So now I'm in the cab, and this black driver looks in the rear view mirror and smiles real big. "You’s in the music business ain't ya?" Aw man. No, please. He grins, "So where ya goin'?" I gave him the name of the hotel and added, "There's a Tower Records across the street from there that’ll be cool." There used to be a 24-hour Tower just outside of downtown Nashville, off-Broadway, and it had a really large book section and I needed to decompress. He acknowledged, hit the meter, and we followed the back streets. I kept an eye out as I really didn't know this end of town, and I couldn't shake the feeling of his steady stare in the rear view mirror.
Then it happened.
The big eyes and bigger smile in the mirror, and he says "So, you play geetar, you look like a geetar player?"
I relented, "Yeah, but I ain't nobody you know or ever heard of, honest."
"Yeah, me either," came a wonderfully welcome and humorous reply. He says, "But you ain't from around here, I know that much."
OK, I'm tired, but amused. I'll play along. "How you know that?" I laughed.
"You don't sound local and I been around a bit," he grinned. "You from New York ain't ya? I been there."
Well, close enough. Philly is only 90 miles from NYC. Relaxing and starting to enjoy the company, I said, "Nah, not New York. I live in Boston."
"Been there too," he replied. "Whatta ya do there, play geetar? Did you play tonight?"
"I play, but not tonight. I'm just in town on business."
Knowing full well what the next question would be: "What kinda business you in?" Could of won a dollar on that bet.
"The record business," I sighed.
"No shit? I know people in the record business in Boston." And he started beaming at me again in the rear view mirror, "But nobody you'd know!"
OK, now I'm awake and in for the whole game, but still not sure of my logistical surroundings. "Yeah? How do you know record people in Boston?" trying to keep a conversation going till I get acclimated.
"I get around man, I used to make records up there in Roxbury."
OK, now I'm wide-awake. What rabbit hole did I fall down? This is one weird night.
"Eh you made records up there, huh? Doin' what?"
He was as awake as I was now and the electricity bill had been paid.
"Playin' sax man. I'm Florida Bill!?!" he shouted.
I admitted, with some concern, "Don't think I've heard of a Florida Bill."
He started telling me a tale of playing down South under that name, and asked if I was sure I never heard of it. I 'fessed up to being a record collector, and that name was unfamiliar to me.
He said, "Ya got any soul records?"
The lights of downtown were coming into view and I relaxed as we headed through.
"Yeah," I told him. "I collect some soul 45's."
"Like who? Tell me who ya like?"
I rattled off a few names of my favourites: Nolan Strong and the Diablos from Detroit, told him I was an Arthur Alexander fan, just testing him out.
"That's cool," was the rushed reply. He turns off Broadway and we're on a side street when he asked, "Who else?"
So I thought, ok, it's stump the white guy. So I mentioned a recent find, just to name any rare Boston soul record I could think of.
"Earl Lett," I sighed.
The brake pedal went through the floorboards and he spun around. I braced myself. He was starin' at me like real wild. Ok, he's gonna whack me on this side street for my $27.00 and change. He looked at me pie-eyed with the smell of adrenaline pouring out of him. I went for the door handle, grabbed it tight and started to pull when he screamed, "I'm Earl Lett.!???!" "I AM EARL LETT!!!"
OK, breathe deep. I’m gettin’ whiplash from changing gears in my head so fast.
"You're Earl Lett...? I thought you was Florida Bill?"
"Nahhh, that's just a name I used when I moved down here. You make the locals happy with a name like that."
OK, let’s take a pause here and put some pieces together.
"You say you’re "Earl Lett and you've lived in Boston and cut some 45s?"
"That's right," and he named some titles: "Green Power on Beantown," and some others. I told him I don't know any of them but I did know of Beantown Records. Now his heart rate doubled and he went into mental overdrive while we're at a standstill on a side street in post-midnight Nashville. His head was goin' side to side and I started getting pumped. He asked me if I knew of Skippy White's Records, a local R&B record store on Columbus Ave. I told him I'd been there. "They let you in?" he exclaims. Now we both knew we're talkin' the same language. Cars started beeping at us from behind as we were now stuck in time as well as the middle of the street.
He pulled over and, to my ease, turned the meter off, and said, "I recorded a 45 in one of the clubs around there!"
Now it was my turn to scream, "No!!!! You did "Do The Thing" on WILD Records!?!?!?"
We were both jumping up and down like we just found a thousand bucks. He was hyperventilating. "I'm Earl Lett!??!?!" and we're both singin' "Do the/ Do the/ Do the Thing....Ow!"
"You have that record????" he panted.
Now I was hyperventilating like we were the only two people on the East Coast who could appreciate this moment, or even know what the hell we were talkin' about. He pulls down the visor of the cab and shows me his hack license, and now I'm shouting, "You're Earl Lett??!?!? You ARE Earl Lett???" And he's going berserk, "I AM Earl Lett. I AM!"
