Dan Penn

Dan Penn is a living legend who co-wrote "I'm Your Puppet," "Dark End of the Street," "Do Right Woman, Do Right Man," "Cry Like a Baby" and he produced the Box Tops' legendary hit THE LETTER! Dan recently released his first solo album in years, "Living on Mercy," and it's amazingly satisfying, check it out. And listen to this podcast to hear Dan's story, from Muscle Shoals to Memphis, he was there, the history comes alive.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Sets podcast.
I guess today is truly legendary Dan Penn known as
a songwriter, a singer, a player, a producer. Dan. So
great to have you on here. Good to be here, Bob. Okay,
so you have a new album that comes out. You know,

(00:28):
normally I'm against type in general, but I've been listening
to the album and it's really good. Okay, that's strange. Well,
I had an era where there's so much crap out there.
Let's start from the beginning. The album is called Living
on Mercy. What made you decide to actually record it? Oh?
Just uh, I wasn't doing anything else and this, you know,

(00:53):
had a kind of a low here in the studio.
And uh so I thought, well, you know, I still saying,
so my re all making me on record. Hadn't made
one in a long time. So, uh, just Spooner and
I going to Japan and made made a few bucks
and came back. I said, I'll just spend that on

(01:13):
my record, and and so I started and uh, you know,
we just kept going. Okay, let's stop for a second here.
When did Spooner and you go to Japan? We went
here before last, I believe was it was the last time.
So he went, we went over and played four or
five shows. How does something like that come together? Well,

(01:36):
this uh, this uh fellow who was a motor you
called me, he calls better, he called me, and we
got together on price and he brought us so and
you know, wasn't anything strange, but it did work out
really good. And you know what he had was one

(02:00):
of the best things in the world. You know, when
you go to get on a plane or when you
get off, there said somebody with a wheelchair to wheel
you to the next to the next gate. So we
got wheeled all around Japan and all over America. So
the wheelchair was you know, I'll never fly without it. Now,

(02:28):
speaking to that, as we're all getting up in years,
how is your mobility and health? Well, it's like all
the people who are seventy eight years old. I wake
up with new little things every day sometimes, but you know,
in general, I still get around pretty good. My ballot
saying as good as it was. Um, I've got other
problems in other areas, but overall, in general, I feel

(02:52):
pretty good. So I felt good enough to make that
CD record and I hope I can. If they'll get
this COVID thing done, maybe I could get out and
do a few shows. And to what degree are you quarantining?
I'm here, but if I need to go to the grocery,
I'll go. I put on a mask, I go where

(03:14):
I got to. You know, I'll quarantine you. I've never
called it that. I've never considered that's what I was doing,
but I guess that's what we're all doing. So but
if I'll go, do what I gotta do, and I'll
wear the mask and get the stuff and bring it home.
But pretty soon I'll go back to Alabama. We got

(03:37):
a place in Alabama. We just came back up here
from Alabama to get to take Linda to the doctors.
She had to have a pacemaker put in, so I
had to bring Harry and to do that. And I'm
doing a few interviews like with you. I've got one more,

(03:58):
and then we're back to Aliba, Emma, and down here
we're just out in the country. So quarantine, we don't
even consider that word. But I know everybody is having
to do what they gotta do. Okay, I can see
in the video here there's a tape machine behind you.
So you have a studio there in your home in Nashville, Yes, Sue,

(04:21):
I've got a I've got a basement studio. Almost everybody
in a music basis has got a studio somewhere in
their house some kind. And this one's been here now
for what wrong about twenty years? About twenty years and
it's pretty nice. I mean I fixed it up pretty nice,
maybe two nice, you know, but I enjoyed. I can

(04:46):
come down here at midnight, you know, with my Jamie's
and work on the song, or work on the tape
that's already recorded. H you know, just keep it. It's
a good to have some way you go remake something
real fast. Or you know, once you leave the studio,

(05:06):
you're in your budgets right out. You can't you can't
do no more. But if you've got your own studio,
the budget never runs out. You can just keep on mixing.
That's what I wanted to do with do right mayn
back in the n is and but the budget was out,

(05:27):
we had to stop. I would have liked to have
done some more, but you know how it is. Okay.
So what do you have in that studio? I mean,
I see the tape machine. What other kind of equipment. Well,
there's a there's an old m C I board here
six Uh, there's a sixteen track two inch over there.

(05:47):
There's some HD twenty four digital recorders, and there's a
there's a Harrison mixed bus, a digit of mixer, and
that's what we used on this record. We mixed it
through that Harrison. Okay, so you tend to read in

(06:08):
this album to record the tapered record digitally, the recorded
digitally in both places, I believe they were both proteos.
So we did that number and then we brought it
back here to my place, and we uh fixed a
few things and and overdub some things and mixed everything.

(06:28):
And uh, is it your room big enough to cut
or is it basically a mixing room? It's big enough
to cut four or five people, But we didn't cut here.
My board, my console was having some crackling problems. And uh,
I called a friend, buzz Case and who owns creative
workshop here studio and uh, really good studio, and he said, yeah,

(06:54):
come on in. So I wonder over there and cut.
Three days we cut half album. I took a little
to break, but maybe a lot. And I tried to
get everybody else back together, and you know, you just
couldn't do it. Everybody's running here and there in the
studio would being booked. You know, I couldn't make it
land up. So I called them a guy and muscle

(07:16):
shows or Sheffield, Alabama at the nuthouse and I was
I was able to uh to land everybody uh down
at the nuthouse. And so we finished it that. We
tracked the rest of the tracks three more days, and
men bought it all back here and started, uh, you know,

(07:37):
looking at it pretty hard and what do we need
to do and stuff like that. Now, now the vocals
came off the floor with the band. I didn't. I
didn't redo the vocals. So I fixed a couple of places,
but very small places. Okay. So in today's music business,

(08:00):
what are your expectations for a new recording where we
have streaming dominates there, I'm team tracks that aren't even
listened to on Spotify. It's so different from when you
started out and when I started out. So what's it
like in your mind making a record knowing how hard
it is to reach the audience. I don't really know,

(08:21):
you know that that that's not my part I was saying,
I play they sail, so I don't really know how
that works. I don't know anything about downloading. Uh, you know,
I'm a CD man. I don't even know anything about
But they say they're gonna put this on VINOYL so
you know, so be it. I got a record players

(08:42):
to you, so I'll listen to it. But I really
like c ds. You know. They say I'm just like
the studio, and that's fine with me. But these kids,
you know, they've got other ideas. Okay, let's go back
to the beginning. You're from Alabama, yes, sir. And you know,
especially Northerners like myself, if they've even been to the South,

(09:04):
they don't really know much about it. So we're in Alabama.
Did you grow up? I grew up in a little
town called Vernon, Vernon, Alabama. And where is that that's
down between Tuscaloosa, Alabama road tide. You know, it's between
there and uh in Columbus, Mississippi, right on the state

(09:26):
line Mississippi Alabama state line, halfway down in the state.
And uh, you grew up? How many kids in the
family I had? I had three sisters. I've got one
left and where are you in the hierarchy oldest youngest,

