June 3, 2025 • 35 mins
Join @thebuzzknight with the iconic musician, singer-songwriter Steve Earle.
In this episode Buzz converses with Grammy-winning singer-songwriter Steve Earle. Earle shares personal stories about his life, career, and musical influences. He discusses his experiences with spiritual teacher Ram Dass, his daily walking routines in New York City, and the creation of his iconic albums "Guitar Town" and "Copperhead Road." Earle also reflects on his struggles in the music industry, his interest in jazz and bluegrass, and his philanthropic efforts. The episode offers a deep dive into Earle's artistic journey and his commitment to storytelling and social causes.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Taking a Walk Bowen had hired for his division, which
was autonomous. He ran that separately from the rest of
MCA Records. He basically he hired Emmy, Gordy, Tony Brown,
and David Hungay, there's A and R people and told them,
you know, okay, you're hired.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Now go out and sign hereever you want to.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
And Tony and Emory said, we want to sign Steve Earl,
And he said, anybody but Steve Earl.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
Welcome to the Taking a Walk Podcasts podcast where Buzz
Night talks with the legendary artists, storytellers, and icons to
hear their stories behind their music. Today, Buzz is with
the true American original, Steve Earle, Grammy winning singer, songwriter,
fearless storyteller, and musical outlaw. Steve's career has spanned decades, genres,
(00:45):
and generations, from the back roads of Texas to the
streets of Nashville and New York City. Steve shares his
stories behind the music and his most beloved songs, the
lessons he's learned from his heroes, and how the simple
act of putting one foot in front of the other
keeps them grounded and creative. Steve URL's hitting the road
with fifty years of songs and stories summer tour this
(01:07):
summer coming to a city near you, and he joins
buzz Night on the Taking a Walk podcast right now.
Speaker 4 (01:16):
Hello, Steve Earle, thank you for being on Taking a Walk.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
It is good to be here.
Speaker 4 (01:21):
If you could take a walk with somebody living or dead,
who might that person be, and you know where you
might take that walk with them?
Speaker 1 (01:30):
Uh Ramdas because I knew him a little to the
end of his lock and he couldn't walk by the
time I met him, because he had had a pretty
catastrophic stroke, but he was still Ramdas. And it was
kind of a big deal for me because I I
just kind of I read me here now when it
came out, and so for my sixties, you know, it
(01:53):
was always a big deal to me. But I've never
managed to sort of put any sort of daily spiritual
practice together, even though I tried. I'm an old hippie,
and then as a person in recovery, it's something else
that you're supposed to do, and I just didn't manage
to do that until for my sixtieth birthday, my manager,
who had none rambos for a while. It took me
(02:15):
to Mali, to a small retreat at Ardi's house, and
I met him finally and and I started going to
Mali every year for the last few years of his
life and uh. And then got there just a few
days after he died in twenty twenty and so missed
that one and uh. And there was another time that
we couldn't see him because I didn't get to see
(02:37):
him or Willie. You know, Willie Nelson and Chrisco Stofferson
lived in Mali as well, and I'd visit them. But
when you're when you when you show up with a
stuning ose kid, you don't go visit the occagenarians who
all my friends at Mali were so uh. It was uh,
but it was it was something that really important to me.
And it did get me going on a daily yoga practice.
(02:59):
This that's can they need to now? And it's uh,
and walk probably in Mali. I haven't been back to
Mali since since Rhmbas passed away, and I'd never been
before I went toward that conference.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
I'd never been to Hawaii. And somebody asked me one time,
why do you go to Mali? Why don't you go
to the Big Island Mali. That's so seventies.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
Well, I'm pretty seventies and uh and and plus Ramdas,
Willie Nelson, Chris Christopherson. That was my reasons for a
pilgrimage to Maui and Ramdas used to go swimming once
a week at uh at keih and uh and I
used to stay over by there, and so I always,
you know, wish that I could have gotten there for that,
(03:41):
and uh, I just never I just never quite lined
up and h because it was right in front of
the hotel where I normally stayed. I was just never
there when it worked out on the day when they
were taking Rambas swimming and and so probably to take
a walk and then down to the beach to go swimming,
that's what the walk would be.
Speaker 4 (03:57):
It'd be pretty pretty awesome. As somebody who lives in
New York, a great walking city as well, do you
have any favorite spots to walk in New York?
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Well, I walk a lot of different routes. H.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
I dropped my son off at school every day. He
has autism, and he goes just co called the Caswell School,
which is in It's in the Lower it's in the
Lower East side. It's like kind of you know, right,
we're standing INDs there, you know. And and so I
live in Bettery Perk City, so that's about three miles.
I can make it four miles if I take a
long route. I lived in Greenwich Village for eighteen years.
(04:34):
I still buy my coffee there at Puerto Rico and
coffee there, and so I'll re route to the village
to Bleaker Street and get coffee sometimes and then walk
straight out to the west side and down down the
Hudson River, you know, and which is beautiful when it's
I do this rain or shine, no matter how cold
it is. So I don't suggest that walk in January
(04:55):
or February. I usually go straight to Chinatown that way,
which is always of town at eight thirty nine o'clock
in the Morning's fascinating.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
It always has been. Chinatown's funny.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
Because Little Italy shrank to a block, Chinatown did not,
and in fact they got some of what used to
be Little Italy. That community is holding together and it's
still vibrant, and it's still you'd think you'd gone off
into another country.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
Every time you cross one of those walks into Chinatown.
Speaker 4 (05:22):
To this day, the amazing part about New York is
you just lose track of time when you're walking the
streets and just looking at people and kind of clearing
your head.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
It used to be that way for me.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
I used to come here to chill out after tourists
before I lived here, and now I live here, so
it's a little bit different.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
You know.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
I'm watching the clock a little bit more, you know,
because I'm know, I live here and work here and
get my kid to school, and I come back and
I just hammer trying to get something done before you
gets out of school and be after you like every
other single parent in the world.
Speaker 4 (05:54):
So we're going to talk about you going out on
your long run of a tour. We'll touch on that,
but I wanted to mention something Charlie Reid from the Proclaimers.
He says that your album Guitar Town was at this
time when he said it, he said it was the
(06:15):
best record of the nineteen eighties in his opinion.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
Well, they ended up recording you know, mile Friend the Blues,
which was from that record, and then that ended. My
luck was on the record of Theirs that sort of
found a new life after they had a hit from it.
You know that was on Sunshine and Leath and it's funny.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
And Craig's daughter.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
Like it showed up at my songwriting camp when here
when she was eighteen years old, and she's like, you know,
she's really, really, really good. And I'm knowne those guys
a long time and I appreciate that. But I was
a big fan of theirs from record one.
Speaker 4 (06:52):
What was the Guitar Town session? Like the whole creation
of that? What can you tell us about it?
Speaker 1 (06:59):
It was weird because I was I've been to Nashville
for thirteen years or twelve years, but when we started it,
I'd had one record deal that I got just by default.
I tried to get a record deal for years, and
I just missed. I was sort of a baby and
what they you know, what people think of as the
outlaw movement, and then you know, the record deals kind
of dried up pretty quickly on that. You know, they
(07:21):
wanted to control again, and so I remember I just
wasn't good enough. But you know, there's some songs I
still played that were written back then. That's part of
the point of this tour. But you know, by the
time I'd been through a couple of publishers. I'd been
on Epic Records for a minute. I had a three
piece rockabilly band, and that finally got me a record
deal of all things. And I didn't think that I
(07:42):
would be doing that for the rest of my life,
but it was sort of fun. And the first time
I ever played electric guitar was in my late twenties
when I had that band, and then those those singles
we released and Epic didn't work, so they dropped me,
and then I signed to a publishing company that belonged
to the Oakreage Boys called Silver Line goal Line a
gentleman named Noel Fox who had been the bass singer
(08:02):
the Oaks back when they were really when they were
a gospel group before they went secular, and Noah was
a song guy, and he just told me i'd been
you know, when Justin was born. I started panicking trying
to write songs I could get cut and I had
very marginal success with that. A few people covered my songs,
but not very many, not enough for to really, you know,
(08:22):
turn into a career. And none of us, my crowd
of people went there to be staff writers for the
rest of our lives.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
We were singer songwriters. We wanted record deals, and Noel
believed in me. He told me to go write a record.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
I went out and saw Bruce Springsteen and the East
Street Man on the Born in the USA tour. He
came out and opened with Born in the USA. I
went home and wrote Guitar Town and started writing an album.
