Digital Interviews: What influences helped shape your desire to be a musician?

Ricky Peterson: I grew up with it; my parents were both musicians. My dad had a big band, and my mom sang with the band. They worked at WCCO Radio together. That's how they met. Our whole environment around the house was based around people playing music. When we'd wake up, they'd be gathering together and playing music. They're the biggest influence. Just sitting down, surrounded by it, sitting at the piano and learning by ear.

DI: Who suggested the piano?

RP: My mom. They had pianos and organs downstairs. My dad played organ for the Twins, which was pretty cool, and my mom took over when my father died in '69. We had music around all the time. My dad was a jazz musician, so we had a lot of jazz. My brother, who is a great bass player, was into bebop, and we all kind of grew up on that side of it. I was ten years old when my father died, and I was starting to listen to pop radio, so I got into that side of it, but still dug the hip stuff like Joe Zawinul, and Herbie, and that kind of stuff.

DI: So you were into the jazz sound early?

RP: Yeah, but it was more R&B, though, for me.

DI: Tell us about your musical family.

RP: Linda, the oldest sister, plays piano and sings, and is a prolific songwriter -- had a deal with RCA. She had a couple records out. My brother Billy, who's the next down, is a wonderful bass player. He and I own a jazz club in St. Paul called the Artists' Quarter, where all the guys that are bebop players come through town. It's like a Village Vanguard-type setting. He's a wonderful bass player and piano player who has taught me a lot of different voicings, and how to approach things. My sister Patty, who's a wonderful singer, is also a radio personality on WCCO, where my mom and dad used to work, which is very strange, because when they left it was around the same date that she started, only 25 or 30 years later. My brother Paul, who used to play with The Time, and used to do a lot of stuff with Prince and with me, he's out in California doing the Donny Osmond Show, playing bass on their band on the show, and doing a lot of recording and a lot of pop writing.

DI: What's your approach to the Hammond B-3?

RP: It was around the house all the time. We had one at my house. My mother and father had a C-3 and an M-3, which is a Spinet-type B-3. I grew up listening to people like Jimmy Smith, because my dad loved him. When I got a little older and started listening to rock 'n' roll, I was into Emerson, Lake & Palmer -- and different people that played it. The approach, for me, was no different than anything else; it just came to me. I love this sound. It's a total different instrument than anything else, but for me, there was no "Oh, my god, I have to do this now!" It was just like "Go! Play the damn thing!" [laughs]

DI: Most parents want their kids to do something other than play music. Obviously your family was the opposite.

RP: They asked me if I wanted to take piano lessons, and I said, "Sure." At the time I was going to Catholic school. Next door was an all-girls Catholic school, where we would take piano lessons -- Holy Angels. I had nuns slapping me on the wrist, man. I hated it. [laughs] It was horrible, but I learned a lot.

DI: Did you play gigs with your family?

RP: We never really all played together until just recently. We did a couple of Christmas concerts, which actually sold out very well. We never really played as a unit, because everybody played different kinds of music. My ma was a jazz singer and player. Billy would sit in with her, playing jazz bass. I grew up differently, on my own; rock 'n' roll bands, you know, as time went on. I was playing rock 'n' roll from the '70s through the disco era. Different bands on the strip, and that kind of stuff. More Top-40 and R&B stuff than anything.

DI: As a "session musician", do you memorize the things the headliner is asking for, or do you look at the music and then take it in your own direction?

RP: You have to realize where the artist wants to go, first of all. Prince, for instance, liked the way I approached music. He would have an idea that he would get stuck on. He said, "What would you do with this? Come in here and do what you think you'd on this." Then he'd split. I'd put all the s--t down, and then he'd come back in the room and go, "Okay. I never thought of that." Like "Most Beautiful Girl." He'd really go off on that kind of thing, and that's how we started working together. Then, if you have somebody like George Benson, you look at his history of music. You also have to realize that these guys are hiring you for a reason -- for your capability of what you're doing. They go, "This guy's got a certain thing that I dig, so let's get him to help produce the record." Because of what they've heard me do. Even Miles Davis called me up and said, "Get your ass out here and play with me, because I love what you're doing." I never did, because I was out with David. David encouraged it. But I said, "We're out on tour, man. I can't just drop and leave you hanging." You have to approach it the way you would approach anything, look at the artist and see what he's done, and what he's going for. You look into their eyes and see what the heck they're doing.

DI: How do you go from one type of musician, like a rock 'n' roll player, to another artist who wants a jazzier sound?

