Don Was - Grammy Award Winning Producer, Musician, Filmmaker & President of Blue Note Records

Don Was, Grammy award winning producer, musician, filmmaker, and president of Blue Note Records, talks about his career, his influences, and what differentiates the musicians in the Folk Americana Hall of Fame inaugural class of inductees.

Episode Transcript

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This is What's at Risk with MikeChristian on WBZ, Boston's news radio.
Hi, Mike Christian. Here ofWhat's at Risk. Starting tonight and for
our next couple of episodes, weare showcasing Boston's Folk Americana Roots Hall of
Fame and its inaugural class of inductees. Located in Boston's world famous and historic

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Wang Theater, The Folk Americana RootsHall of Fame, also known as Farhoff,
celebrates the history of Folk Americana androots music through displays, memorabilia,
artifacts, multimedia lectures, concerts,and special curated exhibits from the museum collective.

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All of this is showcased in theincomparable Wang Theater itself. Through education
and music, Farhoff also helps usout understand our common history, appreciate our
differences, and maybe even become alittle more engaged in our communities through the
arts. First up on tonight's show, Don was Grammy Award winning producer,

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musician, filmmaker, and president ofBlue Note Records, talks about his career,
his influences, and what differentiates themusicians in this inaugural class of Hall
of Fame inductees. Our second segmentfeatures Chuck McDermott. He's a musician,
an environmentalist, a former political stafferfor the Kennedy family, and a board

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member of the Folk Americana Hall ofFame. Chuck discusses his significant career and
some of the considerations for choosing theFarhof inaugural class of inductees. Chuck,
the Chips, Dean Chak lived togetheras in Jazz keep In. Born in

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Detroit, don Was grew up listeningto Detroit blues, jazz music and The
Rolling Stones. He went on toform the group was not was now widely
recognized as a record producer extraordinaire.Donna's worked with artists including Bob Dylan,
The Rolling Stones, Bonnie Rait,Elton, John Ringo Starr, Willie Nelson,

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Brian Wilson, and many others.He has earned multiple Grammy Awards,
including Producer of the Year in nineteenninety five. Donnas served as musical director
or consultant on several motion pictures,including Thelma and Louise, The Rainmaker,
Days of Thunder Boys on the Side, and Toy Story. He has also

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been serving as president of the legendaryjazz label Blue Note Record Records. Don
thank you so much, for joiningus today. You grew up in Detroit,
a town with an amazing and eclecticmusical legacy. What did you listen

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to in your early years? Whowere some of your favorites? So I
grew up in a real dumbalaya ofmusical styles. Great R and B from
Detroit, Fortune Records, Motown Recordswas maybe when I was a young man.
And great rock and roll MC fiveand the Stooges students played at my
high school. Bob Seeger played atmy high school. Great jazz scene.

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But I will tell you this,I'm really excited because at the at the
Farhoff induction dinner, I get toUh, I get to induct Paul Stukey
and Peter Yarrow, who before therewere Beatles, That's who we all wanted
to be, we all wanted tobe Peter Phone Mary. I wouldn't be
talking to you today if it wasn'tfor those two guys. So it just

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hit me that I've never met himand how important they were to me.
Oh, that's awesome. Would Iwouldn't have expected that answer, actually,
but they're tremendous. As a kid, I love Peter Paul Mary too.
Same pre Beatles folk music was likealternative rock and roll in the in the
early sixties, and they just becameso popular that everybody bought a Peter Paul

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Mary record. I was probably insixth grade when they started doing that,
and we picked up guitars and wantedto be like Peter Paul Mary. We
watched Hoot and Nanny every night.So it's a great honor to be able
to this award to them. That'sawesome, and they're going to join on.
They're going to join our show nextweek, Peter and Paul or Nolan

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Peter, I should say, Butso you've heard Joe Spalding say music and
arts connects as ang makes us acivilized society. What are your thoughts about
that? I mean, you've beenfully ensconced in the music world most of
your life. Well, I agreewith Joe one hundred percent. There are

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there are limits to how much youcan convey with conversational language. It's a
it's a very limited medium of communication, and the realm of human emotions takes
to a whole other level. Andthat's where art comes in. Really,
in particular, music, music isreally a language. Rhythm is a language.

