Through The Years With Pete Sears:
The Long Haul To Musical Freedom
(from Dsicoveries magazine, october 2001)


by Jeff Tamarkin



Pete Sears is the Bay Area's favorite Englishman. For nearly three
decades, ever since the keyboardist and bassist said goodbye to the U.K.and
put down roots across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco in Marin
County, he's been constantly in-demand by luminaries of that tight-knit
musical community. Most rock fans know him as a mainstay of Jefferson
Starship for more than a dozen years, stemming from the band's 1974 debut
album, or as a current member of Hot Tuna-the other major Jefferson Airplane
spinoff-since the early '90s. But Sears has also contributed to countless
recording sessions, sat in on more live gigs than he can count, and has
recently released his third solo album, The Long Haul. The title is ideal:
Pete Sears defines the term working musician.

His own long haul began on May 27, 1948 in Bromley, Kent, a suburb of
London that also gave the world David Bowie and Peter Frampton. Peter Roy
was the second son of Leslie and Jane Sears-Leslie had served with the
Royal Air Force (RAF) during World War II, part of a team that would clean
airfields of booby traps left by the retreating German army near the end
of the war.

When Pete was eight he began taking piano lessons, and at 13 he took up
guitar. He joined his first semi-professional bands, the Strangers-who all
shared one amplifier and wore blue mohair suits-and the Spitfires, named
after the Spitfire RAF base in the Biggin Hill area of Kent, in 1963. They
played skiffle music and rock and roll in the styles of Elvis and
Britain's Shadows, with a little Beatles thrown in.

It was during that period that Pete's older brother John turned him on to
jazz, R&B and the blues, greats like Jimmy Reed, Oscar Peterson, Champion
Jack Dupree, Memphis Slim and others. "We were absolutely blown away," says
Sears. "They were our heroes. The English ended up trying to emulate them,
along with the Motown and Stax sounds, and there were blues clubs all over
the suburbs of England. I was listening to John Lee Hooker and that stuff
like that just as people like Clapton, John Mayall, Jeff Beck and the
Rolling Stones were getting going. I really was drawn toward that whole
thing. The British sound sometimes had this interesting fusion of Celtic,
rock and blues."

Sears planned to go to Croydon Art College but music got in the way and
in 1964, he joined his first professional band, the Sons of Fred. He was 16
at the time and some of the others were as old as 21, but they needed a bass
player, and Sears told them he could do that. Playing R&B music, the group
recorded a few singles for the Parlophone and Columbia labels at EMI Studios
on Abbey Road, where the Beatles also recorded, and appeared on hit British
TV programs like Thank Your Lucky Stars and Ready Steady Go!

"We were mobbed," remembers Sears. "There was a police cordon and
everything. And I suspect the fans had absolutely no idea who we were. We
sort of looked like we were a band, and we were coming out of a television
studio, so they automatically went berserk."

In 1966, Sears, playing piano, joined Les Fleur de Lys, a British
Mod/psychedelic group. Although the band never racked up any commercial
hits, some of their recordings are now considered highly collectible because
they were produced by soon-to-be rock legend Jimmy Page. (One track by the
group "Mud In Your Eye," which postdates Sears' involvement, appears on the
new Rhino Nuggets II boxed set.) Another recording they made might have
become highly sought after by collectors had it ever been released.
"I was hanging out with my band in Eric Burdon's house," recalls Sears,
"when this very cool black guy walked in, dressed in blue jeans and an old
jacket. It turned out to be Jimi Hendrix. It was just before he started the
Experience, and [his managers] Chas Chandler and Mike Jeffery had him play
guitar on a recording we did of the Impressions' song, 'Amen.' It was never
released." Sears would sure love to know if the tape exists, as would, no
doubt, many Hendrix fans.

After departing Les Fleur de Lys in 1967, Sears hooked up again with Mick
Hutchinson, the Sons of Fred's guitarist, and together they went to work in
a new band called the Sam Gopal Dream, Sam Gopal being an Indian tabla
player. The band played psychedelic Indian music and was a favorite at such
hip London nightspots as the Happening 44 club, Alexandra Palace and
Electric Garden (later known as the Middle Earth Club), where they often
stayed at night, locking the doors after the club closed and jamming into
the morning. Graham Bond, the famed British bluesman, was a frequent visitor
and taught Sears a few things about playing the Hammond B-3 organ. At
another club, the Speakeasy, Hendrix jammed with the band one night.

