Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Sets podcast.
Speaker 1: My guest is the one and only Bonnie Rate who's
Speaker 1: on tour and support of a new album. Just like that, Bonnie,
Speaker 1: good to have you on the podcast. Nice to be
Speaker 1: with you, Bob. So what inspired you to cut this album? Oh?
Speaker 1: I cut my records so I have some new songs
Speaker 1: to play on the road. That's always the pretty much
Speaker 1: the only reason I do it. And I love having
Speaker 1: new stuff to play, and my fans probably enjoy it too.
Speaker 1: And uh, it's always daunting to not repeat yourself. Each
Speaker 1: record has another batch of love gone astray and how
Speaker 1: are you going to say something new after that many records?
Speaker 1: But I managed to when I get the songs compiled
Speaker 1: and I hit in the studio. But it's always got
Speaker 1: kind of a five year ahead of me plan of
Speaker 1: you know, holding the band in the crew and which
Speaker 1: halls were going to book a year in advance. And
Speaker 1: that was interrupted by COVID, of course, but the plan
Speaker 1: was still, you know, every after the two year tour
Speaker 1: to promote the record, that's about a year to prepare
Speaker 1: another one and a year to make it and get
Speaker 1: ready for the the big tour in another two years,
Speaker 1: so it's kind of been the same since nineteen one.
Speaker 1: And you mentioned love going a straight? Is that something,
Speaker 1: because that's what music normally is. Is that your life?
Speaker 1: Why do you characterize it was a little tongue in
Speaker 1: cheek about you know, if everybody got along, I wouldn't
Speaker 1: have anything to sing about. You know. The the kind
Speaker 1: of songs I sing about mostly are love stories of
Speaker 1: different aspects of love, you know, betrayal or longing or
Speaker 1: there you go again or you know, why did you
Speaker 1: do it? Whatever? It's just you know, some of the
Speaker 1: songs like one that you love not the only one.
Speaker 1: Mr Brady's tune um is about a true love song.
Speaker 1: You know, that's a beautiful I do rarely. There's only
Speaker 1: cut about two or two songs about love that are
Speaker 1: really when it's working out? Okay. People learn from the
Speaker 1: songs you sing. Did you learn anything? A lot of
Speaker 1: the songs you didn't write, and the more you perform them,
Speaker 1: the insights come to you relative to love in life. Absolutely.
Speaker 1: I I picked the songs because they have something to
Speaker 1: say to me that I need to hear, and I
Speaker 1: when I sing it, the message comes through. And um,
Speaker 1: you know, I hope that fans find something worthwhile in it.
Speaker 1: You know I seemed to be striking a chord, or
Speaker 1: I probably wouldn't get the opportunity to make another record,
Speaker 1: or it would fail, and then I would hang it
Speaker 1: up and stay home. Um. I think that the mix
Speaker 1: of songwriters that I picked from are some of my
Speaker 1: favorite artists anyway, their whole repertoire. But when I find
Speaker 1: a song, I know it's right for me and it's
Speaker 1: got something to say for me at the time. And
Speaker 1: what is the process or people always sending you demos
Speaker 1: or you searching or you just start doing it when
Speaker 1: you start a project, I'm always on the hunt. Um.
Speaker 1: I always go back in my own library of things
Speaker 1: that I artists that I love, and go back and
Speaker 1: revisit Keith Richard's first solo albums, you know, Bruce Hornsby's
Speaker 1: third album, Jackson Brown. You know there there's there's artists
Speaker 1: that are friends of mine that I love, Little Feet
Speaker 1: and people like that John Hyatt that I just listened
Speaker 1: to for pleasure. But I'm also cocking an ear for
Speaker 1: giving a second listen to some of the the songs
Speaker 1: that have kind of been tucked away in my back
Speaker 1: pocket that I might end up cutting. But for many,
Speaker 1: many years, probably forty years, I listened to most, if
Speaker 1: not all, of the unsolicited cassettes that people sent me. Um.
Speaker 1: Then they became CDs and and all those years I'd
Speaker 1: never found one song I could do. So I I
Speaker 1: gave myself a break after forty years to say, you, oh,
Speaker 1: I think you can probably just wait for your friends
Speaker 1: to send your songs. Are you so? I call up
Speaker 1: my pals and say, who have you been listening to?
Speaker 1: And I listened to. I do a lot of research.
Speaker 1: I read a lot of reviews. I listened to a
Speaker 1: lot of um interesting things that people turned me onto
Speaker 1: and the journalist turned me onto him. It's a constant hunt.
Speaker 1: So how did you meet Lowell? George? Um, I don't know,
Speaker 1: I don't. I think you're at one generation younger than me,
Speaker 1: or at least. But there was a band out of
Speaker 1: l A called Fanny, which was the first all female
Speaker 1: band that could really play well, oh you did there
Speaker 1: you go? So Fanny we're friends of mine. I think
Speaker 1: we were all on warners. I don't even know if
Speaker 1: they were on warners that want to they were, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's where I met them because we're you know, Alan
Speaker 1: Hussain and the Meters and James and Ryan Randy were
Speaker 1: all new, you know. When I first joined the label,
Speaker 1: it was because of the roster that they had, and
Speaker 1: I've became really good friends with June Millington and the band.
Speaker 1: And I used to stay at Hetty Lamar's old house
Speaker 1: up from the Chateau Marmont, a little bit slower. They had,
Speaker 1: they rented, they rented, They rented Hetty Lamar's old house
Speaker 1: right up from the iconic Chateau Marmont above Sunset stripped
Speaker 1: down from the rock Sy and the Tower Records, And
Speaker 1: when I came out from Cambridge, I would stay with them.
Speaker 1: And that's when I heard Little Feet second album and
Speaker 1: I went crazy. And June Millington introduced me to Little
Speaker 1: George And was there an instant connection? How did you
Speaker 1: ultimately form the bond and go on the road and
Speaker 1: make music recorded music together? Absolutely instant connection. He was
Speaker 1: a fan of mine, I was a fan of his.
Speaker 1: We both couldn't believe we were from l A. But
Speaker 1: that was the same with Ray Couter. You know, it's
Speaker 1: sort of the kind of uh, kind of shallow surf
Speaker 1: music scene that was in my junior high school all
Speaker 1: of a sudden turned into you know, these super cool
Speaker 1: roots music people, and uh, I just you know, Lowell
Speaker 1: was the one who turned me onto how to keep
Speaker 1: my slide note holding longer. He gave me this mx
Speaker 1: R compressor pedal and changed my whole slide style. So
Speaker 1: that was a fantastic thing. But I mean, along with
Speaker 1: Hendrix and Stevie ray Vaughan, I think Lowell was one
Speaker 1: of the greatest guitar players that's ever lived. Okay, getting
Speaker 1: to the third album, taking my time, I feel the
Speaker 1: same on the second side. Who plays the solo? You
Speaker 1: were Lowell? Lowell plays the solo. That's what I thought,
Speaker 1: But then I was to say, it's so the great
Speaker 1: thing about Lowell is he knew how to be subtle
Speaker 1: and leave things out, which in a world of obviousness
Speaker 1: is very rare. Yes, I completely agree. And and you know,
Speaker 1: there would be times when he was in the studio
Speaker 1: and just overlaying many many slide parts, almost like an arranger,
Speaker 1: you know, putting more lines and string lines over his
Speaker 1: own songs, and sometimes it would get crowded. But by
Speaker 1: the time I came out as a record he did.
Speaker 1: He was a pretty He was pretty good at being
Speaker 1: tasteful with his edits and not over not over sweetening
Speaker 1: the pot. Okay. He was involved in the production of
Speaker 1: Taking My Time, and then he was not. What went
Speaker 1: on there, Uh, that was a kind of a personal
Speaker 1: thing that happened with us. Um. He also wanted to
Speaker 1: play slide on more songs than I wanted him to.
Speaker 1: I said, hey, you know, I love the way you play,
Speaker 1: but you gotta make some room for me here. And uh,
Speaker 1: but it was more like a personal thing that was
Speaker 1: between us. And I asked my friend John Hall from
Speaker 1: Orleans to come out and Taj to come down. And
Speaker 1: Taj and John had we been in a band together.
Speaker 1: John was one of the guitar players when John Simon
Speaker 1: was producing the Big Tuba Band with Taj and John
Speaker 1: Hall lived in Woodstock and played on my second album,
Speaker 1: so that they both agreed to come in and help
Speaker 1: finish the record. Heard okay. Even to this day high
Speaker 1: profile artists mostly men. What was it like back in
Speaker 1: the early seventies being the only woman in the room.
Speaker 1: In many cases, it seemed pretty standard. I mean, there
Speaker 1: was a lot of people that I admired you know
Speaker 1: Joan Baez and Judy Collins and Odetta and you know
Speaker 1: Peter Paul Mary. There was a lot of women that
Speaker 1: were always part of making records and they picked their
Speaker 1: material and worked with their partner producer, and um, I
Speaker 1: never experienced any sexism that way or or you know
Speaker 1: maybe and also because I was a musician, and then
Speaker 1: those women are musicians as well. But because I was
Speaker 1: a guitar player, um I got some respect at at
Speaker 1: an age that would probably be surprising, you know, not
Speaker 1: for a guy to get it twenty one, but for
Speaker 1: a woman to get to play pretty good blues guitar.
Speaker 1: It got my foot in the door. That's why I
Speaker 1: got my deal, I think. And then, but men always
Speaker 1: have romance on their mind, and I think that's reducing
Speaker 1: people to that and women have the same exact you know.
Speaker 1: Romance is one of the things on both of our
Speaker 1: minds and the people in between as well. Love is
Speaker 1: just part of the human condition. But when you work
Speaker 1: in an office with someone or on tour or in
Speaker 1: the studio, relationships happen, as we know. But if you're famous,
Speaker 1: then they get written about more. And as you become famous,
Speaker 1: do you have to fend off more approaches the guys
Speaker 1: might have to fend off my approaches. No, I was
Speaker 1: pretty pretty steady. I mean, it just wasn't. I didn't.
Speaker 1: I didn't see any difference in my world between a
Speaker 1: chemical you know, chemistry attraction to you know, someone in
Speaker 1: the group that you're working with. Is wasn't any different
Speaker 1: than from being in college. You know. It's just one
Speaker 1: of those things. Um, you have to be careful in
Speaker 1: any shipboard romance when you're out on tour. If you're
Speaker 1: involved with someone in the band and it doesn't work
Speaker 1: out and you're still going to be on tour for
Speaker 1: the rest of the year, that's a really tricky, tricky situation,
Speaker 1: just like it is in an office romance. You know,
Speaker 1: they it's frowned upon, but you can't stop it. Okay,
Speaker 1: you went to Radcliffe for a year, No, it was
Speaker 1: I went to college at Harvard. Radcliffe doesn't have any classes.
Speaker 1: So the women's part of Harvard University is Harvard Radcliffe.
Speaker 1: Now it's completely combined. But um, I think the ratio
Speaker 1: is four to one guys to women. I don't know
Speaker 1: what it is anymore, but I went for a couple
Speaker 1: of years, So what did your parents say when you
Speaker 1: dropped out to make music. I took a semester off
Speaker 1: to hang out with the older blues guys that I loved,
Speaker 1: and they thought that was great, and um, they just said,
Speaker 1: you know, you're gonna have to support yourself if you're
Speaker 1: dropping out, then you get to get a job. And
Speaker 1: I got to travel around all these blues festival with
Speaker 1: with Dick Waterman and hang out with Big Bertha cut
Speaker 1: Up and Robert Pete Williams and Buddy Guy in Junior
Speaker 1: Wells and Son House and Fred McDowell. It was an
Speaker 1: education and an opportunity I knew I would never have again,
Speaker 1: and I could always go back to school. And I
Speaker 1: told that to the college admissions folks. They said, come
Speaker 1: back when you're ready. So I went back for a
Speaker 1: year and started to play in folk clubs, um just
Speaker 1: to make some extra money or during my time off.
Speaker 1: And next thing I knew, I started getting asked back
Speaker 1: and I had some You know, my boyfriend was a
Speaker 1: booking agent, so he put me on the show with
Speaker 1: Cat Stevens and opening for James Taylor and some blues people.
