The theme of guitarist/songwriter Greg Spradlin’s life, he told Arkansas Times’ David Ramsey in 2012, is timing. “With my music, it’s always stuff like that. If I booked a gig tonight, it would come a hailstorm.” When legendary producer and pianist Jim Dickinson used to introduce Spradlin to his cohorts, he’d say, “This is my friend Greg, from Little Rock. He’s been through the L.A. grease.”
Despite a history packed with thwarted record contracts and wrong legal turns, though, the Pangburn (White County) native ended up making his dream record, mastered by Grammy winner Tchad Blake and tracked by a roster of musicians that includes the likes of David Hidalgo (Los Lobos), a good chunk of Elvis Costello’s backing band and a legendary but elusive B3 player, the late Rudy Copeland. We talked to Spradlin about “Hi-Watter,” available now online (and, for Central Arkansans, curbside by appointment at Control in Hillcrest, and coming soon to Arkansas Record & CD Exchange), nearly a decade after its inception.
So, this record is a long time coming. Like, a LONG time. Why now?
I was waiting on a global pandemic, and I thought it would never come.
Right!?
No, seriously, the straight answer is: I wasn’t planning to make this record when I made it. And it was like a genie in a bottle washed up on the shore one day, and I had all the wishes to make any record I wanted to. It was this amazing thing that came true, and it happened so easily, and so fast. And then as soon as we were finished making it, we had a lot of life events, family events, things that happened that just derailed me personally for a while, and then it kind of became more important to take care of and focus on my family.
The other part of it was that I wasn’t ready to put it out. So it just kind of laid there for a long time, because I didn’t know what to do with it. I didn’t want to just throw it out. I felt like everybody who helped me out getting the record out, who put everything they put into it, I owed it to them to find the right time and the right way to put it out. And having finally found a label [Steve Howell’s Out of the Past Records] that wanted to see it born properly, that was what I’d been waiting for.
So you had a relationship with the legendary Arkansas musician and producer Jim Dickinson. You delivered the eulogy at his funeral, even. What moments, if any on this record, are like specifically Jim Dickinson? Like, what wouldn’t exist if he hadn’t been in your musical sphere?
The whole record wouldn’t exist. That’s the weird thing, and it’s kind of hard to explain. But basically, Jim and I, for years, played on each other’s projects. He played on my last record. I played on two of his records. He covered a couple of my songs. We’d known each other for a long time, and he really became my compass, my North Star, and was always there to encourage and help me navigate bullshit. And we talked about the kind of record I needed to make for years. Secretly, what I wanted, was to make a record with him and [sons] Luther and Cody [of North Mississippi Allstars fame]. …
What he’d always tell me is, “You need the right band. You need the right group of guys to play with you.” And then he died, and within a year of him dying, Jason Weinheimer and I were talking, and Jason was friends with Pete Thomas, from Elvis Costello’s band, and they’d worked on a Boondogs album together — coincidentally, a record Jim produced — and out of the blue he said, “What do you think about getting Pete to come to Little Rock and you do a day with him,” and Jason was doing a solo record with [his wife] Indy [Grotto], “and we’ll just make a week out of it.” … And I brought in about 3-4 songs, thinking we’d get through three or four songs, tops. And I think we got through with three or four songs before lunch. Because Pete is such a monster. He’s one of the best that there is. And he really got energized by it, and I just started digging, trying to come up with some more stuff, and we just ended up recording for about 13 or 14 hours straight, and did basically half the record in one day. READ MORE…