Sunday Diva / Three From The Hip: Johnette Napolitano

Sunday Diva / Three From The Hip: 

Johnette Napolitano

In my own personal big gay church there are many wings. One is dedicated to The Rockbirds - so named after a turn of phrase coined by Deborah Harry, one of the divas who resides there. These ladies raged against a very specific machine: the misogynistic heart of the corporate music business. They endured countless interviews asking them how they felt being a woman in the world of rock n' roll - the assumption being that it was exclusively a man's world. Are they the women of rock? Hell, no... they just rock! And they did it all with a singular style and unique voice.

One such warrior?

Johnette Napolitano

Cryptic, acidic, and brutally honest.

She morphed with ease from one musical plane to the next with the greatest of ease: post-punk, goth, gumbo, latin, rock, confessional, folk... every color, every hue.

As a youth, she learned, watching some of the best in the business. 

By the time she helped form Concrete Blonde? She was her own person. 

And she would never allow it to be any other way.

She toyed with commercial success, but chose to follow her own, more personal vision instead. 

And she took the band along with her... until one day, it ended. 

Redefining herself, she retreated a bit, creating beautiful musical tapestries in the deserts of Joshua Tree.

Which, to this day, she continues to share with the world. 

The gospel according to her?

Well, here are three from the hip, dropping from her lips.

The topic: Working For Leon Russell 

"One of the first times I had seen some serious unbelievable racism when Leon married Mary. And it was so devastating to him. My first job for him, he’d pass out cards at shows that he’d have the audience fill out, a sort of survey as to what they did and didn’t like, what songs would they like to hear and so on. He saw all this coming, how to manage a fan base and enter everything into a computer, and that was my job. And the first card I picked up said 'get rid of the n****r.' It was just like that a lot."

"We went to see Jerry Lee Lewis, me and Steve Ripley, who was Leon’s producer out of the Church Studio in Tulsa. So Steve and I go to see Jerry Lee Lewis at the Palomino in North Hollywood where all the country people played. It’s not there anymore. So Steve and I are in the dressing room before the show, and Steve is just breathless, he worships Jerry Lee and all that. So we go back and Jerry Lee is siting on the couch and he has two bottles of Jack in front of him, one empty and one half empty, and he looks up at us and — he was so mean, so mean — and he goes, 'You work for Leon?' And we’re like yeah, and he says, 'Well, he was alright until he married the n****r.' He gets up off the couch and he goes to walk out the door and he reaches over and grabs my ass and then walks out onstage. What the fuck? I’m just standing there in a cloud of 'what the fuck' and I felt so bad for Steve because he worshiped Jerry Lee Lewis."

"So I saw Leon the next day and I go, 'Hey, I saw Jerry Lee last night and, look man, he said you were OK until you married the n****r.' And Leon stroked his beard and said 'Jerry Lee said that?' And he just walked away. I never heard Leon ever say a bad word about anyone at all but one guy, a promoter he called a snake. But I had his back, I wanted him to know what Jerry Lee said. Steve was too scared to tell him. I wasn’t. That’s why he trusted me. I wanted him to know shit. So that’s the Jerry Lee Palomino story. There’s a ton of them man, I worked for him for a long time."

"When you worked for him it was much more of a family situation than anything else. You wanted to be around Leon all the time. He was nocturnal, he’d get up in the middle of the night and want to do something. Then you’d have to go down to Burbank and sometimes JJ Cale was there, or Willie Nelson. That’s the way he rolled. Music was Leon’s God. He just really wanted to worship all the time, 24/7, that was it. It was such a life-changer, I was only 20 at the time, 19 or 20. It was such a life changing thing to be around him. I had no idea that you could really live that way. In the world I grew up in, when I was 18 my father was like, when are you going to get married? You should have a kid by now. You know Italian-American stuff, east coast old-school whatever and I didn’t talk to my father for 17 years after because since I was exposed to this other life getting married just wasn’t life to me. I was like no, no, you gave me a guitar when I was nine, and he was like why can’t you just be a dental assistant? And I have asked myself that question many, many times over the years!"

"When Leon would get bored, we’d have something called the clone call, where he’s round us all up. Diane, his longtime assistant would round us all up. So Leon was getting a divorce. He needed a record and he needed it now. So he called Willie, apparently he lent Willie like $600 back in the day. I guess they went gambling or some shit. So he called Willie and said let’s make a record. JJ Cale was on that, Bonnie Raitt came by and it turned out to be Heartbreak Hotel, which went to No. 1. Leon had a songbook on the piano, he flipped through it and they recorded whatever came up. It was a massive hit and that turned out to be Leon’s divorce money. But my whole gig all night was a huge bowl of weed and rolling fucking joints all night long until I could not see anymore. And then Diane gave us all uppers. Then there was Ambrose Campbell, Leon’s longtime spiritual advisor and percussionist, he was Nigerian and Leon loved him. He was this wiry little dude. He used to say “I am a bushman, I need my bush.” He was beautiful. It was all just a beautiful thing. I was thinking about that this morning, about everyone that worked there. It was such an amazing atmosphere. So fertile."

Joey - Concrete Blonde

Damage I've Done - The Heads feat. Johnette Napolitano

Here - Johnette Napolitano

And one last parting shot...

"He was no angel that’s for sure. But the last time I saw him, he made a point. We were at a casino, and he sent someone out to see if I was there. And so I got on the bus and he just sat there and said 'I really want to congratulate you on all your success, Johnette.' And he just squeezed my hand really hard. And that is the last thing I remember."