Speaker 1: Pushkin.
Speaker 2: The magic of Bruce Hornsby isn't just that he's one
Speaker 2: of American music's great piano stylists, or that he wrote
Speaker 2: one of the most unlikely pop hits of the eighties,
Speaker 2: a song about racism with two improvised solos that nobody
Speaker 2: at his label thought should be the single. It's how
Speaker 2: he relentlessly has kept moving long after he had any
Speaker 2: commercial reason to. Hornsby grew up in Williamsburg, Virginia, got
Speaker 2: discovered a playing a stake, and ale joined across the
Speaker 2: street from the Hampton Coliseum by Mike MacDonald the Doobie Brothers,
Speaker 2: grinded for years as a staff songwriter at twentieth Century
Speaker 2: Fox before finally getting signed. Then The Way It Is
Speaker 2: blows up in England, and suddenly he's lip syncing on
Speaker 2: top of the pops and getting bare hugged backstage by
Speaker 2: Elton John and a Tina Turner Wig. What followed was
Speaker 2: a long, restless second act, teaching himself two handed independence
Speaker 2: by scheduling benefit concerts just to give himself a hard
Speaker 2: dead line, making jazz records with Jack Dee, Jeannette and
Speaker 2: Christian McBride, bluegrass records with Ricky Skaggs and going deep
Speaker 2: into Shastakovich fugues that now shape everything, he writes. On
Speaker 2: today's episode, Bruce Hedlam sat down with Bruce Hornsby at
Speaker 2: the piano to talk about all of it. But they
Speaker 2: started somewhere unexpected, the Steak and Ale restaurant in Hampton, Virginia,
Speaker 2: in the fall of seventy eight. This is broken record,
Speaker 2: real musicians, real conversations. Here's Bruce Headlam with Bruce Hornsby.
Speaker 1: We were discovered. I we with the band. We were
Speaker 1: discovered by Mike McDonald, the Dewie Bruthers, beautiful, beautiful soul,
Speaker 1: great person, credible talent. We were big fans. We were
Speaker 1: playing the uh the Steak and Ale, the Jolly Oks
Speaker 1: restaurant across from the Hampton Coliseum. The Doobie Brothers were
Speaker 1: playing the Colisseum. We were doing our gig, so we
Speaker 1: decided that we'd go. We knew where they were staying,
Speaker 1: the Sheraton Coliseum. So my drummer, John Molo, and I
Speaker 1: two big guys. He's a big, strong guy. He's just
Speaker 1: a big bony ass, but still tall. We went to
Speaker 1: the Sharraton Colisseum and we walked in looking for Mike,
Speaker 1: and he's standing right there in the lobby. So we
Speaker 1: go up to him and we're sort of towering over him.
Speaker 1: We said, hey, Mike, we're the baddest motherfuckers in this
Speaker 1: town and we're playing at the stake and ale over there.
Speaker 1: Of course, those two statements don't go together, really, So
Speaker 1: sure enough he did come. It was their night off,
Speaker 1: and the next night they were playing at the Hampton Coliseum,
Speaker 1: and we'd saved all our what we called the originals,
Speaker 1: my songs that we had played. We'd actually pulled off
Speaker 1: a pretty difficult trick as lounge entertainers. We were starting
Speaker 1: to we'd started maybe six y eight months before this.
Speaker 1: Two slipped songs of mine in between brick House and
Speaker 1: Shake Your Booty, and we acquired an audience gradually who
Speaker 1: wanted us to wanted to just hear those songs and
Speaker 1: not the top forty dance material. So that was great,
Speaker 1: it was good. That was hard. It's hard to do.
Speaker 1: So he so we saved originals. He came in, he
Speaker 1: brought a couple of his roady friends and the crew
Speaker 1: and and we just wore it out. And he came
Speaker 1: up and was a little blown by it. He said, Hey,
Speaker 1: that was really something. Come over and join me at
Speaker 1: the Share It and let's just hang out. So we did,
Speaker 1: and then we're sort of sitting around whatever bar in
Speaker 1: the coliseum.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 1: And then and while we're hanging he says, hey, coming
Speaker 1: up to my room where we got our new record
Speaker 1: coming out tomorrow, I'd like to play it for It's
Speaker 1: called Minute by Minute. It's okay, Sure. So we go
Speaker 1: up there and he's playing What a Fool Believes in
Speaker 1: a Minute by Minute and it's fantastic. We're just kind
Speaker 1: of blown away by the whole experience, and he started
Speaker 1: talking about turning us on to his producer, Ted Templeman,
Speaker 1: and I drove home just going, oh my god, is
Speaker 1: this it? Is this the big thing? Next night he
Speaker 1: came back after the gig, he sat in with the
Speaker 1: place was packed. If we worred have gotten out, he
Speaker 1: sat in with us on a song, and a couple
Speaker 1: of nights later we sat in with them at the
Speaker 1: Richmond Coliseum and we're going, Wow, is this the big break?
Speaker 1: So that was say December one, nineteen seventy eight, and
Speaker 1: I got signed in April of nineteen eighty five, so
Speaker 1: no such luck. We went out and slept on his
Speaker 1: floor for ten nights in February of seventy nine, Molo
Speaker 1: and I and he was at that point he was
Speaker 1: singing on every record under the sun in La. So
Speaker 1: many great moments of Mike being a background singer on
Speaker 1: great records. He would take our tape, which was pretty
Speaker 1: bad alas it was not great. He would take our
Speaker 1: little reel to reel and give it to producers. From that,
Speaker 1: we got some producer interests from that tape got me
Speaker 1: a songwriter deal, and a year and a half later,
Speaker 1: I moved to La as a staff songwriter for twenty
Speaker 1: seventury Fox in nineteen eighty and was grinding away again
Speaker 1: five years after that, which was a year and a
Speaker 1: half after Mike. After we met Mike, I got my
Speaker 1: record deal and so that wasn't luck. It took me
Speaker 1: a while to find my own voice, something that was
Speaker 1: unique to me in some way. Before that, I guess
Speaker 1: I probably sounded kind of like Abie Brothers copy or
Speaker 1: Steely Danish copy. Uh. But finally I I assimulated a
Speaker 1: bunch of different influences that were always influencers that I loved.
