Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob left Setts Podcast.
Speaker 1: My guess is the one and only Paul Schaeffer. Paul,
Speaker 1: you're doing this benefit for pop culture with Jeff Barry
Speaker 1: on September thirteenth in Los Angeles.
Speaker 2: Tell me about that, well, how much time do we have?
Speaker 2: We have plenty of time go for It's a convocated story.
Speaker 2: First of all, my daughter, Victoria Lily Schaeffer, what she's
Speaker 2: thirty years old now. What she does is run a
Speaker 2: rescue association here in Los Angeles. I'm visiting her now
Speaker 2: I'm Los Angeles now called pop Culture and it's the
Speaker 2: title of her book as well. She wrote a book
Speaker 2: about pop culture because it's obviously about puppies, but also
Speaker 2: the whole culture of you know, dog lovers and how
Speaker 2: it comes upon a person, you know, sometimes not of
Speaker 2: their own volition. Anyway, that's what she does. And then
Speaker 2: we have the great songwriter Jeff Barry, who, with his
Speaker 2: late wife Ellie Greenwich, wrote all of I Don't Know
Speaker 2: about You, but they're all my favorite songsble starting from
Speaker 2: be My Baby by the Rawnetes baby I Love You,
Speaker 2: I Can Hear Music Do, a ditty from which we
Speaker 2: called the title for our evening that we're going to
Speaker 2: have September thirteenth here in La doa Ditties for Doggies.
Speaker 2: Jeff is eighty five years old now but still funny
Speaker 2: as hell. And his list of songs going through I
Speaker 2: Honestly Love You by Olivia Newton John that he wrote
Speaker 2: with Peter Allen and stuff. You know, he's got stories
Speaker 2: for days. And I am what Irwin Corey used to
Speaker 2: call himself the world's foremost authority on his stuff. And
Speaker 2: Ellie was one of my good friends, his late wife,
Speaker 2: and I worked with Jeff in seventy four. It's a
Speaker 2: whole michigs that I could get into about how we
Speaker 2: met and how long we've met. Anyway, he surfaced in
Speaker 2: my life just simontaneously. I told him about my kids.
Speaker 2: If Victoria's out there, he's in the next canyon over.
Speaker 2: That's the way they speak out here on the coast.
Speaker 2: And he said, well, we should do something and give
Speaker 2: the you know, an evening and give the my songs
Speaker 2: and stories and we'll give the money to Victoria's rescue.
Speaker 2: And I said, you're on. So du Ditty's four Doggies
Speaker 2: is going to It's live at the club called the
Speaker 2: Right Off Room, The Right Off Room in Studio City, California,
Speaker 2: on venture, I believe, And it's going to be Jeff
Speaker 2: and I and you know, it's on the internet, of
Speaker 2: course you could. We would love people to buy tickets
Speaker 2: and events, so we know, you know, if we got
Speaker 2: a show, if we've got an evening or not. So
Speaker 2: far we're doing pretty well. It's where I'm like a
Speaker 2: month away, but I can't wait. I just you know,
Speaker 2: these songs and group of songs I've just been obsessed
Speaker 2: with since I saw the Rawnettes on American Bandstand Do
Speaker 2: It in the afternoon when the American Bandstand was on
Speaker 2: a Saturday afternoon, and then went skiing in the freezing
Speaker 2: frozen North where I was growing up, but couldn't get
Speaker 2: this song out of my mind. You know, be my Baby.
Speaker 2: What a sound and what a sentiment and what I mean,
Speaker 2: what girls the Rawnettes? Oh my goodness. I was just
Speaker 2: starting to, you know, learn about girls and stuff. This
Speaker 2: is the way to go, and to learn what an
Speaker 2: explosion on Saturday afternoon. So then you know, meeting Jeff
Speaker 2: Barry later and working with him was just you know,
Speaker 2: for me, incredible and I can't wait because even there's
Speaker 2: things I got to know that I still don't understand
Speaker 2: and know about how they wrote certain songs and stuff. Okay,
Speaker 2: so what exactly hanky panky is another one? Right now?
Speaker 1: What I think was the show going to be?
Speaker 2: Well, Jeff sings. He was a vocalist too, back in
Speaker 2: the day and by the day, I mean, you know,
Speaker 2: the late fifties, early sixties. Then he became a writer
Speaker 2: and his first hit as a writer was Tell Laura
Speaker 2: I love her. Remember that, repur Laura, I love it?
Speaker 2: Come on exactly what great melody? And what you know?
Speaker 2: What a story about a star car race and a death?
Speaker 2: Tell Laura? Well he opens with that, you know, and
Speaker 2: then we're just going to get into it. I want
Speaker 2: to hear immediately about you know what, what is the
Speaker 2: story behind it? And how did you know? Where the
Speaker 2: hell did you come from? And all kinds of things.
Speaker 2: And it turns out we have we both have Don
Speaker 2: Rickles's stories. We've already established that. So we're going to
Speaker 2: get those in, you know, before we do anything else.
Speaker 2: And then just it's going to be all music. And
Speaker 2: you know, when he does say the do ron ron,
Speaker 2: the audience just will be singing along naturally, they can't
Speaker 2: help themselves. He says, you know, once in a while,
Speaker 2: he hasn't done it much, but once in a while
Speaker 2: he does a thing like this with a pianist, he says.
Speaker 2: You know, when I say, met him on Monday, and
Speaker 2: he looks so fun the audience just is there to do, run, run,
Speaker 2: you know. And so I'll be the pianist playing for him.
Speaker 2: And nobody plays these songs better because nobody loves them
Speaker 2: like I do. And we're just going to go through
Speaker 2: all the hits, including I Honestly Love You, you know, for
Speaker 2: Olivia Newton John that he's also going to sing, and
Speaker 2: then you know, other surprises. But I'll give away one
Speaker 2: surprises because you asked. But we have a dear friend
Speaker 2: in common whose name is Ron Dante. And Ron was
Speaker 2: the voice of the Archies when they sang Sugar Sugar,
Speaker 2: another of Jeff's compositions. So I got and Ron really
Speaker 2: got me started doing arrangements in the studios in New
Speaker 2: York in the seventies because he heard a thing that
Speaker 2: Jeff and I had done together, and so I just
Speaker 2: called around. You know, He's going to come over and
Speaker 2: sing sugar, Sugar, that'll be part of the evening too,
Speaker 2: and you never know, there may be other surprise.
Speaker 1: Okay, you got to tell one Don Rickles story.
Speaker 2: Okay, I'll tell mine. The first time he did Letterman,
Speaker 2: I was thrilled because he had obviously watched the show
Speaker 2: and knew my name was early in our run. And
Speaker 2: he turned to me on the panel and he said, Paul,
Speaker 2: have your self committed? That's it, jeffs is funny even.
Speaker 1: Okay, you're with your sister. You resume your daughter in
Speaker 1: the Sian Finando, are you staying in her house or
Speaker 1: staying in a hotel?
Speaker 2: Staying at her house this time?
Speaker 1: What is that like all these years later?
Speaker 2: Well, first of all, she's got a wonderful gentleman with
Speaker 2: whom you know who is sharing this house with her
Speaker 2: as well, named Brandon More and you know, not not
Speaker 2: involved in show business at all, but you know they
Speaker 2: are a serious couple and we have to stay out
Speaker 2: of their way and be respectful. So of course it's
Speaker 2: a little bit of a of a tap dance, and
Speaker 2: my wife can't help herself but to say, you know,
Speaker 2: you haven't changed this light bulb since we were here, honey,
Speaker 2: cool it with the lightbell. You know, it's it's as
Speaker 2: exactly as you might imagine, but it's it's great to
Speaker 2: see Victoria, and the fact that we can still do
Speaker 2: it at all is I guess quite amazing.
Speaker 1: Okay, you come to the West Coast. Are you the
Speaker 1: type of person who emails people in Vance and Texam
Speaker 1: I'm coming. We got to get together or is it
Speaker 1: more of a family homebody thing.
Speaker 2: Well, and you know, different trips. Toy's been out here
Speaker 2: for a few years now, I'm not even sure six
Speaker 2: eight years, so every trip can be different. And I
Speaker 2: do have some friends here, and some of my Canadian
Speaker 2: friends live here, you know, transplants, and sometimes I do
Speaker 2: get to get to see them, and sometimes it's just
Speaker 2: all about Victoria and family visits too, so you know,
Speaker 2: we do it both ways.
Speaker 1: Okay, certainly you have a long reputation as being mister
Speaker 1: showbiz appreciating these people, knowing their backstories. Did you really
Speaker 1: only see them on television when you were on the
Speaker 1: show or are they friends?
Speaker 2: Uh? Well, I've got to get some clarification on the question.
Speaker 2: Currently you're talking about me today. Well, yes, give me
Speaker 2: an example.
Speaker 1: I don't need to separate. It could be. You know,
Speaker 1: what I'm really asking is Dave was famous for not
Speaker 1: hanging with the guests. Oh yeah, even though we saw
Speaker 1: our guests all the time. Although Dave sort of stood
Speaker 1: apart from showbiz, whereas you were heavily immersed in love,
Speaker 1: showbiz knew everybody's story. So when people were in town
Speaker 1: in New York to be on the show, would you
Speaker 1: go hang with them after the show? When you came
Speaker 1: to the West Coast, would you bring them up both
Speaker 1: when you were on television all those nights a week
Speaker 1: and now.
Speaker 2: Well, certainly some you know, by the time I got
Speaker 2: on on the Letterman Show, I was thirty two, had
Speaker 2: already done you know, five years of the first five
Speaker 2: years of Saturday Night Live. So for instance, I had
Speaker 2: friends who had been you know, in the cast and
Speaker 2: Saturday Night Live. It's still friends. If someone like it,
Speaker 2: a Dan Ackroyd or something, we absolutely might have hung
Speaker 2: out afterwards. Martin Short, you know who, with Eugene Levy
Speaker 2: and Dave Thomash are really my three closest friends from Canada.
Speaker 2: If any of them, well, when Martin Short would do it,
Speaker 2: you know, we sort of had a tradition we would
Speaker 2: we try to keep the limo that they sent for him,
Speaker 2: and we we would specifically go hit the town, you know,
Speaker 2: because he would come from. As I said, he lives
Speaker 2: in Los Angeles, Like maybe not said it, but one
Speaker 2: of the people that I might call up coming. So
Speaker 2: you know, these are our actual friends. Now. Maybe back
Speaker 2: in the eighties, Oh, we had a couple of classic
Speaker 2: jam sessions after shows here and there, you know, where
Speaker 2: a musician might say, hey, let's you know, can we
Speaker 2: get a little rehearsal studio in jams. So that did
Speaker 2: happen when we but we were we had the energy
Speaker 2: to do it afterwards. By the end of the show,
Speaker 2: Believe me, I was just as happy to go home.
Speaker 2: So tired all the time. It was doing a show
Speaker 2: every single day. You look at even the guys doing
Speaker 2: these daily shows. Now, I saw Seth Meyers the other day.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, it's just exhausted, just like I was
Speaker 2: when you're doing it every single day.
Speaker 1: Okay, so the show ends, Yeah, and at first there's
Speaker 1: a relief. But yeah, it must have been a big
Speaker 1: emotional adjustment.
Speaker 2: I think you're right. And it was physical too. First
Speaker 2: of all, I was a migraine sufferer. During the show,
Speaker 2: I was on a drug called Gaba Penton. There are a
Speaker 2: lot of people seem to know what it is now, Yeah,
Speaker 2: just for migraine headaches. On a huge dose of it.
Speaker 2: And as soon as the show ended, it stopped working.
Speaker 2: I got started getting headaches again, which was also kind
Speaker 2: of part of it. Anyway, when you're a migraine suffer,
Speaker 2: sometimes on the weekends, when the pressure's off, that's when
Speaker 2: you get a headache. You know, during the week you're
Speaker 2: kind of guarding. Anyway, that happened to me, and I
Speaker 2: had to get off that Gaba Penton, which was a
Speaker 2: whole another you know, ordeal, and so all of that happened,
Speaker 2: and emotionally, well, you know, even before emotionally your schedule
Speaker 2: is different. Absolutely start getting hyped up at about four
Speaker 2: thirty because the tape you st roll at five thirty,
Speaker 2: and then you wait, I don't have to do the show,
Speaker 2: but boy, you certainly miss it. And I definitely missed it.
Speaker 2: For my goodness, you know, certainly the first year or
Speaker 2: two until I readjusted anything, I didn't feel busy at all.
Speaker 2: Even if I had like a week of recording sessions.
Speaker 2: There's just kind of nothing compared to how busy we
Speaker 2: all were doing that daily show. And it was yeah,
Speaker 2: pressure filled and I had headaches all the time, but
Speaker 2: you get used to it, and you know, yeah, it
Speaker 2: took me a while to get over it. Now I'm
Speaker 2: over it and say, as I heard Dave let him
Speaker 2: and say the other day, I think we may have
Speaker 2: done it maybe five years too long because we were
Speaker 2: up there and it takes some energy.
Speaker 1: So you're saying the energy was depleted and it hurt
Speaker 1: the show a little.
Speaker 2: Bit, No, you know, because Dave would never let that happen.
Speaker 2: I think it's more of a effect that I was saying,
Speaker 2: attired all the time, You're gonna get up for that
Speaker 2: show and do the best, you know, and he was.
Speaker 2: He never stopped coming in super early in the morning,
Speaker 2: staying super late analyzing the show. That never let up.
Speaker 2: I think he just had to. It's a little harder
Speaker 2: to summon the energy.
Speaker 1: Okay. I've been to Canada a million times. Love Canada.
Speaker 1: But starting in the eighties, so you're growing up in
Speaker 1: the fifties and sixties, Like if you go to some
Speaker 1: of these foreign countries like Norway, they were really in
Speaker 1: the dark ages ultimately, Norway got money from Oyal and
Speaker 1: had changed thing. Did you feel like you were on
Speaker 1: the outside looking in or did you just feel part
Speaker 1: of the whole United States stream?
Speaker 2: Outside looking in? For sure? And I think that you
Speaker 2: know a lot of people, Uh ask me and my
Speaker 2: Canadian friends all the time, why there's so many you know,
Speaker 2: especially in comedy. Why is there so much comedy coming
Speaker 2: from Canada, Canadians coming to me. I think that's a
Speaker 2: good part of it. We were so close to it,
Speaker 2: but so far, and we were studying it, you know,
Speaker 2: we studied the Ed Sullivan Show just as closely as
Speaker 2: anybody else, but to us it was even more special
Speaker 2: to get to see Sophie Tucker or something. And I
Speaker 2: don't know, it was just really I was very far
Speaker 2: away from it up in thunder Bay, Ontario.
