00:00:14
Welcome to A Breath of Fresh Air with Sandy Kaye because it’s a beautiful day a breath of fresh air beautiful day oh, baby, any day that you’re gone away it’s a beautiful day. Hi. How you doing? I hope you’re having fun wherever you are. My eldest daughter just gave birth to a little boy this week, my second grandchild and the first boy in a family full of girls.
00:00:48
He arrived on my late mother’s birthday. So it started me thinking about the circle of life. I wonder what music he’ll grow up listening to and whether that old adage of whatever’s old becomes new again holds true. If it does, he may well discover one of the best British bands of the mid 60s in DeSalvo Brown. The group had a string of successful albums through the early seventy s and even though they’re still going today, they never really had the commercial breakthrough that their contemporaries like Cream, Fleetwood Mac or ten years after had.
00:01:40
Um, perhaps it’s because The Void Brown never had a consistent lineup. Founder Kim Simmons was the only constant member and sadly, he passed away in December 2022 at the age of 75. Still carrying the torch, though, is bassist Pat De Salvo and drummer Garnet Grimm, who are both my special guests today. They’ll fill us in on all things Kim Simmons and share their latest album release. Let’s start with you, Garnet.
00:02:12
Well, I’m the drummer and I’ve been with the band for almost 14 years. Pat and I both joined close to the same time. Pat was pretty instrumental in bringing me in. We had done some recording with Kim back in the 90s together and it was for solo stuff. So when it came time to change up the band around 2008 or nine, we were able to jump into our roles and where we remained right up to the present day.
00:02:44
And I think we are the longest running rhythm section Kim ever had.
00:02:52
And I’m tired of being a fool and my mind’s going from hot to cool and trying to fall to others ideas to someone else alone I know I live a mine I’m supposed to feel that’s fine I didn’t make the world I’m living in and I ain’t gonna toe the line I’m tired of trying to be something I know ain’t me I’m tired of living up to what people expect me to be you know that some people love different now, ain’t that a crying shame? Now, wouldn’t it be a real drag if we were all the same? And I’m not going to try to please eyes that just don’t see it if I get myself together you help the blues, not me.
00:04:08
The boy brown’s been known for its revolving door of members ever since its inception, hasn’t it? Yes. Pat, tell me about how you got started. I had been asked to record his acoustic record. I play acoustic bass and he wanted to do an acoustic project.
00:04:26
I had met him in 88 and we became friends. And that’s one of the reasons why we probably were in the band. We knew each other personalities pretty well. I had recorded about five projects with him before he asked me to join the band. The reason we lasted so long, the main reason, was there was a respect.
00:04:46
And Kim really liked our work ethic and he didn’t have to babysit us at all. Not that he had to babysit a lot of the other guys, but we both took roles on to help the band improve, where I would do promo. Me and Garnet both sort of did the tour manager. So there was only three of us on the road, so it was very easy to work with. Interesting that the band, when it first formed in 1965 in London, was an English band.
00:05:16
Yes. And here I am talking to you two Yanks. Yeah. Well, Kim I don’t know when exactly. Kim moved to the US.
00:05:28
Maybe 1980 or somewhere in there. But he had a family here, so he established himself here. And I think the band had worked so much in America and abroad, but they did a lot of touring in America that him had an audience in the United States. So I think making the move here was not super know he established himself here. I think he ended up living here in the United States longer than he was in England, in the UK.
00:06:02
Right. How would you describe Kim Simmons? What sort of a guy was he? Well, with me, he was very open and honest as far as his music. I mean, we became very close in the last 14 years, so it was kind of like a family.
00:06:18
His wife, Debbie did a lot of work behind the scenes and the three of us spent a lot of time together on the road and off the road rehearsing. So we became intertwined with our personal lives and we were all friends. Kim was a wonderful person. Open, honest, very creative, obviously. And he was a good Indian cook, by the way.
00:06:41
We used to go over there and eat Indian food quite often. I ain’t got time for dr peers? Ain’t got time for shadow tears? Ain’t got time to bear my soul? Because I still got a hard way to go?
00:07:01
Say that you got a losing hand? Ain’t no point in you raising hell ain’t got time to bear your soul because I still got a hard way to go and it’s a crying chain that you can lay the.
00:07:27
Void brown was an English blues rock institution, but the band itself never really achieved as much success in England as it did in the US. Did.
