DAVE MASON: "Rock And Roll is an Attitude... Not an Age"
By Bob Ruggiero, March 2006

Dave Mason is one of classic rock’s most underrated artists. The versatile singer, composer, and guitarist has never really gotten his due, and he’s often overshadowed by more famous contemporaries.
Born on May 10, 1946 in Worchester, England, the teenaged Mason gigged in bands like The Jaguars, The Hellions, and Deep Feeling. Caught up in the creative music and social vortex that was the English rock scene of the day, he co-founded the seminal jazz/jam rock group Traffic in 1967. Later, there was a successful solo career through the ’70s and early ’80s that also saw him playing with other artists both in the studio and on stage.

In 2004, Dave Mason was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Traffic with bandmates Steve Winwood, Jim Capaldi, and (posthumously) Chris Wood. Although the ceremony wasn’t free of controversy, it was an overdue honor.
As he turns 60 this year, Mason continues to perform regularly around the country and recently co-founded RKS Guitars. The company aims to produce affordable axes for the masses. Then there’s the new studio record - nearly 20 years after the last one - that he hopes to put out which he promises will be worth the wait.
Classic Rock Revisited recently spoke with the affable Dave Mason at his home in California, in between a string of live dates.
 
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Ruggiero: There’s a saying at the top of your web site: “Rock and Roll is an attitude…not an age!” With the exception of mega-stars like the Stones, Clapton, and McCartney, some people seem to think that rock artists of a certain age should be retired or banished to the oldies circuit. 

Dave Mason: I don’t know about that. When I was younger, I liked a lot of artists who were older. The issue isn’t age, it’s authenticity. 

Ruggiero: Rolling Stone just ran a story about a trend that is seeing a lot of teenagers today turn on to classic rock because they’re looking for something more substantive than the fluffy pop, sampled rap, and whiny “punk” bands. Do you see this at your live shows?

Mason: Yeah! I have a lot of kids whose parents bring them. And a lot of 14-17 year old kids are just looking for something different. It’s like if you leave a suit in the closet long enough, pretty soon it will become fashionable again.

Ruggiero: Another way the music of classic rock artists is out there today is on satellite radio. I have a Sirius, and there are literally six different channels that play your songs. I heard one of yours today that you would never hear on a terrestrial classic rock station.

Mason: That’s how it was in the beginning of FM radio, you’d hear all kinds of stuff, and there was a personality behind the microphone. Satellite radio is great, because there’s a big disconnect with [terrestrial] radio today. The music has become a backdrop to sell things by. And why don’t they play any new music by classic rock artists? I don’t understand that.

Ruggiero: I’ve got to ask up front about the Hall of Fame ceremony. After Traffic’s induction, Steve, Jim, and a Paul Schaffer’s house band started playing “Dear Mr. Fantasy” - but you weren’t onstage with them. What happened?

Mason: Well, Winwood said “We’re going to play this song and we’re going to play it exactly like the record,” which I played bass on. And I said “Wait a second…I’m 58 years old and I haven’t played bass since I was 19!” It wouldn’t be the same song, it wouldn’t have to be the same song. I mean, [Traffic] was a band that improvised and jammed! 

Ruggiero: But who is “they?” You’re the inductee.

Mason: That would be Mr. Winwood. Mr. Winwood through his manager. I never spoke to him once about the whole thing. And it’s unfortunate, because the three of us should have gone on tour right after that for the last time. And now it’s too late. [Jim Capaldi was diagnosed with cancer a few months after the ceremony and died in January 2005].

Ruggiero: So Jim came down on Steve’s side when it came to the induction performance?

Mason: Evidently!…And it wasn‘t a question that there was no input from anybody else, but that‘s the way it was going to be. It was, OK, in my mind if [Winwood] wants to turn it into the Steve Winwood show, that’s fine, whatever…Frankly, I thought if we were going to do it, what would have been great is if Steve and I played lead guitar and got up there and just blazed away and had a little guitar battle. Made it fun! Then I said I’d play rhythm guitar, and they said that wasn’t gonna happen.
[Note: In a letter on his web site after the ceremony, Mason wrote “It seems that we’ve all become sidemen for Steve Winwood, which he seems to reinforce in all his interviews.“ Mason did get to lead the massive show-closing all-star jam on his most recognizable tune “Feelin’ Alright.”]

