February 26, 2020 • 71 mins
Legendary singer/songwriter James Taylor drops by to talk about his life and extraordinary body of work.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. Here we Go,
Suprema Some Supremo.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Roll called Suprema Supremo, Roll call Suprema Supremo, Roll Suprema Supreme.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
Roll call.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
It's ladies night. Yeah, let's celebrate. Yeah, get down on it.
Speaker 4 (00:28):
Yeah, Wron James Taylor Supreme Supremo, Role called Suprema So Supreme.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Roll call.
Speaker 5 (00:38):
My name is Sugar. Yeah, I'm the engineer. Yeah, and
I love great music. Yeah, that's why I'm here.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Supreme Supremo. Roll Supreme Supremo.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
Roll call. My name's Boss Bill.
Speaker 6 (00:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
And I ain't no sucker. Yeah, what are we doing?
Roll call Brother Trucker, Supremo.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Supremo, Roll Suprema So Supremo.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
Roll call It's like yeah.
Speaker 7 (01:12):
And James Taylor, Yeah, I ain't no lame, no fine range,
roll call Supremo, Son Sun Supremo.
Speaker 6 (01:25):
Roll I'm James. Yeah, I came up here today. I
guess I'm here for you. I'm ready, suprem.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
We'll take it. Supremo. Roll call Sprema, Roll.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Supremo, roll call Suprema Sun Supremo, Roll call Suprema Supremo.
Speaker 7 (01:49):
Roll call.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
Nice. All right, we got through that.
Speaker 6 (01:56):
Just barely know.
Speaker 4 (01:58):
Ladies and gentlemen, we have less than an hour to
unravel the complex artistry of over fifty years. That is
our guest today and probably one of my favorite singers ever.
I'll just say on a personal note to be selfish
on the show that has my name in it, James
(02:21):
Taylor is. His voice, in my opinion, is probably hands down.
I believe one of the most beautiful, soothing, warm sounds
that I can recall. It's kind of my trusted blanket,
you know. It's a favorite uncle, my favorite teacher in school.
(02:46):
And yeah, this is coming from a guy who also
thinks that HR from Bad Brains is equally as soothing.
Speaker 6 (02:56):
I'm sorry, but I'm gonna take it as a compliment.
Speaker 4 (02:59):
Yeah, James sale in hr Man, I'll be the first
to admit that, Well, one, I'm probably the only media
personality that doesn't care if that song was about you.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
She's already said that it wasn't about him. Well, I know,
I know, but you.
Speaker 4 (03:21):
Know, mainly mainly mainly because I think I pegged it
in my head. With a voice that soothing, I'd never
bothered to even look under the hood. I don't know
if I subconsciously didn't want to look under the hood
because it's just like that's my trusted blanket. And in
the week and a half of preparation that I decided
(03:43):
to search under the James Taylor hood.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
Yikes, I was wrong.
Speaker 4 (03:51):
And you know, his his newest book Breakshot, or his
audiobook Breakshot Audible. Yes on Audible Exclusive. So it's a
must be for us an here for every artist I
ever worked with. This is literally like I'm not even
separating myself. It's probably I needed this too. It dissects
(04:12):
the first twenty one years of his life and which
is kind of an understatement to say, is a rather
dark journey which now really has me to the point
where I'm just obsessed with entertainers or comedians or actors
or whoever that managed to ruise me in a way,
(04:34):
in a way of like ladies and gentlemen, James Tayale
is here.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
Everyone's looking at each other.
Speaker 4 (04:39):
Like, yeah, man, it's like we got We've only got you.
We got fifty one minutes left his voice. Thank you
for coming on the show. You know, you know the
special this is Zarah is here. Yeah, and it's not
even a political figure thereah one of my managers only here.
Whenever someone's here.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
Discuss politics and Chris, it does it out, especially, you know,
if she's in the room watching how how are you?
Speaker 6 (05:08):
I'm good, I'm good. Yeah, you know, it's it's like
a We've got a couple of projects that are coming
out at the same time and a tour h starting
up in April, so you know, it's a very like
a it's a busy season, and it's it's kind of
a promotional season, you know, and where you take your
(05:32):
stuff to market. And that's always been you know, that's
always been a kind of a difficult passage for me.
Will you make a project you know over a in
this case, it took us a couple of years to
make this album, and uh, and then you take it
by its little hand and lead it into the marketplace,
(05:52):
you know, and and launch it. And that's that's always
sort of a can be a you know, a confusing process,
but but it's one that I've I've gotten used to.
And not only that, it's become much much better as
time has gone by. I'm talking to people almost completely
(06:14):
who I who I admire and and respect, and and
that makes all the difference.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
You know.
Speaker 6 (06:22):
I mean back in the beginning, you'd sort of go
to Rolling Stone and hope that some intern who is
interviewing you, you know, cutting your teeth on on your
your project and reviewing it, that that could be really
uh just just made it a daunting kind of a
(06:45):
process to get into. But but you know, I've been
feeling really good about this, this particular project and the
people I've met and talked to about it.
Speaker 4 (06:55):
So you're saying, even this late in the game, when
you create product, you still go through the process of
its critical reception. It's how it fares well with your
fan base and whatnot. You still have those.
Speaker 6 (07:18):
Absolutely, you know it. It's still a part of the work.
It's it's where you you know, music used to happen. Well,
it used to happen in the street, and it used
to happen in the in the on the farm. Uh.
But it used to happen in the church and in
(07:39):
the court, you know, those who are or in academia somehow,
you know. And I think that having music exists in
a commercial context where it's saleable, is a better choice.
That's better than the court or the church. In my opinion,
(08:01):
It's not better than essentially folk music, which is which
is sort of free, but it's definitely a step in
the right direction to have it to take it to
market in order to get people to hear it.
Speaker 4 (08:17):
So when you're in your formative years at least for
like your first five or six albums, are you obsessively
looking to see like do you take a Lester Bangs
seriously or even a Christa Gal Or I'm trying to
figure out, like who is the the pitchwork of his day,
(08:38):
like the the critic that or John.
Speaker 6 (08:42):
Landau, John Lando or Hillman out out in Los Angeles
or Robert Hillman.
Speaker 4 (08:46):
Yeah, yeah, so that that would mean something.
Speaker 6 (08:50):
To you, absolutely, I mean, just inas much as it
it either pushes the project along and gets it out
there for people to hear or it doesn't. That was
always the priority. In fact, I made such ruinous deals
and decisions early on, mostly due to bad advice, that
(09:14):
I never really saw records as a source of income.
They never were, so I always just looked at it
as a way to support touring and also as a
way to just get my thing out there, to get
my art out there.
Speaker 4 (09:29):
Well, that's weird to hear, because I thought I was
the only artist that was like, eh, record sales whatever,
like when we tore that's how I make my money.
And the records so were like the flyer that you advertise, Hey,
I'm coming to town, that sort of thing.
Speaker 6 (09:41):
Well, it's also the medium that we work in if
you're a recording artist, and I think that's something I've
gotten better at over time. I cringe when I listened
to my early stuff, but over time I've gotten better
at recording and gotten closer to what I hear in
my mind when I when I think about it too.
Speaker 4 (10:03):
I'm just curious what James Taylor album makes you. I
I I'm kind of concerned. I'm like, oh, please, don't
let it be one of my favorites.
Speaker 6 (10:12):
Ye.
Speaker 4 (10:12):
Yeah, I'm like like for you, like, what's what's your like?
Speaker 1 (10:16):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (10:17):
What what album that Every fan like, Oh my god,
oh my god, you're just like whatever.
Speaker 6 (10:22):
Well, the first one, the James the one.
Speaker 4 (10:26):
But even then, it's like, if I recall correctly, you've
spoken a few times that you know you were creating
that right when the Beatles were creating.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
The White Album. Yeah, White album, correct, So like whenever
the Beatles weren't tried in the studio.
Speaker 6 (10:42):
You were there, that's right, we were. They let you
race the board and just yeah, they did. I guess.
There weren't digital cameras in those days, so you you
you couldn't take a picture of it and expect to
have it the next day, right, a polaroid, I guess.
But no, I never actually thought about that. Man.
Speaker 4 (11:02):
Did you realize that you were in the eye of
probably the most celebrated creative storm in music history?
Speaker 6 (11:11):
I did. I was aware of that in a sort
of But you know, in those days, I really I lived,
you know, a day at a time, maybe a week
at a time. I just didn't I didn't really expand
beyond what was sort of in the room, you know
it all. Yes, it seemed surreal to to have been,
(11:36):
you know, a year prior to that, I'd been here
in New York and my band had failed, and I'd
sort of limped back to North Carolina to lick my wounds,
you know, and then lo and behold, a year later,
I'm auditioning for for Paul McCartney and George Harrison. So
it was on one lem level unbelievable. But you know,
(11:59):
I just accepted it as as what was happening now.
Speaker 4 (12:02):
You know, how did even worried about you get to
to Paul and George?
Speaker 1 (12:10):
Were you the first artist sign to? Yes, okay, I was.
Speaker 6 (12:13):
The first artist signed. And my lucky break was that
my main partner actually through most of my musical life
as man a guitarists from from New York, lives in
Los Angeles, now named named Danny Kortchmark, Cooch and Coach
had backed up Peter and Gordon, a sort of British
(12:36):
invasion group like Chad and Jeremy. They had had a
World Without Love was a song of Theirs and Knight
and Rusty Armor, you know, sort of a British novelty duo,
you know, very much British invasion sort of mold. But
and then the year after that, I had been in
(12:58):
the band with Coach here in New York. So I
called Coots after I got to London. I said, if
you still got a number for Peter Asher And it
turned just thinking that he might have some contacts in
the music business in London, And as it turned out,
he had just signed on his head of a n
R for this brand new label that the Beatles were starting,
(13:20):
Apple Records. So he was basically looking for people to sign,
and it couldn't have been it couldn't have been better timing.
It was just you know, it really threaded the needle
and the and the window was very short for you know.
I was signed, Billy Preston was signed, Mary Hopkins yeah,
(13:42):
m j Q. Yeah, Okay, that's amazing. I didn't realize
that a group called Bad Finger and a guy named
Jackie Lomax, but the five or six there seven acts
that were signed within the ten month period, that Apple
(14:04):
was actually open to other people. That's that is to say,
before Alan Klein came in and just shut it down.
It was I'm sure it was hemorrhaging money, but I'm
also sure that it was just a unique opportunity you
know too. And they gave me that that first chance.
(14:26):
So that's that's how I ended up. I got my
little demo reel to reel tape to Peter Asher. He
I played him a number of songs and and he said,
let's go up and and see if we can play
this for a beatle up.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
Up at uh. I love how casual that just comes right,
you know, It's like, yeah, let's just see if the beatles.
Speaker 6 (14:46):
Here and the way Peter remembers that the day we
went up to I got my guitar in my little
cardboard case and I follow him up to, uh, this
building in Baker Street in London where their temporary first
offices were in and he, uh sort of installs me
(15:07):
in a room and says, is there a beadle in
the house? Leans out into the hall.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
And that's amazing, that's amazing.
Speaker 6 (15:18):
And I say, I say it's as Peter remembers it,
because because I myself, the whole day is just like blur. Yeah,
I mean I was. I was like made for one
ten and plugged into two twenty. You know, it was
a totally total reference, totally shocked.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
You know.
Speaker 4 (15:36):
Well, okay, we brought up Peter Asher, who's such a
at least I consider it. I mean, would you say
that Asher is like one of the Mount Rushmore figures
of what I think of when I think of the
California sound or definitely that.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
So how what what is that description?
Speaker 4 (16:02):
Because if someone that's not familiar with your work, like
I don't know how your album's got in my household,
but they were there because and it wasn't like I mean,
now they have titles for it soft rock, yacht rock,
or whatever they want to call it.
Speaker 6 (16:23):
But yacht rock that's good, I know.
Speaker 4 (16:27):
Well, you know, it's made this sort of niche, comedic,
you know, reference comeback thing, but that's made it cool again,
like stuff that again a Lester bangs or a christa
gal like, I'm better than this type of whatever, Like
now it's worship and revered and those things. But how
(16:49):
did you and Peter like figure out this plan to
sort of is it folky?
Speaker 1 (16:55):
Is it country? Is it blues leaning? Is it you know?
Speaker 4 (17:01):
How would you describe the sound that you two molded
that I felt really defined the next ten years of
what pop music would be, the California sound if you will.
Speaker 6 (17:14):
Well, yeah, you know I was. I was just playing
on the guitar the songs that I'd written, and counting
on a a sort of community of players. Russ Kunkle
on the drums, coach guy named Lee Sclar playing the bass,
Carol King on the on the piano. I basically was,
(17:41):
but essentially I was counting on them to be, you know,
to do head arrangements of my guitar arrangements, you know,
so that you sort of pass it on to another musician,
usually a keyboard player. But basically you write out it
just a simple chord chart and pass it around and
(18:01):
count it off.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
You know.
Speaker 6 (18:03):
This strange thing about well, actually it's still the case
that often the time when the song is recorded for
posterity is the first time it's played. You know, that's
an odd thing that you don't, yeah, that you don't
get to or even the seventh take. But the point
is you haven't had a chance to tour it for
(18:23):
twenty performances and sort of you know, nail it down
and refine it. And I've always thought that would be
a good way to go.