00:07:40
No, I don’t think so. I think the numbers still need to be put on the scoreboard, so to speak, because Kim really was in the beginning, he was in on all of that, and he influenced quite a few of those people. Now, Eric Clapton and some of them are a little bit older. Not much, maybe by four or five years older than Kim. But Kim definitely was consistent with the blues rock thing and really helped advance it across the I mean, he stayed true to his roots.
00:08:17
I don’t know exactly why the commercial success never happened. I think because Kim stayed true to where he was. But he’s certainly in the same category as all those guys, if you ask me. Anyway, Pat, it’s always been blues rock. What is blues rock?
00:08:34
And point me to a tune that really defines DeSalvo Brown. I’ve done it and I apologize, because here in Australia, we’ve all always pronounced it DeSalvo Brown. And I hear you pronouncing it DeSalvo brown. I guess that’s just the difference in where we are in the right. Yep.
00:08:51
Yeah. I wouldn’t get too technical with that. But yeah. How did Kim pronounce it? He used to say DeSalvo, didn’t he?
00:08:59
I can’t remember. I think so. He was Americanized. It was his Americanized. The Americanized.
00:09:08
Right. Right. Pat, tell me about what the band was like when you first joined it. Well, at that point, he was a trio, and I came in because the bass player that was playing got ill and he needed a temporary bass player. But going back to your question, which blues rock?
00:09:27
The British were very keen on picking up on the blues and the R and B scene back in the 60s. They just took it and they went someplace else with it. They modified it, or we could say rocked it up a little bit. But they really helped the whole American blues scene. They revitalized it up till now, still, really, it was going the way of the jazz, almost the way jazz has become.
00:09:58
But the British were very keen, once again, on what was going on in the States, and they knew more about the blues scene than most Americans did, I got to be honest with you. And a typical blues rock song, there’s so many of them, street corner talking. Kim would take his idea was, I forgot who exactly told him, just get a melody with five notes and base your song around that. And a lot of it’s. One, four, five.
00:10:28
And those guys really got into the boogie thing. Bands like Ten Years After and DeSalvo both got into the doing the heavy boogie thing, long John Bardley, but they really did. Once again, they helped the American blues scene immensely. Eric Clapton, all those guys. Peter Green immense influence back over to the States.
00:10:48
Blues rock was the catch all phrase in the late 60s, wasn’t it, to describe that genre. And Kim was contemporaries with artists like Cream, with John Mail and even Jimi Hendrix. Yes, right. And I read a real good article. It was with Chaz Chadwick, I think, who brought Jimi Hendrix over, and they made a point in the article saying if Jimi Hendrix didn’t come over to Britain, it might have taken him a lot longer or he might never have been who he was.
00:11:21
Basically, he went over to the UK, got UK musicians and became very popular in the UK and then went back to the Know because his career in the States, you really didn’t have one at that point. So it’s pretty interesting then you think what he did with the music and where he took know, there was no Blueprint, really. These guys were making it up as they were going along. All the bands were Humble, Pie, Fogcast, any of those bands. They were inventing things.
00:11:52
Led Zeppelin. You think of all the great bands that have come out of the UK it’s kind of amazing that’s that big of a country.
00:12:02
Know, in the morning when the sun comes up, it brings me coffee in my favorite cup. I know. Yeah, I know. Hallelujah. I just love my song and I need a friend.
00:12:39
I hope you stick with me. Right. To my body tells me how I go mila tell me how I go if I go hallelujah I just love her when I called her on the baby by the time I came from.
00:13:15
Does it surprise you as Americans that the British had to bring blues back to America? No. You know, I mean, for me it was a little surprising that that happened because I think that sometimes and it happens with our own families, right. I mean, sometimes you’re not aware of what you have until you don’t have it. I think that American at that time didn’t recognize the great talent that they had in the you know, these kids at the time in England got a hold of it and they amped it up with modern guitars and made the backbeats a little heavier and all of a sudden it caught on.
00:14:06
But it was the same thing. It was just redressed. And I think that America didn’t take to it for various reasons. Some of it could have been the segregation that was going on at the mean. Some folks didn’t hear mean.
00:14:25
There were some white folks weren’t hearing it, necessarily. Yeah. It’s an interesting point, though, how the English kind of brought it back to America. Absolutely. What are your thoughts on that, Pat?