And there was only one song that wasn't written in
that few months before we actually recorded Guitar Town that
I took from it a couple of years earlier, and
(08:54):
I played it with a rockabilly man that was Fearless Heart.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
I thought it was just such a good song and
didn't want to leave it behind, and it wasn't that.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
But I didn't go back for any of the songs
that I'd written over, you know, the twelve or thirteen
years before I got there. I did record some of
those songs later on training, coming after I got out
of jail, I recorded a few of those songs, and
those are the ones that you're going to hear on
the tour this year. Those are the older songs that
I that I still play. But it was the sessions where,
you know, they were pretty disciplined. We were doing different
(09:25):
than Nashville was doing. When I first got there. They
catered and they did everybody just stayed in the studio
at eight there, and we didn't We worked, you know,
at least two sessions a day, you know. We worked
from you know, usually noon or so till pretty late,
and once the tracks were done, we work even later. Sometimes.
It was just one of those things. It's one thing
(09:46):
I don't do anymore. I'm standing recording studio show two
or three o'clock in the morning anymore. But you know,
we discovered I think when you're younger, you think it's
you know, you finally turn out later that you throw
away most of the stuff that you do when you're
too tired anyway.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
So it's one of those things.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
But the best stuff gets done of the first couple
of takes, in the first couple of hours.
Speaker 4 (10:05):
Did you ever do any work in your time in
Nashville at the infamous Quantcet Hut studios?
Speaker 2 (10:12):
No, I never recorded there. It's the conset Hut.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
You can still see the shape of the Quantset Hut itself,
you know, a conset hut for people that don't know
is if you've ever seen gum er pile, you know
those those structures that they that they used for barracks
in that marine camp. The quantset that was invented is
a is a I guess by within the military to
be a structure that could be thrown up quickly. But
(10:37):
was what was was really sound set up to wind
sit up to other things, you.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
Know pretty well.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
And it was basically Owen Bradley got the idea. There's
a sort of a theory in studios that you don't
want parallel walls to close to each other because it's
what they call a standing wave. And the quantset has
one long curved wall to ceiling, you know, just like
a tunnel, and and so there are no parallel surfaces
unless you put some in it.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
So that was the idea.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
He thought it would make a perfect recording studio, and
so he bought one, put it on music Row and
built a recording studio in it, and then he sold
that to Columbia Records and they built their building around it.
And I can show people you can drive past the
Sunny building now in the back and you can still
see the crack where two buildings are, you know, sort
(11:25):
of together there an annex. You can see the curve
at the top of the quantset in between them and I,
because it's sort of it's sort of what connects the
two that long ago got turned into offices. It was
still a recording studio when I got there.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
Billy Cheryl was in.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
Sconce there and was still recording there when I got
there in nineteen seventy five, but I never got to
record there myself.
Speaker 4 (11:46):
As an obvious student of the greats of Nashville, how
does a song such as I Saw the Light by
Hank Williams make an influence on somebody like you?
Speaker 2 (12:00):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
I think there's gospel songs like that. First personally I
knew that wrote gospel songs was Towns Fanzant and which
was seemed, you know his reputation, it seemed in Congress.
He wrote one called two Hands, which was a very
traditional tempo gospel song, and one called when He Offers
His Hand. They're both on the same album, and you
know he write them for his mother's That's that's why
(12:23):
why he did it. I've written a couple I've written
I've written one Christmas song. It's not really a gospel sung,
but it is a Christmas story that does have to
do with what Christmas is about. It's called Nothing but
a Child, and I wrote I've got a gospel song
that I'm pretty proud of that's actually called Tender Mercies.
That's in this musical of Tender Mercies that I'm that
(12:45):
I'm working on right now.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
It's just one of those things.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
Gospel music was always such an integral part of country music.
There was always a gospel song in every country show,
and so it got ingrained and you know, why me, lord,
that's still one of my one of my favorite, you know,
and that's you would call that a sacred song or
a spiritual song. Gospel is actually and I know way
(13:10):
too much about gospel when it comes down to because
the roochs of rock and roll are also found there.
And I wrote for a company that belonged to the
Ukrage Boys, and I've learned the history of all that
from them, at least from the white gospel side, and
that's connected to the black gospel side. And you know,
I knew other people in Nashville that were involved in
that kind of gospel music and it always fascinated me.
Speaker 4 (13:31):
So I was programming rock stations when Copperhead Road came
out right, and it really was super cool how it
stood in between a Rolling Stone song and a Jimmy
Hendrick song and really really worked fabulously. We absolutely loved
that when that came out, and still love it. Can
(13:55):
you take us back to that time with the creation
of that certainly great produce.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
I started out, you know, when I made Guitar Town,
I wanted to make credible country records and I never
saw that much difference between country and rock and roll,
not the good stuff anyway, So Guitar Town and Exit
of Zero, I was definitely trying to do that. By
the time Egit of Zero came along, Guitar Town was
more successful, almost a little too successful, according to Jimmy Bowen,
(14:23):
who ran who ran MCA Nashville at the time, and
Bowen basically Emmy Gordey and and Tony Brown decided they
wanted to sign me. I'd worked with Emery on the
when I was on Epic. He produced the stuff that
I did there, and they he hired Bowen had hired
for his division, which was which was autonomous. He ran
(14:45):
that separately from the rest of MCA Records, and he's
he basically he hired Emmy Gordy, Tony Brown, and David
Hungate as A and R people, and David hung Gate
was the base original bass player in Toto, and they
and told them, you know, okay, you're hired, Now go
out and sign hereever you want to. And Tony and
(15:05):
Emory said, we want to sign Steve Earl, and he said,
anybody but Steve Earl because he knew me because the
rockabilly record I made. And he hated that because he
kind of came from it. And I don't know what
that's about, but I know he did come from that.
Buddy Knox and he were partners and recorded together and
Party Doll the A side, well, they was shipped as
(15:28):
a double A, but Party Doll became the hit and
the other side is the song that Jimmy Bowen sings.
And so he went on to be a really successful
producer in LA and a part of that whole Oklahoma
you know, migration to the West Coast that created a
lot of great music. But he ended up in Nashville
running MCA, and he just did not like me, did
(15:48):
like my voice, and did not want me on.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
This record label, Guitar Town.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
He let them go ahead and do it because he
told them that they could sign anybody that they wanted to,
but I had to go. I had to go prove
to him that I could sing. I had to go
make a special demo. I did it, and then so
he gradually let him sign me. We made the record.
We put out one single that got into the thirties,
which was Hillbilly Highway, and the guitar town just sort
(16:13):
of exploded and radio stations jumped all over it, and
they even tried to pull the plug on it at
one point because they had a McIntire record they were trying.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
To get added, and you how that works.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
Every every label is going to get what they're going
to get according to whatever their relationship with the with
the programmer is. And and they were told, no, we're
getting phones on this. This is an active record here,
and most of the stations wouldn't drop it, so they
just that record went on. It became a number one
country album, and then I made exits. He WoT the
(16:42):
second record, and you know, there's a lot of sophomore slunt,
but I don't think that was the case of that record.
I'm pretty proud of that record. I think it holds
up there's still a lot of songs on it. I
sing every night, but I've had people that were working
there at the time tell me that they were told
absolutely not to work my record.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
So Copperhead Road.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
Will, I knew that I was dead if I didn't,
you know, I had a seven you know, album contract.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
I knew I wasn't going to get dropped.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
And I was thirty two by that time, and I just,
you know, I just knew that I needed to do something.
So I was in London producing a record and MCA
had started an imprint that they'd had before called UNI,
and I Irving asof was running the whole record label
at the time. And I walked up to Irving at
(17:29):
a party and said I want to be on UNI.
