Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Search Podcast.
Speaker 1: My guest today is Peter Woolf, who's got a new
Speaker 1: book reading on the movie. Peter, why now, why finally
Speaker 1: run in memoir?
Speaker 2: Well, Bob, first of all, thank you for having me on.
Speaker 2: And I've you know, followed you heard about your newsletter
Speaker 2: for years, all the UH controversies that you've started and
Speaker 2: UH people have followed. So I am glad to be
Speaker 2: sharing some time with you and meeting you. But the
Speaker 2: reason for your question why now? What would happen was
Speaker 2: I would always be backstage or invited to a dinner
Speaker 2: or something, and you know, you'd have a glass or
Speaker 2: two and start telling worries and people would always say, Peter,
Speaker 2: you should write a book. And I was about to
Speaker 2: release the new CD. It was about eighty percent done.
Speaker 2: Now I thought, you know, if I released this now
Speaker 2: in about two weeks, it will be in the ether.
Speaker 2: And what could I do that might have some resonance
Speaker 2: and bring some exposure to maybe broaden my awareness of
Speaker 2: the solo work I've done. And the idea came, this
Speaker 2: might be the right time where things are at right
Speaker 2: now to actually write the book. And so in designing
Speaker 2: that I decided, you know, there's a lot every musician
Speaker 2: seems to be writing a book, and you know a
Speaker 2: lot of them, not all of them, but a lot
Speaker 2: of them are that cookie cutter type where I was,
Speaker 2: you know, when I was born and blah blah blah blah,
Speaker 2: I start got my first guitar, and then when I
Speaker 2: saw either Elvis or depending on the age, the Beatles
Speaker 2: on Ed Sullivan, blah blah blah blah, and I joined
Speaker 2: my first band, and then it just goes on like that,
Speaker 2: which is okay if you're interested in that person. But
Speaker 2: there are a few musicians books that are musicians wrote
Speaker 2: that I found that were special, and I tried for
Speaker 2: myself to create a special style of book, and by
Speaker 2: that is I have each chapter that I wrote is
Speaker 2: like a short story. It has the beginning, middle, and
Speaker 2: an end each chapter. So I think there's about thirty
Speaker 2: something chapters in the book, and you can go from
Speaker 2: the first chapter or you can read the fourteenth chapter
Speaker 2: or the twenty seventh chapter. And they don't necessarily they
Speaker 2: connect time wise, because the early chapters start in a
Speaker 2: time span, but each one is individual, so they're more
Speaker 2: like short stories. And so I guess that's the reason
Speaker 2: why I decided to spend two years. I called up
Speaker 2: my great independent agent, Frank Riley, and said, Frank, I'm
Speaker 2: going to take a step back to hopefully take two
Speaker 2: steps forward. And he understood. And I was privileged to
Speaker 2: meet a book agent whose name was Andrew Wiley. And
Speaker 2: Andrew Wiley in the book world is quite a notable figure.
Speaker 2: And as a book agent he handled people like Salomon
Speaker 2: Rushdie and Martin Amos. And he handles the Philip Ross
Speaker 2: estate and Saul Bellow's estate and Robert Lowell estate. So
Speaker 2: he was well known, came from Boston, and so it
Speaker 2: all seemed to align up together.
Speaker 1: Okay, have you achieved your goal? Are you happy with
Speaker 1: the results in terms of impact?
Speaker 2: Well, yes and no. Yes, I finished the book and
Speaker 2: that you know, it's sort of like one. Well, the
Speaker 2: people that I admire work on a recording or work
Speaker 2: on a project, and the first thing they want to
Speaker 2: do is artistically satisfy themselves, you know, and if they
Speaker 2: feel they achieve something that they're excited about, that's the
Speaker 2: first step. So yes, I feel I I did that.
Speaker 2: And again, I spent many years avoiding doing a book,
Speaker 2: and so that I achieved. And what happened, Bob, and
Speaker 2: you might understand this more than most, is that I
Speaker 2: signed to Little Brown because they published some of the
Speaker 2: books that I really love, Peter Gerlnick who's written some
Speaker 2: of the great music books, the great Elvis Presley books,
Speaker 2: Last Trained to Memphis, and Caroless Love and Nick Tosh,
Speaker 2: who was a great writer critic. He wrote his books
Speaker 2: for Little Brown, and Keith Richards and et cetera. Besides,
Speaker 2: you know, they were a Boston based publishing company and
Speaker 2: they had a lot of their stable had a lot
Speaker 2: of great writers in it. So I wanted to be
Speaker 2: with Lil Brown, just like in the early days when
Speaker 2: I was starting with the Guiles Band, my dream was
Speaker 2: to be on Atlantic Records. And so once I got
Speaker 2: to Little Brown, they were very excited and I started writing,
Speaker 2: you know, the chapters and writing the outlines, and there
Speaker 2: were people there that had been there for you know,
Speaker 2: twenty five thirty years. And then what happened hashet which
Speaker 2: is the corporation kind of what happened in the music
Speaker 2: industry when universals started gobbling up all the different companies,
Speaker 2: all the people that I signed on to to be
Speaker 2: with Little Brown were all fired, and so all of
Speaker 2: a sudden I went through I think four editors, and
Speaker 2: it was quite difficult because the people that were passionate
Speaker 2: about your project were no longer there. And so the
Speaker 2: book came out, and there's this thing that I was
Speaker 2: unaware of called a Kirkus review, and that's for publishers
Speaker 2: and bookstores and if you get a Circus review, but
Speaker 2: if you get a Kirkus review and a star, that's
Speaker 2: apparently a real good achievement. So we got that and
Speaker 2: then reviews started coming in, and in a very quick
Speaker 2: time the book ended up number five on the New
Speaker 2: York Times bestseller List, which to me was, you know,
Speaker 2: a great accomplishment. But then what happened is the company
Speaker 2: ran out of books, and in book world, I think
Speaker 2: books are like printed now in the Far East or something,
Speaker 2: and so it took a good long almost a month
Speaker 2: to maybe less, to get you know, books back in
Speaker 2: the big boxes and independent bookstores. So I was working
Speaker 2: very hard on promoting. And so when you get people
Speaker 2: coming into the bookstore, and I would go into bookstores,
Speaker 2: there were no books or maybe one copy. And then
Speaker 2: there's always Amazon that has books but Amazon doesn't report
Speaker 2: to people like the New York Times or the Boston
Speaker 2: Globe or the Washington Post. So there was a great
Speaker 2: lag period. And not unlike a record when you're you
Speaker 2: know on you say, like getting on a Stephen Colbert
Speaker 2: or fallon or you know, doing beyond Howard Stern or
Speaker 2: your podcast, and you create a certain excitement. In the
Speaker 2: old days, people go in the record store if they
Speaker 2: didn't have the record, uh, you know they you know,
Speaker 2: you kind of lose that moment and then there are
Speaker 2: new records coming along. So I did achieve what I
Speaker 2: wanted to achieve, but now it's been very hard to
Speaker 2: kind of keep the book, the momentum of the book continuing.
Speaker 1: Okay, are there books in the stores now? Is the
Speaker 1: window passed or can you regain momentum.
Speaker 2: That's something that I'm still trying to figure out, Bob.
Speaker 2: There are books now in the stores. But what happens
Speaker 2: is that in the independent bookstores so many new books
Speaker 2: come out. There's different not unlike in the record period.
Speaker 2: You have you know, your September release, early September release,
Speaker 2: then it's followed by end of September, and then comes
Speaker 2: your October release. So there's only a certain amount of
Speaker 2: premium space. Like in the old record stores, if you'd
Speaker 2: walk into say like Tower or Sam Goodie and you'd
Speaker 2: see the cutouts and the you know, the the advertisements
Speaker 2: for the recording, they last only for a certain time
Speaker 2: until something new comes along. So I think losing momentum
Speaker 2: in the book world is far harder to regain than
Speaker 2: in the music world.
Speaker 1: Okay, in the music world, as you referenced earlier about
Speaker 1: putting a new album out and being in the ether
Speaker 1: very quickly, it's totally different now. It used to be
Speaker 1: some famous musician Elvis died, there was a limited amount
Speaker 1: of product in the stories immediately sold out and you
Speaker 1: couldn't we fulfill it for a couple of months, I
Speaker 1: mean a couple of weeks ultimately, whereas now everything is
Speaker 1: streaming an instant access. We have kindle in e books.
Speaker 1: In the book world, print publishers have done their best
Speaker 1: to sort of kill that, but without making that any issue.
Speaker 1: How do you feel about the digital world in music
Speaker 1: and the changes in the music world of distribution.
Speaker 2: Well, that's a very complicated question because the uh, there's
Speaker 2: a lot of segments to it. They're not to sound
Speaker 2: generic or avoiding the question. But in reality, for me,
Speaker 2: there's many positives and there's many negatives. And the positives
Speaker 2: is that it's available, it's there now someone like myself,
Speaker 2: who I wouldn't say I'm an audio file, but I
Speaker 2: really enjoy hearing music at a certain quality, and the
Speaker 2: compressed music does disturb me. That happens a lot in digital.
Speaker 2: I have lots and lots of my records. I'm not
Speaker 2: a record collector, but I have thousands of LPs because
Speaker 2: you know, all through my life, I've never let my
Speaker 2: records dwindle. I have the first you know, Frankie Lyman
Speaker 2: and the Teenagers album. I have the first Elevis album.
Speaker 2: I have the first Chuck Berry album, first Buddy Holly
Speaker 2: album you know that I bought when I was eleven
Speaker 2: years old. So I do listen to an awful lot
Speaker 2: of analog. But I also have, you know, hundreds and
Speaker 2: hundreds of CDs which I also enjoyed. So I'd say
Speaker 2: they answer the question, there's the negative.
Speaker 1: Okay, just going to one element at the point, the
Speaker 1: book has got a lot of interactions with legendary blues
Speaker 1: musicians and in the sixties, discovering these people was a
Speaker 1: scene unto itself, somewhere in the phone books. Some were
Speaker 1: working street jobs, et cetera, et cetera. Today literally everything
Speaker 1: is available like it used to be a record collector,
Speaker 1: you go and for years you look for record. Now
Speaker 1: I you go online. It's either available or not. These
Speaker 1: blues musicians in their music because now it is available
Speaker 1: to anybody who wants to hear it. Can the blues
Speaker 1: in these people come back?
Speaker 2: I don't know what you mean by comeback, Bob.
Speaker 1: Okay, let me be more specific. The roots of rock
Speaker 1: and roll are blues. In the present moment, a snapshot
Speaker 1: of the landscape of music is hip hop, pop in
Speaker 1: country rock and roll were the Gules band those roots,
Speaker 1: they're not primary in the market today. However, there have
Speaker 1: been bands that have been rediscovered the doors decades ago,
Speaker 1: led Zeppelin. Can we see a blues based revival the
Speaker 1: influence of this music or is it, like jazz more,
Speaker 1: a thing of the past.
Speaker 2: No. I don't think it's a thing of the past.
Speaker 2: And I think you know, Bob, there's many many bands
Speaker 2: that still searching out and learning about blues. I know
Speaker 2: in the book when I write about Muddy Waters and
Speaker 2: how I got to know money, and he would, you know,
Speaker 2: stay at my apartment, and we became, you know, quite
Speaker 2: good friends. They're young people come up to me and say, man,
Speaker 2: you know you brought Muddy Waters to life for me,
Speaker 2: and they're they're in bands that are just starting out now.
Speaker 2: It's true where I am based in Boston. Boston has
Speaker 2: a great folk heritage and also has a great roots heritage.
Speaker 2: I've never, uh, the term Americana seemed to have come out.
Speaker 2: I don't quite understand it, but I mean, I do
Speaker 2: understand it, but I don't understand how one gets defined
Speaker 2: in it. But Boston is, you know, because of the
Speaker 2: Club forty seven. It was the starting place for Joan
Speaker 2: Baez and many of the bluegrass bands. And it also
Speaker 2: had an amazing place a showcase for the great jazz artists.
Speaker 2: So Coltrane, Miles Davis would always love to come to Boston,
Speaker 2: and even people like Artie Sure would come to Boston.
Speaker 2: And you had Berkeley School of Music, you had several conservatories,
Speaker 2: Conservatory of Music more for classical but different you know,
Speaker 2: uh horn players, classical horn players that all became jazz men.
Speaker 2: And so uh, I got to see in small clubs
Speaker 2: uh in Boston, Felonious Monk, Miles Davis, you know, Ama Jamal,
Speaker 2: you know some of the some of the greats. And
Speaker 2: in these same clubs later on it was Van Morrison
Speaker 2: and uh John Lee Hooker and Muddy Waters and Otis Rush.
Speaker 2: So Uh, Boston was a rich place. Uh. And I
Speaker 2: think that if one is interested in a certain type
Speaker 2: of music, uh, they will discover it. And the digital
Speaker 2: world makes it a lot easier to discover it. You know,
Speaker 2: there's that famous story of you know, uh, Keith Richards
Speaker 2: and Mick Jagger knew each other as kids, but then
Speaker 2: one day either Mick or Keith I forget, we're carrying
Speaker 2: a record and they were on the train and one
Speaker 2: spotted the best of Muddy Waters under one's arm and
Speaker 2: then goes, wow, man, you like that, and boom that
Speaker 2: rekindled their friendship because they were both blues fanatics. But
Speaker 2: you and I both know that there was a time
Speaker 2: when rock and roll in itself became outdated. And by
Speaker 2: that I mean a rock band like the Jay Giles band,
Speaker 2: a rock band even like you know, so many rock
Speaker 2: bands were considered antiquated or dinosaurs, and then came this
Speaker 2: music called disco, and disco took over the entire Billboard
Speaker 2: Top forty basically, and there was no rock and roll
Speaker 2: on Billboard, So one could have said back then, is
Speaker 2: rock and roll dead? Is anyone interested in blues? Is
Speaker 2: anyone interested in country blues? Is anyone interested in you know,
Speaker 2: Carl Perkins, for instance, I was a late night DJ.
Speaker 2: I helped start a radio station, WBCNU, and it was
Speaker 2: a classical music station and an easy listening music station
Speaker 2: before it was bought out and turned into a rock
Speaker 2: and roll station. And it was one of the first
Speaker 2: important FM AO R ALBAM oriented radio stations and had
Speaker 2: a big, big following. There was one in San Francisco,
Speaker 2: down in New York an he w, but we kind
Speaker 2: of really hit the mark early on. And I remember
Speaker 2: coming in one day because I did the I had
Speaker 2: the wolf of Goop of Mama Tooth the show making
Speaker 2: a niece Freezer bladlat Vithenian's got to come out, because
Speaker 2: that's a rock and roll is all about Yamagama Guma
Speaker 2: and I would do that from twelve o'clock at night
Speaker 2: to six in the morning. And I remember coming in
Speaker 2: one day for a meeting and they were carrying out
Speaker 2: all the great Sinatra records. They're all the great, even
Speaker 2: Roy Orbison's, and they were just dumping them. And I said,
Speaker 2: what are you doing with these? He goes, well, we're
Speaker 2: getting rid of them. I said, why. I said, we
Speaker 2: got to build, you know, room in the library for
Speaker 2: Country Joe and the Fish and this and that, and
Speaker 2: you know, so there were to them. Uh, Carl Perkins
Speaker 2: was antiquated, you know, Roy Orbison was considered old time music.
