WEBVTT - Linda Ronstadt 0:00:08.600 --> 0:00:12.400 Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Sets podcast. 0:00:12.920 --> 0:00:16.120 My guest today is the one and only Linda Ronstad 0:00:16.560 --> 0:00:20.720 who has a brand new book, Feels Like Home. Linda, 0:00:21.079 --> 0:00:24.000 good to have you on the podcast. Oh, thank you 0:00:24.079 --> 0:00:29.000 for including me. Okay, so what was the inspiration for 0:00:29.040 --> 0:00:33.000 the book? Well, I made a trip with Lawrence Downs, 0:00:33.040 --> 0:00:36.839 who writes for the New York Times, and um, he 0:00:36.960 --> 0:00:39.960 was doing a travel piece on me someplace that I 0:00:40.000 --> 0:00:42.159 would like to explore, and I said, let's do it 0:00:42.200 --> 0:00:44.400 out of the Sonoran Desert because it exists on both 0:00:44.400 --> 0:00:46.640 sides of the border. We can make a trip to 0:00:46.680 --> 0:00:49.400 Mexico and go visit the little town where my grandfather 0:00:49.479 --> 0:00:52.440 was born. And he wrote a travel piece about that, 0:00:53.920 --> 0:00:57.680 and then, um, we decided. When I was in but 0:00:57.800 --> 0:00:59.680 Im that little town in the Mexican town with my 0:00:59.680 --> 0:01:02.800 grandfather was born, I was thinking about my great grandmother 0:01:03.600 --> 0:01:06.360 and I was sitting in the plaza looking across the 0:01:06.360 --> 0:01:09.640 plaza to the church and realized that that's where she 0:01:09.680 --> 0:01:11.720 would have taken him to be baptized. And she started 0:01:11.720 --> 0:01:14.560 her married life in Bonamici. And I thought I'd like 0:01:14.640 --> 0:01:16.160 to know more about my great grandmother, and I like 0:01:16.200 --> 0:01:22.279 to write about her. So I um, I asked Lawrence 0:01:22.280 --> 0:01:25.399 if he wanted to write about our trip too to Mexico. 0:01:26.240 --> 0:01:32.440 We made some return trips and explore Sonoran culture through 0:01:32.480 --> 0:01:35.399 the eyes of my great grandmother down through the generations 0:01:35.440 --> 0:01:39.720 to the fifth generation in Tucson. When you were growing up, 0:01:40.240 --> 0:01:42.679 did your family discuss this history or did you have 0:01:42.800 --> 0:01:46.360 to research it? No? They kept letters, so I had 0:01:46.400 --> 0:01:49.480 to find the letters. There were the Arizona Historical Society. 0:01:51.080 --> 0:01:52.920 I was lucky that we found letters because there would 0:01:52.920 --> 0:01:54.960 be no other way to know my great grandmother. My 0:01:55.400 --> 0:01:57.720 father talked about her a little bit and said she 0:01:57.760 --> 0:02:02.760 was nice. He was certainly pretty, but um, she dried 0:02:02.800 --> 0:02:07.640 fairly young. Okay. So in the book it talks about 0:02:07.680 --> 0:02:12.280 how your family ultimately comes together. There was a relative 0:02:12.400 --> 0:02:16.760 who came from Germany and ultimately married a woman in Mexico. 0:02:16.800 --> 0:02:18.880 Can you tell us a little bit more about that. Oh, 0:02:18.960 --> 0:02:22.600 Friedrich Aretaicas just came from Germany, who was my great grandfather, 0:02:23.480 --> 0:02:25.400 and he was he had been in the military and 0:02:26.320 --> 0:02:29.680 um Austria where he came from her to Germany, and 0:02:29.720 --> 0:02:32.480 so he became a colonel in the Mexican Army. But 0:02:32.520 --> 0:02:35.000 he was also the first mining engineer in the region, 0:02:35.639 --> 0:02:37.359 and so he was the one that ran all the mines. 0:02:38.040 --> 0:02:41.800 That's a very rich mining area, silver and gold and copper. 0:02:42.840 --> 0:02:48.680 And he was also the ran the end of Jenner Piscata, 0:02:48.720 --> 0:02:51.720 who he was. His colonel Genner Piscada is credited with 0:02:51.919 --> 0:02:55.480 driving the French out of Sonora, the state of Sonora. 