The time period sideman, in response to Mark Rivera, “has a little stink to it.” But for the multi-instrumentalist — who’s spent 40 years enjoying principally saxophone for Billy Joel and has labored with Foreigner, Peter Gabriel, Daryl Hall and John Oates and Ringo Starr’s All-Starr Band, amongst others — the scent is definitely fairly candy.
“It’s the greatest thing because I get to be on the side of the greatest bands that ever existed,” says Rivera, who lately printed a memoir, Sideman: In Pursuit of the Next Gig, with a foreword by Starr. “Think about it: If I was in a band, a frontman or something, I wouldn’t have played on ‘Sledgehammer.’ I wouldn’t have been in Foreigner. I wouldn’t have done any of that. I can’t imagine having a single gig that would be more rewarding than being a sideman.”
Yet Rivera is fast to level out — in his ebook and in dialog — that there is at all times a sense of uncertainty that comes between these gigs, although his standing commitments with Joel and Starr have largely saved his time crammed and payments paid. “Everybody thinks, ‘Oh, Mark’s got to be wealthy beyond compare,'” he says. “They don’t realize I’m an independent contractor — independent in general. I’m paying medical insurance, mortgage. There’s that term in our business, passive income or publishing income — mailbox money. That doesn’t come to my mailbox. I earn what I earn.
“But, you recognize, for folks outdoors of our enterprise, that is a common factor,” the Brooklyn native continues. “People are all in the identical state of affairs. So the story in [the book is] the extra private you develop into, the extra world it will get, ‘trigger everyone suffers from the identical insecurity, or simply getting by. So [Sideman] is a blue-collar have a look at this superb life, I suppose.”
Written with Mike Poncy, Sideman takes a tour through Rivera’s life and career, from attending New York’s High School of Performing Arts through his days slugging it out in clubs and studios. His band Tycoon signed to Clive Davis’ Arista Records in the late ’70s, which led to working with super-producer Robert John “Mutt” Lange, who in turn hooked Rivera up with Foreigner for their blockbuster 4 album and set the stage for all that followed.
There’s no shortage of stories in Sideman‘s 258 pages, nor in a typically animated, freewheeling conversation with Rivera shortly after the first of Joel’s stadium dates with Stevie Nicks.
On Meeting John Lennon
A Beatles fan like countless others, Rivera met John Lennon in the mid-’70s when the ex-Beatle was part of a group called BOMF (Band of Motherfuckers) and residing in New York City’s Record Plant, where Rivera had janitorial duties.
“He was in Studio C and I used to be actually cleansing the rubbish … ‘trigger Roy Cicala [house engineer] allow us to have studio time and rehearsal time,” Rivera says. “It’s like going into Technicolor is all I can say. I suppose Roy and Jimmy Iovine knew me effectively sufficient that [they thought], ‘Well, I suppose he can cling. He will not step on his tongue the complete time.’ You fear you are gonna say an excessive amount of after which you do not say something, however saying much less is best.
“But, yeah, it was crazy stepping into that room. It was like meeting the all-powerful Oz and finding out he wasn’t the guy with the levers and all that. He’s just a great guy, and he was everything you’d want him to be — and more.”
Rivera and BOMF wound up backing Lennon for his ultimate TV efficiency on April 18, 1975, enjoying “Imagine” throughout a tribute particular for British leisure mogul Sir Lew Grade, with whom Lennon had a fraught relationship.
Having toured ceaselessly with Starr and performed with Paul McCartney by each Starr and Joel, Rivera is one Beatle shy of a grand slam. “I never met George [Harrison], not even an introduction,” he says. “But I’m batting .750 with the other guys. I’d be in the Hall of Fame twice with those numbers.”
Watch John Lennon on ‘A Salute to Sir Lew Grade’
On Recording and Touring With Foreigner
Rivera and Mutt Lange turned buddies when the latter produced Tycoon’s eponymous debut album. Lange enlisted Rivera to work on Foreigner’s 4, on which he contributed saxophone to “Break it Up” and “Urgent” (though Junior Walker performed the iconic solo on the latter). Rivera subsequently joined Foreigner on the highway in help of the album.
