John Sebastian

The Lovin' Spoonful, need I say more? From Mugwumps to Woodstock to "Kotter," this is an in-depth exploration of John's life, who he is and how he made it. From Greenwich Village to the "Ed Sullivan Show" to the world!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob must Ne's Podcast.
My guest today is the one and only John Sebastian. John,
good to have you on the podcast. Terrific to be
hit Robert. Okay, so for a minute there, your first
solo album with Rapriez was John b Sebastian. What was

(00:29):
that all about? Well, I didn't want people to be
confused between me and my actual classical virtuoso father. I
just knew there were occasions. These were more before I
was putting out a solo album where people would see

(00:50):
that name and think, oh, gee, Mr Sebastian is sort
of slumming now, isn't he? And and you know, so
that was really the stimulus. And what is the B
stand for Benson Benson? Yes, if your father was John
and you were John, what did they refer to you

(01:11):
growing up? As I would be John Benson, John Benson, yes,
or I'd be j b or Giovannino in Italy because
I have a kind of a checkered past. Uh. And
when I was in Italy, I'd be Giovannino. Okay, A

(01:31):
couple of questions. There is the Benson Benson your mother's
maiden name, you know ben No, No, the her maiden
name is Bisher b I s h I R. And
I was only recently, uh explained to me before my
mom passed that she didn't know why my grandfather had

(01:53):
that middle name, except that there had been an Ohio
senator of that name that she thought maybe the folks
were nam me after. I really don't know. It's it's
a little mysterious. And you mentioned spending time in Italy.
What was going on there? Well, my dad had a

(02:16):
career that started in the United States. Uh, and as
time went on, he began to be able to travel,
uh and tour. He was a classical harmonica virtuoso. I
can only tell you that, Uh there's been nobody since

(02:42):
uh maybe Buon Fido a little bit, but this guy
really had a remarkable uh sphere of abilities, and people
like Villa Lobos were writing for him. Cherubin N wrote
for him. Uh. So this wasn't just a you know,

(03:04):
peg of my heart type harmonica player. So okay, but
I haven't gotten to it, have I. Uh So, what
what happen is that most summers, as time went on
and my dad started to get a reputation in Europe
that became a primary a primary source of income for him,

(03:29):
so that he would go to Europe most summers, and
his solution for not being an absent dad was he
would take the family and parked us in this beautiful
little red towered villa outside of Fez. I mean, if

(03:52):
you were gonna have an ideal place, it's ridiculous. I
should be ashamed of myself. At what a good age,
five to about eleven. And so every summer we would
go there after my schooling was done for the year.
That was the queue, and uh we would go and
sometimes Dad would go before us, but most of the

(04:15):
time we'd get on the boat and go to Geneva.
You would go by boat, not by plane. Correct. Wow,
I was a little kid. You know. Good experience, bad
experience on the boat, fantastic experience. All the Italian guys
love you. I mean, it's it was it was too

(04:36):
it was great fun. Uh yes, seven days. And you
know the larcenous quality of the Italians was so evident
because uh, I would go up to the first class
movie and try to get in and inevitably, the the

(04:56):
Italian guys that that we're working at would go okay, yeah, yeah,
they get in there, and and so I had really
full run of the boat. So one of the reasons
was that my dad spoke fluent Italian, uh the kind
that you really can't detect as an American. So uh

(05:17):
so he just really had carte blaunch on the boat
and really in Italy and in those remember it's in Italy.
Oh my god, everybody looks like Anita expert. Okay, you're
only you know, you're less than ten years old. But

(05:39):
it's as right. But it's also five years after the
Second World War? Correct? You know we saw movies they
were made there in black and white about the aftermath.
Did you experience that or you were just a kid
you didn't know. Okay, I was just a kid and
didn't know. But my friendships were all with people of

(06:03):
lower Uh how can I say this? They were It
was a lower class background that I was immersed in.
I was hanging out with farmers. I was hanging out
with the cooks and the cleaning ladies, because that's what

(06:24):
children of that era did. So I did have this
this experience of understanding a certain sorrow that I that
I couldn't really uh, I couldn't define. But I was

(06:44):
aware that Paolo and Paula, the two the two farmers,
the farmer and his wife were experiencing hardships. Okay, did
you learn a tow in fluently fluently just by going
every summer? Oh? Yes, see, don't call me so no

(07:12):
Borgino Medicant's saying. I have some flatterers who tell me
that I'm fairly undetectable as a Florentine, but not everybody. Okay,
so you know, I need to say a lot of
years have gone by. How do you keep up your
Retalian or once you have you can't lose it? Well,

(07:33):
it does stay with you, but I do occasionally. I
mean I've been over there for these week and a
half visits, not nearly enough, but I would always feel
like I was struggling my way up a ladder with
missing rungs, and I was trying to get all the
way up the sentence, you know. And then did you

(07:55):
have the experience of going back years later after you
had a certain amount of fame and success and interacting
with the same people. Yes, I did manage to uh
go back to um adjoining. The little vila that we
were living in is a hotel. The pension Benshista and uh,

(08:20):
it's been there forever and it's all ex pats and
it's it's just it's a little slice of the nineteen
forties that's just sort of still there. And uh, that
experience of of of being there was it was amazing. Okay,

(08:43):
where was your father born? My father was born in Philadelphia? Okay?
And how many how many generations is he removed from
the old country? His father was born in Italy? So yeah,
we were all Abrutzes, uh by background, and how does

(09:05):
it become Sebastian or that what it was? Okay, here's
how it goes. Uh. We we start my father Giovanni
bot now, so he's going to have Herford. He's Magna
cum laud. But they keep calling him Puggles. Now you know,

(09:30):
a guy can be patient about that for a while,
but after a while you start to go, is it
so far off that you couldn't pronounce this? So there
was a point and he tells the story. Uh, well,
actually I had made the inquiry at one point because
I saw, uh, you know, uh his name on a

(09:52):
billboard or something, and I said, Dad, you know, how
come our name is different than Grandpa? And he said, son, Here,
here's what it is. Polis is a name that Americans
have a lot of trouble with. And uh so that's

(10:17):
uh one strike. Then I'm a classical harmonica player. That's
two more strikes. So at that point I decided that
Polis could go. Because John Sebastian looks real good on
a on a marquee. You know what an amazing story.

(10:42):
Well how about your mother? Where what's her background? Oh? Man,
and this is the one that nobody gets to. I'm
very glad because my mom at sixteen, uh, became an
amazing writer for radio. It's it's really it's Tina Fey story.
It really is. It's the same story where this young

(11:05):
woman comes in and just kills it. She writes funny
and she makes up crazy stuff. Uh. You know, there's
an Amos and Andy show, so she does and just
an amy and it's about stupid white people. Uh, and
she does a show uh uh, father is an Idiot

(11:31):
was another thing that she did. So she's always punning
on existing radio material. But what happened was then she
got the job at at the big the big station,
the big town. She went to Cincinnata. So she works

(11:53):
there for a while at NBC, and NBC finds out
about her and they go, oh, you're going to New York.
So at the end of her sixteenth year she is
she comes home and goes, so, uh, they're gonna hire me,
and I'm gonna go to New York. And her father,

(12:14):
my grandfather, says, that's wonderful, honey, And you know, I'm
coming right along with you because I'm gonna be your roommate.
And that's what he did. For the next couple of years.
Uh was sort of zip back and forth between Dayton,
uh and UH and and New York. And then eventually, uh,

(12:35):
the grandparents on my mother's side moved to Florida. So
that was another wonderful little visit that I could make
in the winter usually. Okay, so how did your parents meet. Well,
I'd say that they probably met um in in New

(12:56):
York society. Uh, in the life of professional artists. They
crossed paths. Um mom had a couple of dear friends
who met dad and said, oh, you have to meet
this guy, and uh, people like Vivian Vance who were

(13:22):
just like blood sisters, Jane and and she and people
like Oh, there were a few great sculptors and people
like Garth Williams who were sort of pals with them,
and somehow or another they all met through those channels. Okay,

(13:46):
you say your father was magna come loud. So he
was educated, man, He graduated magna cum laud from Haverford.
So then he goes then he gets a scholarship to
the in the Versadroma, and now, uh, what about twenty

(14:06):
he's living in Rome and he's living there with the cats.
I mean, you know, Casals and Picasso and and Garth
Williams and all these cool guys who I would later meet,
and you know, it was just such a wonderful, uh

(14:27):
a little mini society that I was dropped into. I mean,
if I hadn't done something constructive, it would have been
a real mess. Okay, So how does one become harmonica
player on that classical level? And where was he traded?

(14:48):
So it starts in Philadelphia. Um, he gets a job, Well,
he becomes the soul list for um, the composer of
every damn march we we use? And yes, okay, so

(15:09):
Dad was a uh a player in that harmonica orchestra,
and then he became the soloist. So by sixteen he
was the main soloist for that band. It was his
Philadelphia group, and they toured quite quite a lot and

(15:33):
and quite far in there. Well, you know, in the
rock era, most harmonica players herself taught. Did your father
have formal lessons? You know, I really don't know some
of this because Dad was the guy that was giving
people formal lessons. You know. We'd have Johnny Palo over

(15:54):
at our house and you know, two or three harmonicats,
and they were all trying to learn, you know, tongue
blocking and and some of the advanced techniques that my
father really had under control. So how did your father
feel that you didn't graduate from college? You know, it
was a great disappointment to him and all the pouliasis.