Sam Gopal's Dream never got out of the starting gate commercially,
however. Says Sears, "Record companies had come to see us because, we heard
later, there was a bit of a buzz going on about the band. Unfortunately, our
manager had, for some reason, neglected to tell Mick and I about this, or
else we would probably have taken the gig a little more seriously. We were
completely out of our minds on speed and other fashionable substances and
proceeded to play this very weird, avant-garde, psychedelic, early punk
rock. I got into some strange bass and organ things. Mick, who is an amazing
guitarist but was not really into singing (we were an instrumental band),
decided to yell into the mike about politicians and the state of world
politics. I thought it was very good. Anyway, nobody offered us a recording
contract."

In 1968 and early '69, Sears played and recorded with various bands, one
called Vamp, another named Steamhammer, and one that included Fairport
Convention singer Judy Dyble and Jackie McCauley of Van Morrison's group
Them. Later in 1969, after meeting Leigh Stephens of the San Francisco hard
rock band Blue Cheer, Sears took a trip to Los Angeles, where he formed a
group called Silver Metre, with Stephens and former Jeff Beck Group drummer
Mickey Waller. Managed by San Francisco radio legend Tom Donahue, they
recorded one album for a label called National General but split up before a
second record could be made.

Sears by then had fallen in love with and settled in the San Francisco
region, where he joined Stoneground, a band formed around the vocals of
former Beau Brummels singer Sal Valentino. The group traveled with Wavy
Gravy (of Woodstock "breakfast in bed for half a million" fame) and his Hog
Farm hippie collective, playing in Europe and elsewhere, and Sears appeared
on Stoneground's first album for Warner Bros. in 1971. In San Francisco, he
also met many of the other local heavies, playing piano on a live KSAN radio
broadcast with the Grateful Dead's Jerry Garcia and Bob Weir, Quicksilver
Messenger Service guitarist John Cipollina and John's brother Mario.

Sears quickly began to build his reputation around the Bay Area. He met
members of Jefferson Airplane, which led to a guest spot on Airplane
violinist Papa John Creach's first album. Sears also formed a short-lived
instrumental power trio with former Santana guitarist Neal Schon and Sly and
the Family Stone drummer Greg Errico.

An opportunity to play with Rod Stewart (through Mickey Waller) took
Sears back to England, and he appeared on Stewart's classic albums Gasoline
Alley and Every Picture Tells A Story. After touring with British bluesman
Long John Baldry, Sears returned to the Bay Area in 1971 to form a new group
with John Cipollina, who had recently left Quicksilver. The band,
Copperhead, eventually recorded one album for Columbia but Sears had exited
by then, first to join a band with British piano session great Nicky Hopkins
that never materialized, and then off to make another Rod Stewart record,
Never A Dull Moment.

It was at Cipollina's home during the Copperhead period that Pete met his
future wife, Jeannette, and during the Hopkins period-Pete
stayed in a rented house in Mill Valley while Hopkins toured with the
Rolling Stones-that Sears learned to fly antique aerobatic open cockpit
aircraft, a passion that he held onto for many years. His hobby later served
as a good reason for Sears to give up drinking and drugging-something about
flying upside down with the Earth on top of him convinced Sears that being
stoned could be detrimental.

Sears played on a slew of sessions in 1972-'73. He co-produced, arranged
and played keyboards and bass on Kathi McDonald's critically-acclaimed
Insane Asylum album, which also boasted input from Cipollina, Creach, Sly
Stone, British drummer Aynsley Dunbar, the Pointer Sisters, Nils Lofgren and
others. It was during the McDonald sessions that Sears met Airplane singer
Grace Slick, through former Quicksilver bassist David Freiberg. Sears
co-wrote and played piano on "Better Lying Down," a track on Slick's Manhole
solo album. It was also at this time that Sears first discussed the
possibility of joining a new band that the Airplane singer/guitarist Paul
Kantner was starting, since the Airplane was in limbo and seemingly not
getting back together any time soon-especially since their core
instrumentalists, guitarist Jorma Kaukonen and bassist Jack Casady, had
begun making a full-time career of Hot Tuna, their offshoot blues band.

Before Sears could give Kantner an answer, Stewart called again,
requiring Sears' services for his Smiler album, and the busy session man was
back in England, where he also contributed to an album by Ron Wood of the
Faces. Stewart's album ended up taking several months to record, during
which Kantner called Sears three or four times about being in the band.
Sears still wasn't sure if he was even interested, as he'd just formed a
band in England with fellow Rod Stewart session man Martin Quittenton.