Speaker 2: And the Beach Boys even you know, had a kind
Speaker 2: of some did, some didn't. So the point I'm making
Speaker 2: is that there has been so many transformations in music,
Speaker 2: and disco was dominant. It was the biggest seller. You know,
Speaker 2: labels were hunting after disco artists and acts, and you
Speaker 2: know Atlantic with Chic and all of that, and Nile
Speaker 2: and you know, the the Phillies, Gamble and Huff and
Speaker 2: you know Columbia and it's just didn't it was, you know,
Speaker 2: even motown. And then Slide came along and was one
Speaker 2: of the few black artists on ao R radio, and uh,
Speaker 2: you know, slowly disco faded and rock and roll came back.
Speaker 2: Bob Seger came back, Joan Jet came back, Ario speed
Speaker 2: Wagon came back, and you know, the Guiles band came back.
Speaker 2: We didn't go away, but on the charts we found
Speaker 2: a new placement because uh disco finally had its uh
Speaker 2: you know time, and rock and roll prevailed again. So
Speaker 2: with blues artists, they're there.
Speaker 1: To me.
Speaker 2: I think of them as the classics, like Dickens or
Speaker 2: like even Faulkner, you know, the artists. You know, if
Speaker 2: you're interested in books, if you're interested in reading, you'd
Speaker 2: go to the classics. And if you're interested in new
Speaker 2: in a serious way, not, you know. And I have
Speaker 2: nothing against pop music, it's coming from a different place.
Speaker 2: But for the musicians that I tend to admire, and
Speaker 2: the musicians that tend to go the distance, they study
Speaker 2: the art. And even as a painter, one went back
Speaker 2: as far as the Renaissance painters, and then you went
Speaker 2: into Breugel and you you know da Vinci, and you
Speaker 2: went all the way up to Jiado Delacroix, and walk
Speaker 2: your way up into the Impressionist post Impressionists, then into
Speaker 2: Matisse and Picasso, Cubis, and you know, futurists, and it
Speaker 2: just you studied all that just as if you were
Speaker 2: a filmmaker. You don't just start making films. You have
Speaker 2: to study the history of the art. So I think
Speaker 2: it's a complicated question, and I'm probably don't stop me talking,
Speaker 2: as Sunny Boy Williamson said, don't stop me talking, Bob,
Speaker 2: I'll tell you everything I know.
Speaker 1: You've been living in Boston for decades. However, you grew
Speaker 1: up in New York and are quite New York savvy.
Speaker 1: Boston is a college town scene as somewhat provincial. Okay,
Speaker 1: why do you stay in Boston? And tell me the
Speaker 1: difference from your eyes of Boston and New York.
Speaker 2: The difference between Boston and New York. Well, first of all,
Speaker 2: I grew up in New York and I went I
Speaker 2: think what saved my life was I lived in the
Speaker 2: Bronx and the Bronx if anyone knows about well, Dion
Speaker 2: came from the Bronx, and Bobby Darren came from the Bronx.
Speaker 2: Stanley Kuber came from the Bronx. The Bronx is a
Speaker 2: special kind of place and to itself, and when I
Speaker 2: grew up it was kind of rough and tough. I
Speaker 2: grew up in a half Jewish, half Italian neighborhood. There
Speaker 2: was you know, territorial aspects to it. If you were
Speaker 2: in the wrong neighborhood, you got into trouble. And but
Speaker 2: it was very rich in characters. And my sister, who
Speaker 2: was older than me, danced frequently on a TV show
Speaker 2: called Alan Freed's Big Beat. And Alan Freed started these
Speaker 2: rock and roll shows called rock and Roll Calvalcade, and
Speaker 2: he had him at the Brooklyn Fox, of the Brooklyn Paramount,
Speaker 2: then at the in Manhattan, and also in the Bronx.
Speaker 2: It came up to the Bronx Paradise and so I
Speaker 2: would go and as a ten year old in a
Speaker 2: matter of several months, and in one concert I had
Speaker 2: as a ten year old who loved music and you know,
Speaker 2: had to buy certain records. In one concert, I saw
Speaker 2: Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard Screaming, Jay Hawkins,
Speaker 2: the Everly Brothers, Buddy Holly and the Crickets, the Chantelle's,
Speaker 2: the Charell's, Ed Townsend and joe Ane Campbell the Blonde Bombshell,
Speaker 2: and I know I'm forgetting one or two others, but
Speaker 2: it was just amazing and to see, you know, Chuck Berry,
Speaker 2: whose records. I had all of a sudden, they're live
Speaker 2: on stage doing the duck walk and Jerry Lee Lewis
Speaker 2: jumping on top of the piano, and you know, the
Speaker 2: Chantelle's singing maybe and you know, coming out of the
Speaker 2: coffin was screaming Jay. I mean, as a ten year
Speaker 2: old kid, I was baptized into rock and roll. I
Speaker 2: became a fanatic. And you know, seeing these characters were
Speaker 2: just amazing, and the talent and just young Frankie Lyman
Speaker 2: who was a young twelve year old but must have
Speaker 2: had the body of a young kid but was an
Speaker 2: aged The things he did musically, how he could have
Speaker 2: learned them at such an early age was astonishing. I
Speaker 2: mean people talk about Michael Jackson, who was a phenomenal talent,
Speaker 2: but Frankie, you know, as as great and maybe even
Speaker 2: greater as a young voice than even Michael's. But there's
Speaker 2: no sense to compare them. They were just both great.
Speaker 2: So having that experience and then you know, getting to
Speaker 2: see jazz artists at Birdland at the original Birdland early on,
Speaker 2: and even as important as that, and maybe even more
Speaker 2: important was growing up in New York when they had
Speaker 2: some of the most incredible DJs. You had Alan Freed,
Speaker 2: followed by Jock O Henderson who infected me with you know,
Speaker 2: things like hop pop ba doo, how do you do?
Speaker 2: This is the jock and his record Machene Man Hey,
Speaker 2: Dadda d how boo, and he would just go on
Speaker 2: like that and do all these rhymes and patter and
Speaker 2: played great music. And followed by him was the magnificent
Speaker 2: Montague and he would talk real low for lovers, and
Speaker 2: he'd play things like Sam Cook and just all these
Speaker 2: beautiful romantic soul ballads. And he was followed by Symphony
Speaker 2: Sid and Baba Do Babe, Babe Babe Bobba Doo doo,
Speaker 2: and Symphony Sid live from Birdland and Syphany Sid would
Speaker 2: play and interview some of the greatest jazz artists in
Speaker 2: the world. So as a ten year old eleven year old,
Speaker 2: I was absorbing, you know. At night, I you know,
Speaker 2: had right by my bed this big telefunk and radio
Speaker 2: I had really low. I was just you know bond
Speaker 2: I must have you know, fell asleep every night listening
Speaker 2: to it. And I would even on Thursdays and certain
Speaker 2: nights because of the difference between the AM radio band
Speaker 2: and the f M radio band AM would bounce and trowl.
Speaker 2: So on Thursday nights I would get things like w
Speaker 2: w V a wheeling West Virginia. And I always love
Speaker 2: to tell the story. Being a huge Evely Brothers fan,
Speaker 2: I was listening one night to these gals, you know,
Speaker 2: imitating the sounded like they were imitating the Eavely Brother's harmony,
Speaker 2: and you know, I wanted to know who, you know,
Speaker 2: these girls were that sounded like the Everly Brothers. And
Speaker 2: when the DJ, who was coffee drinking, DJ Lee Moore,
Speaker 2: he said, those were thus Stanley Brothers. I said, brothers.
Speaker 2: I said, that sounded like girls. And that was my
Speaker 2: first introduction to bluegrass, and so New York culturally was
Speaker 2: quite amazing. And then my high school was located in Harlem.
Speaker 2: I went to the High School of Music and Art
Speaker 2: because I was, you know, really since all I don't know,
Speaker 2: since three four, I was always interested in art and
Speaker 2: painting and drawing, and I went to the High School
Speaker 2: of Music and Art was located on one hundred and
Speaker 2: thirty fifth Street in Manhattan, and the Great Apollo Theater
Speaker 2: was on one hundred and twenty fifth Street. So every
Speaker 2: Wednesday I made a journey a Mecca down to the Apollo,
Speaker 2: where I saw a movie, a travelogue, the Amateur Show,
Speaker 2: and then the entire Apollo Show, where I saw people
Speaker 2: like Jackie Wilson, Billy Stewart, Eda, James Muddy Waters, BB King,
Speaker 2: you did just you know, the Moonglows, I mean just
Speaker 2: I can't even wreak James Brown, Wreatha Franklin or it
Speaker 2: just the list is. And so being a young kid
Speaker 2: seeing these amazing performers interact with an audience that was
Speaker 2: alive and connected with the artists like being in church.
Speaker 2: I mean, because I would say ninety nine percent of
Speaker 2: the artists that appeared at the Apollo all came out
Speaker 2: of the church background. So the artists were like the preachers,
Speaker 2: and the audience was the congregation, and so their job
Speaker 2: was to, you know, get that congregation worked up. And man,
Speaker 2: you know when you see the Olympics jumping around on stage,
Speaker 2: or Jackie Wilson, you know, doing his splits, and just
Speaker 2: the you know, talents, it it was unforgettable and stayed
Speaker 2: with me throughout my life. And so New York and
Speaker 2: then also in New York, there was this amazing place
Speaker 2: at the time Greenwich Village, which was like the Left
Speaker 2: Bank in Paris. There was no commercial neon signs. It
Speaker 2: was a gathering place for many musicians, folk musicians, jazz musicians.
Speaker 2: There was great folk clubs, great jazz clubs. People would
Speaker 2: play out in Washington Square Park on the weekends and
Speaker 2: from all over the city would bring their guitars. There
Speaker 2: was a place called the Folklore Center where people hung out.
Speaker 2: There was the gas Light, and there was you know,
Speaker 2: the Cafe of Go Go, and there was places like
Speaker 2: where bands I'm trying to think Leslie West's first band.
Speaker 2: I can't remember the night out where they appeared and
Speaker 2: where the rascals and all these different people. So New
Speaker 2: York was an incredibly cultural place. But Boston, being a
Speaker 2: guy that didn't finish high school, I spent a good
Speaker 2: year hitchhiking around the country seeing my friends at college,
Speaker 2: pretending I was a college an art student, because in
Speaker 2: those days, if you look like a student, you walked
Speaker 2: around at university. There was no ideas there, you know,
Speaker 2: there's just you know, they just assumed you were a student.
Speaker 2: So I spent a good deal of time traveling from
Speaker 2: college to college. But Boston had so many colleges, so
Speaker 2: I ended up attending. I was a student at BU,
Speaker 2: I was a student at Harvard, and then I was
Speaker 2: a student at Brand. I was just pretending so I
Speaker 2: could use their art supplies and you know, sleep in
Speaker 2: the student dorm or outside. And then eventually I was
Speaker 2: accepted to an art school in Boston. I got a
Speaker 2: scholarship to the Boston Museum School of Fine Arts, which
Speaker 2: was quite an incredible, very conservative school where it was
Speaker 2: six days a week. We started at eight thirty in
Speaker 2: the morning and sometimes went to five o'clock at night.
Speaker 2: And they had the same program that they the same
Speaker 2: technique and program that artists were taught in the late,
Speaker 2: you know, at the end of the nineteenth century. So
Speaker 2: we had to study perspective, anatomy, sculpting, how to make
Speaker 2: our own paints, how to just saw our own canvases,
Speaker 2: all the traditional aspects of painting. And once I was
Speaker 2: there and became engulfed in that world, I also somehow
Speaker 2: on one night, the art students were performing at this
Speaker 2: art loft, and that's how I got into becoming a
Speaker 2: performer from that one night and so from that pointing on,
Speaker 2: Boston remained home because of school and then the bands
Speaker 2: that I became involved with, and Boston was I think
Speaker 2: artistically a healthier place because there were so many colleges
Speaker 2: and so many clubs and so many opportunities for a musician,
Speaker 2: and as an artist, you didn't have the severe competition
Speaker 2: that New York had, So Boston seemed to be a
Speaker 2: more comfortable place to live, cheaper place to live. You know,
Speaker 2: I was living in Harvard Square for next to nothing,
Speaker 2: and so it just at that time was a healthier
Speaker 2: environment for me to survive and artistically.
Speaker 1: Okay, In the book, you talk about signing to Atlantic
Speaker 1: Records without an URN and putting out all these records
Speaker 1: and not making any money. A few things there. You
Speaker 1: do have a hit single and seventy three Give it
Speaker 1: to Me. You say that Atlantic takes half of the publishing.
Speaker 1: You say that you hire d he Anthony as your manager,
Speaker 1: so d never renegotiated. You really never made any money
Speaker 1: from Atlantic, and Atlantic says they've wiped the books clean
Speaker 1: and they're starting to pay from dollar one. Give me
Speaker 1: your assessment here.
Speaker 2: Well, Uh, I was sort of representing the band. You
Speaker 2: could say I was managing the Jay Giles band. Uh
Speaker 2: and uh a funny story if I nate, because someone
Speaker 2: who I think deserves the place on your podcast is
Speaker 2: a fellow by the name of Mario Medeas known in
Speaker 2: the music industry as the Big M. May I tell
Speaker 2: a little funny story about the Big m we have.
Speaker 2: The Big Am was he worked, was in the Air Force.
Speaker 2: He was came from Mississippi. Uh. He moved to Chicago
Speaker 2: with his father. Big Am was you know, this young
Speaker 2: black you know, lover of music. His father loved blues,
Speaker 2: became very close with Muddy Waters. And his father, as
Speaker 2: the Big Am would say, was a gambler, and he
Speaker 2: would have played craps and start card games and all
Speaker 2: the great blues artists would be part of his card games.
Speaker 2: And so at an early age, the Big Am got
Speaker 2: to hear and see Muddy Waters, Hallan Wolfs Sonny Boy Williamson,
Speaker 2: Little Walter and became emphatic. And then when he was
Speaker 2: in the Air Force, he got so into Miles Davis
Speaker 2: and especially John Coltrane. And he was a photographer for
Speaker 2: the Air Force too, and he started taking pictures for
Speaker 2: an English magazine that was the equivalent I can't think
Speaker 2: of the name right now, but the English equivalent of Downbeat,
Speaker 2: and when he got out of the Air Force, he
Speaker 2: would hang out at the clubs and especially go every
Speaker 2: night went to see Miles Davis. And there was this
Speaker 2: very attractive Swedish woman that Mario became friends with because
Speaker 2: they both loved the music. And Mario was working as
Speaker 2: a bookkeeper in a meatpacking place and she said to Mario,
Speaker 2: you know, I work at this company, Atlantic Records. Atlantic Records,
Speaker 2: that's where drawn Coltrane's on. Are you kidding me? He said, yeah,
Speaker 2: I can get you a job there, Mario, he said,
Speaker 2: he said, I don't care how much they pay. If
Speaker 2: I can get three records, I'm in. And so Mario
Speaker 2: becomes the bookkeeper in the bookkeeping department at Atlantic Records. Now,
Speaker 2: Mario is this, you know, black fellow that's working in Atlantic.
