Peter Wolf with Mike Scully & A Smokey Robinson Preview

Rock legend Peter Wolf has written an extraordinary memoir entitled "Waiting On The Moon" that's full of mindblowing stories that go far beyond his brilliant music career, to unforgettable stories about his marriage in The Seventies to the Oscar-winning actress Faye Dunaway, and his fascinating experiences with everyone from Marilyn Monroe to Muddy Waters, The Rolling Stones to Alfred Hitchcock. Phil and David invited noted J Geils Band fan and famed TV writer Mike Scully (The Simpsons, Parks & Recreation, Everybody Loves Raymond) to join this soulful conversation. Order Peter's book here.  All this, plus, hear a preview of next week's episode with the one & only Smokey Robinson along with Brad Paisley. To learn more about building community through food and "Somebody Feed the People," visit the Philanthropy page at philrosenthalworld.com. 

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
David.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
Hello, Hey Phil, how are you doing. I'm doing great.
We have a nice lunch today from Takoya, Mexican. Very good.
I'm really enjoying this. Thank you people. And who's our
special guest?

Speaker 3 (00:16):
Even more delicious? This little my side dish over here
is one of the greatest TV writers in history. I
know this because he worked with you. With everybody loves
Raymond he did.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
It's not familiar The Simpsons, Yes, that's familiar, parks and
rec shows.

Speaker 3 (00:30):
My kids actually like one of the and a great guy,
a great friend of yours. Oh, I think tolerates me
every once in a while. But he's here because he
is also like us, a big fan of our guests.

Speaker 2 (00:44):
Today, I'm wearing black for the occasion.

Speaker 3 (00:47):
Well, he our guests. We'll see if he's wearing black today.
He always did on stage. One of the great frontmen
in music history, a great solo artist, and now the
author of one of the best books I've read in
a long long time called Waiting on the Moon. Artist Poets, Drifters,
Drifters and Goddesses, a memoir by Peter Wolf.

Speaker 4 (01:08):
Come up, Let's build the beans to the fat, Food
for thought and jokes on tap, talking with our mouthsful,
having fun with peas of cake and humble pies, serving

(01:30):
up slice live.

Speaker 3 (01:32):
Leave the dressing on the side.

Speaker 5 (01:34):
It's naked lunch clothing option. I'm thinking back so facas time,
but I can't go back to talk fas rid on.

Speaker 3 (02:08):
My bones spent the night.

Speaker 2 (02:11):
Where are we reaching you today?

Speaker 1 (02:13):
I am, I am. I am sitting in the part
of the library. Uh, right out in Boston.

Speaker 2 (02:23):
Great. I love Boston. I love Mike Scully. He's from Boston,
from Springfield, from Springfield, Mass.

Speaker 1 (02:30):
Oh, Springfield, Mass Springfield Paramount exactly. I remember playing there
and an announcement came during the show that Jimmy Hendrix
had passed, and we stopped the show, and uh, they
turned it into a memorial for him in Springfield, sow Furlerer.

Speaker 3 (02:52):
We had no idea Hendricks was gone, Peter, I have
to tell you before we go anywhere. I have gathered
Phil and Mike, who is one of your biggest fans
and one of the greatest TV writers. So you have
two of the greatest TV writers in the world and
me to tell them that I have read the best
book so far of the year, which I believe is

(03:15):
coming out as we're speaking. Waiting on the Moon Artists, Poets, Drifters,
Grifters and Goddesses by Peter Wolf of memoir It is
not just it's it is actually I wouldn't classify it
as a music book. It is it's it's literally just
a great American memoir and and one of the more
surprising masterpieces I've read in a long time.

Speaker 1 (03:40):
Well, thank you. You know, I tried to make it.
There's so many musicians writing memoirs, which is good, but
many of them I found to be sort of, you know,
cookie cutter style. So I tried to write something that
was had a different approach. And the approach was that

(04:05):
each chapter would read like a short story, and I,
you know, would tell all these stories backstage of the
show at a dinner party, and people constantly for years said, Peter,
you should write a book. And I started about ten
years ago, within a little outline, and then forgot all

(04:25):
about it. Tried it one time and forgot about it
after that, and slowly it just came. After the pandemic,
everybody was writing you know, operas and symphonies and writing
these long things. I just read books and watched you know,
old movies until finally Peter Girlneck, who's one of my

(04:48):
favorite writers, who.

Speaker 3 (04:49):
Wrote, by the way, the two best music books biographies
ever of Elvis. I would I would say, yes, these are.
What I find in common with those books is You're
It's such a profoundly human book you were, So it's
not a whitewashing, but it is generous. And it's the

(05:10):
way you do these portraits of these American icons who
have been how the people who educated you about art
in your life. And it's it's a list of it's
the most illustrious list of all time. But the way
you deal with everyone insightfully, their little portraits that are
so revealing of who these people were and they were

(05:32):
to you.

Speaker 2 (05:32):
Can we jump right in because there's something at the beginning.
You're a kid, your parents take you to the movie
and somebody comes and sits next to you. Can you
tell that little story?

Speaker 1 (05:43):
Well, yes, we were visiting. My sister was in the
hospital and the news wasn't very good, so my parents
decided to get their minds off of things to take
me and themselves to a film. Now, my parents were
very political. They were very progressive, shall we say, and

(06:04):
so they decided to choose. I was about eight years old,
maybe nine. They decided to choose a film, and it
was a French film, a foreign film called He Must Die.
And the premise of the movie was that if Jesus
Christ came back to Earth, the church would probably be
the first one that wanted to get rid of him

(06:25):
because he was such a revolutionary. And it was all
in subtitles now here. I am about eight years old,
and I was old, you know, eating M and M's bored.
And as the movie's starting, this couple comes into the
farthest end of the row where we were sitting, and

(06:45):
somebody sits in front of them, so they moved closer,
and the woman sits right next to me. It was
a man and a woman. And I start smelling the
most exotic perfume I've ever smelled in my life. I
never realized that perfume could be so intoxicating. And I

(07:06):
was eating some Eminem's and I dropped the box and
as I bent down to pick it up, I realized
that the woman sitting next to me was wearing house
slippers and she had a fur coat on, and underneath
the fur coat was just a nightgown. And as you know,
going to the movies like that was kind of really unusual.

(07:29):
And as I was reaching for the eminem she kicked
the box you know, to her, and she picked it up,
turned it to me, turned towards me, handed me the
box with this big smile. And she had a kerchief
around her head and sunglasses on, dark sunglasses, with this great,
beautiful smile. And so I thanked her, you know, nodded

(07:51):
to her, and as these subtitles, you know, je I
slowly felt her head slowly bending towards my shoulder till
she actually fell asleep on my shoulder, and so I froze,

(08:14):
didn't want to wake her because she seemed so nice,
and she also retrieved my candy. Yeah, I'm sitting there
also getting bored, and slowly, slowly I fell asleep on
her shoulder, and we were both fast asleep until we
were both awakened by this voice saying, honey, honey, get up,

(08:37):
let's go. The lights are going to come on. And
in the theater, she jumped up, she pulled her fur
coat around her and walked out, and people as the
lights went up, people started screaming, it's them, it's them,
and she turned back to me at that point, gave
me a big smile, and it was Arthur Miller and

(08:58):
Malman Monroe, and so I slept with mallem And.

Speaker 2 (09:05):
That's the best story I ever heard. That great, that's
what a punchline. That's fantastic.

Speaker 3 (09:10):
But Phil, that's the first of about eight hundred meetings
of fascinating people. I tried to write him down.

Speaker 1 (09:17):
You even first of eight hundred different fascinating women I
slept with.

Speaker 3 (09:23):
Right, that's not even the only actress, a great actress
ever to retrieve your candy.

Speaker 1 (09:27):
But no, this is true.

