Rick Vito Interview, October 2013

[michelej1]

Rockin' with Rick Vito: Former Fleetwood Mac guitarist returns to alma mater Kutztown University

Lehigh Valley Music Posted by John J. Moser at 03:29:00 AM on October 19, 2013

http://blogs.mcall.com/lehighvalleym...iversity-.html

On a December night in 1968, guitarist Rick Vito left Kutztown University and drove with musician friends to the old Electric Factory in Philadelphia to see Fleetwood Mac — then a burgeoning blues band fronted by extraordinary guitarist Peter Green.

That night, Vito saw his future.

Twenty years later, Vito became the guitarist in Fleetwood Mac, replacing Lindsey Buckingham.

On Thursday Oct. 24, Vito, now 63, returns to Kutztown University for its Rockin’ Alumni Showcase, sharing a bill with country singer Mark Wayne Glasmire, a Bethlehem native and fellow Kutztown University alumnus. The concert is part of a series to showcase the newly refurbished Schaeffer Auditorium.

In a phone call from his home outside Nashville to promote the show, Vito said Kutztown in many ways was the starting point for a career in which he also played with blues legend John Mayall, Bob Seger, Bonnie Raitt and Jackson Browne.

Here’s a transcript of the call:

LEHIGH VALLEY MUSIC: Tell me what you can about the Rocking Alumni Showcase?

RICK VITO: “Well, part of it, anyway, is the reopening of Schaeffer Auditorium. When I attended Kutztown, I started my professional career opening up for Muddy Waters at the first Kutztown University Blues Festival in, I believe, ’69. I’m not sure.

“So for me, it’s sort of a full circle – coming back to Kutztown and doing a blues show in the newly refurbished Schaeffer Auditorium.”

Yeah, when they opened the auditorium, I wrote a story. It really does look amazingly good. And then they were telling me all of the history behind it and mentioned your show, and I thought, “Wow, I’ve got to write about that.”

“Thanks.”

What can you tell me about your time at Kutztown? What do you recall about it?

“Well, you know, I guess anybody who goes to college, it’s a coming-of-age time. You kind of figuring out who you are and what you want to do with your life. I started off trying to establish myself as an art student, and that didn’t really work out and so I just did some general courses until I realized that I had friends and enjoyed the activities in the theater department, so I switched my major to theater.

“But I was always a musician, although I’m unschooled, and so I wasn’t interested in doing formal music study, but it was my passion. And it was such an exciting time musically in the ‘60s, and we could just take a short drive into Philadelphia to see Jimi Hendrix or Cream or all the happening guitarists of the day – Jeff Beck, everybody came through, either in Philly or New Hope.

“And so I always felt like Kutztown was sort of an out-of-the way place, but looking back on it, really it just was a short drive to anything I really wanted to see. And, in fact, a group that I was very fond of – Delaney Bonney and Friends – used to play in the area, and I used to go to see them and introduced myself to them and gave them some things that I had recorded and they invited me at one point to sit in with them live at Lehigh University.

“And I guess that made a good impression – it was a good night; got a great response. And so they invited me, when I finished school, to move out to L.A., which is what I did. And they hired me.

“So, Kutztown, as it turns out, it was a good place for me to be and where I was supposed to be.”

Yeah, as I prepared for this interview, I read in several places about you meeting with them, and it didn’t include the Lehigh University angle, so I’m glad you mentioned that. So let me sort of ask a little bit deeper question: The stuff that you learned there and the times performing there – does that in any way relate to you still today? To what you’re doing today?

“Well, I think going on stage is always a good learning experience, so I was supporting myself apart from my tuition, as a musician, playing locally at Kutztown and various colleges in the area – clubs. And also the theater experience, I tried to tie that into being a good performer and just being aware of certain communication in a big place with your audience. So I would guess that would be – it was the first jumping-off point to life in the profession. It started there.”

Yeah. You have played with so many greats – Bob Seger, Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Browne, Boz Scaggs. Do you have a favorite time – at this point in your life, looking back – do you have a favorite time in your career?