Speaker 2: And at that point, Jerry Wexler had all these great
Speaker 2: you know, Wilson Picket, Joe text, Reefa Franklin, Don Kove,
Speaker 2: you know, all these incredible blues artists, and Mario was
Speaker 2: signing all the checks, even amite checks, Jerry Wexler's checks,
Speaker 2: all the checks uh for the entire Atlantic company and
Speaker 2: their artists. But when the artists would come in Mario
Speaker 2: would say to somebody like Salomon Burke with the picket,
Speaker 2: you know, man, these guys are not really paying you
Speaker 2: as much as they should be because blah blah blah blah,
Speaker 2: and they're charging you for breakage and blah blah blah blah.
Speaker 2: And then your European sales abouz is not showing up here,
Speaker 2: so you know, actually they owe you X thousands of
Speaker 2: more dollars than blah blah blah. Well, Wilson Picket would
Speaker 2: hear this and he'd go down, Jarrett, I gotta tell
Speaker 2: you, you know, man, you guys are cheating me out of
Speaker 2: my you know, European royalties, that this and that that
Speaker 2: you're charging me breakage. Your albums don't break they're not
Speaker 2: seventy eighth blah blah blah blah blah blah. Well, then
Speaker 2: would come Salomon Burke, and then would come this artist
Speaker 2: and that artist, Joe Tech, and finally, you know, what's
Speaker 2: where the hell are these guys getting this information from.
Speaker 2: So he has a meeting with Ahmed and they uh
Speaker 2: find out that it's this guy up and bookkeeping on
Speaker 2: the upper floor. This Mario Medeaz is telling his artist
Speaker 2: that he admires. You know what they're faird is. So
Speaker 2: everybody loved Mario and they didn't want to fire Mario
Speaker 2: because people would be upset. So they brought Mario down
Speaker 2: into Ahmed's office with Jerry and they said, you know,
Speaker 2: Amici didn't maybe you know, uh we love it, but
Speaker 2: see you know we got to take you out of accounting.
Speaker 2: Uh so you know where else in the company. Uh
Speaker 2: do you think he could be of you know, valuable?
Speaker 2: And Mario said, hey, man, let me be a promotion man.
Speaker 2: Let me go out with the band. Let me go
Speaker 2: out with the young rock band and they don't know
Speaker 2: shit from Shaniola. Let me take them all around the comming.
Speaker 2: I'll walk to the radio station with him. Man, I'll
Speaker 2: get him played. Man. And this was you know, music
Speaker 2: to Amit's and Jerry's ears and plus a lot of
Speaker 2: the bands that he was talking about were bands like
Speaker 2: Rolling Stones, led Zeppelin, who were blues lovers that really
Speaker 2: never came into contact with many of the black blues artists.
Speaker 2: And so here was Mario that was, you know, friendly
Speaker 2: with Muddy, friendly with Hell and Wolf Freddie and friendly
Speaker 2: with Otis reading. You know, we'd write checks out with
Speaker 2: Otis tells a great story of how Otis wanted something
Speaker 2: like twenty five thousand dollars in cash so he can
Speaker 2: go up to the Apollo and flash all this money
Speaker 2: around and pay his band and cash to show all
Speaker 2: the other bands that he's rolling in the dough. But
Speaker 2: the bank wouldn't cash check. Mario had to go down
Speaker 2: to certify that yes, this this you know, young guy
Speaker 2: is Otis reading, it's his money, et cetera. So Mario
Speaker 2: becomes beloved, and he's uh taking artists all around the country.
Speaker 2: And there's this new artist called Doctor John who's coming
Speaker 2: out with this album called Greegree, and he's taking Doctor
Speaker 2: John up to Boston to w b C and the
Speaker 2: radio station where I was working, and he was taking
Speaker 2: him to the Boston tea party, which was the equivalent
Speaker 2: of the Filmore in New York. It was Boston's Fillmore
Speaker 2: equivalent or you know, uh the Agora or you know
Speaker 2: Philly Larry Maggott had And so he heard these blues,
Speaker 2: this blue stuff, and uh, Mary said, man, who are
Speaker 2: these brothers? And I came into the dress room. He
Speaker 2: asked me, who are those guys out there playing the blues?
Speaker 2: I said that was us, you guys. He said, Holy
Speaker 2: damn man. He said, what label you guys on? So
Speaker 2: we're not on any label. You gotta be shitting me.
Speaker 2: Hold on, and he calls up Jerry. Wesley said, Jerry,
Speaker 2: I got these guys here. Man, they're going to be hot.
Speaker 2: They're hot on the pistol. Man. They places this Chicago
Speaker 2: blue shit.
Speaker 1: Man.
Speaker 2: I heard him. I thought it was like a blues
Speaker 2: band from Chicago. You got to sign these guys. So
Speaker 2: Jerry calls up a fellow that was big writer and
Speaker 2: Rolling Stone and also producing Livingston Taylor and some albums
Speaker 2: for Atlantic, and his name was John Landau. And he
Speaker 2: calls up John and says, John, you know about this band,
Speaker 2: that Jay Giles band. And John said yeah, Peter Wolf's
Speaker 2: a really good friend of mine. And three days later,
Speaker 2: John Landau and I are sitting in the office of
Speaker 2: Jerry Wexler, no lawyer, and you know, Jerry's talking to us.
Speaker 2: Never heard us, but you know, bound the word of
Speaker 2: Landau and uh, I guess made so some calls around Boston.
Speaker 2: He said, I'd like to sign you to Atgo Records.
Speaker 2: I said at Go, I said, man, Jerry, we got
Speaker 2: to be on Atlantic, and so I don't know if
Speaker 2: I could do that. So we called in a lawyer
Speaker 2: and the lawyer said, Jerry, you know, this was all
Speaker 2: a big bluff. I don't think we can put him
Speaker 2: on Atlantic. You know we we can't, you know, And
Speaker 2: Jerry said, please see what you can do.
Speaker 1: Please.
Speaker 2: Anyway, they handed us a contract that was very, to
Speaker 2: be polite, very antiquated, and you know, we were a
Speaker 2: band of five six guys and it had limited you know,
Speaker 2: they were doing, you know, charging us for breakage. You
Speaker 2: know that came from the days of seventy eights, you know,
Speaker 2: when you know there was a certain amount of shipping
Speaker 2: seventy eights that would break and so, uh you the
Speaker 2: record company it was it was very antiquated, and the
Speaker 2: band was simon Atlantic, and we started touring. And in
Speaker 2: those years it was touring, and I'm talking about nineteen seventy.
Speaker 2: In nineteen seventy, rock and roll touring was not unlike vaudeville,
Speaker 2: where you had an opening act, a middle act, and
Speaker 2: then the headliner. And like in vaudeville, you'd had you know,
Speaker 2: five or six acts or seven or eight acts, and
Speaker 2: then you'd have the headliner closing the show and it
Speaker 2: would travel from city city and so we were the
Speaker 2: opening act for almost two years, and I was able
Speaker 2: to get the band signed to I went down and
Speaker 2: had a meeting with a gentleman by the name of
Speaker 2: Frank Barcelona, who was the who started Premier Talent. And
Speaker 2: I can go on for an hour about the importance
Speaker 2: of Premier Talent, but it was the most important rock
Speaker 2: agency at the time and had probably the most definitive
Speaker 2: rock artists signed to its roster. And Frank started with
Speaker 2: Brian Epstein and then signed Jimmy Hendrix, and he had
Speaker 2: the Who and led Zeppelin and Springsteen and U two
Speaker 2: and you know, uh, just you know, everybody in all
Speaker 2: the eras, and uh, after our second record, we kind
Speaker 2: of felt that we're still staying in the first slot.
Speaker 2: And we were traveling all around the country opening up
Speaker 2: for bands like Black Sabbath, and you know, just Black
Speaker 2: Sabbath and Jay Giles had nothing in common, but there
Speaker 2: we were. And I remember talking with Frank and Frank
Speaker 2: suggested we need to get a manager and maybe that
Speaker 2: would help, a real formal manager. And Frank at that
Speaker 2: time was close with a gentleman by the name of
Speaker 2: De Anthony, and d Anthony was managing humble Pie that
Speaker 2: was doing very well, Spooky Tooth. He had just managed
Speaker 2: Joe Cocker with the Holy On Russell Mad Dogs and Englishman,
Speaker 2: and D came out of the you know, the world
Speaker 2: of Tony Bennett in the Copa Cabana and loved the
Speaker 2: music world, and he became our manager. And in a
Speaker 2: long winded answer to this day, your question about why
Speaker 2: he never renegotiated the Atlantic contract is beyond me. Nor
Speaker 2: did we ever say, hey, D, you know, can you
Speaker 2: renegotiate the contract? Because that's usually the first thing a
Speaker 2: manager does. It sits down with the company and says, listen,
Speaker 2: I'm on board. Now you know I got this band,
Speaker 2: that band, that band. I'm tight with Frank Barcelona. There's
Speaker 2: no bullshitting around here. This band needs to get paid
Speaker 2: aid fairly. Never happened.
Speaker 1: This late date. A, do you own the publishing for
Speaker 1: those songs? And B do you ever get a check
Speaker 1: for the recordings of Atlantic.
Speaker 2: In this late They Noah, do not own the songs. Uh,
Speaker 2: this late they you know the checks that you know
Speaker 2: do come in. Uh, but let me put it this way,
Speaker 2: they're not checks that you're going to take a pleasurable
Speaker 2: trip on it's you know, the monies are We did not.
Speaker 2: We were in debt. The guys band was in debt
Speaker 2: from most of our time and we get out of
Speaker 2: it and we would work with you know, trucking companies
Speaker 2: and you know beg them to hold off sending us
Speaker 2: the bills for three or four months. I remember the
Speaker 2: Claire Brothers Sound Company when they first started. You know,
Speaker 2: they didn't charge us for a long period of time,
Speaker 2: and you know we repaid them. We did not actually
Speaker 2: start being you know comfortable we're being able to pay
Speaker 2: you know, guys would have to take loans and stuff.
Speaker 2: We were not comfortable until we actually were signed with
Speaker 2: a new label and that was EMI America. And then
Speaker 2: the book I explained how that occurrence happened and it
Speaker 2: was quite a you know story of chance how that
Speaker 2: all came to be. So it wasn't until really EMI
Speaker 2: and we had three albums, Sanctuary, Love Stinks and then
Speaker 2: Freeze Frame when we really started to be, you know,
Speaker 2: have the opportunity in front of us to really be
Speaker 2: able to you know pack away some you know monies
Speaker 2: for those rainy days.
Speaker 1: So what are you living on today?
Speaker 2: Peanut butter jelly, some cantuna fish and no, I've you know,
Speaker 2: through the EMI stuff. There's you know in there. We
Speaker 2: kept out publishing and so one uh, you know lives okay,
Speaker 2: but not you know, people always think, oh man, you
Speaker 2: know they know the Jay Giles band, and you mentioned
Speaker 2: the song give It to Me, Well, give It to
Speaker 2: Me was on its way to becoming a hit. And
Speaker 2: then I forget the f C C And then I
Speaker 2: believe it was It wasn't Al Gore's wife, but it
Speaker 2: was the very conservative woman that was lobbying Congress that
Speaker 2: lyrics and rock were becoming very lewde And there was
Speaker 2: a McCartney song, my Girl, she does It? What was
Speaker 2: helped me out?
Speaker 1: My girl does a good Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: It does it good. Well, you know that became a
Speaker 2: huge controversy. But you couldn't mess so much with Paul McCartney,
Speaker 2: but you could mess with the Jay Giles band. And
Speaker 2: then you know, we were getting up there, getting up there,
Speaker 2: and then boom there was a band on AM radio.
Speaker 2: And I think I don't know if Abrams or whoever
Speaker 2: was in charge of you know, who was a big
Speaker 2: you know name and you had all the guys like
Speaker 2: this Scipio, and you know, all the different helped me
Speaker 2: out here well.
Speaker 1: Tip sheets, consultants, Indie promo.
Speaker 2: All the all the consultants. Everybody put a freeze, no
Speaker 2: puns intended on give it to me, and it just
Speaker 2: stopped in its tracks, but it was on its way.
Speaker 2: It was like next to Paul Simon or Montego Bay.
Speaker 2: It was one of the few reggae songs at that time.
Speaker 2: You know, most people didn't know what reggae was or
Speaker 2: heard it. Paul Simon had Mother's Child, Mother and Child
Speaker 2: Reunion that had a reggae feel to it. But other
Speaker 2: than that, reggae was pretty unknown to most people. And
Speaker 2: this was before the Heart that they come came out
Speaker 2: and things like that.
Speaker 1: Okay, d Anthony, you tell some interesting stories about a
Speaker 1: rock festival in Pennsylvania. At this late date, the reputation
Speaker 1: of d Anthony is connected about the money first making
Speaker 1: Joe Cocker go on the road with mad dogs and
Speaker 1: english men and a cruk.
Speaker 2: What was your experience, Well, the big m Mario was
Speaker 2: riding in a car once and me indeed, and you know,
Speaker 2: d s it to me. You know, Mario let me
Speaker 2: tell you about management. The first job. There's three jobs
Speaker 2: that a manager has to do. Maaris was that he
Speaker 2: goes one, get the money. Norrisaid, what's number two? He said,
Speaker 2: get the money? He said, so I can think I
Speaker 2: got number three. He said, you gotta your smart Mario,
Speaker 2: get the money. And that was the's philosophy. D was
Speaker 2: from the Bronx. Uh, I'm from the Bronx. D was,
Speaker 2: you know, an Italian grew up right near the neighborhood
Speaker 2: I grew up. We uh knew similar places. Uh uh
Speaker 2: similar restaurants. Uh. And when I met D, uh we
Speaker 2: just talked Bronx to Bronx and I negotiated a handshake
Speaker 2: deal with D. And we never had a contract. We
Speaker 2: had a handshake deal. And I said to D and
Speaker 2: somehow I bought. I said, look, let's get started, and
Speaker 2: I'm representing the band. I don't know. You know, you
Speaker 2: can come and have meetings and you know, we're kind
Speaker 2: of like democratic band. And but look, if it's not
Speaker 2: going to work out for you, and if we become problematic,
Speaker 2: why would you want us? And if it's not going
Speaker 2: to work out for us, why would we want you?
Speaker 2: So let's just you know, have a handshake and get rolling.
Speaker 2: And when for some reason he accepted that and for
Speaker 2: our tire relationship there was never any you know contract.
Speaker 2: And d did do some very positive things for the band.
Speaker 2: First of all, he had this ability of gathering everybody.
Speaker 2: He loved live acts. He saw the Gules Band, he
Speaker 2: loved the Gules Band, the energy, he loved Humble Pie,
Speaker 2: he loved Steve Marriott. Uh. You know, he tutored Peter
Speaker 2: Frampton when Peter was going solo, and Peter would stay
Speaker 2: at his house and he uh, and so Dee was
Speaker 2: quite a character. You know, he would gather everybody in
Speaker 2: a huddle and have a whistle. Why don't you guys
Speaker 2: to go out there? And you know, just and so
Speaker 2: his first big decision was, I want you guys to
Speaker 2: make a live album and just record the songs. You've
Speaker 2: already said, d we can't go out there. We're just
Speaker 2: playing the songs that are on our first and second
Speaker 2: Atlantic record. You know, if we do a live album
Speaker 2: of just those songs, people are gonna think we run
Speaker 2: out of creativity. And back in those years, a live
Speaker 2: album was kind of a way of buying time. It
Speaker 2: wasn't accepted as authentic. It wasn't considered an authentic piece
Speaker 2: of work. I gues. Of course there's James brown Line,
Speaker 2: but for a rock and roll band, you know, the
Speaker 2: Allman Brothers live at the film or you know, was
Speaker 2: an anomaly. Uh uh. But so we recorded a live
Speaker 2: album and because d felt that our stage show was
Speaker 2: far more exciting and energetic than the recordings, and so
Speaker 2: we recorded our third album, Full House live in Detroit.
