Speaker 1: Pushkin. Hey everyone, Today we begin our month long celebration
Speaker 1: of Black Music Month with p J. Morton, the New
Speaker 1: Orleans based singer, songwriter, producer, and keyboardist of Maroon five.
Speaker 1: Morton recently earned a Grammy Award for Album of the
Speaker 1: Year for his contributions to John Battize We Are. But
Speaker 1: even though he's been up from multiple Grammys, he almost
Speaker 1: gave up on the idea of a solo career altogether.
Speaker 1: But then he moved back home to New Orleans and
Speaker 1: reconnected with what got him interested in music in the
Speaker 1: first place. Now, Morten's releasing his eighth studio album, Watched
Speaker 1: the Sun. The new album was made up of eleven
Speaker 1: original songs and features collaborations with artists like Stevie Wonder, Nas,
Speaker 1: Jill Scott, and Wallet. On today's episode, p J Morton
Speaker 1: talks to Bruce held Them about what it was like
Speaker 1: growing up a preacher's son and how his relationship with
Speaker 1: gospel impacted the way he makes music. He also talks
Speaker 1: about being a recovering workaholic and his friendship with the
Speaker 1: great Stevie Wonder. This is broken record Liner notes for
Speaker 1: the digital age. I'm justin Mitchell here's Bruce Head them
Speaker 1: and p J. Morton. You played organ growing up, right?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, what was the organ in your church? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I could be three? It was okay, Yeah, it was
Speaker 1: auld B three. Uh yeah. My brother in law taught me.
Speaker 1: I learned on the job basically and by ear, you know,
Speaker 1: but he taught me to draw bars and settings, and
Speaker 1: I kind of just built from there. Yeah. I was
Speaker 1: amazed to hear that. Well, I heard it on your record.
Speaker 1: You said it. You don't read music. I don't read music. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so you learned to play in church by ear by ear? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it kind of blows my mind. You know, when I
Speaker 1: think about the things I can play, I just remember
Speaker 1: not being able to play, and then I remember being
Speaker 1: able to play. I don't really remember learning. Like the
Speaker 1: only thing I remember I would just play the same
Speaker 1: thing over and over, and then I would make a
Speaker 1: mistake and my ear would say, oh, that's the chord
Speaker 1: from that song. Oh that's how they did that. It
Speaker 1: literally like one foot in front of the other. Now,
Speaker 1: your album New Orleans begins with a tape of your father,
Speaker 1: Paul S Martin. That's right, yeah, introducing you at church. Well,
Speaker 1: we were actually at home or you were at home. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so my dad every year since like nineteen eighty three.
Speaker 1: I mean, I remember the camp chords got smaller and
Speaker 1: smaller through the years. That was the big one. Every
Speaker 1: year though, we would have a talent showcase during Christmas.
Speaker 1: It was me and my sisters. We all had to
Speaker 1: do something. You know. My sister was a singer. You
Speaker 1: can see me through the years ago from drums to
Speaker 1: trying to play guitar to finally you see me set
Speaker 1: land on piano about seven years old or eight, you know,
Speaker 1: and that was I think that was eight or nine.
Speaker 1: Do you remember what you played? Yeah, I used to
Speaker 1: think I invented this. It was like, oh no, I
Speaker 1: really thought that I wrote that. I don't know why
Speaker 1: I thought that, but that was what I played. I
Speaker 1: remember that clearly. Now you're playing in church. Your father
Speaker 1: ran the church. Oh yeah, he was the pastor and
Speaker 1: of course an amazing singer as well, so music was
Speaker 1: really important. Yeah. Now, what was the relationship between church
Speaker 1: music and secular music in your house? Because your dad
Speaker 1: is a very big gospel singer. Yes, he's a very
Speaker 1: big gospel singer who also was born and raised in
Speaker 1: wins Or, Ontario. Canada, so he was right across the
Speaker 1: tunnel from Detroit. So there was so much music in gospel.
Speaker 1: Of course the Whinings and Cluck Sisters, but Stevie and
Speaker 1: all of that stuff that was happening as well. So
Speaker 1: there was a high appreation for music in the house
Speaker 1: and it was almost like you could listen to it
Speaker 1: because not on Sundays. We weren't allowed to listen to
Speaker 1: secular music on Sundays on the radio. It would had
Speaker 1: to be gospel music. But one of my dad's favorite
Speaker 1: singers was Anita Baker. I remember Michael Jackson and Prince
Speaker 1: and Stevie and Whitney Houston. I remember hearing that stuff
Speaker 1: in the household too, here and there. You know. One
Speaker 1: of your dad's big hits, let It Rain, Yes, which
Speaker 1: he did after Katrina. He does a little purple rain
Speaker 1: in this A little purple rain. Yeah. I used to try.
Speaker 1: I used to travel with him as he ministered, you know,
Speaker 1: and did revivals and stuff. We would go full purple
Speaker 1: rain on there. So it was all right. Yeah, So
Speaker 1: that's what I mean by the influence was always there.