“Well, I think after I turned 30, I started to get more comfortable with everything I was doing. And almost around the same time that I turned 30, I started working with Bonnie Raitt for the second time. I worked with her as a substitute in ’77 and did the gig full-time for a couple of years when I was 30. And that was just a great experience. It was a great job and I liked her. And that led to work with Jackson Browne, which I really enjoyed, which led to work with Bob Seger, which I really enjoyed.

“And then in my mid-30s, I got asked to join Fleetwood Mac, and that was the most incredible experience – to be a member of a band of that caliber for four years. And so I’ve got to say that my 30s and very early 40s were my favorite times. Just a lot of things came along. I had just established myself, I guess, to the point where I had a good reputation and things came to me easily.”

Let me just ask you to talk a little bit about your time in Fleetwood Mac. The first question I would ask is what was it like to replace somebody as prominent as Lindsey Buckingham? And then talk about your time with the band a little bit, if you could.

“Well, I had a lot of experience going into band situations and replacing somebody who had established themselves. You know, when I joined John Mayall, I wasn’t directly replacing them, but I was in a line of guitarists that included some of the greats, like Clapton and Peter Green and Mick Taylor. So you have to have that in mind and bring your ‘A’ game to the table, pretty much. With Jackson Browne, I was replacing David Lindley. So you have to really kind of step up to the plate, and this is your time to shine.

“So I had that in the back of my mind for many years, and so I think I was able to do that pretty successfully. That’ why I got the gig. And so when it came to Fleetwood Mac, I was a big Peter Green fan. I wasn’t necessarily a Lindsey Buckingham fan. His style was way too different than the kind of stuff I did, but we weren’t doing a lot of his tunes. We only did ‘Go Your Own Way’ and a couple others that he co-wrote that were ensemble songs.

“So it wasn’t a difficult thing for me – I never felt like I was stepping into his shoes or anything like. If anything, I was bringing a little bit of Peter Green back in – that sound – back to the band in the songs that I did in my performances during the shows.

“That’s generally how that whole thing worked. I had been used to doing that kind of thing for a number of years.”

Did you leave the band before Lindsey returned, or was that part of the same thing?

“No, actually, the whole group started to splinter around ’91. Christine [McVie] announced that she was leaving and then Stevie [Nicks] said, ‘If Christine’s leaving, I’m leaving.’ And that kind of threw the band into really a kind of uncertain phase, and then Mick and John and Billy [Bragg, who also came in to replace Buckingham with Vito] continued on with Dave Mason and Bekka Bramlett for a version of Fleetwood Mac that went on for a couple years. And it wasn’t until quite a few years after that that the original band – not the original band but the original ‘70s version of Fleetwood Mac – decided to reform, I guess, for the [President] Clinton inauguration. And then, I guess, decided to stick after that after a while. But he was out of the band. He was definitely not a member of Fleetwood Mac for a number of years until that thing came along.”

In preparing for this interview, I looked back through our archives and found a story about when you played with Fleetwood Mac at Stabler Arena at Lehigh in 1990. Do you recall that show at all?

“Where’s Stabler Arena?”

It’s Lehigh University’s concert hall – auditorium.

“Uh, well, I do remember doing a gig in the area – that was probably it. I remember that it was a smaller sports kind of arena.”

Yup.

“That sound right? I couldn’t hear anything in there, and I remember I felt so bad [Laughs] I had a bad night, and I looked over Robert Plant [singer from Led Zeppelin] was sitting there. And I thought, ‘Oh, man, this is just [laughs], it was a bad night for me personally. That’s kind of what I remember about that, but a lot of friends had showed up and I felt like, ‘Oh, man,’ [Laughs]. But they happened every now and then.”

You still occasionally play with Mick Fleetwood Blues Band, yes?


“Yeah, yeah. We’ve gotten back together and we’re good friends and we enjoy playing the blues, more the bluesy kind of material. And we had a live CD that came out, and a DVD that came out in late 2009, and so in 2010 it was nominated for a Grammy in the blues category.”

I saw that. Congratulations.

“Thanks. It was a nice honor.”

Yeah. And so is most of your work these days solo gigs? Or what are you doing most of these days?

