Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob left Such Podcast.
Speaker 1: My guest today is the one and only David Bromberg. David,
Speaker 1: you're having what is billed as your final concert April
Speaker 1: tenth at the Beacon. How and why is it your
Speaker 1: final show?
Speaker 2: Well, I'm seventy eight, and there's a lot of parts
Speaker 2: about touring that are hard on this seventy eight year
Speaker 2: old body, and so I felt I kind of had
Speaker 2: to stop. But you know, I've always said I'm not
Speaker 2: the one and only David Bromberg. There were seven David
Speaker 2: Brombergs before me. You know. You know, in this business,
Speaker 2: how do you get in the business? You buy your
Speaker 2: way in. And I didn't have a lot of money,
Speaker 2: so all I could buy was David Bramberg. And now
Speaker 2: that I've had it for a while, it's not worth
Speaker 2: anything anymore. I couldn't sell it.
Speaker 1: Ah, Okay, are you known for your sense of humor?
Speaker 1: We've never talked before.
Speaker 2: Oh, I'm sorry. I don't know if I'm known from
Speaker 2: I don't know if I'm known at all. I think
Speaker 2: on the whole I've remained anonymous.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't say that's the case, because I certainly remember
Speaker 1: when your first album came out in Columbia with the
Speaker 1: white cover, etc. Let's get back to the show, but
Speaker 1: I want to talk specifically about you essentially parking your
Speaker 1: career to get into the violin business. Tell me about
Speaker 1: that decision.
Speaker 2: Well, I got burnt out. But now bear in mind
Speaker 2: I never said I was smart, and I didn't figure
Speaker 2: it was burnout. I thought I could never burn out.
Speaker 2: I thought maybe I was really wrong and that I
Speaker 2: shouldn't be doing it at all. I didn't want to
Speaker 2: be one of these guys who drags himself on stage
Speaker 2: and does a bad impression of what he remembers he
Speaker 2: used to do. And I was burnt out. Really, if
Speaker 2: I'd taken a break for six or nine months and
Speaker 2: come back, it would have been fine. I took twenty
Speaker 2: two years instead because I found a different life for myself.
Speaker 1: Okay, but very specifically, how did you come to the conclusion,
Speaker 1: Because this is a business that most people never stop,
Speaker 1: never give up.
Speaker 2: How did I come to the conclusion. Well, I don't
Speaker 2: know how to answer that. It manifested itself. What are
Speaker 2: you doing doing this if it doesn't feed whatever it
Speaker 2: fed before? I was doing a show first, I should
Speaker 2: explain to you that I've never had a set list.
Speaker 2: I just think of the tune I want to play,
Speaker 2: and I play it. And I was doing a show
Speaker 2: in New Jersey and I couldn't think of anything I
Speaker 2: wanted to play. And the truth is I didn't want
Speaker 2: to play. And when I confronted that, it told me
Speaker 2: I should be stopping.
Speaker 1: Okay, you had that gig in New Jersey. In retrospect,
Speaker 1: did you have hints this was going to happen or
Speaker 1: was it like this just this one show hit you.
Speaker 2: I didn't really have hints, but I should let you
Speaker 2: know that I'm not a very observant human, and things
Speaker 2: that would point certain conclusions out to other people I
Speaker 2: blithely let fly by. So I can't recall any other hints.
Speaker 1: Tell me more about my being an observing person.
Speaker 2: Oh boy, people will will put one and one together
Speaker 2: and get two, and I don't see one or one.
Speaker 2: It's difficult to explain beyond that.
Speaker 1: Well, is this something that has haunted you your whole
Speaker 1: life or these just on big decisions.
Speaker 2: No, this is something that's haunted me my whole life.
Speaker 2: And I have a therapist, so I'm not going to
Speaker 2: get into it with you.
Speaker 1: Okay, you're a therapist. Have you always been in therapy
Speaker 1: or is that something recent?
Speaker 2: I was in therapy when I lived in Chicago, and
Speaker 2: then I moved to Wilmington, Delaware, and I was only
Speaker 2: for the briefest period found a therapist in Philadelphia, but
Speaker 2: wasn't going anywhere, and so recently I've started again. So
Speaker 2: there's been a basically a twenty year twenty two year
Speaker 2: gap between me having any serious therapy.
Speaker 1: Well, it's very hard as someone who's in therapy for
Speaker 1: a long time, and to the state, it's very hard
Speaker 1: to find a good therapist. And the more you know,
Speaker 1: the harder it is. How'd you find one?
Speaker 2: I had a friend who I trust, who has always
Speaker 2: referred me to the best doctors, refer me to a
Speaker 2: therapist who couldn't take me on, but recommended another therapist.
Speaker 2: And I called that therapist and she's really good.
Speaker 1: And is there any issue of medication?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I have to find a psychiatrist who will prescribe,
Speaker 2: because I've been taking antidepressant drugs now for a very
Speaker 2: long time, and I'm not sure that's the right thing,
Speaker 2: because depression really jumped on me recently.
Speaker 1: Really, can you tell me more about that. No, okay,
Speaker 1: so was this something? You know? It's funny because Bruce
Speaker 1: Springsteen mentioned I believe in his book that he was
Speaker 1: on antidepressants. And for someone I'm a little bit younger
Speaker 1: than you, but not that much. I'm seventy and sixty
Speaker 1: really fucked me up. And I just turned seventy recently.
Speaker 1: And it's very disorienting because, like, when you're sixty, you
Speaker 1: realize everything you've been told is basically bullshit, Like you
Speaker 1: find out it you don't have to buy this serially,
Speaker 1: you don't have to go to see that movie. If
Speaker 1: it's good, you'll find out. And when you're seventy, you realize, now,
Speaker 1: wait a second, what was important to begin with it?
Speaker 1: It is depressing.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, I have a lot of remnants of a
Speaker 2: rather peculiar childhood, and I think that's responsible for the therapy.
Speaker 2: My father was a psychiatrist.
Speaker 1: Really, they say that shrinks have the most screwed up kids.
Speaker 2: Well, I think that may be true. I've heard it
Speaker 2: said that doctors always resemble their specialty. That is that
Speaker 2: pediatricians are kind of childish and you know like that.
Speaker 2: But my dad, my dad became a psychiatrist for reasons
Speaker 2: because he was raised his mother was a monster. A monster.
Speaker 1: That's that's pretty definitive. Since she was your grandmother. Why
Speaker 1: was she a monster?
Speaker 2: Oh boy? My grandmother was the first ange knew of
Speaker 2: the Yiddish theater in Europe because her father had the
Speaker 2: first touring group that performed in Yiddish. So she performed
Speaker 2: with Tomashevsky and all of Grace. As a matter of fact,
Speaker 2: if the script called for infants, my father and Paul
Speaker 2: Muni were the two who were used as children. So
Speaker 2: she was you know, I really don't want to get
Speaker 2: into bed mouthing my family. She was difficult. She thought
Speaker 2: of herself and not much about other people.
Speaker 1: Was it a result of her being a diva or
Speaker 1: was it just her personality?
Speaker 2: Beats me?
Speaker 1: Okay, So your mother's parents obviously Yiddish theater in Europe.
Speaker 1: When and how did they get to America.
Speaker 2: They got to America in the early part of the
Speaker 2: twentieth century, so my father was beginning to grow the
Speaker 2: folks being decided that my grandmother was too old to
Speaker 2: be an ingreenoue, so she gave it up entirely. She
Speaker 2: didn't want to be anything else she was the Ingau
Speaker 2: and my folks came with their parents.
Speaker 1: So both of your parents were, as we say, born
Speaker 1: in the Old Country.
Speaker 2: Not my mom. My mom was actually born in the
Speaker 2: Old Country Brooklyn, Okay.
Speaker 1: So how did your parents meet?
Speaker 2: I believe they met because my maternal grandfather was. He
Speaker 2: was a very interesting man. He was a poet and
Speaker 2: a businessman, a thoroughly honest socialist, and a politician, and
Speaker 2: he was extremely popular. Part of it, I think is
Speaker 2: due to the fact that he was painfully honest. I mean,
Speaker 2: he was a socialist. And when he died, he left
Speaker 2: his wife penniless because if somebody needed money and he
Speaker 2: had it, he'd give it. So he basically gave away everything.
Speaker 2: But he was a great man. As a matter of fact,
Speaker 2: his funeral was to this day the biggest in the
Speaker 2: history of New York City. If you read any book
Speaker 2: about Firolo laguardiad always mentions him, and usually will mention
Speaker 2: that that funeral, which went through all five boroughs, and
Speaker 2: the police report was one hundred thousand people. And what
Speaker 2: was his name, borrough Charni Vladik.
Speaker 1: Okay. So then you're so my father is living where
Speaker 1: when he meets your mother.
Speaker 2: He's living in the States, I mean in Brooklyn. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I think so. Uh. And he was one of many
Speaker 2: people who really admired Vladik my maternity and that's how
Speaker 2: he and my mom met.
Speaker 1: Okay, And how many kids in the family.
Speaker 2: In which family?
Speaker 1: In your family? Siblings? Three?
Speaker 2: I have two. I have a brother and a sister.
Speaker 1: And where are you in the hierarchy middle as am?
Speaker 1: I I heard that coming? Okay, So what are your what?
Speaker 1: What do your brother and sister do?
Speaker 2: What?
Speaker 1: How to you know? What the path did they end
Speaker 1: up taking.
Speaker 2: My brother is now retired, but he was a community
Speaker 2: a community service guy. I mean like he had the
Speaker 2: same job more or less as Obama. He served the
Speaker 2: various communities. And my sister was an artist, but she
Speaker 2: became a scientist through an Listen, nothing in my family
Speaker 2: really goes straight ahead. There's just funny stuff. She was
Speaker 2: at a cocktail party and she was talking with somebody
Speaker 2: and she started to talk about memory. And there was
Speaker 2: another thing that she was because there were two topics
Speaker 2: she loved, and my father got the Scientific American and
Speaker 2: she would read it to find out her favorite topics.
Speaker 2: So she was talking to this woman, and she knew
Speaker 2: a fantastic amount about a couple of subjects and nothing
Speaker 2: about the rest of science. So this woman was the
Speaker 2: director of She was the chief of the science department
Speaker 2: at the university, which I don't think my sister knew
Speaker 2: and gave her I don't know what it's called. So
Speaker 2: she went to university and became a scientist. These days,
Speaker 2: she basically translates from English to English from English written
Speaker 2: by people for whom English is the second language, and
Speaker 2: so she translates scientific papers from English to English.
Speaker 1: Okay, and you grew up in Philadelphia. How the family
Speaker 1: get from Brooklyn to Philadelphia.
Speaker 2: I didn't grow up in Philadelphia. I was born in
Speaker 2: a hospital in Philly. My dad was in the Navy,
Speaker 2: but when he got out of the Navy, we moved
Speaker 2: to Queens. And when I was four years old, the
Speaker 2: family moved from Queens to Tarrytown, New York. And that's
Speaker 2: basically where I was raised.
Speaker 1: I remember going to a Chinese restaurant in Terrytown. I
Speaker 1: can't remember the name. My parents. We go back and
Speaker 1: forth to New York. Okay, so you're growing up. All
Speaker 1: the hopes and dreams are in the older sibling. You're
Speaker 1: going to school. Good student, bad student.
