NRBQ: “…One too many grilled cheeses and a thousand fries behind.”

One thing that never gets old in pop music is funny, mainly because there’s so little of it, Ween, Tenacious D, and Flight of the Conchords notwithstanding. Of course the comedy doesn’t work if you don’t have appealing hooks or great chops. When the latter includes pumping rhythms, popping syncopation, voices that can step out or blend, and enough smarts to put it all in a blender and still be identifiable as you and only you___ or them, as was the case of the New Rhythm and Blues Quartet (NRBQ), then you deserve the (nearly) forty year run you had.

Keyboardist Terry Adams’ loony hats and karate chops to the clavinet, the nightly draws from the Magic Box, exploding Cabbage Patch Dolls, otherworldly appearances by faux manager/wrestling goon Captain Lou Albano, all the while playing an everything-but-the- kitchen-sink brand of post-modern American music comprise some of the goo that made NRBQ stick so hard.

Diehard Q fans lament that they didn’t blowup big. By the time they’d done Scraps and Workshop for Kama Sutra in the early-70’s, they’d made a strong case for stardom. If there could be a Steely Dan and a Little Feat, why couldn’t there be an NRBQ? They were all a bit off-kilter and genius at the forms they worked. NRBQ practiced a kind of weirdo ethic which may explain why they didn’t get along with record companies, but they weren’t notorious flakes like Stampfel and Weber, Roky Erikson or Arthur Lee. Although there’s something gloriously outside and subversive about that lot, NRBQ’s longest standing configuration, guitarist Big Al Andersen, bassist Joey Spampinato, keyboardist Terry Adams and drummer Tommy Ardolino, were just too proficient to be totally fringe, even though they made a career-long commitment to that side of the pop life and were inexhaustibly manic on stage.

On the band’s official website, you can buy a copy of the program book from NRBQ’s 30^th  anniversary show at the Bowery Ballroom (November 20-21, 1999). The lineup for the two nights included old collaborator John Sebastian, and some of the bands’ favorite projects/friends: the Shaggs, the previously mentioned Holy Modal Rounders, the Sun Ra Arkestra under the direction of Marshall Allen, Captain Lou Albano and Professor Irwin Corey. You get the picture or the paradox. NRBQ could make a beautiful stab at mainstream appeal, such as their lone record for Mercury, 1978’s At Yankee Stadium, only to be pushed to the margins by that label’s rush to sign anything in ripped t-shirts and severe hair because that, not Stadium’s wonderful omnipop, was happening at the time.

Typical of music industry screw-ups, NRBQ was signed to Mercury on the basis of “Ridin’ in My Car,” a radio-perfect single they released on their own Red Rooster records between major label deals. Curiously, regrettably, the song was eventually left off At Yankee Stadium. The album was still a gem, and garnered the Q bigtime recognition. Perhaps as a nod to the unjust treatment of “Ridin' in My Car,” Bonnie Raitt put herself and band in a sleek convertible for the cover photo of 1982’s, Green Light, named for the At Yankee Stadium song she faithfully covered along with “Me and the Boys” from 1980’s Kick Me Hard.

Despite the attention, time and time again, NRBQ was forced to fall back and take a more DIY approach, releasing records on Red Rooster, or aligning with independents such as Rounder Records. Albert Grossman’s Bearsville records picked them up in 1984 for Grooves in Orbit but dropped them right after. To complicate matters, Grossman, with whom they’d had some kind of row, wouldn’t let them out of their contract. It took his death in 1989 to loosen that vice. Right away they signed with Virgin, for you guessed it, one record, Wild Weekend. For the title song, they reinvented the Rockin’ Rebels surf instrumental, adding lyrics to the tune and sticking their necks out once again.

Their enthusiasm for every style of playing from improvisational jazz and surf to barrelhouse rhythm and blues and zydeco was the most infectious part of NRBQ’s gestalt. On Wild Weekend, for instance, they pay tribute to zydeco legend Boozoo Chavis, who does a star turn on “Boozoo, That’s Who.” Tributes and collaborations were always part of the act. They famously buddied up with Carl Perkins for their second record, Boppin’ the Blues, and years later, returned to that fertile musical terrain to collaborate with honey-voiced country singer Skeeter Davis, who would marry the group’s bass player.

As impossibly song savvy and musically tight as NRBQ was, they couldn’t be all things to all people. They stayed in the pockets of the bar and college crowds they played to-audiences that got the humor, joyfully submitted song requests to the band via the Magic Box and crowded small patches of dance floor in joints up and down the eastern seaboard.

The live God Bless Us All and its companion record Digging Uncle Q released twenty years into NRBQ’s career, prompted Village Voice critic Robert Christgau to write, “The first live album by the Northeast's finest road band stands a chance of showing the rest of the world what it's been missing…. One set, no song list, audience all unawares, hot-cha-cha. B.”

Nice. But what gives? Why a “B” and not an “A” from “The Dean of American Rock Critics?”

Because---there was always in the nitcrit analysis of the band’s recordings a subtext of anti-hype and a final grade of close but no cigar. As the members of NRBQ pushed forty, some writers sniped that Terry’s mop top and Joey’s sweet crooning had gone from cute to annoying, suggesting that the raw energy and fun that fuels the best rock n’ roll should be folded up and placed in a locked box once  the players get a little grey or pasty-faced.

The classic lineup of Anderson, Adams, Stampinato and Ardolino stayed together for twenty years. Big Al left in 1994 to write songs and make his own records in Nashville. Joey’s guitar playing brother Johnny left a pretty good outfit called The Incredible Casuals to join NRBQ for new recordings and non-stop tours that lasted until 2004, when the band decided to take a break.

Last year marked forty years since their inception and the passing of both founding member Steve Ferguson and one time manager Albano. And while they haven’t recorded together since ’04, they’ve been busy. In addition to forming a new quartet, the rejuvenated Adams has been busy recording. Joey and Johnny also put together a band, the eponymously named Spampinato Brothers, who are currently touring east coast joints, and Tommy Ardolino plays sessions, including manning the drum kit for Adam’s most recent solo charmer, Holy Tweet (Clang!). 

Last fall The Terry Adams Rock & Roll Quartet released crazy 8’s, a live recording of songs featuring yapping, howling vocals, dirty guitars, slap happy rhythms, and the percussive magic of Adams’ clavinet___basically all the stuff the kids used to like and all the stuff that still generally constitutes a good time.

Perhaps the spirit of NRBQ’s ceaseless appeal can be found in Adam’s recent reflection on his old band:“NRBQ played more nights, traveled more miles, had more fun, and stayed together longer than anyone, all because of the music.  But in 2004 we stopped. We were one too many grilled cheeses and a thousand fries behind.”

Funny, right?