INSTANT KARMA
JIM KELTNER
AN AUDIENCE WITH...
The sticksman to the stars on fast times with Joe Cocker, Bob Dylan and all four of The Beatles
Interview by SAM RICHARDS
Who you gonna call?: “I love playing on new stuff,” says Keltner
ROB SHANAHAN
“An important part of playing on records is to play the emotion of the song”
A PRO ’til the very end, Jim Keltner still talks about his home neighbourhood of Los Feliz in terms of its proximity to his place of work for the past six decades. “It’s basically three or four minutes to any of the studios in Hollywood. Well, it used to be,” he adds, with reference to LA’s increasingly hellish traffic. “Now you’re lucky if you can get there in 25.”
The recent wildfires have meant that sessions for “several really fun artists” have been put on hold, but “it looks like I’ll get busy in the summer again. It’s all young people now! A lot of young, very talented people, and I enjoy that. I love playing on new stuff and hearing the playback and all that. I love the whole process.”
One thing Keltner won’t be doing, sadly, is going back out on the road with Bob Dylan, after his brief but fascinating stint t on the Rough & Rowdy Ways tour at the end of last year. “Maybe I’ll join up at some other point in time, but he loves to just never stop and I can’t do that, so I won’t be out with him this time. But I will tell you that I’ll go see him the first chance I get, because it’s gonna be amazing.”
How did growing up in Tulsa influence you musically?
Paul Metsa, Duluth, MN