He goes, he got this slice and he didn't like
Bowing very much.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
They didn't get along, but Boem's division made money, so
he left him alone. And I think I presented a
way for him to fuck with Bowen. It was part
of it, you know.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
And I just I said, I said I want to
be moved to UNI. And he got this look on
his face. He said, Unie's not for country, Unie's for
rock and roll, and hip hop, and I said, I'll
make a rock record, and so I went to Memphis
to make it. I'm surprised I got to do it.
I'm surprised they didn't just pull the plug right there.
I think they could have. I don't you know. I
(18:04):
barely understood the contract that i'd signed anyway, so I
know it was seven albums that they wanted it to
be seven albums, and and and you know one if
they only wanted it to be one, and they got
the second one got made, So.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
You know that I went to Memphis.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
There was a rule about the type of recording equipment
that you had to use because Bowen, because he owned
all those the machines of that type in Nashville.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
That was part of it, but.
Speaker 1 (18:29):
But it was it was supposed to be about sound quality.
But they had the same equipment that arted in Memphis.
And I knew that because I was I was dating
and getting ready to marry an A and R person
at the time, and she had made some records over there,
and I'd been over there with her. So I decided
I wanted to go to Arden and make Copper. It's
the studio that that the Zzy Top records were made there.
(18:50):
Parts of led Zeppelin three were made there. It was
still open a very very famous recording studio Memphis. So
I went to Memphis, made Copper Hit Road to be
a rock record and and and we got played at
rock radio someplace. There were some places that just still
thought it was two country, you know, and up north.
And I already had a pretty good thing going at
(19:13):
h And one of the reasons that I did what
I did is even on Guitar Town and especially on
EGSIT zero w XRT in Chicago were sort of unknowingly
inventing a radio format at the time because it got
so wide open and it became you know, the tripa
a format, you know, and and adult album alternative whatever.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
Well, whatever order you put those words in, it's that's
three words. I never can't remember what order it goes in,
you know.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
It was a XRT, you know, convinced me that there
was an audience out there, and I knew I needed
to stay on the road. Luckily, my publishing deal ran
out right as Guitar Town was number one, so they
had to re sign me on a better deal. So
I got a big enough publishing deal that I could
live on it and I just put the money from
the road into the bus and paying the band and
(20:01):
stayed on the road.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
And uh, I had a career from that point.
Speaker 3 (20:05):
We'll be right back with more of the Taken a
Walk Podcast. Welcome back to the Taking a Walk Podcast.
Speaker 4 (20:17):
Is there a genre you haven't touched yet that you
would consider touching in the future.
Speaker 3 (20:22):
Jazz?
Speaker 1 (20:23):
I guess because a friend of mine told me after
I've made a bluegrass record. He's his mother started the
station in in Nashville. He's like, he's in some really
good I guess they would call alternative bands that were around,
you know, and and uh and he but his grandfather's
was Woody Hermann. And he told me that he grew
up being a bandboy with his with with his dad
(20:45):
and he he just I mean, with his granddad. And
he just said, we have you can probably make any
kind of record you want.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
To steps a jazz record. Don't ever try to make
a jazz record.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
That kind of I took that as a double dog there,
and so I have thought about it a few times.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
I love that.
Speaker 4 (21:02):
That's fantastic. Any jazz players in particular that that you admire.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
Pretty old passion, you know, like hard bop and and
and I love Woody Herman, and I love Stan Kenton
and that kind of big band jazz.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
It's I mean, it's really jazz.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
And and I love Birth of the Cools probably my
favorite jazz album, which is Miles and that you know
that that well relatively large band, you know, and that's
that's a really really great record. But I like, I
like piano players are kind of, you know, more than
almost anything else. I mean, I love I love Bird
and I love I love Filonia s Mont. But I'm
(21:38):
kind of, you know, just Bud Poalell. That's I listened
to a lot of Bud Powell.
Speaker 4 (21:44):
Have you checked out the Lewis Armstrong Museum there in Corona, Queens.
Speaker 1 (21:50):
I've never been out there, and I need to go
out there because I love all that stuff there, you know,
the early Lily Armstrong stuff.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
And I got I got.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
Obsessed because of a great book Michael Lodace wrote, Coming
through Slaughter with the whole legend of Buddy Bolden because
we never really heard him play in his prime because
they weren't making records when he was younger, and then
he basically had mental health issues. I mean, he lived
into the forties, but he he never was quite right
when they when they when there was really a market
(22:18):
for jazz, and he could have gotten a record deal.
But but but according to Louis Armstrong and everybody else
that was around, you are hearing Buddy Bolden if you
hear Louis Armstrong early on, and a lot of almost
anybody else in town. He was the trump He was
a cornet player. He never owned a trumpet.
Speaker 4 (22:34):
The museum is cool, but the house is incredible. It's
got some great archival sound there and everything as you
walk through.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
You know, in New Orleans where I spent a lot
of time in New Orleans.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
I was on a television show called Tremet and it
was about you know, New Orleans after the you know,
just characters in New Orleans after after the storm. Most
of the musicians. I played the street musician. But there's
there's a guy there, but I can't remember his name.
But he he collected a lot of jazz memobilia. He's
he's an academic. He teaches, he teaches that stuff, you know,
(23:09):
that kind of neurons culture. But he owned Louis Armstrong's
first cornett wow and it ended up and that water.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
Was so toxic, was so caustic.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
That flooded his house got flooded, and they opened the
case and it just fell apart. It left only the
steel parts, the valves, the hardened parts of all the
brass parts dissolved.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
That's how caustic that water was. It was in the streets.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
That's why all those trees along those boulevards going out,
you know, back towards the river, you know, back towards
the you know, the levees in the back. That's why
all those trees died, all those big magnelio's, all that
stuff that.
Speaker 4 (23:44):
Oh, I didn't know that. God, bluegrass is important to you,
and I think it's an interesting time with some of
these newer creators that have come on the horizon. I
wonder it's great.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
It's the biggest it's ever men and.
Speaker 4 (24:00):
The Sierra Halls and the you know those.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
Strings you know, sells out multiple nights at Red Rocks
and and plays arenas, and and yeah, I don't you know,
and I've watched all that stuff, and I just I did. Actually,
Molly Tuttle's band backs me up along with Molly at
Harley Strictly Bluegrass last year and it was a blast.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
I'm all for it.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
I'm I'm I'm gonna do. I've done some few bluegrass gigs.
I played with Molly at Harley Strictly last year, the
Outlaw Cruise.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
This last year, the Earls of Leicester backed me up
for one show, which.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
Is That's That's you know, it's one of those things
that that it's a it's a flatten Strudge, you know,
tribute band that Jerry Douglas put together, and Sean Campsen,
who's one of the best musicians I know, pound for
pound in that whole town.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
And and a lot of great players in it. It
was a blast. It was real, live, holding on for
dear life, adult bluegrass. It was fun.
Speaker 4 (24:53):
Is there a thing you have to reconcile as far
as the improvisation of bluegrass versus the you know, other
forms that don't I don't know, embrace improvisation.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
I'm if you played according to Monroe, then the lead
singer is a guitar player, and guitar players and monros
bands never saw loads, so I get off light with that.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
Now.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
There are guys like Billy Strings that you know, but
Bill's thing was no takeoff guitar.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
That was his deal. He just didn't do it.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
And because he want a guitar holding down the middle,
and it allowed, you know, the mandolin to stop playing rhythm.
It allowed you know, guitar had to stay, had to
hold that down no matter what.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
And bass. I heard him one time. I got to
be around Monroe.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
A little bit the last few decades of his life,
and I got to go sit in on a session
Emmory Gordy who's produced by something My Stuff of that
pick and was a co producer and guitar Town and
Egs zero. He was producing a Bill Monroe record and
I got to go. It was called Bill Monroe and
Friends and it was him with all these other bluegrass bands.
He was finally kind of acknowledging he created a genre
and playing with all these bands. Some of the people
(25:55):
that he didn't talk to you for years because they
had left his band, but they had figured out by
that time, long years before that, that that's because he
invented something in an American art form and and that's
how that works.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
But he he you.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
Know, they were signing the pay the Time cards at
the end of the session, everybody signing and Jack Cook,
who was who was Ralph Stanley was it was his band,
right and Jack Cook was his bass player for years
and so he had the seniority. So he made him
the session leader because you get double scale. And he
(26:30):
was signing the card and Bill was watching Jack Cook
sign that card and he elbows Emory.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
And he says, Emory, we don't pay bass players. You
can't hear them, you know. So it's it's what those say.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
He was hit this very very dry, almost English sense
of humor.