“Uh, well, my schedule is not as full as it was when the music business was in better shape and there was more emphasis on rock ‘n’ roll and blues and stuff. So these days, it’s just a different world out there. So what I do now is sessions when I’m asked to do them. I do solo gigs when I’m asked to do them, and when my agent can round them up, and I do the Mick Fleetwood Blues Band, and I do like a world beat kind of music, which is different from anything I’ve done before.

“You know, I produce when I get asked to do it. I write music. I pitch songs . You know, you just sort of do a lot of different things to make a bottom line happen.”

Your last solo disc was 2009?

“Let’s see, yeah, it was a European release. It was a best-of. It was compiled from, I think I had had seven solo CDs out. Not all of them were released in the states. Some of them are out of print now, from Europe. But there was a label in Europe that I was working with, and they put a lot of stuff out on me and I would go to Europe to tour once or twice a year for a number of years.”

I’m going to really test your memory on this one. As I was preparing for the interview, I found a story, and article, that referenced you playing in a band called The Wright Brothers Blues Band, while you were at Kutztown, I guess, and you played a tiny little club called Illicks Mill just outside of Allentown.

“Yeah, yeah. We played there quite a few times.”

Yeah. And again, do you have any recollection of that?

“Well that was one of the clubs I mentioned earlier that was very receptive to what we were doing. The Wright Brothers were Mark and Dean Wright that had a band together in the area for a number of years. And when I came up to Kutztown , in fact, we all went to see, coincidentally, the original Fleetwood Mac in Philadelphia, and that was, I think, December of ’68. And we were all so knocked out, we said, ‘Look, why don’t we combine bands, so to speak – you come into this and we can keep the same name or call it something else.

“And I said, ‘Look, you got a good, established name. Let’s keep calling it The Wright Brothers. So we continues on, inspired by the blues that Fleetwood Mac was doing, because they were really authentic about it. They really had a lot of craft and humor and authenticity and that’s what we trying to do. We were kind of purists about it.”

So you sort of saw your future when you were in this area.

“I did. Yeah, I did. It wasn’t completely solidified until that night at Lehigh, when I sat in with Delaney and Bonnie. It was at that moment that I realized ‘This is unquestionably what I’m going to do. I’m not gonna have anything else to fallback on, I’m not going into the theater. I’m going to do this.”

RICK VITO AND THE LUCKY DEVILS, headlining the Rockin’ Alumni Showcase, with Mark Wayne Glasmire, Showcase by two Kutztown University alumni in newly renovated Schaeffer Auditorium, 7:30 p.m. Thursday Oct. 24, Kutztown University’s Schaeffer Auditorium, 15200 Kutztown Road. Tickets: $12. Info: www.kutztownpresents.org, 610-683-4092

[michelej1]

Yep, it was something when Billy Bragg was in the band! I mean Rick says "Billy" and the writer just guesses as to which Billy it might have been??

[vivfox]

Originally Posted by michelej1

Yeah, as I prepared for this interview, I read in several places about you

In most publications when it talks about Rick joining FM it mentions Billy Burnette right along with him considering like, you know, they joined a very famous R-n-R band.

Originally Posted by michelej1

Yep, it was something when Billy Bragg was in the band! I mean Rick says "Billy" and the writer just guesses as to which Billy it might have been??

That mistake ruins the writer's credibility with me.

[jenniferuk]

I posted a comment to the article and the author made the name correction. I was so pleased to see an interview with Rick and then so disappointed with the Billy error...inexcusable.

[michelej1]

Still a pretty good article and Rick gets to talk extensively.

Jennifer, the writer keeps saying that he read to prepare for the interview, so I'm sure he read Burnette many times and the wrong thing just ended up in the article. That was really good of you to follow up with him.

Michele

[michelej1]

[This is the same interview, they just took it out of the Q & A format. They mention the Hawaii appearance with Christine. I wish I could have heard Rick discuss that. It's funny how he remembers FM playing at Lehigh University and how almost 25 years later he can recall his sense of disappointment over his performance in front of luminaries]

http://www.mcall.com/entertainment/m...,2864145.story

mcall.com

Kutztown University grad Rick Vito, guitarist for Fleetwood Mac, Bonnie Raitt, Bob Seger and Jackson Browne, returns to headline renovated hall

By John J. Moser, Of The Morning Call 5:43 PM EDT, October 19, 2013

On a December night in 1968, guitarist Rick Vito left Kutztown University and drove with musician friends to the old Electric Factory in Philadelphia to see Fleetwood Mac — then a burgeoning blues band fronted by extraordinary guitarist Peter Green.

