It's part 1 of our conversation with the legendary Bob Livingston

I have been waiting for this conversation for years! Almost 50 years in fact. Bob and Monte sit down with Bob Livingston. One of the many questions.......how did Michael Murphey and Jerry Jeff Walker share the same band?......questions about the recording of the landmark album "Viva Terlingua". You will love this conversation.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Hey, it's Bob Pickett. Weare on our way to the legendary Broken
Spoke. Come on, let's getout of the truck and head inside.
Damn you're proud of it. Comeon, it's going side. Getting ready

(00:22):
for another tale from the Broken Spoke? Are you ready for more tels Broken
Spoke? Bob Picket, Monny Wardensitting here at the Willie Nelson table be
too a historic Broken Spoke. Specialguests this week the legendary Hall of Famer
Bob Livingston. Thank you for joiningus. Oh, it's great to be
here. Guys. Now you've playedhere before many times, haven't Jef,
Yeah, here at the Broken Spoke. Never played in this room, but

(00:45):
played in there in the big mainroom a lot of times with Jerry Jeff
Walker. Sure, yeah, anduh, I mean probably more times than
we've had hot meals. And Jameswhy why coming up and getting it on
his uh read about poupon mustard.Yeah, yeah, that's great. This

(01:07):
is a great place and this hasn'tchanged a lot since the last time we
or at all true, but youknow, why would you change it?
It's perfect? Yeah, that's it. You know you brought up Jerry jof
farker. I'm gonna go way back. I want to go. I want
to I came to Austin back innineteen eighty one. Money course was born
here. You were always part ofthe Austin music scene. You're the reason,

(01:27):
your music, the people you associatedyourself with, You're the reason why
I wanted to move to Austin,Michael Martin Murphy. But the main credit
goes to Jerry Jeff Walker's music.Yeah, that's amazing to hear a lot
of people have said that they movedto Austin something about those first two records,
which was the Jerry Jeff the Brownalbum that had La Freeway on it,

(01:49):
right, and and then Viaver treLingua, right, and that kind
of set set the course. ButI remember in New York coming playing.
We had recorded that first album,and you know, some of the cuts
were done in New York City,La Freeway and something else. So when
Jerry Jeff had always been the folkyand when all of a sudden these records

(02:15):
came out, all these people thatknew him as basically a folks singer,
all his friends in New York andGreenwich Village and all that, they all
came out and were blown away becausethere was this kick ass raw edge all
of a sudden to it all,and it was new. It was new,
and people heard it, and Idon't know, it was a to

(02:37):
me, it was a landmark becauseI hadn't done much until then, you
know. But also about those recordsand the ones that you and Murphy made,
it's like they just they sound likethose records, they sound timeless,
They're not dated. There's nothing aboutit. You're not using any gimmicks of
the day. Y'all are just,you know, picking the way y'all picked.

(03:00):
And you're also not doing what wasor doesn't sound that way, what
was prevalent then of everybody recording laters. It sounds like y'all are in the
room together, you know. Andyeah, we are in the room together.
And that's the thing. I wentwith Geronimo's Cadillac. See, I
had I'd gone out to La Ihad a record deal out there on Capitol

(03:20):
Records. They gave me just enoughmoney to buy a dots and pickup truck
and a Martin guitar, and Iliterally picked up a hitchhiker in North Hollywood
he was from Germany. Jumped inthe car and Finally, he says,
only all the texts that I knowis from Dallas. He's a musician to
his name is Mike Murphy. AndMike Murphy, I you know, i'd

(03:42):
heard his songs from Three Faces Westin Red River, and he'd already written
Wildfire, and I'm just thinking,God, this is this is nineteen sixty
nine, and I'm thinking, thisis the greatest stuff. And so I
went out to you know, Iactually I gave him my name and number
to the hitchhiker auto mechanic, andhe said, I said, if you