(09:47):
I'm I got one sister older. I had one sister older,
and I'm next, and then I had I've got Peggy left,
and my baby's sister Vicky got killed in a car
rash and save me nine, So just being my sister. Okay,
So what did your parents do for a living back

(10:08):
in there in Vernon. Well, first they were farmers, and
he was a farmer, mother he was she was a
farmer too. They had caught and all that stuff, and
didn't they About forty nine they started working at the
government plant in Columbus, which is thirty miles away, and

(10:28):
so they worked, and government plants in that part of
the country just took over. They were in every little
town and everybody had a job and everybody might, you know,
some money, and that's what raised us all, really, except
for the crops that were there before. And so they

(10:49):
made men's trousers and then he worked in that the
ship of department, and mother worked in something there. So
you know, that's back when money with money, you know,
about thirty five dollars a week was a big paycheck.
So you grew up in Vernon. How many people in Vernon, Oh,

(11:14):
back then, probably not the same now. Maybe a thousand,
maybe fifteen hundred, maybe nine hundred, it's hard to say.
The surrounding area, it's not a lot of people, but
it's got a couple of red lacs. It is the
county seat of Lamar County. And your house that you
say you're going to return to, is that in Vernon, No, sir,

(11:36):
it's outside of a few miles. That was part of
my wife, Linda's grandparents farmhouse. It's an old farmhouse, over
a hundred years old, and she was born in the
front room where we sleep, so it's really personal to her.

(11:58):
And it's got the front porches on the hunt and
I got the back porch on the back, and it's
got a hallway all the way down through it. So
a very old fashioned and we rebuilt it years ago. Okay,
so you're growing up in Vernon. What does your life
look like you personally? Well, I'm going to school, you

(12:18):
know a lot. I'm going to high school. I'm going
to grammar school. I started, uh playing a little music,
started writing a few little songs, and finally I found
his place in Solide. That that's ten miles north and
they're having a square aints the College quarter Aints up there.

(12:40):
But what it really was was a little rock and
roll show with a few square ains is thrown in.
And so I went up there and started hanging out
with him and sitting in a little bit with a
band Minnie Kegle and a rhythm Swinsters. He played there.
He played it was you know, he played the square

(13:01):
dancers with a fiddle and then he played the snare
with the boat. Very good. Mr. But anyway, one of
the guys in the band was Billy Sheryl really is, yeah,
he was. He was playing electric sacks and he said,
I hear you write song. Somebody has got to him
and told him, man he I said, oh yeah, So

(13:21):
he said play me one. So I played him a song.
He said, why don't you come up to Florence. We've
got a little studio up that we just might put
a record of him. Well great, you know, I'm about
seventeen years old. I need a record. So I go
up there and I put down four or five songs
that I've written. That's about all I've written. But one

(13:44):
of the songs was called he was a Bluebird Blue
and I put it down and came on back home,
and it wasn't too long that I got a call
from Tom Stafford. He was kind of the head guru
up there at that little view. It was over his
father's drug store that he had a little studio. And

(14:08):
he said, Dan, he said, you've got a song on
the charts. No kid, what is that? He said, He's
a Bluebird blue by Conway Twitty. I said, he cut that?
He said, he cut it. He said, and it's going
up the charts. You moved in ten places next week.
And the reason I'm calling he is, is you need
to sign up with bm I And if you do,

(14:30):
since you're moving that much next week, they'll they'll frought
you some money. Do you need some money? I said, yes, sir.
He said how much you need? I said seven hundred bucks.
He said, I've seend it right on down. Well what that?
What that number? How I came up seven hundred dollars

(14:52):
I had. I had been down to my uncle Ruben's place.
He would live just right by us in the country,
and he had to rebuilt the nineteen four Chevrolet. He
had put a V eight in it and everything. You
couldn't tell it that anything had ever been done to it,
and I tried to buy it. I said, don't agree

(15:13):
with why you take this car. He said, it ain't
for sale. Really, no, it ain't for sale. I knew
he used it would sell anything, you know. But so
I said, well, well, if you're gonna send it, reckon
what you'd have to have. Now, this is back when
a hundred dollars was a lot of money. And I said,
what what do you think you'd have to have if
you was gonna send it? He thought of that, he said,

(15:35):
he knew I didn't have any money. I'm just a country.
Bought that and he said, ah, if I was gonna
send it, I'd have to have something like seven hundred dollars.
So I went on and I got and I blew.
I got that call, you know, And so I go back,
I get my check in, I cash it. I go
back down to Uncle Ruben and I say, I mean,

(15:57):
how are you damn what? What's what's he up to?
I said, oh, I just came after the cheval Alcorim
and he said what Chevron? I said, this one part
right here? He said, I told you it wasn't for sale.
I said, yeah, but you also said, but if she's
going to said it. You might take seven hundred dollars
for it. He said, I say that. I said, I

(16:20):
I thought you did. But I said, but if you
don't want to send it, that's okay. But I started
putting my money out by that time, you know, not
kind of showed you my money and shuffling around a
little bit. And he looked at me, and he looked
at that car, and you look at that money. You
go around and around. Finally grabbed that money. He said,
I'm a man of my word. So I got my car. Um.

(16:44):
They didn't pay me much for the song, but I
did make some b and by okay, a couple of questions.
Did that car treat you right? As a beautiful car?
I didn't treat it right. You know, I'm very young
and very crazy. I made and I have to say, uh,
it treated me rod it it never but you got wrong.

(17:07):
I'm okay. Yeah, I told the chrome off. Uncle Ribbon
had fixed it up some knives. It was a little
two tin forward door, had the little had the little hubcaps.
Uh you could drave it. You never think he had
a V eight But it was a brand new fit
to six V eight with overdrive up here and it

(17:30):
was sweet, sweet sweet, and I started hot rodding and
pulling this off and taking that off, and changing his
and changing that. Finally one not the hood blew up
in despair. I traded it off. So wish I wish
I had a kick it? Well, certainly today, let's go back. Also, okay,
was there music in the house. What inspired you to play? Well? Yeah,

(17:55):
we had we had daddy. Daddy had a guitar and
he was playing it all my life. You know, I
could hear him playing it, and sometimes you know he's
saying stuff like prawl line frae, you know those old
Jimmy what's his name, Jimmy Rogers, Jimmy Rodgers, those kind

(18:16):
of songs. He would do those kind of songs. And
sometimes he would have electric guitar player coming in from
like Winfrey that's like thirty miles to the east somewhere
like that. There was a guy had a black electric guitar. Wow,
you know that was something else, and he'd played with Daddy,
and then my school teacher played fiddling. He'd play with Daddy's.

(18:37):
But there was front poet all the way. You know,
they never played a gig. They just played on the
front poet or the black poet, and they enjoyed music.
And Daddy was he was a song leader of the church.
Mother was a piano player in the church, and so
I had music all around. And when I got about nine,

(18:59):
he bought me a little silver tongue guitar, and I
would said when they played, and I trying to try
to be a musician too, but I couldn't play the chord. Finally,
when I got about fifteen, I got Daddy to show
me open chords at least. And so when I when

(19:22):
I got them up a little bit, I started playing
his Gibson something. It was a lot nicer, you know.
I believe it's a forty nine. He bought it new,
and so I don't know, maybe about nineteen fifty six
or seven he gave it to me, gave me to
Gibson maybe Ala Jambo Boy. It was sweet, and I

(19:46):
had it in the trunk of my car and I
came to Nashville. I got got to took out of
my car, so I wish I could find that one. Right, Okay,
So you're first instriment is the guitar. What inspires you
to write songs? Well, what inspires me is what's always.