Speaker 1: And it was kind of a hobby that was a
Speaker 1: sideline for me until all of a sudden, Nat Weiss
Speaker 1: with you know, he said to me, do you want
Speaker 1: to You know, there's some interest in signing you with
Speaker 1: the label, And I said, if you, if you can
Speaker 1: get somebody to give me complete artistic control, I'll leave
Speaker 1: college and make and make a record. And he did so. Ever,
Speaker 1: any regrets that you didn't finish, not one, Because as
Speaker 1: a social activist, which was what my chosen field was,
Speaker 1: I knew that being a musician I could raise money
Speaker 1: and more attention for the causes that I cared about,
Speaker 1: which happened right away in the Women's movement and the
Speaker 1: Vietnam War. I mean I was doing big, giant rallies
Speaker 1: on Boston Common by the time, you know, making much
Speaker 1: more of an impact that I could have if I
Speaker 1: had joined the Peace Corps. And other than being in Cambridge,
Speaker 1: did you actually learn anything in classes or being in
Speaker 1: the dorm, or being amongst the student population, or in
Speaker 1: retrospect that just got you into a place where you
Speaker 1: could get started on your musical career. Couldn't have cared
Speaker 1: less about starting a music career. I was absolutely loving
Speaker 1: majoring in African studies and social relations. I've always loved school.
Speaker 1: I always wanted to work for the American Front Service Committee,
Speaker 1: and I was couldn't get enough of classes. And the
Speaker 1: cool thing about Harvard was you could take senior level.
Speaker 1: You know what, in regular regular a lot of colleges
Speaker 1: you have to take a survey course for freshman year
Speaker 1: and then sophomore year, and then you can't really specialize
Speaker 1: in your master until the last couple of years. And
Speaker 1: with Harvard you could actually mix it up however you want,
Speaker 1: as long as you got a year of humanities and
Speaker 1: social science and you know, by the end of the
Speaker 1: four years so I got. I dove right into my
Speaker 1: African studies and social relations, you know, serious focus. And
Speaker 1: I love being in school. And you know, they've always
Speaker 1: said if I want to come back. I got the
Speaker 1: Harvard Arts Medal a few years ago, and they said,
Speaker 1: you can come back and finished if you want. But
Speaker 1: I don't think it held me back to not have
Speaker 1: a degree. Okay, So you grew up in l A.
Speaker 1: We're in l A. I was right in the hills
Speaker 1: above Studio City, and then I spent every summer in
Speaker 1: the Adirondacks while my dad was doing summer stock. So
Speaker 1: I even though I would say that I was raised
Speaker 1: in l A. At my formative important part of my
Speaker 1: influences were all East coast, up East coast kids that
Speaker 1: went up to the Adirondics at my Quaker camp. And
Speaker 1: were you formed by what was going on the ideas
Speaker 1: of the camp or was this how you were brought
Speaker 1: up with your family and these ideas well, we were
Speaker 1: a Quaker, you know, my folks converted to being um
Speaker 1: peace activists and Quakers and kind of rejecting the more
Speaker 1: formalized constriction of what religiosity and churches and formal religions brought.
Speaker 1: So they were much more into you know, the Quaker
Speaker 1: meeting where you're your center in nobody's higher than someone else.
Speaker 1: Anyone can stand up and share um act, social activism,
Speaker 1: being of service. I just, you know, that's the ethos
Speaker 1: that I was raised, and I was really proud of it,
Speaker 1: and I hung out with a lot of other Quaker
Speaker 1: families um and then in my summertime, my family's friends
Speaker 1: started a Quaker camp which was very international and not
Speaker 1: focused on competitive sports or you know, it was just
Speaker 1: a lot of you know, humanitarian humanism, international counselors and campers.
Speaker 1: So it was really a great breeding ground for my
Speaker 1: values in my music. And that's where the folk music counselors,
Speaker 1: you know, the counselor for folk music at that camp
Speaker 1: when I was ten, made a huge influence on me.
Speaker 1: And all those college kids were swept up in the
Speaker 1: folk revival of the early sixties. Well, I certainly remember
Speaker 1: here and blowing in the wind at summer camp and
Speaker 1: other songs we sit around. What were the songs that
Speaker 1: they were bringing to the camp that you were hearing
Speaker 1: and learning. Well, I was eight or nine, and I
Speaker 1: loved Odetta's records. I loved Joan Bayez. I taught myself
Speaker 1: to play guitar based on um, those two records. And
Speaker 1: then I loved Peter Paul and Mary and you know
Speaker 1: all the folk music artists. And I read sing Out
Speaker 1: every month and joined at Snick and Core. You know,
Speaker 1: I was out in l A. But I couldn't wait
Speaker 1: to be a beat nick and get to college. I
Speaker 1: wish I could have just left and you know, at
Speaker 1: thirteen and put on a turtleneck and moved to Greenwich Village.
Speaker 1: But um, what I got from that was at times
Speaker 1: they are changing. That that album of Bob Dylan's really
Speaker 1: changed my life, even though I was you know, Pete
Speaker 1: seeger Fan and Joan Bayez and our family marched in
Speaker 1: peace marches, and you know, we were very much involved
Speaker 1: in the civil rights movement as well. The musical connection
Speaker 1: of folk music that Bob Dylan's albums when he became
Speaker 1: especially Times They're Changing, was seminal in my life. And
Speaker 1: then Joan Bayez's activism I think was a great model
Speaker 1: for me as well. Okay, I think that was the
Speaker 1: third album. The first album was mostly cover second was
Speaker 1: Free Room with a lot of songs other people covered.
Speaker 1: When did you actually get into Dylan with that third
Speaker 1: album where he was always on the scene and you
Speaker 1: were aware of him? You know? I I you know,
Speaker 1: as as a twelve year old, I didn't have any
Speaker 1: income to go buy records or a car to go
Speaker 1: drive to the store. But I um, I got at camp.
Speaker 1: I listened to my counselor's record so I was aware
Speaker 1: of the first two albums, but I saved my money
Speaker 1: and bought the Times They're Changing album. Okay, and you
Speaker 1: went to high school in l A. Too. I went
Speaker 1: to one year of high school and then I went
Speaker 1: to a Quaker Boarding School in Poughkeepsie the last two
Speaker 1: years of high school because my dad got a new
Speaker 1: Broadway show and he was going to be trying it
Speaker 1: out on the road for a year. So as my
Speaker 1: brothers and I scattered to the winds and I couldn't
Speaker 1: wait to go do what the school version of what
Speaker 1: my summer camp had been. So the last two years
Speaker 1: were on the Hudson River, which I loved because the
Speaker 1: whole time I was in l A, I couldn't wait
Speaker 1: to get back east. Well that was funny because we
Speaker 1: were all back east trying to get to l A.
Speaker 1: I know, isn't that funny? But um, what kind of
Speaker 1: kid were you growing up? The kind who was the leader,
Speaker 1: had a lot of friends, you know, a loner what. Well,
Speaker 1: I came out of the box pretty extroverted. So I
Speaker 1: was the song leader at our social camp and you know,
Speaker 1: at our club, and I was in with the hip kids,
Speaker 1: and I was in with the intellectual kids as well.
Speaker 1: And I kind of floated around, um in in different circles.
Speaker 1: So I was pretty uh fulfilled at school. I loved it.
Speaker 1: So you're a couple of years ahead of me, but
Speaker 1: I certainly remember the folk scene, and the folksing was
Speaker 1: so big. There was even a TV show, Hoo Nanny,
Speaker 1: And then all of a sudden we could really put
Speaker 1: it at Dylan going electric. But it was also before
Speaker 1: that the Beatles. Were you a fan of the British Invasion?
Speaker 1: What did you feel about Dylan going electric? You know,
Speaker 1: absolutely for me, Um, the folk music I read in
Speaker 1: the paper in the New York Times and stuff about
Speaker 1: Dylan being booed at Newport and all that, And you know,
Speaker 1: to me it was distressing because I was so political
Speaker 1: and I wanted him to be our you know, as
Speaker 1: he rejects, as he said, he did not want to
Speaker 1: be that person in the culture. But there were plenty
Speaker 1: of other people picking it up. I mean, I loved
Speaker 1: the staple singers. I loved, you know, the political songs
Speaker 1: that were coming out more and more on the radio.
Speaker 1: Not Eve of Destruction, but you know, they were the
Speaker 1: Buffalo Springfield in the middle sixties. There was a lot
Speaker 1: of the social movements of the seventies were being reflected
Speaker 1: on the radio and the songs that people were covering.
Speaker 1: And um, I I love Motown. I always loved R
Speaker 1: and B, always loved Fats Domino and Chuck Berry. So
Speaker 1: as there is in my life now there's a parallel
Speaker 1: track of there's as much of me that loves the
Speaker 1: Rolling Stones and old blues and Chicago blues as there
Speaker 1: is folk music. So the two just live in me
Speaker 1: and I love I love all of it. I loved
Speaker 1: I loved it as a teenager too. But back then,
Speaker 1: you know, I remember w ABC on Saturday nights, they
Speaker 1: had of you know, the war between the Beatles and
Speaker 1: the Stones. Most most of us liked both, but we
Speaker 1: had a preference. Well, you know, you like the Stones,
Speaker 1: you'd like the Beatles and the other British invasion bands,
Speaker 1: Hermit's Hermits during the Pacemakers, or that was not not
Speaker 1: for you. I love the Beatles. I love had a
Speaker 1: big question, John Lennon, I love me do is there's
Speaker 1: still a great funky record And I should have known better.
Speaker 1: I mean they made they did a great version of
Speaker 1: Twist and Shout, but I mean Eisley's is the King.
Speaker 1: But the Stones definitely got my attention because I was
Speaker 1: always always loving aren't the R and B side of pop?
Speaker 1: You know? I loved rat Charles, I loved all the
Speaker 1: R and B records, whether it was you know, way
Speaker 1: before Aretha Franklin's Ladies Soul and Otis Redding. There was
Speaker 1: all of those R and B Smokey Robinson and the
Speaker 1: Miracles and the Four Tops and the Temptations, and I
Speaker 1: just loved the R and B covers of the Beatles
Speaker 1: and the Stones. But I remember my folks looking at
Speaker 1: went nuts for the beetles, and then I found the
Speaker 1: stones and my parents, my mom looked at the cover
Speaker 1: of the Stones and she said she was trying to
Speaker 1: push the beetles back on me. She could tell I
Speaker 1: was going down a dark alley with I was just
Speaker 1: and did you go to did you go to shows
Speaker 1: at that area? Did you go to see the stone?
Speaker 1: I did. I went to see the Stones at Long
Speaker 1: Beach Arena and I stood on the fence when their
Speaker 1: limo went by from the backstage area and tried to
Speaker 1: hurl myself, you know, through the fence, but just screaming
Speaker 1: and yelling and screaming and yelling. So I I completely
Speaker 1: was nuts for the stones. And they went on shin
Speaker 1: dig and brought helen Wolf, which did not was not
Speaker 1: lost on me. And I was a very big teena
Speaker 1: Iconina Turner fan as well in l A. So you
Speaker 1: know that was I loved Less mechan and Mose Allison too.
Speaker 1: I used to listen to the jazz station and I
Speaker 1: just loved the funky end of pop and jazz and
Speaker 1: soul music. Were there any advantages in being John Ray's
Speaker 1: door or I mean and be able to get good
Speaker 1: tickets and stuff like that, not that I found, no,
Speaker 1: But I did get to see, you know, hang back
Speaker 1: stage with him and watch him from my whole childhood
Speaker 1: do the most incredible performances, eight shows a week, night
Speaker 1: after night. I mean, he was His work ethic was astonishing,
Speaker 1: but it looked to us kids like he was just
Speaker 1: getting paid to play, you know what I mean. He
Speaker 1: had this whole day off to wash the car and
Speaker 1: play golf and hang out with us, and then he
Speaker 1: would drive in half hour into New York and play
Speaker 1: pajama game and come back at night. So it was
Speaker 1: you know, we didn't get to see him in the summertime,
Speaker 1: but because he wasn't doing summer stock, but you know,
Speaker 1: it was worth it. He was just he he didn't
Speaker 1: have a real job, He didn't look like a normal dad.
Speaker 1: You know. It was just like a Mattinee idol for
Speaker 1: a dad. They got to sing and do what he
Speaker 1: loved and get paid for it, so you know, it
Speaker 1: was the benefit of that was pride, great pride, and
Speaker 1: I got to well. One of the side things I'll
Speaker 1: say is Hugh Beaumont, Mr Cleaver, he used to come
Speaker 1: to our house. Those guys were really good friends of ours,
Speaker 1: so I had a lot of bragging rights and yeah,
Speaker 1: and he was just he was like that at the table.
Speaker 1: He was like, you know, we knew him our whole life.
