June 13, 2025 • 55 mins
Join host Buzz Knight for a special episode of “Takin’ a Walk” as he chats with Paul Rappaport, a legendary figure in the music industry, about his brand new book called "Gliders Over Hollywood: Airships, Airplay and the Art of Rock Promotion." In this intimate conversation, Paul shares behind-the-scenes stories from his remarkable career, insights into the artists and moments that shaped music history, and the inspiration behind his latest writing. Whether you’re a lifelong music fan or just love a good story, this episode offers a rare glimpse into the life and legacy of someone who helped define generations of sound, from a list of artists that includes : Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, The Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, Elvis Costello and many others. You'll love the behind the scenes stories on this episode.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Taking a Walk in order for me to get the
Journey seal. This is real stuff. I want people to know,
this is not bullshit.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
In order for me to get the next Journey single out,
I have to get go, find the Yiddish book, learn
two lines of Yiddish, call him back, read the Yiddish,
and then he'll talk to me and we'll get the
Journey single out. You can't make this shit up.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
Today on the Taking a Walk podcast, Buzz Night is
joined by a true legend of the music industry, Paul
Rappaport As a longtime Columbia Records executive and author of
Gliders Over Hollywood, Airships, Airplay, and the Art of Rock Promotion.
Paul has spent decades behind the scenes with some of
the most iconic names in rock history, from Pink Floyd
(00:40):
and Bruce Springsteen to Bob Dylan and the Rolling Stones. Today,
Paul shares unforgettable stories from the golden age of rock,
like flying the Pink Floyd Airship across America, trading Tarlk's
with David Gilmour on stage, and navigating the wild, creative
chaos of life on the road with music's biggest stars.
(01:00):
Joined Buzznight for an audio journey through music history as
we take a walk with Paul Rappaport on the Taking
a Walk podcast.
Speaker 4 (01:09):
So, Paul Rappaport, thanks for being on Taking a Walk.
It's so great to see you in person, my friend.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Thanks for having me on. I'm amazed that I'm on
the side of the microphone.
Speaker 4 (01:18):
It's a beautiful, beautiful thing. So, since the podcast is
called Taking a Walk, before we get to your fabulous
book and the seemy underbelly of its creation, if you
could take a walk with somebody living or dead, doesn't
have to be a musician, but since you've lived a
(01:40):
life around music, maybe that would be great. Who would
it be and where would you take a walk with them?
Speaker 2 (01:46):
I think it would be Michael Bloomfield because as a
guitar player, I've been playing guitar since I was a kid.
He really spoke to me when I got turned onto
the Paul Butterfield Blues Band and I listened to what
(02:07):
this guy was doing. He's not as well known as
he should be, you know, for being the great guitar
player that he was. I mean, Bob Dylan considers him
to be the best guitar player he ever played. With
just to give you an idea of you know, how
great Michael Bloomfield is. And I met him once briefly
what you read in the book. But he's a big
(02:27):
hero of mine. And I think it would be him
because he's not living anymore. And if I could go
back and just talk to him about the blues and
you know, his style and how he learned to talk
with the instrument and everything, and I probably would be
in Chicago with him where he, you know, played in
all those clubs and learned his craft, you know, hanging
(02:50):
out with guys like Muddy Waters and these people. That
would be a thrill for me. I remember actually being
in a student you know, working on a record and
I had to play a part in time in beat
and and it was you had to get in a
(03:13):
groove and I and it's going to sound hippie dippy,
but I was like channeling him, like like I was like, hey, Michael,
you know, like he just said on my shoulder, just
so I can get this done, yeah, you know, and
I felt like he was there and it was like, oh, no,
you got this, and I just I don't know, you know,
I just felt special.
Speaker 5 (03:34):
So it would be him. In in in Chicago.
Speaker 4 (03:37):
And knowing you, I think you would get some unique,
uh takes out of him. You would get down to
the core of what drove him as an artist, and
you would you would get something out of him. I
think that would be different than most folks would get
out of a person like that.
Speaker 5 (03:58):
I believe you.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
Knowing you, I think you know, having grown up and
being involved, you know, with guitars from an early age,
It's something that's.
Speaker 5 (04:09):
Been a part of me my whole life.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
And of course, you know, all the artists that I
worked with in my career, it was a sort of
an instant bond with them because aside from talking about
you know, you know, the promotion of them and selling
you know, you know, albums and eventually CDs, et cetera,
et cetera, they knew that their music was inside me,
(04:34):
that I loved their music, and you know, it was
easy for me to talk to them and I could talk.
I have deep conversations because I could talk about you know,
albums in certain parts and how did this happen? And
you know, because I was such a fan, and it
gave me a wonderful entree, you know, in the music
(04:57):
business because I wasn't.
Speaker 5 (04:58):
Viewed as a suit right.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
I was like, Oh, this guy's cool, he's going to
help us, but he knows our stuff, like he knows
what he's talking about. So I think I probably would,
you know. I mean, I write in my book about
meeting Michael Bloomfield briefly, and I'm trying to learn how
to play the blues. I'm a kid in college and
an electric flag comes and I'm watching what he's doing,
(05:24):
and the guy's playing a less Paul, which I didn't
know how meaningful that was at the time. I just
know that these notes are screaming out of this guitar,
and he's talking to me with this guitar like he's
it can be sad, it can be happy, it can
be exhilarating. All these emotions are flying out of this guitar.
He's plugged into five different amps, which is a whole
(05:44):
nother story was he was working and crafting his sound,
you know. But I think that because he felt so
much in his music, that we would have a different
kind of a discussion. You know, where does this come from?
Speaker 5 (06:00):
How do you do this?
Speaker 2 (06:01):
And I remember going backstage afterwards introducing myself saying, hey,
I'm the college.
Speaker 5 (06:06):
You're up for UCLA.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
I'm a big fan, you know, blah blah, and I'm
learning how to play the blues. I'm trying to get
the sustain. How do you do this? And he looks
at me and he goes, oh, it's in the fingers.
It's all in the fingers. And as I write in
the book, I thought he was egoing out on me, like, oh, hey,
it's all in the fingers, right, And he leaves and
I go back to my fraternity house and I just
(06:29):
emulate what he did. I go, it's all in the fingers.
Speaker 5 (06:32):
You know.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
I have a guitar at the time as a Rickenbacker.
It's not the greatest guitar for blues.
Speaker 5 (06:36):
But I do what he did.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
I turn the app all the way up, I turn
the volume all the way up, and I wiggle my finger.
As most guitar players know, that's how you get a vibrato.
You hit a note and you wiggle your finger makes
a vibrato. That's how you get the sustain. The light
bulb of the century goes off in my head and
I'm like, oh my god, he wasn't egoing. He's trying
to teach me something, and I'm running back across camp screaming.
Speaker 5 (07:01):
My guts out. People think I'm crazy.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
It's in the fingers. It's in the fingers, you know.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
And I wanted to tell him, but he was long gone, right,
you know, by the time I got back to you know,
the hall where he played.
Speaker 5 (07:14):
But I would just love to have.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
Another conversation with that guy about so many things, but
he would be the one.
Speaker 4 (07:22):
I love the story, and I think what I'll pile
on the accolades at the beginning about you, and in
the middle of the interview and at the end, so
I'll equally distribute the accolades. But I think one of
the keys to your success as a promotion leader for
(07:44):
your company was the fact that you weren't bullshit and
you were genuine in your love for the music and
for what the artists were doing. And people instantly picked
up on that. They knew if Paul Rappaport was coming
(08:05):
with a project, that it was going to be something
that had some meat to it rather than some fly
by night operation.
Speaker 5 (08:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
Well, you know, I had no other agenda other than
I love this music so much that we grew up
with this music late sixties early seventies. I mean this
shapes our lives. Bob Dylan shaped the way I think,
so did Pink Floyd, so did the Rolling Stones, the Beatles.
So I come to the business just with a love
of music and no other agenda other than to help
(08:38):
these people along because they had given so much to me.
It was like, Hey, I get to give back to
these people and new artists. When when I joined Columbia,
you know, Aerosmith is a brand new band. There's a
new guy named Bruce Springsteen. There's a new guy named
Billy Joel. There's a new guy named Elvis Costelli. There's
all new people. There's a brand new it's starting out.
So we're starting out together where I'm the same age
as all those guys. So I think because I'd come
(09:01):
from the sixties thing, which was a more authentic, genuine place,
I'm not the pre you know, the fifties, you know
promo guys like the Hey babe guys. You know, I'm
not that slick person. And my only agenda is I
love this music and I get to shout about it. Right,
I'm going to go try to get this on radio
to tell people, Hey, I love this music and guess
(09:22):
what you know, so will you if you can hear this,
et cetera. I think also because of my work ethic,
people knew if I would bring a promotion to them.
Speaker 5 (09:33):
One of the greatest.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
Compliments I ever got was from somebody when I brought
them something that was you know, I have a big imagination.
I'd bring them something pretty big, and they said, that's okay, Rap,
because my last name's Rapaports and my nicknames Rap's that's okay, Rap.
Speaker 5 (09:46):
Your shit works. And it was the.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
Biggest compiment I ever had, Like, oh, they trust me. Like, no,
your shit works. Whatever you have, even if it's outlandish,
you know, which could be shooting a laser beam off
a mountainside or a giant airship for Bake Floyd. At
least they knew I'd done my homework and yes, you
know it would work. So I think those two things.
Having the work ethic too, and just make sure everything
(10:10):
did work, you know, by perfection. Having a list I
always I would always make myself a checklist. I don't
care if it's the smallest promotion or the biggest television show.
You make yourself a checklist of you anticipate every little
thing every big thing and every little thing. All you
have to do is go down the list. Will never fail.
You'll be perfect because you just keep looking at the list.
I didn't do that. I didn't do that yet, So
that was something that I adopted early on. You know
(10:32):
what you read about in the book which really helped.
Speaker 4 (10:36):
It was an early lesson for you.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
It was an early lesson, yeah, because it was like, oh,
this is how you do it, and you learn along
the way. You know, you know, you know how to
do these you know different things, how to approach problems
and challenges. So I think those two things are work
ethic and.
Speaker 5 (10:50):
You know not.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
You know, look, it's an entertainment business. A lot of
people have agendas. They're trying to be this, or they
want to be that, or they're trying to get close
to somebody because they want to favor.
Speaker 5 (11:00):
It just wasn't me. I was just pretty much what
you see is what you get. You know.
Speaker 4 (11:04):
That's yeah, Well, it certainly proved its point time and
time again. We'll get to the book more, but I
want to ask you, do you recall though, the first
moment in your life where you were touched by music
and you absolutely knew with some certainty you were going
(11:24):
to have something to do with music in your life.
Speaker 5 (11:27):
That's an interesting question.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
My first memory of music really moving me is it's
a very old song. It's a Big Rock Candy Mountain,
you know, by a guy named Harry McClintock. And in
this song, it's about a hobo and it talks about
living the hobo life. And in the big Rock Candy
(11:51):
Mountain there's cigarette trees, there's lemonade springs, and there's a
jail that only made out of ten so you can
walk right out again as soon as you are in.
I'm like, what five or six? I hear this, and
I love this song because I could see it in
my head. You know, I have a big imagination. I
(12:13):
could see this world in my head and I went, Wow,
what a great world. So I listened to this over
and over again as a kid, because I went, this
is a wonderful world. I'm only a kid, right, And
just even the whole idea of a jail where you
can walk out again, it speaks to my inner rebel.
Speaker 5 (12:26):
Right.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
Yeah, So that's the first time, I think.
Speaker 4 (12:30):
And you must have loved when it then became a
central part of Oh brother World.
Speaker 5 (12:35):
I blew my mind right.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
I was like, oh, that's my song.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
So, but the first time where I really have a
wake up call is again. I'm seven years old and
I'm you know, It's Sunday morning in Los Angeles. My
parents are sleeping in I turn on the TV. There's
not a lot on in the fifties on Sunday morning,
but there was a lie show from a very famous
(13:02):
car salesman, cal Worthington cal Worthington Dodge, who had a
giant car lot and in order to get people interested,
he had live music playing on the lot and it
was mostly country.
Speaker 5 (13:14):
So as a.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
Kid, first of all, it's great because it's live. I'm
transported to this place and I'm seeing all these players
and singers and I'm like, this is amazing, and I
don't know, buzz I guess for whatever reason, the guitars
spoke to me. I'm looking at these guitars. I knew
what a guitar was, of course, but this is the
first time I'm seeing them in action. I'm like, look
(13:35):
at these guitars. They're all different. Some of them are bit,
some of them are small, some of them have a
widen neck, some of them are a nylon string, some
are metal strings, but they're all have their own soul.
Speaker 5 (13:46):
Right.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
Every time somebody hits the guitar, a different sound comes out.
And all these people have songs and they have something
to say. They have these songs have messages, and I'd
always anticipate, Jez, I wonder what this person is going
to sing about it, and wonder what that person is
to sing about. But the guitar, I don't know if
it was the curves or the wood. It just seemed important.
(14:06):
I went, wait, you know, somebody with a guitar on
their shoulders got a message for me. And this is
a big deal to me. And I remember after watching
the show, I told my parents, I not I want
to learn how to play the guitar.
