Vince Gill

From Oklahoma to Nashville to the Eagles!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bop Left Sets podcast.
My guest today is Vince Guilt, was putting out monthly
EPs to celebrate his fifty years in the music business. Vince,
how good a golfer are you?

Speaker 2 (00:26):
Well? I might have tried to play tour golf if
I hadn't been a decent guitar player. But I was
a little bit better guitar player than I was a putter,
so I made the right decision.

Speaker 1 (00:36):
Well, how much do you play now? I play all
the time.

Speaker 2 (00:39):
I've played my whole life since I was a little kid,
and played all through school and on the school teams
and stuff. And I just had so much more interest,
I think, in music than I ever did in sports
or any of that stuff. So I chose a path
of being a hillbilly singer.

Speaker 1 (00:55):
Okay, but how did you get into golf to begin with?

Speaker 2 (00:59):
I guess I watched my old man take off on
the weekends, you know, and go play play weekend golf
with his buddies, and he couldn't break a hundred with
a gun to his head. And he took me out
when I was probably first, second, third grade, and we
played nine holes in a little golf course in some
for an area of Oklahoma where the greens weren't even

(01:21):
made out of green of grass, they were made out
of cottonseed holes. And it was it was pasture pool
at its finest. And it stuck. And I've played my
whole life, okay, but so literally, how much do you
play now? I'll play a couple of times a week,
you know, usually last year was a lean year.

Speaker 1 (01:39):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (01:39):
You belonged to a club, so you can get out
several that's by old guitars and club and country club memberships.
That's my advice.

Speaker 1 (01:49):
How do you decide which course to play, which one
I like, which one is not going to be the
most crowded, you know, generally is where you turn up?
And have you done any golf tourism like going to
Scotland to play.

Speaker 2 (02:00):
I've never played any golf over there, and I'm dying too.
Every time I went over to Europe, it was always
for music and it kind of took it, took center stage,
and all my spare time would be doing interviews or
getting wherever you were going, and I didn't have time
to play. But I'm gonna go over there someday on
a just a golf trip with somebody's.

Speaker 1 (02:20):
And you lived through the revolution from blades to perimeter,
waiting on the all of this.

Speaker 2 (02:27):
Yeah, you can go in my garage and track back
the last sixty five years of golf technology, and it's
you know, it's amazing what they can do now. The
old guys, you say, you have to dig it out
of the dirt, you just have to figure it out
by beating balls and stuff. But now, with the technology,
then they can help you a whole lot more than
they ever could when we were young.

Speaker 1 (02:49):
Now, when he passed, it came out that you were
friends with Arnold Palmer. How do you become friends with
Arnold Palmer?

Speaker 2 (02:55):
I don't know, It's just my good fortune. You know,
I played with him times. One of my favorite stories
is I was playing golf with Arnold in a pro
am and we played several times together before. And you know,
when you're playing with somebody like that, it's it's pretty
it's pretty nerve wracking. But anyway, we had played all

(03:15):
day long, and neither one of us had said one
word about what we were shooting. You know, we just
played and but I knew that he was four under par,
and I think he knew that I was four under
par playing the last hole, and we're playing this last hole.

Speaker 1 (03:30):
It's part for it.

Speaker 2 (03:31):
I hit my ball up there about fifteen twenty feet
from the hole, and he hit his up there about
twelve fifteen feet and I hit my putt and missed.
He looked at me and marked his ball, knocked his
end and went, I got you. I said, okay, my
favorite beating I ever took.

Speaker 1 (03:46):
Okay. What most people don't know is the pros play
a totally different game. The way they worked the ball,
et cetera. What can you tell us about that?

Speaker 2 (03:55):
Well, you know, they a lot of those A lot
of those guys told me that they thought I had
enough talent to play professionally if I'd have applied to
golf what I applied to music.

Speaker 1 (04:06):
But I didn't.

Speaker 2 (04:07):
I didn't apply to golf what I did to music.
And so that was always a pretty neat thing to
have happen, is to play with one of your heroes
and play well. I got to play with Jack Nicholas
one time, and it was the same kind of thing.
We got to the last hole and he beat me
by a couple of shots. But just to get to
hang with him and occasionally get one of them. Is

(04:29):
the best feeling in the world.

Speaker 1 (04:32):
So who else in the music world is a scratch
golfer a good golfer.

Speaker 2 (04:36):
God, there's plenty of guys that play well.

Speaker 1 (04:38):
You know.

Speaker 2 (04:38):
Glenn Campbell was a great golfer, you know, back in
the day. And Alice Cooper played a lot of golf.
And you know this, when when I found out his
real name was Vince and that he played golf, I
was a huge Alice Cooper fan, you know, And and
funny thing, you know, all these years later, not too
long ago, I got to play guitar on an Alice
Cooper record. That was thrill of a lifetime because I

(05:00):
played a lot of his songs in my garage bands
as a kid. And we have a nice friendship. And
it's amazing how many friends I have that are musical,
people that are musical, but because we both share the
love of golf, that's where I found myself. Meeting them
was more centered around a golf event or a tournament
or what have you.

Speaker 1 (05:20):
Well, at this point in time, are most of your
friends in the music world or do you have friends
you grew up with their friends from country club.

Speaker 2 (05:29):
Yeah, I kind of got a little bit of both.
You know, I'm a little bit of a chameleon in that.
You know, I have a gaggle of friends that play golf.
I had a gaggle of friends for a long time
that played basketball. I had a gaggle of friends at
all played guitar. I got guitar nerd buddies and we
go shopping try to find old guitars. And you know,
I never met a stranger, and pretty easy to know

(05:50):
and pretty easy to like, I think hopefully. And so
I've kind of gone through life just being open and
willing to just about anything or anybody.

Speaker 1 (06:00):
Well, are you like Jerry McGuire, where if you're sitting
home alone looking at the four walls, you got to
make contact, You got to get together with somebody. Or
are you more introspective if you're you're good when people
are around. But do you need to be around people?

Speaker 2 (06:15):
Not necessarily? You know, Amy, my wife, Amy and I
are both generally okay with being alone. You know, I'm
comfortable in my own skin, and so is she. And
we have to divide and conquer a lot of times,
and she'll go to her and I'll go to her
and we'll both travel and be gone. And it works great,
you know, because she's totally okay with with being the
only one in the room, and so am I.

Speaker 1 (06:37):
So what do you do when you're the only person
in the room.

Speaker 2 (06:40):
I'm a surfer, A channel surf, a channel surf. I'll
play the guitar. Now with these damn telephones, you know,
you'll sit there and scroll, and I'm finding a lot
of really neat music, you know, just by scrolling different things.
I found a kid not too long ago. I don't
know if you're familiar with this name, Lamont Landers.

Speaker 1 (07:02):
Have you heard of him? No? I haven't.

Speaker 2 (07:04):
And it's funny because I found him and he he's
a kind of a soul singer, you know, throw back
to an old soul singer. And he's just really redheaded,
white kid from Alabama and he sounds just like Al
Green when he sings. And I'm just kind of it
doesn't make sense, you know. You look at this dude
and then this voice comes out of him and he

(07:26):
can't believe that it's real, but it is. And I
tracked him down. I was such a fan. I asked
him to come and sing on one of my songs
on the next record that's coming out in May next
EP and he brought his mom with him and he said, well,
when I was little, my mom brought me to one
of your concerts, and you were one of the first
concerts I ever saw. So I made a new friend.

(07:48):
And I love that, you know. I love discovering young
people that are talented. And you know, when I was
the young kid, you know, I had so many examples
of my heroes and the people I looked up to
reaching out to me and being kind to me and
being uh supportive of me and inclusive of me, and
all those things made an impact, you know, And I

(08:09):
try to do it to the kids that are coming along.
If I see somebody I think's great, and I'm I'm
gonna be a big champion for him, route him on
and no, it feels like the only way to be.

Speaker 1 (08:20):
Do you remember exactly how you found about just.

Speaker 2 (08:25):
Traveling, I mean not traveling, but just traveling on the
on the phone, and and he'd like, he'd say, he'd
do something like you see him posts to go. Okay,
imagine if Sweet Home, Alabama was old soul and he
turned it and oh yeah, I've seen this yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
and they they did. He played uh he played the
Apollo Theater not long ago and just killed the crowd.

(08:46):
They went nuts for this kid, you know, And and
he comes out with his red hair and everybody's going
what and the hell is going on? And then he
started singing and everybody was all about it and standing
up and cheering him on. And I just think he's,
you know, really talented.

Speaker 1 (09:01):
So when you're on the phone, you know, there's many
different platforms. Do you go on Instagram, Wheels and TikTok?

Speaker 2 (09:08):
Yeah, I'm not a TikTok guy, but I'll get on
Instagram and Facebook. And it's hard now there's so many
things on there that are's such fabrication, you know, whether
it's me and I'm you know, I have stage four cancer,
I do this, blah blah, and you see all this stuff.

Speaker 1 (09:25):
It's just so so.

Speaker 2 (09:27):
Silly and and all that. But you kind of got
to wade through that, and you never know what you're
gonna find. What's going to be the next little thing
that pops up. And I know that when you stop
on something, then it starts giving you more and more
and more of that that same thing that you stopped
and and looked at. But it to me, it's kind
of it's a modern day television.

Speaker 1 (09:47):
You know.

Speaker 2 (09:48):
You get on there and you look around and you
find guitar players that you think are great, or you
find a singer you think is great, or songwriter you
think is great. And I've discovered quite a few people.
You know, it's kind of fun to kind of be
in the loop on some of these young people that
people are crazy about.

Speaker 1 (10:05):
What do you think about people I'm your contemporary. What
do you think about people our age who are so
social media averse, who hate these platforms.

Speaker 2 (10:16):
Well, here's the funny thing. I've never sent a text,
So I am not really you know, gen z or
whatever you want to call it, an hip on all
the on all this technology. I don't know how to
run it. I don't know how to get on it.
My buddy Matt here takes care of the studio. He
has to come solve all my problems when the phone
doesn't work and I can't fix any of it.

Speaker 1 (10:38):
But I don't care.

Speaker 2 (10:42):
You know, I'm not a I'm not the kind of
guy that projects what I think other people should should do.
You know, if you want to sit on your phone
all day and text and stay stay connected. And I'm
not going to post what I had for lunch. I'm
not gonna you know what I mean. And and so
I remember years ago I met a young girl at

(11:04):
at a restaurant and she said, you're Vince Gill, aren't you.
And I said yeah. She goes, you mind if we
get a picture? And I said, no problem. And we
took the picture and she said we have a mutual friend.
And I said, oh, who's that. She told me, oh, yeah,
I know who you're talking about. She goes, you can
text him that picture if you want. I said, I
don't text. And she said, well, I can show you how.
I said, well, it's not a matter of knowing how,
it's a matter of desire. I don't want to, you know.

(11:26):
So I people, all my friends know that if they
text me, I'm going to call them back, you know.
I like the I like that personal connection of a voice,
maybe more so than I do the written word. And
hard to kind of convey certain things in in a
text or written word. That if you're talking to somebody
and you hear the sense of humor, you hear whatever,

(11:47):
it's easier to to text whatever the hell they are saying.

Speaker 1 (11:50):
And so I'm.

Speaker 2 (11:51):
I'm not not all about it, but I don't you know,
I don't give a rip if somebody wants to live
their life on that phone.

Speaker 1 (11:57):
But you have kids, A lot of kids not only
won't talk on the phone, they won't let you leave
a voicemail, exactly right.

Speaker 2 (12:06):
And I remember I caught our kids one night texting
each other at the dinner table.

Speaker 1 (12:11):
I said, this is pretty weird.

Speaker 2 (12:13):
And they all know that if they want to talk
to me, they have to call me. No, I'm not
going to respond to a text instead a text.

Speaker 1 (12:20):
And what about the reverse? If you want to get
a hold of them, I call them and they'll pick up.
They either have to pick up or they don't have
to talk to me. It works works great either way. Okay,
so you're surfing on your phone and you find something
good used to be there was a threshold someone had
a deal with the record labeled someone should not. Now

(12:42):
they're all these acts, you know. Sometimes I'm listening, like
to these stations on serious There's one called XMU. It's
a college rock station, and I say, this is great,
and then I say, am I the only person who
ever heard this, it could be so you get exposed

(13:02):
to all these things. What is it that twriggers you
to reach out and try to help?

Speaker 2 (13:08):
Well, I think just if it connects to me. You know,
I've always been a responder of music. You know, I
love what music makes me feel. I really have always
been drawn to the melancholy side of music. I like
sad songs. I like great singers, I like great musicians.
You know, when I was young, I didn't really set

(13:29):
out to be an artist, you know, I set out
to be a guitar player, and I set out to
be one of those guys that got called to play
on people's records and be a session guy. And that's
what I did in those early years when I was
trying to figure it out and get to the next place,
whatever was in store for me. And so over my

(13:50):
life of these past fifty plus years, I've worked on
over a thousand artists records, as a background singer, as
a guitar player, as a producer, as a songwriter, in
whatever shape or form, you know. And I just was
always drawn to wanting to be in the band, just
wanting to be a part of it. I didn't have
to be the focal point. And with that, you know,

(14:10):
I just tried to become a good server of songs
of sorts, you know. In that what I wanted to
do when I came into a situation was to make
the record that you'd made. If I was going to
sing on it or play on it, I wanted to
make it better, you know. And I've always been kind
of pushed to be to make something great, not perfect.

(14:31):
You know, a lot of people sometimes if you're all
up in the weeds with minutia and all this stuff,
they think you're a perfectionist. And I'm not a perfectionist.
I'm a realist and I just want it to be great.
That's all I'm trying to accomplish.

Speaker 1 (14:44):
Okay, tell me more about liking melancholy songs. I don't know.
They stir more emotion up in me. You know.

Speaker 2 (14:53):
My father used to sing a song to me when
I was a little boy, and it always made me cry.
Every time he sang it didn't make me cry. It's
called Old Shep if you've never heard, it's an old
folk song. It's about a boy and his dog and
they grow up together. They're best friends. The dog saves
him from drowning dog saves him from all kinds of peril.
And at the end of the dog, at the end
of the song, the dog grows old and the guy

(15:16):
has to shoot his beloved animal. And it's the most
soul crushing song you've ever heard in your life. And
my dad would sing this to me when I was
a little boy, and I think probably more for meanness
than anything else. But we'd be having you know, we'd
be sitting down and playing and having jam sessions, and
I'm loving life. I'm playing with my dad and he's

(15:37):
you know, responsive to me and helping me learn a
little bit. And he's finally he'd say it's time for
you to go to bed. I said, man, can't we
play one more song? He said no, I told you,
Now do what I say. And I go to bed
and I said, come on, Toddy's just one more song,
and he starts singing. When I was a lad and
old ship pup, I'd run to my room as fast

(15:58):
as I could, you know, because I knew I was
gonna cry. And I don't know what it is, but
I think the emotion of music is what I respond
to most. And I'm not I'm not impressed. As much
as I am moved by music. That's what I'm going
to the music for is to be moved and have
it take me someplace.

