Jimmy Jam & Denny Tedesco on Music, Fathers & Sons & "Immediate Family"

David & Phil joyfully welcome their friend Jimmy Jam and their new friend Denny Tedesco to "Naked Lunch" for a moving conversation about music, fathers and sons and so much more. Jimmy Jam shares an inspiring update about his ongoing reunion with his long estranged father, who is the subject of a great new book, "Deeper Blues: The Life, Songs & Salvation of Cornbread Harris" by Andrea Swensson, which you can buy here. Denny Tedesco tells how putting a spotlight on his legendary musician father Tommy Tedesco led him to direct two great music documentaries, 2008's "The Wrecking Crew" about the great studio musicians in Los Angeles in The Sixties and now, 2023's "Immediate Family" about a group of musicians who have defined The Seventies and made enduringly iconic recordings with the likes of Carole King, James Taylor, Jackson Browne and Linda Ronstadt, to name just a few. You can see both films on Hulu. To learn more about "Immediate Family," click here. To learn more about building community through food and "Somebody Feed the People," visit the Philanthropy page at philrosenthalworld.com.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Phil Hi.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
I thought, today we talk in the most musical of
ways about fathers and sons.

Speaker 1 (00:10):
What do you think of that?

Speaker 3 (00:11):
I'm not a fan of either, but go ahead.

Speaker 1 (00:14):
You didn't have any of that on Raymond Well.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
When we had Jimmy Jammer on the show for the
first time, he told a story about his relationship with
his father that was so amazing and moving and powerful,
and in a way, this episode is to continue that story.
So we're going to hear about a recent sort of
musical performance they did together in a new book called

(00:38):
Deeper Blues, The Life, Songs and Salvation of Cornbread Harris
by Andrea Swenson, an NPR journalist.

Speaker 1 (00:46):
I believe was very wrote about.

Speaker 2 (00:48):
Prince and many things, with a afterward by Jimmy jam
We're also joined by a filmmaker who I think has
ended up making two of the best music docs in
recent memory, Godfather One and Godfather Too.

Speaker 1 (01:02):
I've found them.

Speaker 2 (01:03):
As starting out really as a sort of reaching out
to learn more about his father and his father's friends.

Speaker 1 (01:10):
A movie called The Wrecking Crew, which is phenomenal.

Speaker 3 (01:13):
I recommend it to everybody.

Speaker 2 (01:16):
And now there's a sort of spiritual West Coast musical
sequel called Immediate Family that is also a word worthy
and it's about the session musicians of the seventies.

Speaker 3 (01:29):
And I saw it yesterday on Hulu. Where's the Wrecking Crew?
Where can we see that?

Speaker 1 (01:33):
Both on Hunu, both on Hulu.

Speaker 3 (01:35):
All right, people, you got two great music docs to watch,
and they are really worthwhile and really entertaining and fun.

Speaker 2 (01:42):
Phil Let's talk about music and life with Denny Tedesco
and one of the greatest friends.

Speaker 1 (01:49):
This show has Jimmy.

Speaker 4 (01:50):
Jenny.

Speaker 5 (01:55):
Let's build the beans to the fat, food for thought,
jokes on talking with our mouthsful, having fun with the
peace cake, humble pie, serving up slaze lovely, the dressing
all the side, it's naked lunch.

Speaker 1 (02:16):
Clothing option.

Speaker 2 (02:18):
We're gonna talk about Denny, your films, but I want
to start Jimmy because it's so of the moment. You
told this this amazing story about your father, and I
think it was the first time you met Jimmy, and
I remember afterwards you said, I am so impressed with Jimmy.

Speaker 1 (02:36):
Yep.

Speaker 3 (02:36):
Well, let's let's give the people just a little bit
of background. If you could just give us the short
run up to where we are today.

Speaker 1 (02:44):
Okay, I will try to be short with the run
up because as David, he has to edit me when
he writes words for me. But so the story with
myself and my dad was my dad was a musician.
I still is a musician, obviously, and growing up I
grew up in a very musical household where he played
all the time when I was young. When I was

(03:05):
like twelve years old, I actually started playing the drums
before that, but he couldn't ever keep a drummer in
his band, and his guitar player said, why don't you
let your son drum? And at twelve years old, I
became his drummer in his band. Wow, And I loved
doing that. The year after I started doing that, I
met Terry Lewis. So we're talking, you know, fifty years

(03:25):
ago at this point, right, And so I stopped playing
with my dad at that point and started playing with Terry.
And but the thing that happened was my dad worked
on a record and it it kind of started making
a little bit of noise, and he wanted to go
tour behind this record. And I remember him and my
mom just arguing every day about because I guess at

(03:48):
some point he said I'm gonna give up music. I'm
just gonna raise you know, we're gonna be married and
raise a kid and all that. But he got the
itch to do music again, and she would go, you
said you weren't going to do music, you weren't going
to do music. And I remember listening to this and
I just was like, not do music. How can you
ask somebody not to do music?

Speaker 6 (04:06):
Right?

Speaker 1 (04:06):
And so eventually when he one day went to work
and just never came back.

Speaker 2 (04:13):
Which always sounds like a Springsteen song to me, Yeah, yeah,
it took a walk in What's what's the line that?

Speaker 1 (04:18):
Yeah? Yeah, I mean, he just didn't come back. So
me and my mom bonded and it was really cool.
So later on, and you know, when I got to
be a teenager and stuff, I kind of dropped out
of school and I thought my mom was going to
hit the ceiling about it, and she just was like,
as long as I see you pursuing what you want
to do, And I thought, I always thought that was

(04:39):
really weird. So over the years, I never had a
desire to be around my dad or be with him.
I didn't have really have what I would call resentments
so much. I just was like, obviously he didn't want
to be around, and that was what it was. After
having kids and raising kids, after my kids got, you know,
basically out of high school, I realized that as now

(05:01):
being a parent, I understood. I didn't agree with the
decision he made, but I understood it because I was
able to because I was of the I was never
going to get married and never going to have kids
based on what happened. I was like, I'm not going
to let having kids and getting married stand in the
way of me doing music, because that sounded like.

Speaker 3 (05:23):
You were sympathetic, even as a little kid to a
guy who needed to do music.

Speaker 1 (05:28):
I totally got it. I totally. I couldn't imagine somebody
asking me to not do music like I just was.
It was so foreign to me. And this is just
even as a little one, because i'd been I went
today the record he recorded, I was there at the session.
Matter of fact, there's pictures of it in the book
when I'm at the session that day. And then I'm
like no, because for me, it was the most exciting

(05:50):
thing ever, and so to have that taken away, I
just kind of understood that there was a whole series
of circumstances that happened. But one of the things was
the Billboard Awards was doing. They wanted to do Optimistic,
the song Optimistic with Sounds of Blackness. They wanted to
record it at Paisley Park, and so they wanted Terry

(06:11):
and I to introduce it because we wrote the song.
We said okay, great, so we flew up to Minneapolis
Paisley Park. I had been in touch with Andrea because
she had done a couple of other books that we
were involved with, just as subjects. And I called her
and I said, hey, my dad. I said, you ever
see him? You ever talked to him? She said no,
not really, but I know the guy that kind of
manages him. And I said I'd like to see him.

(06:34):
I said, him in town. I'd love to see him.
So anyway, I called the guy up. He was kind
of like as a manager, and I said yeah. I said,
I'm leaving town Monday. I'm on a flight Monday, but whatever,
and he said, well Monday. So he goes to like
a daycare thing with all, you know, all his friends
and stuff, and that would be a great place. You
can meet there and if it goes well, great, If
it doesn't, go, well, you go, oh, I got a

(06:54):
flight to catch and you know whatever. So I had
I had a nice out and I had my son
Max with me. So we went and it was the best,
you know, maybe hour and a half conversation we could
ever have, because I realized in that moment that all
of the things that I taught my kids were the

(07:16):
things he taught me, and so it was just, I
don't know, it was just very eye opening. But the
biggest thing for me was I wanted to lift whatever
burden he was feeling, because you know, I was the
guy that left or whatever that was. I didn't want
him to feel that.

