November 7, 2025 • 46 mins
Author Ray Robertson discusses the timeless talent, the struggles, and the tragedy of artists Alex Chilton, Captain Beefheart, Fleetwood Mac's Danny Kirwan, Duane Allman, Nick Drake, and Muddy Waters.
Purchase a copy of Dust: More Lives of the Poets (with Guitars)
Visit Ray Robertson's website
15% OFF Any Purchase At Old Glory For Booked On Rock Listeners! — Over 300,000 officially licensed items. Featuring legendary music artists like Bob Marley, The Beatles,
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The Booked On Rock Music: “Whoosh” by Crowander / “Last Train North” & “No Mercy” by TrackTribe
Purchase a copy of Dust: More Lives of the Poets (with Guitars)
Visit Ray Robertson's website
15% OFF Any Purchase At Old Glory For Booked On Rock Listeners! — Over 300,000 officially licensed items. Featuring legendary music artists like Bob Marley, The Beatles,
Grateful Dead, and more. Use the code "BOOKEDONROCK" or hit this link:
https://oldglory.com/discount/BOOKEDONROCK
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BookedOnRock.com
The Booked On Rock Store
The Booked On Rock YouTube Channel
Follow The Booked On Rock with Eric Senich:
BLUESKY
TIKTOK
X
Find Your Nearest Independent Bookstore
Contact The Booked On Rock Podcast: thebookedonrockpodcast@gmail.com
The Booked On Rock Music: “Whoosh” by Crowander / “Last Train North” & “No Mercy” by TrackTribe
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
There's some of the twentieth centuries most innovative, fascinating, and
influential musicians. A deep dive into the famous, the forgotten,
and the barely known with author Ray Robertson. Next on
Booked on Rock.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
We're totally rock and roll. I mean gott to leave you.
You're reading. Little Hands says it's time to rock and roll.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Roll up, I totally booked. Welcome back to book Don Rock,
the podcast for those about to read and rock Americ Senach.
Ray Robertson returns to the podcast his brand new book
titled dust More Lives of the Poets with Guitars. How
you doing right, hey man?
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
Twelve artists in this book Alex Chilton, James Booker, Nico,
the Staple Singers, Captain Beefhart, Handsome, Ned Duyne, Allman, Lee
Maversduster Bennett, Danny Kerwin, Nick Drake, and Muddy Waters. So
let's talk about these choices that you're making. You write quote,
every one of the artists in this book has been
and continues to be important to me, and not just musically.
(01:04):
The music is where the fascination began, but it's not
where it ended. So what were you looking for beyond
the music when you come up with this list?
Speaker 3 (01:13):
Well, you know, it was really easy because there was
no work involved. There were people that I had to
write about because I wanted to further explore.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
You know, they always say if you want to know
what subject, teach it.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
It's the same thing with a book, if you really
want me I loved all the people in this book,
but I wanted to go deeper into their music, which
was always the number one criteria. I wasn't just going
to tell a cool story because oh, nobody's heard of
this guy.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
You know.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
You know, I know I have to love the music.
I have to howne the music, and it has to
be a lot to me. But also I found that
the stories, although you know they're full of the usual
rock and roll drugs and death and all the sex
and all that stuff, but I found that each of
the stories kind of had significance even outside the musical context.
Like for Alex Chilton, it was about the ongoing battle
(01:59):
between doing the music you want versus being able to
pay the rent. James Booker, it was the tension between
mental illness and how it's a spur sometimes for creativity.
So there was always these tensions in there. Beef Art,
how he made his music exactly how he wanted, but
at the expense of treating everyone else like his servants,
and he was sort of a dictator.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
So I just found that each of them.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
You know, when I read something, you know, ideally you
want to be able to stay Okay, I read an
essay about beef Art, but hopefully it's more than just
you know, a Wikipedia deal where you're getting facts.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
You're sort of talking about the music.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
What works, what does, and what's interesting, what isn't, but
also what the story means, sort of not transcending music,
but about life. I mean, these are these are individuals,
they're human beings. And I'm not writing biographies, but the
biographical when it's important to the music, you know, it's
very important. So I bring it up so that that
was the criteria. I had to be fascinated with the
music and with the lives and continue to find the
(02:54):
lives and the music.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Sustaining. You know, really they're a big part of my life.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
Chill and you say there's cool, and then there's cool.
There's cool before I ask about the price he had
to pay for being cool. Talk a little bit more
about what drew you to his story.
Speaker 3 (03:10):
Well, you know, it's a good question because it's like
a lot of the people in the book, what drew
me to him was his unsparing conicalism. He just sort
of did what he wanted to do. So Big Star,
which is the big band that everyone talks about, they're
making music very Anglo, very power. Well you're kind of
inventing power pop, helping event power pop really the anti zeitgeist.
(03:31):
Everything's heavy metal getting to be heavy metal singer songwriters.
But and then later on, when he sort of suffers
this anonymity et cetera, when he starts being name dropped
as you know, the precursor of power pop and indie
rock on stuff, he decides, no, I'm going to not
capitalize on I'm gonna play jazz music and old R
(03:52):
and B. He just completely followed his own bliss, you know,
irrespective of whether that made sense in terms of the industry,
in terms of his career, in terms of friendships. So
a lot of the people in here, beef Heart's another
one that they really are individualists, and I found that
there's a lot there's a kind of.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
A lack of that in our world.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
So I'm really attracted to people who sort of follow
their own beliefs and sometimes suffer for it greatly. Nko
the same deal. I mean, she sort of killed herself
creating her own identity, and there's something very existential about that,
you know, the sense that you know, she was defined
as this beautiful person stand in the corner and she's like, no,
I want to be Bob Dylan, and I'm going to
(04:34):
do it with a metronome and was not metromelotrone and
I'm gonna you know, And I just find that very encouraging. Again,
you don't have to be a musician. I think just
living your everyday life. The courage that these people showed
in the face of the kind of things that make
a lot of people sort of fold up shop like, well,
I would make my own music, but I won't sell
as many records, or I won't get a record dealer,
I won't be able to tour in big places, I
(04:54):
won't be a tour in small places. And I think
that's a great, great lesson.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
I think about that all the time with these artists
just in general life in general, like following your passion,
but at the same time, you got to cover your
ass financially and to get older, right, especially as you
get older. You see these artists take these risks and
they basically say it's either this or nothing else, which
is really admirable, you know.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
Yeah, And we usually hear about the ones we're at work,
the Bruce Brimstein's you know, right, but we don't hear about,
you know, some of the people, like say Dust Bennett
in the book, he was a pretty pretty obscure British
blues musician, sort of a one man band guy from
the late sixties, and he sort of comes he sort
of comes into his greatest fame at the height.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
Of the blues boom in Britain in the late sixties.
But by the early seven he's not an old man.
He's like, you know, he's thirty and that's over and
now it's a.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
Whole different world.
Speaker 3 (05:47):
Well, I've got three kids, and I like, you know,
and I find that stuff interesting because again, it's not
just a you know, a classic rock story of right,
it's about real people trying to have integrity, trying to
make the music that they hear in their heads that
they want other people to hear. And again, I find
that entirely inspiring no matter what you do in life,
because it's really hard to be yourself. The world doesn't
(06:08):
want you to be. The world wants you to do
your job, shut up by the product you're supposed to buy,
and then we'll all get along fine. And so these
people are.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
Kind of you know, they're they're kind of class they
kind of and I think that's that's the appeal.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
But that's also sort of why things don't always go
so smoothly, and.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
That's what makes it interesting.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
Sure.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
You know, as a novelist, you always when you write
a novel, you always want conflict because otherwise it kind
of rights. Why. Well, there's lots of conflict here, and
it's usually on the internal level, you know, like my
conscience versus my bank account, et cetera.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
Yeah. Well, Alex Chilton had a career with the Box Stops.
He was known as the lead singer of the Box
Stops and then the power pop band Big Star. And
Big Star is an interesting story. They had the documentary.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
On them, great documentary.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
Yeah, that put them into the spotlight a little bit more.
But man, you talk about a band that deserved to
be much more popular than they were. You call their
song September Girls the greatest pop one of the greatest
pop songs ever written post nineteen seventy, So why were
they not as big as they really should have been?
Speaker 2 (07:11):
You know, I kind of I hear what you're saying,
but after writing this is I guess that's why you write.
So that's kind of what I thought after writing the essay.
They shouldn't have been popular because their music was too
good and too out of time, like they.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
Just I was gonna say, are they two ahead of
their time? Was that the deal?
Speaker 2 (07:25):
They are? And and but two ahead of their time?
How do you know that? Because they seem so much
behind their time past or ten of the time, because
people were saying, you're playing music that's influenced by who
the Beatles, you know, British rock, clean songs with you know,
smart lyrics, a solo real whereas this nineteen seventy you
(07:47):
had Zeppelin and Black Sabbath and the metal comes in.
The singer songwriters Carol King, this kind of music wasn't
on the radio anymore. So you think, how are these
songs on the radio? Well they were, They're on college
radio and so a while. But the radio wasn't playing
this just because you make great art. It doesn't mean
the world is to pay attention. You know, he has
to a lot of his timing.
Speaker 3 (08:04):
You know, I have a friend who's a filmmaker, and
he's like, you know, you get ready to make a film,
and you do everything you can possibly do because somebody
told him once, I guess an older guy who was
a producer. He said, you know, you've done everything you
can do, but really you have no control over whether.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
This movie is going to be successful. It could be
that you could open on a weekend where you know,
you don't know. You do what everything you can but
but but really there's so many things. It's so capricious.
There's so many things that can go wrong or go
different ways.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
He didn't care about his audience. Was that the problem?
Speaker 2 (08:31):
I mean is that, well that's interesting, Yeah, that's and
again this this is why you're right, because he certainly
had an additude. He liked to disappoint his audience. Right, right, again,
not the kind of thing when you go to Rockscar School.
It's like, you know, you want to fly to your right.
Speaker 3 (08:46):
It's like being a writer, you want to people buy
your book, make them feel that they're really smart, make
them feel that they're on the good side.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
So what Chilton does is, oh you like that real
kind of harmonic, smooth, beautiful. Well, I'm gonna make something
that really makes your you know, stand up on end,
because that's what I want to do. But the question becomes, yeah,
that's quite admirable. But there were people listening, and maybe
sometimes you know, give them the finger to the audience.
You're giving the fingers some people who are there? Who
(09:13):
are you know?
Speaker 3 (09:14):
There might only be fourteen people at your gig, but
six of them may be people whose lives you's changed.
And I think that was kind of the After a while,
it became sort of self fulfilling prophecy with children in
the sense that well, no one cares, well, how could
that you know, you're recording volare you know in eighty
five or whatever? It's like your childlex children. But I
but again, in the end, I just love the fact
that he even went back and tour with the box
(09:36):
tops at the end. How uncool is that? But how
cool is that?
Speaker 1 (09:39):
Well that I was gonna ask about the ending his
life post Big Star, he seemed to be in a
pretty good place when he died in twenty ten.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
Well, no, not for a long time. No, a long time.
There's a lot of alcoholism. There was a suicide attempt.
By the time he stopped drinking, he quit music for
a while. He was a treat he was an arborius,
amateur arborist because he didn't really have any royalties until
the Bengals recorded September Girls. He got a little bit
of money there, and then of course the soundtrack to
(10:09):
seventy Show in the Street, which the song you wrote
with Chris Bull. There was there's some mon bell that
came some money. He came through that. But no, by
the end of us, like, yeah, he's sober. He's touring
with a sort of a revitalized well partial big Star
and the Box Tops playing his solo gig. Seems like
he's a very happy guy.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
Yeah. So of course you call only get your life
together and you die of our heart attacking.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
Yeah, so heart attacks, you know.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
Yeah, But see, you know, the thing.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
Is, Bob Dylan never was a guy that was going
to make music. That not not that he didn't care
about his audience, but the same kind of thing.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
But you're exactly right, You're exactly right. And that's one
of the things I just talked about. Actually, maybe it was.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
That though, when we when we bought a Bob Dylan
album where we went to see Bob Dylan, we knew
what we were gonna get. We were gonna get Bob Dylan.