Speaker 1: But I featured some more sort of Americano with more
Speaker 1: folk or Appalachian instruments. We got the great David Mansfield
Speaker 1: playing fiddle mandolin, so the range I was playing accordion.
Speaker 1: That was the range was sort of our version of
Speaker 1: of the band, and we were going for that kind
Speaker 1: of feeling. Uh uh so uh then but the but
Speaker 1: then we didn't get signed with that. I was frustrated
Speaker 1: with the way my song sounded with this with the band,
Speaker 1: so I went in with a drum machine and a
Speaker 1: piano and made about four demos and that's the tape
Speaker 1: that didn't get passed on. And the former rhythm guitar
Speaker 1: player of the Zombies, who was the head of R, C, A,
Speaker 1: A and R beautiful man named Paul Atkinson, he came,
Speaker 1: he came forth and offered us. And so then there
Speaker 1: was another company, big company Epic, that came in as well.
Speaker 1: But we were feeling Paul signed with him and then okay,
Speaker 1: then the record comes out and this is the luck
Speaker 1: part everyone several most people in powerful positions thought that
Speaker 1: the way it is was a B side, for it
Speaker 1: makes sense. It's a song about racism with not one
Speaker 1: but two improvised piano Soulos that's hardly the formula for
Speaker 1: pop success. So that's what they thought. They released another song,
Speaker 1: Every Little Kiss. It got up to seventy two with
Speaker 1: an anchor on the Billboard one hundred, and then plummeted
Speaker 1: away the poor uh embattled and embittered. Our BMG promo
Speaker 1: rep in London went to his friend who was a
Speaker 1: disc jockey had radio on BBC, said mickey, me, boy,
Speaker 1: we got this record. We don't know what to do it.
Speaker 1: We really like it. It's kind of country, kind of jazz.
Speaker 1: We don't know what to do with it. Would you
Speaker 1: give it a listen? So this guy, Nick del Koitch
Speaker 1: is his name, put it over the weekend, played the record,
Speaker 1: picked this one song, put it on the radio Monday,
Speaker 1: blew up and throughout the UK and there we were.
Speaker 1: So that's the that's the luck part could have easily
Speaker 1: as not happened.
Speaker 4: Has happened the good old days when one DJ in
Speaker 4: one city.
Speaker 1: If it happens to happen that kind of effect, yes,
Speaker 1: it has to really make a mark. And so the
Speaker 1: way it is did and we were over there quickly
Speaker 1: making a video in London and lip syncing on top
Speaker 1: of the pops and the Terry Wogan Show, which was
Speaker 1: the Johnny Carson of the time. That's where I went
Speaker 1: and met Elton John. He was on the Wogan Show
Speaker 1: when I when We Fledglings were also on, and I
Speaker 1: hear I'm getting made up before I learned how to
Speaker 1: say no to such things. I'm in there getting makeup
Speaker 1: put on, and I hear this undistakable voice, Wes Bruce holmespeed.
Speaker 1: Wesbruce fucking Holmes speed. Where is he? I'm thinking, well,
Speaker 1: I think that's Elton John because I'd heard he's on
Speaker 1: the show. He walks in with a Tina Turner wig on,
Speaker 1: which is how he appeared on the show, and just
Speaker 1: threw his arms around me. He's the most beautiful person.
Speaker 1: And he was a supporter then and all the way
Speaker 1: through until now. So yeah, great, beautiful moments like that
Speaker 1: continue to happen.
Speaker 4: And he was a big early influence on you. You
Speaker 4: didn't really start piano seriously until no, quite No.
Speaker 1: I was a hooper. I was a jock. So right,
Speaker 1: elp what is it, Amarna? My brother played it for
Speaker 1: me from the Tumblewee Connection record. We're riding down the
Speaker 1: Colonial Parkway from Willisburg Virginia to Yorktown, Virginia and he
Speaker 1: puts on this eight track and it just blew me. U.
Speaker 1: I just moved me so deeply. I got the record
Speaker 1: and every song was amazing. Burned down the mission, you know, anyway,
Speaker 1: so great?
Speaker 5: Now what do you are?
Speaker 4: There are there parts of his playing that showed up?
Speaker 6: Then?
Speaker 5: Not really?
Speaker 1: No, not really And then and my other influence was, uh,
Speaker 1: it was Leon Russell and uh I never wrote anything
Speaker 1: that sounded like that's the uh you know, I didn't do. Subsequently,
Speaker 1: I've been in influenced by Leon. I have a song
Speaker 1: called Country Doctor that goes like this, Yeah, that's necessarily lyon,
Speaker 1: but that's that's my stuff. That's something I developed later's
Speaker 1: too handed independence.
Speaker 4: Think what was it about Leon Russell?
Speaker 1: Then that? Well, Leon Russell? What I was just playing
Speaker 1: the letter and I loved it, and so I thought
Speaker 1: I'd really grocked it. Really sort of ingested all the
Speaker 1: Leon until I started working with him in the early nineties.
Speaker 1: Then I saw at the foot of the Master, Oh yeah, no,
Speaker 1: I don't have it. But then I was able to
Speaker 1: learn it from just standing here watching.
