John
Gilmore
Wilf's
Restaurant and Piano Bar 800 NW 6th Ave., 223-0700
6 pm Thursdays, 7 pm Fridays-Saturdays
Free
Billy Joel
Rose Garden Arena, 1401 N Wheeler Ave., 231-8000
8 pm Monday, March 29
$45
When Billy Joel wrote "Piano Man" in 1973, he made famous
the mythology of a workaday lounge musician. Now he fills
cavernous coliseums. But there are still plenty of people
who man the keyboards in intimate bars, so Willamette Week
decided to track down a real piano man and ask him about Joel's
music and the truth behind the myth.
John Gilmore plays a typically varied repertoire of standards
and popular songs at Wilf's Restaurant and Piano Bar in
Union Station. His father, Voyle, was a producer at Capitol
Records and collaborated on many of Sinatra's biggest hits;
in February, Gilmore released the CD For My Father &
Frank, a musical tribute to both men.
WW: Has "Piano Man" had any resonance
in your life?
John Gilmore: Not [regarding] the decision to play the
piano, but the song really does speak to the form.... The
different characters come in, and the manager smiles at
you and all that stuff. It really does happen that way.
They come in, and if they like you, they say, "Gee, what
are you doing here? Why do you have this gig? Why
aren't you somewhere else?"
Do you ever change the lyrics of "Piano Man" to reflect
what you personally experience?
A little bit. One of the waitresses is a real-estate agent,
so I say the waitress is practicing real estate and try
to give her a plug. And I say the manager gives me a smile,
and I make her a woman because, in this case, she's a woman
at this restaurant. That's it, just sort of tailor it to
the gig.
So has your piano ever sounded like a carnival?
Yeah, it's all how you play it. During that part I try
to make it all calliope-ish. So yeah, it can, especially
when you play a lousy one that's out of tune.
If you were to write a song called "Oregon State of
Mind," how would you describe that feeling?
I like the balance of rural and urban, large and small.
That's what I would try to talk about. Both ends of the
spectrum are represented. You can be out of the city in
10 minutes and pretty much out in the country. Then the
city has really a very big-city urban sense. It's both things.
It's real nice.
Do you think Billy's marriage to Christie Brinkley upped
the chances of piano men getting the hot supermodel chicks?
(Laughs) Well, it didn't work out, did it? She's been married
once and divorced since. I don't know.... My wife is great
about what I do. She comes in on the weekends. She looks
at it as something I enjoy, but it's a job, too. That's
funny. [Billy] kinda scored. It's usually the real hard-rock
guys that seem to get the Baywatch types. It seems
kinda odd that he did.
If I asked you to "play me a memory," what songs would
you play?
I usually ask people for a writer or a decade or time period.
If they give me that, I group things mentally in time frames,
and that seems to be the best way to get to something meaningful....
That's a lot of this [job], to have them say, "We like Mathis,"
and I do a medley of his tunes, or "We like Cole Porter."
I was lucky growing up. With my dad being a record producer,
we had every conceivable kind of music in the house. So
I've so heard many different styles that I can just think
that way and stick things together.
Do Catholic girls really start much too late?
(Laughs) It depends on the Catholic girl, I guess. I don't
know the answer to that. Probably not. There are certainly
rules against doing things, but I think they start as early
as anybody else--without necessarily saying what their religious
persuasion is. In my experience, that hasn't seemed to be
a factor--as far as I know.
So do you prefer uptown girls or downtown guys?
Uptown girls.
You probably get a lot more of those in here.
Yeah, though we have our share of everything, being at
the train station.
What is it about uptown girls?
There's something about sophistication, I guess. The way
I grew up, my folks were older, and I was very much a partner
in what they did, not like the other kids. I went with them
places and was used to the more mature people in their circles.
So that always has appealed to me because it was what I
was used to as a kid and still like.
What's a "pretty good crowd for a Saturday"?
Most of the night, people waiting for a table. I want to
have more people than there's room. Of course, a responsive
crowd is always great, and we get that here on the weekend.
If we didn't start the fire, who did?
I think it's just there, and we sort of tap into it. I
certainly didn't start it, and I don't know who did. I don't
think it starts or stops. It's a constant.
You could just take a wild guess and say someone you
don't like started it--Bill Gates!
Bill Gates started it! It was him! He starts everything
else, it seems like.
You said people do come up to you and say, "Man, what
are you doing here?" If you weren't doing this, what would
you be doing?
I really don't think there would be anything else. It just
feels like what I should do. It's basically all I've ever
done, except I was a waiter for a couple of years, and then
I have this other business, which is piano-related anyhow.
I'll just do it until I'm too old. ... Whatever happens,
maybe there'll be some signal. You hear a lot about artists
"having to do it"--it's not a matter of choice. And that's
really true. The older I get, that seems truer all the time.
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Willamette Week | originally
published March 24,
1999
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