Arts

The Riversider | June/July 2021

Chris Napolitano WORDS: AARON SCHMIDT

Chris Napolitano is a local artist who grew up in Riverside. He attended Victoria Elementary, Gage Middle School, and Poly High School. After graduation, Chris commuted to Cal State San Bernardino and received a bachelor’s degree in the visual arts and art history. Chris would then go on to obtain a teaching credential and master’s degree in education. Aside from painting and commissions, Napolitano is also an educator who teaches studio art, art history, and digital photography at the high school level for the past thirteen years. “As long as I can remember, I’ve loved to draw and paint. Growing up in a small family, I had to find a way to keep myself busy. In elementary school, I’d often practice drawing the graphics and illustrations that I’d find in skateboard magazines. I really enjoyed the work of illustrators like VC Johnson (VCJ), Jim Phillips, and Steve Nazar. Once I got to high school, the art teacher at Poly introduced me to oil paint and that intensified my passion.” Napolitano’s work can be seen at various businesses and in exhibits throughout downtown Riverside. He’s worked with numerous galleries and venues, including Mind & Mill, RCAA, City Hall, Riverside Art Museum, and the Riverside Arts Council. “I love the history, beauty, and culture of Riverside. I have so many amazing memories throughout the entire city. From the smell of the orange blossoms on Dufferin Avenue, to the view from the top of Mt. Rubidoux—it’s a special place that has so much to offer. I also admire the fact that the City of Riverside is so supportive of the arts.”

Images of Chris’ work can also be found on his website: napolitanoart.wixsite.com, and also on his Instagram @chrisnapart

Gabe Roth is a true renaissance man in every sense of the word. Musician, producer, engineer, mixer, record label owner, 2X Grammy winner, and family man—his roots are firmly planted in Riverside. After moving back east to go to NYU when he was only seventeen years old, Gabe was submersed into New York’s vibrant underground music scene at an impressionably young age—molding him into the person he is today.

Co-founder of the popular soul music record label Daptone Records, Roth has worked with legendary artists like Amy Winehouse, Sharon Jones, Lee Fields, Charles Bradley, and the James Hunter Six—just to name a few. A talented musician himself, Gabe’s passion for honest music runs deep and it shows with every record he makes.

The following’s a recent interview with Gabe at his recording studio located downtown in the Life Arts Center.

WORDS: AARON SCHMIDT  PHOTOS: ZACH CORDNER

Gabe feeling right at home at his recording studio located in downtown's Life Arts Center.

I was born in Twin Peaks up in the San Bernardino Mountains, and then when I was about a year and-ahalf, my parents moved to Palm and Central—right there by the plaza. Then when I was about eight, we moved to Canyon Crest on the other side. When I was seventeen, I moved to New York and my parents moved downtown.

My parents always played music and my sister played piano and guitar, so she showed me some stuff. When I was in high school, I started playing drums, and then I got into listening to blues and soul records. I was never really intending on becoming a musician—it was just for fun.

I didn’t want to go into law—I wanted to be a high school teacher. I just thought that it didn’t really matter what I majored in college as long as I got a Bachelor’s degree. So when was in college at NYU, around my junior year, I didn’t have my major picked out, so I just went through the catalog and music classes sounded fun. I just kind of stumbled into it. I met a French guy named Philip Lehman who was trying to make old style funk records, and he had this label called Pure Records out of Paris, France. I was a fan of the label, so I just met up with him and started making records just for fun. I didn’t take it that serious—I never really thought it was going to be a career. I was free to break rules because I didn’t really have any ambitions.

Well, I was in New York for most of my adult life and then I moved back to Riverside in 2010. My wife and I had a one year old with another one on the way, so we just wanted to get out of New York. At that point, I was touring a lot anyway. I mean, every weekend I was flying out to some different city, so I wasn’t really looking for excitement. I had a strong crew of musicians and I didn’t really need to be in New York anymore. It’s not great for the business, but I basically would fly in to Brooklyn and record, and then fly home and mix.

Before Daptone, I had a record company called Desco that I started with Philip. Around the turn of the millennium, Desco shut its doors due to some business differences. Daptone rose from the ashes of that. My partner in Daptone is Neal Sugarman, who has a band called the Sugarman 3. I produced

Above: Amy Winehouse performing live at the 2007 Coachella Music Festival with Gabe playing bass (on right).

two or three of his records for Desco. And then after Desco, I was working with Sharon Jones and producing the records. So Neal was like, “Let’s start another record company,” and I was like, “I don’t want to run a record company,” so we made a deal where he’d take over the business if I kept making the records. That was back in 2001.

At the time, I owed a shit ton of money for student loans, credit cards, and all kinds of stuff, so I didn’t want to put my real name on a record—thinking that someone was going to come looking for me. During that time, I was using this guitar player named Scott Mann, and I thought it’d be cool to make it sound like we’re brothers in the band, so I took his last name. My dad wanted to name me Hieronymus Bosch—after the famous painter—and he was going to call me “Bosco” for short, but my mom wouldn’t let him.