That night, Vito saw his future.

The concert inspired him and his friends, Mark and Dean Wright, to join talents as The Wright Brothers Blues Band, giving Vito his first high-profile music vehicle — a band that played the Lehigh Valley area's most famous haunts, such as Illick's Mill in Bethlehem.

Twenty years later, Vito became the guitarist in Fleetwood Mac, replacing Lindsey Buckingham.

On Thursday Oct. 24, Vito, now 63, returns to Kutztown University for its Rockin' Alumni Showcase, sharing a bill with country singer Mark Wayne Glasmire, a Bethlehem native and fellow Kutztown University alumnus. The concert is part of a series to showcase the newly refurbished Schaeffer Auditorium.

In a phone call from his home outside Nashville, Vito says Kutztown in many ways was the starting point for a career in which he also played with blues legend John Mayall, Bob Seger, Bonnie Raitt and Jackson Browne.

A native of Darby, Delaware County, he started as an art major, and finished as a theater major, but "I was always a musician," he says. "I wasn't interested in doing formal music study, but it was my passion."

His professional career started at Schaeffer Auditorium, when he opened for Muddy Waters at the first Kutztown University Blues Festival in 1969. But Vito says it was that trip to the Electric Factory that really moved him.

"We were all so knocked out," Vito says of him and the Wrights. "We said, Look, why don't we combine bands, so to speak … We continued on, inspired by the blues that Fleetwood Mac was doing, because they were really authentic about it. They really had a lot of craft and … authenticity and that's what we were trying to do."

Vito says they played clubs throughout the greater Lehigh Valley area "quite a few times." Illick's Mill, he says, "was one of the clubs … that was very receptive to what we were doing."

To a larger degree, Vito's career started a short while later, when performers he says he was "very fond of," husband-and-wife singer/songwriters Delaney and Bonnie Bramlett, asked him to play with them at Lehigh University. The Bramletts played with George Harrison, Eric Clapton, The Allmans and others.

"They used to play in the area, and I used to go to see them and introduced myself to them and gave them some things that I had recorded," he says. "They invited me at one point to sit in with them live at Lehigh University, and I guess that made a good impression. It was a good night; got a great response.

"It was at that moment that I realized 'This is unquestionably what I'm going to do. I'm not gonna have anything else to fall back on. I'm not going into the theater. I'm going to do this.' And so they invited me, when I finished school, to move out to L.A., which is what I did. And they hired me."

By the time he was 30, Vito was gaining a reputation among rock's elite guitarists. He recorded with Mayall and Todd Rundgren and was starting his second stint playing with Raitt.

"I had just established myself, I guess, to the point where I had a good reputation and things came to me easily," he says. Working with Raitt "was just a great experience," he says. "It was a great job and I liked her."

He says his Raitt gig led to working with Jackson Browne. Vito played on the hits "Tender is the Night" and "Somebody's Baby," from the soundtrack to the movie "Fast Times at Ridgemont High," which was the highest-charting of Browne's career and his last Top 10. He later worked on Browne's platinum album "Lawyers in Love."

That, in turn, got him a job with Seger. Vito plays the searing slide guitar solo on Seger's 1986 song "Like a Rock," which was a No. 1 rock chart hit. He also appears in the video.

Vito says Seger had finished the song, but asked Vito to add the solo because he felt it needed something.

In the liner notes to his "Greatest Hits" album, Seger writes that his "fondest memory of this recording is of [co-producer] David Cole listening to Rick Vito play the slide guitar solo late one night at Rumbo Studios in LA. It was the single most spectacular overdub I'd ever heard!"

Vito also played on Seger's subsequent platinum and gold albums.

Recording with Mayall in the mid-1970s connected Vito to John McVie, a former member of Mayall's Bluesbreakers who joined Fleetwood Mac in 1967. Vito also had played sessions with Fleetwood Mac drummer Mick Fleetwood.

