The Meters

That sound: body-scratching grooves, syncopated second-line rhythms, bass, guitar, and keyboard lines so deep they seemed to bubble up from the earth beneath New Orleans.

- BY KEN MICALLEF

In 1979, I was the road drummer for Boston singer-songwriter Andy Pratt, a local celebrity known both for his musical talent—showcased on his 1973 Columbia album Andy Pratt—and for being the great-grandson of Charles Pratt of Pratt Institute and Standard Oil fame. I was part of the touring band for Pratt's Motives album, performing regional hits like "That's When Miracles Occur," a standout track from his 1976 breakthrough, Resolution. Rolling Stone's Stephen Holden considered Resolution revolutionary: "By reviving the dream of rock as an art and then reinventing it, Pratt has forever changed the face of rock." Resolution and Andy Pratt rank among my all-time favorite rock albums.

Pratt's first album featured the single "Avenging Annie," a mini-rock opera about an extraordinary femme fatale. It charted nationally back when that meant something. Roger Daltrey later covered it on One of the Boys. Pratt's original was featured in the 1998 film Velvet Goldmine with Ewan McGregor. "Avenging Annie" was the hardest song I'd ever played: relentless dynamics, tornado drum fills, and a whirlwind, circuitous beat. Of course fans expected us to play it at every show.

For four shows, we opened for Robert Palmer, who was already a US chart presence with "Every Kind of People" and "Bad Case of Loving You (Doctor, Doctor)," which was charting at the time. This was years ahead of his global dominance with supergroup Power Station.