Speaker 1: My dad is a musician, so you know, as a musician,
Speaker 1: you can't pick and choose what's good and bad. I
Speaker 1: think it became more of an issue if you decided
Speaker 1: to be a recording artist doing that. You know, once
Speaker 1: you decided, oh, I'm gonna be a secular artist, that
Speaker 1: is kind of when you started to get some pushback. Okay,
Speaker 1: and did you get pushed back from him? I did. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Initially I got pushed back because I was a very
Speaker 1: young songwriter. So I think for a preacher's kid, it
Speaker 1: always comes off as rebellion at first. You know, he's
Speaker 1: just trying to go against what we're doing. You're a PK.
Speaker 1: I'm a p K. Yeah, I'm a PK. But for me,
Speaker 1: it was much purer than that, and it was coming
Speaker 1: from a real place. And I think once they realized
Speaker 1: it wasn't like a rebellious phase, they became like my
Speaker 1: number one supporters. It wasn't this is the family business. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I felt that pressure initially. I was it's me and
Speaker 1: my two sisters. I'm the only boy. I'm his namesake.
Speaker 1: You know. The jais for Junior, you know, so it
Speaker 1: was almost like that path was written out for me.
Speaker 1: I mean, it was like this is yours, you know,
Speaker 1: But for me, I didn't want that, and my dad
Speaker 1: never quite put that pressure on me. It was more
Speaker 1: coming from everybody else members, or like just in general,
Speaker 1: because my dad was known outside of just our church.
Speaker 1: Of course, he traveled all around the world, and I
Speaker 1: think everybody just assumed that. So I felt the pressure
Speaker 1: from everywhere. But internally, I think my dad saw something
Speaker 1: in me and saw that I was going to be different,
Speaker 1: and he eventually empowered me to do that. He came around,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, big time. I don't know the gospel style
Speaker 1: so well, is there a lot of Detroit gospel and
Speaker 1: what your dad did? Oh yeah, what's Detroit gospel? What's
Speaker 1: New Orleans gospel? I think New Orleans gospel always felt
Speaker 1: like New Orleans music in general. It was I think
Speaker 1: the blues and the jazz of all of that was
Speaker 1: all mixed. In Detroit at that time when I was
Speaker 1: growing up, was always kind of ahead of the game.
Speaker 1: I mean, when you talk about them, like the Clark's Sisters, Twinkie,
Speaker 1: who was the producer and one of the lead singers
Speaker 1: of The Clark's Sisters, it sounded like Stevie Wonder. It
Speaker 1: just had gospel lyrics. So they were pushing that line
Speaker 1: of it feeling like what current music was doing. She
Speaker 1: said she got that song from like master blaster, you know,
Speaker 1: but it's saying do mean that day name way, So
Speaker 1: it was like very modern, you know, for that time
Speaker 1: in New Orleans, I think was still in the you know,
Speaker 1: someone in a traditional sense. Everybody says, well, it's a
Speaker 1: gospel piano player. I don't really know what that means.
Speaker 1: People say, well, this is the gospel scale. I think
Speaker 1: that's just the scale. Everybody uses this, I think maybe
Speaker 1: gift and curse. But because I didn't learn music, I
Speaker 1: can't relate to any of that. I don't I don't
Speaker 1: even know scales, so I don't you know, you don't
Speaker 1: know any scales. I mean, I don't know what they are.
Speaker 1: You know, I know, but and I know that's a
Speaker 1: g major scale, but I don't know what a gospel
Speaker 1: scale is. I mean, I guess some people would look
Speaker 1: down on that, you know, which is there was some purists,
Speaker 1: you know. I have a weird relationship with some purists
Speaker 1: because I think the genius is being able to do it,
Speaker 1: you know, without being taught. I think that before there
Speaker 1: was notation, somebody had to play it to write it.
Speaker 1: And I think somewhere along the line notation became higher
Speaker 1: than being able to do it. But I take pride
Speaker 1: in the fact that it came through me. It comes
Speaker 1: through me, and that it's a gift that was given
Speaker 1: to me. I'm in a huge pop band, you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying, Just like, I just play music whatever
Speaker 1: the moment calls for. So I don't really get into
Speaker 1: that or I'm not even sure what that means exactly.
Speaker 1: Of course, I can play church music because that is
Speaker 1: my foundation, you know, but I don't know that I
Speaker 1: would consider myself a gospel piano play. Well, your your
Speaker 1: friend John Batigue, Yeah, he went to juid he wants
Speaker 1: to Juilliard. Yes, so you can just say to him, yeah,
Speaker 1: I didn't have to do that. I mean, listen, I
Speaker 1: think those things and it depends where you're taking it, right.
Speaker 1: I mean, he's able to score soul and like do
Speaker 1: all these amazing things. You know, these these different things
Speaker 1: are tools for different paths, and he's undoubtedly a genius.
Speaker 1: I mean when he sits at this piano, yes he
Speaker 1: learned the notes, but you can't teach what he does.
Speaker 1: I remember, you know a friend of mine who actually
Speaker 1: was who did go to Berkeley and came to start
Speaker 1: playing with me. He would tell me stuff like that's
Speaker 1: wrong or you playing that wrong, and I was like,
Speaker 1: you know what do you There's no such thing, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean? And he had to eventually learn that.
