Daryl Hall and Danny Bennett - Summer Staff Picks

It’s Alec’s turn to feature two of his favorite episodes in the summer archives series. He interviewed Daryl Hall in December 2019 on his home turf: Daryl's House, Hall’s restaurant, and live music venue located about 90 minutes north of New York City. Hall & Oates is the biggest-selling vocal duo in history, with hits like "Maneater," "Rich Girl," "You Make My Dreams Come True," and countless others. Hall talks about his teen years in suburban Pennsylvania singing doo-wop on the streets with his friends -- a far cry from the rock-star life he led 15 years later. Danny Bennett is the son and manager of legendary crooner Tony Bennett, and Alec spoke with him in 2013. This summer, Tony Bennett celebrated his 95th birthday with two sold-out shows at Radio City Music Hall, performing duets with Lady Gaga. Danny Bennett has been working with his father for several decades and played a key role in introducing Tony Bennett to a multi-generational audience through appearances on SNL and MTV and the duets albums. Danny Bennett describes his job as managing a legacy as much as a career. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
I'm Carrie Donahue and this is Here's the Thing from
My Heart Radio. And I'm Alec Baldwin and this is
Here's the thing from my Heart Radio. Oh hey, Alec,
you're back, back back, Yes, Carrie, summer's over and I
have returned. Did you miss me? Of course, well listen.
Thanks to you and the rest of the team for

(00:22):
hosting our archival episodes over the summer. And now it's
your turn to highlight some favorites. Right. Yes, we're going
to revisit two conversations I loved Darryl Hall from holl
And Oates and Danny Bennett to Tony Bennett's son and
longtime manager. Sounds like a great pairing. Glad you're back, Alec.
Oh and Kerry before you go, we should tell listeners

(00:43):
for the next couple of months we'll be releasing episodes
every other week. Good idea and done, take it away, Alec.
Now onto two of my favorite conversations from the archives.
Tony Bennett has a timeless style. He celebrated his ninety
fifth birthday this summer with two sold out shows at

(01:04):
Radio City Music Hall, and as always, he brought the
house down. He even has a new album coming out
this fall, called Love for Sale. Tony Bennett planned to
play more live dates, but the legendary showman recently received
a devastating warning from his doctor, no more live shows.
That's going to be a shift for Tony's son, Danny

(01:27):
Bennett as well. Danny has been his father's manager for decades,
a job he describes as managing a legacy as much
as a career. But first, we're revisiting my two thousand
nineteen conversation with Darryl Hall with partner John Oates, Hall
and Oates is the best selling vocal duo in history.

(01:48):
They have seven platinum albums and another six gold ones.
They made the Billboard Hot one thirty four times with
mega hits like Man Eater, Rich Girl, You make my
dreams come true and I can't go for that. Darryl
Hall has had a sort of second career on television
with two shows Live from Darryl's House and Darryl's Restoration

(02:11):
Overhaul on the d I Y Network. Darryl Hall started
singing on the streets in Philadelphia. So I started at
a really young age doing doing you know, like busking,
more like the doop, you know, the street corn music.
There was no instruments involved, acapella and all that, and uh,

(02:32):
it was always very racially integrated, you know, is that
whole thing? And uh? And then when I went to Philly,
I had already been involved in that stuff. And there
was this place called Mitton Hall where all everybody hung out.
It was like the place where the whole Temple University went,
and people used to stand in the corners and sing.
It was it was that's that kind of stuff was

(02:52):
still going on. So I just walked up one day
and started singing along with these strangers. And that's how
I got into Philadelphia. And but at a time when
in my mind when I think about Philadelphia, then I
think about a lot of racial difficulties and move and
you know, historically not not for you. I'm saying, the
city has always had a kind of a racial stratification.

(03:13):
It seems like, what was it about you that these
people welcomed you with open arms. I just thing, I
grew up in a very racially integrated environment, you know.
And in Pottstown there's a big black community, and my
my parents best friends lived right in the middle of
the black neighborhood. So I as as a kid. I'm
talking like a kid kid. For the summer, I would

(03:35):
be over there and and all my waking hours, really
I would be hanging out with white and black kids together.
So the music that I grew up with was that,
you know, R and B and soul music. Uh. It
was really my baby food, you know, And it just
went that way off from my dad was he musically
and he was in a vocal group. Sang he sang
like gospel vocal group and uh he Uh. I learned

(03:59):
a lot about harm me from him. And uh, my
mother was a musician. She uh did other cons of music,
you know, she like musicals and she was in a band.
So it was very musical environment. Let me just put
these cards on the table, which is you are one
of the ten greatest male vocalists in all of history
of rock and roll. I mean you are. And what
kills me is like how you've stayed because a lot

(04:20):
of these guys have to drop it a key and
we interview a lot of my you know, you name it,
and only you and Bono pretty much sound the same.
Now almost First of all, I do on stage, I
do drop it a half a key now I do
so I admit it. But but you know what, that's
that's cool too. It gives me more room to play
around up top. Um. But you know, my voice has

(04:42):
changed a lot over the years. You listen to those
records that I made, you know, the Rich Girl and
all those kind of songs, I'm like a little boy
compared to the way I sing now I have, I
sort of have the voice now I always wanted to have.
It's that bigger, mascular voice I know. And um yeah,
so but so I like how my voice has evolved.

(05:02):
And I haven't lost any of the stuff that I had.
I just it's just sort of got bigger and white.
Where did you start singing? When did singing? My mother was,
as I said, she was in a band, but she
was also a vocal teacher and things like that, and
she encouraged you. Yeah, and she it was sort of
always there and she taught me how to sing. Did
they both play instruments? Yeah, my mother played piano and uh, um,

(05:24):
I started taking piano lessons around five and uh took
lessons all the way through and then I unfortunately was
got into it was I would say I got into
I was forced forced to play the trombone for a while,
but uh, that didn't last long. But no, it's it.
I've been playing piano since five and then I started
playing guitar himself taught you took yourself on the guitar.

