Welcome to the Vault! As part of an ongoing feature of our new music blog, we’ll be bringing you band/artist/crew “spotlights” and interviews. Names I’m sure you’ll find familiar if you follow the music and career of Taylor Hicks!
Our first spotlight is on the band SPOONFUL JAMES based in Auburn, AL
After a journey that included three cds and opening gigs for the Allman Brothers Band, Little Feat, Gov’t Mule, Buddy Miles, and The Jerry Garcia Band, unfortunate circumstances forced Spoonful James to make the tough decision to split up. Lucky for us, they found their way back to each other. This is the story of how the current band came together.
PART ONE: The story of Spoonful James
Spoonful’s history from bass player Quinn Borland:
The band is myself, Wynn Christian (lead vocals/guitars), Eric Baath (piano/organ), and Patrick Lunceford (drums). The band started back in 1996 with Wynn Christian and me. We were actually in a band in high school called “March of the Fishers Wives”. Terrible name, I know. We had a real brainy guy in the band and he’d just read some Russian revolt story or something. Anyways, we both ended up going to Auburn University and started playing acoustic for a while, until we had some original songs under our belt. We formed Spoonful as a trio, adding Lee Vartanian on drums. We cut our first album (self-titled), in 1997 and it is currently out of print and vaulted (for good reason). All I can say is, it was a good stepping stone for us.
After this, we started touring around the southeast for a few years and this is about the time we met Taylor Hicks, Clay Connor, John Cook, Bill and Wes Williams and the whole crew you know and love today. We all became friends fairly quickly and would stay up ’til the wee hours watching my collection of old concerts. Rick’s Music in Macon had a HUGE archive of old footage, and for $20 you could get 120 minutes of any concert you wanted. Needless to say, we spent everything we made every time we played in Macon. This is where Taylor got to see Sam & Dave/Otis Redding for the first time live on video. He still asks me for copies of that.
We started gaining popularity and cut our second album in Hueytown, AL, titled “Leave That Door Open”. We had just opened for Buddy Miles of the Jimi Hendrix Band of Gypsys in Tallahassee, FL and during our set Buddy liked our music so much, he made security keep his door open so he could listen, hence, “Leave That Door Open”. Eventually we became great friends and got him on our next album, ”7 Mile Breakdown”.
We had met Patrick when he was with Taylor’s band, Passing Through. At the time we had Jay Knorr on drums, who recorded on “Leave That Door Open”. We parted ways with Jay after the album and picked up Patrick. Lucky for us, Passing Through was dissolving at the same time, so it worked out for everybody. I must say, Patrick is hands down the best drummer I have ever palyed with.
At one point, we and some of Passing Through, Iratowns, and Highly Kind formed the supergroup known as “Fletch Lives”. Taylor sang lead, of course, and at one point people started paying us outrageous amounts of money, even though combined we only knew about 8 songs. With 8-10 members, we knew it couldn’t last too long, and due to previous band commitments we were only able to keep it together for a few months. Our proudest moment came at the Florabama, when the managers told us to stop playing or we would start a riot. Good times!
After this we picked up a few different organ players and eventually got back in touch with Eric Baath. I knew him from my freshman year at Auburn, where I was a member of his band, “Soul Patch”, before Wynn and I started writing together. This guy is awesome. He actually flew back from Germany to do the opening gigs for Taylor’s last tour. Total dedication, great guy. Our music has been coined “Southern Fried, hard driving, original rock & roll. That kind of stuck and I like it!
Check out Spoonful James at www.Myspace.com/Spoonfuljames and at www.cdbaby.com
Coming soon……Part 2 : Interview with Quinn Borland
Photo Credits: Spoonful James and Taylor Hicks courtesy Elizabeth Borland; Eric Baath courtesy Wes Williams.