Speaker 4: That You have relative pitch, Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1: If I hear. I can hear basic pop harmony. If
Speaker 1: it gets too chromatic, then I'm kind of probably out
Speaker 1: of it, probably probably done, but yeah, definitely not so
Speaker 1: I can sit in with the band. I went in
Speaker 1: off the street with no rehearsal and started winging it
Speaker 1: with the Grateful Dead at Madison Square Garden. So that
Speaker 1: sort of relative pitch allowed me to I didn't play
Speaker 1: too many chords on one because I didn't not the song,
Speaker 1: but I could go okay, yeah, okay, I think of
Speaker 1: the song. Yeah, So as I considered.
Speaker 7: Playing on the day when I was born and he
Speaker 7: went down, so.
Speaker 1: I would I know that. I knew that when I'm
Speaker 1: just it's just something that came into my head, so
Speaker 1: that if I didn't know it, they know on the
Speaker 1: day when I was okay, I got Daddy went down
Speaker 1: and hid.
Speaker 4: So yeah, when you say things like I love the
Speaker 4: tents in the in this hand, I love these kinds
Speaker 4: of chords, how did that develop? Were you just at
Speaker 4: a piano all the time, Well, I.
Speaker 1: Guess so more than more than most. I guess it's
Speaker 1: just uh exploration and going with what moves you with
Speaker 1: with My favorite my favorite people were people who gave
Speaker 1: me chills or on a groove level, like Leon Russell,
Speaker 1: just sat so deeply in this thing that I wanted
Speaker 1: to try to replicate that. I'm a short not sure
Speaker 1: I did or do, but that's the intent. So I
Speaker 1: guess I'm just following, uh, following the goosebump, following the chills.
Speaker 1: And if I play something now, I kind of know
Speaker 1: what gives me chills, and they're the chors like this.
Speaker 1: H I have a song on a record three or
Speaker 1: four albums ago called My Resolve, and the chorus goes.
Speaker 8: In my resolve, I move rock, maybe fall down.
Speaker 9: Try I indepted to stares me down in this face
Speaker 9: high come. I tried to stand up both the free
Speaker 9: stand up par not by yet.
Speaker 1: I'll move on up.
Speaker 8: Above the hill to maybe fully five hour.
Speaker 1: Our flower. And I just like, I just love that sound.
Speaker 1: And so that's that's what gets me going. Homember. One
Speaker 1: of the things that.
Speaker 5: And were you did you know theory back then?
Speaker 4: Did you could you say, oh, I'm about to play
Speaker 4: you know?
Speaker 1: I was learning it quickly, I was. I was totally
Speaker 1: involved in it, totally immersed in knowing the harm the
Speaker 1: theoretical aspect of harmonic movement chords.
Speaker 2: We'll be back with more from Bruce Hornsby.
Speaker 4: So I'm talking about earlier in your career, when you,
Speaker 4: for example, went in. We were talking earlier about the
Speaker 4: song you did with Bonnie Ray. You've done many songs
Speaker 4: with her, but the most famous.
Speaker 1: Yes, I changed that, Okay, I changed So when.
Speaker 4: You given all these influences, you had, all these people
Speaker 4: you had heard when you went in, you heard the song.
Speaker 5: I don't know were you given chet music?
Speaker 1: Were you given they gave me a cassette? Okay, I
Speaker 1: was staying at some hotel in Hollywood. It's a big one,
Speaker 1: right on Melrose. It's changed names.
Speaker 4: By the way, we should say the name of the song,
Speaker 4: which is I Can't Make You Love Me?
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, fantastic Mike Reid and Alan Shamblin. Right, the
Speaker 1: two guys reloaded hats off, sitting oh for them. So right,
Speaker 1: I heard this. They gave you this cassette. Was it
Speaker 1: a bare bones I guess barre bones enough. I guess
Speaker 1: from my memory it has it being played on an
Speaker 1: electric piano. But I could have that wrong, so.
Speaker 10: Right, uh I uh, I think it was basically uh.
Speaker 1: So I changed it to.
Speaker 4: So that that chord that you substituted in that first
Speaker 4: what did you turn it into from what that's.
Speaker 1: What I turned it into is Yeah, yeah, so.
Speaker 4: It was it was just it was just straight, yeah,
Speaker 4: very churchy.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And when I first played, I played the electric
Speaker 1: piano the intro and I played him like that, so
Speaker 1: have some place to go, and I came in four
Speaker 1: bars later, so I was I was pretty faithful to
Speaker 1: the original for the first four bars when I'm playing
Speaker 1: some sort of electric keyboard.
Speaker 4: Okay, so now tell me what tell me what sound
Speaker 4: you wanted when you started in on the piano just then, not.
Speaker 1: Really Bill evan Z, but sort of h lush in
Speaker 1: a stark way rather than you know, that's very Klaus
Speaker 1: Ogerman or Ravel issued it, and I like that, but
Speaker 1: I like the other more that moves me more so.
Speaker 1: I'm just I'm just always looking to to feel something
Speaker 1: emotional and all this thing, everything that I'm doing for you,
Speaker 1: whether it's that or the tenth, it's all something that
Speaker 1: has something deep to me, a deep souls what I'm
Speaker 1: going for.
Speaker 4: That version of the song also has a wonderful surprising
Speaker 4: chord at the end.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I think that was there. I think that
Speaker 1: was there. I don't remember remember.
Speaker 4: Precisely, but the uh, it's the uh measure of that.
Speaker 1: Domind said, they have the sharp Yeah, yes, uh yeah,
Speaker 1: h m hmm. Yeah, that's exact thing.
Speaker 4: Yeah, which is wonderful because that is so that is
Speaker 4: such a beautiful song. It deserves to fade out and
Speaker 4: then just as it's fading, you hear this.
Speaker 1: Oh is that right? It fades out like it fades.