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Choice of notes have very important meaning, and that's how we go deeper
into examining, you know, thebig questions why we're here, How do
we deal with the uncertainties of life, how do we deal with adversity,
how do we appreciate beauty? That'swhere art comes in, yeah, for

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sure. Or how you've worked witha lot of the greats. I mean,
I could go on and on listingthe grades, but let's just say
Dylan, the Stones, Wayne Shorter, a whole list of phenomenal musicians,
and I saw a quote from you. I'll read it here. The thing
that unites them is that they understandthe value of storytelling. Do you remember
that quote. That's a great quote. Yeah, yeah, well I think

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that's really at the core of anyart. You know, it's about communication.
It's about making people feel something,getting under the skin, and making
them understanding their life and come toterms with things about life. That's that's

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the that's the story. I thinkif you go to a concert and you
see someone playing a million notes perseconds, it becomes acrobatics or like throwing
all kinds of ad libs in andtwisting phrases und for the sake of showing
you what they can do. Techniquewise, that's that's fun for about ten

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minutes, but that doesn't leave youwith a lasting impression. I've read recently
Martin Scorsese talking about how you knowhe over time he learned that telling the
story was the most important thing.If you go look at his early movies,
you could see he came out offilm school with all these technique ideas
and ultimately learned that the techniques andthe tricks were secondary to picking a great

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story and telling it eloquently and emotionally. And the same exact thing. It
is true in music, yeah,but in music the story is not always
told with words, though right,it doesn't have to be told with words.
Charlie Parker about that all the time. You know, But when I
used to listen to Wayne Shorter asa teenager back in Detroit, I didn't
hear notes or saxophone or reads ora guy putting his fingers on, you

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know, the keys of the instrument. What I heard was a guy conversing
with me. And if you listento any of his soulos, you can
you can hear that he's talking totalk to you, and you can read
into it whatever you want. AndI talked with and I mean I wasn't
just hallucinating that back in the nineteensixties. I've talked to Wayne about that

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very much. What he was allabout, Charlie Parker was all about that.
You've seen the inductee list for thefor Far Off for the Folk Americana
Roots Hall of Fame inductees. It'scoming up in a week or so.
Twenty nine artists. You know,many names that you'd expect what he Guthrie
Dylan, Joan Biaz, Joni Mitchell, the birds. You can go on

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and on. What do you thinkmade them distinctive and rise above to get
honored like this? And I don'tthink anybody really disputes that list. You
could probably add another ten or twentyto it, but I don't think there's
much dispute about it. It isit that ability to tell stories you were

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talking about. What what do youthink is the distinctive? It's the large
part of it. One time Iwas working with Villain and I asked him
late when I said, how comeyou can write Gates of Eden and I
can't? And he said, well, if it makes you feel any better,
I don't really I didn't really writeit, he said. I remember
moving the pencil over the page.But I don't know where those words came

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from, as it came from without, you know. And I think that
most of the great artists I've workedwith peel exactly the same way. Keith
Richards, for example, someone inthe studio. He never said I got
a great idea. He says,hold it, hold it incoming. So
I think the thing that connects allthese great inductees at the at far Off

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is that they are connected to somethingdeeper than the rest of us. There,
they're they're they're they're tuned into somethingwhere the messages get passed through to
them. And I can't explain it. I can. I can just recognize
it in other people and wish Ihad more of it. I'm sure you

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have a lot, a big doseof it. Don It wasn't Keith Richard,
the guy that dreamt satisfaction. Hedid. Yes, that's a great
story. That's a great story.So so you've been personally involved with Farhaff
for a couple of years now,not only as an advisor. I know
you're on the board of advisors bycurating, but by curating and hosting last
year's Wasfest, which was really anaclectic group of musicians, Darkstar Orchestra,

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Steel Pauls, John Medeski, ledUs, and a bunch of others.
Tell us a little bit about howthat came about. Well, I came
about to an agent in Boston namedJack Randall who's also on the board of
Firehoff, and he introduced me toJoe, and I met Joe anyway,
because I've played the theaters, youknow, most recently, I think I

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played the Wang with Bob Weird andthose are incredible halls. Incredible halls.
You play differently when you're in aroom with that kind of vibe and beauty
and sound and splendor, I wouldhave to say, And very rarely do
the artists want to go out frontand look at the lobby, But you

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got to do that when you getto the Wing Theater. It' it's just
such a wonderful place. So Ialready had a soft spot in my heart
for it, and they suggested theidea was best, and we came up
with a concept and it was alot of work to line it up,
but I was really pleased with whathappened, and hopefully we'll do it again.
We got a little too busy thisyear to do. It's a lot

