A Scot with a set of pipes (original) (raw)

Davey Pattison has spent half his life singing on stage with three great rock guitar heroes. Fronting bands with the likes of Ronnie Montrose, Robin Trower and former Scorpions and UFO great Michael Schenker has led Pattison to form some strong friendships in the business and some stronger opinions about it.

“In my opinion, Robin Trower is a far better guitar player than Jimi (Hendrix) ever was,” says Pattison, 60, from his home in Novato.

“I can imagine your readers getting (ticked) off at me for this. But I’ll tell you why I say that: Jimi live was very, very sloppy,” he says. “Certainly he was probably f—–d up while he was doing it. (But) Robin, on the other hand, is very, very precise. Jimi was definitely an innovator, there’s no question about that. (But) Robin took what Jimi had and took it a step further.”

Pattison should know: He saw Hendrix on the guitarist’s first tour of the U.K., and he has just returned from a tour of Europe and the United States with Trower, selling out Bay Area venues like the Fillmore in San Francisco and Petaluma’s Mystic Theater.

On New Year’s Eve, the wee Scot with a big voice will hold court with his own band at The Club at McInnis Park in San Rafael. It’ll be a gig similar to the other ones he works around Marin whenever he has a break from touring.

“The past few years have been pretty much nonstop,” Pattison says. “We just finished 53 dates in America. So I’m certainly due a rest, that’s for sure.”

Pattison also has reunited with Montrose and recorded a song, “Head On Straight” for inclusion on Montrose’s coming album “10×10,” a Santana-ish collaboration featuring 10 songs with 10 singers. Pattison will join fellow Marin residents Sammy Hagar (Montrose’s original singer in the early 1970s) and Eric Martin (who hit it big with Mr. Big in the ’80s). Also on the album will be Joe Elliot of Def Leppard, Gregg Rolie from Santana and Journey, Peter Frampton, Edgar Winter and others. The album’s release is set for sometime early in 2007.

Originally, Pattison was invited to the United States from his native Scotland in 1979 by the late Bill Graham to front Gamma, a hard rock band being put together by Montrose.

“When I came over here I was married at the time, and we had an 8-year-old girl, so my question to Bill was, ‘Where are the good schools?’ and he goes, ‘Marin County,'” Pattison recalls in his Glasgow brogue. “I didn’t know Marin from anywhere else at the time, I said ‘So, that’s where we go.’ We’ve been here ever since.”

Gamma recorded three albums for Elektra Records, featuring such hits as “Right the First Time” (which made the top 10 on the Billboard rock charts) and “Voyager,” a Pattison-penned song about a world traveler wistfully thinking of his home. Together those albums sold about 1 million units.

“I’ve learned a lot from people like Ronnie, because I had no clue when I came here,” Pattison says. “I was used to playing in bars in Scotland and our very first gig we played (as Gamma) was 25,000 people opening for Santana. Thankfully I had brown trousers on, if you know what I mean.”

Major stadium and arena concerts followed, including a support slot on one of Graham’s newest concepts, Day on the Green. Pattison displays a poster-sized photo from the 1981 Day on the Green IV show at the Oakland Coliseum, with he and Montrose seen from behind on stage and about 80,000 fans with fists in the air.

“He has the raw blues and passion that I’ve always gravitated toward,” Montrose wrote of Pattison in a e-mail from his home near Sacramento. “He still is one of my favorite singers.”

Throughout the early 1980s, Gamma toured with such bands as AC/DC, ZZ Top, Journey and Foreigner. But record sales failed to skyrocket, and Gamma disbanded after its third album in 1982.

Montrose returned to a solo career, drummer Denny Carmassi joined Heart, keyboardist Mitchell Froom joined jazz rocker Robert Fripp in King Crimson and Pattison teamed up with former Procol Harum guitarist Robin Trower.

Pattison released three records with Trower in the late 1980s starting with “Passion” in 1987. They had a hit single off that one called “No Time.” In 1990, Pattison started recording with Montrose again and in 1992 reunited with Gamma to tour in support of the release of “Gamma’s Greatest Hits.”

“Over the years I’ve learned never to say never,” Pattison says, “’cause I swore that Gamma would never get back together, and it did.”