Speaker 1: Okay, you're growing up. What kind of kid are you?
Speaker 2: Kind of shy and an only child, quiet and had
Speaker 2: all the privacy I would want as a kid, didn't
Speaker 2: really fit in. Have to be kind of rugged and
Speaker 2: love the outdoors to feel comfortable in thunder Bay, Ontario,
Speaker 2: And when I was a kid was called Fort William
Speaker 2: and Port Arthur, and the two cities amalgamated. But if
Speaker 2: you love you know, and I did ski for sure,
Speaker 2: because it was you know, socially, as a kid, you
Speaker 2: had to either ski or skate. And I was a skier.
Speaker 2: And you know, a badge of honor would be if
Speaker 2: you could stay up and party, you know, into the
Speaker 2: evening and then be on the slopes at eight am
Speaker 2: as soon as the chairlifts. You know that that's a man,
Speaker 2: you know, or a gal who knows how to party.
Speaker 2: But and I was doing that kind of stuff and
Speaker 2: it was cold as hell.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's stalk with the skiing thing for a minute.
Speaker 1: On Dave's final show, the final shot is him skiing
Speaker 1: with his son. There was video, beautiful. Okay, when was
Speaker 1: the last time you skied?
Speaker 2: Not since I left thunder Bay.
Speaker 1: So once you left, that was it. Not when your
Speaker 1: kids growing up, not like, well, let's do this as
Speaker 1: a family now.
Speaker 2: And I feel, as you know, one thing that I
Speaker 2: was a little negligent. I really tried to step up
Speaker 2: and be you know, and I had a son besides Victoria,
Speaker 2: I've got a twenty four year old son. And you know,
Speaker 2: just like in the movie you play Carousel, My god,
Speaker 2: you got to be a father to a son, and
Speaker 2: I did my best, but skiing, no, I would not,
Speaker 2: you know, it wasn't worth it because I could. I
Speaker 2: can't imagine having any kind of gortex or material things
Speaker 2: that they have now that keep you warm. Oh yeah,
Speaker 2: we better not only freezing but kind of bundled up,
Speaker 2: could barely move ski poles in your hand and just
Speaker 2: you know, coming, Oh my goodness. But as far as
Speaker 2: the kind of kid I was, I've got this recollection
Speaker 2: of waiting for the chairlift at the bottom, and when
Speaker 2: you're not skiing, it's even colder. You're just standing there,
Speaker 2: you know, it's way ah and you're in northern Ontario,
Speaker 2: and the chairlift was blasting music like they might add
Speaker 2: a carnival, you know, in front of a ride, blasting
Speaker 2: out music. And I hear, you know, as I'm waiting,
Speaker 2: I hear this for the very first time, and I
Speaker 2: think I would have been twelve. I hear the Tokens
Speaker 2: record the Lion sleeps. Oh wow. And it was again
Speaker 2: sort of like that, you know, experience of the rawat
Speaker 2: seeing the but even more immediate. That got me through
Speaker 2: the day of skiing, and why I come down and
Speaker 2: waiting again. You'd hear it again, and every time I
Speaker 2: couldn't believe the sound. The sound just kind of galvanized me.
Speaker 2: And that got me, you know. That's what became important
Speaker 2: to me and kind of saved my life. I think
Speaker 2: a lot of rock and rollers talk about it. Okay,
Speaker 2: rock and roll will save my life. So music in
Speaker 2: the household? And when did you start taking piano lessons?
Speaker 2: My mother has said, you'll take lessons when you are six.
Speaker 2: When do you start to learn how to read in school?
Speaker 2: Read English? That's the time, That's what she believed. And
Speaker 2: so I started lessons at age six.
Speaker 1: You know, I took piano lessons at the same age,
Speaker 1: actually started at five. But you can go to lessons
Speaker 1: and not practice and not be into it, or you
Speaker 1: can be into it. Were you always into it? Or
Speaker 1: was when you heard the tokens on or something that
Speaker 1: you became accelerated.
Speaker 2: I always into it in that My mother kind of
Speaker 2: set me up. She was one of those Jewish mothers
Speaker 2: who had music in the house specifically so that I
Speaker 2: would get involved in it. And she played chopin and
Speaker 2: she played Broadway music the ethel Merman and Mary Martin
Speaker 2: at Carnegie Hall and it just you know, it does
Speaker 2: seep in rock, monerof and stuff. That was her music.
Speaker 2: And then my dad, this conservative lawyer from thunder Bay,
Speaker 2: small town lawyer, but he dug the great jazz vocalists
Speaker 2: Billy Eckstein and Sarah vaugh and he turned me onto
Speaker 2: Ray Charles. On Sundays, you know, he would put on
Speaker 2: his records and won Ray Charles. So that was pretty,
Speaker 2: you know, pretty good. And my mother also was a pianist,
Speaker 2: played you know, not professionally or anything, but could play
Speaker 2: the piano certain classical things from music. And I remember,
Speaker 2: as an infant being under the piano as she played,
Speaker 2: feeling of it, you know, the sound coming down. But
Speaker 2: as soon as she got me playing taking lessons, she
Speaker 2: stopped playing, never played again, almost like her work was
Speaker 2: done because I was playing and I played these lessons,
Speaker 2: and I don't know the first lesson. I came home
Speaker 2: and I started figuring out my own, you know, melodies,
Speaker 2: not that I ever wrote. I was not a writer,
Speaker 2: but just I figured out that you could play the
Speaker 2: William tell overture, which every kid was on our mind
Speaker 2: because of the Lone Ranger television, mostly on all Black Keys.
Speaker 2: But I couldn't even figure that out until that first
Speaker 2: lesson came home, though, and that's what I wanted to. Hey,
Speaker 2: you can actually, you know, and that's I kind of
Speaker 2: started getting interested right away and playing by ear, and
Speaker 2: that's really what, you know, what became important to me
Speaker 2: and what I still really do. Maybe why I never
Speaker 2: really wrote or I found you know, I only wrote
Speaker 2: one or two songs my whole life because of what
Speaker 2: I really like to do is sit down and play
Speaker 2: the songs that I know. So I never bought records,
Speaker 2: but as I was listening, you know, I didn't buy
Speaker 2: Being My Baby, but I could sure play it and
Speaker 2: I used to pound it out on the piano really loud,
Speaker 2: get the sound up, you know, and kind of play
Speaker 2: all the different parts, not on out the string part
Speaker 2: and stuff, you know, just figuring out my ear. And
Speaker 2: I still get my kicks doing that.
Speaker 1: Okay, Brian Wilson feels the same way Be My Baby,
Speaker 1: as you and me both know, interacting with Brian Wilson
Speaker 1: is its own special, uh situation. But did you ever
Speaker 1: discuss that with Brian?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Sure you can almost have to. Well, Uh, there
Speaker 2: was a point when and this is really it's not
Speaker 2: my own story. I've been reported back to me, but
Speaker 2: I kind of had something to do that I was.
Speaker 2: I missed the second season of Saturday Night Life because
Speaker 2: I was in California doing my show and got to
Speaker 2: work with Jeff Barry. But during that season, Brian appeared
Speaker 2: as a guest. I believe, and the singers were gotten.
Speaker 2: You know Howard Shore Musical got Brian the singers background
Speaker 2: singers the kind of people that I know. Susan Collins another,
Speaker 2: you know, a woman who stands at attention for be
Speaker 2: my Baby and can sing with that Ronnie sound, and
Speaker 2: Ellie and Susan knew. Ellie Greenwich, the actual Eli Grittich,
Speaker 2: sang background for for Brian Wilson, and Brian heard that
Speaker 2: Ellie had written be my Baby. He was just, you know,
Speaker 2: he was floored. He became, he became, he became her
Speaker 2: baby and was saying, you know, Elley just you know,
Speaker 2: just enjoying being her presence.
Speaker 1: I think, okay, So you're practicing the piano, you're working
Speaker 1: out songs. If I was in school with you, would
Speaker 1: I say, oh, that's Paul shef for he plays the
Speaker 1: piano or was it?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I think so okay, Well, because I you know,
Speaker 2: I was always called upon to play in the school assemblies.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure how it started because I can't remember,
Speaker 2: but I have a recollection of myself, but coming up
Speaker 2: in front of the assembly when the whole school's assembled,
Speaker 2: you know, and playing a little classical piece from my
Speaker 2: lesson Mozart or something and boring everybody. But in what
Speaker 2: we called junior high grade seven and eight up there
Speaker 2: in Canada, I started becoming aware of rock and roll,
Speaker 2: and I said, you know about grade seven, now you
Speaker 2: know what instead of Mozart, I think I'm going to
Speaker 2: play Pipeline by the Chantes And I'm not sure. Well no,
Speaker 2: I mean, it's another whole story why I summoned the
Speaker 2: nerve to do it. But when I did, it was pandemonia.
Speaker 2: The kids were expecting, you know, Mozart and it's figured
Speaker 2: out how to do that on the piano. Don't don't,
Speaker 2: don't do do And I was like, you know, I
Speaker 2: got a reaction that said, you don't have to write
Speaker 2: your own songs, just you know, look at what you
Speaker 2: can do to an audience just with a great song
Speaker 2: and a performance of it. So I learned that early.
Speaker 1: I had a friend who booked Oprah for live gigs,
Speaker 1: and someone said, well, why does Oprah have to play
Speaker 1: live gigs? And he said, you can't get that hit
Speaker 1: anywhere else. So what was it like when they're reacting
Speaker 1: to pipeline?
Speaker 2: I'm sure it was great.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: I was a child of about twelve, and so, as
Speaker 2: I say, kind of life changing thought of I realized that, I,
Speaker 2: you know, this works. I think that's what I thought
Speaker 2: to myself, Hey, this and so when I would be
Speaker 2: called upon, and I throughout my high school career play
Speaker 2: the piano. You know, I started playing when the Beatles
Speaker 2: came out a.
Speaker 1: Little bit slower. Okay, So we have I Turner, Chuck
Speaker 1: Berry's Sun Records. We have Elvis, Elvis kind of goes down.
Speaker 1: We have Fabian, we have Bobby ry Dell. Were you
Speaker 1: a fan of popular music in general before the bats
Speaker 1: were just specific sounds?
Speaker 2: No popular that music and what it could do to me?
Speaker 2: Those chords they were so simple, they were all the same,
Speaker 2: same four chords. And I found, you know, once I
Speaker 2: learned them, I could play all these songs. Now. Bandstand.
Speaker 2: I remember seeing my first American bandstand on a trip
Speaker 2: family trip to Minneapolis, because we had no American television.
Speaker 2: We only had one channel when I was, you know,
Speaker 2: in elementary school, the CBC. It carried The Sullivan Show,
Speaker 2: luckily CBC, and that's why I ed what and how
Speaker 2: rye friends up in Canada. You know that was because
Speaker 2: he had a seat Canadian audience. But I had to
Speaker 2: go to Minneapolis with a family to see American Bandstand
Speaker 2: and see Bobby ry Dell performed that afternoon, lip syncing
Speaker 2: as they all did on American bands to Butterfly Baby,
Speaker 2: and during the instrumental, pulling a girl out of the
Speaker 2: audience a teeny bopper and a poodle skirt and dance
Speaker 2: dancing with her was phenomenal and the girl was flushed afterwards,
Speaker 2: Dick so suave. What did you think, my dear about
Speaker 2: Bobby Red? You know? And this just stuck with me
Speaker 2: and the Philly sound, I loved it both times. You know,
Speaker 2: there's probably more than two, but you know, the last
Speaker 2: time I remember it was a great gamble and huff
Speaker 2: I'm Philly's soul. But before that, American Bandstand with with
Speaker 2: the Dovells, d d Sharp, all these great acts coming
Speaker 2: out of Philly, the uh Watusi you know, I think
Speaker 2: I guess I was ddee sharp. But who am I
Speaker 2: trying to think of the Orleans? Uh, don't hang up, no, no, man,
Speaker 2: I used to after school. You know, I didn't buy
Speaker 2: the records play play them. And you know that intro
Speaker 2: of One Fine Day by the Chaffons that Peril King
Speaker 2: played amazing to play that down, and so it's way
Speaker 2: before the Beatles, really wait, by way before I made
Speaker 2: man a good three years three three years before.
Speaker 1: Okay, So at what point did you start playing in
Speaker 1: bands with other people?
Speaker 2: There was a hip guy in my in high school.
Speaker 2: Uh Rick Lazar was his name. Uh. He was of
Speaker 2: Assyrian origin, and he was himself a young musician, saxophone player,
Speaker 2: smoker sacks always smell like cigarettes. And heard me, you know,
Speaker 2: I would have been grade nine or something, first year
Speaker 2: of high school, heard me. He would he a year older,
Speaker 2: heard me in the assembly playing something by the Beatles
Speaker 2: or something you know pop, and he actually, you know,
Speaker 2: made his business to introduce himself to me and say,
Speaker 2: let's I can get the music room. He said, at lunchtime,
Speaker 2: we can go in there, let's play some records and
Speaker 2: just play a little bit. My first real jam session
Speaker 2: with another guy and we got on. We played the
Speaker 2: Paul Butterfield album, first Paul Butterfield album that he had.
Speaker 2: That's how Hippi he was, you know, up in thunder Bay,
Speaker 2: and it set on the back of the album. Play
Speaker 2: this for best results, play at top volume right and
Speaker 2: we absolutely did, turned it up full and just a
Speaker 2: little square vinyl player in the music room. And that
Speaker 2: was and he had a band already. He was in
Speaker 2: a band. They were first called the Laurentians, named after
Speaker 2: a kind of Pontiac car that was only available on Canada.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so they weren't named after the mountain range. They
Speaker 1: were named after the Pontiac.