(04:03):
ever see Murphy again, get givehim my name a number. And that
night Murphy called me, Wow,who are you? Was that a hitchhiker?
Was that like an angel? That'sfantastic, right place at the right
time, seriously, And then younever saw them again. I always call
it the hand of fate. Steeredsteered my dots in the side of the

(04:25):
road where there's this guy. Don'tall pickup hitchhickers that much, but there
was something about this guy, brother, that was the hand of guy that
happened every day. I'd pick himup every day, you know, right.
But but but let's like like thoserecords, I was telling my my
wife Brandy about particularly Beaver to Linguathis morning, is music still hadn't caught
up with it. It just soundslike Beaver to ling with that, that's

(04:46):
what that record sounds like nothing nothingbefore or since. And it's just wild
because it you know, with withthe stuff that that you and Murphy did
and stuff that you did with youknow, uh of course there Jeff,
but just that that whole era,it is like you can point to,
like I don't know a dozen peoplethat made Austin music. Okay, well,

(05:11):
certainly Sam already he was the firstmajor label recording artist from here,
and certainly Blues Boy hovered. Ireckon James and Andnetta White of course,
you know, and then Carlon andGeorge Majeski I reckon, and then it's
the lineup from the Los Gonzo band. I mean that that made Austin music
what it is. Where people went, well, shit, that that didn't
sound like anything else, but Ilove it, and it's just so wide

(05:33):
where it's just because you know,I've been a fan of yours mine as
long as i've been picking, andwe've been friends. But it's just like
sometimes you just got to stop andgo wow, yeah, thank you.
Well, you know, there's agreat exhibit down at Texas State in the
library with the Whitliffe Collections, andit's all about viaver Tlingua. It's fiftieth

(05:56):
anniversary and so all this year it'llstill be open. It's one of their
best exhibits. They have all theseouttakes. I never knew these existed.
Jerry Jeff owned his own masters,smart guy, you know, and so
he donated it all to the Witliftand they went and mixed it and found
out found out takes and find rehearsaltapes and stuff you'd never heard, you

(06:18):
don't remember you ever heard, andso that's being piped through the room and
then they have all the like thepiano that was used on that record is
my piano they needed. I hada bald one spin it and you know,
and they said, well we don'thave a piano. Can we take
this? So we took that downthere and that was on the next couple
if every time we went down there, we used that. So Gary played

(06:39):
so that's you know, Gary playedthe London homesick blues on that piano,
and so that's in the exhibit andsome of the guitars, And and where
did y'all when you cut Jerry Just'srecord up New York? What studio did
y'all use it? I think itwas electric? Lady Land, Oh wow,
it was a big What happened tothe seame? You couldn't get into
any place good to make any senseout of it In nineteen seventy three,

(07:02):
I guess it is so mean.Two ish seventy three ish we put out
Geronimo's Cadillac and then we're still Murphy'sband. But we open do that Brown
album and we play it, andwe start out in austin the world's most
primitive conditions. I guarantee you wouldn'tbelieve it. There's a sixteen track AMPEG

(07:24):
tape recorder in the center of theroom is all there was for this studio.
It had been Farmer dry cleaners.It had ripped off all the ceilings
and put burr lap up there andthis one tape recorder and we were plugged
straight into it. And you know, to hear it was so involved to
listen to a playback. There wasno noise reduction, there's no board,

(07:45):
there's no nothing album vu meters thatyou tried to make sure as you record,
as you record, so we wouldit was so involved to hear a
playback. We we never listened toa pack god, and we just we
would do it, and then wemight do it again, but then we'd
go onto something else, and maybewe cut eight nine songs that night and

(08:09):
went in and cut the same songsand then listen to you know, Michael
Browski, he was there, themanager, and he listened to it and
said, I think we got whateverwe're looking for here. But it wasn't
all that. It wasn't the wholealbum, and Jerry Jeff had found La
freeway, but we didn't cut itthere. So when we went on a

