Cadillac Flambe (from left): Dave Duly, Havilah Bruders, Mike Payne (seated) and Kris Bruders. Payne is sitting on a 1957 Oahu Amp that belonged to band member James “Pappy” Garrett, who died after a car wreck. Photo by Jim Barcus/The Star
The band was conceived in rural Pleasant Hill, Mo., at a farmhouse in the middle of nowhere, sometime in 2003. That’s when, through a mutual friend, Kris Bruders met Mike Payne, who lived in that farmhouse with his wife, Amanda.
One night they sat around on the front porch of that house, smoking cigarettes, drinking beer and playing music. “We didn’t really know each other,” Payne said. “But we had a few magical moments. We connected.”
By 2008, they had evolved from a duo to a five-piece: Bruders on guitar and vocals; Payne on drums; Havilah Bruders, Kris’ wife, on vocals and keyboards; Dave Duly on bass; and James “Pappy” (or Jamie) Garrett on blues harp and vocals.
They called themselves Cadillac Flambe, after a Ralph Ellison short story, because they liked to sing lyrics about social issues, about themes bigger and deeper than love, sex, romance and heartache.
In the process, they all forged a bond that Kris Bruders called deeper than friendship and family.
“There have been times onstage where I’ve gotten the chills and tears from what we’re doing,” he said.
Then they lost one of their own.
On Friday night at Davey’s Uptown Rambler’s Club, the band will honor Garrett, 54, who died June 19 after a car accident. He and the Bruders were driving home from a gig.
The show also will celebrate the release of “Eli’s Porch,” a six-track EP and the band’s first studio recording. Garrett’s harmonica chops are all over the recording. His voice is there, too, on the final track, one called “Honky Tonk Gospel,” a gritty anthem about grace, forgiveness and redemption and the implicit belief that there is life after death, a lesson the surviving members of his band are learning the hard way.
Hard times
Kris Bruders had known Garrett through Garrett’s son, Matthew.
“Pappy took me in when I was going through a rough time when I was a teenager,” Bruders said. He knew Garrett was a blues lover and a ringer on the blues harp. Early on, he asked Garrett to join him and Payne in their band. He refused each time. It took hard times and some money to bring him into the fold.
“I went over to his house one day, and he was upset,” Bruders said. “He’d lost his job, and he wasn’t feeling good and things were going downhill. I said, ‘I’ve got some money. Take it, under one condition: You have to play with us.’ He was super thankful, and he said, ‘OK. Let’s do it.’ ”
The band would keep growing. Havilah Bruders, who graduated with a degree in voice from William Jewel College, adds lustrous, bluesy/soulful vocals to the band’s dark and grimy sound, which can confound some blues traditionalists.
Payne describes the interlocking parts: “Havilah has some real classical/jazz/soul stylings; Kris has a very Delta blues style. I’m pretty hard rock. Dave has this classical, old-school R&B sound at times. And Jamie just had a passion for the straight blues. That’s where our sound came from.”
Duly, a tattoo artist who has been a guitarist in several rock and punk bands, was added after lobbying for membership.
“I wanted to be in a band that had no weak links,” he said. “Everyone in this band is strong. I really wanted in. So they made a bass player out of me. It was like they opened the door to their secret club.”
In November 2008, that club almost collapsed. The Paynes had become first-time parents, and Mike had heard one too many “What are you going to do with your future?” sermons. A UMKC graduate, he enrolled at Rockhurst College to get his paralegal certificate after an attempt at law school didn’t work out.
Two days before Flambe was to record an album, Payne quit the band to focus on work and family. His bandmates were stunned.
“Everyone was angry and hurt,” Havilah Bruders said. “We’d developed a serious relationship by then.”
Five months later, Payne asked to come back.
“I’d realized how wrong I’d approached it and how important the band was to me,” he said. “I’d come to grips with myself.”
The band had tried out one replacement drummer who lasted one live gig.
“It just didn’t work out,” Bruders said. “It was hard to pull someone new into this.”
Payne’s departure and return, they all agree, made everyone realize how important the band and the relationships are.
“Once we survived that,” Kris Bruders said, “we came back four times as strong.”
In June 2009, they recorded an album, live at Knuckleheads, a semi-private show where they were surrounded by a large group of family and friends. But things went awry.
It took more than six months to get the master tapes from the recorder/producer. The show itself was great, they all agree, but the recording could have been better.
“It’s OK,” Havilah Bruders said. “We’re not crazy about the mix.”
“It was a nightmare getting it out,” Kris Bruders said. “Every time we record or get ready to record, it seems something insane happens. Mike quits right before the first studio session. We can’t get the masters for half a year on the live album. And then Pappy dies.”
On his mind
Death had been on James Garrett’s mind for some time. He had been ill with emphysema for years, and his condition was deteriorating.
“He would talk about dying,” Amanda Payne said. “He’d say, ‘When I die … you take my cats. When I die …’ ”
“It was starting to show at shows,” Kris Bruders said. “He was starting to need more breaks.”