Speaker 2 (07:33):
And by the way, I have to say, that's such
a life lesson because I'm telling you, so many people
come at family issues with the opposite. It is like
trying to inflict as opposed to trying to And that's
so true to everything I know about you. But I
think that's such a beautiful thing that that was your instinct,
because it's not a common one.

Speaker 1 (07:51):
I just as I get older, you know, as I
start getting my you know, my senior citizen discounts, I'm
perfectly good. I'm good with it, but I realize the
idea of holding grudges. Grudges are heavy. I don't want
to have that weight. I don't want to carry that weight,

(08:12):
and I want to absolve anybody who I've ever felt
that way about I've I don't now they could feel
that way about me for some reason, that's their thing.
I'm not going to carry grudges. They're too heavy, and
I'm going to be very efficient in my use of energy.
And it's not going to be used for negative stuff,
for talking about people, for criticizing people. It's going to

(08:34):
be for uplifting people and trying to make people's days
better or whatever that is. I just feel like that's
kind of my where I'm at. And it just started
with my dad because I realized all the gifts that
he gave me besides music, but just the philosophy. One
of the little stories was really funny. You know, when
I go places, a lot of times with my family,
were like the last people to leave, because you know,

(08:55):
people want to take a picture, they want to do whatever,
and my kids will always be can we go out,
always have to be the last ones here. But my
dad told Max, he said, well, you don't know how
far people came to see you and that might be
their only chance to see you. And I kind of
looked at Max and I said, Okay, you see where
I get it from. Max, I said, don't don't blame me.
It came from him. And just the he was the.

Speaker 2 (09:17):
Same way in his local kind of celebrities.

Speaker 1 (09:19):
Oh absolutely he was. He would sign every I mean,
he's still the same way. We It's funny. We did
a so we played a show the other night, just recently,
and he has held ninety seven.

Speaker 7 (09:32):
He played a show at ninety seven. But not only that,
I can't listen to a show at right. But here's
the thing that was so funny was so Andrea. It
was for the release of the book. It was kind
of a celebration of that. She interviewed us for an hour,
then we played for an hour, then we signed books.

Speaker 1 (09:52):
For two hours. We literally did. We played at like
eight o'clock. We didn't get out of there until one
in the morning. And Breen, who's the columnist for the
Minnesota Star Tribune, who's the oldest race I guess right,
who's followed us our whole career. But he said, he
said two thing. He did a review of the show,
and he just said, it's the most I've ever smiled

(10:13):
at a concert that I can possibly remember. But he
said the fact that you guys stayed two hours after
to sign books and pictures and all that. But I'm
just like, but that's what he instilled in It's kind
of that thing. It's like, be there for people when
you're going to go out.

Speaker 3 (10:27):
I don't want to get I don't know priy, or
be more personal than you're comfortable with. But in your
conversations with him, has he ever expressed any remorse or
feelings of regret over leaving.

Speaker 1 (10:44):
No, because we've never had the discussion. It's it's not
a necessary discussion. So No, I know he regrets it.
I know I know he does.

Speaker 3 (10:54):
I know that it's in his face when you see him.
It's it's how do you know that?

Speaker 1 (10:59):
Because you do things in life. I know he loves me,
he's proud of me. He made attempts to kind of
come back into my life at certain points, and I
wasn't welcoming to it because I felt my life was
fine without him being in it, and my kid's life

(11:22):
was fine without him being No, they weren't going. I
want to meet my granddad was that kind of thing. Yeah,
I came around to it.

Speaker 3 (11:28):
Did it take any therapy to get you there?

Speaker 1 (11:31):
No, it just took raising my kids. You know. It's
like your parents get smarter the more you raise your
own kids. You realize all the stuff that they went
through and the choices that they had to make. And
that's why I say, I don't necessarily agree with the choice,
but I understand it. I have an understanding of the
tough kind of choices you have to make, and I

(11:54):
understand that. And I mean on a different subject, not
a different subject, but kind of paralleling that. It's kind
of like Prince when Prince fired us, I had no
clue why he would do that, Like, why would Prince
fire us? But we weren't the bosses. Then when we
became the bosses and we had our crew of people
and disagreed with things, and like, you know, we gotta

(12:15):
let you go because you're not doing what whatever that was.
So it's tough to criticize the boss when you haven't
been a boss. So it's tough to criticize a parent
when you haven't been a parent.

Speaker 3 (12:24):
But there's different kinds of bosses.

Speaker 1 (12:26):
No, yeah, you were not that kind of boss.

Speaker 3 (12:27):
No, I mean the story you told us that seemed
like an ego thing.

Speaker 1 (12:31):
Oh yeah, no, No, we definitely weren't. But the point
is just the understanding of it. You know, you have
to wear somebody's shoes and to understand whether they're comfortable
or don't fit or whatever that is. And so I
try not to criticize because of that, just as an
overall philosophy. And I think that's kind of the thing
for me with my dad, it's like, I know he

(12:53):
doesn't you know, I don't know whether it's a regret,
but I know he doesn't feel great about all of
the decisions he made. If he had a chance to
do it over, he would probably do it different. But ultimately,
it's God's plan and I think it came out exactly
as it was supposed.

Speaker 2 (13:10):
Here's the best part about God's plan is that thank
God he lived this long so that you could have this,
you know, reconnection, because a lot of people, they lose
their parents, they lose someone much, they don't have it
him around to have this make peace. I think that
for both of you, I think that's a beautiful thing.

Speaker 1 (13:29):
It's a beautiful thing, and it's also you know, he's
so appreciative of kind of this you know, second chance
or third chance or whatever you want to call it,
that he has now with the recognition he's getting the book.

Speaker 2 (13:45):
I finally heard one of his songs, the song that
just moves me so much, and we'll put it in
the episode. I think it's called put the World Back Together?
And I think if ever there's this, I don't know
when when he did this.

Speaker 1 (13:59):
He did he did at about three or four years ago,
and that was part of us getting back together because
he recorded that with uh Saint Paul Peterson from the family,
and Saint Paul actually either texted me or DMed me
and just said, hey, I'm with your dad. He sounds great,
looks great. And that was the thing that kind of
put that was the first seed that got planted towards

(14:20):
us getting back together. I just think that so much
reminds me of you.

Speaker 6 (14:23):
That title, Haven't we had enough debt? Did I hear
someone say, let's wait, better's time before it's too late
to put the word back together?

Speaker 1 (14:42):
But the word back together, but the word back together
a game.

Speaker 2 (14:53):
And it's really where we're at at the world. That's
last night, as I was driving here. I don't want
to get political, but I was listening to the UH
convention and I heard Prince a tribute to Prince Yeah,
I guess before Tim Waltz, absolutely, And I was hearing
the rehearsal of print songs, and I thought, it's really

(15:13):
that's putting the we're putting the world back together hopefully.

Speaker 1 (15:16):
Well, I think, and I think music is the thing
that does that. And if you think about it's the
first time that in a convention when they've done the
announcements of the states ever been music. It was really
how can you not have music involved in things? Because
it just brings everybody together to hear all the different
songs from the different states. DJ Cassidy curated that. I

(15:36):
thought it was an amazing Really.

Speaker 2 (15:39):
Now, Denny, your your film career has had this, you know,
powerful connection to your father. It started out well you
could you tell us how the Wrecking Crew started out
and and how it reflected your desire to.

Speaker 4 (15:56):
Well, I mean basically, I mean I was a crew member.
I was, you know, and I started an art department
over the years, and around ninety five ninety six, Dad
had cancer and Dad was part of a group of
musicians in Los Angeles in the late fifties, early all
through the sixties that was called Technically, they weren't called

(16:19):
the Wrecking Group, but it was a nickname that came later.
And they basically did all the recordings in LA because
in those days labels didn't trust rock and roll. Labels
didn't trust the bands to play because you had sessions
of three hours, three hours, three hours. You'd go in,
you got three hours to nail three songs and you're
out of there. So to put that on band members

(16:42):
who maybe you know, road bands, they couldn't do it.
It's really difficult. So they had studio musicians do it.
And these guys could. They were chameleons. They could do
you know, jazz, classical and in those days rock and roll.
We're talking about you know, the Beach Boys stuff and
some of it, you know, you know the you know,

(17:05):
the surf stuff and a lot of that stuff. But
Dad basically had a career.