Speaker 4 (18:33):
Okay, So the question I have about Sweet Baby James
is how do you have an active record deal and
you're still homeless, like, or at least I've heard you
mentioned a few times that for that first album you're
kind of just a nomad, like crashing on couches and
(18:57):
how like was money just not available back then, or
like how did you.
Speaker 6 (19:04):
Well enough money was you know, and I didn't have
a place to stay in Los Angeles, so Peter had
a house at the corner of Olympic and Highland, and
and you know, I just would crash there with at
Peter's house while while we were recording in Sunset Sound.
(19:25):
But I started building a house for myself in I
think in nineteen seventy two in the back in the
woods on Martha's Vineyard Island, where my family had sort
of fetched up because my folks had taken me there
and had taken all of us there in the summertime
from North Carolina. My mom was a you know, she
(19:49):
really was culture shocked by moving to North Carolina and
where my dad was worked with the University of North Carolina.
So she wanted to bring us up north every every
and try to keep our sort of Yankee roots to
the extent we could. And so my family all gravitated
(20:11):
towards that place as being the happiest place, you know,
and and we ended all ended up living there. But
your question was about being homeless. I suppose that it
was sort of rootless.
Speaker 4 (20:24):
Okay, right, no, no, no, yeah, let me clarify. It wasn't
like he was sleeping on the street cords like it
was all this guy out.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
But I don't know.
Speaker 4 (20:36):
In my mind, I just feel like there's a certain
level of comfort that one has to have, at least
I think in order to find their creative space. Where
I've been in a few situations in which if my
personal life is in shambles, that affects my creative output.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
And so am I.
Speaker 4 (21:01):
You know, to hear you hear describe that you were
crashing on couches and you didn't have a house. I'm
I'm wondering, like, is the the rest of the stress
of of of not having roots pun intended? Does that
affect your creative output or not?
Speaker 6 (21:20):
You know, I never thought about it, but I think
you're right. If I can think back to any two
particular creative periods, it's always been a sort of protected
period during the time that I'm that I'm writing, you know,
And I think you're right. I think it does take
that the songs for Sweet Baby James, that that first
(21:42):
Warner Brothers album, that which you'd you know, rightly describe
as sort of the the beginning of the California sound.
But you know, back to that question for a second,
you know, Peter, I and I didn't really discuss the sound.
We just, you know, as I said, I just introduced
(22:04):
the songs to these other players, and we played it
the way we heard it, you know, it and recorded it.
It really wasn't directed in any real sense other than
just the the you know, the sort of template the
form of my playing it on the guitar.
Speaker 4 (22:24):
Were you somewhat aware of what the marketplace was and
how somewhat different than the marketplace that you were that
this output was presenting itself. I'm not saying it was
radically radically different, but you know, I feel as though, you.
Speaker 6 (22:47):
Know, I definitely distanced myself and identified myself as being
apart from music business. You know, to me, music business
was still Dean Martin playing at the sands, you know
in Las Vegas. Well, in fact, Dean Martin was a
(23:07):
great singer and and and did some great songs, but
at the time we identified that as being another generation. Yeah,
that's right, sort of, so you want to avoid the
Kopa tensil Tensil town. Yeah, I swore I'd never play
Las Vegas. You know, we I got two Grammys. I
didn't show up.
Speaker 4 (23:28):
I said, ooh oh, even like, oh yeah, that's so funny,
and how each artist. Okay, I'm slowly discovering that every
clique or people that I would think were the establishment.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
They have their I'm sort of yeah, I'm above.
Speaker 4 (23:46):
That, which is weird because not like I see you
as the establishment, but even now you're saying like in
your way, like I'm rebelling against that.
Speaker 6 (23:55):
And we very much wanted to to distance our else
from it. And I mean we uh that's that was
the sense in the you know, the zeitgeist in the
in Los Angeles at the time was was that we
belonged to a different generation and uh, you know, a
(24:18):
sort of the sort of demographic bulge you know that
happened after the war, that baby boom bulge in the
population when it came to college age. It's sort of
it manifested in a way with with FM radio too.
It sort of started to and the Beatles and Dylan
(24:39):
and you know.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
I wanted to ask I'll let you give you a question.
Speaker 8 (24:42):
I wanted to I just want to say, hippies.
Speaker 4 (24:45):
But that's the thing though, But I feel coming into
the seventies, though, what I felt like there was this
sort of air at least with like with with Neil
Young's after the after the Gold Rush, that there was
this sole disillusionment with with all the lofty ideas of
(25:06):
what the hippies were trying to present in sixty seven
sixty eight. It was kind of a more of a
cynical thing, even though you didn't go that route, Like,
was this your response to it, like just to be.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
Establishment, like you know, I'm I'm a serious singer songwriter.
I'm not.
Speaker 6 (25:26):
Right. No. That was part of it too, is that
there was nothing serious about it. You know, it was
like it didn't have any pretensions. You know, Wow, was
was the was the idea? You know? I mean, yes,
I was judgmental of other music, but you know, I
realize now that to be judgment metal of Frank Sinatra
(25:49):
because he's he's my parents' generation, you know, is that's absurd?
And you know so, uh, you know, I've I've come
around to to understanding that that those I've got an
album coming out of a you know, American songbook type
tunes arranged for the guitar called called American Standard, which
(26:12):
is also the name of a toilet manufacturer.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
Is hate you for bringing that up?
Speaker 4 (26:24):
Next to the Beatles, I'll probably say that, Uh, soul
music interpretations of your songs are probably the most interesting.
That's really how I got to introduce to it. So
let me tonight. I was going to say my obsession
with Oscar Meyer. I mean I was three when three
(26:45):
plus three came out. I thought it was boloney. I
thought it was about lunch Ronaldsley, the way he announced it,
his word, don't let me bolooney?
Speaker 1 (27:01):
Yes, oh god, what did I say? Look, there's just.
Speaker 5 (27:07):
No one knows what bolooney is anymore, so they plant baseballoney.
Speaker 9 (27:15):
Look, we're not do not think that he was my
My whole point though, was were you aware at all
of how radical the soul music interpretations of your songs
(27:37):
were like?
Speaker 4 (27:38):
Because to me, even though yes, I love your version
of Fire and Rain, but the Isley Brothers have this
really notorious eight minute version of the.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
Song that.
Speaker 4 (27:52):
Almost wound up on every mixtape I've ever given a girl.
So and on top of that, are you rather chagrined
that for those that don't know the how the song
came to be and what it's about and how you
(28:13):
wrote it. How almost like Fire and Rain gets or
most of your songs get misinterpreted because we just want
to see it through our rose colored filter.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
This is just this mentioned.
Speaker 6 (28:40):
Ship.
Speaker 4 (28:42):
This is always the second song on every.
Speaker 6 (28:50):
It's like a minor to mature, Like, uh.
Speaker 4 (28:55):
Yeah, they won't even get to the lyrics until four
minutes in, Like they just stay here for it for.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
Like five minutes. But I was gonna say.
Speaker 4 (29:11):
The are you are you rather chagrined when people take
your songs and sort of have it for the wrong meanings,
Like I'm certain that it's been placed in movies, in
romantic songs. You're like, no, this is about friends suicide
and you know, all.
Speaker 6 (29:29):
Right, and drug recovery. Yeah it's it's true, and you know,
but but it's the emotional impact of the song that
really counts. And I think that that that's why that
that song resonated with people, because you know, and I
think that the line I always thought I'd see you again,
(29:51):
I think the islay said, right, that's basically the sort
of the emotional core of it.
Speaker 4 (29:57):
Like well, when I've seen it's always like someone rides
to the train station too late and the love of
their life already like left, or like at the the
the airport.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
Moment, like.
Speaker 3 (30:09):
Commercial TV.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
Yeah yeah, those two puppies, like.
Speaker 6 (30:17):
Yeah, yeah, no, it is it's it's it's an emotional package,
I think, and uh, and it that's what comes through
more than the you know, the literal reading of the song,
I think, and that's but that's the nature of music.
You we don't get to decide about it. It's not
a cerebral process. It either connects with us or it doesn't.
(30:40):
And and to a certain extent to talk about it,
although I talk about it a lot and think about
it a lot. But but that's sort of you know,
after the fact. I mean the music either, you know,
because it's a real thing. It's it's not you know,
words are all words represent something else. But the only
(31:01):
word that is the thing that it represents is the
word word wow.
Speaker 8 (31:07):
Words of wisdom, time to get something.
Speaker 6 (31:15):
Well so so, you know, so so we we put
words together to to describe all kinds of things, the world,
the universe. But but music, although it's like a language,
we we manipulate it like a language and we use
it for it definitely has emotional I'm not sure if
(31:36):
they're culturally you know, established, or if they're if if
everyone in the world here is a minor chord the
same way as opposed to a major chord, or you know,
but I do think that there's a reality to it
because it follows the laws of physics, you know, an
octave is twice the frequency of the octave below it,
and and half of the one above it, and and
(31:59):
and that the overtone series is a real thing that exists,
and so music has its base, and it's based in
a real truth, you know, and and not one that
we have to arrive at a consensus about. And that
way it hits us directly, and and that you know
that means that it you know, the cliche the universal language,
(32:22):
but you know it, Uh, you know that's that's we
were talking about people misinterpreting lyrics and and and I
don't think they really do. I think that, you know,
the way a song hits you is probably what it
actually has.
Speaker 1 (32:43):
To find a common emotion. So do you feel as
though your.
Speaker 4 (32:48):
Your voice Okay, now now I'm gonna feel like Chris
Farley asking this. Your voice is really cool man, but
you're just just your The tone and the sound of
your voice is such a warm gift. Uh, that could
(33:14):
possibly I mean, I'm certain that you could sing in
her stand in by by Metallica, by Metallica, and it
would just be the best feeling in the world.
Speaker 1 (33:26):
Yeah, how did you?
Speaker 4 (33:28):
I know the answer is going to be like, well,
I've had this voice, and there's a gift from God
or whatever. People people always say to avoid the question,
but how did you develop your voice or what made
you sing? And I guess you're a lower register like
it's it's it's a rare thing to have that much
impact under a tenor.
Speaker 6 (33:51):
You know, that's a really good point. I've never you know,
you're the first person I've ever spoken to who's who's
actually put it that way. And I totally agree, I totally,
I totally agree. You know. The way I look at
it is if if you if you have the guitar
as your instrument, you know, to sing down in the
(34:14):
same range as the guitar itself is like it's muddy,
you know, it's you. You really wish you could get
above it. But I just don't have that that range.
I can't get above a you know, literally above an F.
Speaker 3 (34:27):
You know, like and what was the story that I
read about that you injured your voice because you were
singing too harshly years and years ago? How does what
is singing too harshly sound?
Speaker 1 (34:37):
Like, let's not make them, you know, to sing harshly
like what yeah.
Speaker 6 (34:45):
No, it's uh uh, it's I was just singing in
a club. Uh you know, six days a week, five shows,
a night over, a li out, banned without any monitors
and and eventually I just I got to you know,
(35:05):
you get little blisters. I guess it's you.
Speaker 3 (35:08):
So what did you learn as a singer in a
way to learn how to take care of your voice?
Speaker 6 (35:13):
That you did? It took a long time, and now
I find that as I get older, you know, you
you use it or you lose it. So I I
exercise my voice every day. That's Tony Bennett told me that.
Speaker 1 (35:28):
Yeah, so you do warm ups?
Speaker 6 (35:30):
Yeah, well actually.
Speaker 1 (35:32):
Like the seth Riggs variety, Like.
Speaker 6 (35:36):
Right, yeah, I do, and but they're not warm ups.
They're actually like a workout. It's a it's an hour
long process and I do it every day.
Speaker 4 (35:47):
Really okay, So I guess yeah, if you're working that,
you're working out.
Speaker 6 (35:53):
Like a trumpet player and you know his chops, his
his armbro sure and his you know you got to
keep it going or.
Speaker 4 (36:01):
So okay, Can I ask what your daily workout is,
like what time do you wake up in the morning
and do you set time to create like at six
am when everyone's asleep.
Speaker 1 (36:13):
Do you ride at three in the morning when everyone's asleep, or.
Speaker 6 (36:16):
I guess it's just that entertainment tainer's hours. I don't
know what what's it like for you? When do you
wake up? When do you wake up in the day?
Speaker 1 (36:26):
Shut up?
Speaker 4 (36:28):
First of all, Okay, as of this speaking, As as
of this talking, I'm in a relationship with someone who
absolutely insists I sleep eight to ten hours every night.
Speaker 1 (36:46):
So he used to sleep three hours a night. Right.
I used to be one of those people that's very
proud to you know, whatever sleep sleep is death, right right.
I was one of those people.
Speaker 4 (36:55):
But you know I I had to get out the situation.
No sleep is the best thing that ever happened in
my life, which I'm like, kind of mad I missed
out on it. But that said, I like, at least preliminary.
(37:15):
I'm used to creating late at night.
Speaker 7 (37:17):
Yea.
Speaker 4 (37:18):
So I'll say that a lot of my practice was
kind of a I'll say that's eighty percent of my
career was somewhere between seven pm and eleven am, which
Quincy Jones has a has a weird theory about what
(37:42):
he calls what the alpha alpha state. The alpha state,
so Quincy Jones would purposely have his his musicians come
in around six pm. He feeds them a lot of food,
give them a lot of wine, and they fall asleep
in the break room. Then he weighed around midnight one
am and wake them up one by one to start
(38:05):
playing their parts. The short version is because when you're tired,
you can't argue with Quincy Jones is like, all right,
but you're not you're not overthinking the part you're He's like,
when you're tired, you actually give a better performance, which
which is mainly to go back to your first take thing.