RP: They're there for a reason; you're there for a reason. They're looking for something. You ask them what they're looking for, and then go from there. That's the easiest way. Everything that I have is there, and whatever sounds they want -- I'm a chameleon. They know I can play the organ, they know I can play the Fender Rhodes, or acoustic piano, or any synthesizer or whatever.

DI: Which is your favorite?

RP: The vintage stuff; the B-3, the Fender Rhodes, the clavinet -- all that old stuff is my favorite.

DI: Synthesizers when they're necessary?

RP: It's part of the deal, you know, and samplers -- the whole deal. "Well I want that sound." Okay. Boom! Let's get it.

DI: In the 1980s Minneapolis was the music capital of the world for a time.

RP: I was involved with Prince when he first started -- when he did his first record called For You. I was supposed to go on tour and I couldn't do it. "This is what I want you to play" -- without me having creative influence on the thing. That was tough for me to handle. He was the creator.

DI: Like with Steely Dan -- "Here's the sheet music. Here's what you're going to play."

RP: Exactly. "This is what you're playing -- and you'll like it." [laughs] They went through so many musicians.

DI: How many albums have you released?

RP: The first one was in 1989 on Warner Bros., called Night Watch. Tommy LiPuma was over there at the time. He left right after we did the album. The next two records I did for a Japanese label called Go Jazz. The first one was called Smile Blue -- more R&B, a lot of singing on it. The next one was called A Tear Can Tell. The newest one got released on Windham Hill Jazz, called Souvenir.

DI: Who's playing on the latest disc?

RP: I have my same rhythm section -- Vinnie Colaiuta on drums, my brother Paul on bass. David Sanborn's playing on it. I've got Robben Ford playing on it. I've got Dick Oatts playing on it -- a wonderful soprano saxophone player. I've got Don Alias. It's my same guys that I've worked with for forever.

DI: Tell us about Ben Sidran.

RP: Ben is a really good friend. We met through my brother Billy. They'd worked together for years. I did a few Ben Sidran records, because we were all coming up in the '80s, with this sound in Minneapolis. He's like Mose Allison. They're both storyteller-type bebop guys Beatnik, bebop, cool; really cool.

DI: He released the live disc with Phil Woods on it.

RP: Absolutely. I was on that, too. The live one from Minneapolis. Phil Woods and Steve Miller were on it.

DI: Do you ever get an itch to start leading a band?

RP: I've never been one to be a real front guy. I used to do it a lot in the '70s and '80s, fronting the disco band or whatever. "Hey, everybody!" That kind of s--t. If I get a chance to do it, I'll do it.

DI: Do you ever seek musicians out, or do they seek you out?

RP: Well, it's fifty-fifty. People will call me to do a certain thing. I've got a studio in Minneapolis called Master Mix, and guys will send me different tapes. I'll play on them and send them back -- and vice versa.

DI: What experiences stand out as highlights in your career?

RP: Working with David Sanborn on his first record. We would do David Sanborn songs in the bands I was in, before I got hip to the fact that I was going to be playing with him.

DI: And you've been doing that for quite a while now.

RP: 14 years as a professional sideman. [laughs]

DI: Which other musicians have you especially enjoyed working with?

RP: All of them. I'm a lucky son-of-a-gun. George Benson. Bonnie Raitt -- we did a tour together, before she was really popular. Steve Miller -- we had a blast! We did his first record since the mid-80s, Abracadabra.

DI: That was really his comeback.

RP: It was a strange record for him. It was kind of jazzy. He was trying to play jazz, bluesy jazz. But then we went out to tour a couple of colleges, and people were freakin' out, because we were playing the old stuff, and he went and sold out everything for the next ten years.

DI: What does the future hold?

RP: Just to keep making music however I can, and making smiling faces. It'd be nice to know that people know it's me. We were in Japan, and they were playing this record; a guitar player sent me a tape, I did the thing on it. They were playing it in Tower Records in Tokyo, and the guys walked in and said, "That's Ricky." It made me feel really good. They recognize me. That's the biggest thing about playing. You can always be a sideguy, but if you have your own sound and make it work, that's the biggest thing.

DI: And you've been playing live with your family?

RP: We'd all played together, at Christmas time, that kind of thing. We did one 20 years ago. We started doing it again two years ago, and it's been an annual thing. It's great.

DI: Where do these shows take place?

RP: At the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis. It's just a ball. We get up there and just act the fool, and people come and hear us. We do what we do, and if they love it, that's the best thing in the world. I'm not one of those guys that run out there and go, "Hey, look at me! Look at me!" [laughs] Yeah, "I'm going to blow you away!" [laughs]