Speaker 5 (14:19):
I need to.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
I need to do that. I need to learn how
to play the guitar. And as you read, I mean
the woman who came to our house told my parents,
oh what she called the Spanish guitar. She said, oh,
this will be difficult for him. He's got to push
the strings down. Why don't we start them on lap steel,
which is like if you look at country band's pedal steel,
there's pedals that bend in the strings. But there's lap
steel which without the pedals, and you can play slide
(14:44):
guitar music, but you could play country, you could play
you know, Hawaiian music was big. It wasn't really my
thing at all, but it was electric. So I plugged
into an amp and that was wow, this is electuses like,
this is a cool thing. And so I start doing
this as seven years old, and I think at that
time it wasn't what I wanted, right, So I'm doing
(15:05):
this for a little while, and I'm like, I don't
like this, you know, except for the one time I
did the you know, the recital where an eight year
old girl came was doing a hula in front of me.
I'm playing Hawaiian music, this girl shows up. All I
know is I'm seeing more skin than I've ever seen
in my life as a kid. You know, hula skirts,
you know, below her navel, her legs are moving in
(15:27):
and out. I'm only eight.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
I know I like this. I don't know why. I
have no idea why. I like, you knew why, you know,
I don't know at eight?
Speaker 5 (15:34):
What do you know at eight? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (15:35):
But you know, but Hawaiian music started to sound better
and better. I was like, oh, and I'll stick with
this royal. But at fourteen when I heard Bob Dylan,
that changed my life and I went, okay, I forget
I'm doing this. So at fourteen years old and I
heard Peter, Paul and Mary, but Dylan was really the one.
I don't think twice right. And I see the guitars
they're playing, and I just went out, saved up my money,
(15:56):
went and bought a guitar, strung it up in a
way that I needed. I like the nylon and look,
i'd a bought a guitar that happened to have steel strings.
I actually took those steel strings off. I filed down
the nut of the guitar so the nylon strings would fit.
Made my own guitar, you know, lowered the action so
that my fingers could play, got a guitar chord book
and just sat down and taught myself how to play
(16:17):
the guitar. And I couldn't get it off out of
my fingers. I just couldn't get enough of it. We'd
be watching TV and I just I just you know,
I wouldn't play it loud, but I'd be cording to
make sure my fingers could remember how to go because
you know, in the beginning, your fingers don't know what
to do. You're taking your right hand and you're pushing
your left fingers down to No, this string is getting
(16:39):
in the way of this. You have to make sure
that the chords are clear. And ever since fourteen year
olds old, I just couldn't get the guitar out of
my hands. It just became a friend of mine. It
became like a companion. And you know, if you were sad,
it could be a friend. If you were happy, you
could play joyous stuff on it. It's just always there.
At fifteen and sixteen, I go where electric I grew
(17:02):
up in southern California, saw surf music, Dick Dale, all right,
you want to talk about You want know where heavy
metal came from. Even Jimmy Hendrix tells you that he
listened to Dick Dale. Go listen to surf beat right
with a Fender reverb from Hell, you know, the echo
of that thing and Miserly and all these songs, and
so you know, early on I learned how to play
(17:24):
surf music. Was interestingly enough, the same thing was happening
in England. All right, So I'm listening to the Ventures
right and surf instrumentals. At the same time, a guy
named David Gilmour is in England. He's listening to Hank
Marvin and the Shadows and they.
Speaker 5 (17:41):
Had the big hit Apache. But it's the.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
Same Fender Twain right, the same thing's going on. This
is how electric guitar is building, you know, until Jimmy
Hendrix comes along and then changes the face of the
electric guitar.
Speaker 5 (17:54):
Yeah, but.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
So we started doing that, and then of course when
the British invade hit with the Beatles and the Stones,
I was immediately attracted to the Rolling Stones because they
were dangerous and I wanted to be dangerous. So I
learned how to play electric guitar blues listening to early
Rolling Stones records. This is Keith Richards was how I
(18:19):
learned how to play electric guitar with an you know,
with a record album at a tone arm which I
ruined my records, like.
Speaker 5 (18:24):
What going back dropped the newly? What's he?
Speaker 1 (18:26):
How does he do that? What is he doing?
Speaker 2 (18:28):
And as a kid, there's no we don't have YouTube,
we don't have any of that. So that's the only
way you're going to learn or a friend's gonna come
over and say, oh, here's a lick, or here's how
he's doing this or whatever. You know, years later I
met him. He gave me a guitar list, you know,
which was amazing because I learned how all the Rolling
Stones hits are made with young tuning. But but at
any rate, so I think from the age of fourteen,
(18:49):
I know something's up for me with the guitar. By
the time I go electric and I'm playing in bands
in high school, I know something's really now. I have
no idea I'm going to be in the music business,
and I have no idea if I'm going to make
it as in music, you know, we had experiences. I
was in a punk band in la in nineteen seventy three,
which you know may have gone farther than we thought.
(19:12):
I thought it was a lark. So you know, I
was going to get a real job at Columbia, and
I was went, well, this is a steady job. I
think I'll take this. I'll still play guitar. The leader
of the band band it's called Mogen David and his Whinos,
I believe it or not, it's it's a legendary band
in La if you go on to eBay and you
(19:32):
look up our album like it's called Savage Young Winos,
which is a takeoff on the Savage Young Beatles album
with Pete Best. If you go on eBay, our album
ogain Mogen David and his Winos Savage Young Whinos is
like a bidding war. The last one sold for one
hundred and thirty three records. If you go get the
original Beatles album called Savage Young Beatles with Pete Best
(19:54):
as the drummer, it sells for fifty bucks.
Speaker 5 (19:58):
So go figure.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
I don't know how this worked, but so we were
in this band and you know, we we were like
we're known in Hollywood. We're like the hip you know whatever,
punk band. But when the Columbia, you know, real job
came up. Harold Bronson, who by the way, went on
to be Rhino Records. He's the he is the co
founder of Rhino Records, right, very talented guy. He wanted
to take the band on the road. And I said, Harold,
(20:20):
I just don't think we're that good now we buzz.
We didn't know that at that time, nobody was that good.
There was a band, there was a group called the
Wrecking Crew. These people are helping bands, even the biggest
bands in the road, like the Beach Boys. Like I'd
hear the Beach Boys and go, Harold, which is not
that good. Listen to these guys. It wasn't them. It's
the Wrecking Crew, like you know, session guys helping them.
And of course, but we didn't know that.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
We didn't know that.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
So they're getting better as they play on the road.
Guess what, if you practice, you get better. You play
night after night, you get better. We didn't know that,
so we didn't know anything. We'd snuck in the middle
of a recording studio night make our record. We didn't buzz.
We didn't know anything. E Q, what does that do?
We don't know anything, right, So but we made a record.
We made a thousand, We sold a thousand. We sold
them all over the world. I have reviews from France
(21:02):
and Japan, don't I don't know if they like the record.
I don't know what they say it because they're different languages.
But but you know, so we go on our merry way.
I work for Columbia Records. I have, you know, wonderful
career there. Harold does Rhino Records. Those guys go it's huge.
But when the Ramones came out, Harold called me and
he said, you see, this would have been us. And
(21:23):
we don't know that it wouldn't have not been us
because we didn't go down the road of hey can
we get some help in the studio. We just thought
it's all on us. I mean, neither one of us
are complaining. We both had wonderful careers and we you know,
you know, I had successful marriages and kids and all
that kind of stuff, you know, and I don't know
that I would have, you know, actually even been able
to survive on the road. I think I might have
(21:43):
been one of those road casualties. That's a that's a
rough life. I don't know if that's for me, but
at any rate, but I guess the you know, in
those times, I know music's playing a part in my life.
I know it's always going to play a part in
my life. Even when I got the job for Columbia,
we will this is be the best of both worlds.
I can still play, and I can play in sessions
and then and behold, I'm meeting all these people and
I'm winding up playing. You know, you know, I run
(22:08):
the book Todje Mahall came one day to the office.
He usually would go to the recording studio. He came
to the business office. I don't know why. Cool guy
goes into the mailroom. He's got a big, flat back
Austrian bass. He just starts playing the bass, right, because
in those days, that's how it was. We were like
one happy family.
Speaker 5 (22:24):
Right.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
Okay, I don't know where I got the balls to
do this, but I have a guitar in my office.
I went in there and just started jamming with them
right now. Every once in a while I look up.
I just stop because I realized it's Todje Mahall. I
freak out, right, So we get done. So half an
hour later or forty minutes, he looks at me. He goes,
what's wrong with you? I said, what do you mean?
He goes, well, you seem like you know where you're going.
You're doing really good, and then.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
You just stop.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
I go, yeah, I stop because I look up and
I realize it's you, and I freak out and he goes, well, ah,
that's your problem, right, And I came to realize these
guys are all players. First people from that generation. Eric
Clapton did not get into business to be a rock star.
Rockstar wasn't even invented, right, he invents that with other people.
(23:05):
There is no such thing at the time. There are
pop stars, but there's no rock stars. Eric Clappan just
wanted to be the best player he could be. If
you read his autobiography, I just wanted to be a
guitar virtuoso and all of these blues things that I heard.
I went, oh my god, it's already been done. Well,
maybe I'll listen to Freddy kme to me. If I
do it my way, maybe I can make quote unquote
a living. You know, you read Ronnie Wood's book. We
(23:26):
just wanted to play. We didn't think about business. Just
me and Rod. We just got into vanage. We just
want to play. But they wanted to be the best
players they could be. David Gilmore same thing. They just
wanted to be the best players they could be. And
then all the business stuff came after. So they're musicians, right.
I found myself. You know, when Steve Perry was making
(23:46):
a solo record, you know, in a rehearsal, he goes, oh, hey, rap, oh,
I know you can blow just grab one of my
guitars and come up here. I'm like, Okay, what do
you want to do? I don't know, Like I'm a
blues guy. Okay, Perry blues an a minor. Oh no,
he asked me the key? What key do you want?
Speaker 5 (24:03):
Perry?
Speaker 1 (24:03):
You're the singer, you know.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
It's like, but awesome, I'm playing guitar with Steve Perry's journey, right,
I want to play with the little feet guys. This
would happen to me just because I'm a player, you know.
And then you read in the book, eventually I wind
up playing with Pink Floyd, which is all that's a
whole another planet, you know.
Speaker 4 (24:19):
But I think one of the underlying storylines lessons inside
the book is the aspect of your confidence in just
freaking going for it, whether it be as a player,
whether it be and the way that you approached, you know,
your promotion work, the ability to think big and just
(24:41):
say let's let it rip, baby, let's let it wrap baby.
And I think, as I reflect on the book, I
think that's one of the things that everyone can take from.
Speaker 5 (24:54):
It, besides all the great stories. Would you agree with that? Oh?
Speaker 2 (24:57):
I think so there's a you know, there's a lot
in this book, beyond the stories. And you know, I
tried to write it like you are there, like you're
having conversations, you know, with with with with some of
your favorite artists, because I, you know, I'm blessed with
like a photographic memory. I can read these conversations. I
remember the conversation buzz. I can remember the room. I
remember having dinner with Mick Jagger. I can tell you
(25:18):
what he had to eat. I mean, I can visualize
this plate. I mean, that's it's kind of wacky stuff.
Speaker 5 (25:22):
Well, you are a bit of a.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
I'm whatever it is, I'm something, so these things, you know,
come to me and so but I wanted to make
sure that more than stories, you know, I hope people
could could get you know, here's an inside look of
how this works, or here's how.
Speaker 5 (25:43):
You know my mind worked, you know.
Speaker 2 (25:46):
And I had a big imagination and I had a
big work ethic, and I had you know, I wanted
to be the best. You know, I guess that's an
ego thing, but I I you know, I wanted to
be the best. I just and I wanted to sound
like some like I'm egoing up. But I had to
be the best at what I did, which is something
inside like I'm going to be the best at this
(26:07):
and I'm going to do bigger than life things, you know,
and that Yeah, that does take a belief in yourself
and and it does take a bit of attitude. But
I would, I would, I would visualize things and then
I would make them happen. So like I have a
bigger imagination, so I could visualize an airship for Pink
(26:27):
Floyd or shooting a you know, a giant laser cannon
off a mountain side, or you know, you know, even
if I did a TV show, you know once at
a TV series and which just I could see it.
And once I saw it, it was like, Okay, I
see it. How do we do that? Okay, get the
checklist out? What does it take? Everything takes something different.
What does it take to make these things happen? And
(26:48):
it's like building blocks, you just you know, it's like
building a company. You know, look, you build a company.
It's like building a company.
Speaker 5 (26:54):
It's the same thing.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
So here are the things that need that you need
if you're going to shoot an argon laser cannon off
a mountainside. These are the things you need. These are
the things you need for a giant psychedelic airship. You know,
there's a television show live by request. Okay, I didn't
know about television. I had to learn how to make
a television show. Okay, it's okay. There are people that
teach you how to make a television show from the
get What do you need? How does this work? How
(27:16):
do the lights work? How do the camera people work?
How do the producers work? Who do I hire? You
can learn it, but I.
Speaker 5 (27:21):
Would see it. I have it like i'd see it.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
I guess the best way to to, you know, to
to have you understand it like I envision these things
and then I build them well.