Speaker 2: They were named after the Pontiac because another band even
Speaker 2: earlier in town was called Bonneville's. And we had a
Speaker 2: guy who wanted to do everything they did because they
Speaker 2: seemed to be successful. So this is pretty early Ricky,
Speaker 2: Funky Ricky. We called him Rick Lazar. His middle name
Speaker 2: was shad Rack. Sometimes he went by Shad as a
Speaker 2: guy who wrote my you know, I wrote a little
Speaker 2: book with a great ghostwriter, David Rich, who said, oh
Speaker 2: thank you in this part though, he said, I talked
Speaker 2: about Funky Ricky and Rich's phrase was something like, you
Speaker 2: know he was a two years he was a year
Speaker 2: older in about a decade, Hipper. It was really true
Speaker 2: of him. And I joined his band and they changed
Speaker 2: their name eventually to the Fugitives, the Fabulous Fugitives, and
Speaker 2: they had been a sax instrumental band, Ricky on sacks
Speaker 2: playing Johnny and the Hurricanes stuff crossfire. Ricky could do
Speaker 2: a technique called the flutter toongue I think, and Peter
Speaker 2: Gunn of course. And then when the Beatles hit, right
Speaker 2: as I was joining, they added vocals, one guy, Bobo
Speaker 2: Bob Anyak. He could sing very well, and they added
Speaker 2: me to their band on keyboards. They had had no
Speaker 2: keyboard before. So now I started doing gigs and I
Speaker 2: joined the af M Musicians Union. Even up there, I
Speaker 2: had to join the unions. We were a union band.
Speaker 2: Became a Union member, and we would do a gig.
Speaker 2: Bucks sometimes was a scale for three hours or twenty
Speaker 2: two dollars for four hour dance. That was the kind
Speaker 2: of okay.
Speaker 1: A couple of questions and what instrument were you taking?
Speaker 1: Because it wasn't long after the Beatles broke in America
Speaker 1: that the Dave Clark five broke and Mike Smith had
Speaker 1: his portable organ whatever, So what were you taking the gigs?
Speaker 2: Yes, sir, well, Mike Smith had the holy grail of
Speaker 2: pol Combo organs, the Voux Continental, so beautifully designed. The
Speaker 2: way it looked was fabulous, the chrome legs and the
Speaker 2: shape of a Z. And they were made in Italy,
Speaker 2: these these Vox organs, but marketed by Vox out of Britain.
Speaker 1: I never knew the breed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they were. They took over I think it was
Speaker 2: the Thomas something like that. There was a there was
Speaker 2: a collapse. But these organs cost one thousand dollars in Canada,
Speaker 2: a little out of my range. However, what they you know,
Speaker 2: financial arrangement. I worked out with my dad to pay
Speaker 2: him back a little bit each gig, which he eventually
Speaker 2: forgot about. Don't worry about it. But I bought a
Speaker 2: Honer organ. Honer organ just because it was in the
Speaker 2: music store, really no other reason, and it didn't cost
Speaker 2: a whole thousand dollars. And I got that in an amp.
Speaker 2: And the amp was a Trainer amp because the Trainer
Speaker 2: was a Canadian company out of Toronto, t R A
Speaker 2: Y and O R. And you know again, better prices,
Speaker 2: not a great not great for keyboards. I later got
Speaker 2: a better you know, because it was good for guitar.
Speaker 2: It had a lot of distortion. But yeah, lugging around
Speaker 2: my own amp and keyboard. There was no such thing
Speaker 2: as Roadie's then, I don't the word hadn't even come along.
Speaker 2: And always thirty below, you know, So it was always
Speaker 2: gigging after the gig, a little soaking, wet loading the
Speaker 2: equipment into the back of the car. I think, ironically
Speaker 2: we may have had a Pontiac lavension, always sit, always
Speaker 2: getting the flu because you know, so cold and always
Speaker 2: wet from the gig and stuff. Those are my my
Speaker 2: Toronto can and sometimes even going by the A and
Speaker 2: W drive in wet stuff in the back. Then you
Speaker 2: get home, you know, after a big Hamburger from anw
Speaker 2: too cold to unload. So sometimes try to leave the
Speaker 2: amp out wow in the in the car, but you
Speaker 2: only do that once because the tubes freeze in the
Speaker 2: cold thirty below, and it's just you know, got to
Speaker 2: replace all the tubes. Had all that happen to me.
Speaker 1: Okay, so when did you first hear the Beatles?
Speaker 2: I'm not sure if I heard any music before the
Speaker 2: Sullivan Show or not their appearance on the Sullivan Show. Certainly,
Speaker 2: I I could pick ups AM radio from Chicago as
Speaker 2: early as Dick Beyondy.
Speaker 1: And were you a big listener, Yes, with your transistor
Speaker 1: under the pillow, the whole bit.
Speaker 2: A whole bit. The transistor was a rocket radio in
Speaker 2: the shape of a rocket. It was a crystal radio
Speaker 2: where you tuned it in. I could hear Dick Beyondi
Speaker 2: on this crystal radio and he just died. By the way.
Speaker 2: Are you familiar with him? Yeah, well he I you know,
Speaker 2: I came in contact with him a little bit later on,
Speaker 2: so I you know, he's known to have played the
Speaker 2: Beatles for the first time. I'm not sure if that's
Speaker 2: true or not. So I may have heard the music,
Speaker 2: but certainly saw no. I guess I did, because I
Speaker 2: guess I kind of knew the songs a little bit
Speaker 2: when I saw them on Sullivan and that was quite
Speaker 2: a revelation. But I got to say, and I say
Speaker 2: this more and more in my old crabby age, but
Speaker 2: I can't believe the number of MUSICI certainly well Americans
Speaker 2: and Canadians who just cite no matter how old, even
Speaker 2: if they're older than I am. Cite that Beatles on Sullivan.
Speaker 2: That's when I picked up a guitar, you know, Oh yeah,
Speaker 2: they're all. Joe Walsh comes to mind. You know, a
Speaker 2: guy you know who is such credibility as a musician
Speaker 2: and stuff, but wasn't really into it till he heard
Speaker 2: the Beatles. Not the case with me when I heard
Speaker 2: the Four Seasons though, when they are.
Speaker 1: Okay, So what are the key Four Seasons tracks for you?
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, good goodness, gracious Sherry was the first one,
Speaker 2: of course, infectious, Big Girls Don't Cry. That opening weird.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's so the sound is, you know, just
Speaker 2: stuck with me. Maybe that one, And that's what they
Speaker 2: did on a Sullivan. They did Big Girls Don't Cry,
Speaker 2: and that opening is just so strange, Frankie's voice on
Speaker 2: the top, the way the other guys saying we're strange too.
Speaker 2: Turns out they had been like club musicians in Jersey
Speaker 2: all these years, and they were not young when they
Speaker 2: hit Sullivan. They were already in there, maybe thirty five.
Speaker 2: You know. They had a look that I wasn't familiar with,
Speaker 2: and they had those ties those formal times. Yeah like that,
Speaker 2: but that Wow. I mean that galvanized me. And then
Speaker 2: the great Bob Gaudio, who wrote a lot of that
Speaker 2: early stuff, and you know, was so kind of the
Speaker 2: musical leader. The way he stood on stage, I'll never
Speaker 2: forget it. He was pointed upstage. They didn't know how
Speaker 2: to shoot or deal with a big piano or organ
Speaker 2: at that time, so they had him kind of pointed
Speaker 2: upstage and he would put stretch his neck around to
Speaker 2: get back to the mic, and oh to see it,
Speaker 2: you know, and that that kind of stuck with me.
Speaker 2: But then followed them, and as you know, were they
Speaker 2: really the only American group that kept having hits well
Speaker 2: through through.
Speaker 1: The one other band because we had Cherry, we had
Speaker 1: you know, big girls, Beach Boys, and they exactly So
Speaker 1: were you a beach.
Speaker 2: Sure? How can you not be a Beach Boys fan? Absolutely?
Speaker 1: Even though there's a summer of sixty four was Dawn
Speaker 1: and Go Away, and I get around, But.
Speaker 2: I get around it. You know, brilliant if they're both
Speaker 2: brilliant in their own in their own way, and you
Speaker 2: don't have to go to pet sounds, you know, for
Speaker 2: the intellectual Beach Boys to think that they're great, I
Speaker 2: get around. Was a knockout musically. Now do you know okay,
Speaker 2: do you know the first line of the first lyric
Speaker 2: of the one that Al Jardine sings.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, since you put me down, I've been out
Speaker 1: doing in my head.
Speaker 2: Well you see that, out doing in my head. I
Speaker 2: never learned that until I used to finally get to
Speaker 2: see them live a little bit, became very close friends
Speaker 2: with Billy Hinschy, one of their side. I knew Billy absolutely,
Speaker 2: very sad passion, yes and so. But he told me
Speaker 2: it was you know, nobody knows that but you and
Speaker 2: me and Billy. Yeah out and Al Jardine out doing
Speaker 2: in my head? What a what a crazy lyric? People
Speaker 2: think it's you know, up to it in my.
Speaker 1: Head or but there's some other ones okay on uh
Speaker 1: summer days and summer nights.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: That had California Girls first song on the second side,
Speaker 1: and it had the single version of Helped Me Ronda
Speaker 1: at the end of the first side when Beach Boys
Speaker 1: Today had a studio version wasn't mixed the same way.
Speaker 1: But before help Me Ronda, there's a song that Carl
Speaker 1: sings called girl Don't Tell Me Hey Girl, And you
Speaker 1: know there were saying you know there were certain lyrics there.
Speaker 1: I didn't have any idea what they were until the internet. Hit.
Speaker 2: Ah, that's a great one, girl, don't tell me. Oh right, yeah,
Speaker 2: maybe Brian wrote those lyrics himself. You know, I'm not sure.
Speaker 2: I'm kind of a Beach Boys student too, and I
Speaker 2: you know, I can keep up with a lot of
Speaker 2: these fanatics who can talk Beach Boys twenty four hours
Speaker 2: a day, and I can be okay, I ask you,
Speaker 2: right with them.
Speaker 1: Let's go to the other fanatics. What about the Grateful
Speaker 1: Dead in the Boss fanatics?
Speaker 2: Well, okay, you want me to too.
Speaker 1: No, No, I'm okay, I'm gonna go into this. Okay, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm fans of both of those acts. I always say
Speaker 1: with Springsteen, I saw him at the bottom Line in
Speaker 1: seventy four, the year before Born to Run, he premiered
Speaker 1: jungle Land, and then The Grateful Dead I saw a
Speaker 1: million times in the seventies. And you have all these
Speaker 1: people who are not there, no matter what you say,
Speaker 1: they're bigger authorities than you are. No, no, no, was
Speaker 1: it this show blah blah blah blah blah. I was
Speaker 1: wondering if you had any of those experiences.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, reguarding the Dead, I must confess I
Speaker 2: didn't really get them until I got a chance to
Speaker 2: play with Jerry Garcia. Ok.
Speaker 1: Well, a little bit slower because Jerry has such a
Speaker 1: legend and you were familiar somewhat with the music by
Speaker 1: time that happened. Uncle John's band been out, et cetera.
Speaker 1: What was the experience of playing with Jerry?
Speaker 2: Well, say, that's the whole thing. I mean, first time
Speaker 2: I saw them live it was with the closing of
Speaker 2: winter Land in about seventy eight, okay or seventy you
Speaker 2: know where we I was with the Blues Brothers at
Speaker 2: that time. Akroyd and Belushi from the SNL.
Speaker 1: I saw you at the Universally Amphitheater.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, sure the first time, of course. Well that
Speaker 2: was you know, yeah, that was pretty good. The Rubber
Speaker 2: Biscuit did that first album, Rubber Biscuit, right, Dakroyd just
Speaker 2: came up with that one out of it, you know,
Speaker 2: I don't know where, but we opened and then the
Speaker 2: New Writers and the Dead right, so, you know, the
Speaker 2: Dead were just starting at midnight and going on and
Speaker 2: they broadcast live and stuff. And at this point, no,
Speaker 2: I did not understand them. I started to understand, you know,
Speaker 2: what they were supposed to be doing, but I couldn't
Speaker 2: penetrate it. When Jerry and Bob where came on Letterman, uh,
Speaker 2: and then I saw them, you know, we got to
Speaker 2: I was around them when they did SNL two the
Speaker 2: various time. But when the two of them just came
Speaker 2: on and let him and play with my band, and
Speaker 2: Jerry turned to the band like Miles Davis. Somehow he
Speaker 2: was so open, he opened his heart up to us,
Speaker 2: and I started hearing him. It was just it was
Speaker 2: then that I realized what he's doing. I couldn't understand
Speaker 2: it before, but he his spirit. You know, that's my
Speaker 2: personal experience with him right musically unbelievable. I became an
Speaker 2: accolade right there. Okay, is it acolyte?
Speaker 1: So you were a keyboard player. A lot of prog
Speaker 1: rock is keyboard beast. Were you a fan of prog rock?
Speaker 2: I guess not not really. I didn't hear any I mean,
Speaker 2: schmoss rock has not really even been named. But if
Speaker 2: there was such a thing, that's me I'm looking for.
Speaker 2: I don't know, chords, melodies, things like that. Certainly, yes,
Speaker 2: you know some of those hits absolutely roundabout. Yeah, great,
Speaker 2: I can hear it in my head and great, you
Speaker 2: know all that keyboard is great, certainly, Rick Wickman a
Speaker 2: fan Lord John Lord incredible. I don't know if that
Speaker 2: counts as prog rock. When they did Hush, well, that's.
Speaker 1: You know that they were there earlier. You know, we've
Speaker 1: sort of gotten that. But let's go back. You were
Speaker 1: talking about playing with the guy, the saxophone player playing
Speaker 1: jamming on the Paul Butterfield band. I think East West
Speaker 1: was the first one. No, that was the second one. Second,
Speaker 1: first one. I was not a big Butterfield fan. I
Speaker 1: was out of that bat. That of course, was that
Speaker 1: you were playing the records at home on the piano.
Speaker 1: This was in the era although I was in the
Speaker 1: New York radio market. We had to own it to
Speaker 1: hear it in many cases, so there's certain blank spots.
Speaker 1: But Okay, the reason I bring this up is we
Speaker 1: have the Beatles, we had the British invasion, We have
Speaker 1: San Francisco, and in nineteen sixty seven in San Francisco
Speaker 1: and in New York, the first underground FM radio stations. Okay,
Speaker 1: and Hendrick is sixty seven, Cream is sixty eight we're
Speaker 1: more of a top forty guy. Or when that stuff
Speaker 1: came he said, I'm into that too.
Speaker 2: Oh. I was into that too because I was in
Speaker 2: college going to going to University of Toronto, and Toronto
Speaker 2: had an relatively early FM station, CHUM FM.
Speaker 1: Right of course, yeah, great station, okay, And so.
Speaker 2: I was listening in college and you know, Knights in
Speaker 2: White Satin comes to mind. Right, that was heavy rotation there.
Speaker 2: But certain things I got a line on you spirit,
Speaker 2: I guess I was kind of picking the hits out
Speaker 2: of that stuff, but certainly was into how could you
Speaker 2: not be into FM radio and those DJs? Who there
Speaker 2: was one DJ still going up there. I think when
Speaker 2: he first came on the scene, his name with Dave Mickey. Yeah,
Speaker 2: he was like a beyond, you know, a BEYONDI of Canada.