(05:46):
How old were you when you picked up the guitar
for the first maybe late teens, early twenties. And when
you go then you go to Temple to study music? Why, well,
at first I was going to go. I didn't think
there was any money and in music at all. It
didn't even occur to me. Uh, and to have a
career in music, so I was gonna be I was.
I wanted to be a psychiatrist. Why because I was

(06:09):
really interested in the life of the mind. And I
was up against these I didn't realize and might and
I have tell you that you had to be a
doctor to do at least in a medical degree. I
quit that one too, And then I was up against
all these kids that were like premed and I failed miserably.
It was just horrible. This is not for me. I
had the same problem. I was like, I had to
have to study chemistry just I just want to talk

(06:30):
to people. Yeah, man, what happened was I did that
for a year and then I switched to the Temple
Music School and they you know, they let me in
and you finished and I finished, well, I I quit.
I quit five weeks before I graduation because I was
a student teacher and I was up, you know, early
in the morning all day doing all that stuff. And
then I had a bar gig, playing playing music in

(06:53):
a bar band at night until two o'clock in the morning.
So I didn't work out so well. And the teacher said,
you know, you have to choose one or the other.
And I thought to myself, do I want to be
a music teacher or do I want to be a
musician for real? And there was no choice in my head.
So I said, Okay, see you later when you uh
leave Temple. When you leave, when you finished school, what

(07:14):
happens after that? During my time in Temple, as I said,
the whole thing was sort of simultaneous. I was going
to music school, but I was also hanging out with
Tommy Bell and uh who was that? For people who
don't know, Tommy Bell was was the the producer and
writer behind oh a great number of the Philadelphia sound,

(07:35):
the stylistics and the delphonics, and people like that. Um,
he was very, very influential in the sound of Philadelphia,
and he sort of took me under his wing. He
was not that much older than me, but but I
would just sit around and listen to him, right, and
he was an amazing writer, and uh so I was
friendly with him. And then I also I had a

(07:56):
band that sort of came out of that thing I
was talking about and in mitton all and we called
ourselves the temp Tones because we're a temple university. Everybody
thought it was the Temptation, but it's because we were
a temple. And uh. We did a talent show at
the Uptown Theater, which was not that far from the
university from the campus, and it was on what they
used to call the Chipland Circuit, and you know, every

(08:18):
soul group on earth came to the Uptown. It was
like the Apollo, and uh I used to hang out
there and uh, just like the Apollo, the had talent
shows and we won the talent show and James Brown
band was the house band backing us up. That was
I was like eighteen years old. I'm singing, Oh Baby
Baby with James Brown's band, and we won the talent

(08:39):
show and The prize was you got to record a
record with Gamble and Huff, the songwriters songwriter producers who
Gamble and Huff and Tommy Bell basically created what the
world knows as the sound of Philadelphia. I did a
record with Gamble and Huff and it came out and
went on the charts and w D A S and
Philadelphia the R and B station. And I was doing

(09:00):
all this while I was going to school, and so
I became part of that whole scene. That's the I
started hanging out at Sigma Sound and with studio musicians,
and I wanted to be a studio musician, you know,
I want to learn things from them. So that's what
I was doing during my student years. And and in
the meantime, I met this guy, John Oates who was
in Temple University. Yeah, we we we were from He's

(09:25):
from about fifteen miles from me and North Wales, Pennsylvania,
just northwest of northwest of Philadelphia. So um uh. We
were both promoting our singles because he had he managed
to get a single too on Kenny Gamble's label. He
had a group called the Masters, and we were both
promoting our single at this place called the Adelphi ballroom

(09:48):
and uh, before either one of us went on, Uh,
it was a gang fight broke out. This whole thing
went down typical Philadelphia and it was on a it
was on a second floor, and you know, people started
whipping chains out, and you know, the whole you know, typical,
Like I said, typical, all too typical of Philadelphia at
that time. And uh, we said okay, time to leave timely.

(10:10):
So I didn't even know the guy, and we both
wound up in this little elevator going downstairs. I said, okay,
we just dodged that bullet. And I was looking at
and said, hey, so who are you? You know? And
I found out right then that he was also at Temple.
I said, oh, man, okay, you know because I figured
kindred spirits here and we sort of got to know

(10:31):
each other that way. Uh and um, then I needed
I don't this is a little vague in my mind,
but I needed a roommate because I was I wanted
to have an apartment Philly, and he volunteered. So we
we got this hobby just moving together. Yeah, we we
moved in and we started sharing apartments and we did

(10:51):
that on and off through school without any idea that
we were gonna work together. We were. There was no plan,
you know, we just he was your roommate, my roommates,
you know, they was done partner or anything. And uh so,
after after school was over, I became a full time
studio musician at Sigma for the whole sound of Philadelphia people.
And John went to Europe for a little while, came back,

(11:13):
had no place to live, and moved in again with
me and my new I guess she was my wife
at the time. And uh we we renovated this eighteenth
century house right in the center of Philadelphia, lived in
it for a while, and that's when we at the
beginning of that bug for you as well. Yeah, we're
talking about that. Yeah, and uh we decided, okay, we

(11:34):
were in close proximity, so we just started playing together
and said, well, maybe we should try doing something. Let's
share a stage, let's uh you play your songs, I'll
play my songs, and we'll do them together. When does
songwriting begin with you? When do you decide you want
to write songs around? I think I wrote a song
when I was about fourteen and I thought, okay, maybe
I can write a song. And I do remember The

(11:57):
name of it was called I Broke my Own Heart?
That was that a weird title? No? I like it? Actually,
haven't we all done that? Yes? At fourteen? What did
I know? Yeah, you're a little advanced. That was your
first song. That was the first song, I Broke my
Own Heart? And when did you write your first song
that you recorded? Uh? That was the song girl I

(12:18):
Love You with the tempting and that was I don't
know how well was I nineteen? I guess the recording
country you got from winning the place? So when do
you and he start to how do you and he
fused to become what you become? We didn't we sorted.
It's hard to describe. We were just trying to write.

(12:40):
We tried to write songs together, but it was mostly
he would write songs that I write songs and we
and we do them on stage together. And we played
at this place called um World Control Headquarters, which was
held about a hundred people, and we became sort of
a fixture there. There was another guy. You could do
anything you wanted there. I would sit there with my
world it's you know, and Mike Mandolin and John would

(13:02):
play acoustic guitar and we would just tell stories and
play songs. It was. It was sort of in that
folky tradition, but it wasn't folk music. It was something else.
And uh, we did that, and we got we started
getting a following doing it. And I remember one of
the first things that happened was it was all kids,
right because we were we were kids. But then these

(13:24):
older people started coming when I thought were older people
like forty fifty, you know, And I'm like, and I remember,
and this is the late sixties, and uh, I remember
saying to John, you know, this is really strange. Older
people like our music too, not just people our own age,
that maybe we're doing something different. Because I actually said
that to him, I'll never forget it. And now, of

(13:46):
course it's the reverse. Younger kids like what I do
and the older people have lived with it, right, So
it's always been multi generational and multicultural. Something about people. Well,
I don't know whatever it is. It's I think some
of your songs are pretty good. Well say that people
like what's good? The multi generation thing that happens, Yeah,

(14:08):
I guess it does for sure. I'm assuming that, um,
you meet someone who's a producer, like as your dessert
a producer that comes into your life, that takes you
to the next level, that helps you make the sound,
that becomes your sound. Yeah, who's that? A Reef Martin
the producer arranger behind A Wretha Franklin and you name it,
Donny Hathaway, Aretha Franklin, uh oh man, on and on

(14:31):
and on and on. I can't even tell you his
his His label was Atlantic and he found you where.
Well that's another long story, but we have time. I'll
try and and and truncated. But we were locked in
this messed up relationship with a songwriter producer guy in Philadelphia.