Speaker 4 (27:32):
And that's probably what eventually led you down the path
of uh and where your your mind and your your
memory went with all this with you know, being a magician,
a card trick micetro, I mean you have to have
a memory and a mind that works uniquely to be
(27:53):
able to pull some of the stuff off that you
were able to pull right.
Speaker 2 (27:57):
But there's a secret to it, yeah, you know, especially
in magic. You know I write about, you know, my
four Ways into Magic. Got an uncle who was a
big time magician in Florida, and I started learning as
a kid. Later in life, you know, I wind up
getting lessons from one of the great masters that invented
a lot of the slights that people still use today.
(28:18):
There was two major league magicians. When was a guy
named Tony Slidini who took his name from Houdini because
he's from the forties. There was a guy Divernon was
on the west coast and Tony was on the East coast.
I saw Tony perform. I took lessons with him. Magic
will teach you a lot. There's a lot about it
(28:39):
that's not just the slights, right, It's it's it's a
lot of mind. You know, when am I going to
tell people what journey do I want to take them down?
It's a performance art. You know, it's getting people to
think a certain way so that something else happens, and
(29:01):
something else happens. And there's a lot that I learned,
and there's a lot that you can divine from how
magic works in the in the human mind. And I,
as you read, I brought some of this stuff to
light in the book. How he actually even took some
of those premises and and you know, made it a
(29:23):
part of my promotion efforts. Because there were things that
I learned that I could quote unquote make magic happen
in certain ways that helped records along that maybe needed
some help. They weren't going to get there on its own, right,
So you know, so that was it was, it was,
It was helpful. So I think the way your mind
(29:45):
has to work for that stuff is a lot of
people don't realize. They think it's always just slight of
hand or something. Oh no, no, that's that's that's just the basics.
Just the magic is bigger. I mean, if if you
want to you know, I I hate it when people
say tricks. I don't like that. We're not doing tricks.
I didn't, you know, I want to do magic. Magic's different. Okay,
(30:06):
you do magic and people are like, whoa, that was
that real? Like wait a minute. You know, if you
want people to get to that place, you get people
to get to that place, and then you've accomplished you
know something.
Speaker 5 (30:22):
So yes, yes, yeah, it applied.
Speaker 2 (30:26):
It was part of what you ultimately became a part
of my life, and uh, you know, it was.
Speaker 4 (30:30):
Great witnessing it. I remember the first time absolutely blew
my mind. I was already a fan of yours, and
then I'm like, this guy's a freaking superhero, you know,
and there and there he's he's we're leaving. Uh, we'll
get to Bob Dylan Moore in a bit, but we're
leaving the Bob Dylan moment that you were gracious enough
(30:54):
to include me in. And and I remember that Bob
wanted you to stay behind because he wanted you to
do that that trick where he was a big he
was a big manage left he left the Jack of
Hearts right right.
Speaker 5 (31:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:09):
No, he was a big magic fan, Bob, so he
liked for me to come backstage and do you know,
card magic or whatever. And he was just a big fan,
you know. But the Jack of Heart story is funny
because I did this effect where I wanted him to
wind up with the Jack of Hearts, right, and there's
(31:30):
ways that you can do that, because I thought, well,
this will be you know, Bob will love this.
Speaker 5 (31:35):
Because it's you know, Lily Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts. Right.
Speaker 2 (31:38):
So I do this whole thing, this concoction and everything,
Jack of Hearts comes up. Bob's like, eh, pretty cool.
I go, well, Bob, you know Jack of Hearts. He goes, well,
so what I go. I go, you know, Lily Rosemary
and the Jack of Hearts and he looks at me like,
you know, who cares?
Speaker 1 (31:55):
Like that's the fartherest thing from you know.
Speaker 2 (31:58):
This guy's written so many songs in my mind, it's like, oh,
that's one of the biggest Bob Billing songs. He doesn't
even put two and two together that the Jack of
Hearts comes up. It doesn't matter to him. Maybe he did.
He was just playing with you.
Speaker 5 (32:09):
Well, Bob can do that, right, Maybe.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
We'll get back to point.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
Oh yeah, well yeah, maybe you know, maybe maybe you know,
you don't know. He could have been, but I don't
think so. I think it was just my view on him.
But he you know, And look, I would have fun
with all you guys. It's a fun It's a people thing.
So you like, if you and I go out to
dinner and then afterwards, and I don't force it on people.
I'm not one of these guys. Oh you know, pick
(32:33):
a card guy.
Speaker 5 (32:33):
I'm not. You have to ask.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
If you're really interested, I'll do something. I'm not that guy, right,
But for people who love it, it's fun. How much
fun is this? Okay, let's have dessert. Oh you want
to see like half an hour magic? Sure, great, Okay,
here's corn's going through a tabletop. But you know it's like,
why not. You know, it's just it's a it's a
I love it because it's also a people things. It's
a it's something I do with people. It's not my
(32:56):
The way that I do it isn't like I'm the
magician and you're not. I'm much the opposite. I'm want
to be as amazed as you. So when things happen
that are amazing and you're getting to kick out of it,
I'm getting to kick out of like, man, that was amazing.
Speaker 5 (33:08):
You know, I want to be a part of it.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
I don't want to be the you know, sort of
overlord of it. It's better to be, you know, just
with everybody else hanging out and freaking out, you know,
over watching this stuff happens.
Speaker 3 (33:21):
Yeah, we'll be right back with more of the Taking
a Walk podcast. Welcome back to the Taking a Walk Podcast.
Speaker 4 (33:33):
So there's so many people I want to talk about here,
so I kind of have to. I don't want to
do the lightning round effect at all, but I do
want to run through some of the mount rushmore of
music that you have been exposed to and you were
part of that is so well chronicled in the book,
(33:54):
and you do take us into it and it does
make you feel like you're you're there. So you did
an amazing job of crafting it. The book is beautiful,
the layout of it, the feel of it, the pictures.
Speaker 5 (34:09):
And I got lucky. I had some publishers who are
really into art.
Speaker 4 (34:13):
Yeah, but you cared back to your work. It's so
obvious too, So the publishers care, you care. Yeah, it's
a great product. So it's a beautiful book. The pictures
are rich. I remember talking to you early on when
you were still working on it, and you hadn't even
completed it, and you were already beautifully obsessed and proud
(34:35):
of the work. Even at that point, I remember, yeah, well,
I know now you really are.
Speaker 5 (34:40):
Well. It took six years.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
I mean, this is six years of writing, rewriting, putting
stuff in, throwing stuff out. I wanted it to be
great and that takes time, and so and I slaved
over every paragraph, every sentence, words. I mean, just you know.
I had four editors that helped, you know, like they're
like record producers. You know, the the fellow from job
(35:01):
Bone Press the books on Jobbone. He's like a record producer.
It's like, okay, you've got fifteen tracks, let's cut it
down to twelve. I'm going to resequence your album and
here's a better baseline for this song. That's what record
producers do. That's what people that you know that are
in charge.
Speaker 5 (35:15):
Of books do.
Speaker 2 (35:16):
And he said, look, it's your book, he said, but
he's the way you've written it. I think it's a
bit top heavy. I'd like to slide the Bob Dylan
section a little closer here. I think your chapter one
could be a prologue. I'm smart enough to know this
is what these people do for a living. It took
me a second. Took me about a week because when
he sent it back it was different, same stories, but
kind of you know, laid out different.
Speaker 5 (35:36):
And I took a big breath and I went, oh, no,
this is like, this flows better.
Speaker 3 (35:39):
This.
Speaker 5 (35:40):
He knows what he's this. You know, he knows.
Speaker 2 (35:43):
It was kind of like I wish that some young
bands would have listened to me more right away.
Speaker 5 (35:47):
I'm not going to be them.
Speaker 2 (35:48):
I'm going to be the one who listens like I
think this is like really amazing. So just I said,
thank you, thank you, thank you. So you know the
writing is mine, but the way that it's laid out
is was it's having a great record producer. I lucked
out and got this guy, you know.
Speaker 4 (36:05):
So okay, Mount Rushmore, I'm going to start with the Stones,
because I know you were more of a Stones person
than a Beatles person, even though Paul McCartney represents the
significant part, so he'll be next. But what can folks
take on the Rolling Stones experience that you experiences that
(36:25):
you but overall experience that you write about so well.
Speaker 2 (36:29):
Well, I think, first of all, I'm not writing from
a too cool first school place. I want people to
understand exactly how it was for me meeting them in
the first place. Again, I'm a seventeen year old kid
falling over the Rolling Stones. I take my wife, my
girlfriend at the time who wound up becoming my wife,
(36:50):
and we're the him. I'm seventeen, she's sixteen, or however
old we are in nineteen sixty six. I take her
to the Hollywood Bowl see my favorite band, and our
favorite song was Everybody Needs Somebody to Love, which is
a song they did on two different albums.
Speaker 5 (37:05):
And.
Speaker 2 (37:07):
You know, we're just like you see in the newsreels.
We're jumping up and down, we're singing the songs. I mean,
you know, Meck Jagger comes out, jumps high in the air.
He's got this great leather jacket with conchos. He's, you know,
playing the tambourinae. This is so long ago. Brian Jones
is still in the band. Okay, so this is music
that is my life. It's shaping my life. Mother's little helper,
all the messages whatever. Now you fast forward twenty years
(37:31):
and I'm sitting on a couch right across the street,
you know, over here in Black Rock, which is Columbia Records,
you know famous, you know, the CBS building. I'm telling
Mick Jagger his marketing plan for his first solo album,
She's the Boss, because I've now come to New York
and I'm the head of rock promotion for Columbia. Now
I'm sitting next to this guy telling him his marketing plan.
(37:54):
The two most amazing things are I know what I'm
talking about because I'm Steep. Now, I'm a professional record
you know promotion man. He's listening to me. Now, I
got to shake my head like I'm just because I'm
flashing back. I'm like, I'm just the kid that saw
you not that many years ago. This guy's listening to
me and I'm having trouble wrapping my head around this. Right, So,
(38:17):
first of all, to meet I want people to know
what it was like, even though I'm professional to have
to just take a breath and get it together to
talk to these people. Because when you sit across from
a Mick Jagger or a Keith or Bob are any of
these people that were a part of my life before
him in the music business. So, like I mentioned before,
(38:38):
when I start, it's Bruce, and it's Billy Joel and
it's Arrowsmith. We're all the same age, we grow up together.
I'm not in any less awe of their talent, but
it's not the same feeling. It's not I'm not in
awe of them because we're just trying to make their kids,
trying to make their careers happen.
Speaker 3 (38:54):
Right.
Speaker 2 (38:55):
So, but when you see these people, like you know
when you I grew up watching the Eds all of
It show, and I know every Rolling Stone and I
love Bill Wyman playing bass, being the famous bass and
just chewing gum and looking into the camera like you know,
all these visions I have, that's what you see.
Speaker 5 (39:11):
You don't see.
Speaker 2 (39:12):
Oh, here's a guy that's you know, you know done,
haven't made a great career for himself.
Speaker 5 (39:17):
You can't help it.
Speaker 2 (39:18):
All the movies and all the songs and all the
concerts you saw, that's what you're looking at. So it
takes a second, right, And I wanted people to just
travel with this is how it was, and then eventually
you get to know them. Then I wanted people to
see a different side of them. These guys are really
cool people. I mean they're because they've been there and back, right,
(39:41):
These are seasoned people. It's a hard life. People just
only see the fun stuff. They don't know the rough
part about this business and what it can take out
of you. So again, I wanted people to see to
meet me when I'm seventeen learning how to play guitar
right in my little you know, blue collar town southern California,
and b flashed forward working with Mick Jagger, and finally
(40:05):
Keith Richards, my all time favorite rock hero, which you
know you read in the book the first time I
read him, is pretty drugy so that's a whole other
fun story for another thing. But you know, but later
I remeet him when we signed the whole Rolling Stones,
and the guy gives me a guitar lesson. Now again,
I'm flashed back to the kid at seventeen years old, going,
(40:26):
I don't understand why I can't get this. And I
meet him, and because he's a guitar player first and
a rock star second, it's the guitar club, right, I
meet him. Okay, look, I'm going to gush on you
for about thirty seconds and then I'll be professional again.
I said, but you got to understand what you mean
to me as a kid growing up.
Speaker 5 (40:44):
He took it on in.
Speaker 2 (40:46):
He actually loved the fact that a kid listened to him.
He said to me, No, this means a lot to me.
Because I'm a musician. I'm supposed to pass it on.
That's my job.
Speaker 5 (40:55):
He said.
Speaker 2 (40:55):
Look, I'm proud of the Stones, I'm proud of everything
we done, but I'm supposed to pass this on to
players like you and Dave Edmonds. How I got in
the same you know list of Dave Edmonds. I don't know,
but I'll take it. So then the guy gives me
a guitar lesson. Now it turns out that the reason
my high school band couldn't get the songs exactly right,
it is because most of the Rolling Stone hits are
(41:16):
in G tuning. It's an open G tuning. It's a
blues tuning.
Speaker 5 (41:19):
You know that.
Speaker 2 (41:20):
I explained in the book that he explained to me.
He said, this is fun. You're gonna see this goes home.
It's only five strings. You're going to take the top
string off. You gotta bar these chords. There's only two fingers.