(20:08):
It's the fact that I'm going to make a commitment,
whether it's to myself or to somebody else. I could
if me and Spooner are gonna get together, or men
or somebody else if we get together, I ain't a commitment.
I may not have anything. There's no inspiration yet, there's nothing.
Maybe maybe I'll have an idea. But you know, I

(20:31):
call a songwriter sessions when I don't even have anything.
I just always pray, Lord, if you can't give it
to me, give it to him. And and you know,
usually somebody walk in with something, either an idea or
they can just sit down on a pin and play
the right chord. And I'm often running. I make a

(20:52):
commitment on spot to write a song today. And you
know we used to do okay, But back when you
were a kid, what inspired you to write songs? All?
Just the idea that I wanted to write a song.
I don't know. You know, I remember I plowed a
muw daddy. When Daddy went to work at that plant.

(21:14):
He uh about me. When I was nine years old.
He he sold his two new left fit. He had
all the plows and the muse and he farmed, but
when he went to work the plant, he decided he
would get me a one MW up fit and keep
me busy. He didn't want me to to go wrong,
you know, so he wanted to keep me busy. So

(21:36):
you know what was the question? Question is when did
you start writing songs? And what was the inspiration for that? Yeah? Okay,
so I would hear Hank Williams on the radio and
other people on the on the radio, and while I
was plowed, I couldn't remember exactly the words. So I remember,
I remember making up words to John Buloh. Well, you know,

(21:57):
I could make up my own words when I when
I ran out, I couldn't remember. I still can't remember lyrics.
But that's the first thing I remember about writing a song.
I can't remember the other first part I don't. I
can't remember. Well, let me ask you this. Did you
have a dream of making music your life as a career. No,

(22:23):
I can't say I did. I was. I was. I
was too young. But you know a long about my teens,
early teens. You know, I started here in l A. C.
John Are and all these guys playing black music, and
that really parked my ears. I mean I. I was

(22:45):
used to church music. I would saying with oh Daddy
and him into church. But when I heard the Black Stuff,
it was different, you know, and it's like kind of hip.
My switch on a little bit. And men, here comes
to Elvis and all those guys, Jerry Lee and Elvis
and Charlie Rich and all those fifties guys. I really

(23:07):
loved all that, but then they always started making old
movies and I kind of fell out of that that
deal right there. I didn't much like that anymore for
a while. And then here comes Ray, Charles, and Ray
turned us all along. He turned on every Southern singer

(23:28):
and we all wanted to sound just like Ray. And
I could sound pretty much like Ray. Ah, I could
sound like Ray and Jane Bryan and Bobby Blue Blaine.
But one night in Birmingham, Alabama, after my show I
was playing six nights a week, I went to another
club that stayed open later and I walked in and

(23:49):
here's the guy up there playing will Be three and
his name is Charles Ray and he saund exactly like Rachel.
I said, my love, you know where. So this is
a lucid proposition. So one long after that that I
got in with fame and I started looking for my

(24:11):
own voice. Okay, A couple of questions on the Conway
Twitty song. Did they take any of the ownership or
do you own all the publishing on that? Well, that's
a Actually I never got paid for the poishtion and
I think the game Conway of the post and I

(24:33):
don't I'm not sure. But anyway, you know, I just
let it go. I said, Hey, I got my b
M I got my door over in the music business.
It's okay. I mean, I don't like to have all
the money, but you know, you don't get everything all
the time. And so. But it wasn't but about a
dozen years ago that my friend Donnie Fritz, who just

(24:56):
passed away, Uh, come to me and Danny said, Dan,
I've got the publish into Bluebird. He said, I'm gonna
give it to you. I said, okay, give it to him.
So he signed over to him, and uh, so that's
come home. Of course, there's nothing happening, but I got it.

(25:19):
You know. Okay, before you beat Billy Sheryl, how much
are you gigging around? You're talking about playing six seven
nights a week. Were you doing that frequently that's a
little bit later than okay. So after after the Conway
twitty hit and after you get the car, what's your
next move? Well, you know, I was playing a lot

(25:44):
of little high school gigs. But I had a little
high school band. I had a piano player and a
guitar player and the drummer, and so we played some
has to hops and stuff around. After I got the car,
started date my wife and who came out to Linda,
Linda Pounders, and later we married. And but it's hard

(26:13):
to say, you know, I just did the teenage stuff.
So how did you end up going to fame? Well
it was Billis Sheryl. He said, play me a song.
He said, we've got a studio up in Florence. From
what we might cut a record on you. When I
went up and I put these songs down and and

(26:33):
then went on with the car thing and everything, and
somewhere along there, I was playing six nights a week.
I was I was drinking a bit. You know. My
mother didn't care for that. Uh, I ain't came in
from Dallas, Texas. She said, let me have him send
him over here, let him stay with me. He'll get
a job we'll we'll see what we can do with him.

(26:55):
So I did. I went to Dallas. We're in the
Fit four show, and I got a job at Coach
Barry Him. I was a mail or a clerk like
my daddy, and so um they went along real good.
I've worked in that place about a couple of months.

(27:16):
I was doing okay, pretty good, pretty good hand. I
reckon they they seem to like me. And it was winter,
and Dallas is cold in the winter. So I drive
my fit for ship right down to the parking lot.
Then I had to walk over to the coach Barry
Him and which was not too far, but enough to

(27:38):
get you cold. And so anyway, I'm I'm working. I'm working,
And I started dating a little girl out there, and
we ended up in a little dairy queen or something
like that. One night we started to get a comb
or something, you know, and and I'm sitting on these
two little guys a lot younger than me, out on

(28:00):
the sidewalk. They had a little guitar amp and a
little electric guitar and a mike, and they were singing
employee and having a big time. And all of a sudden,
I got so lonely for the music business, and I
just wanted to sing something. I gotta had. Asked the guy,
I said, you mind about playing you get tart? I
want to say one song. He said, no, that's fan.

(28:21):
So I sang a song. I got back in my car.
I took that girl home. I turned in my notice.
I said, okay, that's it. They's see the music or nehew.
So I came back to Alabama and married Lindon and
you know it, and I went to Fame. Right after that.