Finally, the Smiler album completed, Pete and Jeannette returned to San
Francisco to attend her sister's wedding and for Sears to meet again with
Kantner. The couple was surprised to find a limo waiting for them at the
airport, as well as a wad of cash. After being wined and dined on the
Starship's tab, Sears thought it might not be a bad idea to stick around for
a while. He joined the nascent band in June of '74, following their first
tour. Sears, who replaced Peter Kaukonen (Jorma's younger brother) in the
group, alternated keyboard and bass duties with Freiberg, an arrangement
that would last a decade.

"At first I didn't know what it was going to be like," says Sears about
joining the Starship, "whether we'd gel or not. So I went over to Paul's
house and we really hit it off. I mean, it really felt good. He had his
guitar and a nice piano there. What they were doing was very different from
what I'd just been playing. It was very early on in the band and it was very
psychedelic, kind of folky, like some of the music I had played in the '
60s."

In July, Jefferson Starship began work on their debut album, titled
Dragon Fly. Sears co-wrote (with Grace Slick) one of the LP's undisputed
highlights, "Hyperdrive." Although the album produced no hit singles, it
scaled the Billboard album chart to reach number 11, proving that Jefferson
Starship had their own wings, that although they bore only passing
similarities to the Airplane, the Starship could secure a place in this new
world of '70s rock.

The next album, 1975's Red Octopus, demolished any lingering doubts. A
massive number 1 record-something the Airplane had never accomplished-it
remained at the top for four weeks, and produced the number 3 single
"Miracles," which outperformed even the Airplane's two 1967 anthems,
"Somebody To Love" and "White Rabbit."

"Miracles" was written and sung by Marty Balin, who had co-founded
Jefferson Airplane back in 1965, a decade earlier. Balin had left that group
in disgust in 1970, but had found his way back to the fold in time to
contribute one tune to Dragon Fly. By Red Octopus, Jefferson Starship had
swelled into an octet-Balin, Slick, Kantner, Sears, Creach, Freiberg, the
young guitarist Craig Chaquico and ex-Turtles drummer John Barbata-and had
begun building an audience apart from that of the Airplane.

Sears wrote the instrumental "Sandalphon" for Red Octopus and, with
Slick, co-wrote "Play On Love." For the next album, 1976's Spitfire (which
marked the departure of Creach from the lineup), Sears' writing credits were
restricted to two tracks co-penned by most of the group, a situation
repeated on 1978's Earth, where Sears also co-wrote the track "Take Your
Time" with Slick.

By that year, Jefferson Starship was in trouble. Grace Slick's longtime
alcohol abuse had reached a critical stage and after a calamitous tour of
Germany culminating in a riot that found fans burning down the stage and
most of the band's equipment with it, it was mutually agreed that she would
take some time off. Balin also took the opportunity to exit, once again fed
up with the behavior of his band, and Barbata was totaled in a car wreck,
precipitating his own departure. Sears brought in the new drummer, Aynsley
Dunbar, a veteran of Frank Zappa's crew and his own Aynsley Dunbar
Retaliation, while for the all-important vocal spot Jefferson Starship
recruited Mickey Thomas, who had sung the smash 1976 hit "Fooled Around And
Fell In Love" with Elvin Bishop.

Many longtime fans of Jeffersons Airplane and Starship felt more and more
alienated by the new lineup with each new evolution. The band deliberately,
vying to remain contemporary, left behind most of its ties to the
psychedelic '60s and moved in an increasingly commercial direction,
overproduced records and all. When MTV came on the scene in 1981, the
Starship played along. Thomas had more in common with the then-ubiquitous
shrieking arena-rock vocalists than with anyone from the Fillmore era.

If those shifts in the composition of their audience bothered Jefferson
Starship, they didn't let on. The group became more successful than ever,
scoring a Top 10 album the first time out with 1979's Freedom At Point Zero
(its title a reference to the band's brand new start).
Sears contributed a couple of songs to Freedom, "Finding Lady Light" and
"Awakening," both of which feature lyrics by his wife, Jeannette (she also
supplied words for two songs by Chaquico, "Rock Music" and "Just The Same").
Both of the songs co-written by Pete and Jeannette reflected the couple's
newfound spiritual alignment with Christianity. At first, no one in the
band, even the notoriously anti-religious Paul Kantner, gave them any grief
over that, although that would change later on.

