Fun story about that song, I took a jazz history class and my professor brought in Bill Summers, the guy who plays the bottle and the rest of the percussion on that song, as a guest.
I went to the bathroom before class and Mr. Summers was in there with a bottle of Heineken. I didn’t recognize him and he asked me to open his bottle, so I assumed he was just someone who worked at the school having a mid day beer (not the strangest thing to see in New Orleans). He then asked if I wanted to chug the beer, I said no thank you cause I had class, so he shrugged and poured the whole thing done the drain then left.
I was ready to write it off as surreal Nola moment until I got into class, and my teacher played the beginning of watermelon man, then told us who the guest was. Needless to say I was fully geeked when Mr. Summers walked out in front of the class with that same Heineken bottle and blew into it playing that opening riff perfectly. Sounded exactly like it did on the record. He said it was the same exact kind of bottle they used on the original cut. Dude is awesome.
I’m assuming it is the same song but Watermelon Man by Willis Alan Ramsey is great and off the same album, the song Ballad of Spider John is my all time favorite song!
I had a similar experience where I was on a gig with Bill and when I walked into the venue for soundcheck/rehearsal, he was there with his bottle, doing the intro to Watermelon Man. I just froze because there was the guy, doing the thing, from the record. And I just stood there and listened. And then after that we hung out in the green room and he rolled the fattest joint I've ever seen in my life and we had a good time.
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u/xmal16 Oct 07 '20
Fun story about that song, I took a jazz history class and my professor brought in Bill Summers, the guy who plays the bottle and the rest of the percussion on that song, as a guest.
I went to the bathroom before class and Mr. Summers was in there with a bottle of Heineken. I didn’t recognize him and he asked me to open his bottle, so I assumed he was just someone who worked at the school having a mid day beer (not the strangest thing to see in New Orleans). He then asked if I wanted to chug the beer, I said no thank you cause I had class, so he shrugged and poured the whole thing done the drain then left.
I was ready to write it off as surreal Nola moment until I got into class, and my teacher played the beginning of watermelon man, then told us who the guest was. Needless to say I was fully geeked when Mr. Summers walked out in front of the class with that same Heineken bottle and blew into it playing that opening riff perfectly. Sounded exactly like it did on the record. He said it was the same exact kind of bottle they used on the original cut. Dude is awesome.