Speaker 1 (16:18):
You know.

Speaker 2 (16:18):
I remember so many of the first records I ever got.
Last year, I think it was years year and a
half ago. I think it was when they had a
memorial for Jimmy Buffett out in LA and the Eagles
were going to back up Paul McCartney, you know, and
I was in the band, and so I was singing
the song for us to learn it at soundcheck and
it was let it Be. And it dawned on me

(16:41):
as I'm singing it, I said, this is the song
that was playing the first time I ever had a
slow dance with a girl.

Speaker 1 (16:48):
Wow, And it was so cool.

Speaker 2 (16:51):
And then we're getting ready to do the show and
we're doing soundcheck and Paul's not there yet.

Speaker 1 (16:56):
So I tell the crew.

Speaker 2 (16:57):
They said, go ahead and sing it, and I go, okay,
But if Paul comes, I don't want to be singing
his song if he shows up, and so lo and behold.
I told the crew, I said, tell me if he
shows up, and I look over and I'm in the
middle of singing let it be. And there he is
sitting there with his arms folded, you know, and I'm going, oh, no,
you know. And he comes over and he gives me
this big hug and he said, man, I believe you

(17:19):
sing that song better than I do. And I said, oh, no,
that's not true. We know that's not true, but thank you.
And I told him, I said, here's why this song
is so special. I said, that's the song that played
when I had my first slow dance with a girl.
And he winked and he goes, well, I hope it
worked out for you, and I said, no, I was
in seventh grade, but it was still a pretty great
moment in my life. And to look over there and

(17:40):
see him playing the piano and singing that song is like,
you couldn't you couldn't dream that up in a million
years when you're that kid trying to learn songs, trying
to figure out how to play a sea chord and
the G chord and all that stuff. And so I
am beyond blessed and beyond lucky and all those things.
You know.

Speaker 1 (17:59):
I look at it with.

Speaker 2 (18:02):
A complete kind of unbelievable response to it all, not
like I expected any of it. I don't know if
i'd have done it, if I'd have known how it
turned out, you know. I like just discovering what happened.
I like finding out who was on the other end
of a phone call. Remember years ago, I got a
phone call and this was at a period of time

(18:23):
where they were kind of they were kind of stopping
playing my records on current country radio, and I knew
I wasn't going to have hits anymore.

Speaker 1 (18:31):
So I'm kind of in this period.

Speaker 2 (18:34):
What I didn't know what was next in the phone
rang and it was another Englishman that was Eric Clapton.
He said, Vince, he said, I'm having it. He said,
this is Eric Clapton. I'm going, yeah, sure it is.
Who's yanking my chain? Who's branking me?

Speaker 1 (18:48):
You know? And he's laughed.

Speaker 2 (18:49):
He goes, no, it really is me. And he said
I'm calling because I'm doing a guitar festival in Dallas.
This has been twenty two years ago now something like that,
And he said I want you to come. He said,
I'm only inviting guitar players I like, And just hearing
those words from him was like this validation and affirmation

(19:10):
of a lifetime of trying to do it, you know,
And what was beautiful was he saw me That's what
I'd always intended to be, was just a musician. He
saw me as a serious musician and invited me and
I got to go to most all those crossroads guitar
festivals and see and play with all my heroes.

Speaker 1 (19:28):
It's unbelievable. Let's stay with the melanchol you mentioned Clapton
the second Queen album, Disraeli Gears second side opens with
tales of brave Ulysses. There's a certain darkness. It's like
I watch a lot of streaming television. You watch the
British shows. They just have a dark, melancholic feel. And

(19:49):
I don't know, maybe it's a cinematographer, but let me
try to slice and dices a little bit. Hey, A
lot of that when we were growing up was based
in alienation. To what degreed do you find yourself as
an alienated person?

Speaker 2 (20:08):
Probably not much, you know, I think you wind up
having your tribe. You know, you have your people that
tend to like the same things you do, like the
same music you do. And even going back to I mean,
I've five or six years ago I lost my oldest
and best friend, a guy named Benny Garcia, who we

(20:30):
met in the summer of sixth grade, and he was
the first musician friend I ever made. We played in
our first garage bands together and played our first school
dances together, and he went on this journey with me
throughout all my successful years and as a guitar tech.
He was a great musician, but he chose the path
of being a guitar tech for me. So I got

(20:51):
to go do all of this stuff with my oldest
friend by my side. It was the greatest gift I
could have ever gotten, you know, And I think we
were We were such great friends because we were both
drawn to so much of the same stuff. And so
I I feel like, you know, conversation, music, songs, all

(21:12):
those things. You find your folks that are drawn to
it too, and that's where you land.

Speaker 1 (21:26):
This is you know, the guy passed, And that's much
more important than the question I'm gonna asked, but I
got to ask it. Anyway, you hire your friend, how
do you decide what to pay them?

Speaker 2 (21:38):
Well, what everybody else got, you know, I was I
have a long history because I was a side man,
because I was in a band, because of all of
those things, I took care of my people. You know,
in my heyday this is unheard of. But in my
heyday of doing really well and playing arenas and selling
out places, I had to deal with all my guys.

(21:59):
I said, I'll have a bonus structure, a bonus system
in place that if I do better, you will too.
And it created loyalty, it created longevity. It just it
did a great thing for everybody. Everybody felt like, hey,
we're all in this together. If it goes better, I'm
going to do better. I was never and that's the

(22:20):
way I was treated. When I played with Rodney Rodney Crowell,
I played guitar for him and played guitar for Roseanne Cash,
and they took great care of the musicians. They were
respectful of them.

Speaker 1 (22:30):
And I think.

Speaker 2 (22:32):
Nashville has probably always had a hard time doing that
and that there wasn't that much money in it to
begin with, so everybody had to go maybe as bare
bones as they could. And oftentimes I would tell a musician,
I said, this is what I'm making, this is all
I have, but you're entitled to a fair portion of it.

(22:52):
And so it just it was the way I experienced
my career and my life as as working for somebody else.
And it's the way that I lived my life as
a session player. As a session singer, there was a
union amount of money that was paid to you if

(23:13):
you were a union hand, and so it just made sense,
you know, to treat people better than you.

Speaker 1 (23:19):
Maybe you should, Okay, going back a couple of minutes,
you talked about the period when the hits evaporated. How
did you metabolize that? How did you handle it emotionally? Well,
it was easy in that I knew it was coming.
You know.

Speaker 2 (23:37):
I tell every kid that comes to town and starts
hitting the lick and starts kind of getting fired up,
I always tell them, I said, now listen to me,
and listen good. I said, they quit playing Elvis Presley,
and they'll quit playing you just be ready for it.
And it's kind of been the truth. You know, nobody
survived it their whole career. There's been a period of
time where somebody caught fire and stayed on fire.

Speaker 1 (24:00):
For a pretty good while. And then it's the way
it should be. You know.

Speaker 2 (24:03):
It has to evolve and the next generation has to
take the mantle and go and do what they want
to do and be who they want to be and
write the songs they want to sing, and play like
they want to play, and it's the way it should be.
So it was never it was never much of an issue.
And the other thing that was good was I had
plenty of years of struggling trying to be an artist.

(24:24):
You know, in the early eighties, I got a record
deal and then tell people, so I couldn't really prove
it because nobody had those records. But I stayed with
it and hung in there, and then finally I started
having some hits. So I had just about as many
years of I wouldn't say failing, but struggling. That prepared
me for the years of success. I would watch people

(24:47):
react to their success and oftentimes go, I don't ever
want to be like that. I don't ever want to
respond like that. I don't ever want to say something
like that. And so with that, I just kind of
took the good with the bad and and let my
ears lead me more than anything else. And I always
felt like my ears have never lied to me. And
if I go back and listen to those early records,

(25:09):
I can go, yeah, I can see why they weren't successful.
They weren't that great, and be honest enough with myself,
be honest enough to know I'm probably writing better songs
today than I did in my heyday when I was
having a lot of success, you know. And it's just
all in there. It all kind of you know, forms
my opinion and forms my thought process into how I

(25:30):
want to react.

Speaker 1 (25:30):
You know.

Speaker 2 (25:31):
It's it's not easy to to react to struggling. It's
easy to react to success.

Speaker 1 (25:39):
That's not hard.

Speaker 2 (25:40):
But I learned a whole lot more about struggling than
I did by succeeding.

Speaker 1 (25:45):
Are you as even tempered as you come across or
do you get angry and we just don't see it.

Speaker 2 (25:52):
I'm a hot head on the golf course, you know,
And that was it was interesting. That's the reputation I've
I've earned and deserve, you know, as a club breaker
and a club thrower and really oh yeah, yeller and
screamer and all that stuff. And it's my whole life
was kind of that way. And I think it's all

(26:12):
kind of comes from an insecurity kind of a place
in that you want to show people you're better than
what you just did, so insecurely you reach out and
strike out and cost yourself beat the club into the
ground whatever you do. And I was the same musically.
If I wasn't doing it to a level that I wanted,
I would get frustrated. So I do have a great temper.

(26:35):
It's legendary. And I was playing golf with this guy
one time who's a sports psychologist for a lot of
tour players, and we're playing and we played a few holes,
and so finally I looked at him and said, okay, Doc,
I said, shoot me straight. What do you think? He
started laughing. He goes, oh, yeah, you got a good reputation.

Speaker 1 (26:53):
He goes.

Speaker 2 (26:54):
All your buddies, all your tour player buddies, they all
give you down the road about about getting mad and stuff.
He said, But let me tell you. I'm going to
tell you some stuff that you've probably never heard in
your life before.

Speaker 1 (27:05):
He said.

Speaker 2 (27:05):
First of all, all those guys are way worse than
you've ever been with getting mad and losing it and
all that said, they have learned to control it because
that's their job, that's their workplace, and it's detrimental to
them if they don't, you know, act accordingly, he said,
But you, he said, you're different. He said, first of all,
the reason you're successfulcessful because you have that burn in

(27:27):
you to be your best and do your best and
have a expectation that it's at a very high level,
he said.

Speaker 1 (27:33):
He said, then, think about what you do for a living.
He said.

Speaker 2 (27:36):
You stand up in front of people, you play, you sing,
and all you ever receive is adelation. He said, that's
so abnormal. There's nothing more abnormal than that.

Speaker 1 (27:45):
He said.

Speaker 2 (27:45):
So I'm going to tell you, and probably only you,
that I think is really healthy for you to beat
yourself up. He said, if you need to go off
in the woods, break a club and call yourself dirty names,
go ahead and do it. So it's going to keep
you level and amy. When we first met, she kind
of had the same comment to me, which was kind
of life changing. I don't get I don't get too

(28:07):
uptight anymore. I'm sixty nine and I don't, you know,
kind of lost the ability to care that much about
what I shoot.

Speaker 1 (28:15):
And uh.

Speaker 2 (28:16):
We were playing one day and we weren't married yet,
and I hit a shot and I was unhappy and
I broke my three wood when I stuck it in
the bag. She turned around and was shocked, and I said, man,
I'm sorry. I get a little lamped up at this game.
She goes, Oh, that doesn't surprise me. I said, what
do you mean? She goes, well, she said, you know
I'm crazy about you? And I go, yeah, vice versa,

(28:37):
And she said, who laughs harder at chokes than you do?
That's when stuff's funny. Who laughs harder at you? I said, nobody?
I said, who loses it in front of the whole world?
You're the town crier. I see you fall apart all
the time, giving a speech or singing a song. She said,
And now you've hit a golf shot and you're mad.
She said, you can't control any of your emotions. How

(28:59):
would you ever expect to be able to just control one?
I went, nobody's ever said that to me. It was
so beautiful and so profound, and it's kind of helped
me let go of a lot of that. But yeah,
I'm pretty easy going, you know. And then you know,
if you don't have a temper, you're not probably ever
going to accomplish much if you don't get a little

(29:20):
worked up.

Speaker 1 (29:21):
Well, Amy has your number. But does that temper ever
come out in everyday life? Not too much.

Speaker 2 (29:30):
We have the we have the sweetest relationship and it
never never gets never gets weird. You know, it never
gets you know, when we first got together, you know,
we got getting ready to get into it about something,
and I just said, hey, I said, before you say something,
I said, just let's just take a minute and be still.
She goes, what do you mean. I said, well, I

(29:50):
know you're mad at me and I deserve it. Blah
blah blah. You're going to say something that's going to
trigger me, and then I'm going to say something. And
I said, and you're not going to like what I'm
going to say back. And and I said, why don't
we just let a moment pass and we'll talk about
this in a little bit. I've done all the about
all the yelling and screaming I want to do in
a relationship. And so it's kind of a pattern we

(30:12):
got going, and we we don't square off much. We
got a pretty pretty peaceful stretch. Have you ever been
to therapy? No, even the therapist. We have a family
therapist and all of our kids go to and and uh,
she pulled me aside and she goes, I said, what
about me? And she goes, You're fine, You're kind of

(30:32):
a She says, you're kind of a you're the solid
foundation for this whole bunch. She said, I see that
in you, and she said.

Speaker 1 (30:39):
You're you're good.

Speaker 2 (30:40):
And I told her, I said, look, I don't I
don't have any angst about the past. I don't want
to try to fix my relationship with my father. I
don't want to try to fix this. And that, I said.
I'm just I'm kind of okay with being exactly who
I am and uh, prey straight ahead. And so she
told me I was good.

Speaker 1 (30:58):
Okay, let's go back to the anger. You said, you
said two things. Want to focus on this. You said,
I want to prove myself. What do we know? First,
the average person has no idea how hard it is
to make it. Talent is in most fifty percent, it's
unbelievably hard. So when you get your chance, you want

(31:21):
to deliver. Or you also might say, by luck, I'm
here and I want to prove myself. How much of
that is involved?

Speaker 2 (31:32):
Well, I think every time I sing a song, every
time I play a song, I've never phoned it in.
I've never nonchalantly just gone through the motions. I want
to play and sing. Every time I play and sing.
The best I've ever done it, you know, And that's
I think because of the gift I've been given, that's
what it deserves. And so you know, I'll sit here

(31:57):
in the studio and play something good. I said, what
could be better? I think it could be better. If
I played two less notes, it might speak more. It
might say more. And so away I go, you know,
and I I I'm sure that there's a part of
this that's an unrealistic expectation. But it has to get

(32:19):
it has to get my full attention.

