I was born in Birmingham, Alabama in 1951 and raised on the outskirts in a little town called Center Point. I was the oldest of six kids with one brother a year younger than me and four sisters in order after that. Well, in the South in the "early fifties" with no TV, you do one of two things, and the other was play music. My Mom and Dad both played guitar and sang country and a little church music. There was always a guitar layin' around the house, so when I was big enough to hold it I tried to get the hang of it, I guess I was about six years old.
I would almost get the melody to "Hang Down Your Head Tom Dooley" picked out and Daddy would sit there and take it as long as he could and say, "Give me that thing, I'll show you how to do it." He would proceed to break into three or four Hank Williams songs and a couple of Jimmy Rogers songs and this would piss me off. It had nothing to do with "Tom Dooley." But the minute he put it down, I would grab that guitar and run for the woods and play til I got tired or it got dark, whichever came first.
So, I guess whether my Dad knew it or not, he made me want music more than anything. And after he figured out that I was a natural, he was in one ear with Hank Williams and Jimmy Rogers. When Mom bought a record player she was in the other ear with Jackie Wilson and Clyde McPhatter. Then there was the occasional Bob Wills, Bill Monroe or Carter Family tune thrown in. So you talk about my musical upbringing, I had some very serious decisions to make. When I heard "Respect" by Aretha Franklin, "Mustang Sally" by Wilson Pickett, "Walking The Dog" by Rufus Thomas, and "Green Onions" by Booker T and the MGS, I thought I knew what I wanted to do. Then someone said to me (at fourteen years old), "Hey man, take this and hang out awhile and listen to some blues, Albert King, B.B. King...". Then I got a dose of the Yardbirds, the Stones, redoing our shit, only whiter. The Beatles, the Beach Boys, and for a couple of years I felt like I really had a handle on what I wanted to play. I wanted it all! Then a couple of years later, to set things straight once and for all, I discovered Jimi Hendrix. He did things with a guitar that was humanly impossible! The man could play melodies with feedback. So I figured if this acid stuff makes you play like that, "I'll have what he's having!" (To paraphrase a Billy Crystal film).
So my mind opened up, my ideas got bigger, my hands got quicker, my balls got bigger, and I said to myself, "I can do this stuff!" Around the age of fifteen, I had my first session in a little studio in Birmingham called "Prestige," owned by Bob Grove, on First Avenue and about 85th Street. That's when I discovered I could have all this fun and money, too? Not to mention the women liked you as much, if not more, than the jocks. So after playing in a couple of local bands and recording a couple of 45s with a group called "The Vikings," I was totally hooked!
When I hit sixteen, I had enough of school and a string of teachers that didn't like my long hair. They said I would "never get anywhere playing' that guitar." So I said, "Oh yeah? Well you just watch me!" At that point, I left school, left home and moved in with a fellow band member of the Vikings named Charles Nettles and his Mom. I sort of "kept house" to pay rent, ya know, cut the yard and that sort of thing. In this time period Charlie was learning to, and teaching me how to write songs. He said his Mom was on a diet and was taking these little pills called "obadrine or something," and if he took one it made him concentrate better and the songs turned out better. And I'll be damned if he wasn't right. It also made me sing and play better...at least I thought I could. So I stayed with Charlie and his Mom, Dot (short for Dorothy) for about a year and a half until one of Charlie's girlfriends took an interest in me and I just couldn't help myself...The last time I played with Charlie and the Vikings was in the Fall of 68 and when the gig was over, we came off stage only to run headlong into Stephanie Brown, Charlie's future ex-girlfriend. She looked at Charlie and then looked at me. I looked at Charlie and said, "I can't do this anymore." Then I looked at Stephanie and said, "What's it gonna be? You going with him or coming with me?"