(38:27):
A lot of times, I Steve uh has been like
my longtime engineering for like twenty years. A lot of
times I don't want to know when the tape is rolling,
because usually when it's like, all right, this is running
down real quick and then we'll record it. For like,
the best performance is always when you're not aware, you're
not hyper aware that it's that that the.
Speaker 6 (38:47):
Meter's running and you're saying, oh man, just just sixteen
bars to go, you know kind of you know that
right when?
Speaker 1 (38:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (38:54):
So a lot of the times I'm reading something I
can I can now play effortlessly without thinking, you know,
and people see me a few times check my phone
or eat cereal or while I'm playing. That's how effortless
I am as a musician. But I mean for you, like,
(39:15):
if you get an idea, do you keep always keep
a device.
Speaker 6 (39:19):
On you need to, Yeah, yeah, I sort of have
to to trap those song ideas. Sometimes it'll come when
you're driving the car. Sometimes it'll come when you're you know,
just often when you're sitting down and just practicing a
little start playing a little figure, a little wheel, and
then you get the thought of a melody and a
little scrap of lyric and you you have to put
(39:41):
that down so that you know, and sometimes you'll be
lucky and that thing will like be half the song
you know, you'll get and then you you know, come
back to it and write a bridge or But I've
always assumed it was because I had to be ready
to be on the stand at at eight o'clock at night.
(40:02):
Between eight and eleven is when I was performing, and
then it takes me about three hours to you know,
calm down enough to go to sleep. So and often
I'm on the bus go into the next town, you know.
So I just drifted into this thing where I was
falling asleep at two o'clock, you know, and I just yeah,
(40:23):
and I'm sleeping till till ten.
Speaker 1 (40:26):
You know. Do you have performance anxiety?
Speaker 6 (40:28):
Yeah? I do to this day, Yes I do.
Speaker 3 (40:31):
What does that mean for you?
Speaker 1 (40:32):
What is that so it's not a thing? Yeah? Okay, Hi, guys,
I see you, like you still have anxiety.
Speaker 6 (40:39):
You know, it calms down after a week on the road,
but that first night. I'll definitely I've gotten a little
bit more efficient at dealing with it. You know, I
don't feel it until about half an hour before I
go on, but it's sort of packaged in that time.
Speaker 1 (40:54):
But I definitely must you be alone. To you, you're like,
how do what a half hour before showtime? What are
you doing?
Speaker 6 (41:06):
That's right? You know, I put in contact lenses because
I if I have my glasses in the in the
stage lights, it's like it's hard to read, uh, and
hard to read the set list and uh, but I
don't use the teleprompter. I still remember the lyrics.
Speaker 1 (41:26):
But you're better man than I don't know what artists.
Speaker 4 (41:29):
Once you get past like sixty songs, then something's gonna
you're going to forget the second verse to something.
Speaker 6 (41:35):
Yeah, that's right, and and that does happen. Sometimes you
you'll get to the what what more typically happens is
you you'll get to the end of the second chorus
and you say, wait a minute, was that the first
or the second chorus? I just fini, you don't know,
and you're not sure it's fun it is. Are we
going into the bridge or are we going into the
next verse?
Speaker 1 (41:52):
May I suggest to you pulling what they call a
Bobby Brown y'all say it sing that ship?
Speaker 6 (42:04):
You know?
Speaker 4 (42:08):
Okay, Well, actually I'm curious about something. So for the
two songs that I got introduced to you in real
time as a five year old in first grade, now
I'm realizing that.
Speaker 1 (42:28):
Is it the One Man Dog album? All right?
Speaker 4 (42:32):
So all the songs are what I would call when
when I refer to the end a series or vignettes
of short, shortest songs, it's like a beatles the end.
Speaker 1 (42:48):
That's how I referred it.
Speaker 6 (42:50):
Yeah, it's like a it is they're they're compressed that
there's not one of them that's longer than a minute,
and and they're they're all they all lead into each other.
Speaker 1 (43:00):
Yeah, but it's really great for kids because one of
the first songs. All right.
Speaker 4 (43:06):
The second song I've ever had to perform in second
grade was Chili Dog. All right, Miss Lewynn made us
all earned Chili Dog, No kidding, Yeah, dude, bless my heart,
blown smoke up.
Speaker 1 (43:23):
But yeah, with what was what was the reasoning for
the way you structured that album? You know?
Speaker 6 (43:31):
I realized that I had all of these short pieces,
and uh, I just found a way to put them
all together, like Little David play on your Heart. That's like,
you know, I had a dog I lost, and I
and I really shouldn't have had a dog, and I
felt bad about it. You know, I was traveling too
much to have my dog, and and you know.
Speaker 1 (43:54):
So this is why I have a dog. There, that's true,
poor guy.
Speaker 5 (44:00):
Before we move on, though, Yeah, I know I encourage
every listener to check out One Man Dog. I feel
like it's overlooked and underrated and nobody really mentions it
often enough.
Speaker 1 (44:11):
So One Man Dog, You're right, Steve, I'm adding it
right now? Yeah? Why? Okay?
Speaker 4 (44:16):
So I don't know why I feel like I again
my history of embracing the wrong album the wrong albums,
and everyone's cannon.
Speaker 1 (44:26):
I don't know about One Man Dog.
Speaker 4 (44:28):
Because miss Lewin would play that in second grade, and
you know they're short songs, they're easy to learn.
Speaker 1 (44:35):
But why what were your at the time. You're on Warner? Correct?
Speaker 4 (44:42):
I was on Warner at that point, So what's more
Austin and those guys saying as far as like, yeah,
we neede a single.
Speaker 6 (44:50):
Well, they don't let me be lonely. Tonight was a
single from that that album, and it did well enough too,
and it also is covered more than any of my
other songs, so it you know, it was a The
thing that was a problem is that if you look
at the album and count each one of those little songs,
(45:15):
you know, little David, Chili Dog Jig, you know, all
of those various little scraps, they wouldn't pay for individual songs.
You know, they're not going to pay publishing on an
album that's got twenty two songs on it, right, So
we have to make that's right. It was a rule
of ten, I think. And if you do a cover
(45:37):
of someone else's song, they're definitely getting paid. If you know,
you're the one who has to has to eat.
Speaker 1 (45:45):
I see.
Speaker 5 (45:46):
So they's just certain songs you get publishing on, and
certain songs just you don't on that record.
Speaker 6 (45:51):
If your contract says that an album shall constitute ten
songs and the record company, will you know, we'll only
pay for that, you know, publishing on that many songs.
If you want to put extras on, it has to
come out of your piece. If if you wrote the song,
it's that that's an obvious choice. But if if someone
(46:12):
else wrote it then and if you do cover another
person's song, you're going to have to pay someone will
I mean, that's that's not you can't contract yourself out
of somebody else's rights.
Speaker 1 (46:25):
So any inspiring musicians just rewind that and listen to
that one more time again.
Speaker 4 (46:30):
Yeah, question, okay, true. If I'm afraid to ask this question,
the I guess the myth of what you would call
again the do you call it the Kenyon Ranch or
or or just not the Canyon Ranch. There's there's a
(46:55):
specific title for it, the California Lord. Well the click
of right of Jonie, you like, was there an actual
were you guys interacting with each other in the way
that it was kind of the myth of it of
the stories or how we see it in our heads,
(47:17):
like oh, okay, yeah, you probably hung with Linda.
Speaker 1 (47:21):
You know Linda Poker at Linda Ronstadt's house on Thursdays.
Speaker 6 (47:24):
Or oh you know Peter Peter managed and produced both
both myself and Linda. So so yeah, I saw a
lot of Linda, and I sang on a number of
her records. Carol and I were sort of in a
band together and and toured together for for a long time.
Speaker 1 (47:42):
Well, Carol, Carol King, you knew were even back in
the Bridal days or no, I didn't.
Speaker 6 (47:47):
Know her when she was here in town, although Cooch
says that she came down to the night Al Cafe
and met us when we were the house band down there,
our ill fated Flying Machine days.
Speaker 1 (47:58):
Yeah, but I'm saying that does he even is he
a where the breakbeat or flying Machine? I don't know.
I didn't even know there was one. Yeah, oh there's
a bonterfid uh Diamond, Oh we go tell somebody there's
a well known breakbeat.
Speaker 2 (48:20):
Record.
Speaker 1 (48:21):
I was like, that's part of the that's part of
the hip hop diet. But good digress.
Speaker 6 (48:26):
But uh, I think, oh so yeah, Linda and I
had that connection, and Carol King and I had that
Linda on set and Carol King and I had a connection.
Joany and I were together for a for a year.
We we we traveled together, we lived together. I stayed
at her placing in Laurel Canyon and and we we
(48:51):
also uh performed on each other's record. She's the background
vocals on on You've Got a Friend and long ago
on far Away Uh, She's you know uh and on
a later song of mine called you Are My Only
One that was Jony and Don Henley singing. But at
(49:13):
any rate, Jony was also very personally involved with with
Crosby Stills and Nash Jackson. Brown worked with Coats with
Danny kurtzbar in the section which was my band made
that Running on Empty album for him. So there there
was a sense of a of a group of sort
(49:33):
of community of musicians, and it it centered around the
Troubadour Cafe, which was which is a dive in.
Speaker 7 (49:41):
In l A.
Speaker 4 (49:43):
That's where Donnie Hathaway recorded. His version of You Got
a Friend was made of the Troubadoor.
Speaker 5 (49:51):
He skipped over the part where you where he played
on Blue Mitchell's album for People who fantastic.
Speaker 1 (50:02):
Fucking album Blue It is.
Speaker 6 (50:04):
It is great Johnny, So.
Speaker 4 (50:07):
Uh, why is walking Man the one album that at
let's see Peter why he didn't produced.
Speaker 6 (50:20):
It was the first album he didn't produce. Well, you know,
I had made already my first four albums with Peter,
and I really wanted to uh to Well, for one thing,
I wanted to record in New York because I never
lived in Los Angeles. I always lived East Coast, and
(50:41):
I would stay out there with with Peter or at
another you know place. But I did three albums, one
with Spinosa and then two with with Warner Brothers staff
producers Lenny Warrenker and uh and Russ Titelmann and and
those guys who also.
Speaker 1 (51:02):
Said that so casually like those are gods. Wait, they
were just staff members.
Speaker 6 (51:07):
Well, they were staff members at Warner Brothers.
Speaker 4 (51:11):
And never I'm one second year old now that I'm
realizing that all the good stuff, all the stuff they
produced was on Warner which explains.
Speaker 1 (51:20):
Why the sound was so consistent, why.
Speaker 6 (51:23):
All those things were made at Amigo's studios right there
in Burbank.
Speaker 4 (51:26):
It never occurred to me that, like, oh, that they
were staff producers. And I mean I came after an
era where labels didn't have producers on standby to take
all the artists in like people just chose on their.
Speaker 1 (51:39):
Own who they wanted to work with.
Speaker 4 (51:41):
But that explains why Russ okay, all the all the
stuffs engineered the same and has the consistent sound.
Speaker 6 (51:50):
And yeah, a guy named Lee Hirschberg was the was
the staff, you know, that was the record company studio.
So it was sort of like if you were making
a movie on the on the Warner Brothers lot.
Speaker 1 (52:03):
It was.
Speaker 6 (52:03):
It was the musical equivalent of that. So we'd go
to I made two albums, Gorilla in the Pocket.
Speaker 1 (52:11):
In the Pocket one of my favorites.
Speaker 5 (52:12):
Yeah, those were those were good days.
Speaker 6 (52:18):
I felt as though I had sort of negotiated the
process of being public, of going public. I felt I
felt stable in my marriage, and I felt healthy and well,
and it was just like you show up at the studio,
you do your work for day, you go home. You know,
it was very work a day. It was very stable
(52:38):
place to work, the you know, the basically working for
Warner Brothers, making these two albums, and I really I
think that was a very good period for me.
Speaker 5 (52:54):
Yeah, I mean it makes sense for a record label
to have staff engineers to have a continuity to their sound.
I mean I think that's a sort of a lost
thing now with labels where.
Speaker 8 (53:04):
There's just now I came after that era, so yeah.
Speaker 5 (53:07):
I'm thinking of CTI and things and jazz labels and
where it's just sort of like, you know, you always
have the same engineers and the same producers, and it's
the same studios and it's branding.
Speaker 1 (53:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (53:18):
Yeah, labels used to do a better job of branding
and having their own studio.
Speaker 6 (53:22):
And also the music was made live, you know, it
wasn't all a process of put down an idea with
a keyboard and a drum machine, get a vocal on it,
and then start making the rounds of people to overdub
on it, which is which is a great way to record,
but but it doesn't give you the same sound you
(53:43):
know of if you have a room, you're micing the room,
you're miking the players and and they're actually you know,
like that Stan Getz album go from Me Panimas on it.
But at any rate, that's a three day process. I
think round Midnight probably also three or four days, you know,
(54:07):
very very live albums and uh and and that's a
that's a rarity.
Speaker 1 (54:18):
It just hit me Steve that one of our most
heated debates ever about.
Speaker 4 (54:25):
Music is over Her Town Too? Sorry, Uh, exactly. We
always have this debate, all right, Oh I.
Speaker 8 (54:39):
See yeah, yeah, so yeah, what's going on.