The ’90s saw Pattison take a dip in his fortunes. Grunge was all the rage in the rock world and traditional rock bands such as Gamma and Trower seemed to be pushed onto the back burner. Pattison played gigs locally and released his first solo record, “Mississippi Nights,” produced by local guitarist John Rewind, formerly of the Hoodoo Rhythm Devils.

“He is in the classic rock genre … one of the last singers left in the Paul Rodgers, Frankie Miller, Jimmy Dewars, Anglo-Scottish blues singer mold,” Rewind says of Pattison. “There’s not many of them left – not since Rod Stewart went to Tony Bennett land.”

The new century saw a Gamma reunion for a fourth album and a tour. Pattison then recorded with Pete Sears, released another solo record featuring Rewind and Steve Canali on guitar, then teamed up with German guitar phenom Michael Schenker for two records. Produced by Novato’s Mike Varney for Shrapnel Records, the two “Endless Jam” CDs also teamed Pattison with former Journey drummer Aynsley Dunbar and Mountain’s Leslie West sharing duties on guitar.

“The music business is really a roller-coaster ride,” Pattison says. “It really is … it’s feast or famine. One year you’re busy as all hell, the next year you’ve got nothing.”

Pattison continues to play and record on his own when he’s not on tour with Trower. Although he is an accomplished guitarist and plays acoustic and electric guitars when his local four-man band plays, he’s known for those Scottish pipes.

“If I had made the choice when I first came over here to pursue a solo career, I probably would be in a different situation,” Pattison says. “That was offered to me. I was told (by Bill Graham), ‘You can either go with Ronnie, or I will put a band around you and we’ll pursue a recording deal and all that stuff.’ What I should have done, in hindsight, is do both. But I was naive. … I was just in the country – I had no idea what this culture was like. It took me years to figure that out.”

The 2006 tour with Trower has been one of the most successful of late. Pattison credits it to an “upsurgence in that era-kind of rock ‘n’ roll. On the American tour we were surprised by all the young people who showed up. There were guitar players, singers, bass players, drummers who were 20 years old. We’ve never seen that, certainly not in Europe. It was very surprising and very gratifying to see young people interested in what we are doing. It was very cool.”

He adds, “There’s definitely a market for what that band is doing. And there’s depth to it, to what he (Trower) does, that’s why I keep going back to it. There’s a lot of soul and a lot of passion, and that’s what attracts me to it.”

As for the future, Pattison and Montrose believe that another Gamma reunion is unlikely. “Gamma was then and was a blast,” Montrose writes. “(But) we all have many more things to do, I’m sure.”

Pattison is a realist and a survivor. He says that as long as there are people who want to hear him sing and he’s physically able, it won’t matter if it’s the Fillmore, the Oakland Coliseum or at a local bar. In fact, Pattison in January will record vocals for a gospel album – a first for him – and he dreams of fronting a 1940s-style big band.

“I dabbled in big band music in Scotland – you know, the standards,” says Pattison, who has been on a Sinatra kick lately. “I just love it, mostly because of the songwriting. Those songs are fabulous. If I could afford an orchestra, I’d do it.”

Denny Carmassi, the one-time drummer for Gamma who now lives in Fairfax, asked Pattison one time, “With that voice, why aren’t you rich?”

“I get that a lot,” Pattison says. “It’s not about being rich. I’ve never been interested in being a rock star. That never interested me at all, ever. The big hair, all the leather gear and all that … nah. I’ve been trying to be the best musician I can be my whole life and play with guys who I could learn from.”

In that regard, Pattison has been far more successful than he could have imagined.

“I’ve been lucky to play with some of the best musicians in the world,” he says. “I’ve got no gripes or regrets.”

IF YOU GO

Who: Davey Pattison Band

What: New Year’s Eve at The Club

Where: The Club restaurant at McInnis Park Golf Center, 350 Smith Ranch Road, San Rafael

Tickets: 75or75 or 75or130 per couple; includes dinner, dancing, party favors and champagne toast

Information: 491-5959 or www.mcinnisparkgolfcenter.com

Originally Published: December 27, 2006 at 12:00 AM PST