Speaker 2 (26:48):
It was pretty hilarious.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
Uh, some people mistook it for something else, but he
was really smart and really funny.
Speaker 4 (26:55):
Somebody sent me the incredible performance there in goal Way
that was you know, it seems like there was hundreds
of thousands of people that were singing Galway Girl.
Speaker 3 (27:06):
It was.
Speaker 1 (27:06):
Yeah, it was Monday and Monday and Sharon Shan and
Monday actually had the biggest hit on the Galway Girl
that finally pushed it into Irish culture once and for all.
Cheveral years after my Version Insurance version, my Version Insurance
version of the same things that the accordions lived on
the mix on her record.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
But yeah, and I wasn't around for that, but yeah,
it was. It was people trust me. I got that
video forwarded to me a lot.
Speaker 4 (27:32):
It must make you feel really great watching that. It's
so joyous, I mean, yeah yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
And it's also I got one from a from a class,
a friend of mine's, you know class, and you know,
a school teacher, friend of mine's class, and everybody's singing it,
and you.
Speaker 2 (27:46):
Know, it's what I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (27:48):
They are musicians that hate me for it because it's
become such a part of culture. You know, there's you know,
I also had, you know, a friend of mine who
runs the Galway Traditional Music School. He's Mick Crean, and
he's he's he's a whistle player. He's he plays he
plays you know, the low whistle and and and and
you know, penny whistles to ten whistles, whichever you want
(28:09):
to call him, and some flute. But monthly he's about whistles.
And he's like, he's an old he's an old socialist.
He's like, he and I have a lot in common
and and uh got to be really really good friends.
But he uh, he's like, uh, he teaches at that
school and he and he had he plays mandolin and
guitar too. And this this kid came in he was
(28:31):
about eight or nine. Yeah, Mandolin, and he said, I
want to play the learn to play the Gallery girl.
And this is Mitt telling the story, so I have
his word, only have his word for it that this
was how win. He goes, I want to learn to
play the Gallway Girl. And he goes, well, first let's
show you. Here's a g cord.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
He goes, I just want to learn to play the
fucking Gallway girl.
Speaker 3 (28:49):
And that was it.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
That's all he who's interested that. I think he learned
to play it.
Speaker 4 (28:53):
Eventually, I want to talk about some causes that are
important to you. Obviously, the Keswell's School is is one.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
Yeah, well, you know I got a kid that goes
to school there. Yeah, anybody that's got a kid that
goes to school is probably raising funds for it in
some one form or another nowadays.
Speaker 4 (29:07):
So you will do another show coming up later in
the fall.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
Yeah, we're gonna do when we're moving venues this year.
We haven't announced it yet, but we'll be announcing pretty
soon since we get off Headliner.
Speaker 4 (29:17):
Locked In and I know Better than Jail is an
equal justice organization that you support as well?
Speaker 1 (29:26):
Yeah, yeah, and you know I don't. I still am
opposed to the death penalty. That was a core issue
for me for a long time. I don't get directly
involved with inmates anymore because that eventually led to me
witnessing an execution, and I don't have it in me
to go through that again.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
Oh my god.
Speaker 1 (29:44):
So I try not to get too close to inmates.
I feel bad about it sometimes, but I was. I
had about eleven guys that I corresponded with. They've all
been executed now, and one of them I witnessed that execution,
and I just can't do that again. And you know,
I was blindsided. He asked me, how are you going
to say? No, it's a dying man's last request. And
my guys weren't innocent, you know, innocent guys never wrote me. Ah,
(30:06):
my guys were guilty. But I'm opposed to the death penalty.
I opposed to if the government kills somebody and the democracy,
which we're barely hanging on too, but we're all sensibly
a democracy, then then I'm killing someone, and I object
to the damage that dost to my spirit. I'm not
you know, I'm trying to keep me from going to hell.
I'm not trying to save anybody on death row necessarily.
Speaker 4 (30:28):
Any other charities and causes you want to make mention.
Speaker 1 (30:32):
Of Autism Speaks obviously, which funds a lot of the research,
and that the causes of autism. In every city there's
there are local autism you know charities, and those are those.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
Are pretty near and dear to my heart. You know,
American Civil Liberties Union, you know, I also I do
stuff for them all the time.
Speaker 1 (30:50):
I've done I've played their plenary every year, and it's
like it's it's just it's one of those things that
I it's more or less the same causes.
Speaker 2 (30:59):
The have been my causes pretty much all my life.
Speaker 4 (31:03):
So you're you're heading out for a couple of months
on the road here with these three months months.
Speaker 2 (31:09):
Pretty much ninety days, sixty nine shows and ninety days.
Speaker 4 (31:12):
So people can go to Steveborol dot com and check
out all of the devils there.
Speaker 1 (31:17):
Yeah, we're starting and and the KA Alabama like coming
up in it's next Sunday night, actually the twenty the
twenty as we're as we're taking this to twenty fifth,
and it goes through the week till Labor Day weekend,
and it's at rhythm and Roots Festival in Rhode Island
is the last show.
Speaker 4 (31:39):
Any other venues that you've played before that you'll be
playing that are some of your favorites.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
Yeah, there's some clubs, some theaters, there's a there's a
really cool like art center in Grass Valley, California. I
haven't played in years and years, and Utah Phillips lived
there the last, you know, a few decades of his life.
It's funny U Tap Phillips and Chuck Yeger ended up
in the same place on the planet for the end
of their lives.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
I always thought it was interesting.
Speaker 1 (32:04):
I'm playing playing the Calgary Buck Festival, that's what the
reckless Kelly. I'm playing the VIC in Chicago, which I
haven't played in years, which used to be sort of
my home base in Chicago and but like especially the
nineties right after I got out of jail.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
But I haven't played there in quite a while, and
I'm looking forward to that.
Speaker 4 (32:24):
So, Steven closing, I know you're a big Yankee fan,
and I wanted to ask you, were you ever a ballplayer?
Speaker 2 (32:30):
First of all, No, I was the worst athlete in
the history of Texas and my brother was. My brother
played everything. My dad was you know, we held a
held a record in a high school record in the mile.
Speaker 1 (32:43):
Relay until he was you know, until I was on
the planet. And it was broken when I was about
ten years old. But I was just terrible at everything.
The baseball thing got. I was a Dallas Cowboys football fan.
I just kind of quit watching American football. I don't know,
several decades. I got Jerry Jones started to piss me off,
and so it was one of those things I got
(33:04):
tired of watching guys get hurt.
Speaker 2 (33:06):
I follow English Premier League.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
Soccer, you know football, you know that football in general,
and the Premier League because I produced a lot of
records in England, and I got kind of hooked, and
I've been an arsenal guy. But the Yankees thing started
with my grandfather, he's actually my mother's stepfather, who mustled
out of the army in New York City, intended to
stay here, but he was dragged back to Jacksonville, Texas,
(33:29):
kicking and screaming because his stepfather died and he had
to go home and run the family hardware store because
that was his mother's livelihood. So but he came back
a Yankees fan, and you only got the Yankees and
the Dodgers on TV when I was growing up.
Speaker 2 (33:42):
That was it the game of the week.
Speaker 1 (33:44):
So you were either in the middle of the country
if you had no baseball team, you or Dodgers or
a Yankees fan. That's pretty you know that the originally
America's team that wasn't coined for the Dallas Cowboys. It
was a coin for the Yankees. And it was because
of that that period in history. So I was issued
Penns tricks when I was six years old. My first
team was sixty one Maris and Mantel and that record
(34:05):
and that story. So and as a big Yogi Bearer guy,
I like catchers, Thurman Munson and Yogi Bearra.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
You know, catchers are a big deal for me. For
some reason.
Speaker 1 (34:15):
They're the only player on the field that gets to
see a whole baseball game. That's why so many of
them become managers.
Speaker 4 (34:21):
The tools of ignorance, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:25):
Yogi Barra was such a character too, He said, My
favorite yogiism is when people die, you should go to
their funerals, otherwise they won't come to yours.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
That's my very favorite.