(08:33):
tour with Murphy to support Geronimo's Cadillac, we were in New York and the
phone rang up on the roof.Murphy writes, cosmic Cowboy right in because
he called me cosmic Bob, andI had a belt that he made,
a hand tooled leather belt, saidcosmic Bob. So we were cosmic this
and cosmic that. You just wantto be a cosmic cowboy, And he

(08:56):
writes the song the phone rings,it's Jerry Jeff, I'm here in New
York. I want to finish thealbum Monk, can you guys come out?
So me, Gary Nunn and Craighillis we go. And the first
thing we do and I mean wedid a few songs, oh beat up
guitar and stuff like that, butthen it comes to La Freeway. The

(09:16):
drummer is a guy named Andy Newmarkwho played with Cat Stevens and Plasticono Band.
He's an a lister or guy playedon so many hits and he's the
friggin drummer And I'm coming from youknow, Funky Lost Gonso band. And
when this guy took control, hewas driving a semi. If you ever

(09:37):
listened to that track, sure it'sexciting. Well, he's on a bunch
of stuff that was at the recordplant too. Yeah, he was just
one of those top New York kaybeit was the record plans? Is that
was he a session drummer at theWhy do is know? Jimmy Ivan used
him on a bunch of stuff,But I would think Electric Lady Land.
I mean, you know, it'sit's as bigger you know. Yeah,
it's only two block ratings the go, but it's an amazing drummer on so

(10:01):
many of those. It was somuch fun, you know, just it.
It caused me to turn up,you know, and and play something,
you know, a lot of alot of eighth notes and right.
But yeah, so we cut thatand then we're still with Murphy and it

(10:22):
becomes time for Michael's second record.You had to make an album a year
in those days, year after year, and came time for the second record,
which was Cosmic Cowboy. And whenit came time, I don't know.
All I can say is the band, you know, weren't We weren't

(10:43):
getting along with Michael. And onthe last note of the last song,
we left for Austin took off.Everybody left but Gary p None. Why
didn't he leave because he had asong on this record called the Song of
the South Canadian and he had writtenthe music. Murphy wrote the lyrics drink

(11:07):
Life one drop at a time.It's this beautiful esoteria kind of thing and
very cosmic, and he thought Murphymight take it off the record if he
left, so he said, Igot to stick around to, you know,
protect his intellectual property. So weall left back to join up with
Jerry Jeff for his loyalty. ThatMurphy takes Gary to England where it's a

(11:31):
worst winner in twenty years. Wow, I know where this is going.
And and they put him in aflat. I think these Oxford frat rats
had they knew he needed a placefor him to be, but they would
leave to go to school. Andthe landlords turned all the steam heaters off
six am to six pm every day. I'm not gonna eat you, right,

(11:52):
you know, you get to geta get a get your ask class
to get a job, you know, and Gary did didn't have any of
that stuff. So he writes aline of homesick and blues. So how
did that song end up? Whydidn't the song go to Murphy instead of
Jerry Jeff? Because Gary was sopissed at the world when he got back

(12:13):
from London and he comes to Austin. He was going to quit the music
business and where he could make somemoney. He couldn't make any money playing
with you know, at this level, and he was about to go get
his pharmacy degree back and get hisPharmacgary and he and Jerry Jeff ran across
him at the scoot ind and Iran across him and we last sued Gary

(12:39):
and said we're going to make arecord down in Luke and Bach, you
know, and he said Luke andBok. None of us really knew anything
about it, but Gary said,okay, I'll do that, and just
by happenstance, he has that song. And the way that the sessions would
go is literally Jerry Jeff would beabout two in the afternoon. It'd be

(13:00):
making up a big pot of sangriawine and we would come out there and
sit down and have a sip ofsangria and maybe pick a song and a
sip of We weren't. We werejust kind of throwing things out and Gary
had that song and it ended upon the record, letting them sick Blue.
This is perfect too, This isperfect. Would you guys put Luke
and Bach really on the map?Yuah Ben album? Man? I mean,

