John Salem has performed music in a variety of settings for several decades now. He currently performs with the Macy Brothers Band, the Westerman Brothers Band, The Boomers and various pick up gigs. His songs have been recorded by Rudy Love, The Gap Band (“I Miss You Most of All At Christmas”) and others. He also appeared on Tracy Nelson’s Homemade Songs LP. You can hear a selection from that record in this piece.
“When I first moved to Nashville I just pictured myself becoming very steeped in country music. What I learned very quickly was I was playing more gospel and rhythm and blues sessions than almost anything else. We had this sort of B-level group—we weren’t the A-team, the Larry Londins and all that—we were the B guys. We would go to Memphis and there was a studio called Daily Planet Recording. We would do an album in the morning and an album in the afternoon. We were on this Nashville number chart system. You listened and wrote it down—these numbers, so you could transpose the key if you needed to on the spur of the moment. If you didn’t get in the first take they looked at you kind of funny, your fellow musicians. So it was really competition to get it done on the first take. So we’d have a record done—one in the morning and one in the afternoon. It was just a crazy time.”