Sears didn't understand why anyone would have a problem with the
material. "We never wrote Christian songs," explains Sears. "They were just
songs with themes. We were never into that TV evangelist-type thing. Those
themes that Paul might think are syrupy are actually salvation, compassion.
It's really very narrow-minded to assume a Christian theme as being one
thing."

On 1981's Modern Times, the next album, Grace Slick made a couple of
cameo appearances, singing background vocals and a duet with Mickey Thomas
on "Stranger," a song by Pete and Jeannette. The couple also came up with
"Save Your Love" and "Alien" for the album, two of its strongest tunes.
Winds Of Change, from 1982, put Grace Slick back in the core lineup. Pete
and Jeannette Sears have four co-writing credits on this one-the title
track, "Be My Lady," "I Will Stay" and "Quit Wasting Time"-but there are no
Slick-Sears collaborations this time, a conscious choice by Sears. "I think
that there was some resentment that I was carrying on with Jeannette and
didn't automatically go back to writing with Grace," Sears says. "Paul came
over and we talked about it, and he really liked the lyrics, there was no
question about it. But there was that thing that happens in bands. That very
chauvinistic attitude crept in there in many ways: 'It's just your wife.' I
didn't want to write with Grace anymore, because, although I really
respected her, we didn't necessarily see eye-to-eye philosophically about
things. And when I'm writing a song, I want something that I believe in. She
's a good person, but Grace can be very narrow-minded, and very one-track.
She's got a rap, and it's the same rap, if you look very carefully, every
time. There's a real vulnerability in Grace which is very carefully covered
up."

Sears says that with each new album he was put under more pressure to
make sure that every song had hit potential, an impossible burden and one he
didn't wish to take on. One song that he and Jeannette wrote, "One More
Innocent," was determined by the band and producer to be "not light enough"
in its subject matter, as it was written about a massacre of Mayan Indians
that took place in Guatemala, an event that had been witnessed by
Jeannette's mother. There was a band meeting and the song was put on the
block, never to find its way to a Jefferson Starship album.

By 1984, the group had reached another plateau. Paul Kantner, who had
been the only staple in all things Jefferson since day one, had begun to
find himself on the outs with his own band. His epic story songs about space
travel and revolutionary politics had no place in a band of the '80s, or so
the others felt. He appeared on Nuclear Furniture, the next album, but that
year Kantner quit in a huff. Dunbar was another casualty, fired from the
group and replaced by Donny Baldwin, who had played with Thomas in Elvin
Bishop's group. With the shift of power veering toward Thomas, Baldwin and
Chaquico, the nature of the band changed considerably in a short span of
time. Pete and Jeannette Sears placed a trio of songs on Nuclear Furniture,
but their influence within the band was becoming nullified.

By the time the next album appeared, the band was down to a quintet:
Slick, Chaquico, Thomas, Baldwin and Sears. More tellingly, it had a new
name: simply Starship. Kantner had sued to reclaim the rights to the name
Jefferson Starship, which he'd created back in 1970, and the legal outcome
was that the remaining musicians could call themselves Starship, but the
Jefferson half of the name was to be retired. (Kantner also received a sum
of cash as part of his settlement. He later revived the name Jefferson
Starship and continues to use it to this day.)

The change not only didn't hurt this resilient organization, it ushered
in the most commercially successful period yet for these rock and roll
chameleons. Knee Deep In The Hoopla, the 1985 maiden release by Starship,
rocketed to number 7 and yielded two number 1 singles-"We Built This City"
and "Sara"-the first singles in the 20-year history of this ever-mutating
entity to reach the top spot.

That this band no longer had anything in common with Jefferson Airplane
or even the early Jefferson Starship was fairly apparent to anyone who had
followed them through the years. A couple of people who noticed were David
Freiberg and Pete Sears, and their resistance to the new direction cost them
their jobs. Freiberg was the first to go, given the boot shortly after
Kantner left and before Knee Deep was recorded. Sears' turn came before the
band's next album, 1987's No Protection.

"One day, I'm standing onstage," he says, "and I'm playing this keyboard
around my neck, which I hate. I can't stand that. I'm playing bass to that
song, 'Sara,' and it was like I suddenly came to. I'm looking at Mickey, who
's lying down on a park bench onstage, with a lamppost as a prop, like Las
Vegas or something. And he's singing 'Sara,' lying down like this. And I
thought, 'What in the hell am I doing here? What happened?'

