The Don Was Connection

Some bands are difficult to pigeonhole as they seem to go over all the place, which in my opinion makes them worth investigating! In this case I decided to put the spotlight on Was (Not Was), a Detroit band who definitely qualify as quirky. They even had a few hits, e.g. Walk The Dinosaur, and often invited other singers to join in as guests, such as Madonna,  Ozzy Osbourne, Doug Fieger, Mel Torme, and even Leonard Cohen!

They only released 5 albums, the first in 1981 and the last one in 2008 after  a hiatus of 18 years!

There have been 5 compilations of which the last one Pick Of The Litter 1980-2010 does a great job of cherry picking most of the outstanding (+ some deep) tracks.

Unfortunately this makes a new Was (Not Was) compilation as good as redundant…

Therefore I shifted my attention to one of the founding members: Don Was.

Surprisingly enough he hasn’t released much under his own name, but instead has been much more active as a producer and bass player! Besides that since 2012 he’s also in charge of the famous Blue Note label…

The last couple of years Don has also done a lot of live performances, either as a member of Bob Weir’s Wolf Bros or with The Pan-Detroit Ensemble.

 

I was very surprised to find out that in 1977 Don started his musical career as a punk singer for a Detroit band called The Traitors!

During his time in Was (Not Was) he was already active as a producer for Sweet Pea Atkinson, Cristina, Bonnie Raitt, Bob Dylan, Helen Terry, Iggy Pop, and Willie Nelson among others.

In 1994 he was responsible for the soundtrack of Backbeat, a movie about The Beatles early days in Hamburg, not only composing the score but also producing the sessions where an all-star band of alternative rock musicians (incl. Dave Grohl) covered rock & roll classics.

In 1997 Don renamed Was (Not Was) temporarily as Orquestra Was and released Forever's A Long, Long Time, partly a tribute to Hank Williams and included jazzy guests like Herbie Hancock, David McMurray, Terence Blanchard and Harvey Mason as well as country singer Merle Haggard and former MC5 guitarist Wayne Kramer!

Unfortunately this intriguing project failed commercially and never got a follow-up.

Continuing his job as producer he worked with Marianne Faithfull, Waylon Jennings, Wayne Kramer, Paul Westerberg, Jessi Colter, Amos Lee, Benmont Tench, and (back to the beginning!) Sweet Pea Atkinson for his final album on Blue Note.

 

For the first compilation I sneaked in 3 Was (Not Was) recordings, 2 from amazing Hal Willner tribute compilations + a surreal collaboration with Kris Kristofferson from their final Boo! album. From his production work I took a selection of songs on which he also plays, which is not always the case.

The second compilation is live (except for 1 track with Ryan Adams), Don working with friends, The Detroit Dukes, Lonnie Smith, Bob Weir, Wolf Bros, and The Pan-Detroit Ensemble.

 

The enclosed PDF includes all artwork and details of who played on each track + an overview of all published JOKONKY banners so far.