“Dickey called me: ‘Hey, Les, come by for a steak, and bring your guitar.’ He already had the verse of Jessica, but he needed a bridge…” Meet Les Dudek, the ghost guitarist on Allman Brothers classics who dated Cher and joined Journey for two hours
“I’m a legend that nobody knows,” says guitarist Les Dudek. “Through my career, it’s like I’ve always been right on the edge of being known and unknown.”
Dudek’s frank assessment is pretty spot-on. During much of the ’70s, the Florida-raised guitarist always seemed this close to stardom. There were tours and record dates with Boz Scaggs and Steve Miller, among others, and at one point Dudek found himself in the studio with the Allman Brothers Band.
He played co-lead guitar on the smash single Ramblin’ Man, and with Dickey Betts he helped co-write Jessica (a song he played acoustic guitar on). In the 1980s, Dudek performed with his then-girlfriend Cher in a rock/new wave band called Black Rose, and for a brief time he backed Stevie Nicks on tour. He’s put out seven solo albums, but none of them charted, and he was almost a founding member of Journey.
“I guess I could throw a hissy fit about it, but who cares?” Dudek, now 71, says with a good-natured laugh. “There’s plenty of players who are far better than me, and they’re even less well known. I’m recognized enough for my efforts. At a certain point, it is what it is.” He pauses, then says, “I’ve had a strange life, and I’m still living it.”
Dudek caught the guitar bug as a kid. With his first guitar, a Silvertone 604 acoustic, he played along to Elvis and Beatles songs, but it wasn’t till he heard the Ventures’ version of Slaughter on Tenth Avenue that he got serious.
“Nokie Edwards knocked me out,” he said. “He could play anything, and he was getting tones nobody even imagined yet.” After acquiring a Silvertone electric guitar, Dudek dug into “the three Kings” – Albert, B.B. and Freddie – and started playing in a succession of local bands. As a teenager, he played frat parties, but eventually the gigs got better and he performed with more semi-pro outfits like United Sounds, Blue Truth and Power.
“It was a great time to be a guitar player,” he says. “For all the cats like me, it was like, ‘Let’s have some music!’ There were big concerts going on everywhere, and all the parks in Florida had these jams. They’d have some big-name groups come in, and the next day they’d jam with the local bands. It was pretty cool.”
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Dudek brings up a story he loves to tell of an unscheduled jam he took part in some time later. “I was at a Mike Bloomfield concert, and during one blues song Mike started playing keyboards,” he says. “Mike’s ’59 Les Paul was sitting on a stand, and I thought, ‘What are the chances of this happening again?’ I went up and got the guitar and started playing rhythm behind him.
“Mike had his eyes closed, so when it came time for a solo, I went for it. After the song, Mike turned around and goes, ‘What are you doing?’ I introduced myself and said, ‘I just had to play the blues with you.’ He goes, ‘Well, just don’t do it again.’ It was kind of funny – he had no idea I was playing, but he must’ve been digging it.”
How did you come to meet the Allman Brothers and start playing with them?
“I didn’t know Duane, though we hung around the same spots, like Lipham Music in Gainesville. I bought a Marshall amp there because Duane did. My keyboard player in Power – Peter Sches – he knew Dickey Betts, so I met Dickey through him. When Duane died, Peter found out that Dickey was looking for players, because he didn’t know if the Allman Brothers were going to stay together.
“We were invited to go hang out on the farm with Dickey for a weekend. Me and Peter went up to Macon and hung out and jammed on the back porch with Dickey. That went pretty well, but you know, things were kind of solemn… Duane had died not too long before then, so it knocked the wind out of everybody’s balloon.”
You and Dickey almost formed a band, but that didn’t happen.
“Yeah. I came back to Florida, and a few weeks later I got a call to come back. So I went and started playing in Dickey’s band. That was his dream, to have his own band. He was going to call it Great Southern. It sounded good, and that went on for a while. But then they decided to do another Allman Brothers Band album.”
Tell me about recording Ramblin’ Man with the band.
“We were hanging out and jamming. There were weddings and barbecues and lots of jamming. I got invited to the studio one night when they were cutting Ramblin’ Man. I was hanging out in the control room, and Dickey got the idea of putting some guitar parts at the end; he was thinking about harmony guitars, like what he did with Duane.