Speaker 2: I was a fairly good student. I did well, not
Speaker 2: as well as my older brother, but I did well.
Speaker 2: To give you the picture, my older brother went to Harvard.
Speaker 2: I went to Columbia.
Speaker 1: Where did your sister go? Since we're going this far.
Speaker 2: My sister went to a whole bunch of art schools,
Speaker 2: one after another.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you're growing up, You're doing well in school,
Speaker 1: you have friends, Do you play sports or your nerd?
Speaker 1: What kind of kid are you?
Speaker 2: I was a pretty solitary kid. When I got to
Speaker 2: be thirteen, music took over my life. I learned to
Speaker 2: play when I got the measles when I was thirteen,
Speaker 2: so I learned to play lying on my back. I
Speaker 2: borrowed one of my brother's guitars and one of his books.
Speaker 2: I could already read music. I had studied flute since
Speaker 2: I was about eight, so teaching myself from the book
Speaker 2: was fairly easy. And as I say, music took over.
Speaker 1: Okay, So in a Jewish family, usually kids started taking
Speaker 1: piano lessons. I remember taking piano lessons at age six.
Speaker 1: You never took piano lessons, you just started with the flute.
Speaker 2: I won't say I never took piano lessons. I took
Speaker 2: a few, but I remember my mom asking me what
Speaker 2: would you like to play in For some reason, I
Speaker 2: said flute, and so that's where I went. I think
Speaker 2: I took the piano lessons after the flute lessons.
Speaker 1: Actually, and you'd learn flute with a private teacher or
Speaker 1: with yes in public okay, And you were taking flute
Speaker 1: before you had this epiphany. Did you like playing flute?
Speaker 1: Did you take to that?
Speaker 2: I don't think I really took to it.
Speaker 1: No, Okay, So you had measles. It's nineteen fifty eight.
Speaker 1: Elvis has got, you know, some purchase on the world.
Speaker 1: The folk boom is sort of happening, but really booms
Speaker 1: sort of a little bit later in the early sixties.
Speaker 1: You're there picking up the guitar. What are you playing?
Speaker 2: I was playing whatever was on the radio. And at
Speaker 2: that time, or shortly after, the folks Scare happened, and
Speaker 2: so I found a record in my parents' collection. I
Speaker 2: never saw them listen to any of the music that
Speaker 2: they had. They had about twenty records, and one of
Speaker 2: them was the Weavers at Carnegie Hall, which I just loved,
Speaker 2: and so I got involved with the folk scare, which
Speaker 2: was parallel to the other scare.
Speaker 1: Okay, now you're talking about being able to read music.
Speaker 1: Those of us have come a little bit later than
Speaker 1: you were really getting into the guitar because of the
Speaker 1: Beatles were playing chords. So at that particular point in time,
Speaker 1: you were playing the notes, you were playing the leads.
Speaker 2: No, at that particularly, I started out learning the chords too,
Speaker 2: and I could figure out the chords for anything on
Speaker 2: the radio at the time, so I was doing that.
Speaker 2: You know, the rock and roll tunes, the folk tunes,
Speaker 2: whatever it was, they were all pretty easy to figure out.
Speaker 1: So this came naturally.
Speaker 2: I think I was able to concentrate and teach myself.
Speaker 2: I actually know somebody to whom I believe music came naturally.
Speaker 2: I had to work hard for everything.
Speaker 1: Well, let me put it a different way. I remember
Speaker 1: playing guitars and my friend said, okay, now we're going
Speaker 1: to change key. I remember telling myself, I'm out. This
Speaker 1: is a step beyond me. I could learn how to
Speaker 1: do that, but I don't have that facility. Are you
Speaker 1: saying that every hurdle you had to work to go.
Speaker 2: Through, Yeah, pretty much. I think that's true. And it's
Speaker 2: been pointed out to me that I play music from
Speaker 2: a variety of genres, which I think is true. My
Speaker 2: records have all been salads. And the thing is, I
Speaker 2: never heard anything played on the guitar that I didn't
Speaker 2: want to play myself.
Speaker 1: So can you tell me about your brother had a guitar.
Speaker 2: My brother was studying classical guitar and he had a
Speaker 2: couple of nylon string classic guitars.
Speaker 1: Well, needless to say, you know, when you're starting out,
Speaker 1: certainly picking out notes. Nylon string guitars, they're hard to
Speaker 1: play with a wide neck. Usually the action, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's not an easy jump.
Speaker 2: Well, the action was quite playable because he was taking
Speaker 2: lessons and knew what he was doing, and wide neck
Speaker 2: didn't scare me. I have rather large hands and I've
Speaker 2: never had a problem with a wide neck.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you're thirteen. Measles doesn't go on forever? The measles?
Speaker 1: And where does that leave you musically?
Speaker 2: Playing everything that's on the radio? And I started, I
Speaker 2: started did taping things because I had a wolln Sock
Speaker 2: tape recorder, and then I realized I never listened to
Speaker 2: the tape, so I stopped that.
Speaker 1: Okay, your parents had a wolen sack. I mean that
Speaker 1: was not common in the house in the fifties.
Speaker 2: Maybe it was a voice of music.
Speaker 1: Well, whatever it was, how did you end up having
Speaker 1: a tape recorder in the house? Who bought that?
Speaker 2: I may have, but I can't remember. Maybe it was
Speaker 2: a birthday president, I just don't recall.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you're now playing everything on the radio. You're
Speaker 1: doing this in your house. Do you start playing out
Speaker 1: when you go to a friend's house, when you go
Speaker 1: to summer camp? Do you have groups anything like that?
Speaker 2: I started playing out a bit when I got old
Speaker 2: enough to play in bars. I played in bars and
Speaker 2: I played you know, the classics, Sophisticated Lady in Teeth
Speaker 2: for two and all that. So that was one part
Speaker 2: of it. And then I did go to camp and
Speaker 2: played guitar there. I played guitar everywhere.
Speaker 1: Okay, So how did you make the hurdle of playing
Speaker 1: in bars playing for money? Did you say I want
Speaker 1: to do this or I want to be recognized? What
Speaker 1: was the driving cast there?
Speaker 2: I started playing with some other people and and we
Speaker 2: were looking for any kind of a job. So we
Speaker 2: found a job in a bar where at first I
Speaker 2: wasn't old enough, so I didn't do it. When I
Speaker 2: was old enough, I could do it.
Speaker 1: Okay, you're saying playing the classics for those who don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean, people have no idea how big the folks
Speaker 1: scene was. It was even a you know, the hootiny
Speaker 1: Andy on TV. Tell me about how the folks scene
Speaker 1: burgeoned and then to what degree you got involved.
Speaker 2: Well, wait a minute. When I said the classics, I
Speaker 2: mean the jazz standards. That's what you're playing right in bars.
Speaker 2: Wasn't really funny, I.
Speaker 1: Understand, But ultimately you were talking about being infected by
Speaker 1: the folk virus, and it seemed like you ultimately got
Speaker 1: into that. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I used to go down to Washington Square on Sundays,
Speaker 2: take a train into the city and go down there,
Speaker 2: and people were playing together, and you know, I learned
Speaker 2: from that experience. And from there I would sometimes wander
Speaker 2: over to McDougall Street, where there were clubs, and I
Speaker 2: performed at at one of them. There's a book about
Speaker 2: the early Folks scene and a guy said, one time
Speaker 2: a guy came in and applied to go on the stage,
Speaker 2: and you know, it was a hoot and any kind
Speaker 2: of thing. Anybody could go on the stage. And he thought, oh,
Speaker 2: this is going to be terrible because the kid had
Speaker 2: a bad haircut and it looked weird. That was me,
Speaker 2: and he said when he played it was you know,
Speaker 2: very good.
Speaker 1: Okay, you're a nice Jewish boy. Your father's a doctor.
Speaker 1: Do you view music as a career or do you
Speaker 1: say you know you've been driven into you have to
Speaker 1: be a professional, go to college and this is just
Speaker 1: a sideshow.
Speaker 2: I thought I had to go to college at first,
Speaker 2: but I kept playing and you said something I wanted
Speaker 2: to pick up on. But my memory is not so good.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, you said, I'm a nice Jewish boy. I
Speaker 2: was born to Jewish parents, but it was really impossible
Speaker 2: for me to be religious. We would celebrate Passover and
Speaker 2: at every sator at some point my father would say
Speaker 2: this God must be a very insecure creature to require
Speaker 2: so much constant praise. I mean, how am I gonna
Speaker 2: go go worship with that?
Speaker 1: Well, what I was referencing that that is certainly very interesting,
Speaker 1: is the values as opposed to go in a shool
Speaker 1: or barmitz for anything like that. You didn't have arms?
Speaker 2: I did you?
Speaker 1: Did you did, okay.
Speaker 2: I mean, my parents gave me a choice to have
Speaker 2: it or not, and I chose not and that was
Speaker 2: the wrong answer, so I had it. I actually didn't
Speaker 2: have any choice, okay.
Speaker 1: But usually in a Jewish family. I'm speaking from my
Speaker 1: own experience and observation.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: I knew I was going to college before I went
Speaker 1: to any school, you know, and they say, you know,
Speaker 1: be a professional. And this was driven into before I
Speaker 1: could think for myself, is all I'm saying. And to
Speaker 1: vere from that, my parents were not that supportive.
Speaker 2: Well. In my second year at Columbia, I had a
Speaker 2: bit of a breakdown and took a leave of absence,
Speaker 2: which I've never ended actually, So there I was not
Speaker 2: in college anymore, and I was playing music and going down.
Speaker 1: To the village. How hard was it to drop out?
Speaker 2: I went and did it the right way. I went
Speaker 2: to the dean's office and spoke to them, and he
Speaker 2: sent me to the campus psychiatrist, and he recommended somebody
Speaker 2: for me to see. So I dropped out and started
Speaker 2: seeing this psychiatrist. My father was very angry that I
Speaker 2: hadn't asked him to recommend somebody, but you know, there
Speaker 2: we go again.
Speaker 1: How much as dropping out was college didn't work or
Speaker 1: I'm on this music path and I have to pursue it.
Speaker 2: You know, I've never asked myself that question. I think
Speaker 2: I couldn't handle college. I think that was the main thing,
Speaker 2: but there had to have been some of the other
Speaker 2: involved there. I don't think that human beings do things
Speaker 2: for the black and white reasons all the time. I
Speaker 2: know I certainly didn't.
Speaker 1: So you stop going to school, what's your life like? Then?
Speaker 1: You live in Indian City or you live in back
Speaker 1: in Terrytown.
Speaker 2: I was living in the city and I got offered
Speaker 2: a gig. I'm a State Department tour, which turned into
Speaker 2: two State Department tours, and after that I got various
Speaker 2: gigs here and there. I played rhythm guitar for a
Speaker 2: Calypso singer. You know, I did whatever I could get.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, there's this new movie about Blood, Sweat
Speaker 1: and Tears talking about their State Department tour and the
Speaker 1: deleterious effects thereof What were the State Department tours you
Speaker 1: were on? The first one was in Southeast Asia. The
Speaker 1: band was a band called the Phoenix Singers, and the
Speaker 1: Phoenix Singers were an offshoot of the Bellefonte Singers, and
Speaker 1: it was three very well operatically trained black musicians singing
Speaker 1: folk music in shirts open to the navel, accompanied by
Speaker 1: two heterosexual Jewish guitar players. And I think the point
Speaker 1: of it was to show them that in America, white
Speaker 1: people can work for black people. I wasn't required to
Speaker 1: figure out why we were there at the time. I
Speaker 1: was just.