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of work. Do you have iton the docket for twenty four years ago?
Maybe hopefully next year, next year? Okay, yeah, Now you're
the president. Among all the otherthings that you do, you're the president
of the iconic jazz label Blue Note, celebrating its eighty fifth anniversary this year.
And another connection to the Wang andto Farhoff is that the all seeing

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Blue Blue Notes records through the eyesof Francis wolf who was the founder of
Blue Note. What is that exhibitand tell us a little bit about that.
Francis Wolfe was one of the foundersof the company before he was involved.
He came over from Germany in nineteenthirty nine and he'd been a commercial

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photographer there, so he started bringinghis camera to all the sessions, and
in doing so, he captured probablythe greatest historical archive of photos. He
photographed every Blue Note session right upuntil he passed away in the early seventies.
And the thing about this archive isthat it's not just a historical reference,

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it's not just a documentary. Inthe way he lit these photos,
I remember being completely awestruck by themin nineteen sixty six when I started following
Blue Note Records that I thought thatthe photos had as much vibe to them
as the as the music, andthey were the visual counterpart to the incredible

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catalog of music that Blue is recorded. If you look at the photos,
they're all black and white, andthe walls all look black, and there's
a cigarette smoke and saxophones and coolclothes. And as a teenager man,
I saw that stuff and I thought, I don't know where they are,
but I want to. I wantto be part of that that looks like
the coolest place in the world.And it kind of drew you into the

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music even more. Make a longstory short, We finally were able to
buy the archives, so we havethem now. We spent about two years
restoring the negatives and this is thefirst time they've ever been displayed, and
their their full glory, you know, blown up big with the proper negative

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and the right resolution, and uh, we're really through world to be able
to debut an exhibit of Francis Wolf'sphotos at Farhoff. You know, jazz
is not included in the title ofFarhoff, but I would include jazz as
folk Americana music. What do youthink roots for sure? Yeah, Yeah,

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sure, very influential in our history. Yep, very important. Yeah,
now you have a you have anotherquote and maybe alluded to this before,
but if you make generous music,everything else will follow. It's built
into our DNA. We need greatart that helps us understand our complex,
inter emotional selves. There's a visionfor Farhoff, and particularly in this time

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of all the mental health crisis thatwe're having, especially with young people,
and we've all heard about it,how do Farhoff has Joe has a vision
of Farhof. It's a little reflectiveof what the Wang has been education,
you know for young people. Howdo you see that and do you do
you see that as something that wecan really build on for that organization?

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Oh? Man, absolutely. Youknow we touched on it earlier when we
talked about how music helps us tounderstand things that conversational language falls short on
explaining. I think that those thingsreally contribute into well being. I've used
I've used records. There's an albumcalled Speak No Evil by Wayne Shorter.

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And when I was twenty and droppedout of college and back in nineteen seventy,
I used to get I got prettylost and pretty depressed. And when
I put on Speak No Evil.It grounded me. I remembered who I
was, I remembered what my dreamswere. It got me back on track.
And I still use that record tothis day when I'm driving home if

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I've had a long tough day atan office, I'll play side too,
Speak No Evil. By the timeI'm back in Santa Monica, pretty groovy.
You know, music's got tremendous healingpowers and properties. So I love
the fact that that someone like Joe, who's presented music for so long in

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the city, understands that and wantsto do more with it as beautiful.
Yeah, it's a it's a greatvision, and I think especially now and
music is so reflective of our history. I'm sure you see that on every
level in terms of cultural and youknow, anything that's happened throughout history gets

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reflected in our music. And Ihope we can convey to the young people.
I'm sure we'll be able to Theyseem to naturally gravitate to music.
May not I might be listening.Maybe it is. That was That's what
my parents said to me when Iwas growing up in the sixties in California.

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So, don you have a newgroup or a new old group.
Don was in the Pan Detroit Ensemble. I want to talk a little bit
about that. Yeah, sure,dude. You know, I got the
opportunity to the Detroit Symphony called playinga show in Detroit, and I had
to put a band together for it, and I really tried to think about

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what I'd like to do, andI thought, for the most honest expression,
go back to where you came from. Team up with some like minded
individuals with common roots, and theband will have a better conversation on stage
every night. So there's a soundI've been chasing now for thirty five years,
I think, and I've started jammingwith different groups of people, but

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this group of nine musicians, whenwe all got together last October just to
rehearse and play a little bit,it clicked and we all spoke the same
language. There's a sound to Detroitand for people who grew up in that
city that you got, like wespoke about earlier, you got exposed to
all different types of music and that'sreflected in this band. So I'm really

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excited about taking it out in theroad, which we we started to May
twenty first, and I'm thrill,you know, I'm excited to see where
it goes. I haven't started anew band in a long time. It's
a great adventure. And don't youhave one or two of your bandmates from
Was and Not Was in? Twoof the guys Dave McMurray, the saxophone

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player, and Luis Resto, keepboardplayer. Dave McMurray's actually an art blue
note and Louis worked for years withEminem, wrote a lot of the songs
went an Oscar with Eminem. Sothere are two of the guys. But
I've known all these guys for awhile. Yeah, that's awesome, but
we never had an actual band togetherbefore, so this would be great.

