Words With a Legend Spooner Oldham

Spooner

Oldham

Words & Lyrics from a Hometown Legend

INTERVIEW & PHOTOS BY LISA ADKINS

What an honor and privilege it was to sit down and interview Spooner Oldham! He is full of wisdom and shares many special moments in Muscle Shoals music history. After tremendous success, Spooner remains one of the most humble artist I have ever met. I enjoyed my time with Spooner and his wife, Karen – as we discussed Spooner’s music career, personal life, and more!

What an honor to play for and with Sir Elton John for the 2020 Academy Awards Oscars 92nd Ceremony. How would you best describe your experience? Well it was a good musical experience. I have always liked Elton’s music. He was real nice to me. During the first rehearsal which was one of three or four, he came over to me and sitting at the keyboard said anyone that can play a Wurlitzer electric piano is ok by me. I met him around 1970 briefly in Los Angeles. He is a real talent. I got to meet a lot of people in that band and they were not his band. But at the Oscars it was people who play for different bands and I am always happy to be thrown in with some great players with different backgrounds. I think in reality I met Greg Kurstin and he was one of the producers for the song we did, “(I’m Gonna) Love me Again,” at the Oscars. He lives in Los Angeles and that’s where my daughter, Roxanne and son in law live. I think I met him in London and he was playing with a group called The Birds and the Bees. Later in the US in LA, I met him and his wife, Rachel and his daughter at my daughter’s house party. Time went on and Rachel asked me daughter, Roxanne, if I was interested and or available to play at the Oscars gig with Elton John and I said that is a good date and I got to spend time with his daughter. That’s how it happened I had nothing to do with it. You had a lot of social media and support for this event. It was everywhere. I did not post one thing period on social media. I did not let anyone know I was doing it. It was all over the place.

You are described by many as an honest, kind, humble and respected man. In the music industry and all the pressures that come with it, how have you stay true to yourself?

I try to stay to true to the music. Which is my soul in essence and love of music. If I can stay true to what I think is authentic for my plan in writing and music then the rest of my soul follows. I would help anyone I can. My Uncle Billy told somebody he thought I would give someone the shirt off my back and I would do that. So we all have moment when things when things aren’t’ not so beautiful.

In 2019 you and Dann Penn received the Troy University Hall Waters Prize for Excellence in Southern Writing. Your collaborative efforts were honored. Can you give me a facts about this award? When I was told about Troy Waters Award was they had a contest on making this award. I guess what I have been told prior to this award it was a book writer’s award. This was a handmade award kind of thing. It was a nice event. They had a big luncheon and a lot of important folks from around the state.

Your family influence is where the love of your music journey started I read. Tell me about how your family impacted your love of music. My dad his is nickname was Dot and his first name was Dewey. My name is Dewey Lindon Oldham Jr. When I was a little toddler I remember he and his two brothers and some friends had a band. They would practice in the living room and in the summer under a shade tree. They were really good at what they did and then World War II broke it up and dad ended up in Battle of the Bulge. He was 19 years of age and he came home with an injury and had to give up music. A day in the living room an upright bass showed up. I know I grew up with music early around 20 years old. It influenced me a lot especially the day when someone showed up with a big upright bass in the living room. I was just a little toddler listening to that big boomy thing. I was always moved by sounds as a youngster and watching people react to the musicians and myself reacting to the tones. I always wondered about genes in the blood but I do know I grew up with the love of music pretty early. I did not do a lot of studying except 1st, 2nd and 3rd grade piano lessons. That’s where I l really earned a lot of basic stuff. I think the thing I learned best about piano lessons was how to move your hands up the scales. One two three then go with your thumb under it then go three for five. Very useful and you do not run about of fingers that way. Then my friend David Briggs also a successful keyboard player in Nashville. He and I did a piano recital in the 8th grade. We could not remember who sat on the right and who sat on the left of the bench but we did do that. We worked on “Still Away” and “You Better Move On” together. Then I went to college which what used to be Florida State Teachers College. I thought I was going to get some college education and I only lasted about a year and a half. I woke up one more and I looked in the mirror. I talked to myself and that mirror and said Spooner what do you want to do with your life you I had a moment. I guess I had an epiphany .I want to write song, play piano and organ on records. What are you doing and what are you trying to do? I am working at FAME writing songs and putting them on records. What are you trying to do? Week one in college we were learning the scale in brass class and singing in the choir. She said I was a tenor. I never sang tenor before and I could not read music. Luckily I was sandwiched between two schooled tenors and I mimicked their part. College is not for everybody. Upstairs over the City Drug Store was Spar Music. Tom Stafford rented the place from his dad who was the pharmacist downstairs for thirty dollars a month. It had an upright piano and it had a room with partitions with glass with a little recorder. 15 inch per second which is a professional speed tape machine and a little board. They were not egg crates, they were packing cases for utility boxes like for meters. It was a hangout also. Met a lot of musicians and lot of want to be songwriters. Some songwriters already developing and the list is long of people who eventually had successful music careers.