Speaker 1: He was just We just couldn't believe it. So I
Speaker 1: would pinch myself that I was going to school. I
Speaker 1: went steady for a minute with Jerry Lewis's second son, Ronnie,
Speaker 1: and then there you know, Burt Lancaster's kids were in
Speaker 1: my class, so it was fun to be a show
Speaker 1: business kid in a show business towns. And Sammy Khan's
Speaker 1: daughter Laurie was one of my best friends, so that
Speaker 1: it was a lot of fun. And how old were
Speaker 1: you when your parents split up? I was already in college.
Speaker 1: I was nineteen. Now. I have a friend whose parents
Speaker 1: split up when he was twenty six, and he would
Speaker 1: think it didn't affect him at all. He seems to
Speaker 1: be more affective than people. Even like my sister's kids
Speaker 1: were much younger when they got her, she got divorced.
Speaker 1: So to what to greed to the divorce affect you.
Speaker 1: It was rough to watch my mother in so much pain.
Speaker 1: You know, I learned a lesson about how many marriages
Speaker 1: stay together until the kids are grown, or menopause or
Speaker 1: you know later. I was able to look back through
Speaker 1: a lens of well, they probably weren't getting along, and
Speaker 1: it wasn't anybody's particular fault. It wasn't any of my business,
Speaker 1: so they chose not to share it with us. But
Speaker 1: it was rough for my mom because my dad found
Speaker 1: someone else and and being in the public eye, he
Speaker 1: was photographed with her a lot, and it was embarrassing
Speaker 1: because my mom was kind of his quasi manager and
Speaker 1: his music director for all those years, so she got
Speaker 1: a raw deal, I thought. So that part was painful.
Speaker 1: And then, like all divorce kids, you know, one Christmas
Speaker 1: is with your mom and the next Christmas is with
Speaker 1: your dad, and there's a little competition going on between
Speaker 1: who's more fun to hang out with, you know, And
Speaker 1: that's the way it is. With you know parents. You know,
Speaker 1: when my dad was traveling all the time, he come
Speaker 1: home and bring us presents and he never had to
Speaker 1: discipline us. So my mom got the short end of
Speaker 1: the stick. She had to be the mom and the dad.
Speaker 1: As years went on, how did they get along? Um,
Speaker 1: Because they didn't have to, you know, send us back
Speaker 1: and forth as dual custody. We were already grown. They
Speaker 1: were I wouldn't say friendly, but when when we all
Speaker 1: started to get married, they were civil and nice to
Speaker 1: each other. My mom played piano for my dad to
Speaker 1: sing at my older brother's wedding, and that was nice.
Speaker 1: But I would say it wasn't chilly. But when I
Speaker 1: started it, when I won Grammys in one year, I
Speaker 1: decided to break see if they would come together as
Speaker 1: my guests, and they they had a nice time together.
Speaker 1: It was sweet. And how many kids were in the family,
Speaker 1: two brothers. I'm in the middle. It's funny, you know,
Speaker 1: the older you get them into birth order, and I
Speaker 1: see the difference, you know, between my older sister and
Speaker 1: the younger sister you know in the middle, and some
Speaker 1: of my older It was so much craziness going on.
Speaker 1: I was sort of in my own space and are
Speaker 1: you in the middle or in the middle. Yeah, me too,
Speaker 1: And you know, I think being the woman too, I'm
Speaker 1: the only girl. I'm like the peacemaker that's trying to
Speaker 1: you know, I don't know. I think there's just a
Speaker 1: certain I haven't read a lot of there's a lot
Speaker 1: of literature about what the middle kid is like and
Speaker 1: what what roles you play. But I think it's complicated
Speaker 1: when the divorce happens. And you know, if you if
Speaker 1: you know, we stopped knowing each other as kids at thirteen,
Speaker 1: fifteen and seventeen. We weren't together for the rest of
Speaker 1: our teen years. So but in our adulthood we got
Speaker 1: to be closer friends. And to what degree did they
Speaker 1: affect you? Were you more of a tomboy, you know,
Speaker 1: playing sports, etcetera? Absolutely, absolutely tomboy. My heroes were, um,
Speaker 1: I love I love Gidget because she was a girl
Speaker 1: at a guy's world and she was tough and they
Speaker 1: accepted her. And you know, my older brother I had
Speaker 1: I adored my older brother and I had crushes on
Speaker 1: most of his friends and they were they would put
Speaker 1: up with me. But then when I started to turn
Speaker 1: into a girl, you know, few best a little bit.
Speaker 1: They were making fun of me, but I was brutal,
Speaker 1: and you know, I wish they would hang out with
Speaker 1: me some more. But you know that's what happens with
Speaker 1: your older siblings. They just they dump you have at thirteen. Look,
Speaker 1: I I was a tomboy and I never wanted to
Speaker 1: be a girly girl. I always saw that women were.
Speaker 1: I just thought they had to bend themselves into shapes
Speaker 1: that didn't seem too natural. So I kind of looked
Speaker 1: up at a to Amanda Blake because she had red hair,
Speaker 1: but also because she owned the saloon on Gun Smoke.
Speaker 1: She loved the sheriff, but she didn't have to marry him.
Speaker 1: That was very important message to me. Gidget Amanda Blake
Speaker 1: on gun Smoke and uh, you know later Shirley McClain,
Speaker 1: and so, you know, I thought she had a great life.
Speaker 1: I never had the wife and mother calling and have
Speaker 1: you sustained the same person, or as you've gotten older,
Speaker 1: or as any of that girly girl stuff appealing. I'm
Speaker 1: more comfortable with my womanhood. And you know, in my
Speaker 1: when the feminist movement happened, it was really I was
Speaker 1: right along in there. In college I mean we all demanded,
Speaker 1: you know, hey, we'd like to get off to you know,
Speaker 1: maybe you could think about that, or how about doing
Speaker 1: a dish. You know, there was a lot of that
Speaker 1: even in our counterculture political movements, in the in college
Speaker 1: and in the food co op. When I first moved
Speaker 1: off campus, you know, there was a lot of women
Speaker 1: asking for sexual parody and and and housework parody, you know,
Speaker 1: and uh, and it was just part of my generation.
Speaker 1: I can't even I can't even imagine the phil the
Speaker 1: shaft Lely point of view, or you're just there to serve,
Speaker 1: to be of service to your man. You know, I
Speaker 1: couldn't relate. So I'm I'm a more mature version of myself,
Speaker 1: but I still have the fourteen year old rebel in me.
Speaker 1: And alcohol, I mean, when I went to college in Vermont,
Speaker 1: it was the first date that gave you all rights
Speaker 1: at age eighteen. So we've been we've been smoking dope.
Speaker 1: But then it was cool to drink, and I drank plenty.
Speaker 1: Was there any you know, you have had a lot
Speaker 1: of alcohol, was any of it? I'm keeping up with
Speaker 1: the guys. Oh, in my case, it was you couldn't
Speaker 1: drink in Massachusetts till twenty one. My parents didn't really drink,
Speaker 1: and I wasn't raised around it, but I immediately when
Speaker 1: I met Dick Waterman and he was introducing me to
Speaker 1: son House and Buddy Guy and John hanging with those
Speaker 1: blues guys, and then the Buddy and Junior open for
Speaker 1: the Stones, and I went along for a month on
Speaker 1: that European tour when I was twenty and part they
Speaker 1: and Central Man. I mean, I was diving in for
Speaker 1: the first time to the professional drinkers, many of whom
Speaker 1: the older blues guys were actually you know, borderline alcoholics.
Speaker 1: So it was I wanted to beat my voice down
Speaker 1: to sound older, and I wanted I picked up cigarettes
Speaker 1: and carried a flask a gym beam around and tried
Speaker 1: to talk tough. I mean, it seems pathetic to me
Speaker 1: when I hear radio shows where I'm going, yeah, man,
Speaker 1: you know, like I'm trying to It was embarrassing. But
Speaker 1: you know, by the time I was about I've developed
Speaker 1: into a sound of my voice and a persona that
Speaker 1: was more authentic. I wasn't putting on the blues mama thing.
Speaker 1: And you realize, yeah, well, I I knew that I
Speaker 1: was pouring it on a little bit, even in my twenties.
Speaker 1: But there's nothing more humiliating and humbling than listening to
Speaker 1: yourself high back from a radio station interview that you know,
Speaker 1: like someone goes, man, you guys were out of it,
Speaker 1: and you know that that sobers you up pretty good.
Speaker 1: So you know, I I got into drinking and the
Speaker 1: lifestyle through rock and roll in blues. It was kind
Speaker 1: of a badge of honor, you know, I mean, who
Speaker 1: would want to stay up when you're staying up late.
Speaker 1: You don't even get off work until midnight or one o'clock,
Speaker 1: and that's when you're on wine, so you're not you're
Speaker 1: not making smoothies at one o'clock in the morning. So
Speaker 1: you know, I think it was a fun lifestyle. And
Speaker 1: tell about my mid thirties when I got puffy and
Speaker 1: I couldn't always remember what I was saying, and you know,
Speaker 1: it just seems sloppy and I wasn't as healthy, and
Speaker 1: I frankly, it was just the fact that Prince wanted
Speaker 1: to make a video and I went, man, I gotta
Speaker 1: lose some weight, because if we make a sexy video
Speaker 1: together and I look like this, it's not gonna work,
Speaker 1: so I will have him his his inspiration being a
Speaker 1: little big pen thin to helping me. You know why.
Speaker 1: I quit drinking just to lose weight, but I really
Speaker 1: liked it, so I stuck with it. Light a similar thing.
Speaker 1: I didn't quit to lose weight, But it was such
Speaker 1: a transition that once I was over, you know, I
Speaker 1: didn't want to go back, which was not my anticipation
Speaker 1: when I stopped. Yeah, I didn't expect to like it.
Speaker 1: I thought it was just temporary, you know, And then
Speaker 1: I was. But when I went to a musician's meeting
Speaker 1: in l A with a bunch of friends of mine
Speaker 1: that I used a party with that had gotten sober,
Speaker 1: and they were clearly not turning into moonies, and and
Speaker 1: you know they were. They were having a hell of
Speaker 1: a lot more fun than most of the people that
Speaker 1: were locked jaw at a party in the middle of
Speaker 1: the night, just chained smoking, saying stuff that was bullshit,
Speaker 1: you know. And uh, they kind of guided me into it,
Speaker 1: and it seemed to be when I learned a little
Speaker 1: bit more about an addictive behavior, you know, addictive personality.
Speaker 1: I went, oh, ding ding ding ding, this is me,
Speaker 1: And how about drugs as opposed to alcohol, and they
Speaker 1: kind of went together. You know, as of about seventy two,
Speaker 1: my second album, cocaine and alcohol were just part of
Speaker 1: the deal. I was never a pothead, but it was
Speaker 1: certainly around. But I never got into pills. But it
Speaker 1: was more like just the perfect combination of blow and
Speaker 1: drinking and at this point clean, Yeah, five years everybody else.
Speaker 1: You know, there are a lot of people say there,
Speaker 1: it's like during COVID people said, oh, I'm really strict.
Speaker 1: Well I went to this person's house thing at a party.
Speaker 1: People say, oh, yeah, I'm clean. Yeah I smoke. I
Speaker 1: smoked marijuana. I have a drink occasionally, but I'm clean.
Speaker 1: So it's a different thing. Yeah, well dry, The issues
Speaker 1: for me were alcohol and cocaine would probably be would
Speaker 1: be very I would be slipping within six months. I'd
Speaker 1: probably be back making excuses for drinking too much. You know,
Speaker 1: it's not worth it. I know what, I know what
Speaker 1: that can lead to. So that those were the things
Speaker 1: that I needed to stop. And I've been grateful, you know.
Speaker 1: One day at a time, how did you hook up
Speaker 1: with Prince? And supposedly there was gonna be a whole
Speaker 1: project that ultimately never saw the light of day. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I didn't want to make a whole album with him.
Speaker 1: I just wanted to do some collaboration, but only if
Speaker 1: we met in the middle. You know. I didn't want
Speaker 1: to like make a Prince record or have and he
Speaker 1: certainly wasn't gonna make one of my records. So we agreed.
Speaker 1: I mean, he he reached out when I got dropped
Speaker 1: from Warners and said he thought that I got treated badly.
Speaker 1: And he said, you know I have Paisley Park. Why
Speaker 1: don't you come on over here and we'll we'll show him.