"When Paul left the band it went completely off in the other direction,"
he continues, "which I was a part of. You're in a corporation, you're in
this thing and you start a band and it's evolving, it's doing well. The
record company [RCA] in the '80s wanted to make us be more like Journey. So
they hired producers to make us sound like that. They gave Mickey all the
power, all the vocals, because he sounds more like Steve Perry [singer of
Journey]. They literally rammed that band down people's throats. You can
play something enough times on the radio and it's going to sound like a hit.
They started pushing Grace to the back-Grace started just singing backups
onstage, and the occasional song. It was, 'We want hit records. Every song
has to be a hit.' And the band let it happen.

"Making Knee Deep In The Hoopla was horrible for me. They put my bass
sounds into the computer. I was completely on another plane. Not better, not
worse, just different. I left just before the next album. They had a band
meeting, and decided-as they did with David Freiberg before that-that it
just wasn't working out between us. I was sort of forced out, really. You
don't fire somebody that's an equal member of the band. Craig told me later
that he and Grace and the manager [Bill Thompson] spoke up for me, but
everyone just went along with it. They were about to record an album and it
was going to be a big hit.

"I hated the music anyway, and I wasn't getting on with the people in the
band. They wanted to fire [road manager] Bill Laudner because he wouldn't
chauffeur them around. They wanted me to play with more pop music
sensibilities. Everything was done in the studio, with synthesizers and
sampling. We just weren't communicating. But it was a tremendous relief [to
leave]."

With that weight off his back, Sears decided to put his music and name to
use in helping out various causes in which he fervently believed. He got
involved in human rights work and played benefit concerts. He and Jeannette
founded a non-profit group with a filmmaker to help the Mayans in Guatemala.
And then for fun, for "therapy," he would go play with Nick Gravenites, the
blues vocalist who had once fronted the Electric Flag.

One thing led to another and, in 1988, Pete Sears recorded his first solo
album, Watchfire. Released originally on Redwood Records, a California indie
label run by singer-songwriter Holly Near, it was crammed with songs of a
topical nature-all co-written with Jeannette-and with a staggering array of
musical talent. Among those stopping by the studio to lend a hand were David
Grisman, Jerry Garcia, John Cipollina, Mimi Farina, Near, Babatunde
Olatunji, and many others.

"I just plunged into the studio and did it as a complete rebellion
against the '80s, against the way the Starship recorded," says Sears. "We
did it all live. Jeannette and I were closely connected with Central
American refugee relief and rainforest issues at the time and we had written
a couple of songs about the subject. We talked about all the things we
wanted to talk about in our lyrics and got it all out of our systems,
completely in the other direction, about as uncommercial as you can get,
with absolutely zero thought of 'It's got to be three minutes for AM radio
air play.'"

Among the tracks on Watchfire was "One More Innocent," the song that the
Starship had rejected. The album was reissued by Grateful Dead Merchandising
in 1993 and then again in 1996 by Relix Records.

It was during one of his benefit performances that Sears inadvertently
fell into his next regular gig. Helping out Wavy Gravy at a 1992 Blues
Against Blindness show, Sears was playing piano in the venue's cafeteria
when he was overheard by Jorma Kaukonen. Kaukonen, along with bassist Jack
Casady, had defected from Jefferson Airplane at the end of 1972 to
concentrate on Hot Tuna, in effect clearing the way for Jefferson Starship
to form and prosper and for Sears to have steady work for 13 years.

Hot Tuna had actually begun at the peak of the Airplane's flight in the
late '60s, as an outlet for Kaukonen to engage in his favored mode of
playing: acoustic fingerpicking-style guitar. From there it expanded into an
electric blues band and ultimately a power trio that rivaled any other in
terms of the sheer immensity of its sound. But in 1978 Tuna, like the
Starship, imploded, and its two mainstays took a sabbatical so they could
pursue their individual artistic paths. By the time they revived the band in
1983, Kaukonen and Casady had undergone many fundamental changes both
musical and personal. An Airplane reunion tour and album in 1989 was a
welcomed diversion for the fans, but by most accounts from within the
Airplane camp it was deemed a failure, and Kaukonen and Casady returned to
Tuna. They remain partners to this day, more than four decades after they
first met.