0:02:56.919 --> 0:03:00.440 So he was and he had his own ranches. He 0:03:00.560 --> 0:03:04.760 married into the Rodondo family. They were very influential down 0:03:04.800 --> 0:03:07.520 there and had a big, huge ranch thousands of acres 0:03:07.600 --> 0:03:13.079 that they stole from the Indians. And um, she married him. 0:03:13.320 --> 0:03:15.440 He was fifty years older than she was, I think, 0:03:16.040 --> 0:03:17.880 but that was normal in those days. The older men 0:03:17.960 --> 0:03:22.480 were married younger women because they they were widowers. So 0:03:22.520 --> 0:03:24.760 she was. He was a widower and had five children, 0:03:24.800 --> 0:03:27.240 and so she started out at the age of eighteen 0:03:28.320 --> 0:03:33.120 with a bunch of kids and an older husband and 0:03:33.200 --> 0:03:36.880 traveling around to the mines. And how did your family 0:03:36.960 --> 0:03:41.240 end up in Tucson. They just migrated to son was 0:03:41.280 --> 0:03:44.840 in that was part of Mexico. He was probably working 0:03:44.840 --> 0:03:47.880 on a mine up there or something. Oh I know, 0:03:48.000 --> 0:03:50.440 my my grandfather was sent to apprentice with with an 0:03:50.880 --> 0:03:57.360 iron maker, which was a relative of his. Now, one 0:03:57.400 --> 0:03:59.280 thing in the book is you paint the picture of 0:03:59.320 --> 0:04:03.000 the Sonoran Desert. I don't think the average American really 0:04:03.080 --> 0:04:06.720 knows anything about the Sonoran Desert. Can you tell us 0:04:06.760 --> 0:04:10.640 about it? About what I'm sorry missed the middle of button, 0:04:10.720 --> 0:04:13.880 about the Sonoran Desert and how really the landscape is 0:04:13.920 --> 0:04:16.480 the same in Tucson as it is in mass Mexico 0:04:16.880 --> 0:04:20.960 across the border, well, except that it doesn't have some worrows. 0:04:21.360 --> 0:04:24.400 Those are the cactuses with big arms, go really high, 0:04:24.480 --> 0:04:28.039 cactus treet and when you have that, you know that 0:04:28.080 --> 0:04:30.400 you're in the Sonora Desert. You know that you're within 0:04:30.560 --> 0:04:33.240 a few hundred miles or Tucson. That's the only place 0:04:33.279 --> 0:04:36.560 on Earth where they grow. And that's the only difference. 0:04:36.839 --> 0:04:40.599 When you go south, the organ pipe cactus instead. But 0:04:40.720 --> 0:04:43.200 the region is basically the same. It's the same food, 0:04:43.279 --> 0:04:50.040 the same in music, the same intellectual culture going on. 0:04:50.360 --> 0:04:52.400 There's a lot of a lot of the Mexican Revolution 0:04:52.480 --> 0:04:59.120 was formed in Sonora. So your family ended upe owning 0:04:59.200 --> 0:05:03.320 a uh A hardware store. Can you tell us about 0:05:03.360 --> 0:05:06.760 the evolution of that. Well, my grandfather was sent north 0:05:07.080 --> 0:05:10.479 and iron work, and he started building wagons. He built 0:05:10.480 --> 0:05:13.880 the best of wagons and carriages in the area, and 0:05:14.120 --> 0:05:18.359 uh that when naturally I do owning a Harvard story. 0:05:18.839 --> 0:05:21.440 If you wanted a good tools, or a windmill, or 0:05:21.839 --> 0:05:24.560 a good tractor for your farm, you go to my grandfather. 0:05:26.000 --> 0:05:29.520 My father worked in that store too. Now you say 0:05:29.600 --> 0:05:32.120 the store ultimately closed. Can you tell me about that 0:05:32.160 --> 0:05:35.800 and how sad that was? Well, the big box stories 0:05:35.839 --> 0:05:39.359 like Home Depot came in and they just outcompeted in 0:05:39.400 --> 0:05:43.520 with lower prices. They also had lower quality. I'd rather 0:05:43.560 --> 0:05:45.320 go into my father's hardvarre store. I took up a 0:05:45.320 --> 0:05:48.479 whole steady block. But it wasn't I didn't have the 0:05:48.480 --> 0:05:51.240 feeling like the big box stores. It wasn't full of 0:05:51.240 --> 0:05:55.080 plastic junk. So we So when you group we're growing up, 0:05:55.080 --> 0:05:58.080 did you hang out of your father's store. Yeah, I 0:05:58.160 --> 0:06:00.359 used to hang out there a lot. I take the 0:06:00.360 --> 0:06:03.560 bus from school and go over there. It was