Speaker 1 (54:43):
I don't know what's going on.
Speaker 8 (54:44):
I'm afraid to ask. Yeah, well he knows, he knows
what he heard on the radio.
Speaker 4 (54:53):
No, dude, like I live Dawn and my dad like Dawn.
My dad had all pop and soft ron covered. So
there's at least eight of his records in my house right,
not in real time, not like, oh I'm in the supermarket.
Speaker 1 (55:07):
Oh it's James Taylor, that's James Tale.
Speaker 4 (55:09):
My whole point was that we were going this this
is ten years ago, where we're just nerded now on
James Taylor classics and in my top five is Her
Town Too, which it was on Dad's work.
Speaker 1 (55:26):
Dad likes.
Speaker 4 (55:28):
Right, right right, that was out when I was like ten.
It's my sister's favorite record. So I'm telling him like
Her Town Too, and it just and I was so angry.
Speaker 1 (55:42):
For a week and I played it for him. I'm like,
you what this No, I'm like and you know, I'm sorry.
Speaker 5 (55:51):
Well different, different, all right, Well, I actually have a
very similar story because this is this album right here
from eighty five.
Speaker 8 (55:57):
That's why I'm here.
Speaker 5 (55:58):
My sister had the cassette and brought it on some
family vacation, and that's why I know this one back
to front and maybe don't know, you know a different
one back to front, but it's it's the oldest sister story.
Speaker 1 (56:11):
Basically, Yes, both of our oldest sisters put James Taylor
that that song was a was a.
Speaker 6 (56:18):
It was a real collaboration. And you know, uh, I
wrote it with a guy named John David Souther, Watti
walk Tel and Coots. I think we were all in
the room. We were all, you know, staying up way
too late. There might have been some substances involved. We
we we ended up.
Speaker 1 (56:39):
Wait he played, I don't mean to interrupt you. Yeah
he he came with Stevie Nicks.
Speaker 4 (56:46):
Yeah wait, you're trying to tell me the guy that
I freaking did the intro to Edge of seventeen.
Speaker 1 (56:52):
No, no, no, no, no no no, he co wrote
the song.
Speaker 6 (56:55):
Yes he did. Watty was was was in the room
and I get.
Speaker 1 (56:58):
To ask him this question. I wish everybody can see
your face.
Speaker 6 (57:01):
Right, Yeah, actually we should look it up and make
sure he that's how I'm remembering it, but.
Speaker 1 (57:08):
Oh I'm looking right now.
Speaker 6 (57:10):
Yeah, does it say walked out?
Speaker 1 (57:11):
Yes?
Speaker 6 (57:12):
Oh great, great?
Speaker 4 (57:15):
Right, yeah, I'm sorry when when when Stevie came on
the Tonight should do Edge of seventeen, he came with
her and we've been nerding out on him for at
least three to four hours.
Speaker 6 (57:27):
He is that's a that's another You know, there's so
many of these really important musical figures who figure at
least as deeply as the person you know who fronts
the band, but you know who like the the you know,
the the Wrecking Crew, like the you know that that
(57:48):
the Motown.
Speaker 1 (57:50):
House band brothers.
Speaker 6 (57:51):
Yeah, you know all of all of these these people
who Yeah, that's what I meant.
Speaker 1 (57:59):
Yes, how did you choose these musicians?
Speaker 6 (58:02):
You know it? The for the first album, the Apple album,
I just ran ads in the music papers in London.
There were two. There was one called New Musical Express
and another one called Melody Maker, and we just went
to the want ads and advertised for a keyboard player
and a bass player and my friend Joel O'Brien came
(58:24):
over to play drums. But but ultimately it was like, uh,
by the time we got to California. I hooked up
with Coach again, and Coach had been working with Carol,
so that gave us that basic just two guitars and
(58:46):
uh and and and Carol's piano and and we had
a number of bass players, but eventually we settled on
lease clar. There was a guy named Bobby West who
played on Fire and Rain. He he played upright bass,
you know, acoustic bass, and and he boted it to
(59:07):
for for one verse.
Speaker 8 (59:09):
I think anyway, we know Scolar too, you know a studio.
Speaker 6 (59:16):
Yeah he's yeah, Li's Lee's uh also uh, you know,
one of these deep sources of music. And and I
think there there are musical cultures like in in Japan
and and in Europe and Germany where where people follow
who these session players are and understand their value. But
(59:40):
we you know, and and particularly back when when music
was being made live uh uh in the studio. Uh
you know, these these players were were you know, Linda
Ronstadt depended on a guy named Andrew gold As as
her sort of musical director. And Andrew, you know, is
(01:00:01):
a big part of that sound that that she she had.
And I know you know what I'm talking about, of course.
Speaker 4 (01:00:07):
No, well, yeah, even hip hop heads. We collect records,
the first thing we do is look at the credits
that are not played on it.
Speaker 1 (01:00:13):
Yeah, I'll buy this record.
Speaker 4 (01:00:15):
Like Bobby Hall playing percussion on on on your albums.
It was an instant whoa, I know that name Bill
Withers and dada, YadA YadA.
Speaker 1 (01:00:28):
We're okay, so I asked, and of course Steve.
Speaker 5 (01:00:32):
No just speaking about collaborations and things our listeners might
not know that you on albums you've appeared on, like
just things. I wanted to bring up Steve Winwoods back
in the high life again singing background vocals on that song,
and uh, that was that was a.
Speaker 6 (01:00:54):
Rust that was a rough produced that particular track.
Speaker 5 (01:00:59):
Yeah, and I mentioned you played on Blue You should
really talk about that more. Uh Is it true you
played banjo on Old Man?
Speaker 6 (01:01:09):
Yes, that's right. Yeah, and Linda and I sang on
that too. It was a session in in Nashville, back
when Nashville was, you know, an earlier generation of Nashville,
which I really didn't you know, identify with. I just
the country music at the at that time seemed like
another country to me, you know, it did it seemed
(01:01:32):
like and I was I was raised in the South,
so I had a sense of what the line was.
You know what the dividing line was. You know that
kind of Christian gun rack, uh, a cowboy hat thing.
You know that that line?
Speaker 7 (01:01:49):
Uh?
Speaker 6 (01:01:50):
Yeah, oh you've noticed that.
Speaker 1 (01:01:55):
Did you notice?
Speaker 8 (01:02:01):
Is that the only uh is that the only banjo
you've you've recorded?
Speaker 6 (01:02:05):
That's right. It was a six string banjo and it
so you played it like a guitar and it just,
you know, was stretched across that membrane that that a
banjo has and made that sound.
Speaker 5 (01:02:16):
But yeah, there's one more collaboration that I don't I
don't think a lot of people know about. There's a
song on an Art Garfunkel album cover of Sam Cook's
What a Wonderful World.
Speaker 6 (01:02:27):
Yes, that's right, Paul Simon and Art and and I.
Speaker 8 (01:02:31):
Yeah, yeah, everybody takes a verse. It's really cool.
Speaker 6 (01:02:34):
Yeah, we wrote an extra verse to it too. Don't
know much about the Middle Ages, looked at the pictures
and turned the pages, don't know nothing about no rise
and fall, don't know nothing about nothing at all. And
that that was an extra verse that we snuck into
it so that all three of us got a verse.
Speaker 8 (01:02:54):
Yeah, everybody should check that out. It's really pretty. We
will I just guess.
Speaker 1 (01:03:00):
I have a real quick question. Can you confirm something
that I've always thought in my head and in the pocket.
There's a song that you did with Stevie wonder, Don't
be sad because your son is down? Did Stevie come
up with that title? Yes, okay, I knew it. I
knew it. What's it there? It's just because that's it
just sounds like Stevie, you know, it sounds like a
Stevie sentence.
Speaker 6 (01:03:20):
What what Stevie gave me was this this thing that
goes like a don't be sad goes your songs is down? Anyway,
(01:03:53):
that's as much as here with the Tarry James Taylor,
give it James Taylor, take it away. But the the
the thing is that he gave me those chord changes,
and he gave me but on the piano, and he
(01:04:14):
gave me, uh, the title don't be said because your
son is down? And he said, you know, take that And.
Speaker 1 (01:04:23):
So I think that song and shove it. This is happening.
Speaker 6 (01:04:49):
I haven't thought of that song in many a year.
But we we we we did it live one year
and it was really it was great. But you know,
to to be able to work. Stevie was you know,
it was one of those things. He sent it over
and and called me up and and said, you know,
give it a try, and and you you know, i'll
(01:05:11):
take the publishing on this one. You take the publishing
on the next one. And we we haven't got to
the next one.
Speaker 3 (01:05:15):
Yet, he said, I as in him.
Speaker 1 (01:05:19):
Okay, guys, Stevie, it was you want.
Speaker 4 (01:05:26):
Yeah, I just had a light bulb of the moment. Ah, damn,
he wants to flip some ship. There's I know, like
I gotta go, I gotta flip some ship. No, it's
just okay, I have one last question then I gotta
let you go. Okay, I do want to tell about
traffic damn. Yeah, But also I want to ask him
(01:05:49):
why was it necessary for the book to come out?
Speaker 1 (01:05:51):
Right now? What's more important? All right, Well, I'll ask.
Speaker 4 (01:05:55):
You about yes, yes, ask him off the air about traffic, tam, Yes,
I'll ask you off the air. Okay, I mean that
was some pioneer, Nash Damn near rapping and he was
rapping on that you're rapped in nineteen seventy seven. Okay,
why did you feel was necessary to share. Thank you
for sharing your story? Yes, yes, why did you feel
(01:06:15):
was necessary to at the stage in your life to
share that story?
Speaker 6 (01:06:20):
Audible came to me and suggested, sort of through my management,
suggested that I do a project of some sort. And
initially the idea was to take five songs of mine,
play them and talk about them, you know, just sort
of elaborate on them, and you know, to the extent
that it would take up. However, many songs were necessary
(01:06:41):
for that chunk of work, which it's ninety minutes. But
when I started talking to Bill Flanagan about getting a
script together, he said, you know, why don't we just
take a certain that that portion of your life that
predates your being public before every you know, and and
(01:07:02):
why don't you just tell that story? So we sort
of backed into it a little bit.
Speaker 1 (01:07:08):
Uh and.
Speaker 6 (01:07:10):
But why why we why we decided uh, just now
you know it. I took the fall off because I've
got kids who are seniors in high school and they're
going to that through that college uh, you know, admissions thing,
and I wanted to not be on the road for that.
Speaker 8 (01:07:31):
I wanted to be around.
Speaker 6 (01:07:32):
So I just had the time to do it, you.
Speaker 1 (01:07:36):
Know, thank you. Yeah, that it was necessary. I appreciate that.
Thank you, thank you. Wow, this is one for the ages. Yeah,
well on behalf of time?
Speaker 6 (01:07:54):
Did you did? But did you you had a question
about fire and rain you were thinking of asking?
Speaker 4 (01:07:58):
No, no, I had a question about uh traffic jam,
which what made you even think to approach the song
like that? Because you know it's essentially hip hop.
Speaker 1 (01:08:10):
You know, it was very four or five? Was that
bad that day?
Speaker 6 (01:08:14):
Yeah? You know it was written right there in the studio,
right in and in the amount of time really that
it took to sing the song. It was written, okay,
it was freestyle and and Russ Kunkle took a foot
pedal and a box, you know, like a box filled
(01:08:35):
with packing peanuts and uh, and he attached the foot
pedal to the box and played the top of it
and with brushes, so it wasn't even a drum.
Speaker 1 (01:08:43):
It was like, you know, and Russes.
Speaker 6 (01:08:50):
Russ Russ was was you know, he's a very funky player.
He's he's a great player, and and uh, you know,
we just basically put it together and then harmonize the Uh.
The only melody in the song is in the chorus.
Damn this traffic jam. How I hate to be late.
(01:09:11):
It hurts my motor to go so slow. Damn this
traffic jam. By the time I get home, my sup
will be cold. Damn this traffic jam. And and we
so uh, you know, it just uh, it just came out,
and it was a very la thing because you know,
he lived in Los Angeles. She just lived in that
traffic all the time.
Speaker 4 (01:09:30):
And well, just because it came out in seventy seven,
I was like, well, hip hop didn't exist yet. I
didn't know if it was like post Woody Guthrie folky
talkie thing.
Speaker 6 (01:09:39):
Right, talking blues like Bob Dylan is talking blues.
Speaker 1 (01:09:42):
Right.
Speaker 4 (01:09:42):
But yeah, okay, you answered it, and I appreciate that.
All right, we gotta go lazier gentlemen.
Speaker 8 (01:09:49):
Wait, white people invented rapping.
Speaker 1 (01:09:50):
Just want to let.
Speaker 8 (01:09:53):
Just let everyone know, no.
Speaker 4 (01:09:56):
Man on behalf of Wasp Bill and Sugar Steve and like, yeah,
and sorry, Fante, you missed one. For the record, I'm
baby Bill and uh even Sarah, am I missing somebody?
Oh James Taylor and Julian Julian of course you're your
family though.
Speaker 1 (01:10:13):
Thank you very much.
Speaker 6 (01:10:14):
This has been great man.
Speaker 1 (01:10:15):
Thank you so much for Thank you. Well, this is
our episode of Ples Love Supreme. Amazing. Oh I don't
even know how to sign off on my own television.
Speaker 8 (01:10:28):
Show, television show exactly.
Speaker 1 (01:10:35):
We'll see you on that story on a plust Love Supree.