(14:52):
We were trying to get an album deal and he
was failing us miserably. And uh he was involved with
Chapel Music in New York through his catalog. And we
went up to New York one time and met this
young kid who was only twenty named Tommy Mottola, two
years younger than us and and and he said, hey,
well he's this guy is not doing anything for you.

(15:15):
Let me do something for you. He's twenty years old, right,
And uh wait, So he had connections because he had
an office the size of this table in Chapel Music.
But he did have A contacts, so he sent us
out to California to have a chapel rep take us
around two various people in California and we sort of
we're planning for and went shiitting basically, and uh, we

(15:37):
found this guy, Earl McGrath who was a really great
guy and was into sort of developing new talent and
he wanted to sign us immediately, which was great. And
then he was connected with Almedar again and all those
people in Atlantic, and he sent us back to Atlantic
and we auditioned for Ahmed and I sat there at

(15:59):
a piano and half the keys were stuck, they wouldn't work,
so well, you know, it was this was like my big,
my big day. I'm in front of Atlantic Records. I
couldn't play. Yeah, I think I had the flute glasses
on the piano. So I played badly and we sang
a couple of songs, and uh, I said, okay, we

(16:20):
blew that completely. Two days later I found out that
they had called Errold said Earl, we want these guys.
They're not gonna be on your label, They're gonna be
on our label, and and and they signed us to
Atlantic Records. So then we were off to a start
of some sort. We were immediately thrust into I mean
I completely was thrust into a different group of musicians,

(16:41):
all those Atlantic studio musicians, uh everybody from Dr John
to uh pretty you know, Ralph McDonald to you name it.
That that that whole New York R and B scene,
And they were all unbelievable musicians. And they're the guys
that played on our first records, especially on the abandoned
Lunch of Net record. I mean, that's the musicianship when

(17:03):
that record is unbelievable. So I was in that world
in that scene. I mean a Wreatha was wandering in
and out and Bob Dylan was wandering in and out.
I mean we're just like that's going on. It's a
big machinery, you know. I mean it's it's it's Atlantic Records.
Back when people were buying records, they choose you, if
they believe in you, and they get their marketing behind you.
It's kind of hard to fail, correct if you have

(17:25):
some talents. Well, it wasn't quite like that, not in
those days. It was. It was still a lot freer
and looser. And I remember I'm saying to me and John,
he said, just just make just make music. We'll figure
out how to sell it. That's what he said. And
he said, don't worry about hits or don't worry about it,
you know that. That's he said. Don't worry it. Literally

(17:48):
said that, don't worry about hits, marriage just do you
just do what you'll make it a hits, do what
you do. But they didn't. That was the thing. We
were a little strange for the world at that time.
We're I won't say we're ahead of our time. We
were out of our time, but so we I don't
know what what what was. First of all, we were
doing a hybrid of Philadelphia soul and other kinds of
R and B and mixed with this other eclectic kind

(18:09):
of thing that John brought in, you know, like country
music and all kinds of other stuff, singer songwriter kind
of things, and dance music, you name it. It was
hybrid eized and and and also in those days, they
had no idea how to label us because we were
popular on black radio, not even known on white radio.

(18:30):
And the whole idea of musical integration was not ready
for the world. I mean we were we were pioneers
in that Darryl Hall. Did you know that there are
more than two d and fifty episodes in the Here's
the Thing Archive. If you like these kinds of in
depth conversations with other actors, policy makers, and performers, go

(18:54):
to here is the Thing dot org and have a
look around. After the break, we'll hear more of my
conversation with Darryl Hall. I'm Alec Baldwin and this is
Here's the Thing. It was nineteen seventy six. Hall and

(19:17):
Oates were signed to Atlantic Records, but they didn't have
any big hits to show for it. They soon left
for Our c A, which quickly released Sarah's Smile. It
became an R and B hit and then a crossover hit.
From there, Hall and Notes took off. I enjoyed touring,
especially because we became popular all over the world very early, right,

(19:39):
I mean England embraced us like from the beginning from
seventy I think seventy four seventy five is when we
first started playing in England, and so we started doing
a lot of touring in Europe and that it just
you know, opens up your brain and we're kids, right,
We had a lot of fun that changed you and him,
sex symbolism, rock stardom. It was fame. If you're in

(20:03):
your mid to late twenties and you're running around the
world and people are throwing there whatever at you, uh,
you indulge that unless you're crazy. You know. I took
advantage of whatever was opportunities where I was having fun. Man,
I was you know the one thing though, I was
never into cocaine. I just didn't have a very sensitive

(20:24):
nervous system. It doesn't work for me, so do I
But I let that stop? Well, I I did it,
just I didn't like it. So you guys were dancing
around coke daddy your brains and I was completely home
sleeping thinking it. Now, I wasn't sleeping sex, drugs and
rock and roll without the drugs. But when you so
you go on tour, do you get sick of it?
Do you get sick of the attention? Do you get
sick of going on the road? You know? I mean

(20:47):
then mean when you're resting and everything and you're becoming
this huge musical act. At one point you would look
at each other and go, I really want to stop
for a while. You know, it's funny. I look back
at it, and it it feels like I had more
time off than I do now. I don't know why.
I must have. I felt like I would go out
and I would tour, and I would go balls to

(21:07):
the wall for whatever a month and we'd work, you know,
every day. It was no days off for and and
I would take it all in everything, you know, stay
up all, stay up late, do you know, do everything
you can imagine and uh, then then we'd stop, and
then we wouldn't be doing anything other than go into

(21:27):
a studio, go into studio or right and prepare to go.
You find that you go on the road more now,
like most acts go on the road more now, because
that's really the only one you can make real money. Yeah,
I mean, what's buying any record? I tour all the time,
and uh, I I had. I'm busy, man, I'm much
busier now than I was. In fact, I don't have
time to make a record as that. I've been trying

(21:48):
to make a record and I have to do it
in little dribs and drabs and starts and stops, and uh,
it's it to try and get into a flow is
really really hard. Was there was there? And I'm not
assuming there was? What there a spot your career where
you sprehen you go. This is it, man, we we
this is the top. That happens very seldom, but it
did happen. There was a period of a very small

(22:08):
period of time in where we did we are the
world I played, I reopened the Apollo Theater with the Temptations,
uh live aid and uh just we'll just use those
three things all within a month and a half. And
I remember thinking to myself, Okay, I I feel like
I'm here. I'm doing something right now that I know

(22:31):
is a significant thing and I'm experiencing it. I'm I'm
here now, be here now. Yes, that's that's one of
the few times that's ever happened. So take me through,
just just in a shorthand what the tour is like?
Concluded the evening the show. Is there a prep you do?
Is there kind of a is there? Is there a
vocal thing you do? You know, talk all day and something.
What I do is I lay in bed all day, rest,

(22:55):
I just read all day, hang out, don't do anything
uh about Oh late afternoon, I might power it up.
And then I wake up and drink a whole shipload
of tea green tea to really wake myself up. It's
all this preparation towards this crescendo. And then I get
to a gig, never more than an hour before the show,

(23:18):
put on my meg up, talk to the band, laugh
with the band, have a couple of drinks, hit the stage,
and uh, that's that's the sand all the time, same band.
Much rehearsals involved with you guys, not much. We've been
together a long time. We know, we really seldom were
Most of the work you do touring now was with
John or uh no, most of us with Johnson. John.