Was it that maybe Chilton was.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
He's also famous already.
Speaker 3 (10:59):
You know, I talked about this in the essay in
the sense that you know, Miles Davis could do this,
Miles David could say I used to play this kind
of music, I'm playing this kind of music, but he
was still Miles Davis.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
These guys this is their first record. I mean, I
think a lot of the problem had to do with
Chris Bell especially was a huge Beatles fan, and the Beatles.
Speaker 3 (11:16):
It's hard to fathom this now from the perspective we
are in twenty twenty five. They not on were the
most popular band in the world. They were the most innovative.
Every album was like, let's see what music sounds like. Now,
those two usually don't go together. Usually don't get you.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
Know, you get it with Shakespeare or the sopranos, or
like popular art that's truly lasting.
Speaker 3 (11:36):
And I think for Bell, for a degree, for childman.
He's a little more cynical's little more world waring and weary.
I think bell that, well, if the Beatles can do it, well,
that's the template will be really successful, and we'll also
be making the art we want to make. That doesn't
happen a whole lot. It doesn't happen a lot, and
it's really rare what it does.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
All right, Captain Beefheart, he's on maybe my favorite Frank
Zappa song, will E the Pimp.
Speaker 3 (12:02):
Will in the Pamp the beef Art thing in here
with Zappa. There is that kind of again tension there.
You know, beef Art always bit the hand, that fantom everything.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
I didn't realize that, yeah, you said he he saved
the blues by weirding things up.
Speaker 3 (12:17):
Yeah, well, because the blues are the best, I mean,
but the blues get boring, you know.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
So what Beefart was he wanted again, there's that tension again.
Speaker 3 (12:24):
He wanted like the real stuff, like Sunhouse and like.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
The real deep Delta blues. But he also loved free jazz.
You live on that Coleman and col Drane. So he
thought how he was really I love the expression. He
was really wary of what he called the Mama heartbeat,
you know, the doom, which we all kind of do that,
that's the the manipulative for baseball, you do do do
But he said, you know you get your get, you're
getting manipultive. You got we got to do, you know,
(12:52):
change it up somehow, which doesn't always work, but when
it works, it feels so refreshed and revitalized. Again A
real hero of mine because it doesn't always work.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
But the idea, I love this music. How can I
make it? How can I make it? How can I
make it blues that applies to me and the people
that I know as opposed to going out there and
my baby left me, you know, leave that to Sunhouse.
You know, what's the new blues sound like? Well, you know,
it's these weird data ask surrealistic lyrics. He would tell
his guitar player, you know, when the note you're supposed
(13:25):
to play afterwards, play the opposite note, you know, and
and it really does sort of shake things up. It
makes you think about what the blues is. But then
you come to tromp mass replica or is that dividing line?
Like is it even what's listenable? But how far do
you go before you, it's like Coltrane, you know, how
far do you go outside before it's just a blizzard
(13:45):
of sound?
Speaker 2 (13:45):
How much do you have to reptate that? And again I.
Speaker 3 (13:47):
Don't know the answer to it, but I enjoyed writing
about and thinking about, you know, like how far you
can go and still keep your audience or are you
still making music?
Speaker 2 (13:56):
Really? You know what we call music? You know is
he's so difficult because he was a dictator.
Speaker 3 (14:02):
You know, everything had to be done his way, everything
had to be about him, which is one way to
lead a band. Miles Davis is the opposite he he
you know, when we think about jazz rock, we think
of in a silent way and Bitch's brew and all
that stuff Jack Johnson.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
But in sixty five or so, Miles was sort of
in this period where he's still playing.
Speaker 3 (14:24):
The old stuff and with the younger guys in his
band like Tony Williams, the drummer, Herbie Hamcock and Wayne Shorter,
who uh who say you know, let's let's let's let's
let's loosen this up and Miles, Miles would be open
to that.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
Were beef art, you know, he claimed, probably facetiously, but
you know he taught. He taught the.
Speaker 3 (14:41):
Band every song, every lick, every A guy who doesn't
play any instrument except harmonica, he drums, even telling the
drum well, play it like this kind of deal. So
that's the way he had to work, which is a
great way. He got to forge his identity and his
sense of beef heart. And it's honest, there's nothing else
like it. The downside is there's not a lot of
other eyes ideas coming in. There's not a lot of
fresh air coming in. Sometimes that's good. So you've got
(15:05):
the positive, you've got the negative. I don't think any
piece of writing, any piece of art, is any good
if it's one side or the other, you know, good
or bad. It's got to be sort of that messy
mixture that makes things interesting.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
You know.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
Ultimately he was painting. That became his main art later
in life.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
Yeah, yeah, Well he started to actually get some of
that quote unquote mainstream success that everybody wants breaking through.
Speaker 3 (15:27):
You know, he was on a lettermane a couple of times.
The last the last few albums are not really to
my taste. They're little more new way beef art. But
that was the point where it was getting a you know,
he was starting to get that kind of mainstream thing,
and he went home to the desert.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
Now he did.
Speaker 3 (15:39):
He was suffering, perhaps from the beginning of the ms
that eventually claimed his life, but for many years. Yeah,
he went back to the desert and painted, which was
his first love. And I thought, how cool is that?
Speaker 2 (15:49):
I mean, we don't need any more eighty year old
rock stars, you know, God love them, but have a
little dignity, you know, like I think, asked Gray Slick.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
I was just about to mention her. Yeah. Yeah, she's
the only example of one who says I'm retiring and
really meant it, like I'm retiring.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
Someone like, well, like, wouldn't you like to? You know?
But she said she looks at the guy. She's like,
she said, we wouldn't we look a little silly? How
cool is that? Wouldn't we look a little silly? You know?
But but you know it's not it's a certain man.
You can play the blues to your age, you can
play country, but when you're talking about rock and roll,
you're talking about energy, sex, anger, aggression, not not not
(16:27):
real becoming for eighty year olds. You know, it's just
completely nostalgia.
Speaker 3 (16:31):
So I love the fact that Beefert sort of said
this is this is all I can do. This is
as far as I can go. I'm not gonna, you know,
curl up in a corner. I'm going to do something else.
You know, he was he.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
Was big into well the ecology back then, but you know,
the environment and painting. And I think that's that's so cool,
that's so cool and again brave to sort of have
this identity your whole life and then, uh, you know,
whether how much you identify, whether or not it's your identity,
and say no, I'm not that anymore. That takes a
lot of inner strength, you know, to say I'm not
(17:02):
that now on this now you know.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
Ray Robertson is the author of dust More Lives of
the Poets with Guitars, Dwayne Almond. That's what's interesting about
this book. There there are artists in this book that
people will say, I've never heard of this person or
maybe heard of him here. But then you got some
of these bigger names like Dwayne Almond. Look, I mean,
Dwayne Almond's legendary. Just twenty four when he died, but
he made such an impact and you say Dwayne and
(17:27):
the Almond Brothers band were more than what they were
labeled as, which was a southern rock band. That's not
what they were. Yeah, I know jazz.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
Yeah, this is about six seven years ago in Toronto's
coming home in the street car and I ran into
him body and he goes, hey, man, what do you
what do you listening to these days?
Speaker 2 (17:42):
And I was listening to a lot of Dwayne and
the Almbrush. Oh, that's really interesting southern rock, you know Skinner,
And I said, no, let's just not have that conversation. Yeah,
actually it was. It was it was Garcia, but it
was Dwayne, a little bit of Richard Thompson that sort
of allowed me to sort of gingerly move into jazz
a little bit because listening to those those solos and
(18:04):
those those long songs of the Allmands played, where like
a jazz ben, they would inroduce the head and then
you know, Duane would exhaust it, then Dickey would exhaust it,
and the driver exhausted, and you're like, oh, okay, the
jazz always seemed kind of scary and and and and Dwyane.
There's even a bootleg one of bootle you can find
it on YouTube, just with the last sessions. They weren't sessions.
They were kind of recording demos and stuff. They even
(18:26):
take a shot at my favorite things, the Coltrane song
with guitars, So it was it was That's what I
found so intoxicating, and also that idea that they were
not who I thought they were. I mean, I knew
the hits, but now it's the point where I need
to know, I need, I need to have everything that
Duane did, and it wasn't that much, unfortunately, because he
died at twenty four years.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
Oh yeah, man, it's you know, so young. But we
know that they did succeed without Duane, but there's still
there's something there. Yeah, when Duane is part of that band,
which I want to I want to ask you that,
what do you think is what what is that element
that he brought because he's at the film Maurice Show,
is it's like throughout a near telepathic level of musical communication.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
Yeah, there's some scary, scary stuff. You know, he's a genius.
The album Brothers, I own, Brothers and Sisters. It's a
great album. Chuck Lebell's a great, great piano player, but
there's nothing I own after that. It's a good band,
Dicky Bett's a good song. I mean this good.
Speaker 3 (19:21):
It's a really good band. But with Dwayne you're talking
about a Coltrane, Garcia, Miles Davis, like somebody who is
in touch with things that you and I aren't, no
matter how Like he's touching the garment a little bit,
like he's got some kind of connection to something.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
Well, he's like Michael Jordan elevating the level of all
the players around him kind of thing.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. And I one of the
favorite performances I mentioned in the book was a version
of Greg's song Dreams on September I think it's nineteenth.
He died October twenty eighth or something, so just about
five or six weeks before he died at at Suny
dony Brook. And it's a version of Dreams that is uh.
(20:03):
I play that for anybody who's like, Okay, you know,
I'm kind of interested.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
I play if they don't, if that doesn't do it
for them, because it's truly it's truly jazz or I
don't know what you'd call. He's he's definitely talking with
the gods. He's definitely and then you know he's really
like he's really and it is. It isn't rock and roll,
it isn't jazz. It's like this guy is having a communication.
It's religious, right, I think it's religious. You know. I
have a few live albums post Rain, and I have
the first gig they played in making making Drudgie where
(20:29):
they were post Wayne and you know they they're they're
playing their hearts out and and Dicky's great, he's playing
his ass office before Chuck joined the band. And there's
this this aching place that isn't there's an aching hole,
you know, It's like, where's that thing? Even though Dicky
starts playing slide and stuff and you just can't replace that.
(20:49):
It's like, I don't know who said it.
Speaker 3 (20:51):
I think Bill Kritzmrom, the drummer of the Dead said
he said, you know, the Dead without Jerry Garcia is
like the John Coltrane Quartete without John Goldtran. It's great musicians,
wonderful and they are McCoy tyner, you know, Tony well O.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
They're great.
Speaker 3 (21:04):
But there's there's that thing missing, the vision. I guess
if you don't want to use something nebulous like genius,
I think it's the vision. He had a vision, like
just before he died too.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
You know, they start moving beyond the street because they
start using Dickey songs like Blue Sky, and then they
ler Jessica. He could have gotten in so many different
directions because as a session guy, he had a whole
That's how he made his money. He didn't make any
money while he was alive. The film More hit, but
you don't get relative payments for six months, and so
he didn't. He was still playing sessions at the end
(21:35):
for you know, one hundred fifty bucks, and he played
doughbro in a lot of productions. He's just all sorts
of acoustic instruments. There were so many different.
Speaker 3 (21:42):
Colors that weren't explored, the places he didn't go that
that that makes it all the more like geez, you know,
like so many, so many different sounds that he was
just constantly curious too, which is always a sign of
of an emotional genius. You know, they're they're really hungry.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
You know. Someone asked Miles Davis, what what he what
you know about the old days? You know, what was
Charlie Parker like? Expecting him to Oh, Charlie, he said,
Charlie Parker was a hog. He had to eat everything
fuck everything, play everything. That's what geniuses due. Yeah, not
polite people. You know. It's like and and Dange was
like that.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
I love the story that Duayanne Allmond sleeping outside of
the studio when he was a younger session musician, just
waiting for the door to open. Where was that at sun?