all 0:06:03.560 --> 0:06:07.040 smelled like these loil It was really beautiful, had great 0:06:07.040 --> 0:06:14.080 things in their fishing equipment, hunting equipment, digging equipment. So 0:06:14.360 --> 0:06:16.680 you used to play around stuff? Did you break stuff 0:06:16.760 --> 0:06:20.120 or were you a pretty good kid? Yeah? I used 0:06:20.160 --> 0:06:23.440 to I was good. You didn't break anything of my 0:06:23.520 --> 0:06:25.760 dad's or it was all made of metal. But they 0:06:25.760 --> 0:06:27.440 had a toy department for a while and that was 0:06:27.480 --> 0:06:31.120 really cool, and at a housewards department two. So did 0:06:31.120 --> 0:06:33.080 you get a lot of toys since they were in 0:06:33.120 --> 0:06:36.600 the store more than your friends? No, I got it, 0:06:36.880 --> 0:06:43.160 Madame Alexander All usually every Christmas. That was pretty cool. Okay, 0:06:43.200 --> 0:06:47.160 so you're growing up in Tucson and the fifties, you know, 0:06:47.440 --> 0:06:51.839 is there television, how many stations radio? Does Tucsson feel 0:06:51.920 --> 0:06:53.719 part of the fabric or does it feel like its 0:06:53.720 --> 0:06:56.280 own world? Oh, we didn't have a television, and it 0:06:56.320 --> 0:06:58.000 felt like its own world. And I got to school 0:06:58.000 --> 0:07:02.279 and found out that everybody else had green lawns and popsicles, 0:07:03.240 --> 0:07:09.360 popsicle um trees, lollipop trees that were green. We had 0:07:09.360 --> 0:07:12.960 a different kind of vegetation, were different kinds of animals. 0:07:13.640 --> 0:07:15.640 I thought everybody was like that until I went to school. 0:07:16.600 --> 0:07:20.160 But I always knew I was Mexican. If you ever 0:07:20.200 --> 0:07:22.920 found people putting you down or treating you differently because 0:07:22.960 --> 0:07:25.840 you were part of Mexican, No, they didn't, because I 0:07:25.840 --> 0:07:29.520 had white skin and a German surname. But my best 0:07:29.560 --> 0:07:35.360 friend got um. If she would speak Spanish on the playgrounds, 0:07:35.400 --> 0:07:39.440 she'd be just banked to be punished, and they experienced 0:07:39.560 --> 0:07:41.480 she and her sister was darker skin than she was, 0:07:42.160 --> 0:07:45.520 and they kicked her sister out of the community swimming 0:07:45.520 --> 0:07:49.160 pool because Mexicans aren't allowed to swimming it. She said, well, 0:07:49.160 --> 0:07:54.120 I'm going with her her sister. So when you were 0:07:54.160 --> 0:07:56.520 growing up, how good a student were you? And were 0:07:56.560 --> 0:07:59.520 you like, uh, popular in school? Were you more of 0:07:59.560 --> 0:08:02.920 a loan or what were you like now? I wasn't all. 0:08:03.040 --> 0:08:06.680 I had good friends. The little girl that got kicked 0:08:06.680 --> 0:08:09.360 out of the pool is my friend. He still is 0:08:10.800 --> 0:08:14.640 mm hmm. And were you good in school? No? It 0:08:14.680 --> 0:08:17.680 was horrible at school, ized daydream it was boring. I 0:08:17.680 --> 0:08:19.760 went to Catholic school and they all they tell those 0:08:19.960 --> 0:08:23.560 stories of the saints, and I didn't learn take I 0:08:23.560 --> 0:08:26.600 was a good reader, and I've always been a reader, 0:08:26.600 --> 0:08:30.880 but I couldn't do school very well. You were mean 0:08:30.960 --> 0:08:34.079 to us. What did your parents say about you being 0:08:34.160 --> 0:08:37.800 bad in school? I wasn't bad in school. I just 0:08:37.840 --> 0:08:40.680 didn't I just didn't like it. I mean I could 0:08:40.720 --> 0:08:43.240 do the work. I'd get the books in the beginning 0:08:43.240 --> 0:08:44.920 of the here and read them all. And they were boring, 0:08:45.600 --> 0:08:46.839 but I'd read them and then I didn't have to 0:08:46.840 --> 0:08:51.880 pay attention. So what was occupying your time growing up? 0:08:53.320 --> 0:08:56.679 Horses and put my pony? So when did you get 0:08:56.679 --> 0:09:01.320 your first horse? When