Yeah, the whole thing with Al was straight out of a movie...the guyshows up to hear a band, the weather sucks, he paid the cover, the club is damn near empty, the band has no bass player, Greg says to no one in particular, "Anybody play bass?", Al says, "Yeah, I do. Too bad there's no bass here", the club owner says, "Y'all need a bass? I got one back here."
Now here's Al's big decision - he'll be the first to tell you that he's not a "trained musician" and that he has very little experience playing in contexts other than friends, family, church, etc. But dammit, he loves this music, and here's a chance to play like he might have once, twice in a lifetime. Does he beg off based on personal insecurity & such, or does he carpe diem and not be afraid to let what happen happen?
Big Al showed enormous courage, took a deep breath (I saw him!) & took the bass, then he took the bandstand. By god, Big Al wanted a taste, and Big Al seized the opportunity and got him a taste. To do something like this, you gotta be one brave motherfucker or one ignunt sonofabitch. I know Big Al well enough to know that he ain't ignunt, so...Kudos For Kourage!
And here's the thing - Big Al has damn good time. For real. You can learn tone, technique, tunes, all that, but you can not learn good time, not the natural kind.
I'm not gonna lie and say this was the best gig I've ever played. But I will go on record as saying that from a sheer "human interest" standpoint (and I hope that I never get so wrapped up in "music" that I lose sight of the human interest part of it), this was quite a trip. Can't really say that I've ever seen anything quite like it, much less been an active participant. Jean Sheppard (or, for somebody still living, Joe Milazzo) could turn this into a freakin' EPIC tale. And everybody, everybody wpold assume that it was 100% fiction.
But it really happened.