a footnote in the press, but in music, he was truly one of the giants.