“It was a tremendous opportunity,” recollects Rivera, who paperwork some of his highway adventures in Sideman. “It was a real break that Mutt Lange provided the introduction. Rick Wills [former Foreigner bassist] took me under his wing; he’s just great. I met my wife [Sandra] on that tour. Looking back, geez, it’s 42 years ago. It’s a lifetime ago.”
The tour additionally confirmed Rivera what the function of the sideman entailed — and what it did not present. “The band was four guys and Bobby Mayo [fellow multi-instrumentalist] and I, who worked our asses off, and I don’t think we were recognized, if I’m allowed to say that,” Rivera admits. “If you look at photographs, it’s usually Bobby and I in the shadows, and we were providing a great deal of the music for that. It’s tough — I’m not gonna say I don’t love them, ’cause I do. I loved playing with them, and that really got everything going for me as a touring musician.”
Rivera wouldn’t be averse to guesting with Foreigner on some of their upcoming farewell tour dates, however he expresses disappointment that he is by no means been requested to do something extra with the band. “They’ve had these past-and-present [shows] and all that, and they should have had Bobby and I come up, that’s all I can say. Bobby’s gone now, so that opportunity is gone, which is sad.”
On His Longtime Billy Joel Gig
Rivera’s four-decade tenure in Joel’s touring band means “everything” to him. “The most important thing is the gratitude I have for the position and the respect I have for him as a bandleader,” he says. “He’s always like, ‘I just want to be in a band,’ and [I say,] ‘Yeah, but you happen to write some of the world’s best songs’ — as Tony Bennett calls him, the walking American Songbook. And Billy and I share a lot of joy for [Jimi] Hendrix, Cream. He loves Traffic, as I do, [and] the Rascals. We have a lot of commonality in our collection of music, so getting to play with somebody for 40 years who actually loves the same music I do, it’s great.”
Rivera is equally exuberant about Joel’s ongoing stadium tour with Nicks, which launched on March 10 in Los Angeles. “Some people said, ‘Stevie Nicks and Billy Joel? I don’t get it.’ But it was incredible. Her band was amazing; her songs are incredible. Billy came on and sang ‘Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around.’ It’s two icons — she’s the California hippie, he’s the quintessential New Yorker — and somehow the music met right in the middle. There are nine shows slated for this year, and I can’t imagine that people won’t want to keep coming out. It’s a wonderful show.”
Watch Billy Joel and Mark Rivera Play ‘Urgent’ With Lou Gramm and Mick Jones
On Touring With the All-Starr Band
Ringo Starr wasn’t planning to add one other saxophonist to his All-Starr Band after the first two — Clarence Clemons and Timmy Cappello — had been referred to as again to their gigs with Bruce Springsteen and Tina Turner, respectively, in the mid-’90s. But Springsteen’s longtime tour director George Travis advisable Rivera, telling Starr, “You gotta check this guy out. He does more than play saxophone.”
Rivera rapidly found his sideman function gave him a perspective and degree of objectivity that was completely different than the All-Starrs themselves. “All these guys in Ringo’s band were frontmen. They weren’t used to listening and critiquing their parts,” says Rivera, who discovered himself diplomatically serving to with tune preparations. “When I went to them, I was prepared. I had listened to all those [songs] for so long … I was prepared when I was 16 to play in that band, if you think about it.”
He was even able to appropriate a Beatle, which isn’t an expertise Rivera took flippantly.
“There was one time Ringo was playing ‘Don’t Pass Me By’ and his hands were in the wrong position. He’s cursing and carrying on, and I literally grab his hands and move them. Steve Lukather and Gregg Bissonette look at me like, ‘Boy, you’ve got balls.’
“Finally, [Starr] comes over at the finish of the tune and says, ‘Mark Rivera, I’m so sorry,’ and it was like vindication. Sometimes you simply must have the moxy to say, ‘No, that ain’t proper.'”
Starr was also gracious when Rivera had to bow out of touring with the All-Starr Band in 2003 due to commitments with Joel. “There’s a pregnant pause, and I’m ready for, ‘Have a completely happy life,’ ‘trigger no person tells Ringo they cannot do it and continues to be in his good graces. No one,” Rivera says. “And then he says, ‘But you will nonetheless be my musical director.’ And it is like God smiled on me. … I’ve been with him ever since, and all the folks I’ve gotten to fulfill by enjoying and dealing with that band is simply unbelievable.”