Speaker 1: But I do think, yeah, because I don't know. It
Speaker 1: allows me to not know what the boundaries are supposed
Speaker 1: to be. And also the things that I listened to,
Speaker 1: I mean, when you talk about Stevie or you talk
Speaker 1: about Quincy, they would have different choices, you know, And
Speaker 1: these are the things that I that I grew up
Speaker 1: paying attention to the Beatles as well. I mean when
Speaker 1: you talk about like different chords and different structures, those
Speaker 1: guys they were they were all about it. Can you
Speaker 1: show me, and maybe this will probably help listeners. You've
Speaker 1: done a couple great versions of How Deep Is Your Love? Yeah,
Speaker 1: And a lot of your music is like this, including
Speaker 1: your gospel music. Your gospel music sounds like love songs.
Speaker 1: Your love song sound like gospel music, which is always nice.
Speaker 1: It was because he talking about God or you gotta listen. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So can you just show me when you probably heard
Speaker 1: that song growing up in the ears because it was
Speaker 1: on radio when you sat down to say, okay, I'm
Speaker 1: going to try and play. What was that process? Yea,
Speaker 1: it was so crazy. Is My sister and I used
Speaker 1: to transform songs from I mean, Annie was our favorite
Speaker 1: movie growing up, so I would always always already hear
Speaker 1: those songs a certain way like so, bgs are you
Speaker 1: I really need to? Right? And for me, I heard
Speaker 1: it a deep bits your life, I really mean to
Speaker 1: that's church right there? Okay, stop there? What's the church
Speaker 1: about it? Because you just don't really that's where I
Speaker 1: That's why I hear that voicing. When I say church,
Speaker 1: I mean the voicing of it, because I could have
Speaker 1: easily said because yeah, right, but I said, you know,
Speaker 1: it's just some voicings that I mean, some people call
Speaker 1: it church, some people call it soul. I hear it
Speaker 1: that way in my head, and they're probably vocal lines originally, right,
Speaker 1: It's like a choir sound almost as far as what
Speaker 1: what you were just playing. Yeah, I mean, yeah, that
Speaker 1: chord right there is like you know, I think you
Speaker 1: I use that a lot, like a dominant um. But
Speaker 1: I hear those voicings, those harmonies. That's a very cost
Speaker 1: thing as well. Yeah, wow, did you ever hear from
Speaker 1: Robin gibb or I just very good. Pardon right, yeah,
Speaker 1: I did well. I heard from the social media account. Okay,
Speaker 1: I talked to somebody, but no, I got word that
Speaker 1: they loved that version, and I'm I'm honored. Man. It
Speaker 1: was always one of my favorite songs and it was
Speaker 1: a last minute decision to record it. It became one
Speaker 1: of I have to play that now. You know. You
Speaker 1: recorded that on Ze on Gumbo. It's on Gumbo and
Speaker 1: then Gumbo Unplugged with Yebba, and then I did it
Speaker 1: on the Piano album again with Alex Eisley, a totally different,
Speaker 1: broken down piano version, yeah, which is a great great
Speaker 1: Your whole piano record is Oh, thank you man, it's fabulous.
Speaker 1: We have to take a quick break, but we'll be
Speaker 1: right back with more from Bruce Headlam and PJ Mortin.
Speaker 1: We're back with more from Bruce Heatham's conversation with PJ Martin.
Speaker 1: Did you study a lot of the traditional New Orleans players?
Speaker 1: You remind me of Alan Tussant maybe because you're a songwriter, yes,
Speaker 1: and you accompany a lot of people. I was a
Speaker 1: church kid, right, so I missed a lot of that
Speaker 1: and because I didn't read, I didn't go through the
Speaker 1: traditional jazz path in New Orleans. You know, it kind
Speaker 1: of made me an outcast actually growing up there, because
Speaker 1: I didn't fit into any New Orleans box. Really, Alan
Speaker 1: Tucsont later on in life became a blueprint for me
Speaker 1: because he represented what I wanted to be, you know,
Speaker 1: which was New Orleans through and through, but really lend
Speaker 1: my hand outside of New Orleans as well in a
Speaker 1: big way. The way he had a studio in New
Speaker 1: Orleans that was all his own, you know, it was
Speaker 1: a blueprint for me. And you're right, the way he
Speaker 1: was a producer for a lot of different artists is
Speaker 1: how I saw myself. So Alan Tussant was He was
Speaker 1: the person I looked to to say that's what I
Speaker 1: want to be, But that came later on in life.
Speaker 1: He was a couple of generations ahead of me. But no,
Speaker 1: I didn't. I didn't study in that way. I was
Speaker 1: studying gospel musicians and then I got when like Chick Carea.
