I will never forget doing Anita Baker with John. It was the first time that I had ever met him. John was doing monitors for her highness while I was doing the band. After the bands quick 30 minute check, Ms. Baker took the stage and proceeded to drive John nuts for two hours, the highlight being when Ms. Baker told John that she didn't want any guitar in her ear mix. Of course John proceeded to mute the guitar channels on the console like a normal monitor engineer would do. While watching this, Ms. Baker spouted the title line to this story, " hey monitor guy what's your name ? I don't think you understand what I'm telling you " and then marched over to the monitor console and made John unplug all the channels from the console that she didn't want to hear telling him that even though they were muted, they would find a way to leak into her ear monitors. Now of course I looked at John and turned around and busted out laughing which caused John to smile and almost laugh, but he kept it together. the next day John set up the console facing the stage. When her Anitaness asked why he did that, Johndidn't blink and told her that obviously she knew much more about monitors than he did and it would be easier for her to get at the knobs. Of course she said thank you. This was the last show of the tour of course. Need I say more.
John was a great guy and I never heard anyone say anything to the contrary. As John used to say " It's not the knobs on the console that matter, just the knob behind it" I use that line to this day. Although I wouldn't consider John a friend but more of a passing acquaitence in this business, he always had a smile whenever I ran into him. He was one of the great characters that you will never forget and I will miss the fact that he is no longer here with us.