All right.
Speaker 4 (01:10:53):
For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite chose
Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. Here we Go,
Suprema Some Supremo.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Roll called Suprema Supremo, Roll call Suprema Supremo, Roll Suprema Supreme.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
Roll call.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
It's ladies night. Yeah, let's celebrate. Yeah, get down on it.
Speaker 4 (00:28):
Yeah, Wron James Taylor Supreme Supremo, Role called Suprema So Supreme.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Roll call.
Speaker 5 (00:38):
My name is Sugar. Yeah, I'm the engineer. Yeah, and
I love great music. Yeah, that's why I'm here.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Supreme Supremo. Roll Supreme Supremo.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
Roll call. My name's Boss Bill.
Speaker 6 (00:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
And I ain't no sucker. Yeah, what are we doing?
Roll call Brother Trucker, Supremo.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Supremo, Roll Suprema So Supremo.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
Roll call It's like yeah.
Speaker 7 (01:12):
And James Taylor, Yeah, I ain't no lame, no fine range,
roll call Supremo, Son Sun Supremo.
Speaker 6 (01:25):
Roll I'm James. Yeah, I came up here today. I
guess I'm here for you. I'm ready, suprem.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
We'll take it. Supremo. Roll call Sprema, Roll.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Supremo, roll call Suprema Sun Supremo, Roll call Suprema Supremo.
Speaker 7 (01:49):
Roll call.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
Nice. All right, we got through that.
Speaker 6 (01:56):
Just barely know.
Speaker 4 (01:58):
Ladies and gentlemen, we have less than an hour to
unravel the complex artistry of over fifty years. That is
our guest today and probably one of my favorite singers ever.
I'll just say on a personal note to be selfish
on the show that has my name in it, James
(02:21):
Taylor is. His voice, in my opinion, is probably hands down.
I believe one of the most beautiful, soothing, warm sounds
that I can recall. It's kind of my trusted blanket,
you know. It's a favorite uncle, my favorite teacher in school.
(02:46):
And yeah, this is coming from a guy who also
thinks that HR from Bad Brains is equally as soothing.
Speaker 6 (02:56):
I'm sorry, but I'm gonna take it as a compliment.
Speaker 4 (02:59):
Yeah, James sale in hr Man, I'll be the first
to admit that, Well, one, I'm probably the only media
personality that doesn't care if that song was about you.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
She's already said that it wasn't about him. Well, I know,
I know, but you.
Speaker 4 (03:21):
Know, mainly mainly mainly because I think I pegged it
in my head. With a voice that soothing, I'd never
bothered to even look under the hood. I don't know
if I subconsciously didn't want to look under the hood
because it's just like that's my trusted blanket. And in
the week and a half of preparation that I decided
(03:43):
to search under the James Taylor hood.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
Yikes, I was wrong.
Speaker 4 (03:51):
And you know, his his newest book Breakshot, or his
audiobook Breakshot Audible. Yes on Audible Exclusive. So it's a
must be for us an here for every artist I
ever worked with. This is literally like I'm not even
separating myself. It's probably I needed this too. It dissects
(04:12):
the first twenty one years of his life and which
is kind of an understatement to say, is a rather
dark journey which now really has me to the point
where I'm just obsessed with entertainers or comedians or actors
or whoever that managed to ruise me in a way,
(04:34):
in a way of like ladies and gentlemen, James Tayale
is here.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
Everyone's looking at each other.
Speaker 4 (04:39):
Like, yeah, man, it's like we got We've only got you.
We got fifty one minutes left his voice. Thank you
for coming on the show. You know, you know the
special this is Zarah is here. Yeah, and it's not
even a political figure thereah one of my managers only here.
Whenever someone's here.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
Discuss politics and Chris, it does it out, especially, you know,
if she's in the room watching how how are you?
Speaker 6 (05:08):
I'm good, I'm good. Yeah, you know, it's it's like
a We've got a couple of projects that are coming
out at the same time and a tour h starting
up in April, so you know, it's a very like
a it's a busy season, and it's it's kind of
a promotional season, you know, and where you take your
(05:32):
stuff to market. And that's always been you know, that's
always been a kind of a difficult passage for me.
Will you make a project you know over a in
this case, it took us a couple of years to
make this album, and uh, and then you take it
by its little hand and lead it into the marketplace,
(05:52):
you know, and and launch it. And that's that's always
sort of a can be a you know, a confusing process,
but but it's one that I've I've gotten used to.
And not only that, it's become much much better as
time has gone by. I'm talking to people almost completely
(06:14):
who I who I admire and and respect, and and
that makes all the difference.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
You know.
Speaker 6 (06:22):
I mean back in the beginning, you'd sort of go
to Rolling Stone and hope that some intern who is
interviewing you, you know, cutting your teeth on on your
your project and reviewing it, that that could be really
uh just just made it a daunting kind of a
(06:45):
process to get into. But but you know, I've been
feeling really good about this, this particular project and the
people I've met and talked to about it.
Speaker 4 (06:55):
So you're saying, even this late in the game, when
you create product, you still go through the process of
its critical reception. It's how it fares well with your
fan base and whatnot. You still have those.
Speaker 6 (07:18):
Absolutely, you know it. It's still a part of the work.
It's it's where you you know, music used to happen. Well,
it used to happen in the street, and it used
to happen in the in the on the farm. Uh.
But it used to happen in the church and in
(07:39):
the court, you know, those who are or in academia somehow,
you know. And I think that having music exists in
a commercial context where it's saleable, is a better choice.
That's better than the court or the church. In my opinion,
(08:01):
It's not better than essentially folk music, which is which
is sort of free, but it's definitely a step in
the right direction to have it to take it to
market in order to get people to hear it.
Speaker 4 (08:17):
So when you're in your formative years at least for
like your first five or six albums, are you obsessively
looking to see like do you take a Lester Bangs
seriously or even a Christa Gal Or I'm trying to
figure out, like who is the the pitchwork of his day,
(08:38):
like the the critic that or John.
Speaker 6 (08:42):
Landau, John Lando or Hillman out out in Los Angeles
or Robert Hillman.
Speaker 4 (08:46):
Yeah, yeah, so that that would mean something.
Speaker 6 (08:50):
To you, absolutely, I mean, just inas much as it
it either pushes the project along and gets it out
there for people to hear or it doesn't. That was
always the priority. In fact, I made such ruinous deals
and decisions early on, mostly due to bad advice, that
(09:14):
I never really saw records as a source of income.
They never were, so I always just looked at it
as a way to support touring and also as a
way to just get my thing out there, to get
my art out there.
Speaker 4 (09:29):
Well, that's weird to hear, because I thought I was
the only artist that was like, eh, record sales whatever,
like when we tore that's how I make my money.
And the records so were like the flyer that you advertise, Hey,
I'm coming to town, that sort of thing.
Speaker 6 (09:41):
Well, it's also the medium that we work in if
you're a recording artist, and I think that's something I've
gotten better at over time. I cringe when I listened
to my early stuff, but over time I've gotten better
at recording and gotten closer to what I hear in
my mind when I when I think about it too.
Speaker 4 (10:03):
I'm just curious what James Taylor album makes you. I
I I'm kind of concerned. I'm like, oh, please, don't
let it be one of my favorites.
Speaker 6 (10:12):
Ye.
Speaker 4 (10:12):
Yeah, I'm like like for you, like, what's what's your like?
Speaker 1 (10:16):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (10:17):
What what album that Every fan like, Oh my god,
oh my god, you're just like whatever.
Speaker 6 (10:22):
Well, the first one, the James the one.
Speaker 4 (10:26):
But even then, it's like, if I recall correctly, you've
spoken a few times that you know you were creating
that right when the Beatles were creating.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
The White Album. Yeah, White album, correct, So like whenever
the Beatles weren't tried in the studio.
Speaker 6 (10:42):
You were there, that's right, we were. They let you
race the board and just yeah, they did. I guess.
There weren't digital cameras in those days, so you you
you couldn't take a picture of it and expect to
have it the next day, right, a polaroid, I guess.
But no, I never actually thought about that. Man.
Speaker 4 (11:02):
Did you realize that you were in the eye of
probably the most celebrated creative storm in music history?
Speaker 6 (11:11):
I did. I was aware of that in a sort
of But you know, in those days, I really I lived,
you know, a day at a time, maybe a week
at a time. I just didn't I didn't really expand
beyond what was sort of in the room, you know
it all. Yes, it seemed surreal to to have been,
(11:36):
you know, a year prior to that, I'd been here
in New York and my band had failed, and I'd
sort of limped back to North Carolina to lick my wounds,
you know, and then lo and behold, a year later,
I'm auditioning for for Paul McCartney and George Harrison. So
it was on one lem level unbelievable. But you know,
(11:59):
I just accepted it as as what was happening now.
Speaker 4 (12:02):
You know, how did even worried about you get to
to Paul and George?
Speaker 1 (12:10):
Were you the first artist sign to? Yes, okay, I was.
Speaker 6 (12:13):
The first artist signed. And my lucky break was that
my main partner actually through most of my musical life
as man a guitarists from from New York, lives in
Los Angeles, now named named Danny Kortchmark, Cooch and Coach
had backed up Peter and Gordon, a sort of British
(12:36):
invasion group like Chad and Jeremy. They had had a
World Without Love was a song of Theirs and Knight
and Rusty Armor, you know, sort of a British novelty duo,
you know, very much British invasion sort of mold. But
and then the year after that, I had been in
(12:58):
the band with Coach here in New York. So I
called Coots after I got to London. I said, if
you still got a number for Peter Asher And it
turned just thinking that he might have some contacts in
the music business in London, And as it turned out,
he had just signed on his head of a n
R for this brand new label that the Beatles were starting,
(13:20):
Apple Records. So he was basically looking for people to sign,
and it couldn't have been it couldn't have been better timing.
It was just you know, it really threaded the needle
and the and the window was very short for you know.
I was signed, Billy Preston was signed, Mary Hopkins yeah,
(13:42):
m j Q. Yeah, Okay, that's amazing. I didn't realize
that a group called Bad Finger and a guy named
Jackie Lomax, but the five or six there seven acts
that were signed within the ten month period, that Apple
(14:04):
was actually open to other people. That's that is to say,
before Alan Klein came in and just shut it down.
It was I'm sure it was hemorrhaging money, but I'm
also sure that it was just a unique opportunity you
know too. And they gave me that that first chance.
(14:26):
So that's that's how I ended up. I got my
little demo reel to reel tape to Peter Asher. He
I played him a number of songs and and he said,
let's go up and and see if we can play
this for a beatle up.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
Up at uh. I love how casual that just comes right,
you know, It's like, yeah, let's just see if the beatles.
Speaker 6 (14:46):
Here and the way Peter remembers that the day we
went up to I got my guitar in my little
cardboard case and I follow him up to, uh, this
building in Baker Street in London where their temporary first
offices were in and he, uh sort of installs me
(15:07):
in a room and says, is there a beadle in
the house? Leans out into the hall.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
And that's amazing, that's amazing.
Speaker 6 (15:18):
And I say, I say it's as Peter remembers it,
because because I myself, the whole day is just like blur. Yeah,
I mean I was. I was like made for one
ten and plugged into two twenty. You know, it was
a totally total reference, totally shocked.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
You know.
Speaker 4 (15:36):
Well, okay, we brought up Peter Asher, who's such a
at least I consider it. I mean, would you say
that Asher is like one of the Mount Rushmore figures
of what I think of when I think of the
California sound or definitely that.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
So how what what is that description?
Speaker 4 (16:02):
Because if someone that's not familiar with your work, like
I don't know how your album's got in my household,
but they were there because and it wasn't like I mean,
now they have titles for it soft rock, yacht rock,
or whatever they want to call it.
Speaker 6 (16:23):
But yacht rock that's good, I know.
Speaker 4 (16:27):
Well, you know, it's made this sort of niche, comedic,
you know, reference comeback thing, but that's made it cool again,
like stuff that again a Lester bangs or a christa
gal like, I'm better than this type of whatever, Like
now it's worship and revered and those things. But how
(16:49):
did you and Peter like figure out this plan to
sort of is it folky?
Speaker 1 (16:55):
Is it country? Is it blues leaning? Is it you know?
Speaker 4 (17:01):
How would you describe the sound that you two molded
that I felt really defined the next ten years of
what pop music would be, the California sound if you will.
Speaker 6 (17:14):
Well, yeah, you know I was. I was just playing
on the guitar the songs that I'd written, and counting
on a a sort of community of players. Russ Kunkle
on the drums, coach guy named Lee Sclar playing the bass,
Carol King on the on the piano. I basically was,
(17:41):
but essentially I was counting on them to be, you know,
to do head arrangements of my guitar arrangements, you know,
so that you sort of pass it on to another musician,
usually a keyboard player. But basically you write out it
just a simple chord chart and pass it around and
(18:01):
count it off.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
You know.
Speaker 6 (18:03):
This strange thing about well, actually it's still the case
that often the time when the song is recorded for
posterity is the first time it's played. You know, that's
an odd thing that you don't, yeah, that you don't
get to or even the seventh take. But the point
is you haven't had a chance to tour it for
(18:23):
twenty performances and sort of you know, nail it down
and refine it. And I've always thought that would be
a good way to go.
Speaker 4 (18:33):
Okay, So the question I have about Sweet Baby James
is how do you have an active record deal and
you're still homeless, like, or at least I've heard you
mentioned a few times that for that first album you're
kind of just a nomad, like crashing on couches and
(18:57):
how like was money just not available back then, or
like how did you.