“We ended up cutting Ramblin’ Man. I had my goldtop Les Paul Standard. Berry Oakley played bass on it. I think it was the last song he cut before he died. I helped Dickey with all the guitar harmonies and the arrangements on the end of it. I pretty much played half of the lead guitars, but people don’t realize it.”
You played live in the studio with Dickey throughout the song?
“Oh yeah. From the very beginning till the end. We stacked the guitars at the end – the low and high octaves. We had a blast doing that. It was a lot of fun.”
Did it take a while to work out those parts?
“It was pretty quick, actually, a lot faster than Jessica – I played an acoustic throughout that one. Before we even went into the studio, I helped Dickey come up with a bridge section for that song because he didn’t have a bridge.
“That’s one of the rubs I had with him. I was promised writer’s credits and royalties, which I never got. They swept me under the rug. I remember Dickey calling me: ‘Hey, Les, come by for a steak, and bring your guitar.’ We’d already cut Ramblin’ Man. So we’re having steak and playing guitars. He already had the verse of Jessica, but he needed a bridge. He was very frustrated.
It’s like the best Cinderella story ever told in the music business. I went from not knowing how I was going to pay my rent to having to decide: Do I go with Journey or a solo deal with Columbia? I chose Columbia
“Anyway, he went to the kitchen – and that’s when I came up with the bridge. The song needed a release, and it needed a part when it comes back to the original section. Dickey was pretty pleased about it. The royalty thing is painful to talk about. Dickey walked me in to see [Capricorn Records president] Phil Walden and said, ‘Phil, I want to tell you that Les wrote on Jessica. I don’t know how to split the royalties or anything, but he deserves some credit.’
“Phil said OK, but nothing was ever signed like copyrights. At the time, I was already signed to Phil for management; he locked up the publishing and record deals. He loaned me $1,500 for food and rent while I was hanging out. The next year, I hooked up with Boz Scaggs and we did a tour with Steve Miller. I told Steve my story and he said, ‘Here’s the name of my lawyer. Let’s get you out of that contract.’”
This started a busy time for you, playing with Boz – and then with Steve Miller.
“It’s like I lived 40 years in five. I went on tour with Boz for a few years – it was before my solo album and Silk Degrees. Boz never invited me to be on his records, but I got a call from [producer] Joe Wissert: ‘Hey, Les, come down and play slide on Jump Street.’ They were working on the song, and I guess [keyboardist] David Paich said, “You’ve been working with one of the greatest slide players for five years. Call up Les!”
How did you start recording with Steve Miller?
“We would do dates with Steve. He came over and said he was going to Seattle to record. He asked if I wanted to go, so I said yes. Steve had a guy named James “Curley” Cooke playing guitar; he had a cool little riff, so I ended up writing a song with him.
“It was called What a Sacrifice on my first album, and it ended up on Steve’s Book of Dreams record, but it was called Sacrifice. Steve would cut a lot of things and sort through ’em, figure out which album to put them on. He was cutting things for Fly Like an Eagle and songs that went on Book of Dreams.”
Now, how did you almost wind up in Journey?
“I was in Journey for about two hours. I had already moved to the West Coast and was trying to put something together with members from Steve and Boz’s bands. That’s when I got a call from [manager] Herbie Herbert, who said, ‘Les, I’m putting a super band together, and I want you to be one of the guitar players.’ I asked him who the other guitarist was, and he said, ‘Neal Schon from Santana. Great player.’
I was in Journey for about two hours
“I went to rehearsal the next day – it was me, Neal, Ross Valory on bass, Gregg Rolie on keyboards and Aynsley Dunbar on drums. We jammed for a couple of hours doing some cool fusion shit. It was great stuff. I looked at my watch because I knew I had a meeting across the street with somebody from Columbia. I went to the meeting, and the president and vice-president of Columbia were there waiting for me. They offered me a solo deal right on the spot.
“It’s like the best Cinderella story ever told in the music business. I went from not knowing how I was going to pay my rent to having to decide: Do I go with Journey or a solo deal with Columbia? I chose Columbia.”
You put out a number of strong solo albums. Say No More is particularly solid; Lady, You’re Nasty could have been a hit single. Did the label know what to do with you?