He was so excited to show me this, and I
wanted people to see that side of Keith Richards, you know,
you get the rock star stuff. I want them to
meet a guy who loves the guitar so much he
(41:42):
just wants to turn another guitar player onto this. I
want them to meet a David Gilmour who has a
thank you you know him and Nick you know invited
me to play live with them on stage and in
the London Arena in front of fifteen thousand kids. Buzz
Who does that? Think about this? Who does that? We
(42:03):
want to thank you so much for everything you've done
for us. Come and play in our band. One song live,
You're gonna play lead, You're gonna have a blast. I
want people to know that side of these people. You know,
Mick Jaggers all about the business, but there's a story
in here where you see his heart. I want people
to know Mick Jagger's heart. I want them to see
(42:23):
what I saw beyond you know, you know what you
normally see, because for me, that's those were the greatest moments.
You know that that glitz is the glitz. Yeah, they're
rock stars. Yeah I'm go'm hanging out with the Rolling Stones.
But you know, when you're really working with somebody and
(42:45):
you're trying to take the hill and you're trying to
do something special for people, and you're working with them
shoulders shoulder to try to make stuff happen. At the
end of the day, it's just guys, you know, looking
at each other. Are guys and gals look at each other, Hey,
we together, we made this happen.
Speaker 5 (43:00):
It's real.
Speaker 2 (43:01):
It's very fulfilling, you know, because it's beyond the glitz,
because it's just this real stuff, the.
Speaker 4 (43:06):
Spirit of what yeah is music is all about. Right,
He's just so incredibly special and it's the essence and
core of that.
Speaker 2 (43:16):
That's right, So I hope people would would would take
that away and you learn, you know, a lot of
the inside stuff about how how the business worked, and
probably in the in this day and age, it still
has remniances of the same kind of people help each
other out, kind of a kind of a you know, business,
and it's still the business of music, so not as
(43:38):
magical as it was seventies, eighties and nineties, which is
why I really I had to capture it because as
you read, forget the artist, the managers, they're more eccentric
than the artists. And you're talking about banana brains. I
mean this, you know herby Herbert making everybody learn Yiddish
if you want to talk to him, he's not even Jewish.
(43:58):
I mean, this is real. This is rock and roll
business in nineteen eighty five. If you you don't want
to talk to us, you know, they said Yiddish for dummies,
books to the whole industry. If you want to talk
to me and their famous road manager Pat Morrow, Bubba. Right,
if you want to talk to me or Bubba, you
need to learn a couple of lines of Yiddish, all right,
So I will never forget this it's a Thursday. I
(44:20):
can't remember what Journeys Herby Herbert, Yeah, Journey, Herbie Herberts.
Speaker 5 (44:24):
Journey's manager.
Speaker 2 (44:24):
Okay, Journey's huge, but the biggest bands in the world.
I can't remember which one it was. We're selling fifty
thousand albums a week. Right, we have to pick a single.
It's timely. I remember it was a Thursday. We had
to get it out. I had some ideas. He had
some ideas. We have to pick the next single, life
to tell the rock stations. We have to put it
in production for top forty stations. And I'd got this book,
which I thought was cute, right, I got the Yiddish
(44:45):
for Dummy's book. It is great, you know, Herbie Herbert
line one, Hey, Herbie, how you doing Volschmas?
Speaker 1 (44:51):
Two?
Speaker 2 (44:52):
What he's how are you and Yiddish? You start something
in Yiddish. I'm like, Herbie, I got the book. It's great,
you know, but you and I are about to have
like a really important conversation history clock in the afternoon
here in New York. We got to decide now the
new Journey single Buzz. He doesn't stop talking Yiddish for
two minutes. Finally he stops. He goes, rap, what the
fuck a nice Jewish boy like you can't learn a
little Yiddish. I'm like Herbie, Yeah, I get it, but
(45:14):
this is a timely conversation. I know, learn your Yiddish
and call me back. Click buzz.
Speaker 1 (45:22):
This is rock.
Speaker 2 (45:23):
This is in order for me to get the Journey single.
Speaker 1 (45:25):
This is real stuff. I want people to know. This
is not bullshit. In order for me to.
Speaker 2 (45:28):
Get the next Journey single out, I have to get go,
find the Yiddish book, learn two lines of Yiddish, call
him back, read the Yiddish, and then he'll talk to
me and we'll get the Journey single out. You can't
make this shit up, right, that's the tip of the
iceberg of the stuff that's in this book. It's it's nuts,
it's you know, it's this is the it's a business
where there's bowling in the hallways, water, gun fights, a
(45:51):
business meeting to discuss why you know, the LA branch
wouldn't be allowed to set their table on fire anymore
at former CBS Records conventions, right because that was our
big thing. You know, we threw roles in the knives
and forts escalated into setting our table on fire in
a ballroom in these hotel you know shows that we'd
(46:12):
have dinner shows at night and the bands would play
and we were the rowdy table. So we ended every
night by setting our table on fire. We did this
two years in a row. Somebody in New York finally
figured out this is not a good idea, right these
people are setting a table on fire in a ballroom,
in a hotel room.
Speaker 1 (46:27):
There's a past.
Speaker 2 (46:28):
It's a business meeting, which going with a business meaning
to discuss this fact why we can no longer set
our table on fire at former CBS you know, you know,
at the next CBS record conventions, and fascinatingly, half the
staff rebelled and wanted to know why.
Speaker 1 (46:43):
Not this is? This is? This is what this is?
Speaker 2 (46:46):
So I wanted to capture all of this because no
one was going to believe it, you know, And one
day when I'm not here anymore, hopefully this is the
bucket's still around and you can read all about it
because you can't believe it, you know.
Speaker 4 (47:00):
I want to in the time we have get people
to go nuts over what we alluded to. It's the
Bob Dylan aspect, which I learned a lot more than
I even knew in terms of your connection with him
over the years. I mean I knew obviously you worked
(47:21):
with him, but I kind of always felt like.
Speaker 1 (47:24):
Well, you know, he's Bob.
Speaker 4 (47:25):
He doesn't really work with anybody on anything, but talk
about that relationship and.
Speaker 2 (47:31):
He he does and he doesn't. I mean Bob first
of all. For me, the two biggest artists that mean
more to me than anything growing up are Bob Dylan
and Keith Richards, Right, So it's Keith and the Stones,
and Bob Dylan changed my life as he did a
lot of our lives in the sixties. I mean, he
changed the culture. His music is allowing me as a
(47:53):
young man, going, wait a minute, you don't have to
live in this square world anymore. Things are going to
change and you can be a part of this change
and you can think different and have new ideas on
how to live life and et cetera.
Speaker 5 (48:03):
Et cetera.
Speaker 2 (48:03):
So for me, helping him and having a relationship with
him was huge, and it took me a few meetings
to get used to it, cause again, you could talk
to Bob for thirty seconds and then you realize who
you're talking to, and you know and each can't help,
but you shake your head, you go just Bob Dylan.
But he's very much the artist artist. He's like Picasto.
(48:26):
He just paints. He doesn't think about promotion, he doesn't
think about marketing. His mind isn't there. So he would
come up with some ideas that are funny to me,
but to him there you know, he doesn't know because
he doesn't know, right. It's like, imagine the universe. Okay,
there's the Sun and we're the planets, and we fly
around the Sun, so we have a perspective of the universe.
(48:49):
We're like, oh, there's planets behind us, there's planets in
front of us, and there's the sun. Okay, But Bob
Dylan's the sun, right. He has no perspective. He's the sun, right,
So he doesn't know about all this stuff. So I
would every time you have an album out, I'd call
him and say, look, you know, I know you don't
like to promote yourtuff. Somebody, here's twenty ideas, right, And
(49:10):
I remember, you know Shot of Love. I'd heard the
album it was great, and I called him in New
York and I said, Okay, Bob, this this is gonna
be great. We're going to do great with this album.
Here's twenty ideas. You know, I'm listening to ideas. Nah
nah nah, Now I'm not going to do that.
Speaker 3 (49:28):
Man.
Speaker 2 (49:28):
You know it's because he told me. I said, okay, look,
how's this. We don't promote you at all. You just
show up on Scott Muni's shows. You know, Scott was
a major league legend in you know, New York on
w onew You're just gonna show up a Scott's show.
John Lennon did it. He just showed up. It was brilliant.
Speaker 1 (49:45):
You'll just show up.
Speaker 2 (49:47):
Oh man, I don't like to push my music that way,
which I respected, like he didn't. He wants the music
to do the talking. He doesn't want to quote unquote
promote it. Just it's just not him, man. It says
he just wants to paint, right, It's like, I just
want to make this music.
Speaker 5 (50:05):
And eventually got him to do you read about the book.
Speaker 2 (50:07):
I eventually you know, got him to do you know,
an interview, which was a whole, you know, unworldly experience.
Speaker 5 (50:14):
But he's.
Speaker 2 (50:17):
Very mercurial and but he'll listen. But it would be
like we go out to dinner and it's like, okay,
we have to talk about this video. No, man, I
just got back from Russia. They gave me an award,
which Russian poets like you know, you know Pushkins. This
is a big deal with poetry in Russia's a big deal.
He goes, they just they just gave me an award.
(50:37):
I was thrilled that they gave me an award in
Russia for my poetry. He goes, Rap, you gotta start
reading these Russian Poets's got a list, right, I said, Bob,
you and I have to talk about the video. No, no, no, man,
I'll talk about the video later. You need to get
into these Russian poets. So these are the kind of
conversations you could have with him. And one day he
came in. We were just talking about being dads, right.
I was like, yeah, I wrote in the book.
Speaker 5 (50:58):
I was like.
Speaker 2 (50:59):
It was the most fan conversation because I was like, Bob,
you know, I've got this one son, I got another
on the way. What am I going to tell him?
I mean, you know, the sixties are kind of wild
in the seventies and you know, And he looked at
me and he said, well, he goes, you know what
you know it's Bob del Ways. Well you have a choice,
you know, he said, My life is with drugs, the women.
(51:20):
It's all in the press. I'm busted, you know, he said.
But you you know.
Speaker 1 (51:25):
He's like rap. You have a choice.
Speaker 2 (51:27):
Tell him some things. You don't have to tell him
everything but me, you know, I'm I'm busted right up
by a whole lives in the press. And he was
just talking to me as a guy. Hey, look, this
was my life. I didn't have a choice. You have
a choice. So now we're talking. You know, he's given
me advice, right, I mean, so we're just guys, and
(51:48):
now we're not He's not Bob Dylan.
Speaker 3 (51:50):
You know.
Speaker 2 (51:50):
He told me the most amazing thing. He said, you
know the problem with me is when people meet me,
they think they're meeting the lyrics. And that's exactly what
happened to me when I first met him, because that's
all we know. You know, the lyrics, right, you look
at this guy and you think about all these lyrics.
He said, Look, I know how heavy the songs are.
I wrote them, but those are songs. I'm a songwriter.
(52:10):
But there's me, the human being me, I'm me. Those
are the songs. There's a difference, and people can't making
the difference, separating, separating. When Jerry Garcia passed away and
there was a funeral and Bob went, and the very
famous promoter, John sure in Town went, they're walking away
from the funeral and Garcia went through the whole thing,
(52:31):
not as bad as Bob, but you know, Garcia's God,
and you know he was revered. And the fans would
just think they're walking out of the funeral, and Bob
looks at John Sharon says, you want to know something,
the guy that's lying in that coffin is the only
person that knows.
Speaker 5 (52:47):
What it feels like to be me. WHOA right? WHOA right?
Speaker 2 (52:53):
Because Bob has to deal with that every day of
his life because he gets approached in odd ways.
Speaker 5 (52:58):
He can't help it. He's Bob Dylan. You know.
Speaker 1 (53:02):
Good luck?
Speaker 5 (53:03):
All right? That's how it is.
Speaker 4 (53:04):
Man. Well, the book is fabulous. It takes you inside
your life but also inside the insecurities of artists, the
creative processes. You did a brilliant job with it, and
I just love talking to you about stuff that I
(53:25):
knew and stuff that I didn't know, which is so
captured in your book. Congratulations on it.
Speaker 2 (53:31):
I really appreciate it. First of all, it's easy talking
to you. Were old friends, so you know. But I'm
a promotion man, so I'm going to mention the.
Speaker 5 (53:37):
Name of them.
Speaker 2 (53:39):
I better Okay, it's called Gliders Over Hollywood, which if
you read the book you'll find out why it's called
Glider's Over Hollywood. Just think of Boston Wood Gliders Glider's
Over Hollywood. It's easy, peasy you and go on Amazon,
Barnes and Noble. Just punch it in Glider's Over Hollywood.
It'll show up if you have a local bookstore and
you want to support them. If they don't have it,
they it You've gotten for you.
Speaker 5 (54:00):
You'll love it.
Speaker 4 (54:02):
And I love talking to your rap I will leave
you on one thought.
Speaker 5 (54:06):
I have one.
Speaker 4 (54:07):
Regret in my music radio career, and it was the
fact that when Bob Dylan said anybody want to do
a shadow whiskey, and I and others backed off because
we were like, we can't do this. This is the
voice of a generation and I'll know I'll never have
that chance again.
Speaker 5 (54:26):
But anyway, and he meant it, by the way, this
is Bob just being Bob. Right, were petrified.
Speaker 4 (54:32):
Yeah, I understood, but Rapper, so great to see you.