Speaker 4: A little bit, but then you hear that beautiful chord
Speaker 4: in the end. It's got such such a it's got
Speaker 4: such such power at the end of that.
Speaker 1: Well, it's very nice you to say. I wouldn't give
Speaker 1: myself too much credit for that. I think the vote.
Speaker 1: I think the song is so great and her vocal
Speaker 1: is so great. That's what really to me makes it.
Speaker 1: But I don't know.
Speaker 4: But to me, what's interesting for me is you do
Speaker 4: have these influences, and you probably have other influences we
Speaker 4: haven't talked about, but they all informed somehow.
Speaker 5: Yeah, sure, how you came to to that piece?
Speaker 4: Were there are there different influences on your song writing.
Speaker 5: Back then?
Speaker 1: I'm sure there there were, depends on what record you're
Speaker 1: talking about. I've gradually moved on. Each record was a
Speaker 1: little different from the previous.
Speaker 5: I'd say you're early.
Speaker 4: You know, if I think of End of the Innocence
Speaker 4: or Valley Road, you you love your suspended chords?
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, right, I don't think, say into the Niss
Speaker 1: Value Road have a lot harmonically in common. One's just
Speaker 1: a straight.
Speaker 11: Ahead there's not a chord, that's the chord, and then
Speaker 11: the NIS is just is a leg.
Speaker 1: You know, there's nothing that's uh. So they're very different.
Speaker 1: You know, one's just kind of a groove thing, sort
Speaker 1: of a Steve Miller ish idea value.
Speaker 4: But they both have the I guess, particularly some suspensions.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, they have. Right, that same chord that I
Speaker 1: was singing my so on my resolve over that's that's
Speaker 1: in Valet Road. That's kind of the first, the first
Speaker 1: little harmonic trick. I guess.
Speaker 4: You know we've talked about, uh and you don't love it.
Speaker 4: What people say is the Bruce Hornsby sound sound style.
Speaker 4: I can't switch to.
Speaker 5: Everybody's saying I got to play like you now then
Speaker 5: you completely changed your style.
Speaker 1: They might people might not know what you're referring to.
Speaker 1: You're referring to a story I told you about running
Speaker 1: into Nashville piano players who would come up to me,
Speaker 1: running into them at airports or wherever, and they'd come
Speaker 1: up to me and say, Man, all day long, people
Speaker 1: are asking me, hey, can you give me he played
Speaker 1: a little more like Bruce hornsby, And I would always say, Man,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, Yeah, I'm not. Really, I'm not. You're probably
Speaker 1: not a fan of it either, because you get asked
Speaker 1: to do it, and I'm not really either. It's too
Speaker 1: bright for me. It's just something that happened.
Speaker 4: But as I told you before we were you should
Speaker 4: probably tell them. Yeah, my record company says the same
Speaker 4: thing to me. What do you mean, well, your record
Speaker 4: company would like you to play more like the Bruce
Speaker 4: horns Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, but see he is an interesting uh story, But
Speaker 1: that that was lucky for me. Uh So. Paul Atkinson,
Speaker 1: the ex Zombies rhythm guitar player who signed me at RCA,
Speaker 1: he and a lot of others thought that way it
Speaker 1: is was a b side. They said it because of
Speaker 1: the unexpected massive success of that record. The big shots said, well,
Speaker 1: we we don't know what to do with this. We
Speaker 1: we didn't predict this, we predicted the opposite. Uh, so
Speaker 1: they left me alone. They they did not, they did
Speaker 1: not pressure me in that way, because again the song
Speaker 1: that really blew up was a completely unexpected, uh piece
Speaker 1: of music. So the next record, the Scenes from the
Speaker 1: South Side, we had this. You mentioned Valley Road, and
Speaker 1: uh that was also unlikely. It's a song about you
Speaker 1: city girls, society girl who gets involved with the young
Speaker 1: country boy and he puts her in the family way
Speaker 1: and they send her away to the school for unwood mothers,
Speaker 1: which is an old notion. I don't think that exists anymore,
Speaker 1: but uh it may. But uh, it's again hardly it's
Speaker 1: it's it's sort of hardly standard pop fare lyrically, and
Speaker 1: again I'm soloing like crazy on that when I'm playing
Speaker 1: McCoy tyner.
Speaker 12: You know, uh, what's it called chordal harmony?
Speaker 1: You know that sort of thing.
Speaker 4: Can you give us just a quick definition chordal harmony
Speaker 4: chords and force?
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, the uh the interval of the fourth for
Speaker 1: so there's a.
Speaker 3: Extended wow that sounds like my song lawn Talk clup one.
Speaker 1: So that's a different one. So right, So that it
Speaker 1: was chordal harmony on the radio. What the hell? So
Speaker 1: I got away with this sort of thing twice way
Speaker 1: it is Vali Road. And then I guess it was
Speaker 1: kind of I think of those records in a certain
Speaker 1: way as novelty records because because they were in the
Speaker 1: best sense novelty, because they were so different sounding, and
Speaker 1: it was a sound that was not off putting. It
Speaker 1: was not incredibly it wasn't like it wasn't like that. Uh,
Speaker 1: And but that was it. That was that was all
Speaker 1: I was going to get out of the out of
Speaker 1: the morning zoo crowd.
Speaker 4: Then later with I think Hothouse, Yeah, Spirit Trail. Right,
Speaker 4: you're changing takes, You're playing takes a very different.
Speaker 5: That's right direction.
Speaker 1: Yes, I was. I turned forty years old in the
Speaker 1: late fall of nineteen ninety four, and I thought to myself, Okay,
Speaker 1: what are you going to do? You're going to rest
Speaker 1: on your laurels like most of your pop star friends,
Speaker 1: or they're just kind of not really deeply involved in
Speaker 1: moving forward as a player as a creator, kind of
Speaker 1: riding along with the same stuff that you've been doing.