(28:43):
I went to Fame and I asked her just give me.
I went the muscle shows, and I asked around about Rick,
because Rick was always the one ricka Ricka, and so
I asked about Rick and his father in law. He said, well,
he's down in the studio. I said, what worries that
he's told me? And I went down there and I

(29:04):
found Rick. Rick was one of the people in that
studio up there at Tom Stafford, so it was Billy
Rick and Tom stuff. So anyway, I find Rick. Now
this is a few years later, maybe two years later,
after you better move on, he had already cut that
on the author And so I found Rick walking around

(29:25):
on his cement pad. I said, hey, Rick, what's you doing?
He said, I'm building my studio, he said. The next
thing I was mouth. He said, why don't you come
to work for me? I said doing what? And he
said writing song? Because he knew I had as a
bluebird blue and there wasn't too many kids walking around
and had a hit at my age. I said, what's

(29:47):
that page? He said twenty five bucks a week. So
so that was a lot of money back then, don't
you know? It seemed like nothing now? But twenty five
week plus I played on the weekend, I made an
another fifty. Hey, I'd make it seventy five bucks. Of course,
I didn't get home with much of it, because, like
I said, I was drinking. But anyway, i'd go down

(30:10):
to the garden one day that I told I told daddy.
I said, Daddy, I'm moving to Florence. And he said
that what are you gonna do? I said, I'm gonna
write songs. He said, uh, I don't know nothing about
writing songs, son, he said, but if you, if you
want to, i'd get you on where I'm working making
the same thing. I'm I'm making forty dollars a week,

(30:33):
I said, daddy, you might a hold on to that job.
I may need you, but right now I gotta go
give this a try. Listen, I understand, go do it.
So I didn't went to mood to Florence, and it
took me five years. I mean, we go up plenty
of good songs in those five years, but it took

(30:53):
five years to get the time your puppet, which was
a big head. And you know, I was always doubtful
up until that point about all this songwriting and stuff.
So after that, I said, Okay, you're a songwriter. Don't
look back, keep on going. And That's what I've done.

(31:13):
I've just kept on triding alone. Okay, so you're he
built the studio, you're a songwriter. For those five years
other than writing songs, you do anything else at the studio?
Do you play, do you cleaned, you worked the board?
Or you just a songwriter? Well it all came down

(31:36):
and around sixty four the band that Rick had in
the studio was David Briggs and Huttingham and Jerry Carried
that also happened to be Dan Penn and Apolar Bears.
We we we traveled in a hearse and we went
to all these fraternity parties at Alabama and Auburn, Missippi State,

(31:58):
all around the South, and we played those every weekend.
And all of a sudden, these guys were great. Now
they were a great band, and they were great in
the studio. But all of a sudden they got a
call from somebody up here in Nashville and they wanted
them to come to Nashville to be, uh be the
session players, the new Bunch. So then they went to Nashville.

(32:22):
And I'm sitting in my car looking at the doorway
of Fame and and I'm kind of I'm kind of
kind of sad, you know. And I'm sitting there and
I'm thinking, what have you got to be sad about
there at the door. Why don't you just walk through
that door and learn everything you can about studio, about songwriting,

(32:46):
about record production, about engineering. Don't you learn all you
can about that and keep on writing songs. And so
that's what I do. Walked in there, and I started.
I started hanging out other people's sessions, like the people
from Atlanta would come in Tommy Road, the town's people

(33:07):
like that. And I was a gopher, you know, I
didn't have anything on the session, but I'd say, you
need cigarettes, you want some burgers, I go get them,
and suddenly I was part of the session, you know.
So so I started watching everything I could have sobered
it and and it was quite a lot. And you know,

(33:30):
that's that's what makes me what I am. I mean,
I know how to do that apart. Okay, so how
does I'm your puppet come together? Well? I just bought
a little twelve string Stella guitar. Never had one before that.
I bought one, little little brown one, had a sweet
little sound. And you know, we have spent a way
over the studio right and fixing it right, and I

(33:52):
just break out that little stella and I started ding
ding ding ding ding dinging, and he starts throwing cowords
out of me. Thanks thing. I know, I'm singing about
a little puppet because it sounded that way, and it
was called the puppet. Strange, we get you. I'm the puppet. Okay.

(34:13):
So it's the puppet all the way through. And I've
always like things that were called the the letter the puppet. Anyway,
these guys, these guys go up to James and Bubby
purified Dan Shoulder brought them to fame, and I get
the gig. By this time, I'm the second engineer, and

(34:34):
so I'm engineering on I'm Your Puppet with the Pure
Fire Brothers. And they had going upstairs like many artists did,
and found on a song and they kind of changed
it around a little bit, you know, they put they
put it I'm your Puppet. Think they took it up
about a click or two on the speed. I wasn't
real crazy about all that. I thought, well, they're missing

(34:57):
with my song. You know, when you're young, you don't
want anybody playing around with your music. Uh. Later I
found out everybody does. But anyway, I engineered the record,
and you know, I didn't thank too much of it.
Later it came out on the radio. I heard it,
said him, great, I thought. Then when they sent me

(35:18):
a check, I said, that's my favorite version. Okay. So
how do you meet Spooner Roldham, same little place I
met everybody I met? I met all the Paul Bear's
Rick band, I met Spinner, I met Fritz, I met

(35:38):
everybody that I ever met in muscle shows at that
little studio up there, uh Tom Stafford's little place. It
was called spar Music. So I met Spinner up there
and he was laid back cat me and Donnie Fritz
and wrote a couple of songs and Spinner. I've seen

(36:00):
him play it, and I heard him play it, and
I like the way he played. And we became pretty
good friends. And we started hanging out right and sun
and you know, sometimes we'd write two songs to night.
Sometimes two out of two was pretty good. Sometimes you

(36:21):
didn't get anything, but most times we did. So I
met him way back there. Okay, when you were writing
all these songs, that theme was anybody cutting them and
they were stiffs, or you just cut demos and nothing
happened to him, basically that cut demos and nothing happened.

(36:42):
You know, I said, we're righting all these songs pour
nights a week, you might say, and so let's just
say what average two songs. That's eight songs. That's eight
songs a week. We ended up with like a hundred
two songs, you know, and at that point not too
many people were coming. I mean, you know, some of

(37:05):
Tummy Road cut on here. Well, we got a backside
on everybody, Everybody's got the Blue. We had one called
sorry I'm Late Lisa. Not a very good song, but hey,
my politics because we were in Rick House, uh production company.

(37:26):
We got the cut. That's the way things happened in
the music business. You know, you get a cut because
somebody knows somebody or you know somebody and they like
you and they look kind of like your song and
they want to hip you out. So we we got
cuts like that, We got backsides and we gotta we
gotta Joe Simon cutter too, Let's do it over. It

(37:46):
wasn't a big record, but it was a good record
and we we we got the puppet and then Percy's
Sledge came along and cut some of our songs, and
and then other black artists. So you know, Rick would
come to me and say, I got this guy I
want to cut next Tuesday. I need something up tempo

(38:09):
or whatever. And so I would go to work and
sometimes I would tell Splender most time, and I said,
we need en up tempo for this guy. And we
would come up with something that he had cut. And
Wilson Pickett, you know whoever come in to the studio. Uh,

(38:29):
we got cut so like that, and was Spooner on
Rick's pay roll too, Yes, he he was also five
week when we first started, right and he wasn't, but
Rick sent him a little bit later and we were
both on his play room. Okay, so what's the next
step after I'm your puppet? Well, a lot of cuts,

(38:54):
but finally I could say I was a second edge here.
So so Rick Hall came to me one day and said,
Dan today at two o'clock because he's a black guy
coming in here to try out. He wants he wants
me to hear him, and I can't be here. Would