Thanks for being on Taking a Walk, Thanks for having me,
and congratulations.
Speaker 5 (54:39):
Thanks again.
Speaker 3 (54:41):
Thanks for listening to this episode of the Taking a
Walk podcast. Share this and other episodes with your friends
and follow us so you never miss an episode. Taking
a Walk is available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
and wherever you get your podcasts.
Taking a Walk in order for me to get the
Journey seal. This is real stuff. I want people to know,
this is not bullshit.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
In order for me to get the next Journey single out,
I have to get go, find the Yiddish book, learn
two lines of Yiddish, call him back, read the Yiddish,
and then he'll talk to me and we'll get the
Journey single out. You can't make this shit up.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
Today on the Taking a Walk podcast, Buzz Night is
joined by a true legend of the music industry, Paul
Rappaport As a longtime Columbia Records executive and author of
Gliders Over Hollywood, Airships, Airplay, and the Art of Rock Promotion.
Paul has spent decades behind the scenes with some of
the most iconic names in rock history, from Pink Floyd
(00:40):
and Bruce Springsteen to Bob Dylan and the Rolling Stones. Today,
Paul shares unforgettable stories from the golden age of rock,
like flying the Pink Floyd Airship across America, trading Tarlk's
with David Gilmour on stage, and navigating the wild, creative
chaos of life on the road with music's biggest stars.
(01:00):
Joined Buzznight for an audio journey through music history as
we take a walk with Paul Rappaport on the Taking
a Walk podcast.
Speaker 4 (01:09):
So, Paul Rappaport, thanks for being on Taking a Walk.
It's so great to see you in person, my friend.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Thanks for having me on. I'm amazed that I'm on
the side of the microphone.
Speaker 4 (01:18):
It's a beautiful, beautiful thing. So, since the podcast is
called Taking a Walk, before we get to your fabulous
book and the seemy underbelly of its creation, if you
could take a walk with somebody living or dead, doesn't
have to be a musician, but since you've lived a
(01:40):
life around music, maybe that would be great. Who would
it be and where would you take a walk with them?
Speaker 2 (01:46):
I think it would be Michael Bloomfield because as a
guitar player, I've been playing guitar since I was a kid.
He really spoke to me when I got turned onto
the Paul Butterfield Blues Band and I listened to what
(02:07):
this guy was doing. He's not as well known as
he should be, you know, for being the great guitar
player that he was. I mean, Bob Dylan considers him
to be the best guitar player he ever played. With
just to give you an idea of you know, how
great Michael Bloomfield is. And I met him once briefly
what you read in the book. But he's a big
(02:27):
hero of mine. And I think it would be him
because he's not living anymore. And if I could go
back and just talk to him about the blues and
you know, his style and how he learned to talk
with the instrument and everything, and I probably would be
in Chicago with him where he, you know, played in
all those clubs and learned his craft, you know, hanging
(02:50):
out with guys like Muddy Waters and these people. That
would be a thrill for me. I remember actually being
in a student you know, working on a record and
I had to play a part in time in beat
and and it was you had to get in a
(03:13):
groove and I and it's going to sound hippie dippy,
but I was like channeling him, like like I was like, hey, Michael,
you know, like he just said on my shoulder, just
so I can get this done, yeah, you know, and
I felt like he was there and it was like, oh, no,
you got this, and I just I don't know, you know,
I just felt special.
Speaker 5 (03:34):
So it would be him. In in in Chicago.
Speaker 4 (03:37):
And knowing you, I think you would get some unique,
uh takes out of him. You would get down to
the core of what drove him as an artist, and
you would you would get something out of him. I
think that would be different than most folks would get
out of a person like that.
Speaker 5 (03:58):
I believe you.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
Knowing you, I think you know, having grown up and
being involved, you know, with guitars from an early age,
It's something that's.
Speaker 5 (04:09):
Been a part of me my whole life.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
And of course, you know, all the artists that I
worked with in my career, it was a sort of
an instant bond with them because aside from talking about
you know, you know, the promotion of them and selling
you know, you know, albums and eventually CDs, et cetera,
et cetera, they knew that their music was inside me,
(04:34):
that I loved their music, and you know, it was
easy for me to talk to them and I could talk.
I have deep conversations because I could talk about you know,
albums in certain parts and how did this happen? And
you know, because I was such a fan, and it
gave me a wonderful entree, you know, in the music
(04:57):
business because I wasn't.
Speaker 5 (04:58):
Viewed as a suit right.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
I was like, Oh, this guy's cool, he's going to
help us, but he knows our stuff, like he knows
what he's talking about. So I think I probably would,
you know. I mean, I write in my book about
meeting Michael Bloomfield briefly, and I'm trying to learn how
to play the blues. I'm a kid in college and
an electric flag comes and I'm watching what he's doing,
(05:24):
and the guy's playing a less Paul, which I didn't
know how meaningful that was at the time. I just
know that these notes are screaming out of this guitar,
and he's talking to me with this guitar like he's
it can be sad, it can be happy, it can
be exhilarating. All these emotions are flying out of this guitar.
He's plugged into five different amps, which is a whole
(05:44):
nother story was he was working and crafting his sound,
you know. But I think that because he felt so
much in his music, that we would have a different
kind of a discussion. You know, where does this come from?
Speaker 5 (06:00):
How do you do this?
Speaker 2 (06:01):
And I remember going backstage afterwards introducing myself saying, hey,
I'm the college.
Speaker 5 (06:06):
You're up for UCLA.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
I'm a big fan, you know, blah blah, and I'm
learning how to play the blues. I'm trying to get
the sustain. How do you do this? And he looks
at me and he goes, oh, it's in the fingers.
It's all in the fingers. And as I write in
the book, I thought he was egoing out on me, like, oh, hey,
it's all in the fingers, right, And he leaves and
I go back to my fraternity house and I just
(06:29):
emulate what he did. I go, it's all in the fingers.
Speaker 5 (06:32):
You know.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
I have a guitar at the time as a Rickenbacker.
It's not the greatest guitar for blues.
Speaker 5 (06:36):
But I do what he did.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
I turn the app all the way up, I turn
the volume all the way up, and I wiggle my finger.
As most guitar players know, that's how you get a vibrato.
You hit a note and you wiggle your finger makes
a vibrato. That's how you get the sustain. The light
bulb of the century goes off in my head and
I'm like, oh my god, he wasn't egoing. He's trying
to teach me something, and I'm running back across camp screaming.
Speaker 5 (07:01):
My guts out. People think I'm crazy.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
It's in the fingers. It's in the fingers, you know.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
And I wanted to tell him, but he was long gone, right,
you know, by the time I got back to you know,
the hall where he played.
Speaker 5 (07:14):
But I would just love to have.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
Another conversation with that guy about so many things, but
he would be the one.
Speaker 4 (07:22):
I love the story, and I think what I'll pile
on the accolades at the beginning about you, and in
the middle of the interview and at the end, so
I'll equally distribute the accolades. But I think one of
the keys to your success as a promotion leader for
(07:44):
your company was the fact that you weren't bullshit and
you were genuine in your love for the music and
for what the artists were doing. And people instantly picked
up on that. They knew if Paul Rappaport was coming
(08:05):
with a project, that it was going to be something
that had some meat to it rather than some fly
by night operation.
Speaker 5 (08:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
Well, you know, I had no other agenda other than
I love this music so much that we grew up
with this music late sixties early seventies. I mean this
shapes our lives. Bob Dylan shaped the way I think,
so did Pink Floyd, so did the Rolling Stones, the Beatles.
So I come to the business just with a love
of music and no other agenda other than to help
(08:38):
these people along because they had given so much to me.
It was like, Hey, I get to give back to
these people and new artists. When when I joined Columbia,
you know, Aerosmith is a brand new band. There's a
new guy named Bruce Springsteen. There's a new guy named
Billy Joel. There's a new guy named Elvis Costelli. There's
all new people. There's a brand new it's starting out.
So we're starting out together where I'm the same age
as all those guys. So I think because I'd come
(09:01):
from the sixties thing, which was a more authentic, genuine place,
I'm not the pre you know, the fifties, you know
promo guys like the Hey babe guys. You know, I'm
not that slick person. And my only agenda is I
love this music and I get to shout about it. Right,
I'm going to go try to get this on radio
to tell people, Hey, I love this music and guess
(09:22):
what you know, so will you if you can hear this,
et cetera. I think also because of my work ethic,
people knew if I would bring a promotion to them.
Speaker 5 (09:33):
One of the greatest.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
Compliments I ever got was from somebody when I brought
them something that was you know, I have a big imagination.
I'd bring them something pretty big, and they said, that's okay, Rap,
because my last name's Rapaports and my nicknames Rap's that's okay, Rap.
Speaker 5 (09:46):
Your shit works. And it was the.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
Biggest compiment I ever had, Like, oh, they trust me. Like, no,
your shit works. Whatever you have, even if it's outlandish,
you know, which could be shooting a laser beam off
a mountainside or a giant airship for Bake Floyd. At
least they knew I'd done my homework and yes, you
know it would work. So I think those two things.
Having the work ethic too, and just make sure everything
(10:10):
did work, you know, by perfection. Having a list I
always I would always make myself a checklist. I don't
care if it's the smallest promotion or the biggest television show.
You make yourself a checklist of you anticipate every little
thing every big thing and every little thing. All you
have to do is go down the list. Will never fail.
You'll be perfect because you just keep looking at the list.
I didn't do that. I didn't do that yet, So
that was something that I adopted early on. You know
(10:32):
what you read about in the book which really helped.
Speaker 4 (10:36):
It was an early lesson for you.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
It was an early lesson, yeah, because it was like, oh,
this is how you do it, and you learn along
the way. You know, you know, you know how to
do these you know different things, how to approach problems
and challenges. So I think those two things are work
ethic and.
Speaker 5 (10:50):
You know not.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
You know, look, it's an entertainment business. A lot of
people have agendas. They're trying to be this, or they
want to be that, or they're trying to get close
to somebody because they want to favor.
Speaker 5 (11:00):
It just wasn't me. I was just pretty much what
you see is what you get. You know.
Speaker 4 (11:04):
That's yeah, Well, it certainly proved its point time and
time again. We'll get to the book more, but I
want to ask you, do you recall though, the first
moment in your life where you were touched by music
and you absolutely knew with some certainty you were going
(11:24):
to have something to do with music in your life.
Speaker 5 (11:27):
That's an interesting question.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
My first memory of music really moving me is it's
a very old song. It's a Big Rock Candy Mountain,
you know, by a guy named Harry McClintock. And in
this song, it's about a hobo and it talks about
living the hobo life. And in the big Rock Candy
(11:51):
Mountain there's cigarette trees, there's lemonade springs, and there's a
jail that only made out of ten so you can
walk right out again as soon as you are in.
I'm like, what five or six? I hear this, and
I love this song because I could see it in
my head. You know, I have a big imagination. I
(12:13):
could see this world in my head and I went, Wow,
what a great world. So I listened to this over
and over again as a kid, because I went, this
is a wonderful world. I'm only a kid, right, And
just even the whole idea of a jail where you
can walk out again, it speaks to my inner rebel.
Speaker 5 (12:26):
Right.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
Yeah, So that's the first time, I think.
Speaker 4 (12:30):
And you must have loved when it then became a
central part of Oh brother World.
Speaker 5 (12:35):
I blew my mind right.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
I was like, oh, that's my song.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
So, but the first time where I really have a
wake up call is again. I'm seven years old and
I'm you know, It's Sunday morning in Los Angeles. My
parents are sleeping in I turn on the TV. There's
not a lot on in the fifties on Sunday morning,
but there was a lie show from a very famous
(13:02):
car salesman, cal Worthington cal Worthington Dodge, who had a
giant car lot and in order to get people interested,
he had live music playing on the lot and it
was mostly country.
Speaker 5 (13:14):
So as a.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
Kid, first of all, it's great because it's live. I'm
transported to this place and I'm seeing all these players
and singers and I'm like, this is amazing, and I
don't know, buzz I guess for whatever reason, the guitars
spoke to me. I'm looking at these guitars. I knew
what a guitar was, of course, but this is the
first time I'm seeing them in action. I'm like, look
(13:35):
at these guitars. They're all different. Some of them are bit,
some of them are small, some of them have a
widen neck, some of them are a nylon string, some
are metal strings, but they're all have their own soul.
Speaker 5 (13:46):
Right.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
Every time somebody hits the guitar, a different sound comes out.
And all these people have songs and they have something
to say. They have these songs have messages, and I'd
always anticipate, Jez, I wonder what this person is going
to sing about it, and wonder what that person is
to sing about. But the guitar, I don't know if
it was the curves or the wood. It just seemed important.
(14:06):
I went, wait, you know, somebody with a guitar on
their shoulders got a message for me. And this is
a big deal to me. And I remember after watching
the show, I told my parents, I not I want
to learn how to play the guitar.
