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124720 Aaron Read Lowres Dead Hart Live Beat by Amy Brown Born in the war year of 1943 in New York, Mickey bearded guitar player who had a voice that finger touched your Hart's parents were drummers. soul and kissed your neck. Jerry stepped up when R & B genius Although he didn't stay around to enjoy Mickey's birth, Pigpen McKernan forgot there were closing times and his dad was a 'rudimental' drummer, a master of establishing checked out of the band and life too early. Bob Weir was there, tempo through percussion and acting as the backbone of an too, the cute one with an edge, who alternated vocals with ensemble. Mickey was raised by his mother, who was what Jerry, and Phil Lesh and hey…they all had their following, but Mickey calls an 'intramural' player, a musician with a true love for this article at least and a sense of Rock history, it is of rhythm and its many artistic expressions. impossible to ignore the impact that Mickey Hart has had on Whether it was in his blood or an imprint of early the world of rhythm and percussion beginning with his days memory, Hart embarked on a lifetime of exploration into the with “The Dead” and continuing with the groups he has either artistry and healing powers of drumming. In 1967, with the joined or founded since Jerry Garcia's challenged heart gave Summer of Love in full blossom, Mickey fell in with a group out in 1995. of musicians from Northern California. They were a free- “ My teacher took me aside when I was in spirited and experimental group of high school and asked, “Do you want to guys who would become his lifelong play drums for the rest of your life?” companions. They were the Warlocks initially, but by the time Mickey met them Sad that he's gone, but only Jerry died in 1995. Since they'd made up an increasingly popular local band, The Garcia's death, and the dissolution of the initial incantation of Grateful Dead. the Grateful Dead, Hart has grown even more interesting. There is no doubt that The Dead became a seminal group California Conversations sat down with Mickey and his of the Rock era. Their followers, the group of travelers known wife, Caryl Orbach Hart, at their 50-acre rolling hills ranch in as Deadheads, were part flower child and part post-atomic age the Sonoma foothills. searchers. There is no other band ever that could turn a major Mickey's YoungLife concert into such a family affair that men and women who CC: What grabbed you at an early age to play have gone on to become successful in their own right still drums? remember dancing to the Dead as assembling around the MH: Actually, the first thing that captured me wasn't hearth. necessarily the drums. Rather, I was fascinated by the sounds Whether you consider yourself a true Deadhead or one of of the City. It was the rhythm and noise, those loud things that those folks who happened to catch some of the Dead's more typically attract young kids. I felt myself being pulled into this mainstream tunes such as 'Trucking' or the unforgettable vibratory world. I loved to go out in the rain as a young child 'Casey Jones', you could not have lived in California during the and just put my hands out and touch it. I guess you could say last three decades of the twentieth century and not be touched that this was my first sacred, spiritual connection to rhythm. I by a band that bought whole-heartedly, if imperfectly, into the was always fascinated with the rhythm of things, how they notion that a good riff changes the cosmic motion. Through moved, how they sounded. It was very sonic and tactile. thirty years of relentless touring the Grateful Dead captured a CC: How did your parents influence your time and place on the drifting stage of a California where you involvement in the percussionist world? could live cheap, and hospitality was extended under the tent MH: My father was an exceptional drummer, as was my of good weather and a smoky sky. mother. She drummed to attract my father and once she got Mickey was not the most famous of the Dead. That him, she quit. You see, that's the power of the drum. And that's distinction goes to their second front man, Jerry Garcia, a fat, what it's really all about: attracting your mate, calling for them, SPRING 2006 CALIFORNIA CONVERSATIONS 17 bringing them closer. It's about getting it on and making more as some surprise to folks, but when Jerry Garcia and I of the species. That's what music and certainly rhythm and disappeared for a couple of weeks, and no one could find us, truth be told we were at Langley. They used to pull us off the “ concert tour and no one knew I was a CIA agent. I know this may where we were. Those long trips come as some surprise to folks...” got the best of me, that's why I quit the CIA. Jerry, however, never wanted to stop with the drumming is all about. CIA work. We would talk of music around the table growing up. CC: (laughs) Tell us about Tito Puente and other During those discussions, I discovered who my dad was and influences on your music? knew what my mother did. So, I thought drumming was the MH: Tito Puente. Now, he was serious. When I was in best thing you could do, and then second in line to that would be New York City in the '50s Tito, Chito Rodriguez, Machito and President and then maybe a fireman. all of these great Latin musicians that had come up from Cuba CC: When did you realize you had this gift for and the Caribbean were exploding on the streets of New York drumming? and there I was, just a young white kid caught up in this MH: It wasn't like I had this moment where I discovered amazing weave of city sounds. What I was experiencing was that drumming was what I wanted to do with my life. I was one of the greatest fusions of rhythm that this planet has ever coded for it - it was part of my DNA. I never thought about known. All the rhythms that came over from Africa and the doing anything else. There really wasn't any other option for slave trades had come to South America and worked their way me. The drum chose me. I never really had a career problem. up to Central America.After the free slave revolution in the late Caryl Hart, Mickey's wife, clarifies, teasing, saying, 1700's, they went to New Orleans to a place called Congo “You mean you didn't want to be a politician or a lobbyist Square and that's where the music and a new powerful groove back then?” was born. You couldn't help but dance. It was so syncopated, so MH: Oh yeah, a lobbyist. Hmm, good point, but really it hot! As a kid, I was excited. I was focused on the soundscape wasn't about that... Okay, I guess this interview is going to around me; I was a part of a birthing process of this new music. officially “out” me. I was a CIA agent. I know this may come The predominant groove back then besides jazz was the clave. Mickey claps his hands together in a very recognizable rhythm. Clave is one of the most powerful rhythms in the world, and the clave grabbed my attention because it's two and three, yin and yang. I felt I was reconnecting to some archaic tradition, and it felt old, but new. CC: Did your peers find themselves being captured by this merging of music cultures the way you did? MH: I was on my own. I didn't run with any pack. Back then there weren't a whole lot of drummers, or kids who were interested in drumming, so my peer group was a little older than me. It made me high. I saw everything differently, my priorities were rearranged, and my peers at school, well they weren't really captured in the same way that I was. CC: How were you as a student? MH: School was a way for me to grow older and get out safely. I was a solid C student at best. And when I got to high school, I spent most of my time cutting class and heading to the band Mickey and Caryl Hart room. 18 CALIFORNIA CONVERSATIONS SPRING 2006 CC: Did you ever think you might want to do was this certain kind of synchrony that we can get to that's something else with your life? bigger than the both of us. There are probably a lot of reasons MH: No, not at all. I couldn't go against my inner voice. It why that happened: maybe our brainwave functions were was screaming at me. If you turn your back on your inner voice, sympathetic toward each other. We certainly loved playing with you're a fool. You're not listening. There's no better job than each other that was for sure. We have experienced the groove of music, that is, if you need it. But if you're a casual musician, and life and music together.Youdo give up a lot of yourself in it.You you think you're going to get into music, get a hit record and can't totally be who you are, you have to compromise and ask, become a millionaire, and go on tour and have the girls waiting was that compromise worth it? for you back stage and having autograph hunters and body CC: No other band has the fan base of the Dead.
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