He grabbed a phone in the car, like one of those that Mike Hammer had in the Mickey Spillane books and movies that had a coil wire to the dash and he called the dispatcher, his wife. “Hey baby, I got a white boy here in my cab who knows who I am!"
Pause.
"What?"
Another pause.
"Yeah, I know. Nah nah we talk about that later. I got this white boy here, nah don't go be listening to her and stuff...we'll talk about that when I get home. I got this white boy here and he knows who I am..." he turns to me with a look of desperation and says, "Tell her you know who I am. TELL HER..."
So I stretch up between the two front seats and grab this phone with a very high-pitched, agitated voice in mid-stream coming closer to my ear. "I don't care 'bout no dumb white boy and I sure as hell don't wanna talk to...."
"Uh, hello," I broke in. "This here's the white boy." It was then that I learned just what a pregnant pause was.
"Tell her, TELL HER" screamed Earl, he was frothing.
"Um, this here's Earl Lett's cab and I know who he is" was the best I could muster given everything I'd been going through in the last half hour.
She screamed "I know who the hell he is, you don't need to be tellin' me who HE is, who are you?!?"
I started laughing and repeated, "I'm the white boy."
Earl says, "Here, gimme that," and I was all too happy to let him have the phone back and let him get outta whatever he was in.
"Listen baby," he said firmly. "Listen, I got this here white boy in the cab and he's from Boston, and I'm takin' him uptown, and he knows who I am and I will talk to you later." He hung up and told me to pay her no mind.
“No prob, Earl, "Do the Thing!" was all that came outta my reelin' head.
We just sat there and looked at each other and let a slight calm filter in. He had a narrow face, nice eyes when they were right sized, and an even nicer smile highlighted with gold. I thought of the scene back at the banquet hall, still wondering who those bimbettes thought I was, and how it could possibly compare—or maybe it could—to me being here on some backstreet with Earl Lett. The big difference being, he is Earl Lett. He gently nodded his head and sighed a sweet, relaxed confirmation, "I'm Earl Lett."
I let it sink in and gave a very sincere gesture of conceding belief and said, "I know you are, and I'm a white boy."
He laughed and got a little embarrassed. I knew I just had to ask him, for too many reasons to explain, I had to, so I quietly suggested, "Hey Earl, can I have your autograph?" I thought the man was gonna cry. I thought I was gonna cry.
He had a business card for the taxi service with his name on the front and he flipped it over and asked, "This ok to write on?" It couldn't have been more perfect.
He asked my name but I told him to just write, "To the white boy," saying, "It's more memorable that way." We looked at each other for a minute or two and just smiled. I said, "I love your record man." His face lit up like a pinball machine, but the explosions were softer now.
He simply grinned and nodded, "Right on!"
He hit the clutch and when we next spoke we were in Tower's parking lot. He tried to waive the fare, but I insisted. “Company expense,” I told him and tipped him big. We both got out of the cab and awkwardly went for the hug that the moment cried for. I wanted to spare him the words, so I offered, "It's an honor to meet you, Mr. Lett. You have no idea how many times I've played your 45." He expressed a very humble and sincere thanks and said whenever I needed a cab while I was in town, call that number on the card. I said "sho' 'nuff", and he grinned and we were off.
I did call the next day to see if I could pay for his service and a ride to the airport, but the "dispatcher" answered and, when I asked for Earl, she beat me to it. “Is this that white boy? He's got no time for this and that. If you need a ride you’ll have to wait like anybody else." I figured some things are better left in that little space that they created on their own, that place in your heart that you can see with your mind's eye and they should just reside there, as is. I figured I'd get another cab and let Earl get on with bein' Earl, or Florida Bill, or Mr. Dispatcher.
In remembering that night recently, a night almost twenty years ago, I googled him. I found out quite a few things. He did "get around" and he made several records in Boston, including the "Boston Puppy," and he is an accomplished sax player. In the mid to late ‘60s Earl auditioned for, and landed, the gig in just three minutes, as sax player in Ike & Tina Turner's Revue. He played on their Live at Carnegie Hall album and some others. He was touring with them in 1969 when I saw the Revue open for The Stones. Around 1970 Earl left the band to attend Berklee School of Music for sax, composition, and arranging. It was during this time he played the gig in Boston that yielded the Do The Thing 45. He later recorded in Toronto and lived and played in Nova Scotia around 1973 as Earl Lett and the International Soul Set. Picture sleeve 45, LP sleeve all imaged on the web. He became known as The Professor and recorded the Soul Serenade LP which is now a collector’s item. Japanese soul/funk/Latin reissue label of indisputable taste, P-Vine, reissued it in 2008.
And, for giggles, I googled Florida Bill too. Lo and behold, there's a brand new video by him. Sho' 'nuff, it's him.
So, Earl, if you see this: thanks, man. I remembered ya back then, I still do, and most likely always will.
--
Words: JJ Rassler (with thanks to Scott W)
