All I was thinking about was making something magical happen. By the time we got onstage, we were so prepared in that way that we didn’t have time to think about stage fright or the crowd. What he’d do was rehearse 30 days in a row, 11 hours a day. It was good for me because all of that training made it like a cakewalk after that. And I was never late again in my entire life. You show up late for any reason at all, you will get fined a whole week’s pay. I tell you, I’ve never seen anyone rehearse like that. This is the beauty of what Mellencamp did. What’s it like to walk onstage and see that giant crowd the first time? Jeremy Allen White Close to Playing Bruce Springsteen in 'Nebraska'-Era Biopic He used to come in and sit in with us to get some funk when he got off the road with Mellencamp. Our drummer Shawn Pelton, who went on to play in the Saturday Night Live band, his instructor was Kenny Aronoff. We had the first multicultural pop band in Bloomington. I went to Indiana University Bloomington. How did you go from your brother’s group to it becoming more professional? He’d be like, “We need a horn player, so learn this horn part.” That’s how I was able to learn different instruments as fast as I did. I was one of those kids that did what she was told. I really want to thank my brother for encouraging me like he did. I didn’t really want to, but my brother said to me, “We need another person, so learn the guitar and you’ll be in the band.” I was like, “I don’t want to be in an all-boys band.”īut that’s how I started. How old were you when music first became a big part of your life? Once I get past these two chemos I have a surgery to remove it and then radiation. So, we’re going to do one more of those bad boys and then I have 12 of the Taxols and after that it’s going to be that journey. They want to squash that baby as quickly as they can. They call it the “Devil’s Juice.” But that’s a triple negative, which means it’s highly aggressive. I’m going to call it that since the nickname is so bad. This is going into my fourth badass chemo. Well, I was diagnosed with breast cancer on February 2nd. How far along are you with your treatment? Whatever is going to happen, is going to happen, but it’s going to be a hell of a fight.Įvery Awful Thing Trump Has Promised to Do in a Second Term I believe in God and I believe in the power of God. My whole career, my whole life has been like this, so I’m not surprised God threw an extra bone at me and said, “Let’s see what you do with this.” I don’t know how I quite feel about this. I don’t really know how to respond, so I’m just going to say it like it is: I couldn’t have picked a better time to go through cancer. She phoned us up to share her incredible life story and reflect on her long life on the road with Joel, Springsteen, and everyone else. She was diagnosed with Stage Two breast cancer in February, but she’s undergoing treatment and doctors expect her to make a complete recovery. Since the COVID-19 pandemic shut down the concert industry, Taliefero has been camped out in her hometown of Nashville. Few musicians in rock history have had the opportunity to tour with so many Rock and Roll Hall of Fame–caliber acts. But Taliefero has also toured with the Bee Gees, Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band, Joe Cocker, Enrique Iglesias, and Bruce Springsteen, with whom she had the near-impossible task of recreating Clarence Clemons’ “Born to Run” sax solo night after night. That alone would be an incredible, career-defining accomplishment. And at a moment’s notice, she’s ready to lead the band through covers of classics like “Dancing in the Street” as all of Madison Square Garden sings along. On that fateful day in 1989 when she first met Joel, Taliefero laid down the percussion track on the master recording of “We Didn’t Start the Fire.” Since then, she’s become a pivotal utility player in his band, playing everything from saxophone to congas and harmonica. Many musicians have come and gone during her tenure in the Billy Joel band, but only saxophonist Mark Rivera has been there longer. It’s now 31 years later and she not only knows that the Piano Man is Billy Joel, but she’s played that song with him well over 1,000 times. “He goes, ‘With the Piano Man.’ I was trying to be cool, but I didn’t know who the Piano Man was.” He wanted to know if she was available for a recording session in New York and a possible tour with another artist. In 1989, Crystal Taliefero got a call from someone she knew from her days touring as a percussionist and backup singer in John Mellencamp‘s band.
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