I found Sharon with Desco before I started Daptone. One of our first records was with Lee Fields. We ended up tracking him down and we were doing a session in our studio in Long Island and I needed background vocals. The saxophone player who worked with us at the time, Joe Erbeck, said, “Man, my girlfriend can come down with a couple friends and kill the background vocals for this Lee Fields song.” So the next day he showed up with Sharon, and I said to her, “Where are you friends?” She then said, “Why pay three when you can pay me?” She sang backgrounds and she sounded so good. We hit it off right away. She sang a couple leads and then we started doing 45s and a lot of shows with her. At the time, the band was called The Soul Providers, which was the house band for Desco. That’s how I first met Sharon, and then we spent the next twenty years touring together and making records. We were like a family.

With Charles, it was different—he just knocked on my front door. At the time, I lived with my ex-wife in a

basement apartment in Brooklyn. One day, Charles came down and knocked on my window and I went to the door and he said, “I heard you were looking for me,” and I was like, “I don’t even know who you are, man.” He told me that he heard I was looking for a singer and I was like, “How did you even get my address?” Charles said he’d gotten it from some drummer, but I’d never heard of the dude. I mean, you don’t just give out your address to anybody—people might have your phone number, but your address? For years, Charles and I tried to figure it out and explain who the guy was. I still haven’t figured out who it was to this day. It was destiny—he literally was dropped on my doorstep. We hit it off and did some records and he helped me with some stuff.

Right before Sharon died, Dan Klein from The Frightnrs also passed away from ALS. It’s been rough—those years were really tough. I’m really grateful—especially with Sharon—for the time we got to spend together on the road. I don’t think I’ll ever be as high as I was when I was on stage with her. We had a real good time.

There’s whole new scene out here, so we launched the Penrose Imprint, which is all local Southern California artists that we got going in the last couple of years. It’s a bunch of new artists like Sacred Souls, Jason Joshua, The Altons, Vicky Tafoya, and Los Yesterdays.

Yeah, I won one for Amy Winehouse’s album Back To Black in 2008 and one for Booker T. Jones’ album The Road From Mephis I engineered in 2012.

I didn’t play on her album—I did some help with arrangements, producing, and recording. It was only really a handful of days. We cut some of her stuff in the studio without her. We did some shows like Coachella, and I toured with her a little bit. A lot of the drug shit and crazy stuff was hype, but she definitely had some problems. We hung with her a few times at her place in London in her studio and you could see more of that there than we were on the road. For the most part when we were hanging out

Legendary artist Sharon Jones performing with Gabe at 2008's Coachella Music Festival.

with her, she was pretty mellow and gracious—it was pretty nice and uneventful. She was very talented musically—she knew what she wanted and she had her own vibe. I think she hit a certain spot in pop culture by taking our sound and mixing it with hers.

Yes I do! I started making records when I was nineteen. It was in 1995 or 1996 and it was The Revenge Of Mr. Mopoji—it was a fake Kung Fu soundtrack for a 70s movie that never came out and we put it out as a reissue.

Well, I’ve been in this spot for about ten years. I was just looking for a place to build a mixing room when I moved out here because I didn’t want to have to leave my kids as much to make records, so I’d record in New York and mix out here. I got lucky and a corner studio opened up the weekend I came in. It’s an interesting building—it has a deep history. It started out as a YMCA, and at one point it was a mental institution, and then it was a scientology center for a long time. So it’s gone through different levels of chaos over the years. It’s this beautiful historic building and it’s kind of falling apart. Since I’ve been here for the last bunch of years, the upstairs is basically artist’s studios—a lot of painters and things like that. And then the downstairs is event halls with big beautiful roomy spaces where they hold quinceañeras, weddings, and things like that. It’s a cool, little community in a really cool building.

I’ve mixed a ton of albums here. Going back ten years, almost all the Daptone albums were mixed here. Charles Bradley’s albums, Sharon Jones’ albums, and The Frightnrs albums—all that stuff. Sharon did a lot of vocals here on her last couple albums. We did a lot of stuff out here. As far as the “live” room goes, we took that over a few years later. I’ve only had it permanently for the past three years, and we did all of James Hunter’s albums in that room and all the Penrose Imprint stuff.

I like a lot of different kinds of music like African music, Latin music, and I like a lot of gospel music. I’ll always love The Kinks because their songs are badass. Part of our philosophy at Daptone is that we try to not think of it as “genres” or boxes. Our vibe is not really about that its soul music—it’s “soulful” music, it’s raw music, and it’s honest music.

I think it did for sure. Definitely. If I didn’t move to New York, I’d probably be a high school teacher. But it’s not just New York. There’s a very specific group of people to me that I really base my adult life—my career—on. It’s people like Binky, Neal, or Sharon—it’s these particular people—I was getting down with that made it what it was. Everything that came out of Daptone and Penrose—the whole aesthetic—had to do exactly with the people I met.

I just dig the realness, which may seem kind of weird, but coming from New York—there’s a gritty realness around here. Obviously, the weather is beautiful and it’s a beautiful town. There’s also a really good community here in Riverside. Thankfully, we were able to come out here and buy a big, beautiful old house. What I love about living here, musically, is that the soul scene is crazy out here right now. The low-rider scene has always been here, but now all of sudden there’s a ton of new bands. The scene is poppin’ right now and it’s about to explode.