Speaker 6 (19:04):
Well enough money was you know, and I didn't have
a place to stay in Los Angeles, so Peter had
a house at the corner of Olympic and Highland, and
and you know, I just would crash there with at
Peter's house while while we were recording in Sunset Sound.
(19:25):
But I started building a house for myself in I
think in nineteen seventy two in the back in the
woods on Martha's Vineyard Island, where my family had sort
of fetched up because my folks had taken me there
and had taken all of us there in the summertime
from North Carolina. My mom was a you know, she
(19:49):
really was culture shocked by moving to North Carolina and
where my dad was worked with the University of North Carolina.
So she wanted to bring us up north every every
and try to keep our sort of Yankee roots to
the extent we could. And so my family all gravitated
(20:11):
towards that place as being the happiest place, you know,
and and we ended all ended up living there. But
your question was about being homeless. I suppose that it
was sort of rootless.
Speaker 4 (20:24):
Okay, right, no, no, no, yeah, let me clarify. It wasn't
like he was sleeping on the street cords like it
was all this guy out.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
But I don't know.
Speaker 4 (20:36):
In my mind, I just feel like there's a certain
level of comfort that one has to have, at least
I think in order to find their creative space. Where
I've been in a few situations in which if my
personal life is in shambles, that affects my creative output.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
And so am I.
Speaker 4 (21:01):
You know, to hear you hear describe that you were
crashing on couches and you didn't have a house. I'm
I'm wondering, like, is the the rest of the stress
of of of not having roots pun intended? Does that
affect your creative output or not?
Speaker 6 (21:20):
You know, I never thought about it, but I think
you're right. If I can think back to any two
particular creative periods, it's always been a sort of protected
period during the time that I'm that I'm writing, you know,
And I think you're right. I think it does take
that the songs for Sweet Baby James, that that first
(21:42):
Warner Brothers album, that which you'd you know, rightly describe
as sort of the the beginning of the California sound.
But you know, back to that question for a second,
you know, Peter, I and I didn't really discuss the sound.
We just, you know, as I said, I just introduced
(22:04):
the songs to these other players, and we played it
the way we heard it, you know, it and recorded it.
It really wasn't directed in any real sense other than
just the the you know, the sort of template the
form of my playing it on the guitar.
Speaker 4 (22:24):
Were you somewhat aware of what the marketplace was and
how somewhat different than the marketplace that you were that
this output was presenting itself. I'm not saying it was
radically radically different, but you know, I feel as though, you.
Speaker 6 (22:47):
Know, I definitely distanced myself and identified myself as being
apart from music business. You know, to me, music business
was still Dean Martin playing at the sands, you know
in Las Vegas. Well, in fact, Dean Martin was a
(23:07):
great singer and and and did some great songs, but
at the time we identified that as being another generation. Yeah,
that's right, sort of, so you want to avoid the
Kopa tensil Tensil town. Yeah, I swore I'd never play
Las Vegas. You know, we I got two Grammys. I
didn't show up.
Speaker 4 (23:28):
I said, ooh oh, even like, oh yeah, that's so funny,
and how each artist. Okay, I'm slowly discovering that every
clique or people that I would think were the establishment.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
They have their I'm sort of yeah, I'm above.
Speaker 4 (23:46):
That, which is weird because not like I see you
as the establishment, but even now you're saying like in
your way, like I'm rebelling against that.
Speaker 6 (23:55):
And we very much wanted to to distance our else
from it. And I mean we uh that's that was
the sense in the you know, the zeitgeist in the
in Los Angeles at the time was was that we
belonged to a different generation and uh, you know, a
(24:18):
sort of the sort of demographic bulge you know that
happened after the war, that baby boom bulge in the
population when it came to college age. It's sort of
it manifested in a way with with FM radio too.
It sort of started to and the Beatles and Dylan
(24:39):
and you know.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
I wanted to ask I'll let you give you a question.
Speaker 8 (24:42):
I wanted to I just want to say, hippies.
Speaker 4 (24:45):
But that's the thing though, But I feel coming into
the seventies, though, what I felt like there was this
sort of air at least with like with with Neil
Young's after the after the Gold Rush, that there was
this sole disillusionment with with all the lofty ideas of
(25:06):
what the hippies were trying to present in sixty seven
sixty eight. It was kind of a more of a
cynical thing, even though you didn't go that route, Like,
was this your response to it, like just to be.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
Establishment, like you know, I'm I'm a serious singer songwriter.
I'm not.
Speaker 6 (25:26):
Right. No. That was part of it too, is that
there was nothing serious about it. You know, it was
like it didn't have any pretensions. You know, Wow, was
was the was the idea? You know? I mean, yes,
I was judgmental of other music, but you know, I
realize now that to be judgment metal of Frank Sinatra
(25:49):
because he's he's my parents' generation, you know, is that's absurd?
And you know so, uh, you know, I've I've come
around to to understanding that that those I've got an
album coming out of a you know, American songbook type
tunes arranged for the guitar called called American Standard, which
(26:12):
is also the name of a toilet manufacturer.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
Is hate you for bringing that up?
Speaker 4 (26:24):
Next to the Beatles, I'll probably say that, Uh, soul
music interpretations of your songs are probably the most interesting.
That's really how I got to introduce to it. So
let me tonight. I was going to say my obsession
with Oscar Meyer. I mean I was three when three
(26:45):
plus three came out. I thought it was boloney. I
thought it was about lunch Ronaldsley, the way he announced it,
his word, don't let me bolooney?
Speaker 1 (27:01):
Yes, oh god, what did I say? Look, there's just.
Speaker 5 (27:07):
No one knows what bolooney is anymore, so they plant baseballoney.
Speaker 9 (27:15):
Look, we're not do not think that he was my
My whole point though, was were you aware at all
of how radical the soul music interpretations of your songs
(27:37):
were like?
Speaker 4 (27:38):
Because to me, even though yes, I love your version
of Fire and Rain, but the Isley Brothers have this
really notorious eight minute version of the.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
Song that.
Speaker 4 (27:52):
Almost wound up on every mixtape I've ever given a girl.
So and on top of that, are you rather chagrined
that for those that don't know the how the song
came to be and what it's about and how you
(28:13):
wrote it. How almost like Fire and Rain gets or
most of your songs get misinterpreted because we just want
to see it through our rose colored filter.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
This is just this mentioned.
Speaker 6 (28:40):
Ship.
Speaker 4 (28:42):
This is always the second song on every.
Speaker 6 (28:50):
It's like a minor to mature, Like, uh.
Speaker 4 (28:55):
Yeah, they won't even get to the lyrics until four
minutes in, Like they just stay here for it for.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
Like five minutes. But I was gonna say.
Speaker 4 (29:11):
The are you are you rather chagrined when people take
your songs and sort of have it for the wrong meanings,
Like I'm certain that it's been placed in movies, in
romantic songs. You're like, no, this is about friends suicide
and you know, all.
Speaker 6 (29:29):
Right, and drug recovery. Yeah it's it's true, and you know,
but but it's the emotional impact of the song that
really counts. And I think that that that's why that
that song resonated with people, because you know, and I
think that the line I always thought I'd see you again,
(29:51):
I think the islay said, right, that's basically the sort
of the emotional core of it.
Speaker 4 (29:57):
Like well, when I've seen it's always like someone rides
to the train station too late and the love of
their life already like left, or like at the the
the airport.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
Moment, like.
Speaker 3 (30:09):
Commercial TV.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
Yeah yeah, those two puppies, like.
Speaker 6 (30:17):
Yeah, yeah, no, it is it's it's it's an emotional package,
I think, and uh, and it that's what comes through
more than the you know, the literal reading of the song,
I think, and that's but that's the nature of music.
You we don't get to decide about it. It's not
a cerebral process. It either connects with us or it doesn't.
(30:40):
And and to a certain extent to talk about it,
although I talk about it a lot and think about
it a lot. But but that's sort of you know,
after the fact. I mean the music either, you know,
because it's a real thing. It's it's not you know,
words are all words represent something else. But the only
(31:01):
word that is the thing that it represents is the
word word wow.
Speaker 8 (31:07):
Words of wisdom, time to get something.
Speaker 6 (31:15):
Well so so, you know, so so we we put
words together to to describe all kinds of things, the world,
the universe. But but music, although it's like a language,
we we manipulate it like a language and we use
it for it definitely has emotional I'm not sure if
(31:36):
they're culturally you know, established, or if they're if if
everyone in the world here is a minor chord the
same way as opposed to a major chord, or you know,
but I do think that there's a reality to it
because it follows the laws of physics, you know, an
octave is twice the frequency of the octave below it,
and and half of the one above it, and and
(31:59):
and that the overtone series is a real thing that exists,
and so music has its base, and it's based in
a real truth, you know, and and not one that
we have to arrive at a consensus about. And that
way it hits us directly, and and that you know
that means that it you know, the cliche the universal language,
(32:22):
but you know it, Uh, you know that's that's we
were talking about people misinterpreting lyrics and and and I
don't think they really do. I think that, you know,
the way a song hits you is probably what it
actually has.
Speaker 1 (32:43):
To find a common emotion. So do you feel as
though your.
Speaker 4 (32:48):
Your voice Okay, now now I'm gonna feel like Chris
Farley asking this. Your voice is really cool man, but
you're just just your The tone and the sound of
your voice is such a warm gift. Uh, that could
(33:14):
possibly I mean, I'm certain that you could sing in
her stand in by by Metallica, by Metallica, and it
would just be the best feeling in the world.
Speaker 1 (33:26):
Yeah, how did you?
Speaker 4 (33:28):
I know the answer is going to be like, well,
I've had this voice, and there's a gift from God
or whatever. People people always say to avoid the question,
but how did you develop your voice or what made
you sing? And I guess you're a lower register like
it's it's it's a rare thing to have that much
impact under a tenor.
Speaker 6 (33:51):
You know, that's a really good point. I've never you know,
you're the first person I've ever spoken to who's who's
actually put it that way. And I totally agree, I totally,
I totally agree. You know. The way I look at
it is if if you if you have the guitar
as your instrument, you know, to sing down in the
(34:14):
same range as the guitar itself is like it's muddy,
you know, it's you. You really wish you could get
above it. But I just don't have that that range.
I can't get above a you know, literally above an F.
Speaker 3 (34:27):
You know, like and what was the story that I
read about that you injured your voice because you were
singing too harshly years and years ago? How does what
is singing too harshly sound?
Speaker 1 (34:37):
Like, let's not make them, you know, to sing harshly
like what yeah.
Speaker 6 (34:45):
No, it's uh uh, it's I was just singing in
a club. Uh you know, six days a week, five shows,
a night over, a li out, banned without any monitors
and and eventually I just I got to you know,
(35:05):
you get little blisters. I guess it's you.
Speaker 3 (35:08):
So what did you learn as a singer in a
way to learn how to take care of your voice?
Speaker 6 (35:13):
That you did? It took a long time, and now
I find that as I get older, you know, you
you use it or you lose it. So I I
exercise my voice every day. That's Tony Bennett told me that.
Speaker 1 (35:28):
Yeah, so you do warm ups?
Speaker 6 (35:30):
Yeah, well actually.
Speaker 1 (35:32):
Like the seth Riggs variety, Like.
Speaker 6 (35:36):
Right, yeah, I do, and but they're not warm ups.
They're actually like a workout. It's a it's an hour
long process and I do it every day.
Speaker 4 (35:47):
Really okay, So I guess yeah, if you're working that,
you're working out.
Speaker 6 (35:53):
Like a trumpet player and you know his chops, his
his armbro sure and his you know you got to
keep it going or.
Speaker 4 (36:01):
So okay, Can I ask what your daily workout is,
like what time do you wake up in the morning
and do you set time to create like at six
am when everyone's asleep.
Speaker 1 (36:13):
Do you ride at three in the morning when everyone's asleep, or.
Speaker 6 (36:16):
I guess it's just that entertainment tainer's hours. I don't
know what what's it like for you? When do you
wake up? When do you wake up in the day?
Speaker 1 (36:26):
Shut up?
Speaker 4 (36:28):
First of all, Okay, as of this speaking, As as
of this talking, I'm in a relationship with someone who
absolutely insists I sleep eight to ten hours every night.
Speaker 1 (36:46):
So he used to sleep three hours a night. Right.
I used to be one of those people that's very
proud to you know, whatever sleep sleep is death, right right.
I was one of those people.
Speaker 4 (36:55):
But you know I I had to get out the situation.
No sleep is the best thing that ever happened in
my life, which I'm like, kind of mad I missed
out on it. But that said, I like, at least preliminary.
(37:15):
I'm used to creating late at night.
Speaker 7 (37:17):
Yea.
Speaker 4 (37:18):
So I'll say that a lot of my practice was
kind of a I'll say that's eighty percent of my
career was somewhere between seven pm and eleven am, which
Quincy Jones has a has a weird theory about what
(37:42):
he calls what the alpha alpha state. The alpha state,
so Quincy Jones would purposely have his his musicians come
in around six pm. He feeds them a lot of food,
give them a lot of wine, and they fall asleep
in the break room. Then he weighed around midnight one
am and wake them up one by one to start
(38:05):
playing their parts. The short version is because when you're tired,
you can't argue with Quincy Jones is like, all right,
but you're not you're not overthinking the part you're He's like,
when you're tired, you actually give a better performance, which
which is mainly to go back to your first take thing.
