PICO BLVD — An unassuming music shop is nestled on Pico Boulevard in Santa Monica. McCabe’s has been a safe haven and a landing pad for many musicians playing in L.A. since 1958. Though primarily a music shop, it hosts concerts and also boasts music instruction.
Talk to the guys that work there and you’ll find out they’re not your usual store clerks. Most are multi-talented diamonds in the rough, like musician Jeff Turmes, who has a substantial solo career, has won songwriting awards, and is the bass player for Grammy-winner Mavis Staples. When he isn’t touring the world with Staples, he plays local gigs and packs his lunch to go to work at McCabe’s. Not your usual shop employee.
Growing up in Southern California, Turmes taught himself his first instrument, the bass. A hitchhiking experience broadened his musical path as an orange VW bus picked him up with “A Love Supreme” by John Coltrane wafting into the open air. The jazz song had so permeated his soul that when he returned to L.A. he bought a “beat up” saxophone at a yard sale and taught himself, once again, how to play.
Knowledge of various instruments, which grew from his love of music, helped Turmes get his job at McCabe’s in 2002. The greatest part of his sales position was “when someone would come in and say ‘I’ve always dreamed of playing the banjo’ and I could get them started with pursuing their dreams,” he said.
Over the course of the last three years he has taken on the position of a book buyer, which allows him time to tour, record, and work as a solo artist.
Throughout the years, Turmes has honed his skills and worked along side great musicians like Koko Taylor, Canned Heat, Richard Thompson and Peter Case. He also had the great pleasure to play on Jay Leno’s “Tonight Show” with Tom Waits.
“It was just after ‘Mule Variations’ came out, and we did ‘House Where Nobody Lives,’ just Tom on piano, Larry Taylor on bass, me on tenor sax, and I think George McMullen on trombone,” Turmes said.
He and the infamous folk legend found they had more in common then music. As the two men talked, Waits ate a banana and “reminisced about meals he'd had when he was hitchhiking around.”
Turmes branched into writing and had found a voice in blues singer Janiva Magness, who began recording his songs. His confidence as a writer grew while he continued to work with others, being considered a “musician’s musician,” meaning he was comfortable letting others shine instead of sitting in the spotlight himself. In 2006 he won the International Songwriting Competition's Blues category for the song "Eat The Lunch You Brought” recorded by Magness, which was to be the start of a great path.
In 2007, Mavis Staples needed a bass player and Turmes filled the position. He became a permanent part of her touring band, which still takes Turmes around the world. In 2008, Staples’s “Hope at the Hideout” was nominated for a Grammy for Best Contemporary Blues album. The album didn’t win, but something more came from that record. While it was being recorded at the Hideout in Chicago, a fan named Jeff Tweedy (Wilco) was in the audience listening to the show.
When Staples and Tweedy decided he would produce her next album, the Grammy winning 2011 Americana album “You’re Not Alone,” a radical thought was put into action, the touring band would also be the recording band. Standard industry practice is to use recording musicians in the studio, but because Tweedy caught the Hideout show and admired the bands talents, he knew the guys could deliver. Turmes now could add working on a Grammy award winning album on his resume which continues to help his dreams become that much more of a reality.
McCabe’s stage was the original location for Turmes 2010 release “Five Horses, Four Riders,” a poetic, spiritual, folk record. He is currently considering a re-release of the LP in the near future.
Constantly on the road with Staples, who will be opening for Bonnie Raitt’s 2012 summer tour, Turmes can also be caught occasionally at Cinema Bar and other venues when he is decompressing from jetlag. Throughout the years, Santa Monica’s old equipment shop seems to flourish while fostering many musicians, whatever level of experience. Turmes is an inspiring example that you can live your dreams and soar among the stars when you have your feet firmly planted on the right ground.
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