Speaker 5 (14:19):
I need to.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
I need to do that. I need to learn how
to play the guitar. And as you read, I mean
the woman who came to our house told my parents,
oh what she called the Spanish guitar. She said, oh,
this will be difficult for him. He's got to push
the strings down. Why don't we start them on lap steel,
which is like if you look at country band's pedal steel,
there's pedals that bend in the strings. But there's lap
steel which without the pedals, and you can play slide
(14:44):
guitar music, but you could play country, you could play
you know, Hawaiian music was big. It wasn't really my
thing at all, but it was electric. So I plugged
into an amp and that was wow, this is electuses like,
this is a cool thing. And so I start doing
this as seven years old, and I think at that
time it wasn't what I wanted, right, So I'm doing
(15:05):
this for a little while, and I'm like, I don't
like this, you know, except for the one time I
did the you know, the recital where an eight year
old girl came was doing a hula in front of me.
I'm playing Hawaiian music, this girl shows up. All I
know is I'm seeing more skin than I've ever seen
in my life as a kid. You know, hula skirts,
you know, below her navel, her legs are moving in
(15:27):
and out. I'm only eight.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
I know I like this. I don't know why. I
have no idea why. I like, you knew why, you know,
I don't know at eight?
Speaker 5 (15:34):
What do you know at eight? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (15:35):
But you know, but Hawaiian music started to sound better
and better. I was like, oh, and I'll stick with
this royal. But at fourteen when I heard Bob Dylan,
that changed my life and I went, okay, I forget
I'm doing this. So at fourteen years old and I
heard Peter, Paul and Mary, but Dylan was really the one.
I don't think twice right. And I see the guitars
they're playing, and I just went out, saved up my money,
(15:56):
went and bought a guitar, strung it up in a
way that I needed. I like the nylon and look,
i'd a bought a guitar that happened to have steel strings.
I actually took those steel strings off. I filed down
the nut of the guitar so the nylon strings would fit.
Made my own guitar, you know, lowered the action so
that my fingers could play, got a guitar chord book
and just sat down and taught myself how to play
(16:17):
the guitar. And I couldn't get it off out of
my fingers. I just couldn't get enough of it. We'd
be watching TV and I just I just you know,
I wouldn't play it loud, but I'd be cording to
make sure my fingers could remember how to go because
you know, in the beginning, your fingers don't know what
to do. You're taking your right hand and you're pushing
your left fingers down to No, this string is getting
(16:39):
in the way of this. You have to make sure
that the chords are clear. And ever since fourteen year
olds old, I just couldn't get the guitar out of
my hands. It just became a friend of mine. It
became like a companion. And you know, if you were sad,
it could be a friend. If you were happy, you
could play joyous stuff on it. It's just always there.
At fifteen and sixteen, I go where electric I grew
(17:02):
up in southern California, saw surf music, Dick Dale, all right,
you want to talk about You want know where heavy
metal came from. Even Jimmy Hendrix tells you that he
listened to Dick Dale. Go listen to surf beat right
with a Fender reverb from Hell, you know, the echo
of that thing and Miserly and all these songs, and
so you know, early on I learned how to play
(17:24):
surf music. Was interestingly enough, the same thing was happening
in England. All right, So I'm listening to the Ventures
right and surf instrumentals. At the same time, a guy
named David Gilmour is in England. He's listening to Hank
Marvin and the Shadows and they.
Speaker 5 (17:41):
Had the big hit Apache. But it's the.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
Same Fender Twain right, the same thing's going on. This
is how electric guitar is building, you know, until Jimmy
Hendrix comes along and then changes the face of the
electric guitar.
Speaker 5 (17:54):
Yeah, but.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
So we started doing that, and then of course when
the British invade hit with the Beatles and the Stones,
I was immediately attracted to the Rolling Stones because they
were dangerous and I wanted to be dangerous. So I
learned how to play electric guitar blues listening to early
Rolling Stones records. This is Keith Richards was how I
(18:19):
learned how to play electric guitar with an you know,
with a record album at a tone arm which I
ruined my records, like.
Speaker 5 (18:24):
What going back dropped the newly? What's he?
Speaker 1 (18:26):
How does he do that? What is he doing?
Speaker 2 (18:28):
And as a kid, there's no we don't have YouTube,
we don't have any of that. So that's the only
way you're going to learn or a friend's gonna come
over and say, oh, here's a lick, or here's how
he's doing this or whatever. You know, years later I
met him. He gave me a guitar list, you know,
which was amazing because I learned how all the Rolling
Stones hits are made with young tuning. But but at
any rate, so I think from the age of fourteen,
(18:49):
I know something's up for me with the guitar. By
the time I go electric and I'm playing in bands
in high school, I know something's really now. I have
no idea I'm going to be in the music business,
and I have no idea if I'm going to make
it as in music, you know, we had experiences. I
was in a punk band in la in nineteen seventy three,
which you know may have gone farther than we thought.
(19:12):
I thought it was a lark. So you know, I
was going to get a real job at Columbia, and
I was went, well, this is a steady job. I
think I'll take this. I'll still play guitar. The leader
of the band band it's called Mogen David and his Whinos,
I believe it or not, it's it's a legendary band
in La if you go on to eBay and you
(19:32):
look up our album like it's called Savage Young Winos,
which is a takeoff on the Savage Young Beatles album
with Pete Best. If you go on eBay, our album
ogain Mogen David and his Winos Savage Young Whinos is
like a bidding war. The last one sold for one
hundred and thirty three records. If you go get the
original Beatles album called Savage Young Beatles with Pete Best
(19:54):
as the drummer, it sells for fifty bucks.
Speaker 5 (19:58):
So go figure.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
I don't know how this worked, but so we were
in this band and you know, we we were like
we're known in Hollywood. We're like the hip you know whatever,
punk band. But when the Columbia, you know, real job
came up. Harold Bronson, who by the way, went on
to be Rhino Records. He's the he is the co
founder of Rhino Records, right, very talented guy. He wanted
to take the band on the road. And I said, Harold,
(20:20):
I just don't think we're that good now we buzz.
We didn't know that at that time, nobody was that good.
There was a band, there was a group called the
Wrecking Crew. These people are helping bands, even the biggest
bands in the road, like the Beach Boys. Like I'd
hear the Beach Boys and go, Harold, which is not
that good. Listen to these guys. It wasn't them. It's
the Wrecking Crew, like you know, session guys helping them.
And of course, but we didn't know that.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
We didn't know that.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
So they're getting better as they play on the road.
Guess what, if you practice, you get better. You play
night after night, you get better. We didn't know that,
so we didn't know anything. We'd snuck in the middle
of a recording studio night make our record. We didn't buzz.
We didn't know anything. E Q, what does that do?
We don't know anything, right, So but we made a record.
We made a thousand, We sold a thousand. We sold
them all over the world. I have reviews from France
(21:02):
and Japan, don't I don't know if they like the record.
I don't know what they say it because they're different languages.
But but you know, so we go on our merry way.
I work for Columbia Records. I have, you know, wonderful
career there. Harold does Rhino Records. Those guys go it's huge.
But when the Ramones came out, Harold called me and
he said, you see, this would have been us. And
(21:23):
we don't know that it wouldn't have not been us
because we didn't go down the road of hey can
we get some help in the studio. We just thought
it's all on us. I mean, neither one of us
are complaining. We both had wonderful careers and we you know,
you know, I had successful marriages and kids and all
that kind of stuff, you know, and I don't know
that I would have, you know, actually even been able
to survive on the road. I think I might have
(21:43):
been one of those road casualties. That's a that's a
rough life. I don't know if that's for me, but
at any rate, but I guess the you know, in
those times, I know music's playing a part in my life.
I know it's always going to play a part in
my life. Even when I got the job for Columbia,
we will this is be the best of both worlds.
I can still play, and I can play in sessions
and then and behold, I'm meeting all these people and
I'm winding up playing. You know, you know, I run
(22:08):
the book Todje Mahall came one day to the office.
He usually would go to the recording studio. He came
to the business office. I don't know why. Cool guy
goes into the mailroom. He's got a big, flat back
Austrian bass. He just starts playing the bass, right, because
in those days, that's how it was. We were like
one happy family.
Speaker 5 (22:24):
Right.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
Okay, I don't know where I got the balls to
do this, but I have a guitar in my office.
I went in there and just started jamming with them
right now. Every once in a while I look up.
I just stop because I realized it's Todje Mahall. I
freak out, right, So we get done. So half an
hour later or forty minutes, he looks at me. He goes,
what's wrong with you? I said, what do you mean?
He goes, well, you seem like you know where you're going.
You're doing really good, and then.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
You just stop.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
I go, yeah, I stop because I look up and
I realize it's you, and I freak out and he goes, well, ah,
that's your problem, right, And I came to realize these
guys are all players. First people from that generation. Eric
Clapton did not get into business to be a rock star.
Rockstar wasn't even invented, right, he invents that with other people.
(23:05):
There is no such thing at the time. There are
pop stars, but there's no rock stars. Eric Clappan just
wanted to be the best player he could be. If
you read his autobiography, I just wanted to be a
guitar virtuoso and all of these blues things that I heard.
I went, oh my god, it's already been done. Well,
maybe I'll listen to Freddy kme to me. If I
do it my way, maybe I can make quote unquote
a living. You know, you read Ronnie Wood's book. We
(23:26):
just wanted to play. We didn't think about business. Just
me and Rod. We just got into vanage. We just
want to play. But they wanted to be the best
players they could be. David Gilmore same thing. They just
wanted to be the best players they could be. And
then all the business stuff came after. So they're musicians, right.
I found myself. You know, when Steve Perry was making
(23:46):
a solo record, you know, in a rehearsal, he goes, oh, hey, rap, oh,
I know you can blow just grab one of my
guitars and come up here. I'm like, Okay, what do
you want to do? I don't know, Like I'm a
blues guy. Okay, Perry blues an a minor. Oh no,
he asked me the key? What key do you want?
Speaker 5 (24:03):
Perry?
Speaker 1 (24:03):
You're the singer, you know.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
It's like, but awesome, I'm playing guitar with Steve Perry's journey, right,
I want to play with the little feet guys. This
would happen to me just because I'm a player, you know.
And then you read in the book, eventually I wind
up playing with Pink Floyd, which is all that's a
whole another planet, you know.
Speaker 4 (24:19):
But I think one of the underlying storylines lessons inside
the book is the aspect of your confidence in just
freaking going for it, whether it be as a player,
whether it be and the way that you approached, you know,
your promotion work, the ability to think big and just
(24:41):
say let's let it rip, baby, let's let it wrap baby.
And I think, as I reflect on the book, I
think that's one of the things that everyone can take from.
Speaker 5 (24:54):
It, besides all the great stories. Would you agree with that? Oh?
Speaker 2 (24:57):
I think so there's a you know, there's a lot
in this book, beyond the stories. And you know, I
tried to write it like you are there, like you're
having conversations, you know, with with with with some of
your favorite artists, because I, you know, I'm blessed with
like a photographic memory. I can read these conversations. I
remember the conversation buzz. I can remember the room. I
remember having dinner with Mick Jagger. I can tell you
(25:18):
what he had to eat. I mean, I can visualize
this plate. I mean, that's it's kind of wacky stuff.
Speaker 5 (25:22):
Well, you are a bit of a.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
I'm whatever it is, I'm something, so these things, you know,
come to me and so but I wanted to make
sure that more than stories, you know, I hope people
could could get you know, here's an inside look of
how this works, or here's how.
Speaker 5 (25:43):
You know my mind worked, you know.
Speaker 2 (25:46):
And I had a big imagination and I had a
big work ethic, and I had you know, I wanted
to be the best. You know, I guess that's an
ego thing, but I I you know, I wanted to
be the best. I just and I wanted to sound
like some like I'm egoing up. But I had to
be the best at what I did, which is something
inside like I'm going to be the best at this
(26:07):
and I'm going to do bigger than life things, you know,
and that Yeah, that does take a belief in yourself
and and it does take a bit of attitude. But
I would, I would, I would visualize things and then
I would make them happen. So like I have a
bigger imagination, so I could visualize an airship for Pink
(26:27):
Floyd or shooting a you know, a giant laser cannon
off a mountain side, or you know, you know, even
if I did a TV show, you know once at
a TV series and which just I could see it.
And once I saw it, it was like, Okay, I
see it. How do we do that? Okay, get the
checklist out? What does it take? Everything takes something different.
What does it take to make these things happen? And
(26:48):
it's like building blocks, you just you know, it's like
building a company. You know, look, you build a company.
It's like building a company.
Speaker 5 (26:54):
It's the same thing.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
So here are the things that need that you need
if you're going to shoot an argon laser cannon off
a mountainside. These are the things you need. These are
the things you need for a giant psychedelic airship. You know,
there's a television show live by request. Okay, I didn't
know about television. I had to learn how to make
a television show. Okay, it's okay. There are people that
teach you how to make a television show from the
get What do you need? How does this work? How
(27:16):
do the lights work? How do the camera people work?
How do the producers work? Who do I hire? You
can learn it, but I.
Speaker 5 (27:21):
Would see it. I have it like i'd see it.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
I guess the best way to to, you know, to
to have you understand it like I envision these things
and then I build them well.
Speaker 4 (27:32):
And that's probably what eventually led you down the path
of uh and where your your mind and your your
memory went with all this with you know, being a magician,
a card trick micetro, I mean you have to have
a memory and a mind that works uniquely to be
(27:53):
able to pull some of the stuff off that you
were able to pull right.
Speaker 2 (27:57):
But there's a secret to it, yeah, you know, especially
in magic. You know I write about, you know, my
four Ways into Magic. Got an uncle who was a
big time magician in Florida, and I started learning as
a kid. Later in life, you know, I wind up
getting lessons from one of the great masters that invented
a lot of the slights that people still use today.