Speaker 2 (22:25):
Uh?
Speaker 1 (22:26):
Was that it?
Speaker 2 (22:27):
No, that's at uh Fame studios, okay, and Fame Studios. Yeah,
And there's there's a lesson to young musicians. Don't wait
for your break, go and say can I play your
record note? Can I put my tent? Sure? Okay?
Speaker 3 (22:38):
Right after a while, Phil Hall just felt guilty, like
the poor kids sleeping out there.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
But and then of course when he plays with that slide.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
Yeah, hello, all right. So Danny Kerwin is maybe the
most interesting musician to make this book. He has kind
of lost that.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
That's so cool to hear you say that, because he's
very unknown.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
This the guy you can make a movie out of.
It's a tragic story, but it's a it's a fascinating story,
and it's one of those men if he just maybe
got some help and things could have turned out differently.
Speaker 2 (23:09):
Different times, you know.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
Yeah, yeah, he was with Fleetwood Mac from sixty eight
to seventy two. Bear Trees from seventy two is one
of my favorite mactoons.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
Oh really yeah, Oh that's so cool.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
Yeah, you're right. Quote For a former member of a
world famous rock and roll band, Danny Kerwin is remarkably
little known, both in terms of the biographical details of
his life and the wonderful music he created. He is
not a legend. He is a mystery. The mystery part
of his life is regarding his post Fleetwood Mac years. Right,
That's that's when things get.
Speaker 3 (23:39):
And I actually say the same thing that what you
just said. I said, you know, he deserves a biographer
or a documentary.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
I tried to interest a couple of people when they
they're like, oh, but I say, look, man, he was
in Fleetwood Mac. It wouldn't be you know, he's not
like he's unknown. He's unknown. But it's that that period
of Fleetwood Mac, that know.
Speaker 3 (23:54):
And you talk about the Peter Green years and then
the the Lindsey Buckingham's even nixt years, there's this period
in between, and for me, some of the music that
Danny made and the fact that he joined the band
when he was eighteen years and three months old, not
even a legal drinking age, and four months later they
have a top you know, a number one song with Albatross,
(24:17):
with his song on the flip side. I mean, it's
just too much, too quick. He's living with his mother
in a basement apartment in Brixton. The next thing is
he's traveling the world with this rock band and he
turned he never really was a big drinker. He turns
to drinking as it waited for stress.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
And then Green leaves the band and he's pushed out front,
you know. And if you see the pictures of him,
I try to describe him as best I can, he looks,
you know, he's got like the jug ears, the bowl haircut,
the big blue eyes. He doesn't look like a grizzled
blue rock guy, you know. And they're like stick And
if you listen to the bootlegs which I have of
him playing live, you know, he's the stage announcements. He
(24:51):
sounds like he's apologized this nick songs are quiet number
what we're gonna do now? You know, it's like he's
not that guy. He also wasn't a jammer, you know.
He liked to write prea little, perfect little songs. So
again anesthetical to the time. But when he gets kicked
out of the band in seventy two at twenty two
years old, it's kind of over. You know.
Speaker 3 (25:12):
He spends three years hanging around, and then he gets
a record contract in seventy five. The first one has
some really nice stuff on if you'd strip away all
the strings and horns and all the bullshit. The next
tour are abomination and he basically ends up in a
homeless shelter by the time he's thirty and he's not
sleeping outside.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
Sad yeah, yeah, yeahs. So there's some quotes in there
that from Mick.
Speaker 3 (25:34):
Fleetwood wrote two autobiographies, so he talks about the last
time that he saw him.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
Because when they're touring Tuss, you know, Rumor sells twenty
million copies and Tufts only sells eight million. But they're
in England, and Fleetwood seems like a really nice guy.
He lets to look after people. So somehow or another
he used his money and power to sort of get
Danny's information and call him up and invite him over
to the hotel because that's Fleetwood Max playing Wimberley that night,
(26:00):
and uh, he said, you know, Danny said he had
slept on a bench late before and that he had worms.
Pleywood went to hug him. He's like, don't touch me.
Do you want to come to gig No, never sees
him again. He lived in pubs in his room and
didn't play any more music. And I just find suddenly
And that's for the title of the book.
Speaker 3 (26:18):
I'm so pleased that you're a fan, because obviously Dust
is a song off the last album, the last Danny
Kerwin song that he made with Mac, the second last
song on the album, and it's taken from a Rupert
Brooke poem.
Speaker 2 (26:29):
He's a World War two, World War One poet, British poet,
and he sort of chisels off the first two lines
and it's one of the most haunting, hauntingly beautiful invocations
of the ephemerality of life and and and fatality and
and and he was just so again, just so young.
You know, we're not talking about painters or writers. You
sometimes get better as they get older. This stuff is
(26:51):
often like lyric poets. It's it's when you're young, with
all that energy and passion and openness that closes up.
You know, the the Dylan's of the world who keep
making interesting music, or the Neil Young's or the Joni
Mitchells like I listened to like I think Neil is
right at the top until Russ never sleeps. And that's
(27:11):
that's a long time, a long time to be making,
you know, popular music and still connecting that way. Where Danny,
I think, is that that kind of flame out that's.
Speaker 3 (27:21):
More typical of that brilliant flash in the sky that disappears.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
I just feel it's important that people need to know
about Danny's music, and I think that they'll get they'll
they'll have a better life.
Speaker 1 (27:32):
Yeah, I mean, it reminds me of said Barrett, what
happened on the night that they did fire Danny Kerwin,
and that was in August of seventy two. There's we
finally got to because he just he bailed right before
a show.
Speaker 2 (27:42):
He bailed before a show. Apparently he not only was
he drinking a lot, he didn't like his nerves are
really bad, so he didn't eat. So that compounds the drinking.
He's really really really really really thin, really nervous, not sleeping,
not eating, drinking and apparently by the end it wasn't
one incident. Fleetwood was the only one who sort of
(28:03):
was the intermediary everyone else was. He said, asking Jenny
for a cigarette at that point was like asking for
a fight. He would isolate himself self isolate, and apparently
Bob Welsh, he was in the band by then. He
had problems with Bob Welsh and he the night.
Speaker 3 (28:18):
Before the gig, they were not the night of the gig,
they were backstage getting ready to go on and he
smashed up his famous less Paul and smashed his head
against the wall instead, I'm not going on stage. And
you can do a lot of things to your bandmates,
but you can't bail on them, you know you can.
You can't not play. And so they limped out there
and finished the gig. But they're missing their league guitar player.
(28:39):
They're missing the guy who sings a lot of their songs.
And and the skin of.
Speaker 2 (28:43):
The saddest thing that I found was that when Fleetwood
told them that night at the hotel, he said, and
that Danny didn't really know that there was a problem.
Oh really, I've been a hamp. I thought. That's not
gonna bode well for the rest of his life. Like,
you don't think there's a problem, you.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
Know, No, that was just that was just another day
for him.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
Yeah, It's like, yeah, and you're twenty two years old.
I mean, I mean me, at twenty one, I couldn't
slap my ass with both hands. At twenty two, it's
like you're already now a has been I mean that
must just do your nut in entirely. The first album
second chapter has some things I write in the book
about how someone released a compilation in two thousand that
(29:23):
sort of strips away some of the extraneous instrumentation, that
there's some beautiful songs in there, but you can already
see he's sort of regressing back to the kind of music.
That interesting thame what Danny is in that generation of
rockers is their record collection isn't just filled with rock music.
He grew up on his mother's record collection, so a
lot of.
Speaker 3 (29:45):
Jazz music, hall music, top top top ten, top thirty
music in nineteen twenty, all these sorts of antiquarian musical forms.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
So it really enriches his style.
Speaker 3 (29:58):
You know, if you just listen to rock your music,
your sound is gonna be, you know, fairly limited that way.
And what's interesting about him is that later on when
he does those solo albums. They almost returned to this
sort of Annavellian kind of it sounds like he's trying
to make music for a different era, almost like he's
willing himself to go back to his youth or his
(30:21):
mother's youth.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
It's it's very painful stuff.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
Yeah, I've never I've never heard it. I've never heard
the solo stuff, so I'm gonna give it a listen.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
There's four songs off the second second chapter, including the
title track. But yeah, they need they threw everything. Danny
wasn't a major player on this. His produce. His manager
was there, and so you know, when in doubt, put violins,
when in doubt put horns, put things, and.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
And then the next two after that most mostly cover
songs because he really wasn't writing all that much.
Speaker 2 (30:49):
Songs that he had written ten years before, new songs,
songs by people on the band. His manager wrote a song.
You know, someone probably said, hey, he's in Fleetwood Mac.
He's good. He used to be looking anyway, he's a
good looking young man. Sure, we're not gonna throw a
huge amount amount of money at him or anything. But
the irony is that his first solo album atter two
years out of Mac is in seventy five, the year
that the first MAC album comes out, you know, the
(31:11):
first one with Stevie Nix and the one just before
Rumors and it sells, you know, only three million or
something and then rumors. Yeah, and the last the last
couple are they're hard to listen to. He's clearly not
the uh, he's not He's not powering this. Someone else
is sort of, you know, building a record around so
they can get a check.
Speaker 1 (31:33):
Hey, guys, we'll get back to the show, but first
I want to tell you about an exclusive deal for
Booked on Rock. Listeners get fifteen percent off any purchase
at old glory dot com over three hundred thousand officially
licensed items covering music, sports, entertainment, and pop culture merchandise
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Pink Floyd led Zeppelin, and many many more. Go to
(31:55):
old Glory dot com, make sure to use the promo
code Booked on Rock. Also find a link in this
episode show notes, or just go to Booked on Rock
dot com and click on my Deals. Well, Nick Drake,
here's another fascinating story. You're right quote he is the
John Keats of contemporary popular music, brilliant, ignored and dead
at twenty six, virtually unknown and underappreciated. His songs are
(32:17):
more famous now than when he was alive.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
Yeah, and he wrote about this a bit, you know,
a song called fruit Tree, you know, song called Time
of No Reply. But you know the thing about Nick was,
you know, the standard line is oh, misunderstood genius. The
world is cruel, you.
Speaker 3 (32:34):
Know, writing the story and writing in the ass, you
realize Nick had a little bit to do with this.
Speaker 2 (32:39):
You know, he wouldn't show up for things like this.
He'd be like, he wouldn't.
Speaker 1 (32:43):
Promote, right, He wouldn't do the promotion thing. He wouldn't
get out there do interviews.
Speaker 3 (32:48):
He wouldn't tour. He wouldn't tour because he didn't find
it pleasant. I mean, not everybody finds their job pleasant.
Sometimes you gotta get out. The Ramones didn't find it
pleasant to go to some town with the other three
maniaction the band in a frigging van and then show
up and there's fourteen people there.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
But you do it.
Speaker 3 (33:03):
You make one devote that night and you just go
to the next place. Well, you know, I don't want
to say privileged, but you know, Nick was a rich
kid and he didn't.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
Want to have to do things that weren't difficult. And
it has nothing to do with the music. The music
is I mean just brilliant. I mean, Pink Moon is
one of those albums that you just have to have
if you're going to have a contemporary you know, and
the fact that he did it when he was so depressed,
I have all the admiration in the world. But again
that kind of tension between you know what made his
(33:32):
song so great and they're so insular. It's like, you
listen to me, you think only Nick and I know this.
I've never told anyone this. He really got that poetic thing.
But on the other hand, what a voice too. Yeah,
and that insular in that isolation though, means that he
didn't participate in the worldly stuff you have to do
if you want people to hear your stuff. So you know,
it's but you're right, Ultimately, he is famous, you know,
(33:56):
he's you know, if you're gonna hip, you gotta know
who Nick Dick is.
Speaker 3 (33:59):
So there's to be justified in that. But he just
wished the guy had had a happier life. But then
if he did we're not listening to Pink Moon. Are
those last four five songs that he recorded after that,
which are even more heroin, sure, including Black Dog, you know,
the one about depression that's like it's like if Robert
Johnson had gone to gone to Cambridge.
