My job has dropped me innocently around celebrities in a lot of odd situations, but perhaps the most interesting story comes from my encounter with Lenny Kravitz, one of my first, and also the only one that warrants mention without the subject ever having spoken a word to me.
In the Spring of 1992, it occurred to me that following a green bird casually around backstage bordered on obsessive behavior, especially in this case, because it was important to me that I meet Lenny Kravitz; and who else would be walking around backstage wearing what looked like a lace curtain with a parakeet on her shoulder other than someone that was with him.
This was the puzzle piece I was looking for. It had to be. I’d only been living in Auburn about nine months, but I was an enthusiastic freshman from Indiana certain of one thing: this girl wasn’t a local. She could only be linked to one person, and that was the equally individualistic Lenny Kravitz, my white whale. That bird was my road map, and I wasn’t letting it out of my sight. She headed down one of the darkened side tunnels leading into the office areas under the bleachers, and I pursued – at a safe distance – straight down the rabbit hole.
I kept back as she rounded the corner in front of me and disappeared. Once I had a clear view of the corridor she continued down, she was gone. There were a plethora of doors on either side of the hallway and she could have open and closed any one of them. My once buoyed spirits sunk just as fast as they had risen. I chose a door and went inside.
It seemed to be some kind of utility room. A boiler room perhaps. Do those still exist? I was being lazy, which I normally despised, but I was a little down about my failure and needed to start coming up with an excuse story that would keep me in the good graces and acceptance of my latest crush: a girl that was older, and certainly established on campus and more popular than me. The entire week prior I had inflated my responsibilities with Auburn’s Major Entertainment Committee in conversations with her, exaggerating my access at these events. It was all going smoothly until I promised that getting her backstage to meet Lenny Kravitz wouldn’t be a problem. I swung for the fence on that one, and it seemed in that moment that I would crash and burn. And so goes the tale of the green parakeet…
I sat solemnly on a metal folding chair staring at the dull, eggshell white cinderblock walls around me. Suddenly, the opposite door opened and a colorfully dressed black man wearing shades and a Kangol hat stopped immediately and looked me over.
“I’m sorry,” I said, jumping out of my seat, still startled from the interruption. He was wearing bright red pants and a loosely fit silk shirt with a flyaway collar pointing to the tips of both his shoulders. He wasn’t Lenny Kravitz, but standing in a dilapidated arena in the middle of Alabama, he was obviously someone that knew him. I walked toward the opposite door and he stopped me.
“It’s cool man, hang out.”
I thanked him and sat back down. My new friend was carrying an odd array of objects. There was a guitar case, which he placed just in front of the only other chair in the room. It faced my direction a few feet to my right. There was a curious, water-stained cardboard box about the right size to house a bowling ball, which he placed on the seat of the chair. An electrical cord hung from his shoulder and he meticulously unwound it, as he seemed to study me through his shades. It was an odd, uncomfortable moment. He dragged the lead behind one of the furnace vents and disappeared for a few seconds, presumably to plug it in. He returned with an end of the cord in one hand and flipped the lid off the box with the other. He lifted out a small amplifier that looked like something you see in a neighborhood yard sale listed with five decreasing prices progressively marked out to prod a buyer. He set it on top of the furnace and plugged its power cord into the extension in his hand. He then maneuvered around the chair and opened the guitar case on the floor with one hand as he scooped the box with the other. It was like some kind of soundless, poetic ritual.
Just then, there was a shuffling noise that seemed to come from behind a furnace to my right. I ignored it at first, assuming it came from outside and just seemed closer than it was. But then I felt a presence. The room suddenly became more crowded in my mind, like the feeling you get when you know someone is looking at you. Then there was another noise. I twisted to look in time to see one of the oddest three second visuals I’ve ever experienced.
The top of the furnace was eye-level from a standing position, so I only caught an upward-angled viewpoint of what looked like a deflated beach ball slowly bouncing across the surface toward its end and the now vacant chair to my right. My new friend, who had only at this point said a few words to me, stepped to the side clearing a path. My eyes switched back to the approaching object just in time to see it break away from the shelter of the furnace into the open, and at that moment I found that the ball was actually a wide, all-consuming hat, which corralled a wild bunch of dreadlocked hair belonging to a shaded and striking Lenny Kravitz. I didn’t move.
At the same moment Lenny reached the chair and sat down, my friend started adjusting the knobs on the amplifier, grabbed a cord from the guitar case, and plugged one end into the amp. Crack, crack, rattle, hum. Lenny lifted the guitar from the case and placed it in his lap as he settled himself and his hair into position, seemingly never taking his eyes off the stranger in front of him sitting open-mouthed in a metal chair. His audience.
“Are you a Led Zeppelin fan,” my old friend asked, snapping my mind back to reality and his attention.
“I am,” I answered, not exactly sure where that response would lead.
“Did you know that Lenny’s an avid collector of vintage music equipment?”
“I didn’t,” I replied, not forgetting how strange it was that Lenny was being referenced as if he weren’t present. He just stared in my direction, his eyes hidden behind blindfold-like sunglasses.
“We just purchased this amplifier last week and it arrived this morning,” he continued, noticing my interest as it peaked. “It’s the studio amp that Jimmy Page used during the early Led Zeppelin album work. It cost us twenty-five grand.”
I’m not sure what my face did at that point, but almost on cue as those last words fell from my friend’s mouth, Lenny smirked with an all-knowing understanding of what that would mean to a music lover. At the same moment, he glided his right hand down the strings of his axe letting loose a profound, nostalgic strum that echoed through the boiler room – the first sound from his new treasure. I sat back and watched as his head bowed down and started gliding back and forth, his dreads slapping either side of his face with a rhythm that accompanied the fresh amplified sound still reverberating through the room.
“Yeah…,” the sidekick whispered, lost in the moment as Lenny dove in without hesitation to the opening guitar riff of “Freedom Train”. I sat back in wonderment as his hands manipulated the instrument and his head and hair danced wildly in accompaniment. It was truly a magic moment.
He never did sing while I sat in that room. I never once heard his voice. But it was better that way, and served to focus all the energy on Jimmy Page’s amp, an iconic piece of nostalgia that seemed to be in pretty good hands as far as I could see.
There has been a lot of mystery surrounding the equipment Page used in the early years. That said, I have no idea if any of their amp story was true. I also don’t really care.
I never saw the green bird, the girl, the sidekick, Lenny, or Page’s amp again after I left that room mere minutes after I entered. I still failed my love interest, but the story, in my mind, was worth more.
Maybe that’s why I’m still single.