“Not really. I had a manager on my first album, but he didn’t really deal with record companies. I was without a manager for a while. Columbia had an artist-development program, so I had some guys helping me out, and I had an in-house producer, Bruce Botnick. He did all the Doors’ stuff.”
What’s the story with starting up Black Rose with Cher?
“Well, before that, I started DFK with [singer-guitarist] Mike Finnegan and [keyboardist-singer] Dave Krueger. That was some weird promotion there. One night I was hanging out and somebody said, ‘They’re holding auditions at Columbia Studios – Cher’s putting a band together.’ I went down, and Cher’s got all these players.
“Finnegan was there with Stephen Stills, so we get up and it turns into this big jam. Cher stopped it after a while, and then she took us all out to dinner. That’s when she came up to me and asked if I was serious about wanting to be in her band. One thing led to another; I ended up doing the band with her, and slowly we became an item.”
Was that strange?
“I didn’t mean for it to happen, but it did. The band made an album, and we did Merv Griffin and Tom Snyder. We hosted The Midnight Special.”
I saw the band on TV. It seemed as if Cher didn’t want to promote the fact that she was the singer.
“It was that kind of thing, but come on, people knew in one second who it was. Her management fought her on it, but that was her dream. Then the guy who was really promoting us, Neil Bogart of Casablanca Records, he died of a heart attack, so the whole thing took a nosedive. Cher was like, ‘What am I going to do now?’ I said, ‘What about movies?’”
That kind of worked out.
“Yeah. We split up and went our separate ways. I got a bit part as a guy riding a motorcycle in the movie Mask.”
I might have been in the Allman Brothers, because they needed that other guitar. Dickey and I really played well together. That was one thing that slipped away
A few years later, you played with Stevie Nicks for a while.
“Yeah, sometimes she used Waddy Wachtel; sometimes she used other players. She and I wrote a song called Sister Honey for her Rock a Little album. I played on it and went on tour with her. We were out for three months, but before the tour ended I had a motorcycle mishap – broke my arm and wrist. I went back on tour with my arm in a cast. Kenny Rogers came up to me when we were doing dress rehearsals. He was amazed I could play like that.”
You’ve had such a weird and winding career – lots of stops and starts, odd situations that looked good but didn’t work out.
“There’s been so many, like the Allman Brothers. Berry Oakley liked the way I played. We were going to jam the night he died. It might have become a thing were he alive. I might have been in the Allman Brothers, because they needed that other guitar. Dickey and I really played well together. That was one thing that slipped away.”
“Then when I was doing my second album, I got a phone call from the band Chicago. The guitarist [Terry Kath] had died, and I got offered the job. Bruce Botnick turned it down for me. Then when Lowell George died, I got invited to do Little Feat – I forget what happened there.
“Before I left Georgia, the Marshall Tucker Band came to town and we jammed. [Singer-guitarist] Toy Caldwell said to me, ‘Les, if you join our band, I’ll fire the flute player.’ And I said, ‘Don’t do it, man. It’ll break his heart. Thanks for the offer, though.’
“There was the Journey thing. I did go out with Steppenwolf for a moment. That was kind of a joke. I went out with Big Brother and the Holding Company for a brief moment. That was a joke, too – those guys couldn’t play. I would do stuff just to kill some time and see what was happening.
You’re still out there playing with your own band.
“Yeah, when it makes sense. My last tour was really smooth, really fluid. We sold out places and everybody had a good time. It was actually one of the friendlier tours I’ve done in a while. I don’t like to be out of state when we’re having hurricanes, so I’d rather be near my house. But I tour when things make sense. As long as the people come, I’ll be there.”
Back in the day when you were getting calls to play with big artists, what did they say they liked about your playing?
“I don’t know; you’d have to ask them. I’m a feel player. There’s lots of cats who are more technical than me. I could spend my time learning the scales, but that would get in the way of what I do. I don’t care about trends and stuff. I like the blues.
“Blues is at the root of good playing. Take Eddie Van Halen; I told him one day, ‘I didn’t know you were a blues player.’ He told me he grew up on Clapton and people like that. He just took it to another place. But I’m comfortable with my lane. I tell stories when I play.”
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