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Recovery in the News
A supergroup on mission to heal
Tristram Lozaw
Boston Globe
April 11, 2008
"Like many of my contemporaries and children of the '60s, I've lost a lot of friends to addiction," says drummer Simon Kirke, whose bandmate in Free, Paul Kossoff, suffered a drug-induced heart failure. "Getting treatment wasn't really an option back in the 1970s."
But today it is, and Kirke, a recovering addict himself, is one of more than a dozen musicians who'll play with rock legend Chuck Berry in Superband for Sunday's concert benefiting Right Turn, the Arlington-based recovery center for artists and entertainers, at Berklee Performance Center.
Kirke, now a Right Turn board member, was playing with Ringo Starr in Boston five years ago when he met Woody Giessmann, Right Turn's founder and former drummer with Del Fuegos and other bands. Kirke didn't hesitate when Giessmann asked him to help out. "It was time to give a little back," he says.
Giessmann, Kirke, and Rolling Stones keyboardist Chuck Leavell have became good friends since then and decided to put together a rock 'n' roll supergroup for the cause. "When it came time to find a singer, we needed someone universal," Kirke remembers, "and we kept coming back to Chuck Berry."
On Sunday, Berry, the 81-year-old music pioneer, will front a group of all-star musicians together onstage for the first time. The Superband includes Kirke, Leavell, Jeff "Skunk" Baxter (Steely Dan), saxman Tim Reis (Rolling Stones), drummer Chad Smith (Red Hot Chili Peppers), bassist John Conte, singer Kate Taylor, guitarists Barry Goudreau ( Boston), and Ricky Byrd (Blackhearts), and full horn and vocal sections. Singer Bryan McPherson and a surprise comedian will host.
Giessmann celebrated his 18th year of recovery this week. In the early 1990s, after confronting his own problems, he found himself intrigued with addiction and treatment methods and became a licensed substance-abuse counselor. "Addiction is like a Trojan horse," he says. "It moves in at night, gives you a new identity, and takes over your creativity."
As he worked in hospitals and halfway houses, Giessmann felt a need for a better understanding of the disease, one that went beyond existing treatment methods. Giessmann started Right Turn as a nonprofit organization in 2003 to provide substance-abuse and mental health treatment for musicians, artists, and anyone else who would benefit from "hope, health, and creativity" on the road to recovery.
"At that point, Right Turn was just a cellphone in the glove compartment in my car," he says. It has since grown into a full-blown clinic at 299 Broadway in Arlington Center with 11 counselors, psychiatrists, and staffers who treated 420 clients - Giessmann prefers "members" - last year.
"Music is a very high-risk, isolating career," Giessmann continues. "I spent 25 years in the back of the tour bus or sleeping in a hotel room, not at home. There are drugs around all the time, or a bottle of alcohol beckoning you. The isolation coupled with the availability of these substances is the root of the problem."
Using the Arlington facility as a model, Giessmann plans to open another Right Turn on Martha's Vineyard with future expansion to Nashville, New York, Los Angeles, and beyond. "The demand for our services and support is great right now."
Kirke agrees. "If I had then what I have now, maybe my life wouldn't have taken so many twists and turns before I got to sobriety."
© Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company