Speaker 1 (17:09):
That was we should say Tommy, Tommy too, yesho.

Speaker 2 (17:12):
On Brad Pasley on the way here also called me
and I said, we're talking to Tommy. Tedesco was on
everything he goes. I know, you know, the pop records.

Speaker 1 (17:22):
He goes, but do you know the movies?

Speaker 4 (17:24):
And it's funny because I was saying to someone the
other day they I read an article. It was with Bonzai,
you know, and it was a mixed magazine. He asked him,
what do you want to be remembered for? He goes, Listen,
he goes, there, you know, when I was doing the
rock and roll stuff in those days, there's you know,
a lot of it was crap, but you know, and

(17:45):
there's eight guys that could do that telecaster. The eight
guys could have done the Batman theme or the Green
Acres theme or whatever Dad had had it. But Dad
want to be remembered. Later is when John Williams or
Horner or or Contie would say, put in two months,
we got this gig coming up, this movie, you know,
Field of Dreams or whatever it was, and said it's

(18:08):
going to be guitar written and solo all the way through.
So that's when you know you've made it because they're
not calling anybody else. There's only one guy for that
at that moment, and that I think thrilled him forever.
So when he was diagnosed with cancer, he had already
had a great career, and he had a stroke though
at sixty two, because he was three hundred pounds.

Speaker 1 (18:31):
He quit.

Speaker 4 (18:31):
He was a smoker, by the way, I mean three
packs a day in those days. I mean we were
talking about the other day one of the stage guys
at our studios and it was horrible because every time
I had Tommy was here because it was a pack,
you know, like on the ground, just cigarette's a pile
of it and they had to clean up after him.

(18:52):
But he quit smoking nineteen eighty bloom, you know, got
you know, Wade went up to three hundreds something, so
he wasn't a healthy person and that was a ninety
two he had a stroke, ended his career. And at
that point when he was sixty, just before that, he's

(19:13):
maybe slowing down in terms of the work coming in,
which was kind of like he was cool with it.
You know, he realized the business is what it is.
I took over for someone else. Someone else is going
to come on. And he would console the other players
who could not deal with you know, I'm not working,
wi is he working? Its like you know, he was
leave it alone, you know, you had your time. He

(19:35):
was still working three times a week, four times, but
Dad's getting called for those jobs at that point before
the stroke, for like The Godfather or or Field of Dreams,
whatever it is. It's hard reading, and it's you know,
the classical guitar that he was known for, you know,
with the pick. He played with his pick. And for me,

(19:58):
when he had that stroke, I could see the heartache
in him because he still wanted to play. And if
you he could, his left hand was fine. It was
the tremble he couldn't do. So he wanted to take
a date. He's not going to take a recording day
because he's not going to take that chance. But I
saw that and I wanted to It was my not

(20:20):
my insecurity. I wanted him to be known. He didn't
give a shit, he really did. I mean, he was cool.
He loved you know, his gambling, he loved you know,
his family, loved his friends, and that's all he cared
about at that point. But seeing that and then the
cancer came, and I'd always wanted to tell that story

(20:42):
about these guys in the studios because they did you
know Janadine, Mamas and papas, Sam.

Speaker 1 (20:47):
Cook, your papa played on the Mamas and Papa Yeah.

Speaker 4 (20:51):
Yeah, and the fit to mention, you know that got
string of up, up and away. Anytime you hear that run,
it's usually Dad at the time. And it was so
much stuff they did not that the other players couldn't do.
Sometimes it's just safe for the labels. They just had
these guys do it. So I wanted to tell that story.
The business changed after that, and so when that's when

(21:15):
I started the filming, because they gave them eleven months
to live. And it's weird because I've had cancer a
couple of times and I've never had that that ultimatum, like, oh,
you know, I got so much time. You know yours
is recoverable and you always but when someone says eleven months,
it's like it's over. Wow, you know we're not coming back.
And so I quickly jumped into making this film about

(21:37):
Dad and his friends, and I put around table to
get it just like this, and I had Hal Blaine
the drummer, Carol Kay the bass player, woman bass player
in plats Johnson the saxophone player, and let them and
based it on Broadway Danny Rose.

Speaker 1 (21:52):
Phil Phil's maybe my favorite.

Speaker 4 (21:55):
Is so good and it always because don't forget Dad
went to work every day. People think it was a hoot,
Nanny at my house. You were fortunate you played music
with your dad. Your dad played at home. My dad
never played at home because he was always in the
studio twelve fourteen hours a day.

Speaker 8 (22:12):
Right.

Speaker 1 (22:12):
The office was like Capitol, right.

Speaker 4 (22:14):
I mean he never I don't remember him ever listening
to music in the car. It was always a baseball
game or whatever. It was not his thing. He had
to clear his head music. I mean, we got all
the Miles albums in the Bill Evans albums and all
that stuff he loved, and I know he must have
listened to it, but I don't remember it. And so when.

Speaker 1 (22:35):
So it was.

Speaker 4 (22:37):
The Broadbay Danny Rose thing was. That's how I saw
my father and his friends bullshitting like this. It was
like daaa d And musicians are great because they're zingers.
They want to get ooh, and they all like wait
for their solo to give a zinger. And that's how
I grew up. So if it was in a gambling game,

(22:58):
you know, in the back room, it was on the
golf course, or was at a dinner with their friends,
and that's how he saw it. So I put them
at the round table and let them fly and that's
when it comes out. So that's why I did that
with the next film. He put him there. He kind
of throw a question out there and then they go.

Speaker 1 (23:16):
You know, then you disappear and let them go.

Speaker 4 (23:18):
I don't want to interview them. I want them to
do it well.

Speaker 2 (23:22):
By the way, last night, the immediate family, these I mean,
we should just say these are some of the musicians
who if you ever listened to a James Taylor record,
a Jackson Brown record, Linda Rons that record, there's so
many saw them in concert, yeah, or saw them in concert,
which was a beautiful thing.

Speaker 1 (23:39):
They toured too.

Speaker 2 (23:40):
This we're talking about, you know, keep talking about these
musicians that were featured last night.

Speaker 4 (23:44):
It was so wrecking crew. The film basically come to
the end of their Their era is really the late
sixties right now. There's multi tracking. When they started, there's
only one track and mono. And there was one thing
that Glenn Campbell said, he said, you know who's part
of this group group in the sixties. He said, I
was like playing with Michael Jordan, But everybody in that

(24:06):
room was with Michael Jordan. No one could make mistakes
because you couldn't you do do you got three hours,
You got three songs, four songs to do, and that's it.
You got to move on. And they nail an album
in a day, two days. They would do an album
a day two days, so they didn't have really a
lot of time. But if you screwed up, you're not
screwing up for yourself, you're screwing up for the whole
fifteen people. Because we got another session at twelve o'clock.

(24:30):
So there's no computers. They don't pop in, they're not
cutting in. They got to start from the beginning. So
that era ends around sixty eight. Now the bands are
getting better. The musicianship is so much better on rock
and roll.

Speaker 2 (24:42):
You know, you're getting you know, and the Beatles had
already sort of begun to establish a.

Speaker 1 (24:46):
Band, yeah, maybe playing their own instruments.