Garrett was a blues enthusiast to the bone. He had a favorite T-shirt that read, “Not white, not black, just blues.” He was well-known in the local blues community.
When Cadillac Flambe participated in the Kansas City Blues Society’s International Blues Competition, he took it so seriously it scared him, his bandmates say.
“Before the first one, he was so nervous he got sick backstage,” Payne said. “He’d be sweating hard. I thought he was going to have a heart attack one year. But he’d be fantastic onstage.”
Because of its melting pot sound, the band got some cock-eared responses from judges at the IBC.
“We’re too avant-garde,” Payne said. “We’d get comments from the judges like, ‘Not blues enough.’ You’d think we were Hendrix lighting his guitar on fire at the Monterey Pop Festival. ‘Why aren’t you playing “Mustang Sally?” ’ That’s just not who we are.”
Chuck Haddix, who has featured the band on his weekly “Fish Fry” show on KCUR, is a fan.
“They have a sound that is what the blues community needs to bring in younger fans,” he said.
Garrett, they agreed, gave them some traditional-blues ballast. He also provided some levity.
“We were so serious when Kris and I started,” Payne said. “Pappy made it seem more like playing in a sandbox. He made us humble.”
Garrett was in the studio about a week before his death, laying down his parts on one of the six tracks on the EP. And though he wasn’t feeling well, he was with the band on that rainy night in June, for the gig at the Home Plate Grill and Sportsbar in Pleasant Hill, not far from where this story began.
“It was a great gig,” Payne said. “Not a huge crowd, but people were holding up phones for a few songs.”
The Bruders and Garrett rode home in one car. It had been raining torrentially that night, and water had pooled on Interstate 435. Havilah Bruders was driving. Her husband was in the passenger’s seat. Garrett sat behind him. They were in the middle lane. About 3 a.m., just before they took the 23rd Street exit into Independence, the car to their left hit a deep pool of water.
“Our car got drenched with water,” Kris Bruders said. “It was like a blackout. I remember through that water, I saw headlights coming towards us. I braced myself. We got hit on Havilah’s side, and we spun.”
Their car was then T-boned by a semitrailer between the doors on the passenger side.
“The grill of the semi was right in my face,” Kris Bruders said.
“It had crushed the car to about half its width,” Havilah Bruders said.
None of the doors would open. The car reeked of diesel fumes.
“Jamie was alive,” Havilah Bruders said. “He was breathing heavily, of course, and he said his legs hurt real bad, but he survived the crash.”
The Bruders were banged up but not seriously hurt.
“They wanted me to get on a stretcher and go, but I refused,” Kris Bruders said. “I sat on a guardrail and waited for them to get Jamie out. I remember for what seemed like 15 minutes, I sat there, and he and I stared right at each other, right into each other’s eyes. He looked OK. But at the very end, his look changed. Something in his eyes changed.”
The Bruders were taken to a hospital in Independence. Garrett died later that morning at St. Luke’s Hospital, just before the Bruders arrived.
Three days later, they were back at Cosgrove Audio to finish “Honky Tonk Gospel,” the only song they’ve recorded that includes Garrett’s vocals.
“Listening to the first run playback of Pappy singing and playing harp was incredibly difficult,” said Chris Cosgrove, studio owner and producer of “Eli’s Porch.” “Kris and Havilah both broke into tears, and it was one of the most incredibly moving, eerily sad sessions I have ever worked on.
“Both of them were still physically impaired from the terrible car wreck, but they were pushing through to get this done for Pappy. I was scared … that I was going to accidentally delete something Pappy did and it would be gone forever, so everything I did was with extra care and in absolute slow motion. I’ve never experienced a session like that in my career.”
The recorded track was played at Garrett’s funeral. The band has since performed live, twice.
“It’s like the phantom limb syndrome,” Payne said. “He’s not there, but we still feel him.” And they filled in for him.
“It was hard, but it was something we needed to do,” Kris Bruders said. “Whenever his harp parts came up, we all hummed his part. And during ‘Honky Tonk Gospel,’ we all shouted his verses.”
The band will figure out how it will evolve without Garrett.
“His blues harp was so integral to our sound,” Payne said. “But we’re not going to rush into anything.”
Instead, for now they’ll live with the presence of the absence of the guy who was reluctant to join their club but who filled it with something more than just music.
Friday
A tribute to benefit the family of James “Pappy” Garrett begins at 7:30 p.m Friday at Davey’s Uptown Rambler’s Club, 3402 Main St. Eleven bands are on the bill, including Cadillac Flambe, which will perform at 11 p.m.The show is the release party for “Eli’s Porch,” Cadillac Flambe’s inaugural EP. A minimum donation of $5 is requested.
| Timothy Finn, The Star
Well written story Tim, very touching.
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Thats one strong set of players.
All the best to them!
RIP Pappy.
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