Speaker 1: You know, you'll get you a better deal, will make
Speaker 1: a better treatment on my label. I have a lot
Speaker 1: more respect for women musicians. And that not that the
Speaker 1: gender had anything to do with why the big scythe
Speaker 1: came through and dropped T Bone, Burnett and R Logo
Speaker 1: through and Man Morrison and me in the same day
Speaker 1: on Pearl Harbor, Harvard Day, the same day that asked
Speaker 1: the legal department at Warners, they just the big money
Speaker 1: guys that took over Warner Brothers, Warner it was we
Speaker 1: I remember Warner Elector Atlantic. They just the bean counters. Said,
Speaker 1: these guys are not making enough. We re signed them
Speaker 1: so they wouldn't go to another label. But they're not
Speaker 1: bringing in any more money than to pay back this
Speaker 1: big signing fee that we gave them. It's better to
Speaker 1: just cut our losses and dump them. So how did
Speaker 1: how did you feel about that? Oh, with a national
Speaker 1: tour opening for Stevie ray Van pulled out from under
Speaker 1: me and putting my entire band and not and crew
Speaker 1: out of work after working on an album and having
Speaker 1: it ready to come out, you know, with the artwork.
Speaker 1: I mean, I pay for my album, So you know,
Speaker 1: I was pissed. I was very piste. So I had
Speaker 1: to I went back on the road just as a
Speaker 1: duo because I couldn't afford to take the band. But
Speaker 1: in the summertime, I could go out with the band.
Speaker 1: I was still had built my following. Or I could
Speaker 1: either open for Jimmy Buffett at a big giant place
Speaker 1: or you know, to a pretty well, you know, three
Speaker 1: or four thousand people. I could still draw in the
Speaker 1: summer time. But you without a new album and the
Speaker 1: advertising that it brings, it was very difficult to sustain
Speaker 1: the level that I had built up to. So I
Speaker 1: knew I would get another deal. It was just a
Speaker 1: matter of which label, you know, I did I want
Speaker 1: to do rounder records? Did I want to think about
Speaker 1: another major? And I just I just luckily I can
Speaker 1: play the guitar and tour and make make good living
Speaker 1: just as a duo as well. Okay, before we drop it,
Speaker 1: So you ended up going to Paisley Park. What was
Speaker 1: the experience? Oh? Yeah, we met. We met in l A.
Speaker 1: We you know, had a blast. We have a lot
Speaker 1: of music that we love. He loved my first records,
Speaker 1: you know, and I was we were mutual fans. And um,
Speaker 1: I was supposed to go and do some preliminary writing
Speaker 1: with him and come up with some stuff that was
Speaker 1: fifty fifty and I injed I had a ski accident
Speaker 1: and pulled the ligament off my thumb, so I had
Speaker 1: to postpone that. So he went in the studio and
Speaker 1: cut some songs in his key with his lyrics without
Speaker 1: So by the time I finally got to Minneapolis, they
Speaker 1: weren't in my key, and they weren't lyrics that I
Speaker 1: wanted to sing. So, you know, I said, we're gonna
Speaker 1: have to get together again and start over and work
Speaker 1: on some stuff that says the things that i'd like
Speaker 1: to say, so it was an aboarded project because he
Speaker 1: expected he extended his European tour after I canceled my
Speaker 1: summer tour to work with him, and he didn't even
Speaker 1: call me to say he did it. So thanks a lot.
Speaker 1: But it was your ski accident. Were you a big skier?
Speaker 1: It's like the second lesson I ever had. And the
Speaker 1: woman who was taking me up the bunny slope was
Speaker 1: star struck and she forgot to give me the polls
Speaker 1: that break away. So this lady came back and clipped
Speaker 1: me and I started going down the mountain like a cartoon.
Speaker 1: We're gonna run into a tree, so I made myself
Speaker 1: fall and I yanked the finger picking bass note thumb.
Speaker 1: But it ended up being what got me into a
Speaker 1: because while I was home, I decided to quit drinking
Speaker 1: in a cast I couldn't tour, So it was a
Speaker 1: fortuitous I like to say, I was hitchhiking to a
Speaker 1: better life. Yeah, with your thumb. Ever ski again. We
Speaker 1: were a water ski family, so a lot of water skiing,
Speaker 1: but I have not snow skinned. I would do it again,
Speaker 1: but I just I think I would be much more
Speaker 1: cautious about you know, having a breakaway poles and staying
Speaker 1: on the slopes that were appropriate for me. And to
Speaker 1: what degree are you active exercising sports today. I'm very
Speaker 1: into a regular yoga practice, especially because I do it
Speaker 1: on FaceTime with a girlfriend for fifteen years, three or
Speaker 1: four days a week. And we can change the time,
Speaker 1: we can change we can change the music, we can
Speaker 1: keep talking during it, we can take breaks, we can
Speaker 1: reschedule at the last minute. And here's my favorite word, free.
Speaker 1: So I've done it, but we do a combination of
Speaker 1: you know, strength work and sit ups and and yoga.
Speaker 1: It's a it's a practice that I really love and
Speaker 1: I've only been able to do it because of the
Speaker 1: Buddy system. I highly recommend it because you know, you
Speaker 1: can say, well, I don't feel like it, she goes, okay,
Speaker 1: let's do it at four o'clock and then I always
Speaker 1: do it and I always feel better. So for fifteen years,
Speaker 1: I've done it every other day pretty much, and I
Speaker 1: do a lot of hiking, and I try to get
Speaker 1: outside at least a couple of hours a day, and
Speaker 1: hiking in your vicinity or traveling to go hiking. Well,
Speaker 1: when we've been on the road since April, and it's
Speaker 1: mostly stand downtown, so it's flat, so that's not as
Speaker 1: much fun. I used to take my bike along, but
Speaker 1: I haven't been doing that as much lately. But where
Speaker 1: I live in northern California. I moved to Marin County
Speaker 1: so I could be close to hiking trails, and you know,
Speaker 1: when I got sober, l A didn't seem as much
Speaker 1: fun to me because I was kind of I used
Speaker 1: to be up at night, and when you're up in
Speaker 1: the daytime, l A's like Aggie and a lot of traffic.
Speaker 1: And I grew up there, so I wanted to move
Speaker 1: someplace that had redwoods in the ocean and mountains. You
Speaker 1: go out with five other people at this point in time,
Speaker 1: and you ever say, well, this is costing me money. Well,
Speaker 1: it always costs money to take anybody out. But that's
Speaker 1: what makes it fun. I mean, you're doing it to
Speaker 1: make your music sound the way you want it to sound,
Speaker 1: and the camaraderie of being on the road with the
Speaker 1: band and crew is one of the reasons I like
Speaker 1: being on the road for fifty years now. You know,
Speaker 1: if I wasn't on the tour bus and didn't get
Speaker 1: to hang with my peeps, I would have hanged it
Speaker 1: up a long time ago. So you're the opposite of
Speaker 1: many people who, especially in the era of streaming, they
Speaker 1: go on the road. They don't want to. You look
Speaker 1: forward to it. Yeah, I make new records so I
Speaker 1: can go on the road. I love the travel I
Speaker 1: love the traveling life. My dad loved it. I love
Speaker 1: that he toured till he was eighty five. And I
Speaker 1: have a friend who worked in the old film era
Speaker 1: with led Zepp, and he says, I've been around the world.
Speaker 1: I've seen nothing. Uh. When you when you travel these places,
Speaker 1: do you take advantage of the cultural uh stuff there? Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well we started when I um, right around the time
Speaker 1: when Nick of Time came out. We started to drive
Speaker 1: at night on the bus so that we could have
Speaker 1: the daytime so I could get some exercise and get
Speaker 1: out and sight see and see my friends. I mean,
Speaker 1: with COVID, I'm still getting outside and still doing yoga,
Speaker 1: but I I see friends with a mask. We test
Speaker 1: first and we're distance, you know, so I'm we're We've
Speaker 1: been in a COVID bubble since January. But yeah, I
Speaker 1: take advantage of it. On nights off, I try to
Speaker 1: go to great You know, I have friends all over
Speaker 1: the place that I've kept in touch with high school
Speaker 1: and college and activist friends and former band members and
Speaker 1: you know, so, uh, it's really fun to wake up
Speaker 1: in a new city and tried it. But after all
Speaker 1: these years of being in Pittsburgh many times I have
Speaker 1: seen all the sites. But it doesn't mean that it's
Speaker 1: any more less fun to ride bikes along the river.
Speaker 1: And where are some of the places that really call
Speaker 1: you off guard that we're really very interesting to you? Well,
Speaker 1: you know the obvious ones that I love, or Vancouver, Seattle,
Speaker 1: and New Orleans, for example. Austin has an incredible music scene.
Speaker 1: I always try to come in a couple of days
Speaker 1: early so I can hang out. Um. I love every
Speaker 1: section of this country. I mean, I'm I really they're
Speaker 1: surprising things about southern New Jersey that is more rural
Speaker 1: and beautiful. You know, when I used to play colleges
Speaker 1: in the seventies, I was surprised to find out there
Speaker 1: was something between Trenton and New York City, which that
Speaker 1: industrial pollution kind of stuffed and thrilled me. But there's
Speaker 1: little outlawing areas to most of the city's I mean
Speaker 1: even on tour and outside of Rome forty five minutes,
Speaker 1: if you have a day off, you can go all
Speaker 1: through all kinds of little villages and towns. And I'd
Speaker 1: have to say that the fun part of the seventies
Speaker 1: was driving to all those colleges and seeing all those
Speaker 1: smaller roads than the ones we see now. And how
Speaker 1: about the rest of the world outside the States, Outside
Speaker 1: North America. I have never been to South America or
Speaker 1: Central America, or places like Tahiti or Bali. I would
Speaker 1: love to go to Thailand. I've been to Japan, but
Speaker 1: it's so expensive now and I'm not a big star
Speaker 1: over there, so we probably can't go, and the rest
Speaker 1: of my life I probably won't ever get to go
Speaker 1: there again. The U k Is my favorite place to tour,
Speaker 1: and Holland has always been incredibly open for people like
Speaker 1: Ray Cooter and Randy Newman, a little feet of myself
Speaker 1: back in the seventies when America really didn't know who
Speaker 1: we were. There there was some reason there's a music
Speaker 1: scene there that really appreciated that range of you know
Speaker 1: American artists where that you know, nexus of R and
Speaker 1: B in Honky Talk and you know they were The
Speaker 1: people over in Europe don't care so much about putting
Speaker 1: you in a box as America used to. But now
Speaker 1: within the Americana format, we've got a comfortable home. So
Speaker 1: I love Scotland and Ireland, and I love New Zealand
Speaker 1: and Australia. I will say I've been to South America
Speaker 1: a couple of times. In the best place I've ever
Speaker 1: been was Bogata. Everybody, everybody I hung with there had
Speaker 1: a family member who had been killed. Oh my, they
Speaker 1: mean like gang violence. Yes, there was just Derek Gurr
Speaker 1: and there were certain places you couldn't go as also
Speaker 1: there with you know, the manager of the original manager
Speaker 1: of the Stones lives there, Andrew lou Goldham. So it's
Speaker 1: fascinating me with him because you know, there's certain places
Speaker 1: they tell you not to go with him, and he
Speaker 1: knows they can see you being an American right off,
Speaker 1: and he knows how to push him away. It was
Speaker 1: just so did he why did he settle there? I
Speaker 1: just saw him on the Bert Burns movie, which was
Speaker 1: so great. They interviewed him for that. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: he's very much alive. He married a woman from bo Guitar.
Speaker 1: It wasn't like a Nazi and they were going to
Speaker 1: find out. Yeah, he also has a place of Vancouver
Speaker 1: at this particular point which he goes back and forth,
Speaker 1: but he can tell you the real story on Stone stuff.
Speaker 1: Just utterly fascinating. Oh my gosh, have you seen that
Speaker 1: new series that they did? Are you talking about the
Speaker 1: new documentaries? Yeah, the new series on the Stones. I've
Speaker 1: only seen the Charlie one, and I saw part of
Speaker 1: the Ronny one and when I got sleepy on the bus,
Speaker 1: so I got to pick it up again. You know,
Speaker 1: I have not seen them yet. Oh, everybody says there's
Speaker 1: great that when it gets just to television. You know,
Speaker 1: I just watched the shined O'Connor documentary and then I
Speaker 1: got started in the Credence one, and they're done so heavily,
Speaker 1: but they draw you right in because remember, you know
Speaker 1: the elite that I thought Lee Morrigan one, I know
Speaker 1: his family didn't love it, but the Oscar Peterson and
Speaker 1: Lee Morgan ones are fantastic. I mean there's so many
Speaker 1: I love. My favorite one I've ever seen that I
Speaker 1: was so surprising was the Quiet one about Bill Wyman
Speaker 1: with all those homes. That fantastic. And what about his
Speaker 1: collection of stuff and his building. What a guy. I
Speaker 1: love him. Do you watch streaming television? And I do.
