Backbone is the trio drummer Bill Kreutzmann formed after the Grateful Dead quietly retired after the death of Jerry Garcia. Hooking up with vocalist/guitarist Rick Barnett and bassist/saxophonist Edd Cook, Kreutzmann decided to explore loose-limbed, exploratory R&B jams. Each song on Backbone's eponymous album meanders from the beginning to the end, winding down obscure paths before wandering back to the beginning. Along the way they find some interesting riffs and licks, but the inclusion of the Dead's classic "New Speedway Boogie" emphasizes that the group has a long way to go before they pen anything approaching a standard.
(by Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide)
SO a guy's a big-time rock star, used to the high life, touring and money and adoring fans and one perk after another. But sometimes, you've got to get back to why you entered that life in the first place -- the magic of music, those glorious, glowing moments when the instruments lock in, get in the pocket, when you're reading the minds of the other musicians and the frontiers of creative exploration seem swimmingly limitless.
But those moments are rare, and not easily achieved.
When Jerry Garcia died, the retaining nut of the Grateful Dead slipped away, and the machine began to come apart. Drummer Bill Kreutzmann dealt with it by becoming a part-time resident of Kauai, doing a lot of surfing and diving and fishing -- anything but drumming.
But he missed it. One day he picked up the sticks again and began chatting with bass player Edd Cook. "Hey, who around here plays original music?" Kreutzmann asked Cook.
Cook said there was a guitarist and singer, waaaaaay over on the other side of Kauai, named Rick Barnett. Barnett also owned a recording studio. "Cool," said Kreutzmann. "Let's jam."
Soon the three began playing small gigs around Kauai and San Francisco. The band, a power-pop trio with a distinctive R&B sound in Barnett's vocals, are now known as Backbone, and have a self-titled CD out. The group also will perform this week in Honolulu and in March on the Big Island.
Kreutzmann has a bad case of the shys, and managed to escape being interviewed. Barnett, on the other hand, is still dumbstruck by how the band fell together, out of the clear blue, and eager to share.
"Man, I'm from Galveston, Texas, and I grew up surfing and playing music," said Barnett. "I moved to California the week after graduating from high school, to get into the music scene there, but also because of the surfing. Kept going west, wound up on Kauai in 1984."
Barnett played in Kauai bands ETA and Oceania, and Cook, originally from Wisconsin, played in Triple Treat. Kauai is a favorite hangout of Bay Area musicians, and Barnett and Cook often opened for artists like Spirit and Billy Preston. "We have great times jamming with guys like Elvin Bishop and Taj Mahal," said Barnett.
"Everywhere I've been, I've played music, recorded CDs and cassettes, operated my recording studio for others, but I didn't realize I was just waiting for Billy to become available," Barnett laughed.
The Grateful Dead were hanging out on Kauai about three years ago, and Kreutzmann walked the beaches and thought to himself, this is where I'm coming if the Dead ever break up, said Barnett. "But that came sooner than anyone expected."
Kreutzmann busied himself with gardening, surfing and skindiving. His ranch, called Grateful Greens, is at the point where it's begun to supply Kauai restaurants with produce.
So, on one small island, here's a drummer busy growing vegetables, and a guitarist-singer so desperate for a drummer he often resorted to using rhythm machines. It took a bass player to bring them together.
During their first jam, Kreutzmann asked Barnett to play something original. He played a song called "Make Me Laugh," about hard times and changes and the way it affects you. "Bill had lost Jerry (Garcia) and his father within a month of each other, and the song seemed to say something to him. He'd been through it himself.
"We clicked. It's almost telepathic at times. He senses where we're going, sniffs out the trail. After we played for a while, he looked at me and said, 'you're never going to have a drummer problem again.'"
The biggest adjustment, according to Kreutzmann, was in learning how to listen other musicians again. Instead of a large band performing on well-honed auto-pilot, with separate audio mixers in each ear and high-tech equipment galore, Backbone is a stripped-down, back-to-basics trio, sweetened only with occasional Hammond organ chordings.
"Now here I am playing in bars again, and having to listen hard to hear the other instruments over the sound of my drums -- but it felt good," Kreutzmann said via a publicity release.
"It's a big adjustment for him, like learning to hear all over again," Barnett explained. "The Dead used headphones to hear each other, and all the amps were below the stage. There weren't even monitors on stage. It was a big, bare stage. It looked weird."
Because of Kreutzmann, the legend of the Grateful Dead hangs over Backbone like a haunt. "We're not a Grateful Dead copy band; we're doing our own stuff," said Barnett. "The Dead did their own stuff so well, there's no point in us doing it. But sometimes people expect it. As for myself, I never realized how much of the Dead's sound came from Bill's rolling, tidal style of drumming.
"Finally Bill just selected his five favorite Dead songs, and we learned them, just in case, and then pretty much tossed them all out. Let the Dead tribute bands do them."
Backbone did include "New Speedway Boogie" on their album, which was recorded in one small room at Barnett's house on Kauai. Kreutzmann's drums took up most of the space.
The tapes were remixed at Club Front, the Grateful Dead studios in San Rafael, and the album released in mid-January. "I hear it's doing well, but we don't have the numbers on it yet," said manager Jeff Shepherd.
And so, Backbone is braving the musical waters outside Kauai.
At a mainland gig, "we played our socks off and I just let it all loose, y'know?" said Barnett. "Afterwards, this guy stuck his head in my door and said, 'Where you been all my life?' He tossed me a cassette. I thought it was some lunatic who slipped through security. But a few minutes later I went back out to see Sons of Champlin perform -- and the guy was Bill Champlin!"
(by Burl Burlingame, February 16, 1998, Star-Bulletin)
Grateful Dead-Nebenprojekt 