Speaker 2 (34:17):
You know, like this is this is what, this is
what it would sound like, this is this is as
blue as it gets, but without any of the you know,
the blues and know.
Speaker 1 (34:25):
His ending was somewhat Howard Hughes like, is it safe
to say he died in November of seventy four an overdose?
Speaker 2 (34:33):
Absolutely, he said. His mother said at one point.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
That prescription pills for depression he overdosed on.
Speaker 2 (34:40):
Yeah, and maybe maybe maybe by mistake, maybe just casualless.
But his mother said that he said to her at
once that I don't like it here at home, but
I can't live anywhere else. So he was unable to
take care of himself anymore. Yet he you know, he
he was who living with their parents at you know,
twenty five years old.
Speaker 3 (34:59):
He's always you know, his happy, but you're you're supposed
to be an adult. His friends were out in the world,
having relationships and children and jobs and careers and musicians.
And here he is living living, not just living at home,
but living in his old bedroom, like the bedroom that
he had as a child.
Speaker 2 (35:12):
I mean, there's got to do your head in a
little bit.
Speaker 1 (35:13):
Sure, sure, you know.
Speaker 3 (35:15):
And the last time his mother saw him the night
they found him. The next day, you know, better get
nick up, it's noon and he was dead from the medication.
Speaker 2 (35:24):
Was that. The last time she saw him was that
night she heard him get up. She always got up
if he got up, and he'd gotten up because he
couldn't sleep, and she said all right, and he said, yeah,
I'm just having some corn flakes to help me sleep.
So that's the last time she saw him.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
You know.
Speaker 3 (35:38):
But here he is more famous than he ever was.
So that's the beauty of art too. You know, art
doesn't care about our lives. It just matters that the song,
the book, the movie, you know. And there's something very
consoling about that to a degree.
Speaker 1 (35:49):
You know, how did his music eventually get out because
I remember Pink Moon was in a television commercial Wizard.
Speaker 3 (35:55):
Yeah, well that was kind of at the beginning. So
he dies in seventy four and seventy eight. There's sort
of a box set which was kind of relatively rare
back then that had his three albums and a few
sort of outtakes, and because after Pink Moon he did
go back in the studio and record five more songs.
Now his health was such that he couldn't play and
sing at the same time. He recorded the guitar and
(36:17):
then then overdub his voice. But it's some of the
most chilling stuff, like I say, black Dog, hang In
some other stuff, and then seventy eight there was that
and then you know, word of mouth or again, you know,
the hipsters started talking about it. But really I think
it was that VW ad that used Pink Moon. Which
is it, you know, and which is so iron you know,
(36:38):
it's a song about impending annihilation Andy and it's like
bio vw But it's a pretty song, you know, it's
a pretty It's got a great liok.
Speaker 1 (36:47):
To somebody whoever owned the rights to his music, they
were making the decisions that he should have made when
he was alive, Like let's.
Speaker 2 (36:54):
Yeah, no that music, right. I mean, that's really interesting
because I don't know because I know now his sister,
who was a pretty well known British stage actor and
television actor. She's so his parents are dead, her parents
are she's in chargement now, and she's meticulous and scrupulous
about allying his names. Now.
Speaker 3 (37:13):
A box set has just come out a couple of
months ago on the first record, and she didn't. She
made sure there's nothing included on there that isn't that
would embarrass him. So I'm thinking that she wasn't the
one who made the call about the about the v
W add or whatever it was. But you know, why
be a snob? And maybe it got some people into
(37:34):
the music, and you know.
Speaker 1 (37:35):
So, yeah, that's good Muddy Waters. He makes the book
Where's rock and Roll? If not for Muddy Waters? Talk
about his importance.
Speaker 2 (37:44):
That's why I ended it. Yeah, And like you said that,
there are some people in the book.
Speaker 3 (37:47):
That aren't very well known, but that one obviously everybody
knows money worse.
Speaker 2 (37:50):
I wanted to end it with somebody who had the
same kind of value. Is very independent. You know, when
he comes to uh, when he comes to Chicago, it's
not to play all that blues. There wasn't such a
thing really in his world. He's acoustic blues.
Speaker 3 (38:03):
And then you go play and no one could hear
you because everyone's dancing and drinking, so he changes his style,
but he does it in his own way. The reason
I wanted Muddy last too is because the book's called
Dust because the Danny Kermin song. But it's also called
dust because this music is over to a great degree.
Speaker 2 (38:18):
The kids aren't playing it anymore, and Muddy Waters is
somebody who was like Muddy Waters to me was the blues.
And then when he dies, even before he dies, really
that kind of music is over and I felt that way,
but I also feel like the end of the book,
I also say, Okay, it's over, but you know, prove
me wrong. Put some Muddy Waters on and turn it out,
because it's not dead if we talk about it or
(38:39):
if we listen to it, if we read about it.
So yeah, the big world doesn't care. The big world
cares about Taylor Swift.
Speaker 3 (38:45):
But if enough people like us talk about this music
and listen to it, you know, it's kind of like
a religious cult keeps it going that way. And Muddy
So Muddy's essay is really about how the form is over,
but maybe you recreated a new form. You know, it
goes on. The blues doesn't end. Good music doesn't end,
(39:05):
it just eclipses, like Big Star. They just eclipsed and
then came back.
Speaker 1 (39:09):
Well, but I think that's why it's important the job
that you do and your fellow authors, to just keep
these names out there and remind people of these artists,
and as the generations of fans keep coming up, introduce
them to this music. Now, he lived long enough to
where he did get the credit that he deserved. He
passed the nineteen eighty three You also say he recorded
(39:29):
what you say is his greatest LP at the age
of sixty three.
Speaker 2 (39:32):
Hard again, How does that? How often does that happens?
This someone records?
Speaker 3 (39:36):
Yeah, I mean, don't forget Muddy Waters, Mandy singles before
he didn't make albums like he did later. But the
really great stuff is singles but an album. And how
further Irony, Well, who's the instigation Johnny Winner not only
white but albino.
Speaker 1 (39:49):
Yeah, yeah, tell me about that. Yeah, share with the
listeners that that's an interesting story.
Speaker 2 (39:54):
Johnny Johnny Winter seventies. You know, he was kind of
a rock star, so rockstar money back then, so they
gave him their his own imprint, which I think is
called Blue Sky, sort of like you can you can
sign artists. You know, we can't give much money, but
they can be released with this major label. And he's like,
I know what I want to do. I want to
make an album with Muddy, but like they used to do,
that sounded dirty and.
Speaker 3 (40:17):
He recorded not like you know, sixteen tracks and like
everybodys singing on one microphone. And so the album has
the blues as Muddy Muddy's blues, mostly older songs, a
couple okay, new ones, but it's goosed up with this
rock and roll spirit you could if you listen to
with headphones. It's one of the best things because between
songs are after songs, you can hear them laughing but
(40:40):
not laughing, and they're kind of like laughing.
Speaker 2 (40:42):
Like you see this sometimes it's really good musicians. They'll
look they'll be in this trance and they're all done
and they started look at you our laughs like where
were we? How did that happen? Kind of deal. It's
almost mystical. And there's one point where and this is
where the title of the album comes from, you can
hear Muddy say, oh my peep's hard again. It's like
I probably got it up again after all the because
he played a lot of you know, but you know,
(41:03):
go to the club see Muddy Waters south of This
is some nasty music. I mean, this is filthy and
the best possible way, you know, and it's the whole
albu And that version of a managed sport to start
things off is just it's uh to me. That is
Muddy Waters. And yeah, he's sixty three years old, so
that's rare. It doesn't happen very often. Maybe Yates, maybe
Shakespeare got better. Most artists don't get better as they
(41:26):
get older. And it was so nice that Muddy had
that the end of his career, because he died not
too long afterwards, you know, so it's nice to have that.
Speaker 1 (41:35):
Find the bookdown Rock website at bookedown rock dot com.
There you can find all the back episodes of the show,
the latest episode in video and audio, links to all
of the platforms where you can listen to the podcast,
plus all the social media platforms were on Blue Sky, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok,
and x. Also check out the booked on Rock blog.
Find your local independent bookstore, find out all the latest
(41:58):
hot rock book releases, and before you go, check out
the booked on Rock online store. Pick up some booked
on Rock Merch. It's all at booked on rock dot com.
Those are just a few of the artists and yeah,
there's twelve of them all together. Dust more lives of
the poets with guitars out now you can find out
wherever books are sold. I should say out now. If
this is November the eleventh.
Speaker 2 (42:19):
Yes, it will be I think, okay, yeah, I think
your store should have it.
Speaker 1 (42:25):
All right, We'll recording this on November third, but it
should be up around the time over the release date,
So look for it Amazon, all the usual places. At
your independent bookstore, ask them to stock a copy there
if they don't have one. You can find your nearest
independent book store at bookdo on rock dot com and
Ray are you online? Do you have a social media presence?
Speaker 2 (42:44):
Sort of? Sort of? I've made a concession. I do
have Instagram and Facebook, but I have a buddy of
my runs them, so i'd use them for social I
use them for work. So if someone wanted to contact me, sure,
my website's the easiest to because I'm kind of any
email guys, you can always email the website.
Speaker 1 (42:59):
There's this Ray rob Okay, Ray Robinson dot com Okay,
and the other ones.
Speaker 2 (43:04):
Yeah, they're they're good.
Speaker 3 (43:04):
It's just that I just sort of like, like, I
got a bunch of launches for this book coming out,
so there'll be information about that, but there's not so much like,
you know, here, here's what I eat for breakfast or
anything like that.
Speaker 1 (43:12):
Okay, yeah, I know, I'm with you too. I use
it just really to get the word out about episodes.
Speaker 2 (43:18):
I'm really and you have to, you know, I.
Speaker 1 (43:21):
Just don't think people will give two shits about what
I'm doing, you know, like.
Speaker 2 (43:25):
An important thing is the I think the important thing
is the people who post it give a shit exactly.
Speaker 1 (43:31):
And hey, I had a pizza today.
Speaker 2 (43:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (43:37):
Oh man, Well Grat's on another great book. So is
this the last of the Is this the last?
Speaker 2 (43:44):
Yeah? Of this? Yeah? I think there are thirteen people
in the first one, twelve in this one, so I
kind of like the fact they're twenty five. The next book,
which is not music, so I won't be talking to
you about it, but it's in February. It's called The
Right to Be Wrong. It's a book about well that's
kind of we're talking about independent thinking in a world
of you know, good and bad left, right, I just
hate that ship. So there's a book about that.
Speaker 3 (44:06):
So but actually now, yes, i'll sell you the press
least you won't be talking about it.
Speaker 2 (44:11):
But it's it's a it's a little book too. It's
just it's a book that I started writing during COVID
because the world was so much us in them and
I just don't think that's reality. But the book I'm
working on now is a book about Jerry Garcia called
American Beauty Jerry Garcia twenty five shows and five LP
so kind of like the Dead Book, but doing I
think Garcia there's enough there as a solo artist to
also discuss that.
Speaker 1 (44:33):
So yeah, I keep outstanding. So well, you know you're
coming on to talk about that one when that's if.
Speaker 2 (44:39):
We're all still around, Man, if we're all still around.
Speaker 1 (44:41):
We're all still yeah, exactly. Well, I you know, not
not not to put you on spot embarrass you, but
I mean, I mean, I've talked to a lot of
great writers on this on this podcast. You know you
are right at the top. Man. I just I love
your style of the way you write. That's so great,
And so you could you could write about an artist
that I don't know anything about and I'm in.
Speaker 3 (44:59):
That's a greatest compliment. That's the greatest compliment. Because I
had a friend. I have a friend actually my friend
who runs the uh there's my Instagram and Facebook, who
also proofs my book, proofs my books. And he's not
he's not a regular reader. He's a smart guy, he's
not a regular reader. And so he read Dust and
did the proofs, you know, find typos, and then because
the other book's right to be wrong with me on February,
(45:20):
he did that one as well, and he said to me, uh,
he doesn't offer a lot of them. He just finds.
