Mickey Raphael – Sacred harp
MR: We were playing in Dallas. We were doing these four-hour sets because the crowds were getting so crazy, it was safer to stay onstage. When we were properly fueled, it just didn’t end. Willie said, “I’ve written this album called The Red Headed Stranger.” I told him, “I know this studio in Dallas.”
I called Phil York [the engineer Mickey had worked with at Sumet-Bernet studios]. He set us up. It only took a day or two. He would play a song, we’d listen to it, then play along with it. There wasn’t a lot of preparation. He had it written out on a piece of paper.
The record company thought it was a demo, it was so simple. That’s the way Willie heard the songs. It was a concept record. I hadn’t heard that before, where all the songs tied together and told a story. This went against all the rules. Willie didn’t care. I thought it was pretty cool because it was so sparse. I thought there’s something here.
At that point, I felt like a contributing member — Jody [Payne] was in the band, Bobbie [Nelson, Willie’s sister] was playing piano, Bee came back from Waylon, and Paul. The album gave me some validity as a band member. Willie never said anything to me except when not to play.
Charlie McCoy was working a lot then, but mainly playing on record. I went back and listened to what he did with Tom T. Hall, Tammy Wynette, Roy Orbison, the old Willie stuff he did for RCA. I thought Charlie blazed the trail on record and I’d play it live.
ND: Does the description “sideman” sing to you or not?
MR: I like being a sideman. Jokingly, I asked Willie, “When do I get to stand in the middle?”
He said, “Any time you want.”
ND: Where’s the Mickey Rayfield album? (Back when they first met, Coach Royal bubbafied Raphael into Rayfield.)
MR: I did a little instrumental record in 1988 with Ben Keith [the pedal steel guitarist best known for his work with Neil Young]. We turned on the tape machine and just played — myself and this keyboard player and Ben. It was kind of a light-jazz ethereal deal. I got tons of airplay in L.A. on The Wave [a New Age radio station] and was on one of their compilation CDs.
I’ve been in the studio with Tony Scher, who’s this wonderful guitar player in New York. He plays with Bill Frisell, he plays guitar on Norah Jones’ record. We cut “Spanish Harlem” just messing around, and also I’m doing some rock stuff here [in Nashville] with Jay Joyce, who co-produced and played on Patty Griffin’s Flaming Red.
ND: When did you start doing outside projects on your own?
MR: Rodney Crowell got me out to L.A. when he was playing with Emmylou [Harris]. I ended up playing on four of her albums. I moved to L.A. because I was getting [outside] work and I wanted a change from Austin. We’d get back to Austin from touring and it was like the tour never ended. It was so wild and I needed a break. I wanted to know the difference between touring and home. I liked playing live but I enjoyed working in the studio with other people.
I loved doing “Here, There And Everywhere” with Emmylou. I did some soundtracks with Ry Cooder and Jack Nietzsche including Blue Collar, a Hal Needham movie where he used the harmonica and saxophone as the main instruments for the whole film. Ry played guitar and John Hiatt was the rhythm guitar player and sat in the corner and never talked to anybody. The producers didn’t like the soundtrack so they scrapped the whole thing and used fiddles and banjos.
I’ll get a call every now and then to play a session and think, “I don’t hear any harmonica on this.” I’ll ask what they want me to do and the producer will say, “Just do whatever you want to do.”
ND: And wherever you want evidently. I hear you record on your laptop in your hotel room.
MR: Somebody will send me a file and I’ll play it on the computer. I did that on Kenny Chesney’s record. I recorded on five tracks; I think they used one. With the computer and Pro Tools, I can do an overdub easy.
ND: What kind of microphone do you use?
MR: I use a Beyer M160 ribbon microphone.
ND: Your tools of the trade?
MR: I use Hohner Marine Band. There’s twelve keys so I have harmonicas for all the keys and with different tunings. I have an Echo Harp which is a double reed harmonica that sounds like an accordion. They’re made in six keys. I have those. Then I have to have backups of everything because they go out of tune all the time.
And I have some harps that are customized. Joe Filisko from Joliet, Illinois, and Jimmy Gordon out of Vermont both customize Marine Bands for me. The body of the harp is like a composite material. The reeds are hand-tuned and set by hand. It’s like having a master craftsman take apart a stock harmonica and put it back together. It sounds better and plays better. They’re a lot more responsive.