The Sax Doctor: Steve Goodson

Righting reeds is this physician's specialty , but he doesn't make house calls.

by Denise Guay Trowbridge, OffBeat Magazine, November 2001

With steady hands and a delicate touch, he operates. Aided by his surgeon’s visor, he alters keys, reinvents pads, and restructures brass like he’s mending broken bones. Steve Goodson is an unusual surgeon. Fewer than ten people in the world can do what he does. He’s the Sax Doctor, and people from as far away as Australia and Japan send their horns to his tiny Uptown workshop for treatments they can’t get anywhere else. "I don’t just fix saxophones," he says, " I re-outfit them."

He’s talking custom thumb rests, extra arms on the low keys, and springs to keep the G-sharps from sticking. He can make a rare French Buffet tenor that’s been flattened by a van play like new. " I can do anything," Goodson says, " I do a lot of weird stuff that no one else can do and that’s just part of who I am."

Goodson’s reputation is saxophone gold. His operating room is cluttered, overtaken by a tower of black vinyl cases stacked from floor to ceiling and rows of miniature numbered drawers filled with spare parts. His work speaks for itself. Unison manufactures a custom Steve Goodson saxophone. He’s the poster-child for Runyon mouthpieces, and he just designed a custom sax repair kit for Music Medic.

With shaggy blonde and grey hair and yellow stars on his shoes, he’s also the classic rock star who’s played with all the big boys — Eddie Money, Vince Vance, Marsha Ball, Greg Allman, and virtually every Motown act. " I’d say I’ve made a career out of playing with has-been rock stars," he comments laughing, "Chubby Checker still thinks he’s Mick Jagger."

In 1992, Goodson gave up the tours and the limelight for the quiet low-key life of a musical Dr. Frankenstein. "The stuff I do is still considered black magic and voodoo in musical instruments," he says.

His Frankenstein’s monster is a ’63 Selmer Mark VI outfitted with all of his tricks. Except one. He hasn’t painted it purple like his favorite baritone—which sticks out like a shiny bruised thumb in a room packed with saxophones. " I’m an old hippie. Why shouldn’t I have a purple saxophone?" he says, " I even have suits to match."

And it’s all DeWitt Self Jr.’s fault. At Leeds high school in Leeds Alabama , Self was his first band director, the kind of guy who could fix your TV, do your plumbing, and then fix your saxophone as an afterthought. At 14, Goodson took his first sax apart under Self’s direction. "There were 500 little pieces," he says, " It was an ambitious undertaking."

Self also saw the sparkle in Goodson’s playing and spent time working with him every day after school. Self-less, it seems Goodson may have never played those packed stadiums or that posh cocktail set where he met his wife. " I hope one day to win the lottery so I can buy a big statue of him," he says, " He was a totally great teacher."

Goodson now tries to give his 20 local students the same practical advice and attention Self bestowed on him. " You have to show them your love for music." And make them laugh, so he keeps a rubber alien in a glass jar on top of his piano to keep the jokes rolling.

And now back to his wife. " Something about a 6-foot redhead is absolutely appealing," he says, " I put down my sax and let the band play without me while I tried to get to know her."

He was so enamored with Sharon Goodson, the matriarch of M.O.M.s, that he married her and moved to New Orleans. The city’s rich music scene and number of quality musicians was a shock. " I was ready to weld my case shut because there was such a wealth of talent in town," he says, " Too many bad asses."

Then he met the Number One bad ass, Clarence Ford, Fats Domino’s long-time accompanist. "I said to him, ‘Look, I’m new in town, I play a little and I have money. I just want to know two things: when my lessons start and how much of that money I have to bring with me.’"

Goodson learned his lesson. "Clarence would shake his cane at me when I wasn’t playing right."

Santy Runyon gives Goodson a good swift kick in the ego every once in a while too. Runyon, who designs and manufactures high-quality woodwind mouthpieces, has taught every sax legend this side of 1925 including Charlie Parker. "He’s 94 and he gets up and kicks my ass every year."

At least Steve’s got him on the hair. " One year he tried to pull his hair out like mine-- to get that rock look."

When he’s not getting his musical ass kicked or rockin’ out his hair, Goodson graces second lines and updates his web site, www. saxgourmet.com. IHe claims it's the most comprehensive saxophone site on the web, with trivia and history, repair and vintage horn guides, links to Goodson’s repair business and a photo gallery of all of his notable customers. It gets more hits than any other sax-related site. A man who uses a bass saxophone bell as an umbrella stand and plays that Buffet that was run over by a truck in second lines wouldn’t settle for less.

And he loves it. " I am blessed that I get to wake up every day and do something I would love to do for free."

The repairs, the lessons and the web site aren’t all business. " If you do something as personal as music, you have to pass it on," he says, " It’s a sacred obligation." *