The Boy Who Cried Freebird (19 page)

Riley studied with Pran Nath and spent six months living in India until the elder told Terry that he should return to work in America. For Terry, Pran Nath's intensive teachings went well beyond musical training. “It's a very personal relationship when you study under your masters,” Riley emphasized. “You don't come for a lesson once a week, you work very closely because it's a responsibility on both persons' part. You have to devote your life to it.” Riley's mentor eventually
moved to the Bay Area and their friendship lasted until Pran Nath's death in 1996.

When Terry returned to California, he took an instructor's position at Mills College. There, he practiced the teachings of Pran Nath and improvised music. Up to that time, Terry had never thought to notate his music in written fashion. Instead, he produced more solo-trance classics, including
Happy Endings
and
Persian Surgery Dervishes
. There was also the West-meets-East electro-tone-poem,
Shri Camel
, which used digital delays on a Yamaha organ calibrated to a unique tuning system called “just intonation.”

In 1979, Terry met David Harrington and the Kronos Quartet at Mills College. Riley's work had already made an impression on Harrington, and their meeting at Mills resulted in a series of collaborations.

“The first time I ever met Terry he sat in on a rehearsal we were having,” said Harrington. “I'd been listening to Riley's music for a long time and after meeting him, it became clear to me that he had to write for Kronos. He was a quartet composer even if he didn't know it yet.”

Harrington's assessment was prophetic and Riley has written some of his most significant compositions specifically for the Kronos Quartet. The group's recording of Riley's
Cadenza on the Night Plain
was selected by both
Time
and
Newsweek
as one of the Ten Best Classical Albums of the Year in 1985, and their double disc
Salome Dances for Peace
was nominated for a GRAMMY in 1989.

On their ten-CD retrospective,
25 Years
, the Kronos Quartet devoted an entire disc to Riley's compositions. Here, Terry is set alongside contemporaries like Philip Glass, Steve Reich, and John Adams, as well as more obscure luminaries like Henryk Górecki and Morton Feldman.

“David talked me into writing for the Kronos,” Riley admitted.
“They are my most consistent collaborators in music. It brought me out of an isolated solo performance career. I also started writing for other groups and ended up getting orchestral commissions.”

One such project had Riley and the Kronos working with the NASA space program. Thanks to David Harrington, Riley was commissioned to compose music based on radio waves collected by the
Voyager
space shuttle.

“This one is based on
Voyager
's exploration, which flew by all of the planets,” Riley explained. “On board
Voyager
was a device called the Plasma Wave Receptor, which was invented by a Dr. Gurnett in Iowa. This [device] is able to receive radio waves the planets themselves broadcast, and each planet has a different sound wave.”

Besides cultivating his abilities as a composer, Terry found a passion for piano improvisation and recorded some uniquely contemplative solo pieces. His use of the “just intonation” tuning system is used to great effect on 1986's
The Harp of New Albion
. Terry's conventionally tuned piano meditations, like 1995's
Lisbon Concert
, are especially transcendent.

Whether composing space-age string quartets or singing North Indian ragas, Terry approaches music with focused devotion, reflecting the sum total of his experience and integrating a world of sound. While his peers Philip Glass and Steve Reich record for the prestigious Nonesuch label and vie for commissions and grants in businesslike fashion, Terry resides at his Shri Moonshine Ranch like a venerable music buddha, performing sporadically and recording for small, independent record labels.

Sitting quietly upstairs at the Sri Moonshine Ranch, Riley radiates a sense of inner peace as he looks back at an uncommon career.

“The choices I've made have been for the music and my own soul,” said Terry. “When I walked away from New York, I knew fame wouldn't
have given me any happiness if it weren't based on a musical choice. Pran Nath said, ‘Just enough fame to keep doing your work is enough,' and I thought that was good advice. I feel terrifically lucky every day I get up and give thanks for what's happened. What really makes me sad is to see young musicians who are hopeless about their situations. My advice is put it all into the music. That's the only thing you can do, because you don't know what kind of hand fate is going to deal you. At least your own soul is going to be getting some feedback.”