Speaker 1: Am I going to do that? Or am I going
Speaker 1: to push to a new place? Well? I took the
Speaker 1: second road back to Keith Charrett. He was incredible. He
Speaker 1: had an incredible gift or skilled development that I call
Speaker 1: two handed independence, and he could play something in the
Speaker 1: left hand and then play something very rhythmically opposed to
Speaker 1: that sounded like two people playing this sort of thing.
Speaker 1: And I'd always opened that door to a piano technique
Speaker 1: and go too hard close it up. For this time,
Speaker 1: I decided to try to deal with it in my
Speaker 1: own bone headed way, and so I did that, and
Speaker 1: I would get I would. I had a song on
Speaker 1: a spiritual record. So that's what I'm That's that's the thing,
Speaker 1: that independence. I'm playing very rhythmically freely in the right
Speaker 1: hand while hopefully keeping this left hand Austinado real solid.
Speaker 1: That took a long time.
Speaker 5: How did you go about that? Was it by writing
Speaker 5: the songs?
Speaker 1: Or was it? But it made me write songs like
Speaker 1: that I wrote. I think that song is called Sneaking
Speaker 1: Up on Boo Radley And you know the song. You
Speaker 1: know that you're not going to believe it.
Speaker 5: But what do I have written right there? Sneaking Up
Speaker 5: on bud?
Speaker 1: So what made you write it down?
Speaker 5: I love the song?
Speaker 4: Okay, I I heard the kind of Keith Jarrett left hand.
Speaker 5: I didn't know. Yeah, well, I didn't know it came
Speaker 5: out of this exercise.
Speaker 1: Well, but you you were right on the track. It's
Speaker 1: a song about growing up in a small town with
Speaker 1: a metal hospital in which a lot of the patients
Speaker 1: were allowed to just walk around town. And when we
Speaker 1: were little nine ten year old dumbasses. Oh, we thought
Speaker 1: they were just hilarious with their crazy walks, and so
Speaker 1: we made fun of them. And it's very much like
Speaker 1: to Kill a mocking Bird with Robert Duval's character and
Speaker 1: the way the kids were alternately scared and freaked out
Speaker 1: by him and also made fun of him. So I wrote,
Speaker 1: I wanted to write this song because this was part
Speaker 1: of my upbringing, part of my past in Willisboro, Virginia,
Speaker 1: Eastern State Hospital. I would say I would get this
Speaker 1: in watching me screw it up here. You got to
Speaker 1: crawl before you can walk, before you can rude. Now
Speaker 1: what I did in that fifty seconds, it took me
Speaker 1: many many months to go from the whole note to
Speaker 1: free playing like that, probably about seven eight months of
Speaker 1: dealing with it, doing it intensely. My wife said to me,
Speaker 1: I'd been doing this for about a week and a half.
Speaker 1: She said, man, what are you doing out there meeting
Speaker 1: in the studio. You spend enough time out there as
Speaker 1: it is, and now you're spending three or four hours more.
Speaker 1: I said, okay, I understand. Here's what I'm asking of you,
Speaker 1: Kathy Hornsby, I said, okay, I did it. First of
Speaker 1: the year came and I called the Virginia Special Olympics
Speaker 1: and the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, two great philanthropic concerns, and
Speaker 1: I said, Hi, this is Bruce Hornsby. I'm just calling
Speaker 1: you because I like to do a benefit for you,
Speaker 1: and i'd like to do it in early May. Can
Speaker 1: we can we schedule one for May fifth and one
Speaker 1: for May seventh, and so they said, yeah, okay, fine,
Speaker 1: we'll take we'll take the money, we'll do that. I
Speaker 1: wanted to to schedule that to give me something to
Speaker 1: shoot for a signpost down the road that would make
Speaker 1: me really deal with this because I wanted it was
Speaker 1: a solo concert. I hadn't done that much at all
Speaker 1: because I wasn't ready. I couldn't do it. I said
Speaker 1: to my wife, Okay, I've scheduled these two things, these
Speaker 1: two concerts. Give me this four months and then after
Speaker 1: the first one, just come back and we'll talk about this.
Speaker 1: So I did the first concert for Special Olympics in Richmond.
Speaker 1: It was a two setter. I did one set. She
Speaker 1: came back with tears in her eyes and went, oh
Speaker 1: my god, I'm so happy you did this. This is
Speaker 1: so beautiful, so great. So so she's a very musical person,
Speaker 1: and so this uh, she she she got it, she
Speaker 1: understood and was moved by it. So that's what that
Speaker 1: was my That's how I that's what made me deal
Speaker 1: with it. It's always good to have some public forum
Speaker 1: where you are charged with really having something together that
Speaker 1: you have never dealt with. So that's so that's so
Speaker 1: that's what I've been doing for years. Yeah, but spirit
Speaker 1: Trail was the first one. He's so good, good, good
Speaker 1: for you for understanding that King of the Hills, you know,
Speaker 1: that sort of thing. So not doing it very well,
Speaker 1: but that but that's another version of it. Spiritualist is
Speaker 1: chocolate blot with two added independence.
Speaker 4: When we started and I said, is it all just
Speaker 4: good luck or good fortune? I think we're seeing some
Speaker 4: insight into how you navigate these things. You like throwing
Speaker 4: yourselves against these yourself hard and me against these challenges.