Ruggiero: Going back to the beginning, at what point in your life did you realize that music was going to be your career and not just a hobby or a weekend thing?

Mason: I kind of made up my mind about that very early on. I didn’t know how I was going to do it, but I knew that I would. I wasn’t going to go work 9 to 5 in an office somewhere. Actually, the thing I really wanted to do was join the Royal Air Force! But I just have no head for math - I couldn’t wrap my head around that. So my guitar became my plane. Actually, it was kind of like my magic carpet! I just had to put my mind to it. And then there was all these other bands at the time: The Shadows, The Ventures. Bands were coming out of everywhere.

Ruggiero: I know in England, musicians Alexis Korner and Cyril Davies are often credited with really starting that British jazz and blues boom that morphed into a more rock sound. And they mentored a lot of players.

Mason: Yes, them and Georgie Fame, Chris Farlowe, John Mayall. Jazz in particular for the most part was still very popular in Europe, much more so than in America. It’s America’s own music, and it’s a shame that it’s not more popular and there aren’t more jazz clubs around. 

Ruggiero: You started off, I believe, as the road manager for the Spencer Davis Group…

Mason: Not really started off. That was after I had been playing with Deep Feeling. We had done a record for Pye that didn’t go anywhere. Then I worked with Jackie DeShannon and Don Covay. [The members of Traffic] had all been hanging out together for a few years anyway and Steve said “I’m going to leave Spencer Davis.” I even had to step in for him at one show. 

Ruggiero: You had an on-again, off-again participation Traffic, though, quitting and then rejoining a few times over a number of years. [Mason appeared on the debut Mr. Fantasy, follow-up Traffic, loose-ends compilation Last Exit, and later, the live Welcome to the Canteen]. What predicated this?

Mason: The stuff I was writing was more accessible and pop (i.e. “Hole in My Shoe,” “Feelin’ Alright,” “You Can All Join In.”), and most of my stuff was getting [rejected]. And of course, that was a problem. And there was a parting. They said “We don’t really want to go in that direction.” But those [varying musical differences] was what made that band great. I thought to have a song that was popular would draw people to the whole record to see what else was going on. So it wasn’t a question of whether I wanted to leave, but I was asked to leave. 
Then Winwood left and me, Jim, and Chris Wood tried to put something together and even did a few shows. There some footage of us playing at the Royal Albert Hall with Hendrix. I did some recording with him, picked up some work on [The Rolling Stones’] Beggar’s Banquet, sang on the Beatles’ “Across the Universe. I also produced a band called Family. But then I’d decided “to heck with this,” and in 1969 [at age 23] I put my guitar in a bag and got on a plane and came to America.

Ruggiero: Your first solo record, Alone Together, is one of your strongest releases and a lot of people’s favorite. Had all those songs been pent-up for awhile?

Mason: No. They were songs written about over a two-year period. I didn’t fall off the plane with them!

Ruggiero: The next record was an unlikely collaboration that had you co-billed with Cass Elliot of the Mama and Papas. How did that come about?

Mason: When I got to America, one of the only people I knew was Gram Parsons of the Flying Burrito Brothers. So I slept on his couch for awhile and we went up to Cass’ house one day and there was another couple living there that I knew from England. So I was there a lot and Cass and I ended up hanging out together, and we said “Let’s do a record together. Why not?”

Ruggiero: You had some legal problems with your first label [Blue Thumb] after awhile and ended up signing with Columbia for It’s Like You Never Left. It ended up being another really strong record. Did you feel like you had to start all over yet again?

Mason: Well I know a lot about starting over again.

Ruggiero: When the single “We Just Disagree” [written by late longtime backup guitarist Jim Krueger] off Let It Flow became a big hit in 1977, it seemed to peg you to the first-time listener as a soft rocker, a sound you continued with Mariposa de Oro. Do you have somewhat of a love/hate relationship with that song?