“Hello, Doris? This is Mrs. Albini from down the street. Did I catch you at a bad time? Good, I appreciate that. Oh, I'm fine, thank you. Listen, I hate to be a bother but I understand you've done a fair share of counseling down at the church and I was hoping to ask your opinion on a family matter.

“Now I know this is going to sound sort of silly, but our son Steven won't eat his cereal. No, he's not a finicky eater. He usually finishes everything I put in front of him. Never gains a bit of weight, either—sometimes I worry because he's so thin, but that's not why I'm calling.

“It's the things he's been saying that have me concerned. Like this cereal thing; Stevie absolutely refuses to eat the Cheerios that I bought at the grocery store. He keeps referring to General Mills as some kind of ‘major label' and insists that he'll only eat ‘indie-brand' cereal. He says that smaller companies have more integrity and care more about their finished product. Is this any way for a child to talk?

“It's almost like a game with him. Sometimes I can slip a Post brand cereal past him when he's really hungry or tired from staying up too late, but that's it. Then there are the times when he gets angry and bites my head off for no apparent reason. He's so rigid and
uncompromising compared to the other children that I just don't know how to deal with him anymore.

“I shouldn't complain—we're actually quite proud of our little man. I'm especially impressed by the measure of discipline that he exerts when he's working on something, but he can be so cold toward his schoolmates. You see, Stevie is quite gifted—I know you probably think I'm biased because I'm his mother—but he's extremely intelligent and…well, sometimes he talks down to some people. It's awkward because he can make an awful lot of sense and is very convincing, especially when he sets his mind to something.

“There are times when he's totally oppositional and rejects people's wishes on principle. He's constantly accusing his friends of ‘selling out' and refuses to have anything to do with them. He insists on total honesty, extreme independence, self-determination, and common sense. Hardly any of the kids in the neighborhood can keep up with him. My friend Sally says all he needs is a good shellacking, but we don't want to discourage his creative flair.

“How can you argue with a youngster who adheres to a fully formed moral code with absolutely no room for compromise? I don't know where he got it into his head to pursue such a rigorous work ethic—he hardly ever takes a day for himself. And this totally pure artistic worldview that he's always going on about, it's very intimidating.

“He does enjoy himself when he plays music with his friends, though. They look so cute with their instruments, but I don't understand what they're doing. Stevie plays his guitar so loud that I have to get out of the house when his band rehearses in our basement. I've never known anyone that likes noise as much as he does. It's some sort of release for Stevie, and all this aggression just comes pouring out of him when he plays. He reminds me of a deranged method actor and that scares me. It's like he has a split personality.

“Lately, his friends Bobby and Todd have been spending a lot of time in the basement with him and the caterwauling is getting quite intense. Sometimes they play very slowly while other times their pace is accelerated beyond words. I have to say that for just three kids they make quite an imposing and synchronized racket. And I don't know where my son got this idea to scrape and strangle his guitar so viciously—certainly not from anyone here in Missoula, Montana!

“I've tried listening to the lyrics but I can't follow his train of thought at all. Especially while young Todd is pounding on his drums and Bobby is flogging that poor bass. I've even looked in Stevie's school notebook and he's been scrawling strange phrases like ‘Big Black' and ‘Rapeman.' Should I be concerned about any of this?

“Doris, you've never heard anything like these kids. There's something damaged about the whole thing. No, I don't think they're Satanists, the other two are quite polite when they come over to the house. They just seem to change when they plug in their instruments. I swear, my oldest used to listen to Led Zeppelin, and that was tame compared to this stuff. And their attention to detail—it borders on obsessive! They work out the smallest aspects of all their songs and it makes me feel claustrophobic.

“So, do you think that he's just going through a phase? Do you think he'll calm down and start paying more attention to his homework? Even if he just brought home a nice girl once in a while. Anything! I hate to sound like a worrywart, I'm sure it's just a maturity thing. They say it takes longer with boys.