Speaker 4 (34:37):
Steve, thank you so much for being taking a walk
good luck on the tour, and I really appreciate you
being on.
Speaker 2 (34:44):
Thanks say down the rug.
Speaker 3 (34:47):
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 Bowen had hired for his division, which
was autonomous. He ran that separately from the rest of
MCA Records. He basically he hired Emmy, Gordy, Tony Brown,
and David Hungay, there's A and R people and told them,
you know, okay, you're hired.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Now go out and sign hereever you want to.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
And Tony and Emory said, we want to sign Steve Earl,
And he said, anybody but Steve Earl.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
Welcome to the Taking a Walk Podcasts podcast where Buzz
Night talks with the legendary artists, storytellers, and icons to
hear their stories behind their music. Today, Buzz is with
the true American original, Steve Earle, Grammy winning singer, songwriter,
fearless storyteller, and musical outlaw. Steve's career has spanned decades, genres,
(00:45):
and generations, from the back roads of Texas to the
streets of Nashville and New York City. Steve shares his
stories behind the music and his most beloved songs, the
lessons he's learned from his heroes, and how the simple
act of putting one foot in front of the other
keeps them grounded and creative. Steve URL's hitting the road
with fifty years of songs and stories summer tour this
(01:07):
summer coming to a city near you, and he joins
buzz Night on the Taking a Walk podcast right now.
Speaker 4 (01:16):
Hello, Steve Earle, thank you for being on Taking a Walk.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
It is good to be here.
Speaker 4 (01:21):
If you could take a walk with somebody living or dead,
who might that person be, and you know where you
might take that walk with them?
Speaker 1 (01:30):
Uh Ramdas because I knew him a little to the
end of his lock and he couldn't walk by the
time I met him, because he had had a pretty
catastrophic stroke, but he was still Ramdas. And it was
kind of a big deal for me because I I
just kind of I read me here now when it
came out, and so for my sixties, you know, it
(01:53):
was always a big deal to me. But I've never
managed to sort of put any sort of daily spiritual
practice together, even though I tried. I'm an old hippie,
and then as a person in recovery, it's something else
that you're supposed to do, and I just didn't manage
to do that until for my sixtieth birthday, my manager,
who had none rambos for a while. It took me
(02:15):
to Mali, to a small retreat at Ardi's house, and
I met him finally and and I started going to
Mali every year for the last few years of his
life and uh. And then got there just a few
days after he died in twenty twenty and so missed
that one and uh. And there was another time that
we couldn't see him because I didn't get to see
(02:37):
him or Willie. You know, Willie Nelson and Chrisco Stofferson
lived in Mali as well, and I'd visit them. But
when you're when you when you show up with a
stuning ose kid, you don't go visit the occagenarians who
all my friends at Mali were so uh. It was uh,
but it was it was something that really important to me.
And it did get me going on a daily yoga practice.
(02:59):
This that's can they need to now? And it's uh,
and walk probably in Mali. I haven't been back to
Mali since since Rhmbas passed away, and I'd never been
before I went toward that conference.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
I'd never been to Hawaii. And somebody asked me one time,
why do you go to Mali? Why don't you go
to the Big Island Mali. That's so seventies.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
Well, I'm pretty seventies and uh and and plus Ramdas,
Willie Nelson, Chris Christopherson. That was my reasons for a
pilgrimage to Maui and Ramdas used to go swimming once
a week at uh at keih and uh and I
used to stay over by there, and so I always,
you know, wish that I could have gotten there for that,
(03:41):
and uh, I just never I just never quite lined
up and h because it was right in front of
the hotel where I normally stayed. I was just never
there when it worked out on the day when they
were taking Rambas swimming and and so probably to take
a walk and then down to the beach to go swimming,
that's what the walk would be.
Speaker 4 (03:57):
It'd be pretty pretty awesome. As somebody who lives in
New York, a great walking city as well, do you
have any favorite spots to walk in New York?
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Well, I walk a lot of different routes. H.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
I dropped my son off at school every day. He
has autism, and he goes just co called the Caswell School,
which is in It's in the Lower it's in the
Lower East side. It's like kind of you know, right,
we're standing INDs there, you know. And and so I
live in Bettery Perk City, so that's about three miles.
I can make it four miles if I take a
long route. I lived in Greenwich Village for eighteen years.
(04:34):
I still buy my coffee there at Puerto Rico and
coffee there, and so I'll re route to the village
to Bleaker Street and get coffee sometimes and then walk
straight out to the west side and down down the
Hudson River, you know, and which is beautiful when it's
I do this rain or shine, no matter how cold
it is. So I don't suggest that walk in January
(04:55):
or February. I usually go straight to Chinatown that way,
which is always of town at eight thirty nine o'clock
in the Morning's fascinating.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
It always has been. Chinatown's funny.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
Because Little Italy shrank to a block, Chinatown did not,
and in fact they got some of what used to
be Little Italy. That community is holding together and it's
still vibrant, and it's still you'd think you'd gone off
into another country.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
Every time you cross one of those walks into Chinatown.
Speaker 4 (05:22):
To this day, the amazing part about New York is
you just lose track of time when you're walking the
streets and just looking at people and kind of clearing
your head.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
It used to be that way for me.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
I used to come here to chill out after tourists
before I lived here, and now I live here, so
it's a little bit different.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
You know.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
I'm watching the clock a little bit more, you know,
because I'm know, I live here and work here and
get my kid to school, and I come back and
I just hammer trying to get something done before you
gets out of school and be after you like every
other single parent in the world.
Speaker 4 (05:54):
So we're going to talk about you going out on
your long run of a tour. We'll touch on that,
but I wanted to mention something Charlie Reid from the Proclaimers.
He says that your album Guitar Town was at this
time when he said it, he said it was the
(06:15):
best record of the nineteen eighties in his opinion.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
Well, they ended up recording you know, mile Friend the Blues,
which was from that record, and then that ended. My
luck was on the record of Theirs that sort of
found a new life after they had a hit from it.
You know that was on Sunshine and Leath and it's funny.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
And Craig's daughter.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
Like it showed up at my songwriting camp when here
when she was eighteen years old, and she's like, you know,
she's really, really, really good. And I'm knowne those guys
a long time and I appreciate that. But I was
a big fan of theirs from record one.
Speaker 4 (06:52):
What was the Guitar Town session? Like the whole creation
of that? What can you tell us about it?
Speaker 1 (06:59):
It was weird because I was I've been to Nashville
for thirteen years or twelve years, but when we started it,
I'd had one record deal that I got just by default.
I tried to get a record deal for years, and
I just missed. I was sort of a baby and
what they you know, what people think of as the
outlaw movement, and then you know, the record deals kind
of dried up pretty quickly on that. You know, they
(07:21):
wanted to control again, and so I remember I just
wasn't good enough. But you know, there's some songs I
still played that were written back then. That's part of
the point of this tour. But you know, by the
time I'd been through a couple of publishers. I'd been
on Epic Records for a minute. I had a three
piece rockabilly band, and that finally got me a record
deal of all things. And I didn't think that I
(07:42):
would be doing that for the rest of my life,
but it was sort of fun. And the first time
I ever played electric guitar was in my late twenties
when I had that band, and then those those singles
we released and Epic didn't work, so they dropped me,
and then I signed to a publishing company that belonged
to the Oakreage Boys called Silver Line goal Line a
gentleman named Noel Fox who had been the bass singer
(08:02):
the Oaks back when they were really when they were
a gospel group before they went secular, and Noah was
a song guy, and he just told me i'd been
you know, when Justin was born. I started panicking trying
to write songs I could get cut and I had
very marginal success with that. A few people covered my songs,
but not very many, not enough for to really, you know,
(08:22):
turn into a career. And none of us, my crowd
of people went there to be staff writers for the
rest of our lives.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
We were singer songwriters. We wanted record deals, and Noel
believed in me. He told me to go write a record.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
I went out and saw Bruce Springsteen and the East
Street Man on the Born in the USA tour. He
came out and opened with Born in the USA. I
went home and wrote Guitar Town and started writing an album.