He doesn't offer a lot of critical analysis. But he said,
you know what's kind of cool. He's like, you wrote
about very different things, but it still sounded like you.
I thought, that's that's what every writer wants to hear,
Like there's a there's an actual person writing a book
and not a an author.
Speaker 2 (45:38):
You know, it's actual person. And so I appreciate that.
Speaker 1 (45:40):
I appreciate a lot man the creativity, but it's also
sincere and it's from the heart. So that's that's what
all right, Ray Robertson, thanks so much, and hey, we'll
have it on for that Jerry book. You know you
got an open invite for that one.
Speaker 2 (45:53):
Just just keep our health invite would be and exercise.
That's right off the heroin.
Speaker 1 (45:58):
All right, well, I don't know, try I'll try.
Speaker 2 (46:02):
Thanks a lot man. M m. That's it. It's in
the books.
There's some of the twentieth centuries most innovative, fascinating, and
influential musicians. A deep dive into the famous, the forgotten,
and the barely known with author Ray Robertson. Next on
Booked on Rock.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
We're totally rock and roll. I mean gott to leave you.
You're reading. Little Hands says it's time to rock and roll.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Roll up, I totally booked. Welcome back to book Don Rock,
the podcast for those about to read and rock Americ Senach.
Ray Robertson returns to the podcast his brand new book
titled dust More Lives of the Poets with Guitars. How
you doing right, hey man?
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
Twelve artists in this book Alex Chilton, James Booker, Nico,
the Staple Singers, Captain Beefhart, Handsome, Ned Duyne, Allman, Lee
Maversduster Bennett, Danny Kerwin, Nick Drake, and Muddy Waters. So
let's talk about these choices that you're making. You write quote,
every one of the artists in this book has been
and continues to be important to me, and not just musically.
(01:04):
The music is where the fascination began, but it's not
where it ended. So what were you looking for beyond
the music when you come up with this list?
Speaker 3 (01:13):
Well, you know, it was really easy because there was
no work involved. There were people that I had to
write about because I wanted to further explore.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
You know, they always say if you want to know
what subject, teach it.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
It's the same thing with a book, if you really
want me I loved all the people in this book,
but I wanted to go deeper into their music, which
was always the number one criteria. I wasn't just going
to tell a cool story because oh, nobody's heard of
this guy.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
You know.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
You know, I know I have to love the music.
I have to howne the music, and it has to
be a lot to me. But also I found that
the stories, although you know they're full of the usual
rock and roll drugs and death and all the sex
and all that stuff, but I found that each of
the stories kind of had significance even outside the musical context.
Like for Alex Chilton, it was about the ongoing battle
(01:59):
between doing the music you want versus being able to
pay the rent. James Booker, it was the tension between
mental illness and how it's a spur sometimes for creativity.
So there was always these tensions in there. Beef Art,
how he made his music exactly how he wanted, but
at the expense of treating everyone else like his servants,
and he was sort of a dictator.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
So I just found that each of them.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
You know, when I read something, you know, ideally you
want to be able to stay Okay, I read an
essay about beef Art, but hopefully it's more than just
you know, a Wikipedia deal where you're getting facts.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
You're sort of talking about the music.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
What works, what does, and what's interesting, what isn't, but
also what the story means, sort of not transcending music,
but about life. I mean, these are these are individuals,
they're human beings. And I'm not writing biographies, but the
biographical when it's important to the music, you know, it's
very important. So I bring it up so that that
was the criteria. I had to be fascinated with the
music and with the lives and continue to find the
(02:54):
lives and the music.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Sustaining. You know, really they're a big part of my life.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
Chill and you say there's cool, and then there's cool.
There's cool before I ask about the price he had
to pay for being cool. Talk a little bit more
about what drew you to his story.
Speaker 3 (03:10):
Well, you know, it's a good question because it's like
a lot of the people in the book, what drew
me to him was his unsparing conicalism. He just sort
of did what he wanted to do. So Big Star,
which is the big band that everyone talks about, they're
making music very Anglo, very power. Well you're kind of
inventing power pop, helping event power pop really the anti zeitgeist.
(03:31):
Everything's heavy metal getting to be heavy metal singer songwriters.
But and then later on, when he sort of suffers
this anonymity et cetera, when he starts being name dropped
as you know, the precursor of power pop and indie
rock on stuff, he decides, no, I'm going to not
capitalize on I'm gonna play jazz music and old R
(03:52):
and B. He just completely followed his own bliss, you know,
irrespective of whether that made sense in terms of the industry,
in terms of his career, in terms of friendships. So
a lot of the people in here, beef Heart's another
one that they really are individualists, and I found that
there's a lot there's a kind of.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
A lack of that in our world.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
So I'm really attracted to people who sort of follow
their own beliefs and sometimes suffer for it greatly. Nko
the same deal. I mean, she sort of killed herself
creating her own identity, and there's something very existential about that,
you know, the sense that you know, she was defined
as this beautiful person stand in the corner and she's like, no,
I want to be Bob Dylan, and I'm going to
(04:34):
do it with a metronome and was not metromelotrone and
I'm gonna you know, And I just find that very encouraging. Again,
you don't have to be a musician. I think just
living your everyday life. The courage that these people showed
in the face of the kind of things that make
a lot of people sort of fold up shop like, well,
I would make my own music, but I won't sell
as many records, or I won't get a record dealer,
I won't be able to tour in big places, I
(04:54):
won't be a tour in small places. And I think
that's a great, great lesson.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
I think about that all the time with these artists
just in general life in general, like following your passion,
but at the same time, you got to cover your
ass financially and to get older, right, especially as you
get older. You see these artists take these risks and
they basically say it's either this or nothing else, which
is really admirable, you know.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
Yeah, And we usually hear about the ones we're at work,
the Bruce Brimstein's you know, right, but we don't hear about,
you know, some of the people, like say Dust Bennett
in the book, he was a pretty pretty obscure British
blues musician, sort of a one man band guy from
the late sixties, and he sort of comes he sort
of comes into his greatest fame at the height.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
Of the blues boom in Britain in the late sixties.
But by the early seven he's not an old man.
He's like, you know, he's thirty and that's over and
now it's a.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
Whole different world.
Speaker 3 (05:47):
Well, I've got three kids, and I like, you know,
and I find that stuff interesting because again, it's not
just a you know, a classic rock story of right,
it's about real people trying to have integrity, trying to
make the music that they hear in their heads that
they want other people to hear. And again, I find
that entirely inspiring no matter what you do in life,
because it's really hard to be yourself. The world doesn't
(06:08):
want you to be. The world wants you to do
your job, shut up by the product you're supposed to buy,
and then we'll all get along fine. And so these
people are.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
Kind of you know, they're they're kind of class they
kind of and I think that's that's the appeal.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
But that's also sort of why things don't always go
so smoothly, and.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
That's what makes it interesting.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
Sure.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
You know, as a novelist, you always when you write
a novel, you always want conflict because otherwise it kind
of rights. Why. Well, there's lots of conflict here, and
it's usually on the internal level, you know, like my
conscience versus my bank account, et cetera.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
Yeah. Well, Alex Chilton had a career with the Box Stops.
He was known as the lead singer of the Box
Stops and then the power pop band Big Star. And
Big Star is an interesting story. They had the documentary.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
On them, great documentary.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
Yeah, that put them into the spotlight a little bit more.
But man, you talk about a band that deserved to
be much more popular than they were. You call their
song September Girls the greatest pop one of the greatest
pop songs ever written post nineteen seventy, So why were
they not as big as they really should have been?
Speaker 2 (07:11):
You know, I kind of I hear what you're saying,
but after writing this is I guess that's why you write.
So that's kind of what I thought after writing the essay.
They shouldn't have been popular because their music was too
good and too out of time, like they.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
Just I was gonna say, are they two ahead of
their time? Was that the deal?
Speaker 2 (07:25):
They are? And and but two ahead of their time?
How do you know that? Because they seem so much
behind their time past or ten of the time, because
people were saying, you're playing music that's influenced by who
the Beatles, you know, British rock, clean songs with you know,
smart lyrics, a solo real whereas this nineteen seventy you
(07:47):
had Zeppelin and Black Sabbath and the metal comes in.
The singer songwriters Carol King, this kind of music wasn't
on the radio anymore. So you think, how are these
songs on the radio? Well they were, They're on college
radio and so a while. But the radio wasn't playing
this just because you make great art. It doesn't mean
the world is to pay attention. You know, he has
to a lot of his timing.
Speaker 3 (08:04):
You know, I have a friend who's a filmmaker, and
he's like, you know, you get ready to make a film,
and you do everything you can possibly do because somebody
told him once, I guess an older guy who was
a producer. He said, you know, you've done everything you
can do, but really you have no control over whether.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
This movie is going to be successful. It could be
that you could open on a weekend where you know,
you don't know. You do what everything you can but
but but really there's so many things. It's so capricious.
There's so many things that can go wrong or go
different ways.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
He didn't care about his audience. Was that the problem?
Speaker 2 (08:31):
I mean is that, well that's interesting, Yeah, that's and
again this this is why you're right, because he certainly
had an additude. He liked to disappoint his audience. Right, right, again,
not the kind of thing when you go to Rockscar School.
It's like, you know, you want to fly to your right.
Speaker 3 (08:46):
It's like being a writer, you want to people buy
your book, make them feel that they're really smart, make
them feel that they're on the good side.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
So what Chilton does is, oh you like that real
kind of harmonic, smooth, beautiful. Well, I'm gonna make something
that really makes your you know, stand up on end,
because that's what I want to do. But the question becomes, yeah,
that's quite admirable. But there were people listening, and maybe
sometimes you know, give them the finger to the audience.
You're giving the fingers some people who are there? Who
(09:13):
are you know?
Speaker 3 (09:14):
There might only be fourteen people at your gig, but
six of them may be people whose lives you's changed.
And I think that was kind of the After a while,
it became sort of self fulfilling prophecy with children in
the sense that well, no one cares, well, how could
that you know, you're recording volare you know in eighty
five or whatever? It's like your childlex children. But I
but again, in the end, I just love the fact
that he even went back and tour with the box
(09:36):
tops at the end. How uncool is that? But how
cool is that?
Speaker 1 (09:39):
Well that I was gonna ask about the ending his
life post Big Star, he seemed to be in a
pretty good place when he died in twenty ten.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
Well, no, not for a long time. No, a long time.
There's a lot of alcoholism. There was a suicide attempt.
By the time he stopped drinking, he quit music for
a while. He was a treat he was an arborius,
amateur arborist because he didn't really have any royalties until
the Bengals recorded September Girls. He got a little bit
of money there, and then of course the soundtrack to
(10:09):
seventy Show in the Street, which the song you wrote
with Chris Bull. There was there's some mon bell that
came some money. He came through that. But no, by
the end of us, like, yeah, he's sober. He's touring
with a sort of a revitalized well partial big Star
and the Box Tops playing his solo gig. Seems like
he's a very happy guy.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
Yeah. So of course you call only get your life
together and you die of our heart attacking.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
Yeah, so heart attacks, you know.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
Yeah, But see, you know, the thing.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
Is, Bob Dylan never was a guy that was going
to make music. That not not that he didn't care
about his audience, but the same kind of thing.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
But you're exactly right, You're exactly right. And that's one
of the things I just talked about. Actually, maybe it was.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
That though, when we when we bought a Bob Dylan
album where we went to see Bob Dylan, we knew
what we were gonna get. We were gonna get Bob Dylan.
Was it that maybe Chilton was.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
He's also famous already.
Speaker 3 (10:59):
You know, I talked about this in the essay in
the sense that you know, Miles Davis could do this,
Miles David could say I used to play this kind
of music, I'm playing this kind of music, but he
was still Miles Davis.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
These guys this is their first record. I mean, I
think a lot of the problem had to do with
Chris Bell especially was a huge Beatles fan, and the Beatles.
Speaker 3 (11:16):
It's hard to fathom this now from the perspective we
are in twenty twenty five. They not on were the
most popular band in the world. They were the most innovative.