00:14:40
Pretty much the same as Garnet. But it’s interesting because when it first came over, I don’t think a lot of people realized where they were getting their ideas from. And then as you start listening to what they’re doing and looking at maybe the artists they were covering, people started realizing, wow, this has been in our backyard for a while. And there definitely was a segregation at the time where black acts couldn’t get to success because they were of color. So that’s definitely plays in there.
00:15:11
We don’t think about it because we’re Americans and America is this great melting pot. And we just think, really, America is the Emmett Communications and Mexicans were there at that know? But all these people came over. Yeah. So were you guys aware of the band DeSalvo Brown before you joined?
00:15:31
Yeah. Yeah, I was very family. My dad was a big influence on me musically, and we had all kinds of that era artists. So DeSalvo Brown was I believe we even had I remember we had it on an eight track. You’ve gone away I’ll get by somehow just right now all I can do is cry all I can do is cry I tried to find why you said go now I know all I can do is cry all I can do is cry tell me why you walked out that way what could I say?
00:16:29
All I can do is cry all I can do is cry I keep searching for as I sit here in my lonely room till I find a reason to keep living all I can do is cry all I can do is cry all I can do is cry.
00:17:13
We were both very aware of Kim’s past. Before we hooked up with him. We were very aware of everything he had done. It just happened. So it worked out wonderful because he was living in our area and we were able to rehearse because we lived close by.
00:17:33
Kim had a studio at his house, so for rehearsals, for meetings, it was quite easy for us to get together. So I think that was key. And we played well together. I mean, definitely we had a great chemistry. Well, that chemistry certainly translated into some amazing music.
00:17:53
Many DeSalvo Brown fans say the band had never sounded so good. Stick with me. There’s lots more coming up. This is a breath of fresh air with Sandy Kay.
00:18:08
Thanks for being here. I’m chatting to DeSalvo Brown drummer Garnet Grimm and bass player Pat de Salvo. I’m still not sure whether it’s DeSalvo Brown or DeSalvo Brown, but I guess both are fine. Although much younger than the original members, they grew up loving the English blues rock band and were huge admirers of the incredible guitar work practiced by their now deceased leader, guitarist, songwriter and vocalist Kim Simmons. What was your favorite DeSalvo Brown track growing up?
00:18:39
That one’s a tough one, I would have to say. I think Street Corner Talking because of the way we had developed it. So Kim had really developed that. The live version of that was kind of exciting to do for me, anyway. Came to the city home it, but I didn’t street on a dump you wonder what I’m gonna do street gonna tell you wonder what I wanna do if you can’t you.
00:19:53
Pat, what about. You, Black Knight, which I didn’t even know was Kim. I heard that maybe like, by the time I was in college. I think so. I didn’t even know that was DeSalvo Brown.
00:20:03
There’s so many songs. His catalog is so big. There’s just so many tunes. We had a hard time making a set with stuff sometimes. I bet you did.
00:20:11
Pat de Salvo. Now I’ve got you calling them DeSalvo brown. Yeah, I’ve become an Australian. I wonder if it’s Australian. Maybe it’s British too.
00:20:21
Who knows? I don’t know. Pat, you’ve always been into the blues? Yeah, at a very young age, I got into jazz and classical music and then I started really listening to the blues more through later years. But then also as trying to be a working musician, you play a lot of music you really wouldn’t want to play.
00:20:42
You do these cover bands and just develop yourself, develop your style and just to learn. I played in pit bands, I played in opera orchestras, I played in big bands. I had a very varied experience growing up and I was able to pull all different components out of that music and bring it into when I got into starting to play with Kim, got to bring it into the band. There’s more to blues. A lot of people would talk down to me, oh, you’re playing a blues band.
00:21:14
I was like, yeah, well, there’s twelve notes and everything’s. Four four for basically everything. So what’s the deal? If you listen to a lot of pop songs, from Amy Whitehouse to Lady Gaga, they do a lot of one four five stuff that I didn’t realize. Sometimes I’ll have my bass, I’ll be playing, and I’ll have put Pandora on.
00:21:34
Oh, my God. This is just a one four five. Yeah, right. They say that everything’s built on the blues anyway. Yes, it definitely is.