(39:16):
you put down a tape on him? That's what? So
around two o'clock here comes Percy Sledge, you I did
not know, and two more guys friends of his, and
they were dragging to be three organs, complete with Leslie,
and they came into the studio. I threw up a

(39:36):
few of my action and I cut this one song
and it was something like all love your baby, and
he had this descending cord line, which is what a
man love. Well the way it got there with some
friends of mine, but i'll tell you about that. But anyway,
so I put him down and next day I played

(39:57):
the tape to Rick. I said, Rick's guys, great, you're here.
So I played it to him. He said, I don't
think so I said, really, I said, you know what
like this guy? He said, Now I don't. I don't
hear it. Dan, I don't hear it. And I said,
let me tell him I want to produce him. I
don't do that either. And at that point, you know,

(40:23):
I'm young. I'm trying to take a step further. I've
done everything I can do in the studio. Sup I
hadn't produced any records. So you know, my little brain
starts clicking along. About that time, I run into a
guy named Chip's moment and h he had a studio
of Memphis. I went up feel a little been a

(40:43):
few days with him and who became good friends. And
my contract was coming to an end. He had a studio,
and so I went to Memphis to go to work
for American studios right, and I went to have a cause.
I thought I could produce a record. And I added
him in my in my mind, in my heart that

(41:06):
I was going to cut ahead. Don't ask me how
I know these things, but back then I knew. I
just new things sometimes, you know, And I knew I
was gonna cut ahead. And so I told Jips, me
and him I'd gone around co producing, so to speak
some stuff, and but basically he was cutting it and

(41:28):
I was doing, oh yeah, I don't know about that.
And finally I told him, I said, look, I want
to cut a record by myself. I don't want you
anywhere around or nobody else. I'm going to cut ahead.
He looked at the kind of funny he said, okay,
I said, give me your worst startist. I don't care it,
don't have to be anybody. I was really really putting

(41:51):
myself out there every time I did that back then,
you know, pretty forward. So he walks. He said, okay,
here's this little group. You can talk to them. So
they came to the studio and they had a regular
little band and they had this vocalist and he was
carrying on, cussing a little and basically upsetting the vibes

(42:14):
in the room. And I told their there their manager.
I said, okay, I'll cut him, but bring me another singer.
I can't work with this guy. So I said, number
four song on this rail, right, he have and learned
this song, and meet me here back here ten o'clock

(42:37):
two weeks from saturday. Okay, they go away, and you
know what to do. Get another singer. So the next
that Saturday that they supposed to come. They walked right
in with Alex Shieldon, whom I've never seen or heard of.
I believe he was right around sixteen years old, and

(42:57):
he knew the song. He said it meticulously. Just the
talent right out of the box. You know. It's a
nice guy. We're easy to work with, and you know,
we cut We cut the letter that day and I
thought it was a pretty good little record. But my goodness,
it was one of the records of the years. You know,

(43:19):
it was quite a quite a time. Okay, how did
you find the letter? The song? Wayne Carson Chips gave
me a tape they had, uh Like Wayne Carson, a
great songwriter, had given him the tape and he had
a lot of songs and I'd heard them all, but
I liked that letter, so I got it from him.

(43:42):
But I picked out the song. And okay, was the
arrangement on the demo, like how you cut it? Well?
The guitar, the little licks on the front, dude down
there down there that was there Layne had played. But
the but the horns and the strange and the airplane

(44:04):
I put on airrowin so harfway there Okay. The interesting
thing is all of Alex Chilton's vocals with the Box Top,
except for maybe Neon Rainbow, are completely different from the
ones he had with Big Star. His voice was gruffer.
Can you tell us how you got that? Vocal? Just

(44:27):
came out of him. I had nothing to do with it.
I don't know. I never did hear a Big Star.
I don't know what they sounded like, but I think
it was like some of that stuff he played me
back then. It was kind of like flower Child music.
It was much softer and uh, kind of hippie music.
I thought so, so I didn't do any of those

(44:47):
so so later he did all that with a Big Star,
but I never heard it. Okay. So the other thing
about the letter, it's one of the shortest hit records
of all time. Did you real I said when you
were cutting it? No, I just I just I just
cut how much Wayne had given me. There was a

(45:07):
minute fifty eight or something I said on his demo,
and I didn't think much of it. You know, back then,
we had a we kind of had a wall. We
to twenty to twenty was you it never need to
go any fur them to twenty All the program directors.
Anything over to twenty was. I don't know about that,

(45:29):
but this was a minute fifty eight. I didn't think
much of it. Later I said, that thing ain't but
a minute fifty eight. But you know who that was
a great thing because jocks could play it and in
a few minutes they could play it again right to
get paid again. Okay, so you cut it, you immediately

(45:51):
know it's a hit record. No, Now, I knew it
was a pretty good record. Chips told me. I plented
to him one night. He said, we got you a
pretty good little record or pie. And he said, if
you'll take that airplane off, And I said, I got
me a razor blade. And I picked the type up
and I said, hey, I'll cut this tape right off

(46:13):
the reel if you don't like it. He said, oh
I like it. I like it. I'm just he said,
it's your record. I said, thank you, that's exactly red,
it's my record. So so I got my way, and
it would have been the same record without the airplane.
I mean, those guys in Vietnam, you know, when they
heard that, they just melted. They want to go home.

(46:38):
I don't blame them. So how did the record become
a hit, well, just overnight almost, you know. Uh, the
old records picked it up and pressed it and put
it out. And I don't know how it became a
hit other than the fact that somebody started playing it
and then somebody else and they started playing It's the
same old thing, you know, but it got some promotion,

(47:02):
it was worked on, and uh, I just became a
pretty much overnight. Okay, you mentioned Vietnam. How do you
get out of go into Vietnam? Well, I had a
little football energy and injury. I told Daddy. I said

(47:24):
I'm gonna go out for football. And it was math grade.
He said now, he said, you're too little. You will
get hurt. And I waited about a hundred fift you know.
I said, now, I'm tough, Daddy, I ain't gonna get hurt.
He said, yeah, you get hurt. He said, I don't
want you going out. So I said, okay, So it's

(47:45):
a small town, you know, so word it gets around.
So I decided to go out for a cheerleader. Now
I didn't not want to be a cheerleader, but I
knew Daddy was here about it. So anyway, I went
out for a cheerleader. I didn't get it. I made
some arrangements, I forgot my yail. This all kind of
stuff I did to keep from being and surely, but anyway,

(48:07):
when I got home that day, then he said, son,
He said, come here. He said, if you want to
play football that bad you know, out there and hit it,
He said, but you're gonna get hurt. Well I didn't.
I didn't think much of that. Like I said, I
was tough. I thought, so I go out on the foot.
We got spring training. So I go out on on

(48:27):
the field and I picked out the biggest guy out there,
and I said, I will body will show him the boss.
So I picked up the biggest guy and we were
doing hit on, hit on, tackling and can't hit me?
Big guy twice to belease me, he hit me, and
I felt something kind of gilt, but I didn't think