Speaker 2: Required to play, and that's what I did.
Speaker 1: Okay, So you've dropped out of college, you found some gigs.
Speaker 1: Is there a dream or you just fumbling? Oh?
Speaker 2: I think I was just fumbling. And I think I've
Speaker 2: always just fumbled. I've never had a goal in music.
Speaker 2: Except at the point where I could take a cab
Speaker 2: home from a gig in New York City. I had
Speaker 2: it made. Everything else was gravy. It was enough to
Speaker 2: be able to take a cab home at three am
Speaker 2: and not have to go into the subways and wait
Speaker 2: and wait.
Speaker 1: What kind of living situation did you have and how
Speaker 1: are you paying the rent?
Speaker 2: I had a few different places, is usually one bedroom
Speaker 2: at first shared with another musician. I had a place
Speaker 2: on a six floor walk up on McDougall Street, in
Speaker 2: a tiny, little place, which I shared with another musician,
Speaker 2: and unbelievably small, even smaller than the Paris apartment. Paris
Speaker 2: apartments are smaller than New.
Speaker 1: York And were your pearents financially supportive? It all?
Speaker 2: They were? My parents were very supportive financially. I tried
Speaker 2: not to ask, but they really helped me through that period.
Speaker 2: I remember being on the subway, across the aisle from
Speaker 2: a woman with a bag full of groceries and being
Speaker 2: just that close to asking her if I could have
Speaker 2: something from there, because food was hard to come by, and.
Speaker 1: I would, Now, it's the right And now it's the
Speaker 1: early sixties and the folk boom is booming and in
Speaker 1: people are coming to New York City to participate. Where
Speaker 1: were you? Then?
Speaker 2: I found my way back to the village and in
Speaker 2: this apartment I was describing on McDougall Street, and I
Speaker 2: eventually got a gig at the gas Light, which is
Speaker 2: also on McDougal Street, to block over from my apartment,
Speaker 2: and I was the opening act for everybody for fifty
Speaker 2: bucks a week, and that was a wonderful period. I
Speaker 2: got to play with some incredible artists on the same
Speaker 2: bill with and sometimes on the same stage. You know,
Speaker 2: sometimes I would get to play with some of those people.
Speaker 1: And some of those people were.
Speaker 2: Skip James Wow, Don Reno and Bill Harrell, Doc Watson.
Speaker 2: There were all kinds of people whose records I loved.
Speaker 1: Now you're playing out to what degree? Are you as
Speaker 1: student of the instrument and going home and playing in
Speaker 1: your apartment? I mean, are you really working hard? You say, well, no,
Speaker 1: I play at the gig and I might work out
Speaker 1: a little bit at home. Are you spending hours practicing
Speaker 1: at home too?
Speaker 2: You know? I spent hours practicing at home. And when
Speaker 2: I was going to Columbia, I wandered down to the
Speaker 2: village one afternoon and I passed a place that at
Speaker 2: the time was called the dragons Den, and there was
Speaker 2: a sandwich sign outside that said Reverend Gary Davis here
Speaker 2: this afternoon. So I paid my money and went in.
Speaker 2: I had heard I actually had a record that had
Speaker 2: one side of the Reverend. In the other side was
Speaker 2: Pink Anderson, who was a singer who would draw crowds
Speaker 2: for medicine shows anyhow, So they were both basically street singers.
Speaker 2: And so I went in and I listened, and it
Speaker 2: was the Reverend. It was incredible He was one of
Speaker 2: the great guitar players, one of the greatest I've ever seen.
Speaker 2: And he was also I don't think people mentioned this enough,
Speaker 2: he was also a fantastic singer. He was really really good.
Speaker 2: And after this set I approached him and asked if
Speaker 2: I could take lessons from him, and he said, yes,
Speaker 2: five dollars, bring the money, honey. That was the reverend.
Speaker 2: That was Reverend Gary Davis.
Speaker 1: And how long did you take lessons?
Speaker 2: A few years? Learning to play his tunes the way
Speaker 2: he played them. I tried, what would a lesson be like? Well,
Speaker 2: first of all, it would usually last the whole day,
Speaker 2: and his wife would make lunch at some point, and
Speaker 2: he was extremely patient man, and so he would play
Speaker 2: something and I would try and copy it and he
Speaker 2: would correct me. But he was a great teacher, and
Speaker 2: he was very very patient, but he'd also he'd also
Speaker 2: screw around with you. I remember one lesson he was
Speaker 2: teaching me. The song called I'll Be all Right, which
Speaker 2: is the song from which We Overcome, was taken same melody,
Speaker 2: and at one point he played a chord which I
Speaker 2: didn't recognize, and I said, what's that chord? He said,
Speaker 2: this isn't E ninth. I said, what wasn't he ninth?
Speaker 2: He said, this isn't e ninth? Oh okay. So I
Speaker 2: went home and I learned and practiced. In the next week,
Speaker 2: I came back and I played it for him, and
Speaker 2: he stopped me. He said, what cord are you playing there?
Speaker 2: I said, in E ninth? He said, wasn't he ninth? Well,
Speaker 2: this isn't e ninth. No, it's a B minor. And
Speaker 2: then anytime he knew I was there and he was
Speaker 2: playing that tune, it would be a B minor, but
Speaker 2: it could also be an E ninth. I mean, there's
Speaker 2: only one note difference, and it's not a sharp contrast.
Speaker 1: And how did the lessons? How did you stop taking
Speaker 1: lessons with him?
Speaker 2: See, at one point I got promoted to where I
Speaker 2: wasn't paying him for the lessons, but I was taking
Speaker 2: him to his gigs. And that was very important in
Speaker 2: my life because we went to a lot of churches,
Speaker 2: and I discovered that I was never as welcome anywhere
Speaker 2: else as I was in the church as he brought
Speaker 2: me to. And so that made me curious, and I
Speaker 2: started occasionally going to other churches, and I learned a
Speaker 2: lot about guitar playing from the other churches where there
Speaker 2: were no guitar played. What I learned was, well, I'll
Speaker 2: give you an example of what I learned. If you
Speaker 2: think of BB King's playing, and I was playing single
Speaker 2: note things at this time, as well as the reverence things.
Speaker 2: BB King's choice of notes is his own, but his
Speaker 2: phrasing is that of a preacher. And it was like
Speaker 2: a light going off when I realized that, you know,
Speaker 2: BB plays with a lot of rests, and arrest is
Speaker 2: a musical note, and so I got it. The thing
Speaker 2: about those pauses is that when the preachers would preach,
Speaker 2: sometimes they would sometimes they would stop, and everybody would
Speaker 2: want to hear what he would say next, how he
Speaker 2: would finish the sentence. And that's a great thing for
Speaker 2: public speaking, but it's also great for playing blues guitar.
Speaker 1: Okay, you're taking these lessons. Meanwhile, Dave van Rock is
Speaker 1: playing Dylan comes to Town. Were you integrated in that
Speaker 1: scene or was that separate from you?
Speaker 2: You've got the wrong timeframe. That was before I moved
Speaker 2: down to the village. I did meet and get to
Speaker 2: know Dave, and I did something that I didn't realize
Speaker 2: was so good but it was really good. I was
Speaker 2: in the village and there was a kid showed up
Speaker 2: playing dulcimer, which I never considered an instrument, and he
Speaker 2: had a really great song called Fairfax County and I
Speaker 2: heard that song and it's a ballad. Now, Da von
Speaker 2: Rock is usually known for his hoarse voice and his
Speaker 2: kind of bluff performance, but when he does a ballot
Speaker 2: it's tremendous, so I knew this was This tune was
Speaker 2: for Davon Rock. So I took the kid with me
Speaker 2: until I could find Van Rock. We wounded her around
Speaker 2: the village. We found him backstage at the bottom line.
Speaker 2: It was Tom Paxton's gig and he was visiting Pakistan.
Speaker 2: They we were old friends, and I introduced them David,
Speaker 2: here's David, David, Here's David. And I left and I
Speaker 2: never saw Dave von Rock again. The next time I
Speaker 2: ran into David Massingill, who wrote the song, was at
Speaker 2: a memorial for ven Rock, and Massingle said that after
Speaker 2: that night when I introduced them, they were always together.
Speaker 2: He would drive him, he would sometimes be the opening act.
Speaker 2: They were road companions, so that was a good thing
Speaker 2: I did.
Speaker 1: Okay, since you set the timeframe that you're a little
Speaker 1: after sixty two, etc. In the folk Boom. To what
Speaker 1: degree were you aware of it? And to what degree
Speaker 1: did you say, I want to be into this, or
Speaker 1: maybe I'm too late, or I want to know these people.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, this is another example of me not
Speaker 2: putting two and two together. Necessarily. You see a whole
Speaker 2: thing and you wonder how I was going to integrate
Speaker 2: myself into it. I never thought of that. All I
Speaker 2: thought of is where can I get a job and
Speaker 2: how can I do it well. I sometimes get asked,
Speaker 2: you know, I've done a lot of recording sessions with
Speaker 2: some very famous people, and I've been asked, was it
Speaker 2: like doing a recording session with Bob Dylan? I said, well,
Speaker 2: the the important words there are recording session. It's a job,
Speaker 2: and I concentrate on doing my job. I don't let
Speaker 2: you know I was a huge Stone fan, but I
Speaker 2: wouldn't be starstruck.
Speaker 1: I had a job to do. Okay, how much was
Speaker 1: doing the job properly and how much was getting paid?
Speaker 2: Well, if it was somebody really famous, the whole thing
Speaker 2: was doing the job properly. But you don't get to
Speaker 2: do that until you gain a certain amount of recognition yourself.
Speaker 2: You know, I did a lot of gigs that were
Speaker 2: I mean, the first album I was on was something
Speaker 2: called Psychedelic Soul, and I don't want to say that
Speaker 2: it was bad, but everything they printed after a few
Speaker 2: months was sold to Red China.
Speaker 1: It was bad.
Speaker 2: And I played on a lot of you know, bad
Speaker 2: beginner things, and for a while I had I would
Speaker 2: be called by a producer named Tommy Kay Thomas Jefferson Ka,
Speaker 2: of course you know Tommy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know personally, even put out albums under
Speaker 1: his own name.
Speaker 2: Well, the thing about Tommy was he wanted to be
Speaker 2: who's that great producer who ended up in.
Speaker 1: Jail, Phil Spector?
Speaker 2: Phil Spector. He wanted to be Phil Spector. He always
Speaker 2: wears sunglasses and slouched and said, anyhow, the thing about
Speaker 2: Tommy is you never got paid scale. So after a
Speaker 2: while I didn't have to do those gigs, and I
Speaker 2: stopped doing them. I'm telling Tommy, you know, if you're
Speaker 2: not going to pay scale, I'm not going to do it.
Speaker 2: And actually I got paid double scale a lot. I
Speaker 2: don't remember if it was that period, but I used
Speaker 2: to get at least scale. And Tommy said, well, listen,
Speaker 2: you've got to play this one the other guitar players.