00:21:43
That’s definitely the ground. Yeah, it’s kind of an international base for a lot of music.
00:21:54
It’s easy to do things around it. I think it’s kind of fun. If you ever listen to commercials on the radio, there’s still tons of blues commercials. Jingles are always based around a lot of blues stuff. Why do you think that is?
00:22:10
What’s the appeal of blues music? First of all, it has a formula, one, four five. It’s easy to follow for a lot of people, and there’s definitely a pulse. There’s usually a one and a four kind of pulse. So it’s easy to dance to, it’s easy to relate to, it’s easy to well, I’m not a songwriter like Kim was, but a lot of musicians will songwriters.
00:22:38
It’s easier for them to write lyrics based around that formula. I think it’s become the ground floor of a lot of songbuilding. It’s very truthful music. The way to tell an honest story. Nobody cares about me I don’t even have a friend my baby doesn’t love me when will my trouble say that night that night is falling see how I hate to be alone yes, I’ve been crying for my baby I guess I’m not at it’s gone.
00:23:55
Why was there such a revolving door of musicians with this band? Is it because the band DeSalvo Brown has been going constantly since it was formed in 1965? Yeah, I think so. Again, that’s a question. There’s probably no two minute answer for that.
00:24:12
But when you think about it, the longevity of bands in general is not very long. Even the most popular ones will have their day in the sun and then they’re gone. But Kim definitely kept the thing going for a long time, and it was his vision that did that. Kim’s the only person I know. DeSalvo Brown’s, the only band he’s ever been in, started it when he was 16.
00:24:39
He was the main songwriter in the whole thing and kept the thing going for all these years. Now you get into other circumstances in that period in the 60s when blues rock was starting to become very popular. Now you had some guys that were maybe wanting to get in and get involved, to be rock stars or for whatever reason, and conflicts happen because of business or because of direction that the band certain bands are going in. So it became a revolving door. But I don’t know.
00:25:15
Kim intentionally sought out to do this, but he sure did launch a lot of careers. All the guys in Foghat were from DeSalvo Brown. Dave Walker was in Black Sabbath and in Fleetwood Mac.
00:25:57
At the end of the day, though, I think it was Kim’s vision that he was the one that kept it going. What sort of success did DeSalvo Brown enjoy from the outset? From the beginning, they meant great success in a lot of major bands that are around now. From Kiss to ZZ Top to the Allen Brothers were one time opening acts for them. Eventually, Kim had his popularity and he wanted to stay true to his blues rock roots, and that’s what he did.
00:26:25
So by doing that, sometimes bands will make a change and all of sudden a whatever the new fad is type thing, and they’ll gravitate that way. And Kim just wanted to be basically a blues rock band, not just do the standards. He wanted to take that music and evolve it as much as he could. Were there times when he wanted to call it quits? There was times when he probably put his hands up and said, like, Why am I doing this?
00:26:51
I had such great success at one time, and now I’m not playing the venues I was playing. But he really was in it for the music and he felt an obligation to his fans that was so important to him were the fans, the people that came out and supported him all the years. And he had a really good heart towards them and he wanted to make them happy. That was his whole job in saying that. There were some times where he was so tired.
00:27:16
We play a bunch of shows in a row and he would he would get tired. And sometimes on a meet and greet. He was like, he would do the meet and greet, but you could tell he was exhausted. Then he’d go back to the hotel and immediately pass out or go into the van and you just would go to sleep. Because he gave a lot, and he’s putting so much of his personality into this, and he’s really trying.
00:27:38
I mean, I gave him a lot of credit. Once again, he had a lot of tenacity. Sandy. He really was in it for the music, and that may be a reason that he wasn’t as popular. He was more concerned about writing songs and playing.
00:27:52
Those were his two things. Did you see the fan base grow? We started really developing Europe. I mean, we started drawing really well from the first time I went there to the end. We got into the bigger rooms.
00:28:04
All of a sudden, shows are sold out, and it was happening in the United States, too. Once again, I have to contribute to the three of us sticking together and doing a great show and just pushing each other to make the band better. I call a band. Sandy a dysfunctional family. If you’ve got a dad and a mom in the band, oh, my God, you’re doing great.
00:28:24
Usually you got sort of a dad and then a bunch of kids.