Speaker 1: And for me, though although I was a musician, I
Speaker 1: was always drawn to the songs. It was always the
Speaker 1: songs over the plan, over the singing. So I never
Speaker 1: really studied outside of chick trying to learn Spain. I
Speaker 1: never really studied keys that way. I studied songwriters. So
Speaker 1: I was drawn to Stevie of course, Like that's what
Speaker 1: started it all for me. Do you remember what the
Speaker 1: song or album was with him? I do. I don't
Speaker 1: remember if it was an album, but a friend of
Speaker 1: mine gave me a cassette tape and I knew I'm
Speaker 1: an eighties baby, right, so I knew I just called
Speaker 1: to say I love you and you know, part time
Speaker 1: lover when I was you know, I knew those songs,
Speaker 1: but I hadn't heard that early voice and it was
Speaker 1: I ain't never dreamed You're leaving somebody that song. I
Speaker 1: can remember playing that cassette tape and hearing that and
Speaker 1: like my mind just like, how does why is this
Speaker 1: making me feel this way? You know? And soon after
Speaker 1: he gave me Donnie Live, Donnie Hathaway Live. It seemed
Speaker 1: like that was happening all like back to back to back,
Speaker 1: and my lad, I don't remember how much there was
Speaker 1: a break in it. But then I heard the Beatles
Speaker 1: and I'm like, we like, what are these melodies and
Speaker 1: how are they saying the same thing? But a different way.
Speaker 1: And then that got me to James Taylor somehow. Actually
Speaker 1: was watching an Awards show and they were honoring him
Speaker 1: and they were playing Fire and Rain as he was
Speaker 1: walking up, and I was like, what is that? You
Speaker 1: really were a church kid. You hadn't heard James Taylor.
Speaker 1: I hadn't heard James Taylor, and I knew the big stuff,
Speaker 1: you know, but like it was a different mind as
Speaker 1: a songwriter. It was like I started to want us
Speaker 1: do that. How wild were you when you heard Stevie
Speaker 1: wondering Donnie Hathaway? That was like twelve. Somebody gave me
Speaker 1: that stuff at twelve. Like again, I had heard Stevie
Speaker 1: and he was just a part of it, you know.
Speaker 1: I hadn't heard Donnie actually, but that was about twelve
Speaker 1: or thirteen. The Beatles my mom told me stories because
Speaker 1: my name's Paul, and my little sister was born and
Speaker 1: she got a Lullaby CD and it had Hey Jude
Speaker 1: on there. So I was really young at that time.
Speaker 1: I was probably seven, but I didn't really get to
Speaker 1: the Beatles until later. So what was it like when
Speaker 1: you finally met Stevie Wonder And how did you meet
Speaker 1: Stevie wonder So like Matt in person, there were a
Speaker 1: couple of like quick ones. Remer Kirk Franklin is the
Speaker 1: first person that introduced me to him in person, but
Speaker 1: that was really quick. And then twenty thirteen, I had
Speaker 1: a song called Only One that I wanted him to
Speaker 1: play harmonica and didn't know him at all. But I
Speaker 1: just was like, you know, I'm just gonna try stout
Speaker 1: to a drummer friend of mine, Teddy, who was played
Speaker 1: for him, and he hooked me up with a stylus
Speaker 1: of his who happened to be from New Orleans and
Speaker 1: it happened to be familiar with me, so she was
Speaker 1: down to get him the song. If you can get
Speaker 1: it to him, that's I mean, that's it's two things.
Speaker 1: He's got to want to do it and you gotta
Speaker 1: be able to get it to you know. But it's
Speaker 1: not like you can sell him on the idea of
Speaker 1: this being a good career move. Yeah, you know, it's
Speaker 1: like he just gotta want to do yeah. Yeah, man, Stevie,
Speaker 1: I'm telling you, if you just do this one, it's
Speaker 1: gonna take you to the top. You know. It was
Speaker 1: none of that. I feel like he heard some of
Speaker 1: himself in it and was down and he cut harmonica
Speaker 1: on it. That still hadn't met him in person. Then
Speaker 1: we were on a plane and I didn't know he
Speaker 1: was sitting behind me and I went to the restroom
Speaker 1: and Stevies comes behind me like meaning to use the
Speaker 1: restroom too, and I turned around like, Stevie, it's it's PJ.
Speaker 1: You just did my song and he was like, oh,
Speaker 1: I love that song. And we we connected then and
Speaker 1: that was special, but it didn't really turn into a
Speaker 1: full relationship until maybe three years ago. He invited me
Speaker 1: to do toys for Todds his Christmas thing, and we
Speaker 1: did a song together and we really started to build.
Speaker 1: Then after my album Gumbo first began, he told me
Speaker 1: love this song. He told me he wished that he
Speaker 1: wrote that song, which is, you know, I don't need
Speaker 1: any more compliments in life. That's it, you know, that's
Speaker 1: it for me. And so now we have a bond
Speaker 1: that is and I'm not over it. But he told me,
Speaker 1: like you can call me like you don't have to,
Speaker 1: you know, we're friends. I'm like, you're Stevie wonder though,
Speaker 1: you know, it's like more than I ever dreamed. This
Speaker 1: is that's the biggest that's the biggest thing I ever dreamed.
Speaker 1: So it's amazing. Have you ever talked about songwriting with him?
Speaker 1: We talk about it in a way we more talk
Speaker 1: about life. But what's fascinating about Stevie to me is
Speaker 1: his recall I don't have that, I can't I got.
