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Donald's Encyclopedia of Popular MusicA B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y ZGRIFFIN, Paul(b 6 April 1937, NYC; d there 14 June 2000) Keyboardist, composer, somertime harmony singer. He began in the late 1950s playing piano and organ with King Curtis, and became a Zelig-like figure, playing with and for almost everybody. Drummer Bernard Purdie said that Griffin wrote a lot of Steely Dan's material, and didn't get all the credit but made sure he got the royalties. He wasn't interested in fame, which is why most people have never heard of him, although he played on some of the best-loved pop records of all time: Chuck Jackson's 'Any Day Now', Bob Dylan's 'Like A Rolling Stone', Don McLean's 'American Pie', B.J. Thomas's 'Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head', Dionne Warwick's 'Walk On By' and many others, to say nothing of a great many albums. His mother took him to church every Sunday, where he sat up front watching the pianist. He began fooling around on the keyboard after church and discovered a knack for it, and replaced the church pianist when she died. He wanted to attend New York's famous High School of Music and Art; a counselor told him he would never get in, but a teacher went to bat for him, and he graduated from there in 1953. Offering him his first recording date in the late 1950s, King Curtis asked him if he could make the gig, and Griffin said, 'Make the what? What's a gig?' But if he didn't know the terminology, he knew the keyboard, and ended up made ten albums with Curtis. He became the house keyboardist with Sceptor, and became the first-call keyboardist for producers like Leiber and Stoller, Jerry Wexler, Bert Berns, Jerry Ragovoy, and Burt Bacharach and Hal David. He played on several hits by the Shirelles, Neal Diamond, Van Morrison, all of Warwick's albums with Bacharach, and a great deal more in the heyday of studio gigs, before the drum machines and other toys took over. Purdie said that Aretha Franklin wasn't really a very good pianist, but that when he played with her he felt like they were a dream team. Griffin was a loveable man who always gave others credit: when he was asked to play on the session for 'Think', 'They wanted me to play that intro she does. I said "No way! That's her!" ' Griffin played on several Dylan albums, including New York sessions for Blonde On Blonde, and was called in to play organ on Blood On The Tracks. Like Purdie, he played folk-rock (Peter Paul & Mary), and with a lot of great jazzmen, because, as Cissy Houston put it, 'Paul Griffin can play anything.' For Allmusic.com's list of hundreds of albums he played on, go here. |