Speaker 3 (09:29):
So but let's I mean the ones I you saw
Louis Armstrong, which is unbelievable, but you were essentially. Was
it Norman Rockwell who like baby sat you slightly or
how did that happen?

Speaker 1 (09:44):
Well, my dad worked with the Robert Shaw Corral and
up in Tangled there was a concert and so we
had very little money, but somebody provided us a place
to stay and we were living there for several weeks
and my dad was doing chores and I believe it
was Stockbridge or uh the town there were this Uh.

(10:07):
He was had to do a lot of errands, so
he took me to this uh up these steps to
this gentleman's studio that was a painter. And I was
very much into painting ever since I was I could
remember I was scribbling over walls, anything, any kind of
service surface. I would you know, draw, and then my
parents' books, you know, the paper became like pads and

(10:31):
I would be scribbling on everything. And so uh he
took me to this gentleman's studio, and the gentleman uh
gave me paper and pencil and uh he said he
had a son named Peter, who was, you know, a
year older than me. And I was watching this man,
and years, years, many years later I found out that

(10:53):
the gentleman was Norman Rockwell, and so uh I had
I didn't know who Norman Rockwell was, but years later
I found out. Naturally, about twenty five years after, I
went to visit where the studio was, and it all
came right back to me, the steps where we walked up,

(11:14):
and I think it was closed, but I think it's
now turned into a museum, the actual studio.

Speaker 3 (11:22):
And do you have any theories on why? Because you know,
you go to school and the guy you need you
need an apartment, your roommate is David Lynch. You go
to you know this, You go to New York and uh,
you know, you go to a sort of folk gathering
place and you hear a guy named Bob Dylan in
the other room, and you know who becomes not only

(11:44):
eventually a friend enough to write a blurb on your
book and and you know, do you have a theory.

Speaker 2 (11:50):
On I saw this movie.

Speaker 1 (11:52):
I think it's called zell ll Yes, no, no, no, no,
you know that, you know this was all Most of
the stuff was, you know, by chance, by apsen, you know, serpendipity.
Would that be the correct word?

Speaker 2 (12:06):
Is serendipity? Yeah, but most people don't have this kind
of serendipity because this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Speaker 1 (12:13):
You met Tennessee Williams, Is that right correct?

Speaker 2 (12:16):
Tell us about him?

Speaker 1 (12:17):
Well, first of all, I think from seeing Street Carnade
Desire the film, I became infatuated, you know, through the
model and brando with Tennessee Williams. And he was in
the newspapers a lot when I was, you know, young, uh,
And I don't quite can't remember what year Street Car

(12:40):
came out, but some recently when it came out, I
had seen it, and Brando.

Speaker 2 (12:45):
Is just you know, so powerful, unforgettable.

Speaker 1 (12:50):
And then it was preceded by you know, on the
Waterfront and things. So I started dwelving into going to
the library and taking out all of Tennessee Williams's plays
and Summer and Smoke and suddenly Last Summer, and you know,
many of them. I didn't quite understand, but I just

(13:11):
became infatuated with him.

Speaker 2 (13:13):
You're very young at this time.

Speaker 1 (13:16):
This is oh, yeah, I was young. But as years
went on, I just kept you know, I bought all
his poetries. A Caten put out a recording of him
reading a short story called Yellowbird. And when I was
married to Faye Dunaway, she was in the twenty fifth

(13:38):
anniversary premiere of Streetcar named Desire, and so I was
in the green room, sitting in the corner waiting for
the show. Faye was backstage getting ready for the performance,
and I was sitting in a corner by myself and somebody.
I was holding a glass of white wine, and somebody

(13:59):
walked past me and knocked the wine, and the wine
spilled all over my pants. And this gentleman comes up
to me and goes, mah, mah. You know, even while
sitting I'm paraphrasing sit in the book, even while sitting
all alone, you know, trouble can't happen ors, you know.

(14:20):
And I looked up and staring at me through those
thick sunglasses of him was those wonderful eyes of the
great Tennessee Williams. And the lights were going on and
off and meaning the show was about to start. And
it turned out I was sitting next to him in

(14:41):
the theater. Wow. And so here is, you know, Tennessee
watching twenty five years after first performance of Streetcar. He's
watching Streetcar and there's the scene where they're playing cards.
Stanley's playing cards, Blanche and a Stellar out and there's

(15:03):
some jokes being told. During this card game. Tennessee starts
laughing loud, you know, and the people around them are
saying quiet, and he's you know, you know, just you know,
just laughing loud. You know, there's loud this laughter that

(15:24):
he had which was so infectious. And finally one of
the matrons of the theater, one of the ushers of
the theater, had to say, sir, if you can't be quiet,
we're going to have to remove you. And I started
laughing because I had no idea who they were talking to. Yeah,

(15:44):
so that was quite some. But Tennessee I had I
don't know if this was mentioned in the book, but
what actually bonded us as friends was he was a
great admirer of D. H. Lawrence and I had found
years ago a book of the paintings of D. H.

(16:05):
Lawrence and it was a very rare addition and there
was only a few printed up. And so the last
time I next time I saw him, I presented to
a gift and he was ever grateful, and we spent
many nights because Fay was interested in turning one of

(16:25):
his short stories into a film, and then he would
come up to Boston for debuts of some of his
later plays. One particularly was called Red Devil Battery. I
don't quite where devil battery syndrome a system or I
don't quite have it right, but it's there. I hate

(16:47):
to say they're in the book, but it is. But
it was a play with Anthony Quinn and he was
one of the plays in Anthony Quinn and Fay were
Anthony Quinn. Fay was Her first film was with Anthony
Quinn and being with Tennessee again he starts laughing in

(17:09):
the audience and they almost kicked him out. And while
I was up at my apartment, I had him had
a tape recorder and had him read some of my
favorite poems. He was just somebody that, as I say

(17:30):
in the book, he was like a fine you know,
Cardier wristwatch, where constantly his mind was moving and he
was so so funny he was, and he also was
the kind of person you just wanted to have a
tape recorder going twenty four seven because he was so
witty and his observations on things was so point on.

(17:53):
That he was somebody I truly, you know, a treasure
getting to know, and not all the time. As I'm
sure David, you know that sometimes the people you admire
for their art and for what they achieve aren't exactly
people that you there's sometimes disappointing when you get to

(18:15):
know them.

Speaker 3 (18:16):
I'm familiar with that process.

Speaker 2 (18:17):
That's how we feel about me exactly.

Speaker 3 (18:19):
I'm very much let down by these two.

Speaker 1 (18:21):
I'm sure during your long time of interviewing people on
writing about people, you've had that. But Tennessee was one
of those people that the more you got, the more
at least I got to know them, the more enchanted
I was by them.

Speaker 4 (18:43):
But don't think have their amiss I know, the late
of the hows to have been lacked this.

Speaker 3 (19:01):
Why well, can I tell you someone in your book
who I loved my whole musical life. But you brought
him alive as a person in your relationship, and I
bet you might also for you like I discovered Muddy
Waters through people like you and through people like Johnny

(19:23):
Winter who made you know those records with him when
I was just a kid and all. But you bring
them alive in the book and the sweetness, the it
just I feel him as a human being who I
would have loved to have known. Thank you for that
in the book.