Speaker 2: Eric Clapton, I said, are you seriously? Said yeah. So
Speaker 2: I go to the studio a couple days later and
Speaker 2: I look around. There's another guitar player, and I go
Speaker 2: to Tommy. I say, Tommy, you know that's not Eric Clapton.
Speaker 2: He says, yeah, but it looks just like him, doesn't
Speaker 2: He Well, yeah, you know, when you're just starting out,
Speaker 2: you meet all the bottom feeders first.
Speaker 1: Oh. Absolutely, So at this point in time, now you
Speaker 1: pick up the guitar, when you're thirteen, you ultimately expand
Speaker 1: other stringed instruments. When does that happen? Oh?
Speaker 2: You know, I wish I could name a year when
Speaker 2: something happened. But you know, in addition to not putting
Speaker 2: two and two together, I never recorded when something like
Speaker 2: that happened. I just loved that it happened and went through.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm.
Speaker 1: Talking I think traditionally I don't need to like February second,
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty four. I mean, did you sit there and say, oh, look,
Speaker 1: there's that instrument I want to learn how to play,
Speaker 1: or did you consciously say I need to expand my
Speaker 1: repertoire or were you just infatuated with every stringed instrument
Speaker 1: you wanted to play them all?
Speaker 2: Not exactly. The first instrument, not a guitar, that I
Speaker 2: took up, was the doughbro. And there was one dobro player,
Speaker 2: a really good musician in New York at the time,
Speaker 2: and I figured, well, two wouldn't hurt. And so I
Speaker 2: started to learn a little bit of doughbro, very basic stuff,
Speaker 2: and I could I could sit in with people in play.
Speaker 2: So that's what got me to playing doughbro. Fiddle was
Speaker 2: more complex and I can actually describe it. I didn't
Speaker 2: take play fiddle until I was leading my own band
Speaker 2: and Jay Younger was in the band. I don't know
Speaker 2: if you're familiar with Jay, but you're for certain familiar
Speaker 2: with at least one of the songs he wrote, called
Speaker 2: the show Can Farewell, that Ken Burns used as the
Speaker 2: theme for his thing on the Civil War. So I
Speaker 2: started to think, boy, I loved his playing, and I
Speaker 2: started thinking, I want to play fiddle, and I know
Speaker 2: what I want to sound like. I want to sound
Speaker 2: like Jay Younger. So I bought myself a fiddle and
Speaker 2: proceeded to to learn how to feebly play on it
Speaker 2: played on a I played on a few of my records,
Speaker 2: usually with a couple of other fiddlers playing at the
Speaker 2: same time.
Speaker 1: But how did you end up playing on Jerry Jeff
Speaker 1: Walker's bo Jangles Mister Bojangles.
Speaker 2: I was running around the village and there was a
Speaker 2: harmonica player named Donnie Brooks who ran around. He was
Speaker 2: a good guy. I'm really sad he's not with us
Speaker 2: any longer. But Donnie thought that Jerry Jeff and I
Speaker 2: would get along really well. At the time, Jerry Jeff
Speaker 2: was part of a jazz fusion band. I usually know
Speaker 2: the name of it, but for some reason it is
Speaker 2: Circus Maximus. I think that, Yeah, they had an AM
Speaker 2: I mean an FM hit with one of the fusion things.
Speaker 2: But that band didn't like the stuff that Jerry Jeff wrote.
Speaker 2: So he and I would play together and I really
Speaker 2: enjoyed doing it, and I wanted to do it more.
Speaker 2: But you know, he was part of that band. But
Speaker 2: I got gage for us actually, and I started just
Speaker 2: to take a step back. Jody Stecker became a good
Speaker 2: friend of mine. I learned more from Jody Stecker maybe
Speaker 2: than anybody else than I learned from anybody else Anyhow, Jody,
Speaker 2: you used to take me up to w b A
Speaker 2: I FM, to Bob Fastest program Radio Unnameable, which started
Speaker 2: at midnight and ran to God knows, and so I
Speaker 2: started to bringing you know, later I started bring Jerry
Speaker 2: Jeff up there. And Bob Fast loved the Bojangles song
Speaker 2: and we had done it on his show about three
Speaker 2: times when he made a tape loop out of those
Speaker 2: three performances of the same song. And if we weren't
Speaker 2: coming up, he might play it a few times a night.
Speaker 2: And now, the only privilege that a songwriter has is
Speaker 2: deciding who can be the first one to record his song.
Speaker 2: After that, it's up to anyone. Jerry Jeff didn't have
Speaker 2: a manager, let alone. He was signed to Vanguard, but
Speaker 2: his band didn't want to do any of his country tunes. However,
Speaker 2: that song from Bob Fast playing it spread all over
Speaker 2: New York. You know, people were looking for it and
Speaker 2: asking for it. The piano player at Gillie's, which is
Speaker 2: where Sidatra used to hang out, was a guy named
Speaker 2: Bobby Cole, and he was a talented piano player, and
Speaker 2: he heard it on the radio in the wee hours
Speaker 2: coming home from his gig and he decided, well, that's
Speaker 2: a good one. I'll cover that, and so he recorded
Speaker 2: it for a subsidiary of CBS. I can't get the
Speaker 2: name of the label, but maybe Date or something. Anyhow,
Speaker 2: he recorded it and it was sent to disc jockeys
Speaker 2: and it started to get played and Jerry Jeff said,
Speaker 2: wait a minute, that's my song. And I didn't give
Speaker 2: him permission to record it, so he hurried up, got
Speaker 2: himself a manager, on himself a label. The first place
Speaker 2: we had to go was to Vanguard because he was
Speaker 2: signed there, and Vanguard was the only label in New
Speaker 2: York City that wasn't trying to find that song. So
Speaker 2: they booked some time for us in the studio and
Speaker 2: Gary Gary White playing bass, Jerry Jeff, Me and Norman Smart,
Speaker 2: who later played drums for Elvis. But he wasn't playing
Speaker 2: drums that day he was playing. He was playing on
Speaker 2: his body.
Speaker 1: He also played drums on the first Mountain album.
Speaker 2: Yes, that's right. He was a talented guy. And so
Speaker 2: we did a nice performance of Mister Bojangles and they
Speaker 2: listened to it and they said, oh, you can record it.
Speaker 2: Just if we want an album from you later, you
Speaker 2: have to give us an album. So Jerry Jeff signed
Speaker 2: with at CO which it was the division of Atlantic,
Speaker 2: and he was booked to record the song in Memphis
Speaker 2: at Sam Phillips Studio and I was brought along. I
Speaker 2: don't know if Jerry Cheff Acid or the man David.
Speaker 2: I can't get his last name. I feel terrible because
Speaker 2: I knew him well. Anyhow, we flew up small plane
Speaker 2: down to Memphis and we went to the studio and
Speaker 2: the engineer was Tom Dowd. I don't know if you're
Speaker 2: familiar with Tom Dowd, but of course, of course he
Speaker 2: invented faders, and also he was on the Manhattan Project.
Speaker 2: I mean, this was a skillful guy. And he didn't
Speaker 2: know me from Adam. He'd never heard Jerry Jeff live.
Speaker 2: I was basically Jerry Jeff's orc Struff for years. So
Speaker 2: I'm sitting in the studio and he's trying to get
Speaker 2: a a take he likes of mister Bojangles, and the
Speaker 2: band has it, and there Jerry Jeff performs it for
Speaker 2: them and so that they're doing it kind of straight
Speaker 2: from him in Walt's time, because it is in three
Speaker 2: four times. But I didn't play it that way. Anyhow,
Speaker 2: I was. It's embarrassing to admit, but I was in
Speaker 2: tears and Dad was getting very frustrated with the band.
Speaker 2: They couldn't get out of this Viennese walls thing. He said,
Speaker 2: let the kid do something. You know, there was a
Speaker 2: woman who was playing a twelve string given the twelve string,
Speaker 2: so I played my part to it, which was not
Speaker 2: in three four, it was in six's eight and that
Speaker 2: changed the whole thing, and that's what was put out
Speaker 2: and we didn't have trouble with it after that.
Speaker 1: And did Tom Dowd remember you and ever call you
Speaker 1: in the future. No? No.
Speaker 2: I called him once and he remembered me enough to
Speaker 2: see him, and I had a little lick I thought
Speaker 2: might be a basis for an instrumental, but it was
Speaker 2: two it was. It wasn't very original. He said, No,
Speaker 2: you know I became better then you.
Speaker 1: Play on Tom Rush's first Columbia record. How did that
Speaker 1: come to happen? Tom asked me, So you knew Tom.
Speaker 2: I don't know if I knew him at the time.
Speaker 2: I mean, our relationship may have started at those sessions,
Speaker 2: which by the way, were the first sessions recorded with Dolby.
Speaker 2: Here's there's a bit of trivia for you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, right right, yeah, So either you know what that is, don't.
Speaker 1: I won't die hanging there being it's a theme history
Speaker 1: because of course Dolby was superseded theoretically by DBX because
Speaker 1: Dolby only worked on the high end. DBX worked across
Speaker 1: the complete spectrum, and then Steely Dian got a whole
Speaker 1: album and the decode was off and that was pretty
Speaker 1: much the end of DBX. But then you work with
Speaker 1: Al Cooper, I'm easy, does it? That's another album I
Speaker 1: have me and ten other people. How do you end
Speaker 1: up working with Al Cooper?
Speaker 2: I got called I might have known Al a little
Speaker 2: bit beforehand. Al Cooper is one of the best humans
Speaker 2: playing music. I mean just as a human being. He's fantastic,
Speaker 2: and he's also an excellent, excellent, excellent musician. But he's
Speaker 2: somebody in this business that's easy to love.
Speaker 1: Okay, Then how do you end up hooking up with Dylan? Well?
Speaker 2: Well, the first time I met Dylan it was at
Speaker 2: a Jerry jeff A concert at the Bitter End in
Speaker 2: the village and he was in the audience, and afterwards
Speaker 2: I was taken to meet him and we shook hands.
Speaker 2: I said hello, and that was that, and I figured
Speaker 2: he was there to hear Jerry Jeff because Jerry Jeff's
Speaker 2: a songwriter and Dylan's a songwriter and songwriters go and
Speaker 2: listen to each other. But then I got called, and
Speaker 2: my memory of it was he said he wanted to
Speaker 2: try out a studio and would I come and do
Speaker 2: it with him. Well, it was a studio he actually
Speaker 2: knew quite well at Columbia, and I ended up recording
Speaker 2: with him. I actually did. I'm on four albums of his,
Speaker 2: in different amounts, on different albums. On one of them,
Speaker 2: the first album is that I played on.
Speaker 1: You said, you produce the tracks to you said.
Speaker 2: I produced two of the tracks that I played on,
Speaker 2: which were were They were much later. They were on
Speaker 2: one of his quote bootleg releases and they were Duncan
Speaker 2: and Brady and Missed the Mississippi and you.
Speaker 1: Okay, you're first working on self portrait? What do you
Speaker 1: remember about that?