Speaker 1: Well, I was just, for instance, in this case, I
Speaker 1: just was always blown away. But when I would hear
Speaker 1: someone do something like this in an improvisitory forum, and
Speaker 1: so I wanted to be able to do violent version
Speaker 1: of it. And as simple as that. Look, what all
Speaker 1: this work that I put in With that, it leads
Speaker 1: you to a place that guards against popularity, because this
Speaker 1: stuff is not what the average person wants to hear
Speaker 1: in the popular forum. People want to hear a good
Speaker 1: song somewhell with a nice, great production. Hopefully this isn't
Speaker 1: that at all. This is something completely obscure and obtuse
Speaker 1: and off putting to the average listeners. So I know
Speaker 1: that i've what all this time I put in. It
Speaker 1: wasn't about becoming a bigger deal, but playing arenas. This
Speaker 1: sort of thing doesn't work in arenas. It's kind of
Speaker 1: like jazz music. By the very nature of the way
Speaker 1: the drums play, it's hard for that to translate in
Speaker 1: a large space. Nobody's going They're just going boom boom.
Speaker 1: So you know, it's very free, it's very open, and
Speaker 1: if you're sick yards away, it's hard to feel that.
Speaker 1: So so yeah, it didn't help me in that way.
Speaker 1: But it's not what it's ever been about. This is
Speaker 1: about a singular pursuit.
Speaker 4: But you've also you do play songs like that in
Speaker 4: your concert.
Speaker 5: You've been able to bring your crowd.
Speaker 1: Oh, I do well. Yes, and no, I've lost a
Speaker 1: lot of people who who want to have a nostalgic
Speaker 1: night out. I understand it too, I get it completely.
Speaker 1: I'm like anybody else. If I go to a concert,
Speaker 1: I'm probably going to that concert, well if it's a
Speaker 1: pop concert or rock concert, because I love more than
Speaker 1: a few of their songs, so I guess I'm hoping
Speaker 1: to hear that there's songs. I'm maybe more open than
Speaker 1: the average person to to something else because because it's
Speaker 1: what I do, you know, it's easy for me to
Speaker 1: want that. But but most people do go to a
Speaker 1: concert for that nostalgic that stroll down memory lane. And
Speaker 1: I get it. I don't dismiss it one bit. It's
Speaker 1: just a It just can be a bit of a
Speaker 1: creative prison to feel like you're in a situation where
Speaker 1: you say to your band, here's the set list for
Speaker 1: the year, you know, because that's what a lot of
Speaker 1: a lot of people do at the hotel. Yeah, right,
Speaker 1: it's it's just basically you're hoping you're not phoning it in.
Speaker 1: There are people who are just great at doing that
Speaker 1: same set and they mean it every night, and that's beautiful.
Speaker 1: It would be kind of hard for me, I think.
Speaker 4: You know, the other thing you did during that period.
Speaker 4: I think starting with Harbor Lights is you really you
Speaker 4: brought in really challenging players to play with.
Speaker 1: Well, you're right, and people that's the popular notion, but actually,
Speaker 1: if you look at it, it really started with the
Speaker 1: Third Range record, where I had went shorter who I'd
Speaker 1: gotten to play at the end of the Innocence. That's
Speaker 1: how I know it knew him. Charlie Hate and Bayla
Speaker 1: Fleck Garcia on that It's the Night of the Town.
Speaker 1: It's a good record. I love several of the songs
Speaker 1: on it. Barren Ground is great, also using that same chords. Yes,
Speaker 1: I'm repeating myself.
Speaker 5: Yeah, they're going to come up and say everybody wants
Speaker 5: that chord.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's that's that a over duh. So that's where
Speaker 1: it really started, where I really started stretching out. Sean
Speaker 1: Colvin it's on that record.
Speaker 9: Uh.
Speaker 1: I think I'm named five or six and so. But
Speaker 1: but yes, the next time somehow made more of a
Speaker 1: mark with the guests. I don't know why. Pat Metheeny
Speaker 1: was a huge guest on that Harbor Lights record played
Speaker 1: so fantastic. In fact, I love that. When I got
Speaker 1: to know the great Justin Vernon from Boney Vere, I
Speaker 1: learned that he, at age s thirteen, had transcribed the
Speaker 1: entire Pat Metheny Harbor Lights guitar solo, some of it
Speaker 1: playing over these crazy He's playing over that. It's hard
Speaker 1: to do. He just nailed it because he's a freak
Speaker 1: of nature and I love him. And then I can't.
Speaker 5: Remember the record.
Speaker 4: It's on White Wheeled Limousine has has him trading with
Speaker 4: Bayla with a Bayla Fleck who we've had here, bay Yes, yeah,
Speaker 4: which is a kind of it's just an amazing section
Speaker 4: of that of that record.
Speaker 1: I love it. Yes, they both are just just killing it.
Speaker 1: The cover of that record was a depiction of Bruce's Dream,
Speaker 1: which had dol Monroe and Charlie Parker. Of course, yeah,
Speaker 1: so and so Bayla Fleck and Pat Metheny are were
Speaker 1: modern archetypes of each guy.
Speaker 4: And that's also two guys who like you just keep
Speaker 4: pushing it like Bailaflex, new stuff just keeps going.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, right, absolutely, So the Kindred Spirits did you.
Speaker 5: Learn from playing with those guys? Did it change your playing?
Speaker 1: I was on this other thing. We're sort of not applicable. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the two hand independence thing is not something that they're
Speaker 1: dealing with. They're dealing with their own difficult issues when
Speaker 1: they're pushing the envelope. So I wouldn't really say that's true.
Speaker 1: I don't think anything. I think I was just in
Speaker 1: my own on world with this.
Speaker 4: Yeah, two thousand and seven, and I had to I
Speaker 4: kept staring at this, thinking is this real that you
Speaker 4: did two albums that year?
Speaker 1: It's very disparate.
Speaker 4: One with the great Ricky Skaggs, who I think plays
Speaker 4: every instrument but the piano. How did you adapt I'm
Speaker 4: not sure if you adapted the piano to bluegrass or
Speaker 4: bluegrass to the piano. It's not it's not considered a
Speaker 4: piano is not a bluegrass instrument.