By the time Kaukonen ran into Sears in '92, Hot Tuna had settled into
being a much different entity than during its '70s heyday, in many ways
closer to the blues roots that had inspired the pair in the first place.
Although Hot Tuna and Jefferson Starship had rarely crossed paths, Kaukonen
and Sears had apparently harbored a mutual respect for one another's
musicianship through the years-and, of course, they both loved the blues.
That's what Sears was playing on the piano when Kaukonen approached him.

"I had my head down, just playing," recalls Sears. "That was my
contribution to the benefit, because I like Wavy and what he does. Suddenly
I look up, and Jorma's standing there. We hadn't seen each other in a long
time. He says, 'We're doing a live album over at Sweetwater [club],
tomorrow. Do you want to come over and sit in on a song?' I said, 'Yeah,
great!' Because I've always admired his playing."

Because of the club's tiny size, Sears' piano was set up behind Kaukonen
and Casady, where the drums would normally be. He couldn't even see their
fingers to know what chords they were playing, but he must have impressed
them because after the one song he was invited to play on, they asked him to
stay for the rest for the rest of the set. Then they asked him back for the
other two nights they were scheduled to play the club. Sears was playing on
songs he'd never heard before, yet it felt so natural to him to be playing
that music.

"I had this sense that I'd come home," he says. "In a sense it felt like
I'd gone back to what I was doing in the Rod Stewart days. It felt like I'd
come full circle, back to a blues-based music, which is what I really enjoy:
slightly country blues, and folk. It was like, 'Oh, yeah! Oh, God! This is
it, this is what I want to do!'"

And he did. Sears started touring with Hot Tuna. "Gradually I played more
and more gigs," he says. "Jorma was always very generous with the solos,
which is nice. That's another thing about the Starship in the '80s, another
reason that I was out of my element there. Everything was very
compartmentalized; there were all these parts and if you differed from that
part you got terrible flak for it. I do that as well, in session work but,
on your own thing you like to jam so that each solo is different. I'm a
player and it's never quite the same every night. And here I was, playing
this funky old blues. It was great stuff, and Jorma's playing was so moving
to me."

The Hot Tuna lineup stabilized during the '90s as Kaukonen, Casady, Sears
(playing accordion as well as his usual sit-down keyboards), second
guitarist Michael Falzarano and drummer Harvey Sorgen. They recorded several
albums, mostly for Relix, and played an infinite number of gigs. Kaukonen,
Sears and Falzarano also toured extensively without bass and drums, billed
as the Jorma Kaukonen Trio. An album by that configuration, simply titled
Jorma Kaukonen Trio Live, was issued last year by Relix.

Sears has kept his solo career going when not working with Kaukonen. He's
sat in with newer "jam bands" like the Steve Kimock Band, Gov't Mule,
Leftover Salmon and Rusted Root, as well as with Los Lobos and Phil Lesh and
Friends, the revolving troupe of musicians led by the former Grateful Dead
bassist in the wake of that band's demise. He has recorded music for five
documentary films and continued his work for environmental and peace issues.

Sears also released his second solo album, called Millennium, in 1997,
on the Japanese label Capacity Records. A complete departure for Sears, it
consisted entirely of solo grand piano improvisations.

But what excites Pete Sears right now is his latest solo release, The
Long Haul. Issued on the Tower Records-owned indie label 33 Records, this is
Pete Sears doing what he loves best, playing the blues and rootsy
folk-oriented music. Of course, he had a little help from his friends,
including Jorma and Jack, Levon Helm of the Band, guitarist Steve Kimock,
blues harmonica Charlie Musselwhite, mandolinist David Grisman,
singer-guitarist Peter Rowan, former Paul Butterfield Band keyboardist Mark
Naftalin, blues vocalists Nick Gravenites, Maria Muldaur and Alvin
Youngblood Hart, ex-Tubes drummer Prairie Prince, Tuna guitarist Michael
Falzarano, Van Morrison's daughter Shana, Sears' own children Dylan and
Natalie, and others. One name sticks out above the rest, though: the
recently deceased blues icon John Lee Hooker. Hooker co-wrote (with Sears)
the track "Elizabeth," and also sang and played guitar on the tune.