(16:18):
I must say, yeah, I was fighting an uphill battle
for for respect because as dyslexic as I am, I
just could not pass an ancient history course and so
so really I was a poor student. Um. But luckily
my dad started to see it somewhere around eighteen. And

(16:43):
my brother, my little brother, always quotes him because he
loves the quote. Because people would say, you know, your
son has a number six record on the billboard, Sharks,
and Dad would look into the near distance and say,
I can't understand it. He always lands on his feet. Okay,

(17:10):
So how many kids in how many kids in the family?
Just to me and my brother Mark, he's seven years
my junior. Okay, you grow up in Greenwich Village, Yes, sir,
you were literally there and it started and long before
it became penetrated to the rest of society, late fifties

(17:31):
and early sixties. What was it like being a city
kid in the village. It was so great. I mean,
part of it was that this was the this wonderful
neighborhood where there's like multi culty couples and every LGBT
undeclared person at that point. Uh. They also all my

(17:54):
dad's friends and and and so we were experiencing you know. Uh,
Burl Lives is over at the house one one evening,
and he's the one who gets Dad talked into the
idea of you gotta let this songwriter guy from Oklahoma,
you gotta let him stay with you for a couple
of weeks. He's kind of out of sorts, and it

(18:17):
turns out to be Woody Guthrie. Uh. You know, this
was going on. This was going on pretty regularly. I
remember and I do remember distinctly lying in my bed
and remember it's practically a crib. I may have been
four or five. And uh and uh, there's this guy

(18:38):
in the other room. He's have ye seen that virgility? Man?
And I'm listening and I'm going not not as good
as Dad. That was my conclusion. Okay, you know a
lot of kids grow up in the fifties and sixties.
They have sports center. But you're living in the city.

(19:01):
Are you playing any sports or you're entertaining yourself? What
is your passion growing up? Well, uh, you know, the
guitar started to be important by about thirteen or fourteen,
and then I spent five years where all summer I

(19:21):
would be at a really great comedy summer camp, and
then all winter I would be at conservative old Blair
Academy in Blairstown, New Jersey. So I was having this.
I mean, it was a great contrast, but it was
very difficult because I had very little patience for you know,

(19:45):
I mean Blair Academy at the time. Their their main
concern was that I cut my hair because when I
came from Italy, I had an Italian haircut. That's called
a good haircut. But no, Yeah, I had to go
and know be a have butch haircuts and that kind
of stuff. You're growing up, Are you a member of

(20:14):
the group with a million friends or you're more of
a loner. What kind of kid are you? Yeah, I'm
I'm I'm not the guy with a million friends. But
what did start to happen was that it was kind
of like a miniature fan base over the five years.
Remember I've got a lot of years at that place,

(20:35):
so they had time to like, see me bomb and
then actually do something good and then play with the
Fearsome Foursome. Wow, the do wop group. The Fearsome Foursome
needed a guitar player, and I became one, even though
I was a freshman. Okay, wait, let's go back a

(20:56):
few chapters. One, what greed? Do you go to New
Jersey to Blair Academy eighth grade? Eighth grade? So before
that you're living in the city, going to public school.
Coupley uh well no, uh friends seminary Okay, and what
do you have to say when your parents said you

(21:17):
got to go to boarding school? You know, it seemed
like a natural transition. My uncle had gone to Blair
Uh and I also was watching my parents marriage fall apart,
and I could see the logic of getting me out

(21:39):
of the house. So there was a sort of a yeah,
I could be good to do this. And the other
thing was, boy, it could really be good for my
parents to be because I knew it wasn't gonna you know,
it was gonna take a dive. But but you know,
if they could do it with as little screaming as possible,

(22:00):
that would be great. So like that. Okay, So how
old were you when your parents got divorced? Uh? For
did my fourteen? About fourteen? Okay? You usually that fox
people up? How how was it for you? Uh? You know, uh,
for one thing at a time when nobody was smart

(22:24):
about divorce, my parents were kind of smart about divorce.
Dad took an apartment up at sixty seven Street. I'm
living on Washington Square West. I can walk up to
see him if I have the impulse, and so I
must save it. I suffered less than than a lot

(22:45):
of folks. Okay, So how old are you when you
pick up the guitar? About about twelve or thirteen? Okay,
before you go to Blair Academy, or when you were
a Blair Academy slightly before. Okay. Now I'm of a
slightly younger generation where the Beatles were on TV, everybody

(23:07):
picked up the guitar, and there was the Folk movie
before that, so maybe we played with nylon string guitars.
What inspired you to play the guitar? Um, That'll be
the Day by Buddy Holly. It's little things, you know. Rumble.
I heard rumble, and I went out of my mind.

(23:29):
I said, what are those chords? Uh? And in years,
in later years, when I got a chance to talk
to Pete Townsend about this, we found that we totally
agreed and it had the same exact experience where we
heard it one night in the evening on the channel
and just stayed on that channel until three or four

(23:52):
in the morning on the off chance that it might
play again. And it did. Okay, so you were definitely
a did you pick up? That's I don't want to
make an incomplete impression here, because the other thing, remember

(24:12):
these same five summers, I'm going to this summer camp
where Pete Seeger comes and visits, where all the cool
girls know every damn folk song in the world. Uh.
There's two sisters there and they both know how to
carter pick, so I'm learning folk music there. Uh. The

(24:33):
other thing is that the woman that ran the camp
quickly put me in a little sugar house and said,
your job is to teach the kids folk songs and
maybe make up little plays. And that's that's the thing
that I did for five summers, and Matt really honed
my uh whatever craft I have, uh more than almost

(24:59):
anything I think to be to try to hold eight
to fifteen year old's attention for forty five minutes. Okay,
ever take any guitar lessons? Uh? You know it was no.
I guess it's the answer because I um. I had

(25:22):
a friend who had a beautiful sister with a classical
guitar who I talked into borrowing for a week, And
I started off with an E minor chord and by
the end of the week I had invented d Okay,

(25:44):
needlet's just say, when we first see you on television,
you're playing an auto harp. So your father is a
musician music. Did your father teach you the harmonica the
auto harp? Was he too deep into his own stuff?
What was going on in the house? You know? I
think fit part of my father's Ethos came from going
to school with a tremendous number of lawyers, guys studying law,

(26:10):
and he he explained it years later when he would
visit these guys and there'd be their son, and the
son is already in school to be a lawyer, and
doesn't seem that motivated, you know, And so he said,
I don't want to do that with music or the
harmonica or any of that. Uh. You know, you're you're

(26:33):
gonna fly your own your own ship. You know it's
it's gonna be uh, your your impulse. So although how
could I not listening to a man rehearsed for six
to eight hours a day, and that's a real number. Uh,

(26:56):
some of these buccarini can share those that go far
and by so fast you have to practice for years
to be able to do it. My dad started adapting
a technique with vassoline that horrified the owner company completely.
But you know this is this is what some of
these uh disciplines demanded. Okay, so your father never taught

(27:20):
you how to play harmonica, never gave you any tips. Correct.
However he did he did a better thing. He came
home with a sunny terry silver acetate and I put
that thing on, and I was mystified because I had

(27:42):
never heard the instrument that way, And it actually was
a good half a year of trying to figure out
and then I suddenly realized, oh my god, the time
that court is on the inhale. How could I have
missed this? So so then really from then on, a

(28:03):
part part of the my background at that point is
that I start meeting Sunny Terry fairly regularly in these
folk clubs, and I'd go in there, and by the
second time I went, I go, Sonny, Hey, go is
that Johnny's son? So it was very fast. Uh and

(28:25):
he and Sonny in many ways was sort of a
conduit into what would become really a focus, which was
Sam Hopkins in years later. Okay, let's go back to
Blair Academy. You said there were five years there that
you were the musician. You're kind of playing in bands,
So tell me more about that. Well, Uh, there there

(28:49):
was a great incentive to play in those bands because
those bands would go to dances, and dances required women,
and there would be, you know, your loan opportunity to
actually hold a woman in your arms. And so uh,

(29:12):
me and one of my roommates caught onto this very fast,
and he was a piano player or sort of learning,
and I was, you know, playing straight aids on the guitar,
and so that really was really all about that, uh,
that that those band things would form. And then there

(29:34):
was this even dozen thing um and said there was
this uh fearsome forsomething and that was a a do
op group, fairly tame, but but you know, it was
the perfect moment because that's when all of those da

(29:55):
da da da da da da da da da da
da da da, all of those tunes were on the
air and we learned everyone. So did it work for you?
You were in the band, the girls were there? Oh yeah,
I got kicked out once because of that. Okay, what
happened there? Hey, I'm not going to tell you no no,

(30:16):
I you know, it was so innocent that it's really
it's a sorry tale because uh what happened was, uh,
I went to a dance. It was a younger classman's
dance and they had asked me to come and play,

(30:39):
and I did, and I pulled a very nice girl
who was very happy to go out and see what
the golf course really looked like. In the evening, and
so we did, and we were caught by a history teacher.

(31:00):
And you know what's really tragic is I was suspended
for two weeks and that girl was kicked out of
her school. Wow, that's talk about you know that difference,
Well that sexism. Okay, you graduate from high school, then
what I go to n YU for a year because

(31:23):
it's across the park. Okay, I had no other reason.
And and my dad, uh, he took me up there
at Washington Square North and we we we go up
and get to the door, and I said, well, this
is gonna be great. Dad, come on in and we'll
check in. And he goes, no, no, no. From this

(31:47):
step you take by yourself because I can lead a
horse to water, but that's all I can do. So
I thought it was pretty real. And uh, I was
a bad student for a good three quarters of a year. Uh.