Speaker 2: That's I guess being re released by Rhino as a real,
Speaker 2: definitive aspect of the Guiles band, and it happens to
Speaker 2: be one of my favorite albums. And Dee was responsible
Speaker 2: for the making of that record because there was no
Speaker 2: way that we would have ever for our third album
Speaker 2: ever think of recording a live record. We were in
Speaker 2: the midst of making another studio record.
Speaker 1: Well that is what you know. There were the first
Speaker 1: couple of records and that did gain you notice previous
Speaker 1: to that, you worked with Bill Simsick before he was
Speaker 1: a household name, worked with Joe Walsh, eventually works with
Speaker 1: the Eagles. How'd you get hooked up with Bill Simsick?
Speaker 2: Our first ja Jay Gill's band, our first album I
Speaker 2: think was done in about eighteen days, mixed and everything,
Speaker 2: you know. And we were working with these two R
Speaker 2: and B producers that Brad Shapiro that ended up doing
Speaker 2: a lot of work with James Brown and Dave Crawford
Speaker 2: who did who was a writer and did a lot
Speaker 2: of great R and B stuff for Atlantic. And I
Speaker 2: think that they were Jerry Wexler's idea of being a
Speaker 2: new Gamble and Huff as a team. And so Brad
Speaker 2: was white, Dave Crawford was black. They both had R
Speaker 2: and B roots, and they thought, well, because of our
Speaker 2: blues and R and B, they might be good producers
Speaker 2: for us. And I remember we rolled in to the
Speaker 2: studio and we started playing and Dave and Brad said, well,
Speaker 2: start playing some stuff. We set up like we were
Speaker 2: on stage, and we started playing, and little did I
Speaker 2: know that they were actually recording us. That's how we
Speaker 2: basically recorded. The first record was basically those takes. And
Speaker 2: at one point Dave Crawford called me in the studios
Speaker 2: a Pete, can you come in the control room? I
Speaker 2: said sure. He said, what the hell is this thing
Speaker 2: with the harp? I said, what do you mean? He said,
Speaker 2: I mean who plays harmonica? I mean my grandmother listens
Speaker 2: to harmonica. And they had no idea of Paul Butterfield.
Speaker 2: They had no idea of the resurgence of Chicago, you know,
Speaker 2: bands like the Guyles Band, you know, bands like Bloomfield
Speaker 2: and Butterfield and Al Cooper and Barry Goldberg and the
Speaker 2: whole resurgence of you know, you know, Blues Project with
Speaker 2: Al Cooper. They had no idea of that world. And
Speaker 2: so we were, you know, coming to make our second record,
Speaker 2: and I'm not sure the James Gang. I was a
Speaker 2: big fan of the James Gang, Joe Walsh, and we're
Speaker 2: still friends to this day. An amazing character, amazing musician,
Speaker 2: amazing guy. And Bill's name came up in the mix
Speaker 2: and we were out in Detroit at the gold Key
Speaker 2: Restaurant where this was in maybe seventy three or something,
Speaker 2: and I remember the Dells, the R and B group,
Speaker 2: the Dells that sang the great hit Oh what a night,
Speaker 2: Oh what a night?
Speaker 1: Do that you do?
Speaker 2: It's early morning, so pardon me, So, I mean it
Speaker 2: was amazing. There's the Dell's. I mean, I love the
Speaker 2: Dells and Bill Sims, a guy. We all had to
Speaker 2: talk and Bill said, you know, listen. You know, I
Speaker 2: see you guys live. I said, you know, I wouldn't
Speaker 2: do much. I wouldn't change this sound. I would just
Speaker 2: you know, try to enhance it in the studio and
Speaker 2: we're all talking and we the TV on. We're all
Speaker 2: in this hotel room and Bill came in and we
Speaker 2: were just kind of amazed because he had on a
Speaker 2: T shirt and just you know, playing and it was
Speaker 2: just like one of us. And we for this meeting.
Speaker 2: We had bought a bunch of popcorn and we had
Speaker 2: some hamburgers we bought, and we had this big, you
Speaker 2: know watermelon. It we sliced up, and we were all
Speaker 2: sitting around and just big kegs you know, beer and
Speaker 2: drinking beer. And I'm trying to think it was the
Speaker 2: singer that Elvis Presley. Every time Elvis Presley saw him
Speaker 2: on the TV, he would take out a magnum and
Speaker 2: shoot it Guley. Robert Ulay and Elvis is good for
Speaker 2: some reason, you know. So the Elvis Maffi would always
Speaker 2: if they knew Robert Ulay was going to be on
Speaker 2: a television show, to make sure Elvis wouldn't want it,
Speaker 2: because if he was at the Hilton Hotel he'd take
Speaker 2: out the gun and bam, you know, shoot a TV. Well,
Speaker 2: Robert Ulay was on the Mic Douglas Show. We're in
Speaker 2: the middle of this meeting and Bill looks up, takes
Speaker 2: out half a watermelon and goes wam right into the
Speaker 2: TV set and man, we all just got up and
Speaker 2: cheered and said, yeah, we found our producer because he
Speaker 2: just you know, first of all, he produced bb King's
Speaker 2: big hit, The Thrill Is Gone. He knew all these
Speaker 2: great jazz artists, but he wasn't. He was one of us.
Speaker 2: And we just had an instantaneous connection with him spiritually, artistically,
Speaker 2: and he was an amazing guy. And Bill, I remember
Speaker 2: we'd come we were doing our first session with Bill
Speaker 2: at the Record Plant West, and then we moved to
Speaker 2: do some overdubs at the Record Plant East, and this
Speaker 2: young guy would come, friend of Bill's, with a little
Speaker 2: at Taysha case and he'd say to me, listen, you
Speaker 2: guys are great. I should manage it. And I said, well,
Speaker 2: we got a manager, and he goes, no, no, no,
Speaker 2: that's not a manager. I'm a manager. You should let
Speaker 2: me manage it. And he opened up is that test
Speaker 2: shake case? And you had me all this stuff and
Speaker 2: he would, you know, appear quite frequently, and I took
Speaker 2: to him. He was a really you know, very smart
Speaker 2: and you know guy. But the idea of you know,
Speaker 2: breaking away from you know, the choice of Frank Barcelona
Speaker 2: on our handshake deal, you know, and just you know,
Speaker 2: we were rolling along. But that young guy with that
Speaker 2: test shake case was this young fella starting in management
Speaker 2: and his name was Irving asof and that began a
Speaker 2: very long friendship to this day that I have with Irving.
Speaker 2: He's kind of like one of my guardians. One of
Speaker 2: my rabbi is somebody I will call and you know,
Speaker 2: if I email Irving. You know, there are certain people
Speaker 2: in the music industry. Irving was one. Geffen was another
Speaker 2: John Winner when he was at Rolling Stone that you
Speaker 2: could connect with and within ten minutes they would either
Speaker 2: answer you or the secretary would you know, tell you
Speaker 2: why you weren't getting an answer? But they always you know,
Speaker 2: responded Irving still to this day, Happy Thanksgiving, Irving. Two
Speaker 2: seconds later, gobble gobble, you know. And so I'm in
Speaker 2: touch with Irving. And it's quite interesting because the other night,
Speaker 2: just last night, no, the night before last, I was
Speaker 2: backstage going to Vince Gill show, and Vince is now
Speaker 2: an Eagle and he's great talent. And I loved Vince
Speaker 2: for you know, decades, and I knew him when he
Speaker 2: first got involved with Amy Grant. And how I also
Speaker 2: met Irving was the Eagles opened up for the j
Speaker 2: Giles Band a good many times, and that's how I
Speaker 2: became very friendly with Don and Glenn and the band,
Speaker 2: but especially Glenn and Down. And when I travel out
Speaker 2: to Los Angeles to do any kind of business and
Speaker 2: stuff for the band, I would always connect with Irving
Speaker 2: and I'd always either go to his house or Don's house,
Speaker 2: and Don and I remain very close throughout the years,
Speaker 2: and every time the Gules Band was doing an important date,
Speaker 2: Don always sent a telegram to me, you know, break
Speaker 2: a leg, you know, good luck at Madison Square Garden.
Speaker 2: And so it's funny how relationships like that remain. For instance,
Speaker 2: you two opened up for the Jay Giles band and
Speaker 2: we to this day. I always go to see him,
Speaker 2: pay respects, and the friendship remains. Tom Petty opened up
Speaker 2: for the Giles Band, and when Tom's last tour came,
Speaker 2: you know, as a soloist, he said Pete I'd love
Speaker 2: I'd be honor, you know, I'd love you to do
Speaker 2: some dates. So I did about eight and nine dates
Speaker 2: with my solo band for Tom and so they opened
Speaker 2: up for us, and I opened up for Tom, and
Speaker 2: unfortunately it became his last tour. But you know, the
Speaker 2: circle goes around, and uh uh, I guess I live on,
Speaker 2: you know, just enthusiasm, energy and the will to keep going.
Speaker 2: But uh, you know, unlike d I don't think of money,
Speaker 2: money money. I think of the artistic challenge, the artistic
Speaker 2: challenge and the artistic challenge. Though a lot of people
Speaker 2: just know me as Peter Wolf lead singer, or the
Speaker 2: Jay Giles band or the Jay Giles. Oh yeah, that's
Speaker 2: Jay Giles. And it's so funny because you know, once
Speaker 2: you establish a brand name in rock and roll, it's
Speaker 2: very hard to break away from it, and very few
Speaker 2: have succeeded in it. You know, Phil Collins was one,
Speaker 2: Peter Gabriel is another. I mean, of course there're you know,
Speaker 2: you could make a list, but the amount that tried
Speaker 2: that couldn't is far far bigger than those that were
Speaker 2: able to. And I'll give you for instance, if Sting
Speaker 2: was to play Boston he would be able to play
Speaker 2: the Wang Theater. I would think definitely one night. I
Speaker 2: don't know about two. I'm just I don't know, but
Speaker 2: I'm just making a thing. Now, here's Sting, who came
Speaker 2: out of a three piece band. He's the player of
Speaker 2: the bass player in his band, the Police. He's the
Speaker 2: sole songwriter of the band, the Police, and he's the
Speaker 2: singer of all the songs of the Police. And the
Speaker 2: Police is a three piece band. If Sting was to
Speaker 2: go out, he'd play the Wang Theater. If the Police
Speaker 2: went out, he'd play Fen White Park. And here it is.
Speaker 2: It's the same singer, same player, and just by the
Speaker 2: name the Police, Sting could put together a far more
Speaker 2: interesting musical group than the Police, you know, by adding
Speaker 2: some of the greatest players and you know, but it's
Speaker 2: the brand name, and people don't care that it's still Sting.
Speaker 2: They hear Police, and Police is far more valuable to
Speaker 2: a promoter than the name Sting. And go figure that
Speaker 2: one out.
Speaker 1: Okay, you end up having a relationship in being married
Speaker 1: to Fade done Away. At the time, rock was much
Speaker 1: bigger than movies, but movies had a glamor that was different.
Speaker 1: So you're in this situation where you're in her world.
Speaker 1: At times when you're in her world, did you feel
Speaker 1: like you would also ran like you were out of place?
Speaker 2: Well, Bob, it's interesting, you know, I don't know if
Speaker 2: rock was a bigger world. I mean, movies were making
Speaker 2: far more money than a rock and roll did, but
Speaker 2: they both were making quite a lot of money. But
Speaker 2: the thing was in the era when I first the
Speaker 2: time that I met Fae, all actors wanted to be
Speaker 2: rock and rollers, and all rock and rollers ended actors,
Speaker 2: but there were very few. I don't know if there
Speaker 2: were any major rockers that were married to actors or
Speaker 2: actresses at that time. You know, a lot in the story,
Speaker 2: as I was saying with Hitchcock and different people that
Speaker 2: I mentioned, and how I ran into Bob Dylan, it
Speaker 2: was all by chance, serpentdipity, and I did not want
Speaker 2: this book to be oh I met this famous person
Speaker 2: or I met that famous person. What I found in
Speaker 2: a lot of the musical books that I were reading
Speaker 2: was they would mention a character, but they didn't really
Speaker 2: tell you what the character was like. So I tried
Speaker 2: to be There was a quote that I used in
Speaker 2: the book from Christopher Issuwood. I am a camera with
Speaker 2: the lens always open. So I tried to be the
Speaker 2: camera taking pictures of like Muddy and Dylan and Van
Speaker 2: Morrison and people that I got to know, but tried to,
Speaker 2: you know, without being kiss and tell, but just tried
Speaker 2: to show what their personalities were like, what it was
Speaker 2: like spending time with them, What was it like hanging
Speaker 2: out with Van, what was it like, you know, meeting
Speaker 2: Alfred Hitchcock in his house. And so the book is
Speaker 2: those kind of adventures, I would say. And so one
Speaker 2: day we were playing the Fillmore West in California, and
Speaker 2: you know, there was that great Tony Bennett's song I
Speaker 2: Left my Heart in San Francisco, and I was saying
Speaker 2: to this woman that worked for Rolling Stone magazine, you know, Bryn,
Speaker 2: San Francisco is one of my favorite towns. It's such
Speaker 2: a known to be a romantic town. I don't know anybody,
Speaker 2: And so she said, I'll bring a girlfriend to come
Speaker 2: to the show tomorrow. We were playing in Winterland, and
Speaker 2: she did, and I could see her a side of
Speaker 2: the stage. She showed up and she had this gal
Speaker 2: with a hat pulled down, and long story short, that's
Speaker 2: how I first met Faye Dunaway, and I didn't really
Speaker 2: even know she was at first, and we became friends.
Speaker 2: I joined there during Christmas. We spent time together in
Speaker 2: New York and slowly, you know, she became so involved
Speaker 2: and loved music so much and enjoyed being on the
Speaker 2: road and visiting the band. And I was such a
Speaker 2: film buff. I enjoyed being in her world. And we
Speaker 2: both were so dedicated to our work and we both
Speaker 2: helped each other in our work that that became the
Speaker 2: bond of which turned into a marriage, and it remained
Speaker 2: for the years that it was good. It remained that way.