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Right. I'll ask you one lastquestion, and it's completely off the far
haf topic, or maybe not.You are playing with Bobby Ware and the
Wolf Brothers or you have been forthe last last few years. I grew
up a Deadhead and grew up inin California, and I always consider the
Dead and an Americana band, nota jam band necessarily. They were a
jam band on some levels, butthey incorporated jazz and folk and you know,

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you know, country and bluegrass andeverything else. How's that experience been
for you? Playing with Bobby.That's been life changing. Man. I
agree with you by the way thatI think it is very much roots music
thing, and more of them justroots of you know, some guys who

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grew up in Santa Cruz in thefifties and sixties. I think it's particularly
in Robert Hunter's lyrics. He's tappinginto some deep Joseph Campbell's stuff and those
those lyrics. I stay stage everynight and look at that audience and I
see what they respond to, andit's just poetic and impressionistic enough that everybody

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can hang their own inner emotional liveson these songs, and they've woven some
tales that means so much to peoplethat when you stand and play that play
that music for them and then geta reaction back, it then impacts your
next choice of notes. The audiencereacting to those songs becomes part of the

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band. And I've never experienced thatto that extent as I have. It's
grateful, dead audience, and itdoesn't even if it's not the best night
of playing, it will still happen, you know, three or four times
when everything connects and when when youget that circular motion going exchange between the
audience and the band. You canblow the roof off the place, be

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ashamed to damage the roof of theway, which is beautiful. I used
to see Phil phil Lesh do thatat Winterland in San Francisco, when you'd
see chunks of concrete coming down offthe roof with one of those bass notes.
I totally agree with you on RobertHunter. I've said that before.
I think that's the differentiator for theDead, to be honest and why they're

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so because those timeless lyrics. Everybodyknows. Everybody knows Uncle John's man,
everybody knows Saint Stephen. You know, it comes out and then you go,
wow, that just brings me toanother place. Not to mention that
the music's good, but yeah,I agree with you. And it's impressionistic
enough that it means something different toeverybody. That's that's good poetry that really

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communicates on such a broad level thatif you get too specific in your songwriting,
you know, like I called mymy blonde girlfriend from Tulsa yesterday,
Well that'll limit exactly. My dogdied yesterday, left me all alone.
That's great listen to. I don'twant to take up any more of your

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time. You've been so generous.I really appreciate it. I know the
listeners appreciate it, and Joe appreciatesit in terms of, you know how
we can celebrate far Off in ameaningful way, and you're a big part
of it. So thanks, thanksso much. You're right. One time,

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long ago, Joseph Campbell actually attendeda Dead concert, and here's what
he had to say about it.I had a marvelous experience two nights ago.
I was invited to a rock concertI'd never seen one. This was
a big haul in Berkeley, andthe rock group was the Grateful Dead,
whose name, by the way,is from the Egyptian Book of the Dead.

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And these are very sophisticated boys.This was news to me. These
deadheads are doing the dance of life. The genius of these musicians, these
three guitars and two wild drummers inthe back. The central guitar, Bob
Weir, just controls this crowd.And when you see eight thousand kids all

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going up in the air together,listen, this is powerful stuff. And
what is it? The first thingI thought of was the Dionysian festivals,
and what it turns on is life. Energy is a nieces talking through these
kids. Now, I've seen similarmanifestations, but nothing as innocent as what
I saw with this bunch. Thiswas sheer innocence. And when the great

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beam of light would go over thecrowd, you'd see these marvelous young faces
in sheer rapture for five hours,packed together like sardines, eight thousand of
them. This is a wonderful,fervent loss of self in the larger self
of a homogeneous community. This iswhat it's all about. I was carried

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away in a rapture, and sonow I'm a deadhead still. When there
is no Blue Talks, no DukeLow, reach out your home. We'll

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be right back. Capter the newsat the bottom of the hour.