(23:39):
I do do the occasional solo stuff, but no, it's
mostly with John these days right now anyway, And is
scheduling between the two of you, is it easy? You
both through in the same kind of groop, you know,
when you want to go out, time of year you
want to go. We worked this out. We both like
the same kind of touring schedule. We're very still, very
much the same when it comes to that. Yeah, yeah,

(24:01):
we we have a good relationship. John and I do
my TV show. That's that's something else. How the hell
do you get people to come to a house and
upstate New York? You tell me, man, it's the people
you've had. It's one of the most gratifying things every
in my life that I could get Smokey Robinson to
come to a MENI in New York up there, which
is twenty miles north of here, take time off his

(24:23):
schedule art to come and do it. He was one
of the first ones whose idea was it to do
this thing mine? And how did it start? I just thought,
let's just turn everything upside down, you know, instead of
me and studio there, yeah, and every everything is opposite.
Instead of me going around the world, I bring the
world to me. There is no audience, and all these
people would just come and I only had this internet show.

(24:48):
It was. It was very small, nobody knew about it,
but these people were coming from all over the world
to do this. Then it caught on and then it
became a little easier to book. But still, do you
release the recordings of the can be or it only
lives because because otherwise you'd do would pay them and
pay rights to them. Well, one thing people don't realize
is how expensive the show is because of clearances. We

(25:09):
had such a hard time with that over the years,
especially in the beginning. Once we established it. Then it
was sort of okay, but it was really really difficult
because I was in there, you know, totally innocent. I said, Okay,
this is promotion for the record companies, promotion for the artists.
Why should they not want this? But they were looking
at it like we were napster, you know, like we
were taking money out of their pockets. And I was like,

(25:30):
what money am I taking out of your pocket? I'm
helping you. I'm giving you free promotion. But forget about it.
We had to deal with lawyers, we had to deal
with record people, we had to deal with managers, and
everybody wanted their thing, and the clearances. It became so
high cost. It's a very it's a very hard show
to put. You haven't kind of record of it. You
haven't kind God, that would be so hard to do.

(25:52):
It would be almost impossible because so many people would
have to get things. But everybody's publisher would have to
get something, every artist, every label, and oh my god,
but guess my idea that I have for you? I
have an idea I want I want to produce with you.
I guess my idea for you wasn't gonna fly? What
would that be my one having seen the Springsteen thing,
what a phenomenon that was. And my idea for you
was to do at Darryll's house on Broadway. You're on

(26:14):
the Broadway and for one week, each artist comes on
and plays a whole week of shows with you, and
every week it changes it's another group, and you do
one on broad Well. That would be doable. Okay, here
here's our Broadway story. We we've been spending five years.
We got to the point where this guy uh was
was writing a book, the guy that did Rock of Ages,

(26:35):
Chris Derenzo. Somebody's thrown down a shipload of money. And
we read Chris's book and everybody thinks it sucks. So
we're back to square one after five years. So I'm
ready for I'm ready for new ideas. You're welcome, Thank you.
That is a good idea. You're you're making a fuck
with a lot of work for me, though I know
you don't want to work as you want to flip houses.

(26:56):
I hate Broadway, man, that you gotta play all those
days and two days and one is there? Eh. Well,
let's see. Let's say about the public over on that show.
There's some people I see who come there and they
really kind of rise to the occasion. Yes, you almost.
Somebody who I know a little bit I worked with
them years ago is Kevin Bacon. And I've always had

(27:17):
Kevin peg to somebody who's as cool as a cucumber.
And yet even Kevin, when he's singing with his brother
When the Morning Comes, you can almost see a piece
of Kevin, there's a little glint of it. Was like,
I can't believe I'm singing When the Morning Comes with
Darryl Hall. That was a fun show. I mean, Kevin
lives near here, and uh, I've known Kevin outside of
this stuff. But there's two different kinds of people. There's

(27:38):
brand new people who are looking at me like they
have to get over that, you know, and and you
know what I mean, some of these people just had
their first record and they can't believe they have to
like do this stuff on their feet. They're not used
to it, and to see them rise to the occasion
blows me away. I just I feel very uh but

(28:00):
hurdle about him, I guess that's the right word. And
then there's the veterans who are used to doing things
their own way and used to do in these arrangements
they've been doing for thirty years and forty years. Kenyans, well,
there's there's a perfect one. In fact, I had to
call him out on the show about him, you can
see that because he was trying to make it into
the like his live show, and I said, no, no,
this is Darryl Sas, this is forget it, Kenny, let's

(28:23):
do it this, let's not do it. You know what
you've been doing. Change is a good thing. Change is good.
Change is good, And it's funny to see the veteran
artists adapt to this, Like on the spot, there are
brains are going like this. It's fun Talk to me
about flipping houses or what's your term for restoration? Uh,
losing a whole lot of money on houses? Tax WRITEX no,

(28:43):
I wish no. My other personality is totally immersed in history,
and I grew up in old houses. I grew up
with a family of people who worked on old houses
and lived in old houses. You know, outside of Philadelphia
it's you know, stark, I lived in a valley forge
for dad's sake, you know. I grew up in those
kind of houses, seventeen hundred houses and everything. I used
to go on job sites with my grandfather, who used

(29:03):
was a stonemason and a brick person, used to restore
old chimneys and do all that kind of thing and
actually build houses too, And so I would watch the
construction of these things, and I was very I don't know,
I really really liked that world because it's it's not
that dissimilar to music in some strange way. It's making
something out of nothing. It's you know that that whole

(29:24):
old saw about architectures frozen music. What's the first project
you did in that regard other than the apartment with
John Well? Now, yeah, that was a whole house. That
was the first one. This house was was taken over
by people who I guess just I don't even know
what it was. They ruined, they basically gutted the house.
But it was a house from about eighteen hundred and uh.