She said, "I'm Coming with you Baby." As we walked off, Charlie looked at me and said, "You'll never do anything without me in the Business!" I said, "Oh Yeah? Just watch me!" So we walked around the side of the stage and ran right into a drummer friend of mine by the name of Jasper Guarino, and he said, "Man, you are playing your ass off, I saw what just went down with Charlie...what the hell you gonna do?! I said, "Man, I don't know." And he said, "Well, if you're interested, there's an opening for a guitar player in a studio called "Quinvy's" in Muscle Shoals. He said, "That's where I'm working. The hours are easy, it's from 10 a.m. to four or five depending on what's going on and it pays $100.00 a week." I said, "When are you going back?" He said, "Tonight, you got anything better to do?" I said, "Hell no. That's the best idea I heard in a long time." So I said to Stephanie, "I'll see you later, I'm going to Muscle Shoals." So Jasper and I swung by Charlie's house, dumped all of my shit into a garbage bag, and got the hell out of Birmingham.
That was the start of my professional career as a studio musician. Going to work for Quin Ivy. He had a rhythm section funded by Atlantic Records to record Percy Sledge and a couple of other artists that Quin had. The job was fun but a different kind of hard work. It was something I loved and one day Jerry Wexler walked into the control room; I remember Quin saying that "Jerry WAS Atlantic Records, and that we were supposed to make him happy with our work." So you can imagine this young upstart from Birmingham, Alabama was quite beside himself.
Well, the gig lasted for about nine months and then there was no more funding. So the band had to decide what to do because Quin couldn't afford to keep us on. So everyone went their separate ways, except for me...I didn't want to leave.
All this time, the boys at Muscle Shoals Sound kept falling by the studio to listen to this new guitar player. So Quin took me aside and said, "Listen, I'll pay your rent and one meal a day, and maybe after awhile, you can get some demos or something "up on the hill," meaning 3614 Jackson Highway.
Well I wasn't about to go back to Birmingham and let Charles Nettles
be right, no way! Quin was right, I started getting work at Muscle Shoals
Sound and worked at first with people like Dave Porter and the Soul Children,
Dave Crawford and Brad Shapiro, and Dee Dee Warwick. At the same time,
Duane Allman had gone back to Georgia to put the Allman Brothers together.
Now Eddie Hinton was working on a duet album with Jim Coleman and was going
to get out of Muscle Shoals as soon as possible. So I guess my timing was
pretty good.
I started doing master sessions like Ronnie Milsap's first album
for Warner Brothers with Jim Dickinson and Dan Penn. Joe Cocker's session
with Denny Cordell, Leon Russell's session, Jimmy Cliff, Jim Capaldi and
Steve Winwood, and at the same time my friend 
Marlin
Greene wanted to do a solo record, and we did, called "Potters Wheel."
At the same time I was working with Tim and Steve Smith. (Two guys from
Birmingham whom I'd never met before) who were recording their own album
with David Hood producing. Well, it turned out they were stronger with
me in the band as well as in the studio.
My first attempt at a solo LP took a backseat to Smith, Perkins and Smith and we were signed by Chris Blackwell to Island Records. We did a showcase at Muscle Shoals Sound for him and were immediately asked if we'd rather break the band in the USA or try our hand in Europe. We all looked at each other and said without one bit of hesitation...Europe! Hence, Smith, Perkins and Smith was off to jolly old England. Next thing I know we're on tour and our first stop is the infamous Cavern Club in Liverpool where we were held over for a third night...I'm in hog heaven!
I mean we're out on the road with Free, Fairport Convention, Argent, Uriah Heep, Family and Vinegar Joe, which is where Robert Palmer came from. Bet you knew that. So we break to record Smith, Perkins and Smith II in the Studios on Basing Street, an old converted church. You would constantly run into people in the hallway like Jeff Beck, Steve Winwood and Cat Stevens. The Eagles were doing Desperado with Glenn Johns downstairs while we were upstairs doing our second LP. I shared an apartment building with the Eagles and Joe Cocker at 333 Kings Road, a real nice quiet little place...yeah!