(38:27):
A lot of times, I Steve uh has been like
my longtime engineering for like twenty years. A lot of
times I don't want to know when the tape is rolling,
because usually when it's like, all right, this is running
down real quick and then we'll record it. For like,
the best performance is always when you're not aware, you're
not hyper aware that it's that that the.
Speaker 6 (38:47):
Meter's running and you're saying, oh man, just just sixteen
bars to go, you know kind of you know that
right when?
Speaker 1 (38:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (38:54):
So a lot of the times I'm reading something I
can I can now play effortlessly without thinking, you know,
and people see me a few times check my phone
or eat cereal or while I'm playing. That's how effortless
I am as a musician. But I mean for you, like,
(39:15):
if you get an idea, do you keep always keep
a device.
Speaker 6 (39:19):
On you need to, Yeah, yeah, I sort of have
to to trap those song ideas. Sometimes it'll come when
you're driving the car. Sometimes it'll come when you're you know,
just often when you're sitting down and just practicing a
little start playing a little figure, a little wheel, and
then you get the thought of a melody and a
little scrap of lyric and you you have to put
(39:41):
that down so that you know, and sometimes you'll be
lucky and that thing will like be half the song
you know, you'll get and then you you know, come
back to it and write a bridge or But I've
always assumed it was because I had to be ready
to be on the stand at at eight o'clock at night.
(40:02):
Between eight and eleven is when I was performing, and
then it takes me about three hours to you know,
calm down enough to go to sleep. So and often
I'm on the bus go into the next town, you know.
So I just drifted into this thing where I was
falling asleep at two o'clock, you know, and I just yeah,
(40:23):
and I'm sleeping till till ten.
Speaker 1 (40:26):
You know. Do you have performance anxiety?
Speaker 6 (40:28):
Yeah? I do to this day, Yes I do.
Speaker 3 (40:31):
What does that mean for you?
Speaker 1 (40:32):
What is that so it's not a thing? Yeah? Okay, Hi, guys,
I see you, like you still have anxiety.
Speaker 6 (40:39):
You know, it calms down after a week on the road,
but that first night. I'll definitely I've gotten a little
bit more efficient at dealing with it. You know, I
don't feel it until about half an hour before I
go on, but it's sort of packaged in that time.
Speaker 1 (40:54):
But I definitely must you be alone. To you, you're like,
how do what a half hour before showtime? What are
you doing?
Speaker 6 (41:06):
That's right? You know, I put in contact lenses because
I if I have my glasses in the in the
stage lights, it's like it's hard to read, uh, and
hard to read the set list and uh, but I
don't use the teleprompter. I still remember the lyrics.
Speaker 1 (41:26):
But you're better man than I don't know what artists.
Speaker 4 (41:29):
Once you get past like sixty songs, then something's gonna
you're going to forget the second verse to something.
Speaker 6 (41:35):
Yeah, that's right, and and that does happen. Sometimes you
you'll get to the what what more typically happens is
you you'll get to the end of the second chorus
and you say, wait a minute, was that the first
or the second chorus? I just fini, you don't know,
and you're not sure it's fun it is. Are we
going into the bridge or are we going into the
next verse?
Speaker 1 (41:52):
May I suggest to you pulling what they call a
Bobby Brown y'all say it sing that ship?
Speaker 6 (42:04):
You know?
Speaker 4 (42:08):
Okay, Well, actually I'm curious about something. So for the
two songs that I got introduced to you in real
time as a five year old in first grade, now
I'm realizing that.
Speaker 1 (42:28):
Is it the One Man Dog album? All right?
Speaker 4 (42:32):
So all the songs are what I would call when
when I refer to the end a series or vignettes
of short, shortest songs, it's like a beatles the end.
Speaker 1 (42:48):
That's how I referred it.
Speaker 6 (42:50):
Yeah, it's like a it is they're they're compressed that
there's not one of them that's longer than a minute,
and and they're they're all they all lead into each other.
Speaker 1 (43:00):
Yeah, but it's really great for kids because one of
the first songs. All right.
Speaker 4 (43:06):
The second song I've ever had to perform in second
grade was Chili Dog. All right, Miss Lewynn made us
all earned Chili Dog, No kidding, Yeah, dude, bless my heart,
blown smoke up.
Speaker 1 (43:23):
But yeah, with what was what was the reasoning for
the way you structured that album? You know?
Speaker 6 (43:31):
I realized that I had all of these short pieces,
and uh, I just found a way to put them
all together, like Little David play on your Heart. That's like,
you know, I had a dog I lost, and I
and I really shouldn't have had a dog, and I
felt bad about it. You know, I was traveling too
much to have my dog, and and you know.
Speaker 1 (43:54):
So this is why I have a dog. There, that's true,
poor guy.
Speaker 5 (44:00):
Before we move on, though, Yeah, I know I encourage
every listener to check out One Man Dog. I feel
like it's overlooked and underrated and nobody really mentions it
often enough.
Speaker 1 (44:11):
So One Man Dog, You're right, Steve, I'm adding it
right now? Yeah? Why? Okay?
Speaker 4 (44:16):
So I don't know why I feel like I again
my history of embracing the wrong album the wrong albums,
and everyone's cannon.
Speaker 1 (44:26):
I don't know about One Man Dog.
Speaker 4 (44:28):
Because miss Lewin would play that in second grade, and
you know they're short songs, they're easy to learn.
Speaker 1 (44:35):
But why what were your at the time. You're on Warner? Correct?
Speaker 4 (44:42):
I was on Warner at that point, So what's more
Austin and those guys saying as far as like, yeah,
we neede a single.
Speaker 6 (44:50):
Well, they don't let me be lonely. Tonight was a
single from that that album, and it did well enough too,
and it also is covered more than any of my
other songs, so it you know, it was a The
thing that was a problem is that if you look
at the album and count each one of those little songs,
(45:15):
you know, little David, Chili Dog Jig, you know, all
of those various little scraps, they wouldn't pay for individual songs.
You know, they're not going to pay publishing on an
album that's got twenty two songs on it, right, So
we have to make that's right. It was a rule
of ten, I think. And if you do a cover
(45:37):
of someone else's song, they're definitely getting paid. If you know,
you're the one who has to has to eat.
Speaker 1 (45:45):
I see.
Speaker 5 (45:46):
So they's just certain songs you get publishing on, and
certain songs just you don't on that record.
Speaker 6 (45:51):
If your contract says that an album shall constitute ten
songs and the record company, will you know, we'll only
pay for that, you know, publishing on that many songs.
If you want to put extras on, it has to
come out of your piece. If if you wrote the song,
it's that that's an obvious choice. But if if someone
(46:12):
else wrote it then and if you do cover another
person's song, you're going to have to pay someone will
I mean, that's that's not you can't contract yourself out
of somebody else's rights.
Speaker 1 (46:25):
So any inspiring musicians just rewind that and listen to
that one more time again.
Speaker 4 (46:30):
Yeah, question, okay, true. If I'm afraid to ask this question,
the I guess the myth of what you would call
again the do you call it the Kenyon Ranch or
or or just not the Canyon Ranch. There's there's a
(46:55):
specific title for it, the California Lord. Well the click
of right of Jonie, you like, was there an actual
were you guys interacting with each other in the way
that it was kind of the myth of it of
the stories or how we see it in our heads,
(47:17):
like oh, okay, yeah, you probably hung with Linda.
Speaker 1 (47:21):
You know Linda Poker at Linda Ronstadt's house on Thursdays.
Speaker 6 (47:24):
Or oh you know Peter Peter managed and produced both
both myself and Linda. So so yeah, I saw a
lot of Linda, and I sang on a number of
her records. Carol and I were sort of in a
band together and and toured together for for a long time.
Speaker 1 (47:42):
Well, Carol, Carol King, you knew were even back in
the Bridal days or no, I didn't.
Speaker 6 (47:47):
Know her when she was here in town, although Cooch
says that she came down to the night Al Cafe
and met us when we were the house band down there,
our ill fated Flying Machine days.
Speaker 1 (47:58):
Yeah, but I'm saying that does he even is he
a where the breakbeat or flying Machine? I don't know.
I didn't even know there was one. Yeah, oh there's
a bonterfid uh Diamond, Oh we go tell somebody there's
a well known breakbeat.
Speaker 2 (48:20):
Record.
Speaker 1 (48:21):
I was like, that's part of the that's part of
the hip hop diet. But good digress.
Speaker 6 (48:26):
But uh, I think, oh so yeah, Linda and I
had that connection, and Carol King and I had that
Linda on set and Carol King and I had a connection.
Joany and I were together for a for a year.
We we we traveled together, we lived together. I stayed
at her placing in Laurel Canyon and and we we
(48:51):
also uh performed on each other's record. She's the background
vocals on on You've Got a Friend and long ago
on far Away Uh, She's you know uh and on
a later song of mine called you Are My Only
One that was Jony and Don Henley singing. But at
(49:13):
any rate, Jony was also very personally involved with with
Crosby Stills and Nash Jackson. Brown worked with Coats with
Danny kurtzbar in the section which was my band made
that Running on Empty album for him. So there there
was a sense of a of a group of sort
(49:33):
of community of musicians, and it it centered around the
Troubadour Cafe, which was which is a dive in.
Speaker 7 (49:41):
In l A.
Speaker 4 (49:43):
That's where Donnie Hathaway recorded. His version of You Got
a Friend was made of the Troubadoor.
Speaker 5 (49:51):
He skipped over the part where you where he played
on Blue Mitchell's album for People who fantastic.
Speaker 1 (50:02):
Fucking album Blue It is.
Speaker 6 (50:04):
It is great Johnny, So.
Speaker 4 (50:07):
Uh, why is walking Man the one album that at
let's see Peter why he didn't produced.
Speaker 6 (50:20):
It was the first album he didn't produce. Well, you know,
I had made already my first four albums with Peter,
and I really wanted to uh to Well, for one thing,
I wanted to record in New York because I never
lived in Los Angeles. I always lived East Coast, and
(50:41):
I would stay out there with with Peter or at
another you know place. But I did three albums, one
with Spinosa and then two with with Warner Brothers staff
producers Lenny Warrenker and uh and Russ Titelmann and and
those guys who also.
Speaker 1 (51:02):
Said that so casually like those are gods. Wait, they
were just staff members.
Speaker 6 (51:07):
Well, they were staff members at Warner Brothers.
Speaker 4 (51:11):
And never I'm one second year old now that I'm
realizing that all the good stuff, all the stuff they
produced was on Warner which explains.
Speaker 1 (51:20):
Why the sound was so consistent, why.
Speaker 6 (51:23):
All those things were made at Amigo's studios right there
in Burbank.
Speaker 4 (51:26):
It never occurred to me that, like, oh, that they
were staff producers. And I mean I came after an
era where labels didn't have producers on standby to take
all the artists in like people just chose on their.
Speaker 1 (51:39):
Own who they wanted to work with.
Speaker 4 (51:41):
But that explains why Russ okay, all the all the
stuffs engineered the same and has the consistent sound.
Speaker 6 (51:50):
And yeah, a guy named Lee Hirschberg was the was
the staff, you know, that was the record company studio.
So it was sort of like if you were making
a movie on the on the Warner Brothers lot.
Speaker 1 (52:03):
It was.
Speaker 6 (52:03):
It was the musical equivalent of that. So we'd go
to I made two albums, Gorilla in the Pocket.
Speaker 1 (52:11):
In the Pocket one of my favorites.
Speaker 5 (52:12):
Yeah, those were those were good days.
Speaker 6 (52:18):
I felt as though I had sort of negotiated the
process of being public, of going public. I felt I
felt stable in my marriage, and I felt healthy and well,
and it was just like you show up at the studio,
you do your work for day, you go home. You know,
it was very work a day. It was very stable
(52:38):
place to work, the you know, the basically working for
Warner Brothers, making these two albums, and I really I
think that was a very good period for me.
Speaker 5 (52:54):
Yeah, I mean it makes sense for a record label
to have staff engineers to have a continuity to their sound.
I mean I think that's a sort of a lost
thing now with labels where.
Speaker 8 (53:04):
There's just now I came after that era, so yeah.
Speaker 5 (53:07):
I'm thinking of CTI and things and jazz labels and
where it's just sort of like, you know, you always
have the same engineers and the same producers, and it's
the same studios and it's branding.
Speaker 1 (53:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (53:18):
Yeah, labels used to do a better job of branding
and having their own studio.
Speaker 6 (53:22):
And also the music was made live, you know, it
wasn't all a process of put down an idea with
a keyboard and a drum machine, get a vocal on it,
and then start making the rounds of people to overdub
on it, which is which is a great way to record,
but but it doesn't give you the same sound you
(53:43):
know of if you have a room, you're micing the room,
you're miking the players and and they're actually you know,
like that Stan Getz album go from Me Panimas on it.
But at any rate, that's a three day process. I
think round Midnight probably also three or four days, you know,
(54:07):
very very live albums and uh and and that's a
that's a rarity.
Speaker 1 (54:18):
It just hit me Steve that one of our most
heated debates ever about.
Speaker 4 (54:25):
Music is over Her Town Too? Sorry, Uh, exactly. We
always have this debate, all right, Oh I.
Speaker 8 (54:39):
See yeah, yeah, so yeah, what's going on.
Speaker 1 (54:43):
I don't know what's going on.