(32:07):
And then I think I came back the next year
for maybe a couple of weeks before I just see
at the same time, there's all this other stuff going on.
I'm in Greenwich Village, my god, six blocks away. John
Dangelico was making arch top guitars. Uh, and a much
more modest endeavor is uh Tom Fincy making classical guitars.

(32:34):
At the time, I wanted a classical guitar. I went
to this little shop on Broadway, and UH realized that
they're all up rutzes. So I quickly start speaking Italian
with my grandmother's accent, and in an hour or two,
I'm sweeping up. So that became the next thing that

(32:57):
I did, really was sweeping up at the shop and
standing down guitars and tuning. They found that I could
tune a lot of guitars and in a short amount
of time, and so it was. It was completely absorbing.
I was meeting some of the great guitarists of the era.

(33:19):
Um uh Raimo Palmierti, uh the guitarists who played for
Arthur Godfrey and was the number one call at the
NBC Orchestra, a remarkable guitarist, and his brother Paul Palmieri,
who was the If you ever wanted to say, this

(33:43):
is why I should be a musician, it was because
every week Paul Pomierti would show up with the beautiful
Japanese girl. Next week it's some kind of multiculty who
knows what girl and he just had He was say, uh,
what do they call that a sequential whatever? Uh? But

(34:05):
I just said, Wow, you can have this many girl
friends if you can play guitar. Well. So, so I
was watching all of this and that really was the
end of UH of n y U. But I had
met a key person in David Grisman, who still tells

(34:28):
the story of seeing me in the n y U
elevator with this uh twelve harmonicas on a Holster arrangement
that I had had made at Tandy leather U because
I realized I needed more than two or three harmonicas. Uh.
So there that that became a real, a real focus. Okay,

(34:55):
so we're like sixty two sixty three. The folks scene
is big. You talk about going to a club, you're
working in the guitar shop. Yeah, but what is going
on in the culture at that point. Were you're going
to clubs every night? We're going occasionally? Were you playing
with other musicians you'd played in groups in high school
where you're trying to for Max? What was happening? I

(35:18):
was beginning to haunt Bleaker and McDougal, And it happened
for two reasons. One was my own uh desires, but
also I had become a mini me for one Paul Rothschild.
Rothschild and I became very tight in the process of

(35:41):
making a Fred Neil album. Uh, and I suddenly was
getting work as a studio musician as a result of Rothschild.
Wait wait, wait a little bit slower. You meet Rothchild?
How ow and you get? And how does he realize

(36:02):
your guitar player? And he says, come to my sessions?
You know a little bit. How does this happen? Okay? Um?
I was hanging around with David Grisman a little bit
and Uh. At one summer I came back from summer
camp and my mother is holding the phone as I
walk in the door. She says, it's Stephen. She says

(36:25):
it really bored because Stephen and I are haunting each
other's houses all the time trying to figure out these
various finger picking things. And Stephen gets on the phone
and says, so, uh, we're forming a jug band and
it's gonna rehearse on fourteenth Street and oh yeah, and

(36:46):
you're the harmonica player. And so I say, what is
a jug band? And Stephen says, just come to four
Street and and uh, we're gonna We're gonna rehearse and
will show you. So I go to that rehearsal and

(37:07):
one of the people that's there is Paul Rothschild, who
I don't know, but Rothschild and I begin a kind
of we're jabbing at each other in a very New
York way. You know what this is, of course, and
and so, but it's very friendly, and the conversation turns

(37:29):
to marijuana, and it is quickly clear that both of
us are fans and uh, and Paul is now trying
to make this group of kind of random blues kids
into a jug band, his logic being this Jim question

(37:52):
jug band thing is taking off and and there's room
for a New York jug band and and why don't
you guys do it? And uh, all of a sudden,
we're working Carnegie Hall. This was what parenthetically, I would say.
I go up to sixty seven Street to visit dad. Oh, yeah,

(38:14):
what you're doing us? And blah blah blah, Yeah, trying
to work and so and said, what we do have
a couple of gigs? Really really, where are you working? Well,
we've got a gig at Town Hall and then we
play Carnegie. This was another time when my dad was

(38:37):
I think the reaction was, I don't know how he
doesn't he always lands on his feet. Okay, but whatever,
you know, we know you get to Carnegie Hall by practicing,
but we also know there's more than luck involved. So
Rothchild puts together the band. How does it all come
together that you end up playing Carnegie Hall? Well, because

(38:58):
we had begun to play together in earnest and we
had a couple of wonderful people in the band. We
had David grismand we had Maria Muldor, we had Stephen Grossman.
You know, these are folks who in this little world
of of fingerpicking and guitar and acoustic playing in general. Uh,

(39:25):
it was it was our it was becoming our our
home base. Okay. Rothchild was a record producer, so there
were the recordings of this act. So yes, So what
happened was Rothschild uh puts us into the studio and
we record uh an even dozen jug band album, uh,

(39:49):
which was nicely received. You know, remember the scale for
success is so small. If you sell more records than
Billy Fair, you're you're really rocking. So uh. So that
was the process of making the record, I think is

(40:11):
what tightened us up to where we could play some
actual venues, and for a short time we were managed
by Israel young. Is The Young's Folklore Center was the
Greenwich Village home of of this dawning folk music obsession.

(40:44):
How does it work economically in making any money at
the guitar store? Are you still living at home? How
does it add up? Okay? Uh, A recording session is
fifty one dollars. I can get at an apartment for
less than that at that moment in time, because I

(41:06):
speak Italian, and remember I'm living two blocks from the
center of Little Italy, and I quickly realized that so
many uh Italian widows are in control of these apartments there.

(41:27):
You know, Pops has passed and the it's her thing.
And I would go to these various addresses and I
would listen as the woman spoke first, and if I
could catch the accent, I would imitate that accent. Because

(41:47):
I had spent a winter in Rome, so I knew
how to turn it into a little more guttural Italian.
I knew how to do brutz from my grandparents, so
you at the idea I was being. I was able
to get apartments for very cheap because I would do

(42:08):
whatever the lady wanted me to do, and she could
explain stuff to me that she couldn't explain in English.
So uh, these things were tremendous advantages. Uh. And so
the other thing is that the answer for the the

(42:29):
the even dozen jug band was no, no money at all.
My The entire thing really was uh these uh recording sessions.
And that was what was keeping me able to be
a little bit independent from my parents. I remember independent

(42:54):
like your twelve blocks away, Wow, stop by to do
your laundry, get a meal? Oh exactly exactly. So what
happens after Carnegie Hall? What's your next move? Well? Uh,
I had been doing these various sessions, and uh, I

(43:14):
start to wow, this is hard to encapsulate. All Right,
my father got a television show, Sunday afternoon television show.
It's sort of before there was really uh public television,

(43:36):
but it's very much that flavor. And there was a
show called Robert Harridge Presents, and uh this show. UH
engaged my dad to play on this show. And I
get there and the people doing the show is an
Englishman reciting Shakespeare. There's Lightning Hopkins, there's my father, and

(44:08):
there's a girl that I have met before. She's barefoot,
she's about seventeen, and when she opens her mouth, you
cannot believe what's coming out. And of course it's Joan Bias. Well.
I watched this entire afternoon unfold, and to me, the

(44:31):
thing that was most impressive. I mean, Joan is of
herself just really impressive because she really has control of
her guitar now and and and plus this remarkable voice.
And I'm thinking, wow, this is really one of the

(44:52):
coolest women I've ever run into. And then Lightning Sam
gets on and he starts tapping his foot and all
of a sudden, he's singing something about did you keep
on but be that that they ain't bound? And she
starts laughing, and I go, wow, you can make this

(45:16):
woman laugh because she's so serious, and you know, it's
a big surprise, and and so, uh, I was so
impressed with Lightning and Sam. So the television show ends
and I'm standing there and Dad is talking to Lightning Sam.

(45:39):
Sam likes Dad because you know, it's like, yeah, this
guy does something weird and unconventional and he's kind of
on my side. And so they're they're talking, and uh,
while they're talking, I walk up to Lightning's guitar case,
and I think to myself, as a fifty percent I

(46:00):
won't get hit. So I reached down and I pick
up the case. Enlightening turns to me and I say,
Mr Hopkins, I know the subway system, and I can
get us downtown to within a block of the club
that you're gonna play. Uh and uh uh you know

(46:22):
we we and if you need a spot, uh, we
live four blocks from there. So Sam as I suddenly
become like a lead boy for somebody that isn't blind
because Sam of course understands the value of having a

(46:43):
little white kid too I don't know, uh talk to
the club owner or whatever, and and so he likes that.
So I become a regular. I'm carrying his guitar most
of the time. And then me and a layer roommate
get a little apartment over on the extremely side, which

(47:06):
we pretty much turned over to Lightning Sam because there's
only one bedroom, and we go, I ain't going that
bedroom now, SAP's here. We're gonna sleep on the couches.
And that's exactly what we did. And we get up
in the morning and get sam Is two eggs and
a jelly glass full of gin and be ready for

(47:28):
the day. And that was a remarkable period. And Sam
would sing at night or he would just wrap. It
was essentially wrap that was happening, and it all rhymed
and we would go, how does he do this? You know,
it was a real miracle to see it happen in

(47:52):
front of you. But so I take Sam down to
the club pretty pretty frequently. One day, when I ache lightning,
Sam down to do his gig. There's an opening act
uh called Valentine Pringle, and Valentine is a protege of