Speaker 1: If I don't record it in my phone and like
Speaker 1: have a voice note, I'll forget something great. He'll recall
Speaker 1: ten songs that he's never put out that he's got
Speaker 1: and he'll just run through them. I think it just
Speaker 1: speaks to his genius. You know that he can hold
Speaker 1: all of this stuff full songs and me will play
Speaker 1: them for me. But we never really talked about technique
Speaker 1: or anything. I mean, I think he just appreciates what
Speaker 1: I do, and he tells me. He's not bashed for
Speaker 1: about telling me how much he supports me. I think
Speaker 1: that in general. I don't think that's unique to me.
Speaker 1: He's very encouraging to artists and writers that he believes in.
Speaker 1: Now you almost you've done a lot of producing. I
Speaker 1: think he wouldn't your first Grammy for India Aria, I think, yeah,
Speaker 1: well not technically, so I had to I had to
Speaker 1: come back. I thought the Grammy rules. I didn't get
Speaker 1: a trophy for that album. I wrote and produced on
Speaker 1: the album and it won Best R and B Album,
Speaker 1: But I didn't produce a certain percentage of the album,
Speaker 1: so I didn't get a trophy for it. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I was a part of this Grammy Award winning album
Speaker 1: my junior year in college. Yeah, wow, did you take
Speaker 1: time off from college for that? No? I went right.
Speaker 1: It made me want to quit. The only thing that
Speaker 1: got me through is I had one semester left. I
Speaker 1: finished more House in three and a half years, and
Speaker 1: that was my junior year. The first semester and I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, this is all I want to do, Like,
Speaker 1: I got to get out of here. But I had
Speaker 1: like one more semester, something like, let me just knocked
Speaker 1: this out. That's the best summer job ever. Oh, for sure,
Speaker 1: I was mowing one. You were winning Grammy, Man, it
Speaker 1: was amazing. I moved off campus my second year and
Speaker 1: met Indi re right there in the apartments we were
Speaker 1: living in. Well, her brother was living there, and she
Speaker 1: happened to be up there and heard me playing the piano,
Speaker 1: and we started talking about Stevie Wonder and she hadn't
Speaker 1: put out her first motown record yet, and she let
Speaker 1: me hear that, and so when the other one came around,
Speaker 1: we were friends by then, and I had this little
Speaker 1: song and played it for and she loved it. And
Speaker 1: the restless history and you'd never produced before that. I
Speaker 1: had produced some gospel stuff, yeah, because my first placement
Speaker 1: as a producer was when I was sixteen. Yeah, fifteen,
Speaker 1: I did the song sixteen it came out, and so
Speaker 1: I kind of was used to it a little bit,
Speaker 1: but that, in my mind, that is the first thing
Speaker 1: that I truly produced. But then after a couple of
Speaker 1: your own albums, you were gonna you were gonna stop
Speaker 1: doing solo stuff? Yeah? Why what was going on? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Right before Gumbo, I was just Gumbo was going to
Speaker 1: be the last thing I think for me. I had
Speaker 1: been pushing independently for a long time, and you know,
Speaker 1: it's an uphill battle. I mean, it can be, you know,
Speaker 1: and I just felt like I didn't necessarily fit in.
Speaker 1: I would give these songs, I could write songs for
Speaker 1: other people, but when I did my presentation, it was
Speaker 1: just kind of like the labels didn't get it. You know.
Speaker 1: We went to every label at one time and couldn't
Speaker 1: get signed, and I just felt like, all right, listen.
Speaker 1: I was in my room five a few years by then,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, you know, this is great. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm fine. You know, I was still producing, right, and
Speaker 1: I think part of it was I just wasn't successful
Speaker 1: at being myself or it just hadn't come together, you know.
Speaker 1: So then I signed a major deal. I was with
Speaker 1: Young Money, with Lil Wayne and Universal, and that was cool.
Speaker 1: It was a learning experience. But then that didn't work out.
Speaker 1: So I asked to get off the label and I
Speaker 1: was India again, and I'm like, you know what, I'm
Speaker 1: leaving La and I'm leaving all of this, like I
Speaker 1: just you know, so Gumbo kind of was my I
Speaker 1: was just disarmed, you know. I wasn't thinking about anything
Speaker 1: business wise, radio, pr, none of that. I just was like,
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna make what I want to make, which
Speaker 1: I realized now that that's what was missing, just me
Speaker 1: overthinking some things. Yeah, I was making good songs and
Speaker 1: doing all of this, but I wasn't fully connecting because
Speaker 1: I had those blocks, and I wasn't creating fully in
Speaker 1: a free way, not since my very first album. It
Speaker 1: just put me back where I was supposed to be,
Speaker 1: I guess, because that's when a lot of the more
Speaker 1: recent success started. Yeah, and you've got your own studio now, yeah,
Speaker 1: I got on Yeah, yeah, Morn Records. Yeah. But you're
Speaker 1: still producing for other people, and you're still producing and
Speaker 1: we just snow A Legra shout out to snow A Legra.