Speaker 1 (19:39):
No, thank you. That's a great compliment, because Muddy was
for me somebody that had a great influence on me,
as did he have on the Rolling Stones, as we know,
because heed, they introduced so many people to Muddy and
they got their name the Rolling Stones, from a Muddy

(19:59):
Water song. And I first saw Muddy when I went
to high school. I was going to high school up
in Harlem. It was one hundred and thirty fifth Street
called the High School of Music and Art, and it
was a city run school where you needed to take
an exam and you know, also had to bringing a
portfolio to be accepted. And it had a pretty high

(20:21):
academic standard. And I have no idea how I got in.
As I say in the book, my report card looked
like it was like splatted with blood. There was someone there.
But I would go every Wednesday to the Apollo Theater
while I was at the High School of Music and
Art to see because Wednesday they had the amateur night

(20:45):
plus the entire show. And I first got to see
Muddy Waters there at the Apollo. Then when I moved
to Boston and started becoming a painter, I was studying
at the Boston Museum School Fool of Fine Arts. He
played at a place called the Jazz Workshop, and there's
an encounter I had with one of his band musicians there,

(21:08):
and then Muddy and his band played at this very
several months later played at this very famous coffee shop
called the Club forty seven in Cambridge, Massachusetts. And in
the Club forty seven was where Joan Baez got a start,
Dave Van Ronk, Charles Ruver, Valley Boys, Jim questoned the Great.

(21:29):
It was a great venue for folks singers and Bob
Billan also played there early on when he first got
to New York. So Muddy and his band were there,
but it was the first time they actually played in
a coffeehouse, meaning there was no alcohol, and they just
assumed there would be a bar and booze, and I

(21:53):
offered to run out and become a runner and get
them some booze. And once they found out I had
an apartment near the club, James Cotton and Oda Span,
a great piano player, came to visit my apartment and
I had all these There was not much furniture, but
I had all these forty fives of Muddy, and I

(22:16):
had James Cotton's first record and Otis SPAN's records, and
they just couldn't believe it. So next day they brought
Muddy in and so there I am, eighteen years old,
seventeen eight about eighteen, and there's Muddy Waters, you know,
lying on my futon, a rag on his head, you know,

(22:36):
and I was playing his records that he hadn't heard
in you know, ten fifteen years, and James cottons by
the stove, cooking up you know, some down home cooking
for him and the band and myself and Muddy started,
you know, telling me stories, and it was the beginning
of a really, really long friendship that lasted until he passed.

(23:02):
But the curious thing was there was this article that
came out and I handed it to Money. I said, Money,
you got to read. This is really good, and he
called me a little wolf. He goes, let me see that,
and he looked at it, and sometimes in two of
the ly you can tell that Money possibly had a
hard time reading. So I grabbed the article from him,

(23:24):
say hey, Moody, let me read it for you. And
I read it and he I could tell he appreciated it.
And from then on end I became his you know,
not only his valet, his interpreter and all through his
you know, our times together. And as I say in
the book, I would sit with him late at night

(23:45):
because he had an accident in his later years, so
he couldn't drive with the band. He had a fly
and whenever he came to Boston, I would take him
to the airport and sometimes have to spend he'd get there,
you know, one two o'clock in the first plane of
Chicago would be like seven in the morning. So I'd
sit with him all these hours and we'd just you know,

(24:07):
he'd sleep and we'd talk, and I wish I could
have taped some of the things he told me when
he first saw Robert Johnson, you know, learning guitar from sunhouse,
growing up on the plantation. How how you know he'd
tell me how to start if I wanted to start
a juke joint, you know, how to make moonshine. I mean,

(24:29):
you know how the first met little Walter, the great
harmonica player, and I mean so much, And he was
like Duke Gallington. Uh, he was very noble, and when
you were in his presence, there was you knew you
were in the presence of royalty. He just this charismatic

(24:50):
thing that Duke Ellington had that certain people just exude,
and Muddy had it. He was treated totally respect lead
by his band. They all admired him, they all loved him,
and as did I. So he had a I'm glad
you said that because he means so much to me.
And there's a story, funny story with Eric Clapton, because

(25:14):
Eric Clapton also, you know, adored Muddy Waters and they
too became very close. And I'll let the reader discover
that update.

Speaker 3 (25:25):
Great stories and he really comes alf. I will say,
it's interesting when you mentioned the Rolling Stones, you mentioned
Muddy Waters, Like, I definitely from Mike and I because
I went to a prep school in Connecticut called Loomis
Chaffe and Windsor, Connecticut, So I was I was hearing
Giles before there was the way before Freeze Frame. The
early records were part of my life. I think Mike,

(25:46):
you grew up. You became a big fan around fourteen.

Speaker 6 (25:49):
Around fourteen, Yeah, like around nineteen seventy seventy one, started
hearing all sort of stuff on FM radio. We had
an FM station in Springfield.

Speaker 3 (25:59):
Called w h v Y.

Speaker 6 (26:01):
It was heavy f was their logo, and uh so
I was hearing your music then and then getting to
see the band live. You guys did such a great
job of introducing blues based music, blues based rock to
a generation that maybe wasn't that familiar with it, which

(26:22):
made it very cool. A lot of the songs you
can and at the same time you weren't. It didn't
feel like these are covered. You guys made those songs
your own, along having your own songs too, and it
just became part of the repertoire. I mean, to this
day I should tell you on my workout playlist I

(26:45):
started or ended with, serves your right to suffer.

Speaker 1 (26:51):
A very slow workout, because.

Speaker 3 (26:55):
Yeah, it either it either.

Speaker 6 (26:57):
Gets me going slowly or kind of a lords and
me for like winding down at the end.

Speaker 1 (27:02):
What was the big paper in Springfield, mass The big
newspaper in Springfield, Oh, we had.

Speaker 6 (27:09):
The Daily News and the Sundai Republican was a big paper.

Speaker 1 (27:13):
Because there was a writer, young writer that was a
big fan. I'm trying to think, is I used to
know his name?

Speaker 6 (27:20):
I'm trying to Tommy say.

Speaker 1 (27:25):
Maybe maybe, yeh.

Speaker 6 (27:26):
He used to cover a lot of and a guy
named Chris Hamill. They would cover show Chris Hamill.

Speaker 1 (27:31):
Okay, yeah, yeah, he would come backstage a lot and
we would talk with him a lot.

Speaker 3 (27:37):
But Peter, one of the mysteries that you solve, and
you saw a couple of mysteries for me and you,
really I learned so much. But one of the things
for anyone who thinks this is song by song with
the Jay Giles Band, it is not. And I will
say as someone who thinks like the work I listened
to by you is your your solo work of the
last twenty years is those. If I were to make

(27:59):
my time ten, which I will for this episode, I'll
make a Spotify list. It really is all the solo stuff.
But the Jay gau stuff was formative for me. It
introduced me to so much in music. But one of
the things that I never understood how a band that
great with when you were not around. I was listening
to an old podcast, Mike in which you discussed Peter

(28:20):
as maybe the greatest front man you know you ever saw. Yeah,
but I've never understood how the legacy could have been
blown so badly, frankly, And there's a chapter you don't
it's not a book about that, but there is a
chapter that sort of explains what I think is the
most insane sort of blowing of a legacy because Giles

(28:44):
sort of fell apart after a huge commercial breakthrough. And
I've always assumed you left, you know, for your solo career,
which is normally what might happen. But as I understand
it in the book, at least they basically pushed you out,
which I couldn't. I've never under it. It is the
most inexplicable I think. I read an interview John Landau did,

(29:05):
saying it's the most inexplicable decision in music history.