(29:44):
It was one of those small Philadelphia houses that they
call them Father's Son Holy Ghost houses because there's three
rooms on three floors. It's a very typical small house
in Philly. We were faced with the shell of this house,
so I basically got in there and started renovating it,
and we did. We renovated it. I don't know how
much John had to do with it, although he like
he likes this kind of thing as well. He actually

(30:06):
became a general contractor when he built his house. He
went to school for it. But he doesn't do historic houses.
My thing is is historic houses and how many have
you done? I've done that when I've done too in England.
So if you're restoring houses in England, you're living over there.
Oh yeah, Why I live in England as much as
love in America? Do you really outside of London? I
live in Why? I don't know. I have something. I

(30:28):
have family there. Well, my family is partly from England,
but also I had a British wife and British kids. Now,
how many kids do you have? I have to And
they were in England once in London, and one was
just it wasn't in Charleston's, South Carolina with me for
a while, and she's now moved to l a anybody
in the music business. The two kids, both of them,

(30:50):
they're both they the one of them work with you. Yeah,
March my daughter. She's a really good musician. We wrote
a song a week ago. You're not married now, but
wasn't one of your wives your partners in the restoration
of the houses. Amanda, she's unfortunately gone. She died almost
a year ago. But I'm sorry to hear that. Yeah, well, yeah,

(31:11):
she was. I did a lot of interior design things
like that, so we we worked on. There was a
good partner for that. She was really good about that. Yeah.
We there's a house about three miles from here that
that we worked on. Now I'm finishing it. So do
you own all your publishing? You have all your publishing? No.
I I was very stupid, like many people are over

(31:32):
the years. But I let's just say at the end,
I own my publishy, right. That's a tough reality for
some people, wasn't I I was so stupid. I can't
believe it. I didn't. I didn't know. I didn't know
what it meant. I didn't know that it meant everything right, right?
And when you would write songs, you told me that
you and he it was it was more he'd do
his thing, you do your thing. I mean, truthfully, I've

(31:54):
written the bulk of the songs. I mean I noticed
him when I read this. Yeah, but also a lot
of the stuff, A lot of the if you look
at songwriting credits, a lot of the were very haphazardly attributed,
you know, but we did. I mean, and that's not
to denigrate what we've done together for sure. Do you
have any connection now currently to Philadelphia and then in

(32:17):
that area back there? I have a familial connection my
most of my family got there in the early sevent
undreds have never left. There's no Darryl Hall scholarship, but
there there's I do have. I do have a star
on Broad Street. I got that and every year John
and I do a festival. It's the like called Ogi Nation.

(32:40):
It's literally good when is that? What time of year?
Memorial Day weekend. It's a region that's defined by it's
a fast food It's New York without the ego. It's
so elegant, and there's so much to do and see there.
I love. Philadelphia is a very special place. Yeah, let
me just finish with this, which is why do you
think it is that you can sing the way that
you can. It has to do with how your brain works.

(33:03):
You know. I'm a very spontaneous singer. I'm a very
free singer. And you don't know where you're gonna go. Man.
Once It's it's not intellectual, it's there is no thought involved.
It's total spontaneity. I'm just a bird. It's opening my
mouth and sharpen away. And I've been lucky enough to
be blessed with the physiology to pull that off. Singer

(33:25):
and songwriter Darryl Hall. To hear the full episode of
this conversation, go to Here's the Thing dot org. Danny
Bennett has spent the past thirty years managing the career
of his father, Tony Pennett. Danny helped introduce his father
to a younger generation of fans through appearances on MTV,

(33:48):
sn Now and The Simpsons. He also hatched the idea
for a series of best selling duets albums, which feature
Tony Bennett with the likes of Lady Gaga, Billy Joe,
arbra streisand at Amy Winehouse. Danny produced a documentary called
The Zen of Bennett, which follows his dad throughout the
recording of the Duets to album. I was born in

(34:12):
the Bronx, raised in Englewood, New Jersey, and you grew
up in the Bronx to you were how old? No,
just like you know, like two weeks quickly and then
you guys went to Englewood Englewood, New Jersey. Englewood was
an amazing place. It's it's literally fifteen minutes from midtown,
right across the George Washington Bridge. And I was born
in Ninette now, and it was a very exciting time.

(34:32):
You had um a lot of artists from kind of
the show biz thing. There was Tony, there was Dick Shawn,
Joey Bishop, Buddy Brackett. They were just right there because
they would just Tony would come and do his sessions
in the city at Columbia Studios, and then the jam
session would continue in my house. Uh So they were

(34:54):
just like, hey, let's go back to the house. He
had like a little studio. And when I say the basement,
it was you know, above round basement kind of thing.
You know. As a little kid, I'd wake up to
the streams of like you know, you know, count basing
and just amazing stuff. So when you were a kid,
I suppose most people would assume all those your childhood
memories of being a wash in music of that period, well,

(35:17):
you know it's I often say now, like I feel
like Forrest Gump. I mean, I don't know why I
had an appreciation for the moment as a kid, I
just did. It wasn't just music. Besides being able to
sit on the piano stool with Duke Ellington. I mean,
that's crazy. But I remember sitting on my dad's lap

(35:37):
at a political rally with JFK running for president, you know,
at the Teaneck Armory. He's sitting in back, there's Jack
Kennedy giving a speech, and I'm seeing all the placards,
you know. So it's like I'm always seeing the backside
of things, which is an interesting perspective because that it's
it's just that image burned in my brain. What was

(35:57):
like eight or nine years old. Yeah, yeah, yeah, And
so it's those kind of things, or Lewis Armstrong and
Carol Channing at the White House. You know, it's like,
what's that? Or so people who sang standards and sang
whether they were Broadway tunes or there were standards by
the Harold Arlens of the world and so forth. But

(36:18):
music for you, your personal music was dad going to
the studio with Count Basie and you had an electric
guitar nam and you were singing Strawberry Fields. Oh yeah.
I mean when I was ten years old, the Beatles
hit and that was it. For me and my brother,
who plays drums. Immediately, I found an old guitar in
my dad's closet and he's been trying to learn guitar
for a long time, so I grabbed He's gonna get

(36:40):
event No, he's gonna get it eventually, I'm telling you. Anyway,
it was like a guy nylon string guitar, and he
had a book of chords, one of those things, and
I just I was so obsest. I had to meet
were introducing the Beatles record and I put the needle
down and then like like go through the book and
just match the chord with the sound of the record. Oh,

(37:02):
it's a jeep chord, you know, It's like And that's
how I learned, you know, by year how to play
what was the name of your band, um Quacky Duck, right,
and so Cracky you and your brother and you have
Cracky Duck and you're how old? Um, well, were like sixteen, okay,
so you're teenagers like old garage bands or teenagers. And
then but at that same time, do you still have

(37:23):
like this kind of bicameral relationship with music. There's your
dad and his music, and that's the presence in your life.
And you have and you have a fondnest for it
of course and an appreciation for it. And then you're
playing Europe. Yeah, I mean some people don't if it's
Gerald that can cole Um, Lewis Armstrong. I mean, these
are royalty and huge influences on us. And then obviously,
you know, we all have our icons. You know, Tony

(37:46):
has got has his icons and and rightfully, so we're
gonna get to that. Yeah. Yeah, but but but you're there,
and what happens as you finished high school? Is there
a time that you put down your own musical? When
was well, I mean we were extremely serious about it,
you know, when it was like we you rehearsed on
the week. You know, it's like to school. We did it.