And there was only one song that wasn't written in
that few months before we actually recorded Guitar Town that
I took from it a couple of years earlier, and
(08:54):
I played it with a rockabilly man that was Fearless Heart.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
I thought it was just such a good song and
didn't want to leave it behind, and it wasn't that.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
But I didn't go back for any of the songs
that I'd written over, you know, the twelve or thirteen
years before I got there. I did record some of
those songs later on training, coming after I got out
of jail, I recorded a few of those songs, and
those are the ones that you're going to hear on
the tour this year. Those are the older songs that
I that I still play. But it was the sessions where,
you know, they were pretty disciplined. We were doing different
(09:25):
than Nashville was doing. When I first got there. They
catered and they did everybody just stayed in the studio
at eight there, and we didn't We worked, you know,
at least two sessions a day, you know. We worked
from you know, usually noon or so till pretty late,
and once the tracks were done, we work even later. Sometimes.
It was just one of those things. It's one thing
(09:46):
I don't do anymore. I'm standing recording studio show two
or three o'clock in the morning anymore. But you know,
we discovered I think when you're younger, you think it's
you know, you finally turn out later that you throw
away most of the stuff that you do when you're
too tired anyway.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
So it's one of those things.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
But the best stuff gets done of the first couple
of takes, in the first couple of hours.
Speaker 4 (10:05):
Did you ever do any work in your time in
Nashville at the infamous Quantcet Hut studios?
Speaker 2 (10:12):
No, I never recorded there. It's the conset Hut.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
You can still see the shape of the Quantset Hut itself,
you know, a conset hut for people that don't know
is if you've ever seen gum er pile, you know
those those structures that they that they used for barracks
in that marine camp. The quantset that was invented is
a is a I guess by within the military to
be a structure that could be thrown up quickly. But
(10:37):
was what was was really sound set up to wind
sit up to other things, you.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
Know pretty well.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
And it was basically Owen Bradley got the idea. There's
a sort of a theory in studios that you don't
want parallel walls to close to each other because it's
what they call a standing wave. And the quantset has
one long curved wall to ceiling, you know, just like
a tunnel, and and so there are no parallel surfaces
unless you put some in it.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
So that was the idea.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
He thought it would make a perfect recording studio, and
so he bought one, put it on music Row and
built a recording studio in it, and then he sold
that to Columbia Records and they built their building around it.
And I can show people you can drive past the
Sunny building now in the back and you can still
see the crack where two buildings are, you know, sort
(11:25):
of together there an annex. You can see the curve
at the top of the quantset in between them and I,
because it's sort of it's sort of what connects the
two that long ago got turned into offices. It was
still a recording studio when I got there.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
Billy Cheryl was in.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
Sconce there and was still recording there when I got
there in nineteen seventy five, but I never got to
record there myself.
Speaker 4 (11:46):
As an obvious student of the greats of Nashville, how
does a song such as I Saw the Light by
Hank Williams make an influence on somebody like you?
Speaker 2 (12:00):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
I think there's gospel songs like that. First personally I
knew that wrote gospel songs was Towns Fanzant and which
was seemed, you know his reputation, it seemed in Congress.
He wrote one called two Hands, which was a very
traditional tempo gospel song, and one called when He Offers
His Hand. They're both on the same album, and you
know he write them for his mother's That's that's why
(12:23):
why he did it. I've written a couple I've written
I've written one Christmas song. It's not really a gospel sung,
but it is a Christmas story that does have to
do with what Christmas is about. It's called Nothing but
a Child, and I wrote I've got a gospel song
that I'm pretty proud of that's actually called Tender Mercies.
That's in this musical of Tender Mercies that I'm that
(12:45):
I'm working on right now.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
It's just one of those things.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
Gospel music was always such an integral part of country music.
There was always a gospel song in every country show,
and so it got ingrained and you know, why me, lord,
that's still one of my one of my favorite, you know,
and that's you would call that a sacred song or
a spiritual song. Gospel is actually and I know way
(13:10):
too much about gospel when it comes down to because
the roochs of rock and roll are also found there.
And I wrote for a company that belonged to the
Ukrage Boys, and I've learned the history of all that
from them, at least from the white gospel side, and
that's connected to the black gospel side. And you know,
I knew other people in Nashville that were involved in
that kind of gospel music and it always fascinated me.
Speaker 4 (13:31):
So I was programming rock stations when Copperhead Road came
out right, and it really was super cool how it
stood in between a Rolling Stone song and a Jimmy
Hendrick song and really really worked fabulously. We absolutely loved
that when that came out, and still love it. Can
(13:55):
you take us back to that time with the creation
of that certainly great produce.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
I started out, you know, when I made Guitar Town,
I wanted to make credible country records and I never
saw that much difference between country and rock and roll,
not the good stuff anyway, So Guitar Town and Exit
of Zero, I was definitely trying to do that. By
the time Egit of Zero came along, Guitar Town was
more successful, almost a little too successful, according to Jimmy Bowen,
(14:23):
who ran who ran MCA Nashville at the time, and
Bowen basically Emmy Gordey and and Tony Brown decided they
wanted to sign me. I'd worked with Emery on the
when I was on Epic. He produced the stuff that
I did there, and they he hired Bowen had hired
for his division, which was which was autonomous. He ran
(14:45):
that separately from the rest of MCA Records, and he's
he basically he hired Emmy Gordy, Tony Brown, and David
Hungate as A and R people, and David hung Gate
was the base original bass player in Toto, and they
and told them, you know, okay, you're hired, Now go
out and sign hereever you want to. And Tony and
(15:05):
Emory said, we want to sign Steve Earl, and he said,
anybody but Steve Earl because he knew me because the
rockabilly record I made. And he hated that because he
kind of came from it. And I don't know what
that's about, but I know he did come from that.
Buddy Knox and he were partners and recorded together and
Party Doll the A side, well, they was shipped as
(15:28):
a double A, but Party Doll became the hit and
the other side is the song that Jimmy Bowen sings.
And so he went on to be a really successful
producer in LA and a part of that whole Oklahoma
you know, migration to the West Coast that created a
lot of great music. But he ended up in Nashville
running MCA, and he just did not like me, did
(15:48):
like my voice, and did not want me on.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
This record label, Guitar Town.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
He let them go ahead and do it because he
told them that they could sign anybody that they wanted to,
but I had to go. I had to go prove
to him that I could sing. I had to go
make a special demo. I did it, and then so
he gradually let him sign me. We made the record.
We put out one single that got into the thirties,
which was Hillbilly Highway, and the guitar town just sort
(16:13):
of exploded and radio stations jumped all over it, and
they even tried to pull the plug on it at
one point because they had a McIntire record they were trying.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
To get added, and you how that works.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
Every every label is going to get what they're going
to get according to whatever their relationship with the with
the programmer is. And and they were told, no, we're
getting phones on this. This is an active record here,
and most of the stations wouldn't drop it, so they
just that record went on. It became a number one
country album, and then I made exits. He WoT the
(16:42):
second record, and you know, there's a lot of sophomore slunt,
but I don't think that was the case of that record.
I'm pretty proud of that record. I think it holds
up there's still a lot of songs on it. I
sing every night, but I've had people that were working
there at the time tell me that they were told
absolutely not to work my record.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
So Copperhead Road.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
Will, I knew that I was dead if I didn't,
you know, I had a seven you know, album contract.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
I knew I wasn't going to get dropped.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
And I was thirty two by that time, and I just,
you know, I just knew that I needed to do something.
So I was in London producing a record and MCA
had started an imprint that they'd had before called UNI,
and I Irving asof was running the whole record label
at the time. And I walked up to Irving at
(17:29):
a party and said I want to be on UNI.
He goes, he got this slice and he didn't like
Bowing very much.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
They didn't get along, but Boem's division made money, so
he left him alone. And I think I presented a
way for him to fuck with Bowen. It was part
of it, you know.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
And I just I said, I said I want to
be moved to UNI. And he got this look on
his face. He said, Unie's not for country, Unie's for
rock and roll, and hip hop, and I said, I'll
make a rock record, and so I went to Memphis
to make it. I'm surprised I got to do it.
I'm surprised they didn't just pull the plug right there.