(13:24):
you know well and like, okay, So when y'all when y'all were
cutting Viva Treling, was it thesame deal? Were you're not really listening
to playbacks and stuff. You justkind of that's so brief. You had
a truck out there? Is thathow you recorded? Thing is we had
a truck and we might It wasjust so we were we were in the
we were outside and we were inside. They had microphone strung everywhere, you

(13:46):
know, with this world class mobilerecording studio from New York? How many
tracks? Sixteen twenty four? Maybetwenty four, I'm not you know,
I'm not exactly sure, but Ithink state of the art though two inch
tape and Jerry javen't seen it.We were in New York taking a walk
and heard some music in a door. Then he looked in there was a
band and these wires were running outof the door across the sidewalk into a

(14:11):
bus and said, what's this?And he knocked on the door and the
guy came to the door and hesaid what's going on? He goes,
well, we're carding this band inthere, and he goes, man,
would you come to Luke and Bock, Texas? And he go where's that?
He goes, Oh, it's outnear Fredericksburg. Would you come here?
I want to And the guy saidsure, so they did. They

(14:31):
came down and set up right there. So it was a world class studio
outside and in the in the dancehall. That's kind of like with Ralph
Pierre did with the Carter family andJimmy Rodgers in the twenties with the truck.
You know, yeah, that's cool. And and of course we would
sit down and play it like thefirst song we did was Getting By,

(14:54):
and we would and he always hada different it was always different, had
different lyrics. Uh. And inthe in this case when we did getting
By, on getting By is mystock in trade, right, And the
second verse says, today, Iwas thinking it's record time again. And
I can hear Mike Maitland pacing thefloor. He was the president of m

(15:16):
c A and he had the firstrecord had come out. It was so
crazy. It sold really well,and it put it, you know,
put him on the you know,put us on the map. But you
know, it was not like mc A was used to or this guy.
They had the who and Elton Johnand all that. But Mike Maitland

(15:37):
had a soft spot in his heartfor Jerry Jeff because he's a good old
New York whiskey drinking boy, justlike himself, and so he liked him.
He was giving him some margin,giving him some latitude, and so
he did the shout out. Ican hear Mike Maitland pacing the floor.
Hey, Mike, don't you worrysomething bound to come out. We've been
down this road once or twice before. So when you said it was like,

(16:00):
you mean from take to take,it was a different lyric. Yeah,
yeah, always I have his lyricsright there, and he'd go,
I think I kind of got thatin there. Man, I'd like to
get that. Let's do it again. I'd like to get that in the
you know, and that kind ofthing. But really, both Murphy and
Jerry Jeff, especially with Murphy Drommo'sCadillac one take every seat. When when

(16:25):
I was playing with Michael, itwas just a duo. I was playing
bass. When my record deal fellthrough, Murphy said, come and play
some gigs back in Texas with me. We were living out in La I
said, man, well, Idon't know what I'm gonna do. I
had no plan b I didn't lookfor another deal. I didn't know what
to do. And he said,come play bass with me. And I

(16:47):
said, bass, I don't knowhow to play bass. He said you'll
you'll learn, and he had mea Fender Precision and for the next forty
years I made my living doing that. You know. It's like all of
a sudden and I was thrown intothe deep end. Of the pool.
I didn't really know, you know, because Murphy was writing all this magnificent

(17:07):
masterpieces with base and the third andthen the next time it goes to the
two instead, and then you augmentthis and I'm just making it up as
I go, trying to you,trying to hang on. And we got
so tight when we're playing all thefolk clubs, you know, the Rubiat
and Checkered Flag and one in Nacadochiusand you know den in Denver. Uh,

(17:30):
there's this circuit and we had alwaysbe, always be, you know,
playing these things, and you neverknew who's going to be in your
audience. And in Murphy's case,in Rubiot, no record deal yet nothing
has happened. But there's a guyin the audience and it's Bob Johnston who
produced you know, Blonde Blonde onBlind Nashville Skyline Live at Folks in Prison.