Watch Mark Rivera and Steve Lukather With Ringo Starr’s All-Starr Band
On Standing His Ground
One of Rivera’s other “corrections” with the All-Starr Band came in 2001 when Greg Lake of King Crimson and Emerson, Lake & Palmer fame joined the band. “I needed to persuade him that ‘The Court of the Crimson King’ can be higher than [ELP’s] ‘From the Beginning.’ I stated, ‘Trust me.’ ‘Trust you?!’ Boy, did I say the incorrect factor!” he says with a laugh. “Greg was adamant — ‘Why would they like that tune? It’s previous!’ And I stated, ‘You had been the starting of prog rock. People will adore it.'”
Rivera eventually convinced Lake to play “The Court of the Crimson King” on the first night of the tour. “Sure sufficient, Ringo introduces him, and once they get to the ‘ahh, ahh, ahh, ah-ah’ half, folks simply stood up and sang like they had been in a trance. And Greg seemed over at me and I kinda shrugged my shoulders like, ‘I advised ya.'”
On His Favorite All-Starr Band Lineup
Rivera has love for all the All-Starr Bands, but he’s particularly fond of the 1997-98 fourth edition, an all-British unit that comprised Peter Frampton, Jack Bruce, Gary Brooker of Procol Harum and Simon Kirke of Free and Bad Company.
“That was my absolute favourite band I’ve ever been in, as a result of they had been my heroes,” Rivera says. “Cream was one of the best. I acquired to see them in ’67 or ’68, once they first got here to the States at the Fillmore. I simply beloved enjoying all these songs — ‘A Whiter Shade of Pale,’ ‘White Room,’ ‘Do You Feel Like We Do,’ all of ’em. That’s seminal stuff, man.”
Watch Ringo Starr’s All-Starr Band Play ‘A Whiter Shade of Pale’
On Almost Touring With Mick Jagger and Jeff Beck
“When somebody says, ‘Who had been your influences?’ everybody expects me to say Charlie Parker or John Coltrane,” Rivera notes. “I say, ‘No, Jimi Hendrix and Jeff Beck.’ I’m a rocker. I play saxophone like a rock ‘n’ roll guitarist.”
So it was a thrill when Mick Jagger tapped Rivera for his solo band, which was also set to include Beck, circa 1986.
“I used to be blown away,” says Rivera, who writes in Sideman about sitting between Jagger and Beck and sharing a joint during rehearsal. Unfortunately, Beck opted out before the tour began. “I acquired to do two rehearsals with him, and all of a sudden that goes away. If I may have again that second, that will be an unbelievable band to be in — myself, Mick, Jeff Beck, Doug Wimbish on bass, my expensive buddy Phil Ashley [on keyboards], who’s handed away as effectively. … That may have been unbelievable.”
Jagger did eventually revisit the solo tour idea and reached out to Rivera again, but he’d already signed on to tour with Hall and Oates.
“I used to be in it, I used to be out of it, I used to be in it and I used to be out of it — issues occur,” Rivera says now. “A quote from my father: ‘If you have got a plate of meals, do not go searching to see what different individuals are consuming.’ You make a dedication, and the phrase ‘commit’ is in there, so you have to do it. But I might like to have performed in [Jagger’s] band. To have each alternatives, man…”
Rivera writes that Jagger subsequently asked him to be the Rolling Stones’ touring saxophonist. “I inform my spouse, ‘I’m gonna be a rock star! I’m gonna purchase some new leather-based pants,’ and she or he’s like, ‘Yeah, if that is what you suppose…'” The band later rescinded the offer apologetically when Keith Richards pushed for longtime Stones sideman Bobby Keys.
On His Performance Wishlist
Rivera’s played with some of the biggest names in rock history, but he’s still got plenty of artists with whom he’d like to collaborate. “I’d like to play ‘Sledgehammer’ with Peter Gabriel, completely. I’d like to be onstage with him,” he says. “I like Sting. And Dave Grohl, simply to hold on a stage with him, to play saxophone with Dave Grohl, can be nuts. And Tommy Shaw [of Styx]. He’s acquired a nice voice and is a killer guitar participant. And he is a sweetheart. Him and Jack Blades [of Night Ranger] did this covers factor [2007’s Influence], and I acquired to sit down in with them and performed ‘Summer Breeze’ on soprano [saxophone]. It was simply fantastic.”
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