Speaker 8 (54:44):
I'm afraid to ask. Yeah, well he knows, he knows
what he heard on the radio.
Speaker 4 (54:53):
No, dude, like I live Dawn and my dad like Dawn.
My dad had all pop and soft ron covered. So
there's at least eight of his records in my house right,
not in real time, not like, oh I'm in the supermarket.
Speaker 1 (55:07):
Oh it's James Taylor, that's James Tale.
Speaker 4 (55:09):
My whole point was that we were going this this
is ten years ago, where we're just nerded now on
James Taylor classics and in my top five is Her
Town Too, which it was on Dad's work.
Speaker 1 (55:26):
Dad likes.
Speaker 4 (55:28):
Right, right right, that was out when I was like ten.
It's my sister's favorite record. So I'm telling him like
Her Town Too, and it just and I was so angry.
Speaker 1 (55:42):
For a week and I played it for him. I'm like,
you what this No, I'm like and you know, I'm sorry.
Speaker 5 (55:51):
Well different, different, all right, Well, I actually have a
very similar story because this is this album right here
from eighty five.
Speaker 8 (55:57):
That's why I'm here.
Speaker 5 (55:58):
My sister had the cassette and brought it on some
family vacation, and that's why I know this one back
to front and maybe don't know, you know a different
one back to front, but it's it's the oldest sister story.
Speaker 1 (56:11):
Basically, Yes, both of our oldest sisters put James Taylor
that that song was a was a.
Speaker 6 (56:18):
It was a real collaboration. And you know, uh, I
wrote it with a guy named John David Souther, Watti
walk Tel and Coots. I think we were all in
the room. We were all, you know, staying up way
too late. There might have been some substances involved. We
we we ended up.
Speaker 1 (56:39):
Wait he played, I don't mean to interrupt you. Yeah
he he came with Stevie Nicks.
Speaker 4 (56:46):
Yeah wait, you're trying to tell me the guy that
I freaking did the intro to Edge of seventeen.
Speaker 1 (56:52):
No, no, no, no, no no no, he co wrote
the song.
Speaker 6 (56:55):
Yes he did. Watty was was was in the room
and I get.
Speaker 1 (56:58):
To ask him this question. I wish everybody can see
your face.
Speaker 6 (57:01):
Right, Yeah, actually we should look it up and make
sure he that's how I'm remembering it, but.
Speaker 1 (57:08):
Oh I'm looking right now.
Speaker 6 (57:10):
Yeah, does it say walked out?
Speaker 1 (57:11):
Yes?
Speaker 6 (57:12):
Oh great, great?
Speaker 4 (57:15):
Right, yeah, I'm sorry when when when Stevie came on
the Tonight should do Edge of seventeen, he came with
her and we've been nerding out on him for at
least three to four hours.
Speaker 6 (57:27):
He is that's a that's another You know, there's so
many of these really important musical figures who figure at
least as deeply as the person you know who fronts
the band, but you know who like the the you know,
the the Wrecking Crew, like the you know that that
(57:48):
the Motown.
Speaker 1 (57:50):
House band brothers.
Speaker 6 (57:51):
Yeah, you know all of all of these these people
who Yeah, that's what I meant.
Speaker 1 (57:59):
Yes, how did you choose these musicians?
Speaker 6 (58:02):
You know it? The for the first album, the Apple album,
I just ran ads in the music papers in London.
There were two. There was one called New Musical Express
and another one called Melody Maker, and we just went
to the want ads and advertised for a keyboard player
and a bass player and my friend Joel O'Brien came
(58:24):
over to play drums. But but ultimately it was like, uh,
by the time we got to California. I hooked up
with Coach again, and Coach had been working with Carol,
so that gave us that basic just two guitars and
(58:46):
uh and and and Carol's piano and and we had
a number of bass players, but eventually we settled on
lease clar. There was a guy named Bobby West who
played on Fire and Rain. He he played upright bass,
you know, acoustic bass, and and he boted it to
(59:07):
for for one verse.
Speaker 8 (59:09):
I think anyway, we know Scolar too, you know a studio.
Speaker 6 (59:16):
Yeah he's yeah, Li's Lee's uh also uh, you know,
one of these deep sources of music. And and I
think there there are musical cultures like in in Japan
and and in Europe and Germany where where people follow
who these session players are and understand their value. But
(59:40):
we you know, and and particularly back when when music
was being made live uh uh in the studio. Uh
you know, these these players were were you know, Linda
Ronstadt depended on a guy named Andrew gold As as
her sort of musical director. And Andrew, you know, is
(01:00:01):
a big part of that sound that that she she had.
And I know you know what I'm talking about, of course.
Speaker 4 (01:00:07):
No, well, yeah, even hip hop heads. We collect records,
the first thing we do is look at the credits
that are not played on it.
Speaker 1 (01:00:13):
Yeah, I'll buy this record.
Speaker 4 (01:00:15):
Like Bobby Hall playing percussion on on on your albums.
It was an instant whoa, I know that name Bill
Withers and dada, YadA YadA.
Speaker 1 (01:00:28):
We're okay, so I asked, and of course Steve.
Speaker 5 (01:00:32):
No just speaking about collaborations and things our listeners might
not know that you on albums you've appeared on, like
just things. I wanted to bring up Steve Winwoods back
in the high life again singing background vocals on that song,
and uh, that was that was a.
Speaker 6 (01:00:54):
Rust that was a rough produced that particular track.
Speaker 5 (01:00:59):
Yeah, and I mentioned you played on Blue You should
really talk about that more. Uh Is it true you
played banjo on Old Man?
Speaker 6 (01:01:09):
Yes, that's right. Yeah, and Linda and I sang on
that too. It was a session in in Nashville, back
when Nashville was, you know, an earlier generation of Nashville,
which I really didn't you know, identify with. I just
the country music at the at that time seemed like
another country to me, you know, it did it seemed
(01:01:32):
like and I was I was raised in the South,
so I had a sense of what the line was.
You know what the dividing line was. You know that
kind of Christian gun rack, uh, a cowboy hat thing.
You know that that line?
Speaker 7 (01:01:49):
Uh?
Speaker 6 (01:01:50):
Yeah, oh you've noticed that.
Speaker 1 (01:01:55):
Did you notice?
Speaker 8 (01:02:01):
Is that the only uh is that the only banjo
you've you've recorded?
Speaker 6 (01:02:05):
That's right. It was a six string banjo and it
so you played it like a guitar and it just,
you know, was stretched across that membrane that that a
banjo has and made that sound.
Speaker 5 (01:02:16):
But yeah, there's one more collaboration that I don't I
don't think a lot of people know about. There's a
song on an Art Garfunkel album cover of Sam Cook's
What a Wonderful World.
Speaker 6 (01:02:27):
Yes, that's right, Paul Simon and Art and and I.
Speaker 8 (01:02:31):
Yeah, yeah, everybody takes a verse. It's really cool.
Speaker 6 (01:02:34):
Yeah, we wrote an extra verse to it too. Don't
know much about the Middle Ages, looked at the pictures
and turned the pages, don't know nothing about no rise
and fall, don't know nothing about nothing at all. And
that that was an extra verse that we snuck into
it so that all three of us got a verse.
Speaker 8 (01:02:54):
Yeah, everybody should check that out. It's really pretty. We
will I just guess.
Speaker 1 (01:03:00):
I have a real quick question. Can you confirm something
that I've always thought in my head and in the pocket.
There's a song that you did with Stevie wonder, Don't
be sad because your son is down? Did Stevie come
up with that title? Yes, okay, I knew it. I
knew it. What's it there? It's just because that's it
just sounds like Stevie, you know, it sounds like a
Stevie sentence.
Speaker 6 (01:03:20):
What what Stevie gave me was this this thing that
goes like a don't be sad goes your songs is down? Anyway,
(01:03:53):
that's as much as here with the Tarry James Taylor,
give it James Taylor, take it away. But the the
the thing is that he gave me those chord changes,
and he gave me but on the piano, and he
(01:04:14):
gave me, uh, the title don't be said because your
son is down? And he said, you know, take that And.
Speaker 1 (01:04:23):
So I think that song and shove it. This is happening.
Speaker 6 (01:04:49):
I haven't thought of that song in many a year.
But we we we we did it live one year
and it was really it was great. But you know,
to to be able to work. Stevie was you know,
it was one of those things. He sent it over
and and called me up and and said, you know,
give it a try, and and you you know, i'll
(01:05:11):
take the publishing on this one. You take the publishing
on the next one. And we we haven't got to
the next one.
Speaker 3 (01:05:15):
Yet, he said, I as in him.
Speaker 1 (01:05:19):
Okay, guys, Stevie, it was you want.
Speaker 4 (01:05:26):
Yeah, I just had a light bulb of the moment. Ah, damn,
he wants to flip some ship. There's I know, like
I gotta go, I gotta flip some ship. No, it's
just okay, I have one last question then I gotta
let you go. Okay, I do want to tell about
traffic damn. Yeah, But also I want to ask him
(01:05:49):
why was it necessary for the book to come out?
Speaker 1 (01:05:51):
Right now? What's more important? All right, Well, I'll ask.
Speaker 4 (01:05:55):
You about yes, yes, ask him off the air about traffic, tam, Yes,
I'll ask you off the air. Okay, I mean that
was some pioneer, Nash Damn near rapping and he was
rapping on that you're rapped in nineteen seventy seven. Okay,
why did you feel was necessary to share. Thank you
for sharing your story? Yes, yes, why did you feel
(01:06:15):
was necessary to at the stage in your life to
share that story?
Speaker 6 (01:06:20):
Audible came to me and suggested, sort of through my management,
suggested that I do a project of some sort. And
initially the idea was to take five songs of mine,
play them and talk about them, you know, just sort
of elaborate on them, and you know, to the extent
that it would take up. However, many songs were necessary
(01:06:41):
for that chunk of work, which it's ninety minutes. But
when I started talking to Bill Flanagan about getting a
script together, he said, you know, why don't we just
take a certain that that portion of your life that
predates your being public before every you know, and and
(01:07:02):
why don't you just tell that story? So we sort
of backed into it a little bit.
Speaker 1 (01:07:08):
Uh and.
Speaker 6 (01:07:10):
But why why we why we decided uh, just now
you know it. I took the fall off because I've
got kids who are seniors in high school and they're
going to that through that college uh, you know, admissions thing,
and I wanted to not be on the road for that.
Speaker 8 (01:07:31):
I wanted to be around.
Speaker 6 (01:07:32):
So I just had the time to do it, you.
Speaker 1 (01:07:36):
Know, thank you. Yeah, that it was necessary. I appreciate that.
Thank you, thank you. Wow, this is one for the ages. Yeah,
well on behalf of time?
Speaker 6 (01:07:54):
Did you did? But did you you had a question
about fire and rain you were thinking of asking?
Speaker 4 (01:07:58):
No, no, I had a question about uh traffic jam,
which what made you even think to approach the song
like that? Because you know it's essentially hip hop.
Speaker 1 (01:08:10):
You know, it was very four or five? Was that
bad that day?
Speaker 6 (01:08:14):
Yeah? You know it was written right there in the studio,
right in and in the amount of time really that
it took to sing the song. It was written, okay,
it was freestyle and and Russ Kunkle took a foot
pedal and a box, you know, like a box filled
(01:08:35):
with packing peanuts and uh, and he attached the foot
pedal to the box and played the top of it
and with brushes, so it wasn't even a drum.
Speaker 1 (01:08:43):
It was like, you know, and Russes.
Speaker 6 (01:08:50):
Russ Russ was was you know, he's a very funky player.
He's he's a great player, and and uh, you know,
we just basically put it together and then harmonize the Uh.
The only melody in the song is in the chorus.
Damn this traffic jam. How I hate to be late.
(01:09:11):
It hurts my motor to go so slow. Damn this
traffic jam. By the time I get home, my sup
will be cold. Damn this traffic jam. And and we
so uh, you know, it just uh, it just came out,
and it was a very la thing because you know,
he lived in Los Angeles. She just lived in that
traffic all the time.
Speaker 4 (01:09:30):
And well, just because it came out in seventy seven,
I was like, well, hip hop didn't exist yet. I
didn't know if it was like post Woody Guthrie folky
talkie thing.
Speaker 6 (01:09:39):
Right, talking blues like Bob Dylan is talking blues.
Speaker 1 (01:09:42):
Right.
Speaker 4 (01:09:42):
But yeah, okay, you answered it, and I appreciate that.
All right, we gotta go lazier gentlemen.
Speaker 8 (01:09:49):
Wait, white people invented rapping.
Speaker 1 (01:09:50):
Just want to let.
Speaker 8 (01:09:53):
Just let everyone know, no.
Speaker 4 (01:09:56):
Man on behalf of Wasp Bill and Sugar Steve and like, yeah,
and sorry, Fante, you missed one. For the record, I'm
baby Bill and uh even Sarah, am I missing somebody?
Oh James Taylor and Julian Julian of course you're your
family though.
Speaker 1 (01:10:13):
Thank you very much.
Speaker 6 (01:10:14):
This has been great man.
Speaker 1 (01:10:15):
Thank you so much for Thank you. Well, this is
our episode of Ples Love Supreme. Amazing. Oh I don't
even know how to sign off on my own television.
Speaker 8 (01:10:28):
Show, television show exactly.
Speaker 1 (01:10:35):
We'll see you on that story on a plust Love Supree.
All right.
Speaker 4 (01:10:53):
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