Herring Earns Musicians' Respect
By Jim Washington
Published: September 2, 2001
Fayetteville (NC) Observer

Jimmy Herring has worked with a who's who of the music world, and it seems every one of them has something nice to say about him.

Herring has been a member of the bands Phil Lesh & Friends, the Allman Brothers Band, Jazz Is Dead and Col. Bruce Hampton & the Aquarium Rescue Unit, plus a slew of side projects with musicians including members of the Allman Brothers, Little Feat, Blues Traveler and Leftover Salmon. He has shared the stage with Phish, Gov't Mule, the Derek Trucks Band, Widespread Panic and the Dave Matthews Band, to name a few.

Herring's most recent gig was with former Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh and his band, Phil Lesh & Friends. Lesh became familiar with Herring through his recordings with Jazz Is Dead and saw him play live with Gov't Mule and the Derek Trucks Band.

"I felt he had the fluency and fire I wanted to have applied to our music,'' Lesh said in an e-mail interview. "I'm constantly astonished by the range and expressivity of his ideas. I frequently find my jaw dropping in amazement, so I just grin and ask for more.'' Bass player Oteil Burbridge has played with Herring since their early days with the Aquarium Rescue Unit. They played together on last year's Allman Brothers summer tour and in the Allmans side project Frogwings.

"It's been a long time. We figured out it's been 14 years,'' Burbridge said. "He's about the nicest guy in the world. You hear that all the time but it's really true. He has consistently been an upright guy -- a good husband, a good father. You can almost see a halo over his head.'' Guitarist Derek Trucks, who plays with his own band and the Allman Brothers, has known Herring over half of his life. He also played with Herring during the Allman Brothers' summer 2000 tour.

They met when Trucks was 11 years old and his band opened for the Aquarium Rescue Unit at the Cat's Cradle in Carrboro. Herring recalls that the young boy left a group of grizzled rock veterans with their mouths hanging open.

"Out of all the musicians, or people really, that I've met and played with through the years he's the one I'm closest to,'' Trucks said. "He's like a brother. It's one of those friendships where you don't have to keep in touch all the time, it's always there.''

Trucks has fond memories of fishing trips around Herring's home in Georgia or while on tour. During a tour break before a Phil Lesh show in Virginia Beach, Herring, Trucks and several crew members chartered a fishing boat for a day.

The two play different styles -- Trucks is a slide player while Herring comes from a jazz background -- but remain a good fit musically. "We have to be careful when we play together because we tend to go too far out there,'' Trucks said. "We have to check each other. There's just that kind of mutual respect there that you don't want to step on each other. I'd rather just listen to him play.''

Trucks admires Herring's ability to adapt.

"He's coming from a lot of different places,'' Trucks said. "His background is jazz fusion, but being around the scene we're in is bound to change you. He's got big ears and he's always changing.''

Both Trucks and Burbridge expressed a desire to sit in with Herring's current band Project Z.

It's Herring's grounded personality -- which Trucks and Burbridge attribute to his family -- that summon the most kind words.

"He's different from just about every musician,'' Trucks said. "It's great that he can be in the position he's in and not be a freak -- he's about as far from it as you can get. He gives hope to all musician-kind.''

Lesh admires the way Herring's music reflects his inner light.

"Jimmy's a shining example of a soulful musician -- his purity of spirit resonates in everything he does,'' he said.

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Jimmy Herring Lives His Guitar Dreams
By: Jim Washington
Published: September 2, 2001
Fayetteville (NC) Observer

Onstage, he's the quiet one.

During a concert by Phil Lesh & Friends and the Allman Brothers Band at Walnut Creek Pavilion in Raleigh last month, Jimmy Herring didn't talk, sing or even move around much on the stage. About the most he did was bob his head and share a mile-wide smile with Lesh and the rest of the band when the groove got going.

He likes to let his guitar do the talking.

Growing up in Fayetteville's Tallywood neighborhood, Herring spent hours listening to his older brothers' Jimi Hendrix and Allman Brothers records, practicing the guitar parts over and over. Now he's a renowned player, sought by bluesy Southern rockers the Allman Brothers and Lesh, former bass player for the Grateful Dead. In his career Herring has been part of the highly regarded combo Jazz Is Dead and, with the experimental jam band Col. Bruce Hampton and the Aquarium Rescue Unit, helped found the modern jam band movement.

Before all that, though, he was known as the son of D.B. Herring Jr. and Betty Herring of Fayetteville, younger brother of Joe and Bobby. He's a good husband and father, a bad liar and a dedicated fisherman who happens to play a mean guitar with a lot of famous people.