Speaker 1: She was just up at the Grammys for a song
Speaker 1: that I helped write. Now I'm going to continue to
Speaker 1: do that. I just love other voices, I love other expressions,
Speaker 1: So I always want to lend my hand when when
Speaker 1: I can add something. And you're going to restore Buddy
Speaker 1: Boone's help. Yes, yes, yes, it was a happy mistake
Speaker 1: that happened after Katrina. It was a house not far
Speaker 1: from my parents' church, literally steps away, so the church
Speaker 1: brought up most of the land after Katrina and happened
Speaker 1: to buy this house not knowing. No, we should explain
Speaker 1: who he is because yeah, oh yeah, yeah for sure,
Speaker 1: because that's that's part of where my passion comes from.
Speaker 1: Because I didn't know who he was growing up, unfortunately,
Speaker 1: and we all should. Buddy Bolden, the legend has it
Speaker 1: that he is the seed that planet jazz music. The
Speaker 1: story is that he was playing his horn too loud
Speaker 1: in the house, so his mom told him go outside.
Speaker 1: He goes on the stoop and plays it. The legend
Speaker 1: says you could hear him all the way like across town,
Speaker 1: and so a friend of his heard him playing and
Speaker 1: they formed the band that majority of the world says
Speaker 1: is the first time they heard jazz music. He died
Speaker 1: at a young age. He died mental illness. You know.
Speaker 1: There's a theory that he had a vitamin deficiency, is
Speaker 1: that right, which is very common apparently if he were poor,
Speaker 1: and that it wasn't you know, because people assumed to
Speaker 1: schizophrenia because I think he ended up an asylum, but
Speaker 1: they may have actually been breakdown. It may have been
Speaker 1: a nutritional Wow. Yeah, something so simple now right, YEA,
Speaker 1: like seemed complex then. But I just think his story
Speaker 1: is important. There's literally one picture of him that exists,
Speaker 1: no recordings, and we're still talking about him one hundred
Speaker 1: years later. So he did something, you know, King Oliver
Speaker 1: playing this band different people, right, that's right, and that
Speaker 1: these are the people who carried on his story. Um,
Speaker 1: So we got this house which was actually low income
Speaker 1: housing before Katrina wasn't nobody was making a big deal
Speaker 1: about it, which is probably why my parents didn't know. Um.
Speaker 1: So it's it's been sort of an uphill battle just
Speaker 1: because it was new for me. I was just excited
Speaker 1: about it, but never been in the nonprofit space, never
Speaker 1: had to raise money for anything. But this vision man
Speaker 1: is so important. It's the house that he actually lived in,
Speaker 1: and then there's an identical house right next to it,
Speaker 1: so I'm calling it the past house in the future house.
Speaker 1: So I want his actual home. The left side of
Speaker 1: it to be a small museum just the lineage of
Speaker 1: New Orleans, which I think is not only jazz but
Speaker 1: really American music. You know, our jazz didn't really turn
Speaker 1: into contemporary jazz. It turned into R and B with
Speaker 1: Fats and those guys, and I feel like Elvis was
Speaker 1: chasing Fats, you know, and became rock and roll, you know.
Speaker 1: So I just think that it's an important story to tell.
Speaker 1: So we want to do the museum, and then the
Speaker 1: right side where he actually lived, will be his house
Speaker 1: as it was lived in. And then the right house
Speaker 1: I want to make like an event center to continue
Speaker 1: that innovation. I want to teach everything from except performance really,
Speaker 1: because I think New Orleans has that cover it. But
Speaker 1: I want to teach the things that maybe left him
Speaker 1: to die broke, you know, teach publishing and teach songwriting,
Speaker 1: and teach engineering and law. So I'm really excited about it.
Speaker 1: It has taken much longer than I wanted it to,
Speaker 1: but I'm still inspired and still passionate about the project
Speaker 1: and can't wait to see it come to fruition Fully.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back after a break with more from
Speaker 1: PJ Martin and Bruce had them. We're back with the
Speaker 1: rest of Bruce Hethlem's conversation with PJ Martin. I do
Speaker 1: want to talk about this new album yea, Watch the Sun. Yeah,
Speaker 1: of course, tell me about the recording of this album.
Speaker 1: Tell me what you were thinking going into it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: while I wasn't really planning on doing an album, I
Speaker 1: just was coming off of a like crazy run. I mean,
Speaker 1: I just went back to back to back with music
Speaker 1: more than I ever had before. Actually, but it just
Speaker 1: was rolling. So I was rolling with it and then
Speaker 1: we got shut down. I was with my Room five
Speaker 1: in South America. In real time, the show started to
Speaker 1: get canceled. We had to fly back to the States
Speaker 1: and when we got back. Initially I had voice notes
Speaker 1: from like March twenty twenty. I was in this creative
Speaker 1: like it was just coming faster than I could even
Speaker 1: control it. And I got some music beds that actually
Speaker 1: ended up on this album two years later. But my
Speaker 1: laptop crashed like right after that, and I lost all
Speaker 1: that stuff. All that was the voice not he couldn't
Speaker 1: nobody could get it back. I got a lot of
Speaker 1: my files back, a lot of my drums back, but
Speaker 1: not those new songs that I was working on. It
Speaker 1: was just not saved yet. It was pretty pretty always
Speaker 1: back up for the musicians. Oh my god, please, yeah,
Speaker 1: I know this too, Like this is what I did,
Speaker 1: was it got bad and I probably could have recovered it.