Mason: Not at all. It’s a great song. But if people just want to pay attention to one thing, that’s up to them. It’s more a question about what a song says to them, and that song [must have] said a lot to people…or they used in their divorces!

Ruggiero: When my wife and I were dating as teenagers, she once broke up with me in my car…and that goddamn song was playing on the radio!

Mason: (Laughs) Oh no! Well, what can I say?

Ruggiero: You’ve put out several live releases in the past few years, but the last actual studio record was 1987’s Two Hearts. For me, as a diehard fan, it’s the one big black mark on your discography because the heavy, heavy synthesizers make it sound cheesy, and the kind of weak songs don’t sound at all like you. 

Mason: Yeah.

Ruggiero: Once you put out a record, do you every go over in your head what you’d do differently?

Mason: Sure, but it’s out. There’s a bunch of things I’d do differently on my records. Everything but the new album I’ve got. 

Ruggiero: What are your plans to release it?

Mason: I’ve got to try and put it out the right way so it’s just not another record coming out. I’ve got to get my head above the crowd and find a way to market it. I don’t want to just sell it on the web site…and I really thinks it’s the best thing I’ve ever done.
 
Ruggiero: You’ve played on a lot of other artist’s records. What was it like doing George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass?

Mason: Well, I’d known George for awhile and we hung out. He gave me my first sitar and played Sgt. Pepper for me before it came out. So it was just an [extension] of our friendship.

Ruggiero: The Jimi Hendrix Experience’s Electric Ladyland?

Mason: I had met him at a club. And when Traffic was done, there was talk of me joining the Experience on bass because he was having problems with Noel Redding at the time. So I played on “All Along the Watchtower” and sang on “Crosstown Traffic.” And there’s some other tracks that I played bass on. Someone’s got them somewhere!

Ruggiero: You’ve also had a lot of guests on your records. Stevie Wonder played a memorable harmonica break on “The Lonely One” from It’s Like You Never Left.

Mason: I’d met him before, and he even played drums on an unreleased version of “Headkeeper.” He was doing Songs in the Key of Life at the time and I went down to where he was recording and asked him. I only played it a couple of times for him, and then he [nailed] it!

Ruggiero: And last but not least…how did Michael Jackson end up singing the chorus on “Save Me” [from 1980’s Old Crest on a New Wave]???

Mason: (Laughs) Well, I was in one studio and he was across the hall recording Thriller! I had that song and thought it would be cool of someone could sing that really high part, so I thought I’d just go over there and ask him. I thought he’d just do this harmony part and he ended up doing this whole great thing and putting his own [spin] on it. He also told me that when he was 12, he did “Feelin’ Alright” on a Diana Ross special!

Ruggiero: And of course, that is your most famous and best known song, written when you were just a lad of 19! It’s been covered so many times over the years. Do you have a favorite version?

Mason: Well, it would have to be Joe Cocker’s. The only other person I would have loved to hear do it was Ray Charles.

Ruggiero: In concert, you often call it your “Energizer Bunny” of songs, and it’s been in a lot of movie trailers and soundtracks. Now, it’s even on a TV cat food commercial!

Mason: That’s right. It just keeps going! 

Ruggiero: Has their ever been a request to use it that you’ve turned down?

Mason: More by acquiescence. I actually don’t own the publishing on that song.

Ruggiero: One last question. Before Jim Capaldi passed away, the two of you co-wrote an as-yet unreleased song called “How Do I Get to Heaven?” It was featured late last year during the end credits of a Barbara Walters ABC special about heaven. How did that happen?

Mason: I was at home in California and one of my assistants came in and told me about the special, which was airing the next week. We tried to call the production people in New York, but couldn’t get through. So I called another woman I knew who worked at NBC for a long time, and she wouldn’t take no for an answer. Next thing I know, my assistant is on the phone with the woman and she’s got Barbara Walters’ producer on the line!
He told me to call him back in five minutes. So I did and played the song over the phone for him, and he liked it a lot. Then he said “Guess what music I happen to be playing in my office right now?” And I said “What?” And he turned it up…it was “We Just Disagree!”