I think they could have. I don't you know. I
(18:04):
barely understood the contract that i'd signed anyway, so I
know it was seven albums that they wanted it to
be seven albums, and and and you know one if
they only wanted it to be one, and they got
the second one got made, So.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
You know that I went to Memphis.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
There was a rule about the type of recording equipment
that you had to use because Bowen, because he owned
all those the machines of that type in Nashville.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
That was part of it, but.
Speaker 1 (18:29):
But it was it was supposed to be about sound quality.
But they had the same equipment that arted in Memphis.
And I knew that because I was I was dating
and getting ready to marry an A and R person
at the time, and she had made some records over there,
and I'd been over there with her. So I decided
I wanted to go to Arden and make Copper. It's
the studio that that the Zzy Top records were made there.
(18:50):
Parts of led Zeppelin three were made there. It was
still open a very very famous recording studio Memphis. So
I went to Memphis, made Copper Hit Road to be
a rock record and and and we got played at
rock radio someplace. There were some places that just still
thought it was two country, you know, and up north.
And I already had a pretty good thing going at
(19:13):
h And one of the reasons that I did what
I did is even on Guitar Town and especially on
EGSIT zero w XRT in Chicago were sort of unknowingly
inventing a radio format at the time because it got
so wide open and it became you know, the tripa
a format, you know, and and adult album alternative whatever.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
Well, whatever order you put those words in, it's that's
three words. I never can't remember what order it goes in,
you know.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
It was a XRT, you know, convinced me that there
was an audience out there, and I knew I needed
to stay on the road. Luckily, my publishing deal ran
out right as Guitar Town was number one, so they
had to re sign me on a better deal. So
I got a big enough publishing deal that I could
live on it and I just put the money from
the road into the bus and paying the band and
(20:01):
stayed on the road.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
And uh, I had a career from that point.
Speaker 3 (20:05):
We'll be right back with more of the Taken a
Walk Podcast. Welcome back to the Taking a Walk Podcast.
Speaker 4 (20:17):
Is there a genre you haven't touched yet that you
would consider touching in the future.
Speaker 3 (20:22):
Jazz?
Speaker 1 (20:23):
I guess because a friend of mine told me after
I've made a bluegrass record. He's his mother started the
station in in Nashville. He's like, he's in some really
good I guess they would call alternative bands that were around,
you know, and and uh and he but his grandfather's
was Woody Hermann. And he told me that he grew
up being a bandboy with his with with his dad
(20:45):
and he he just I mean, with his granddad. And
he just said, we have you can probably make any
kind of record you want.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
To steps a jazz record. Don't ever try to make
a jazz record.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
That kind of I took that as a double dog there,
and so I have thought about it a few times.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
I love that.
Speaker 4 (21:02):
That's fantastic. Any jazz players in particular that that you admire.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
Pretty old passion, you know, like hard bop and and
and I love Woody Herman, and I love Stan Kenton
and that kind of big band jazz.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
It's I mean, it's really jazz.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
And and I love Birth of the Cools probably my
favorite jazz album, which is Miles and that you know
that that well relatively large band, you know, and that's
that's a really really great record. But I like, I
like piano players are kind of, you know, more than
almost anything else. I mean, I love I love Bird
and I love I love Filonia s Mont. But I'm
(21:38):
kind of, you know, just Bud Poalell. That's I listened
to a lot of Bud Powell.
Speaker 4 (21:44):
Have you checked out the Lewis Armstrong Museum there in Corona, Queens.
Speaker 1 (21:50):
I've never been out there, and I need to go
out there because I love all that stuff there, you know,
the early Lily Armstrong stuff.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
And I got I got.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
Obsessed because of a great book Michael Lodace wrote, Coming
through Slaughter with the whole legend of Buddy Bolden because
we never really heard him play in his prime because
they weren't making records when he was younger, and then
he basically had mental health issues. I mean, he lived
into the forties, but he he never was quite right
when they when they when there was really a market
(22:18):
for jazz, and he could have gotten a record deal.
But but but according to Louis Armstrong and everybody else
that was around, you are hearing Buddy Bolden if you
hear Louis Armstrong early on, and a lot of almost
anybody else in town. He was the trump He was
a cornet player. He never owned a trumpet.
Speaker 4 (22:34):
The museum is cool, but the house is incredible. It's
got some great archival sound there and everything as you
walk through.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
You know, in New Orleans where I spent a lot
of time in New Orleans.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
I was on a television show called Tremet and it
was about you know, New Orleans after the you know,
just characters in New Orleans after after the storm. Most
of the musicians. I played the street musician. But there's
there's a guy there, but I can't remember his name.
But he he collected a lot of jazz memobilia. He's
he's an academic. He teaches, he teaches that stuff, you know,
(23:09):
that kind of neurons culture. But he owned Louis Armstrong's
first cornett wow and it ended up and that water.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
Was so toxic, was so caustic.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
That flooded his house got flooded, and they opened the
case and it just fell apart. It left only the
steel parts, the valves, the hardened parts of all the
brass parts dissolved.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
That's how caustic that water was. It was in the streets.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
That's why all those trees along those boulevards going out,
you know, back towards the river, you know, back towards
the you know, the levees in the back. That's why
all those trees died, all those big magnelio's, all that
stuff that.
Speaker 4 (23:44):
Oh, I didn't know that. God, bluegrass is important to you,
and I think it's an interesting time with some of
these newer creators that have come on the horizon. I
wonder it's great.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
It's the biggest it's ever men and.
Speaker 4 (24:00):
The Sierra Halls and the you know those.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
Strings you know, sells out multiple nights at Red Rocks
and and plays arenas, and and yeah, I don't you know,
and I've watched all that stuff, and I just I did. Actually,
Molly Tuttle's band backs me up along with Molly at
Harley Strictly Bluegrass last year and it was a blast.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
I'm all for it.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
I'm I'm I'm gonna do. I've done some few bluegrass gigs.
I played with Molly at Harley Strictly last year, the
Outlaw Cruise.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
This last year, the Earls of Leicester backed me up
for one show, which.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
Is That's That's you know, it's one of those things
that that it's a it's a flatten Strudge, you know,
tribute band that Jerry Douglas put together, and Sean Campsen,
who's one of the best musicians I know, pound for
pound in that whole town.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
And and a lot of great players in it. It
was a blast. It was real, live, holding on for
dear life, adult bluegrass. It was fun.
Speaker 4 (24:53):
Is there a thing you have to reconcile as far
as the improvisation of bluegrass versus the you know, other
forms that don't I don't know, embrace improvisation.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
I'm if you played according to Monroe, then the lead
singer is a guitar player, and guitar players and monros
bands never saw loads, so I get off light with that.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
Now.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
There are guys like Billy Strings that you know, but
Bill's thing was no takeoff guitar.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
That was his deal. He just didn't do it.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
And because he want a guitar holding down the middle,
and it allowed, you know, the mandolin to stop playing rhythm.
It allowed you know, guitar had to stay, had to
hold that down no matter what.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
And bass. I heard him one time. I got to
be around Monroe.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
A little bit the last few decades of his life,
and I got to go sit in on a session
Emmory Gordy who's produced by something My Stuff of that
pick and was a co producer and guitar Town and
Egs zero. He was producing a Bill Monroe record and
I got to go. It was called Bill Monroe and
Friends and it was him with all these other bluegrass bands.
He was finally kind of acknowledging he created a genre
and playing with all these bands. Some of the people
(25:55):
that he didn't talk to you for years because they
had left his band, but they had figured out by
that time, long years before that, that that's because he
invented something in an American art form and and that's
how that works.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
But he he you.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
Know, they were signing the pay the Time cards at
the end of the session, everybody signing and Jack Cook,
who was who was Ralph Stanley was it was his band,
right and Jack Cook was his bass player for years
and so he had the seniority. So he made him
the session leader because you get double scale. And he
(26:30):
was signing the card and Bill was watching Jack Cook
sign that card and he elbows Emory.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
And he says, Emory, we don't pay bass players. You
can't hear them, you know. So it's it's what those say.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
He was hit this very very dry, almost English sense
of humor.
Speaker 2 (26:48):
It was pretty hilarious.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
Uh, some people mistook it for something else, but he
was really smart and really funny.