00:28:31
I love that. It’s just the way it is, though. And then everybody thinks they’re great, no matter what they say. We all think, Well, I’m really good. Me screw up, or I’m doing the best I can.
00:28:44
No, you’re not. You know what I mean? So that’s the thing that comes into play. And Kim really wanted 100% on stage, off the stage and in the studio, and it’s hard for people to do that. Me and Garna, believe it or not, both have full time jobs.
00:29:00
And we were lucky. We had employers that said, okay, you can go on the road. You can catch it. If you wanna ride don’t you worry if it pass you by don’t where I don’t know, I don’t care the train I ride goes to God knows where I don’t know and I don’t care.
00:30:30
Was it difficult to maintain full time work and play in the band as well? Must have been pretty tough. No, he worked with us. He really there was a thing he respect, and this is why we stayed in the band so long. Once again, we had a mutual respect.
00:30:44
And he looked at us and I got two guys that are supporting families go to work every day. They work overtime, and then they come and after work, and they’ll be rehearsing with they’ll make excuses, they’re on time, they’re prepared. And he really respected that he would work things around, around us. We joined at a time when Kim didn’t want to be on the road 300 days a year. He had already done that.
00:31:10
We didn’t do huge tours like he had done earlier in his life because he was getting older and he didn’t want to do it anymore. He had a family and we all had families. You must have very, very understanding wives and kids. Yeah, my wife is very understanding. Kim was considered one of music’s premier blues rock guitarists as well as songwriters, and as we’ve discussed, he’d been doing it for such a long time.
00:31:39
How long had he been sick for before he passed away? Well, he got cancer 2014, but we. Got over that hurdle. But this last time, what happened was, after COVID, we did our first couple of shows right, in Chicago area, and we were about to go back out on the road, I think, later on in August 21, right. And Kim was not feeling well, so he ended up going to the doctor and there ended up being something more serious.
00:32:16
He wanted us to load the van. Sandy. He couldn’t even get out of bed. And we were very concerned, not because of the work, because we’re going like, what’s going on with know? He was very he was like that for about a year and a half.
00:32:31
Yeah, about a year and a half, it was. But that’s what’s kind of interesting about the recording that we did this last one, because it was done during this period where Kim was ill and he wasn’t feeling 100%. So we did it quite different than we had done any of the other records that Pat and I had done with him anyway, where he sent demos to all of us, including the sound engineer. We sort of studied the demos ourselves. Kim had already laid down basic ideas musically, so when Pat and I went in together, we were the only ones had not was not there.
00:33:17
And we played our basic tracks and we kind of built the record from the ground up at that point, which was very different from what we had ever done before. We had always rehearsed songs and went in, played them live, we played live in the studio and then if there were corrections that needed to be made, we would make them. So I think that was quite a bit different way to approach it, but I think it worked out well. Blues all around they’re coming down on me lose all around they’re coming down on me I’m down on my luck set as any man can be I fool myself trying to live like a millionaire I fooled myself trying to live like a millionaire now woman won’t turn find another food somewhere um.
00:35:05
Blues All Round is the title track to the latest album. It’s DeSalvo Brown’s 42nd studio album and it showcases Kim Simmons most inspired guitar work and expressive vocals since Kim’s illness. During the recording sessions, he was playing a great deal more slide guitar than on previous albums. Kim Simmons is considered one of music’s premier blues and blues rock guitarists and songwriters and is hailed as one of the architects of the 1960s British blues scene in London. He was an early pioneer of the British blues movement and a passionate proponent of the blues, but lost his hard fought battle with cancer recently, just one week after celebrating his 75th birthday.
00:35:53
Hang in there as we explore more of the amazing work that Kim Simmons did with DeSalvo Brown. This is a breath of fresh air with Sandy K. It’s a beautiful day. Welcome back. Garnet Grimm and Pat de Silva have been filling us in on the music legend that DeSalvo Brown’s Kim Simmons was.
00:36:15
Kim started the band in the mid sixty S and the energetic blues rock was DeSalvo Brown’s calling card from the very beginning. The term blues rock became the catchall phrase in the late sixty S to describe the group’s music, along with that of contemporaries like Cream, Fleetwood Mac and Jimi Hendrix. Having established national status in the 70s, DeSalvo Brown provided opportunities for many other bands to launch their careers. Some of those include Kiss, ZZ Top and the Doobie Brothers. The band also helped open the eyes of many 70s American music fans to their own homegrown blues artists, and today they remain one of the longest running blues rock bands in existence.