Speaker 2: But then he became Dave Marsen.
Speaker 1: You know. Scott Muni was on AM seventy seven WABC
Speaker 1: on number one in the nation, Scott Muni Show. Then
Speaker 1: he was on WADW. Hello, this is Scott Beauty. I mean,
Speaker 1: you couldn't believe it was the same guy.
Speaker 2: Got a great Scott any story, Okay, tell us nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty one, I was doing studio work. It was just
Speaker 2: a year before Letterman started. And after I had left SNL,
Speaker 2: just studio work, a lot of jingle work in New York,
Speaker 2: playing on Coca Cola and whatever, you know, the products,
Speaker 2: and I was in that business. And then I went
Speaker 2: and took a little vacation to Hawaii with my wife
Speaker 2: and gotten a bad car accident there and broke all
Speaker 2: nine ribs in the shoulder and everything, and took a
Speaker 2: good three years to recover. Letterman started in the middle
Speaker 2: of my recovery. Dave Letterman still remembers you said there
Speaker 2: was you came in for that first meeting. You said
Speaker 2: you were kind of walking on an angle. I knew
Speaker 2: something was wrong. I had had that I had had
Speaker 2: that accident. I was in the hospital and in Honolulu
Speaker 2: for twelve days. And while I was there, we kind
Speaker 2: of got around in New York and all my lovely
Speaker 2: friends in the studio business and jiggle business called me
Speaker 2: there you you know, hope you're okay, and everything was
Speaker 2: very nice of them. I was morphined out and stuff.
Speaker 2: One guy though, and he's no longer with us, Hillary Lipsitz.
Speaker 2: That's the way he spoke. He produced a lot of things,
Speaker 2: including you know when the when the four seasons saying
Speaker 2: things go better with coke in that era, he produced
Speaker 2: all that stuff and he said, here, Paul, he spoke
Speaker 2: like that all right over there in Honolulu, here's say
Speaker 2: a load of my friend. He was a big drinker,
Speaker 2: and he put his drinking buddy on the phone. Here,
Speaker 2: this is Scott Muni. He says, say a load of
Speaker 2: Daddy butter tie over there. Wqaw over there, good friend
Speaker 2: of mine over there in Honolulu. Wow, I said, Scott,
Speaker 2: I'm in an oxygen town. I'm not going to say
Speaker 2: a load to a DJ. But thanks though. Anyway, that
Speaker 2: was that lovelier of the colony.
Speaker 3: Nonetheless, Okay, before we leave thunder Bay, what was it
Speaker 3: like being Jewish in thunder Bay?
Speaker 2: Well, not too many Jewish families, although when I was
Speaker 2: a kid growing up there there were forty families. That
Speaker 2: was a lot. I think it's a lot less now.
Speaker 2: And yeah, it was different. I didn't you know, certainly
Speaker 2: wasn't aware of any anti Semitism there. It may have existed.
Speaker 2: I may have been just to it too naive to
Speaker 2: know about it. Certainly didn't get into my in my way,
Speaker 2: you know, we would take off the high holidays and
Speaker 2: and that w was be big in the school and
Speaker 2: we were allowed to miss a couple of days, you know,
Speaker 2: but we would be watching the World Series anyway at home.
Speaker 2: That's what I remember mostly, how about it?
Speaker 1: So what point do you say this is my profession,
Speaker 1: this is my job? When do you have that light
Speaker 1: bulb moment?
Speaker 2: Not until college University of Toronto, chum FM playing and
Speaker 2: first year. I mean I certainly didn't have the nerve
Speaker 2: to even think myself that I was going to go
Speaker 2: into any kind of show business. No, absolutely too far
Speaker 2: fetched coming from thunder Bay and the Canadian in general,
Speaker 2: Canadians can be a little pessimistic. You know, who do
Speaker 2: you think you are? You know you you got to
Speaker 2: be a big stay. So I was. And my dad,
Speaker 2: you know, would have loved me to have a profession,
Speaker 2: a real profession. And I didn't. Law didn't see following
Speaker 2: in his Footsessen scene, right, But I didn't. I was
Speaker 2: going to try some thing. I don't know, but I
Speaker 2: was taking liberal arts, sociology, philosophy and psychology. Got very
Speaker 2: depressed first year. I didn't have a band anymore, I
Speaker 2: had no you know, no musical outlet. I didn't exactly
Speaker 2: know why, but I was just sleeping all the time.
Speaker 2: Imagine today they'd be diagnosing it as Epstein Barr or something.
Speaker 2: But I was just you know, so sad and then
Speaker 2: but still in Toronto, and it was great because it
Speaker 2: was you know, a real city and there were real
Speaker 2: rock acts coming and blues acts and a nightclub called
Speaker 2: the Rock Pile where you know, very Phil Moore asque
Speaker 2: I guess just opened with Blood Sweat and Tears with
Speaker 2: the Canadian David Clayton Thomas on vocals, whom we knew
Speaker 2: because through his Canadian records and stuff. He was a
Speaker 2: a phenomena up there too. I could sing great, and
Speaker 2: they opened BS and t opened at the Rock Pile,
Speaker 2: and I was at all four shows, two on Friday,
Speaker 2: two on Saturday, just starting to you know, study this stuff,
Speaker 2: get excited about it, but still you know, trying to
Speaker 2: do philosophy and things, a little bit of an ecotomy.
Speaker 2: Stayed in New York, stayed in Toronto that summer, didn't
Speaker 2: go back to thunder Bay, and I said I'd love
Speaker 2: to maybe, as you know, Blood Sweat and Tears in Chicago.
Speaker 2: And so the first time horns started making their way,
Speaker 2: although Bobby or Adell's records had horns, but they featured them,
Speaker 2: I guess. And I said to my parents, I'd like
Speaker 2: to stay in Toronto and take an arranging course this summer,
Speaker 2: and they, you know, I sold them on that. Really
Speaker 2: I wanted to be where the action was, oh, Toronto
Speaker 2: town instead of you know, thunder Bay. But I took
Speaker 2: this arrange of course, and it sure is a good
Speaker 2: thing I did. It's really the only training I have
Speaker 2: in arranging, and I kind of became an arranger. So
Speaker 2: that was good, good luck. But one night, oh, I
Speaker 2: started you know, listening, getting a little bit into the
Speaker 2: Toronto jazz scene too, sometimes going to see a guitar
Speaker 2: stuff there named Sonny Greenwich, incredible Coltrane inspired. And one night,
Speaker 2: early morning, actually coming home that summer after I don't
Speaker 2: know what, I got a job in a bar band
Speaker 2: very easily and played covers that summer to support myself.
Speaker 2: Coming home at six am. A guy sitting on a
Speaker 2: stoop in their village. They had kind of a Greenwich
Speaker 2: village there called Yorkville. A guy sitting on a stoop
Speaker 2: of a deli playing guitar acoustic guitar and I walked
Speaker 2: by and hear a couple of notes and said, holy,
Speaker 2: I walk right. I double take and I go right
Speaker 2: back and start listening to him, and it just blows
Speaker 2: my mind. He's out, He's playing, you know, it's like
Speaker 2: Coltrane again on guitar scales that I've never heard of,
Speaker 2: not blues based in any way, only guitarists. Really, I
Speaker 2: ever heard like that. I said, what are you doing?
Speaker 2: And that very morning we went over to the UFT
Speaker 2: practice room and he started showing me stuff, opening me
Speaker 2: up and really in the old fashioned way. He started
Speaker 2: me on standards. My parents knew all the standard and
Speaker 2: I knew them, but couldn't hear them. Couldn't hear those
Speaker 2: slightly more sophisticated chords. He showed me a couple of things.
Speaker 2: All of a sudden, things started unlock, and I really
Speaker 2: started to think I could maybe, maybe I could be
Speaker 2: a musician. I started playing with him, apprenticing with him.
Speaker 2: Eventually he came back to New York. He was in
Speaker 2: New York originally, and I still play with him. I
Speaker 2: just did an album, produced an album with him.
Speaker 1: Just how is it somebody we know?
Speaker 2: He's unknown? He should be known. His name is Desigi Munios,
Speaker 2: maybe a little on you own because you can't pronounce
Speaker 2: his name, but that's the kind of a spiritualistic name,
Speaker 2: you know. Munios is his real last name.
Speaker 1: What was he doing out at six am?
Speaker 2: Uh? He had just gone to town and it was
Speaker 2: free you know, we were free spirits. I was out
Speaker 2: at six am two coming home walking through the village.
Speaker 2: He was playing. I started playing with him right then
Speaker 2: and then and then I got him. So I graduated
Speaker 2: at that point, you could, you know, there were thirteen
Speaker 2: years of high school, but then you could get a
Speaker 2: degree after three years, which I took like an undergrad
Speaker 2: bachelor's degree. And I said to my parents, let me,
Speaker 2: you know, give me a year. See what happens if
Speaker 2: I'm starving. I don't know. Maybe i'd go to grad school.
Speaker 2: I don't know exactly, but you know, i'd try. Maybe
Speaker 2: I could be a professor. I didn't, you know, I
Speaker 2: still didn't over. Just give me a year. And I
Speaker 2: played with Desigi Minios. These out gigs, hippie kind of
Speaker 2: style gigs is what we played actually, and lounge gigs
Speaker 2: at the same time. And then when I would accompany
Speaker 2: people who were auditioning for shows. That was another thing
Speaker 2: I could do and make like I would charge twenty
Speaker 2: bucks wait, but.
Speaker 1: A little bit slower because there are stars and then
Speaker 1: they are working musicians, and anybody who knows working musicians
Speaker 1: is it's all based on networking and the gift of gab.
Speaker 1: So to what degree were you working it in order
Speaker 1: to get these gigs for auditions, et cetera.
Speaker 2: I was not smooth at all at that time. I
Speaker 2: was shy and under confident. But I could play rock
Speaker 2: and roll on the piano because I could do it
Speaker 2: in that assembly with pipeline and people would remember me
Speaker 2: if I could get heard. And that's all I was
Speaker 2: trying to do too, and taking gigs, you know, lounge gigs,
Speaker 2: Well I took. I took a gig just because I could,
Speaker 2: you know, if it was going to be a cover band,
Speaker 2: I just know all. I knew all the songs I
Speaker 2: could play, and I already could play a little organ,
Speaker 2: which was big, but you know, special technique involved with Oregon.
Speaker 2: Of course I could do that. If I had to
Speaker 2: audition for a band, you know, absolutely no problem. So
Speaker 2: I had that confidence, but no confidence as far as
Speaker 2: interpersonal or anything but confidence on the keyboard, and I
Speaker 2: took a gig. We're going to go up to northern
Speaker 2: Quebec and play for missile bases, Canadian missile based troops. There,
Speaker 2: Canadian troops in the dead of winter on a bus
Speaker 2: and I did that. It was like my first professional tour,
Speaker 2: if you will. I had just a gas and I
Speaker 2: met a girl on their Avril chown. She was a
Speaker 2: singer who was going to do a few numbers for
Speaker 2: the troops. And she said, I'm auditioning for a show.
Speaker 2: It's coming on New York show Godspell, the auditions next week.
Speaker 2: Could you play for me? And I want to do
Speaker 2: a song from the show if we could learn it together,
Speaker 2: which we did and she I charged you twenty bucks.
Speaker 2: We learned one of the songs from the Godspell from
Speaker 2: the cast album when we went to the auditions, and
Speaker 2: she made it through the first auditions and for the
Speaker 2: final audition. Stephen Schwartz came to town. He was the
Speaker 2: composer of Godspell. That was his first show. Now he's
Speaker 2: a composer of Wicked, biggest show ever. I think literally
Speaker 2: two movies being made about it, as you know, right.
Speaker 2: But anyway, he's in town and Avril comes up her
Speaker 2: name Avril Chown and sings this song of his from
Speaker 2: the show, and he says, I want to talk to
Speaker 2: that piano player. And he said, can you play the
Speaker 2: rest of the auditions? He said, this guy I've got
Speaker 2: doesn't know any of the songs that people want to sing. Well,
Speaker 2: you know, I know most of them were just singing
Speaker 2: Aquarius from Hair anyway, So I played the rest of
Speaker 2: the auditions for him, and at the end of the
Speaker 2: day he said, can you put a band together and
Speaker 2: conduct the show? And it was just like as I've
Speaker 2: said Lana Turner and Schwabz, I was discovered, just like.
Speaker 1: That, Okay, a little bit slower would before Avril, Were
Speaker 1: you doing auditions for twenty dollars a show.
Speaker 2: Once in a while? Yeah, maybe a local show or something,
Speaker 2: you know, Yes? And I had was.
Speaker 1: This, someone would tear your name off in the grocery store.
Speaker 1: How did they find you?
Speaker 2: Just they would find me? I don't know, I can't,
Speaker 2: I don't know. I'm trying to get into the business.
Speaker 2: So I might show up at a jam session or
Speaker 2: something and somebody, hey, you know, can you play for me?
Speaker 2: And okay, I had that you know, so.
Speaker 1: You put together the band for Godspell. Godspell's playing, that's
Speaker 1: a lot of work, okay, usually eight shows a week
Speaker 1: whatever one say the week? Guess yes, okay, So in reality,
Speaker 1: all that popular music, you're playing, lounge music whatever, you
Speaker 1: don't even have time for that because you're playing a Godspell.
Speaker 1: Was that well, that's right.
Speaker 2: I left all those gigs behind and was that the final?
Speaker 1: Was that fine with you? That now you're the musical
Speaker 1: conductor and piano player for Godspell and you're not in
Speaker 1: any other band whatever?
Speaker 2: Oh? Absolutely? It was way more legit than I thought
Speaker 2: I would go I and it turned out my career
Speaker 2: kind of went in that direction. But I thought, you know,
Speaker 2: I'd be in a band and work by ear as
Speaker 2: bands do you know rock bands do. But I had taken, luckily,
Speaker 2: I had taken some piano lessons and this one year
Speaker 2: one arranging course. But you know, I could read my site.
Speaker 2: Reading was never any good and it still isn't. The
Speaker 2: piano teachers are right back when they said, you know,
Speaker 2: don't play by ear, you won't learn to read, and
Speaker 2: that was the case with me. I can play by year,
Speaker 2: but I can't reading is not I can read and
Speaker 2: I can arrange. I have the knowledge, I just can't
Speaker 2: sight read some of these rehearsal canis put anything in
Speaker 2: front of them, they could play it. I can't. So
Speaker 2: they had to send me the score and I in advance.