Speaker 1: I went further than I should have and got this
Speaker 1: something offline to say that could save my files, and
Speaker 1: it just my computer did something I've never seen before.
Speaker 1: It was so bad. I was just desperate. What I
Speaker 1: realized was I needed to stop, like to stop, you know,
Speaker 1: and not do anything. It's okay, like I'm just you know,
Speaker 1: I say, I'm a recovering workaholic. So I took that
Speaker 1: time to really focus on family, focus on life, taught
Speaker 1: my two youngest how to ride bikes. I mean just
Speaker 1: just really, I was building bookcases and bikes and all
Speaker 1: kinds of stuff, you know. So I had these music
Speaker 1: beds because I wanted to start with just music, no lyrics.
Speaker 1: And I usually don't do that. I go pretty quick
Speaker 1: after I have music, I usually go and write it.
Speaker 1: But I wanted to be so intentional this time around,
Speaker 1: like more intentional than that. I've ever been, more honest
Speaker 1: and open than I've ever been, and so I took
Speaker 1: that time to just have the music beds. Then we
Speaker 1: moved into Gumbo Studios and I started to build it
Speaker 1: even more, still music no lyrics. And maybe about a
Speaker 1: year after that, I told my engineer, Reggie, that we
Speaker 1: should find a studio where we could lived there. So
Speaker 1: you just built a studio and then you wanted to
Speaker 1: use the studio else because you know, I don't know
Speaker 1: if people realize, but when we were all shut down,
Speaker 1: we lost all these gigs, but it was replaced with
Speaker 1: live streams and like more interviews than ever really because
Speaker 1: you were there, you know. So I feel like I
Speaker 1: had to. I wasn't away enough, you know, Like I
Speaker 1: needed and away from the away. So I was like,
Speaker 1: I just need to go away. And we discovered studio
Speaker 1: in the country in Buggaloosa, Louisiana, where Stevie did Secret
Speaker 1: Life of Plants. There's a Frankie Beverly and May's album
Speaker 1: that was made out there. Here, there's an unreleased Betty
Speaker 1: Davis record that was recorded out there. But this amazing
Speaker 1: studio that was built in the seventies, and there's a
Speaker 1: house on the grounds that you can stay at. Me
Speaker 1: and the band, and this was the first time we
Speaker 1: were even starting to you know. I remember we had
Speaker 1: to test to go out there. First time we were
Speaker 1: around people without mat ask and so that was freeing
Speaker 1: in itself. And this place was so magical. It just
Speaker 1: made me want to write immediately, like that's all I
Speaker 1: wanted to do. I threw myself into it, and this
Speaker 1: is the first time I started to write some lyrics.
Speaker 1: I feel like I had finally processed these things I
Speaker 1: want to say, and we just started building. I had
Speaker 1: the band, so that how it would go is I'd
Speaker 1: wake up because I wake up pretty early every day,
Speaker 1: and go in myself, go to piano right, come up
Speaker 1: with some ideas and then I called the band in
Speaker 1: to hit the parts that I wanted to hit, and
Speaker 1: first week of us being there is majority of the
Speaker 1: album as far as sonically, Yeah, a couple of the vocals.
Speaker 1: I ended up cutting vocals. Later Reggie and I went again.
Speaker 1: I mean we did three four trips to the country.
Speaker 1: I didn't fully started singing, and to the second time
Speaker 1: it just wasn't experienced. It felt magical and it felt
Speaker 1: deeper than just records. At this point, it's like I
Speaker 1: really was by being as honest and authentic as I
Speaker 1: was trying to be. I think it's going to connect
Speaker 1: to people. I've seen it that I've let people here now,
Speaker 1: but I think it's going to connect in another way.
Speaker 1: After you made as much music, if as I made,
Speaker 1: It's almost like that was all that was left at
Speaker 1: this point was for me to get, you know, just
Speaker 1: give you more of myself because the type of songwriter
Speaker 1: I am, there's always myself in it. But I also
Speaker 1: in general bring other people's stories. I'm a people watch her,
Speaker 1: you know, but this time was a lot more specific
Speaker 1: to me. Can you play a little bit of a
Speaker 1: song that came out of that first week? Yeah? Well
Speaker 1: please don't walk away. I said this on the Piano album,
Speaker 1: just as a passing thing, where when I before I
Speaker 1: sang to my wife, I said that, you know, this
Speaker 1: has been like the toughest either I said year or
Speaker 1: you know, it's been a rough period for us. But
Speaker 1: that was true. We had really gone through some challenges,
Speaker 1: you know, been married thirteen years, that married really young.
Speaker 1: So please don't walk Away was literally the first song
Speaker 1: I think I wrote lyrics to, um um, I just
Speaker 1: do the verse. It's never gone this far, it's never
Speaker 1: been this bad, But I won't lady to raise the
Speaker 1: memories of good times we've had. Oh and even with
Speaker 1: everything that we've been going through, Oh, you never have
Speaker 1: to ask. I still choose you. Oh girl, please don't
Speaker 1: walk way from my love. Please don't oh wait, from
Speaker 1: my love. Yeah. Yeah, that was the first one. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I hope it did the tray it did. She didn't
Speaker 1: walk away all as well. We're good now. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: can't write another one, so I was fabulous, right. Yeah.