I was five? When you were five, 0:09:01.840 --> 0:09:04.360 did you already know how to ride a horse? I 0:09:04.360 --> 0:09:06.199 already knew how to ride a big horse, but but 0:09:06.280 --> 0:09:10.240 I got a pony and he lasted until I was seven, 0:09:10.240 --> 0:09:13.720 and then I got a big horse. Okay, so you 0:09:13.800 --> 0:09:17.480 have the pony. How would you go out alone? How 0:09:17.520 --> 0:09:22.880 far from home? Oh? Away, far to the base of 0:09:22.880 --> 0:09:26.040 the mountains, lived in the middle of the valley. We 0:09:26.360 --> 0:09:28.160 it was like having a car when you were five. 0:09:30.400 --> 0:09:32.520 I'm serious. I mean we just left. We leave in 0:09:32.520 --> 0:09:34.199 the morning. We'd come back around five o'clock. If we 0:09:34.240 --> 0:09:36.920 didn't come back at dinner time, some go and look 0:09:37.000 --> 0:09:40.160 for us. But they weren't. They were negligent parents. That 0:09:40.280 --> 0:09:44.440 just was a different world, had great freedom. Did you 0:09:44.520 --> 0:09:47.600 ever have any trouble that far from home? I fell 0:09:47.640 --> 0:09:49.800 off the horse sometimes when I have to ride walk home. 0:09:50.760 --> 0:09:55.160 And did you get hurt? Broke my arm, broke your arm? 0:09:55.280 --> 0:09:58.120 Tell me about that. Well, I fell with my sister's 0:09:58.120 --> 0:10:02.880 horse and to a hard hard dirt road where I 0:10:02.960 --> 0:10:04.920 was always bouncing off my horse, I just bounced right 0:10:04.960 --> 0:10:09.719 back on and you know I've broken bones. Did you 0:10:09.760 --> 0:10:12.240 immediately know it was broken? Well, I know it hurt. 0:10:12.679 --> 0:10:14.080 I showed it to my mother and she knew it 0:10:14.160 --> 0:10:18.560 was broken. She took me right to the doctor. And 0:10:18.640 --> 0:10:20.520 did you get a cast? And have all your friends 0:10:20.559 --> 0:10:25.640 signed their names? Yep? Did that exactly? Uh huh. Now, 0:10:25.840 --> 0:10:28.800 one other element of the book is you include recipes. 0:10:28.920 --> 0:10:31.640 You know. One of the great things you put is 0:10:31.679 --> 0:10:34.320 you have a recipe for refried beans. And as long 0:10:34.360 --> 0:10:37.559 as I've been living in California, which is basically half 0:10:37.559 --> 0:10:41.439 a century, I did not know that. That didn't mean 0:10:41.960 --> 0:10:45.280 that they fried them twice. So tell us about refried beans. 0:10:45.440 --> 0:10:48.040 They don't fry them. Try that's a mr normal refried 0:10:48.480 --> 0:10:52.040 they're boiled and fried ones. Right, I didn't I learned 0:10:52.040 --> 0:10:56.120 that in your book. So growing up, did you eat 0:10:56.240 --> 0:10:58.880 Mexican style food in the house or was it more 0:10:58.960 --> 0:11:05.080 angle saust Oh, we had fresh shortias and tamarindo, which 0:11:05.080 --> 0:11:07.160 if there's a recipe before in the book, it's made 0:11:07.160 --> 0:11:10.000 out of Tamaran beans. Boiled Tamaran means it's more they're 0:11:10.040 --> 0:11:13.320 squnching than iced tea. It's delicious. They as had down 0:11:13.360 --> 0:11:16.360 the refrigerator because had a pot of beans on the stove. 0:11:16.960 --> 0:11:22.040 Who made the tortillas amalia? When that worked for us? 0:11:23.280 --> 0:11:26.640 And that's a big point in the book that that 0:11:26.760 --> 0:11:31.000 Sonoran tortillas are thinner and larger than what many people 0:11:31.040 --> 0:11:33.480 are used to. You can see through them. There's their 0:11:33.480 --> 0:11:37.000 paper thin and they're delicious. They're making with really good 0:11:37.040 --> 0:11:40.520 wheat which they grow in Mexico, which they don't they 0:11:40.520 --> 0:11:43.440 can't grow on huge amounts anymore because the Americans and 0:11:43.720 --> 0:11:49.320 undercut the wheat prices and sold genetically modified wheat, so 0:11:49.360 --> 0:11:51.120 then they grow that for a cash crop. But if 0:11:51.120 --> 0:11:56.320 you know somebody that you can