Speaker 4 (24:49):
Yeah, and you know, so that that whole thing changed
and it's like less and less rock and roll stuff
for these guys. Obviously for me, for my dad, not
for me. My dad he was able. He was like
the most amazing reader. He could read fly shit, as
they said, so he was able to move on to
film a TV. So the end of a rock and

(25:10):
roll those session players come to an end in the
late sixties. And I asked Lou Adler, who was, you know,
the producer of Mama Zapapez and Jane Deine. I said,
did you make a change in your sound when specifically I,
you know, say I'm going to make a change when
I get Carol King in here. He goes, Absolutely not,
he goes. It was Carol's decision. She brought in Coach

(25:31):
Danny Coachmar, and she brought in James Taylor, their friends.
So that was like the change in the sound. And
so that band is Russ Kunkle and Danny Coachumar, and
then Leland comes in Leland's Galar, and then Waddi Wachtel
comes into the era, and it was like the kind
of like the perfect handoff of singer songwriter era. And

(25:53):
what what change was these guys we were talking about
last night, you know, when Jimmy was talking to the
guys about the touring. The guys in the Wrecking Crew
never toured. It was you don't leave that seat because
your dad's working. He had over four hundred and something
dates in nineteen sixty seven in the union contracts Now

(26:16):
you realize that's two three, four days sometimes and then
you had a holidays or of weekends. They're working. You
take one time off and it was all business. It
was psychological. He goes, you take one day off, the
new guy will say, and that's okay, that's how I
got the jump. But you know that guy's what are
you doing tomorrow?

Speaker 1 (26:34):
Right?

Speaker 4 (26:34):
What do you do next week? As you never get
your back, you don't get the chair back, you know,
And it happened. That's how it works. In our house
in the sixties, we had four literally a rotary system
in the phone, you know, just like a doctor's office.
There was never going to be a busy signal whatever. No, well,
not one of us kids is going to be on
that phone. It's always your rotate so that you know,

(26:57):
because the answering service, which was the biggest thing that
was the lifeline to all these guys. You call the
answering service, you know, at the studio they had the
hotlines to this to the answering service. In some of
these studios, you pick up and you got Orleans and
you go during a break, you go, it's Tommy anything. Now, yeah,
there's something that actually is so and so called for tonight,

(27:18):
are you available yeah, I'm there. It was like being
It's not no.

Speaker 3 (27:24):
It was it taking When you say four hundred plus
dates a year, there's only three hundred and sixty five days.

Speaker 4 (27:31):
That's I mean, there's three these.

Speaker 3 (27:34):
Guys working that hard just to stay above water or
do they want to know a lot of money?

Speaker 4 (27:39):
You know, they're killing it.

Speaker 3 (27:41):
They're killing it. They're killing so they're working really hard
to know.

Speaker 4 (27:43):
I mean, I'm looking at dad's tax works turns, you know,
and I put it into today's terms went holy shit,
right because I mean, goosebumps. It's ridiculous because they're getting
union scale whatever union scale is at that time. But
they're doing three before those that day.

Speaker 3 (28:00):
But they're not getting royalties on records.

Speaker 1 (28:02):
Are they?

Speaker 4 (28:03):
Yes? And no? What happens in those days? And we
talked about this last night. If it's a union contract,
you would, you know, be there. That song goes to uh,
let's say, be my Baby goes to a Sean And
commercial or something. You're getting enough then you get yes

(28:39):
second use and your dad is on BA baby, right,
So what's the backside? What's the backside? Come on, David,
I put them on the spot.

Speaker 2 (28:48):
Oh no, I know this I know the I know
the flip sides from when I was buying music that's
just before my time.

Speaker 4 (28:55):
The backside to be My Baby is Sedesco and Pittman.

Speaker 1 (28:58):
Oh really was because.

Speaker 4 (28:59):
Phil never on it ever to have a B side
be better than the A side. So he made sure
it sounded like shit or it was just a jam
or something. And he never wanted because he got pissed
off at a DJ who played something that wasn't the
A side, and so we made from that point. So
the B sides are legendary because it's just like every

(29:19):
B side is nothing.

Speaker 3 (29:21):
Well, from just a guy in the audience who's watching
the Wrecking Crew, I think you accomplished what you wanted to,
which was inspired awe in me that, Oh my god,
the same group of guys played on all these records.
I never knew who they were. And these are these
heroes who play these legs and these beats that are

(29:44):
you know, part of my psyche that got in really
deep and and they're part of my life and these
are and it's a tribute to these heroes. How many
how many were in the rerecond Crew.

Speaker 4 (29:55):
Oh that's the thing, a bullshit thing that hal Blaine
came when he did his book years later, but I said,
it's more of a It was a time period where
you might have had fifteen twenty. What it was was
these guys were so busy. One of them said, you
couldn't tell how busy you were, but only by how
much you turned down because you couldn't do everything that week,

(30:19):
and you would because the train's moving, you're going to
take everything, and you can do so much music.

Speaker 1 (30:23):
So when they're.

Speaker 4 (30:26):
Like your dad, they're coming out of an era of
you know, out of World or two. And I don't know,
but your dad, if he always wanted to be a musician,
My dad never thought he was going to be a
professional musician. It was by accident. And that work ethic
of our fathers was you can't match it. You can

(30:46):
only hope yourself can come to that matching of your
father's work ethic. And if I, by the way, I
can't play an instrument. And I'm so jealous of you,
not only playing with your dad, But did he push
you or did it come?

Speaker 1 (31:01):
No? No, no, it came naturally. I was I would literally
stand in front of the TV whenever there was you
know Ed Sullivan or whatever, the variety show where there
was ever it was music, and I would stand in
front of the TV and I'd beat on the top
of the TV like it was always wow. I just
always had rhythm. And they finally were like, let's get
you a drum set because you're.

Speaker 3 (31:20):
Breaking the telepa.

Speaker 1 (31:23):
You're standing in front of the TV. That's the thing.
I wasn't even watching what was on screen. I didn't
care about that. I just liked hearing the music.

Speaker 3 (31:28):
That was isn't that crazy?

Speaker 4 (31:29):
That's so cool? You know?

Speaker 3 (31:30):
And that was Did it come easy to all these guys?

Speaker 4 (31:33):
No, Dad was furthest he said, and he's seriously. When
he started playing at seven, he did it because his
father heard it mandolin player or something at an Italian
party in Niaga Falls, New York and said I should
play guitar, and but he was kind of forced into
a little and then he would go up and pretend
to practice. He sit watches or read his comic books

(31:54):
and hit a string like that as if he was
doing something. So he doesn't start really and at thirteen,
like so many musicians, they want to get to the
girls and want to be invited to a party. And
you learned the song, He learned a song.

Speaker 3 (32:14):
Hi everybody, it's Phil and David here, and we're here
to tell you about a podcast we love from Team
Coco called The Three Questions with Andy Richter.

Speaker 2 (32:22):
Every Tuesday, Andy invites friends, comedians, actors, musicians and ask
them all the same three questions, where do you come from,
where are you going?

Speaker 1 (32:32):
And what have you learned?

Speaker 3 (32:33):
I did the show, and these three simple questions, when
answered honestly and thoughtfully, not what I did, are enough
to provide a pretty complete picture of who a person is.

Speaker 2 (32:43):
You can also tune in for Friday Colin Show episodes,
where Andy invites callers to weigh in on questions such
as what's the worst job you've ever had? And what
was your worst dating disaster? Which could be anytime now.

Speaker 3 (32:57):
New episodes are out every week with guests like Bill Hayter,
Zach Galafanakis, Tig Nataro and me. I was on there too.
Listen to Three Questions with Andy Richter. Wherever you get
your podcast?

Speaker 8 (33:11):
Belka move on the Monday, I feel the sky my
hearts dot them Yeah.

