R&R Hall Of Famer Dave Mason: Singin’ His Own Songs, Slingin’ His Own Axes

By John Voket

When you say the name Dave Mason, most folks will hit you with a few bars of “We Just Disagree.”

“…there ain’t no good, guys, there ain’t no bad guys…it’s just you and me and…”

But unfortunately, that’s as far as it goes with his casual music fans. They have no idea that Dave Mason is to the music world what our Roxbury neighbor Kevin Bacon is to that six degrees game everyone was playing a few years back.

(You know, tracing the name of virtually every actor back to Kevin Bacon in six steps or less.)

Apparently, as recently as a few years back, you could trace almost everybody who was anybody in the music business to Dave Mason in just six steps or less. This musical chameleon has either played for or with, or collaborated in some way, with such a vast number of the world’s top talent, it’s kind of mind-boggling.

Besides the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame statue on his mantel for his groundbreaking work with Traffic, Mason has the distinct honor of having jammed with The Beatles and the Stones, The Mamas & The Poppas, Fleetwood Mac, Hendrix, Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson, Spencer Davis, Eric Clapton, Joe Cocker, Phoebe Snow, Crosby & Nash, etc., etc.

Oh yes, and word on the street has it that Dave Mason recorded Dylan’s favorite cover of a Dylan song – “All Along the Watchtower,” on his 1974 self-titled LP.

So with that kind of cache, it is all the more special to have such an artist so accessible to his local fan base. Besides a two-night stand at Foxwoods Casino’s Club BB earlier this week, Mason will grace the stage tonight (Friday, February 2) at the Ridgefield Playhouse and Saturday at Long Island’s North Fork Theater.

After kicking around Worcester, England, developing his talents in several bands when he was a teen, Mason fell into a gig working with Steve Winwood and Jim Capaldi which eventually became the legendary Traffic. In an on-again, off-again relationship he subsequently dotted Traffic’s discography, arguably influencing much of their most accessible work, from Mr Fantasy in 1967, to Smiling Phases in 1991.

I had the pleasure of seeing Mason in that most recent configuration of Traffic opening several shows for The Grateful Dead that summer, along with numerous solo appearances before and since. The most recent was the first of the two Foxwoods shows Tuesday evening.

As expected, Mason hit the stage right on time and ripped through a retrospective of his material both solo and collaborative, including a brand new and very touching number he co-wrote following the loss of his friend Capaldi to cancer last year.

While the material has to be somewhat packaged to get all the requisite hits and near hits into the unforgiving timeframe of these cabaret gigs, Mason told me he is still proud to be branching off into uncharted jams during several of the numbers.

This occasional opportunity to fly appears to be the best opportunity to see Mason at his finest. And he did not disappoint. While the vocals are still crisp and clear as a bell, the guitar work is nothing short of phenomenal.

The pleasure of delivering so consistently every night may also have something to do with those guitars he plays. In fact, Mason seems to have capitalized on his chameleon-like musical persona, and applied that to guitar technology.

Along with engineer Ravi Sawhney, Mason helped develop RKS Guitars in 2000. The instruments are quite unique looking, and are based on a core customized neck and electronics.

The novelty is RKS provides well over a dozen different interchangeable bodies for each core, including a line of semi-hollow acoustic-electric six-string models, and several basses.

During a chat Mr Mason had with The Newtown Bee prior to his Foxwoods show, he talked a bit about some of his famous session work, his classic and new music, as well as his other passion, the RKS guitar company.

Newtown Bee: You obviously get the chance to play for music fans all over the world, but you can admit it to us here at The Bee, Connecticut is your favorite place to play, right?

Dave Mason: I love it up there. It’s really beautiful country. We’re usually up in New England in the spring and summer time. But it’s also supply and demand, my friend.

NB: A lot of artists have their product endorsements, but you’ve taken the concept one step further by designing your own guitar line.

DM: I started this with my partner Ravi, who is a brilliant industrial designer about four years ago. It was an idea to design a guitar and basically just sell the design. We had Fender and Gibson both interested, but then things fell through and we decided to start manufacturing the guitars ourselves.

