The next guest on “In A Mississippi Minute” with Steve Azar had such good stories, we couldn’t contain it to just one show. So, you’re getting a two-parter this week – Thursday and Friday at 1pm.
Norbert Putnam is a legendary bassist and Grammy-winning producer who played with Elvis, Jimmy Buffett, Muscle Shoals… and the list goes on.
He published his memoir “Music Lessons, Volume 1”
Here’s an excerpt from the book:
“IT WAS THE SUMMER OF 1957, and 15-year-old Norbert Putnam was hunkered down with his father behind their garage in Florence, Alabama. Norbert had started playing bass in a local band and his father was dead set against it so he had pulled his young son aside to reveal a dark secret from his past – he had once played that damned old bass in the Beale Street bars of Memphis. He recalled the shootings, gambling, wild women, reefer heads, dirty hotel rooms, lack of pay . . . all recited with tremendous gusto, in an effort to frighten young Norbert. He wanted to convince him to pursue the path to college and a normal, happy life. The young man tried to remain still in an effort to withhold his excitement as visions of Memphis and music danced in his head. In spite of his father’s intentions, at that moment an opposite decision was made. Norbert Putnam vowed, then and there, to devote his life to the pursuit of music.”
-From Music Lessons, Volume 1 by Norbert Putnam