Speaker 2 (33:29):
When about two weeks ago, I got a call from
Billy Bob Thornton, a guest on this podcast, a great
guest on this podcast saying, Uh, there's gonna be this
event at the Village Recorder, which is one of the
greatest remaining studios on earth, maybe my favorite, a former
like Masonic Temple on the West side of l a uh,

(33:49):
and they're doing it's going to be for uh Denny's
movie for the immediate family. And I think it's, you know,
maybe as part of like educating people for the Grammy voters.
And it's definitely an award worthy thing. And I had
already seen it and loved it, and he said, would
you moderate it for me? And I said absolutely, because
I had met Billy through a woman named Lisa Roy,

(34:10):
who a great lady who I think we've spoken about
on the podcast. We talked about her with Billy Bob,
But in any case, I said yes. And then I
immediately thought, you know, whould be better than me, Jimmy
jam Because if you're talking to the greatest, you know,
creator musicians of the seventies, I thought, Jimmy, you're someone

(34:33):
who loves in a broad Way a lot of the
music of that era, and then you became as a producer,
a musician, a singer, and songwriter, you become sort of
the eighties nineties, and on version of what you become,
you know, you could be Denny's next movie. But I

(34:56):
wondered what was it like for you last night? Because
I just did an intro. No one wanted to hear
from me, which is my vision. Jackson Brown is out there,
and I'm like, I don't want to be bombing in
front of Jackson Brown. So I got out of there.
But what was it like for you to speak to
some of these players? And I think you guys, you
had met the guys in an interesting.

Speaker 1 (35:15):
Way coming coming back from the Rock Rock the Rock
Hall event. We were all on that when you got
up in the rock Call. No, it's not when we
got in the Rock Hall. It was actually I think
it was the year that Clarence Avont went in, if
I'm not mistaken. And so the guys there for Carol King,
Oh yeah, well we were there too, Yeah, yeah, yeah,

(35:35):
that was amazing. We all ended up we all ended
up on the same plane together, yes, And we all
ended up on the same plane together. And and Lisa
Roy was on the flight with us, and she when
we got off the flight, she said, hey, have you
ever met these guys And I'm like no, and she says, oh,

(35:57):
and so she introduced me to everybody. And I said
to them, as I said to them last night, I said,
it's like my liner notes coming to life.

Speaker 4 (36:02):
That's a great line.

Speaker 1 (36:04):
And because that's what it is, It's like, literally, I
was always a liner notes reader, which is the reason
part of the reason I wanted to be behind the scenes,
because it always always knew who the artists were, but
it was always about wait, who wrote it, who played
on it, where was it recorded, who engineered it? Like
that was my whole thing.

Speaker 4 (36:20):
They keep coming back at you, Yes, and those are
the things like what is russ Kunkle? Sounds like a drama?

Speaker 2 (36:25):
Yes, yeah, I'm going to do a visual thing on
the podcast, which is not smart. But I didn't do
this last night. I brought this with me, which was
I remembered literally the album. I'm holding a vinyl copy
of James Taylor's in the Pocket album and I remembered
having this in my childhood bedroom in Tenafly, New Jersey,
and I, just like Jimmy was saying, I was one

(36:45):
of those kids. I studied every meet too, on every record. Yes,
but on this record. If you look, there's a picture
of it's a full size of vinyl album and it's
a picture of everyone who played on the record. And
I remember as a kid thinking that was this guy
who was at the center sort of the photos the
Big West War who, Yes, you were on it. You

(37:07):
know you had them on a panel last night, coaches
in this.

Speaker 3 (37:10):
I've seen them play, I've seen them in person. But
what I loved about the Immediate Family was the documentary.
I learned that you didn't know who their names were.
This was the This was a big deal that they said,
we're going to put their names on the album. Think

(37:32):
it's such a small thing to us, and that's a
giant for them.

Speaker 1 (37:35):
Yes, big different.

Speaker 4 (37:36):
That's a big difference between eras because forget at sixty.

Speaker 1 (37:39):
The w rerecond Crew, they didn't happen they have because
a lot.

Speaker 4 (37:41):
Of times if it was singles, you can't do it.
But there was also times you didn't want people knowing
that the Beach Boys weren't on that album. Of course
you didn't want them to know that Carl's not playing drums.

Speaker 3 (37:52):
But this is now single people like James James Taylor
and he's got a band and different plays for different
songs even right, it was just different and they're crediting
them which helps their careers. Oh absolutely, I mean that's
a giant difference, just the credit.

Speaker 4 (38:10):
Russ Conkle's first three not first three albums, but the
albums within that period, Joni Mitchell's Blue Sweet Baby, James
and Tapestry. I mean, you take those three, you can
have a career.

Speaker 1 (38:21):
And that's yeah, that's right. You know those are three
albums in my all time top ten. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
I mean it was It was amazing for me. I
I kind of always say that, like there's certain places
that I always try to in my life. I just
try to attempt to be in the place I want
to be when I want to be there with the

(38:41):
people I want to be with. Right, last night was
one of those moments. I was at the village where
I love. I love Jeff, the guy that runs the place,
is amazing. If I could clone somebody, he'd be one
of the people i'd clone, because when it comes to
customer service, there's nobody better and passion and all of that.
But I was there, I was with these guys and

(39:06):
it was just all the right things. It was the
right place. It was exactly where I wanted to be.
I didn't want to be anywhere else on earth. I
know that, you know, the Convention was going on, there
was all these other great things going around around the world.
That was exactly where I felt like I needed to be.
And my main thing was I wanted the guys to
feel happy about the conversation that we had because I
had actually gone to when we met, we had gone

(39:28):
I had gone to an earlier question and answer that
I didn't like, and I was trying to raise my
hand to get a question in. But I wanted right,
but I wanted yeah. But I wanted to make sure
that this wasn't that.

Speaker 3 (39:43):
Jimmy, did you learn anything last night that you didn't
know before?

Speaker 1 (39:48):
Or is it just a great I don't know the
knowledge wise, I don't know whether I learned anything, but
humanity wise, I felt the love for each other that
they had, the love of playing that they had because
afterwards when they played, it was just ethereal Yeah, And

(40:12):
I just learned how much I just liked them as
human beings. That was the biggest thing I took away
from it. We all exchanged numbers afterwards, I just feel
like I've gained some friends.

Speaker 3 (40:23):
I got that from your documentary.

Speaker 4 (40:25):
Well, you know, it's interesting. I know it sounds like
we're going over the top, but it was a LoveFest there.
But what was so interesting because being it was at
the village, it's an insider's crowd. So yes, it were
shooting fish in a barrel at this point. But I
know the film's fine because I've seen other places in
the world and it's doing well. But being in that

(40:47):
room last night and I talked to Tina, the person
that managed that studio, and we were talking about the
love of this industry, and I got goosebumps because my
father when they spend all those hours in the studios
with each other, and unfortunately they didn't have the relationship

(41:08):
that Jimmy and the guys have because my dad's moving
on in three hours. It might be with the same
musicians to different ones, but you got to hang with
Janet for years and years, and you build up. When
the guys are with Caro or Linda or James or Jackson,
they become brotherhood and sisterhood, and that's what the business about.

(41:29):
And I think the saddest thing about the business now,
which is really it's just the way technology went is.
You're not in the room again, you're not together, and
it's not about just the music. It's about clicking and
it's like actors.

Speaker 3 (41:44):
Listen, I'm a comedy writer, right, Yeah. These buddies that
I have from Forever Show, these are my war buddies.
No one knows what that's like because you weren't in
that room. And I get it when I watched these documentaries.
It's the same very relatable feelings everybody has.

Speaker 4 (42:03):
And that's the Broadway Danny Rose when they're talking about
when we're talking about Broadway Danny low Rose and they're
shitting on him and are talking about it's hilarious because
they have that common thing and all of you guys
as writers and musicians have that, you know, and that
is the great I love watching it and I said
last night giving and I know it's a selfish business

(42:27):
sometimes and people can, you know, piss on each other,
but at the same time, there's no greater joy when
one artist goes, oh my god, he is the best.
And we've talked about Simone Biles last night.

Speaker 3 (42:38):
Well you feel like you belong Yeah, and if that
guy's so great and I'm in the room with him.

Speaker 2 (42:43):
Yeah, yes, that must be okay if you see the film,
that's what everyone's saying.

Speaker 1 (42:47):
Yes, the actual joy, that's big words.

Speaker 3 (42:51):
And I don't want to be the guy who drops
the ball right exactly.