Speaker 1 (32:21):
I have to.

Speaker 2 (32:22):
I have to speak up on every single thing, because
I find music a great place for democracy. In the
studio with five, six, seven guys, you're all in there
with the common goal of making a song great. You
don't care who gets all the attention. You don't get here,
who gets the to be the loudest, who gets to

(32:42):
be noticed the most? And if you'll just serve the song,
you'll serve each other and listen to each other and
let everybody shine. That to me is what democracy was
intended to mean. And I get to live that most
of my life in this environment, and it's powerful, you know,
because everybody's in it for the same reason. Serve that song,

(33:06):
make the song the best it can be, Let the
song shine, not yourself. And it's really it's a great
experience together with people that.

Speaker 1 (33:15):
Are like minded and.

Speaker 2 (33:17):
Listen to each other and play well together. And it's
so much fun to watch something turn up, to see
something be born, you know, and then have a life
that gets to live forever.

Speaker 1 (33:29):
Okay, you were talking about your goal was not perfection. Okay,
you know music is not digital zeros in ones. It's
organic or at least the kind of music we're talking about. Ay,
do you know when it's magic? And is that what
you're searching for? Let me just go a little bit deeper.

(33:49):
You're playing with professionals in Nashville. They can nail it. Okay,
you can say this is your song, But are you
searching for that moment when the hair starts to go
up on your arms? Well?

Speaker 2 (34:00):
Yeah, And the great thing is is everybody can feel it,
and everybody knows it, and everybody knows when it's finally
got the the groove, the pocket, the field, everything.

Speaker 1 (34:13):
That that stirs up in emotion.

Speaker 2 (34:15):
You know, a lot of things that are just flat
lined perfect are not emotional, you know, And so that's
I think what everybody's trying to go trying to do
is I want to play something. It inspires the piano
play to play the next thing, And what the piano
player plays inspires the other guitar player to play the
next thing. And that's what you're kind of always going for.

(34:40):
You know, don't ever take me out of the dance.
Don't ever take my attention away from a great singer
singing a great song.

Speaker 1 (34:47):
You know.

Speaker 2 (34:47):
That's the point of it all is to serve that
that that that process. And when somebody I heard somebody say,
don't whatever you do, let the main thing be the
main thing, stay out of the way.

Speaker 1 (35:00):
Okay. So let's assume you're recording in the studio and
you have to your guitar player. You have to do
with solo? Do you always make it up on the
spot or do you think about it in advance.

Speaker 2 (35:14):
It's I would say, it's a combination of a lot
of things. When I'm playing, what in my head is
going on is how would I sing this? So I'm
letting one thing that I can do inform another thing
that I can do. So when I'm trying to play
a solo, I go, okay, how would I phrase this?

(35:35):
How would I sing this? And then when I'm singing,
I asked myself, Okay, how would I play this? And
each one informs the other. And once again, you're trying
to say the most with the least. So if I
play something and I like it, and I go, well,
there's three too many notes in there. What if I
pull those out and make those make that space, then

(35:57):
all of a sudden leave room for something else. There's
something someone else did. That's what I'm always doing guitar
solos at the end of the process. So everybody's played
all their parts and played fills and played pocket things
and whatnot, and I dance around it, you know, and
I'm trying to listen and let all those other things

(36:17):
still do what they were intended to do. And we
said it before, but if you'll, you know, stay out
of the way and let everybody shine, then then it's
a home run.

Speaker 1 (36:29):
Okay. You talked about the process, the democracy, etc. You know,
Back in the old Mono days, everybody played it once. Certainly,
by time we're hitting the seventy sixteen to twenty four tracks,
you're building it track by track. A how do you
do it? And B? When you build track by track,

(36:50):
how do you maintain the organic effect?

Speaker 2 (36:53):
Well, I mean the technology is obviously evolved. You know,
they've been making country records now for one hundred years
and they don't make them today like they used to.
They don't do anything like they used to do. And
I think technology is a fantastic thing if you use
it for the right reason. You know, it's all a
matter of that. And so once again, technology and whether

(37:18):
it's in tune or you know, everybody complains about auto tuning,
and I said, you're not making the singer any more interesting.
You're just making the singer more in tune. And that's
all you're doing. The singer's voice is either interesting or
it isn't. To me, when I hear music, they may
be able to sing the phone book, but if they
don't have a great song to sing, I'm not interested

(37:38):
in hearing the phone book be sung. You know, I'm
interested in hearing a story. I'm interested in hearing a
song and see where it goes, where it starts, where
it ends, and all those things are a big part
of it. But you know, nowadays, when we're in here
work and you can't make a mistake, which is kind
of kind of nice. You know, you go back and

(38:01):
in the old days you punch it in on the track,
and you punch it at the wrong time. You could
ruin a take, you could ruin a whole record. And
now you just undo and you try again, and you
try again, and and like I said, you're just trying
to They say about that music that it's like art
at some point, it's never it's never finished, it's only abandoned.

Speaker 1 (38:22):
And I like that.

Speaker 2 (38:23):
I like that thought, you know, I like I like
hearing something and go that may be about as good
as I can do, and that speaks to me, maybe
I could do it a little bit better, do this,
do that. But you know, part of the part of
the joy is the minutia. And I may be the
only one that notices that I took one note out,
or that I took one word out, or that I

(38:45):
sing this note longer than maybe I would have or whatever.
If I'm the only one that notices, I still have
to do it, because then it's a disservice to myself.
And so I just do the things that way that
I do them, and and sometimes I drive people nuts.
I mean, I'm not that I'm not a control freak,

(39:06):
you know. I'm always up for a better idea, better part,
better better everything, you know, and let let everybody have
the opportunity to bring their gifts. When I I first
worked with Don Henley, my boss, uh, he asked me
to come sing on Cass County and I said, okay.
So I knew the minutia details that I was in
for as I knew all the stories and I heard

(39:28):
them all and I was fine with that because I
don't mind it one bit and it was a great
lesson to learn for us to be friends. Was I
went in there and he played me the song and
I'm listening to it. He played a couple more times
and I said, okay, I think I think I got it.
He goes, well, this is where I want the harmonies,
and these are the notes I want. And I said

(39:50):
to him, I said, okay, I don't. I don't hear
it that way, but I'll do it for you. So
I did it for him the way he wanted to
do it, and he was so so so pleased. You know,
we got done in he goes man as advertised, that's
as good a harmony singing as I've ever heard and
you know, job well done. And I said, well, you
want to move on and he said, no, you said
something to me before we started. It caught my attention.

(40:11):
I said, well, what's that and he goes, well, he said,
you didn't hear it that way? He said, would you
mind singing it for me? How you would have done it?
He said, okay. So I went back in there and
and I sang it. I started singing the first bit
and he gets the talk back. He goes, dude, way better,
let's start over. I said, okay, And so he let

(40:32):
me have that freedom. So it was a great lesson
to learn that. You know, he gets often painted as
a control freak, but he wasn't, you know. And I
found that out to be true, that he's if there's
a good idea, he's up for it, you know. And
it was great for our friendship and I earned his
trust and I think I still have it all these
years later.

Speaker 1 (41:00):
Okay, would you rather work in the studio or go
on the road? Leaving the traveling out?

Speaker 2 (41:08):
You know, they're both the same. I love playing live
because it's live, because it's in the moment and there
is no fixing it, there is no going back and
trying it again. It's just the moment, and that's the
way I live my life. I love living in the moment.
I'm really comfortable living in the moment. I don't look ahead,
I don't look back with regret, and I just am

(41:29):
grateful for the moment I have. Tomorrow's not promised, and
so I just accept this moment for what it is
and grateful for it. And then playing in the studio,
you get to mess with it. You get to, you know,
try different things. Hey, let's try this instead of that,
and all options are on the table and everybody kind
of like in that democratic way I mentioned earlier, everybody

(41:50):
gets to you know, the ability to voice an opinion.
There's no I'm the boss, You'll do what I want
you to play in. None of that ever, And I
love I love the spirit of that. I love the
spirit that is in here when we do this. So
I would say neither one is preferable, but they're both

(42:14):
completely satisfying. Okay, Yes, So live gig is one and done.
Every audience is different. You can be really hot one
night and they're not registering it. You could make more mistakes.
So to what degree are you in tune with the
audience and try to win the audience over if they're
not with you. Well, I think what I've learned over

(42:36):
fifty two years of playing out live and all that
is the audience is the whole key to a great show.
I mean, I'm going to play and sing about the
way I play and sing. If the audience catches fire
and turns on and lifts you up and carries you
to the finish line, it's the greatest feeling in the world.

Speaker 1 (42:54):
You know.

Speaker 2 (42:55):
Nowadays what's interesting about playing live. Everybody's got a phone,
So every time you play, you have to deliver because
they're going to go share it, they're gonna go post it,
they're going to go put it out there. And so
there's now a different kind of constant pressure about playing
live that there never used to be. You know, you

(43:16):
weren't going to see it again. It was just that
night and you were Maybe maybe it inhibits you a
little bit to not try for something that you maybe
know you it might be you might not make it,
you know, so maybe it makes you play a little safer, sing,
a little safer whatever, because you know, at some point
somebody's going to capture something and put it out there

(43:38):
and go, oh, man, dude, it's really lost it. He
can't do it anymore. But uh, I don't I don't
enjoy that. I don't enjoy being under the constant microscope
all the time. I don't mind in the studio, and
I don't mind a live performance where everybody's there and responds,
goes home and goes, oh yeah, man, one song was

(44:00):
a little funky, but all in all that was a
cool show. And now they've all got bits, pieces and
parts of all the songs and they go home and
relive it. I don't understand why you would want.

Speaker 1 (44:12):
To make the.

Speaker 2 (44:14):
Effort to film what you're saying live, because then you're
missing the experience of the liveness of what it is
that you're there to see. And I don't think I've
ever filmed anything in my life of something live, musical.
I just want to be in the experience of it
and in the middle of it.

Speaker 1 (44:35):
Well, you know, in the technological age, certainly when we
were growing up, the acts were gods. There used to
even be seats in all these places. Now they make
you stand in many of them, and it was all
focused on the act. Today, talking generally that I'll get
specific frequently. The audience is a star. They're going to

(44:58):
shoot selfies with each other. Oh yeah, they want to
have the artifact that here's a video. I was there?
Is that palpable from the stage?

Speaker 2 (45:09):
Oh it's you know, when we've been doing this sphere
now for a little over a year and a half,
I think, and we've done fifty eight shows in there,
and people ask me all the time, you know, they said,
what's it like playing the Sphere? And I jokingly, and
I mean jokingly, I don't really mean this seriously, but
I said, it's the most people I've ever been ignored by.

(45:31):
And it's true, but it's kind of the way it
should be.

Speaker 1 (45:35):
You know.

Speaker 2 (45:36):
The whole spectacle of that visual is it's unlike anybody's
ever seen. You try to explain it to your friends
that are going to come out and see a show.

Speaker 1 (45:45):
What's it like?

Speaker 2 (45:46):
Oh man, you're not going to believe it. It's so
much bigger than you could ever imagine.

Speaker 1 (45:51):
You know.

Speaker 2 (45:51):
We went to see The Wizard of Oz not too
long ago, Amy and I when I was out there
for a couple of Eagle shows, and it was so
impact full to see the magnitude of that movie in
the sphere. But then what was beautiful about it was
seeing something so innocent in this day and age of

(46:12):
they're not being very much out there, that's very innocent.
We both got weepy here and Judy Garland sing Somewhere
over the Rainbow with one hundred and sixty seven thousand speakers.
It was. It was unbelievable. So I love playing there.
I get it. I get why people enjoy it. And
what's cool about it with playing there with the Eagles
is everybody knows every note to those songs. They know

(46:36):
every harmony part, they know every word, they know every
guitar solo, they know the ooze, the harmonies, everything about it.
You know, it's such a great lesson to learn how
important songs are because the song catalog that they have
is why they're them. You know, it's an amazing catalog
of songs that's pretty untouchable, and.

Speaker 1 (46:58):
It's just.

Speaker 2 (47:00):
Pretty amazing to get to experience at night after night
and hear Desperado then here take it to the Limit,
and here Lion Eyes and here.

Speaker 1 (47:11):
You know, it's just it's astounding.

Speaker 2 (47:13):
And I love it, And I don't know if We're
going to do some more shows at the Sphere, but
we'll see.

Speaker 1 (47:18):
And it's been a blast, okay. Joe Walsh was ill
and you saying life's been good. A before you played
with the Eagles. Did you know the song? Of course
when you heard it every night? Yeah, you're there, you're
playing when you actually sang it. Did you have a teleprompter?

(47:40):
Of course?

Speaker 2 (47:41):
I always have. I told Donna said, I'm gonna have
to have a teleprompter. You guys have sung Lion Eyes
for fifty years.

Speaker 1 (47:46):
I haven't.

Speaker 2 (47:47):
There's nine verses, so I'm going to need a telephone.
I used one, but that night, you know, I remember
when Joe got sick on the Friday night the night before.
He was kind of coming on and off stage and
taking oxygen and struggling, and so we got done. And
the next morning Joe had to go to the hospital
and we knew he wasn't gonna play. And Don called

(48:10):
and said, men, you think we can work up three
or four year songs? And I go, man, we don't
have any content for them on the on all the
all the stuff. I don't think it would work. I said,
I can sing Joe's songs. He said can you, and
I go, oh, yeah, no problem. I've been singing in
my whole life, and so the humor of it was
hearing me sing life's been good, my maserati and I

(48:33):
you know, none of that stuff has ever been a
part of my life. So it was pretty laughable to
hear me singing those songs. But one of the crew
guys after after we got done, he walked by and goes, man,
that was cool, as you did a great job. He goes,
I never understood the words because Joe was you know,
does does Joe? And and uh so, yeah, it was

(48:56):
you know, Don said, hey, we can eat, you know,
we can point eighteen five hundred people or just man
up and go play, you know. So we did that
and there's a few detractors. I had a guy over
to the right of me, and that was so pissed
that I was that Joe wasn't there and I was
singing his songs and they you know, but but yeah,

(49:17):
it was I think the best option, you know that
that could have happened.

Speaker 1 (49:23):
Okay, it's the sphere, as you say, being ignored, but
the stage is low, it's almost like a high school saha,
And there was a guy on the floor that really
was catching your rye and affecting your emotions.