(48:14):
Harry bellefantas and he is trying to get with this
uh kind of a folk program because he's a guy
from Washington. He's an enormous baritone singer. I mean, he's
his voice is marvelous. But you know, I think his

(48:36):
main experience had been uh in, uh in, uh in
in musicals and plays and things. So uh, Harry Belafani
starts coaching him, and so all of a sudden he
knows a whole bunch of chain Gang songs and he's
got a whole act. And uh, I watched this act,

(49:01):
and I start to watch it pretty regularly because I'm
bringing Sam in. So then on this particular evening he
gets up there and he's got a different accompanist. Now
I happen to know that this guy, his name is
John Pankin. He uh sometimes masquerades as one Sastre or

(49:27):
one somebody and pretends to be a Flamenco guitarist, which
I don't care about that. But when he plays with Valentine,
he makes a few crucial mistakes, and the big one
being he starts the battle him of the Republic, which

(49:50):
is Valentine's killer you are not going to be able
to survive, and he starts it in the wrong key. Yeah.
And then there was another thing where he started a
tempo completely wrong. So and and this is the only time, Robert,

(50:11):
that I've ever done anything like this. I went backstage,
attend to lightening, say hi to Valentine and say, you know,
val if I was your guitarist, I wouldn't be starting
Battality of the Republic in the wrong key. And if

(50:33):
you you know, I just I did the list of
the mistakes the guy had made. So Valentine is trying
to assess this who is this kid, you know? And
so he then actually moves over to the other dressing room.
Enlightening is reading the paper and he says, Mr Hopkins,

(50:59):
I just interested in this, uh young man, uh guitar player.
Do you know? Do you know how how he plays?
Lightning looks up from his newspaper and goes, well, he's bad,
He's bad that. And he went back to the newspaper

(51:27):
and and so Valle is left going is that bad good?
He's trying to assess what he's hearing, and uh, well,
what did happen? Was within a day or two I
was his accompanist. Now this is a long way around,
but I'm glad we have a lot of time because
this is where my professional life really begins, because I

(51:52):
get a gig with Valentine out of town, unbelievable. We
go to Washington, d C. And we play a place
called The Shadows, and uh the Shadows. Uh. He goes
out there and he's a pretty good opening act. And
then oncome the Big Three. And the Big Three is

(52:15):
cass Elliott, James not Jimmy Hendrix, and Tim Rose, the
guy that wrote Hey Joe, Yeah, Hey Joe yeah. So
this group is, you know, a real conventional commercial folk
group and they're playing for pretty much Washington Upper Crust. Uh,

(52:42):
this is a fancy club. It isn't really folky, you know.
And uh but as we finished the show, and uh
uh I think I was coming downstairs as Cass was

(53:02):
coming up, and she's doing Valentine's act, all the slave songs,
and it's it's so uh un pc that I just
I just was. I was laughing for the next twenty minutes.
Well that was all that Cass needed, and so she

(53:25):
starts engaging me. We become friends. By the end of
the week, she's saying, oh, man, you gotta meet my
pal Denny, and you gotta meet Zally. Uh we gotta
hook you up. And so I go back to New
York and I'm doing you know, I actually got a
gig in Toronto with Valentine. A couple of other things happened.

(53:48):
Then I get a call from Cass. She says, you know, uh,
this thing is working out. We've actually got uh you know,
like a nice hotel rooms for each one of us
and everything, and uh, we're thinking about changing our thing.

(54:08):
Well a little while later, and I really can't go
into too much detail because we'll be here all night.
But essentially a friendship that forms both in Washington and
at the Albert Hotel becomes uh a new focus for Cass.

(54:34):
And then she invites me to come to Washington to
a company, this new group, the Mugwumps. Okay, and would
you please bring a kilo of pot? I say, thank you,
I will, and so that's what I did, and uh

(54:56):
we had about two weeks of gigs at this same club,
at the end of which I get called by the
assistant manager who says, I'm afraid that you know are
the manager? Uh doesn't want you to continue with the group.
I said no, I certainly could understand. He says, because

(55:19):
you know you're a You're a bad influence on your
nasi And I said, I know, I am. He says, like,
every time you play something, Yanovski echoes it on across
the stage, and you know, we want to stick to
these arrangements. Well, of course this was exactly what was
wrong with this group was that it had an arranger,

(55:43):
and it had musicians to play with it, and it
had people like Timmy Harden and Freddy Neil and even
me writing songs that they were doing. So uh it
it was this Uh it was a dinosaur and it
would eventually die when it tried to play a real

(56:05):
rock and roll club. They came to New York, they
tried to play the Peppermint Lounge. People didn't even turn around.
I mean, you know, this is followed by Joey d
on the Starliner Bad but you can imagine. So they
that was sort of the end of that group. But

(56:29):
as a direct result, me and Yonowsky start poling around
in New York City. Uh and we're all living at
the Albert Hotel, and so is Cass and so is Denny,
and we're all trying to figure out what's gonna happen next.
I remember we were thinking, ge, now Cass is gonna
she's gonna find, you know, a solo career, but we're

(56:52):
worried about Denny. You know, you would make more money
than me and zall put together. So uh so it
was a wonderful close bond that we all had. Uh. Eventually,

(57:15):
zol and I start to concentrate along with an important
and important person in this equation is Eric Jacobson, the
the producer for The Spoonful, who really had a very
clear vision of what the Spoonful could be. It was.

(57:37):
It was quite remarkable. I mean, he really had an idea,
and my ideas ran similarly enough that that we were
suddenly making toy records. Uh. And that was what we
were calling them, because they're One would be a a

(57:58):
like a surf wreckord, then another would be uh, lady goodive,
I got a thirty eight Ford now powered by a
Chrysler that's stroked and board now and you know all
these funny things that they weren't New York City Norwegian
American guy. You know, it was this wonderful, funny attempt

(58:20):
to get into pop music somehow. And uh, I think
Eric saw what I saw, which was me and Yanovsky.
We're starting to be joined at the hip because we have,
you know, enough ideas that are similar. And uh, after

(58:41):
a little bit, uh, we find out that guitarists that
worked in an adjacent band had a younger brother who
was coming back from a motorcycle trip in Europe. And
I remember me and Yanovsky kind of looked at each other, going, yeah,
that would be good. Yeah, Uh, let's let's see what
this guy's like. Well, of course, Steve Boon shows up

(59:04):
and he looks like Fritz Richmond, who was one of
our heroes the jug and washtub player for the question
jug band and Uh. But also he's a real bass player.
He isn't a folky guitar player attempting to get around
on a fender and so that really made a big difference.

(59:26):
And it wasn't very long before Uh we had Joe Butler,
who was also had worked with Steve before, so it
didn't require too much jostling to get this love and
spoonful thing going. Okay, how many bites you got the

(59:49):
four members together? You're making the Toy records. When do
you make a real record and how do you get
a record deal? Etcetera. Well, we got turned down by
every record company in New York City and Robert, that's
a lot of companies, and we really did go to everybody.
And it was only after we hooked up with these

(01:00:11):
guys that were essentially mainly concerned with ripping off our
publishing uh, and they said, oh, well we'll be a
record company. Yes it will be uh Stallion Records, that'll
be it. Well that lasted about a week and a
half and they connect up with the guys down the hallway.

(01:00:31):
You know, this is when the record business was like this,
and the guys down the Hallway are already rip and
uh Karma Sutra, and Karma Sutra is the only record
the only company that genuinely went nuts. Uh. You know,
most of these guys have like a Voice of God

(01:00:53):
speaker under their desk, so when they're demoing stuff, it's remarkable.
And remember when they started playing our records on this system,
I go, my god, we're giants. So so uh. Really

(01:01:13):
that became our record company, really to our our disservice,
because we had been offered uh Electra because you know,
as I said, I had been Paul Rothschild's mini me,
and part of what that involved was going up to

(01:01:34):
electrac Records almost every night. Uh. And as we began
to work together and he began to mix the first
Fred Neil and Vince Martin record, this was it was
just increasing the amount of time I was spending in
Electric records. But as it turned out, when Jack Coltsman

(01:01:58):
offered us, we said, no, now, these this is a
folk label. This is Ceo Bickel. I mean, come on,
we're we're trying to get into the dirty business. I mean,
I wouldn't be surprised if we even used the term
you know that like no no, we're not fake pop
were we want to be pop music, you know? So

(01:02:23):
that was okay. So let's let's stop here for a second. Yeah,
the songs and you wrote some big ones. Yeah, who
owned them? That? And then? And who owns them? Now? Okay?
Uh I still own them and BMG owns them and
they publish and I write and that that's okay. Let's

(01:02:46):
talk about the spring. You make this deal with Stallion
Records when you write these hits, who owns the publishing then?
At that point, Uh, it was a compliman in Reuben. Okay,
how did you ultimately get full ownership? I don't know what.