Speaker 1: I watch it because we're on the road, so we
Speaker 1: have nights off and after the show we can pair
Speaker 1: our computer or our phone with the TV and the bus,
Speaker 1: so as we're going down the road with COVID, there's
Speaker 1: no aftershow meet and greets, so I get to see
Speaker 1: all kinds of cool stuff. So what do you recommend? Oh?
Speaker 1: I loved um. Well, there's ones that I just you know,
Speaker 1: things like Dead to me. I really liked. I loved
Speaker 1: Ray Donovan. I was surprising because it's pretty violent, but
Speaker 1: I really loved it. I loved Ted Lasso. I don't
Speaker 1: have Apple TV, but my friend did and I made
Speaker 1: me so happy. I love the Morning show that's also
Speaker 1: an Apple TV. And then tons of things from Britain.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm not a big crime murder mystery one.
Speaker 1: But the Grandchester guy, the guy who started the original
Speaker 1: Grandchester was very cute, so I used to I admit
Speaker 1: that I watched it because he was so handsome. Have
Speaker 1: you seen Happy Valley? No, but that guy is in
Speaker 1: it right, A bad guy I saw. I watched a
Speaker 1: little bit of it, but it was upsetting to me.
Speaker 1: That used to be my my number one recommendation. Although
Speaker 1: I think it's not on Netflix anymore. It's on another service.
Speaker 1: Have you watched Borgan? No, but I heard that's really good.
Speaker 1: I heard that's really good. Sometimes I'm in the mood
Speaker 1: for something dark, but a lot of times I just
Speaker 1: want escapist, anything British and from not not my time zone,
Speaker 1: I mean time period because during the election and George
Speaker 1: Floyd and I was just so so many of our
Speaker 1: friends passed away between cancer and a couple of suicides
Speaker 1: and drug overdoses, but COVID too. There was just one
Speaker 1: after the other every I was just devastating. So I
Speaker 1: watched a lot of escapist and you know, um travel
Speaker 1: and Chef Chef's Table kind of things and travel and
Speaker 1: nature films and a lot of stuff about dogs, soothing things.
Speaker 1: My girlfriend is hooked on the cooking shows. She doesn't cook,
Speaker 1: but she's hooked on the shows. I don't cook that
Speaker 1: much either, but I like them too. If I have
Speaker 1: a half hour. They made me feel good. How about
Speaker 1: the house redecorating and buying and selling into those two
Speaker 1: and I have not seen those and I don't do
Speaker 1: the reality TV too much. You know that I have
Speaker 1: not watched the House, you know, the kind of gossipy things. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what about reading? I love to read. I'm reading both
Speaker 1: John Winner and Barbara Dane's excellent biographies autobiographies right now.
Speaker 1: I'm going back and forth between the two. I love
Speaker 1: The Night Watchman Louise Erdic. My favorite book I've found
Speaker 1: in my entire life is called This Is Happiness by
Speaker 1: Nile Williams from Ireland. I'm I cannot recommend it more
Speaker 1: highly so. I mean, I admit that COVID was it
Speaker 1: hadn't gave me other choices. But I also read The
Speaker 1: New Yorker, and I listened to a lot of podcasts
Speaker 1: and New Yorker fiction, and that you know, I do
Speaker 1: a lot of politics through my podcasts. Okay, let's go
Speaker 1: back to the Yawn Winner book. I read the one
Speaker 1: that he asked that was supposed to be a autobiography,
Speaker 1: and then he didn't like it. It was called sticky
Speaker 1: Fingers or something. This one I have, it gets such
Speaker 1: a bad rap though, that he's constantly dropping names. What's
Speaker 1: your experience and reading it? I was telling Jackson last
Speaker 1: night when we were talking about it, and you know
Speaker 1: the fact is that guy that is his life. He
Speaker 1: was friends with John Kennedy. You know, like it's okay,
Speaker 1: you know, he gets he gets to do it. He
Speaker 1: was really important in our culture and he really was
Speaker 1: friends with all these people. And it's fascinating to read.
Speaker 1: So he's a good writer, and I'm you know, I'm
Speaker 1: glad that he wrote it, and I don't feel like
Speaker 1: he's dropping names. But I'm also famous myself, so I
Speaker 1: don't know what it's like to be a civilian and
Speaker 1: read that and you're not really a civilian. You're in
Speaker 1: the bizins well, I guess you. The other thing is,
Speaker 1: you know, Clive Davis the first book in the seventies
Speaker 1: was phenomenal. The second when I was about three quarters through,
Speaker 1: when he's so busy burnishing his image. Oh yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: I didn't get that feeling from Yawn. But I mean
Speaker 1: I thought it was kind of vulnerable and open and
Speaker 1: I appreciated it. But I never read hit Man was
Speaker 1: that great Walter Yetnikov hit Man yet Nikov wrote a
Speaker 1: book that was okay, But Hitman the book phenomenal. That's
Speaker 1: what I hear, that's what and I would it's the
Speaker 1: best book about the You know, it's an interesting thing
Speaker 1: because you know the code of the road, you reveal
Speaker 1: certain stuff and you're out forever. So this guy, Frederick
Speaker 1: Danny wrote one book. That's it. No one's ever going
Speaker 1: to talk to him again. I'm sorry, but I heard
Speaker 1: it was absolutely accurate. It absolutely was. I mean. One
Speaker 1: of the strange things today is you remember when you
Speaker 1: were making those records for Warner Brothers, music was everything,
Speaker 1: and the people who ran the labels were god. I
Speaker 1: usually related to the movie studios. You lived in l A.
Speaker 1: You knew who ran the movie studios. Now nobody knows,
Speaker 1: nobody cares. It's a completely I had like seven presidents
Speaker 1: at the time I was at Capital, but you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, I made relationships with all their their staff,
Speaker 1: and then their staff had relationship with radio and on
Speaker 1: the road, and then and then by the time the
Speaker 1: record came out, he'd been five aired and a whole
Speaker 1: new team came in that I had no relationship with. So,
Speaker 1: you know, it was that's why I went independent. I
Speaker 1: got my own, I started my own label. I just
Speaker 1: got tired of the not having phone calls answered. You know,
Speaker 1: could you have stayed at the major label. No. I
Speaker 1: planned ten years in advance of starting Red Wing that
Speaker 1: I was going to go independent. I saw my I
Speaker 1: saw two or three friends, including John Prine, who had
Speaker 1: a great was the first person to do it. Um.
Speaker 1: I just you know, if you have a staff that
Speaker 1: is capable and super smart and willing to do the work,
Speaker 1: it was great to go independent. I started stockpiled my
Speaker 1: touring money and we I haven't looked back. Why is
Speaker 1: it called red Wing? Oh? Because I have like a
Speaker 1: red shock of hair that goes like that. It's just
Speaker 1: like a wing of hair. It's not bangs. And I
Speaker 1: just sort of, I don't know. I just thought it
Speaker 1: was cool. And the logo has a little white streak
Speaker 1: like my streak. And how many people are working for
Speaker 1: red Wing? Oh, it's just same my same office. It's
Speaker 1: the Kathy Kins, my manager, Annie heller Gutwillig is my
Speaker 1: um uh back up. Like social media, social activism, music,
Speaker 1: you know, all the kinds of everybody's wearing multiple hats.
Speaker 1: So I've got three main women that are in the office,
Speaker 1: and then we have PR and distribution and promo and
Speaker 1: people that advise us, you know, label kind of people
Speaker 1: that advise us, and then we have a whole digital
Speaker 1: arm that we outsource, so everything is kind of outsourced
Speaker 1: from our basic team of three women and me. You
Speaker 1: just to go back you were talking. You listen to
Speaker 1: political podcast? Which ones do you listen to? I listened
Speaker 1: to Ezra Kleine and The Daily and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: I pick and choose different things that I link on.
Speaker 1: You know, if I'm read the l A Times, in
Speaker 1: the New York Times or the Guardian, you know, I
Speaker 1: just try to surf all the different stories and get
Speaker 1: different points of view. I don't I should read more
Speaker 1: from the other side's point of view, but I I
Speaker 1: just can't do it. Do you do? You do you
Speaker 1: make yourself read? I mean, if there was a George
Speaker 1: Will that I admired, I might read at point of
Speaker 1: view a little bit. I mean, there's some people that
Speaker 1: at the Times that are more conservative than me, but
Speaker 1: I just can't. I can't study what they're saying. It
Speaker 1: just makes me gag. Well, you know, when you're in
Speaker 1: high school, information flows very quickly, and we're not in
Speaker 1: high school anymore. And even though everybody in our generation
Speaker 1: has an iPhone and says how digitally savvy they are,
Speaker 1: They really are not. You know, they're not on TikTok.
Speaker 1: So the question is how does one become isolated not
Speaker 1: become isolated. In the seventies, when someone didn't know what
Speaker 1: was going on, you roll your eyes. Now you know
Speaker 1: a lot of people are out of the loop. So
Speaker 1: to tell you the truth, I get three physical newspapers
Speaker 1: every day that I we from cover to cover because
Speaker 1: they tune me in. And then I got the Washington
Speaker 1: Post digitally. So as far as the Wall Street Journal
Speaker 1: editorial and opinion page, everybody knows those people are whacked.
Speaker 1: Even the people I know who are writing for the
Speaker 1: Wall Street Journal, Brett Stevens. I you know who's the
Speaker 1: right wing guy at the New York Times. I don't
Speaker 1: always agree with them. I think you know you're gonna
Speaker 1: get me on a rant. The New York Times sets
Speaker 1: the agenda for America, if not the world, and the right,
Speaker 1: as they tend to do, has demonized the Times to
Speaker 1: the point that it's become a pejorative. If you mentioned
Speaker 1: the Time, oh no, that's that's the biased New York Times.
Speaker 1: But the right gets all their news from the New
Speaker 1: York Times. If you turn you know, if you turn
Speaker 1: on Fox, they're quoting the New York Times, they will
Speaker 1: disagree with it, but they don't have their own in
Speaker 1: dependent news gathering service. So interesting, you know, it's really fascinating.
Speaker 1: So when it comes to the other thing, you know,
Speaker 1: it's serious. In the car, you can listen to all
Speaker 1: the news stations, and I used to listen to Fox
Speaker 1: on a regular basis just to find out what's going on,
Speaker 1: But after the Shenanigans in the wake of the election,
Speaker 1: very rarely, and I do go to the web page
Speaker 1: just to see primarily their spin, whether they I mean,
Speaker 1: I was, yeah, I know it's important as a social
Speaker 1: student of social how people are getting their information and
Speaker 1: social psychology and social you know, it's important to understand
Speaker 1: what's getting play, you know, in the culture. You know,
Speaker 1: and wow, Well, the other thing is things are big
Speaker 1: news on the left. They don't even forget the spin.
Speaker 1: They appear way way way down on the box. I mean,
Speaker 1: I love I love Amy Goodman. I listened to a
Speaker 1: lot of public radio. I listen to BBC. I listened
Speaker 1: to the PBS News Hour and BBC World News every day,
Speaker 1: And you know, I try to poke around and then
Speaker 1: there's days when I just want to be off on
Speaker 1: the woods and listen to an audio book. I don't
Speaker 1: want to be dipping into politics because I get as
Speaker 1: an activist, I'm a hit up for as I moved
Speaker 1: through the country, I'm I have choices for who to
Speaker 1: have table at my concerts and which which candidates I
Speaker 1: might want to send money to. So I have to
Speaker 1: stay on top of which nuclear plan is almost closed
Speaker 1: and which one is having a toxic leak in this
Speaker 1: organization is you know, they need assistance and I and
Speaker 1: I am the person to tie my tour proceeds, you know,
Speaker 1: we tie the whole bunch of my whatever profits I
Speaker 1: make in my life to supporting the groups, like over
Speaker 1: a hundred groups that that I am proud to support,
Speaker 1: but I have to make sure that they're still viable.
Speaker 1: So there's enough homework involved with that where I just can't.
Speaker 1: I can't read the Washington Post and the l A.