(38:07):
And then it's interesting because we were never kind of
into sports, and that's what we did at a very
early age. You know, we were doing like high school
dances and and and really, I gotta be honest with you,
I haven't learned much since then. You know, we learned
how to like, oh wait a minute, you know what
we're selling tickets? You know, I remember going you know,
the student union. You'd get paid two hundred bucks, which

(38:27):
was great in the sixties and there's a lot of money.
So we we we kind of made it on our own.
And the student unions go, um two and in Boxton,
and I'm like, understand, we're selling the tickets like to
this show. So I would go to the student unions
and go, hey, look, I'll tell you what. You know
what you guys are always on the line. You don't
know if you're gonna make any money. No, no guarantee,

(38:49):
we'll take a cut of the door. We'll take a
to you take twenty. And this is the high school.
And so they're going like, oh, you know that's cool, great, Yeah,
we don't have to worry when you get her ask kicked.
At the end of the night, I'm making bucks and
they're going win a minute, you know. So then I
just kind of like went from one school to another.

(39:10):
UM and he finished high school and where'd you go? Um?
We had to deal with Warner Brothers Records and used
to play Max's Kansas City and you know with I
mean Graham Parsons. I don't know if you know. He
was a good friend of ours. We toured with him,
and you know, we were like those who are our
heroes um at the time, and that's where I met
Bonnie and John Prine, and you know, I had this
kind of really extraordinary wealth because also his original tour

(39:34):
manager was a guy named d Anthony. He ended up
being the penultimate like rock manager and invented the Triumph
and of promoter Bill Graham, d Anthony and the agent
uh Frank Barcelona, and they brought all these artists in
from England and we spent I was raised at Fillmore.

(39:54):
We were kind of an art band. We played at
Max's with the Modern Lovers and the New York Dolls
and and we just said, let's come up with the
most ridiculous name we can possibly come up with, because
we thought the Beatles was kind of a ridiculous name, right,
so we were kind of making fun of that. So
we were serious about that, working built studios and did
that kind of thing, and it just got to a

(40:14):
point where you know, you know when you got it
and you know when you don't. I was always so
enamored by especially the people I worked with in other
writers in my band. I'd go like I was kind
of really good at like saying, wow, that's a great song.
And I found that that that was my real talent.
You know that's interesting. Yeah, and then when does one

(40:35):
day someone say, Danny, it's you. You're going to start
becoming involved in this ton inc Well, you know, it's interesting,
and it's happened in a day. Happens well kind of
And I can PenPoint when Tony kind of got on, like,
I wait a minute, he may know what's going on.
The Beatles for me was you know, I was obsessed

(40:55):
not only the art of it, but the you know,
the social aspect of it, the marking of it. Marketing
was fun. It wasn't a bad word, the balance between
art and commerce. It was very much about what this
n and Bennett is about. It's always been interesting to me.
The Beatles always thought the two minutes and forty seconds
that they had that was their canvas and how best

(41:17):
to make that work. I love that concept. I love
the constraints. Well, Tony always says there's free form. You
gotta learn form before you can be free, and there's
there's a lot to that. You know, they couldn't have
done Hey Jude without doing all those great songs that
boom there they are, don't for us get to the chorus.
But but still maintain the art. So moving into a

(41:38):
time when Tony was um again, we grew up around
the you know, it was just immersed. So you know,
the dinner table, the conversations were about what was happening
at Columbia Records. Oh my god, Clive Davis, he was,
you know, became president of Columbia, the first attorney. It
was a freaky thing. It was very tuned into that.
You know, Um Sinatra didn't make you there, any of

(42:00):
his daughters or his son, the his right hand men. Well,
that would have never happened. We don't wanta have to
go there, but your dad did. Yeah. Well he was
at a point where the thing at Columbia they tried
to you know, this happened to everyone, Sir Natra, Barbara
st You know, it was like, oh, you're gotta wing
the beetle speeds and sing Barbara Strice. And they tried

(42:21):
to get Barbara to sing Bob Dylan tunes. I mean
in nineteen sixty nine. I mean she's listening to Dylan
going like, what's this, you know, slowing in the winds.
The answer is belowing in the wind you know, brilliant idea.
That's a great one. Let's go again, Barbara. So anyway,

(42:42):
so Tony actually, you know, worked with Climb and he
did an album that was kind of like that thing
and it got physically sick. He said, he was like
regurgitating between takes. And so, well, that's a great story
that he tells about Clive Davis right um, where Duke
Yellington went in and said, you know, he thought he
was going in to get a raise and Clive Davis said, well,

(43:04):
I have some bad news for you. And he goes, uh,
what is it? And Clive said, well, we're gonna have
to drop you from the label. Ellington goes, well, why,
says well, you're not selling enough records, and Ellington goes, oh,
I guess I hadn't. I was mistaken. I thought I
was supposed to make the records and you were supposed
to sell them. It's great, that's my edict. Like, and

(43:25):
I've heard that story. That's every artist anxiety. That was
said to me, why do I hate making movies? And
I said, and I said, do you really hate making movies?
I said, well, maybe hates a strong word, but I said,
I'm very uncomfortable. They say why, I say, because you
just feel the hand of commerce at your throat every day,
every day. It's never free. It's really fun. It could

(43:45):
be challenging, but you just feel like every dime is bascunt.
So they wanted your dad to do what he couldn't do,
and he rebels against that, and he just kind of
like they gave him a big contract and he was like, no,
I don't do this. I want to start my own label. Now.
This is at a time when people weren't doing that.
I mean, you know, I mean, you know, Sinatra did

(44:06):
it with more Austin, but it was done more on
a you know, Warner Brothers thing um. And he found
Jack rawlins Um what the Allen's manager, and you know
a number of other people, great people to work with
him on on a label called Improv. This is where
he made the bell Evans records, you know, voice and piano.
Those records weren't being made at the time. And so

(44:28):
he came to me and talked to me about the
label and I said, oh, that's a great idea. I said,
you know, it's it's risky. And he said, well, what's
risky about it? And I said, well, it doesn't seem
like they have major distribution in this day and age,
independent distribution is great. You can do it internet. But
then it was a real challenge. I said, Columbia is

(44:49):
offering you to do a distribution deal, which is a
great you know, which is great that it's kind of like,
you know, they leave you alone. You can do what
you want to do. He had me go talk to
the guy who's running a company Buffalo. He said, we'll
go talk to him. Now, you know, I get the
long hair in a fringe jacket and I and I
go to this you know this got this hotel owner
in Buffalo. And I'm sitting there and he's like, what

(45:09):
is this about? And I started talking about the distributions.
It's great, da boom, And there's some other things about
the contract that I didn't like that I told him about,
you know, in terms of him kind of getting roped
into it. And this guy just rejected that whole notion.
So I went back to Tony and I just said, look,
I wouldn't do this. I think there's you know, no
improv records. Well no, he did it. And how long

(45:33):
did that last? It lasted like three years and they
failed because of the distribution. So he does improv records
and then because he can't get the records distributed exactly,
and so that's what I told him. He remembered that,
and then the label folded and then he was without
a contract. M Let's see, Alex, I would say three years.