(01:03:10):
Was it part of a really the reversion a handful
of years ago, or did some transaction happen decades ago? So? Boy,
I I was running too fast to be paying any
attention to the to the the mechanics of the business deals.
And I have suffered proportionately for that mistake. But yes,

(01:03:34):
I I really all of this stuff. We didn't and
and our manager has since said I didn't know what
I was doing. You know, he's so apologetic. Because this
Bob Cavallo, he becomes the president of Warner Brothers and
Walt Disney records and all of this stuff, and and

(01:03:55):
he I still talked to him frequently, and he his
first thing is always Johnny. How could I be so
stupid as to not understand what I didn't understand back then? Uh.
I'm very touched by his reaction. And in fact, I

(01:04:17):
can't say that I was unhappy with any step of
that process, because what was happening was what we wanted.
We were becoming a rock and roll group that people knew. Okay,
some of these hits are in excess of most of

(01:04:37):
them are in excess of fifty years old. Have they
sustained you over the fifty years? Strangely enough? The uh, Well,
I'd have to say that the record that for the
Spoonful that was the most effective, of course, was somewhere
in the City, and that certainly did very good things
for me, my brother and Steve Boon, because all three

(01:05:02):
of us contributed to the composing of Summer in the City.
But the big one who could have predicted that a
little television theme that I got involved in when I
was wildly unpopular in the nine seventy six would be
It's like, that's the one right now? And of course

(01:05:25):
unfortunately I know part of this to COVID. Uh, you
never know how things are gonna play out, Okay, just
to put a cap on it, the original songs, you
ended up owning a percent of Yeah, and then you
sold part to be MG or you still own them,
or you sold all of it. So I eventually sold

(01:05:48):
all of it to be MG. And did you keep
your writer's share or you can? They gave you a check. Okay,
so you sold the publishing, but you still you still
get the writer's share. Okay. Did you ever get a
record royalty? Do you still get record royalties? You know,
I probably do somewhere. I mean I do have an

(01:06:12):
accountant to it kind of supervises this stuff. But it's
a it's a quantity that's been halved so many times
by our modern way of listening to music that it's
almost nothing. Well that's why I mentioned. And if it's

(01:06:32):
not nothing, they say you're in the hole. So you
make this deal with Kama Sutra. Tell me about making
the record and making the hit, Well, uh, we had
made Do You Believe In Magic? Going into a studio
independently and Eric Jacobson foot of the bill, and that

(01:06:53):
was the record that got turned down all over And
every time it got turned down, Yanovsky and I would go,
you know, you'd think we'd be discouraged. We go. Of course,
they didn't understand that they're they're they're looking for Fabian,
They're they're not gonna find it in us. And so
it was a kind of a bizarre twist that we

(01:07:14):
saw every turn down as yeah, we are that cool.
We're just that cool. So you make a deal with
Kama Sutra, what's the first thing you make an album?
Where they put out do you Believe in Magic? I
think we were on about making the album. Uh, and

(01:07:36):
I don't remember whether Magic got out. I think Magic
got out before the do you Believe In Magic? Album?
I believe this is summer sixty five. How long after
they put it out does it become such a big smash? Uh,
it didn't take long. It was amazing once it got

(01:08:00):
out there, Really how fast it did happen? Um? And
and also it didn't exactly happen on the East coast
for us. Uh, we sort of had to go play
the Trip and the Tiger Tail. Uh, those are all
the same club and uh and UH find a little

(01:08:25):
success with the California disc jockeys. They were probably more
enthusiastic about it. I mean, except for cousin Brucie, who's
been our ally forever. Uh, it was really it was,
It was like that. Okay, so it becomes a hit.

(01:08:51):
What's it like for you when you have a hit
and all of a sudden you're playing these clubs, but
ultimately there's television, there's recognition, you hear the song on
the radio. What was your in tonal experience, mm hmm, Well,
of course it was joyous when we actually landed in

(01:09:15):
California and we turn on the radio in the rent
a car and we here uh California Girls, followed by
do you Believe in Magic? At which point Yanovski starts
hitting me all over my body. We're both in the

(01:09:37):
back seat, and then we start hitting each other, and
then Steve and Joe start hitting us, and so all
four we have to pull over so that we can
more thoroughly hit each other. And and so it was
absolutely a wonderful moment. And uh, nothing, nothing's gonna compared

(01:10:00):
to that. Okay, you have the hit, right even at
that era, following up the hit is very, very difficult
and very important, and there was a thing that the
Spoonful was really driven to pursue, and that was, we

(01:10:23):
want to sound like a different band every single because
the same old way of having it be the same
thing for three or four singles that that era is
gone now and so we have to make sure that
it sounds different. And uh, I probably couldn't have come

(01:10:46):
up with you didn't have to be so nice by myself.
That was a fragment that Steve Boon brought in one evening.
We're playing a kind of a topless club and and
he shows up in my dressing room, in my in
my uh uh, in my hotel room with this fragment,

(01:11:09):
and that became our second single, and uh, things really
did go that way. You know, I forget what the sequences,
but daydream and make up your mind or right in there,
and and uh, these are all different enough that that

(01:11:31):
or at least we think, you know. The funny thing
was we're saying, hey, man, they'll never guess. It's like,
this is so different, jays man, you didn't even play
your guitar. You played my guitar for that, they'll never guess.
And then it goes on the air and the DJ goes, well,
here's another example of that great spoonful sound, and we

(01:11:52):
go damn it. Okay, what was driving you at this
point you talked about earlier it was girls. Then you
have the excitement of meeting and playing with Zal. Needless
to say, you make it, their money comes in. What
was pushing you forward? Well, some of it was just

(01:12:13):
the fact that we were such underdogs, even though we
had the approval of several of our English contemporaries, rolling
Stone for whatever, one was not on the case for us.
Uh and uh so we had to kind of inch
our way up. And uh, I think that that was

(01:12:39):
its own its own driver. Yes, but you have hit
after hit after hit in an era where there's still
a ton of one hit wonders. I mean, at some
point you must have felt good about what you were
doing success wives. No, no, I certainly I was feeling
very good about it, No, no doubt out about it.

(01:13:01):
I probably got a real swelled head right around then.
But the only thing was that you had to keep
at it. Uh. You couldn't stop and think. Um. I mean,
I'm very glad that I had the partners that I had,
somebody like Yanovsky who would crack up when I wrote

(01:13:22):
Nashville Cats and think that, uh, pal, the thing I
wrote for Woody Allen was the funniest thing in the world. Uh.
You know that was also driving me the approval of Yanovsky,
who was really important to me. Okay, you have all

(01:13:43):
these hits in the sixties, and you have Welcome Back
Hotter in the seventies. He dries up. Why were there hits?
Needle to say, music is constantly evolving, and you had
an incredible success. But was it you were working with
those specific partners, or the sound changed or somehow you
couldn't do it anymore. Well, I had a wonderful time

(01:14:07):
working with those partners right up until it was gonna
be impossible because after Zali got busted, he started, uh
drinking a lot, a lot more, and that was really disappointing.
And uh you know, uh, also we we were starting

(01:14:28):
to have our own separate lives and and you know,
obviously Stephen was entering into a kind of a dark
period where he wasn't really available. Uh And uh so
there was a point when it was obvious to me
that and I was afraid to do this for the

(01:14:51):
longest time because I believed that people could not just
transition from a group and suddenly be a solo artist.
That that seemed like a real far stretch. Well, as
I say, the hits dried up. Do you believe if

(01:15:11):
you were still in the band the hits would have continued?
Or everything runs its course? I? I I think it probably
I'd go for the everything runs its course theory, because again,
surrounded by all of that approval and surrounded by a
good band that that had provided a tremendous amount of satisfaction.

(01:15:36):
But it was also obvious now that you know, the
grooves were different. They were more complicated grooves that our
rhythm section didn't really have facility with UH and and
they're really I was busy enough because I started recording

(01:16:03):
with Paul Rothschild UH to make a solo album. Okay,
before you get there, I vividly remember you being on
TV playing that auto harp. We're talking about it in
high school the next day. What was it like being
on Ed Sullivan? I mean, this is when those shows
had reached nothing has that reached today, Absolutely absolutely, And

(01:16:25):
it was remarkable and we were all ready to diss
it because we're Greenwich Village puppies and we want. We
just want to be counterculture every chance we get. And
so we're going, oh, you know Ed, you know, he
doesn't have any idea what we're about. It's great that
we're on the show. We'll play the thing. And like that,

(01:16:49):
Ed Sullivan comes out and does the introduction for The
Love and Spoonful, in which he pretty much says, this
is the American answer to the English invasion. And here
they are and they write their own songs and they
do their own ship. And you know I'm paraphrasing, but

(01:17:09):
we we were standing there about to play, and I mean,
I don't know whether my mouth was still wide open
when the cameras came on us, but I was still
recovering from oh man, we're gonna have to We're gonna
have to reassess our our assessment of of Ed, you know.