Speaker 2 (49:37):
I could hear him, yeah, I mean he was mad.
I mean we when we played, we play about three
songs and then Don comes out to talk and welcome everybody,
and and it was obvious that Joe wasn't there. We
started with Hotel California, and Deacon covered and did a
great job. And uh so Don's walking out, and this

(49:58):
guy over to my.

Speaker 1 (49:59):
Right goes, where's Joe. You know, he's not.

Speaker 2 (50:03):
Happy, And Don looked over and at him and through
the microphones says, shut up, and I'll tell you.

Speaker 1 (50:11):
He didn't take anything off of anybody. And I love it.

Speaker 2 (50:13):
But uh and then he was you know, I could
hear him over there. And finally somebody, the security, you know,
finally says, you know, you you kind of have to
shut up or.

Speaker 1 (50:23):
You're gonna have to go.

Speaker 2 (50:23):
And and a friend of a friend of mine that
I had breakfast with was sitting right behind it. That morning,
I'd had breakfast with my friend and he was sitting
right behind this guy. And he finally grabbed a guy
and said, if you say another word, I'm taking you
out of here. Myself and all of that, and it finally,
it finally simmered down. But you know, it wasn't it

(50:44):
wasn't a whole lot different than the first night I
played with them, you know. And and Glint had passed,
and so I'm going to sing the first song I sang,
and I'm scared to death, you know. And and what
was really amazing was I could feel the apprehension of
that crowd at Dodger Stadium. I knew they just were

(51:06):
not having it, you know. And I got done with
the verse and chorus. I've taken the limit, I think,
and I felt everybody just go, it's.

Speaker 1 (51:13):
Going to be okay. It's going to be okay.

Speaker 2 (51:16):
And you know, I've had detractors the whole time and
will and I expect it and.

Speaker 1 (51:21):
Well, wait, wait a second, s it's the Eagles, I know. No, no,
what I mean by that is, was it like the
dude in that movie The Eagles have the biggest selling
album of all time. It's like it's like Windows versus
you know, mac Ows. The people who are negative, you know,
they have passions about it. Yeah, I get it, you know.

Speaker 2 (51:43):
And I told people when I first started talking about
I go look, I don't want to hear me sing
new kid in Town either, you know, But that's that's
the option. That's what we're left with. And the way
I've always kind of reacted to getting to do that.
You know, I'm beyungrateful that I was the guy they
called to come and do that, but the only reason

(52:07):
I got to do it was because of a tragedy.
And that's always at the forefront of my mind. So
I don't I'm not high five and people go, hey, man,
I'm in the Eagles, you know, I'm just going I'm
here because something really sad that happened. I wish it
didn't happen either. I wish I didn't get to do it.
I wish Glenn was still.

Speaker 1 (52:23):
Alive, but he's not.

Speaker 2 (52:25):
And and so hopefully this is this is an acceptable option,
you know, And with most people it's been okay, Well I.

Speaker 1 (52:34):
Was there, and I understand what you're saying, but you know,
it's kind of like dead End Company. Dead End Company.
There's a lot of heretics, but they were tighter than
the Grateful Dead and that night, you know, the band
maybe because they knew they had something to prove. It
was actually a step up from what it had been,

(52:55):
you know, prior to your tenure. But how did you
find out they were interested in you filling the rule?
Was it one and done? Did they call and say, hey,
you want to do it or not? Or did they
make you go through some hoops? And were you always
in or were you somewhat anxious that maybe this wouldn't
be a good thing for you? Now.

Speaker 2 (53:17):
I remember when I did Kennedy Center honors for the Eagles,
when they were honored, and I think I sang peaceful,
easy feeling and some of life in the fast lane
and maybe something else, And that might have been the
moment where Don might have been sitting there going, hey,

(53:38):
this guy might work. Don told me, he said, you're
one of the only people I even consider doing this with,
you know, Deacon obviously, because he was Glenn's son. And
Don's a big believer in the son of the Father
and the trade and a big believer in that, and
so that made sense, you know, And it helped also
from an emotional place for a lot of people to

(53:58):
see Glenn's son up there. But I think that was
maybe when they thought maybe I might be the right guy,
and I'd had a relationship with everybody in the band.
Prior to that, you know, Timothy and Joe and Don.
I'd written some songs with Joe and we played at
Eric's Crossroad Guitar festivals together, and Timothy came and sang

(54:20):
on my version of I Can't tell you Why. When
we did a tribute to the Eagles record Beat Eagles
Records in the mid nineties. And then Glenn and I
were golf buddies, and Glenn and I shared Larry Fitzgerald
as our manager in the years that the Eagles were
not together between eighty and ninety four, so I was
friendly with all those guys. And when Irving called Larry

(54:42):
and said, hey, we're talking about maybe trying this just
in an experiment, see if it works. Do you think
Vince would have any interest? And Larry called me said
what do you think? I said, when do we leave?

Speaker 1 (54:55):
You know it?

Speaker 2 (54:57):
It was a no brainer. You know my favorite and
you know easily, and I got tapes of me as
fifteen year old kids singing their songs, and I tell people,
I said, I was in pure Prairie League, but I
wanted to be in the Eagles. So yeah, it was
It was a very easy, yes, you.

Speaker 1 (55:16):
Know, and and.

Speaker 2 (55:17):
And the premise was early on, let's just do a
few shows and see how everybody takes it, you know,
And everybody was kind of okay with it, I think
audience wise, their fan fan base wise and them and
and you know, I'm kind of of a village idiot.
I'm cutting up all the time and cracking jokes, and
I keep it pretty light. So I'm a good bit

(55:39):
different than maybe what they've experienced in the past with
the drama.

Speaker 1 (55:44):
Irrelevant of what you play in the set, what are
your two favorite Eagles songs?

Speaker 2 (55:50):
I would probably say Desperado's my favorite.

Speaker 1 (55:55):
In that.

Speaker 2 (55:57):
When I first started playing with them, I asked, I said, okay,
shoot me straight. I said, what's the first song you
and Glenn ever wrote? And he smiled and said Desperado.
I said, no way. I said, you got to be
bs and me. You had to write some average songs
before you wrote Esperando. And he started laughing, No, that's
the first song we ever wrote. And so I said, moy,

(56:19):
you talk about meant to be so that one is
always emotional for me when I hear it. Realizing that
was the beginning of their partnership, in the beginning of
that band and what the song was that lifted them off?
And you know, I don't know, maybe another one might be,
might be Rocky Mountain Way. In that I was a

(56:43):
probably a thirteen fourteen year old kid in my room
learning how to play it, you know, And I was
a Joe freak. I love James Gang and I loved
it solo records, and I played that song in every
garage band I've ever been in, and that's always it's
always a head scratcher. Look over and go, are you serious?
You're playing Rocky Mountain Way right now, you know, And

(57:06):
it's it's not lost on me. How how amazing this
experience is, you know, I.

Speaker 1 (57:14):
Walk away being grateful. I walk away.

Speaker 2 (57:18):
Learning how important songs are again, you know, and why
they're them is because their songs are so good, you know.

Speaker 1 (57:24):
And I just.

Speaker 2 (57:26):
Hope that they walk away being feeling the same way
that they were. They feel good about asking me to
come do it with them.

Speaker 1 (57:33):
Okay, you talk about glenn and Don writing that National's
famous for its writing sessions. There's Lennon and McCartney. Although
it came out one person would write more than the others,
it went on what's your feeling about writing in terms
of collaboration.

Speaker 2 (57:52):
I enjoy it, you know, I enjoy seeing you know,
I think oftentimes I've written plenty of songs that have
been successful by myself. I've written plenty of songs with
other people that have been successful, and vice versa.

Speaker 1 (58:04):
You know.

Speaker 2 (58:06):
I remember there's a great joke about Roger Miller. They
asked him one time, they said, did you ever? Do
you ever co write? Did Picasso ever co paint? And
so there's been a lot of people that weren't for it,
that didn't do it, and I always enjoyed it. I
enjoyed the process. I enjoy making a new friend. I

(58:28):
enjoy keeping an old friend.

Speaker 1 (58:30):
You know.

Speaker 2 (58:30):
I got people I've written songs with for forty five
years that I still write songs with, you know, and
always will. And brand new people kids that come along
that have an act for it and have a gift
for it, and you know, two three heads or sometimes
maybe better than one.

Speaker 1 (58:45):
Okay, But if you're writing alone, ay, do you take
it as work like I got an album and I
got to have songs or are you waiting for inspiration?
And do you find qualitatively the stuff that's written on
inspiration different or better than the stuff that you're grinding
it out.

Speaker 2 (59:04):
I think I'm a way different songwriter at sixty nine
than I was at twenty nine in that I'm willing
to wait for it. In those early days, I might
not have been willing to wait for it. When I
first started playing with Pure Prairie League, I was god.
I think I was twenty two twenty three years old.
I was very young. I'd only written seven songs in
my life and I joined that band. They didn't have

(59:26):
any songs, and we're going to make a record, and
they said, do you have any songs? And I said,
I get some. They cut five of them, and none
of them were I didn't think any of them were
that good, but the only options they had, so we
I wound up getting five of my songs cut on
this first record. I went, Okay, now I'm a songwriter.
So that was the start and then where I am today.

(59:50):
I just love the patience that I have to be
willing to edit myself. When you're young, you think you
know everything, so maybe you don't think you need to edit.

Speaker 1 (59:58):
You don't need to. Well that's good. I think that's great.
But you could.

Speaker 2 (01:00:02):
You could try and try and try again. I'm in
here all the time, like singing a vocal on a
song I wrote, and I'll go, I don't like that
line that doesn't sing well, so I'll rewrite it and
find words that sing better, you know, And and all
those things are a part of the process, and just
always being willing to edit yourself. You know, I think

(01:00:24):
writing a song is no different than writing a book
or a story in a newspaper or a review or
what have you. You know, you got to be willing
to once again edit yourself and go to what do
I really need to tell this story? I remember there's
a great songwriter I wrote a song with on one
of these records, and sadly his name won't come to

(01:00:45):
me right now. He's the guy that wrote the house
that built me for Miranda Lambert, and his name won't
come to me. And I'm embarrassed. But you know, we
wrote this song and had one verse in one chorus,
and we're writing and saying it, and I go, I
think we're done, Because what do you mean we're done?

(01:01:07):
I said, Well, look at the lyric. What else would
you say?

Speaker 1 (01:01:11):
You know?

Speaker 2 (01:01:11):
The story is told because gosh, you're right, I said,
Merul Haggard did pretty good with only writing one verse
to a whole lot of songs. And you know, guys
like Rodney Crowd, Guy Clark, those are the guys that
helped teach me to not overdo it, to be willing
to only say what's necessary. There's a word in there

(01:01:33):
that doesn't have the story it has to go, you know.
And so I think, more than anything, you know, the
process of writing has evolved over the years. And I
just thought of Tom Douglas as the guy I was
trying to think of his name that wrote that song
with me, and he's a brilliant songwriter. And I'm embarrassed.
But the old mind ain't what it used to be.

Speaker 1 (01:02:04):
Okay, you're growing up in Oklahoma in the sixties and seventies.
Are you a rock guy or a country guy? Both?
I was.

Speaker 2 (01:02:13):
I was a chameleon in that I was the youngest
in my family. So when I was growing up, before
I could buy my own records, I had my mom
and dad's records, which were primarily country. My dad liked
big you know, singers like uh he like Eddie Arnold,
somebody like that, like crooner's stuff like that. My big

(01:02:35):
brother loved the blues, my sister loved pop music, rock
and roll, and I was drawn to bluegrass and country
music later. But I never got to buy my own records,
so I had to listen to everything that in the
folks in my family chose to pick and play, and
so that gave me a pretty diverse palette for music

(01:02:57):
early on. And I liked everything I was. I was
responding to everything. When I first had enough money to
go buy a forty five, probably in grade school, I
went and bought a Beatles record. I bought Twist and Shout,
and that's the first record I ever bought with my
own money. It was either that or They're coming to
take me away to the Funny Farm. I can't remember

(01:03:19):
which one was first, but I'm betting it was the Beatles.
But you know, I then I got and I liked
the country music of buck Owens.

Speaker 1 (01:03:28):
I liked the.

Speaker 2 (01:03:30):
Merle Haggard and Twang Years stuff more than the smooth stuff.
You know. I liked it, but that had that edge
to it, that drive to it that some of it didn't,
you know. And I think country music in its history
has always done this pattern of evolving in that sometimes
it felt like it was embarrassed to be what it was,

(01:03:52):
so it tried to go emulate pop music. It tried
to go emulate Frank Sinatra. Took Ray Charles to make
a really great record nineteen six called The Modern Sounds
in Country and Western Music that showed everybody how soulful
our music was. You know, this beautiful singer Ray Charles
would take a Hanks Williams song or a Don Gibson

(01:04:13):
song or whoever and make it into this soulful, amazing
piece of work. And it was I think invaluable in
expanding people's viewpoint of what country music was. I think
they were always embarrassed about the hey bales and the
overalls and that kind of stuff. You know that it
was hicck issuan, It was mountainee and all those things.

(01:04:35):
But those are the things I loved about it and
was drawn to being a teenage bluegrass picker, and all
of a sudden I was immersed in the Stanley Brothers,
Bill Monroe and learned about murder ballads and all this
great stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:04:46):
Okay, so I'm growing up in the Northeast. You know,
there's a lot of political division in the country now,
but there's more homogenization than ever before. A you're growing
up in Oklahoma, I'm growing up in Connecticut and the
New York radio market. There is no country music. Of course,

(01:05:09):
of course there's Charlie Rich who crosses over the most
beautiful girl in the world every once in a while.
So you're growing up, you know, is your country like
on the radio you're dialing in, you're listening to that
as well as Top forty maybe underground FM.

Speaker 2 (01:05:23):
Yeah, we sure did. And you know, the Grand Old Opry.
A lot of people don't realize the intention of the
Grand Old Opry when it started one hundred now one hundred.
It's in his one hundred and first year of being
on the air. In nineteen twenty five. It started, and
it was an insurance company whose moniker was WSM, which
stood for We Shield Millions. It's an insurance company, and

(01:05:46):
their premise was when they started broadcasting music on the radio,
was to find a way to appeal to rural people
to sell them insurance. It's not that they had this
great affinity for country music, can string band music and
all that kind of stuff. They were trying to sell insurance.
So it was all about trying to make a buck.

(01:06:07):
And so they said, well, what are the rural people like.
They said, well, they like that fiddle and banjo stuff.
They really like that, that twangy stuff. And so a
fiddler named Jimmy Thompson, they brought him into a radio
or into a hotel room downtown Nashville in nineteen twenty five.
He played fiddle tunes for thirty minutes to try to
appeal to the rural people to sell insurance. And that's

(01:06:28):
kind of how it got started. So, I mean, we
listened some to WSM. You know, it was a big,
big station that carried all across the country because of
how many, you know, fifty thousand watts station and would
carry all over And man, I listened to everything I
always did, and I was you never got to see
much on television, a little bit, not a ton of music.

