SAFE TRAVELS, MR. DOUGLAS

© Jim Steinfeldt/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

This past Monday, May 11, was my birthday. I turned 56 (?!?!), and I was planning on writing about that for this week’s blog post, waxing philosophical and maudlin about…well, something or other, with the wisdom and gravitas I have just acquired from cresting the summit of my mid-50s and beginning to ride the brakes all the way down to 60. I may still do that at some point soon. Nah, let’s face it- I will do that at some point soon; I’ve met me, after all, and know how my brain works. But today I’m writing about something, someone, else, instead.

I want to talk to you about Jack Douglas. 

Do you know that name? You might. If you’re reading this, there’s a good chance that Music is important to you (my main demographic, bless your nerdy little hearts). Suffice to say, if his name doesn’t ring a bell, his legacy will. Jack Douglas produced, mixed, and/or engineered a host of albums that occupy sacred spots in my heart, for a pretty goddamned heavy list of clients: The New York Dolls. Patti Smith. Cheap Trick. Alice Cooper. Those glorious, drug-fugged albums of Aerosmith’s 70s golden era, those bangers that walk a weaving but steady line encompassing menace, humor, louche charm, and a surprising level of musical sophistication, all at the same time? Jack Douglas produced all of ‘em,from their self-titled debut through Draw the Line- a creative run that rivals the Stones’ hot streak between Beggar’s Banquet and Goat’s Head Soup in terms of creative decadence and myth-building. I could, and may very well yet, write a post about the magic that lies within the grooves of “Last Child” or “No More, No More” or “You See Me Crying”, and Mr. Douglas was largely responsible for said magic. 

Perhaps most crucially, Douglas had a fruitful association with John Lennon, engineering Lennon’s Imagine album and producing John and Yoko’s Double Fantasy. In fact, he was at the Record Plant, preparing to run a mixing session for Yoko’s “Walking on Thin Ice” (featuring Lennon on lead guitar), on the night of December 8, 1980. John and Yoko were waiting outside the Dakota Hotel for the limo to take them to the studio when Mark David Chapman pumped four hollow-point bullets into Lennon’s back, cancelling the session and silencing one of the most important voices of the 20th Century forever. 

And now Jack Douglas is gone, as well. He passed away Monday, on my birthday, of complications from lymphoma. He was 80 years old. A huge loss to the Music World.

It’s hitting me harder than I expected it to, for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I had been unaware of his illness. Lymphoma has taken a number of significant people in my life from me, and now it’s claimed another. Secondly, there’s an extra, personal aspect to his passing, because Jack Douglas and I (in a turn of events that I still have trouble wrapping my mind around) were going to work together. 

This story takes place, as many of my blog posts have, in the Bay Area in early 2020. As I have mentioned here before, my wife and I had just packed up our lives and moved from Ohio to Sunnyvale, California, and I was starting the next phase of my musical life as a solo artist in tentative, hesitant steps. My de facto manager, number one fan, and dear friend Jack Piatt (there’s some good juju in the name “Jack” for me, it seems), had recently told me of his long-held plans- now that we were on the same coast, he intended to put his astonishing rolodex of contacts to work and get the solo album he had always wanted out of me. I was game. I had been recording crude GarageBand demos of some new tunes and sharing them with him. There was one track in particular that he had especially taken a shine to. “Good Enough” was a fragile little slice of honesty, written for a friend who was going through hard times (and also as a little pep talk for myself, frankly). It’s a very personal song, one I don’t play live very often. The opening line is… a lot, and I’m always a little concerned about it being taken out of context:

Suicidal 

Ideation

Face the monster 

Beat him down

With medication

And better angels

And good intentions

And mediocre salesmen

Pushing bad inventions

Oh hear me now

Can I help you? Tell me how

Can you tell me what I’m s’posed to do

If my best ain’t good enough

My best ain’t good enough for you

Livin’ sorry

Barely sleepin’

Runnin’ from the sunset

As the colors deepen

From red to purple

And cool to colder

The bony hands

Of unmade plans

Upon your shoulder

Oh hear me now

Can I help you? Tell me how

I’m not tryin’ to tell you what to do

My best ain’t good enough

It ain’t good enough for you

Spinnin’ circles

Gettin’ dizzy

The left hand knows enough

To keep the right one busy

Chase the rabbit

Becomes a habit

Not much joy around these days 

If you see some grab it

And hold on tight

All this pain is worth the fight

You’ve got what it takes to see it through

Your best is good enough

It’s good enough

Your best is good enough for you

Oof. Anyway.