Anyway, while working on the album, I ran into Blackwell in the hallway and he asked me if I'd like to try my hand at reggae and I said, "What the hell is that?" He said, "Jamaican music." I said, "What kind of guitar do you want?" And he said, "The kind you play, rock and roll blues, that Southern thing..." I said, "Sure, I'll give it a try." He said, "Great." So I took my Les Paul and a twin and went downstairs to meet Bob Marley and the Wailers and ended up playing on their very first album which I finally got a platinum CD for some 23 years later. Anyway, after a year or so of touring and domestic chaos, Smith, Perkins and Smith broke up and we went our separate ways. I tried another band which was half English and half American for three months but it was to no avail.
I came back to Alabama. I'd been back for about two weeks and got a call from Leon Russell. He remembered me from working on his LP in Muscle Shoals in 71. He asked what I was up to and I told him I had just gotten back from London and was taking a little break. That's when he told me that his guitar player had just quit and he needed someone to fill this shoes right now. He said there was a ticket at the airport waiting for me and he wanted me to fly out to Tulsa and have dinner and talk about it. So I flew to Tulsa and Leon picked me up in a Rolls Royce and took me to dinner and let me know that he had one week before his tour started. He was willing to give me roughly three grand a week to come on board. I said, "It looks like you've got your self a guitar player." I stayed with Leon for about two years through the Shelter People Band and the Gap Band.
Some time toward the end of my stint with Leon, Eric Clapton came through Tulsa and we became buds. He said he was going to Jamaica to thaw out and cut an album, so I decided to go along and hang out for a couple of months. One day we were sitting around the breakfast table and Eric said, "Oh, did you hear that Taylor had quit the Stones?" I said, "No, when?" And he said, "About a month or so ago." I said, "Well shit, put in a call for me." He said, "Alright, I will." That's how I got to try out for the Stones. I had Eric, Leon, and Glenn Johns as references.
So I went from
Kingston to Ocho Rios and stayed at the Cheala Bay Hotel and had my23rd
birthday there. After a short sabbatical, I flew back to Birmingham, stayed
for awhile and flew to Fort Wayne to see my girlfriend, Lynn, and soon
got a call from the Stones people telling me I had a ticket at the airport
to Rotterdam to try out for the band. So I flew there and hung out for
three days, then we were off to London. I stayed with Keith and Anita,
two kids and Keith's assistant. We worked on some material for "Black &
Blue" then off to Germany to do the LP. We recorded "Black & Blue,"
but more than that we were just getting to know each other. We were at
Ron Wood's Wick cottage for a couple of weeks and then off to Germany to
do the LP. We recorded "Black & Blue" in about two weeks and I came
home to wait on their decision. Well, as you know, Woody got the job and
I got to fulfill one of my dreams in life, which was to play lead guitar
for the biggest rock and roll band in the world.
So now I
was faced with what to do next and whenever that happened, I would always
end up back in Muscle Shoals. After a short time in Los Angeles being backed
by Isaac Tigrett, Tim Smith and I tried to record another album, but it
was only wishful thinking. It was so peaceful and beautiful out there that
we were so inspired, we never got anything done. I did a little studio
work with Lynyrd Skynyrd and later had an offer to join the band, but for
some strange reason, I declined. They were all my good friends, but my
gut instincts told me not to do it. Later, they had that plane crash that
killed Ronnie, Cassie and Steve Gaines. I think of that now and still get
chills. Be that as it may, that was the end of 1976.
My brother
Dale, had a real hot band in Birmingham called "Alabama Power Band" and
it was one of those bands that could sound like anyone and most of the
time better than the record. I had stocked up on songs and they had the
vehicle so all we needed to do was put the two together. We rehearsed long
hours until I thought we were ready to showcase. At that point, I called
my old friend/lawyer, Mickey Shapiro. He had just had success with Bob
Welch at Capitol so he thought that Capitol would be a good place for the
band, and who were we to disagree.