Speaker 2: Luckily they did, and I worked on it hard learning it.
Speaker 2: Luckily I had the album I could I could learn,
Speaker 2: you know, I had that to hear for that opening,
Speaker 2: really hard. No, you know, I've worked and worked and
Speaker 2: worked on thrilled to be in Godspell. No other bands.
Speaker 1: That's where we are and how long you in Godspell
Speaker 1: before the next step.
Speaker 2: I did a year of Godspell in in Toronto, and
Speaker 2: during that time Steven Schwartz got a movie deal and
Speaker 2: they made a movie out of Godspell and he brought
Speaker 2: me in from Toronto to play on the score first
Speaker 2: time in New York in a New York recording studio.
Speaker 2: I came into two different times, one to play on
Speaker 2: various songs because he did like the leg you know.
Speaker 2: He allowed me to put my own licks in because
Speaker 2: I couldn't really read exact anyway, and he liked it
Speaker 2: it put it on the movie score, and then he said,
Speaker 2: when this show up here, I'd never take you out
Speaker 2: of the show up here, he said, but when it's over,
Speaker 2: I want you to come New York and he did
Speaker 2: show ended. I spent some time just really not doing
Speaker 2: much in Toronto, not committing, kind of having this in
Speaker 2: the back of the mind. My mind is sure enough.
Speaker 2: Shworts called, I'm doing this in nineteen seventy four. Now
Speaker 2: I'm doing the Magic Show on Broadway, coincidentally with the Canadian,
Speaker 2: the late great Doug Henning, the magician come down and
Speaker 2: play for that. And that's when I moved to New York.
Speaker 1: And any immigration issues or you got the well.
Speaker 2: I got a I got My first permit was an
Speaker 2: H two category, which they got me to do the
Speaker 2: Magic show. But it said you can only play the
Speaker 2: Magic show. You can't go and do other gigs. So
Speaker 2: this isn't good for somebody who's trying to get around,
Speaker 2: you know. I could only do things for free instead
Speaker 2: of jam sessions and stuff. But at least I was
Speaker 2: making a living doing the Magic show. Looking for an
Speaker 2: immigration lawyer who can get me, you know, lead to
Speaker 2: be into this country and open this visa maybe so
Speaker 2: I could do other gigs, but no lawyers wanted any
Speaker 2: you know, they just said, we got enough pianists here,
Speaker 2: we don't need you. If you were a nuclear scientist,
Speaker 2: maybe I can't help you. Finally, I came across one
Speaker 2: guy who said, well, you've gone to prove to them
Speaker 2: that you're not here to take a job away from
Speaker 2: an America. You're here to provide a unique and that's
Speaker 2: the keyword, unique service to America. And he says, if
Speaker 2: you can come up with something like that, especially if
Speaker 2: it's kind of technical and musical, an immigration officer couldn't
Speaker 2: question it. You've got to be a musician, you know,
Speaker 2: then we have a chance. First thing we would do
Speaker 2: is get you your status change, and now if they
Speaker 2: admit you're unique, then we can then go on get
Speaker 2: you a green card, which I have eventually got and
Speaker 2: now I'm a citizen and okay, proud of.
Speaker 1: So tell me how did you prove you were unique?
Speaker 2: Well? I said, how about this, the lawyer, what if
Speaker 2: I could prove I'm an expert in music and comedy
Speaker 2: and how they intercept, providing music for comedy and understanding comedy,
Speaker 2: knowing where the laps are, what's funny, whatever you know?
Speaker 2: And he said sounds good, And I got letters from
Speaker 2: all kinds of people. I had done a few things already.
Speaker 2: I was able to get a letter from Norman Lear
Speaker 2: because I had done a pilot for him that went nowhere.
Speaker 2: I got a letter from well, I can't remember, oh,
Speaker 2: a guy who owned the National Lampoon. I was doing
Speaker 2: stuff for the National Lampoon Radio hour, working with Chris
Speaker 2: Guest there and Bill Murray. That's you know, networking, you
Speaker 2: meet people. That's an example of it. So I got
Speaker 2: letters and sure enough it worked, and it's exactly what
Speaker 2: the immigration officer said. He said, I'm sure this is
Speaker 2: you know, I can't question it. It's not my area.
Speaker 2: And I got a different you know, that's when I
Speaker 2: got my green card.
Speaker 1: Okay, so your status changes. How does that open up
Speaker 1: your career?
Speaker 2: Then I get to do other things for other people,
Speaker 2: sessions and stuff. Especially at that time, I thought if
Speaker 2: I could be a session man, play on records, and
Speaker 2: you know, we started to learn what that was us
Speaker 2: fans when we heard about the Muscle Shoals, rhythm section
Speaker 2: and stuff. And then now we know about the Wrecking
Speaker 2: Crew and how there's these people making records in the
Speaker 2: studios going from sessions. It sounded wonderful to me, and
Speaker 2: I started getting little by little get dates like that
Speaker 2: again networking. Like you said, what kind of dates, Well,
Speaker 2: there was a I've left out an interesting thing. I
Speaker 2: mentioned Norman Lear. I was very aware, you know, as
Speaker 2: a fan up in Canada, even of Don Kirshner. He
Speaker 2: was the.
Speaker 1: Pubblic This was before the TV show when it was
Speaker 1: the Monkeys and everything.
Speaker 2: Well it was yeah, this is post monkeys. Yeah, but
Speaker 2: in the seventies, right, he said, I was. I was
Speaker 2: doing the Magic Show, right, you know, very early, knowing
Speaker 2: various actors, though I knew Broadway type of people. There's
Speaker 2: a guy named Don Scardino played Jesus in various Godspell companies.
Speaker 2: He became a director TV director, very successful. And he said,
Speaker 2: you know, we're all in our twenties. He said, I
Speaker 2: had just auditioned for this show, Don Kirshner, He's going
Speaker 2: to try to do a Monkey's in the seventies. And
Speaker 2: I said, you know, I got the part for the pilot,
Speaker 2: he said, And I told him, you know about you,
Speaker 2: You're funny and maybe they want a real musician. So
Speaker 2: I auditioned for Kirshner and got the part. And before
Speaker 2: I knew it. I was in Hollywood and we made
Speaker 2: a pilot called Hereafter, and Jeff Barry, one of Donnie's guys,
Speaker 2: came in to produce and wrote the theme. That's when
Speaker 2: I met how I met Jeff Barry. I'm going to
Speaker 2: do this thing with him. On the September thirteenth, Jeff
Speaker 2: and I made a song together. He produced it. I
Speaker 2: wrote it with Scardino. Kirshner brings it back to New York.
Speaker 2: He's playing it in his office. Kirshner's demo singer is
Speaker 2: ron Dante, who has become Barry Manilo's producer. Barry knew
Speaker 2: on the scene now and he's got Ohmandy and I
Speaker 2: write the songs. Ron Dante produced all those things with
Speaker 2: Barry and Rondante. Here's this Jeff Barry thing, and he
Speaker 2: hears my arrangement. He says, that's not Jeff's style. Jeff
Speaker 2: is sugar Sugar, so he says he started using me
Speaker 2: as a ranger and first artist. His artist was a
Speaker 2: guy named Paul Jabbara. Of course, Paul was going to
Speaker 2: try to be an artist. I was doing a chart.
Speaker 2: Paul's song was called One Man Ain't Enough. He was
Speaker 2: already mining those humorous aspects of love, and we made
Speaker 2: a good record, Ron producing and I got I wrote
Speaker 2: strings and stuff disco. Nothing happened as an artist for
Speaker 2: Paul Jabbara, but way later he moved to La He
Speaker 2: won an Oscar for wrinning last Dance for Donna Summer,
Speaker 2: and then he came back to New York. And this
Speaker 2: is about eighty nineteen eighty one, and he called me
Speaker 2: up and he said, you did a great job on
Speaker 2: One Man. Ain't enough with Ron Dante. He said, I
Speaker 2: got a title now for Donna Summer. I want you
Speaker 2: to write it with me. What do you think about
Speaker 2: It's raining Men? And I said I'll be right over.
Speaker 2: And you know that became a.
Speaker 1: But you said he was writing for Donna Summer. How
Speaker 1: did it end up with the Weather Girls?
Speaker 2: Well, because Donna Summer heard it and hated it. She
Speaker 2: had become religious by this point and she didn't. She
Speaker 2: was insulted by it and she didn't like especially when
Speaker 2: it said Hallelujah, It's raining men, and she objected to it.
Speaker 2: She sent a bible to Paul. She and Paul were
Speaker 2: great friends, but she rejected the song, and Paul tried
Speaker 2: everything because he knew his kind of flamboyant guy, if
Speaker 2: you will, who knew all the divas at the time,
Speaker 2: and he played it for everybody, Diana Ross, Patty LaBelle Cheer,
Speaker 2: and they all hated it. It didn't daunt him. He
Speaker 2: made a track and he remembered these two girls they
Speaker 2: used to sing for Sylvester right under the name two
Speaker 2: Tons of Fun. He put their voices on it and
Speaker 2: called them the Weather Girls, and that when it became
Speaker 2: a hit, they were glad to go and work as
Speaker 2: the Wedder Girls.
Speaker 1: A couple of questions, yes, sir, hey, what was it
Speaker 1: like to have a hit?
Speaker 2: Kind of amazing for me, of course, being so tuned
Speaker 2: to the radio stade. This song took off very gradually,
Speaker 2: interestingly enough, and it became a number one dance record
Speaker 2: right away, but as far as top forty, it got
Speaker 2: to about forty three.
Speaker 1: It's one of those songs everybody knows, but if you
Speaker 1: look it up in the chart numbers not qu.
Speaker 2: Just forty three, just out of the top forty. Nonetheless,
Speaker 2: it started taking off another country's end, and when it
Speaker 2: turned out to be the right tempo for aerobics, it's fast.
Speaker 2: It's a fast dance temple, which worked in the clubs,
Speaker 2: and it also worked for aerobics, and that's when it
Speaker 2: crossed out of the gay clubs into the masses. You know,
Speaker 2: women liked it too in the gym. So it took
Speaker 2: a long time. Took years for this to kind of happen,
Speaker 2: and then people use it all over the world in
Speaker 2: commercials or movies and stuff. But it kind of, as
Speaker 2: I say, it's not like, wow, I got another top
Speaker 2: ten record. Was never that. It's just kind of a
Speaker 2: gradual swell.
Speaker 1: Okay, you write that song? Who owns it? And what
Speaker 1: was your percentage of the one hundred percent ownership?
Speaker 2: I did not give up my half of the publishing.
Speaker 2: You did not, No, I did not, So I for
Speaker 2: the first time, I do have half the publishing on it.
Speaker 2: Now there's a little deal in praised with Paul Jabbara
Speaker 2: and his descendants. Now he's unfortunately left us, so with
Speaker 2: my share, you know, I share it a little bit
Speaker 2: with them.
Speaker 1: Well what way did well?
Speaker 2: Because Paul did say you know, hey, I you know
Speaker 2: I want you to write this song. Well you you know,
Speaker 2: And I don't want to get into the details of.
Speaker 1: That, but just understand, didn't he have the other half
Speaker 1: of the song.
Speaker 2: He did, but he was signed to a company. He said,
Speaker 2: I'm never going to make any money off this. You've
Speaker 2: got to understand, I'm so in debt to them. With
Speaker 2: all the sessions I do. By the time I recoup,
Speaker 2: I won't make any money. So will you give me
Speaker 2: a little money from your part of the publishing? And
Speaker 2: I did. I'm happy to do it, and you still
Speaker 2: will do it. I still do it, and you still
Speaker 2: own the song. Yes, yes, and I have resisted. I
Speaker 2: have been offered. You know, some of these well, I
Speaker 2: don't know what they call these new publishers that are
Speaker 2: coming buying up people's catalog. Mine certainly isn't worth what
Speaker 2: Springsys is. I only got one song, but I all
Speaker 2: wrote the Letterman theme too, but that was that. But still,
Speaker 2: you know, some deals have come across. I just said,
Speaker 2: come on, it's my only song. I'm just going to
Speaker 2: hang on to this, see what happens, because I'll tell
Speaker 2: you something when I want to use it for a
Speaker 2: toothpaste commercial in Denmark. If you don't have any publishing,
Speaker 2: you're not going to hear about it, period, and you're
Speaker 2: not going to get paid for it's a different thing
Speaker 2: when you have a little of the publishing than I
Speaker 2: have have it. So that's absolutely true.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you have this hit with the Weather Girls.
Speaker 1: What's the next step for you?
Speaker 2: Just continue? I was already on Letterman by that point.
Speaker 1: No, no, well let's go back to chapter Oh so,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, So how do you get from Godspell to SNL?
Speaker 2: Godspell or Stephen Schwartz brought me to New York And
Speaker 2: I was already in New York when the SNL people
Speaker 2: showed up. After I had done Godspell in Toronto, I
Speaker 2: was now a theatrical musician. I started doing a few
Speaker 2: other shows getting those calls, and a guy came in
Speaker 2: to play saxophone in the band for one of those
Speaker 2: shows in Toronto, and it was Howard shore Uh. And
Speaker 2: that's when we met and we hit it off. And
Speaker 2: Howard turns out to have been he was in a
Speaker 2: band up in Canada that had some success, Lighthouse of
Speaker 2: course one morning. Yes, he was a saxophone player in that.
Speaker 2: And he was also Lauren Michael's best friend. Oh he
Speaker 2: had They had gone to summer camp and done shows together.
Speaker 2: So Lauren came to town to do SNL and Howard
Speaker 2: was his musical director from the old days in camp.
Speaker 2: Howard was gonna, you know, and Howard did a great
Speaker 2: job for them and for him. And I was already
Speaker 2: in town doing the Magic show. Howard called me up,
Speaker 2: had offered me this job, and I was thinking, oh
Speaker 2: my god, it's going to be variety of every I
Speaker 2: can have to new music every week. I don't know
Speaker 2: if I can cut it. And after I accepted, I
Speaker 2: called Howard one night, Howard, I don't think I'm the
Speaker 2: right guy, and he had to talk me into it.
Speaker 2: I said, it's not daily. You know, we're going to
Speaker 2: have time to rehearse. You'll have the music. He calmed
Speaker 2: me down, and that's how I got on that show,
Speaker 2: hired by him. But he said, you know, you were
Speaker 2: hiring a lot of people. You know. Gilda had been
Speaker 2: in Godspell in Toronto. She was from Detroit really, but
Speaker 2: had been up in Toronto. Ackroyd I knew he had
Speaker 2: around backstage Godspell. Belushi was one of the first guys
Speaker 2: I met when I came to New York. To another
Speaker 2: connection I had Brian Doyle Murray. Bill Murray's older brother.