(17:55):
He was this major and he's thereand he comes up and says,
meet me in Nashville next Wednesday,will make a record, and uh,
and I you know, he saidbring him to So I got to go.
And we knew the stuff so well. We would cut it, uh,
you know, one take and thenmaybe two takes. That's brilliant.

(18:15):
But then the the little, thelittle factoid I have for you is Geronimo's
Cadillac hadn't been written yet. Wewere on I was on tour with Murphy,
and Murphy's extremely a stern task masterand sometimes not very nice. And
and you know, and he washe was I was just a you know,
I was, I was fast.This is like a year of packed

(18:37):
into you know. And so thephone rings and it's we've already cut these
songs. The phone rings. Itis Ray Hubbard. He wasn't wildly yet,
he was playing Ray Hubbard. Hesaid, Bob, what are you
doing? I don't know. Idon't even know what I'm doing. We
just we cut some songs. Surelythis can't be a record, but you
know, and and he goes,well, Wayne quit the band. He

(19:00):
was in Three Faces West, RememberWayne hit the band, and we're we
need a bass player and another cosmiccircumstances. The drummer was Michael McGarry.
Who was Michael McGary the you know, he's in the Lotions, but he
played on Beaver tre Lingua. Heplayed on the Murphy stuff too, you
know, And he was the drummerand that ran its course, and Michael

(19:25):
called me back and said, weneed to get you back in the band.
And so suddenly I'm leaving those guys, going back to a rehearsal in
Austin. Meanwhile, he had gottenGary Nunn as a bass player. Wow,
you know we were with the lastgig we played. I just remember

(19:47):
it was the last gig. Myears are ringing it. It's a fish
eye lends. I'm quitting Murphy.I don't know if this is the right
thing to do. I see people'smouths just going, you know, it's
just so weird. We get upthere to play and on the front row
is Gary Nunn and Gary was likeI was, you know, he was
in the Fabulous Sparkles in Lubbock.He was the greatest rock and roll band

(20:11):
in the history of the world.And there he was sitting on the front
row and I go, he's aftermy gig. And I was leaving,
but he is after my gig.And all Gary was thinking, he told
me, was Wow, what greatsongs. Holy man, you know,
like this is great stuff because nobodyhad written anything this was. This was
you know, of course from holessee Romos and those guys were there and

(20:36):
everybody was competing on writing the bestbest song. But so Murphy said,
hey, I hear your bass player. You want to play with me.
So suddenly Gary's in the band.So when I'm coming back to join back
up with Jerry Jeff, I meanwith Murphy that you know that rehearsal.
It's kind of complicated, but I'mcoming back and I'm going, what's gonna

(20:56):
happen. Gary's a bass player.I'm a bass player. Oh my god,
I don't even know Gary really well. And we walk in and Murphy
says, way we're going to handleit is, Bob, You're gonna play
bass on everything that you play basedon on the album, which was everything
but Geronimo's Cadillac. And he said, you Gary play based on Jerama's Cadillac

(21:17):
and anything and some of the newstuff we're working. Bob, you played
piano when Gary's playing bass. Gary, you do the opption. So that
kind of set the lost Gonzo thingwhere we traded instruments a lot, just
organically. Yeah. Wow, neverknew that. Yes, and how about
that all. We've got more greatstories from Bob Livingston Part two Tales Broken

(21:38):
Spoke Next week right here with afree iHeartRadio app. Tales from the Broken
Spoke is recorded live, but TheBroken Spoke in Austin, Texas, hosted
by Country Radio Hall of Fame broadcasterBob Pickett and Monty Warden, recorded mixed
down and produced by Mike Rivera