still get the good wheat, okay. 0:11:56.360 --> 0:11:59.800 And so as I say, there's a number of recipes 0:11:59.840 --> 0:12:02.679 in a book. If I took you out for your 0:12:02.720 --> 0:12:09.479 favorite meal Sonoran style, what do you like most? Oh, 0:12:09.640 --> 0:12:14.920 tortillas and beans. So you're living in Tucson and you 0:12:14.960 --> 0:12:18.480 make a big point that the whole family is singing together, 0:12:19.280 --> 0:12:21.920 and do you remember that from a young age. But 0:12:22.040 --> 0:12:26.800 we used to have parties and music would start around 0:12:27.320 --> 0:12:31.720 ten o'clock and going to midnight usually, But everybody in 0:12:31.720 --> 0:12:33.560 my family can play or sing or do something not 0:12:33.640 --> 0:12:37.480 not professional level. My dad would girl some meat and 0:12:37.600 --> 0:12:40.400 my mother would make us big salad and there would 0:12:40.400 --> 0:12:44.520 be roasted chilis and roasted different roasted peppers, and different 0:12:45.000 --> 0:12:49.920 vegetables that were growing around. Honestly, lantro and chopped onions. 0:12:50.720 --> 0:12:52.640 You can't learn how to cook from my book. It's 0:12:52.679 --> 0:12:56.920 just it's not really a cookbook. It's just Um included 0:12:56.960 --> 0:12:58.840 the recipes because the food is part of the culture, 0:13:00.480 --> 0:13:02.120 as part of the unusual things that you can get 0:13:02.160 --> 0:13:06.320 it in Sonora that you can't get anybody else. So 0:13:06.559 --> 0:13:11.400 how has it changed since you lived there as a kid. Oh, 0:13:11.480 --> 0:13:13.719 the developers got hold of the government and let them 0:13:13.840 --> 0:13:17.200 do completely in discriminted development. So it's causing a lot 0:13:17.240 --> 0:13:20.120 of erosion. We're getting desk clouds like the death Bowl 0:13:20.840 --> 0:13:23.840 in Arizona. I drove to Phoenix ones and I was 0:13:23.880 --> 0:13:27.640 two hours in dust. And you say in the book 0:13:27.679 --> 0:13:30.920 you had a house up in Tucson until recently. When 0:13:30.920 --> 0:13:37.640 did you have a house in Tucson, um nineteen ninety 0:13:37.679 --> 0:13:41.880 four until a couple of years ago. I lived there 0:13:41.920 --> 0:13:45.000 for about fifteen years. And what made you decide to 0:13:45.400 --> 0:13:48.920 have a house there. I wanted to go back home. 0:13:50.040 --> 0:13:54.000 I did. I still had friends there, I'm plenty of family. 0:13:54.600 --> 0:13:56.840 What was it like going back as an adult? I mean, 0:13:56.880 --> 0:13:58.840 I'm from the East Coast, I live on the West Coast, 0:13:58.840 --> 0:14:02.640 and I think about what I but you know, when 0:14:02.640 --> 0:14:06.800 you actually do it after living in the city in California, 0:14:07.120 --> 0:14:09.960 you know it was a cognitive dissonance, or do you 0:14:10.040 --> 0:14:12.520 feel right at home now? It was just being piste 0:14:12.520 --> 0:14:14.920 off because the developers had ruined so much of the desert, 0:14:15.640 --> 0:14:18.520 and they had caused the air quality to to be 0:14:18.679 --> 0:14:22.600 very bad because there's tiny small particulate matters that floating 0:14:22.600 --> 0:14:25.400 around this. Two sunnies, you have these sparkling clean skies. 0:14:26.200 --> 0:14:28.000 That's two times I went there, was there for ten days, 0:14:28.000 --> 0:14:32.440 and I never the dust haste never went away. It's 0:14:32.480 --> 0:14:36.600 serious when you interfere with you with the nature's vision 0:14:36.640 --> 0:14:39.440 of the desert, because there's plenty of life in the desert. 