(48:48):
much about it because I was tough, you know. So
I laying back up, and just as I was getting
back up there and just a boy ready to hit
him again, I said, I raised up as a coach.
I think I hurt my arm when I hit this guy.
I want to go. He was talked. He talked like
that Brooks Johns, he said, catching stax Penticton's infirmary, and

(49:10):
I think he broke his down arm. And sure enough
I had two places, but I broke it up around
the shoulder and down in here too. And they didn't
even want to see me in Montgomery. They just sent
to They just sent the the X ray in the
next thing under I didn't have to go that he

(49:31):
may find. Well, so now you cut the letter, it's
a gigantic kit. Where does that leave you? In chips
his eyes and opportunity wise, well, all of a sudden
I had cut the biggest record in American studio. He

(49:52):
didn't much think much of that. He was pretty egotistical
about his cutting. You know, he was a great producer.
I just happened to Lucky in Out of the Wire,
you know, hit record which I said I was going
to and uh, well, you know, they started cutting a
lot of people to him and Tommy Cogbill and I

(50:13):
would use the studio over at John Fry's. What's that
artist studio that sometimes I have to go there to
record my stuff the overdub I would I would track
it American, but sometimes I couldn't get in to do
what I needed to do, so I would take another studio,
but it seemed to kind of go downheel from there.

(50:35):
We h, we just didn't seem to be able to
reconcile he So anyway, I hung around for a couple
more years and a couple another year. So I just
decided to build my own studio and to leave. And Uh,
I think it mostly came from the fact that I'd
cut ahead. It was bigger than any of he is

(51:00):
at that time, so he was kind of a kind
of a jealous guy, you know, And so I just
split but out on my home. Okay, So how do
you end up continuing to work with the uh box tops?
You have more hits with the box tops? Are they
aligned with Chips? Are they part of your thing? No?

(51:22):
They were, they were his thing. They were signed to
that company. I used up all my box top I mean,
you know, I didn't cut anymore. I try left, so
him and tog Chips and Tommy Tog Bill started cutting
them and they cut sold eat, which was a big hit.
I tried. I lived, but you know, I didn't cut

(51:46):
him anymore. And then later he went to the the
Jim Dixon thing, the big Star thing, and I never
had any more contact with him until I was playing
a showdown and we rys at the Stone they called
it the Stone down there, and I was playing. I

(52:07):
had a little part. I was playing, and I came off, stayed,
I told my guitar, and Alex walked out on stage,
got my guitar and carried it off stage for me.
And we had a good time that night. We talked
and we were good for friends. And uh, you know,
some of them said he was mad at me, but

(52:28):
he never had a reason. We always got along. Okay,
you cut me on Rainbow. I love that song. Tell
me the story on that. Okay, that was just one
of the first the first album and I love that song.
Was another White Carson song, and I just love that
who Lilt, you know? And I thought it was a smash,

(52:51):
but you know, it only sold about a half a million,
which which wasn't you know the four million on the
letter initially. And all of a sudden, I get a
call I'm done at the world fare and send him
tone me and Wayne and actually we're on our way
to Mexico with our lives and h so we are

(53:14):
we were down there. I get it. I called into
the Bail Records. I was supposed to check in that again,
and I called him and I said, okay, what's up.
They said, well, me on Rainbow's coming off the chart.
It ain't setting really no, it's not selling. So the
half a million I saw, I said, well, a good

(53:34):
bit and he said, no, that's not nothing. What the
other song gone? So suddenly I'm on. I'm kind of
you know, they're expected me to come up with another letter.
That's when. And nobody was sending me And he saw
Wayne and quit setting me songs. Nobody would send me songs. Uh,

(53:58):
they just weren't coming my way. And I called Sputter
and I said, we got to write to the next
box top of it. Okay, fine, he said, so we
get together on anyway, if we get together on a
Tuesday night, I had set the session up from maybe
Thursday morning. Got to all the guys called and go

(54:19):
cut it America and figure men, Spooner would come up
with a song. Well, we just tried and tried and tried,
and we'd tire up paper, throw it in the can,
and we drank coffee and we did all kinds of
stuff trying to come to a place that we had
to hit nothing nothing. Finally, in despair, we decided, as

(54:40):
but let's go home, he said, right. So we go
across the street to this little barbecue place. It was open.
It was thirty six in the morning, and we walked
in and we ordered were setting it. We're setting it
a little booth and you know, just out of no
wor Sputter put his head over on the table. I mean,

(55:03):
he said, I could cry like a baby. I said,
what did you say? He said, cry like a baby.
That's a spoon, that's it. It hit me just like
a lightning boat. And then he hit him, and certainly
we were alive. Now we had just about died, but
we were alive. I told her chat, I said, just
keep the money. I thought it was the money. I

(55:24):
should keep the food. We don't need it now. So
here we go back across the street and I got
the key in the studio. Always had us cheated the
studio whatever studioized that. And so you know, time we
got to the key to the to the lock already had.
When I think about the good love you gave me,

(55:45):
I cry like a baby. To tune in, we go,
I said, Sputter, get to get to get the the
B three back on, I'll turn on the the board
and stuff. We've just been in there. You know, there's
still So we turned it on and and I put
on a quarter inch reel, a quarter inach tape, a

(56:07):
big wheel, and we wrote the song. How that reel
was was recording. And when we came back in the
control and heard it, I said, I ain't leaving this building.
And this is about seven in the morning. He said
me neither. And you know, we just washed our face,
drank another cup of coffee and waited him out, waiting

(56:29):
for the band that came in come in. And when
Alex heard that, he said, all right, So he was.
He was really in the cry like a baby. Can
you tell that day? How long did it take to
actually cut it? Well, it took about two hours. We
might have you know, we we got sounds and then

(56:49):
we got We probably went through it three or four times.
And it was a three track. America was three track
at that time, so I had all the ban on
one track, I had Alex on one track, and I
had an empty track and that's where I put my
horns and strange right there. And at the end when

(57:11):
Alex had quit singing. I had a little space. That's
where I put the airplane. Okay, so now you build
your own studio. Where do you build your studio? There
in Memphis? Uh over on what was that stream Highland
Highland Street of beautiful Sounds. It was a good studio.
But I never did do much over there. Uh I

(57:35):
cut nobody's food over that on myself, and I did
a record on B. J. Thomas that never come out.
But I was not a businessman, still ain't. But and
I'm still doing a bit of drinking. And eventually I
lost the studio. You know. Ever, you don't ever gain

(57:58):
until you lose something, you know. But I learned a
lot in that exchange. So but I had about I
had about the land in the building, so I didn't
lose everything, but I did lose my equipment that I
put in there. But you know, like I say, I'm

(58:18):
no business man. I can do business, but I don't
really know how. Now you say you learned a number
of things, can you tell us a couple of things
you learned? Well, you just learned sometime not to trust people.
It's bad and it's sad, but you know, you've got

(58:39):
to get things rolled down on the piece of paper
if you're gonna claim your part. So I learned that.
I learned that you can't drink on the job. Uh.
I learned that business just ain't gonna come in just
because you're kind of hit. Okay, the studio closes what

(59:01):
you're moved. After that, I came. I came to Nashville. Uh. Well,
I guess I had a little studio there in Memphis
in a little carriage house back there a year, maybe
a year or two, and it was a little forward track,
and I've wrote songs and put them down and hang

(59:23):
out there. But then we moved to Nashville and send
me fo the December, sent me forward. Okay, So you
have a number of hits. How's your economic situation, because
you talked about not getting paid by Conway Twitty song.
Are you making enough or in the down periods are

(59:43):
you're scraping by? Well? You know, I was making okay
until when when Martin Luther King got killed the Memphis
and that changed everything. Well, the black singers quick coming
to the to the white armed studios, and then it

(01:00:04):
just went downhill, and I would writing for all these people,
you know, and so suddenly they didn't need my songs.
They weren't fair. And so there was a big, big
space there that I just didn't write much. I was
kind of kind of mixed up during that point. I
didn't know just what my next move was going to be.