Tell me about FAME First thing I think that was successful with me in my mind’s eye with me and FAME Recording Studios was when I played Overdub organ on “You Better Move On” on with Arthur Alexander and it became a hit. I think I was 15 or 16. David Briggs my friend played piano on that one so we were both on that one. Then the next hit out of FAME I played an overdub and David Briggs played the piano and I played organ for “Steal Away” with Jimmy Hughes. Then a lot of things happened after that. Percy Sledge across the River, Sheffield, “When A Man Loves A Woman.” I played organ on that one.

How is your daughter, Roxanne, carrying on the family music tradition?

Where do I start! She went to the University of Alabama and got her degree in Public Relations Communications. Karen would make a new letter at Christmas time to catch up with family and friends. One Christmas letter she wrote oh by the way Roxanne graduated from University of Alabama and if anyone knows of a job please keep her in mind. Bob Fuaki at Warner Brothers we met him and knew him and he filed this Christmas letter in his file. He did call one day and say there is an opening and Karen told Roxanne if you are interested in doing this you should pack all the airlines will allow and stay and that is what happened. So then after a year of working with Chrysalis Company, a song writing company, they sent her to song publishing school. Then she decided she wanted to start her own company and it’s called Mixed Tape Music. It is essentially synchronization, synch, licensing for film, television and commercials. Anyone who owns their own music, writes their music and recordings and wants to do business in that medians she can help. I am proud of her because she loves what she does and she works hard. Her business is in Los Angeles and has been in business almost 12 years. She has heard more concerts than I ever will. She is right in the heart of things in a different way than I am. Her husband, Mark Boyd has a record company called Wichita Recordings. He was born in Wales and they moved to London for 7 years. He still has that record company and he has a lot of European Bands on that label. They don’t work for each other but occasionally they help each other. The complement each other. I am proud she found a career that is a unique niche and she likes it. She makes other people happy doing it.

What would you like to share about being inducted into the Alabama Music Hall of Fame in 2014?

I am amongst a lot of friends and people I admire around the state. I was honored to be inducted into the Alabama Hall of Fame. It was a category that I was only the 13th winner in the Individual Category. The others were bands. Metallica was there that night. Nice to be recognized by your peers in the music business

What was your favorite memory when you were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2009 by Paul Shafffer? (Category Award for Musical Excellence in Sideman category)

Paul Shaffer called me at home here in Alabama and said I know about the Aretha Franklin “Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You” thing. Paul continued to say I am going to speak and tell me some other things you have done. Spooner said “Mustang Sally”, When a Man Loves a Woman” and I said Paul do you know what kind of organ that was? Spooner said it was a Farfisa and he said they would rent one . Before I accepted my award they showed bits and pieces of some of the hit records I have played on. Paul Shaffer rented that Farfisa and played a few bars on it before Spooner accepted his award also. That was all by phone conversation that this came together.

You played such a big role in the development of “the Muscle Shoals Sound.” What does the Muscle Shoals Sound mean to you? Muscle Shoals Sound is a very broad term that I can make simple. It’s a combination of good musicians working at the same level. Good recording engineers, good studio or studios. Then the artist wanting to do well. All that synced up together at the same time and it makes the Muscle Shoals Sound.

Give me the feeling back in 1967 when they sent Aretha Franklin to MS and you as a session musician were the one that hit the five-note riff where she “found her sound.” I was playing the Wurlitzer electronic piano that day. She on that occasion was playing acoustic grand piano. So I kind of dreamed up that part out of necessity because we were having trouble getting started that day on this song of interpreting what to do with it. The part was developed and the musicians immediately joined in and within an hour we had it. We did not have the record finished we had horns, rhythm section and vocals. Later she added background vocals at another location.

What do you enjoy doing in your spare time? I always tell Karen, my wife, I wish I had a hobby and Karen said you have a hobby and I said, what’s that? She said you write songs and play piano on records. You do this music stuff and it’s all your hobby. It’s funny to me once upon a time I had this goal to go bowling. I made a list of things I wanted to do once a year: go bowling, go fishing, go roller skating which I learned as a teenager. I did this for a lot of years and golfing. I have not done any of these things in the last ten years. Which one of these did you like the most? Bowling. Hobbies went away pretty quick. I like to smell cut wood!

I read you played the Mandolin is that true? Yes my dad played Mandolin and even though his right arm was paralyzed as a youngster. I was probably 10 to 12 years of age and I thought about this and I wonder….I think dad has a mandolin back there in the closest. His right arm and leg are paralyzed but I bet he held it the mandolin in his left hand because he was right handed. If I sit down on the sofa with him and the have the Mandolin he can show me some cords and he did. He said here is G, C, and D and if you learn those cords you can play 90 percent of American music and that’s true. He was not wrong and I practiced and practiced and I got my finger sore and I play a little mandolin every now and then. I still have a mandolin and play it about once a year.