Speaker 1 (29:09):
Well, you know, it's an interesting David. They were when
I started the book. And Andrew Wiley, who's a very
interesting gentleman who is an independent agent for many authors,
Salomon Rushdie and Martin Namos when he was alive, and

(29:30):
he handles the estate of Philip Roth and Saul Bellows
and Robert Lowell, et cetera. I told him, you know,
there are two things I'm not going to write about.
I'm not going to write about my marriage, and I'm
not going to write about the Jay Giles band. I
want this book to be a collection of short stories
and just about the people I admire, sort of like

(29:51):
a Valentine's and like a fan's notes. And as the
process was going, people at Little Brown I had like
four different editors because they kept changing. You know, the
literary world, like the record world, is going through lots
of corporate shifts. Uh, and not all of it was
for the better. Not all of it is for the better, unfortunately,

(30:15):
and uh it kept saying, you know, you got to
say something about your marriage. You know, people you just
have to say something. And you have to say something
about the Jay Giles band, and uh, and I gave
it some thought. And you know, the Giles Band is
in runs throughout you know, the many of the chapters,

(30:36):
Battle of the Poconos and uh when I the chapter
on amed Urd again and Baskermen and uh. But people
want to know what happened, you know, the editor, you know,
why did the Giles band, you know, cease to exist?
And uh, so reluctantly I wrote a chapter and I

(30:58):
tried to do, uh, give from my perspective what happened,
which was not a very pleasant and you know it
because I was kind of the manager of the band
working when I went and say manager, I was doing
all the business for the band, fronting the band, and

(31:20):
it was something that I loved and in my marriage,
which I eventually started to write about, and then one
chapter led to the other because I didn't want to
make a kiss and tell book, you know, I wanted
just to be a collection of stories. And the thing
about my marriage was that that you know, we had

(31:41):
a really great marriage for five years. It was hard
with you know, us with different careers, but we were
dedicated that the career came first and so if I
was out in Wisconsin playing somewhere, Fay would come out
and join me. If she was doing a movie in Spain,

(32:03):
I'd go over and you know, spend as much time
as I could. And the same was true, you know
with the Guyles band. It was you know, the band first.
And so the chapter I chose to condense it as
much as possible, but to try to explain what happened

(32:25):
and basically why not that I left, which, as you say,
I'd say ninety nine percent of people thought it happened,
but actually I was asked to leave, and I tried
to explain why that happened and why that happens to
certain groups. You know what they call which I try
to explain is you know, the key players and why

(32:47):
certain bands. And it starts off with Bruce Springsteen's induction
of You Too at the Rock and Roll Hall of
Fame where he says something to the point that, you know,
it's easy for a bunch of people or a band
to get together, but keeping a band together, that's where

(33:07):
the real you know, trials and tribulations, and that's where
the real challenge is. And he was true about that,
and so I explained you know, really from my perspective
what happened and the reason that the band ended, which
I really you know, I loved the Gules band. I

(33:30):
love being in it, I love the touring. But as
I quoted Graham Green, and I can't recall the quote
exactly that you know, success brings its own ripple of
troubles and sometimes far more than failure. And that was
true in the case of Jay Giles.

Speaker 3 (33:50):
It's the most one of the most dramatic examples of that.
It definitely maybe the most in music history. Because I
did not realize because I think and Mikey you might agree,
in New England, Jay Giles were a massive act. You know,
it was an arena packing band for a long time.
But what I didn't realize until I read the book
was that your deal with Atlantic, that you guys were struggling.

(34:14):
I assumed, you know, I knew about the great black
artists who had been screwed over in their deals. I
didn't realize that it extended, you know, if you weren't
the roll I guess, if you weren't the Rolling Stones
or led Zeppelin, it could extend to even a band
like Jay Giles was sort of had a shitty deal.

Speaker 1 (34:32):
Well, what happened was that there was a great character
by the name of the Big M. And the Big
M his name is Mario Mediaz. This is a really
funny story. Do we have time of this? This is yeah,
But I mentioned the Big M. Big M is throughout
the book. But Big M work. He was from Chicago
and he was working as an accountant in some sort

(34:55):
of neat factory or something, and he was obsessed, you know,
he was. He grew up in Mississippi, his family moved
to Chicago. His father was a gambler, you know, and
hung out in muddy Waters in the South side of Chicago.
Mario was black, he you know, he grew up knowing
all the great blues artists and ended up becoming an

(35:19):
accountant in New York. And he was obsessed with jazz,
particularly with John Coltrane and Miles Davis. And he would
go to see Miles Davis and Coltrane every time they
played in New York. And he met this woman that
was a very foxy, you know, Swedish lady that was
also going to these shows, and she had worked for

(35:42):
Atlantic Records, and she said, Mario, you know you love
jazz so much there there's an opening in Atlantic Records,
you should take it. And Mary said, Atlantic Records, I
can get John Coltrane records for free. Charlie and he had.
He didn't even ask how much of a pain? And
he quit his job, went to uh uh Atlantic and

(36:05):
was working in the book keeping department. And his job
was to sign the checks for all the different artists,
tabulate you know what you know they were getting. And
as people like Wilson Pickett and Solomon Burke and you know,
Retha would come in, Mario would tell him, you know

(36:26):
you should be getting they're giving your paying your X
amount of money, but they actually owe you, you know,
two thy three hundred and seventeen more because they're not
including And so these artists would come into like Wilson Pickett,
it was really a hothead, you know, would always have
a little guns, you know, stuck in the busted in
the Jerry Wexley's office, who was one of the presidents

(36:47):
of Atlantic Record, says, Jerry, you're robbing the and my
goddamn money man, goddamn you know, and you know, Jerry,
you know, this was happening to all the artists. And
Jerry had this meeting with Amina Urgan, who was the
resident also president of Atlantic. How the hell are these
artists finding out what's going on? And they finally did

(37:08):
a little research and found out it's Mario. He's up
in the counting. He's telling them everything. And Mario was beloved,
so they, you know, didn't want to fire him. So
they called Mario to the office at Mario, we got
to move you away from the accountant office. But is

(37:32):
there any job you'd like here at Atlantic? You said,
how long be a promotion man? And so he became
the first real rock promotion man. And uh he you know,
was the first one to meet the Rolling Stones when
they came in, and you know, they were all wanted
to meet, you know, a guy from south side Chicago,

(37:53):
you know, real blues guy. He was the first guy
to take around led Zeppelin, very close with the All
Men brothers. And it was him up in Boston taking
Doctor John for a promotional tour Boston that heard the
Jay Giles band. Called up Jerry Wexler, I said, man,
I heard this band. They ain't signed. You got to
sign him. And so two days later John Landau, now

(38:18):
manager of Bruce Springsteen, who was then a writer for
Rolling Stone, and I find ourselves in the office of
Jerry Wexler, and the negotiation was there was no lawyer.
The negotiation was, well, you know, John tells me that
you guys are pretty good. I haven't heard you, but
from John's recommendation, we'd like to sign you. And he's

(38:41):
got a contract for at CO Records. I go at go.
I said, man, we want to be on Atlantic. And
Jerry said, I don't know if I can do that. Man,
that's really tough. This was all a sham. And so
he calls in a lawyer and the lawyer they have
this you know, I don't know. And the lawyer said, no, Jerry,
you can't put them on Atlantic. You know, just we
can't do it. You know, a policy won't allow it.

(39:04):
No lawyer. President, he hands a contract saying, okay, we
got John Atlantic. Little did we know John wasn't a lawyer.
I wasn't a lawyer. We were, you know, in the
office of the great Jerry Wexler, who produced all the
great soul records of Aretha, Franklin, Wilson Pickett, Solomon Burke.
You know, he was just a legendary figure, still is

(39:25):
and it was the same contract pretty much that they
handed Laverne Baker in nineteen fifty two. So we got
like two points for six guys in a bandag whatever
it were. And it was probably one of the worst
contracts at a rock and roll band in that eer
ever signed. And it was only after the fact smarty

(39:50):
businessman decides maybe we need a lawyer.

Speaker 5 (40:11):
But I still do carry.

Speaker 1 (40:15):
Though.

Speaker 5 (40:15):
There's a lot of good ones gone.

Speaker 1 (40:24):
Peter.

Speaker 6 (40:25):
You mentioned Aretha in that story, and I read a
very funny story about you working with Aretha on the
Who's Zoom and Who album right right? And Uh, I
don't know if you'd want to tell that story now
or I got a big kick out of reading it.