Speaker 2: I remember that I was sick as a dog through
Speaker 2: the whole recording thing, and I would come home and
Speaker 2: fall on my bed with my clothes on, and wake
Speaker 2: up in time to get to the studio, take a shower,
Speaker 2: get to the studio and that was it bed and
Speaker 2: the studio, so that I remember that very well. Also
Speaker 2: on that session, I think on self Portrait. Most of
Speaker 2: the sessions that I was on were just me and
Speaker 2: Bob and they were later released like that called another
Speaker 2: Self Portrait I think, or something like that, and some
Speaker 2: of them Al Cooper was on and that may be
Speaker 2: where I met Al.
Speaker 1: Okay, So Self Portrait is a double album, you know,
Speaker 1: Dylan as is so called Motorcycle Action, which is up
Speaker 1: to debate now comes back out with John Wesley Harding.
Speaker 1: The National Skyline does double album self Portrait.
Speaker 2: National Skyline came first.
Speaker 1: I think National Skyline came before Self Portrait.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I think so.
Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely. And Self Portrait is a double album, has
Speaker 1: a certain number of covers, and for the first time ever,
Speaker 1: Dylan gets bad reviews.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: Did you continue to have contact with him? Did you
Speaker 1: sense that he was troubled by that?
Speaker 2: No? I didn't, But let me remind you, I'm the
Speaker 2: guy who doesn't know what one and one is, So
Speaker 2: I didn't. I didn't know, and I didn't have a
Speaker 2: whole lot of contract contact with him then until he
Speaker 2: called me for another group of sessions.
Speaker 1: Okay. Well, that's the interesting thing, because he does. Self
Speaker 1: Portrait comes out in the spring of nineteen seventy, and
Speaker 1: then he comes out with another album within months, New Morning,
Speaker 1: which you were on, which is one of my favorite albums,
Speaker 1: Sign on the Window, et cetera by Dylan. Is there
Speaker 1: any consciousness that he's trying to make statements You're work
Speaker 1: in faster? What's the difference between recording New Morning and
Speaker 1: recording Self Portrait?
Speaker 2: You know, I sometimes tell reviewers or interviewers don't ask
Speaker 2: me any overview questions because I can never answer overview questions.
Speaker 2: I'm too busy looking at the trees to see the forest.
Speaker 1: Okay, if I were to mention certain songs on New Morning,
Speaker 1: would you remember what you played on? Or too much
Speaker 1: in the forest?
Speaker 2: I might remember some of them, there are some that
Speaker 2: I wouldn't know for sure.
Speaker 1: Okay, really, so we have Self Portrait, we have New Morning.
Speaker 1: What are the other two Dylan albums you play on.
Speaker 2: Well, there was another one that came out out not
Speaker 2: long after one or the other of those two, which
Speaker 2: was simply called Dylan, which had some more takes from
Speaker 2: one of those two recordings. And I'm not sure which.
Speaker 2: And the other one was this bootleg album thing which
Speaker 2: I told you about, where I had to give you
Speaker 2: some sessions.
Speaker 1: I don't want to focus on this to the exclusion
Speaker 1: of your own career. But was this sort of one
Speaker 1: and done or if you maintained any kind of relationship
Speaker 1: with Dylan.
Speaker 2: We have a relationship, but in the music industry, relationships
Speaker 2: don't necessarily include frequent contact. You can be in a
Speaker 2: city and meet a player and not see him again
Speaker 2: for seven years, but you got close to him, and
Speaker 2: when you get back to that city, you can pick
Speaker 2: up your last conversation. I mean, that's the way it
Speaker 2: is in the music business. Bob and I had a
Speaker 2: little I got mad at him for something at one point,
Speaker 2: and we didn't have much contact for a few years.
Speaker 1: If you are willing to reveal what did you get
Speaker 1: mad about.
Speaker 2: I really don't want to go into it. It wasn't
Speaker 2: a big deal to anyone in the world.
Speaker 1: But me, let's move on from there. How do you
Speaker 1: get your own record deal with Columbia?
Speaker 2: That is interesting. I was accompanying a woman named Rosalie
Speaker 2: Currell's and Rosalie got booked at the second Isle of
Speaker 2: Wight Festival, which was the last one for decades, And
Speaker 2: the reason it was the last one for decades is
Speaker 2: that the crowds broke down the fences and everybody in free,
Speaker 2: hundreds of thousands of people. So I was there to
Speaker 2: accompany Rosalie, and experienced performers know that a crowd that
Speaker 2: doesn't pay is the hardest one to satisfy. A crowd
Speaker 2: that gets in free, they're really hard to satisfy. And
Speaker 2: a number of very good artists got booed off the
Speaker 2: stage or came within a whisker of it. And Rosalie
Speaker 2: was was on Wednesday afternoon. There was no press there
Speaker 2: at all, and so I was accompanying her, and the
Speaker 2: crowd started to get restive. Rosalie's thing was very intimate.
Speaker 2: In a small club, it would get right to you,
Speaker 2: and in front of several hundred thousand people, it really
Speaker 2: wasn't built for that, but it should have gone over anyhow,
Speaker 2: and they were rude, and she was about to be overcome,
Speaker 2: and she asked me to do a song of mine,
Speaker 2: a funny song, a long, funny song called the Bullfrog Blues.
Speaker 2: She'd never asked me to do a song in one
Speaker 2: of her sets and never did again. But that afternoon
Speaker 2: she did, and I did Bullfrog Blues and the crowd
Speaker 2: loved it and they let Rosalie finish her set. So
Speaker 2: when we got off stage a little while after we'd
Speaker 2: packed up the instruments, the promoters came to me and
Speaker 2: asked me if i'd come back at dusk and maybe
Speaker 2: do some more. I didn't realize it at the time,
Speaker 2: but dusk is the very best time to perform at
Speaker 2: an outdoor festival because it's getting dark, so the only
Speaker 2: focus is the stage, but you're hopefully not so burnt
Speaker 2: out that you can't really hear what's going on. So okay,
Speaker 2: you know. I came back and I asked them how
Speaker 2: many songs I should do, and they said do an hour.
Speaker 2: And I don't know that I'd ever done an hour before,
Speaker 2: but I went out there and I did an hour
Speaker 2: and got a couple encourse.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: That, yeah, really was something, And there's there's some video
Speaker 2: of part of the crew talking about it afterwards, which
Speaker 2: is encouraging. But TiO Massa was there for Columbia recording
Speaker 2: it because they wanted to release that, and he recommended
Speaker 2: that they sign me. Unfortunately, I never met him. I
Speaker 2: wish I had. I would have liked to have thanked him.
Speaker 2: But so that's that's how I got signed to Colombia.
Speaker 1: Now, when you get signed Clive Davis still running the company,
Speaker 1: then he gets blown out. That affect you in your career?
Speaker 1: Whatso any to any degree?
Speaker 2: I have no idea.
Speaker 1: Okay, sorry, okay. So the first album you record it
Speaker 1: by today's standre it's very difficult by the period before
Speaker 1: you get to produce it. So to what degree was
Speaker 1: the company hands on? To what degree were you happy?
Speaker 1: And to what degree? Then what was your experience after
Speaker 1: it came out.
Speaker 2: Well, I didn't know anything about producing an album, but
Speaker 2: I knew what I wanted. It never occurred to me
Speaker 2: that there was money involved, so I just did.
Speaker 1: Those were the days.
Speaker 2: When some artists spent tens of thousands recording an album.
Speaker 2: So anyhow, I did the album the way I wanted
Speaker 2: And there was one of their house producers who'd been
Speaker 2: assigned to it, and he wasn't happy about it, but
Speaker 2: they let me do it. And when it came out,
Speaker 2: I really don't know much about it except that I
Speaker 2: found myself in La and there was a billboard of
Speaker 2: the cover of the album. The cover of the album
Speaker 2: was actually a sketch of me that my sister did,
Speaker 2: so nobody knew that that person on what's the name
Speaker 2: of that boulevard, that huge face. So yeah, that huge
Speaker 2: sunset boulevard, it was me. I wanted to stand next
Speaker 2: to it, but it wouldn't have done any good. So yeah,
Speaker 2: I don't really know what.
Speaker 1: Okay, So the album comes out gets a big bush.
Speaker 1: I have friends who bought it. People are very aware
Speaker 1: of it. There is a lot of criticism relative to
Speaker 1: your voice. Did that affect you whatsoever?
Speaker 2: No, For one thing, the criticism was quite valid. Back then,
Speaker 2: my singing was extorable. It was terrible, but I could
Speaker 2: play the guitar, but the singing really wasn't very good
Speaker 2: on most of it. There's a track or two where
Speaker 2: I did sing well, because the point is, a good
Speaker 2: voice and good singing are not the same thing. So anyhow,
Speaker 2: years later, after I'd taken my twenty two years sabbatical,
Speaker 2: I came back. I discovered that I really could sing,
Speaker 2: and I enjoyed it. There are physical sensations coming from
Speaker 2: it that I'd never felt before that I loved so
Speaker 2: and these days I can still sing. I don't play
Speaker 2: as well as I used to.
Speaker 1: Okay, what was the trick that you could finally or
Speaker 1: what happened that you could finally sing?
Speaker 2: I received a lot of advice. I took some voice
Speaker 2: lessons in California for a while, but the stuff that
Speaker 2: really helped most was some advice from Phoebe Snow, who
Speaker 2: was a good friend of mine, And in particular, the
Speaker 2: advice she gave me is, when you're about to sing,
Speaker 2: open your throat like you're yawning and sing through the
Speaker 2: aw and that was really important and get it right away.
Speaker 2: But as I said, I did later. She also discussed
Speaker 2: that your voice doesn't really feel like it's coming from
Speaker 2: your mouth. It feels like it's coming from your nose
Speaker 2: and eyes, your mask in other words, And that stuff
Speaker 2: was all very helpful to me.
Speaker 1: And I'd be remiss if I didn't ask how George
Speaker 1: Harrison ends up on the album.
Speaker 2: Well, I had met George one time. I met him
Speaker 2: in the Columbia studios and he sang me one of
Speaker 2: my songs which you could have knocked me over with
Speaker 2: a feather, and I asked him where I learned it,
Speaker 2: and he said, Bob taught it to him and I
Speaker 2: had no idea Bob knew one of my songs, so
Speaker 2: that was very nice. And so we'd met at a
Speaker 2: couple of different places, and my manager at the time
Speaker 2: was a guy named al Ronowitz who is very close
Speaker 2: to the Beatles, and my guess is that he asked
Speaker 2: George if he would, you know, record with me, and
Speaker 2: actually the Ringo. I don't know if I should tell
Speaker 2: a story. Well I started, I'll do it. I vowed
Speaker 2: never to tell it, but Ringo told me that after
Speaker 2: my first album came out, John said the other three
Speaker 2: down made them sit through the entire album. Wow, So
Speaker 2: I guess we've we've we've unveiled his sadistic nature right there.
Speaker 1: Okay to what degree? Because you started before the Beatles, Oh,
Speaker 1: they are somewhat there contemporary in age.
Speaker 2: No, they started before me.
Speaker 1: Let me restate that before their breakthrough in America. So
Speaker 1: you were playing other types of music when the Beatles hit.
Speaker 1: Were you a Beatles fan?