(01:06:50):
And then Andy Griffiths show had had the Darlings, which
were the Dillers, and it had Clarence white and Roland
Whitey were called the Kentucky Colonels and Flatt and scrub
Us on the Beverly Hillbillies. And little by little you
discover some of this stuff that I really liked, you know,
I love the sound. My dad played the banjo, but
not like Earl Scruggs. He played more of a PC

(01:07:12):
or folk style of banjo, and that's what I heard
as a little boy. And then when I heard Earl
take off on a banjo, I.

Speaker 1 (01:07:18):
Go, I'm all about that. That's pretty cool sounded. So
when did you start to play, and did you start
on the piano or on a guitar.

Speaker 2 (01:07:30):
I started. I don't remember not playing, so I can't
lay claim to say. And I started playing guitar when
I was seven. My mom has a picture of me
and sleeping on the couch, face down. I'm about a
year and a half, maybe two years old, and I'm
asleep on the couch and I have my arm around
a little, tiny parlor guitar. So I knew I was
beaten on one as soon as I could walk. And

(01:07:54):
I took piano lessons from a little old lady down
the street and that didn't take I took violin lessons
in grade school, and I just wanted to play the guitar,
and those things fell by the wayside, and I kind
of regret not learning to read, not learning to maybe
play the piano. I think it would have served me
well being able to play the piano, being a songwriter

(01:08:15):
and the wealth of what's available to you at a
piano keyboard is amazing. But the funny thing about I
always tell the story the picture of me from my
arm around that little guitar when I was year and
a half two years old, was I was wearing a
dress in the picture. But that's another show. But all

(01:08:38):
I know is I was meant to play, and it's
all I ever did.

Speaker 1 (01:08:42):
So you didn't go to college, but your father was
a judge. What do you say about that?

Speaker 2 (01:08:47):
Well, because he was a musician. I think I fulfilled
some of his dreams by going off and playing music.
And I remember my mom got interviewed some years back
and they asked her the same question. They said, did
it bother you that your son didn't take a more traditional,
you know route and go get a good education and get.

Speaker 1 (01:09:08):
A good job. And she say, no, I didn't bother me.

Speaker 2 (01:09:11):
She said, I didn't care anything about having a rich kid,
but I sure cared about having a happy kid. That
music always made him happy. She would tell stories about
me coming home being mad about losing a baseball game
or this and that and kicking my way upstairs and
muttering and being mad. She said, about ten minutes of
playing that guitar and you were fine. So it was
like the best friend I ever had, that guitar.

Speaker 1 (01:09:33):
Okay, are you self taught completely? Pretty much?

Speaker 2 (01:09:38):
I took some lessons from a guy in Oklahoma City
when I was probably in junior high school maybe, and
he didn't teach me a lot, you know, he just
would show me songs, but most of the time he
would smoke a cigar and talk on the phone during
my lesson. Yeah that sounds good, Keep keep playing that,
you know, and he just you know, interrupted his phone

(01:09:59):
calling play that again, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:10:00):
And I learned.

Speaker 2 (01:10:02):
I learned a few songs from going to take lessons
from him. But my ears were really the gift of
gifts and that they heard what it was that I
needed to do, and they informed me, they taught me,
and just repetition. I mean, we didn't have the Internet
to look at and the YouTube to look at and
see how so and so played that lick.

Speaker 1 (01:10:23):
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:10:23):
We had to dig it out of the out of
our brains. And I remember years ago I was playing
a show with James Burton, great guitar player, played with Elvis,
Ricky Nelson and Emmy lou and one of my telecaster heroes.
And we were playing a song that I'd heard him
play a thousand times and I looked over and he's
playing it. I go, oh, he's playing it on the

(01:10:45):
third and fourth string, not the second and third strings.
And I heard it and I'd played it on the
second and third strings. I moved it up and started, Oh,
that's why it sounds like it sounds. It was always missing,
just this little detail, you know. And it was one
more open string ringing from playing on the third and
four strings than the second and third strings. It was

(01:11:07):
pretty informative. And so yeah, we didn't have all that.
And you know, people say, what do you like better?
What do you think is your best gift? You're playing
or you singing? I go, it's my hearing, you know.
My hearing has informed all of it. Being able to
differentiate what it is that someone's doing that I could
learn it.

Speaker 1 (01:11:26):
Okay, I'm a little older than you. I remember the
early sixties folk boom. Everybody got a nylon string guitar,
sing Peter Paul and Mary the Beatles, hit. Everybody got
an electric guitar, formed band? You're playing guitar? What's the
next step? Are you playing at school assemblies? Do you
form a band? How does it go well?

Speaker 2 (01:11:49):
I think the first place I went and played was
it in grade school. They let me come over and
I played the House of the Rising Sun. And so
I'm in grade school. I'm singing, singing songs about catouses
or whatever, and I knew the die was cast and
I was meant to be a hillbilly singer. And and
then I got into uh seventh grade, and my friend
Benny and I we had a little trio and we

(01:12:11):
were learning Sunshine of Your Love, anything that was going
on in the day, and and and playing, and so
I was. I had my first electric guitar when I
was ten, So that was that was a pretty great gift.
I still have it to this day. It's a Gibson
E S three thirty five.

Speaker 1 (01:12:29):
Okay, nice guitar.

Speaker 2 (01:12:31):
So I had a great instrument to learn on, you know.
And and what was your ramp? I had a Fender
Super Reverb. I had high tools, you know, And I
had no idea at the time, but anyway, we started
playing those garage bands. And then when I was about
uh fifteen or sixteen, I went out. I had broken

(01:12:52):
a string on my father's banjo, and I didn't know
how to fix it, and I knew I was going
to catch Hell when he came home. So my mom said,
there's a guy two blocks a way that fixed this
banchos and plays and he'd probably be able to fix
it for you. All that was was changing a string,
and I didn't know how to change a banjo string.
So I went over and he fixed it, and he goes,
he ever played any bluegrass? And I said, Noah. His

(01:13:13):
name was Charlie Clark, and he said, my son, Bobby's
a real good musician as a bluegrass band. They just
lost their lead singer and played in and I said,
I've never played any bluegrass, and he shoved an acoustic
guitar in my hand, and I started trying to learn
to play bluegrass, started playing in Bobby's band, and that
band was called The Bluegrass Review, And I started playing
bluegrass festivals and loved it.

Speaker 1 (01:13:34):
Just loved flat.

Speaker 2 (01:13:35):
Picking and hearing guys like Clarence White, Tony Rice, all
these great musicians. Sam Bush had new Grass Revival going.
Then I was in another band in high school called
Mountain Smoke, and that's the first record I ever made.
I was seventeen and they decided to make a record,
and we made a record. And I'm driving through Oklahoma

(01:13:56):
City one day and lo and behold, one of the
radio stations played a song that I played banjo on
and sang. I was the lead singer on that particular song.
And I got on my Cbee radio and I'm yelling,
hey man, they're playing our song on the radio. Never
got to hear myself on the radio. And these truckers
are coming back. You sound good, kid, Hang in there,
you know.

Speaker 1 (01:14:14):
And so it was.

Speaker 2 (01:14:17):
It was amazing that the first record I ever made
got played by somebody, and it gave me this really
beautiful sense of hope. If you try, maybe you never know,
you know. And so that hope has never really dwindled
and never faded. And I still, you know, every time
I write a song or make a record, I hope
somebody responds. Doesn't have to be a lot. Okay, so

(01:14:39):
you're playing you have this experience. Do you know from
a young age, I'm going to be a professional musician
or does the light bulb go off, because you're gonna
graduate from high school. Oh, I knew when I was
fifteen what I was gonna do. You know, I'm lucky.
I think a lot of kids go to school not
having any idea what they want to do. But at

(01:15:00):
fifteen somebody. First gig I ever got was this little
club had a little three piece man that we went
down there and played, and this lady said she'd pay
us one hundred bucks. And so we played and went
down there and we got done with the night and
we went to get paid. She goes, I'm not paying you.
I said, well, ma'am, you said you'd pay us one
hundred bucks. She goes, well, I don't care what I said.

(01:15:22):
I'm not paying you. I said, okay, my dad's a lawyer.
I said, you're going to hear from me. And I
had the guts to go take this woman to court.
So we get in small claims court. My dad's course,
didn't go with me, and I'm before the judge and
he said, son, I see here here today for services

(01:15:43):
rendered of one hundred dollars of playing a gig at
her club. And I said, yes, sir, And he said,
are you aware that she's countersuing you for libel and
slander and defamation that carries this whole laundry list of stuff.
And I go, no, I was not aware of that.
And he goes son, he said, you want some advice.
I said, yes, sir, and he goes, chuck this one
up to experience and get out of my court. So

(01:16:06):
even though I got stiffed on the first paying gig
I was ever going to get, I still did it,
you know. And what's funniest is it never mattered what
I made, you know, I just love getting to do it.
If I could keep the rent paid. I left home
at eighteen, got out of high school and joined a
band up in Louisville, Kentucky and called the Bluegrass Alliance

(01:16:27):
and pretty well known bluegrass group in the day. And
I rented a room in this guy's house named Harry
Bikele and my rent was only fifteen dollars a month,
and we made a couple hundred bucks a week and
we played the club and so I was set. I go, man,
I don't need to make much. It's fine, and I'm
doing what I love and I'm paying the rent, eating

(01:16:49):
and I'm it felt successful even at eighteen just being
able to pay the rent. And it's kind of been
my mantra the whole time. If I pay the rent,
I'm good.

Speaker 1 (01:17:00):
Okay, you grew up in Oklahoma, so they say the
internet works everywhere, cable TV, whatever, But that's not the
era you and me grew up in. You've been around
the United States. What's the difference between Oklahoma and other places.

Speaker 2 (01:17:18):
Well, golly, you know, Oklahoma's not southern. It's not the South,
it's not the it's not the West, it's not the Northeast.
It's it's an area that I think people understood how
hard work was the only way to make it work,
you know. And they dug a living out of the dirt.
They were very practical. They were common sensical. Everything I

(01:17:41):
did when I was a kid with my mom and dad,
if it better make common sense, or you were going
to catch hell, you know. So I lived in an
environment of whatever you did better make sense, you know.
And so that's how I grew up. And everybody's kind
of matter of fact and honest. And I like the
people from Oklahoma.

Speaker 1 (01:17:59):
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:17:59):
I left the long time ago. I was only there
for eighteen years. But when I go back and I
get my feet in that red dirt across the borderline
and get into where I'm from.

Speaker 1 (01:18:09):
It just there's a.

Speaker 2 (01:18:10):
Feeling like I can't explain, just you know, Ani M
said it there's no place like home, or Dorothy said
it wasn't any m.

Speaker 1 (01:18:19):
Well, how did your family end up in Oklahoma?

Speaker 2 (01:18:23):
I think my dad my mom was born in Kansas,
just farm country and grew up on a farm and
watched them go through hard times, depression and dust bowl
that kind of stuff. They knew hard times. And my dad,
I think was born in that was actually born in Kansas,
and my mom's mother, my dad's mother actually knew each

(01:18:44):
other in Kansas and wound up in Oklahoma after they
got married. And I don't know all the details, but
my mom was married once prior to me being born
to my dad and had my brother Bob in her
first marriage and he's twelve years older than me. And
my mom and dad got married and had myself and

(01:19:06):
my sister. Yeah, it just, you know, it felt normal.
That's what I liked about Oklahoma. It felt real normal.

Speaker 1 (01:19:14):
Okay, So now you're living in Nashville, you're playing in
the Bluegrass Alliance. Let's be clear, it's country, but it's
still sex, drugs and rock and roll A. To what
degree was that appealing? B to what degreed did you experience?
And see what was your viewpoint on all of that?

Speaker 2 (01:19:33):
Well, I like two out of three. I never You
know what's funny, I never did any drugs. I've never
smoked pot. And most people hear me say that and
don't believe it. My own my own son Matt, when
Amy and I got married, he said to me one time,
he goes, you smoke a lot of dope, don't you.
I started laughing. I go, dude, I've never smoked any dope.

(01:19:54):
He goes, I think you're high right now, I said,
I swear I have never smoked any pot. I'm really
easy going, real chill, and I can see why you
would think that, but I never I never was too
interested in it. One of the reasons was I saw
the effects of drinking and driving with what happened to
my brother. He had a really severe car wreck at

(01:20:15):
twenty one, and I was just a kid, and he
was in a coma and had brain injury for three
months and then struggled the rest of his life and
kind of hoboed around and lived in the mission, and
he disappeared for long periods of time and then come
back home and disappear again. And he finally came home
a couple of years before he passed and said he
was done traveling and didn't want to mess around with that.

(01:20:35):
My mom would always you find him a place and
cheer him on, help him out, get him a car
or whatever.

Speaker 1 (01:20:41):
And it was.

Speaker 2 (01:20:45):
I saw what that could do. So I think that
subliminally it might have kind of led me down a
path that I didn't want to. I didn't want to
take that chance. I didn't want to cause that kind
of hurt and my folks and disappointment and whatever. And
so I jumped in with both feet and I, you know,

(01:21:06):
I experienced a good life, you know, and I don't
regret any of it, even the mistakes I made. I'm
willing to accept them because I learned something.

Speaker 1 (01:21:18):
Okay, you're going to school. There are some people who
go to school. They're the life of the party, they're
the quarterback on the football team, they have sex, et cetera.
And there are other people on the other end of
the spectrum. You go on the road to what degree
are you sexually experienced and to what degree do you

(01:21:39):
handle you know, the nature of you're on stage. There
are people who are attracted to that. That's just you
don't have to do much of anything.

Speaker 2 (01:21:47):
So what was your experience, Well, it was it was
intense in that it was a it was a free
stretch of life and anything went, and I went with
anything went, you know, and and all of that, and
I don't know just kind of the way it was,
you know, and you just just accepted whatever, you know,

(01:22:10):
kind of anybody was willing to want to do.

Speaker 1 (01:22:12):
I guess, you know. I I part I partook plenty
and had.