One of Jack’s recent film projects had put him in contact with Jack Douglas. And, since Jack (Piatt) is a perpetual lifter-upper of others, he played the demo for Jack (Douglas). Mr. Douglas, while still very active in the Industry, had long since reached a point where he had stopped saying “yes” to projects that didn’t resonate with him. He loved “Good Enough” and told Jack he was interested in producing it. 

I can remember where I was when Jack P called me with the news; it was one of those life events where you try to take in as much detail as possible, to add to the Mental Highlight Reel and pull out when you need a pick-me-up. It was a bright, clear late Winter day. I was on Iowa Street in downtown Sunnyvale, between Murphy and Taafe, next to the Target, taking a walk. Jack P told me to expect a phone call from Jack D later that day. 

That phone call was a blur, and I was so gobsmacked to be talking to a bona fide legend that I was sort of floating outside my body during it. I thanked him for all the music that touched my life so deeply- I do remember that much. We exchanged pleasantries for a bit and then he got down to business, asking me what the song was about. I told him basically what I just wrote above. 

“So, it’s the truth,” he said.

“Yeah.”

He then told me about a conversation he’d once had with John Lennon. At some point during a session, he turned to Lennon and asked him, point blank, “So, John, how do you do it? How do you write these songs?” 

Lennon replied, in his Liverpudlian drawl, “You just tell the truth and make it rhyme.”

Tell the truth and make it rhyme.

Fuuuuuuck. 

Jack Douglas, channeling John Lennon, had just given me a mission statement for the rest of my creative life. 

And then the conversation took an even weirder turn. 

“You’re in San Francisco, right?”

“Well, the Bay Area, yeah. Sunnyvale, to be exact.”

“My son, Colin, is going to be the musical director for a Suzi Quatro show up in Marin. There’s a film festival happening up there in March, and the Suzi Quatro documentary is going to be featured. Suzi’s going to do a short set at the festival and Colin’s looking for a band. You want to play guitar? I’ll give Colin your number.” 

I had woken up that morning with no other intention than taking a little walk, maybe working on some new songs. By that evening, I had talked to Jack Fucking Douglas about a recording session and picked up a gig playing guitar for Leather Tuscadero herself. 

Strange days, indeed. Most peculiar, Mama. 

Jack and I agreed to keep in touch about the recording session, and Colin, true to Jack’s word, reached out about the Suzi Quatro gig. I was getting ready to fly back to Ohio for a Shrug gig in early March. I remember sitting in the concourse at Minneapolis Airport returning a message from Colin. This new virus Covid-19 was starting to make the rounds and it looked kind of serious. The film festival might be put on hold. He’d keep me posted. 

You know how the story goes from there. 

I flew back to California after the Shrug gig on a plane that was akin to the last chopper out of Saigon. The film festival got scrubbed, and the recording session with Jack was back-burnered until things got back to “normal”. Weeks became months became years. My studio date with Jack Douglas, like his session with John and Yoko that fateful December night in 1980, never ended up happening. 

For a long time, cooped up and quarantined in that little Sunnyvale apartment, breathing bad news and scrubbing down groceries, I was bitter about the rug being pulled out from under my big break. Time has softened that bitterness, and now I prefer to look at that bizarre turn of events in a different light. I see it now for what it truly was- a galvanizing event. For the first time since I had ventured out of my protective bubble of the Dayton Music Scene, I had the feeling that what I was doing had merit, that I could hang with the Cats in the larger world. Validation. It lit a fire under my ass. 

Jack Douglas was very kind to me. He didn’t have to be. The more I hear about the man, the more I learn that was just how he was. He gave me a gift of confidence and, even though we never got to work together, that’s good enough for me.

Thank you, Mr. Douglas. For everything. Rest easy. 

I’ve added that original sketchy little demo of “Good Enough” to my Soundcloud account. You can listen to it here, if you want.