Mache always had a fine ride. Cadillacs, Buicks, Mercedes; Mache drove ‘em all.
I have no idea how he managed to afford them. He blew saxophone and did occasional contracting jobs. That’s it.
He was a monster horn man and had performed with B.B. King, Sam Cooke and a host of other luminaries from the worlds of blues, soul and jazz. By the time he started working with my band, The Guinness Brothers, his glory days were long behind him.
Some guys might begrudge trading stadium audiences for roadhouse bars, but not Mache. He played every gig as if it were Carnegie Hall.
In addition to driving nice cars, Mache always dressed to the nines. Whether in a three-piece sharkskin suit or a silk dashiki, Mache looked like he’d stepped off the pages of Essence magazine.
And he didn’t just look cool; Mache was cool. He was the cat we all wanted to be when we grew up.
He wasn’t perfect. He was late to every other show and no amount of yelling, pleading, or docking of his paycheck would change that. After a few years I gave up and hired a second horn player so we’d have at least some brass on stage for the first set.
But back to the cars. Mache drove like a maniac. How he managed to be late for so many gigs when he never drove under 100 mph is a mystery. He must have been doing at least that the night he flew off the road, down a culvert and into somebody’s front yard.
I was driving home from a lakeshore show. Sleet fell from a turbulent sky turning the roads slicker than a hockey rink.
I was putzing along at 25 when Mache’s black Mercedes blew by me in a blur of chrome, his car disappearing into the gloom ahead. I arrived at the next intersection and there was Mache, slumping in the yard by his car, looking for all the world as if he was surprised by its current location.
I pulled over and got out.
“Need some help?” I asked.
“My car went off the road,” he said. “This intersection needs better lighting.”
“Or you need to stop driving like a fighter pilot on crack,” I said.
The car was thoroughly stuck in the damp earth and we were anxious to extract it before police arrived. Mache and police were not a good mix at the best of times.
Just then, three pickup trucks thundered up. Bright lights flooded the area as a dozen good ‘ol boys piled out. They were all at various stages of inebriation and hoping for a cute damsel in distress whom they could rescue and subsequently ply with warm Budweiser.
They were not happy when Mache stepped into the light. In case you didn’t get the message from the Essence and dashiki references, Mache was African American.
But it was too late. They had stopped. They had winches. And it was after all the ‘90s, and even rednecks weren’t entirely immune to the social changes of the 1960s. Grumbling good-naturedly, they hooked the Mercedes to a winch and proceeded to pull the Mercedes’ bumper off. It was at this point Mache began giving the boys holy hell in no uncertain terms.
Now, these guys were big. They were drunk. They were standing in the sleet, getting far more sober than they wanted to be. And they did not appear to be overly affectionate toward people of color, especially people of color who kept calling them impolite names. I considered slipping quietly away while they erected the burning cross on the front lawn, but knew my liberal white guilt would haunt me forever if I did.
Instead, I did my best to shut Mache up and get between him and the local chapter of the David Allan Coe fan club. Eventually, they pulled his Mercedes back onto the pavement and threw the broken bumper in his truck.
They drove off in a cloud of diesel fumes and I felt glad to be alive. Mache took it all in stride. I hopped in my own car and rolled away at a snail’s pace. A minute later the Mercedes shot past me, doing 75 and fish-tailing like mad. Mache lived life on his own terms, terms that didn’t always make sense to everybody else. I guess I can honestly say I loved him.
Mache died Sunday. He played a show in Grand Rapids
Email Mike Taylor at mtaylor325@gmail.com
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