"I met John Lee through his guitar player, Rich Kirch," Sears says. "I
went over to John's a few times and I started sitting in with him at various
gigs, and I did a tribute to John at Stanford University. I approached his
manager about what it would take to have John play on the record and we just
worked it out and John said he'd love to do it. He came down and I wrote the
music ahead of time and we got in the studio and I said, 'Just make up the
words as you go along, if you feel like it.' I told him I was mostly
interested in his guitar playing. He didn't get to play a lot of guitar [in
his last years] because his records were so heavily produced and had a lot
of star power. You didn't get a lot of that funky guitar. So I was happy
that he played so much guitar on that track. I wanted to get the interaction
between the piano and guitar-that was all recorded completely live."

Sears admits he was somewhat awestruck working with such a legendary
figure as Hooker: "I was sitting there thinking, this is my idol. I was
listening to him when I was 15 years old. It wasn't so much intimidating as
inspiring and I felt very reverential toward him. He was such an influence
on music in England as well as the rest of the world. We all listened to him
back in the late '50s and early '60s. He was definitely one of our heroes
and just to have him playing was an honor."

Sears pieced together The Long Haul over the past several years, as his
schedule allowed. Most of the album was recorded live (there are no
overdubbed piano solos, for example) at Bayview Studios in Richmond,
California, and some at Sears' home studio. Sears co-produced the record
along with Paul Stubblebine. All of the songs were written by Sears, several
with Jeannette providing words and a couple with Grateful Dead lyricist
Robert Hunter.

"Robert had a book, Box Of Rain, and there was a set of lyrics in the
back that he didn't have any music to," says Sears. "So I gave him a call
and said, 'What about if I came up with music? Would that be okay with you?'
He said, 'Absolutely.' So one of the tracks, 'Fair To Even Odds,' was from
that book. It was written the same time as [the Dead's] 'Friend of the
Devil.' I wrote a chorus to fit the lyrics. Levon Helm plays harmonica and
mandolin on that. The other tune, 'Darien,' I called Robert to write a song
for a blues tune I was doing-'Darien' was originally going to be a blues
song but when he faxed me the lyrics and I started messing around with it,
it didn't seem like a blues to me. It had a Celtic feel to it."

The album took its own course as it evolved. "I've played so many
different kinds of music behind so many people over the years, and I enjoy
so many different kinds of music," Sears says. "But this was actually the
closest to what I do when I just sit down at the piano to play. It's a
combination of different styles of music but they all have a folk
influence-there's a bluegrass thing, and Celtic and Tex-Mex. There's a Delta
blues thing and a New Orleans Dixieland track. So I just put them all
together."

Most of the lead vocals were done by Davey Pattison, formerly of Robin
Trower's band. Rich Kirch, of John Lee Hooker's group, played the bulk of
the guitar, Bobby Vega of the band Zero handled bass duties. Those three
musicians, along with Ernest Carter (ex-Bruce Springsteen drummer), also
comprise Sears' new touring band. Pattison is especially effective on the
harder blues tunes on the record, his Paul Rodgers-like throaty vocals
giving the music an added edge.

Among the others contributing to The Long Haul are Wavy Gravy, who
co-wrote and supplies "voice" to "Sweet Definition," and Francis Clay, one
of Muddy Waters' regular drummers. Unlike Watchfire, The Long Haul isn't
expressly a political or topical record, but a couple of the songs for which
Jeannette wrote the words can't help but raise a couple of eyebrows. "Marin
County Blues," sung by Maria Muldaur with Jack Casady on bass balalaika, is
a sometimes hysterical indictment of life in the region the Searses call
home, with its staggering cost of living. More serious is "12 Long Years &
No Parole (Rod's Song)," inspired by Jeannette's brother, who served 10
years in prison for smuggling hashish under the harsh mandatory sentencing
laws. Another highlight is the opening track, "Brother John," written for
the late Quicksilver guitar great John Cipollina.

"Spitfire," an instrumental which Pete wrote solo, has nothing to do with
the Jefferson Starship album of the same name. Rather, it's Sears' tribute
to a certain aspect of his English youth. "It's after the World War II
fighter plane," he says. "I used to fly for a hobby and I used to watch the
Spitfires in the air shows when I was growing up in England after the war. I
became infatuated with the airplane and always wanted to fly one. And I was
in a band called the Spitfires. So I was just trying to think of a name for
an instrumental and 'Spitfire' sounded good."

As does all of The Long Haul, the latest chapter in the remarkable career
of a man who's seen just about everything the music business has to offer,
and has not forgotten that what matters in the end is the music.




Jeff Tamarkin is the author of the forthcoming book Got A Revolution!
(Pocket Books, 2002), the first full-length biography of Jefferson Airplane
and related bands.