"I have to stop thinking about it sometimes, it's so overwhelming,'' he said. "Bruce Hampton used to say that the secret to longevity is to just keep showing up. That's all I ever did.''

Backstage scene

Backstage after the set, Herring, in a black T-shirt and jeans , smoked a cigarette. The Allman Brothers, led by Gregg Allman, had just taken the stage.

"Listen to Gregg,'' Herring said, cocking his head. "He sounds like he did 20 years ago.'' Though he rarely talks onstage, Herring is the most visible member of the band. He's tall, for one thing, and his long, red-blond hair and beard stand out.

Offstage, he'll talk to you all night.

Their set included Dead favorites "Casey Jones,'' "Shakedown Street'' and a fun, funky "Scarlet Begonias.'' Herring and guitarist Warren Haynes, an Asheville native, played off each other -- Herring laying down silvery, shimmering tones while Haynes got down and dirty.

"We stopped between every song, which is unusual for a Phil Lesh show,'' Herring said. "Normally it's one long jam -- a musical excursion between one song and the next.''

Herring, who is 39, hosted a group of family and friends backstage, including his wife, Carolyn; their children, 12-year-old Cameron and 7-year-old Carter; and his parents. D.B. Herring Jr., weakened from an ongoing fight with cancer, watched the show from a wheelchair. He has had a series of operations and a blood clot in his leg, but was determined to make it to his son's concert.

His father's presence made the show even more special for Herring. "It's amazing that he's even here,'' he said.

Fayetteville dreams

Jimmy Herring was born in Cape Fear Valley Hospital on Jan. 22, 1962. His father was a Superior Court judge and his mother taught English and algebra at Douglas Byrd High School. Both are now retired. Since 1969, the family has lived in a large, comfortable house behind Tallywood Shopping Center on Raeford Road.

Herring's sense of humor and talkative nature come from his mother. His love of fishing was handed down from his father, who would take everyone on family fishing trips to the coast. "I have photos of Jimmy fishing from a pier with his dad when he couldn't have been more than 7 or 8,'' Betty Herring said.

She's not sure where Jimmy's musical ability or his clean and neat ways originated. The last time Herring and his brothers were home, someone scrawled a "wash me, shame on you Mom'' message in the grease on the stove hood. Betty Herring knew who did it immediately.

"Jimmy gets all red in the face when he tries to lie,'' she said.

Herring's first musical experience, his mother remembers, came at age 5 when he showed up his brother on his own drum set.

His parents consistently encouraged his musical dreams.

"They always supported me,'' Herring said. "They never yelled at me to get a haircut and get a job. They respected my decisions.''

Betty Herring said they had no choice.

"How could you look at someone who was so dedicated and not encourage them?'' she said. "There may have been a day when he didn't practice, but I don't remember it.''

Herring got his first guitar in 1972 at age 10 and was playing by age 13. He played with several high school bands, performing songs by his favorite artists -- Aerosmith, the Beatles, Led Zeppelin and especially the Allman Brothers and Jimi Hendrix.

"Those are the ones that made me want to do what I do,'' he said.

Betty Herring remembers a constant stream of kids banging out tunes in her garage.

"We had great neighbors,'' she said. "I told them, don't call the cops, call us.''

Herring was basically a shy kid who avoided conflict. One of his high school bands swelled from a trio to an eight-piece band because Herring couldn't tell anyone "no.'' Herring's brothers, who were several years older, turned him on to the music that would shape his life.

"They had all these records I loved,'' he said. "They saw bands I could only dream about.''

In addition to rock 'n 'roll, Herring's brothers turned him on to another kind of music -- jazz fusion. "They introduced me to the Mahavishnu Orchestra, Dixie Dregs, Chick Corea, Miles Davis. I was like, whoa, I love this.''

His brothers helped convince him he could tackle the complicated music.

When Herring tried to get a job playing in Fayetteville, he found that his unusual tastes and style put some people off.

"They were afraid I would play music that wasn't appropriate,'' he said. "I guess you'd call it self-indulgent. There were a lot of notes flying around.''

He did get a job playing with local musician Frank Hardwick. Herring was influenced and inspired by that generation of Fayetteville musicians, such as Bill Joyner, Danny Young, Pat Vines, and the bands Carolina and Dyna-Flow.

"I remember when I was 17 trying to get into the Gaslight to hear Dyna-Flow,'' Herring said. "I had to sit outside and listen. On my 18th birthday they invited me to sit in.''

School, country covers

Herring attended Douglas Byrd High School. During his last year he had typing class with Carolyn Coughenour, a junior. They started dating.

"They've both never really been involved with anyone else,'' Betty Herring said.