Speaker 2 (01:22:18):
A had a crazy life at times, but it was
never never the center of everything. You know, It's oftentimes
where you'd like things to wind up, but it was
still focused on playing, focused on going to hear some

(01:22:39):
great music at a club, focused on listening to a
new record somebody made. I love the years that I
lived in California. I moved out there and when I
was nineteen, end of nineteen seventy six and just loved
being near the ocean and being around the musicianship that
was out there. And you could go to a club
and hear Robin Ford do you go to a club

(01:23:00):
and hear Larry Carlton. You could go to a club
and here's some of the best musicians you'd ever heard
in your life. And what I liked about it it
was how much wider my experience became musically when I
got out there. It wasn't it wasn't only just the
bluegrass world. And I loved my bluegrass, but I don't
think it was ever quite enough to hold me.

Speaker 1 (01:23:23):
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:23:23):
I liked trying to play soulful guitar and ben strings
and those things. I like country picking guitar, chicken picking guitar,
I liked flat picking guitar, I liked I liked all
of it. Liked R and B, I liked soulful stuff,
and so man, I just all I ever wanted it
to be was authentic with whatever I was doing. If
I was singing a soul song, I wanted soulful people

(01:23:46):
to think, Hey, that guy's a soulful singer.

Speaker 1 (01:23:49):
You know, Okay, you've been should struggle earlier. Some people
live somewhat of a charm life, but most musicians it's
not a root straight to the top. So once you

(01:24:09):
start playing as a professional and you moved to California.
Are things falling in place? Or are you frustrated now?

Speaker 2 (01:24:17):
It was generally I always felt good about what I
was doing, you know, and even if I was in
a supporting cast role and not the focal point, that
didn't bother me. I like just being part of the process.
And I think that when I first started making my
own records as a solo artist, I struggled, but I

(01:24:39):
didn't mind struggling because I didn't have to be successful
to survive. Because I was a decent enough musician, a
decent enough session player, just enough decent enough session singer
that I could work on people's records and make a living.
So my end all to end all didn't have to
be and hit records.

Speaker 1 (01:25:01):
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:25:01):
It eventually happened, and I was grateful when it finally did,
but it didn't. It was not the reason. You know,
And I don't know if I mentioned this earlier, but
when I was young, I was the one that studied
the back of records, who played on this I would buy.
I would buy albums from people I didn't even know
who they were because I saw a guitar player I
admired that maybe played on that record, so well, maybe

(01:25:24):
I'll check out what he did and learn something. And
and so that led me down a path of once
again not needing to be the focal point. Was was
pretty helpful. I knew I was good enough that if
I didn't have hits, I could go play in somebody's band.
I got offered a job in dire Straits in the
late eighties by Mark Knunflirt.

Speaker 1 (01:25:44):
Okay, okay, wait, you're talking about when they go on
the last tour. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:25:49):
And and he came to see me play in New
York City and he called me and he goes, hey,
would you have any interest in coming and being in
dire Straits. We're going on this world tour. And and
you know, I'm struggling to pay for the house. It
would have solved every financial problem I had. And at
the same time, I was changing from RCAA Records to

(01:26:09):
MCAA Records. I was going to go to work with
my old friend Tony Brown, and I was being given
a new shot. And I called him. I said, man,
I don't know why I'm saying this, but I'm going
to say no. He said why, I said, Well, he said,
I'm getting ready to get a new shot at a
new record company, and my ears tell me I'm good

(01:26:29):
enough to be a part of this country music world.
And if I don't bet on me, then I can't
expect anybody else to. And if I take this job,
it'll kind of be an admittance of failure for the
last seven years, and I'm not sure I can do
that to myself. So I'm gonna take a chance and
make a new record and see if I can flip

(01:26:51):
this thing. And lo and behold, I got lucky, and
I did, but it wasn't really, it didn't happen right away.
I'd released two singles from my first MCA record. One
was a duet with Reeba and the other was a
song I'd written with Roseanne Cash, which she also got,
called Never Alone. And both of those singles did okay,
but kind of a lot like the rest of my

(01:27:13):
singles had done, you know, didn't find their way into
the top ten or become a big smash, any of
that kind of stuff. And then the third single was
when I Call Your Name, and that's when everything flipped,
everything changed, and that's the song that caught fire.

Speaker 1 (01:27:30):
Let's go back a step. How'd you end up in
Pure Prairie League, and what were your thoughts. It is
a band that had one Well, there's basically the same songs,
two songs falling in out of Loving Amy that were
never really singles, and the guy who wrote it was
no longer in the band exactly. So how did this

(01:27:50):
come to be and what were your thoughts about it? Well?

Speaker 2 (01:27:54):
I first met those guys when I was in high
school and our band that I was in, Mountain Small,
opened a show for them, and when they played in
Oklahoma City in probably nineteen seventy four, and Amy had
all of a sudden caught fire. You know, the original
story of Amy. It was recorded in the early seventies,
and then the band was dropped from the label and

(01:28:17):
Craig had gone on to moved to Canada and left
the band Craig Fuller who wrote and sang Amy. And
then in the like seventy four or five, I can't
remember what it was, this song catches fire with college
radio stations all across the country, starts blowing up and
becoming this big song, and so they go back and
re sign the band to the record deal. They don't

(01:28:40):
have Craig and his voice and his songs to follow
up Amy with I think they would have probably had
a bigger career had they had Craig. And so I'm
living out in California. It's nineteen seventy eight, I think,
and I was playing with Byron Berline, great fiddle player.
Hired me to come out there, and a friend of

(01:29:00):
mine called me up and said, hey, I'm going up
to sir to audition for Pure Prairie League. You want
to go? I go, sure, man, I'll go along with you.
I said, I opened a show for those guys when
I was in high school, and I'll just I'll go
with you. It'd be fun to see him again. And
so I went up there and he did his audition
and they introduced myself and they said, aren't you that

(01:29:21):
kid from Oklahoma that plays all the instruments? And I said, yeah, yeah,
that's me. And they said will you be interested in
this gig? And my friend's looking at me like thanks
a lot, you know, and I said, no, I'm probably
not playing with a guy firing here in Los Angeles,
and I really like it. And they said, well, come
up and jam with us tomorrow. Bring your stuff and
come up and jam with us. So I went up

(01:29:43):
there and I got to play play my guitar really
loud and have some fun, and I said, well, maybe
I will do this, you know. So I quit Byron
and started playing with them, and we did three three records,
I think three albums, and had one pretty good hit,
let Me Love You Tonight nineteen eighty somewhat of a
pop hit, and so that that was fun. He got

(01:30:04):
me on an American Bandstand and solid Gold and a
bunch of TV shows like Mike Douglas and Merv Griffin
and Don Kirshner's Rock Concert and great learning experience for
me to learn about the record industry a little bit
and all that kind of stuff. And I wouldn't trade
it for nothing. Good guys.

Speaker 1 (01:30:21):
Okay, Traditionally country has not been a catalog business. It's
all been new frontline stuff. But in the Internet era,
everything's completely different because everything you ever made is available
at this late date. To what degree are your royalties

(01:30:42):
significant from both publishing and now granted you did not
only write songs for your own records, but in terms
of record royalties and publishing royalties, how are those streams?

Speaker 2 (01:30:54):
I would think they're probably a good bit less than
they used to be, but I would, you know, it'd
be hard to compare because I haven't had a big
number one record in twenty five years, twenty six years,
something like that, so what I would know is minimal.
I do know that it's the royalty rate. The digital
royalty rate is somewhat unfair, you know, in comparison to

(01:31:18):
what it used to be for terrestrial radio. And if
some of those things could find their way to get fixed,
it might might really benefit the songwriting community for there
to be a little more shackles for evite has spread around.

Speaker 1 (01:31:32):
Do you still own all your rights? Pretty much?

Speaker 2 (01:31:36):
I partnered up with a guy named Jody Williams not
too long ago, and like I said, the hit records
had kind of faded away, and he called me one
and I'd never had a publisher. I published myself because
I had a place for all my songs and didn't
see the need to split the money. And I wasn't
keen on really pushing my songs to other people, and

(01:31:58):
so I just kept them for myself and recorded him
and had a great run and did well. But he
called me four or five years ago and he said,
you've never had anybody manage your songwriting. He said, I
think you still have a lot to offer as a songwriter.
Would you consider letting me manage your songwriting.

Speaker 1 (01:32:14):
For a while?

Speaker 2 (01:32:15):
I said, sure, it sounds like fun. And I'd known
him for forty plus years and was a great friend.
And so that turned into man a treasure trove of
me being creative and writing a bunch of new songs.

Speaker 1 (01:32:27):
I wrote.

Speaker 2 (01:32:28):
I've probably written one hundred and fifty hundred and seventy
five songs in the last four or five years, and
I've got to telling myself, well, you should. You should
get busy and put some of this stuff out, you know.
So everybody likes a lot of content these days. And
so I went in and I recorded over seventy songs
and found a way to put them all out with

(01:32:50):
these EPs. I'm doing an EP a month for a year,
and it's the most creative stretch I've ever gone through.
And I love it because I really like the songs
and I think I'm doing quality work.

Speaker 1 (01:33:04):
Okay, so the EPs are coming out once a month,
but all the stuff on the EPs was recorded in
that seventy song burst, yes, sir, So nothing beyond that.
It's just a matter of putting it out this way.

Speaker 2 (01:33:16):
Yeah, I try to stay ahead of the next EP,
you know, Like I've got six of them out. I
just finished last week mixing number seven. It's coming out
May eighth, and so I just keep myself ahead of
the next one coming out. And I'm loving the process.
I'm working harder than I've ever worked, probably in my life.

(01:33:39):
But at this point I realized I don't have as
much time to be creative left as I've had to
this point. So it matters so much more to me
now than maybe it ever did. So I really want
to take advantage of still having my faculty, still being
able to sing as well as I ever did and
play as well as I ever did. Songs are cool,
So I'm having a ball.

Speaker 1 (01:34:00):
To what degree do you view these because you set
it up, you're working with the gentlemen publishing. To what
degree do you see them as publishing demos or as
songs themselves?

Speaker 2 (01:34:14):
I see them as masters. They're being released by MCA Records,
and I signed a lifetime deal with them not too
long ago.

Speaker 1 (01:34:21):
They win What the hell is a lifetime deal?

Speaker 2 (01:34:24):
They just said, we want you for the rest of
your life. If you have something you record you want
to put out, we want to be the ones to
put it out. And it's to me, it's a testament
to the loyalty we've had for each other for thirty
seven years.

Speaker 1 (01:34:36):
Now. You know, okay, you know in California there's a
question of legality. You signed a piece of paper, say I,
then skill and betrothed to MCA Records till if pass
pretty much.

Speaker 2 (01:34:49):
But they but they also have in there that if
if they don't want to put it out, you can
do whatever you want to with it. So it's more
than fair and more than reasonable. And I don't know
all the detail. I played the guitar. My dad was
a lawyer, but I wasn't.

Speaker 1 (01:35:03):
Let's go back. We were talking about the royalties and
you said you weren't sure. Are you just being evasive
or are you no? You don't really know where your
money is and.

Speaker 2 (01:35:16):
What's going on to a point, but I know what
I don't know, you know, and I know I don't
know a lot about the financial world. And I'm not
an investor. I don't play the stocks, I don't do
anything risky. I'm just grateful for the money I've made
playing music. Well, who's managing your money. Then I've had
the same same business manager for forty two years now.

Speaker 1 (01:35:41):
Well, I mean, the money can't sit in the bank.
You're losing money on the money. You must have investments.
At some times.

Speaker 2 (01:35:47):
We're doing a few things, but it's not once again,
it's like in bonds and municipal bonds and things like
that that are not risky and not safe. And we
don't go out and take a flyer and take a
bunch of money and throw at somebody that says they
can make a bunch of money.

Speaker 1 (01:36:00):
I don't. I'm not much of it. I'm not a.

Speaker 2 (01:36:04):
I hate it just sounds stupid to say, but I'm
not that interested in money, you know. I like cheering
my friends on, helping my friends out when they need help.
And and I know I'm in good shape. Every now
and then I would get a little I'd go a
little crazy buying old guitars, you know. And I spent
a fortune buying old guitarist And my buddy Chuck, who
was he passed away a couple of years ago, that

(01:36:25):
was the head of the management business management company. He
would call me and he would put me in time out.
He said, you're you're going a little bit crazy and
you're spending too much money on guitars. And I said, okay,
so I'd be on being time out for a while.
Then he calls say, you're okay if you want to
go get something. And then when I ten years ago,
I started playing with with with the boys, and he'd

(01:36:50):
called me one time and he goes, I see you
just bought a guitar, and I go yeah, and he goes,
you can buy whatever you want. You're playing with those guys. Now,
you're fine.

Speaker 1 (01:36:58):
How many guitars do you own? Oh, probably two hundred
and fifty. And where are they?

Speaker 2 (01:37:04):
They're right around the corner. They're all in my studio
here at the house.

Speaker 1 (01:37:08):
Okay. Collecting guitar is totally different. In the sixties and seventies,
English musicians come to America, go to pawn shops wherever
they were. Now everything nothing's rare anymore. Everything's available online. Ay,
how do you decide what to buy?

Speaker 2 (01:37:26):
Well, there are certain examples that you know are collectible,
you know are desirable, that you know are rare, and
all those things kind of factor into it, and they
also affect the price. You know, there's plenty of instruments
out there that are in the high six figures that
you'll pay for them if you want to buy one,
and that you know it's because they're scarce. It's because

(01:37:46):
they're completely desirable, and they sound better than just about
anything you can ever play. So I've i've, i've, I've
bitten the bullet a time or two on things that
I never would have expected I would have spent that
much money on.

Speaker 1 (01:38:00):
Getting the money. Yeah, did the instrument live up to
the rep.

Speaker 2 (01:38:04):
Absolutely, But I know what I'm looking for too. You know,
I don't buy for quantity. I've never bought a guitar
that didn't speak to me, that didn't play well and
sound well and inspire me. What's cool about all of
these instruments is they have songs in them, they have
melodies in them, they have music in them. And so

(01:38:25):
I'm a collector of sorts, but I'm also a player.
So I'm taking these things that oftentimes would wind up
in a glass case and never be heard again, and
I'm letting them continue to livet letting them continue to
do what they were intended to do, was to make music.
And so I can't think of anything I could have

(01:38:47):
done wiser or smarter with my money. I get to
write them off my taxes and they appreciate value. And
there's no risk, you know, unless the guitar market tank someday,
which it never really has, and I don't know that
it ever will.

Speaker 1 (01:39:00):
So what are you on the lookout for now? I
have no clue. Just it just shows up.

Speaker 2 (01:39:07):
And there's a bunch of these cats around the country
that that know me and know what I like to
buy and this, and that they find me so I
don't have to look real hard. They come knocking on
my email very very frequently.

Speaker 1 (01:39:19):
And are you like a Gibson or a Fender guy
or your.