Speaker 4 (42:54):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (42:55):
I actually because one thing when I moved out here
in ninety one, I had been in New York where
I didn't hang out with musicians and bands as much.
When I started hanging with bands, I hit a very
interesting thing, which was actual bands can be very tense.
And I remember thinking about it when like Tom Petty
invited me for Christmas and only one of the Heartbreakers

(43:16):
was there, and I thought like, how am I here?
And because it's in a band, there's a boss and
let's do with Prince. It's a business. But the interesting
thing about like we were with these guys last night,
they have come together not just for your film. They
made a record, they like to play gigs together, and
in a weird way, they're not They haven't had the

(43:37):
normal pressures of like fighting and competing. What they are
are people who come together out of love and respect
because they dig what each other does on their instrument,
and they love and they love the hours, filling up
the hours in between, like when they were touring.

Speaker 4 (43:52):
Yeah, it's like Jimmy, I'm when you do your albums
for months at a time. If you had someone that's
the great musician, but that person's paying the ass, I
don't want to bring them in.

Speaker 1 (44:05):
Yeah that's what I mean.

Speaker 3 (44:07):
Oh, that's I mean. Somebody has to be so great
for you to put up with the bullshit, right.

Speaker 1 (44:12):
Yeah. Well it's funny because I worked on a project
back in March. I was at A and M for
like a month, and I worked on a bunch of
different projects and it was just kind of a band
that kind of got put together and it was kind
of all the best players from all different kind of
genres and the whole thing. And I was there I
kind of realized, you know, you kind of feel as
a producer, thinking like a producer, I'm figuring out where

(44:34):
do I fit in this? Because the players are much
better than me technically, musician wise, much better players than me.
So what is my thing? And I remember one of
the first days when they kind of gathered everybody together
to give everybody kind of the game plan of what
we were going to do. One of the guys had
he was late. He had a bunch of problems there.
I guess there were some negotiation problems with what his

(44:54):
fee was going to be. All these different things happened.
And I won't say his name, but I'll say but
I knew because we were we gave him his first job,
like we were just happened to be one of the
people when he was super young. We gave him his
first job. Right. So anyway, when we are in this
whole gathering, they said, everybody, introduce yourself and you know, whatever, whatever, whatever.

(45:17):
And when he when they went to him, he said,
he said, yeah, man, I don't know what I'm doing here, whatever, whatever, whatever.
That was his line right when they when they got
around to me, I said, I introduced myself. I'm Jimmy
jam blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. And I
looked at him and I said, I don't know what
you're doing here either, And everybody cracked up. And what
it did is it put him whatever wherever his headspace was, Yes,

(45:40):
it put him in the right headspace. Listen, he became
he literally at the end of the month when we
did our final sessions, which was rhythm section, with an orchestra,
with a choir all together. Yeah, he was the most
valuable player. He was the one would be one. He
would be like, no's we can get it better. Let's
do another take. We can get a better Let's do
another take, last one to leave, make sure everybody was cool.

(46:04):
But that was the way I knew him. That was
how I remembered him. But now he had gotten so
kind of like the guy that I think he kind
of thought, well, I'm the guy and I remember, I
remember he's a drummer. I will say that they had
three or four different drum sets. He didn't like any
of them. He didn't like the he didn't like this,
he didn't like that, he didn't like that. I just said,
don't you have a drum set? Bring your drum set?

(46:26):
Like it was just interesting. But I'm telling you, at
the end of it did.

Speaker 3 (46:29):
Take a calculated risk because he could have walked out.

Speaker 1 (46:33):
He could have, but there but there's other people that we.

Speaker 3 (46:36):
Know, there's other drummers.

Speaker 4 (46:37):
Off if he walked out, that means, okay, we've solved
that someone else wants.

Speaker 1 (46:43):
And the other piece and this stuff is all very
is everybody here knows this stuff is very it's very
intricate and very nuanced. But the fact that I two things,
the fact that I knew him when when he was
first starting. Yeah, but also he knew me as you

(47:05):
know whatever. You want to call me the rock and
roll Hall of Fame early God, Okay, we'll take it,
je Non. But he knew the bullshit wasn't going to
happen with me around, and when he saw me there,
he wanted to be a part of it. Like that

(47:25):
was like, oh wait, jams here, Oh he's part of this.
Oh I'm not talking. I'm not getting myself out of this. Good,
you know. And so it all worked out good. I
say that to say, though, you figure out your place,
and my place was to kind of be the glue.
And in some of the sessions where the guys were
all trying to outplay each other, so they were all
trying to prove that they could really play.

Speaker 3 (47:45):
Listen, the team needs a coach, yeah, has to be.
And all the players on the team are better than
the coach, but the coach sees their strengths yeah, and.

Speaker 1 (47:53):
Always takes them. Just because you can play the violin
doesn't mean you can conduct the orchestra. It's a different thing.

Speaker 2 (47:59):
Let me tell you I observed Jimmy. I've had a
great I should say I went from studying liner notes.

Speaker 3 (48:05):
To writing them.

Speaker 1 (48:06):
Well exactly, yeah, that's literally true.

Speaker 2 (48:09):
But that led me to eventually, twenty five years ago,
almost walking into a room at the Grammys to read
my script for the Grammys to the Television Committee, and
I remember the names. I was blown away that I
was walking and reading to Phil Ramone. I have to say, first, yes,
because I literally grew up listening to every Paul Simon record.

(48:30):
He produced Sinatra stuff, he had done, Billy Joel obviously,
and then Jimmy jam I couldn't believe because I, you know,
and was my favorite producer of a whole different era
of music. And that was mind blowing to me. Oh
but so cut to over the last twenty five years,

(48:53):
I've gotten to work on projects where Jimmy is in
a supervisory kind of role, and the most famous being
when you were at the Prince Tribute. I watched you
dealing with the psychology of everyone who ever worked with Prince,
and everyone who ever worked with Prince they have different
levels of success. Subsequently, I think you and Terry have

(49:14):
had the highest level of success after being fired. But
there's other people who were fired or quit or walked
out or felt ripped off or whatever they felt, and
they were all there to pay.

Speaker 1 (49:24):
Tribute to Prince. It was PTSD.

Speaker 2 (49:26):
But have you and Terry working with chi Lae to
make what all you have ever said and everything I've
ever done with you is how do we make everyone
be their very best? Which is what you say, like
the coach, that's that's the coach, that's the manager.

Speaker 4 (49:42):
And what he does, which is you're like therapist, your coach,
your father, you know, and you treat one person differently
than the other person in assuming because you know what
you need to get out of that person. Maybe it's
going to be a little bust his balls or her whatever,
you know. I mean, you got to call on it
or be the gentle father.

Speaker 1 (50:03):
Well, my Partnertary always says, he always says the barber
can't cut the back of his own head, and that's that,
and but what he means by that is very much.
You know, in the case of this drummer, I saw
how great he could be for this I knew he
could be great even when he maybe didn't feel he
could be great for it, like he was going to
make an excuse about the drums or the something and

(50:24):
whatever whatever. It's like, I was trying to figure out
how do I cut through this because I know if
he sticks around, he's going to be worth whatever we
go through. And it was interesting as we were doing
the sessions. Even I would be in the room and
I'd notice, like I say, people were trying to like
overplay a little bit in that kind of stuff. And
I would and so they would do the session. Sometimes

(50:45):
they didn't work, and so they'd go. It was myself
and one of the other guitar players. They would say,
can you guys just be in the room, because when
you're in the room, it all sims seems to gel together.
And what it was was very simply if the keyboard
player was playing chords with five notes in it, let's say,
and I would just go over and go and they go,

(51:07):
are we playing it like you were playing it? And
I said no, no, I just was doing two notes.
I just was like this and this, and it's like, oh,
like it was like simple, like just show them how
simple things can be. But also as a producer, my
mind was going, he's going to want this to be
a little harder on the course, he's going to want
this to be a little softer here. He's going to
want that. So I could kind of do that. I

(51:28):
could think like a producer and the guy that was
actually because I wasn't. I was just literally just a
player on this. But the guy that was actually producing,
he thanked me because he said, thank you, because you
were giving me. When we would go back and listen,
I would have all the things that i'd be looking for,
like did we take it, do a take where this happened,
or we did a dude and the engineer would go, yeah,
Jimmy did that, or he could remember on this take

(51:49):
he did, so he had all the ingredients. So that
was my place. So a lot of it is finding
your place, and I get the sense that those guys
they knew their place. Anytime you have three guitar players,
everybody's got to find their place, like who's going to solo,
who's going to do the rhythm, who's going to do
the rougher part, who's going to do the yeah you
figure those things.