(01:17:31):
And he persisted every time we'd come on, he'd he'd
be that same guy. Um. I heard that that later
from Denny Doharty that he seemed like he wasn't as
able when the Mamas and Papas played it, but boy,
when The Spoonful played it, he was right on top

(01:17:51):
of it. So what is it like being on national
television and then walking on the street. Well, you know,
don't think you're gonna get recognized right away, because for
one thing, Yanovski is gonna get recognized several hours before
you are noticed. And and so I'm I'm used to

(01:18:12):
that because Ali's he's got the Borcellino hat and the
whole rig, and you know, he's obviously a rock star.
Remember again, it's it's Greenwich Village. Everybody's being cool. So
it isn't the same thing as returning to your high
school and coming in with a hit record, you know,

(01:18:35):
where all of a sudden, the cheerleader likes you. You know,
it was different, Okay, and in that era because shortly
thereafter there's the rock star lifestyle. Are you partaking of
the drugs, the women? What is your life? Like? I
got lucky a few times, but I was not an

(01:18:56):
abusive rock star. Uh. And so like I say, uh,
it was it was not going to be my incentive,
uh to try to engage a underage girl or something. Uh.
Luckily we had our girlfriends by that time and they

(01:19:18):
were appropriate ages. Uh. But you know, as time went
on and a few years went by, then those temptations
became a little stronger. Uh, the girls became impossibly good
looking and uh uh so so yeah to that extent. Uh,

(01:19:41):
like I say, but it was it was good luck,
wasn't force. You know, you gotta make the distinction between
that period and you know what would you know, I
don't know, led zepp. Uh. You know that era where

(01:20:02):
girls who were like klean x and and life was
beautiful and the champagne was flowing. We we didn't really
get there. We were too busy doing gigs. Sometime, for
your own amusement, I'll send you the Loving Spoonfuls schedule.
It was documented by an Englishman who's a nut for

(01:20:25):
the Spoonful and I look at that and it's unbelievable
how many gigs we did. You know, Hey, it still
doesn't compare with Fats Domino, but it was pretty good
for some white guys. Okay, let me talk about a
couple of my favorite Spoonful tracks. Give me the backstory.
Six o'clock. Six o'clock came about because I was mourning

(01:20:51):
the loss of a beautiful redheaded girlfriend. The tune itself, uh,
somehow evolved from hammering on a new instrument from Honer
called the clavinett Uh. And there are people on websites

(01:21:16):
still trying to decide whether six o'clock is the first
use of the electric harpsichord, UH, which we have no idea,
But that was, that was the way that that UH emerged. Now,
remember we're in transition now, Zali UH will occasionally visit

(01:21:42):
our sessions. It's not like, you know, we This is
the other thing that was so different for with our band.
You know, we took eight by ten glosses with the
new band member. But if you look closely at the
glossy and you looked in the trees behind where we
were standing, you'd see Zali looking forlorn and it's sad,

(01:22:06):
and you know it was it was Yanovski all the way.
But I mean, in some ways it's it's separated us
from ever being that perfect. I don't know, Uh, you know,
money making band that UH does no wrong, Darling be

(01:22:30):
home soon. It came about because I was listening to
a lot of songs on the radio that went, oh
my honey, I love you so much and now I
have to go on the road and it's so hard
and it makes me so unhappy. And I was going,
wait a minute, and maybe this is partially having a

(01:22:51):
musician as a father. I said, well, this you got
this wrong. When you get this going, that's that's what
you want to have happened. Keep it going. Uh and
uh So I thought maybe it would be I could

(01:23:13):
sort of write that song. Only what if I took
it from the other partners side? What if you know
the song was really being sung by whoever stays at home? Okay,
what do you think when you heard Joe Cocker's version?
I loved it. I went nuts. Uh And in fact

(01:23:38):
I would see him occasionally because we'd get paired in
these various uh sorry, yes, Woodstock imitation shows in in
subsequent years. But I loved that man, and he and
I spent a considerable time in in in dressing rooms

(01:23:58):
not talking because he was glad to have somebody that
didn't want to talk to it, and I was glad
to provide that. He was a delightful guy. Okay, I
have to ask about Summer in the City. Yeah, it
was an iconic record, came out during the summer of
the late spring. Had had that sound? How is that created?

(01:24:21):
And what is it? That's a staple that has never
gone away? So tell me about your experience there. Well,
the song really began with Mark Sebastian, my younger brother,
who had come up with an idea of you know,
summer in the city, you know it's gonna get hot,

(01:24:44):
the shadows of the buildings will be the only show
shade spot. But at night it's a different world going.
I say, whoa, whoa, whoa, what's that? And what are
those chords? And my brother showed him to me, and
I said, man, that is a fabulous chorus, and that

(01:25:05):
it made me want to create tension because it was
such a good release. It goes to the sub dominant chord,
then it goes to the sub dominant chord of that
and it's like a double wall. You don't know where
you are for a minute. And and and to me
that that had this wonderful quality of release, that it

(01:25:29):
made me want to, uh increase the tension in the beginning.
So I, instead of what Mark had written on that beginning,
I started. I started with an idea. I said, I
wanted to have tension. I wanted to be like Night

(01:25:52):
on Bald Mountain. Okay, one of the things that scared
the living p out of me as a kid was
Night on bald Mountain and to me, that thing in
the beginning where you you hear the strings come in
very quietly at first, donn bah pap pap pa papa,

(01:26:15):
And you know that that remarkable piece of writing. And
so I want to imitate that somehow. And that was
all it was. Was bad, you know, I don't know,
kind of underachieving there, but that was the goal, and
that was you were the producer. That was me. Okay,

(01:26:37):
just jumping forward one song from your soul. Oh wait now,
but but there is there is production detail here worth mentioning,
Which was that? Again? It's Yanovsky starts the trouble. He goes,
I don't want the drums to sound like drums. I
wanted to sound like a garbage can fall down an

(01:27:01):
eight story stairwell, metal stairwell. So we're working with Roy
Haley for the first time. Uh, he's a guy in
a white lab coat. You got to remember the era.
And once Sally says the thing about the stairwell, he goes, well,
you know we have an eight story metal stairwell. Really well,

(01:27:27):
in no time, we are pushing a voice of the
theater speaker on onto the ground floor of this stairwell
taking a microphone up eight floors, and it's recording this
enormous echo of the of the snare, But of course

(01:27:48):
it's decay is way too long, so Roy ends up
wowing the cap stand that controls that echo so that
it will go and then disappear. Well, of course you
know that that same stairwell was then used twice more

(01:28:08):
for the Boxer and for Bridge over Troubled Water. It's
that stairwell. Wow. You ever tire of you? Ever tire
of hearing Summer in the City? No? Really, not, Okay.
I want to mention one other song that not everybody knows,
but it's a big favorite of mine. It's after Tarzana

(01:28:29):
Kid album, but that's not where I discovered it. Valerie
Carter does a great version of Face of Appalachia. Oh
She Kills. And of course that song You're Tarzana King
is now available Tarzana Kid is available online. Tell me
the backstory on that record? Well, Um, I had become
friends with Lowell George and we found each other very amusing, uh,

(01:28:56):
And we started to spend a lot of time together
and we started to just call each other with hey,
listen to this kind of phone calls. Well, one day,
Lowell calls me up and says, hey, listen to this,
And what I hear is it's an acoustic guitar, but

(01:29:17):
it's so smeared with compression that it almost doesn't sound
like uh that that instrument. Well, I say, man, that
is so cool. That sounds like, I don't know, like
the face of Appalachia or something. And he goes that, yep,

(01:29:38):
that do that? Yeah right that. Uh So I started
working on it, and uh it took me the whole summer, Robert.
It's the only song that took me a long time.
Uh and it really uh it. I just kept working
on it all summer. It's a song, as you can tell,

(01:30:01):
about my grandfather and how he had dreamed of making
this trip with me, of walking the Appalachian Trail. And
so it was the combination of the nostalgia of the
contrast between my background, you know, being born in blocks

(01:30:25):
of buildings, and and his vision that he wanted me
to see, of the Coltrane's wailing banjos, frailing and all
of that stuff. So so that really that was it.
And I would have to mention that Lowell, George and
Ry Cooter both played on that record, so you couldn't

(01:30:47):
get you couldn't get slide here, that's for sure. Okay,
you end up working on Francis Ford Coppola's first movie,
You're a Big Boy. Now. How does come together? You know?
It was fairly fairly mechanical in that my manager, Bob Cavallo,

(01:31:09):
nw uh, the the team that was making that movie,
and somehow or another, I really don't know how Coppola
came up with our name as the guys that should
do the movie. But we got the call that, you know,
go over to path A Labs or something and and

(01:31:30):
talk to this guy. So we go over there, and
you know, we don't know from Francis Coppola. Nobody does.
But one thing was obvious. This guy's he's got this
New York Italian thing that I'm immediately drawn in by
this guy. Uh and and he has a wonderful funny

(01:31:51):
way of presenting stuff. And uh, there were things that
he would say like, Okay, so I need I need
a song for this, uh, this couple. And they're there.
It's a it's a kind of a a strange pairing
now and they're gonna be a couple though soon and uh,

(01:32:15):
I'm gonna play a song that's sort of like the
vibe by one, and he plays Monday Monday. Well, all
I took from Monday Monday was the tempo. But but
it was an obvious Oh yeah, I can see how
this kind of a mood would be good. Uh. Other things,

(01:32:36):
like he'd say, Okay, now I need a song for
Amy the girl. And she's the good girl. But you know, John,
she's not quite as attractive as my bad girl. So
I need a song to kind of kind of inflate

(01:32:58):
her a little bit, make her more important. So I
write a tune called Amy's Theme. And uh, as soon
as he hears that, he goes, oh yeah, and you know,
I'm gonna do a thing here. Uh. So you know,
when the guy is wandering around New York City by himself,

(01:33:26):
Now we've heard Amy's Theme with Amy in the picture,
but now I'm gonna use that theme with her out
of the picture. It's gonna be just him, and you
know what the audience is gonna be thinking. And all
of us gotta go, no, we don't know. He says,

(01:33:48):
they're gonna be saying he's thinking about that girl, And
I go, wow, you know this is, you know, writing
for movies, and I did it by accident. So it
was that was the experience. It was really informative. I
learned so much and just disappointed he never called again.

(01:34:12):
What do you think where the Godfather came out? I mean,
come on, I can write you in Italian. No, now
he's got his dad. The dad kills it. Yeah, you're
not going to improve on on Mr Couple, I'm afraid. Okay,
of course you Then you get huge exposure a year
after it happens in August sixty nine, is Woodstock gets

(01:34:35):
a lot of press, not that it's focused on you.
Then there's the triple album set, and then there's the
movie becomes a phenomenon. One other thing we know is
a lot of the stuff on the original three record
set was it actually recorded it Woodstock? So why did
you go to Woodstock? What was up with the tidy?