Speaker 4 (26:55):
Somebody sent me the incredible performance there in goal Way
that was you know, it seems like there was hundreds
of thousands of people that were singing Galway Girl.
Speaker 3 (27:06):
It was.
Speaker 1 (27:06):
Yeah, it was Monday and Monday and Sharon Shan and
Monday actually had the biggest hit on the Galway Girl
that finally pushed it into Irish culture once and for all.
Cheveral years after my Version Insurance version, my Version Insurance
version of the same things that the accordions lived on
the mix on her record.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
But yeah, and I wasn't around for that, but yeah,
it was. It was people trust me. I got that
video forwarded to me a lot.
Speaker 4 (27:32):
It must make you feel really great watching that. It's
so joyous, I mean, yeah yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
And it's also I got one from a from a class,
a friend of mine's, you know class, and you know,
a school teacher, friend of mine's class, and everybody's singing it,
and you.
Speaker 2 (27:46):
Know, it's what I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (27:48):
They are musicians that hate me for it because it's
become such a part of culture. You know, there's you know,
I also had, you know, a friend of mine who
runs the Galway Traditional Music School. He's Mick Crean, and
he's he's he's a whistle player. He's he plays he
plays you know, the low whistle and and and and
you know, penny whistles to ten whistles, whichever you want
(28:09):
to call him, and some flute. But monthly he's about whistles.
And he's like, he's an old he's an old socialist.
He's like, he and I have a lot in common
and and uh got to be really really good friends.
But he uh, he's like, uh, he teaches at that
school and he and he had he plays mandolin and
guitar too. And this this kid came in he was
(28:31):
about eight or nine. Yeah, Mandolin, and he said, I
want to play the learn to play the Gallery girl.
And this is Mitt telling the story, so I have
his word, only have his word for it that this
was how win. He goes, I want to learn to
play the Gallway Girl. And he goes, well, first let's
show you. Here's a g cord.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
He goes, I just want to learn to play the
fucking Gallway girl.
Speaker 3 (28:49):
And that was it.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
That's all he who's interested that. I think he learned
to play it.
Speaker 4 (28:53):
Eventually, I want to talk about some causes that are
important to you. Obviously, the Keswell's School is is one.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
Yeah, well, you know I got a kid that goes
to school there. Yeah, anybody that's got a kid that
goes to school is probably raising funds for it in
some one form or another nowadays.
Speaker 4 (29:07):
So you will do another show coming up later in
the fall.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
Yeah, we're gonna do when we're moving venues this year.
We haven't announced it yet, but we'll be announcing pretty
soon since we get off Headliner.
Speaker 4 (29:17):
Locked In and I know Better than Jail is an
equal justice organization that you support as well?
Speaker 1 (29:26):
Yeah, yeah, and you know I don't. I still am
opposed to the death penalty. That was a core issue
for me for a long time. I don't get directly
involved with inmates anymore because that eventually led to me
witnessing an execution, and I don't have it in me
to go through that again.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
Oh my god.
Speaker 1 (29:44):
So I try not to get too close to inmates.
I feel bad about it sometimes, but I was. I
had about eleven guys that I corresponded with. They've all
been executed now, and one of them I witnessed that execution,
and I just can't do that again. And you know,
I was blindsided. He asked me, how are you going
to say? No, it's a dying man's last request. And
my guys weren't innocent, you know, innocent guys never wrote me. Ah,
(30:06):
my guys were guilty. But I'm opposed to the death penalty.
I opposed to if the government kills somebody and the democracy,
which we're barely hanging on too, but we're all sensibly
a democracy, then then I'm killing someone, and I object
to the damage that dost to my spirit. I'm not
you know, I'm trying to keep me from going to hell.
I'm not trying to save anybody on death row necessarily.
Speaker 4 (30:28):
Any other charities and causes you want to make mention.
Speaker 1 (30:32):
Of Autism Speaks obviously, which funds a lot of the research,
and that the causes of autism. In every city there's
there are local autism you know charities, and those are those.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
Are pretty near and dear to my heart. You know,
American Civil Liberties Union, you know, I also I do
stuff for them all the time.
Speaker 1 (30:50):
I've done I've played their plenary every year, and it's
like it's it's just it's one of those things that
I it's more or less the same causes.
Speaker 2 (30:59):
The have been my causes pretty much all my life.
Speaker 4 (31:03):
So you're you're heading out for a couple of months
on the road here with these three months months.
Speaker 2 (31:09):
Pretty much ninety days, sixty nine shows and ninety days.
Speaker 4 (31:12):
So people can go to Steveborol dot com and check
out all of the devils there.
Speaker 1 (31:17):
Yeah, we're starting and and the KA Alabama like coming
up in it's next Sunday night, actually the twenty the
twenty as we're as we're taking this to twenty fifth,
and it goes through the week till Labor Day weekend,
and it's at rhythm and Roots Festival in Rhode Island
is the last show.
Speaker 4 (31:39):
Any other venues that you've played before that you'll be
playing that are some of your favorites.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
Yeah, there's some clubs, some theaters, there's a there's a
really cool like art center in Grass Valley, California. I
haven't played in years and years, and Utah Phillips lived
there the last, you know, a few decades of his life.
It's funny U Tap Phillips and Chuck Yeger ended up
in the same place on the planet for the end
of their lives.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
I always thought it was interesting.
Speaker 1 (32:04):
I'm playing playing the Calgary Buck Festival, that's what the
reckless Kelly. I'm playing the VIC in Chicago, which I
haven't played in years, which used to be sort of
my home base in Chicago and but like especially the
nineties right after I got out of jail.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
But I haven't played there in quite a while, and
I'm looking forward to that.
Speaker 4 (32:24):
So, Steven closing, I know you're a big Yankee fan,
and I wanted to ask you, were you ever a ballplayer?
Speaker 2 (32:30):
First of all, No, I was the worst athlete in
the history of Texas and my brother was. My brother
played everything. My dad was you know, we held a
held a record in a high school record in the mile.
Speaker 1 (32:43):
Relay until he was you know, until I was on
the planet. And it was broken when I was about
ten years old. But I was just terrible at everything.
The baseball thing got. I was a Dallas Cowboys football fan.
I just kind of quit watching American football. I don't know,
several decades. I got Jerry Jones started to piss me off,
and so it was one of those things I got
(33:04):
tired of watching guys get hurt.
Speaker 2 (33:06):
I follow English Premier League.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
Soccer, you know football, you know that football in general,
and the Premier League because I produced a lot of
records in England, and I got kind of hooked, and
I've been an arsenal guy. But the Yankees thing started
with my grandfather, he's actually my mother's stepfather, who mustled
out of the army in New York City, intended to
stay here, but he was dragged back to Jacksonville, Texas,
(33:29):
kicking and screaming because his stepfather died and he had
to go home and run the family hardware store because
that was his mother's livelihood. So but he came back
a Yankees fan, and you only got the Yankees and
the Dodgers on TV when I was growing up.
Speaker 2 (33:42):
That was it the game of the week.
Speaker 1 (33:44):
So you were either in the middle of the country
if you had no baseball team, you or Dodgers or
a Yankees fan. That's pretty you know that the originally
America's team that wasn't coined for the Dallas Cowboys. It
was a coin for the Yankees. And it was because
of that that period in history. So I was issued
Penns tricks when I was six years old. My first
team was sixty one Maris and Mantel and that record
(34:05):
and that story. So and as a big Yogi Bearer guy,
I like catchers, Thurman Munson and Yogi Bearra.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
You know, catchers are a big deal for me. For
some reason.
Speaker 1 (34:15):
They're the only player on the field that gets to
see a whole baseball game. That's why so many of
them become managers.
Speaker 4 (34:21):
The tools of ignorance, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:25):
Yogi Barra was such a character too, He said, My
favorite yogiism is when people die, you should go to
their funerals, otherwise they won't come to yours.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
That's my very favorite.
Speaker 4 (34:37):
Steve, thank you so much for being taking a walk
good luck on the tour, and I really appreciate you
being on.
Speaker 2 (34:44):
Thanks say down the rug.
Speaker 3 (34:47):
Thanks for listening to this episode of the Taking a
Walk podcast. Share this and other episodes with your friends
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a Walk is available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
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