So when Lindsey Buckingham left that group in 1987, Vito got a call from Fleetwood asking him to join, sharing guitar duties with Billy Bragg.

"That was the most incredible experience — to be a member of a band of that caliber for four years," Vito says.

Vito says he had a lot of experience replacing guitarists. With Mayall, he was in the lineage of Eric Clapton and Mick Taylor. With Jackson Browne, he had replaced David Lindley.

"So you have to have that in mind and bring your A-game to the table, pretty much," Vito says. "You have to really kind of step up to the plate, and this is your time to shine. I had that in the back of my mind for many years, and so I think that's why I was able to do that pretty successfully."

Vito says that rather than seeing himself as a replacement for Buckingham — "his style was way too different than the kind of stuff I did," he says — he feels he was more bringing the sound the band had with Buckingham's predecessor Peter Green.

Vito's stint with Fleetwood Mac started with the tour for the three-times-platinum album "Tango in the Night," and he played on the gold follow-up "Behind The Mask," for which he helped write four songs. He also appeared on the eight-times platinum "Greatest Hits" disc in 1988.

He sang lead on two of the songs he recorded with Fleetwood Mac, and backup on many others. He also sang lead on songs with Raitt and Roger McGuinn.

In 1990, Vito played with Fleetwood Mac at Lehigh University, where he had started with Delaney and Bonnie, but in the much larger Stabler Arena. He says he remembers the night more for bad reasons than good.

"I couldn't hear anything in there. I had a bad night, and I looked over, [Led Zeppelin singer] Robert Plant was sitting there. And I thought, 'Oh, man,'" he says with a laugh. "It was a bad night for me personally. … A lot of friends had showed up and I felt like, 'Oh, man.' But they happened every now and then."

Fleetwood Mac began to splinter in the early 1990s, and Vito left along with singer Stevie Nicks in 1992. That year, Atlantic Records signed him as a solo artist and he released his debut, "King of Hearts." It included a duet with Nicks, and in 1994, he accompanied Nicks on the tour for her "Street Angel" album.

Vito released seven more solo discs, some only in Europe, through 2006. His last disc, 2009's "Lucky In Love: The Best of Rick Vito," was a European-released compilation.

Vito also played on albums by Hank Williams Jr., Maria Muldaur and Rita Coolidge. He played on "Memphis," Boz Scaggs' highest-charting album in 30 years. He toured with John Fogerty and played on Tina Turner's farewell tour in 2001.

In 2008, Fleetwood formed a side project, The Mick Fleetwood Blues Band, with Vito on guitar. A live recording, "Blue Again!," was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Traditional Blues. The band's show in Hawaii early this year featured Christine McVie's first concert appearance in 14 years.

Vito also has produced records for other artists, and he has designed instruments for Reverend Guitars, including a line of art-deco-style instruments.

Returning to Kutztown will be "sort of a full circle" for him, Vito says.

"I guess anybody who goes to college, it's a coming-of-age time. You're kind of figuring out who you are and what you want to do with your life," he says.

"I always felt like Kutztown was sort of an out-of-the way place. But looking back on it, really it just was a short drive to anything I really wanted to see. We could just take a short drive into Philadelphia to see Jimi Hendrix or Cream or all the happening guitarists of the day — Jeff Beck, everybody came through, either in Philly or New Hope.

"So, Kutztown, as it turns out, it was a good place for me to be. And where I was supposed to be."

[Villavic]

In these Google years, yes it's inexcusable to say Bragg, Lindsay, etc.

[TheGreenBlues]

I find Rick's tone light for my own ear but I totally respect him as a player and would love to see him play with Micks Blues Band.

[Murrow]

What I wanna know is if he's ever gonna do another solo album. I have all seven and heartily recommend Lucky Devils and Band Box Boogie for anyone who hasn't heard them.

[FutureGames71]

Wow,

Rick Vito is basically a Philly guy. I'm from Philly! He's from Darby which is 5 miles outside of here. That's awesome! I feel a Philly pride coming on ahaha

I've always liked Rick though. Between him and Billy Burnette, I pick Rick Vito anyday.

[HomerMcvie]

Billy BRAGG? Sometimes I hate people.