Speaker 1: No, it's not. But it can be made to sound
Speaker 1: very banjo esque. Sometimes the piano doing something it feels
Speaker 1: like it sounds can sound like banjo. So it fit
Speaker 1: in pretty well. Oh, it was so challenging because the
Speaker 1: tempos are insane, you know, just ding ding ding do
Speaker 1: and and these guys Ricky's bands have always been freaky great.
Speaker 1: He gets the killer pickers of Nashville. When I was
Speaker 1: playing with him, he had these guys Andy Leftwich and
Speaker 1: Cody Kilby and Jimmy Mills on banjo. So I was
Speaker 1: just hanging on for dear life. Every time I've had
Speaker 1: a skin Ex Orangeby tour coming, I would take the
Speaker 1: metron on that and put it on ding ding ding
Speaker 1: ding ding ding. Jew I'm not gonna even gonna try
Speaker 1: it now because I'm I'm totally out of practice with that.
Speaker 1: But but if I did it, and I would do it.
Speaker 1: I loved my time doing all that. We made two
Speaker 1: records two thousand and seven, the studio record in twenty thirteen,
Speaker 1: this crazy jam and live record, so right.
Speaker 5: And what's he like to play with? What's he? What
Speaker 5: kind of a well?
Speaker 1: He's a joyous, joyous soul, a beautiful soul, and this
Speaker 1: warm person, funny, too ready for a ready for a laugh.
Speaker 1: Some of that country humor, it's nothing to quite like it.
Speaker 1: Often a little blue, but great, very fun. So yeah,
Speaker 1: but just a consummate player, a musician, one of the
Speaker 1: great singers, and also, like Garcia in his own way,
Speaker 1: a true walking encyclopedia of that music of old time.
Speaker 1: I probably mentioned this before we went on the air.
Speaker 1: He turned me onto Doc Box and Roscoe hulkm and
Speaker 1: Clarence Ashley. Then again the Harry Smith Anthology of Folk Music.
Speaker 1: It's such a deep well. So I learned so much
Speaker 1: from him in that way. He was very open. One time,
Speaker 1: in the middle of a gem in Medford, Oregon, in
Speaker 1: about two thousand and two one or two, We're in
Speaker 1: a sort of a minor key spacey thing, this kind
Speaker 1: of chords, and all of a sudden this came to
Speaker 1: me fully formed. I went.
Speaker 7: And the song came ban on it like the times
Speaker 7: that we spent hiding out.
Speaker 1: From the rain under the CARNIVALTI laughed and she smiled
Speaker 1: with a less for you don't know what You've got
Speaker 1: to lose it all again.
Speaker 6: Listen to the Manlin Rain, Listen to them music point.
Speaker 1: Listen to My Hardbreak every time she runs away.
Speaker 6: Listen to the Mangol. It a sad song, drifting. Listen
Speaker 6: to the tears roll down.
Speaker 1: My face as she turns to go. So I played
Speaker 1: that for him and he went the son we have
Speaker 1: to record that, and because it was just something about
Speaker 1: it has that sort of deep mountain sol with the
Speaker 1: with the with that too, you know, it's sort of
Speaker 1: a combo thing that I would do.
Speaker 2: We're coming right back with more of Bruce Hornsby.
Speaker 4: To me, it's interesting because so much of what you're
Speaker 4: doing with jazz and a lot of dissonance is the
Speaker 4: sort of thing that you have to really be careful
Speaker 4: in bluegrass music. It doesn't you know, Western swing can
Speaker 4: do a lot of that stuff, but bluegrass did you
Speaker 4: find it was not confining?
Speaker 1: But no, not confining. I just I feel like there
Speaker 1: are just some people coming to these skys wants to
Speaker 1: be concerts who who wish I was not there. But
Speaker 1: I'm not doing it for them. I'm doing it for
Speaker 1: the groove Ricky and the guys, and they've responded so
Speaker 1: deeply to that, and so we recorded and it's a
Speaker 1: very beautiful version of that. So that was and then
Speaker 1: then there's the other one two thousand and seven, same year.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you did your jazz trio, Yes Camp meeting.
Speaker 1: Christian Christian McBride, Jack d Jeanette Djenete, Yeah, what was outside?
Speaker 1: So this is the origin story. I would run run
Speaker 1: into those guys. I would go hear the Keith chain
Speaker 1: at trio at Carnegie Hall with Gary Peacock on bass
Speaker 1: and Jack playing drums, and I'd run into Jack backstage
Speaker 1: and he would say, okay man, when's the hit. I say, well,
Speaker 1: I'll let you know.
Speaker 13: Uh.
Speaker 1: Run into Christian around somewhere, and he'd say, okay man,
Speaker 1: when's the hit. It as if they'd conspired, so I'd
Speaker 1: said to them. To christ I would say to Christian, well,
Speaker 1: when I figure out a way to do this to
Speaker 1: make a jazz piano trio record, that is not just
Speaker 1: me doing my Bill Evans or Chick career, or just
Speaker 1: feeling the names red Garland Win and Kelly whatever, Bud Powell.
Speaker 1: It's not me just doing my replication. Then I'll let
Speaker 1: then then yeah, I'll call you then then then the
Speaker 1: hit will happen. We'll schedule the hit. So it was
Speaker 1: a bit of a project, a back burner project that
Speaker 1: I would gradually work on over a three or four
Speaker 1: year period and come up with certain certain things. It
Speaker 1: felt felt fresh, felt original, and that's the word okay.