(28:18):
There was two major league magicians. When was a guy
named Tony Slidini who took his name from Houdini because
he's from the forties. There was a guy Divernon was
on the west coast and Tony was on the East coast.
I saw Tony perform. I took lessons with him. Magic
will teach you a lot. There's a lot about it
(28:39):
that's not just the slights, right, It's it's it's a
lot of mind. You know, when am I going to
tell people what journey do I want to take them down?
It's a performance art. You know, it's getting people to
think a certain way so that something else happens, and
(29:01):
something else happens. And there's a lot that I learned,
and there's a lot that you can divine from how
magic works in the in the human mind. And I,
as you read, I brought some of this stuff to
light in the book. How he actually even took some
of those premises and and you know, made it a
(29:23):
part of my promotion efforts. Because there were things that
I learned that I could quote unquote make magic happen
in certain ways that helped records along that maybe needed
some help. They weren't going to get there on its own, right,
So you know, so that was it was, it was,
It was helpful. So I think the way your mind
(29:45):
has to work for that stuff is a lot of
people don't realize. They think it's always just slight of
hand or something. Oh no, no, that's that's that's just the basics.
Just the magic is bigger. I mean, if if you
want to you know, I I hate it when people
say tricks. I don't like that. We're not doing tricks.
I didn't, you know, I want to do magic. Magic's different. Okay,
(30:06):
you do magic and people are like, whoa, that was
that real? Like wait a minute. You know, if you
want people to get to that place, you get people
to get to that place, and then you've accomplished you
know something.
Speaker 5 (30:22):
So yes, yes, yeah, it applied.
Speaker 2 (30:26):
It was part of what you ultimately became a part
of my life, and uh, you know, it was.
Speaker 4 (30:30):
Great witnessing it. I remember the first time absolutely blew
my mind. I was already a fan of yours, and
then I'm like, this guy's a freaking superhero, you know,
and there and there he's he's we're leaving. Uh, we'll
get to Bob Dylan Moore in a bit, but we're
leaving the Bob Dylan moment that you were gracious enough
(30:54):
to include me in. And and I remember that Bob
wanted you to stay behind because he wanted you to
do that that trick where he was a big he
was a big manage left he left the Jack of
Hearts right right.
Speaker 5 (31:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:09):
No, he was a big magic fan, Bob, so he
liked for me to come backstage and do you know,
card magic or whatever. And he was just a big fan,
you know. But the Jack of Heart story is funny
because I did this effect where I wanted him to
wind up with the Jack of Hearts, right, and there's
(31:30):
ways that you can do that, because I thought, well,
this will be you know, Bob will love this.
Speaker 5 (31:35):
Because it's you know, Lily Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts. Right.
Speaker 2 (31:38):
So I do this whole thing, this concoction and everything,
Jack of Hearts comes up. Bob's like, eh, pretty cool.
I go, well, Bob, you know Jack of Hearts. He goes, well,
so what I go. I go, you know, Lily Rosemary
and the Jack of Hearts and he looks at me like,
you know, who cares?
Speaker 1 (31:55):
Like that's the fartherest thing from you know.
Speaker 2 (31:58):
This guy's written so many songs in my mind, it's like, oh,
that's one of the biggest Bob Billing songs. He doesn't
even put two and two together that the Jack of
Hearts comes up. It doesn't matter to him. Maybe he did.
He was just playing with you.
Speaker 5 (32:09):
Well, Bob can do that, right, Maybe.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
We'll get back to point.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
Oh yeah, well yeah, maybe you know, maybe maybe you know,
you don't know. He could have been, but I don't
think so. I think it was just my view on him.
But he you know, And look, I would have fun
with all you guys. It's a fun It's a people thing.
So you like, if you and I go out to
dinner and then afterwards, and I don't force it on people.
I'm not one of these guys. Oh you know, pick
(32:33):
a card guy.
Speaker 5 (32:33):
I'm not. You have to ask.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
If you're really interested, I'll do something. I'm not that guy, right,
But for people who love it, it's fun. How much
fun is this? Okay, let's have dessert. Oh you want
to see like half an hour magic? Sure, great, Okay,
here's corn's going through a tabletop. But you know it's like,
why not. You know, it's just it's a it's a
I love it because it's also a people things. It's
a it's something I do with people. It's not my
(32:56):
The way that I do it isn't like I'm the
magician and you're not. I'm much the opposite. I'm want
to be as amazed as you. So when things happen
that are amazing and you're getting to kick out of it,
I'm getting to kick out of like, man, that was amazing.
Speaker 5 (33:08):
You know, I want to be a part of it.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
I don't want to be the you know, sort of
overlord of it. It's better to be, you know, just
with everybody else hanging out and freaking out, you know,
over watching this stuff happens.
Speaker 3 (33:21):
Yeah, we'll be right back with more of the Taking
a Walk podcast. Welcome back to the Taking a Walk Podcast.
Speaker 4 (33:33):
So there's so many people I want to talk about here,
so I kind of have to. I don't want to
do the lightning round effect at all, but I do
want to run through some of the mount rushmore of
music that you have been exposed to and you were
part of that is so well chronicled in the book,
(33:54):
and you do take us into it and it does
make you feel like you're you're there. So you did
an amazing job of crafting it. The book is beautiful,
the layout of it, the feel of it, the pictures.
Speaker 5 (34:09):
And I got lucky. I had some publishers who are
really into art.
Speaker 4 (34:13):
Yeah, but you cared back to your work. It's so
obvious too, So the publishers care, you care. Yeah, it's
a great product. So it's a beautiful book. The pictures
are rich. I remember talking to you early on when
you were still working on it, and you hadn't even
completed it, and you were already beautifully obsessed and proud
(34:35):
of the work. Even at that point, I remember, yeah, well,
I know now you really are.
Speaker 5 (34:40):
Well. It took six years.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
I mean, this is six years of writing, rewriting, putting
stuff in, throwing stuff out. I wanted it to be
great and that takes time, and so and I slaved
over every paragraph, every sentence, words. I mean, just you know.
I had four editors that helped, you know, like they're
like record producers. You know, the the fellow from job
(35:01):
Bone Press the books on Jobbone. He's like a record producer.
It's like, okay, you've got fifteen tracks, let's cut it
down to twelve. I'm going to resequence your album and
here's a better baseline for this song. That's what record
producers do. That's what people that you know that are
in charge.
Speaker 5 (35:15):
Of books do.
Speaker 2 (35:16):
And he said, look, it's your book, he said, but
he's the way you've written it. I think it's a
bit top heavy. I'd like to slide the Bob Dylan
section a little closer here. I think your chapter one
could be a prologue. I'm smart enough to know this
is what these people do for a living. It took
me a second. Took me about a week because when
he sent it back it was different, same stories, but
kind of you know, laid out different.
Speaker 5 (35:36):
And I took a big breath and I went, oh, no,
this is like, this flows better.
Speaker 3 (35:39):
This.
Speaker 5 (35:40):
He knows what he's this. You know, he knows.
Speaker 2 (35:43):
It was kind of like I wish that some young
bands would have listened to me more right away.
Speaker 5 (35:47):
I'm not going to be them.
Speaker 2 (35:48):
I'm going to be the one who listens like I
think this is like really amazing. So just I said,
thank you, thank you, thank you. So you know the
writing is mine, but the way that it's laid out
is was it's having a great record producer. I lucked
out and got this guy, you know.
Speaker 4 (36:05):
So okay, Mount Rushmore, I'm going to start with the Stones,
because I know you were more of a Stones person
than a Beatles person, even though Paul McCartney represents the
significant part, so he'll be next. But what can folks
take on the Rolling Stones experience that you experiences that
(36:25):
you but overall experience that you write about so well.
Speaker 2 (36:29):
Well, I think, first of all, I'm not writing from
a too cool first school place. I want people to
understand exactly how it was for me meeting them in
the first place. Again, I'm a seventeen year old kid
falling over the Rolling Stones. I take my wife, my
girlfriend at the time who wound up becoming my wife,
(36:50):
and we're the him. I'm seventeen, she's sixteen, or however
old we are in nineteen sixty six. I take her
to the Hollywood Bowl see my favorite band, and our
favorite song was Everybody Needs Somebody to Love, which is
a song they did on two different albums.
Speaker 5 (37:05):
And.
Speaker 2 (37:07):
You know, we're just like you see in the newsreels.
We're jumping up and down, we're singing the songs. I mean,
you know, Meck Jagger comes out, jumps high in the air.
He's got this great leather jacket with conchos. He's, you know,
playing the tambourinae. This is so long ago. Brian Jones
is still in the band. Okay, so this is music
that is my life. It's shaping my life. Mother's little helper,
all the messages whatever. Now you fast forward twenty years
(37:31):
and I'm sitting on a couch right across the street,
you know, over here in Black Rock, which is Columbia Records,
you know famous, you know, the CBS building. I'm telling
Mick Jagger his marketing plan for his first solo album,
She's the Boss, because I've now come to New York
and I'm the head of rock promotion for Columbia. Now
I'm sitting next to this guy telling him his marketing plan.
(37:54):
The two most amazing things are I know what I'm
talking about because I'm Steep. Now, I'm a professional record
you know promotion man. He's listening to me. Now, I
got to shake my head like I'm just because I'm
flashing back. I'm like, I'm just the kid that saw
you not that many years ago. This guy's listening to
me and I'm having trouble wrapping my head around this. Right, So,
(38:17):
first of all, to meet I want people to know
what it was like, even though I'm professional to have
to just take a breath and get it together to
talk to these people. Because when you sit across from
a Mick Jagger or a Keith or Bob are any of
these people that were a part of my life before
him in the music business. So, like I mentioned before,
(38:38):
when I start, it's Bruce, and it's Billy Joel and
it's Arrowsmith. We're all the same age, we grow up together.
I'm not in any less awe of their talent, but
it's not the same feeling. It's not I'm not in
awe of them because we're just trying to make their kids,
trying to make their careers happen.
Speaker 3 (38:54):
Right.
Speaker 2 (38:55):
So, but when you see these people, like you know
when you I grew up watching the Eds all of
It show, and I know every Rolling Stone and I
love Bill Wyman playing bass, being the famous bass and
just chewing gum and looking into the camera like you know,
all these visions I have, that's what you see.
Speaker 5 (39:11):
You don't see.
Speaker 2 (39:12):
Oh, here's a guy that's you know, you know done,
haven't made a great career for himself.
Speaker 5 (39:17):
You can't help it.
Speaker 2 (39:18):
All the movies and all the songs and all the
concerts you saw, that's what you're looking at. So it
takes a second, right, And I wanted people to just
travel with this is how it was, and then eventually
you get to know them. Then I wanted people to
see a different side of them. These guys are really
cool people. I mean they're because they've been there and back, right,
(39:41):
These are seasoned people. It's a hard life. People just
only see the fun stuff. They don't know the rough
part about this business and what it can take out
of you. So again, I wanted people to see to
meet me when I'm seventeen learning how to play guitar
right in my little you know, blue collar town southern California,
and b flashed forward working with Mick Jagger, and finally
(40:05):
Keith Richards, my all time favorite rock hero, which you
know you read in the book the first time I
read him, is pretty drugy so that's a whole other
fun story for another thing. But you know, but later
I remeet him when we signed the whole Rolling Stones,
and the guy gives me a guitar lesson. Now again,
I'm flashed back to the kid at seventeen years old, going,
(40:26):
I don't understand why I can't get this. And I
meet him, and because he's a guitar player first and
a rock star second, it's the guitar club, right, I
meet him. Okay, look, I'm going to gush on you
for about thirty seconds and then I'll be professional again.
I said, but you got to understand what you mean
to me as a kid growing up.
Speaker 5 (40:44):
He took it on in.
Speaker 2 (40:46):
He actually loved the fact that a kid listened to him.
He said to me, No, this means a lot to me.
Because I'm a musician. I'm supposed to pass it on.
That's my job.
Speaker 5 (40:55):
He said.
Speaker 2 (40:55):
Look, I'm proud of the Stones, I'm proud of everything
we done, but I'm supposed to pass this on to
players like you and Dave Edmonds. How I got in
the same you know list of Dave Edmonds. I don't know,
but I'll take it. So then the guy gives me
a guitar lesson. Now it turns out that the reason
my high school band couldn't get the songs exactly right,
it is because most of the Rolling Stone hits are
(41:16):
in G tuning. It's an open G tuning. It's a
blues tuning.
Speaker 5 (41:19):
You know that.
Speaker 2 (41:20):
I explained in the book that he explained to me.
He said, this is fun. You're gonna see this goes home.
It's only five strings. You're going to take the top
string off. You gotta bar these chords. There's only two fingers.
He was so excited to show me this, and I
wanted people to see that side of Keith Richards, you know,
you get the rock star stuff. I want them to
meet a guy who loves the guitar so much he
(41:42):
just wants to turn another guitar player onto this. I
want them to meet a David Gilmour who has a
thank you you know him and Nick you know invited
me to play live with them on stage and in
the London Arena in front of fifteen thousand kids. Buzz
Who does that? Think about this? Who does that? We
(42:03):
want to thank you so much for everything you've done
for us. Come and play in our band. One song live,
You're gonna play lead, You're gonna have a blast. I
want people to know that side of these people. You know,
Mick Jaggers all about the business, but there's a story
in here where you see his heart. I want people
to know Mick Jagger's heart. I want them to see
(42:23):
what I saw beyond you know, you know what you
normally see, because for me, that's those were the greatest moments.