(45:56):
Was that like four years? Um? Well, it's tough because
remember at the time, this is like around seventy eight. Okay,
Sinatra retired, BGS are number one, and streisand's doing duets
with the BGS. You know what I'm saying. Yeah, you
know what I'm saying. So like there's that he didn't
want to do it, and then he was in Vegas

(46:16):
and in those days, you were doing Vegas like you know,
the thirty two week thing and all that time stuff.
You know. He just called me up one day and
it was just like, I don't you know, I need
some help here. I don't know what to do. I
don't know where to go getting that a manager. Um.
He wanted to be able to do his art on
his terms. Um, And what was Vegas like for him? What? What? What?

(46:38):
What is that like for someone? Because I mean, you
always figure I remember reading Nick Tosh's book Dino about
Dean Martin. One of the one of the best biographies
I've ever and they talked about how Martin at one
point in the sixties I believe was the highest paid
entertainer in the world because he had the he touched
every base, he touched all four bay Is, he had

(47:00):
a television show, he had a recording contract, he started
in films, and he appeared live in Vegas in another concerts,
and he was making millions and millions of dollars back then.
And I was wondering for someone like your dad where
I'm not going to say that I actually I don't
know what Vegas exemplified back then, like for an actor.
Was that like being on a game show or no, no,

(47:21):
no no, But I mean the idea that you know,
this is where they cut their teeth, the lounges, you know,
Louis Prima in the lounge, you had Fredis Stare and
Carry Grant going to see Sinatra and then going to
the lounge, you know, and this is where the audience
was like, you know, and Tony makes a good point.

(47:42):
These people, we didn't have access to these people except
the big screen, and all of a sudden, there they
are sitting there watching Louis Prima rubbing shoulders with with
Sinatra and Jerry Grant and whatever. This was magic and
for for again, for Tony. You gotta remember, Tony ten
years younger than all these guys. These are his idols,

(48:04):
you know, Sonatra calling him the kid, you know um,
And there he is with them all spread a stair.
I mean, like I was, it was a salon so so,
and nobody messed around for the very you know, for
the obvious reasons. And then you got into kind of
this this evolution where you know, the Suma Corporation and
Howard Hughes took over, and like I had to negotiate

(48:26):
with like Howard Hughes and these cowboys. It was really interesting.
It was amazing, you know. I mean, like and this
is where I like telling when I first started working,
and like you know Howard uses on the top of
the desert end. I mean, I know he's up there.
And so there was like, you know this guy named Lenny,
you know that he'd go in with me to negotiate
the contract. And Lenny get on his hands and knees.

(48:50):
I'm going seriously, and I'm going, what are you doing?
And like get off your knees, I'm not gonna get
on my knees and big for a contract. I'm just
not going to do it, you know. And the guy,
it's just sad. Down. You get down on your knee.
This is how it works here in Vegas. We get
on a niece for Mr Hughes. Yeah, and he's got
the big the guys behind the desk with a big
cowboy hat. And I'm like, oh my god. So I

(49:11):
go to Tony and and here's a very interesting thing.
I'm sitting outside the desert and just like you know,
I'm in a bench. Some dude comes and sits next
to me, an older guy, and he's grumbling. And I
turned around and he's like, I'm never coming back to
Vegas again. Right, he's doing that kind of thing. I'm like,
what's up. I don't know. You know. They used to

(49:32):
fly me out here. And he's a bad he's a
drop fifty grand of pop. But but man, did they
make me feel good about losing my money? The shows.
The girls like that he's doing this. He goes, they
take it all away. Now, they don't want to know me.
He say, says, I'm never coming back again. And I
had an epiphany. I was like, we gotta get out
of this town. It's going down. So I went to
Tony and I said to him, here's the gig. You

(49:55):
gotta get out of this town. I know this is
like this is what you go where? And I said,
you go to the people. We're gonna go to colleges.
What year. This is the point in which you kind
of climb into the cockpit with this guy who's this legend,
and you're twenty five years old. I wonder what you're
teaching me. And the conversation is that from the beginning

(50:18):
you were just saturated and inundated and interested naturally, not
just in on a creative level, but on a business
level as well, and on a technical level. Growing up,
as you know, in that environment where kids were befriending
me because the parents knew that if they befriended me,
maybe they could have dinner with Tony at the thing,
I developed an early sense of like cutting through the crap.

(50:40):
You know. It's like I knew who my friends were
and who they weren't. I could tell right away. So
I had this epiphany and I said, you know what,
I'm going to run him for president. I'm gonna treat
his campaign, and I love history too, so I do
love and I'm like, I'm gonna run. I'm gonna do
this like I'm running for president. And I went to
him and I said, you know, residence would not go

(51:01):
to Iowa if they didn't have to go to Iowa.
And and and you know, shake the hands, I go
instead of having people come to you in Vegas. I said,
your music transcends, right, and you can't do this with everybody.
And and I have an appreciation. You know, I watched
Tony when you know how many times have seen this show.

(51:21):
He's reinventing himself. He's really kicking ass. I mean in
terms of like taking chances. That's really rock and roll.
He's taking chances. You know, the Rolling Stones are getting older,
not really taking chance anyway. And there's Tony what he
calls moving the furniture around, and unlike people just got
to see this. There's a transcendent quality in great art that,
like he says, defies demographics. Danny Bennett on his father

(51:48):
Tony Bennett. If you're enjoying this conversation, be sure to
follow Here's the thing on the I Heart radio app,
Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts when he come back.
Danny Bennett talks about Tony bennett MTV Unplugged album. I'm

(52:21):
Alec Baldwin and this is Here's the thing. When you
have a career as long lasting and successful as Tony Bennett's,
it's helpful to have people around who you can trust.
And Danny Bennett says his father respected his opinion from
a very young age. It's interesting because we never related
that way, so he kind of always related to me

(52:43):
as an adult, Danny, I want to talk to you, son.
I don't want you to be my son anymore. I
want you to be my account. He treated you like
you were It was kind of like you were a business.
And so he would produce a partner. At the age
of twelve. He would come to me and go like,
I don't know, I got this thing about the dog.
What do you think he didn't delineate and you know

(53:06):
what I mean. You know, it's like I guess, you know,
at the turn of the century, kids at twelve and thirteen,
we're working the fields, you know what I mean, And
like they were doing off rebility. Yeah, and and I
think a lot of that this was working in the
fields for here. This is working in the fields. You know.
It wasn't like go throw a baseball in the track
and you know, celebrity. We couldn't go to the zoo.

(53:26):
It was impossible. I mean, he took me to one movie,
Planet of the Apes. I remember one movie, and that's okay.
Danny would never go to the movies together again. I'm sorry.
I love his son, but I'm gonna build a theater
out there in Englewood exactly, and I wanna watch the
movies with Count Basie every Friday night. And then that's
that's that, you know. But I always dug the fact that,
like I got to go to the Copa comanda. You know.