Speaker 1: So I when I I came to them, I called
Speaker 1: them both up and said, at a certain point in
Speaker 1: two thousand and six or maybe late two thousand and five, hey,
Speaker 1: I think I've got an idea I'm gonna And they said, okay,
Speaker 1: please send us stuff. And so I did send them,
Speaker 1: send them both the recording of me playing these seven
Speaker 1: or eight non songs. Some were originals, some were reworkings
Speaker 1: of old jazz chestnuts. And it took them a good
Speaker 1: month to get back to me. It's a long it's
Speaker 1: a loud silence, loud silent month. Some i'thing, Okay, they
Speaker 1: don't like it. It's fine. Well they called me up
Speaker 1: but together and they said, man, we really like this.
Speaker 1: It's very fresh. It sounds original. It sounds like an
Speaker 1: original take on this music. I said, well, okay, thanks
Speaker 1: a lot. That's great. But they said, you're not making that.
Speaker 1: You're not making on our playing level, and so so
Speaker 1: there's that. I said, okay, I humbly replied, I got you.
Speaker 1: We've got five months between the time from between now
Speaker 1: and the time we're slated to do this down at
Speaker 1: my house in Virginia. So give me those five months
Speaker 1: and come on down there and if you if you
Speaker 1: still feel the same way about my lack of ability,
Speaker 1: then we'll just shake hands and call it, call it
Speaker 1: a day. So I dealt with it. Luckily I didn't
Speaker 1: have a ton going on, and they came down and
Speaker 1: we started hitting, and they went, Okay, you've done You've
Speaker 1: done the work.
Speaker 5: You got to back up. What was the work?
Speaker 1: Oh, the work was just learning how to okay, to
Speaker 1: to to play. Well, here's a perfect example. So I
Speaker 1: we played Giant Steps, which is one of the insane.
Speaker 13: Hallmarks of the of the literature.
Speaker 1: So I'm reharmonizing it in my own way, almost him like, okay,
Speaker 1: so what I was just sold I was just slowing
Speaker 1: over those my reharmonized semi re harmonization, and I had
Speaker 1: to learn how to do that, but do it well now,
Speaker 1: this is I haven't done that in years. So but
Speaker 1: so I tried to keep it real simple so I
Speaker 1: wouldn't just completely blow it. But so that was okay,
Speaker 1: it wasn't great, but but so yeah, I said, if
Speaker 1: I was going to make a record of doing that,
Speaker 1: I need to do that times fifty and really get it.
Speaker 1: So it's very because if it's you have to ingest it.
Speaker 1: And because of the if you that's a slow tempo,
Speaker 1: we went, you know like that, Yeah, that's I'm just
Speaker 1: not on my under my fingers, you know so so
Speaker 1: so that's what I had to do. I had to
Speaker 1: I had to get to a point where it was
Speaker 1: so free, play so freely and nail nail it.
Speaker 5: I should have asked you this earlier. Do you practice
Speaker 5: every day?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 14: Hell?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 14: How long?
Speaker 1: Hell? I practice? I probably do about two or three hours.
Speaker 1: So for instance, right now, I'm working on music from
Speaker 1: my new record, and I'll play you a little bit
Speaker 1: of it. This is a song called Silhouette Shadows. I
Speaker 1: was I love a Shastakovich piece for one of his
Speaker 1: fugues and his Preludes and Fugues collection that he that
Speaker 1: he produced beautiful. I have a Keith Charot record of
Speaker 1: Keith playing the Shastakovich Preludes and fugues. So I love
Speaker 1: the one in F sharp is number thirteen. I think,
Speaker 1: I just I just love it. It's so beautiful. And
Speaker 1: after fooling around with it for a while, I thought, well,
Speaker 1: I would like to do my own version of this
Speaker 1: of a semi fugue. So I did this when I
Speaker 1: was scoring films for Spike Lee. I threw this in
Speaker 1: there as he never picked it, which is okay. Then
Speaker 1: a couple two or three years later, I started writing
Speaker 1: for this record, and this thing had been lying around
Speaker 1: for a little while, and I thought, let me try
Speaker 1: to write a song with words to this music. So
Speaker 1: I did, and it's on the record and it goes
Speaker 1: like this.
Speaker 14: I'll try to play it.
Speaker 1: On TV.
Speaker 8: Watching from Boston Street into Southn's window as Nick's resides.
Speaker 1: Good, good thing. I'm tall, going back to my third
Speaker 1: floor walk up.
Speaker 8: Sounds in the air, the numb couple beating each other
Speaker 8: and dreaming of that summer.
Speaker 1: Sight above in my room, beating each other and screaming
Speaker 1: that summer right above my tr watching morning sitcom shows
Speaker 1: every day, and the Chief's housemen.
Speaker 7: I knew they were away, making sure they never noticed
Speaker 7: that I had been there.
Speaker 1: Couldn't believe I was doing this was a needed a
Speaker 1: break from the music school.
Speaker 8: Crime Let's set shadows ancient scenes and cryptic dreams, so
Speaker 8: Lisen shadows a.
Speaker 1: Sort of remember in the general, like in the show
Speaker 1: how Line of Harborn Good out shaded recollection One Life
Speaker 1: in Reflection, I thing goes on from there, So that's
Speaker 1: what I'm working on.
Speaker 4: Thank you so much for coming in.
Speaker 2: In the episode description, you'll find a link to a
Speaker 2: playlist of our favorite Bruce Hornsby songs. Be sure to
Speaker 2: check out YouTube dot com slash Broken Record Podcast to
Speaker 2: see all of our video interviews, and be sure to
Speaker 2: follow us on Instagram at the Broken Record pot. Broken
Speaker 2: Record is produced and edited by Leah Rhodes, with marketing
Speaker 2: help from Eric Sandler and Jordan McMillan. Our engineer is
Speaker 2: Ben Holladay. Broken Record is product of Pushkin Industries. If
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Speaker 2: by Kenny Beats. I'm justin Richmond.