Speaker 1: I mean, I poked through the l A Times in
Speaker 1: New York Times because they're my they're my peeps. I
Speaker 1: feel like, I mean, I should read the San Francisco Chronicle,
Speaker 1: but I just I don't have enough hours in the
Speaker 1: day to follow everything. Well, you know, on Apple News
Speaker 1: Plus you pay a dollar a month, and I only
Speaker 1: my main motivation was New York Magazine was going to
Speaker 1: a hundred dollars a year ago twenty forty, but a
Speaker 1: hundred dollars a year their issues with almost nothing in it,
Speaker 1: so I can read that. But it also has the
Speaker 1: San Francisco Chronicle, the Sacramento be good. Thank you for
Speaker 1: telling me, because you know San Jose Mercury News is
Speaker 1: a great paper too. There's a lot of really good papers. Still,
Speaker 1: most of those are all if you pay the dollar,
Speaker 1: they're in Apple News. If you get confused, just to
Speaker 1: have somebody email me. It's pretty simple. But this is
Speaker 1: the This is I am now, and when I hang
Speaker 1: up with you, I'm gonna get Apple everything. Because my
Speaker 1: keyboard players just told how much stuff is available on
Speaker 1: Apple TV plus, and you know, I just go, I
Speaker 1: can't take one more. Were not one more? I'm full,
Speaker 1: But I'm going to cancel something and put in Apple TV. Okay,
Speaker 1: I got Apple t for buying products. I got Apple
Speaker 1: TV from the outset onset until May. Then I heard
Speaker 1: about a show and I paid the five dollars. I
Speaker 1: didn't like the show, and there's an Apple has so
Speaker 1: much of my money. I'm not complaining about that, but
Speaker 1: I canceled as a protest. Give me a number, give me,
Speaker 1: I'll take all the services. Give me a number. But
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm being packed to death by ducks.
Speaker 1: I mean, I hear you. I know what you mean.
Speaker 1: How about the new chargers? I mean, come on, do
Speaker 1: you think like you could get I heard they're gonna anyway.
Speaker 1: We're gonna sidetrack here. I don't want to side track
Speaker 1: all you want to talk about the chargers? You know,
Speaker 1: I mean, it took me a long time even to
Speaker 1: get a CD player. You know, I was at a
Speaker 1: Blood Eye before I went to Area Codes. I kept
Speaker 1: Quest three, you know, I kept the for a long
Speaker 1: ass time. But you know, Forest, that was our number,
Speaker 1: oh five O five to eight. And you remember watching
Speaker 1: New York TV, which was the TV where I grew
Speaker 1: up in Connecticut, dial murray Hill. You know, it's just
Speaker 1: crazy Eddie And you guys had Zachary, didn't you. Oh
Speaker 1: of course I remember when Zacharly, you know, was the
Speaker 1: Afternoon Kids show and w n W. You just couldn't
Speaker 1: believe it that it was the same guy, You have
Speaker 1: never given up the faith. You have always supported clauses.
Speaker 1: If you pull the lens back. One can argue quite
Speaker 1: strongly that the Vietnam War was ended by protest by
Speaker 1: the youth, and certainly all the musicians involved in muse
Speaker 1: got the public to really have a bad feeling about
Speaker 1: nuclear power. To what degree do you are you disillusioned
Speaker 1: or feel that the activist effort still makes a difference.
Speaker 1: You know, there's a qualitative difference with Fox News and
Speaker 1: what's happened in this country's delivery of information and the
Speaker 1: center of investigative reporting and trusting in the center that
Speaker 1: there is a middle way with the CBS News and
Speaker 1: ABC News and nightly news on NBC. David Saskine, Charlie Rose.
Speaker 1: There used to be some discourse, whether it was crossfire
Speaker 1: or you know, CNN. I mean, there was there was
Speaker 1: a center that you could kind of count on that
Speaker 1: was going to be sane. And since that has split
Speaker 1: to where are delusional and forty of the people in
Speaker 1: this country believe or Republicans anyway that the election was stolen.
Speaker 1: I don't know how to say. I don't know how
Speaker 1: to address that except to keep pushing for fair elections
Speaker 1: and free press and get as much of a cultural
Speaker 1: icons two remain neutral and baby somehow get some sort
Speaker 1: of coming together to hear both sides. I wish there
Speaker 1: was a way to get that debate where the other
Speaker 1: side would listen to us, and I would want to
Speaker 1: listen to the other side. So I don't I don't
Speaker 1: really know how to dismantle what's going on with democracy
Speaker 1: being threatened the way it is. It's it's just like
Speaker 1: it's nothing that I would have foreseen. I mean, racism.
Speaker 1: I understand that it's the lid is blown off on that,
Speaker 1: the Me Too movement, you know they have and they
Speaker 1: have not getting worse gentrification. Nobody can afford, you know,
Speaker 1: all of the policy international, But what's the lurch to
Speaker 1: the right and the rise of fascism in terms of
Speaker 1: information and people belief systems. I just wasn't expecting. Did
Speaker 1: you see that coming? Not whatsoever? The Soviet Union fell
Speaker 1: Obama one. It was supposed to be Democrats forever. I
Speaker 1: can understand why it switched, but I did not see
Speaker 1: it forthcoming whatsoever. I mean, I got we got the
Speaker 1: Tea Party. I saw that, the moral majority, but that's
Speaker 1: you know, that's just fighting. That means you get in
Speaker 1: there and you have debates, and but what's going on
Speaker 1: now where the people just all of those qn on
Speaker 1: people getting elected. It's it's not a country. I recognize.
Speaker 1: I don't know how to dismantle it. So you have
Speaker 1: a lot of tour dates coming up in the South,
Speaker 1: which tends tends red. Yeah, are you conscious of saying
Speaker 1: or not saying political things we're traveling. I travel with
Speaker 1: the Ukrainian flag resting against the drum riser and I
Speaker 1: make a comment about how we need to support for
Speaker 1: a long time refugees and then refugees all over. But
Speaker 1: I did very much just encourage people to vote and
Speaker 1: have local groups that are working on issues, sometimes environmentals,
Speaker 1: sometimes um, you know, specific to legislation that's on the docket.
Speaker 1: You know, I'll have people tabling, but I don't. I
Speaker 1: don't push it on people from the stage. I think
Speaker 1: they're there to hear a concert, so it's not a
Speaker 1: benefit rally. But I just saw Jackson play a month
Speaker 1: ago at the same place. I just played the Berkeley
Speaker 1: Greek Theater, and you know, his songs are fantastically topical
Speaker 1: and timeless at the same time, and I don't. I
Speaker 1: feel like it's I can pretty much assume that my audience,
Speaker 1: even in the South, a lot of them will be
Speaker 1: in the same ballpark politically as I am. But I
Speaker 1: just think it's not the place for me to say stuff.
Speaker 1: I don't want to be a I don't want to
Speaker 1: open up that discourse and social media, I don't. I
Speaker 1: don't flare, I don't prick in my posts and stuff.
Speaker 1: I don't prick people to come in and attack me.
Speaker 1: I just can't. I can't stomach it. I just want
Speaker 1: to keep my organization working, and keep my band and
Speaker 1: crew and my causes supported, and encourage people to get
Speaker 1: along and take care of themselves and just leave, whether
Speaker 1: they're masked or not, out of it. You know, I
Speaker 1: just I can't. I can't. I can only pick certain fights.
Speaker 1: But I have definitely never been one to proselytize on stage. Okay,
Speaker 1: going back to the war, the youth UH really opened
Speaker 1: people's eyes to what was going on in Vietnam, but
Speaker 1: it was really pushed by the tribal drum, which was
Speaker 1: the music ye in the rallies and the marches and
Speaker 1: all that. So you know, I've been part of a
Speaker 1: bunch of marches and rallies and things. So anyway, I
Speaker 1: didn't let you ask your question. Well, you know, but
Speaker 1: you inspired me to a certain degree. Rallies don't work anymore.
Speaker 1: The world lives on law line. The reason I'm saying
Speaker 1: this is not in response to you. I wrote this.
Speaker 1: If we look at what happened during the UH Trump term,
Speaker 1: nothing that was other than the Floyd protests, which were worldwide.
Speaker 1: And what if you talk to black people during that,
Speaker 1: they say, it's just gonna return to what it was,
Speaker 1: which to a great degree it has. But I think
Speaker 1: these battles are fought online, and I think young Democrats
Speaker 1: are left leading people a completely disillusion because other than
Speaker 1: AOC who's talking to them, it's these old, wimpy people.
Speaker 1: And then you have a lot of people who don't
Speaker 1: understand the modern paradigm. I mean, this is sort of
Speaker 1: there's a couple of questions here. But you certainly are
Speaker 1: aware of the old routine. You make an album, the
Speaker 1: record company pushes it, they push it to radio, there's
Speaker 1: publicity everywhere. Pretty much everybody's interested knows that you have
Speaker 1: a new project. They may or may not like it,
Speaker 1: may or may not buy a ticket today. It's like
Speaker 1: a three falls in the forest. I don't care who
Speaker 1: you are. Beyonce came out with a new album, press
Speaker 1: was everywhere within three days. A lot of the tracks
Speaker 1: fell off the Spotify chart, which is where the most
Speaker 1: consumption is. So how do you cope you're the same?
Speaker 1: You know, it's like that Joe Waltz song, Everybody's you know,
Speaker 1: you're still the same. Everybody's changed. But can you just
Speaker 1: say I'm in my own bubble and doing these things.
Speaker 1: A lot of your contemporaries don't make new music at all. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean I I've done over fifty interviews for this album,
Speaker 1: and I'm um a lot of TV. We managed to
Speaker 1: stay number ten, me number one for ten weeks on
Speaker 1: the American IT chart. The album and the single was
Speaker 1: even longer at number one on the Americana charts. So
Speaker 1: I mean, I have had a response that I haven't
Speaker 1: had in years to this record, and part of it
Speaker 1: is because I just worked my ass off, you know,
Speaker 1: promoting it, and also because you know, people luckily it
Speaker 1: got some good reviews and some good attention. But what
Speaker 1: do I expect the sales? I don't I mean, I
Speaker 1: don't think you make I only make my living on
Speaker 1: the road, really, and not everybody can do that. I'm established,
Speaker 1: and I know how rare it is to be able
Speaker 1: to get away with what I get away with in
Speaker 1: terms of being able to financially support two trucks and
Speaker 1: two busses and sound and lights, and you know, it's
Speaker 1: it's out of the realm of most of my friends
Speaker 1: who are in their thirties, forties and fifties. They can't
Speaker 1: even tour. I mean, forget COVID. A lot of the
Speaker 1: clubs are closed. Who's I mean, where are they going
Speaker 1: to tour? You know? Do do people that are sixty
Speaker 1: five go out anymore? No? I've in complete agreement with
Speaker 1: you on the new album. You wrote or co wrote
Speaker 1: four songs, you know, one of the my favorite songs
Speaker 1: years ever you wrote nothing seems to matter from give it,
Speaker 1: Thank you, and I was unhappy that you did not
Speaker 1: continue to write as much. But now in the recent
Speaker 1: years you've written more. How does that come about? Well,
Speaker 1: you know, in terms of you writing personally in the seventies,
Speaker 1: I just I made six albums in seven years and
Speaker 1: was on the road the whole time. So I just
Speaker 1: didn't have the privacy or the ability to write. You know,
Speaker 1: that was literally on the road the whole time, um
Speaker 1: nick of Time, waiting to do Nick of Time. I
Speaker 1: had a little bit more time between eighties six and
Speaker 1: when I made the record a couple of years later,
Speaker 1: and uh, I wanted to write something about what it
Speaker 1: was like to be thirty nine, and I wrote nick
Speaker 1: of Time and the Roads my middle name, and and
Speaker 1: then I had more the luxury of having more time
Speaker 1: off in between tours, and that you have to have
Speaker 1: time off to write songs. So I don't have a
Speaker 1: great attachment to having my own songs have to be
Speaker 1: on the record. But if I really feel like I
Speaker 1: want to tell a story or say something, or I
Speaker 1: have a musical groove that I need to put on
Speaker 1: the record, I will write a song on assignment. And
Speaker 1: that's kind of what happened with The two acoustic ballads
Speaker 1: were really entirely UM inspired because I didn't want to
Speaker 1: write about my personal life. I had already written on
Speaker 1: every aspect of my personal life, and I wanted to
Speaker 1: write a story song inspired by John Prins Angel from Montgomery.
Speaker 1: You know, so I love the idea, I love the
Speaker 1: idea of taking someone else's story and writing a song
Speaker 1: about it from the point of view of the person
Speaker 1: in it. I love short stories, but um, you do
Speaker 1: it as an assignment, as opposed to well, let's just say,
Speaker 1: when I get off the road finally, then I have
Speaker 1: time to write songs for a record and compile songs
Speaker 1: for a record. But on the on the road, I'm
Speaker 1: just too busy. I don't know how people do it,
Speaker 1: but there's people that keep writing all the time. That
Speaker 1: would not be me. But I really appreciate nothing that
Speaker 1: you like. Nothing seems to matter. It's literally aside from
Speaker 1: the There's one song on my first album, my first
Speaker 1: ever song called thank You, but that was my first
Speaker 1: real song. Nothing seems to matter, and I stopped doing
Speaker 1: it in the eighties, but my new guitar player really
Speaker 1: wants me to do it, so I might whip it out.
