Well, I met [Island Records’] Denny [Cordell] through his son Tarka, an English kid, who was a great friend of mine. Tarka and I met in Hollywood where I had gotten a gig with Bo Diddley when I was still a teenager.
Our hangout used to be Johnny Perez’s studio. [Perez was the Sir Douglas Quintet drummer.] Tarka was living there and he would invite me for late night jams. When the clubs closed, all these homesick Texas and Louisiana musicians would end up jamming at Johnny Perez’s.
Tarka would go back into the control room and record things and the next day we listened to what we had played. It was the first time I realized that Tarka had this great talent as a producer. He could capture things in the right way.
A couple of years later I was back in Louisiana playing with Buckwheat Zydeco. I didn’t have any desire to make my own record. I had gone into the studio to cut some demos to showcase myself as a gun for hire. Tarka was in New Orleans working on a record, so he came over. I said ‘I’m going to the studio tonight. Why don’t you come in?’ And that’s how it started.
I didn’t know his daddy was Denny Cordell. And I certainly didn’t know he was running Island Records. Tarka took my recordings to New York and played them for his dad. His dad gave him money to come back down and record more things with me.
At one point [Tarka] goes, ‘You should make your own record.’
We went back into Dockside and made that record over four or five weeks. But it wasn’t the Dockside people know now. It was just a barn that had a shitty old board and tape machine in it and in a lot of ways, it was hipper. We certainly pushed that equipment. The needles were always in the red and we were just going for it.
I made that record using Jockey Etienne and Warren Storm and in a lot of ways it was the early beginnings of Lil’ Band o’ Gold. I had Tommy McLain and Classie Ballou, Jr. from Boozoo’s band so I was using all my local heroes and cats I was really into.
The literal translation [of ‘Couchemal’/Couchemar] is bad sleep, nightmare. It was a creole sin-based punishment Devil, somebody that comes and rides you at night if you’ve been doing bad things. Apparently it’s real physical but he never visited me.
Because [‘Couchemal’] has lines like ‘Yeah, he mounts me like a stallion/ Yeah he rides me way down South/ And when I wake up in the mornin’ / There is a mange dried up in my mouth,’ all of a sudden it’s selling really well in San Francisco. I remember Denny calling me and saying ‘Hey, you are getting all these weird stores selling your record in San Francisco.’ The gays thought it was some sort of anthem. Wow, we will take the sales, thank you.
The lick from ‘Couchemal’ I lifted from the Slammers, this London pub band. They had this cassette demo I had gotten a hold of that had a great guitar lick on it. So I just lifted it but at 19 and before the age of digital, you think nobody’s ever going to find me. Who’s going to know this?
So a few years later, I was playing with Filé at the Maple Leaf and the guys in [Nick Lowe’s band] came out. And this British Cat Paul ‘Bassman’ Riley comes up and says ‘Are you C.C. Adcock?’ I’m thinking wow, somebody overseas knows who I am. This record thing must be starting to happen! He goes ‘Yeah I heard your record.’ Then he picked up my guitar and played the exact lick from ‘Couchemal.’ I thought, oh wow, people are already starting to learn my stuff. Then he looked at me funny. That’s when I realized, oh fuck, wait a minute and it all clicked. Oh my God! You are that guy from the pub band in London, aren’t you? Yep. Okay, let’s go straight to the bar right now, drinks are on me all night and the first thing tomorrow we will call the record company and get the publishing straight.
I used to bother Bo [Diddley] all the time about how to do [‘Bo’s Bounce,’ titled ‘Beaux’s Bounce’ on the record] because it has that great jungle chookachookachooka intro … there is this echo and drumstick trick to it. And he would always go ‘I don’t know what you are talking about. I don’t even remember that song.’ One night we were playing in San Diego and came out for the encore. [Bo] grabs the drumstick from the drummer and he just starts lightning up the intro lick to ‘Bo’s Bounce.’ I’m like Jesus Christ, there it is. That’s it.
The place went crazy because it’s such an amazing lick. Then he hands me the drumstick in front of everybody and I remember attempting some shit but all I did was chip paint off my Stratocaster banging my guitar with the drumstick. Of course it didn’t sound like anything. I handed him back the drumstick. He lights it up again. And so we go back and forth. It ended up being a comedy routine. People were snickering and booing and then Bo ended up playing the song and tearing it up. After the gig I was able to check out what he had done on the back of his amp and how he set the echoes. That’s how I learned the lick and put it on the record.
And now the joke is kinda on Bo because I’ve licensed my version often though the years. It’s been a Guinness ad and it’s done a few things [commercials/movies/Ace Records compilation]. It has made me a few dollars over the years. Thanks Bo.”