Speaker 2 (01:39:24):
Dem all of the above, Gibbs, Gibson, Fender, Martin, you
name it. There's so many great makers, Gretch, you know,
tons of great stuff, you know, and some of this
stuff is over one hundred years old that I've collected,
and you know, they're just they're beautiful. There's just something

(01:39:45):
magical about an instrument that you can buy something that
you can make a joyful noise on. You know, they're special.

Speaker 1 (01:39:53):
So everyone is different. But what are your three to
five go tos?

Speaker 2 (01:39:57):
I have a white Fender telecaster that I bought in
nineteen seventy eight. It's the first Fender guitar I think
I ever bought, and I didn't pay very much money
for it. I got it for four hundred and fifty dollars.

Speaker 1 (01:40:09):
Did you buy it newer? Use? Now? I bought it used?
So what year I mean because CBS bought in the
middle of that.

Speaker 2 (01:40:15):
Yeah, in the late sixties they bought the Fender company.
This was nineteen fifty three when they first started making instruments.
In nineteen fifty I think, is when they started making guitars.
And you know, I just I got a love for him.
And if what's interesting about is an instrument is it
will inspire you to play it the way it wants

(01:40:38):
to be played. You can't just force yourself on an instrument.
You have to let it do what it wants to do.

Speaker 1 (01:40:44):
Too. There's a there's a neat balance in that. Okay,
that's the way telecaster? What else?

Speaker 2 (01:40:50):
Yeah, I'm Martin D twenty eight that was made in
nineteen forty two. When I moved away from home, I
had a newer Martin that was okay, it wasn't great.
And when I moved away from home, moved to Louisville.
I wanted an old, pre war Martin guitar because that's
what all self respecting bluegrass players wanted to play. And

(01:41:10):
I found this guitar at a bluegrass festival. And I'm
eighteen and I found this guitar, and in nineteen seventy five,
it was twenty five hundred dollars. I had a big
sign on the side of the case and that was
top of the mark in that it would have been
by a mile. And I asked the guy, I said, man,
can I see that guitar, because can you afford it?
I said, probably not, that's sure, like to see it.

(01:41:31):
Opened the case up. It was beautiful condition, and it
was made nineteen forty twos. It was thirty thirty three
years old at that point. And I said, was you
consider a trade, because not an even trade, but if
you'll give me your guitar and give me sixteen hundred
and fifty bucks, I'll trade you. I said, okay. So
I wrote him a check for sixteen hundred and fifty bucks.
And that was all the money I'd saved from all

(01:41:53):
my gigs, my college fund, everything i'd save for my future.
I spent on that guitar. And I told you earlier.
My I rent was fifteen dollars a month, so I
wrote him a check. I was dead broke, had no money,
but I only had to pay fifteen bucks a month,
and I could make a couple hundred bucks when I
got when the band worked, and so I said, I'll
be all right. So I started out dead broke, and

(01:42:15):
I had a great pre war instrument that I still
have to this day. And that's a precious My first one.
I told you about my Gibson three thirty five and
I got when I was ten, is precious, sentimental everge.
When I was, you know, nineteen twenty twenty one, i'd
occasionally call my old man say I'm thinking about trading
my red guitar in on something. He goes, son, don't

(01:42:37):
ever get rid of your first guitar. You can never
replace your first guitar. So he always talked me into
keeping it. I'm gratefully, did it means everything to me?

Speaker 1 (01:42:46):
Okay, couple more, A couple more.

Speaker 2 (01:42:48):
I got a a less Paul, a sunburst less Paul
from nineteen fifty nine. Wow, that was my ex brother
in laws. I was married the first time my wife
had a sister that was married to this guy, Leonard Arnold,
Texas guitar player, and he'd had this guitar since nineteen

(01:43:11):
sixty eight and I'd never bought one of the Sunburst
less balls. Those were the highest mark of the marks
for guitars that you could buy, and they were a
lot of money, and I'd never bought one. I didn't
play a last ball much. And then he called me
some years ago and he said, man, I just got
bad news. I got cancer and I'm not going to
make it. Will you buy my Burst? And I said,

(01:43:32):
of course I will. I said, if you'll take it
down to George or somebody George grew and as a
vintaged guitar shop down, have him praise it. I'll pay
you whatever he praises it for. So he praised it,
and I gave him the money. And because I bought
that guitar from him, he was able to save his
house for my first wife's sister and they were okay,
you know, and he since passed. But what was cool

(01:43:53):
about that guitar was when he was in California, he
was in a band called Blue Steel, and one of
the guys in Blue Steel was a guy named Richard
Bowden who was Don Henley's best friend growing up, first
music friend, I think Don had. They played together in
that band called Shiloh, and so they were going to

(01:44:14):
open some shows for the Eagles when they did the
Long Run Tour in nineteen eighty and Leonard played that
guitar with the Eagles back then, and so I bought
it and I got to play it with the Eagles again,
you know, a million years later, same guitar, and so
that's kind of pretty neat history and sentimental kind of
attachment to it. And my gosh, I bought up an

(01:44:37):
old strata Fender stratocaster from nineteen fifty nine that was
Duayne Eddies brand new Wow. And he bought it brand
new and never played it. He never found his way
around to playing a Fender stratocaster, and so he gave
it to his son, and his son played it for
his whole life and sold it to me about fifteen
twenty years ago. And it's my favorite strat I have

(01:44:58):
plenty of stratocasters, this is the one that speaks the most,
and I play the most on records and when I
play live.

Speaker 1 (01:45:06):
Okay, if you go back to the old era fifty
sixty seventies, even into the eighties, it could have the
same model name on it and each instrument sounded different.
Sure is that still the same with the modern instruments.
I think so.

Speaker 2 (01:45:22):
I think every instrument is its own, you know, and
you can same guy can make the same instrum, but
it's always going to be a different piece of wood,
you know. It's it's never going to be the same.
So they all go together different, they all play different,
they all sound different. It's the same make and model
and all the same parts. And you think an electric
guitar just would sound like an electric guitar, but they don't,

(01:45:45):
you know, they really sound different. Acoustically. I always can
tell a lot about an electric guitar hearing it acoustically,
whether it has any life in it or not. Well,
it will always transfer. If it has life in it acoustically,
it will electrically too. And so, you know, looking for
all those kinds of things, neck profiles, neck size, playability,

(01:46:05):
all those kinds of things are paramount and finding old instruments,
they're not all great. That's the beauty of it. Just
because something old is some something is old doesn't mean
it's great, And there were plenty of times that tar
makers missed, you know, maybe the piece of wood was dead,
or maybe the guy was high when he made it,
or who knows what, you know, and it's all it's

(01:46:29):
all part of it, you know. But like I said earlier,
I never I never picked up something that I didn't
like the way it played and sang, just because it
might have been a good deal or a good price for.

Speaker 1 (01:46:39):
Something or what have you. And what about amps? Same thing?

Speaker 2 (01:46:42):
You know, they're all they all look alike, they all
got tubes in them, They all, you know, do the
same thing, but they all sound different, you know, and
you're you're It's what's fun is there's a constant search
to sound better, and it never stops. I still buy
old amps to this day. I still try different settings.

(01:47:05):
I try different amps, I try different guitars. I love
to experiment. When you find a great combination of a
great amp and a great guitar, many they work in. Yeah,
I've got. I don't have as many apps as I
do guitars, but I don't think I need quite as
many apps as I do guitars.

Speaker 1 (01:47:31):
Okay, let's talk about the Eagles for a second they
put out The Long Road Out of Eat in two
thousand and seven, Don put out Cast County I Be
Lievest twenty fourteen. There hasn't been any new Eagles material.
Joe's done some stuff. I'm making a general point. It's
really not about the Eagles. A lot of those bands
have ceased putting out new material, many because they know

(01:47:55):
the marketplace has changed, and even if they put out
something as good as their class era, it's almost impossible
to have those same level of success in recognition as
someone who's there contemporary? Is it hard to get motivated?
Like you're putting out these EPs? Turn them motivated to

(01:48:17):
do new material because inherently, you know, the odds of
being as successful is even your stiff material are really.

Speaker 2 (01:48:25):
Long and Neil, Yeah, of course I do. But you know,
I just keep telling myself that's that's not the reason
I ever did it.

Speaker 1 (01:48:34):
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:48:34):
The reason I did it is because of what it
spoke to me inside of me, and I will I
will never quit trying to make music unless I start
weising like a like an old woman or something. Someday
I might, but until that day, I'm gonna I guess
I'm doing it for me, you know, and if anybody
wants to come along, I'm grateful, you know. I tell

(01:48:57):
people now when I go play live on my own shows,
I go, look, I'm going to play for a long
time because I love it. And I think that if
you're paying as much as you are for a ticket,
you ought to get as much as you can stand.
And I want to play for a long time. If
you want to leave, You're not going to hurt my feelings.
I said, I'm going to play for a good while regardless,

(01:49:19):
and I just.

Speaker 1 (01:49:20):
Think that I keep that in the forefront of my mind.
I don't you know.

Speaker 2 (01:49:26):
I heard Kenny Rogers say something one time that really
just took me down. Thought it was so cool and
so so important, and he hadn't made a new record
in years and years and years and years, and somebody
asked him, I said, you've made a new record, and
Kenny said, yeah, yeah, I got that. I wanted to

(01:49:47):
make a new record. And he goes the interviewer said,
are you hoping it's successful? And Kenny smiled and he goes, no, no.

Speaker 1 (01:49:56):
Not really.

Speaker 2 (01:49:56):
He said, I've had records that have been successful. He said,
what I want this record to be is significant, and
I just went, wow, there's my marching orders.

Speaker 1 (01:50:07):
Those are my marching orders. So that's just me. Okay,
you have the marching order on your way up. You
know you have a hunger. You want to prove yourself.
We talked about, you know, playing golf, etc. Can you
get yourself in that same headspace recording today?

Speaker 2 (01:50:30):
I think so, you know, and once again you know
the the real truth is. And I don't It sounds
arrogant almost to say, but I'm doing it for me.
So I'm doing it to move me first, and I
feel like if I can't move me, then I can't
move you. I can't move anybody else. So that's where

(01:50:50):
it has to That's where it kind of all begins
and ends for me, is I'm doing this for my
love of it, and whoever comes along come home if
you want too, fine, but you're not. It's not going
to deter me from wanting to do it, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:51:05):
Okay, So you've put out six of these EPs. I
think at this point in time, what's the experience been.

Speaker 2 (01:51:15):
You know, I've I mean, would I love to see
it blow up and so many as the records? Of
course I would, But I know that's not realistic. And
you want any time you do this, whether it's making
a record or playing a gig, you just want somebody
to respond. And that's all that they're that's all that

(01:51:37):
you're hoping for. Somebody hears it, and somebody is taking
a story that you've written and go, Man, that pertains
to my life. You've you've helped me get through a
hard time. You've helped me get through a struggle, you know,
And that's that's a powerful feeling. If you can have
an impact on somebody's life in a way that's profound.

Speaker 1 (01:51:58):
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:51:59):
Yeah, you can have a fun song, everybody likes it,
sings along, but if you really you know, the one
song I think that I probably will be most known
for in my life is go Rest high on that mountain.
It's been sung at so many services and funerals and
memorials and whatnot. And what I know that it's done,
what I'm grateful for is that it's helped somebody get

(01:52:20):
through a hard time. If you get to do that,
that's there's no better feeling, I don't think than that.

Speaker 1 (01:52:27):
Okay, in the old days, I say there was a
huge separation between the people on stage and the people
in the crowd today. I mean, I can't believe it.
I saw Van Morrison on TikTok, never mind Todd Rungrin
and other people. Okay, so yes, in the old days,

(01:52:49):
there would be points where people in the community radio,
maybe play a gig, would talk about it would respond
to what degree is a result of modern communications methods?
Do you get the response directly from the audience? Oh?

Speaker 2 (01:53:08):
Just think in the moment you get the response from
an audience. You can't from them finding you on Instagram
or TikToker, Facebook or wherever they find YouTube or whatever.
All the formats are. I tell people all the time,
I said, trust me, little Jimmy Dickens would have been
on American Idol had it been there in nineteen forty eight.
You know, everybody's just still trying to find the way

(01:53:32):
to communicate, the way to connect. You know, it's what
we were meant to do as people, as a race
is you know, that's the best feeling in the world
is connection. And however the format is that you find
a way to connect that to me is not is irrelevant,
you know, And so I'm not up there posting stuff

(01:53:57):
about me all the time, but the office is so
I'm still a part of it, you know, even though
I'm not the one doing it, and I'm sure Van
is not the one recording the video whatever he is.

Speaker 1 (01:54:08):
Well, well, you know, I don't know. He's probably not
posting it, but it's him talking into the screen fair enough.
But he's probably getting some help, I know, I right, Well,
even Trump probably gets some help. So to what degree
do you feel? I mean, because authenticity and credibility rule.
It's one thing to take you have someone take care

(01:54:29):
of the process, but there are companies that basically the
acts are pretty much removed. They're saying, you know, these
are the tour dates, this is this is what they did.
So to what degree if someone follows you, are they
going to really know you?

Speaker 2 (01:54:44):
Well, they have to know that I've never posted a
word on any social media platform on earth and never will.
I'm not responding to them if they send me a PM.

Speaker 1 (01:54:55):
Is that what you call it? Private message? Or so?

Speaker 2 (01:54:58):
I don't even know what all those things are. But
I've sadly had people get scammed saying to someone that
it was me posing as me saying they want to
have a relationship with me, and blah blah blah, and
and built them out of money. And I've seen them
do that, you know. And once again, technology for the
wrong reason is the wrong reason, and it's it's not

(01:55:21):
it's a pretty good stain on on how we treat
each other sometimes, But.

Speaker 1 (01:55:27):
Once I just.

Speaker 2 (01:55:30):
It's the it's the way of today, and you kind
of have to conform or or check out, you know,
and I.

Speaker 1 (01:55:36):
Have a checking out. You have this great skill and
you're a songwriter. Let's just assume you were to perform
the song live or a snippet a song live. What
would be wrong with posting it on these sites? Well? Nothing.

Speaker 2 (01:55:53):
You know. What's interesting though, is we talked earlier about
how to how to get paid for stuff. Everybody's allowed
to record me playing and singing and post it and
find a way to earn income from it from getting
likes and advertising and whatnot. However that works, I'm not
saying I know. But wait, wait wait, wait, wait wait,
you're taking what I'm doing. Wait wait wait, and you're

(01:56:15):
gonna make money for Wait.