Speaker 2: Brian introduced me around in New York. When I got there,
Speaker 2: Brian introduced me the National Lampoon people. I started working
Speaker 2: with the doing musical parodies and stuff with them.
Speaker 1: Now, were you the pianist in Lemmings.
Speaker 2: No, let Mes is before my time great pianist in
Speaker 2: Lemmings named Paul Jacobs. He was with the Lampoon even
Speaker 2: before I and Paul Jacobs and I worked together on
Speaker 2: this one album we made for them called Goodbye Pop.
Speaker 2: Christopher Guest was with us, that was what he was
Speaker 2: doing at the time. He was in New York at
Speaker 2: the time. We wrote some songs together. We wrote a
Speaker 2: song together called Kung Fu Christmas. You know what if
Speaker 2: the stylistics did a Christmas song? That type of thing,
Speaker 2: and that's a collector's item. Goodbye Pop. Nonetheless, some funny
Speaker 2: stuff on it.
Speaker 1: Okay, SNL starts well, the first host was George Carlin
Speaker 1: was either very yes, that's right, yes, And I watched
Speaker 1: the first and I ate it was sort of hip.
Speaker 1: It took a couple of months to become a phenomenon. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what was it like being on the show? What was
Speaker 1: your viewpoint? Looking out?
Speaker 2: Awfully fun to do leading up to the first show,
Speaker 2: I couldn't believe we were going to go alive. It
Speaker 2: didn't seem possible. So many elements, so many different stages
Speaker 2: in that big studio, eight h cutting from one to
Speaker 2: another to another, and it's all going to be live.
Speaker 2: There was no music on the very first show, you know,
Speaker 2: no act that we had to play for or anything,
Speaker 2: as I was man, just the theme and some ins
Speaker 2: and outs, so not too much pressure and in general,
Speaker 2: not so aware of any you know how successful the
Speaker 2: show was being just having the time of my life,
Speaker 2: really doing a doing a network show. And I remember
Speaker 2: the Christmas Show, how much fun that was because of
Speaker 2: remembering watching the you know, Dinah Shore's Christmas Show or
Speaker 2: Andy Williams Christmas, this long tradition and how important television
Speaker 2: was to me up in Canada, and then to be
Speaker 2: a part of a Christmas show myself and getting to
Speaker 2: play for Martha Reeves that that Christmas who Lauren booked.
Speaker 1: Okay, your breakthrough on camera moment is is Don Kirshner.
Speaker 1: How did that happen? Well?
Speaker 2: Brian dol Murray was a good friend. As I mentioned, Billy,
Speaker 2: his brother was already on the show. Brian later joined
Speaker 2: SNL as a writer. In fact, he was there as
Speaker 2: a writer when I came back from doing that Norman
Speaker 2: Lear thing with Jeff Barry and Kirshner, and I got
Speaker 2: my when it bombed, I got my old job back
Speaker 2: on SNL and I returned, and I was as always
Speaker 2: though part of writing meetings and stuff. I was there
Speaker 2: for sir, you know, especially if things were going to
Speaker 2: get musical. I was up late with everybody off and
Speaker 2: on Tuesday nights.
Speaker 1: And.
Speaker 2: Brian had an idea for a musical number. We had
Speaker 2: a character on the show, a running character. He was
Speaker 2: really a writer, Michael O'donahue, one of the key guys,
Speaker 2: uh you know, when it came to attitude, dangerous attitude
Speaker 2: of the show, and he had a character he would
Speaker 2: do on camera sometimes, mister Mike just he was dimly
Speaker 2: lit and he was kind of eerie and stuff. And
Speaker 2: Brian said, what if we do a thing Garrett Morris,
Speaker 2: our dear friend and actor on it, the only black guy,
Speaker 2: the only black actor on the show at the time, Garrett.
Speaker 2: The idea is Garrett and drag doing Tina Turner, which
Speaker 2: he really tore up, and mister Mike on guitar, and
Speaker 2: so instead of it's instead of Eyking Tina, It's Mike
Speaker 2: and Tina. That was the whole idea. Obviously not much
Speaker 2: of an idea to hang your hat on, but it
Speaker 2: required some exposition. You know, how are we going to
Speaker 2: set this up? Explain that he's Mike, mister Mike, and
Speaker 2: it's mister Mike and Tina. And I said, I could
Speaker 2: introduce this as Don Kirshner. I had worked with Kirshner,
Speaker 2: of course Jeff Barry on this on This Bomb Show
Speaker 2: at seventy seven, and during that time out in La
Speaker 2: Kirshner was hard again with his uh Don Kirshner's rock
Speaker 2: concert first you know that? And there was another one anyway,
Speaker 2: it didn't call you, yeah, exactly, And Kirscher called me
Speaker 2: one day. He knew I was a big fan of it.
Speaker 2: I gush all over him, you know, I knew all
Speaker 2: about Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart and all of his
Speaker 2: all of that stuff. And he called me up and
Speaker 2: he said, I'm going to go on I've had voiceovers
Speaker 2: all this time on my show introducing the acts. I'm
Speaker 2: going to go on camera myself. He said, you know,
Speaker 2: people are saying, maybe I'm a little stiff. He said,
Speaker 2: but Sullivan was stiff and he had the gig, you
Speaker 2: know what I mean. And I got the gig. He
Speaker 2: spoke very kind of fast and show busy in person.
Speaker 2: You know, I got the gig. You know, I may
Speaker 2: be stiff, and I got the gig, he says, So
Speaker 2: I want you to be there. I'm going to go.
Speaker 2: I want Lucky to be there when I go on
Speaker 2: camera for the first time. And I drove down somewhere
Speaker 2: near Hollywood and Vine to a studio and he's doing
Speaker 2: these intros and I never saw anything so funny because
Speaker 2: he was so animated and fast talking as a publisher.
Speaker 2: But he said, forget about it. You know, we want
Speaker 2: to talk about track record with the Neil Diamonds and
Speaker 2: the Carol Kingdom. They saidakas ever looked at a contract,
Speaker 2: he would go a mile a minute, but when he
Speaker 2: got on camera, he froze up and he I'm Don
Speaker 2: Kashner and this is rock constant, So you know, it
Speaker 2: stuck with me. And I did at that time to
Speaker 2: introduce my Contina Turner, and that's how that's how that
Speaker 2: came about the show. God blessed them. They were so
Speaker 2: loose that anybody was welcome to get in on it
Speaker 2: if they if they had something that might be funny.
Speaker 1: Okay, but a couple of things. This was when it
Speaker 1: was the Hippis show in the country, and unlike today,
Speaker 1: there was a limited number of outlets. Suddenly you're famous.
Speaker 2: What's it like walking around not famous? Really starting to
Speaker 2: get a little exposure.
Speaker 1: You go to the grocery store people.
Speaker 2: I have to say, no, I have to say that's
Speaker 2: certainly did start to happen when Lettermans started. When A
Speaker 2: Letterman Show started in eighty two, there was an amazing difference. Yes,
Speaker 2: and I became sort of well known for sure, but
Speaker 2: not during the you know, my little roles on SNL
Speaker 2: and by the fifth season I was even known as
Speaker 2: a featured player. These are these, you know, almost the
Speaker 2: semi regular I got that billing and did a few
Speaker 2: you know kershner was really the only thing I could do.
Speaker 2: But they would work me into some other things too,
Speaker 2: But no, I never really got you know, uh, it
Speaker 2: was never really much of a recognition factor until the
Speaker 2: Letterman Show.
Speaker 1: And how did you end up in spinal Tap?
Speaker 2: Well, fifth season of SNL, my fifth and last season,
Speaker 2: Harry Shearer was It was one of his first two
Speaker 2: appearances as a cast member. He became a cast member
Speaker 2: that year and the two of us hit it off,
Speaker 2: and we're still close friends, and we wrote together on SNL.
Speaker 2: First thing we wrote together was a kind of a
Speaker 2: parody of a backers audition. Lauren was really, you know,
Speaker 2: hoping that the two of us would get together and
Speaker 2: write something musical. We didn't know that you could be
Speaker 2: like Tina Fay and then put it on Broadway. We
Speaker 2: weren't thinking like that at all, you know, but we
Speaker 2: wrote something that we thought was very funny. A backers
Speaker 2: audition for the worst show you could possibly imagine, something
Speaker 2: about the Manson family. B Arthur was a hostess, and
Speaker 2: she played like a society woman who had lent her
Speaker 2: home for this backers audition. Harry and I Young composers,
Speaker 2: and the rest of the cast. Billy build a Garrett
Speaker 2: playing of the different characters in the show, singing the
Speaker 2: song Garrett as man and singing a song called nine
Speaker 2: because we all know he was into that number nine.
Speaker 2: And the hook was that it was in nine to
Speaker 2: eight times, just like those silly songs in Superstar. Every
Speaker 2: song had to be kind of in different times, so
Speaker 2: that was our so we hit it off strong. And
Speaker 2: when Harry and the guys were developed spinal Tap, Harry
Speaker 2: sold them on me. This guy's funny, and you know
Speaker 2: he would be great for this part. The local promo man,
Speaker 2: and I knew them all. Rob Reiner had had hosted us,
Speaker 2: and I knew them all a little bit. Chris of
Speaker 2: course from from from National Lampoon and McKean socially, so
Speaker 2: they all, you know, it didn't take too much. And
Speaker 2: when I said to Harry, well, so you're going to
Speaker 2: send me my lines, and he said, you'll be making
Speaker 2: them up, I said what, And it turns out that
Speaker 2: that's that's the way the movie was done. They had
Speaker 2: just seen outlines. No, he had to make the prown lines.
Speaker 1: How long did you actually work on set?
Speaker 2: Two days work. I came out on a weekend to
Speaker 2: do two days work. First day was the scene. Well,
Speaker 2: there's a little problem because I was the local promo
Speaker 2: man and my first scene was I arrived late after
Speaker 2: a gig to the band's hotel and I have to
Speaker 2: talk them into getting up super early the next morning
Speaker 2: to do a radio interview, and they just don't want
Speaker 2: to do it. And I'm going crazy and I this scene,
Speaker 2: you know, well, I was. They put in a thing
Speaker 2: where I took an egg. I once did it in
Speaker 2: realized so frustrated that I smashed an egg right on
Speaker 2: my head and that was in the move in the movie.
Speaker 2: But then I do get them to the next day
Speaker 2: we're shooting in the radio studio. I get them up
Speaker 2: for the early morning interview and there's a DJ ready
Speaker 2: to go to play, a guy playing a DJ. But
Speaker 2: Harry sure is a DJ too, as I'm sure you know,
Speaker 2: very much a perfectionist, and he did. He just didn't
Speaker 2: approve of the way this DJ, the DJ couldn't you know,
Speaker 2: operate his own slip his own card in queuing up
Speaker 2: a record at the same time, couldn't know. Harry just
Speaker 2: didn't approve. So that means that scene had to go,
Speaker 2: and my scene leading up to it that really had
Speaker 2: to go to Aloha. Thank god. It appears as a
Speaker 2: bonus track on the DVD, the egg Stink the egg thing,
Speaker 2: and then and then they then then they kicked my
Speaker 2: ass scene in the in the record store. All in
Speaker 2: all in two days.
Speaker 1: Okay, the movie comes out. It's sort of the slow burn,
Speaker 1: but it never went away this is Do you start
Speaker 1: getting recognized from that and people telling your lines?
Speaker 2: Do you Every band that came on Letterman had to
Speaker 2: take the dvdeo on their on their bus, the touring bus,
Speaker 2: so they were all familiar with it, and they all said,
Speaker 2: many of them said the same thing, it's not funny
Speaker 2: to us, so real that we don't you know that
Speaker 2: we don't like it, but we watch it anyway.
Speaker 1: Okay, So how'd you get the gig with Letterman?
Speaker 2: Well, you know, at as Saturday at Light Live was
Speaker 2: ending for me after the first after that fifth season,
Speaker 2: Letterman was starting up a show, a morning show on
Speaker 2: NBC Live in the morning, and they were asked me
Speaker 2: to I got the call to do that show, or
Speaker 2: at least to meet on it, but I may have
Speaker 2: been actually to do it, but it just didn't seem
Speaker 2: right to me the morning, you know how I had
Speaker 2: known a little bit about David Letterban, not too much, though,
Speaker 2: didn't seem right, and I passed on it. You know,
Speaker 2: I felt like I was still young. I didn't have to,
Speaker 2: you know, I didn't know the value of a gig
Speaker 2: like I do now. I passed on and Letterman still
Speaker 2: I would refer to it on the show, Paul, you
Speaker 2: didn't do the morning show, did you know, Dave? Why not?
Speaker 2: I couldn't get up that early. That became a running thing.
Speaker 2: But the show was two hip for the room and
Speaker 2: too hip for the hour, and it didn't succeed. But
Speaker 2: when they they got their notice, you know, but you
Speaker 2: got to keep doing shows. You were canceling, you, but
Speaker 2: you got to keep doing shows for another month. That
Speaker 2: was the funniest month I've ever seen because they were
Speaker 2: no pressure. So I was watching that show not regretting
Speaker 2: that I hadn't done it, though, and then they remembered
Speaker 2: me two years later when he got his night show.
Speaker 2: I got the call again, and this show was going
Speaker 2: to be so late, it was going to be after
Speaker 2: the tonight show, after Johnny carrs. I said, that's that's
Speaker 2: more like it, you know, And I was thrilled to
Speaker 2: do that show. And I came in for a meeting
Speaker 2: with Dave and his producer and we hit it off.
Speaker 1: And how did you hire the band?
Speaker 2: Well, I had been working in the studios and I
Speaker 2: just hired and I had actually produced for a record
Speaker 2: for a couple of studio guys. Four Studio guys had
Speaker 2: a band together called the twenty four Street Band. Their
Speaker 2: success was only in Japan, but I made a record
Speaker 2: with him, produced a record for that market, and they
Speaker 2: were just some of the best guys and they already
Speaker 2: played together. So it was Will Lee one of the
Speaker 2: all time greatest bass players still to this day, and
Speaker 2: was with me all through the whole Letterman Show till
Speaker 2: the end. I still play with him. Steve Jordan on
Speaker 2: dramas an incredible phenomenon at the time. He's got nothing
Speaker 2: but bigger since then, and most recently joined the Rolling Stones.