(01:00:26):
But I came to Nashville not to be a country writer,
but just just to be some kind of writer, you know.
I mean, I was trying to keep on going and
and during that time, I wouldn't do it really that
as you say, I wouldn't I wouldn't flush with money. Uh.
Around seven I came here and seventy five, around seventy eight,

(01:00:51):
Linda walts is n tells me I need to take
the I need to take the bringing off the phone
in the garage. I said why, She said, that's five
dollars a month. She said, we're we're running low. We
need to just cut everything we can out. And I said, okay, okay.

(01:01:11):
So I went long after that that that the Commitment
movie came out and they had cut Do Right Woman
and Dark down the Street a good job on him too.
That with those people did a great job, little Irish movie.
And suddenly they started sending me checks again, you know,
And I said, oh, maybe we're not through. You know,

(01:01:37):
there's all kind of doubt. Can can feel your mind
when when you're not writing. Okay, so how does uh
reath end up cutting? Uh do right Woman? Well, I
have back in sixty seven. I believe sixty seven. I
guess six d nine. Well I just left. I guess

(01:02:01):
you're sixty seven. I left muscle shows in sixty six
and come to American in Memphis, And so the moment
and I running around together, we wrote Dark on the
Street and uh do Right Woman, kind of you know,
close space, and uh so he got cold to play

(01:02:24):
guitar on the Aretha Franklin. She was Don't Cut It
fame and he was a great gutar player at that time.
And uh so I said, hey, I'm going to You know,
we were we were parted, so I've jumped in and
went to But right before we went down there, we
put a little tape down and just see him playing
guitar and me singing dark and the streaming do right Woman.

(01:02:48):
So we get down to most of the shows and
they cut I Never Loved a Man the Way I
Love You, which was a big hit and we all
knew it and everybody knew it, and they knew it
so well that everybody started drinking a little and before
you know it. So anyway, Mr Wex and Jared Waxer

(01:03:11):
came to me. I'll go back to that in a minute.
But he came to me and said, hey, damn baby,
he said, I'll cut that, do right, song said? She
played it to me. I want to go, okay, but
there's no words for the bridge. I said, well, we
can get you some words. Uh okay, I said, just

(01:03:32):
give me a few minutes. So I went over to
this little closet and I'm over there and I'm trying
to come up with something, all right, So I said, well,
what's your favorite song? And I had to say it
was It's a Man's Well. So that was my favorite
song at the time, and that's one of my favorite ships.
And so I said, well, they say it's a Man's World.

(01:03:55):
Wrote that down. Now I'm stumped again. Mr X, I
can said in the door, said hey, Dan, honey, baby,
what you got from me? I said, that's what I got, Jerry,
they say that this Man's World. He said, I've got
your next part. I said, what's that? He said, But
you can't prove that by me. Note that, Dawn, I said,

(01:04:16):
thank you, Jerry, And then you know, I've got two
lines now. And the next thing I know, Reatha sticks
curiad in the door. Hey Dan, honey, what you got
full wreath? And I said, this is what I got.
Reason they say that it's a man's world, but you
can't prove that by me. She said, I've got your
next part and I said, what's that? She said, as

(01:04:37):
long as we work together, baby, shows some respect from me.
I wrote that down. Thank you a Wretha. All of
a sudden we had words for the bridge. So now
I gotta go out and saying she she she likes it,
but she she is not ready to make a commitment
to sing it. So now I gotta go sing the
pilot vocal in her key. She had found her key,

(01:05:00):
and man was it high. It was way up there.
So I go out and I'm doing the pilot and
when we run through it about once, maybe the twice
second run through, and then all of a sudden, I
look around and everybody's gone, and I'm standing at the mic,
and I go, what's this? And so find it? I

(01:05:21):
think when the secretaries came in and said Dan the
sessions over. I said, what's wrong? She said, Jerry's pulling
her out of here. He's taken her back to New York.
It's a no kid. So I said to myself, well,
you're not gonna make any money today, you know, because
it was not coming off. It was just playing down,
you know, and the dude right, and I was way

(01:05:42):
up high and it sanded off. And so then later
Mr Wexford said, called everybody to come to New York
to finish the album. Well I said, I'm going to
So sure enough I did, and I go up there
and just as we come out of the Heedlevate, just
we come out of the elevator, Jerry said, Daniel and

(01:06:03):
Chips come with me, and we went down to the
Atlantic Control room and he played as the do Right
Woman with the wreath of players piano, her and her
sisters singing. It was big time magic. It still is.
I play it nine, it's like, wow, what a record.
And when it left Alabama, it was it didn't even

(01:06:25):
what name nuts Moats, it was just nuts. We'll then
to get that in a minute. Okay. So, uh, you know,
having been to a couple of these places, the radically
different I mean, Nashville is very different from Memphis. I
haven't been to Muscle. Soul has been to Alabama just barely.

(01:06:46):
Can you tell us the difference between all those places. Well,
I can just say you in recording, uh, recording language,
Muscle shows well, Memphis, let's go in Memphis. Memphis is
down on them on the Mississippi River, and it's just

(01:07:08):
so such a magical city. It was really before Dr
King got shot, but it was when I rolled in
there at sixty six. It was clean, it was magical,
and you know, you could look in some of those
ladies eyes and I almost get song. They carried songs

(01:07:28):
in their eyes. And and then you come to Nishville
and Nashville and it's like low. It's like it's got
the low mids and the base and the middle and
some highs but not over highs. You come to Nashville
and it's it's a wonderful place to record also, but

(01:07:51):
it's it's up in the it's more mountains, it's in
the high end of things. You still can get the base,
but you need to go direct because it's not the
same recording air that Memphis has got. It's different. Sea level,
sea level see the sea level is different, and then
you go down to Muscle Show and it's just almost

(01:08:12):
in between them. So Muscle Shows it's a fantastic place
to record because of the sea level. It's down a little,
but it ain't down its flow. And then New Orleans
does don't even lower. You know, the Memphis and and
that's a that's a that's a lower sea level. It's
a great place to record, but my favorite place is Memphis. Okay. Now,

(01:08:38):
ultimately after you leave, there's a schism in Muscle Shoals
where Barry Beckett and those guys start Muscle Shoals Sound Studio.
Do you have a take on that? Well, I wasn't around,
but I do know kind of what happened. You know,
they went over and built their own studio with the
help of Jerry Wexler. He was and behind that because

(01:09:01):
I guess him and Rick had had a few following
out things. But anyway, they built their own studio and
Jerry started setting people there, and people started coming there,
and they cut a lot of hit records in that
a little place. But you know, that's about all I

(01:09:22):
know of it. They did go on down later to
the river and built a bigger studio. That's where I
cut do right man, So you know that it was
a happening thing. But Rick got You know, you can't
stop Rick Hall. He would he just he just looked around.
He got a bunch of other music and he kept
on going. He got some more writers. He you can't

(01:09:45):
stop him. You know. I couldn't do that. I couldn't
put just put put a band together just because I
needed them. I mean, I couldn't do it because the
drummers probably gone quit before nightfall. I couldn't put up
with all of that. But Rick could when he went
through people and he would he would teach him how
to record. And he's the daddy of the muscle show.