Speaker 4 (52:09):
It's funny because in the sixties they would have four
guitar players on a session, I mean, which.

Speaker 1 (52:14):
Is making a wall of sad. Specter did it?

Speaker 4 (52:16):
Every all of them did it?

Speaker 1 (52:17):
So, by the way, did you ever meet Phil Spector? Yeah?
And did you did you live? Did you?

Speaker 4 (52:24):
Yeah? I mean I've only met him once at Unfortunately
it was at Jack Nichie's funeral and afterwards, and he
had gone to my dad's funeral. But I didn't know
he was even there or heard about it. Saw the flowers.
But the saddest thing about that, I mean, obviously the
saddest thing obviously when it all happened, I kept trying

(52:46):
to get hold of him, trying to get it. You know,
I wanted him to be in this film. This is
you know, I started my film in ninety six. So
when he when I Hal Blaine's daughter was working with him,
and I said, you know, when we were talking, she goes,
send me the tape and I'll walk it in and say, okay.
So I sent him the tape. Next week, he kills

(53:07):
a lot of clocks and I went, we all thought
it was her. I thought she got killed. At first,
I didn't know, And but I'm kind of glad I
didn't get him. I wish I still would have got
him for posterity or whatever, because he could have given
me a lot of information. But it would have changed
the film because having him on the screen, even.

Speaker 1 (53:26):
Many years later, that's all you think.

Speaker 4 (53:29):
Yeah, and I wasn't going down the road anyway. But
at that point I wasn't gonna go down the road.
And then Phil Spector gunplay. I had people talking laughing
about gunplay before that.

Speaker 3 (53:40):
So then you got Cosby. Well, so Jimmy, to bring
it full circle, you're talking about producing these when you're

(54:05):
when you're with your dad and you're playing with him
in this latest gig. Do you have a producer's hat
on or you just Dad's son and you're doing whatever
he wants you to do.

Speaker 1 (54:15):
That that's exactly what it is. That's exactly.

Speaker 3 (54:18):
And you don't do you make suggestions at all? Or
you're just a guy.

Speaker 1 (54:22):
Because he produced you with your mother. Yeah, exactly, Yeah,
he was. He was the ultimate producer. Yes he was. No,
it's great. His band, his guys had been with him
for quite a while. That are his current band, and
they're wonderful. They're so good, they're so tuned into him.
You know, this is funny. A couple of times he's

(54:43):
got a bunch of pages of lyrics and different stuff,
and a lot of times he'll they'll call out the song, like,
here's what we're gonna do, Like they'll do the set
list and they'll go, here's what we're gonna play, and
then they'll do it, and then he'll kind of go,
what are we doing now or whatever. He'll launch into
a song and then they'll go over and turn the
page so that he goes he can't find the lyrics
to write lyrics, like, it's just it's great how well

(55:04):
they take care of him, and I'm just there to
stay out of the way.

Speaker 4 (55:07):
Basically, So was the time when he left at twelve?
When was the next time you saw him?

Speaker 1 (55:14):
Oh, he didn't leave at twelve. He left more when
I was probably thirteen fourteen.

Speaker 4 (55:17):
Okay, so at that point he leaves. Yeah, is there
any contact at all over those years, I.

Speaker 1 (55:23):
Mean there's no content. There's no contact at all, other
than when we built our first studio in Minneapolis, So
I was probably twenty three at that point, twenty three,
twenty four, because it was after the time happened and
we built our first studio. He came by our studio
I invited him by and he tried to hand me

(55:44):
a demo tape, and I just was like, yeah, I
just was at that point. That was when I that
was when the door fully shut for me because I
really didn't have anything other than that, but that was
my first thought and I just was there.

Speaker 3 (55:58):
So he comes in with a demo tape and it's
like nothing happened.

Speaker 1 (56:02):
Is that his attitude? Yeah? I think so though.

Speaker 3 (56:05):
I just think like, hey, how are you doing? Here's
my demo tape?

Speaker 1 (56:08):
Yeah, it was, well, it was like, you know, I'm
showing him around this. I mean, I'm proud of about
what we did, and I'm not at this point. It's
not even try to reconcile or try to have a relationship.
It was just here's our studio, here's our stuff, you
know whatever, we're doing. Well, we're kind of successful.

Speaker 3 (56:23):
But aren't you shocked to see him after ten years
he's walking into your life.

Speaker 1 (56:30):
No, not shocked, because, like I say, I invited him, like,
I didn't have I didn't have any sort of I
never want you in my life again type thing that
at that point. I didn't have that at all. Okay.
I just was like, listen, I'm living my life, you're
living your life. Me and my mom have come together.
We figured it out. The one thing I didn't say
about my mom was later on in life it was interesting.

(56:52):
So when we won our first Grammy, right, I had
always regretted dropping out of high school because my mom
never got to see me walk across a graduation stage.
When we got nominated for Producer of the Year, I
took my mom as my date, and when we won,
I got to thank her from the stage and as
I walked across the stage with my Grammy, that was

(57:13):
like my graduation. That was like my that she put
the faith in me to do it and allow me
to drop it out. But what somebody told me later on,
probably in the last three years before I got back
with my dad, they said, do you think the reason
she let you drop out is because she didn't let
your dad pursue what he wanted to And I never
thought of that. She was quick. Absolutely, I think that,

(57:37):
and I also think it right.

Speaker 2 (57:40):
The first time I heard the story you told me
about your dad, you know, with the demo tape, I
hear it, and maybe you're rubbing off on me.

Speaker 1 (57:48):
I hear it with more grace.

Speaker 2 (57:49):
Now, when I think about that, I think when people
get successful, like when you became Jimmy Jam, I think
it may I think it's the awkward yearning. I think
he could have been just trying to find a way
to reach out and connect something in common, have something
in common, and people are imperfect. When they do that,
there you get nervous. They screw up, you know. I

(58:11):
don't view it as I first heard it as like
fuck him, which is sort of no.

Speaker 1 (58:15):
But that's how I felt. That's how I felt when
it happened, right. But on hindsight, I feel the way
you do that it's you're trying to find that connection,
that connectivity with somebody, and it's like, hey, I got
a demo taper, so.

Speaker 2 (58:28):
I'll tell you, and I know we're running over. I'll
tell you one story. You would remember this set from
doing twenty five or twenty four Grammys so far. I
always had this thing that developed early on where I
would wake up on Grammy morning with one additional line
or joke or thought every year, and I would always
tell like Jimmy and Ken Irlick and say, I got

(58:49):
some idea about how we can make it a little better,
which is that sort of perfectionist streak you need to
stay good at anything. And one year I didn't wake
I woke up on the Sunday morning not with that,
and it was hear my dad was dying, and it
was sort of clear that he was dying. I was
told right around that week that he wanted me to
speak at his funeral. And what I woke up with,

(59:11):
instead of a grammy thing, was oh, I know what
I want to say about my dad. And what I
realized is like, my dad had a great career, he
was a fascinating, funny guy, and all these stories. But
what I woke up with was my dad never had
a dad. He literally grew up with on ch you know,

(59:31):
in poverty, running from the rent with his mother who
had you know, and he's the only boy, two sisters,
a twin. But I realized, I said, that's what I
want to talk about, is how my dad became a
really great dad to me, not having had any example.
And he always told me, which I don't even my
brother tries to explore this, like what is the truth,

(59:53):
but he told us I said, you never met your
dad at all? And he says, my dad showed up
at the train station when I was going off to
training for World War Two. He goes, I never met him.
He you know it was, I know his name. I
believe it was George Wilde. I think he might have
been British in some way. But he said he showed
up as I was going off to the Navy training

(01:00:16):
to say I wanted to meet you. That's it, that's
and I think, I think that's the greatest. And that
was what I said to me. That's the thing fathers
and sons. When I think about that, I go, it's
I try to be a decent dad. And I had
a good dad. The fact that he was a good
dad with no example is awesome to me.