0:14:39.480 --> 0:14:41.960 As soon as you take a bulldozer too it, you 0:14:42.000 --> 0:14:46.320 make it into a waste land. And how did you 0:14:46.360 --> 0:14:51.000 decide to ultimately sell your house and move back to California. Well, 0:14:51.320 --> 0:14:54.160 I wanted to put my kids in San Francisco schools, 0:14:54.160 --> 0:14:56.880 they were getting a lot of what church do you 0:14:56.880 --> 0:15:00.440 go to? And Oh, that's okay? They I was getting 0:15:00.480 --> 0:15:04.560 homophobic remarks and if you're not a Christian, you're going 0:15:04.600 --> 0:15:08.040 to go to Hell or mart. So I the school 0:15:08.040 --> 0:15:09.760 system is better here. The public schools are better and 0:15:09.760 --> 0:15:12.280 the private schools are better. So I brought him over 0:15:12.280 --> 0:15:13.760 here and put them in the most local school I 0:15:13.760 --> 0:15:19.240 could find. And why San Francisco it has a better 0:15:19.280 --> 0:15:24.000 air than Los Angeles? Well, California is a big state. 0:15:24.800 --> 0:15:26.680 You know you lived in l A for a long time. 0:15:26.720 --> 0:15:30.200 What's the difference between San Francisco and l A. I 0:15:30.200 --> 0:15:32.359 don't have to live in a car culture in San Francisco. 0:15:32.560 --> 0:15:35.360 The places you can walk to as more of a 0:15:35.400 --> 0:15:39.600 sensive community, and people are doing it in l A. 0:15:39.600 --> 0:15:44.320 They're moving out to um Silver Lake. And was there 0:15:44.320 --> 0:15:48.400 easy to l A which had which were originally built 0:15:48.400 --> 0:15:54.760 around a a culture that valued pedestrians over cars. And 0:15:54.920 --> 0:15:57.520 did you have enough friends in San Francisco or you 0:15:57.600 --> 0:15:59.640 made them when you once you got there? Oh? I 0:15:59.640 --> 0:16:02.800 had lots of friends in San Francisco. And at this 0:16:02.880 --> 0:16:05.840 stage in your life are you very social? You're more 0:16:05.880 --> 0:16:09.400 of a loner homebody. I see, I'm with my family. 0:16:11.640 --> 0:16:14.880 I have a have a daughter and a son. So 0:16:15.360 --> 0:16:21.040 how did you decide to have kids? Oh, somebody came 0:16:21.080 --> 0:16:24.040 up for adoption, and so I thought I would do it, 0:16:24.160 --> 0:16:25.520 and then I got another one because I had done 0:16:25.560 --> 0:16:28.800 it already once before. Was it tough being a single mother? 0:16:30.080 --> 0:16:34.080 I had a lot of help, okay. And what was 0:16:34.160 --> 0:16:38.800 the most rewarding part of having kids? I don't know. 0:16:38.880 --> 0:16:43.360 Maybe watching my daughter sing really complicated musical Mexican song 0:16:44.160 --> 0:16:48.920 sort of letter perfect should I had passed on something. 0:16:51.320 --> 0:16:55.600 So you're living in Tucson in the sixties, you're singing 0:16:56.200 --> 0:16:58.920 Mexican songs. At what point do you start hearing the 0:16:58.960 --> 0:17:03.560 hit parade, whether be folk songs or popular songs. I 0:17:03.640 --> 0:17:07.480 got that from the radio. In Tucson. We had radio 0:17:07.520 --> 0:17:09.960 stations you can get anything. You can get XRF JEL 0:17:10.000 --> 0:17:14.800 Rio Texas and the local stations played the top forty. 0:17:16.240 --> 0:17:19.080 So I heard all that stuff on the radio. And 0:17:19.160 --> 0:17:22.680 were you like addicted to the radio? Well? I played 0:17:22.680 --> 0:17:25.560 it all the time in the car at home, I 0:17:25.560 --> 0:17:31.280 played records. That was a folky for the sixties, right, Well, 0:17:31.280 --> 0:17:33.360 the folky there, you know, we even had a folky 0:17:33.440 --> 0:17:37.920 TV show Hoo Nanny, But of the uh of the 0:17:38.040 --> 0:17:41.200 acts back then, whether it be Dylan, the Kingston Trio, 0:17:41.320 --> 0:17:46.280 Pete Seeger, Who are your favorites? CPC here Pete Seeger. 0:17:47.040 --> 0:17:51.680 So you're in Tucson, you'll leave at age eighteen? How 0:17:51.680 --> 0:17:56.080 do you decide to leave? Well? I heard one of 0:17:56.119 --> 0:17:58.000 the guys in the Stone Ponies was a friend. I 0:17:58.040 --> 0:18:00.879 was playing music within Tucson, and he moved to l 0:18:00.960 --> 0:18:03.800 A because there were more gigs, and he sent me 0:18:03.800 --> 0:18:06.000 a letter said, you come over and be my girls singer. 