Speaker 2: Oh? Yeah, big time? Yeah. I loved the Beatles. And
Speaker 2: the reason I know that they were known first was
Speaker 2: I was the music counselor at the age of fourteen
Speaker 2: at a summer camp and some of the kids had
Speaker 2: the Beatles album. So so I'm pretty clear that the
Speaker 2: Beatles were making some noise long before me. I didn't
Speaker 2: record until I was maybe nineteen or twenty.
Speaker 1: Okay, Aleronowitz was a journalist. How did he end up
Speaker 1: as being your manager? And was he a good manager?
Speaker 2: It was a very complicated relationship and both of us
Speaker 2: made a lot of mistakes. I met him through Rosalie
Speaker 2: so else and that's kind of where that came together.
Speaker 1: Well, would the story or your career have played out
Speaker 1: differently if he was Is someone else more experienced? Was
Speaker 1: the manager?
Speaker 2: Oh? I really don't know. He did a lot of
Speaker 2: you know, in lately I have come to realize that
Speaker 2: he did a lot of things for me that were
Speaker 2: really great. But as I say, our relationship was difficult,
Speaker 2: and I was definitely responsible for some of it, and
Speaker 2: he was definitely responsible for some of it.
Speaker 1: So, and how long before your sabbatical did he remain
Speaker 1: your manager or to replace him?
Speaker 2: I'm very bad with years.
Speaker 1: Let me ask you a question. Did you have another
Speaker 1: manager after al.
Speaker 2: Yeah? I think I did, But I'm blanking.
Speaker 1: Okay, not important. So you put out this album suddenly,
Speaker 1: you know, the train leaves the station, you make another record. Well,
Speaker 1: what's your experience during this period? But you just have
Speaker 1: your head down and you're working so much you don't
Speaker 1: know which end is up. Are you worried about sales?
Speaker 1: You worry about audience aside you're playing? Are you enjoying it?
Speaker 1: Do you feel it's more like a grind? What's it like? Oh?
Speaker 2: I was enjoying it until that one time I told
Speaker 2: you about New Jersey when I realized I didn't want
Speaker 2: to play. But I really was enjoying it, and I
Speaker 2: was working my butt off, and I didn't realize I
Speaker 2: could say, look, this is too much. Slow down, So
Speaker 2: I never said it, and then one day I just
Speaker 2: kind of said I got to stop.
Speaker 1: Okay. Drugs and alcohol factor on the road.
Speaker 2: They were always there. I don't think they affected performance
Speaker 2: a great deal, especially not alcohol, because although back in
Speaker 2: those days I used to sometimes drink Jack Daniels before
Speaker 2: and during a concert, but I can only remember one
Speaker 2: concert where it affected me enough to comment on it.
Speaker 1: Okay. So if the first album comes out in seventy two,
Speaker 1: when does the sabbatical begin.
Speaker 2: Seventy nine?
Speaker 1: Okay, So you make records on Columbia gives you a
Speaker 1: big push at first, and then you end up switching
Speaker 1: to Fantasy. How does you know what happens there?
Speaker 2: I was signed by Fantasy and my manager and I
Speaker 2: moved out to the Bay Area, which is where Fantasy is,
Speaker 2: and my first album was a double album, and Fantasy
Speaker 2: said that it sold two hundred thousand copies in the
Speaker 2: first month. I don't believe it did, but I think
Speaker 2: that was a good press release. It maybe came close
Speaker 2: to that, but I don't think it did the number
Speaker 2: that they said. And they were very nice people, and
Speaker 2: at one point they were very happy to have hired
Speaker 2: a former Berry Gordy employer, a guy who had worked
Speaker 2: on publicity for well, I don't know. I think it
Speaker 2: was publicity for Barry Gordy's record company in Detroit, and
Speaker 2: I was passing the office his office one day and
Speaker 2: he was telling all his people that I was a joke.
Speaker 2: So that kind of killed my relationship there as far
Speaker 2: as I was concerned.
Speaker 1: And did Columbia not want to make any more records?
Speaker 1: Is that how you ended up in Fantasy?
Speaker 2: What happened with Columbia is the bean Counters took over,
Speaker 2: and I know It was the bean Counters because I
Speaker 2: had my contract that if one of my records sold
Speaker 2: one hundred thousand that I would get a twenty five
Speaker 2: thousand dollars bonus. And after a certain point one of
Speaker 2: my records hit that my first records had sold one
Speaker 2: hundred thousand, and they paid the bonus. But that made
Speaker 2: them look into it, and they discovered that my third
Speaker 2: album in another couple of weeks was going to hit it,
Speaker 2: and my second album a couple weeks after that, and
Speaker 2: the fourth album was going gangbusters. So in order to
Speaker 2: avoid paying out another seventy five thousand dollars, they released me.
Speaker 2: Then they didn't have to pay that.
Speaker 1: Wow, okay, So you know during this period till seventy
Speaker 1: two seventy nine, how are you doing financially?
Speaker 2: I think I'm doing okay. I can take a cab
Speaker 2: after the gig. It was fine, okay. And how did
Speaker 2: you meet your wife? Was it during this period? I
Speaker 2: think it was actually pretty early. It was before or
Speaker 2: just after I released my first album, and of course
Speaker 2: it was at a concert.
Speaker 1: And how did you meet her?
Speaker 2: She was part of a group of kids that were
Speaker 2: members of the New Jersey Folks Society. And this was
Speaker 2: an interesting group of kids because almost every one of
Speaker 2: them became a professional musician. Wow, it was Yeah, it
Speaker 2: was really impressive. And the gig, the first gig that
Speaker 2: I played there was the first gig that I played
Speaker 2: as David Bromberg outside of New York City, So it
Speaker 2: was a big deal to me.
Speaker 1: And how did you sustain a relationship when you were
Speaker 1: on the road so much?
Speaker 2: Well, she was a professional musician. She became a professional musician,
Speaker 2: and we'd pass each other on the road, and so
Speaker 2: we'd get together for the time given us and then
Speaker 2: travel on. And then at a certain point we decided
Speaker 2: to live together. And I was at this point living
Speaker 2: in Moren County, and I had a lemon tree in
Speaker 2: the garden in front of the house. And she drove
Speaker 2: up for the first time and she saw that, and
Speaker 2: she thought it was really touching that I'd glued all
Speaker 2: those lemons to the tree.
Speaker 1: And when did you get married?
Speaker 2: Seventy nine?
Speaker 1: Okay, so you're on stage in New Jersey. Nothing's coming
Speaker 1: to your brain. You have this bad experience. Literally, what
Speaker 1: happens right thereafter? And how do you make a left
Speaker 1: turn into violin?
Speaker 2: Well, I had become interested in them, and I started
Speaker 2: to buy a few and sell a few, and it
Speaker 2: really interested me how someone could tell when and where
Speaker 2: and maybe even by whom a violin was made by
Speaker 2: looking at it. So when I decided that I had
Speaker 2: to stop performing, I decided to go to violin making school.
Speaker 2: Not because I wanted to make violins, but because I
Speaker 2: wanted to understand them enough to learn to identify them.
Speaker 2: And I did that after a terrible depression that Nancy
Speaker 2: barely lived through my wife. It was very rough on her,
Speaker 2: but because I didn't know what I was doing.
Speaker 1: Okay, but viole in making school took years. So is
Speaker 1: this the only thing you were doing for those years?
Speaker 2: For three years, I would do an occasional gig on
Speaker 2: on on on weekends. And you know, I discovered something
Speaker 2: very interesting which is true not only for me, but
Speaker 2: for most people who work at a craft like violin making,
Speaker 2: which is the longer and farther away you are from
Speaker 2: your bench, h the harder it is to pick up
Speaker 2: your tools again. So so these these these forays, which
Speaker 2: gave us food money took a price on my schoolwork.
Speaker 1: How long would you have to be away from your
Speaker 1: school work for it to have a negative effect.
Speaker 2: It wasn't. It didn't matter how long. It mattered at
Speaker 2: least as much as how far away in distance I went.
Speaker 2: You know, I'd go for Saturday and Sunday usually, but
Speaker 2: it might be a Friday night and a Saturday, or
Speaker 2: a Friday night and a Saturday and a Sunday. But
Speaker 2: you know, except when the school wasn't in session. But
Speaker 2: it's kind of interesting the toll it took.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's say I wanted to go to violin school.
Speaker 1: Is it like a regular school? I apply? It starts
Speaker 1: in September, it runs through June. I mean, they have classes.
Speaker 1: What's it like?
Speaker 2: It's kind of like that you apply and they start
Speaker 2: in September. My teacher was a brilliant violin maker named
Speaker 2: Cheu Ho Lee who had graduated from the State School
Speaker 2: in Germany, which is a very famous school. I think
Speaker 2: it's in minten Valve, Germany and or near mintvauld And
Speaker 2: he he would call everyone around and show them the
Speaker 2: next thing he wanted them to do, and then you
Speaker 2: would go and try and do it. But there are
Speaker 2: some interesting aspects to that. I arrived late. I had
Speaker 2: some gigs to tie up and so I had to
Speaker 2: try and catch up, but that was very hard. The
Speaker 2: first job I was given was to make linings for
Speaker 2: the inside of the violin, to enlarge the area where
Speaker 2: the glue would hold the top and the back on.
Speaker 2: There were small strips that would go around. So the
Speaker 2: first thing you have to do is plane them to
Speaker 2: the right thickness. Well, I had a plane, but that's
Speaker 2: not it. In order to plane them to a given thickness,
Speaker 2: you had to sharpen the plane, and that's not easy.
Speaker 2: And to sharpen the plane first you had to grind it.
Speaker 2: And then once you had ground it and sharpened the
Speaker 2: thing enough and getting a real sharp point is really
Speaker 2: not easy, then you have to you're not ready yet,
Speaker 2: you have to flatten the soul of the plane. So
Speaker 2: there was a lot of that in violin making school.
Speaker 2: In order to take the next step forward, you frequently
Speaker 2: had to take a few backwards. So anyhow, you know,
Speaker 2: I learned.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you were in school. How many other people
Speaker 1: were in class with you? And their goal must have
Speaker 1: really been making a living, you know, making violins. Some
Speaker 1: of them wanted to make violince and some of them
Speaker 1: just wanted to repair violins. There must have been approximately
Speaker 1: twenty five other students in the classroom, and some were
Speaker 1: really good and some were not. I was amongst the not. Okay,
Speaker 1: So you graduate, and where along the line do you
Speaker 1: decide that you want to open up your own violin shop.
Speaker 2: When I moved from Chicago to Wilmington, it just seemed
Speaker 2: like that was the thing I should do. I don't
Speaker 2: remember deciding it, neither does Nancy. It just was the
Speaker 2: next thing is opening the shop.
Speaker 1: Why do you move to Wilmington?
Speaker 2: We couldn't handle another Chicago winter, Okay?
Speaker 1: And at what point in this story do you have
Speaker 1: a child?
Speaker 2: Well? I have two children, and they both came when
Speaker 2: I was living in Chicago.
Speaker 1: So you had the pressure of taking care of the
Speaker 1: children while you're working on the weekends, while you're making violins.
Speaker 1: And the violin shop, did you buy it or did
Speaker 1: you start from scratch?
Speaker 2: We really started from scratch. We made an arrangement with
Speaker 2: the city to buy a building, and they didn't give
Speaker 2: me any money, which some of the people in the
Speaker 2: town thought they had, which I found out later is
Speaker 2: usually part of these deals, but it wasn't part of mine.