Speaker 2: You know. We never had a problem about, you know,
Speaker 2: who was a bigger star, who was more important, tough,
Speaker 2: who money or anything. We were just really committed to
Speaker 2: helping each other in all of our projects. And at
Speaker 2: that time, I think the only other after we got married,
Speaker 2: I think Sharon Greg Alman got married for about I
Speaker 2: don't know, five minutes or whatever it was. I remember
Speaker 2: being at a function and you know, I knew Greg
Speaker 2: because the Allman Brothers and the Guiles Band played must
Speaker 2: have played forty fifty shows together, you know, in the
Speaker 2: early days and when Dwayne was still with us and
Speaker 2: Dwayne and Jay Goals, you know, just you know, get
Speaker 2: to the venue three four hours earlier, and they would
Speaker 2: just do riffs, you know, on and on. I remember
Speaker 2: doing one, you know, you know, Greg just kind of
Speaker 2: you know, passed right out at this function and h So, yeah,
Speaker 2: it was it was interesting for me to meet some
Speaker 2: of the key players, Robert Evans, some of the big
Speaker 2: agents in Hollywood, and some of the great directors, you know,
Speaker 2: people like George Kueker and King Vidar and of course
Speaker 2: Alfred Hitchcock and my time spent with Roman Polanski. And
Speaker 2: so this to me was an adventure of meeting other
Speaker 2: really talented artists and being a film buff when I
Speaker 2: was a kid, I would you know, by the time
Speaker 2: I got to Boston, I almost had seen every important
Speaker 2: foreign film ever released, all the Bergman movies, all the
Speaker 2: Fellini movies, all the you know, true fol movies, you know,
Speaker 2: and everything that came out in that era, you know,
Speaker 2: which was a golden era for French films and the
Speaker 2: Swedish films. You know. I saw Alexander Nievsky, I mean,
Speaker 2: I just seen them all. So being on a movie
Speaker 2: set was very intriguing and also Fay and I had
Speaker 2: such an amazing relationship where, you know, I would take
Speaker 2: her out to have a sushi dinner with Wilson Pickett
Speaker 2: and Don Kove. Remember Pickett said, you know, so like
Speaker 2: what the hell is this fish? I mean, nobody couldn't
Speaker 2: It was just I mean, it was it was hilarious.
Speaker 2: And then you know, going to have dinner with Alan
Speaker 2: mcgraar and Steve McQueen or Barbaris Dreyisan's house. You know,
Speaker 2: so we were both able to share each other's worlds.
Speaker 2: And that's what I tried to write in the book,
Speaker 2: you know, sort of a Valentine to the Arow and
Speaker 2: our you know, marriage was really very fruitful.
Speaker 1: But you weren't a lot of situations that were not
Speaker 1: your world as were significant other and at times husband
Speaker 1: and a lot of times you you know, people didn't
Speaker 1: respect you. Did you ever feel like me? And you know,
Speaker 1: I'm just here. Don't why you're down on me. It's like,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm involved in a relationship with you know,
Speaker 1: treat me as an equal. You're treating other people's significant
Speaker 1: others as equals.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure what you mean, but.
Speaker 1: Okay, See movie business traditionally looks down on the music business.
Speaker 2: Well not then.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you felt totally comfortable whenever you were with
Speaker 1: Faye in movie situations.
Speaker 2: Well, no, I hear what you're saying. No, because you know,
Speaker 2: there was so much money. Every five minutes, you know,
Speaker 2: would be a recording budget, you know, because if the
Speaker 2: light went this, the pressure was intense. Uh. And you know, people,
Speaker 2: you know, back then, nobody knew the Jay Giles Band
Speaker 2: were you know, basically it wasn't uh, and many people
Speaker 2: weren't into rock that were involved in the music industry
Speaker 2: at that point. Younger actors and actresses certainly were, but
Speaker 2: you know, uh, you know, we weren't the Rolling Stones,
Speaker 2: and we weren't led Zeppelin, and so we weren't you know,
Speaker 2: so uh, many people just thought of me as this
Speaker 2: you know, rock guy, you know with Fay. But those
Speaker 2: who you know, I remember going out to dinner with
Speaker 2: the fellow that you know was producing The Poseidon Adventure
Speaker 2: and Towering Inferno, and uh, you know, once we got together,
Speaker 2: or having a dinner with Siddeley La met uh, whose
Speaker 2: wife was oh h the great singer buck A bug
Speaker 2: A bug a book great, Oh, it'll come to me
Speaker 2: you know, we would have you know, a great interaction
Speaker 2: because people I would realize I wasn't just this you know,
Speaker 2: drugged out crazy rocker because I didn't do drugs. I wasn't,
Speaker 2: you know, in my opinion, that crazy. So I was
Speaker 2: accepted by those people who got to Monomi, which is
Speaker 2: one of the reasons I wrote this book, because you know,
Speaker 2: to let people know some of the adventures that I
Speaker 2: was able and privileged and the people I was privileged
Speaker 2: to meet. Uh, that was beyond just rock and roll.
Speaker 2: Uh not. You know, I love rock and roll, but
Speaker 2: there are more. There was more to my life than
Speaker 2: just you know, getting on a bus, getting on stage,
Speaker 2: doing a sound check, you know, going in the studio,
Speaker 2: making an album, promoting the album, getting back on the
Speaker 2: you know, et cetera, et cetera. So, uh, that's what
Speaker 2: the meaning of the Waiting on the Moon was about.
Speaker 1: Okay, ahmit amit is portrayed as this dapper guy. They
Speaker 1: did a story about him and the New Yorker, but
Speaker 1: Amic could talk shit and had sharp elbows. The people
Speaker 1: who knew him were aware of what was your experience
Speaker 1: with ahmit.
Speaker 2: I was quite intrigued with Ahmat as a character. I mean,
Speaker 2: Ahmitt was, you know, a character out of a novel.
Speaker 2: Uh he he, he would be like I. I didn't
Speaker 2: see all of the ray movie, but I did see
Speaker 2: the clip with Ahmen and there was nothing like amen.
Speaker 2: You know, they they didn't even come close. You know.
Speaker 2: Ahmitt was a very very bright him and his brother,
Speaker 2: and that's why we were bright. They went to incredible schools.
Speaker 2: They were the sons of the Turkish ambassador uh the
Speaker 2: United States. They lived in Washington, d C. They had
Speaker 2: parties in there at the embassy with people like Duke
Speaker 2: Allington and Cab Callaway and you know, they were just
Speaker 2: jazz and finadoes. They were very cultured. And Ahmed spoke
Speaker 2: many languages, and he was a charismatic character and an
Speaker 2: amazing businessman. And his passion for music was and his
Speaker 2: uh knowledge of music was so enormous, uh and his
Speaker 2: ability of I have a chapter of a night on
Speaker 2: the Town with Ahmit, and you would go from you know,
Speaker 2: being at this very plush dinner party where you would
Speaker 2: have people like the Mayor of New York, Henry Kishinger, uh,
Speaker 2: you know, and then we'd end up at the Carlisle
Speaker 2: Hotel to see short then go to Buddy's Place to
Speaker 2: see Joe Williams, then go to fifty second Street to
Speaker 2: see Little Jazz, you know, Roy Eldridge, and then go
Speaker 2: downtown to see Reno Sweeney's to see Manhattan Transfer, then
Speaker 2: go to this other club to see a new rock
Speaker 2: band he was recorded, and then go downtown to you know,
Speaker 2: see Larry Rivers, the painter, and hang out, you know,
Speaker 2: in his loft, and then go back out and the
Speaker 2: sun's coming up. And you know, that was one night
Speaker 2: with Amet, and the next day he'd be in the office,
Speaker 2: you know, taking care of business at Atlantic. And so
Speaker 2: Amet was this incredibly charismanic figure and incredibly brilliant figure
Speaker 2: obviously in business. And when Ross bought and form w EA,
Speaker 2: he had the Kinney parking lots. The ingenious thing he
Speaker 2: did was when he put uh Warner Brothers, Atlantic, Lecture
Speaker 2: and Uh, you know together to form WEA Uh. He
Speaker 2: kept the people that founded these labels in place. So
Speaker 2: you had Mo Austin still running his label, you had
Speaker 2: Amit running his label, and Geffen and all of the above,
Speaker 2: and so uh it was a very lucrative time for
Speaker 2: the record industry. And so being a friend of omit. Socially,
Speaker 2: I got to meet all the players. I remember with
Speaker 2: Jerry Wexler, we'd go to a dinner party at Mo
Speaker 2: Austin's and everybody had their wine cellars and we're trying
Speaker 2: to out to each other who had the greatest wine cellars.
Speaker 2: And it was just a very heady time in the
Speaker 2: music industry. So one night being with all the great players,
Speaker 2: Jerry Moss and from A and M, and you know,
Speaker 2: being at a dinner party with those people one night,
Speaker 2: and then being at a dinner party at Chasin's with
Speaker 2: the entire Hollywood brass. You know, it was you know,
Speaker 2: when I think back at it. At the time, I
Speaker 2: just accepted it as my life. But when I think
Speaker 2: back at it, it was pretty remarkable.
Speaker 1: Okay. In the book you talk about the breakup of
Speaker 1: the you being excised from the Jay Gills band. Let's
Speaker 1: cut to the chase. Were they jealous that you were
Speaker 1: the front person? Was it a personality thing or was
Speaker 1: it the money? And are all three? Because as a
Speaker 1: writer you get more money and then you say you
Speaker 1: regretted reunion shows. So tell me what was going on there?
Speaker 2: Well, first thing, it had nothing to do with money.
Speaker 2: That was not the problem. And as I explained in
Speaker 2: the book, it's a chapter all practice size. You know,
Speaker 2: it's funny, Bob. When I first started the book, the
Speaker 2: two things I made it a point of there were
Speaker 2: two things I was not going to write about. I
Speaker 2: was not going to write about my marriage, and I
Speaker 2: was not going to write about the Jay Giles Band.
Speaker 2: I just thought I would make a book of short
Speaker 2: stories of Ahmet and Don Covey or Muddy John Lee Hooker,
Speaker 2: Alfred Hitchcock. And it was just going to be a
Speaker 2: collection of these short vignettes and like New Yorker profiles.
Speaker 2: But as I got on, people at the publishing company thought,
Speaker 2: you know, Peter, we're all interested in your marriage, or we're
Speaker 2: interested in Jay Giles. So you got to say something,
Speaker 2: You got to do something. So I decided to write
Speaker 2: a chapter about the Giles Band. And the Giles Band,
Speaker 2: as I explained, like many bands at that era, be
Speaker 2: it the Rolling Stones, you had what they called I
Speaker 2: call key players. The Eagles, Glenn Fry and Don Henley
Speaker 2: were the key players. And Zeppelin you had Jimmy Page,
Speaker 2: Robert Plant and you know the Stones you had Jagger
Speaker 2: Richard's and the Beatles, McCartney Lennon, and when that when
Speaker 2: those two key players, which are very close, it's like
Speaker 2: a marriage and the rest of the band is like
Speaker 2: a family. When there's a fracture between those two key players,
Speaker 2: that's usually unless a really talented manager or somebody intervenes
Speaker 2: and is able to, you know, act as a marriage
Speaker 2: counselor to get over whatever is causing the problems. Usually
Speaker 2: it's the sign the beginning of the end for the group.
Speaker 2: And that's what happened with the Gules. The reasoning being,
Speaker 2: you know what, I didn't write in the book, and
Speaker 2: I don't know why I didn't. I thought about later
Speaker 2: back in nineteen seventy, No, back in nineteen sixty eight.
Speaker 2: Once we got signed to Atlantic, Atlantic forgot about us
Speaker 2: for about a year and we were just touring around.
Speaker 2: The band had a meeting and decided they were going
Speaker 2: to have a meeting after a show. I remember Jay
Speaker 2: came up to me and said, Pete, there's going to
Speaker 2: be a band meeting, but we really rather you not
Speaker 2: come to it. I said really, and he said yeah,
Speaker 2: And this is nineteen sixty eight. And they came out
Speaker 2: and they said, we feel that, you know, you're holding
Speaker 2: back the band. You're not a real singer. You know,
Speaker 2: you don't have the chops needed, and we just you know,
Speaker 2: not wanting you to stay in the band anymore. We voted,
Speaker 2: we voted you out, and I was devastated. I mean
Speaker 2: I was, you know, totally devastated. And I remember about
Speaker 2: two three weeks later, I get a phone call from
Speaker 2: Jay and saying could they come over to my apartment?
Speaker 2: And they did, and they said, listen, we apologize. You know,
Speaker 2: we made a really big mistake, and we really wonder
Speaker 2: if you appreciate coming back, and let's just continue as
Speaker 2: if nothing happened. And I loved the band so much.
Speaker 2: I did, and maybe at that point, if I was
Speaker 2: wise enough, I might have said, you know, Jay Giles
Speaker 2: band featuring Peter Woolf or something, because throughout the good
Speaker 2: part of the band, most people saw it I was
Speaker 2: Jay Giles because I was the front guy. And I
Speaker 2: remember when we first played the More East Bill, Graham
Speaker 2: put us on without seeing us and came running into
Speaker 2: the dressing room after the show. We got about four
Speaker 2: encores and he threw his arms around me and said, Jay,
Speaker 2: you were amazing. He lifted me up to the ground.
Speaker 2: I said, Bill, I'm not Jay. He said what He goes,
Speaker 2: I'm Pete Wilop. He goes, who the hell is J
Speaker 2: I said, the guitar player. And Bill always wanted to
Speaker 2: manage the band, also wanted to manage me. And I said, well, Bill,
Speaker 2: if you were going to manage the band, what would
Speaker 2: you do? He is. The first thing I'd do is
Speaker 2: change the name that Jay Giles is confusing everything. Confused me.
Speaker 2: He's confusing everything. You know, think of another name or
Speaker 2: you know whatever. I said, Bill, that's not going to fly.
Speaker 2: And so going back to after we're signed now with
Speaker 2: EMI Records, and Freeze Frame comes out and centerfold, which
Speaker 2: nobody in the band thought was should be the single.
Speaker 2: My other key member thought it should be a ballad
Speaker 2: called Angel and Blue, and I thought it should be
Speaker 2: Freeze Frame, you know, because I had a rock and
Speaker 2: thing for the first single, and I knew that the
Speaker 2: album was going to sell lots of records because disco
Speaker 2: was dying and you had bands like, you know, Bob
Speaker 2: Seger back on the charts, Joan Jet was back on
Speaker 2: the charts, all these bands that have been touring for years.
Speaker 2: You know, we're coming back and rock and roll was
Speaker 2: really having it stay in the sun again, and I
Speaker 2: knew the Giles band with the impact of Our Lives Show,
Speaker 2: it was our time. And EMI Jim Maza was the
Speaker 2: president at the time. He really believed this was the
Speaker 2: time for Giles. And so we're in the making of
Speaker 2: the video. My key number went out and of this
Speaker 2: ballad called Angel and Blue, a good song. And this
Speaker 2: fellow who was very close to me and really helped
Speaker 2: the band a lot. His name was Dick Williams. He
Speaker 2: was a promotion man for EMI America, and he went
Speaker 2: to Detroit, which was our one big market, and you
Speaker 2: would know this woman. You remember Rosalie, Uh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: the DJ. Yes, she was well, she was no a DJ,
Speaker 2: she was program director and she was considered to have
Speaker 2: the Golden ears. And so everybody took their records to
Speaker 2: Rosalie and if Rosalie certified it a hit, be it
Speaker 2: you know, uh you know, Muskrat Love or Captain and
Speaker 2: to Neil, whatever it was, it became a hit. She
Speaker 2: was so powerful, her taste was so powerful. She listened
Speaker 2: to the record and she said centerfold and so they
Speaker 2: Dick called up Jim Maza, president of em I called
Speaker 2: us we were making the video. Right in the middle
Speaker 2: of making the video for the song, he said, we're
Speaker 2: changing the single go what Go, Centophold, centophol Come on.
Speaker 2: That's kind of a fun song. But you know, and
Speaker 2: the rest, as they say, is history.
Speaker 1: Just staying on songs on the previous album. My favorite
Speaker 1: song is Comeback. Can you tell me the story of
Speaker 1: writing and recording Comeback?