Speaker 1: If you're into short stories, I got one recommendation. If
Speaker 1: you read Curtis sitting Felds, you think it, I'll say it. No.
Speaker 1: She's written a number of famous books. You see her
Speaker 1: in the New York or on a regular basis. When
Speaker 1: it comes to short stories, it is by far my
Speaker 1: favorite short story book. You know a lot of short stories.
Speaker 1: When you go from story to story, it's jarring. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this book, and it's so real. So right, I'm right
Speaker 1: right after this, I'm going to look it up. Curtis
Speaker 1: sitting Felments. That's a woman. You think it, I'll say it.
Speaker 1: So you worked with all these different producers. You know,
Speaker 1: you work with bless famous people. Then you work with
Speaker 1: Paul Rothchild who came up in the folk era, but
Speaker 1: really I knew Paul was more of a control guy
Speaker 1: doing it his way than you work with Don was.
Speaker 1: Now you're doing it yourself. What you learn about all
Speaker 1: those producers in the process, Oh, I learned something from
Speaker 1: each one of them, you know, like the engineer too,
Speaker 1: because it's the team of the how the record sounds
Speaker 1: and how they mike the musicians. So I learned as
Speaker 1: much from the musicians that we picked to play on
Speaker 1: the songs and the engineer and how he's making the
Speaker 1: drums and how I picked the team that I want
Speaker 1: to work with. Is what who has been making records
Speaker 1: that I really like, Like Mitchell Freuman, Chad Blake made Keiko,
Speaker 1: and they made those Richard Thompson records that I love
Speaker 1: and after the four with Ed and Don, I said,
Speaker 1: I think I want to go play in their sandbox
Speaker 1: for a while because I love what Chad Blake does.
Speaker 1: So I learned, you know, as a I'm not a
Speaker 1: technical geek, but I love to learn about where people
Speaker 1: put mys and what kind of mikes they use on
Speaker 1: which instruments. And my my philosophy is to get the
Speaker 1: right musicians in the room and that you already like
Speaker 1: the way their drum kits sounds, and you already like
Speaker 1: this guy's guitars and his amps, and then just mike
Speaker 1: everything so that you get an accurate sound of those
Speaker 1: people that you chose to put in there. You don't
Speaker 1: fix it later, you know, get the right people and
Speaker 1: then turn the mic on, sing live, play live, and
Speaker 1: fix as little as possible. And that's my choice. You know.
Speaker 1: Paul Rothschild was the opposite. He did tons of comping
Speaker 1: and it was a whole different stylar recording. I after
Speaker 1: those two records, I said, that's it. I'm going back
Speaker 1: to live recording. I mean, I want to just make
Speaker 1: live records. Turn the damn tape on, and if you know,
Speaker 1: maybe between two takes, you go between the third verse
Speaker 1: of the second take, or maybe the solo from the
Speaker 1: first one. But I'm just not a studio person that
Speaker 1: does fifteen twenty takes of things. So you're one of
Speaker 1: the rear people who have a leader album that I
Speaker 1: believe is just as good as one of the earlier albums.
Speaker 1: For a long time, Give It Up was my favorite,
Speaker 1: but Luck of the Draw is different but just as good.
Speaker 1: So much, and I have really appreciated all the wonderful
Speaker 1: things that you have said about those songs. I mean,
Speaker 1: Michael O'Keeffe and loves one part B My Lover, that
Speaker 1: you what you went off on that, and Ed Sheerney
Speaker 1: and I talked about how much we love what you
Speaker 1: wrote about Luck of the Draw, and Paul brady Is
Speaker 1: and I have been in comming every time you showcase
Speaker 1: that record. We are all delighted. So thank you so much.
Speaker 1: That's how I found out about you, as you wrote.
Speaker 1: Someone sent me your early piece about I think it
Speaker 1: was one part B My Lover. Yeah it was and
Speaker 1: still phenomenal. But you know, ed great guy. To what
Speaker 1: degree did he influence you? You? Oh? God, I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't think I've ever had as much fun in
Speaker 1: the studio as those records were because of Ed. His personality,
Speaker 1: you know him. I mean, he was just a big
Speaker 1: old teddy. He was hilarious, he was funny, he was
Speaker 1: a genius. And Don was that the chemistry between the
Speaker 1: three of us was just epic. It was we love
Speaker 1: each other so much. I just had lunch with Don
Speaker 1: the other day and I our love is so true
Speaker 1: and so deep, and our musical taste is so mutually respected.
Speaker 1: We we love each other's aesthetic. So Ed was just
Speaker 1: you know, as professional as he was a good time.
Speaker 1: I'm so sorry that he passed. You know, he was
Speaker 1: a terrible loss, terrible, terrible. But did you you talk
Speaker 1: about learning from engineers? Did you learn from Ed? Oh? Yeah?
Speaker 1: You know. The Luck of the Draw is that is
Speaker 1: the album that many sound companies tune their live you know,
Speaker 1: speakers to when they're out in the house and they're
Speaker 1: they're getting sounds before the band comes up for sound check. Many,
Speaker 1: many people have said, we use Luck of the Draw
Speaker 1: as the gold stone standard, you know, And you know,
Speaker 1: I love engineering. I love to listen to what he's doing,
Speaker 1: and I love I had a lot to do with
Speaker 1: how my it's my taste that mixed the record as
Speaker 1: much as his capability, because it's just a quite Some
Speaker 1: people like a lot of reverbs. Some people like, you know,
Speaker 1: live sounding drums. Some people it's really my taste. So
Speaker 1: I picked I picked Ed Don didn't know Ed, but
Speaker 1: I loved Ed's work with Ry Cooter on Get Rhythm,
Speaker 1: and I said, We've got to meet this guy that
Speaker 1: did David Linley's El Rao X and Ry Couters Get Rhythm,
Speaker 1: and we had lunch with him, and that was it
Speaker 1: that three of us were born. I didn't know that story.
Speaker 1: How did you meet Paul Brady? My bass player Hu
Speaker 1: Hudginson turned me onto his solo albums, which I had
Speaker 1: only known his traditional stuff, and I think they even
Speaker 1: opened for me at Toughs University years ago when he
Speaker 1: was with the Johnson's or Um. But I was flipped
Speaker 1: out when I heard his first couple of solo albums
Speaker 1: and just became such a huge fan of his. He's
Speaker 1: one of the greatest that you know, up there with
Speaker 1: Paul Simon, I think. And you know, when you have
Speaker 1: an album that you love, your favorite changes and one
Speaker 1: part B My Lover was always my favorite, but now
Speaker 1: the song Luck of the Draws my favorite. I loved
Speaker 1: what you wrote about that too. We were so delighted
Speaker 1: because you know, you make those you make those records
Speaker 1: real for people. That was thirty years ago. You know,
Speaker 1: it's hard to believe that that that album, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, there's my my fans know those songs, but
Speaker 1: you gave it new life. And I think Luck of
Speaker 1: the Draws for all the reasons you illuminated. I think
Speaker 1: it's exactly that brilliant. And he's got a new autobiography
Speaker 1: that is waiting at one my dining room table. That's
Speaker 1: they just shipped up. Wow, he hasn't reached out yet,
Speaker 1: but I'll put my radar on that. Yeah, he just
Speaker 1: I think it just came. I don't even think it's
Speaker 1: out yet. Yeah, that's how you know, they shipped the
Speaker 1: book business. That's a slow, antiquated business. So how did
Speaker 1: you end up on Capitol? Danny Goldberg and Ron Stone
Speaker 1: were working with me and my lawyer, Natt Weiss. We're
Speaker 1: all working as a team and seeing what, you know,
Speaker 1: who who felt like the right change. And Joe Smith
Speaker 1: moved over to Capitol and he signed me to Warners
Speaker 1: in in UH one and you know, he and Danny
Speaker 1: and Nat and everybody sat down and they said, well,
Speaker 1: we're you know, we don't think she's gonna sell a lot,
Speaker 1: you know, give her a really low budget and I
Speaker 1: think I think was a d twenty five thousand dollars
Speaker 1: and I had to make the record out of that,
Speaker 1: no signing advance. And I said, sure again if I
Speaker 1: if I can have artistic control and you don't try
Speaker 1: to tell me what to record or what to look like,
Speaker 1: or you know, get in the studio and tell me
Speaker 1: how to sound. And Joe understood that. Okay, Needless to say,
Speaker 1: you know, it hadn't ended well with Warner Brothers. Your
Speaker 1: first album is this amazing success in a different era
Speaker 1: when if you have success it maintains all those Grammys
Speaker 1: cause sales forever. What was it like for you being
Speaker 1: in the center of that, Maelstrom? Absolutely fantastic. I mean
Speaker 1: even before the nominations, the record had sold a million copies,
Speaker 1: and I did like two hours of press a day,
Speaker 1: even on the road a lot, like three or four
Speaker 1: the days a week. I just hammered, hammered, hammered. You know,
Speaker 1: the new label was very excited to prove that they
Speaker 1: could do a better job with me, and the critics
Speaker 1: really liked the album. I got like a half page
Speaker 1: in the New York Times or the Newsweek or something
Speaker 1: about how unusual Nick of Time was as a song.
Speaker 1: It was just kiss met, you know, a bunch of things.
Speaker 1: VH one started and they I asked Dennis Quaid to
Speaker 1: start in the video with me so I could be
Speaker 1: sexy without taking my clothes off, and at forty and
Speaker 1: and he flirted with me in the video for thing
Speaker 1: called Love, so that got on the TV because he's
Speaker 1: a big star. And you know Triple A radio. I mean,
Speaker 1: at that point, it was a A O R radio,
Speaker 1: college radio. There was all these formats that weren't around
Speaker 1: five years before. If Nick of Time had come out
Speaker 1: in eighty five, it wouldn't have been a hit. So
Speaker 1: it was just all the stars lined up. So I
Speaker 1: was already completely thrilled that the tour did so well
Speaker 1: and all the reviews came in and it sold so well.
Speaker 1: But then I got the nomination for an Album of
Speaker 1: the Year and those three other ones, and I just
Speaker 1: couldn't believe it. So nobody expected me to win, So
Speaker 1: it was literally like unreal Cinderella Story. And I not
Speaker 1: only that, but I got to move to Northern California,
Speaker 1: where I always wanted to live. So I can't even
Speaker 1: think of anybody whose life was changed more by winning
Speaker 1: awards ever than what I got with Nick of Time.
Speaker 1: You mean moving to Northern California just be from l A.
Speaker 1: I mean, I just I got to have Ricky Fittar
Speaker 1: in my band and pay play a different level of
Speaker 1: musicians come on the road with me. You know, played
Speaker 1: at twenty thou people sometimes go to European the Nelson
Speaker 1: Mandela release at Wembley Stadium. You know, I was like
Speaker 1: invited to all the cool stuff and I could go
Speaker 1: on TV and talk about all my causes and the
Speaker 1: rhythm and blues foundation, so on every single level personally,
Speaker 1: you know. Sobriety was a huge break in my life,
Speaker 1: and then Nick of Time doing that well was just
Speaker 1: change life changing and still I'm still reaping the benefits
Speaker 1: of it. Okay, Needle say, I like, look, I think
Speaker 1: Luck of the Draws even better album than Nick of Time.
Speaker 1: Not that Nick of Time isn't great, I know, I
Speaker 1: I would agree with you. I think Luck of the
Speaker 1: Draws really good. Thank you. What was it like having that?
Speaker 1: What pressure to do feel with a follow up? I
Speaker 1: didn't even think about it. I just got the best
Speaker 1: songs I could. You know, I'm used to not selling,
Speaker 1: you know, I was. I was happy that I got
Speaker 1: that moment in the sunshine there. I wasn't expecting another shot.
Speaker 1: And then when the record did even better, it was
Speaker 1: completely a thrill. Yeah, it was great. And going back
Speaker 1: to nick of Time, talk about turning for to your
Speaker 1: friends are having babies, any regrets that you didn't have
Speaker 1: children or live the life to a degree these other
Speaker 1: people did. Absolutely not. I was not cut out for
Speaker 1: the wife and mother thing, and um, I have too
Speaker 1: much respect for motherhood to do it in a half
Speaker 1: past way. You know, my dad was gone a lot,
Speaker 1: and I would you know, if I had a wife,
Speaker 1: I might have had a kid. But I just I
Speaker 1: just didn't feel the call. I wanted to be the
Speaker 1: captain of my own ship and only be responsible for
Speaker 1: my life, and so I was really very much focused
Speaker 1: on shepherding the older generation of R and B and
Speaker 1: blues artists. That's where my children were was getting attention
Speaker 1: and royalty reform and support for the great generation that
Speaker 1: was responsible for all of us being where we are today,
Speaker 1: and you and I speaking, and Ruth Brown and Charles
Speaker 1: Brown and the Coasters and the Drifters and Sam and
Speaker 1: Dave and the Temptations. Never participated in any royalties. So
Speaker 1: that was my that was my mission, not having kids. Now,
Speaker 1: you did get married once, and as we've established, you
Speaker 1: certainly have a history of romances. Was that one and done?
