Johnny Rivers

One of the first groups we signed was the Fifth Dimension.

The first time I went to New York, I met Alan Freed.

I got to see all these incredible blues players, like Jimmy Reed.

I'd gone through periods where I didn't work live performances for probably seven or eight months at a time.

The web site and the Internet are a whole new ball game.

After that initial success, every chance we got we'd hire that remote recording truck and just record stuff at the Whisky because it was so inexpensive.

I was working at this club in downtown L.A. from four to eight at night, just Eddie Rubin, the drummer, and I.

I think my favorite album was probably Realization.

My first really good guitar was a Gibson J-45.

I loved playing and I was actually working two jobs.

What I really remember is that people camped out everywhere, and the fact everybody expected it might turn into a big nightmare with all sorts of hassles because back in those days everybody was smoking pot and taking acid.

Alan's publishing company was in the Brill Building, and of course, the Brill Building was where all the songwriters hung out because that's where all the publishers were.

About two months into the Whisky, I borrowed some money and rented a remote recording truck.

The first amp I had back in the '50s was a small Fender.

I learned some chords and I started watching anybody I could, once I really got into it.

Guys like Otis Blackwell and Bobby Darin, and all the guys who were writing songs for Elvis at the time, just hanging around, writing songs, talking about music.

I've got a Fender Concert amp from the '60s, the one Joe Osborn used. He played his bass through it.

Even Woodstock turned out to be a disaster. Everybody was stuck in the mud and people got sick.

Jack and I usually get together and sit around in the afternoons and start throwing ideas around.

One thing will lead to another and somebody will come up with a riff or a line or something we build from.

But I always loved songs with great lyrics.

In early '57, I bought a Fender Telecaster.

I think after 1970 or so, after I sold Soul City, I took off for awhile and didn't do too many gigs.

When I came back to California in the early '60s I was hanging out with Jimmy Bowen, Phil Spector, and I wanted to be a record producer and work with other artists.

In 1965, Gibson made the red one I use now, and a black one, which was the first black 335 they ever made.

I accepted an offer to do a concert for the reopening of the Mall of Memphis.