(01:10:06):
Sound okay. You mentioned Dr King being shot. How much
was racism a factor with you growing up being in
the music business, being in the South, it was zero.
I didn't Where I came up in Vernlon, there was
no racism. There wasn't hardly any black folks. There was

(01:10:27):
a few lived outside of town there, but I had
no contact with him until I got the Muscle Show
to Florence and I met author Alexander and so it
never was a real big never hit me in the
face until I saw TV. Well at night, you know,
i'd see what's happening on the TV. You know, I went, wow,

(01:10:49):
that's strange. But really never never did affect me that much. Okay,
I see you're wearing overalls, and you're also wearing them
in some of the photos. Is that a fashion choice
or if you always warn your overalls, how do you
decide to wear them? Well? I put a pair on
one day and it was so neat, lots of pockets,

(01:11:15):
lots of space, just you know, I mean, I'm built
for comfort, not for speed, and and and you know,
I just kept going. I kept I just kept for
wearing them. And I don't think I've warned anything else.
Maybe a funeral. I might have war with pair of
slacks to my mama's funeral. But otherwise I've got new

(01:11:35):
ones that I wear on the show. I wear him
on the show. But I but I do this, you know,
I put it. I put a real nice shirt over.
And if people come up and they'll say, I thought
you were gonna wear your old wrongs, and I said,
well I did, They said I said see, and then
they then they're happy. So now it's become a thing
you know, for my gigs, they expect overalls and I

(01:11:59):
got them. You know, I weren't because they're there the
comfortless things in this world. And prior to this COVID era,
how much were you working on the road? Um, you know,
I just take. I've always just taken what what what
comes in and I booked my own stylf. So I'm
not trying to to work every night, you know, or

(01:12:22):
too to be a road musician. I'm not bill right
for that. I always knew I wouldn't and that and
working in the studio was just right for me. But
before the COVID thing, I guess I was playing once
plast a month. Oh really that much? Another question is

(01:12:43):
you talk about being young, drinking, staying up all night.
How did you keep your marriage together. I had a
good woman better than me, and she put up with
a lot. She still wouldn't Uh, I gave it all

(01:13:03):
to her. She she was very good. Okay. And you
also mentioned working lead at night. Do you find your
more creative later in the day or it doesn't really
matter later in the day. Definitely, I'm I'm no good
in the morning for nothing. Uh. You know, back there
at one Daddy fixed me up a mute and cloud

(01:13:26):
and stuff. When he go to the becoming planet, him
and Mama. That would be about six thirty in the morning.
We'll be having breakfast and he'd tell me all these
things he wanted me to do, and when they left,
I'd go back to bed and i'd sleep to my
common nine thirty. That's that was when my body woke up.
And then I just run real fast all day trying

(01:13:47):
to get done what he wanted. I usually made it,
but I'm not a morning person. And I started waking
up about one. Uh that on the clock, I'm pretty good. Uh.
I hit my stride if if I'm writing with somebody
around midnight, and we're good for a while. And so

(01:14:11):
if you're not writing, if you're in the COVID era,
what time do you go to bed? Oh? I go
to bed about eight o'clock, but I'll watched the tube
two until I fall asleep. Okay, And to what did
we are you writing with other people over these last
few years? Well, not not as much as I was.
I used to would write with anybody, and you know,

(01:14:35):
I'd ask them if they didn't ask me, just a
stranger somebody that wrote, and we get together here in Nashville.
I wrote with a lot of people that lived here,
but pretty soon that that kind of run than to me.
I wouldn't get, I wouldn't want, I wouldn't getting much
out of my gut. It was mostly coming out of
my head, uh brain, songs all thought up. You know,

(01:14:59):
a good song writers. But you know, lately I hadn't
been with Spoon or a good while. We're going to
probably get back together one of these days. But I
wrote one one song with Buzz Chasing for this album,
particularly far, And then I wrote two songs with Will McFarland,

(01:15:21):
the guitar player on this album, two new songs and
three with him, and I wrote two songs by myself,
which is kind of odd, but I wrote him, and
that's why I got to that here. Hey, you got
some songs here, and you've got a few laying around you, like,
why don't you cut a record? Okay, that comes full
circle before we get to the conclusion, though, What is

(01:15:45):
it about writing with someone else that is so appealing? Well,
it's fun. It's more fun these people who can write
by themselves and have fun. I don't know about I
don't I can't do that I mean, you know, I
write one every once in a while by myself. I
get serious enough to write a song by myself. But

(01:16:06):
if I'm writing with somebody else, there is a fun
factor that just comes into the verbal. I mean, we
might tell a joke, you know, if nothing's happening. If
we sat here for forty five minutes and nobody hits
the chord, nobody talks about a song idea, nothing's happened,
we might go boating, we might go to a movie.

(01:16:28):
We gotta keep things moving, we gotta move around a
little bit until the time of the night is right,
all the afternoon is right, that the idea hits somebody,
or the chord change hits somebody, but being able to
bounce it off of somebody you respect. Usually I try

(01:16:51):
to write with musicians who are better than I am.
I'm a fair guitar strummer. I can keep with it,
but I'm not a picker. But I write with some
of these people who can really play, and that's really helpful. Okay,
you talked about crying like a baby, We're lightning struck,

(01:17:12):
and then you also talked about making a commitment to
writing a song. Our songs better if they come from
pure inspiration, or they can they be equally as good
if you sit down and make a commitment. Hey, we
don't have anything. We're gonna start right now. Either one
can be just as good as the other. I mean,
I think we have to pull him out of the

(01:17:34):
air when we got nothing. You know, I always looked
at it that one. I mean, God's got them adel
up there if you don't. If you got one and
you don't write it tonight, somebody else. You know, we
wrote down your puppet wasn't wasn't when a month went by, Uh,
we heard this song by others. I'm just a puppet
on a string. So I think these ideas are serpenting

(01:17:57):
around up here in the in the atmosphere, some of them,
and you can have one if you can just make
the commitment. You've got to commit to do it. You know,
you you can't be playing. If you commit to write
a song by yourself or with somebody else, you're all
in like a h and you might win. You know. Well,

(01:18:23):
I think you've had a great commitment to your new
album and people should really listen to it. That's living
on mercy, And thanks so much for making the commitment.
To talk to me. Thank you, Bob, thanks for calling me.
Until next time. This is Bob luft Sense