0:18:06.800 --> 0:18:08.879 We can form a band. I know a good guitar player, 0:18:09.880 --> 0:18:12.240 so I did when formed the Stone Ponies. The first 0:18:12.240 --> 0:18:14.840 person I saw performing. The first people I saw performing 0:18:14.840 --> 0:18:18.560 when I went to l A, Ray Cooter and Taj Mahal, 0:18:19.520 --> 0:18:21.159 and I said, Oh, they got some really good musicians 0:18:21.200 --> 0:18:24.959 over here. I think else stay And had you planned 0:18:24.960 --> 0:18:27.520 to be a professional singer prior to going to l 0:18:27.560 --> 0:18:32.720 A from second grade? Oh? Really? Because I couldn't do arithmetic, 0:18:32.760 --> 0:18:34.280 I said, it doesn't matter. I'm gonna be a singer. 0:18:35.080 --> 0:18:36.480 I didn't think. I didn't think I was going to 0:18:36.520 --> 0:18:38.080 be a star or anything like that. I didn't think 0:18:38.080 --> 0:18:41.520 in terms of being famous. Or wildly successful. I just 0:18:41.560 --> 0:18:45.960 thought of I wanted to sing. So you got to 0:18:46.200 --> 0:18:48.400 l A and what was it like? Was a culture 0:18:48.400 --> 0:18:52.479 shock after living in Tucson. No, it was a musical 0:18:52.520 --> 0:18:56.320 culture I already do. We had a small musical world 0:18:56.359 --> 0:18:59.080 in Tucson. But it was an attention of the same 0:18:59.119 --> 0:19:04.399 thing with the players. And you said you saw Ry 0:19:04.520 --> 0:19:07.000 Couter and taj Mahal right away. Where did you see 0:19:07.000 --> 0:19:10.600 them at the ash Grove? And then we went to 0:19:10.680 --> 0:19:14.680 the trip and heard the Birds. How about the other 0:19:14.720 --> 0:19:19.640 acts that we're burgeoning like the birds? Were you following 0:19:19.680 --> 0:19:21.880 all those acts too? So I was a huge fan 0:19:21.960 --> 0:19:24.840 of the Birds. I knew Chris Hillman from bluegrass. I 0:19:24.920 --> 0:19:28.479 knew him as a bluegrass a mandolin player. I thought, well, Chris, 0:19:28.560 --> 0:19:30.720 Chris Hillman is playing folk rock. I guess we can too. 0:19:38.440 --> 0:19:42.280 Let's just go back to chapter. You're into folk songs. 0:19:42.760 --> 0:19:45.879 The Beatles come on the radio. Was that transformational for 0:19:45.960 --> 0:19:49.640 you know? I didn't paint that was too much into 0:19:49.640 --> 0:19:53.040 folk music than to attention to the Beatles. I got 0:19:53.040 --> 0:19:54.880 more into the Beatles and I moved to Los Angeles. 0:19:56.480 --> 0:19:59.600 But you ultimately or a big Beatles fan or that 0:19:59.680 --> 0:20:02.560 was part of the fabric. Well, I'm a fan of 0:20:02.560 --> 0:20:05.080 good songwriting, good craft, and they have plenty of that. 0:20:05.640 --> 0:20:10.399 And how about the Rolling Stones, I like them, and 0:20:10.440 --> 0:20:13.600 the rest of the British invasion, everybody from Freddie and 0:20:13.640 --> 0:20:18.080 the Dreamers to Jerry and the Pacemakers to Herman's Hermits 0:20:18.080 --> 0:20:23.879 like zombies, like the Zombie. Certainly good. Um. So you 0:20:24.000 --> 0:20:28.320 moved to l A And at what point do you 0:20:28.520 --> 0:20:33.600 ultimately decide and work and get a record deal. Well, 0:20:34.480 --> 0:20:37.040 we played a little clubs, little focus. There were a 0:20:37.080 --> 0:20:38.440 lot of them then in those days you could earn 0:20:38.480 --> 0:20:41.159 while you learn. And then we played an audition at 0:20:41.160 --> 0:20:44.359 the Troupadoor and we got the gig. And I thought, 0:20:45.200 --> 0:20:47.240 if I ever got to headline at the Troubador, that 0:20:47.280 --> 0:20:51.879 would be the pinnacle of success. So I um, I 0:20:51.880 --> 0:20:53.920 got to play. I got to headline at the Troupador 0:20:54.160 --> 0:20:56.480 and found out it wasn't the pinnacle of success, but 0:20:56.480 --> 0:21:00.760 I didn't care. And did you have the straight gig? 0:21:00.800 --> 0:21:03.639 How are you keeping yourself alive at this point just 0:21:03.680 --> 0:21:07.240 by singing? Just by singing, so you never really have to, 0:21:07.320 --> 0:21:10.040 