00:37:03
Shortly before Kim Simmons passed away, he made his final album, Blues All Round. And Kim came in while we were there and worked with us. I remember he put down some harmonica, piano parts, stuff like that. The vocal parts he did on his own, I believe, so. It was cool.
00:37:23
I had some ideas for adding percussion. Kim had a way of bringing you into the creative process, so he let us express our musical thoughts. I mean, he had certain expectations, but he also gave us some freedom to create. And Pat, did his becoming sick drive him even further? Was he more determined to make another album?
00:37:44
Yeah, he really pushed to get to play on the record and see, he wound up playing a lot of slide on it because the neuropathy, which is caused from having chemo, it affects your fingers and your toes and stuff, and they just don’t function. You got to give the guy credit. He was trying to get a quality of life, trying to balance it out, stay with his wife and daughter and then come out with this album. We all knew in the studio that one day my life’s changing. After this, my life’s going to be a little different when he’s gone.
00:38:17
So little retrospect. Do you have songs that you’ve done with Kim that are really close to your heart? The old stuff. There’s so many demos we did that we never recorded. It’s always about the story, Sandy.
00:38:31
If you got a great story, you could just sit down with an acoustic guitar or just sing it. Everything else is just embellishments. It’s the frosting on the cake. I used to like. It when we played that tune.
00:38:41
Guitar Slinger. I like that one. On a back road leading nowhere I heard a sound like thunder in the night I decided to check it out I saw a corner full of blood I walked inside, took a look around Shark getting download myself a beer and listen to the music coming from the studio.
00:39:36
Did the music evolve over the years? I think it’s changed several times. And some of that had to do with the revolving door thing we talked about. You know, it depends on who’s in the band and what kind of influences were there. If you listen to the record Jack the Toad, for example, you’ll recognize some of his playing, but the band sounds quite different.
00:40:01
And you also got to think that the last several years we were a trio. Kim always had singers, he always had often a second guitar player. Keyboard player was kind of a staple in the band early on. So, yeah, I mean, all those things changed. The dynamic, the sound.
00:40:21
Yeah. Why did he bring it back down to a trio? Just easier to, you know, easier to manage. I mean, we did for a short time, we brought in a singer when we did Voodoo Moon. But we did find that for some reason, the chemistry was a lot better with the three of us than even with the fourth member.
00:40:42
So if you were going to bring in anybody, I think you really had to bring in someone that was able to melt together with you very tightly, which we were able to do. They say tonight there’ll be a surprise just around midnight better close your eyes some people get crazy some people gonna shout and some don’t know what it’s all about so hey, little sister, watch your moon the sun black magic gonna get to you it’s gonna make no world a bad fight there’s a food to moon it’s coming out tonight.
00:42:13
Garnet, what’s your favorite track on the new album? I’ll tell you, there’s a couple of them I like. I like Texas love. I just love the raw shuffle, the rawness of the guitar. But the one I thought was the most fun for Pat and myself anyway, was California Days Gone By.
00:42:32
Because the story is, when we got the demo, it didn’t really match the lyric. The music wasn’t matching the lyric so much, so it was kind of almost a country song. But the lyric, if you listen to it, is about Kim hanging out with the band in California in probably the 1960s. It just didn’t fit the lyrics. So Pat and I sort of just kept messing around with grooves until we fell on one that we thought might be a little more appropriate.
00:43:08
And I remember Ron, the sound engineer, just had his finger on the record button. We just kept playing, and if he didn’t like something, he’d say no. I remember he would have said, Garnet, no, too many symbols. Let’s try something else. So we just kept playing until we landed on something.
00:43:28
It was kind of cool, kind of fun. Damn my guitar under the Hollywood sky cammy that does rocking with humble pie it’s a time I remember California days gone by.
00:44:40
Was Kim writing about what was going on around him and how he was feeling at the time? I don’t think he was writing about his illness. I think he may have been reminiscing a little, but I don’t think he was writing about his illness. No. I got the vibe he was on just some of the songs, like Gypsy Healer was one of them.