(01:34:58):
Tell us your experience and then the aftermath of having
all that visibility. Okay, so by this time, um, I
have divorced my first wife and moved out to California
in a kind of I don't know what I'm doing
kind of a way, and and who but Paul Rothchild

(01:35:20):
says man, you've got to be out here. Look all
of your brothers, they've all moved from Greenwich Village and
they're all out here. And this whole sensitive singer songwriter
thing you can dive right in here, So come on out.
You know that. That was kind of the way it began.

(01:35:41):
I moved to California. But while I'm out there, I
stay at the home of a guy named Cyrus Farrier
who was in the Modern Folk Quartet. And one of
the things I learned there from a woman named Annie
Thomas is tied dyeing. U Uh. You know. It starts

(01:36:03):
with underwear and socks and things. But after a while,
I go, I'm gonna actually buy a white leave jacket
and actually have it be purposed to be a jacket
that has all these colors on it. So, uh, you know,
between uh, tying and sewing and various things, I get

(01:36:26):
this thing. And it takes it takes weeks because I'm
I'm dipping into these various buckets and the buckets have
to be hot, so there's a time limit. Uh, and
so all of this is part of the process. Okay,
But then I get the jacket and again Rothschild is saying,

(01:36:47):
you know, I can't do this, but this would stock
festival thing. It's it's sounding like it could really be
something cool. So maybe you know, if you can take
get there, you ought to try to make it well.
As it turned out, I was on the East Coast
in that general time, and so I made my way

(01:37:10):
to the Albany Airport. I'm and I'm standing in the
Albany Airport looking out the picture window another era of airports,
and I see a guy loading a helicopter and I
look closely and it's Walter Gundhi, the original The Love

(01:37:32):
and Spoonfuls First road e And so between gesturing and
so on, I get his attention. He points to a
staircase that I can come down on the tar Mac with.
So I do that. I go down on the tar Mac.
He says, you're trying to get to Woodsuck. I go yeah.
He goes to get in the helicopter. It's the only

(01:37:53):
way you're gonna get there. I'm roadying for the Incredible
String Band. So uh, that's where I'm going one okay,
So that's how that's how the trip began. And me
and a helicopter. I see that same view over the
site that is so famous in the movie where there's

(01:38:18):
there's no ground. You just see sleeping bags and tents
and and Volkswagen busses and so on. So I pretty
much I just showed up and U there were things
that were that were going on that made it easier.

(01:38:39):
One of them was that there was a yellow Volkswagen
bus tent right in front of the stage. Well, as
it turns out, I had been living in a yellow
Volkswagen bus tent in Los Angeles because that was what
was available to me at that at my friend's house.

(01:38:59):
Remember me, there's very little security or anything. You can
go where you want to go. So I've I circled
the entire site with with David Brown, wonderful bass player
for the Santana and uh. By the next day, I'm
on stage uh fairly frequently. And at a certain point

(01:39:25):
it begins to rain and I'm standing there with the
promoters and and Chipmunk and we're sort of talking and
Michael says, uh, you know, uh, what we need is
the guy to hold them for long enough for us

(01:39:48):
to sweep the stage because we can't put electric instruments,
so we can't put any electric band on Uh, so
we gotta have a guy who can hold um, you know,
maybe with some good songs. And I'm I'm staring out
at the audience at this moment and I'm shaking my head. Yeah,
that's that's that's free. That's what we need. And uh

(01:40:12):
then I realized that they're looking at me, and I say, fellas,
I didn't bring I may have a thumb pick, I
didn't bring any instruments. I didn't I'm not prepared to play.
And they say, well, you actually have a couple of
minutes to go find a guitar. And so I end

(01:40:33):
up down in the sort of underground of that hastily
assembled stage and who's down there relaxing but Timmy Harden,
who had been a frequent uh you know. I played
with Timmy a lot in in Greenwich Village. And so
I said, tim could I borrow your harm any sovereign?

(01:40:56):
And he says sure man, and I I'm back up
on age. I'm tuning as I run up the stairs,
and uh. From there, I walk on stage and dan
it was pretty remarkable experience for a guy who played

(01:41:17):
mostly to audiences of maybe three hundred, you know, the
spoonful you gotta remember, this wasn't the scale of rock
and roll that everybody thinks of when they think of,
you know, the sixties and rock and roll. Yeah, it
really was a smaller scale operation. So when you suddenly

(01:41:39):
have that many people in front of you, it is
it is startling. But the thing that I rarely get
around to Robert and I'll tell you is that everybody
that played there had had success in rooms with forty
people in the audience, and that's where you learn how

(01:42:01):
to do what you do. And really Woodstock was a
very intimate half a million people. I can't quite describe
how I I never saw it happen again, but oh
my god, they were quiet. I mean, who knows how
to quiet half a million people? So it was as

(01:42:24):
much of of a remarkable experience for me as as
for everybody else that got the opportunity to play. Okay,
you play, Yeah, When when you're done, what kind of
high do you have? Pretty pretty strong. I think it'd
be several days before I can get my head through

(01:42:46):
the door. Uh. That was a remarkable feeling, no no
doubt about it. Yeah, how do you end up on
the record in the movie, Well, that was just because
they were wording and filming, so they had me, and uh,
I I wasn't going to turn it down. Uh. I

(01:43:09):
felt like, okay, I went up once. I forgot a verse,
but it wasn't terrible, and uh the audience seemed to
like it. I guess they be okay. Well, I had
no idea really the scale of acceptance and what that
movie became. Um. And one of the things, one of

(01:43:31):
the outgrowths of that was that for another three years
I rarely played inside. One thing, and the other thing
was that I played every one of those lonely ass
wanna be Woodstock. Uh we we charge money kind of shows.

(01:43:54):
Everybody had the same idea, only this time we have
an actual ticket booth and they go by the ticket booth.
And you know, so I did. I played every one
of them. That's where I got to know Joe uh
Cocker and a number of folks who were, you know,
pretty pretty much regulars. Uh. As a result of that movie,

(01:44:19):
you became known as the tide guy. I'm happy. Were
you happy with that? For a while? I was happy?
But I actually can date it from a television show
I was watching where Cheech and Chong are the guests
and they come out and they sit down and and

(01:44:43):
Cheech is sitting closest, and he's got a tie dyed
shirt on. And uh, the the uh announcer says, well, though,
that's just wonderfully has a fake name, and and tell me,
uh so, uh did you tie dye that yourself? And
he says no, I threw up. And that was when

(01:45:07):
I knew. Oops, it's the end of the tie dye era.
Now it's funny. And it wasn't long after that that
I started wearing black clothes for a couple of years
just to shake it off. Okay, you have a new
album where a lot of your classic Love and Spoonful

(01:45:30):
songs are re cut. It's an interesting project because it's
with Arlen Roth, the guitarist. A few of the songs
were instrumentals. Tell us how this came together, Well, it
came about completely as uh Arland's idea. Originally. Uh. He
and I had known each other chiefs me. We probably

(01:45:53):
go back thirty five years. Uh. And you know, we
would cross paths frequently because both of us were accompanists
before we were you know, the guy under the spotlight
or whatever, and so so we we had been friends
a long time, and also we would cross paths. Woodstock

(01:46:14):
has frequent uh, small events that are usually benefits or something,
and and it's a kind of a clotch where everybody
gets together in place. And I'd end up playing with
Arland fairly frequently. And so UH came a day when
I had been listening to Arland's c ds that he

(01:46:37):
had cut things like acoustic rolling Stones and uh, instrumental
Simon and Garfuncle. Of course, he's completely savvy because he
played with both guys together and separately, so he has
the background. And he says, so, you ever made one

(01:47:01):
of these kind of records, And I said no, I
I was always afraid to touch any of the material. Uh,
and he said, well, you know, we'd have half of
the arrangements licked. Was how we put it, so Uh

(01:47:24):
that just sort of started it off, mostly in living rooms,
and uh we began playing the material. And one of
the remarkable parts of it was that his knowledge of
Zalmayanovski I really hadn't I really hadn't taken it in,

(01:47:44):
but it provided this wonderful framework, and we just started
doing instrumental versions of tunes. Uh. And in some cases
they made it in some cases we'd say, now we
can't touch the original, and in some cases, uh, it

(01:48:05):
would become an instrumental that then we'd add vocals to
and go, hey, it's better with the vocals. Let's let's
leave it that way. And suddenly we had the fourteen
or fifteen tunes that it took. Now, part of our
goal was not to go nuts and put a whole

(01:48:27):
bunch of nonsense on it, because we had been getting
this very good vibe of the two of us playing together.
Then we go to our separate studios and maybe add
one other guy and and that would be the arrangement. Uh.