You know that that glitz is the glitz. Yeah, they're
rock stars. Yeah I'm go'm hanging out with the Rolling Stones.
But you know, when you're really working with somebody and
(42:45):
you're trying to take the hill and you're trying to
do something special for people, and you're working with them
shoulders shoulder to try to make stuff happen. At the
end of the day, it's just guys, you know, looking
at each other. Are guys and gals look at each other, Hey,
we together, we made this happen.
Speaker 5 (43:00):
It's real.
Speaker 2 (43:01):
It's very fulfilling, you know, because it's beyond the glitz,
because it's just this real stuff, the.
Speaker 4 (43:06):
Spirit of what yeah is music is all about. Right,
He's just so incredibly special and it's the essence and
core of that.
Speaker 2 (43:16):
That's right, So I hope people would would would take
that away and you learn, you know, a lot of
the inside stuff about how how the business worked, and
probably in the in this day and age, it still
has remniances of the same kind of people help each
other out, kind of a kind of a you know, business,
and it's still the business of music, so not as
(43:38):
magical as it was seventies, eighties and nineties, which is
why I really I had to capture it because as
you read, forget the artist, the managers, they're more eccentric
than the artists. And you're talking about banana brains. I
mean this, you know herby Herbert making everybody learn Yiddish
if you want to talk to him, he's not even Jewish.
(43:58):
I mean, this is real. This is rock and roll
business in nineteen eighty five. If you you don't want
to talk to us, you know, they said Yiddish for dummies,
books to the whole industry. If you want to talk
to me and their famous road manager Pat Morrow, Bubba. Right,
if you want to talk to me or Bubba, you
need to learn a couple of lines of Yiddish, all right,
So I will never forget this it's a Thursday. I
(44:20):
can't remember what Journeys Herby Herbert, Yeah, Journey, Herbie Herberts.
Speaker 5 (44:24):
Journey's manager.
Speaker 2 (44:24):
Okay, Journey's huge, but the biggest bands in the world.
I can't remember which one it was. We're selling fifty
thousand albums a week. Right, we have to pick a single.
It's timely. I remember it was a Thursday. We had
to get it out. I had some ideas. He had
some ideas. We have to pick the next single, life
to tell the rock stations. We have to put it
in production for top forty stations. And I'd got this book,
which I thought was cute, right, I got the Yiddish
(44:45):
for Dummy's book. It is great, you know, Herbie Herbert
line one, Hey, Herbie, how you doing Volschmas?
Speaker 1 (44:51):
Two?
Speaker 2 (44:52):
What he's how are you and Yiddish? You start something
in Yiddish. I'm like, Herbie, I got the book. It's great,
you know, but you and I are about to have
like a really important conversation history clock in the afternoon
here in New York. We got to decide now the
new Journey single Buzz. He doesn't stop talking Yiddish for
two minutes. Finally he stops. He goes, rap, what the
fuck a nice Jewish boy like you can't learn a
little Yiddish. I'm like Herbie, Yeah, I get it, but
(45:14):
this is a timely conversation. I know, learn your Yiddish
and call me back. Click buzz.
Speaker 1 (45:22):
This is rock.
Speaker 2 (45:23):
This is in order for me to get the Journey single.
Speaker 1 (45:25):
This is real stuff. I want people to know. This
is not bullshit. In order for me to.
Speaker 2 (45:28):
Get the next Journey single out, I have to get go,
find the Yiddish book, learn two lines of Yiddish, call
him back, read the Yiddish, and then he'll talk to
me and we'll get the Journey single out. You can't
make this shit up, right, that's the tip of the
iceberg of the stuff that's in this book. It's it's nuts,
it's you know, it's this is the it's a business
where there's bowling in the hallways, water, gun fights, a
(45:51):
business meeting to discuss why you know, the LA branch
wouldn't be allowed to set their table on fire anymore
at former CBS Records conventions, right because that was our
big thing. You know, we threw roles in the knives
and forts escalated into setting our table on fire in
a ballroom in these hotel you know shows that we'd
(46:12):
have dinner shows at night and the bands would play
and we were the rowdy table. So we ended every
night by setting our table on fire. We did this
two years in a row. Somebody in New York finally
figured out this is not a good idea, right these
people are setting a table on fire in a ballroom,
in a hotel room.
Speaker 1 (46:27):
There's a past.
Speaker 2 (46:28):
It's a business meeting, which going with a business meaning
to discuss this fact why we can no longer set
our table on fire at former CBS you know, you know,
at the next CBS record conventions, and fascinatingly, half the
staff rebelled and wanted to know why.
Speaker 1 (46:43):
Not this is? This is? This is what this is?
Speaker 2 (46:46):
So I wanted to capture all of this because no
one was going to believe it, you know, And one
day when I'm not here anymore, hopefully this is the
bucket's still around and you can read all about it
because you can't believe it, you know.
Speaker 4 (47:00):
I want to in the time we have get people
to go nuts over what we alluded to. It's the
Bob Dylan aspect, which I learned a lot more than
I even knew in terms of your connection with him
over the years. I mean I knew obviously you worked
(47:21):
with him, but I kind of always felt like.
Speaker 1 (47:24):
Well, you know, he's Bob.
Speaker 4 (47:25):
He doesn't really work with anybody on anything, but talk
about that relationship and.
Speaker 2 (47:31):
He he does and he doesn't. I mean Bob first
of all. For me, the two biggest artists that mean
more to me than anything growing up are Bob Dylan
and Keith Richards, Right, So it's Keith and the Stones,
and Bob Dylan changed my life as he did a
lot of our lives in the sixties. I mean, he
changed the culture. His music is allowing me as a
(47:53):
young man, going, wait a minute, you don't have to
live in this square world anymore. Things are going to
change and you can be a part of this change
and you can think different and have new ideas on
how to live life and et cetera.
Speaker 5 (48:03):
Et cetera.
Speaker 2 (48:03):
So for me, helping him and having a relationship with
him was huge, and it took me a few meetings
to get used to it, cause again, you could talk
to Bob for thirty seconds and then you realize who
you're talking to, and you know and each can't help,
but you shake your head, you go just Bob Dylan.
But he's very much the artist artist. He's like Picasto.
(48:26):
He just paints. He doesn't think about promotion, he doesn't
think about marketing. His mind isn't there. So he would
come up with some ideas that are funny to me,
but to him there you know, he doesn't know because
he doesn't know, right. It's like, imagine the universe. Okay,
there's the Sun and we're the planets, and we fly
around the Sun, so we have a perspective of the universe.
(48:49):
We're like, oh, there's planets behind us, there's planets in
front of us, and there's the sun. Okay, But Bob
Dylan's the sun, right. He has no perspective. He's the sun, right,
So he doesn't know about all this stuff. So I
would every time you have an album out, I'd call
him and say, look, you know, I know you don't
like to promote yourtuff. Somebody, here's twenty ideas, right, And
(49:10):
I remember, you know Shot of Love. I'd heard the
album it was great, and I called him in New
York and I said, Okay, Bob, this this is gonna
be great. We're going to do great with this album.
Here's twenty ideas. You know, I'm listening to ideas. Nah
nah nah, Now I'm not going to do that.
Speaker 3 (49:28):
Man.
Speaker 2 (49:28):
You know it's because he told me. I said, okay, look,
how's this. We don't promote you at all. You just
show up on Scott Muni's shows. You know, Scott was
a major league legend in you know, New York on
w onew You're just gonna show up a Scott's show.
John Lennon did it. He just showed up. It was brilliant.
Speaker 1 (49:45):
You'll just show up.
Speaker 2 (49:47):
Oh man, I don't like to push my music that way,
which I respected, like he didn't. He wants the music
to do the talking. He doesn't want to quote unquote
promote it. Just it's just not him, man. It says
he just wants to paint, right, It's like, I just
want to make this music.
Speaker 5 (50:05):
And eventually got him to do you read about the book.
Speaker 2 (50:07):
I eventually you know, got him to do you know,
an interview, which was a whole, you know, unworldly experience.
Speaker 5 (50:14):
But he's.
Speaker 2 (50:17):
Very mercurial and but he'll listen. But it would be
like we go out to dinner and it's like, okay,
we have to talk about this video. No, man, I
just got back from Russia. They gave me an award,
which Russian poets like you know, you know Pushkins. This
is a big deal with poetry in Russia's a big deal.
He goes, they just they just gave me an award.
(50:37):
I was thrilled that they gave me an award in
Russia for my poetry. He goes, Rap, you gotta start
reading these Russian Poets's got a list, right, I said, Bob,
you and I have to talk about the video. No, no, no, man,
I'll talk about the video later. You need to get
into these Russian poets. So these are the kind of
conversations you could have with him. And one day he
came in. We were just talking about being dads, right.
I was like, yeah, I wrote in the book.
Speaker 5 (50:58):
I was like.
Speaker 2 (50:59):
It was the most fan conversation because I was like, Bob,
you know, I've got this one son, I got another
on the way. What am I going to tell him?
I mean, you know, the sixties are kind of wild
in the seventies and you know, And he looked at
me and he said, well, he goes, you know what
you know it's Bob del Ways. Well you have a choice,
you know, he said, My life is with drugs, the women.
(51:20):
It's all in the press. I'm busted, you know, he said.
But you you know.
Speaker 1 (51:25):
He's like rap. You have a choice.
Speaker 2 (51:27):
Tell him some things. You don't have to tell him
everything but me, you know, I'm I'm busted right up
by a whole lives in the press. And he was
just talking to me as a guy. Hey, look, this
was my life. I didn't have a choice. You have
a choice. So now we're talking. You know, he's given
me advice, right, I mean, so we're just guys, and
(51:48):
now we're not He's not Bob Dylan.
Speaker 3 (51:50):
You know.
Speaker 2 (51:50):
He told me the most amazing thing. He said, you
know the problem with me is when people meet me,
they think they're meeting the lyrics. And that's exactly what
happened to me when I first met him, because that's
all we know. You know, the lyrics, right, you look
at this guy and you think about all these lyrics.
He said, Look, I know how heavy the songs are.
I wrote them, but those are songs. I'm a songwriter.
(52:10):
But there's me, the human being me, I'm me. Those
are the songs. There's a difference, and people can't making
the difference, separating, separating. When Jerry Garcia passed away and
there was a funeral and Bob went, and the very
famous promoter, John sure in Town went, they're walking away
from the funeral and Garcia went through the whole thing,
(52:31):
not as bad as Bob, but you know, Garcia's God,
and you know he was revered. And the fans would
just think they're walking out of the funeral, and Bob
looks at John Sharon says, you want to know something,
the guy that's lying in that coffin is the only
person that knows.
Speaker 5 (52:47):
What it feels like to be me. WHOA right? WHOA right?
Speaker 2 (52:53):
Because Bob has to deal with that every day of
his life because he gets approached in odd ways.
Speaker 5 (52:58):
He can't help it. He's Bob Dylan. You know.
Speaker 1 (53:02):
Good luck?
Speaker 5 (53:03):
All right? That's how it is.
Speaker 4 (53:04):
Man. Well, the book is fabulous. It takes you inside
your life but also inside the insecurities of artists, the
creative processes. You did a brilliant job with it, and
I just love talking to you about stuff that I
(53:25):
knew and stuff that I didn't know, which is so
captured in your book. Congratulations on it.
Speaker 2 (53:31):
I really appreciate it. First of all, it's easy talking
to you. Were old friends, so you know. But I'm
a promotion man, so I'm going to mention the.
Speaker 5 (53:37):
Name of them.
Speaker 2 (53:39):
I better Okay, it's called Gliders Over Hollywood, which if
you read the book you'll find out why it's called
Glider's Over Hollywood. Just think of Boston Wood Gliders Glider's
Over Hollywood. It's easy, peasy you and go on Amazon,
Barnes and Noble. Just punch it in Glider's Over Hollywood.
It'll show up if you have a local bookstore and
you want to support them. If they don't have it,
they it You've gotten for you.
Speaker 5 (54:00):
You'll love it.
Speaker 4 (54:02):
And I love talking to your rap I will leave
you on one thought.
Speaker 5 (54:06):
I have one.
Speaker 4 (54:07):
Regret in my music radio career, and it was the
fact that when Bob Dylan said anybody want to do
a shadow whiskey, and I and others backed off because
we were like, we can't do this. This is the
voice of a generation and I'll know I'll never have
that chance again.
Speaker 5 (54:26):
But anyway, and he meant it, by the way, this
is Bob just being Bob. Right, were petrified.
Speaker 4 (54:32):
Yeah, I understood, but Rapper, so great to see you.
Thanks for being on Taking a Walk, Thanks for having me,
and congratulations.
Speaker 5 (54:39):
Thanks again.
Speaker 3 (54:41):
Thanks for listening to this episode of the Taking a
Walk podcast. Share this and other episodes with your friends
and follow us so you never miss an episode. Taking
a Walk is available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
and wherever you get your podcasts.
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