Every album was like, let's see what music sounds like. Now,
those two usually don't go together. Usually don't get you.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
Know, you get it with Shakespeare or the sopranos, or
like popular art that's truly lasting.
Speaker 3 (11:36):
And I think for Bell, for a degree, for childman.
He's a little more cynical's little more world waring and weary.
I think bell that, well, if the Beatles can do it, well,
that's the template will be really successful, and we'll also
be making the art we want to make. That doesn't
happen a whole lot. It doesn't happen a lot, and
it's really rare what it does.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
All right, Captain Beefheart, he's on maybe my favorite Frank
Zappa song, will E the Pimp.
Speaker 3 (12:02):
Will in the Pamp the beef Art thing in here
with Zappa. There is that kind of again tension there.
You know, beef Art always bit the hand, that fantom everything.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
I didn't realize that, yeah, you said he he saved
the blues by weirding things up.
Speaker 3 (12:17):
Yeah, well, because the blues are the best, I mean,
but the blues get boring, you know.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
So what Beefart was he wanted again, there's that tension again.
Speaker 3 (12:24):
He wanted like the real stuff, like Sunhouse and like.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
The real deep Delta blues. But he also loved free jazz.
You live on that Coleman and col Drane. So he
thought how he was really I love the expression. He
was really wary of what he called the Mama heartbeat,
you know, the doom, which we all kind of do that,
that's the the manipulative for baseball, you do do do
But he said, you know you get your get, you're
getting manipultive. You got we got to do, you know,
(12:52):
change it up somehow, which doesn't always work, but when
it works, it feels so refreshed and revitalized. Again A
real hero of mine because it doesn't always work.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
But the idea, I love this music. How can I
make it? How can I make it? How can I
make it blues that applies to me and the people
that I know as opposed to going out there and
my baby left me, you know, leave that to Sunhouse.
You know, what's the new blues sound like? Well, you know,
it's these weird data ask surrealistic lyrics. He would tell
his guitar player, you know, when the note you're supposed
(13:25):
to play afterwards, play the opposite note, you know, and
and it really does sort of shake things up. It
makes you think about what the blues is. But then
you come to tromp mass replica or is that dividing line?
Like is it even what's listenable? But how far do
you go before you, it's like Coltrane, you know, how
far do you go outside before it's just a blizzard
(13:45):
of sound?
Speaker 2 (13:45):
How much do you have to reptate that? And again I.
Speaker 3 (13:47):
Don't know the answer to it, but I enjoyed writing
about and thinking about, you know, like how far you
can go and still keep your audience or are you
still making music?
Speaker 2 (13:56):
Really? You know what we call music? You know is
he's so difficult because he was a dictator.
Speaker 3 (14:02):
You know, everything had to be done his way, everything
had to be about him, which is one way to
lead a band. Miles Davis is the opposite he he
you know, when we think about jazz rock, we think
of in a silent way and Bitch's brew and all
that stuff Jack Johnson.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
But in sixty five or so, Miles was sort of
in this period where he's still playing.
Speaker 3 (14:24):
The old stuff and with the younger guys in his
band like Tony Williams, the drummer, Herbie Hamcock and Wayne Shorter,
who uh who say you know, let's let's let's let's
let's loosen this up and Miles, Miles would be open
to that.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
Were beef art, you know, he claimed, probably facetiously, but
you know he taught. He taught the.
Speaker 3 (14:41):
Band every song, every lick, every A guy who doesn't
play any instrument except harmonica, he drums, even telling the
drum well, play it like this kind of deal. So
that's the way he had to work, which is a
great way. He got to forge his identity and his
sense of beef heart. And it's honest, there's nothing else
like it. The downside is there's not a lot of
other eyes ideas coming in. There's not a lot of
fresh air coming in. Sometimes that's good. So you've got
(15:05):
the positive, you've got the negative. I don't think any
piece of writing, any piece of art, is any good
if it's one side or the other, you know, good
or bad. It's got to be sort of that messy
mixture that makes things interesting.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
You know.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
Ultimately he was painting. That became his main art later
in life.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
Yeah, yeah, Well he started to actually get some of
that quote unquote mainstream success that everybody wants breaking through.
Speaker 3 (15:27):
You know, he was on a lettermane a couple of times.
The last the last few albums are not really to
my taste. They're little more new way beef art. But
that was the point where it was getting a you know,
he was starting to get that kind of mainstream thing,
and he went home to the desert.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
Now he did.
Speaker 3 (15:39):
He was suffering, perhaps from the beginning of the ms
that eventually claimed his life, but for many years. Yeah,
he went back to the desert and painted, which was
his first love. And I thought, how cool is that?
Speaker 2 (15:49):
I mean, we don't need any more eighty year old
rock stars, you know, God love them, but have a
little dignity, you know, like I think, asked Gray Slick.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
I was just about to mention her. Yeah. Yeah, she's
the only example of one who says I'm retiring and
really meant it, like I'm retiring.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
Someone like, well, like, wouldn't you like to? You know?
But she said she looks at the guy. She's like,
she said, we wouldn't we look a little silly? How
cool is that? Wouldn't we look a little silly? You know?
But but you know it's not it's a certain man.
You can play the blues to your age, you can
play country, but when you're talking about rock and roll,
you're talking about energy, sex, anger, aggression, not not not
(16:27):
real becoming for eighty year olds. You know, it's just
completely nostalgia.
Speaker 3 (16:31):
So I love the fact that Beefert sort of said
this is this is all I can do. This is
as far as I can go. I'm not gonna, you know,
curl up in a corner. I'm going to do something else.
You know, he was he.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
Was big into well the ecology back then, but you know,
the environment and painting. And I think that's that's so cool,
that's so cool and again brave to sort of have
this identity your whole life and then, uh, you know,
whether how much you identify, whether or not it's your identity,
and say no, I'm not that anymore. That takes a
lot of inner strength, you know, to say I'm not
(17:02):
that now on this now you know.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
Ray Robertson is the author of dust More Lives of
the Poets with Guitars, Dwayne Almond. That's what's interesting about
this book. There there are artists in this book that
people will say, I've never heard of this person or
maybe heard of him here. But then you got some
of these bigger names like Dwayne Almond. Look, I mean,
Dwayne Almond's legendary. Just twenty four when he died, but
he made such an impact and you say Dwayne and
(17:27):
the Almond Brothers band were more than what they were
labeled as, which was a southern rock band. That's not
what they were. Yeah, I know jazz.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
Yeah, this is about six seven years ago in Toronto's
coming home in the street car and I ran into
him body and he goes, hey, man, what do you
what do you listening to these days?
Speaker 2 (17:42):
And I was listening to a lot of Dwayne and
the Almbrush. Oh, that's really interesting southern rock, you know Skinner,
And I said, no, let's just not have that conversation. Yeah,
actually it was. It was it was Garcia, but it
was Dwayne, a little bit of Richard Thompson that sort
of allowed me to sort of gingerly move into jazz
a little bit because listening to those those solos and
(18:04):
those those long songs of the Allmands played, where like
a jazz ben, they would inroduce the head and then
you know, Duane would exhaust it, then Dickey would exhaust it,
and the driver exhausted, and you're like, oh, okay, the
jazz always seemed kind of scary and and and and Dwyane.
There's even a bootleg one of bootle you can find
it on YouTube, just with the last sessions. They weren't sessions.
They were kind of recording demos and stuff. They even
(18:26):
take a shot at my favorite things, the Coltrane song
with guitars, So it was it was That's what I
found so intoxicating, and also that idea that they were
not who I thought they were. I mean, I knew
the hits, but now it's the point where I need
to know, I need, I need to have everything that
Duane did, and it wasn't that much, unfortunately, because he
died at twenty four years.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
Oh yeah, man, it's you know, so young. But we
know that they did succeed without Duane, but there's still
there's something there. Yeah, when Duane is part of that band,
which I want to I want to ask you that,
what do you think is what what is that element
that he brought because he's at the film Maurice Show,
is it's like throughout a near telepathic level of musical communication.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
Yeah, there's some scary, scary stuff. You know, he's a genius.
The album Brothers, I own, Brothers and Sisters. It's a
great album. Chuck Lebell's a great, great piano player, but
there's nothing I own after that. It's a good band,
Dicky Bett's a good song. I mean this good.
Speaker 3 (19:21):
It's a really good band. But with Dwayne you're talking
about a Coltrane, Garcia, Miles Davis, like somebody who is
in touch with things that you and I aren't, no
matter how Like he's touching the garment a little bit,
like he's got some kind of connection to something.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
Well, he's like Michael Jordan elevating the level of all
the players around him kind of thing.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. And I one of the
favorite performances I mentioned in the book was a version
of Greg's song Dreams on September I think it's nineteenth.
He died October twenty eighth or something, so just about
five or six weeks before he died at at Suny
dony Brook. And it's a version of Dreams that is uh.
(20:03):
I play that for anybody who's like, Okay, you know,
I'm kind of interested.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
I play if they don't, if that doesn't do it
for them, because it's truly it's truly jazz or I
don't know what you'd call. He's he's definitely talking with
the gods. He's definitely and then you know he's really
like he's really and it is. It isn't rock and roll,
it isn't jazz. It's like this guy is having a communication.
It's religious, right, I think it's religious. You know. I
have a few live albums post Rain, and I have
the first gig they played in making making Drudgie where
(20:29):
they were post Wayne and you know they they're they're
playing their hearts out and and Dicky's great, he's playing
his ass office before Chuck joined the band. And there's
this this aching place that isn't there's an aching hole,
you know, It's like, where's that thing? Even though Dicky
starts playing slide and stuff and you just can't replace that.
(20:49):
It's like, I don't know who said it.
Speaker 3 (20:51):
I think Bill Kritzmrom, the drummer of the Dead said
he said, you know, the Dead without Jerry Garcia is
like the John Coltrane Quartete without John Goldtran. It's great musicians,
wonderful and they are McCoy tyner, you know, Tony well O.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
They're great.
Speaker 3 (21:04):
But there's there's that thing missing, the vision. I guess
if you don't want to use something nebulous like genius,
I think it's the vision. He had a vision, like
just before he died too.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
You know, they start moving beyond the street because they
start using Dickey songs like Blue Sky, and then they
ler Jessica. He could have gotten in so many different
directions because as a session guy, he had a whole
That's how he made his money. He didn't make any
money while he was alive. The film More hit, but
you don't get relative payments for six months, and so
he didn't. He was still playing sessions at the end
(21:35):
for you know, one hundred fifty bucks, and he played
doughbro in a lot of productions. He's just all sorts
of acoustic instruments. There were so many different.
Speaker 3 (21:42):
Colors that weren't explored, the places he didn't go that
that that makes it all the more like geez, you know,
like so many, so many different sounds that he was
just constantly curious too, which is always a sign of
of an emotional genius. You know, they're they're really hungry.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
You know. Someone asked Miles Davis, what what he what
you know about the old days? You know, what was
Charlie Parker like? Expecting him to Oh, Charlie, he said,
Charlie Parker was a hog. He had to eat everything
fuck everything, play everything. That's what geniuses due. Yeah, not
polite people. You know. It's like and and Dange was
like that.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
I love the story that Duayanne Allmond sleeping outside of
the studio when he was a younger session musician, just
waiting for the door to open. Where was that at sun?
Speaker 2 (22:25):
Uh?
Speaker 1 (22:26):
Was that it?
Speaker 2 (22:27):
No, that's at uh Fame studios, okay, and Fame Studios. Yeah,
And there's there's a lesson to young musicians. Don't wait
for your break, go and say can I play your
record note? Can I put my tent? Sure? Okay?
Speaker 3 (22:38):
Right after a while, Phil Hall just felt guilty, like
the poor kids sleeping out there.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
But and then of course when he plays with that slide.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
Yeah, hello, all right. So Danny Kerwin is maybe the
most interesting musician to make this book. He has kind
of lost that.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
That's so cool to hear you say that, because he's
very unknown.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
This the guy you can make a movie out of.
