10 Standout Interviews From The Art Of The Sit-In

The Art Of The Sit-In has been a regular JamBase feature since September 2013, and later this week, we publish our last installment, fittingly featuring Warren Haynes. The Art Of The Sit-In lives on as a regular feature in The JamBase Podcast, but as we wind down the written version, JamBase editors took a spin through the archives and summoned back some of the favorite stories we’ve heard over the years.

Nikki Glaspie Freaks Out Beyonce

Nikki Glaspie: Yeah, and this is a long story but I’ll try to make it short. We were in Dubai for Halloween one year. I was with the trumpet player and Beyonce was like, I’m throwing a party, a Halloween party. We had like a 100-person entourage – that’s how many people traveled with this thing, we had carpenters, we had lighting guys, we had all this stuff, riggers, TV screens, all kinds of shit.

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Beyonce Gets Pranked Captured by Natasha Indra Art

Allie Kral Turns Quick moe. Sit-In Into Monster Guest Spot

Allie Kral: So this is still young in my Cornmeal career and I hadn’t been sitting in with too many bands and…oh, I’ll just say it, it was moe. They asked me to sit in with them at Summer Camp and I hadn’t even met them yet. Al Schnier was the first one I met and he told me, ‘The xylophone solo is going to happen and then you’re going to come in. In our case, we’re a jamband so play anywhere from three to 12 minutes, as long as you want, really.’

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Tom Hamilton Puts Together A Band For Jam Cruise On The Fly

Tom Hamilton: Brock Butler was not able to get to Jam Cruise and they had this slot open for him and they asked me, hey man, do you want the set? And I asked about the stage, but I didn’t just want it me playing my songs. I wouldn’t want to watch just me and my guitar, you know? [laughs]

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Rob Barraco Put On Call For Allman Brothers Show & Winds Up Subbing For Gregg

Rob Barraco: I showed up on Tuesday of that week and it was a great performance. Gregg didn’t look very well but he sang well. Thursday afternoon that week I get a text from Warren asking me if I knew “Jessica,” and I said yes. He said, do you want to play it tomorrow night? He knew I was coming, I’d been planning to sit in on that Friday. I said yes, and he said, show up at the Beacon early and we’ll go up to the practice room to work out a few things.

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Black Hearted Woman Captured by dukeofmarz

Drunkard Crashes Scott Metzger Gig & Crushes It

Scott Metzger: I was on a gig and it was a country gig a while ago at a small bar in Brooklyn [Skinny Dennis in Williamsburg]. There was this guy who was clearly drunk off his ass, screaming at the top of his lungs and telling us, you guys gotta let me play! Let me play!

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Ernie K. Doe Goes Long With Leftover Salmon

Vince Herman: Ernie K-Doe as you probably know was a New Orleans musician who passed [in 2001] but was famous for the Mother-in-Law lounge. That’s a New Orleans institution. His big hit was “Mother-in-Law” [Vince sings a few bars of the R&B staple]. Classic New Orleans stuff. We had him sit in with us one night at Tipitina’s Warehouse. He got up on stage, and he had to leave in a few minutes to go catch a plane to New York to win a W.C. Handy Award.

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Prince Plays Four-Handed Keyboards With Jason Crosby

Jason Crosby: One time Prince sat in with the Blind Boys of Alabama when I was still playing with them. He was side stage with a couple members of his entourage, and me and [Blind Boys guitarist/musical director] Joey Williams are kind of eyeing them from the stage being like, wow, OK, this is happening.

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Prince Guests With Blind Boys Of Alabama Captured by justinschier

Scott Sharrard Crushes the Big Audition — Live

Scott Sharrard: Some of the first solos I ever memorized as a guitar player were from Fillmore East and Beginnings. I started cutting my teeth on Allmans music when I was 10. So when I got the opportunity, which came through Jay Collins — he was fighting to get me in there — I went down and I played that gig. I was shaking in my boots!

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Nels Cline Makes a Gnarly Beacon “Dreams” That Much Gnarlier

Nels Cline: I was someone who, to be honest, hadn’t paid much attention to The Allman Brothers after Duane was killed, because I just couldn’t bear it. Warren asked me over email, what would you want to play, and I said “Dreams,” which I consider a personal favorite deep cut. I didn’t realize that for the band, in that lineup, it had become a ritual — an amazing live piece. Warren said “Dreams” was kind of a special event song, and that they’d consider it, so when I heard that was on the list for the night I was there, along with “Mountain Jam,” I was like, oh my god.

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Mountain Jam Captured by debbie ulloa

Don Was Holds A Super Session with Guys Named Ringo, Merle and Benmont

Don Was: In the 1990s I was producing an album for Ringo [Starr]. We had Benmont Tench in there and Mark Goldenberg on guitar, and we said among ourselves, we should start a band with this!

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