“Well listen, Doris, thanks. I feel so much better just getting that off my chest. Steven is coming home with his friends soon so I've got to go hurry and put out some milk and cookies. Bye now!”

Do you remember the
Saturday Night Live
skit spoofing Blue Oyster Cult in the recording studio? It was a send-up of
VH1 Behind the Music
and astutely mocked the inflated sense of self-importance held by so many famous rock groups.

In the
SNL
skit, the “band” is recording their song “Don't Fear the Reaper” and Christopher Walken, who portrays record producer Bruce Dickinson, keeps insisting that the tune needs, well, “more cowbell.”

As funny as that skit was, there's something about this cowbell business that rings true for me. When I was a young teenager coming of age in the 1970s, some of my favorite songs contained the distinctive clank of a cowbell.

Of course, those were the glory days of swaggering, super-heavy-rock 'n' roll stars—I'm talking fringe-vested, bare-chested, bell-bottom-wearing hard rockers who used and abused the innocent cowbell to accentuate their macho point of view.

As I recall, no self-respecting drummer of the time could be found without a cowbell perched on top of his bass drum (often wrapped in duct tape to deaden the harsh metallic clank).

Now, I really can't wax nostalgic about the '70s and the collective
thrust of old cowbell tunes without getting more specific, so please forgive this sentimental indulgence—but if you can remember producer Jimmy Miller's historic cowbell intro to the Rolling Stones' “Honky Tonk Women,” you already know what I'm talking about.

That's right—for a brief period in the twentieth century the cowbell was an essential component of popular music. And for certain groups, the cowbell was the most identifiable part of their signature sound. Take the once-portly guitarist Leslie West and his band, Mountain, who enjoyed at least fifteen minutes of fame with “Mississippi Queen,” a hard-rock classic that begins with drummer Corky Laing whacking the living daylights out of his cowbell—providing an infectious counterpoint to West's throaty wail and crunching power chords.

And the beat goes on. Besides Top 40 breakthroughs for heavy-metal kids like Blue Oyster Cult and Mountain, Grand Funk Railroad's “We're an American Band” showcased big Don Brewer working that poor cowbell to death, all the while singing his blue-collar ode to partying on the road, groupies, and good-time rock 'n' roll.

There's some consensus that the ringing clarion call is the ultimate party signifier. But the history of the cowbell actually goes back to ancient Middle Eastern culture. There, animal tenders placed bells around the necks of their camels. And when it came to keeping track of cattle in the centuries to follow, many farmers put bells around the necks of their smartest animals, the ones most likely to keep the rest of the herd out of trouble.

I could go on listing old-fashioned cowbell songs performed by groups from the days of yore. There's memorable cowbell rock by the likes of Free, Humble Pie, Black Sabbath, Creedence Clearwater Revival, AC/DC, Santana, and even the Beatles.

But I just can't bring myself to talk about the days when cowbells reigned supreme. You see, at some point my cowbell story gets rather
depressing and I have to face the fact that the '70s are ancient history and so is my lost youth. The last time cowbells ruled the radio I was parting my hair down the middle—nowadays I don't even own a comb.

Oh yes, the past is gone, even if some of the groups who played those cowbell songs are still going strong. Hey, I wonder if this means that cowbells aren't just good, but good for you. It's possible, right?
Something
is keeping groups like Aerosmith and ZZ Top alive and well. Who's to say it's not the ding-dang cowbell?

Now please don't let my rueful nostalgia convince you that cowbells have gone the way of the dinosaur. Contemporary groups always seem to keep this great lost art alive, like the White Stripes or the Kings of Leon, whose “California Waiting” stuck some classic cowbell clangor on top of a guitar riff stolen straight from a song by Blondie.

So, instead of mentioning any more cowbell songs, I humbly refer you to “The Cowbell Project” at
geekspeakweekly.com/cowbell
/, a website listing every cowbell tune you can think of and plenty more that you can't. On top of that, the site even dubs Christopher Walken “the patron saint of the cowbell.”

And if all of this isn't a perfect example of herd mentality, then I don't know what is.