Speaker 1 (40:39):
Well. Uh, I got a call from Michael Narra Walden,
who was doing the album who was I knew as
a drummer from my you know uh at Atlantic and
uh he called me. First, got a call from uh
Clive Davis asking if I'd like to do it? Do it?
They wanted me to do a duet with a Reef

(41:01):
for Franklin. That was a message on my message machine.
I thought, Man, either this is phony or Clive Davis
is out of his mind, saying man would love to
have you come out, you know, do a thing with
the wreath. I go, there's no way I'm going to
be able to do it, you know. I mean, this
is going to be like you know, Cat, I'm gonna

(41:22):
be like cats and dog. I mean, she's there's no way,
it's no no trust me, trust me, man, We'll make
it work. We'll make it work. Long story short. I
end up flying to Detroit under the condition that if
it doesn't work out, I will pay for my airline ticket.
I will pay for whatever studio time. But I have

(41:43):
the right to say, you know, it can't be used.
So I go out and we're waiting, waiting. There's no wreatha.
We're in the studio waiting, and Nada had all these
candles and he was in a whole New Age kind
of you know, set the studio up with low lights
and crystal around, and he was all dressed in white

(42:05):
and had these no smoking signs around the studio. And
we're waiting, waiting. Finally I noticed from the window of
this black Cadillac pulls slowly up to the studio and
out coomanies to big guys, you know, and one of
them comes around the door and opens it up, and

(42:26):
outsteps a queen of soul, old lane fur coats, you know,
house kind of slippers, not unlike like another goddess, miss
my mother. And she comes walking in the studio and
Nod is talking to her. I'm behind the glass in
the control room, and finally she calls me out. We're

(42:49):
getting ready to start some takes. I'm very very nervous,
and she's talking to me, Pizza, so glad to meet you.
And she's talking in this English accent, and I go, oh, great, ether.
You know, I had met her before it the Atlantic studios,
and I don't think she remembered. And so uh, she's

(43:10):
talking to me in you know, the Queen's English and
with this heavy accent. And so at one point said
I love a spot of tea, So I say I'll
get it, and I rush, you know, to get the tea.
And on my way into the getting tea, I asked narda, hey, Nara,
what is this thing about this English accent? What's going on?

(43:33):
He's oh, you know, don't worry about that. It's because
she loves Joan Collins and Dynasty, which was a big
s So she obviously really likes you, because she wouldn't
you know, be doing it. She only does it when
she's really you know, having fun with people that she likes.
So just take it as a compliment, you know, get
her the tea and get in there. Start recording. So

(43:56):
we start recording the man. You know, we all know
the amazing voice Aretha has, but it is nowhere as
amazing when you're standing two feet away from sharing the
same microphone and she starts wailing, and you know it's

(44:17):
it's just the room starts resonating and the voice takes
on another dimension live that's just you know, unworldly. And
once she found out that who I was, and that
I knew King Curtis, who was a great saxophone player

(44:38):
and managed the Atlantic Recording Studios where Aretha recorded quite
a bit, she sat down by the piano under this
big no smoking sign that Norda pulled up, pulled out
a pack of cool cigarette, lit up a cigarette, opened
up the piano, and started playing these slow call chords

(45:03):
and the soulful, you know, amazing piano player as amazing
as a singer. You know, she just had this you
know fluid, you know, and she starts playing these gospel chords,
and then she starts singing, talk to me, Talk to me,
tell the things I want to know. And it was

(45:24):
a little Willie Johnson who came from Detroit. And then
she starts talking to me about Sam Cook and how
much she was in love with Sam Cook because Sam
used to stay at her father's house, who was the
Reverend Franklin, and Sam was at that time in a
gospel group, Young Gospel Boys, so the two of them

(45:46):
knew each other at a very young age. And then
the story continues when we're sharing a concert together many
years later at Cleveland at the Rock and Roll Hall
of Fame tribute to Sam Cook, where the chapter ends
where I'm she asked me to carry the trail of
her dress as she wet a Change is Gonna Come

(46:10):
with Salomon Burke and the audience gets up and rises,
and you know, and as she's walking off stage, I
run and grabbed the train of her dress, walking behind her,
and she turns to me and she says, you know, Peter.
Just after she and Solomon and the whole group singing
Change is Gonna Come, Sam's great song that was inspired

(46:32):
by Bob Dylan's Blowing in the Wind. She says to me,
you know after Sam there's no encores and there was
just it hit me so hard that you know she
still was in love with Sam Cook. You know we
were in different ways, but she really was in love.

Speaker 2 (46:53):
These phenomenal h I've had to go to the bathroom
for about forty minutes and I haven't been able to
tear my sol away. But you got to give me
a minute.

Speaker 3 (47:01):
Yes, I'm gonna ask one question, Peter. You tell us
when you have to go. But do you have any
memory why you will be If I ever write my memoir,
you will be the hero of a very important chapter.
Do you have any memory of what that might be?

Speaker 1 (47:22):
Of a chapter regarding you and I?

Speaker 3 (47:24):
Well, no, it would be a chapter regarding Van Morrison
and you were the hero. I don't know if you have,
I can share the memory in case you have forgotten.

Speaker 1 (47:35):
I know I did a piece for Van Morrison rolling
Stone as a tribute. There was they did an anniversary piece.

Speaker 3 (47:41):
This was a different time. This was a time when
Van had not been interviewed in Rolling Stone for like
fifteen years because he was angry about an article that
had run. And I got a call saying Van will
do an interview for his I think it was a
greatest hits collection. He'll do one interview in America and
he'll do it with you. And I was then told

(48:03):
I would do it in Ireland, and then I was
told I'd do it in San Francisco, and finally, after canceling,
I was told it would happen in Boston when he
was doing a series of shows in Boston, and I
went on Yon Winter's Dime and the Rolling Stone Budget
and was there for like a week and it never happened.

(48:24):
And then after the last show, I had to tell them, listen,
I'm gonna have to go. I can't keep on racking
up these expenses. And there was an after party that
Van threw at the hard Rock in Boston, and I
went down and I said, I went to the manager.

(48:44):
I said, listen, I can't keep on waiting because I
and racking up this large expense. And they said, here's
what you do. This was a manager Van that wouldn't
last long, and I think he might have passed away
soon after this. But he said, just go walk in
front of Van, walk back and forth in front of him.
Let him get comfortable with you. And I went, you mean,

(49:05):
should I lift my hind leg. I didn't know what
was being asked, and I went and he was with
Georgie Fame and I walked back and forth and nothing happened,
and I started to walk out the door. You walked
into the party and I had met you through Rolling Stone,
and you saved my time there. You saved my life

(49:27):
at that moment because you went to Van and said, Fan,
you should be talking to David, and he agreed to
talk to me. And there's a whole other story that
has taken up forty five minutes on other people's podcast,
but I will tell you it only happened because you
literally were my savior, and it was because you. Your
relationship with Van went back. As the book explores, you're

(49:50):
you know, you guys go went back forever. But I
don't know if that memory. I'm sure in the life
that I've read about it, it did not make the
I understand why. It's very much an outtake your life.

Speaker 1 (50:01):
I remember, I remember it, and I do remember it,
and I can even give you some more detail. First
of all, David, you know with your when the times
you're on TV and all during your time at Rolling Stone,
you always you know in the you know, let me
return the compliment. You always had an open house for me,

(50:24):
and I always felt really comfortable when i'd come up
and visit. You know, certain of my favorite writers, you
were one of them.

Speaker 3 (50:32):
Oh, thank you.

Speaker 1 (50:33):
That means a lot time you never had, you know,
you never you always seem to be on an assignment
to help the artists, you know, promote what they were promoting,
or try to promote them to a bigger audience, and
never seem you had any kind of negative agenda. You
always seem to be, you know, in love with the

(50:55):
work you did, in love with the artists.

