My Dinner with Archie Bell

Tuesday night I had the rare opportunity to join my bandmates from the San Jose-based funk cover band I've been singing with in dining with Archie Bell. Now, prior to performing with TYT I did not know who Archie was, but we often cover his biggest hit, Tighten Up, which came out in 1968 and sold 12 million copies -- while he was drafted and sent to Vietnam.

Archie arrived at the restaurant every inch a Texan, wearing a ten-gallon cowboy hat, a small African mask pendant, rings on his fingers, a button-down shirt, a denim coat and boots. In the Bay Area to work on a new recording, you would never guess that Archie, a cordial man with a friendly drawl and infectious laugh, had not only ridden the show business rollercoaster for over 30 years, he had seen its highest peaks. As our dinner progressed we began to pepper him with questions and he obligingly shared stories, nuggets of wisdom and jokes. Those of us who had CDs plied them on him, and he excused himself to get CDs out of his car and return the favor.

Here are, to the best of my recollection, some of the things he said:

"When I was in Germany [recuperating from an injury while in the army during Vietnam], I told them 'That's my song!' when Tighten Up came on the radio. 'You Texans do everything big, don't you, all the way to your big lies!' they said. But the next week the military gazette mentioned my band and from then on 40 guys were squeezing into my 10-man tent."

"Show business is 85% handicap. If you can overcome that [things never going as planned] you can make it." Archie told us how they dealt with collapsing stages, power outages, riots, nonpaying club owners, the mafia, competing bands and labels that cooked the books so as not to owe royalties.

"You've got to have spontaneity. If you have a plan, and it's not working, change it. One time Jackie Gleason walked into a club with three girls on each arm. He held out $500 and said, 'Do you know any bluegrass?' I took the money, put it in my wallet, turned around to the band and said, 'hit it, boys!' You should have seen him dancing a little jig!"

"There are plenty of great musicians whose recordings I bought but I wouldn't have paid a dime to see them play live."

"Sometimes you're on stage and it's like milking a duck. One time I had to play with a band that couldn't do anything but No Parking On the Dance Floor. Before I came on stage I was timing them, and I said, 'They've been playing No Parking On the Dance Floor for 30 minutes now.' Once I got on, turns out that's the only groove the drummer knew. Every song that night came out sounding like No Parking On the Dance Floor."

"Club owners would say sometimes, I want you to start with Tighten Up, and I want you to end with Tighten Up, and in between all I want to hear is Tighten Up!"

"You got to start strong. It's better to open a show for another band and make a great first impression than close it and come off worse than the opener."

"Some artists today go on too long. Leave 'em wanting more."

"One time in Texas, we were one of only two black bands that had played this particular club. A guy came up to me and said, 'You're the right string, but the wrong yo-you.' But they liked us."

"There are only 12 honest people in the music business, and I ain't met 'em yet."

And here is the coup de grace: The original Tighten Up on YouTube.