River people
(Pastorius)
This tune was written by Pastorius "when I was bass
fishing in the Everglades about four years ago, at
sunrise. It just came to me, and I sang it into a
cassette."
Pastorius told Clive Williamson of the BBC, "I have a
tune, 'River People', and I wanted a certain kind of feel,
so I decided to play drums on it. We were in a
transformation period, I broke my right wrist and we
had some time off, and just Joe and I were in the
studio. So we did 'River People' that way, building the
tune up on the spot. It was all written out, so all Joe
had to do was play his parts, and I played mine, and it
just all gelled together, and I did some overdubs. In
fact, we played the bass parts together 'cause he got
this synth sound--sort of a little twang, almost like a
little guitar on the top--with my bass rolling on the
bottom. So we just played to the click track, and I went
back and overdubbed the drums with that, as opposed
to 'Teen Town' where I played the drums first, and
overdubbed the bass part afterwards."
Urged by Williamson to talk more about "River People,"
Jaco continued:
'River People' I wrote in the Everglades, where I was
bass-fishing four years ago. It's an older tune, about a
day with the river people, like they get their feet right in
the mud there; so the bass part: I sang the bass part
(sings and claps time) 'mm-maa, mm-maa, hmm; mm-
maa, mm-maa mm-aa umm', like a lot of people down
in the mud at the river, yeah? And then these chords,
the way they come in, it sounds like the sunrise - bang!
- like this incredible light, and then the whole day
passes, and at the end you start roaring, you start
having a little fun, like you kind of party out at the end
into this New Orleans feeling, y'know? I was in the
Everglades fishing, but I was feeling a lot like I was in
Louisiana when I wrote the song! It was weird.
I had a bit of a composition I'd started on piano, but I
actually got it together when I was fishing out on this
boat with a couple of buddies. All day we were just
sitting there goofing off, drinking beer and fishing and
just having fun. Rainstorms, the whole thing--it's a fun
piece of music. Joe takes just the greatest solo at the
end, starting off with this trombone-sounding thing,
then goes into this organ thing. I like the song! (laughs)
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