Herring graduated in 1980. By that time, he loved jazz fusion as much as rock 'n 'roll. He figured if he was going to play that kind of music he had better get it right. And he and his parents wanted to see if music could really become a career.

He attended a summer session at the Berklee College of Music in Boston. He did well there and later moved to Hollywood to attend the Guitar Institute of Technology.

"I was afraid to go to college because I thought I'd sit in my dorm room all day playing guitar and flunk out,'' Herring said.

A contact at the school led to a job offer in Atlanta. Until that came through, he taught guitar and played in a country cover band in Myrtle Beach.

"That was the longest seven months of my life,'' he said. "I almost gave up music. It was awful.'' In January of 1986, he moved to Atlanta and started teaching and playing. He jammed with a group of musicians that included drummer Jeff Sipe and bass player Oteil Burbridge. "We were kindred spirits,'' Burbridge said. Burbridge now plays bass with the Allman Brothers. "He was such an amazing player. Jimmy could play anything you would throw at him, no matter how difficult. Or at least he was willing to give it a shot.''

But Herring didn't get a regular band gig for close to four years.

In 1987, he and Carolyn got married and she joined him in Georgia. By 1989, he got together with Burbridge and Sipe in a free-wheeling group fronted by a notorious Atlanta musician named Bruce Hampton.

"There were no musical boundaries, it was jazz, it was funk, it was bluegrass,'' Herring said. "Of course he couldn't play all that, but he put musicians in a place where they could.'' The band was the Aquarium Rescue Unit. They played a willfully weird mix of genres in a style that embraced experimentation and freedom.

"Everything before that was what I considered normal, earth-bound music,'' Burbridge said with a laugh. "Col. Bruce came from another planet.''

That freedom was just what Herring needed to complement his love of technical jazz playing and loud rock music. Hampton's philosophy, the idea that they could make beautiful music by not following the rules, became another strain of Herring's musical DNA.

"Now I think he's more out there than any of us,'' Burbridge said.

The experience helped in other ways.

Herring's parents drove to see him any time the band played within 100 miles of Fayetteville. Often the band members crashed at the Herring house. Betty Herring, who still calls them "the Aquarium boys,'' remembers how Hampton affected her son's demeanor.

"Early on Jimmy would hide behind the amps if they had one big enough,'' she said. "After being in that band he was no longer afraid of hitting a wrong note. Bruce's philosophy was that there were no wrong notes.''

Swim with Phishes

The Aquarium Rescue Unit became an integral part of the burgeoning jam band movement, a group of musicians who bonded with audiences and each other through their love of improvisation.

At first, though, ARU played in seedy Atlanta bars while customers slurped 99-cent beers. They were playing one of those bars when the members of the Athens, Ga., band Widespread Panic wandered into the club. The bands hit it off, and Panic invited Hampton and company to open a couple of shows. Soon the bands were touring together.

The association with Widespread Panic led to tours with most of the major jam bands, including Phish, Blues Traveler and the Dave Matthews Band, all of whom opened for the Rescue Unit at some shows.

"We weren't deluding ourselves,'' Herring said. "We knew these guys would be huge.'' They were invited on the first two H.O.R.D.E. tours, a traveling jam band festival started by Blues Traveler.

"It was unbelievable,'' Herring said. "There was something in the air. It was happening.'' In 1993, while Herring was on the H.O.R.D.E. tour, Gregg Allman asked him to sit in for guitarist Dickey Betts at a show in Stowe, Vt. It was an amazing experience, Herring said. Allman even invited Herring to join the band, but he had to finish the tour with the Rescue Unit.

By 1994 the ARU was dissolving. Hampton and Sipe left the group. Herring and Burbridge carried on with other personnel.

"I had one small child and another on the way and it was steady work,'' Herring said. "We never broke up, per se, but eventually the group just fizzled out. I found myself with a lot more time on my hands.''

In what would become a pattern, Herring got a well-timed and welcome phone call. It would be another chance to work with some of his heroes.

Jazz is Dead

The phone call offered Herring the opportunity to join a band with three of his favorite jazz-fusion artists. T Lavitz of the Dixie Dregs, Alphonso Johnson of Weather Report and Billy Cobham of the Mahavishnu Orchestra were putting together a new band and they wanted Jimmy.

The only catch was they planned to play jazz covers of Grateful Dead songs. Herring had never been into the Dead, and he wasn't sure about playing cover songs. "They told me about Jazz is Dead and I was shocked,'' he said. "I never had a Grateful Dead record in my life. And I hadn't been in a cover band since Myrtle Beach.''