Speaker 1: What's crazy is we were in a good space then,
Speaker 1: like we had. It's almost like I have to process
Speaker 1: it and go through it first, uh, in order to
Speaker 1: talk about what I can't really talk about what's happening
Speaker 1: while it's happening. Usually, Yeah, but a lot of the
Speaker 1: album's very heartfelt, very vulnerable. I would say, yeah, very
Speaker 1: much about breakups or the possibility of breakups. It's a
Speaker 1: tough album. Sure when you sat down, you know, you
Speaker 1: play that for your band and then you don't write music,
Speaker 1: So how do you arrange it with them? Yeah? Well, thankfully,
Speaker 1: I mean, well I do have you know, Berkeley graduates
Speaker 1: with me and stuff. So but but thankfully all my
Speaker 1: guys around me are also church cats the way I
Speaker 1: grew up, So we communicate in a different way. It's
Speaker 1: not through you know, sheet music, is through just talking.
Speaker 1: You know. I can call out two or five or one,
Speaker 1: you know, or four, so I know enough where we
Speaker 1: can communicate musically. It's not because I didn't go through school.
Speaker 1: It's not that I don't understand the movements of things.
Speaker 1: We just kind of have come up with our own language.
Speaker 1: I guess it's a shame they had to go to Berkeley. Really, yeah,
Speaker 1: it takes them so long. So what's next for you?
Speaker 1: I am going to get on the road though I
Speaker 1: missed that so much. We just did a few shows
Speaker 1: and I can't wait to play this new stuff live.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's made for it. I thought of the
Speaker 1: album in that way. The album just continues like my shows,
Speaker 1: do you know. It's not really a lot of break
Speaker 1: in there. They just flow from one to the other.
Speaker 1: And I just can't wait to present that to everybody.
Speaker 1: And really it's the community. I think it's me that church,
Speaker 1: growing up in church and having that weekly community where
Speaker 1: you share this experience. I just can't wait to share
Speaker 1: this experience of this really honest music with my supporters.
Speaker 1: So that's next. I'm scoring an animated film right now. Okay,
Speaker 1: what's that like? It's fun man, well in my case
Speaker 1: because the director is a fan of mine, Like, you know,
Speaker 1: he really already digs what I do. I imagine it
Speaker 1: could be frustrating when somebody is just you're just put
Speaker 1: in a position to do it. But this guy wants
Speaker 1: PJ song. So it's so cool because this story is
Speaker 1: so weird that it allows me to go places that
Speaker 1: I would never get to go in my own music.
Speaker 1: So it's like PJ doing weird, different, cool stuff. It's
Speaker 1: really exciting for me. I'm enjoying that process. So there's
Speaker 1: that there's some TV shows that I'm scoring as well.
Speaker 1: I like that side of it too, because my music
Speaker 1: is so visual that I like when I have to
Speaker 1: create two a visual it's pretty fun. So recovering workaholic. Yeah,
Speaker 1: in my in my sense, you know, even like this
Speaker 1: big tour, this is new for me, brand new for me.
Speaker 1: Where in the summer will do two weeks on, two
Speaker 1: weeks off, something I've never done in my life. But
Speaker 1: I understand now that just as much as I plan
Speaker 1: for these things, I have to actually plan for the
Speaker 1: other stuff that's important to me. So we'll see how
Speaker 1: that goes. But two weeks on, two weeks off is
Speaker 1: a big start for this recovering work. Okay, let's see
Speaker 1: how that works. We'll see. I'll check back in. Okay,
Speaker 1: it's been fabulous and the album is fast. Thank thank
Speaker 1: you so much for coming in. Thank you for having
Speaker 1: so beautiful and Pleasure's great album's retreat. Thanks to PJ.
Speaker 1: Morton for taking us through his incredible career as a
Speaker 1: solo musician and a sideline. We can hear all of
Speaker 1: our favorite PREJ Morton songs on a playlist at Broken
Speaker 1: record podcast dot com. Be sure to subscribe to our
Speaker 1: YouTube channel at YouTube dot com slash broken Record Podcast,
Speaker 1: where you can find all our new episodes. You can
Speaker 1: follow us on Twitter at broken Record. Broken Record is
Speaker 1: produced Helpful Lea Rose, Jason Gambrel, Beentaliday, Eric Sandler, and
Speaker 1: Jennifer Sanchez for engineering help from Nick chaf Our. Executive
Speaker 1: producer is Mia Lobell. Broken Record is a production of
Speaker 1: Pushkin Industries. If you like this show and others from Pushkin,
Speaker 1: consider subscribing to Pushkin Plus. Pushkin Plus is a podcast
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Speaker 1: for four ninety nine a month. Look for Pushkin Plus
Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts subscriptions, and if you'd like the show,
Speaker 1: please remember to share, rate, and review us on your
Speaker 1: podcast app or the music Expect any beats. I'm justin
Speaker 1: hedgment