It's a tragic story, but it's a it's a fascinating story,
and it's one of those men if he just maybe
got some help and things could have turned out differently.
Speaker 2 (23:09):
Different times, you know.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
Yeah, yeah, he was with Fleetwood Mac from sixty eight
to seventy two. Bear Trees from seventy two is one
of my favorite mactoons.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
Oh really yeah, Oh that's so cool.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
Yeah, you're right. Quote For a former member of a
world famous rock and roll band, Danny Kerwin is remarkably
little known, both in terms of the biographical details of
his life and the wonderful music he created. He is
not a legend. He is a mystery. The mystery part
of his life is regarding his post Fleetwood Mac years. Right,
That's that's when things get.
Speaker 3 (23:39):
And I actually say the same thing that what you
just said. I said, you know, he deserves a biographer
or a documentary.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
I tried to interest a couple of people when they
they're like, oh, but I say, look, man, he was
in Fleetwood Mac. It wouldn't be you know, he's not
like he's unknown. He's unknown. But it's that that period
of Fleetwood Mac, that know.
Speaker 3 (23:54):
And you talk about the Peter Green years and then
the the Lindsey Buckingham's even nixt years, there's this period
in between, and for me, some of the music that
Danny made and the fact that he joined the band
when he was eighteen years and three months old, not
even a legal drinking age, and four months later they
have a top you know, a number one song with Albatross,
(24:17):
with his song on the flip side. I mean, it's
just too much, too quick. He's living with his mother
in a basement apartment in Brixton. The next thing is
he's traveling the world with this rock band and he
turned he never really was a big drinker. He turns
to drinking as it waited for stress.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
And then Green leaves the band and he's pushed out front,
you know. And if you see the pictures of him,
I try to describe him as best I can, he looks,
you know, he's got like the jug ears, the bowl haircut,
the big blue eyes. He doesn't look like a grizzled
blue rock guy, you know. And they're like stick And
if you listen to the bootlegs which I have of
him playing live, you know, he's the stage announcements. He
(24:51):
sounds like he's apologized this nick songs are quiet number
what we're gonna do now? You know, it's like he's
not that guy. He also wasn't a jammer, you know.
He liked to write prea little, perfect little songs. So
again anesthetical to the time. But when he gets kicked
out of the band in seventy two at twenty two
years old, it's kind of over. You know.
Speaker 3 (25:12):
He spends three years hanging around, and then he gets
a record contract in seventy five. The first one has
some really nice stuff on if you'd strip away all
the strings and horns and all the bullshit. The next
tour are abomination and he basically ends up in a
homeless shelter by the time he's thirty and he's not
sleeping outside.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
Sad yeah, yeah, yeahs. So there's some quotes in there
that from Mick.
Speaker 3 (25:34):
Fleetwood wrote two autobiographies, so he talks about the last
time that he saw him.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
Because when they're touring Tuss, you know, Rumor sells twenty
million copies and Tufts only sells eight million. But they're
in England, and Fleetwood seems like a really nice guy.
He lets to look after people. So somehow or another
he used his money and power to sort of get
Danny's information and call him up and invite him over
to the hotel because that's Fleetwood Max playing Wimberley that night,
(26:00):
and uh, he said, you know, Danny said he had
slept on a bench late before and that he had worms.
Pleywood went to hug him. He's like, don't touch me.
Do you want to come to gig No, never sees
him again. He lived in pubs in his room and
didn't play any more music. And I just find suddenly
And that's for the title of the book.
Speaker 3 (26:18):
I'm so pleased that you're a fan, because obviously Dust
is a song off the last album, the last Danny
Kerwin song that he made with Mac, the second last
song on the album, and it's taken from a Rupert
Brooke poem.
Speaker 2 (26:29):
He's a World War two, World War One poet, British poet,
and he sort of chisels off the first two lines
and it's one of the most haunting, hauntingly beautiful invocations
of the ephemerality of life and and and fatality and
and and he was just so again, just so young.
You know, we're not talking about painters or writers. You
sometimes get better as they get older. This stuff is
(26:51):
often like lyric poets. It's it's when you're young, with
all that energy and passion and openness that closes up.
You know, the the Dylan's of the world who keep
making interesting music, or the Neil Young's or the Joni
Mitchells like I listened to like I think Neil is
right at the top until Russ never sleeps. And that's
(27:11):
that's a long time, a long time to be making,
you know, popular music and still connecting that way. Where Danny,
I think, is that that kind of flame out that's.
Speaker 3 (27:21):
More typical of that brilliant flash in the sky that disappears.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
I just feel it's important that people need to know
about Danny's music, and I think that they'll get they'll
they'll have a better life.
Speaker 1 (27:32):
Yeah, I mean, it reminds me of said Barrett, what
happened on the night that they did fire Danny Kerwin,
and that was in August of seventy two. There's we
finally got to because he just he bailed right before
a show.
Speaker 2 (27:42):
He bailed before a show. Apparently he not only was
he drinking a lot, he didn't like his nerves are
really bad, so he didn't eat. So that compounds the drinking.
He's really really really really really thin, really nervous, not sleeping,
not eating, drinking and apparently by the end it wasn't
one incident. Fleetwood was the only one who sort of
(28:03):
was the intermediary everyone else was. He said, asking Jenny
for a cigarette at that point was like asking for
a fight. He would isolate himself self isolate, and apparently
Bob Welsh, he was in the band by then. He
had problems with Bob Welsh and he the night.
Speaker 3 (28:18):
Before the gig, they were not the night of the gig,
they were backstage getting ready to go on and he
smashed up his famous less Paul and smashed his head
against the wall instead, I'm not going on stage. And
you can do a lot of things to your bandmates,
but you can't bail on them, you know you can.
You can't not play. And so they limped out there
and finished the gig. But they're missing their league guitar player.
(28:39):
They're missing the guy who sings a lot of their songs.
And and the skin of.
Speaker 2 (28:43):
The saddest thing that I found was that when Fleetwood
told them that night at the hotel, he said, and
that Danny didn't really know that there was a problem.
Oh really, I've been a hamp. I thought. That's not
gonna bode well for the rest of his life. Like,
you don't think there's a problem, you.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
Know, No, that was just that was just another day
for him.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
Yeah, It's like, yeah, and you're twenty two years old.
I mean, I mean me, at twenty one, I couldn't
slap my ass with both hands. At twenty two, it's
like you're already now a has been I mean that
must just do your nut in entirely. The first album
second chapter has some things I write in the book
about how someone released a compilation in two thousand that
(29:23):
sort of strips away some of the extraneous instrumentation, that
there's some beautiful songs in there, but you can already
see he's sort of regressing back to the kind of music.
That interesting thame what Danny is in that generation of
rockers is their record collection isn't just filled with rock music.
He grew up on his mother's record collection, so a
lot of.
Speaker 3 (29:45):
Jazz music, hall music, top top top ten, top thirty
music in nineteen twenty, all these sorts of antiquarian musical forms.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
So it really enriches his style.
Speaker 3 (29:58):
You know, if you just listen to rock your music,
your sound is gonna be, you know, fairly limited that way.
And what's interesting about him is that later on when
he does those solo albums. They almost returned to this
sort of Annavellian kind of it sounds like he's trying
to make music for a different era, almost like he's
willing himself to go back to his youth or his
(30:21):
mother's youth.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
It's it's very painful stuff.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
Yeah, I've never I've never heard it. I've never heard
the solo stuff, so I'm gonna give it a listen.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
There's four songs off the second second chapter, including the
title track. But yeah, they need they threw everything. Danny
wasn't a major player on this. His produce. His manager
was there, and so you know, when in doubt, put violins,
when in doubt put horns, put things, and.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
And then the next two after that most mostly cover
songs because he really wasn't writing all that much.
Speaker 2 (30:49):
Songs that he had written ten years before, new songs,
songs by people on the band. His manager wrote a song.
You know, someone probably said, hey, he's in Fleetwood Mac.
He's good. He used to be looking anyway, he's a
good looking young man. Sure, we're not gonna throw a
huge amount amount of money at him or anything. But
the irony is that his first solo album atter two
years out of Mac is in seventy five, the year
that the first MAC album comes out, you know, the
(31:11):
first one with Stevie Nix and the one just before
Rumors and it sells, you know, only three million or
something and then rumors. Yeah, and the last the last
couple are they're hard to listen to. He's clearly not
the uh, he's not He's not powering this. Someone else
is sort of, you know, building a record around so
they can get a check.
Speaker 1 (31:33):
Hey, guys, we'll get back to the show, but first
I want to tell you about an exclusive deal for
Booked on Rock. Listeners get fifteen percent off any purchase
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(31:55):
old Glory dot com, make sure to use the promo
code Booked on Rock. Also find a link in this
episode show notes, or just go to Booked on Rock
dot com and click on my Deals. Well, Nick Drake,
here's another fascinating story. You're right quote he is the
John Keats of contemporary popular music, brilliant, ignored and dead
at twenty six, virtually unknown and underappreciated. His songs are
(32:17):
more famous now than when he was alive.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
Yeah, and he wrote about this a bit, you know,
a song called fruit Tree, you know, song called Time
of No Reply. But you know the thing about Nick was,
you know, the standard line is oh, misunderstood genius. The
world is cruel, you.
Speaker 3 (32:34):
Know, writing the story and writing in the ass, you
realize Nick had a little bit to do with this.
Speaker 2 (32:39):
You know, he wouldn't show up for things like this.
He'd be like, he wouldn't.
Speaker 1 (32:43):
Promote, right, He wouldn't do the promotion thing. He wouldn't
get out there do interviews.
Speaker 3 (32:48):
He wouldn't tour. He wouldn't tour because he didn't find
it pleasant. I mean, not everybody finds their job pleasant.
Sometimes you gotta get out. The Ramones didn't find it
pleasant to go to some town with the other three
maniaction the band in a frigging van and then show
up and there's fourteen people there.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
But you do it.
Speaker 3 (33:03):
You make one devote that night and you just go
to the next place. Well, you know, I don't want
to say privileged, but you know, Nick was a rich
kid and he didn't.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
Want to have to do things that weren't difficult. And
it has nothing to do with the music. The music
is I mean just brilliant. I mean, Pink Moon is
one of those albums that you just have to have
if you're going to have a contemporary you know, and
the fact that he did it when he was so depressed,
I have all the admiration in the world. But again
that kind of tension between you know what made his
(33:32):
song so great and they're so insular. It's like, you
listen to me, you think only Nick and I know this.
I've never told anyone this. He really got that poetic thing.
But on the other hand, what a voice too. Yeah,
and that insular in that isolation though, means that he
didn't participate in the worldly stuff you have to do
if you want people to hear your stuff. So you know,
it's but you're right, Ultimately, he is famous, you know,
(33:56):
he's you know, if you're gonna hip, you gotta know
who Nick Dick is.
Speaker 3 (33:59):
So there's to be justified in that. But he just
wished the guy had had a happier life. But then
if he did we're not listening to Pink Moon. Are
those last four five songs that he recorded after that,
which are even more heroin, sure, including Black Dog, you know,
the one about depression that's like it's like if Robert
Johnson had gone to gone to Cambridge.
Speaker 2 (34:17):
You know, like this is this is what, this is
what it would sound like, this is this is as
blue as it gets, but without any of the you know,
the blues and know.
Speaker 1 (34:25):
His ending was somewhat Howard Hughes like, is it safe
to say he died in November of seventy four an overdose?
Speaker 2 (34:33):
Absolutely, he said. His mother said at one point.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
That prescription pills for depression he overdosed on.
Speaker 2 (34:40):
Yeah, and maybe maybe maybe by mistake, maybe just casualless.
But his mother said that he said to her at
once that I don't like it here at home, but
I can't live anywhere else. So he was unable to
take care of himself anymore. Yet he you know, he
he was who living with their parents at you know,
twenty five years old.
Speaker 3 (34:59):
He's always you know, his happy, but you're you're supposed
to be an adult. His friends were out in the world,
having relationships and children and jobs and careers and musicians.