Speaker 2: Well, come Back? Both we were big fans of the
Speaker 2: Ohio playoffs and the Ohio Players had songs like Fire
Speaker 2: and roller Coaster Ecstasy and things like that, and it
Speaker 2: Comeback was our attempt to try to capture the energy
Speaker 2: that the Ohio players had. And we would go see
Speaker 2: the Ohio Players all the time I did, and they
Speaker 2: were just you know, the show was amazing, There were
Speaker 2: coins amazing, They had this energy. So Comeback was an
Speaker 2: attempt to try to you know, without it going disco,
Speaker 2: you know, quote unquote where you know people might say, uh,
Speaker 2: mishoot by the Stones or you know Rod Stewart's you
Speaker 2: know attempt you know, people try to keep that that
Speaker 2: beat going. But uh, that's what really Comeback was all about,
Speaker 2: was trying to emulate the Ohio players.
Speaker 1: What's the best live show you ever did.
Speaker 2: Oh, that's really tough, you know.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: I'm not saying this to downgrade the Guiles band. Uh,
Speaker 2: but there are some solo shows that means so much
Speaker 2: to me. But I would think, you know, closing night
Speaker 2: at the film or when we played with Albert King
Speaker 2: and uh, the Allman Brothers Fillmore East was a really
Speaker 2: really special evening. Uh. And I remember all my brothers
Speaker 2: went till five six in the morning, Uh, playing I
Speaker 2: think five or six nights straight. The Pine Knob in
Speaker 2: Detroit was just you know, incredible. Selling out the Boston
Speaker 2: Garden for the first time, uh for the band, uh
Speaker 2: was incredible. And uh, of course Boston Garden, the old
Speaker 2: Boston Garden had no air conditioning, the small seats, you know.
Speaker 2: Being number one in your hometown was like the Celtics,
Speaker 2: you know, or you know the Bruins or the Red Sox,
Speaker 2: you know, winning the series, you know, the crowd, just
Speaker 2: the energy from the crowd was just so unbelievable an
Speaker 2: undeniable and the power of the bond between us and
Speaker 2: the band. So I can't pick one, but those those
Speaker 2: situations which is so important to my life. And you
Speaker 2: know to this day people come up and you said, oh, Peter,
Speaker 2: you know I saw you back in you know, the garden,
Speaker 2: blah blah blah blah. And there was one time I
Speaker 2: thought about would be great on Christmas Day to visit
Speaker 2: Belle Ricca and play a concert at the Bill Ricker Youth. Uh.
Speaker 2: It was like a you know, a jail or for
Speaker 2: young men who kind of lost their way and were
Speaker 2: trouble or robberies or you know, got caught up in
Speaker 2: drugs and stuff. And we did several Christmas concerts and
Speaker 2: those were really really very pertinent, very important. I remember
Speaker 2: after the show, we walked down the cells, all the
Speaker 2: guys and the cells now, oh, put out the hands.
Speaker 2: Yeah it's Gyles, Gyles, you know, thank you for coming.
Speaker 2: And those were, you know, very spiritually meaningful dates. But Hometown,
Speaker 2: Boston Garden, Cobo Hall, Detroit, Cobo Hall, Pineknob, those were
Speaker 2: the shows that were just incredible. And we did a
Speaker 2: show in Germany Rock Pals and we came over and
Speaker 2: we used our marching bands. We stayed up all night,
Speaker 2: we played I think that's available on YouTube and just
Speaker 2: the crowd being in Germany to this uh, you know,
Speaker 2: large you know, in this large arena and just having
Speaker 2: being in front of these people that obviously didn't know
Speaker 2: all the lyrics, you know, but the interaction was just
Speaker 2: you know, overwhelming. So for me it was, you know,
Speaker 2: that thing that brought me back to the Apollo. You're
Speaker 2: seeing artists being able to rave up an audience and
Speaker 2: being ten years old witnessing the first generation of rockers
Speaker 2: and remembering as a kid, you know, jumping up and
Speaker 2: down on my seat like a bouncing Mexican jumping bean,
Speaker 2: you know, and having a you know, a Matron come over,
Speaker 2: sit down, you know, putting flash lights, jumping in the
Speaker 2: aisles and dancing. I mean, those Guyle shows just to me,
Speaker 2: you know, where something that will never replace it could
Speaker 2: never you know, for me, they will always be memorable
Speaker 2: parts of my life.
Speaker 1: How about a couple of shows or a few shows
Speaker 1: of other racks that you just can't get out of
Speaker 1: your head, blew your mind?
Speaker 2: Oh well, you know, sitting about four or five feet
Speaker 2: away from Bob Dylan when I one of the first
Speaker 2: times a few times that maybe he performed the song
Speaker 2: that nobody heard called hard Ring on a Fall, was
Speaker 2: pretty incredible. Seeing the rolling thunder review, you know with
Speaker 2: Bob many times. Seeing about five or six of those
Speaker 2: was incredible. Seeing Jimmy Hendrix jump on stage with the
Speaker 2: Jeff Beck Group with Rod Stewart at Steve Paul seen
Speaker 2: was pretty incredible. There was there's so many Bob I
Speaker 2: would you know be you know, they're just I go
Speaker 2: to shows all the time, and you know, seeing Van
Speaker 2: Morrison at the Music Hall in Boston or when we
Speaker 2: played with him in Symphony Hall where he'd bring it
Speaker 2: down a ballot so low where you could hear a
Speaker 2: pin drop and just you could feel goosebumps going that
Speaker 2: he could transcend. You know, here's this little guy, you
Speaker 2: know and just all of a sudden, you know, have
Speaker 2: the entire audience in the palm of his hand doing
Speaker 2: with every great artist you know did, which was you know,
Speaker 2: kind of have a transcending moment. And that's what I call,
Speaker 2: you know, the concerts that give me goose bumps that
Speaker 2: you know, I remember seeing Art Blakey the Jazz Messages
Speaker 2: with Lee Morgan on trumpet and Art Blakey calling up
Speaker 2: you know, let's call up the Queen and this woman,
Speaker 2: you know, a fur coat and this big blonde wig
Speaker 2: would get up on stage, she sang the dirtiest words
Speaker 2: I ever heard, and uh turned out to be you know,
Speaker 2: Dinah Washington. And you know, I didn't really know the
Speaker 2: importance of the people I was seeing, but the impact
Speaker 2: on me was just I would never forget it. And then,
Speaker 2: you know, seeing Jackie Wilson at the Apollo and then
Speaker 2: having the honor to induct him into the Hall of
Speaker 2: Fame was a really great honor for me. And to
Speaker 2: also you know, induct Paul Butterfield Blues Band, and to
Speaker 2: induct Jesse Stone, the great songwriter, you know. Uh uh.
Speaker 2: So there are a lot of great times, a lot
Speaker 2: of great shows. You know, if you asked me to
Speaker 2: two hours from now, I'll think of thirty others. But
Speaker 2: I would say with the Guiles Band, you know, being hometown, Boston,
Speaker 2: finally Boston Garden, Madison Square Garden, but of course Detroit,
Speaker 2: Cobo Hall and Pineknob. They were very, very very special events.
Speaker 1: So what did you leave out of the book? What
Speaker 1: are some of the great stories left out?
Speaker 2: Oh, there's a whole lot left out because I did
Speaker 2: not want this to be a kiss and tell book.
Speaker 2: And you know, I left it out because I just
Speaker 2: wanted this to be my Valentine to the people I
Speaker 2: got to meet into a music industry that I think
Speaker 2: what you were trying to bring up earlier, that has
Speaker 2: been battered and shattered and lost so much of what
Speaker 2: made it, you know, intriguing and interesting. And you know
Speaker 2: when you mentioned about the digital world, I mean there
Speaker 2: was the aspect of garage band and being able to
Speaker 2: you know, have a single and maybe get that single
Speaker 2: played on your AM radio station and you know, it
Speaker 2: become a hit overnight. You know, those kinds of things,
Speaker 2: you know, just aren't there anymore. But then somebody might say, well,
Speaker 2: there's a playing field that everybody has an opportunity to
Speaker 2: post the music. But the ocean is so big, it's
Speaker 2: like almost the universal galaxy, and so how to find
Speaker 2: that little teeny planet makes it harder, But there are opportunities.
Speaker 2: So it's totally changed. But I come, I've always and
Speaker 2: I still do to this day. What's meaningful to me
Speaker 2: is the face to face into relationships with other musicians,
Speaker 2: with business and the record companies, sitting down in an
Speaker 2: office and talking about, you know, what you want to achieve.
Speaker 2: And in book world, unfortunately, there was a change when
Speaker 2: I signed with the Little Brown there was a change
Speaker 2: and a lot of the people that I want to
Speaker 2: work with so that, you know, changed the dynamics there.
Speaker 2: You know, it's still you know, an important publishing company.
Speaker 2: But I tend to really like the one on ones
Speaker 2: and the characters, like I mentioned the Big m and
Speaker 2: Ahmed and Wexler and Irving Azof and Bill Graham and
Speaker 2: you know uh and the artists themselves, you know, Reather
Speaker 2: and you know just you know, Sparky and all these
Speaker 2: crazy you know managers and Peter Grant and just it.
Speaker 2: It was so rich for me and as someone who
Speaker 2: was trying to catch these in literary form, there was
Speaker 2: so much to choose from because these characters were really
Speaker 2: great characters.
Speaker 1: So where does this leave you now? No one's gonna
Speaker 1: live forever. We ever gonna see you on the road again.
Speaker 1: You're gonna record more music? What's your state of mind?
Speaker 1: And what's the play on? Well?
Speaker 2: I was hoping the book would bring attention that a
Speaker 2: CD wouldn't in areas where a CD wouldn't go, or
Speaker 2: recording that I say CD, you know, streaming as you
Speaker 2: say and stuff. But I do have a great solo band.
Speaker 2: But just before I released the book, I did a tour.
Speaker 2: It was called an Acoustic Evening of Story and Song,
Speaker 2: and I had two great guitarists with me and we
Speaker 2: did a you know, a sort of an evening where
Speaker 2: I would play saying and then tell some of the
Speaker 2: stories that are in the book and not unlike what
Speaker 2: Ray Davies did with the first Storytellers and then what
Speaker 2: Bruce later did with his book. And I recently saw
Speaker 2: Roger mcgwinn here in Boston and he did one man
Speaker 2: show playing and telling stories. I thought it quite interesting,
Speaker 2: so I might do that plus go out and tour.
Speaker 2: So music's still with me. But I was hoping that
Speaker 2: the book, you know, reaches and I really appreciate you for,
Speaker 2: you know, giving me an opportunity to talk about the book.
Speaker 2: But I'm curious. I first heard about you many years
Speaker 2: ago with your letter and your forum and this controversial
Speaker 2: guy that was, you know, talking about ticket pricing and
Speaker 2: ticketmaster and his managers and you know, all that kind
Speaker 2: of stuff. How did you get started.
Speaker 1: Trying to make it very brief like you, although I'm
Speaker 1: a little younger than you are, music was everything. If
Speaker 1: you wanted to know what was going on, you wanted
Speaker 1: to listen to the radio. People have no idea that
Speaker 1: working at a record car. You couldn't even get a
Speaker 1: job in a record shop because everybody wanted that job.
Speaker 1: And so I ended up going to law school because
Speaker 1: it's in a bad spot. I'd been sick. My father
Speaker 1: would pay for it. My father was a real estate appraiser.
Speaker 1: I had nobody in the business, so I said, at
Speaker 1: the time, the business was run by attorneys in the seventies.
Speaker 2: Growing up whereabout.
Speaker 1: I grew up in Connecticut, fifty miles from New York City, Infield, Connecticut, Fairfield, Okay,
Speaker 1: Fearfield between Bridgeport and Westport. So it's all New York media.
Speaker 1: You know, all the FM stations wr WNW. I mean
Speaker 1: that's sixty seven sixty eight. It was unbelievably fertile, and
Speaker 1: of course the shows you would go to the Pillmore East,
Speaker 1: et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And it was always
Speaker 1: a dream to move to California, which I ultimately did.
Speaker 1: And you know, I could complain about LA all day long,
Speaker 1: but it's really pretty great. And I was the only
Speaker 1: person working in the movie business who wanted to be
Speaker 1: in the music business. You say it's reverse, but I
Speaker 1: worked for these big English managers who still manage Iron Maiden.
Speaker 1: I lost my job. I started this newsletter and what
Speaker 1: happened was that I had a free subscription to AOL
Speaker 1: through Warner Brothers Records, and I was an attorney such
Speaker 1: when the Napster hit, I was an expert. And there's
Speaker 1: a lot of stories there. But you know your point
Speaker 1: about d Anthony is well take and I could tell
Speaker 1: you a million stories like that where the money is primary.
Speaker 1: It's like for me. I remember when Tom Petty was
Speaker 1: playing the film More and he was not at the
Speaker 1: peak of his career, and I said, well, what does
Speaker 1: this mean going forward? And an agent said, I'll take
Speaker 1: that Billy any day of the week. You know, I'm
Speaker 1: like you, it's how does the record hit you? What
Speaker 1: is the emotion? Trying to articulate that the only thing
Speaker 1: better than a great record is sex, and we're all
Speaker 1: in search of those great records. And the great thing
Speaker 1: about records You put a five year old in front
Speaker 1: of a TV and they could say, oh, plot wasn't believable.
Speaker 1: About the most you can say about a great record
Speaker 1: has had a good beat. And I could dance to it.
Speaker 1: And the people who we analyze it beyond that are
Speaker 1: analyzing a level beyond the people who made it. So
Speaker 1: there's a passion for the music, and you know it's
Speaker 1: grown since then, and you know, you talk about all
Speaker 1: these came the listen. I was with Frank Riley on
Speaker 1: Saturday talking about you irving. You know, yeah, does my
Speaker 1: deals too. These are all it's a different business and
Speaker 1: music is forever. People don't understand that we're not at
Speaker 1: a peak. Yeah, people are consuming MUSI, but what it
Speaker 1: was and what it represented in the sixties and at
Speaker 1: other times they have no idea.
Speaker 2: But but you know, you're writing this newsletter. But how
Speaker 2: did it get started?
Speaker 1: Well, to be very literal about it, I was working
Speaker 1: for a management company, and you if you had a
Speaker 1: successful act, the big thing was to hire an independent publicist.
Speaker 1: And they used to write these bios that were just terrible.
Speaker 1: I had to rewrite them. I'm leaving out a chapter.
Speaker 1: I was in college. First semester in college. This is
Speaker 1: Middlebury College.
Speaker 2: In pan and we played it. I know it will is.
Speaker 1: The only time I ever did this. First semester, I
Speaker 1: called up the teacher day before paper Ducic, Can I
Speaker 1: do something creative? Said sure. I got an a. All
Speaker 1: the prep school kids said, oh, you're gonna flunk. And
Speaker 1: I called my mother on the payphone. I'm going to
Speaker 1: be a writer, okay. I took the writing class. When
Speaker 1: I would read, it was like springtime for Hitler. You know,
Speaker 1: it's like, you know the people who listen this I wrote?