00:45:01
And the intro and outro that he did that falling through the cracks, I think he was realizing, okay, this might be the final chapter type of thing. Must have been really difficult for you to see him going down. Yeah, it was really hard. But we kept in touch very close, really, right up till the very end. I remember I texted him on his birthday, which he died only a week or so later, but I texted him on his birthday.
00:45:32
He just sent me a thumbs up. He didn’t really respond, but he let me know that he got it. And I just felt terrible. I think Pat and I both wanted to get up there and see him, but I think he wanted to be just with his families. Yeah.
00:45:52
Pat. How will Kim Simmons be remembered? Well, I hope he’s remembered an innovator and that his music will keep making people happy and that people can draw from his writing, whether it be the songs or the songs, the lyrics or the music, that younger players can come up and listen to him and go, oh, my God, it’s great stuff. And that’s something I can pull and put into my repertoire type thing. You know what I mean?
00:46:22
It’s like an influence. And what happens for you guys now, you said that he had given you a whole lot of demos and he’d actually hoped to make another album again. Are you likely to work on those demos and put that out together? I don’t know. I like to think there’s another DeSalvo Brown record in there.
00:46:40
The one thing I will say is that if there is going to be another release, it’s going to have to be done with the same vigor and fortitude that he would put into it. So it would have to be the right people working on it. Kim definitely left a lot of music and a lot of art. You notice that he was also a painter, so you could go to the website and see his painting and his music. All the albums are quite a few of them are there that you can get and you can get this one there as well.
00:47:14
But, yeah, he left us a lot of music, a lot of art. I’m really fortunate and filled with gratitude that I was able to get close to this creative giant. But like I’ve said to a few people, I understand the circle of life has to happen, but it doesn’t feel good very often. Nope. So I’m just thankful for the time we had.
00:47:35
Pat and I were lucky sometimes I think, oh, man, we should have been with him in the know, we would have been tearing it up. But at the other know, he had to go through a lot of life lessons and a lot of things. I think we were lucky, though, Pat and I, where we got to play all that old material, quite a bit of it, and we got to make new music as that’s life, huh? Yeah. Which song shall we go out on?
00:48:04
Guys? I’d like to just mention one thing, that me and Garnet are still playing together and we’re playing with a gentleman that’s on the label we’re on and his name is Sean Chambers. And we just were in Europe in October and we did a tour. It went well. We’re going to go back over and do another tour and actually, we’re hoping we’re going to talk to Debbie, Kim’s wife, and the label wants us to go in and do another record.
00:48:31
Sandy, we’re going to hopefully grab a couple of Kim songs and put them on the record. We’ll see what happens with that. Well, if you can keep the legacy of Kim Simmons alive and DeSalvo Brown, then awesome. Well, he’s got I have to say, Kim’s wife, Debbie does a lot of work. She always did.
00:48:51
She was the one booking the flights and advancing the shows. She was doing a lot of work behind the scenes. She’s going to do a lot to keep this legacy going. The website’s up and running. There’s a good amount of people still on Team DeSalvo Brown working awesome well.
00:49:10
Kim Simmons has certainly left a fabulous legacy and I’m very grateful to you guys for having a chat with us today to tell us all about the new album and filling us in on everything that’s gone before. The new album’s called Blues All Around. And I guess that’s exactly what Kim Simmons wanted. Yeah. Gypsy Healer won’t you give me a significant gypsy heel?
00:49:48
Won’t you give me a significant gypsy heeler?
00:50:15
Can you give me good news?
00:50:24
Gypsy healer can you give me good news?
00:50:37
My heart is falling I got those midnight blues.
00:50:49
Gypsy Healer from the Blues All Round album, legendary Bluesman. Kim Simmons might be gone, but his overarching legacy, over blues and rock music remains towering. The British blues boom was a phenomenon never to be repeated again and it remains one of the foremost UK music movements of all time. I hope you’ve enjoyed the story of Kim Simmons and DeSalvo Brown. Thanks for being with me today.
00:51:16
I’ve really enjoyed having your company. Don’t forget, if you’d like to request a guest for this program. All you have to do is send me an email through the website abreathofreshair.com au and I’ll do my best to make it happen for you. Have fun, won’t you? Until we meet again.
00:51:34
I’ll look forward to being back with you same time next week. Bye now.
00:51:43
You’Ve been listening to A Breath of Fresh Air with Sandy K. Beautiful Day oh, baby any day that you’re gone away it’s a beautiful day.