Speaker 3 (50:58):
Uh so, Peter can and I say, that's the nicest
thing you could ever say. And I will tell you
I like to think that's true out of the goodness
of my heart. It turned out to be because the
second part of my career ended up working in TV
with so many of these people, and I'm like, I
did have vocasion to think, thank god I wasn't an
asshole in the first half, otherwise I wouldn't have had
a second half.

Speaker 1 (51:18):
No, you never were an asshole, and there were many
there were many around you that were. But I'm glad
you got your interview.

Speaker 3 (51:25):
Oh, I will tell you hope.

Speaker 1 (51:27):
I was staying at the Ritz Carlton Hotel ordering complete
room service.

Speaker 3 (51:30):
Yeah, oh no, I was doing quite well, which is
why I need to get out.

Speaker 2 (51:34):
Peter. I love the way you move and dance on stage.
Who were your influences? Where did those moves come from somewhere?
Or is that just you being It looks like you're
a little kid sometimes and I just love the spirit
of it.

Speaker 1 (51:49):
Well, it probably was me trying to imitate Elvis as
a little kid. But you know it, and I'm not
saying this, you know, it's it just when the music
comes on and if it's moving, I just can't stand still.
So it's kind of like a holy roller in church.
You know, there's nothing it's.

Speaker 2 (52:09):
Not choreographed, it's not studied. It's just feels like a
true exp.

Speaker 1 (52:12):
Really not studied. Yeah, I mean I couldn't. You know.
There's there's a scene where I'm talking with in the
book with and I don't I won't say it because
it's gonna just say. I don't want this to sound
like name dropping, you know. Uh, you know, oh I
met this person, I met that person, because that's not
what I wanted this book to be about.

Speaker 2 (52:32):
But it is incredible, an incredible list.

Speaker 1 (52:34):
Well it is, you know, uh perhaps, but you know,
Elvis mentioned once when they asked him, you know why
you move like this? I don't know, man, My body
just takes over and it's really kind of the truth,
uh me, and I know it's probably it was obviously
the truth for him. And also going to the Apollo

(52:55):
for so many years and seeing such great performers Jackie Wilson.
If you ever go on YouTube and watch Sam Cook
sing Everybody loves to chot at You without him knowing that,
Jackie Wilson comes out in the back. Sam couldn't dance,
but Jackie show could. If you watch Jackie Wilson do
splits and turnarounds and it, you know, and people like

(53:19):
Tommy Hunt and just so you know, James Brown, actually
seeing James Brown at the Apollo doing his thing, it was, uh.
It just has to get inside your body.

Speaker 2 (53:30):
So you see them and it gives you the license
to say, oh, I can let myself go too.

Speaker 1 (53:36):
Oh yeah. If it's in you, it's got to come out,
because that's what rock and roll is all about, doing
the two and getting right through it. But doing the too,
and fine, having yourself a good time, having his sell
of it and doing it on the run, keep on
doing it until the midnight sun.

Speaker 3 (53:51):
Phenomen And by the way, we just had Smokey Robinson
on the other day on our show, and which, by
the way, I had forgotten that first I look at
the purse, I think he wrote.

Speaker 1 (54:02):
That, which is write it.

Speaker 3 (54:04):
But Smokey, it's amazing how much Jackie Wilson, otherwise forgotten
by many, comes up in any conversation about influences on anyone.
It's amazing how yeah, well.

Speaker 1 (54:15):
What people don't well for Smokey. Jackie Wilson came from
Detroit and so obviously you know, had an impact. And
plus there's a chapter in the book called the Wind,
and the Wind was a song that was recorded by
a Detroit group called Nolan Strong and the Diablos on

(54:35):
an amazing label called Fortune Records. If you ever see
Fortune Records in a bin somewhere, just pick it up,
because they're just all great. It was all these like
Sam Phillips, like Sun Records. They were all done in
this little little studio in Detroit. Nolan Strong was Smokey's
great uh, one of his first inspirations as a singer

(54:58):
and Wilson. But you know Jackie was If you go
on YouTube and listen to Jackie Wilson sing Danny Boy,
Van Morrison and I used to listen to Jackie Wilson
for hours and Danny Boy. What he does at the
end of Danny Boy is not only operettic, it sounds

(55:19):
almost like a Rabbi dobbining. It includes all this stuff
and it takes it to a height that nobody could
ever achieve. And Jackie Wilson had such an amazing impact
on Elvis. And once Jackie Wilson was playing at a
place called The Trip in La It was a club

(55:41):
and it was totally empty. It was there for a
week and one of the Memphis Mafia during the film
Elvis was making one of those films Girls, Girls, Girls
or whatever, and said, you know, Jackie's in town. There's
nobody seeing them. Nightclub's empty. Elvis couldn't believe it, so
he let word be out that he was going to
be every night when Jackie was in town, and he

(56:03):
packed the place. And if you ever go on YouTube,
there's an interview with Jackie Wilson and he's asked, if
you aren't a singer, if you aren't a performer, Jackie,
what would you do? He said, I'd be a DJ.
He said what kind of music would you play? He said,
I played twenty four hours Elvis Presley. And that's how

(56:23):
those two, you know, were so, you know, messed with
each other. And people don't connect Elvis with Jackie Wilson,
but the operatic aspect of Jackie Wilson, or the operatic
aspect of the lead singer Tony Williams of the Platters.
I mean, you can hear with Elvis, you know, in
his later years, even that last clip of him doing

(56:48):
Unshamed Melody, you know, oh My Love, my Doll, you know,
sitting by the piano, the voice, the body might have
been deteriorating, but the voice, the voice never left him.
And I have just to close off, I had the
great honor of inducting Jackie Wilson into the rock and
roll Oh great, that was a big thrill.

Speaker 3 (57:09):
For me to show you. Yeah, I mean, that's that's remarkable.
I know that we've taken up a lot of your time.
I know you're busy with the book promotion.

Speaker 1 (57:19):
Do you have time tens of myself.

Speaker 3 (57:24):
Is it okay if we ask you about a few
songs or I wanted to ask you about a few
songs not the usual ones that are my literally among
my favorite songs of all time, that I've never gotten
to ask you about.

Speaker 1 (57:34):
Please.

Speaker 3 (57:35):
Well, one is Phil here has a famous movie night
in LA You're invited at any time you're here. See
I'm inviting him to your house. But forty to one
Amy Man, who's often here at movie night. I think
you guys wrote that together. It's one of my favorite
songs of all time. Any memory of that song, Oh,

(57:56):
I do.

Speaker 1 (57:57):
And it was basically, you know, Amy's you know, incredible
she you know, I just thought she was fantastic and
she had this deal that fell through and she was
sort of lost and I couldn't believe it. You know,
she had left till tuesday, and I was trying to

(58:20):
if I could help her, you know, get to a label.
She had a manager, Michael Housman, which was a drummer,
and she's just you know, her work lyrically and stuff,
it's just quite amazing. And she was going through a
really really tough time during that period.

Speaker 2 (58:40):
Well, she's just a lovely person.

Speaker 3 (58:41):
Yeah, You've inspired us to ask her to be on
this podcast. Goodbye is all send her one of my
favorite another one of my absolute favorite songs of all time.
And it makes me think. When I read this book,
I thought, what you've become in your solo career in
the is a great romantic poet, you know.

Speaker 2 (59:00):
And it's a gorgeous song.

Speaker 5 (59:02):
Woo what else good after? And aesome?

Speaker 3 (59:22):
Is that song one that's special to you? Because it is?
I find it unbelievably powerful.