Speaker 1: You know. Then I finally wrote about going to an
Speaker 1: Alice Cooper concert at the musical on the Killer Tour
Speaker 1: in seventy two, and the teacher said it was good,
Speaker 1: but it needed a twist. I said, you were It's
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy two. Did you ever hear of the new
Speaker 1: journalism twists? Forget that? I never wrote another thing. So
Speaker 1: then I was down and out. I went to see
Speaker 1: this job counselor. She gave me this work book that
Speaker 1: was attached to a legendary book called What Color Is
Speaker 1: Your Parachute? You had to write six essays and she's
Speaker 1: brag about yourself. This is just for yourself. This is
Speaker 1: now nineteen, you know, eighty four, So this is, you know,
Speaker 1: an excess of a decade since I wrote in college.
Speaker 1: And I wrote those things and I got back in
Speaker 1: touch with the fact that I like to write. I said, oh,
Speaker 1: I'll write stuff and send it to magazines. I did that,
Speaker 1: and I said, this is just like the music business.
Speaker 1: You got to know these people. And I was eating
Speaker 1: a hamburger one night reading billboard. Billboard's been up and down,
Speaker 1: but it was in a bad space. Then I said,
Speaker 1: this is terrible. I could do a better job than this.
Speaker 1: And all of a sudden something clicked in my brain said, wait,
Speaker 1: aren't there computers and all this other stuff. So I
Speaker 1: bought all that gear on credit. And there was a
Speaker 1: direct we call the Yellow Pages of Rock, and I
Speaker 1: sent out the newsletter in eighty six, primarily with the
Speaker 1: intention of getting another job. But the most interesting thing
Speaker 1: was only the most successful people subscribed the heads of
Speaker 1: all the labels they could hear a contrary opinion. So,
Speaker 1: you know, there's fifteen years there and then the Internet
Speaker 1: hits and I'm in the right place at the right time.
Speaker 1: And the Internet boosted my career, you know, because now
Speaker 1: I started to give it away for free instead of charge,
Speaker 1: and you can reach all these people. Listen, this is
Speaker 1: exactly what you do. You know, you're doing it all
Speaker 1: day long. You're never gonna write something or make something terrible.
Speaker 1: But you can only create an eleven every once in
Speaker 1: a while, and it's usually because a thought came to
Speaker 1: you in the shower or you're inspired and you lay
Speaker 1: it down. You're always in search of that, as opposed
Speaker 1: to the hacks. People say I don't know what a
Speaker 1: hit is. Believe me. It's like Al Cooper telling me
Speaker 1: they recorded Sweet Home Alabama a year before it came out, said, now,
Speaker 1: did you know it was a hit? He goes, it
Speaker 1: was sweet Home Alabama. So the key is to try
Speaker 1: to get that, and when you get that, the people resonate.
Speaker 1: The only difference is there used to be a pyramid.
Speaker 1: Pyramid's been blown to bits. Everybody is in their own business.
Speaker 1: If you walk down the street, ask people name to
Speaker 1: Taylor Swiss songs, they can even name them. Whereas you
Speaker 1: know in nineteen sixty five, I can sing every lick
Speaker 1: of Hello Dolly because I was waiting for the Beatles
Speaker 1: songs on the radio, so and somedd you know it all,
Speaker 1: the same thing remains. There's a lot of great streaming television,
Speaker 1: especially for me. You're waiting for something that touches you
Speaker 1: in a certain way. And if you can articulate that,
Speaker 1: that's what people resonate with, and people are hungry for
Speaker 1: that resonance. They want something they can connect with. And
Speaker 1: that's what I'm trying to do.
Speaker 2: And where are you based now?
Speaker 1: I'm in Los Angeles, okay?
Speaker 2: And how did you connect with Irving? How is that?
Speaker 1: I mean, I'll tell the real story I connected Irving.
Speaker 1: This is nineteen eighty seven. I wrote about Dan Folberg's
Speaker 1: same Old Lang Syne you know song. Met my old
Speaker 1: lover in the grocery store and I immediately heard from
Speaker 1: Irving and he says, you gotta come in. I gotta
Speaker 1: tell you the real story of that record. He was
Speaker 1: running MCA at that time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was. I was signed to MCA at that time, okay.
Speaker 1: And I went in and there's a lot of hilarious stuff.
Speaker 1: Tom Petty was recording a solo album and sales were low.
Speaker 1: He said, the deal is so rich, I'm not sure
Speaker 1: he wanted the record to come out at all. There's
Speaker 1: a lot to pay him. And he remember the fine
Speaker 1: young Cannibals. She drives me crazy. He knew that was
Speaker 1: going to be hit, but he says, I'm going to
Speaker 1: hire you to help Jimmy Buffett have a hit record.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna fly you down to the Key West. Fly
Speaker 1: down to Key West. Make a long story very short.
Speaker 1: Jimmy had already cut the record. Jimmy, you know, you're
Speaker 1: a rocket roller. Jimmy had so much money he didn't
Speaker 1: need the advance from the label to cut a record.
Speaker 1: And then I felt really embarrassed about the whole thing.
Speaker 1: You know, this is typical Irving before cell phones. So
Speaker 1: I call his office in LA. He calls me from
Speaker 1: the airport in New York and I'm stowing it on. Oh,
Speaker 1: you know, Jimmy's a big guy. Cut all the recorded. Now,
Speaker 1: Irving goes, how big a guy can he be if
Speaker 1: he only sells three hundred thousand records? And you know
Speaker 1: that was nineteen eighty nine. But you know, there's been
Speaker 1: a lot of chapters up and down with the Irving.
Speaker 1: You know, you know, Irving Irving's you know, changed to
Speaker 1: Irving's much mellower than he used to be.
Speaker 2: I know, I mean I wrote him as a Irving.
Speaker 2: You know, I want to send you a copy of
Speaker 2: a book, and he said, don't, I'll buy it. I
Speaker 2: don't know if he did. You know. I hope he did,
Speaker 2: because I think Irving would find you know, some of
Speaker 2: the chapters, you know, interesting because you know, it's an
Speaker 2: homage to the period that you know, he was so
Speaker 2: involved in. So if you speak to him, please, you.
Speaker 1: Know, well I definitely so I'll text him after we're here.
Speaker 1: And but you know, the this is a crazy business.
Speaker 1: People hate people they have never met. Okay, what they
Speaker 1: don't know about Irving is how charming he can be
Speaker 1: and how funny he can be, and that he is
Speaker 1: really supportive. People just hate him because he's the big guy.
Speaker 1: The other thing about Irving is they do not come
Speaker 1: any smarter. I remember being at his house after it
Speaker 1: ended with Live Nation, listening to him what he was
Speaker 1: going to do next, he was creating. He is always
Speaker 1: one step ahead, you know. You know some of these
Speaker 1: other players. Listen, the guy's gotten into it with me.
Speaker 1: But Geffrin, you know, it's a completely different agenda. Geff
Speaker 1: then needs you to kiss the ring and it's a
Speaker 1: power thing. It's not that way with the Irving.
Speaker 2: No, you know, as I told you, you know, I
Speaker 2: knew Irving, you know, when he was you know, starting
Speaker 2: out and had the vision and did you ever read
Speaker 2: Fred Goodman's book Mansion on the Hill, of course, yeah,
Speaker 2: that was a good one, absolutely, yeah at the time,
Speaker 2: you know, because in the premise of it was that
Speaker 2: the cart the horse was the artist and the cart
Speaker 2: was following the horse. And then by the end of
Speaker 2: the book, the artists become the cart and the business
Speaker 2: people become the horse where the artists are chasing after
Speaker 2: you know, the business people.
Speaker 1: You lived through the change somewhere in the late sixties.
Speaker 1: First you didn't have to record in CBS's studios anymore.
Speaker 1: The deals were such that you just delivered the record
Speaker 1: and they had to put it out. They couldn't say, oh,
Speaker 1: what the single was, etcetera, etcetera. Warner Brothers, you delivered
Speaker 1: the record that came out. The change was the early
Speaker 1: nineties when Tommy Mattola's they started wearing suits. This is
Speaker 1: not a business, you know the cliche that I love
Speaker 1: is and I worked in this business movie business. You
Speaker 1: have a percentage deal and your own money. You walk
Speaker 1: in everybody's wearing a three piece suit. They have the
Speaker 1: accountant and he explains very slowly, while you're not entitled
Speaker 1: to money in the record business, you walk in the
Speaker 1: guy's got a gold chain around his neck, no collar shirt.
Speaker 1: You ask about the money, opens his drawer, pulls out
Speaker 1: a gun and says what money, and result is the same.
Speaker 1: The down and dirty style of the music business, you know,
Speaker 1: was eclipsed by these people who thought they were bigger
Speaker 1: than the acts.
Speaker 2: I know one person I didn't write about, Mars Levy,
Speaker 2: you know, who I had some interaction with, who is
Speaker 2: quite a character, you know. And I don't know, did
Speaker 2: you ever see that film that Richard Perry made, was
Speaker 2: called Slice Steak? It was Richard made the film. He
Speaker 2: was married to Goldener's daughter, I believe, And it was
Speaker 2: when Mars was being inducted but for the United Jewish
Speaker 2: Appeal as the Man in the Year, and it was
Speaker 2: a dinner and Mars had pres parado I believe. It
Speaker 2: was maybe not play and a lot of the Latin
Speaker 2: ax and stuff and it it but it's the movie,
Speaker 2: you know, see. And Joe Smith acted as MC, who
Speaker 2: you know could be Yeah, he was, he was. He
Speaker 2: was just so a kind, ethical and a brilliantly funny man,
Speaker 2: you know. Yeah. And I always enjoyed seeing Joe and
Speaker 2: his wife. We'd go out many times and That's the thing,
Speaker 2: uh Bob is as like you you know, you know,
Speaker 2: the streaming and the availability and all that. I think
Speaker 2: it's great because on one hand, but then there's that
Speaker 2: build and that search and that going from town to town.
Speaker 2: And I'll end, I'll end with this. You know. I
Speaker 2: was talking to a guitarist who's in my band, and
Speaker 2: he's a brilliant guitarist, and he also teaches sometimes at Berkeley,
Speaker 2: and he was saying to me, Oh my god, these
Speaker 2: kids today, all they want to learn is these power chords.
Speaker 2: You know, they just want to play, you know, either
Speaker 2: just Stairway to Heaven or you know, Black Sabbath songs.
Speaker 2: You know, it's just they don't understand anything about music.
Speaker 2: I said, listen, I said, do you imagine you're seventeen
Speaker 2: years old, you're growing up in someplace like Indiana, and
Speaker 2: you're learning saxophone and you're taking lessons and then you
Speaker 2: learn about theory and composition and sight reading, and you
Speaker 2: play and a band comes through town maybe already sure,
Speaker 2: and he hears you playing and he says, come on,
Speaker 2: and you're on this band tour and for years you're
Speaker 2: on this bus with other guys, great players, and you're
Speaker 2: playing with people on the bills, with Duke Ellington or
Speaker 2: the Count Basie Band or Tommy Darcy band, and everyone
Speaker 2: is this incredible musician with this vast knowledge and singers
Speaker 2: that know, you know, how to harmonize and breath control
Speaker 2: and the whole thing. And all of a sudden, one
Speaker 2: day here don and boom the world like a hydrogen
Speaker 2: bomb explodes. And all those years seemed, you know, like
Speaker 2: when they were carrying out all the great big band
Speaker 2: records at BCN, I couldn't believe it because I didn't
Speaker 2: think they realized culturally, you know, what they were dismantling
Speaker 2: in this quote, what they would call the American Revolution.
Speaker 2: I understood it, and I think you would understand it
Speaker 2: because where they were at at that time. But you know,
Speaker 2: the greatness that was, you know, the mastering, the Doug Sacks,
Speaker 2: you know, the recording studios, Capital studios, the microphone, everything that,
Speaker 2: you know, the arrangers, everything that took place in the
Speaker 2: making of these great works of art, which is totally
Speaker 2: dismissed for Country Joe, you know. And so you know,
Speaker 2: there's a great movie, very hard movie to watch because
Speaker 2: technically it's so bad, but it's an Arson Wells movie
Speaker 2: called The Chimes at Midnight, and it's based on the
Speaker 2: Henry the Fourth, Part one and part four, where the
Speaker 2: main character is Falstaff, who is one of Shakespeare's you know,
Speaker 2: sort of buffoons, clowns, very wise, and he's teaching the
Speaker 2: young Prince, you know, how to drink, and he's introducing
Speaker 2: him to prostitutes. And but the movie starts off with
Speaker 2: these two old men walking through the rugged terrain and
Speaker 2: one says to the other, Uh, it's cold, it's so cold,
Speaker 2: and the other one says, yes, but we both heard
Speaker 2: the Chimes of midnight ring. And I think you and
Speaker 2: I have both witnessed the Chimes of Midnight, and I
Speaker 2: think what they meant was these great glory days when
Speaker 2: things seemed far more innocent, seem far more promising. And
Speaker 2: you know, not to get into it, but you know,
Speaker 2: we know that there are dark clouds gathering. You know,
Speaker 2: if you study history, like in nineteen thirty seven, thirty eight,
Speaker 2: you know, I had relatives that fought in the you know,
Speaker 2: Spanish Civil War, which was a you know, precursor to
Speaker 2: what you know, the horrible you know things that came later. So, Bob,
Speaker 2: you know, it's great talking to you. Please connect with Irving.
Speaker 2: Tell him I send my best, because you know, he's
Speaker 2: you know, been in and out of my life throughout
Speaker 2: the years, and I'm not sure if he ever forgive
Speaker 2: forgave me for not, you know, dismissing the anthony and
Speaker 2: going with him. You know, time proved he was quite right,
Speaker 2: he was the manager. But then again, you know that
Speaker 2: life teaches us in strange ways.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, it's funny, you're not the only act
Speaker 1: who said no with another one who's come back to
Speaker 1: me all these years later and said, you know, God,
Speaker 1: if I only knew. But just to stay on this
Speaker 1: one point when people don't understand. This guy a friend
Speaker 1: of mine who's the chairman of Guitar Center, and he
Speaker 1: was walking me through the musical instrument in history, and
Speaker 1: he says, it's a mature business. In the early sixties
Speaker 1: it was all independent labels. Then there were majors. It
Speaker 1: was all branch distribution except for CBS. The business became
Speaker 1: more and more consolidated. There will always be music, but
Speaker 1: we live through this one time. However, it is always
Speaker 1: an entrepreneurial business. It is always somebody at home with
Speaker 1: an idea. So no matter how much direct there might be,
Speaker 1: whether it be Bobby Rydell and Fabian in the late
Speaker 1: fifties early sixties, today it's not easy to make it
Speaker 1: from A to Z and no one is helping you.
Speaker 1: But if you do something unique, people are looking for that,
Speaker 1: and it's always some new irving as off. It's not
Speaker 1: like going to work for Procter and Gamble. So we
Speaker 1: know sixty years later we never got a new Beatles,
Speaker 1: never gonna happen. Are we ever going to reach that
Speaker 1: peak again? Maybe not in our lifetimes, But the Doldrums
Speaker 1: were in artistically. Listen, you're a middle class guy as
Speaker 1: I am. Jeff an Airplane build Graham Management, and they
Speaker 1: say whenever they made money, they just want to stay
Speaker 1: home and smoke dope. They spoke truth to power. Life
Speaker 1: is so difficult today financially that the middle class people,
Speaker 1: no one ever wanted their kid to be an artist.
Speaker 1: But today the people say, man, life is so hard.