Speaker 2: And the repairs cost more than I ever thought I
Speaker 2: would use to buy a house. But I owned the
Speaker 2: whole building and opened the shop on the ground floor
Speaker 2: street level, and it lived upstairs, lived upstairs, Mom and pop.
Speaker 1: Okay, so how do you make a business out of
Speaker 1: a violin store?
Speaker 2: Well, you know, that's that's what the city asked me.
Speaker 2: What's your business plan? I said, to sell violins, and
Speaker 2: they were very unhappy with that, you know, they told
Speaker 2: me all the things that one has to do, and
Speaker 2: I said, I cannot tell you how many violins I
Speaker 2: will sell in any months. I have no idea, nor
Speaker 2: do I know for how much they will be sold for,
Speaker 2: because violins are not all the same price. As a
Speaker 2: matter of fact, everyone is different.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: It's a strange little business, but we got through it.
Speaker 1: Okay, So you open your store. What do you do
Speaker 1: for inventory?
Speaker 2: I bought things from the Chinese importers for the for
Speaker 2: the trade that we had to begin. In the beginning.
Speaker 2: People were only interested in getting something cheaply. And the
Speaker 2: Chinese violin factories are the best factories that have ever
Speaker 2: existed on the face of the earth. They make unbelievable
Speaker 2: instruments at a very low price. So that was satisfying
Speaker 2: to learn about that, and I bought things, and I
Speaker 2: bought things that were too expensive for our current clientele.
Speaker 2: But I figured if I didn't buy them, I would
Speaker 2: never sell them. And it's much nicer to have beautiful
Speaker 2: things around. So I would go to auctions. I had
Speaker 2: been doing that already for years. When I lived in Chicago.
Speaker 2: I actually made most of my living as a wholesaler
Speaker 2: of violins. Not that I sold seven at once, I
Speaker 2: sold one at a time, of different violins. I would
Speaker 2: go to Europe and I would buy in Europe and
Speaker 2: bring things back and sell them. And on the way
Speaker 2: i'd stop at the auctions. I might sell some at
Speaker 2: the auctions and buy some at the auctions, and I've
Speaker 2: learned an awful lot from doing that. I'd go to
Speaker 2: first to Paris, and sometimes to Belgium, sometimes to Germany,
Speaker 2: and then to London, where the auctions were, and then
Speaker 2: and then home. And you know, I didn't recall this
Speaker 2: when you were asking me about how I performed. You know,
Speaker 2: I didn't perform that much. Most of my living was
Speaker 2: from from buying and selling violins, and the the the
Speaker 2: violin shops in Chicago appreciated that I would buy from
Speaker 2: one shop and sell to another, because not everyone likes
Speaker 2: the same thing, and the head of one shop couldn't
Speaker 2: spare his time literally to go out and look over
Speaker 2: somebody else's inventory. So I would come to their shop
Speaker 2: with something that I found that I thought was good,
Speaker 2: and I you know, I learned.
Speaker 1: Okay, So when you have your shop in Delaware, how
Speaker 1: much inventory do you have? At one time?
Speaker 2: I never counted it, I.
Speaker 1: Mean hundreds, forty.
Speaker 2: I might have as little as forty really good fiddles
Speaker 2: and maybe maybe fifty Chinese fiddles, and then the inventory
Speaker 2: expanded with the nice fiddles. It didn't expand with the
Speaker 2: Chinese fiddles until I turned the shop over to the
Speaker 2: guys that worked in it with me. I don't run
Speaker 2: the shop any longer.
Speaker 1: So what would be the upper price range of some
Speaker 1: of the violins you.
Speaker 2: Sold that I actually sold or that I still have
Speaker 2: that are worth a lot.
Speaker 1: Of money that you actually sold?
Speaker 2: Well, I sold one for thirty five thousand.
Speaker 1: Okay, So at this point you don't own the shop anymore? Correct?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: When did you stop owning the shop?
Speaker 2: The first of the of this year?
Speaker 1: Oh so just very recently.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right. I didn't sell it. I turned it
Speaker 2: over to the guys.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: They still have a lot of my instruments that they
Speaker 2: are selling.
Speaker 1: Okay. So how much of your business and your particular
Speaker 1: work went into repair?
Speaker 2: None? None of my work. The guys in the back room,
Speaker 2: they made their living mostly from repairs.
Speaker 1: And what's the retail on a Chinese violin.
Speaker 2: It depends on the quality. It usually starts around one
Speaker 2: thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: Okay. So the kids who were playing violins in school,
Speaker 1: where they getting their violins?
Speaker 2: I don't know where some of them got there. There
Speaker 2: were some eight hundred dollars fiddles, the seven hundred, and
Speaker 2: then some of the fractional violins were cheaper. I didn't
Speaker 2: like handling the very cheapest things because then you have
Speaker 2: to repair them. And repairing cheapest things is not like
Speaker 2: repairing a really fine instrument. It's a trial. And I
Speaker 2: didn't want to load that on the guys. I could
Speaker 2: have started a rental business, and I, you know, that's
Speaker 2: really meatball repair, I think. But strangely enough, the guys
Speaker 2: are doing that now for my shop from what used
Speaker 2: to be my shop.
Speaker 1: So what makes a strata varias so good.
Speaker 2: Stratavari's instruments his violins, because he made more than violins.
Speaker 2: He made also bows cello's viola's, guitars, and probably some
Speaker 2: other instruments. But his violins stood out from others because
Speaker 2: in a large concert hall, which were just beginning to
Speaker 2: be used when in Stratavari's day, it could be heard
Speaker 2: at the back of the of the hall without sounding loud,
Speaker 2: right in front of it. That's what made them desirable
Speaker 2: and placed them above most other instruments. There's some interesting
Speaker 2: things about the competition between modern violins and the old masters.
Speaker 2: Every time that there's a competition blindfold competition, the modern
Speaker 2: violin makers win. And I used to think, Okay, it
Speaker 2: depends on how they're set up and who's playing them
Speaker 2: and all that. But there was one recently that really
Speaker 2: impressed me where the owners of some fine violins even
Speaker 2: played their own violins, but they were blindfolded and they
Speaker 2: might not recognize them as their own. They all picked
Speaker 2: the modern ones, and it was not a question of
Speaker 2: set up or anything like that, because they were set
Speaker 2: up for these players or for one of these players.
Speaker 1: And so if you were going to get one of
Speaker 1: these modern violins, what's the retail price on that?
Speaker 2: There's a wide margin. I mean, if you buy a
Speaker 2: violin that was made in a violin making school, it's
Speaker 2: going to cost maybe two thousand dollars. If you buy
Speaker 2: it from Sam Zigmatovitch in Brooklyn, one of his violins,
Speaker 2: it's going to cost you six figures. And they're wonderful violins,
Speaker 2: They're worth it.
Speaker 1: So he makes them himself.
Speaker 2: He makes them himself in Brooklyn.
Speaker 1: How many violins can he make in a year?
Speaker 2: I don't really know. You know, people run at different speeds,
Speaker 2: and it was never something that interested me to find out.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you're running the violin shop for two decades,
Speaker 1: to what degree are you personally playing at that you'd
Speaker 1: lay all your instruments down.
Speaker 2: When I started the shop, I hadn't picked up a
Speaker 2: guitar in quite a while, and my playing had completely collapsed,
Speaker 2: and I decided I wanted to improve it. So I
Speaker 2: went to some jam sessions. And I originally went to
Speaker 2: a jam session with people whose skill was not beyond me,
Speaker 2: you know, people who are also trying to build their
Speaker 2: chops from pretty you know, not from an advanced place.
Speaker 2: And then I, after a year or so I was
Speaker 2: able to go to better jams. And I had been
Speaker 2: asked by the mayor of Wilmington to help bring back
Speaker 2: live music. And he told me the street that I
Speaker 2: lived on and my shop is on used to have
Speaker 2: live music all up and down it. Well, I'm not
Speaker 2: a club owner or a book or any of that.
Speaker 2: I figured the only thing I could do is start
Speaker 2: some jam sessions right on Market Street. And I did,
Speaker 2: and some really fine musicians would hear about them and come.
Speaker 2: So I started playing with some really great musicians again,
Speaker 2: and I started enjoying it again. So I decided to
Speaker 2: go back on the road.
Speaker 1: So when you decided, you basically say a twenty two
Speaker 1: year sabbatical. So that's the beginning of this century. How
Speaker 1: much you're working in the violin shop and how much
Speaker 1: you're working on your own career.
Speaker 2: It was mostly in the violin shop my own career.
Speaker 2: The violin shop takes place during the day and my
Speaker 2: career takes place at night. So I was able to
Speaker 2: do both at once, and sometimes I'd have to travel
Speaker 2: for a few gigs and the guys could keep the
Speaker 2: shop going. Wasn't a problem. You see, My function in
Speaker 2: that shop was to write appraisals and to buy and sell,
Speaker 2: to know what is what, what's real, what's a forgery?
Speaker 2: And I was sometimes very very good and sometimes very
Speaker 2: very bad at it. But that's kind of the way
Speaker 2: it goes. Well.
Speaker 1: At some point when you get back in your career,
Speaker 1: you're making albums, you know you're from the next year,
Speaker 1: you're back into it. Was it really that you were
Speaker 1: making and buying and selling violins and appraising violins and
Speaker 1: this was more of a hobby or was it chewing
Speaker 1: up more of your time?
Speaker 2: I think I think I was in the violin shop
Speaker 2: until I wasn't.
Speaker 1: Okay, so tell me more about these. Uh So you're
Speaker 1: at the Beacon and it's a series of shows.
Speaker 2: No, it's one show.
Speaker 1: One show, That's what I thought, Okay, my life? Is that?
Speaker 1: And is that the final show? Or is there a
Speaker 1: tour thereafter?
Speaker 2: There is no tour planned thereafter. I understand that one
Speaker 2: should never say never, so I'm not saying never, But
Speaker 2: as it looks now, that's probably the last one I'll do.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, And what are your emotions about it.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna miss the guys, and I might come to
Speaker 2: miss performing, but I don't know, you know, those twenty
Speaker 2: two years that hiatus I took, I never yearned to
Speaker 2: get back on stage, So you know I can give
Speaker 2: things up better than most people. I don't think I'm
Speaker 2: going to have a problem.
Speaker 1: Okay, So you take a very large band on stage,
Speaker 1: which the generation of that.
Speaker 2: I used to perform with a band just a little
Speaker 2: smaller than what I'm going to have on stage. I
Speaker 2: used to perform with a quintet plus two horns, and
Speaker 2: these days I've been mostly performing with a quintet, but
Speaker 2: occasionally I do big band gigs where I hire not
Speaker 2: two but three horns, three singers. And for this gig,
Speaker 2: we're going to have a keyboard player who recorded our
Speaker 2: last record with us. But I mean before that, he'd
Speaker 2: show up at gigs and we wouldn't rehearse. He knew
Speaker 2: all the tunes, he knew him cold, and he's a
Speaker 2: member of the band. His name is Dan Walker, and
Speaker 2: he's a brilliant player. Right now, he is out with
Speaker 2: Ann Wilson of Heart, and he asked her for the
Speaker 2: night off because he's on tour with her, and she
Speaker 2: very graciously gave him the night off so to play
Speaker 2: with her.