Speaker 2: And Hiram Bullock, the great him Book on Guitar, who
Speaker 2: really was like Hendricks but with musical training, has left
Speaker 2: us unfortunately. But he was a first guitar so that
Speaker 2: first crack Man was really strong. The musicians still remembered,
Speaker 2: and it lasted not too long. It is a certain
Speaker 2: kind of you know, you need a certain kind of
Speaker 2: discipline to be able to show up every single day.
Speaker 2: Hiram may have been a little too free spirited.
Speaker 1: So tell me about the evolution. And then you go
Speaker 1: earlier on CBS and you get a female guitar player too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So Hiram, you know, I had to leave, and
Speaker 2: I tried out lots of guitar players on the air,
Speaker 2: and Sid McGinnis was the best. He had played with
Speaker 2: Peter Gabriel, among many others, and I hired him. And
Speaker 2: then when Steve Jordan left, he was getting a little hot,
Speaker 2: you know, just too hot hang around. And Anton fig
Speaker 2: I had met in the studios. He had played on
Speaker 2: a number of the Kiss records on you know, uncredited,
Speaker 2: and he was just a great, uh studio drummer with
Speaker 2: a rock sound, and he played the show great. So
Speaker 2: there was that when we did that, you know, all
Speaker 2: those twelve years at NBC. But when it came time
Speaker 2: to move to the earlier hour eleven thirty on CBS,
Speaker 2: there was I just you know, Paul, you got to
Speaker 2: get a bigger band. It's a bigger show. We just
Speaker 2: want a bigger band. That's all that they specified. And
Speaker 2: it was going to be tough because Dave was so spontaneous.
Speaker 2: I think still to this day, we're the only show
Speaker 2: that if something happens out of left field, it's really
Speaker 2: happening out of left field. It's not we rehearsed it before,
Speaker 2: you know, we would rehearse sketches of course they would
Speaker 2: be obvious when we were reading lines. But but if
Speaker 2: something funny happened, if somebody said it something funny in
Speaker 2: the audience, Dave would just chase the whole show. Let's
Speaker 2: go with that, let's you know instead of that, let's
Speaker 2: you know, And then whatever I had planned, you know,
Speaker 2: I stopped planning stuff. Original band only four peaces. We
Speaker 2: could play anything. We didn't need charts. We all kind
Speaker 2: of knew all the song I hired guy. All these guys,
Speaker 2: although they were studio players, they had that in common
Speaker 2: with me. They knew all the rock songs. They were
Speaker 2: unusual studio players, often older jazz players. They looked down
Speaker 2: on rock. But I found these guys who knew the
Speaker 2: same songs. So it's tough to expand the band. But
Speaker 2: eventually I got it right, Okay.
Speaker 1: Was the original concept that when the bands come on,
Speaker 1: when the musical acts come on, your band would play alone,
Speaker 1: not one hundred percent of the time, but most times.
Speaker 1: Whereas previously Skitch Henderson all these other people they played
Speaker 1: during commercials, but when the musical act came on, they
Speaker 1: had their own players.
Speaker 2: Yes, but that wasn't really true of a doc. Severnson
Speaker 2: who you know, if yet in rock and roll era, yeah,
Speaker 2: he didn't play as much. But back in the day,
Speaker 2: if Tony Benn was on, if Frank Sinatra was on,
Speaker 2: you know the yes, the Pouseman was playing, because that
Speaker 2: was their style. They were a big man. Yes, David
Speaker 2: Letterman himself definitely would have loved it if we could
Speaker 2: have played for everybody that He said, you know, anything
Speaker 2: else you can see on MTV, Let's see them interact
Speaker 2: with you guys, And he loved that. And for a
Speaker 2: period of time we did play for a lot of
Speaker 2: the acts. It was good because we didn't have much
Speaker 2: of a stage. We had a very small studio at NBC,
Speaker 2: and it just was nicer to have a few people
Speaker 2: from the band come nice for everybody. But eventually when
Speaker 2: we got to CBS, the competition for booking became strong.
Speaker 2: There were other shows. Everybody wanted to get the act first,
Speaker 2: you know, whether it be the Lemonheads or these various
Speaker 2: acts in the nineties and stuff. Much easier for them
Speaker 2: to come in with their own setup, and that's kind
Speaker 2: of became you know, let them, you know, just let
Speaker 2: make it easy. Otherwise they're going to go do jay,
Speaker 2: you know, so that but why was why? It kind
Speaker 2: of changed and we didn't play for as many people
Speaker 2: by any meaning.
Speaker 1: So were you involved in booking the acts at all?
Speaker 2: No, not at all.
Speaker 1: How far in advance would you know an act was
Speaker 1: coming on and working with rehearsing the material, et cetera.
Speaker 2: Well, it varied. Sometimes we would have enough notice, but
Speaker 2: sometimes it could be the night before that we would
Speaker 2: be playing with somebody and in that case, well, you know,
Speaker 2: in the early days eighties, I was working with a
Speaker 2: cassette machine and cassettes, and I would make cassettes of
Speaker 2: these songs. Get them to everybody. There was no phones,
Speaker 2: couldn't email it, track everybody, get the cassettes, start listening.
Speaker 2: Everyone would do their homework. I started out writing charts
Speaker 2: for people, but then I realized, let them just learn it.
Speaker 2: That was what I really loved, everybody learning it from
Speaker 2: the record like I used to as a kid. But eventually,
Speaker 2: you know, when I got horns, then I needed charts,
Speaker 2: and then you know, and I had to It was
Speaker 2: back to getting an arranger and getting arrangements for these things.
Speaker 1: Okay, send out the cassettes the next day the act
Speaker 1: is there, Then what happens.
Speaker 2: Well, we had very little time to do it, less
Speaker 2: than an hour to set them up and also rehearse
Speaker 2: with them. We were we had to be as prepared
Speaker 2: as we could be, that's all. And for the most part,
Speaker 2: they were really surprised and happy, you know, that we
Speaker 2: were able to play their stuff so well. Sometimes we
Speaker 2: would play it more like the record. They hadn't heard
Speaker 2: it that way. They've been doing it differently on the
Speaker 2: road with their own bands. You know, we played record versions.
Speaker 2: Sometimes they got a kick out of it. Only a
Speaker 2: couple of times, you know, people weren't so happy. Just
Speaker 2: a few times. I certainly did it. I got my
Speaker 2: share of tires when I really blew it, though not
Speaker 2: necessarily in those acts, but you know, at certain.
Speaker 1: Times tell me about blowing it.
Speaker 2: Well, one thing that comes to mind is I blew
Speaker 2: it with mister Anthony Newley, one of my favorites of
Speaker 2: all time. We had a running thing going. This was
Speaker 2: a Letterman eighties from NBC had a running thing going
Speaker 2: for a while with a theme song. We had a
Speaker 2: viewer male theme song. We used to answer viewer male,
Speaker 2: what if there was a theme song? What if we
Speaker 2: could get Henry Mancini to write it, which we did.
Speaker 2: Henry came in conducted and he had written a theme
Speaker 2: song for viewer mail.
Speaker 1: My girlfriend's father.
Speaker 2: I heard. I happen to know this, Okay, give.
Speaker 1: He wrote the theme song for your male keep going.
Speaker 2: Give her my best. I will yes, and then it
Speaker 2: became a you know, he came in and when Tails
Speaker 2: conducted it, he wrote us more of a thing like,
Speaker 2: you know, the New Heart theme, that kind of style,
Speaker 2: very jaunty. And then we started doing his theme with
Speaker 2: other people, with other celebrities. What if we could get
Speaker 2: Johnny Mathis to sing the Mancinis theme. You know, we
Speaker 2: were doing all of this, but it was just a
Speaker 2: silly viewer male thing. Nonetheless, one week Anthony Knewley was
Speaker 2: going to sing it. It's gonna at Mancini's theme to
Speaker 2: viewer male, view a male. That's what Henry wrote. He said,
Speaker 2: I wanted something like Hallelujah to be view were male.
Speaker 2: So I had Newly. And then often, you know, as
Speaker 2: a writer of special material, as I am, I would
Speaker 2: write a section in for the different artists. So for Newly,
Speaker 2: I wrote in a section the viewer male clown. Because
Speaker 2: he was always singing about the happy clown. He's great
Speaker 2: the viewer mail clown view a male. So that was
Speaker 2: the idea. And Tony, excuse me, newly, Tony newly, if
Speaker 2: I may. That's what the rat pag is to call Tony,
Speaker 2: and I had a reversal. It was great. He had
Speaker 2: a great sense of humor about it. One of those
Speaker 2: songs I really stole from in one of the lines
Speaker 2: viewer male clown. He's only funny, but mistake, he said,
Speaker 2: Oh that's mine, you know which. I appreciate it, but
Speaker 2: I'm so cocky that I didn't write any of it down.
Speaker 2: I thought I'll just remember it. It's just me and
Speaker 2: him piano, and he sings, and we sing the first section,
Speaker 2: Doo the mail, and it's going great. And then I
Speaker 2: got to modulate into the new slow section the viewer
Speaker 2: maile clown. I modulate wrong. I come out about a
Speaker 2: fifth higher than it's supposed to be. And he his
Speaker 2: ear is so good. He follows me into the new key.
Speaker 2: But now he's up well laugh at the viewer mail.
Speaker 2: He's way high and I'm just dying, Oh my god,
Speaker 2: what have I done? And then he hits this note
Speaker 2: at the end of view of milk. He hits it.
Speaker 2: It's out of anybody's range. He hits the note. It's brilliant.
Speaker 2: He gets a clause as he goes off. I hear
Speaker 2: this from backstage. Fuck. He's so mad, so mad that
Speaker 2: producer happened to run into him later at the Friars
Speaker 2: Club said, oh, Paul Fields so terrible about it. And
Speaker 2: he said, oh, Paul feels terrible. But I wrote him,
Speaker 2: you know, the nicest letter I could in England, and
Speaker 2: he a lovely letter, humorous letter. He wrote me back.
Speaker 2: You know I hit a note, he said, I hid
Speaker 2: notes that dogs from miles away. You know, whatever it was,
Speaker 2: Thank god he forgave me.
Speaker 1: Okay, when you were playing with bands, did you ever
Speaker 1: mess it up during the show such he had to
Speaker 1: redo it.
Speaker 2: Well, yes, for soon reason. Yeah, once in a while
Speaker 2: would happened. Not sometimes my mess sure, or somebody would
Speaker 2: mess up. Yeah, we'd always redo it for technical reason,
Speaker 2: you know, if there was a feedback or something. Yeah,
Speaker 2: we'll do it again. We do it right after the show,
Speaker 2: do it one more time sometimes, Okay.
Speaker 1: I became a fan of the show, would record it
Speaker 1: every night and then watch it on the VCR. Sons
Speaker 1: commercials such that I would save certain performances that blew
Speaker 1: my mind. I'm gonna bring up the two performances that
Speaker 1: I remember most and let me know if you actually
Speaker 1: remember those. Okakay, Melissa Ethridge, I'm the only one. She
Speaker 1: came out and she was stopping. That was what really
Speaker 1: she She'd had a few albums before, and I certainly
Speaker 1: knew her and had the records. But she came out
Speaker 1: and just killed. That is that anything that resonates at all?
Speaker 2: I remember it, and I remember you know, she was
Speaker 2: just a great performer and a live performer who, like me,
Speaker 2: had been I don't know where she came up in
Speaker 2: bars or or what, but she could. You know, she
Speaker 2: gave it her all and you know nothing went wrong.
Speaker 1: Okay, then what's the one easy?
Speaker 2: And and she you know, she did kill. And I
Speaker 2: got to play with her a number of other places
Speaker 2: and times of various you know, charity events whatever. She
Speaker 2: always came through, always killed another.
Speaker 1: One's been in the news recently because of her untimely death.
Speaker 1: But shinead O'Connor, did you made me the Thief of
Speaker 1: your Heart? From the movie In the Name of the Father.
Speaker 1: She was just unbelievable. Any memory of that.
Speaker 2: Well, I saw a cliff recently in the wake of
Speaker 2: her death. I don't know the title, but she was
Speaker 2: doing the one that goes du du exactly.
Speaker 1: It's the titles called you made Me the Thief of
Speaker 1: Your Right. You know, as I say, it's confusing.
Speaker 2: Again, you know, smooth she had, you know, sometimes I
Speaker 2: think she could be affectionists. And of course we all
Speaker 2: remember the Saturday Night Live episode and stuff. It just
Speaker 2: went down smoothly. I noticed I'd gotten another I hired
Speaker 2: an extra guitar player for her, a guy that I knew,
Speaker 2: and do you know she came out and killed it.
Speaker 1: Okay, So a couple of your own memorable experiences of
Speaker 1: musical guests that really touched you, either because it's personal
Speaker 1: or because they were hit it way out of the park.
Speaker 2: Well, James Brown is I always say when he did
Speaker 2: the show, he did it in a number of times
Speaker 2: with the very first time, and I had the original
Speaker 2: band and we were all so into James Brown we
Speaker 2: couldn't wait. And he did it very early, one of
Speaker 2: the early guys who came on and did it with us,
Speaker 2: and I think it was because we were playing his
Speaker 2: stuff a lot for the ins and out of commercials.
Speaker 2: He probably heard us playing something by him because we
Speaker 2: were playing his stuff all the time, and he might
Speaker 2: have seen it in his Askaf statement too. Anyway, his
Speaker 2: agent called and said, he wants to come on ah
Speaker 2: and you know great. We weren't having musical guests every night.
Speaker 2: It was not a pattern as it became, and they
Speaker 2: didn't you know, they weren't relegated to the very last
Speaker 2: spot after the last commercial. At this point it was
Speaker 2: it was new to us. We hadn't had many musicians
Speaker 2: at all. We said to him, how what does he
Speaker 2: want to play? He said, what does a man want
Speaker 2: to play with me? Great? You know, very smart? You
Speaker 2: know what do they know? So Steve said, I got it.