And here he is living living, not just living at home,
but living in his old bedroom, like the bedroom that
he had as a child.
Speaker 2 (35:12):
I mean, there's got to do your head in a
little bit.
Speaker 1 (35:13):
Sure, sure, you know.
Speaker 3 (35:15):
And the last time his mother saw him the night
they found him. The next day, you know, better get
nick up, it's noon and he was dead from the medication.
Speaker 2 (35:24):
Was that. The last time she saw him was that
night she heard him get up. She always got up
if he got up, and he'd gotten up because he
couldn't sleep, and she said all right, and he said, yeah,
I'm just having some corn flakes to help me sleep.
So that's the last time she saw him.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
You know.
Speaker 3 (35:38):
But here he is more famous than he ever was.
So that's the beauty of art too. You know, art
doesn't care about our lives. It just matters that the song,
the book, the movie, you know. And there's something very
consoling about that to a degree.
Speaker 1 (35:49):
You know, how did his music eventually get out because
I remember Pink Moon was in a television commercial Wizard.
Speaker 3 (35:55):
Yeah, well that was kind of at the beginning. So
he dies in seventy four and seventy eight. There's sort
of a box set which was kind of relatively rare
back then that had his three albums and a few
sort of outtakes, and because after Pink Moon he did
go back in the studio and record five more songs.
Now his health was such that he couldn't play and
sing at the same time. He recorded the guitar and
(36:17):
then then overdub his voice. But it's some of the
most chilling stuff, like I say, black Dog, hang In
some other stuff, and then seventy eight there was that
and then you know, word of mouth or again, you know,
the hipsters started talking about it. But really I think
it was that VW ad that used Pink Moon. Which
is it, you know, and which is so iron you know,
(36:38):
it's a song about impending annihilation Andy and it's like
bio vw But it's a pretty song, you know, it's
a pretty It's got a great liok.
Speaker 1 (36:47):
To somebody whoever owned the rights to his music, they
were making the decisions that he should have made when
he was alive, Like let's.
Speaker 2 (36:54):
Yeah, no that music, right. I mean, that's really interesting
because I don't know because I know now his sister,
who was a pretty well known British stage actor and
television actor. She's so his parents are dead, her parents
are she's in chargement now, and she's meticulous and scrupulous
about allying his names. Now.
Speaker 3 (37:13):
A box set has just come out a couple of
months ago on the first record, and she didn't. She
made sure there's nothing included on there that isn't that
would embarrass him. So I'm thinking that she wasn't the
one who made the call about the about the v
W add or whatever it was. But you know, why
be a snob? And maybe it got some people into
(37:34):
the music, and you know.
Speaker 1 (37:35):
So, yeah, that's good Muddy Waters. He makes the book
Where's rock and Roll? If not for Muddy Waters? Talk
about his importance.
Speaker 2 (37:44):
That's why I ended it. Yeah, And like you said that,
there are some people in the book.
Speaker 3 (37:47):
That aren't very well known, but that one obviously everybody
knows money worse.
Speaker 2 (37:50):
I wanted to end it with somebody who had the
same kind of value. Is very independent. You know, when
he comes to uh, when he comes to Chicago, it's
not to play all that blues. There wasn't such a
thing really in his world. He's acoustic blues.
Speaker 3 (38:03):
And then you go play and no one could hear
you because everyone's dancing and drinking, so he changes his style,
but he does it in his own way. The reason
I wanted Muddy last too is because the book's called
Dust because the Danny Kermin song. But it's also called
dust because this music is over to a great degree.
Speaker 2 (38:18):
The kids aren't playing it anymore, and Muddy Waters is
somebody who was like Muddy Waters to me was the blues.
And then when he dies, even before he dies, really
that kind of music is over and I felt that way,
but I also feel like the end of the book,
I also say, Okay, it's over, but you know, prove
me wrong. Put some Muddy Waters on and turn it out,
because it's not dead if we talk about it or
(38:39):
if we listen to it, if we read about it.
So yeah, the big world doesn't care. The big world
cares about Taylor Swift.
Speaker 3 (38:45):
But if enough people like us talk about this music
and listen to it, you know, it's kind of like
a religious cult keeps it going that way. And Muddy
So Muddy's essay is really about how the form is over,
but maybe you recreated a new form. You know, it
goes on. The blues doesn't end. Good music doesn't end,
(39:05):
it just eclipses, like Big Star. They just eclipsed and
then came back.
Speaker 1 (39:09):
Well, but I think that's why it's important the job
that you do and your fellow authors, to just keep
these names out there and remind people of these artists,
and as the generations of fans keep coming up, introduce
them to this music. Now, he lived long enough to
where he did get the credit that he deserved. He
passed the nineteen eighty three You also say he recorded
(39:29):
what you say is his greatest LP at the age
of sixty three.
Speaker 2 (39:32):
Hard again, How does that? How often does that happens?
This someone records?
Speaker 3 (39:36):
Yeah, I mean, don't forget Muddy Waters, Mandy singles before
he didn't make albums like he did later. But the
really great stuff is singles but an album. And how
further Irony, Well, who's the instigation Johnny Winner not only
white but albino.
Speaker 1 (39:49):
Yeah, yeah, tell me about that. Yeah, share with the
listeners that that's an interesting story.
Speaker 2 (39:54):
Johnny Johnny Winter seventies. You know, he was kind of
a rock star, so rockstar money back then, so they
gave him their his own imprint, which I think is
called Blue Sky, sort of like you can you can
sign artists. You know, we can't give much money, but
they can be released with this major label. And he's like,
I know what I want to do. I want to
make an album with Muddy, but like they used to do,
that sounded dirty and.
Speaker 3 (40:17):
He recorded not like you know, sixteen tracks and like
everybodys singing on one microphone. And so the album has
the blues as Muddy Muddy's blues, mostly older songs, a
couple okay, new ones, but it's goosed up with this
rock and roll spirit you could if you listen to
with headphones. It's one of the best things because between
songs are after songs, you can hear them laughing but
(40:40):
not laughing, and they're kind of like laughing.
Speaker 2 (40:42):
Like you see this sometimes it's really good musicians. They'll
look they'll be in this trance and they're all done
and they started look at you our laughs like where
were we? How did that happen? Kind of deal. It's
almost mystical. And there's one point where and this is
where the title of the album comes from, you can
hear Muddy say, oh my peep's hard again. It's like
I probably got it up again after all the because
he played a lot of you know, but you know,
(41:03):
go to the club see Muddy Waters south of This
is some nasty music. I mean, this is filthy and
the best possible way, you know, and it's the whole
albu And that version of a managed sport to start
things off is just it's uh to me. That is
Muddy Waters. And yeah, he's sixty three years old, so
that's rare. It doesn't happen very often. Maybe Yates, maybe
Shakespeare got better. Most artists don't get better as they
(41:26):
get older. And it was so nice that Muddy had
that the end of his career, because he died not
too long afterwards, you know, so it's nice to have that.
Speaker 1 (41:35):
Find the bookdown Rock website at bookedown rock dot com.
There you can find all the back episodes of the show,
the latest episode in video and audio, links to all
of the platforms where you can listen to the podcast,
plus all the social media platforms were on Blue Sky, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok,
and x. Also check out the booked on Rock blog.
Find your local independent bookstore, find out all the latest
(41:58):
hot rock book releases, and before you go, check out
the booked on Rock online store. Pick up some booked
on Rock Merch. It's all at booked on rock dot com.
Those are just a few of the artists and yeah,
there's twelve of them all together. Dust more lives of
the poets with guitars out now you can find out
wherever books are sold. I should say out now. If
this is November the eleventh.
Speaker 2 (42:19):
Yes, it will be I think, okay, yeah, I think
your store should have it.
Speaker 1 (42:25):
All right, We'll recording this on November third, but it
should be up around the time over the release date,
So look for it Amazon, all the usual places. At
your independent bookstore, ask them to stock a copy there
if they don't have one. You can find your nearest
independent book store at bookdo on rock dot com and
Ray are you online? Do you have a social media presence?
Speaker 2 (42:44):
Sort of? Sort of? I've made a concession. I do
have Instagram and Facebook, but I have a buddy of
my runs them, so i'd use them for social I
use them for work. So if someone wanted to contact me, sure,
my website's the easiest to because I'm kind of any
email guys, you can always email the website.
Speaker 1 (42:59):
There's this Ray rob Okay, Ray Robinson dot com Okay,
and the other ones.
Speaker 2 (43:04):
Yeah, they're they're good.
Speaker 3 (43:04):
It's just that I just sort of like, like, I
got a bunch of launches for this book coming out,
so there'll be information about that, but there's not so much like,
you know, here, here's what I eat for breakfast or
anything like that.
Speaker 1 (43:12):
Okay, yeah, I know, I'm with you too. I use
it just really to get the word out about episodes.
Speaker 2 (43:18):
I'm really and you have to, you know, I.
Speaker 1 (43:21):
Just don't think people will give two shits about what
I'm doing, you know, like.
Speaker 2 (43:25):
An important thing is the I think the important thing
is the people who post it give a shit exactly.
Speaker 1 (43:31):
And hey, I had a pizza today.
Speaker 2 (43:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (43:37):
Oh man, Well Grat's on another great book. So is
this the last of the Is this the last?
Speaker 2 (43:44):
Yeah? Of this? Yeah? I think there are thirteen people
in the first one, twelve in this one, so I
kind of like the fact they're twenty five. The next book,
which is not music, so I won't be talking to
you about it, but it's in February. It's called The
Right to Be Wrong. It's a book about well that's
kind of we're talking about independent thinking in a world
of you know, good and bad left, right, I just
hate that ship. So there's a book about that.
Speaker 3 (44:06):
So but actually now, yes, i'll sell you the press
least you won't be talking about it.
Speaker 2 (44:11):
But it's it's a it's a little book too. It's
just it's a book that I started writing during COVID
because the world was so much us in them and
I just don't think that's reality. But the book I'm
working on now is a book about Jerry Garcia called
American Beauty Jerry Garcia twenty five shows and five LP
so kind of like the Dead Book, but doing I
think Garcia there's enough there as a solo artist to
also discuss that.
Speaker 1 (44:33):
So yeah, I keep outstanding. So well, you know you're
coming on to talk about that one when that's if.
Speaker 2 (44:39):
We're all still around, Man, if we're all still around.
Speaker 1 (44:41):
We're all still yeah, exactly. Well, I you know, not
not not to put you on spot embarrass you, but
I mean, I mean, I've talked to a lot of
great writers on this on this podcast. You know you
are right at the top. Man. I just I love
your style of the way you write. That's so great,
And so you could you could write about an artist
that I don't know anything about and I'm in.
Speaker 3 (44:59):
That's a greatest compliment. That's the greatest compliment. Because I
had a friend. I have a friend actually my friend
who runs the uh there's my Instagram and Facebook, who
also proofs my book, proofs my books. And he's not
he's not a regular reader. He's a smart guy, he's
not a regular reader. And so he read Dust and
did the proofs, you know, find typos, and then because
the other book's right to be wrong with me on February,
(45:20):
he did that one as well, and he said to me, uh,
he doesn't offer a lot of them. He just finds.
He doesn't offer a lot of critical analysis. But he said,
you know what's kind of cool. He's like, you wrote
about very different things, but it still sounded like you.
I thought, that's that's what every writer wants to hear,
Like there's a there's an actual person writing a book
and not a an author.
Speaker 2 (45:38):
You know, it's actual person. And so I appreciate that.
Speaker 1 (45:40):
I appreciate a lot man the creativity, but it's also
sincere and it's from the heart. So that's that's what
all right, Ray Robertson, thanks so much, and hey, we'll
have it on for that Jerry book. You know you
got an open invite for that one.
Speaker 2 (45:53):
Just just keep our health invite would be and exercise.
That's right off the heroin.
Speaker 1 (45:58):
All right, well, I don't know, try I'll try.
Speaker 2 (46:02):
Thanks a lot man. M m. That's it. It's in
the books.
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