Speaker 1 (59:27):
Well, that whole period was kind of special because I was,
you know, trying to get a record deal for myself,
and I was doing these demos and Amy was so generous,
you know she you know, she's all her songs are
you know, autobiographical mostly I would say, and goodbye. I

(59:49):
even think she might have you know. It's there's that
famous story where uh Jerome Kern and uh uh uh
Oscar Hamistein I believe it is uh we're uh no
who was it that wrote uh over the Rainbow? It

(01:00:14):
was Harbeck and uh current Kurrent, I believe. And they're
sitting in by the piano in the living room of
Ira Gershwin and they're working on this thing and it's
current is by the piano, and Harbeck is, you know,
the lyrics, and they can't come up with an ending,

(01:00:36):
and they're playing, playing, playing, and you know, Gershwin's doing
the New York Times Sunday Crosswood puzzle. Finally, out of frustration,
Gershwin says, fellas one and you just said, you know,
and he just quotes the entire end of the song
of Little Why can't I? And they looked at each
other and go, that's it.

Speaker 2 (01:00:59):
I didn't know that.

Speaker 1 (01:01:03):
Yeah, he asked for no credit.

Speaker 3 (01:01:05):
He just threw it out.

Speaker 1 (01:01:06):
He was just trying to shut him up so he
can get done with his carsword puzzle. But you know what,
while we're.

Speaker 2 (01:01:16):
Talking movies, can I ask you about Alfred Hitchcock.

Speaker 1 (01:01:21):
Well, I met Alfred his Cock several times, uh, once
in Chasings, once at Universal and another time the story
in the chapter.

Speaker 5 (01:01:32):
And he was as.

Speaker 1 (01:01:36):
You couldn't take your eyes off of him. And he
was a total entertainer and brilliant, brilliant. You know, you
can just certain people, you know, uh, you just have
a sense of an unworldliness and the sense of intelligence
and the observation. And how slow he talked, how slow

(01:01:58):
he moved. That wasn't because of his weight. Was just
he was just taking in everything. And I found him
to be one of the great storytellers. And uh, I
just couldn't believe that there was Alfred Hitchcock. And I

(01:02:19):
remember one point at Chasin's, which is not in the book. Uh,
he had ordered uh some wine and he was, you
know there was he notoriously would have a meal and
then when he finished the meal, in his dessert, he
would order another.

Speaker 2 (01:02:35):
Meal and again.

Speaker 1 (01:02:38):
And so there was this great wine that was sitting
in the wine bucket, and I was sitting at the table,
and you know, I had ordered you know, there's a
chapter about me and wine, uh, you know, some sort
of inexpensive shall we say, wine, and the waiter I
came over and would take the wine from mister hit

(01:03:00):
Schcock's bucket and pour it in my glass because you know,
Alfred would keep ordering more wine and this for the
rest of the table. And it was pretty damn good one.
But he was as amazing as his movies were. He
was twice as amazing. And again it's one of those

(01:03:20):
situations where people that you admire and meet that are
even bigger that their effect on you is even far
more profound.

Speaker 2 (01:03:35):
I love this was was there favorite of yours? What
was what's your favorite Hitchcock movie?

Speaker 1 (01:03:42):
Well, you know, I like the early ones and you know,
even the ones he you know, a couple of you know,
not the Silence, which I've seen all of them. I've
seen every film. Uh he did being a corn Cornwell
Woolwich fan, and a check that was taken out. I
did this noir chapter, but I actually got to meet

(01:04:05):
Cornell Wolwers, who wrote Rear Window, and he wrote so
many He wrote The Bride Wore Black for two Faux
and many films that many scripts for Albert Hitchcock's TV
show and for Argentine noir movies and stuff. He was
very prolific, and he lived he was a recluse and

(01:04:26):
lived in a hotel, the Sheridan Russell Midtown. And I
was visiting a collaborator that I wrote about my book,
and he was in the lobby in the wheelchair and
I was introduced to him, and I had no idea
who he was. When I, you know, was speaking to him,
I knew he was someone say, aw, he's a writer

(01:04:46):
and stuff. And it was only until later you know
after later that evening I found out, you know, how
profound and how great a writer he was. And I
don't know if you're familiar with his works, but he's
probably the darkest of the noir you know, and there's
the Hammet, there's Channeler and comes, you know, Ross McDonald's stuff.

(01:05:10):
But Woolworth, who was early on, probably had the most
of his of all the noir famous noir writers you
know from the Black Mask period, had the most of
his stories made into film. And if you look at
a list, you'd be amazed at how many of his
stories were made into films and or TV serials like

(01:05:31):
you know, Hitchcock and things like that.

Speaker 3 (01:05:33):
Well, Peter, I want to say that there's a song
you wrote called a Lot of Good Ones Gone, and
I think about it all the time in terms of
this kind of book. When you memorialized, like when you
bring Muddy Waters alive for a new generation, there's a
lot of people who then are going to have a
whole world of music to fall into and learn and

(01:05:54):
love and continue that legacy. I thought about it. I
guess I work on the Grammys for the last twenty
four years, and like Will Jennings, this year was someone
where I had to sort of advocate saying, oh, no,
Will Jennings needs to be put in that immemoriam. You
know this is and he was a great collaborator of yours.
But I wonder, as someone who's well aware of our legends,

(01:06:15):
is it important? Was it important to you? I feel
like it's a public service to let people know how
important some of these people were in your life.

Speaker 1 (01:06:25):
Well, thank you, you know. And what I tried to
do is you said with money?

Speaker 3 (01:06:30):
Was you know?

Speaker 1 (01:06:30):
Will was you know, such a great, you know, important
collaborator for me. And his story was so interesting and
he was such a generous person and a unique talent
where for instance, you know, he wrote that very famous
song that people know from the Titanic, you know, and

(01:06:52):
then also you know, went Beneath My Wings and but
what's the exact name of the Titanic?

Speaker 5 (01:06:58):
He did?

Speaker 3 (01:06:58):
He did My Heart Will go On? He did right
tears while you See a chance, you know amazing.

Speaker 1 (01:07:04):
Well I was in you know, Eric Clapton's you know,
uh Tears of Heaven and uh Stevie Winwood he wrote
with Stevie Whin would hire a Love and uh, but
you know, I was with him when the phone call
came in because Cameron, the director of the Titanic, didn't
want a song, didn't want, you know, any kind of
song to go along with the movie. And will you know,

(01:07:25):
got the call and came out next day. I was
there there it was. You know, he was one of
those guys that you know, you hear about. This is
what always made me wild about songwriter. You say, well,
you know, you know, Sammy Kahn. They asked him what
comes first, the music or the lyrics? His reply was

(01:07:45):
the phone call. You know, songwriters you ask me, you know,
I really think that it's a certain something in their brain,
a wiring where to them, it's like, you know, we
have no control of our dreams. We fall asleep and
sometimes we dream, sometimes we don't. And I think the

(01:08:08):
great songwriters have no control over when they get a song.
I think it just gets transmitted to him from some
sauce that they're totally unaware of. And I think that's
why they might be so many of them, may be
so superstitious or erotic, because they never know if it's

(01:08:31):
going to last, if it's going to start, if it's
going to stop. I mean, obviously they have a talent,
and it takes a certain craft, but you can't learn
that kind of level of songwriting that Lawrence Hart had,
that Oscar hammistein. Had you know that Dorothy Field's had
that Will Jennings had they you know that Bob Dylan has.

(01:08:52):
I mean, you know, they just sort of are born
with this innate talent. That's I think a mystery to
them too.

Speaker 3 (01:09:01):
Did you look at you for yourself? In I don't
know if you saw the Bob Dylan movie yet, A
complete unknown? Did you look for yourself? It seems like
it's like a you're like a you're in the next
room for half of that movie.

Speaker 1 (01:09:12):
Oh no, I haven't seen it yet. Man, I'm looking
forward to seeing it. And I hear you know many people,
most people who mention it to me really like it.