Speaker 1 (01:56:17):
If whatever you're doing is so hot that people want
to repost it, et cetera, and they may make money,
that means you're gonna make money because your song is
going to be more famous. Let's give an example of
the person who posted the Fleetwood Mac song to the
guy skateboarding Okay, Fleetwood Mac made a lot of money

(01:56:41):
even though the person who even though they didn't post it,
and now everybody knows the song. Same thing with the
Goo Goo dolls. Iris. So you're putting out seventy songs,
why don't you help yourself? Well, I'm doing all I
know how to do well. This is yeah, this is
I'm gonna go. This is not a heavy lift. You

(01:57:04):
have children, and you have people on the payroll for
you to play one of these new songs or half
of the song and say something about it. I mean,
you could do this shit on your four k iPhone okay,
and then you know. But the thing about okay, let
me let me put it differently. If we're going on okay,

(01:57:26):
there's this mozart pianist not my area of expertise, Meetsuko
Ucheetah and she was writing and they did an article
on her newsweek, the old news week before the Internet,
and she said, I tell my students to practice really
hard and trying to be great because there's very few
great things out there, and if you're great, people will

(01:57:49):
find you. Now we know in today's cacoph inist world
that's harder. But people are surfing all yourself included, all
day long, looking for something great that they can tell
people about. If you're not in the pool, they can't tell. Yeah,
your songs are on Spotify, okay, but the odds of

(01:58:11):
someone finding it. They say, Oh, I'm a Vince Gill fan.
Let me see what Vince is doing, as opposed to
someone saying I'm at stage coach in my cowboy boots.
You know, there's a million acts here. You know, Vince Gill.
I don't care how good he is. He might as
well be living in Oklahoma. You know, all I know

(01:58:33):
is what I know, and you don't have to do it.
All I'm trying to say is, since you were promoting
new music, what's that You're like the king of jokes?
You know, you know the one that the punchline is,
do me a favor, buy a ticket, that legendary joke.

(01:58:54):
If you can't buy the ticket, whatever, I'm putting a
seat in your mind. Do whatever you want, But let
me ask you this question.

Speaker 2 (01:59:02):
Then if you think, do you think that by someone
recording my concert, taking it home and probably less inclined
to go buy a record because they have it on
their little phone.

Speaker 1 (01:59:15):
That's not even the way it works anymore. A. They
don't buy a they don't buy the record. There, you're right. B.
The person who's shooting the video paid to see you
and is a fan. Those people are going to check
out the material on Spotify, your entire catalog. What do

(01:59:36):
we know? Older demos tend to be more passive when
it comes to streaming. I'm I could go down that
rabbit hole, but you're telling me that, really the music
hasn't change and you've gotten better. So what are the
odds someone who's never heard of Vince Gil is going
to catch on? Not the Internet era but the doors

(01:59:59):
we've the led Zeppelin rebible. Do people under the age
of twenty five know who forget? How good or bad
you are? Do they know Vin Skill's new music? Do
they know any vins Skill music? Probably not?

Speaker 2 (02:00:12):
But what they what I think they're all looking for
is the authenticity that you spoke of earlier, and I
think they can recognize it. They can recognize the things
that that are real, you know, like take Chris Stapleton,
for example, when he opens his mouth, you go game over.
That's as good as singing as you're ever going to

(02:00:33):
hear in your life. And hopefully the same thing rings
true for me. When I open my mouth and I
start singing. They they understand that that's authentic, you know,
And I think, well, I guess what everybody is.

Speaker 1 (02:00:48):
I couldn't agree more, but all I will say is
the paradigm is completely shifted. It's just like you were
stiff for that hundred bucks. You're a musician. I guarantee
you there's a lot of money you rode that you
never got paid. Okay, and look at the status you
have now. So you can't enter this saying well, someone's

(02:01:14):
gonna make money off of me. Let's talk Don for
a second. Okay, you'll know this song the Beatles, Yes
it is, Okay, you know the song. I never liked
that song. Okay. Don Henley did a live version. It's spectacular, okay,

(02:01:36):
and it was on Spotify because it's part of the
Bridge concert thing. I wrote about it. Don said, Don
had it take him down. Okay. I don't want to
get really, but I'm telling you that version was better
than the Beatles, he slowed it down. It wasn't quite
a cappella whatever. Now he's got a lot of other
avenues he's in, and he hasn't released any new music recently.

(02:02:00):
So all I'm trying to say is you believe in
these songs. There are ways today to give those songs
a chance, because most of the stuff sucks. You know, listen,
we don't know. There's no gatekeepers anymore. Right. But the
other thing is, I'm sure you could tell me incredible

(02:02:20):
tales of practicing your guitar as a teenager. So I
was in my room for three hours. I was dropping
the needle. I was slowing it to you know, to
slower speed the forty five to thirty three. Figure out
those licks just alone. Okay, today's kids, most of them
don't do that. They're busy promoting themselves, and therefore there

(02:02:44):
are exceptions. Of course, most of them don't have the
skills you have. In addition, you come from an era
we had to be able to sing. I get an
email all the time people say, you know, listen to me.
It's like, well, maybe you could be the guitar player,
but you know you're then the say Bob Dylan. I said, well,
Bob Dylan's the best lyricist of all time. If you
were that good, we would recognize it. Yeah, I'm gonna

(02:03:08):
leave in it there as I say, because I think
I mean. The funny thing in this particular case, unlike
most people, is you are surfing on your phone, so
you know the magic I do.

Speaker 2 (02:03:21):
You know, I'm I'm always looking for something, and you
know the when young people call me and say, hey,
what would you do if A B and C happens?
And I says, look, my way is gone.

Speaker 1 (02:03:36):
I don't.

Speaker 2 (02:03:36):
I don't know that I that my my words of
wisdom would be relevant today because of the way that
it works. And that's what I That's what I know
is how it worked for me and how I had
to do it to get to where I got. And
now it's foreign. You know, all of this is pretty
foreign to me. So I think it's as much about

(02:04:00):
probably me being insecure of how to find my way
out there. I'm just doing the best I can and
trying to take a take a page from the folks
that are are about it. So I'm in the middle
of it and I'm just trying to do what I
know how to do, which is write a song, play
a song, and sing a song, and however it finds

(02:04:22):
its way. And even if I don't get paid, you know,
that's out of my out of my hands.

Speaker 1 (02:04:28):
It's okay.

Speaker 2 (02:04:29):
You know, I'm still going to do it because that's
not the reason I'm doing it in the first place.
And I just I will never not want to be creative,
never not want to be reaching out and trying to
inspire somebody to like something.

Speaker 1 (02:04:44):
So someone comes to see you live. In your coming dates,
will you play any Eagles songs?

Speaker 2 (02:04:50):
Mm hmm, No, I don't think it's my place, you know.
I I tell people, I said, I had not one
note to do with the music of that band, an
recordings any of the songs, So I can't with a
straight face lay any claim to that. I said, Yeah,
I got to play with him for ten years and
sing some of those songs, but I don't think it.

(02:05:11):
I don't think it looks good, you know. And I
mean when I first started, I'll tell you this story.
You may have heard it, but we were doing that
first show at Dodger Stadium, which you went to, and
I was singing a song of mine called Whenever You
come around at soundcheck and Don came over to me.

(02:05:35):
He said, what is that song? I said, it was
a song of mine that I put out, you know,
twenty something years ago, twenty five years ago. It was
a big hit for me, and he goes, can we
work it up and do it? I said, Don, with
all due respect, I said I'd rather not, And he
said why. I said, Look, what I'm getting ready to
do isn't going to be easy, and I don't want

(02:05:57):
to give these people one more reason to not like me.
I don't want anybody out there saying I didn't come
here to hear Vince Gill songs. I came here to
hear Ego songs. So that was kind of how this
all started. And all these years later, I don't feel
like I I should lay claim to sing any of

(02:06:17):
those songs. And if I tell people the real reason,
I said, look, I just don't think it's my place.
I think they're okay with it, you know, But my
ego is such that I don't I don't need to
flaunt the fact that I got to do this for
the past ten years. I'm grateful and lucky and all that.
But Don told me, he said, oh, I really respect

(02:06:38):
you for that, you know, so you.

Speaker 1 (02:06:40):
Know, you know, this is just like with what's his name,
Park Knoppler, you know who you are? I kind of do.
I'm pretty comfy in my own skin. And who's the
best rock guitarist all of them? No such thing. Let's
leave clappting out and Joe Walsh out because of personal relationships.

(02:07:02):
Where does that leave us? Jeff Beck's pretty bad ass? Well,
that's what I say, Jeff Beck is the best.

Speaker 2 (02:07:09):
But it's like what you like and what I don't
like don't have to mesh, you know. And for when
they say who's the best singer? You go, who do
you like? That's all that matters. Why is it who's
the best NBA player of all time? They go with that,
It is it Lebron? Is it Michael Jordan? I go,
they're both just great? Why can't it be that?

Speaker 1 (02:07:30):
You know, that's an interesting one since they're playing in
the Lebron's in the play because the style of play
is so different. Lebron's a great player, but you're watching
Michael Jordan. I guess you know. The reason I even
make a choice here is because people tend to default
to the usual suspects Clapton and Hendrix. Sure, and not

(02:07:52):
that they're not great, but you know Beck was even
you know, playing with his fingers, et cetera. Okay, we've
I've beaten you up enough. I don't why you're throwing
your clubs at me.

Speaker 2 (02:08:06):
Thanks for letting me do this. I think you're going
to talk to my wife Amy here in a week
or so.

Speaker 1 (02:08:10):
Yeah, yeah, you know, it's uh coming up. It'll be
interesting because her manager reached out with you know, a
lot of new technology stuff. You're living under the same house. Oh,
I'll be interesting the same route, interesting to hear what
she has to say. Let me ask you, since we
know your your wife has famously made religious music, is

(02:08:35):
that something that is inside the house or is that
her identity and you have your identity.

Speaker 2 (02:08:42):
Well, I think I think that people assume I'm like
her because we're married. But I didn't grow up in
a church going community or family or any of that,
and so we're probably a good bit different that way.
But what we are is kind, you know, to each other,
and respectful of you.

Speaker 1 (02:09:01):
She's taken.

Speaker 2 (02:09:02):
She went and made pop records, you know, after she'd
had a great, great run in the Christian music world
and got lambasted for a lot and got lambastard for
marrying me. She's She's taken all of that criticism better
than anybody I've ever seen in my life. It's magic,
magical to watch her respond to so much of that.
And you're gonna you're gonna enjoy getting to talk to her.

Speaker 1 (02:09:25):
Okay, just to build one more, because you know you
brought up so many loose threads that I'm interested in Stapleton.
Stapleton wins all the awards. Everybody in Nashville thinks he's
the greatest. How come the rest of country music is
not like kid?

Speaker 2 (02:09:41):
I don't I don't know that I believe that. You
think you don't think country music likes Chris Stapleton.

Speaker 1 (02:09:47):
No, I said the opposite. They they think he's the greatest.
Whenever they have awards, he always just like it, a
Entertainer of the Year whatever, blah blah blah. But the
rest of what's you know and hit country music doesn't
sound anything else like that.

Speaker 2 (02:10:02):
No, you're right, but it it kind of never has,
you know. And the thing with the I learned in
all my years of award shows, oftentimes people will really
vote with who they think might be the best singer
and not who's the most popular. You know, the Grammys

(02:10:22):
have been that way. I won a lot of Grammys,
but there were a lot of artists that sold way
more records than me, way more popular than me, and
all that kind of stuff. But you get there and
you go, hey, there's five guys. I like that guy
singing the best. You can't there's nothing you can do
about that. You know, he's pretty tough to beat. And
I you know, i'd win a male vocalist up against

(02:10:42):
some of the guys that would sell out arenas, and
I couldn't come close to doing what they did, but
people thought I was better, So I just part of it.

Speaker 1 (02:10:52):
You can't.

Speaker 2 (02:10:53):
I don't know how you can figure any of that
stuff out. But he's pretty special, right, He's.

Speaker 1 (02:11:00):
A shining light in a ever changing world. You know.
Tom Petty not the last tour, but before that, he
played for a week at the Fonda. I went a
couple of nights and one night said I'm gonna play
a country song. He says, no, no, no, no, not
today's country song. And he played something I can't remember

(02:11:20):
who it was, and he goes today's country music is
the rock of the seventies. And right, that's right, that's fair.
But the other thing is, you know, I think people
are catching on. It is so big and the artists
are so much bigger than the people in the Spotify
Top fifty. And you know, it's interesting because the media

(02:11:44):
is still living in a past world. It's like Morgan Wallen,
whether you feel good about him or not, Morgan Wallan
screams much better than Taylor Swift and they all hate him.
But you know, in country music or just you know,
Morgan Wallen is by far the bigest artists on Spotify
in streaming. According to Luminit, which is what they call

(02:12:06):
sound scan now, Morgan Wallen far exceeds Taylor Swift in America.
But that would be shocking. Well that's true. I could
bring up the report because reports available there everybody, but
I know it's a case. So you have half the country.
He says Morgan Wallen was drunk and use the end word.
We're never going to forgive them. And then everybody's saying

(02:12:28):
how great Taylor Swift is. Whatever it is, Morganwallen is bigger.
But I'll leave it there. I got love for both
of them. Well, tell you my one golf story and
then I'm gonna go. Okay, I played as a kid.
My mother was really into it. Let me be very clear.

(02:12:50):
I was never good, never good, and I'm not. You know,
there are things I'm good at. This is not one
of them. And then in the eighties when there became
a new golf boom in the last half of the eighties,
and a lot of people in business wanted to play
to you know, to get into it. And you know

(02:13:11):
better than any of these people. You could take it
as seriously as you want. You're never gonna play like
the people in the PGA. Now you could go into
the trap. You can practice whatever it's.

Speaker 2 (02:13:23):
In the one or two percentile of people that play
the game that ever get that good of all the players.

Speaker 1 (02:13:29):
I'm playing at a public course and the athol it's
a public course, you know it is. So you got
the people on the green who are not letting us on.
On the part three it's an elevated t You got
r foursome, you got the other foursome backed up, and
you get the foursome coming off the seventh hole. Okay,

(02:13:51):
I happened to hit a beautiful golf shot. Not that
you have to achieve this to do this, but Wall
landed like twelve feet from the pin, goes right in.
Now there's like all these people there freaking out. Also,
the green was at an angle and you know, so
you can see it go right in. And my friend said, oh,

(02:14:12):
we got to check. We gotta make sure it gets
in there. And it's like it's inherently a lucky shot.
I've only played golf once since then. It's like, you
want to take it that seriously. I'm out. I did
the impossible right, Okay, Vince, thanks for taking this time
with my audience. You gotta buddy till next time. This

(02:14:34):
is Bob leftstas