Speaker 1 (01:00:36):
My dad is very much the same way, and it's
it's all in the book, and it's things that I
didn't know. But he grew up totally didn't know. His
dad was totally a foster kid. His legs were busted
when he was young. He moved from house to house
like it was and you didn't know that. I didn't
know that because he never discussed that.

Speaker 3 (01:00:56):
The behavior comes from somewhere.

Speaker 4 (01:00:58):
Yeah, exactly, find yourselves as fathers. You take the best,
you find yourself doing the best for your kids, and
you realize, oh, I learned that from my parent. But
then there's the things that irk you about your parent
that you're doing it to your kids.

Speaker 1 (01:01:12):
Yes, I find all of that.

Speaker 2 (01:01:14):
Yes, yes, well you're I always think about your parents. Again,
maybe I'm I'm misremembering, but are they both could be
viewed as Holocaust survivors? Yes, Like I always think about
the fact that everything you've put into the world, everybody else, Raymond,
somebody for you, Phil, all I hear and I'm not
almost annoyed with that, But all you hear is people feeling.

Speaker 1 (01:01:36):
The love you've put into the world joy.

Speaker 2 (01:01:39):
And I think coming out of what you're like, I
think your dad must have been. And I knew him
and really liked him. He was very funny, But I
think coming out of the ultimate horror that he somehow
transferred through you nothing but joy to the world doesn't
mean it's.

Speaker 3 (01:01:54):
A miracle to me. I've said this before about them,
that coming from where they came from, they had every
right to be negative about people.

Speaker 4 (01:02:03):
But I don't know.

Speaker 3 (01:02:04):
There was just something that they really both loved to
laugh a lot, you know, and that very sweet and generous.
They could be a total pain in the neck. But
you know, I'm very lucky to have been their son.

Speaker 4 (01:02:23):
If you had to say, what did my father teach me?
That's one thing that maybe he gave to you. What
do you think it would have been a sense of humor?

Speaker 2 (01:02:31):
Yeah, I was you you mentioned work ethic, sense of humor.

Speaker 1 (01:02:35):
He was.

Speaker 2 (01:02:36):
He My dad was the funniest man in the beauty industry,
which was a weird thing. Like in his business. I
would go to these conventions, would be get Stanley Wild
up there. He's hysterical. Yeah, and it's like it's that
weird thing. It wasn't a comedy industry, but like I
grew up around that. So I think those two, the
work ethic and the sense of humor from.

Speaker 1 (01:02:53):
Him and you guys well obviously music, but the music
I think is more inherent right as far as teaching.
It's just I think the way he dealt with people,
just the grace that he dealt with people, the compassion
he had, and his He always wanted to make people's

(01:03:14):
lives better in some way, and he could do it
through music. And I just think I that's the way
I kind of try to live my life now. So
I think that was probably the thing that he taught me,
you know, as opposed to what I inherited.

Speaker 4 (01:03:27):
And you it was almost the same. It was obviously
he didn't teach me music because I can't play a.

Speaker 3 (01:03:32):
Chord, but he never encouraged you to play.

Speaker 4 (01:03:36):
No, he was never going to force us. He'll to
help us if he wanted to learn. Yes, you know,
hey Dad, what's the third chord?

Speaker 1 (01:03:41):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (01:03:41):
He is literally over the years. I mean I never
got there. And I remember six months before he passed away,
I said, hey Dad, what was that blues cord? Again?
God damn it? Practice it's really funny. But no, I
mean I saw because I got to see my dad
do those seminars at am I in Musicians Institute in Berkeley.

(01:04:02):
And although he had this column he was.

Speaker 1 (01:04:05):
He treated me like jazz downbeat or jazz.

Speaker 4 (01:04:08):
Guitar player mat and it became famous, really famous for
people because it was funny. He had a great sense
of humor. He didn't take himself seriously. I mean, you know,
he said, I'm a good guitar player. I'm not a
great guitar player. There's these kids in the school are
better than I am. You know, they're more knowledgeable. But
he but he treated everybody well, don't get on his

(01:04:30):
bad side. You know. His achilles heel was if you
treated musicians like shit, Oh bury them, bury him. And
it was like you didn't want to get buried by him.
I mean, the great story you asked me about learning
about my dad, the things that you learn about after
they die. It was Chuck Rainey, the bass player, you know,

(01:04:51):
like Dan, Yeah, exactly. And you know, Chuck comes out,
he said, he's telling me. He goes, I came out
to LA in the seventies, and he goes, I'm the
hot record out of New York and you know, I'm
doing records and Benny Golson puts me on the Mash soundtrack.
You know, they're doing the series. He goes, I never
met your dad. And I'm sitting there and you're going

(01:05:12):
to realize there's an orchestra there and you know, just
reading and this and that, and he goes and all
of a sudden they start rehearsal and and there's a
time change or something, and Chuck messes up in this
time based change and he knows he's screwing up the
next time. Oh, let's do it. Take and the next

(01:05:33):
time he does it out of nowhere, my father hits
a horrible chord, makes a mistake and Tommy okay, yeah, yeah, yeah,
I'm sorry. Rewind They rewind the film, you know in
those days it was. And so next time, here we
go again, and he goes, your dad screws up again
at that moment. At the same time he goes and

(01:05:56):
they look at Tommy, Okay, yeah, I've dropped my pick.
I'm fine, let's do it. And he turned to Chuck.
He goes, you're on your own now.

Speaker 1 (01:06:05):
He was covering first cover, Yes, yea.

Speaker 4 (01:06:07):
And because he could cover for the younger guy. Yes,
he knew it could kill Chuck if he got caught.
They might not.

Speaker 6 (01:06:17):
Know.

Speaker 1 (01:06:18):
That's great a story. It was beautiful, one of the.

Speaker 4 (01:06:20):
Most beautiful stories that I never heard that before. Because
he's not coming home, tell you that story, right.

Speaker 2 (01:06:26):
Last question, Jimmy for you, what does your dad think
of this book? How does he feel to be having
this moment?

Speaker 1 (01:06:33):
Do you think he?

Speaker 2 (01:06:34):
I hope that if you can to be able to
enjoy anything at ninety seven is good.

Speaker 1 (01:06:39):
Yeah. Is he enjoying this moment? Yeah? He The word
he always uses is u fork. Oh I'm not even
he said, my feet aren't even touching the ground anymore.
Killer And that's the way he feels. And just all
the love and the support that he's receiving. There's big
across from First Avenue. There's a big billboard now with
his picture on it. He just did. I saw a

(01:07:02):
radio interview the other day that he just did. He's
doing Wait is it today or tomorrow? I guess he's
doing the opening of the state Fair, the Minnesota State Fair.
He's playing the Minnesota State Fair opening. Then in the
middle of the week he's doing another radio interview, and
then he's doing the closing day at the State Fair.
And how great. And he couldn't come. The funny thing too,

(01:07:22):
when we played Minnesota, Terry and I played Minnesota a
festival up there, he couldn't come because he had a gig.
That's the greatest old joke. Yeah, I can't die. I'm booked. Yeah, exactly, exactly.

Speaker 3 (01:07:35):
God bless him for it's a good year to be
a Harris. And here's here's for our dads. Yes right here,
thanks for coming, you guys a man, thanks.

Speaker 1 (01:07:47):
For having us.

Speaker 9 (01:07:48):
Naked Lunch is a podcast by Phil Rosenthal and David Wilde.
Theme song and music by Brad Paisley. Produced by Will
Sterling and Ryan Tillotson, with video editing by Daniel Ferrara
and motion graphics by Ali i'm Edi. Executive produced by
Phil Rosenthal, David Wilde, and our consulting journalist is Pamela Cheller.
Thanks for listening to Naked Lunch, a Lucky Bastard's production.