Speaker 3 (01:09:21):
And I was afraid to see it and ended up
loving a lot about it. I have my last question,
and you guys could jump in if you want, is
you may not know this as a songwriter. Maybe it
was a magical thing I have had. I think the
one of the only I've had like two or three
Gile songs on my phone. I put them on rotation
when I go to sleep next to my put on
headphones not to disturb my wife. But one of the

(01:09:43):
Gile songs that I love beyond belief is Sanctuary. Like
I love Sanctuary. And never until recently did it strike
me hold on a bunch of Jewish guys in sort
of a rocking blues band, was the sanctuary a temple?
Was this a Jewish? Did I missed for many years
that the sanctuary was a temple.

Speaker 1 (01:10:03):
The temple of David? No, No, sanctuary was you know,
the sanctuary that we all searched for, and especially these
days with all the trials and tribulations that's going on,
you know, within our own country and the world, the vision,
et cetera. You know, we all are searching for a
safe sanctuary.

Speaker 2 (01:10:23):
Yes, perhaps not everything has to be Jewish David.

Speaker 1 (01:10:27):
And you know, I will say, and you mentioned the
lots of good ones gone that I wrote, will uh,
that was written when John Lee Hooker passed, and you
know he will was very close and wrote a lot
of songs for B. B. King And you know, it
was the passing of an era and many of the

(01:10:48):
great musicians that I talk about in the book, and
that I think we all admire. You know, I've all
sort of gone, and that's what it's about the passing
of time, the passing of these great uh men and
women that are no longer with us.

Speaker 2 (01:11:10):
Well, you're here, You're you're a rich to a lot
of people, and you're you're I'm so glad we got
to have this time with you because you you are
such an inspiration and a real lesson in broadening one's
horizons way past what you think your job is. You know,

(01:11:31):
we know you as Peter Wolf, the great rock and
roll front man, but you have so much depth and
character and it comes from an inquisitiveness to learn, and
it's such a lesson for me. It's just great.

Speaker 1 (01:11:47):
Thank you. But I have a question for you. Sure,
what is your favorite Hitchcock movie? Oh?

Speaker 2 (01:11:51):
I have a lot of them. Shoutow of a Doubt.

Speaker 3 (01:11:54):
Strangers on a Train was Remember he had a movie
now you showed Strangers on a Train. I said, I
loved it. I was a first time you invite him
in a movie. And I turned to my now wife
and said, if he loves Strangers on the Train, I
love this guy. Shadow of Doubt.

Speaker 2 (01:12:07):
You know, that's the only movie that Thornton Wilder ever wrote,
and it's kind of this perfect meeting of Hitchcock coming
to our town.

Speaker 1 (01:12:17):
Not no, you're talking about the shadow of a doubt.

Speaker 2 (01:12:20):
Shadow of doubt.

Speaker 1 (01:12:20):
Yeah, there was Strangers on a Train actually started with Hitchcock,
you know. Uh, it was, uh, She'sia high Smith's book.
And Hitchcock went and hired Raymond Chandler to start the
screenplay with him and Chandler, who had there's a great

(01:12:43):
you know stories of Chandler writing Double Indemnity with Billy
Wilder and uh uh they they had a very content
you know, it was like oil and water between the
two of them. Where Chandler had to write a letter.
You know that this man keeps pay around the room,
he makes me close the window. He's you know, calling

(01:13:04):
girls up all the time on the telephone. How the
hell are we going to work? You know? And uh,
but Hitchcock had to travel all the way to Chandler's house,
and Chandler was quite an eccentric. And there's a great
you know, if you look it up, the interaction between
Hitchcock and Chandler. And Chandler loved to nip at night,

(01:13:26):
and what he would do is he would dictate letters
to people and uh then his secretary would come in
the morning and type out the letters. And if you
ever get a chance, I highly recommend a book called
The Letters of Raymond Chandler. They are so funny and
they're so well written, and they transcend sometimes even his

(01:13:51):
novels and you know, short stories. They just he was
just brilliant. And but yes, Strangers on the Train and
I'm just finished. Strangely enough, I've found a autobiography by
Joseph Cotton. He talks about Shadow of a Doubt and

(01:14:12):
it was the first time he ever played a murderer.
So he was asking, you know, he said, hitch you know,
how do you play a murderer?

Speaker 5 (01:14:21):
I mean, what do you do?

Speaker 1 (01:14:23):
And so Hitchcock said, let's get in your car And
so they got in the car. He said Beverly Hills.
So they drove to Beverly Hills. They got out of
the car and they started walking down the street and
Hitchcock said, is that a murderer and said, I don't know.

(01:14:47):
He said, do you think he's a murderer? And they
kept walking to Beverly Hills. To know, he goes and
long story short, Hitchcock was just getting him to drive
him to his favorite restauran. In the middle of a
second meal, he said, now, Joseph, you see that there

(01:15:09):
is no look for a murderer. I mean our waiter
could be the murderer.

Speaker 2 (01:15:13):
So uh, he tells, which reminds me, I'll have the chicken.

Speaker 1 (01:15:19):
I'll have the chicken. Cut to Peter, get me started,
fellas that you can tell I'll tell you everything I know.
So I hope I'm not boring you or your listeners.

Speaker 2 (01:15:30):
No, no, no, there's not a chance of that. But
I just love talking to you, and and thank David
for introducing us. When you're in La, can we take
you for dinner?

Speaker 1 (01:15:41):
Be my guest? What are we going to do? A
Musso and Franks?

Speaker 2 (01:15:44):
Wherever you want to go? My friend, this is you're
You're We've only scratched the surface of this book and
your life, so more please.

Speaker 1 (01:15:54):
Okay, Well, thank you and really thank you for inviting me.
Uh and David you know, uh yes, great to seeing
you again. And next time we'll have to chick it
high and kick it to the bridge. But I'm going
to take you up on that dinner.

Speaker 6 (01:16:08):
Please absolutely, And if I could jump in very quickly.
Just as a long long Springfield fan, man, I just
want to say thanks for all the great music, all
the great shows, Thanks for reputed the beauty and stuff
that's stuck in my vocabulary still for this let down
you long.

Speaker 1 (01:16:25):
Here, Let me climb up to the ladder. You love
this Wolf Google Mama too, but I believe it. Yes,
I got it. Make you very happy, and then meet
to Martini. You will get the whole thing from top
to bottom.

Speaker 3 (01:16:39):
Thank you, Tollman, Thank you so much, Peter, Peter Wolf,
Congratulations on a great book. By it everybody.

Speaker 2 (01:16:45):
Thank you.

Speaker 7 (01:16:49):
Now here's a preview of next week's very exciting naked
Lunch with the one and only Smokey Robinson and featuring
Brad Paisley.

Speaker 8 (01:16:55):
See women run this, you know. We think with the
bosses and all that stuff like that, But women run this,
you know, and they make the world happen, and they're
emotional creatures. And without women there would be no show business,
you know.

Speaker 1 (01:17:10):
And he can tell you that well.

Speaker 3 (01:17:12):
By the way, country music fans, am I wrong? Isn't
it largely women?

Speaker 5 (01:17:16):
I have seen?

Speaker 1 (01:17:16):
Are you kidding?

Speaker 2 (01:17:17):
I see them running up there, getting up to the stage,
screaming and hollering and stuff like that because he's up there.

Speaker 8 (01:17:23):
But they make show business happen. Women make the world
go round, and guys who think that, you know, they go, well,
you're gonna out smart a woman and do all the
thing you start thinking.

Speaker 9 (01:17:37):
I think there's a lot of reasons to make music,
but the best one is relationships and women in general.
Is that, don't you think? Because like, you can write
songs about anything but the most But you're right, It's
like that's what moves the needle is is that demographic Like,
don't fool yourself When I write songs that appeal largely

(01:17:59):
to guys, I've missed the mark.

Speaker 7 (01:18:04):
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 Ahmed. Executive produced by Phil Rosenthal,
David Wilde, and our consulting journalist is Pamela Chella. Thanks
for listening to Naked Lunch, A Lucky Bastard's production