Still, he would have played just about anything to jam with those guys. Jazz is Dead recorded three albums between 1998 and 2001. A review on the music Web site allmusic.com says the band's debut album, "Blue Light Rain,'' was a "coming out party'' for Herring and commends him as "a player of immense skill.''

If the record was Herring's coming out, he soon had plenty of suitors. The combination of his guitar skills and the contacts he had made through relentless touring resulted in some big-time opportunities.

In 1999, he got another phone call, this one from representatives of Phil Lesh. Two of Herring's good friends, Warren Haynes and young guitar player Derek Trucks, were playing with Lesh and recommended Herring.

"Two of my best friends were already playing with him,'' Herring said. "They kept telling me it's really free, there are no boundaries, you can do anything.''

So he flew to San Francisco to audition. He came away from the trip with huge respect for Lesh and no idea whether he had the job.

"I was knocked out by how deep he was,'' Herring said. "When I left they didn't give me any kind of answer.''

A few days later he got his answer -- the gig was his. He played with Lesh for about a month in early 2000.

After the tour, Herring was making more money than he ever had, and came to a decision. For the first time in more than a decade he would take the summer off.

"I was gonna be a dad -- play ball with the kids, load the dishwasher, help my wife with all the crap she usually has to do,'' he said. Two days after he made that decision he got another phone call.

The Betts situation

Before the Allman Brothers 2000 summer tour, founding guitarist Dickey Betts was kicked out of the band. Herring was the band's choice to replace him for the summer.

"They had to talk me into it,'' he said. "It just didn't feel right. Nobody had ever replaced a living, breathing member of the Allman Brothers.''

It helped that he was good friends with most of the Allmans lineup at the time, including Burbridge, who had joined the band in 1997, Derek Trucks and Derek's uncle, Butch, the band's drummer. Herring wrestled with the decision and eventually accepted the gig. Burbridge and Trucks were more than happy to have him along for the ride.

"Oh, it was phenomenal,'' Burbridge said. "Fourteen years ago, neither one of us would have thought in a million years we'd be playing with the Allman Brothers.''

Midway through the tour, Herring faced yet another decision. Phil Lesh himself called Herring to invite him out with the Friends again.

Herring went back and forth, talking it over with his wife and friends, not wanting to disappoint his Allman Brothers bandmates but not wanting to miss a perfect opportunity, either.

"I told him yes, for a couple of reasons,'' he said. "I had come to the Allmans under the assumption it was just for that summer tour. That was my assumption. Plus I was an Allman Brothers fan; I wanted Dickey to come back.''

In order to escape the shadow of the Dickey Betts situation, Herring accepted Lesh's offer. Then he had to tell the Allmans.

"That was the hardest thing I ever had to do,'' he said. Burbridge supported him in his decision.

"He was going to get to play in his own style,'' Burbridge said. "He could have his cake and eat it, too -- get paid and play to the top of his potential. I was worried for us, but my first loyalty was to him.''

So early this summer, Herring hit the road with Phil Lesh, culminating in several joint Allman Brothers/Phil Lesh shows. Herring joined the Allmans onstage in Raleigh for a stirring version of "Franklin's Tower.''

"There's such a mutual respect there,'' he said.

Family affair

Since the end of the tour, Herring has been back in Georgia spending time with his family, fishing and playing with a side band called Project Z. The band features Jeff Sipe and bass player Ricky Keller. Project Z will play this Wednesday at the Visulite Theater in Charlotte and Saturday at Ziggy's in Winston-Salem. They will play at the Cat's Cradle in Carrboro on Sept. 23.

"I've been listening to tapes trying to get new ideas for songs,'' Herring said. "When I play with Project Z we don't have any songs. We're really going by the seat of our pants.''

He's sticking, loosely, to one side project at a time. He realized he was working too hard earlier this summer when he visited his family between Phil Lesh shows while working on another project at the same time.

"It was like I was still on the road,'' he said. "I barely got to see my kids before it was time to go again. I couldn't do it anymore.''

He's on the phone with his parents in Fayetteville every day. His father has endured three operations in the past two years and just finished a series of radiation treatments at Duke University.

"He's tenacious and hard-headed,'' Herring said. "He's going to pull through.''

He tries to get back to Fayetteville more often these days. Herring's family, his friends say, is a big part of what makes him who he is. While he's lived many of his dreams, he has more. Every day Herring strives to realize his most important goal -- honoring his own family and his parents who helped him succeed.

"I want to show them that they didn't do the wrong thing by not making me get a regular job,'' he said. "They always supported me when they could have told me to quit playing the guitar and go dig a ditch. I'm so glad they're seeing the fruits of what they worked so hard to provide.''

Catch Jimmy and Project Z on Tour - Click Here For Dates