you know, be a waitress or anything like that. No, 0:21:10.160 --> 0:21:13.680 I never had any other job at singing. Wow, And 0:21:13.760 --> 0:21:16.320 so other than singing with the Stone Ponies, would you 0:21:16.600 --> 0:21:20.159 uh sing with other groups or do studio sessions or 0:21:20.160 --> 0:21:22.320 anything like that. No, I didn't do that. I I 0:21:22.400 --> 0:21:25.400 hung out with friends and play music at the troubuta 0:21:25.440 --> 0:21:27.800 I meant John David Souther and Glenn Fry and John 0:21:27.800 --> 0:21:32.320 Henley and all these people. How did you meet those guys? 0:21:33.240 --> 0:21:36.280 He walked up to me and said he wanted to date. Wow, 0:21:37.960 --> 0:21:41.439 So how did you get the first record deal? We 0:21:41.520 --> 0:21:46.080 played the who it Is the tributor to audition and 0:21:46.119 --> 0:21:48.800 on the way out, Herbie Cohen, who was a manager 0:21:49.560 --> 0:21:53.200 in the business, cooked the arm and took me over 0:21:53.240 --> 0:21:58.160 to Dantona's, the restaurant next door, and said, I can 0:21:58.200 --> 0:22:01.320 get your girl singer records record contract. I don't know 0:22:01.320 --> 0:22:06.320 about the band. So that was me with no no 0:22:06.320 --> 0:22:11.280 no material of my own. I just sang. I learned 0:22:11.280 --> 0:22:13.320 from Bobby Kimmel, who was the writer in our band, 0:22:13.880 --> 0:22:17.159 sang his songs, so I said no, we had to 0:22:17.240 --> 0:22:20.000 use the band. And then the second album we had 0:22:20.000 --> 0:22:22.560 a big hit, but the Stone Point he didn't play 0:22:22.600 --> 0:22:28.480 on it, and Kenny was it that discouraged with the 0:22:28.560 --> 0:22:33.040 music and went off to India. To study something. It 0:22:33.160 --> 0:22:36.240 came back much improved. By the time he came back, 0:22:36.280 --> 0:22:38.280 I was I was established as a solars and I 0:22:38.320 --> 0:22:40.679 hired him to be in the band. He was a 0:22:40.680 --> 0:22:47.560 good friend. So, uh, you have this huge success with 0:22:47.800 --> 0:22:54.440 different drum What was that experience like? Well, I didn't 0:22:54.480 --> 0:22:55.800 like the way the record came out, so I told 0:22:55.840 --> 0:22:58.000 him they couldn't put it out. It's a good thing 0:22:58.040 --> 0:23:01.440 they ignored me. It was because, I mean, it got 0:23:01.440 --> 0:23:04.280 me on television shows and which I hated playing because 0:23:04.280 --> 0:23:06.960 the music was also bad and they got to tell 0:23:06.960 --> 0:23:08.400 you what to wear and stuff like that. I didn't 0:23:08.440 --> 0:23:11.879 like it. What did you not like about the recording? 0:23:13.280 --> 0:23:16.240 I don't know. It was it was a good arrangement, 0:23:16.240 --> 0:23:18.880 but I didn't It didn't sound like the Stone Ponies 0:23:18.920 --> 0:23:22.880 to me. But it was my idea to do this song. 0:23:22.920 --> 0:23:24.800 I thought. I thought it was going to be a hit, 0:23:24.880 --> 0:23:31.040 that song. And how was your experience with herb Cone? Well? 0:23:31.080 --> 0:23:33.600 I liked him very much personally and still do. He's 0:23:33.600 --> 0:23:37.040 a character. He'll bullshit you, but he won't bullshit himself. 0:23:37.040 --> 0:23:42.240 And this but he he got us wound up in jail. 0:23:42.320 --> 0:23:45.399 We wound up getting arrested for stolen airline tickets because 0:23:45.400 --> 0:23:48.720 he bought he had bought airline tickets from a a 0:23:48.840 --> 0:23:52.600 dicey agency. He didn't know they were stolen, but he 0:23:52.720 --> 0:23:54.920 knew they were. There was something wrong with them because 0:23:54.920 --> 0:23:58.240 it was a cheap and he charged Capitol Records for 0:23:58.320 --> 0:24:02.840 the whole amount of plus flight to Hawaii. So that 0:24:02.880 --> 0:24:04.800 made me kind of unhappy. I thought that was dishonest. 0:24:06.760 --> 0:24:09.159 And also he didn't understand the nuance in music. He 0:24:09.160 --> 0:24:11.800