Speaker 2: I want love to do sex Machine with him because
Speaker 2: of that beat. Hiram said, there was a time, because
Speaker 2: of that guitar party don't don't, don't, don't don't do
Speaker 2: one of the early single line parts. Well, you know
Speaker 2: it just thrilled with all of it, and he said, okay, cool,
Speaker 2: we were going to do those two. There was a
Speaker 2: time and sex Machine. He brought two horn players. That's
Speaker 2: it hit two of his own horn players. And played
Speaker 2: with us four guys. We couldn't none of us could
Speaker 2: believe we were playing with him. But when he started
Speaker 2: singing and dancing, it was just so strong you couldn't
Speaker 2: help but play. We sounded better than we ever thought
Speaker 2: we would, and we did the second song. We ran
Speaker 2: out of time in the rehearsal. We didn't get a
Speaker 2: chance to end. We didn't get a chance to make
Speaker 2: up an ending for the second song. There was a
Speaker 2: time which he was going to demonstrate all the dances,
Speaker 2: so I didn't know what was going to happen. But
Speaker 2: there we were on the air and he just, you know,
Speaker 2: he just cut us off. He's no problem. And then
Speaker 2: he heard us doing a third one of his and
Speaker 2: he said, and we all, you know, all of us
Speaker 2: in the band had gotten our first VCRs. At the
Speaker 2: time home VCRs. We used to get together after every
Speaker 2: show and watch that the tape of it. We couldn't
Speaker 2: believe it. And we memorized all the dialogue too, with
Speaker 2: the entry you know, on the panel. And he James
Speaker 2: took over the show at the end after we heard
Speaker 2: us to David Letterman, you have to do it now
Speaker 2: before you cruise. Can we cruise with I got the feeling,
Speaker 2: and then you hear Steve Jodd whoa his voice like
Speaker 2: just out of the area he had taken over. Dave said,
Speaker 2: we can, We'll take a commercial, came back and he
Speaker 2: did a third song. Unrehearsed that show. God never got
Speaker 2: over it. Still I think one of the greatest, and
Speaker 2: a terrific performance on him dancing unbelievable, not much rehearsal,
Speaker 2: camera shot of his feet, you know, iconic, keep going,
Speaker 2: just wonderful. Sly another one, Slim in the family Stone tell.
Speaker 1: Me that story.
Speaker 2: He came in looking great, wearing a track suit, and
Speaker 2: he was wonderful to work with. We rented him a
Speaker 2: clavinet and a wah wah pedal or some kind of
Speaker 2: problem with it. He didn't care. Didn't let him, you know,
Speaker 2: and he did two numbers. Again. He was just terrific.
Speaker 2: And then he at the end of it, he bought
Speaker 2: a hundred bucks from me. But this is the most
Speaker 2: amazing part of it. A couple of years later, I
Speaker 2: had been reading in Rolling Stone magazine that Sly was
Speaker 2: around working with Bobby Womack in Los Angeles, and somehow
Speaker 2: we Bobby Walmack got booked on Letterman. He came into
Speaker 2: the rehearsal and came after me. First thing he did,
Speaker 2: take his wallet out, give me a hundred bucks. He says. Here,
Speaker 2: he says, you'll never get this from slot. This is
Speaker 2: my money, but I'm giving this to you. So what
Speaker 2: a mind blower that was. That was when I knew
Speaker 2: I was in show business. It was one of the cats.
Speaker 2: Then Bobby Walmack paid me back.
Speaker 1: Leaving me sort of speechless.
Speaker 2: Who has a story like that? I know you can't
Speaker 2: take it. You have.
Speaker 1: Anybody you didn't play with who was alive during you know,
Speaker 1: the Letterman era.
Speaker 2: Well, Sinatra and Elvis obviously I did pretty well though
Speaker 2: you know, I played with Carl Perkins. We got pretty
Speaker 2: close to Elvis and others of course, and as far
Speaker 2: as Sinatra, well, I did play with Sammy. Both times
Speaker 2: were amazing lessons for me. Playing with Sammy Davis and
Speaker 2: Tony Bennett I got to play with. So I did
Speaker 2: awfully well.
Speaker 1: Now the show I remember correctly, The Late Night Show
Speaker 1: ended with Bruce Springsteen and did you're the team the booker?
Speaker 1: Did they try to get Well, it's too late for Elvis,
Speaker 1: but did they try to get Sinatra.
Speaker 2: I don't know the answer. Not sure. I'm sure they
Speaker 2: must have, but I just, you know, I have no information,
Speaker 2: don't know. That's I really was not involved in the booking,
Speaker 2: and I when I tried to be once, it just exploded.
Speaker 2: It's so hard dealing with the agents and pr agents
Speaker 2: and stuff, you know. Ah, so I stayed out of Who.
Speaker 1: Is it that you wanted a book?
Speaker 2: Well, okay, I'll tell the story. It was Paul Carrick.
Speaker 2: Do you remember that, gentleman.
Speaker 1: I noted, Oh, Kerrick, Yeah, absolutely? How long has this
Speaker 1: been going on?
Speaker 2: Yes? How long? That's right. He had a solo record
Speaker 2: that I just loved. Right, I've forgotten it, and I
Speaker 2: was in my mind and I was thinking, how long now? Anyway,
Speaker 2: I just you know, the show was it had booked
Speaker 2: a number of acts in a row that I just
Speaker 2: didn't get. And I said to myself that Paul Carrack
Speaker 2: song is so great, Let's get him on. And I just,
Speaker 2: you know, as they say, stuck my neck out a
Speaker 2: little bit. Let's get Paul Carrock. Can we not even
Speaker 2: know the song? Don't shuit it on me, Ma, that's
Speaker 2: the song that he had out of the time, So
Speaker 2: they book him and then the word comes back, but
Speaker 2: he doesn't want to do that song. He wants to
Speaker 2: do his new song. So I put on a new
Speaker 2: song and I'm no, you know, excuse me, but it's
Speaker 2: just to me. It didn't have that That other song
Speaker 2: was just so great. But here I am. You know,
Speaker 2: now I got it and I'm gonna either one. Afterwards,
Speaker 2: Paul is that's you wanted that guy on, you know,
Speaker 2: because he was going to do a song that I
Speaker 2: didn't want him to do. Somehow he got a bad
Speaker 2: throat infection. He didn't do the show at all, so
Speaker 2: it was came, came, moved. But that kind of was
Speaker 2: a lesson, stay out of that. We have people that
Speaker 2: do that, they know how to do it. Well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's interesting. He's put out all these albums of
Speaker 1: covers that no one seems to know about. Check it
Speaker 1: out because I think you'd find it interesting. It was
Speaker 1: that one album that you know, we got the play
Speaker 1: on MTV was in the eighties. I can't remember the
Speaker 1: name of that track either. Okay, so what keeps you busy? Now?
Speaker 2: Well, I am having recovered from that initial shock of
Speaker 2: not doing the show anymore. I'm just really enjoying myself.
Speaker 2: I do various music. I'm doing sessions again. There aren't
Speaker 2: sessions like they used to be because the computer plays
Speaker 2: all the stuff now. But just did an album with
Speaker 2: a guy named Fred Lipschis, who was the arrangements. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so that was again, you know, kind of a full circle.
Speaker 2: And I did one two that I'm in the middle
Speaker 2: of with Casigi Minuos. I kind of am going back
Speaker 2: to the you know, straight music when I look back
Speaker 2: at my career and I have more time to do
Speaker 2: so now I'm enjoying my kids, of course, and practicing again,
Speaker 2: practicing the piano. And I was about to say, when
Speaker 2: I look back, my favorite stuff is not even you know,
Speaker 2: getting on TV that was wonderful, of course, but the
Speaker 2: sessions I got to do. How fast I got going
Speaker 2: as a session player, and I made a record with
Speaker 2: Burt Backreck in about nineteen seventy six. I can't believe it,
Speaker 2: you know, It's just one of those things. And that's
Speaker 2: what really I'm the proudest stuff I think.
Speaker 1: And did you play sessions when you were on with
Speaker 1: Letterman or that was just wasn't enough time?
Speaker 2: No, I was. I did some of the but you know,
Speaker 2: it was disappearing, and not only the whole scene disappearing,
Speaker 2: but also disappearing for me. If you're on TV, people
Speaker 2: think you're busy. You know, you need to be in
Speaker 2: the scene. But I still do things here and there.
Speaker 1: And how did you get involved with the Rock and
Speaker 1: Roll Hall of Fame.
Speaker 2: From a session thing? I had done a session that
Speaker 2: involved Almited Urtigan, the founder of Atlantic Records and then
Speaker 2: and one of the founders of the Rock Roll Hall
Speaker 2: of Fame. Uh it was the Honey Drippers with Robert
Speaker 2: plant That was during Letterman or earlier in Letterman run.
Speaker 2: I just got a call, It's a session Saturday and
Speaker 2: Sunday Robert plant Of course, you know I'm going to
Speaker 2: be there, and it was let's see, well, Jeff Beck
Speaker 2: and Ile Rogers were there as guitars. Wayne Peeswater and
Speaker 2: based the Late Grade and the drummer has moved to
Speaker 2: Los Angeles now name this case. But that was, you know,
Speaker 2: just a session call. But I got to work for
Speaker 2: Robert Planting. To hear his voice in the in the
Speaker 2: phones was pretty amazing. And I hit it off with
Speaker 2: Almet and he you know, and then he started seeing
Speaker 2: me on Letterman and he called me for the Rock
Speaker 2: Roll Hall of Fame and the first one was they
Speaker 2: were afraid to the first one was with Fatz Nomeno
Speaker 2: and everybody, you know, all the greats that were alive,
Speaker 2: Elvis posthumously of course, and they said, well, we can't
Speaker 2: ask we don't want to ask them to play because
Speaker 2: we're honoring them. How can we ask them to work?
Speaker 2: Yet we've got to have, you know, how are we
Speaker 2: going to finesse some kind of a jam session? And
Speaker 2: Bill Graham was still alive and he was on the committee,
Speaker 2: and he said, well, I'll just you know, I'll say,
Speaker 2: let's come up for a group photo and we'll just
Speaker 2: have instruments, amps and guitars and see what and we
Speaker 2: know they're going to play. Well, they took that photo
Speaker 2: and they went running for the instruments. The greats, they
Speaker 2: couldn't wait, and the jam was just on. They were
Speaker 2: calling their own tunes and playing. It was just fantastic.
Speaker 2: It just erupted.
Speaker 1: And at this point you still involved or what?
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was the first show. So I was involved
Speaker 2: the first time. I mean I was involved really all
Speaker 2: through John Winner's era of it. So almost thirty years
Speaker 2: I think to varying degrees to every year depending on
Speaker 2: who the inductees were. But that first year was incredible
Speaker 2: and it was totally spontaneous, And when Bill Graham was alive,
Speaker 2: he really politic for that jam. It shouldn't be rehearsed.
Speaker 2: Don't try to get a show. It's the only time
Speaker 2: you're going to see music. Absolutely jamming, and so while
Speaker 2: he was alive, that's the way it was. And that
Speaker 2: jan Winner, however, also a great friend of mine. He
Speaker 2: wanted more of a rehearsed television show, so that's what
Speaker 2: it morphed into. But initially it was absolutely a jam.
Speaker 1: One final question, Okay, Al Cooper, you had a legendary
Speaker 1: career with the blues project Blood, Sweat and Tears, Supersession
Speaker 1: of course, had the albums with Sounds of the South
Speaker 1: with Leonard skinnerd etc. He says his only income is
Speaker 1: for performing rights, and that you started to use his
Speaker 1: song with the Cape every Friday night. Yeah, and he
Speaker 1: was saying he got paid and then one night they
Speaker 1: retired the Cape. How did you end up using his
Speaker 1: song and how did you end up retiring it?
Speaker 2: One of these things where Dave I was playing it
Speaker 2: and singing it myself, I love you more than you'll
Speaker 2: ever know. And I was playing it for a bumper
Speaker 2: or something. And Dave Letterman, who was much more musical
Speaker 2: than anybody would have given him credit for, he heard every
Speaker 2: note that we played all through those years. He said, gee,
Speaker 2: that sounds like a James Brown thing. I should feel
Speaker 2: like I should come out with a cape or something.
Speaker 2: And of course Al had been inspired by It's a
Speaker 2: Man's World when he wrote that. You know, I think
Speaker 2: he would be the first to tell us that, and
Speaker 2: Dave thought it was a James Brown turned out to
Speaker 2: Al Cooper, So that's why it became one of ol
Speaker 2: songs instead of one of James's. But after Dave made
Speaker 2: that suggestion of cape, it looks like something about a cape.
Speaker 2: I don't know exactly, but we started doing the cape bit.
Speaker 2: We just rased it all go down on my knees,
Speaker 2: you come out with the cape, and we did that.
Speaker 2: Dave put the cape on me and then it just
Speaker 2: just like that other story I told. It became a
Speaker 2: runner and we started getting celebrities to put the cape
Speaker 2: on me, and it came every Friday night and we
Speaker 2: would actually come back from the commercial for the id spot,
Speaker 2: I would be doing that cape. Whether it was Heidi
Speaker 2: Klume or President Trump, all these people came out with
Speaker 2: the cape, and James himself came out and put the
Speaker 2: cape on me. And then you know, two years this
Speaker 2: went on. Al said he built himself a new bathroom,
Speaker 2: only he would put it that way. It had run
Speaker 2: its course, you know, and we had run out of celebrities,
Speaker 2: my goodness, we had everybody. And so it happened that
Speaker 2: on an episode of American Idol that year, Paul Anka
Speaker 2: saying my way. I couldn't for no reason. So I
Speaker 2: just said, well, let's get Paul Ankle here and with
Speaker 2: new spec lyrics about the cape, retiring the cape, and
Speaker 2: that all came to pass. Paul sang my way about
Speaker 2: the cape, something about well, we had agreed to work
Speaker 2: with him. He is the master of special lyrics.
Speaker 1: You know, he wrote special lyrics for my birthday. I mean, God,
Speaker 1: bless you, my jaw is still dropped.
Speaker 2: Well, our writers made the mistake of sending him some
Speaker 2: lyrics that they had written. When he came in. He
Speaker 2: came in by saying, you know, he says, yeah, you guys,
Speaker 2: thank the lyrics. You saved me. You saved me two
Speaker 2: days work, he says. But I kept one of your jokes,
Speaker 2: which was that they had written which was about the
Speaker 2: celebrities putting the cape when every case, in every case
Speaker 2: they showed their true face except Joan Rivers that he liked.
Speaker 2: But otherwise you readid everything very funny, and they retired
Speaker 2: the cape and al you know, I'm sorry. I did
Speaker 2: the best I could for you.
Speaker 1: And on that note, Paul, I think we're going to
Speaker 1: draw it to a close. I want to thank you
Speaker 1: so much for taking the time to speak to my audience.
Speaker 1: And I want to remind everybody September thirteenth, your gig
Speaker 1: with Jeff Barret.
Speaker 2: It's going to be a fun night. You know. I'm
Speaker 2: the world's foremost authority. See you there, Bob, A lot
Speaker 2: of fun. Say hi to your lovely one.
Speaker 1: Okay, till next time. This is Bob left Stets