Tony Saunders continues to profess his love for his longtime music teacher.
“I love my dad and I miss him a lot,” said Saunders, who plays the bass, “especially now that I can play a lot better and now that I’m a better musician. Now all the stuff that he taught me is in my head and I remember stuff that he told me and then I’ll play it – it’s pretty cool – and he’s still telling me stuff to do.”
Tony’s dad was keyboardist extraordinaire Merl Saunders, who died in 2008 at the age of 74. Merl, who will forever be linked with Jerry Garcia. suffered a stroke six years before his death that left him unable to talk for the remainder of his life.
“Everything I do now, he taught me,” Tony said of his dad. “Produce, engineer and make music.”
Tony, 59, runs Y-Not Muzic Studios, where he produces various local and national artists and writes music for the television show Break Down Media. He also released two albums of his own music: Romancing The Bass and Appaloosa.
Jambands.com spoke to Tony by phone from his San Francisco home.
When your dad suffered the stroke, you contemplated leaving the music industry. What made you decide to keep going and not walk away from what you love?
I was sitting there in my studio and his pictures were in my studio from stuff that we had done over the years and I was sitting there looking at those pictures and I was just like in one of those stages: “What do I do?” So when I really sat down and thought about it, he would want me to continue playing music, so I thought about what I was going to do and I turned around to the piano.
We had started this project together and that was the first time he had acknowledged that I was good enough to produce him and all the times growing up it was the dad and the son but this time, he wanted my help to produce, so I wrote this song called “The Music Man,” and that helped me turn the corner. When I went to the hospital to look at him after he had the stroke, he looked normal and then it just changed. His whole body and his features started to change over the next week or so. So one of the turning points, that made me change my thinking was the Sunday following the stroke.
We had the family standing around because he had gone from better to worse to better to worse, so I asked him, “You know dad, we understand if you have to check out. You’ve done enough nice things for all three kids, we’re all here and your cousins are here – you’ve done enough nice things we understand if you want to check out because this is going to be a hard road. If you want to check out, we understand it but if you want to stay squeeze our hands and we’ll help you fight and stay here as long as you can.” With tears in his eyes, he shook his head that he wanted to stay and I told him a joke, I said, “Dad, it’s about 3 o’clock and I’ve got a gig at 5 o’clock so now you understand that I’ve got to go,” and he started laughing, and that was the first time he had laughed after being in the intensive care unit for five days.
When he started laughing, I knew he was going to be OK and I knew it was OK for me to do music and you know how sometimes you don’t feel right about something, I just didn’t feel right. After I did that gig, I went back to my studio and I sat at the piano and I finished that song and I also played stuff on the piano that I could never remember playing. It was like he shifted his energy into me and made me have an awareness that I’m worth something and don’t give up on your music and that you’re a good player, and you can help me carry on my legacy just by being you. It pushed me over and on that project, I got to use all of his friends.
You got Huey Lewis, Bonnie Raitt and Mavis Staples to help. How did that come about?
Basically, I called them up. Every year, he had this amazing birthday show where he got all of his friends to play with him, plus I knew all of those musicians: Roy Rogers, David Grisman, Norton Buffalo, Melvin Seals, Steve Kimock with the other names you said, so they all just agreed to be in the project. I actually called all of them and they all said, “Yes,” and they didn’t want any money. Some of the people wanted money but for the most part the stars did not want any money. I think he did pay Mavis Staples because her part was already done. He had just done a gig in Chicago and he called me, and he was so excited, “Tony, I just finished recording with Mavis,” and he let me hear the recording over the phone.
One of the more interesting ones was the trombone player, who had been in Legion of Mary, Eddie Neumeister. He was living in Sweden at the time. I sent him a track to Sweden and then he sent it back. Everybody was excited to help my dad and when he heard the music of that CD at The Great American Music Hall a year later, he actually cried. We did it up for him – we had a choir, Bonnie was there, David Grisman, Melvin, Norton Buffalo. We all played the stuff for him and he was ecstatic.
Can you talk more how “The Music Man,” came together as a musical tribute to your dad?
It’s a duet between Huey Lewis and Jeanie Tracy and they both loved my dad tremendously. Huey worked a lot with us on the New Twilight Zone (1985-1989) and Jeanie and my dad had been on the Grammy Committee together, and the background vocals were sung by people who worked with Narada Michael Walden. And one of my dad’s protege who is doing really well now Ray Chew — who is from New York and now the musical director for Dancing With The Stars and the musical director of musical directors — played the piano solo because he could best exemplify my dad’s style of music.
The words were about how my dad travelled far and wide to get to his music heard. He travelled a lot and he loved doing it. He played 200 dates a year – so it talks about that and how he was the music man and how people just loved him everywhere he went. One of the satisfactions I get now of days is that whenever I do a gig as Keystone Revisited, so many people come up and tell me, “Your dad was just great.” It’s a real comforting thing and by the end of the night, I have a bunch of tears in my eyes. It’s a good feeling but he’s not here no more. They are tears of joy that he left me because he was just the coolest guy.
*Your love for your dad comes across so strong as if he were still alive today. Is it possible to describe in words your relationship and the mutual love between you to?
We were really super close because we had the musical bond. Yes, he was my dad – we had father son stuff but the music thing was never a barrier. The only reason that I played with other people because that was part of the growth process. I played on pretty much every studio record of my dad’s, plus every project that was really important to him. And then we would just chitchat like two girls on the phone and laugh about stuff.
We had the sports bond. My brother wasn’t really into sports, so my dad and I would call him the blue collar part of our family. But me and my dad would go to 49ers and Giants game. We both loved football and sports. My dad ran a record company with Wilt Chamberlain, so we got to meet Wilt. He was definitely dad — you had to go to school and do stuff.
We got exposed to stuff probably a lot younger than other kids like pot but he kept everything in perspective. He wanted everything to be in the house. You couldn’t be out wild on the streets doing stuff. As far as me growing up, that was the house everyone wanted to come to to and hang out, so he was like Mr. Dad. He even came to my football games and filmed them and this was at the height of Merl and Jerry. This was in the 70s, I went to high school in ’70, ’71, ’72 and ’73 and my dad filmed all my football games. He was like any dad you could be. He was definitely a disciplinarian but as we grew up as friends, we would laugh about stuff.
Later in life, he would tell me about girls and stuff. He was just a fun guy and that’s why I have so much love for him. And then I was mad to myself because I probably should have played with him more but all kind of people called me, but he would understand: “Go get the experience and play with other people too.” Our love for music made us really close — as far as laughing about stuff, crying about stuff. I produced his solo record Meridien Dreams and that was a big thing for me because when your dad trusts you to do something you got to come through, you can’t be goofing around. I had to tell him, “Hey dad, I think you should do that one more time.” I remember I was nervous to say it but I had to because of the integrity of the project.
Whenever I was going through something I could always call him and he would tell me what I was doing. Like any dad, he bailed his kid out of troubled times. The music thing was such a bond. This is how close we were, when he was lying on his death bed, I was in L.A. and a friend of mine from Concord Jazz gave me some of the recordings that never came out out of Concord Jazz. So I hadn’t heard these recordings since I was under 10 years old and I would go to him and play it. He sat there and smiled as I remembered all the titles of the songs.
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