Speaker 1: Would you get married again? You know? I mean we decided,
Speaker 1: you know, at our age that Michael and I were at,
Speaker 1: we said, you know, if we were still together in
Speaker 1: a year and a half, let's just give it a
Speaker 1: get let's just make a commitment. And you know, it's
Speaker 1: something I'd never done. And I said, you know, he's Catholic,
Speaker 1: and I was going, okay, let's do it. And we
Speaker 1: had a Buddhist, Catholic, Quaker ceremony, and um, you know,
Speaker 1: our lives just we were fine for a while, but
Speaker 1: our careers just took us in two separate places and
Speaker 1: we just we just couldn't find enough continuity in the
Speaker 1: relationship to work on the stuff we needed to work on.
Speaker 1: We parted as friends, and you know, he's he's remarried
Speaker 1: and has a kid. And he's very happy, and I'm
Speaker 1: happy to be living out here. And I got my
Speaker 1: situation really great too, So it was fine for a while.
Speaker 1: As all the relationships have been, I don't I don't
Speaker 1: regret any of them. Let's just go back to what
Speaker 1: you were talking about, Dick Waterman and touring the South
Speaker 1: and going on tour with the Stones. So you go
Speaker 1: to Harvard, how do you ultimately get involved in the scene,
Speaker 1: and how does it end up that you go with
Speaker 1: Dick through the South, never mind to Europe um a
Speaker 1: small uh, let's what do you call an anecdote to
Speaker 1: Jimpsen Theaters in New York is run by Jack Vertell,
Speaker 1: who was my classmate at Harvard, another blues crazy, crazy
Speaker 1: for the blues guy. We're really good friends. He calls
Speaker 1: me up and says, I just listened to Sunhouse on
Speaker 1: our friend David Guessner on a HRB blues show on
Speaker 1: harve A radio station. Dick Waterman, who rediscovered Sunhouse, lives
Speaker 1: in Cambridge. Son is at Dick's house. We can go
Speaker 1: and meet sun House and so he called me and
Speaker 1: we went over and met him and my life changed
Speaker 1: that day. Okay, you know that you ever read the
Speaker 1: book White Bicycles that talks all about that what's his name?
Speaker 1: The record? No, no, it was the record producer. What's
Speaker 1: his name? I'll look it up while we're talking. But um,
Speaker 1: but White Bicycles. What a title, right? But it literally says,
Speaker 1: you know, these people were at Harvard the epicenter in Cambridge,
Speaker 1: and they said, all these blues guys, their numbers were
Speaker 1: in the phone book and a lot of them working
Speaker 1: straight jobs. And they called, we'll come play Cambridge and
Speaker 1: they did you know these white kids invited them? And
Speaker 1: how did you end up taking time off and touring
Speaker 1: the South? Oh? I well, I mean I took a
Speaker 1: semester off because Dick and I were involved, and I
Speaker 1: also wanted to hang out with all the blues guys
Speaker 1: that came through his place. He moved The club forty
Speaker 1: seven closed in the spring of my freshman year, and
Speaker 1: sixty eight Dick moved to Philadelphia, where he was the
Speaker 1: the blues guys would come on the way to their
Speaker 1: gigs that he booked. He had avalon productions. He had
Speaker 1: all the blues guys under one to be able to
Speaker 1: collectively bargain with the club owners and get them better pay,
Speaker 1: because the club owners would go, why should I pay
Speaker 1: eight hundred for book of White when I can get
Speaker 1: Mississippi Genre for five? And Dick said, that's not right,
Speaker 1: you know. So he kept them and working at the
Speaker 1: right amount of time, with the right hours of driving
Speaker 1: in between gigs, not working them to death, giving them
Speaker 1: the respect and the fee that they deserved. And I
Speaker 1: thought Dick was great for doing it. And so I
Speaker 1: took a semester off and started playing in the northeast.
Speaker 1: He put me on some shows, and I went back
Speaker 1: to school for the rest of my junior my sophomore year,
Speaker 1: and uh just started. Then I made a record and
Speaker 1: next thing I knew, I was on tour plane folk clubs,
Speaker 1: mostly on both coasts. I didn't really tour the South
Speaker 1: until I open with Jackson Brown my first national tour
Speaker 1: in seventy four. And the author of White Bicycles is
Speaker 1: the record producer Joe boyd Oh. I know, Joe, yeah right,
Speaker 1: But I mean maybe Gary Davis. Reverend Gary Davis might
Speaker 1: have been in the phone book, but the rest of
Speaker 1: the blues guys didn't live anywhere near the East coast.
Speaker 1: As I said it, didn't read the book recently, So
Speaker 1: I don't want to go on record wherever Gary Davis
Speaker 1: is mentioned in the book, but whatever, Yeah, everybody out
Speaker 1: the blues guys lived down south. Fred McDowell lived in Coma, Mississippi,
Speaker 1: and son lived in Rochester, and you know, there was
Speaker 1: a lot of a lot of guys that. Um. Anyway,
Speaker 1: it was a great opportunity to be able to learn
Speaker 1: and hang out with some of the greatest blues artists
Speaker 1: of all time. And I'll be forever grateful to Dick
Speaker 1: Waterman for introducing me to them. Now, you used to
Speaker 1: have a lot of these people are open for you.
Speaker 1: But what is the future of the blues. Well, a
Speaker 1: lot of the first generation and subsequent generations of people
Speaker 1: have passed away. But you know, Buddy is still around,
Speaker 1: and um, there's a handful of people still touring and
Speaker 1: playing at a really high level. But there's some great
Speaker 1: up and coming Marcus King, there's a lot of you know,
Speaker 1: there's there's a lot of fans of blues festivals. I
Speaker 1: think the blues is in good hands. Whether the artists
Speaker 1: can make any money, you know, I just hope people
Speaker 1: we can negotiate so that the streaming services can pay
Speaker 1: better you know, we're just working hard to get that
Speaker 1: in the songwriters, to get paid more and directly. So
Speaker 1: that's a whole another thing. So what's your number one
Speaker 1: pinch me moment? Oh gosh, oh I love that question.
Speaker 1: Um oh when Ella Fitzgerald and Natalie Cole said album
Speaker 1: of the Year and mentioned my name, I mean, I
Speaker 1: don't even remember. I was in hyperspace within you know,
Speaker 1: there's a picture of me looking like that Edward Munch
Speaker 1: the scream, you know, and I just that was a
Speaker 1: pinch me moment. And what are your two favorite Jackson
Speaker 1: Brown songs? Oh? My god, that first album is, you know,
Speaker 1: looking into You song for Adam it's very hard. Bright
Speaker 1: Baby Blues is about Lowell and I don't I'm trying
Speaker 1: to narrow it down looking into You? And okay, how
Speaker 1: about Late for the Sky. Late for the Sky unbelievable
Speaker 1: and also the last unbelievable. Unbelievable. You never knew what
Speaker 1: I loved and you don't. I don't know what you
Speaker 1: never knew what I loved in you you you don't
Speaker 1: know what you love. I don't know what you love
Speaker 1: to me. Maybe a picture of somebody I was you
Speaker 1: were hoping I might be. I'm getting goose bumps, just
Speaker 1: you know, the guys, that genius. And the other night
Speaker 1: he did an hour opening set, and then he came
Speaker 1: back and played an hour and a half and it
Speaker 1: was just one after the other of incredible music. The
Speaker 1: other one is the last song on the first side
Speaker 1: of the title track, We Goes, And it took me
Speaker 1: a long time to get into, about two years after
Speaker 1: the album came out in seventy four, dreaming of the
Speaker 1: perfect love, holding it so far above that if you
Speaker 1: stumbled down to someone real, you'd never know. Oh God,
Speaker 1: he's so profound and so and you know, between him
Speaker 1: and Prian and Richard Thompson at that age, you know
Speaker 1: that young. To be that insightful is just astonishing. Well,
Speaker 1: look at Dylan, Come on, does he have a new Chronicles?
Speaker 1: There was that just in That was just in the
Speaker 1: paper today. The New York Times has excerpts I can't
Speaker 1: wait right, And then the reason I say too is
Speaker 1: the Kinks have that song A line in Sunny Afternoon,
Speaker 1: give me two good reasons why I ought to stay,
Speaker 1: And that's why I always ask too. Yeah, that's good.
Speaker 1: I'm glad you told me that. And Finally, your set list,
Speaker 1: unlike a lot of your contemporaries, is not identical every night.
Speaker 1: How do you how do you choose what to play? Well,
Speaker 1: there's an arc of how to set up the three
Speaker 1: big ballots and the course of an hour and a half,
Speaker 1: I mean, when we're not having a big headliner on
Speaker 1: the show with us a code bill that's more like
Speaker 1: a double bill. I have an hour and I almost
Speaker 1: have two hours, so I can fit more in. But
Speaker 1: in this instance it's really tough to I Can't Make
Speaker 1: You Love Me has to be set in the right place,
Speaker 1: Angel from Montgomery, and then one of the ballots from
Speaker 1: the new album. So I I just learned how to
Speaker 1: put together a good show. And and so there's pieces
Speaker 1: in the show that blues. There's about four songs that
Speaker 1: take different maybe four or five I swap out, you know,
Speaker 1: depending on which city I'm in and who's in the
Speaker 1: audience that are friends of mine. I might do the
Speaker 1: Inexcess song, or I might do the Bonnie Hayes song.
Speaker 1: You know. So there's there's ones that keep it interesting
Speaker 1: for me. But do is there enough time to go
Speaker 1: back and play all my favorites? No, it's very frustrating.
Speaker 1: How many songs are rehearsed. Oh my gosh, probably forty.
Speaker 1: I mean we have two new guys. I mean, my
Speaker 1: older guys know many, many more than that. You know,
Speaker 1: the guys have been with me since the early eighties
Speaker 1: and the early nineties have know many more songs as
Speaker 1: they've played on the records. So the two new guys,
Speaker 1: I think they know maybe thirty five songs. Forty songs. Okay, Well,
Speaker 1: you'll be going on the road soon. I want to
Speaker 1: thank you so much for taking the time out. And
Speaker 1: I'm taking my time, that's for sure. But you know
Speaker 1: I can tell you stories of being in Jackson Hole.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna tell the story very quickly. Then I'm gonna go.
Speaker 1: So there's a place called a million Dollar Cowboy Bar
Speaker 1: in jack I've only been there a couple of times,
Speaker 1: but I know which one you're talking about. So, uh,
Speaker 1: the stools or cowboys seats, they're silver dollars in the bar,
Speaker 1: and they served golden Cadillac's, a drink of nineteen seventy four,
Speaker 1: And there were girls dancing on the dance floor. This
Speaker 1: was a weeknight in April, and I went over to
Speaker 1: dance with him. And some guy came over and threw
Speaker 1: me right to the floor, and you know, these are
Speaker 1: cowboys and it's not like So I look at the
Speaker 1: guy who want to only met that day and we
Speaker 1: run out of there into his Ford dacottoline van which
Speaker 1: he was living in. And first he turns the key
Speaker 1: that doesn't start. Then he turns it again it does start,
Speaker 1: and we're driving to Titan Village, which is about ten
Speaker 1: or fifteen minutes. It's one of those absolutely clear nights.
Speaker 1: And in the old days he had like a briefcase
Speaker 1: of cassettes, and the odds of having somebody, you know,
Speaker 1: hav any of the other than the hits were low.
Speaker 1: And I looked through it and I saw it. Take
Speaker 1: it my time, Yeah, And I said, I gotta play
Speaker 1: I feel the same, and put it in the cassette
Speaker 1: that played it under the big wyoming sky, and I'm
Speaker 1: telling you the story. Thank you, thank you, because I
Speaker 1: love that song, I love that recording. I love Chris
Speaker 1: Smither absolutely. I mean, we share a lot of the
Speaker 1: same love for the same music for the same reason.
Speaker 1: So I'm always fascinated to read your letter. Thank you
Speaker 1: for talking to me. Thank you until next time. This
Speaker 1: is Bob left sex