Mickey cut the deal and we changed our name to "Crimson Tide" and recorded two albums. The first produced by Carter and Richard Landis, the second by Duck Dunn and Steve Cropper. We came close to a good record on the second LP but "My Sharona" by the Knack got in the way. Anyway, we were strong for a couple of years. So I called Rupert Perry one day for a little tour support and I found two band members in his office trying to fire management without my knowledge. That was not a good idea since I wrote 95 per cent of the songs and was the only one with any semblance of a reputation to destroy. Needless to say, I was BENT out of shape. I had told the band up front that if they tried to make any decisions without me, I would be gone! Well, they did...and I was!
So what did Wayne and his new wife do? Go home, back to Muscle Shoals. And as I guessed, they welcomed me with open arms. This was around the end of 1979, beginning of 1980. So I stayed there and worked at Muscle Shoals Sound for about three, almost four years, until the work started going downhill. Well, things were coming apart in my personal life as well as my professional. In 84, I was offered a position with Catdaddy Music in Nashville, with Tina Clarke, as a staff writer. The money was OK and it gave me a great chance to run from all my problems. I moved to Nashville and wrote songs...everything...rock, pop, easy listening, and country. But all the time I still kept one foot in Muscle Shoals hoping there would be a resurgence in their business. Well, with my personal life going to hell, I didn't care anymore, I just wanted out and I thought of how I used to feel when I was in Memphis. Kinda chic but funky, Memphis was like a sweet mistress that wouldn't go away.
I spent a little time there in 76 with Jack Holder and I knew Don Nix from all the work we'd done in Muscle Shoals and in London. So I moved to Memphis and stayed with Katrina Robbins, a woman I was crazy about, and started making connections through Don. While I was hooking up with local players. Don was hooking up with Katrina. He later moved in on me and now he and Katrina are married and live in Nashville and have two kids. Well, I've heard that "you can't play the blues in an air conditioned room," in other words, I hurt over her loss, but I got a couple of albums worth of songs out of the deal. How can you bitch about that?
I moved in with a drummer friend of Don's, Mike Gardner. He and I put a band together called "Fever." We played all over the South. We worked on a couple of records and also a couple of films like "The Karate Kid-Part II" and "Back to School," a Rodney Dangerfield movie. Anyway, that band stayed together for three years and then split up. I guess we just outgrew each other.
Around the same time, I ran into a guy by the name of Robert Nix who used to be with Atlanta Rhythm Section and his sidekick Rick Christian who wrote "I Don't Need You" for Kenny Rogers. We squared off and started writing songs and ended up spending a couple of years together. The next thing you know, we're working on putting a band together called "Problem Child," appropriately named. We wrote a lot of great songs, did a lot of drugs, and drank a lot of red wine. It came down to it and we put a showcase together and no one showed, at least from the industry. The room was full, but only of locals. I later discovered that I was consorting with undesirables and that if I was in need of a record deal, I was looking in all the wrong places. So I got tired of their bullshit and left for Nashville.
Little did I know, I was going from the frying pan into the fire. But I thought since I'd worked on a few country records like the Oak Ridge Boys and Ronnie Milsap, that it might be easy to get my foot in the door. So I went to work writing songs for a small publishing firm and picking up demos and sessions on the side. I ended up doing a lot of jingles and writing a lot of country songs I couldn't use. So in order to keep myself happy, I put together a blues band called "Take No Prisoners" with some local players and a female singer named Miranda Louise. We built up quite a following in the year of two that I was there. Meanwhile, Lonnie Mack walked into a club one night and asked if I played bass guitar. I said, "Yeah, a little." He handed me two cassettes and said, "Here...learn this stuff." So I ended up going on the road as Lonnie Mack's bass guitar player. He would let me go out front in the middle of the show for four or five songs and he would back me up on bass. It got me out in front of the big crowds again. Lonnie Mack's manager invited me to come to the West Coast and get out of Nashville for awhile and try a different atmosphere. So after being in Nashville for three years, I decided to move to Mendocino, found the sound I was looking for, found a place that I wanted to live. After spending a year and a half on a bike in the Redwoods, I found my identity.
So, here it is, 1995 and you get to hear my first attempt at a solo album since 1969. It's called "Mendo Hotel," I hope you like it.
Your friend,
Wayne Perkins