(01:48:49):
So with that as a framework, UM, we got pretty
close to the end. And I had a couple of
extra little things in my pocket. One of them was
that I could call Maria Muldoor to do a uh,
to do a stories we could tell together. And uh,

(01:49:16):
A fairly remarkable thing that had happened, uh starting about
five years before we started this project, which was that
I got a call, you know, I got an email
from a guy who wanted to uh play a little
what would we call it? A film of two young
women doing daydream one guitar, one ukulele, it was beautiful

(01:49:43):
I and I wrote back and I said, this is
sibling harmony. You can't imitate this, and and I really
went nuts on this email. The next email comes back
from the Mona Lisa twins, who that's who it is,
and the twin are saying, oh, we're so happy and

(01:50:03):
could you maybe uh be on our album? And I said,
of course they're there. Uh uh they're they're just uh
remarkable little Austrian people and played and sang and I

(01:50:24):
ended up for in two different occasions playing harmonica on
their records. And then they started a record where they
were doing their own tunes. This was a first for them,
and they called me in on that and this is
all by remote control. I'm working from Woodstock and they're

(01:50:48):
in uh they're in England. So another half a year
or so go by may call again and say, now
we have trouble figuring out how we're going to do
a video without you. Would you come to England and

(01:51:10):
do a video with us? So I end up on
a Icelandic flight to Manchester and we end up in
this three hundred year old bar doing a very cool
By the way, if you get a chance, go look
Mona Lisa Twins. Uh. Waiting for the Waiter is the

(01:51:31):
title of the tune. But they had me kind of
be a like a kind of a bad guy or something.
Uh and and it was lovely fun and uh so
then they were all ready to pay me, and I
said no, no, no, no, wait, I said, I don't
know what I'm doing next, but whatever it is, I'm
going to draft you guys to do background harmonies. And

(01:51:54):
so that was the agreement. And so so it is
that on several two I sent Arlen and my work
off to Manchester by now I think it was Wales.
They they're they're a moving group. They uh and uh
they uh and it was a wonderful uh experience. They

(01:52:20):
you know, I'm still in touch and uh, I'm sure
we'll do something else. Okay. It's fascinating to me that
both Maria and Jeff Muldaur on the album they've been divorced.
I know. I consider it one of my great great
victories as the because I'm I'm the younger brother here,

(01:52:42):
maybe not so much for Maria. Were about the same age,
but Jeff's kind of you know, he was in the
real jug band and there were things about him I
was blatantly imitating him on day dream, you know, trying
to get that honk that he has in his voice,
and and so uh and I think I called him first.

(01:53:07):
And then it's just because he was living in the
adjoining town at the time. And very shortly thereafter, Maria,
who makes periodic trips to Woodstock, was nearby, and I said, hey,
come on over to Chris Anderson's studio and let's get
this thing where you sing, uh, you know with me

(01:53:29):
on stories we could tell so uh so it did.
They weren't in the studio at the same moment, but
they can be. Uh that era of where they were
still angry at each other, I actually was. I lived
through that, and you know, it was made me very
sad for a couple of years. But they they have

(01:53:51):
managed to to get past that and and enjoy each
other's company and laugh at each other's voibles. And yeah,
it's so that it had become nice. Okay, a couple
of things wrapping up. How do you how do you
write songs? Do you wait for inspiration or do you

(01:54:12):
literally sit down like with a puzzle. How do you
do it? Well? The puzzle part usually comes after a
good idea because you know, very often it will be
something as simple as a title or a chord sequence, uh,
And maybe the chord sequence makes you feel a certain way,

(01:54:34):
and so you might get a line or two out
of that, or your circumstances that you're living in might
give you an idea. So it just that's that's the
way it it happens. Okay, a lot of these hits
were in the sixties, which were over fifty years. Did

(01:54:57):
you do this ever affect you financially or been okay?
For these fifty years, I've had periods where I was
struggling a little bit, uh, you know, by making jokes
about being wildly unpopular in the nineties, and so I
kind of went sideways, hooked up with a bunch of
guys and made a jug band and sort of turned

(01:55:21):
my fortunes around because I wasn't making money, but I
was having so much fun playing with Jimmy Vivino and
James Wormworth and Fritz Richmond and oh Man, Paul Rochelle
and Annie Rains. I got to really play with some
remarkable folks, and in fact, this very jug band, unfortunately,

(01:55:43):
except for Fritz, who isn't with us, is going to
reunite in uh month or two and UH have a
little a little play at the Bearsville Theater. Wow, that's
very cool. Now you're an upbeat guy, I'm talking to you.
But you've lived a long on time. Have you always
been an upbeat guy? Or you're prone to depression? What's

(01:56:04):
your mood like? Um? I I think, uh, I probably
am a pretty upbeat guy, but I can get taken down.
You know, there are times that that in my life
that have been really depressing. Where you know, Rolling Stone

(01:56:24):
and the whole of the whole world of of reporters
had a kind of a miss fire on what had
happened with zol and Stephen and yeah, okay, so now
they were finks, but everybody piled on two that to

(01:56:45):
that uh, and it was virtue signaling. Half of these
reporters were so anxious to alive themselves with the pot
smokers and not the guys who busted the guy. But
what they know, what he reported was the amount of
effort that the band and the whole team put into

(01:57:08):
getting this guy freed. And I won't go into it
too elaborately, but unfortunately the guy wanted to have his
own lawyer who wanted to make pot legal in nineteen sixties,
six or whenever it was. And uh so, uh he
he Actually I think he served some time and it

(01:57:28):
was gruesome. And uh this is a selfish me. But
I didn't want to be associated with this. I was
not in I wasn't even in the town. Understand, this
happened in San Francisco. I was in Los Los Angeles.

(01:57:49):
So if you want to look for a depressing era
for me, that was it because there was no there
was no explaining it just it looked bad, no matter
what attempt you made to explain. And it didn't help
that there was all of this what I described in
modern times as virtue signaling. So many reporters were so

(01:58:13):
anxious to vilify us and make sure that everybody knew
that they, the reporter, were the cool guys. So that
was painful. Okay, are you a social guy? You're living
in Woodstock, relatively small town. I know when I've lived
in small towns tend to know more people than the city.
Do you connect with people from your generation, the music,

(01:58:36):
other famous musicians, what's your life like? Well, I am
very lucky in that regard because there are wonderful venues
and wonderful musicians in my town, and I do socialize
with them when possible. Now we have to kind of
x out a year and a half here because nobody
was allowed to do anything. But no, uh, we were managing.

(01:59:03):
I was wearing a mask and going over to Larry
Campbell's house and he had COVID and I was bringing
him chicken soup. There were there were funny things happening.
Me and Happy Troum playing at twenty five ft away
because we just said, I can't stand it not playing

(01:59:23):
with anybody, and we did get together and just have
a fun little little plate. Uh. Okay. You know, a
lot of years have gone by, You're at an elder
age and a lot of this has been written. Are
you comfortable with what's happened? What would you like? Were
you wish you had another chance? You don't get a

(01:59:45):
chance to do over in life. But you know, looking
back at this age, how do you feel about all
of it? I was a very lucky guy, and I
had a lot of fun, and there was involved in
that fun a certain amount of tears and a certain

(02:00:05):
amount of pain, but it was all part of the package.
And you couldn't extract one from the other. Okay. And
in the time you have left, which could be a
minute or could be twenty years, for thirty years, anything
that you still want to do, want to accomplish, you know.
I just still enjoyed the same stuff I always did,

(02:00:28):
which is playing with other musicians, learning material that I
didn't know, Uh, finding out details of jug band tunes.
I've played for fifty years and suddenly I'm finding out,
oh that's that was a box factory outside of Memphis

(02:00:50):
they're talking about, or you know, things like that, little
details that that's what's fun. Okay. And you play the
guitar every day, Uh No, I don't think I do
play every day. I end up uh maybe every third day. Uh.
You know, I've it's kind of I I get favorite

(02:01:11):
guitars and so then I'm kind of concentrating on that
instrument a little bit more so, you know, it's it's ongoing.
But I am I'm not a player unless there's another
player or an audience. I'm not a guy who played
or you know, my grandchildren. Fine, you know, I'll play

(02:01:34):
all day. Uh, but it it it does need to
be something I think by myself I'm I'm more or
less maybe I'll get some crazy idea and and see
if I can develop it a little bit. So all
day you read, you watch TV, you're in front of

(02:01:55):
the computer. What's your average day looking like? Well, you know,
a dog walking saves me from just sitting in front
of a computer all day, and that that's a big thing.
But also, you know, I have I have nearby friends
like Happy Troum and Cindy cash Dollar and uh several Luthier's,

(02:02:16):
Harvey Citron and Joe Vayette who are really important friends
to me and I really enjoy, you know, an occasional
meal where we go out and and take life in
hand and go to a restaurant. Uh, you know, it's
it's pretty pretty normal stuff. Yeah, any significant other, any romance,

(02:02:42):
I have, the same romance I had in and Catherine
Sebastian has been a remarkable creature and uh and still
a hottie. So well, what are you gonna do? Hey, listen,
it's all good, John, This is fantastic. You know, I
think we got some of the history that people don't know.

(02:03:04):
We still would need to delve more into your success
in the sixties and what you've been doing for from
the seventies until this new album. But I think we've
come to the end of the feeling we've known. I
think there's only so much time. So I want to
thank you so much for doing this. This is a
thrill for me because you know, it's funny talking to
you and you're saying, oh, you know we were doing it.

(02:03:27):
You know, we were living in Greenwich Village. Everybody knew
each other. The gigs weren't that big. I don't think
you have an idea how iconic these songs are. Like
maybe some are in the city because it's constantly used,
and they are like you talked about the Spoonful. You
talk about doing things unique. Okay, No, they did not
seem repetitious. And I cannot sit here and say, oh,

(02:03:50):
this is like the Spoonful. It's its own vertical and
therefore it stands alone. It's not like, oh, it's part
of the British invasion whatever. And you know therefore I
was dying to talk to I mean, this stuff is iconic, Robert.
I love it when you say it. Can I tell you? Okay?
In any event, until next time, this is Bob left

(02:04:13):
Sex