(53:49):
So the eighties go by and you're in this phase
where you're gonna build our PM, you're gonna build his
your company, You're gonna do what you want to do
your way. But when did you know it was gonna work?
We I mean, I don't mean to be corny and
cinematic about it, but are you standing there one night
in the wings and he's out there and you go,
it's working. No, I'll tell you what it was. Bob

(54:11):
Guccioni Jr. I was the editor of Spin magazine and
I was reading it. They were interviewing him in his
own magazine and asked him what he thought was the
most influential thing about rock and roll. People in rock
and roll. He said two people, James Brown and Tony Bennett.
And I was like, that's wow, man, James Brown and
Tony Bennett. And this is Spin magazine, you know, it's

(54:32):
like the pick season of it. And then I went
on to read the guys like, well, why oh you
understand James Brown? Why Tony Bennett? He said, because he's
always taking chances. It's like what I said, and this
is what I was thinking about Tony. I'm picking up
he's picking up this vibe and Tony, you know, it's
like you know, I I say, Tony never sings the
same thing once he's he doesn't. He calls it moving
to furniture around. He doesn't know. There's no such thing

(54:54):
as complacency. And now we're watching are you know the
big Idols kind of good corporate, you know, with stones
and doing that thing, and they're they're like cookies cutter
and and uh, Bob Gucciani is talking about this being like,
you know, the guy's an innovator. So I called him up.
It led to kind of the you know, they would
do these these fashion spreads, and I said, why don't

(55:16):
we do something with the Chili Peppers and Tony and
we could have fun with it. So we did a
show at the hard Rock Cafe in l A with
the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Tony. The Chili Peppers
were punk at that time, right before Rick ruming Um.
And I said that in a compliment, an observational, in
a musicological but they went. They did a good job.

(55:38):
From there, it was just kind of like, wait a minute.
You know it was a snob because your father is
a snob, but you're a father a snob a snob
that was um. So then I'm like, well, you know what, um.
I was managing some other bands at that time in Boston. Uh.

(56:00):
And then so like I kind of got into this
notion like they were the alternative rock stations and they
did these college rock radio shows like RFK stadiums with
nine inch Nails and Da Dada. So I was like, gee,
I wonder if, like I pitched them, you know about
Tony being on the bill, if this would be novel
enough for them, And I pitched it or down at

(56:22):
Washington d C RFK Stadium and there's Tony where RFK
six kids, it's p J Harvey. He's going on between
p J Harvey and nine inch Snails Trent Res and
what happened? Well, Tony st you're looking at He goes,
can I see something? And he goes, would Frank do this?

(56:46):
And I said nope, and that's why you're doing it?
And he goes, Okay, I get it, and he goes
out kills kills. I mean, and we were all you
gotta take answers, you know, like we don't take chances anymore.
And he kills. They're gonna dig it and they wouldn't

(57:07):
let him off the stage, just this trio. Look, I
consider myself a dragon slayer for Tony. He calls me
up once a month. I swear to God, says, you
know what, I just want to thank you once again
that I never have to talk to another record executive
in my entire life. I helped him unblocked the artistic channel.
So I consider myself a you know, a dragon slayer
as far as that's concerned. And and I think that

(57:29):
that that's my That's what I'm proudest of as far
as that's concerned, you know. So you go through this
period the eighties and the nineties, and then we did them,
but then like out of because those concerts I said,
I'm doing, I'm doing L A. K. Rock, I'm doing
So I did like five of these things. Then he
comes into me and he goes, you know, and now

(57:52):
I'll do Tony. You know, I was watching um MTV.
I think I can do really well on TV, and
then just walks out of my office and I'm like, okay,
I'll get well, you know another you know, but that's
Tony Man. Why not? I got it? Well Tony spelled backwards,
is what? Why not? That's what I say. Anyway, So

(58:13):
then it was kind of like, well, how am I
gonna do this? You know, Jon Stewart had a new show.
They didn't really have artists. I said, put Tony on
this on Stewart Show, and I kind of sold that
idea and Doug Her talk now as a comedy Central
um at the time, and it was like, you know,
that could be interesting, and this is around eighty eight now.

(58:35):
They dug it, so they put him on then and
then it was like then I'm kind of how did
he feel he's cool. Here, here's your father, who, like
any artist with a career that last decades, technological advance
and change becomes another mountain for him to climb. And
now he's on a television music channel. Here's the thing,
it's the audience. His audiences were getting older, and when

(59:00):
we were in front of that young audience, it's up here.
And then he became twenty years sols a gun. I
watched him. You know, he just rises to the occasion
from that audience. Since we doesn't like to do arenas
and things that he feeds off of that. And here's
the deal. So it was like they came and it

(59:20):
was like, you know, we got unplugged. Um, i'd be
interesting to do unhugged. So I was like, yeah, fantastic.
So seriously, man, got all the MTV people, all the
record people, and they started going great, you know, we
got this is gonna be fantastic. Tony's gonna sing Within
and Without You Abano song and like Runaway Train and

(59:40):
and I was like whoa. I said, you know what, guys,
I really appreciate this, but this is this is a
train wreck, never gonna happen. And I walked up and
then they said, well, come back, and what are you
talking about. I said, listen, you guys are MTV. This
was in the day of MTV. I said, you guys
got balls. That's that. You know, there's no what's gonna
take balls is to do Tony's music and have them

(01:00:02):
sing Tony's music. And I said, that's balls. That's MTV.
Whose idea was the duets album? I mean, you know
it's not It wasn't an original idea what I'm saying,
but I thought that those are very complicated things to do.
The point pain in the as. Yeah, you know, you
had Sinatra and then you had um Ray Charles. I mean,

(01:00:23):
he's so fifteen million records. Um pretty good idea, you know.
So I'm like, you know, how do I go and
reinvent Tony? You know? And then we went on with
MTV to win Album of the Year with the Grammy's
got a lot of people upset, and I was like,
what's going on with that? But when you look at it,
you know, Alec, it's like he herald it. In the
iPod generation, you can listen to Tony and Billie Holliday

(01:00:45):
and also listen to Pearl jam and you know it
didn't matter, so kids started opening up to that. He's
you know, I give him a lot of credit for that.
Your father has you in his corner obviously for many
many years now. His own son is flesh and blood.
He has a wife, your stepmother, who is obviously is
omnipresent and around all the time with him. He's got

(01:01:08):
two people who are taking good care of him, and
he's getting on in years. And then my and my
brother has been producing his records, and your brothers and
I'm assuming that a lot of it is you've got
to take as much stress of him as possible because
because because he's working a full schedule. Yeah, well and
he's eighty what years old, he's gonna be eighty seven,
he's still going well. I mean a lot of people
don't look at me and go like, what are you doing?
You leave him? Leave him be? And then they do,

(01:01:31):
oh yeah, and I'm like, it's not me. I mean, seriously,
I'm very you know, conscientious of his a. The guy
doesn't like to take elevators. He takes he doesn't like
to take escalators. We go to airports, he's up the stairs.
He's the first one keeping up with him is a
challenge and out in the time. My thanks to Darryl

(01:02:12):
Hall and Danny Bennett. I'm Alec Baldwin. Here's the Thing
is brought to you by iHeart radioh