Speaker 1: If you're playing with this many players, are you making
Speaker 1: money or you're losing money? Generally speaking?
Speaker 2: This is a one off this gig.
Speaker 1: I understand, and this is the final gig. But before
Speaker 1: this you're taking out multiple players, maybe not ten but seven.
Speaker 2: The numbers work with seven was in the seventies.
Speaker 1: Okay, So in the gigs prior to this one, how
Speaker 1: many people would go out?
Speaker 2: Five including myself and six including the road manager, the
Speaker 2: tour manager.
Speaker 1: And with five people, you're making money?
Speaker 2: I made enough?
Speaker 1: How many? How big were these gigs? How many? What
Speaker 1: was the size of the halls you were playing?
Speaker 2: I played halls of different sizes in different cities. You know,
Speaker 2: if I'm going to play in San Francisco, I'm going
Speaker 2: to play a large room, or New York or New Jersey.
Speaker 2: But in some parts of the country, I have to
Speaker 2: settle for a smaller room.
Speaker 1: And you're gonna have special guests at this final show.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm very excited about that.
Speaker 1: And can you reveal who those are?
Speaker 2: I can reveal. One of the two is Jeff Tweety.
Speaker 1: And do you know Jeff Tweety? How does he end
Speaker 1: up being on the show.
Speaker 2: It's kind of a funny story. He was one of
Speaker 2: the first people I thought of. I did some years
Speaker 2: ago a festival, an indoor festival in Chicago, and I
Speaker 2: was coming off the stage to my dressing room and
Speaker 2: Jeff Tweety was doing the same. He was a little
Speaker 2: bit ahead of me, and I called out ahead and
Speaker 2: I said Jeff, and he turned around. I said we
Speaker 2: should play together sometime, and he said yeah, and that
Speaker 2: was the end of it. So I was recently on
Speaker 2: a tour ship, on a cruise ship called Cayamo, and
Speaker 2: I was backstage having just come off, being about to
Speaker 2: go on again, and Jeff came off the stage. When
Speaker 2: he got to where I was, he pointed at me.
Speaker 2: He said, Bromberg. I said yeah. He said, I got
Speaker 2: to tell you. When you called to me backstage in Chicago,
Speaker 2: I was astounded that you knew who I was. I said,
Speaker 2: I was convinced you you didn't have any idea who
Speaker 2: I was. And so we both laughed about that and
Speaker 2: we decided, yes, we have to play together.
Speaker 1: Okay, so he'll be playing at the final gig. Just
Speaker 1: backing up over your sixty year time in the music business.
Speaker 1: Are you the type of person who makes and keeps
Speaker 1: relationships or are you more like for His Gum bumping
Speaker 1: into things.
Speaker 2: I'm probably more like Forrest Gump, but not completely. As
Speaker 2: I told you in my business, when you bump into
Speaker 2: somebody after no matter how many years, you can pick
Speaker 2: up your last conversation.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, let me put it a different way.
Speaker 1: People who are not stars are not named performers, which
Speaker 1: you ultimately became when you signed your deal with Columbia,
Speaker 1: and they're making a living playing with other people. They're
Speaker 1: heavy networkers, most of them, and they have a group
Speaker 1: of people they're calling them all the time because they're
Speaker 1: looking to work. Was that your experience before you had
Speaker 1: your record deal?
Speaker 2: Well, there were there were a couple of instances like that,
Speaker 2: but it wasn't common. You know. There there was h
Speaker 2: uh huh a coffeehouse in uh uh in Michigan uh
Speaker 2: called the Arc and and the people who ran that
Speaker 2: would call me themselves, and you know, I'd speak to
Speaker 2: them and I'd go do it. But after after a
Speaker 2: certain amount of time, I had managers and agents.
Speaker 1: And they I'm talking about actually, yeah, I'm talking about
Speaker 1: more before that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a long time ago. Before that is a
Speaker 2: very long time ago.
Speaker 1: I mean, let's put it this way. You're in Wilmington, Okay, people, Well,
Speaker 1: people come into the store, so you end up having
Speaker 1: a socialization there. Let me jump ahead. So you sold
Speaker 1: the store, You're going to have the final gig. What
Speaker 1: are you going to do with your time?
Speaker 2: Well, first of all, I did not sell the store.
Speaker 1: You gave the store away.
Speaker 2: I turned it over to the guys.
Speaker 1: Yes, and I have.
Speaker 2: I don't have it all any longer. But I had
Speaker 2: the largest collection of good violins made in the United
Speaker 2: States that there's ever been. At one point it was
Speaker 2: up to two hundred and sixty three instruments. That's a
Speaker 2: lot of violins. And now I'm selling them mostly to colleagues,
Speaker 2: to people who have their own stores. And I'm making
Speaker 2: sure I have photographs before i let one out of
Speaker 2: the building because I'm going to do a book. So
Speaker 2: that's going to take a while.
Speaker 1: Okay, So just going back to that story, if you
Speaker 1: have two hundred and sixty three violins, to what degree
Speaker 1: were people calling you up from across the country or
Speaker 1: the world saying, hey, you know I want something. It
Speaker 1: looks like you got something I got, as opposed to
Speaker 1: people in Wilmington.
Speaker 2: I got calls very frequently. I couldn't say how frequently.
Speaker 2: It wasn't quite once a week most weeks, but you know,
Speaker 2: every week or two, i'd get a call from a
Speaker 2: colleague who wanted to know the value of an American
Speaker 2: violin he had, And they would seldom put it in
Speaker 2: those terms, but that's what it boiled down to always,
Speaker 2: and with my collection, I became the world's expert violence
Speaker 2: made in the United States. It's very embarrassing to pat
Speaker 2: myself on the back like that, but if you ask
Speaker 2: any violin dealer who knows about American violins, you'll hear
Speaker 2: my name. So I would also get calls from people
Speaker 2: who had an American violin that they inherited and they
Speaker 2: wanted to sell them.
Speaker 1: What's the most you ever paid for a violin?
Speaker 2: Probably around fifteen thousand dollars?
Speaker 1: Okay, So let's assume you buy a violin for fifteen
Speaker 1: What could you then sell it for?
Speaker 2: Well, that's the key. I wouldn't buy it for fifteen
Speaker 2: if I didn't think I could sell it for a
Speaker 2: good profit. I cannot remember one specifically that I paid
Speaker 2: that much for, but I think that's about the tops.
Speaker 2: If not, then it would be ten or twelve, but
Speaker 2: it would vary from instrument to instrument. These every one
Speaker 2: of them is different, and every one of them, even
Speaker 2: by the same maker, is different. He finished this on
Speaker 2: a good day. He finished this on a bad day.
Speaker 2: He had a lot of assistance working on this one.
Speaker 2: But this one is all as far as I can
Speaker 2: see his work. You know, this is a really this
Speaker 2: is a business of one offs, aside from factory violins,
Speaker 2: and even those are different one to another.
Speaker 1: Okay, so if it's like a ten thousand dollars you
Speaker 1: pay your goal, it would be one hundred percent markup.
Speaker 1: What would your goal be? I realized every deal was different.
Speaker 1: But if you're bothering to buy a violin, how much
Speaker 1: more would you hope to sell it for?
Speaker 2: How much do I like it? That's going to determine
Speaker 2: whether I buy it or not? And I don't have
Speaker 2: a rule of well I got a leuble of my money.
Speaker 2: First of all, with really good violins, the better you get,
Speaker 2: the lower the proportion percentage of profit it is.
Speaker 1: So, you know, was the store ever broken into no?
Speaker 1: And generally speaking, when people came in to buy an
Speaker 1: expensive violin, did they know what they were looking for,
Speaker 1: or did you basically have to tell them you want this,
Speaker 1: this is the one you want.
Speaker 2: I never told people this is the one you want.
Speaker 2: They have to decide for themselves islans or personal things,
Speaker 2: and so are the bows, which by the way, can
Speaker 2: get extremely valuable. The way I would work it is
Speaker 2: the way most shops, to my knowledge work it. You
Speaker 2: have to find out, give me an idea of your budget,
Speaker 2: and I'll show you things within your budget. And I
Speaker 2: would never show anything more expensive to drag them up,
Speaker 2: although some shops do that. I'd always find things within
Speaker 2: or below their stated budget.
Speaker 1: So you live it in Wilmington. You ever meet Joe Biden?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I met him right in front of my store
Speaker 2: one afternoon.
Speaker 1: What were the circumstances, What was your experience?
Speaker 2: Well, at the time, he was the vice president and
Speaker 2: we shook hands and I told him that was my store,
Speaker 2: and I don't remember if we said it any more
Speaker 2: than that. You know, it was just well, hello, and
Speaker 2: I had a store in his hometown.
Speaker 1: But would he was just walking down the street or
Speaker 1: he's doing a campaign and then.
Speaker 2: I think there might have been a parade that day
Speaker 2: and he was out to see it as my guess,
Speaker 2: But you know, I really don't know.
Speaker 1: Okay, if you had to do it all over again,
Speaker 1: and I can tell you're the type of guy who
Speaker 1: feels it had to play out the way it did.
Speaker 1: Would you have gone to violin making school, would you've
Speaker 1: opened the shop, taken this hiatus? What would you have done?
Speaker 2: Depends who I am. I've been different people at different
Speaker 2: times in my life, you know what I mean? Always
Speaker 2: absolutely yeah, So it depends who I am when I'm
Speaker 2: asked to make that decision.
Speaker 1: And what are your kids up to?
Speaker 2: Well? My daughter lives in Wilmington and she is a
Speaker 2: very well trained nanny. She she knows all of the
Speaker 2: concussion protocols and the broken you know, what to do
Speaker 2: with a child who heards. She's really very skilled at
Speaker 2: that and at relating to the children. She loves them
Speaker 2: and that's that's her work. My son is a real anomaly.
Speaker 2: My son lives in Paris with his wife and two children,
Speaker 2: and he is the only person I know who gets
Speaker 2: paid for poetry, writing poetry. Do you know anybody who
Speaker 2: gets paid for writing poetry?
Speaker 1: No? I don't, Mary Carr. Maybe one who Mary Carr?
Speaker 2: Ah? Okay, well, I don't know Mary Carr, but I
Speaker 2: know Jacob. And but even so, as remarkable as it is,
Speaker 2: you don't get you don't get paid much for it.
Speaker 2: He does a lot of translating French to English for museums,
Speaker 2: and he has worked as for different organizations as the
Speaker 2: as the organizer of their conventions, so he does a
Speaker 2: variety of things.
Speaker 1: Okay, David, I think we've covered it here, and I
Speaker 1: want to thank you for taking the time to speak
Speaker 1: with my audience.
Speaker 2: It's been my pleasure and it's nice to talk to
Speaker 2: an interviewer who's done his research. I'm very happy to
Speaker 2: have met well.
Speaker 1: You know, as I said, I've lived through your whole
Speaker 1: career from Afar, you know, seeing you in the pages
Speaker 1: of as I say, when you stop to make violins,
Speaker 1: that's something you know that was out of deviated from
Speaker 1: the norm and was very interesting to me. And I'm
Speaker 1: glad we got the call. In any event, until next time,
Speaker 1: This is Bob left. Six h