You may recognize Jaimoe as a founding member of the Allman Brothers Band. And you may also recognize one of the songs on “Renaissance Man,” the new album from Jaimoe’s Jasssz Band, as a classic Allmans song. But the odd thing is, since they have always been a two-drummer band, Jaimoe never actually plays on “Melissa.”
“I just thought it never made sense to have two drummers playing on that song,” he says. “It’s a nice, soft song.”
But when Jasssz Band guitarist Junior Mack brought up the idea, Jaimoe was on board.
“Junior’s been doing this song in his repertoire ever since the song came out,” says Jaimoe. “He said, ‘I do “Melissa,” but I do it in a bossa nova,’ and I said, ‘Hey man, let’s play it.’ And we did and it sounded pretty cool.”
A look at the book
Though Jaimoe was not a part of “Melissa,” he says he’s been a part of so much musical history that he needs to put out a book: “I see something online, and somebody will be talking about something that just isn’t true, so I see it and I say, ‘Nah, I’m not gonna mess with it,’” he says. “But some of it, I just can’t take it, so I sit down and write, ‘Actually, what really happened … ’ and it ends up leading into something else that was going on and instead of a sentence it ends up being something like five or six paragraphs.”
Ain’t wastin’ time no more
Jaimoe has anecdotes about being fired by soul legend Joe Tex on three separate occasions and
bandleader Donald “Cadillac” Henry hiring him to replace Otis Redding’s in-the-pocket drummer Elbert “Woody” Woodson.
“About two hours after I got there, there’s a knock on the door,” Jaimoe recalls, with a slight laugh, “and Cadillac opened the door and it was Woody, and Cadillac said, ‘Hey man, come on in. Meet Otis’ new drummer.’ Woody almost peed on his self. ‘New drummer? Ain’t nobody told me about that!’ And Cadillac said, ‘Well, man, you gave Otis your notice so he told me to find him a drummer.’”