Speaker 1: I got to get a job. I got to work
Speaker 1: in finance. So only the lower classes who are on
Speaker 1: a lark, who will do whatever people tell them to do,
Speaker 1: are the ones involved. Listen a record speaking truth to
Speaker 1: power has more power than any politician, any individual. You
Speaker 1: need a culture to grow that. But the paradigm always exists.
Speaker 1: Somebody captures lightning in a bottle. There's a truth in
Speaker 1: a record that is nowhere else. On that note, you're
Speaker 1: driving in the north Shore. Where are you going?
Speaker 2: Oh, I'm going to know as you're well, I might
Speaker 2: up to newbury Port or Gloucester somewhere up there.
Speaker 1: Well, you said you're going today.
Speaker 2: Oh, I'm going up to north Reading to record. There's
Speaker 2: a barn that I use. I made my last records there.
Speaker 2: I have an album that's about We would have been
Speaker 2: finished by now, but I stopped it for the book.
Speaker 2: But it's about I need to do harmonies, a couple
Speaker 2: of overdubs, and the mix is they're it's almost all
Speaker 2: mixed the way it's recorded, so it's almost ready to go.
Speaker 2: But a lot of my solo records, Bob, have become
Speaker 2: you know, well kept secrets. And you know I've done
Speaker 2: duets with you know, Shelby Lynn, Merle, Haggard, Steve Earle
Speaker 2: on these records. I've done with a great duet with
Speaker 2: Mick Jagger. You know, we nothing but the wheel. You know,
Speaker 2: there's some really if you don't have them. I some
Speaker 2: of them are not on Spotify or streaming because they've
Speaker 2: got returned to me and not being the brightest bowl
Speaker 2: by haven't placed them. But I'm going to in the
Speaker 2: next couple of weeks get that all settled up. And
Speaker 2: because the book was so consuming, I didn't realize how
Speaker 2: much energy it really would take. And then the audiobook
Speaker 2: you know, took about you know, about twenty hours of
Speaker 2: actual reading, and you know, they've become very very popular
Speaker 2: for people. That's a whole new business, that's very lucrative
Speaker 2: for book companies.
Speaker 1: Now, I just want to say, before I let you go,
Speaker 1: you're in the eye of the hurricane and you can't
Speaker 1: see what's going on. Writing is a lonely pursuit. And
Speaker 1: I'll write something, I'll think one of then I'll go somewhere.
Speaker 1: And they said, oh, yeah, everybody's talking about what you wrote.
Speaker 1: But BOS said, I didn't know. Okay, not that I
Speaker 1: don't get feedback. Your point about there not being books
Speaker 1: in the store, the book business so antiquated is just terrible. However,
Speaker 1: having said that, you obviously have no idea of the
Speaker 1: impact of your book. Let me be very clear I'm
Speaker 1: not talking about the people who read it. I'm talking
Speaker 1: about the press and the word of mouth. You have
Speaker 1: a higher profile than you've had since the eighties. You
Speaker 1: may not feel it because you're at the center of
Speaker 1: the high hurricane. But I'm reading all day long. I
Speaker 1: get email from people, Hey, you got to do a
Speaker 1: podcast with Peter Wolf. Okay, I get more about your book.
Speaker 1: I'm not blowing smoke up your eyes than anybody else
Speaker 1: this year. Something is going on.
Speaker 2: Okay, well, Bubby, I'm going to interrupt you say I
Speaker 2: do I really be taking your point. I don't feel
Speaker 2: it because it was, you know, this this thing that
Speaker 2: you know, the New York Times didn't even review it,
Speaker 2: you know, like it or bad, and so you know
Speaker 2: that moves a lot of books. I did this little
Speaker 2: thing with the New Yorker where I wanted to take
Speaker 2: you know, the reporter up to the you know, beause
Speaker 2: everybody talks about Brooklyn and show them where I live,
Speaker 2: where Dion live, the changes of the Bronx, you know,
Speaker 2: where the gangs were, all this stuff. And you know,
Speaker 2: we ended up at mcsorley's and drinking. And that would
Speaker 2: have been fine for the Guiles Band. You know, during
Speaker 2: a give it to Me times. But I was trying to,
Speaker 2: you know, represent Look, I'm a literary guy too, as
Speaker 2: much as I love rock and roll, and I can
Speaker 2: sit down and listen to you know, Carl Perkins or
Speaker 2: A Stone's or you two. I mean there, I can
Speaker 2: also read, and so I was trying to reinvent a
Speaker 2: different dimension. And so I don't feel it because, you know,
Speaker 2: when the book company tells me it's kind of weighing
Speaker 2: because new books are coming out. Like in the record industry,
Speaker 2: you have that moment where there's the release and you
Speaker 2: go out and you do the tour and you get
Speaker 2: on you know, blah blah blah blah bomb, and then
Speaker 2: all of a sudden you find less and less requests.
Speaker 2: And because there's a new bunch of albums coming out,
Speaker 2: the company is releasing some more albums than all of
Speaker 2: a sudden, if that album didn't gain a certain stature,
Speaker 2: you're yesterday's newspaper.
Speaker 1: Okay, the press always gets it wrong. I read that
Speaker 1: mcsor at Lea's piece. Okay, I understand your play. The
Speaker 1: great thing about the modern career is you are in
Speaker 1: control of your career. It's much harder to catch fire,
Speaker 1: so your profile is higher than it's been for years.
Speaker 1: In addition, there's only one Peter Wolf. There's only one
Speaker 1: Peter Wolf who had muddy waters come to his house,
Speaker 1: et cetera, et cetera. Unfortunately, the stories are eclipsing new music.
Speaker 1: Your point about you put out a record, you'll get
Speaker 1: some reviews. It's over in a day. That's for every
Speaker 1: but even the Stones their new record doesn't really get
Speaker 1: that much exposure. But you have this unique thing, like
Speaker 1: you're telling me, oh yeah, you did these shows. You know,
Speaker 1: these acoustic shows. We told the stories. Now in the
Speaker 1: wake of the book, you can build a business. That's
Speaker 1: what the New York Times will review. Okay, let's be
Speaker 1: very clear, this is not easy. You have to work.
Speaker 1: You want to put some stories up on social media,
Speaker 1: but you have headway. I can't tell you how many
Speaker 1: people I know from your era who are dead in
Speaker 1: the water. Some can't even play clubs because they can't
Speaker 1: get advances. Okay, it's just yeah, oh yeah, I remember
Speaker 1: that guy. Something is going on with you at this
Speaker 1: particular point in time. You have a beachhead. I am
Speaker 1: a pessimistic lass half empty guy. Me too, but you
Speaker 1: should be more optimistic at this point in time. The
Speaker 1: other thing you have to realize is nothing reaches everybody.
Speaker 1: It's sad to New York Times and review your book
Speaker 1: the New York Times. If I write about something in
Speaker 1: the music because I reach more people than the New
Speaker 1: York Times. I'm not saying that to boast, but that
Speaker 1: audience is reading me, not the New York Times. So
Speaker 1: the book audience, yeah, retailers, etc. They're reading the New
Speaker 1: York Times. That's not where your audience is. And it
Speaker 1: is not easy to reach your audience, but you are
Speaker 1: in control of that. Okay. You know, I don't understand
Speaker 1: why you're not on social media with little bits telling
Speaker 1: these three. You have an endless supply. You could do
Speaker 1: twenty on muddy waters coming to your house once. Okay,
Speaker 1: this gets people somewhat excited, and then you capitalize it.
Speaker 1: Most people are not willing to work that hard. But
Speaker 1: most people, as I say, are dead in the water.
Speaker 1: And you're not well.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Bob. And this truly was a treat for me.
Speaker 2: And I have to tell you I was very nervous,
Speaker 2: uh doing this, really really nervous. There's a gentleman Steve
Speaker 2: Leeds and you gotta do Bob you got. And there's
Speaker 2: a fellow David Bieber, who used to do the art,
Speaker 2: the creative stuff for the Phoenix magazine and the alternative
Speaker 2: rock station up in the Salem forget the call letters.
Speaker 2: And David from day one read your music, you know,
Speaker 2: your your letters, and he just was would send you know,
Speaker 2: he would bring to me, he would send me. He
Speaker 2: just thought that they were the bee's knees. And David
Speaker 2: is one of my closest friends and one of my
Speaker 2: brightest friends. And he just took to you, still takes
Speaker 2: to you, you know. And he said, if you don't
Speaker 2: do Bob Show, you're just like insane. I said, well,
Speaker 2: it's it's industry. I don't really want to talk, Peter.
Speaker 2: Just do Bob Show, you know. And I was really nervous. Bob,
Speaker 2: and I really thank you because you know, you talked
Speaker 2: about the things or you asked me about the things
Speaker 2: I wanted to do, and plus just the ease that
Speaker 2: you have made it. Maybe I you know, don't stop
Speaker 2: me talking. I'll tell you everything. I know. Maybe I
Speaker 2: yact too much, but your last words to me, I
Speaker 2: got to tell you I am in a very bad funk,
Speaker 2: because you know, I work so hard to try to
Speaker 2: get this thing, and people like Frank Riley. I don't
Speaker 2: know what your relationship is with him. You know, he's
Speaker 2: one of the last of the you know, greatue believers. Yeah,
Speaker 2: true believers, and you know, like Don Law who you know,
Speaker 2: live Nation. Frank Riley's my favorite agent because he fucking
Speaker 2: cares about his acts, you know, and you know I
Speaker 2: drive him crazy, but he puts up with it only
Speaker 2: because you know in particular about what I want to do.
Speaker 2: And I think you appreciate that. And I thank you
Speaker 2: for giving me this forum. And please let's stay in
Speaker 2: touch or I'd value that. And if you can see
Speaker 2: if Irving got the book. If not, I will go.
Speaker 1: About a text him when we're off. But I'm gonna
Speaker 1: tell you one more thing and then I'm gonna go. Okay,
Speaker 1: like on that record, I'm talking to you trying to
Speaker 1: figure out who you are. Okay, you're a guy from
Speaker 1: the Bronx. You wonder sell it, but you went to
Speaker 1: the High School of Music and Art. You're obviously a
Speaker 1: sharp guy. Okay, you had this left field for a
Speaker 1: rocker relationship with Faye Dunaway. You have these hit records,
Speaker 1: You're living in Boston, and then you tell all these
Speaker 1: stories about these people come into your house. Listen, I've
Speaker 1: been around rock stars enough to know everybody has a
Speaker 1: different style, and now I realize what it is. No
Speaker 1: one ever asked me about me sit there and ask her.
Speaker 1: I talked really fast. You were curious and interested. That
Speaker 1: is obviously the magic. It's not because you know you
Speaker 1: can do the the WBCM late night rap, but if
Speaker 1: to hang with somebody. Obviously these people wanted to hang
Speaker 1: with you, especially as musicians.
Speaker 2: You know, I didn't go on usually I researched, you know,
Speaker 2: uh and but I but I knew your name for
Speaker 2: so long and the people that are respected, But I
Speaker 2: wanted to hear from you. But I guess it's like
Speaker 2: the book. You would be a character in the book.
Speaker 2: Had we if I was out in la you know,
Speaker 2: doing the La Time Book Festival, I mean we would
Speaker 2: have you know, hooked up and had a dinner. You know,
Speaker 2: maybe would have dragged, you know, irving to Dan Tannis,
Speaker 2: where I used to out, you know, you know, with
Speaker 2: Henley and No. But I'm curious, you know, just as
Speaker 2: an artist, you know, you've created this you know platform
Speaker 2: in a time where so many people have tried, and
Speaker 2: you went from just like a recording artist, from vinyl
Speaker 2: into digital, you know, from vinyl into CD and now
Speaker 2: you're on the computer and everybody's talking about it. And I,
Speaker 2: I am telling you, I was very nervous, I mean,
Speaker 2: and then oh god, one thirty am I going to
Speaker 2: be in shape? I'm gonna be because you know, so
Speaker 2: many people I respect have great respect for you and
Speaker 2: I it was a mystery to me of how I
Speaker 2: knew the newsletter, but how did it start? I didn't know.
Speaker 2: I mean, so I'm just curious. And that's I guess
Speaker 2: the motivation of the book. How did Muddy you know,
Speaker 2: become a musician or you know talking toreth about you
Speaker 2: know stuff. When you ask what I left out? You know,
Speaker 2: I left out more of what you told me about
Speaker 2: Sam Cook and other things and you know, stones behind
Speaker 2: closed doors because I didn't want it to be kiss
Speaker 2: and tell my and I admire you because somehow I
Speaker 2: am probably in one of the most depressed states I've
Speaker 2: been in because feeling that this book is not achieving
Speaker 2: it And you may have picked it up, but just
Speaker 2: your words were so encouraging it. As you say with Irving,
Speaker 2: there's a kind of bond that happens. It's a mystical thing.
Speaker 2: It's like it's like I remember hearing Elvis Presley coming
Speaker 2: from a window in the Bronx and I ran to
Speaker 2: the record store to buy that song about being in
Speaker 2: a hotel, and you know, and it was heartbreak Hotel.
Speaker 1: I had to have it.
Speaker 2: You know, I'm first hearing Bob Dylan behind the curtain.
Speaker 2: I had to have more of that voice. It was mystical.
Speaker 2: And so, you know, I appreciate this afternoon, and I
Speaker 2: appreciate your words. I hope you're right.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, as I say, there's hard working for it.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna leave it with one or review story and
Speaker 1: then we can go. So before COVID, they had these
Speaker 1: big concerts at Dodger Stadium and they had three acts
Speaker 1: on one day and three acts on the other day.
Speaker 1: The headline on the first day was the Eagles. Headliner
Speaker 1: on the second day was Fleet with mac This was
Speaker 1: the first show with Vince Gill And I'm talking to
Speaker 1: Irving the next day and I said, what did Henley think?
Speaker 1: And he started talking about the monitors William during this song,
Speaker 1: the monitor mix was little off whatever, and I said,
Speaker 1: I heard it, but I guarantee you the average person
Speaker 1: didn't hear it, and Irving looks at me goes, it's
Speaker 1: the little things like that make the difference between great
Speaker 1: and everything else. You're talking about being particular, that is
Speaker 1: what makes you unique an individual. Someone says, I don't
Speaker 1: want to be an asshole, but it's got to.
Speaker 2: Be like this because I know, well, I want you
Speaker 2: to be my promotion man and go in or my manager,
Speaker 2: to go into the book company and tell him that's
Speaker 2: why he's driving you all crazy, because you know, we
Speaker 2: want it done that way. And I think that's the
Speaker 2: thing about Irving where Don and Glenn they were, you know,
Speaker 2: they were so obsessive, I mean, punching in vowels, you know,
Speaker 2: with the simsic And I remember being with Don when
Speaker 2: Axel Rose was doing a duet, you know, and how
Speaker 2: you know particular Don was and you know, yeah, it's
Speaker 2: it's that wonderful world that we're we're in and there
Speaker 2: ain't nothing that's going to drag us out, Bob. So
Speaker 2: may this be to quote a movie that I'm sure
Speaker 2: is a favorite of both of ours. May this be
Speaker 2: the beginning of a long, long friendship.
Speaker 1: And I'll leave you with Norman Lee or what he
Speaker 1: used to say whenever you were with him at a
Speaker 1: party you always said when he left, to be continued.
Speaker 2: Ah, I'm with you, Thank you, Bob.
Speaker 1: It Okay, that's been the great Peter Wolf. Till next time.
Speaker 1: This is Bob left, said
Speaker 2: Sh