The first few models were kind of a high end line, but I convinced my friend to begin working on a more low-end line. This year, we were showing the low-end models which are more geared to an affordable price range and we’re in about 60 mostly independent stores in the US, and a few more in Europe.

There are three different unique guitar shapes. The core model is called The Wave, and you can actually buy different colors, shapes and colors to change around. We also have a guitar stand that we designed that is small enough to fit into a gig bag. Everybody in the band we’re touring with now plays one, including the bass.

NB: You live in northern California now, but you’ve lived all over the world. And when you consider the differences between your contributions from say, the Spencer Davis band, to your own solo stuff like “Let it Go, Let it Flow,” to “We Just Disagree,” there seems to be a vast difference in the musical infrastructure. Is that because the places you’ve lived influenced the musical styles you’ve produced at various stages of your career?

DM: Not really. I write pretty eclectic stuff. There’s some that is more country feeling. I just write songs and interpret them the way I feel at the time. I don’t set out to produce a specific type of sound to go with the lyrics.

NB: People who come to your shows really get a broad retrospective of your material, both solo and some of the contributions you’ve made to other musicians. But it doesn’t scratch the surface of the collaborations you have enjoyed. I mean, who would think of Dave Mason calling in Michael Jackson for a backing track?

DM: When I was recording Old Crest on A New Wave, Michael was in the same studio cutting Thriller, and so I walked over to his studio and just asked him if he would sing a high part on one of the songs I was recording that day (“Save Me”). And he told me when he was 12-years-old he was on a Diana Ross special singing a duet with her on “Feelin’ Alright.” So he was happy to do it.

NB: You were kind of brought in to infuse some new life into Fleetwood Mac after some of their most famous and well-known material was already out there. How do you make Fleetwood Mac palatable without Buckingham and Nicks?

DM: Well Stevie and Lindsey had split from the band and Mick wanted to put a new band together. I joined in with that on an album called Time. Christy McVie was in on the album, but she wouldn’t go on the road. The only original members were Mick (Fleetwood) and Jon McVie, so it was close to a Fleetwood Mac cover band. We had Becca Bramlett on vocals and Billy Burnette in the band as well. We toured American and Europe playing mostly smaller theaters and clubs in 1995 and ’96.

NB: You mainly play guitar now, but back in the day, you were a very attractive studio musician because you could sing lead and harmony, and play several instruments as needed, right?

DM: Yeah, I played drums on The Stones’ Begger’s Banquet in the end of “Street Fighting Man.” And I was part of a big bunch of people who sang on “Across the Universe.” I also had a chance to work with Harrison on All Things Must Pass, and McCarthy in his solo days. I also played bass on the original recording of Traffic’s “Dear Mr Fantasy.”

NB: The variety of your material we can hear on commercial radio is somewhat more limited than that of the massive selection accessible on satellite radio. It must be gratifying to get another shot at that level of broad exposure, especially to a new generation of fans.

DM: I get a lot of younger number of kids coming to the concerts with their parents and older brothers and sisters. Then they become fans. It’s great that we have satellite radio to keep that stuff going.

NB: So what can we expect to hear from you in terms of new songs this tour?

DM: I’ve got a new straight ahead rock tune, a country rock song and a ballad. I’ve had a new album ready for about a year and a half, and I’m working on getting it out – it’s kind of hard. But I’m pretty close to releasing a single.

These days, albums are pretty much just one song surrounded by filler. It’s all about the single. My new single “How Do I Get To Heaven,” actually has some Jim Capaldi lyrics, which I added to and put music to it.

NB: Do you reinterpret or rethink the formulas on any of your standard hits in concert to keep yourself or your audiences on your toes?

DM: The only things that really change every night are the instrumentals. The jamming and solos are pretty much going to be different every night. The solos certainly aren’t copied note-for-note. The fans will find the songs intact but sometimes you have room to move, and can really have some fun with it.

Tickets for the Ridgefield show are $50. The Casual Fiasco will open. Visit RidgefieldPlayhouse.org or call 203-438-5795 for last-minute reservations.

Saturday’s show at North Fork Theatre in Long Island will be “Dave Mason & John Sebastian, Solo & Acoustic.” Curtain is 8 pm, and tickets start at $37.50. Visit MusicFair.com for details and ticket purchases.