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Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Sets podcast.

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Speaker 1: My guest today is Jeff Kenna, the Nitty Nitty Dirt band. Jeff,

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Speaker 1: good to have you on the podcast. Thanks Bob, happy

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Speaker 1: to be here. Man. So the band just released a

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Speaker 1: new album, Dirt. Does Dylan tell me the backstory? Why Dylan?

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Speaker 1: Why now? Well? Um, we we wanted to get into

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Speaker 1: the studio with this latest version, this latest lineup from

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Speaker 1: the band, and uh, we had not done any recording.

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Speaker 1: We thought, you know, we know, we talked about doing

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Speaker 1: a single source songwriter sort of you know, one source,

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Speaker 1: Bob Dylan in this case, and he was the name

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Speaker 1: that kept coming up. It just seemed a real natural,

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Speaker 1: uh spot, because he has a zillion songs and you

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Speaker 1: can go anywhere musically with his material. Um, so there

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Speaker 1: you go. That was kind of it. And we've we've

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Speaker 1: recorded some of us. We recorded you Ain't Going Nowhere

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Speaker 1: several years ago, which is one of our favorite Darling tunes.

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Speaker 1: Yeah that listen from the opening track on Sweetheart of

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Speaker 1: the Rodeo. Not enough people knew that back then, but

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Speaker 1: one of the great tracks. When are the great tracks? Absolutely? Okay,

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Speaker 1: So when you go to make a record today because

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Speaker 1: you've been in the business and excess of fifty years.

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Speaker 1: The old days, pre internet, you had to get a label.

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Speaker 1: They gave you the money. How did you do with

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Speaker 1: this time? This time? Actually, when we went into the studio,

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Speaker 1: we did not have the label. We just went and

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Speaker 1: took out a loan, you know, basically, and started recording.

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Speaker 1: We started recording this album. Wait wait, wait, what what

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Speaker 1: one sect? Did you literally take out a loan? No?

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Speaker 1: But okay, you'd ever know with people's finances, well, you know, Uh, no,

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Speaker 1: you don't. And we were lucky enough to have a

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Speaker 1: few bucks saved up from twenty nineteen. We actually started

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Speaker 1: recording this album uh in early March of and recorded

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Speaker 1: eight tracks. Jumped down the bus on marchall on March

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Speaker 1: eleven and played uh story. We jumped on the bus

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Speaker 1: on March tenth and played our first and last shows

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Speaker 1: of March eleventh. In March twelfth, that was it. Curtain

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Speaker 1: came down, end of story. We got guys that live

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Speaker 1: all over the country. There four of us live in Nashville,

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Speaker 1: but uh two of the two of the longtime guys,

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Speaker 1: Jimmy Fadden and Bob Carpenter. Bob lives in Los Angeles

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Speaker 1: and Jimmy lives in Sarasota, Florida. So then lockdown came

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Speaker 1: and that was it. We just sat for a while.

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Speaker 1: Ray Ray Kennedy, who's our producer, um and I'm sitting

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Speaker 1: in his studio right now. Uh he uh basically locked

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Speaker 1: the studio up as well. There was no activity. You know,

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Speaker 1: everybody kind of hunkered down, as they say, Okay, when

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Speaker 1: things started to loosen up, very specifically, when did you

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Speaker 1: get back in the studio. You know, I think I

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Speaker 1: think the first time I even came by the studio

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Speaker 1: was probably in you know, early summer of uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: we were all getting out and about, but it was,

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Speaker 1: you know, we were I don't know, we were pretty

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Speaker 1: careful about where we went. And Ray Ray had been

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Speaker 1: doing some work with Lucinda Williams he produces Lucinda and

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Speaker 1: and Steve Earle as well, and uh as as as

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Speaker 1: the summer started coming to a close, we started talking about,

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Speaker 1: you know, let's get back in there and listen to

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Speaker 1: these let's listen to him and we had the rough

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Speaker 1: mixes that we had done in early March, but we

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Speaker 1: we weren't sure if this album was ever again. We man,

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Speaker 1: we didn't know what was going on at all. Nobody

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Speaker 1: knew if they're ever gonna tour again, Nobody ever knew

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Speaker 1: if they were going to finish records that were you know,

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Speaker 1: in the process and the progress, and uh, we finally

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Speaker 1: got back in in I think guess it was fall

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Speaker 1: of and we started talking about The Times They Are Changing,

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Speaker 1: which we which was the last track we recorded in

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Speaker 1: the first batch of sessions, and it was like, well,

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Speaker 1: you know, let's finish that. It's all it's always timely,

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Speaker 1: it's it's one of Dylan's you know, best known, but

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Speaker 1: also just it's on point, always that tune, you know.

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Speaker 1: And that's when we started calling up our friends and

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Speaker 1: see if they wanted to come in and sang on

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Speaker 1: the song. So specifically who sang on I mean, I know,

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Speaker 1: but from my audience, who's sang on The Times They

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Speaker 1: Are Changing? Jason isbel Uh, the War Entreaty, Michael Trotter,

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Speaker 1: Jor and Tania Trotter, Um, Roseanne Cash, Steve Earle Uh

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Speaker 1: and my wife Matresa actually came in. Matraca Burd came

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Speaker 1: in and sang harmony with the track that we do

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Speaker 1: with Roseanne Okay, do you have ongoing relationships with all

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Speaker 1: those people or was that through Ray? How did those

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Speaker 1: people ultimately get on the record. It was it was

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Speaker 1: mostly just because I've known these folks. You know, I've

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Speaker 1: known Steve since the eighties when we got we both

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Speaker 1: we both kind of got to Nashville the same time

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Speaker 1: hit music Row in the early eighties. Steve roll Uh,

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Speaker 1: Roseanne I've known for a very long time. We've done

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Speaker 1: recording in the past. Um Uh, we're entreaty. Actually met

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Speaker 1: them um at Tell your RDE Bluegrass festival back in

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Speaker 1: Emmy Lou Harris introduced us and we hit it off

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Speaker 1: and we've been friends ever since. Jason Isabel I've known

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Speaker 1: for I guess I've known Jason for on ten years,

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Speaker 1: I think. So it was, you know, I I figured

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Speaker 1: that the appeal of the song would be enough, I

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Speaker 1: think to get them in the door. And they're they're

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Speaker 1: really generous, wonderful folks. Everybody that took part in the recording, Well,

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Speaker 1: that begs a question. But living in Nashville a long time,

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Speaker 1: you started in southern California. What's different about Nashville than

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Speaker 1: all these other music places. You make it sound like

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Speaker 1: everybody's living, you know, in the same little village and

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Speaker 1: they all come over. What's it really like, you know

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Speaker 1: before before COVID let's let's give that coffee up. Now

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Speaker 1: that's a good point. Um, well, i'll tell you. You know,

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Speaker 1: you and I have talked about this in the past.

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Speaker 1: But we started in southern California. We can go into

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Speaker 1: the sort of history of that later if you want.

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Speaker 1: But um, when we came up in the folk clubs

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Speaker 1: in the late sixties, there was a real community going on.

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Speaker 1: You know, all the folks that hung out at the

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Speaker 1: Ash Grove and the Troubuta or we would go to

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Speaker 1: each other's houses or apartments or back porches or whatever,

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Speaker 1: get out the guitars and start singing, you know, and

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Speaker 1: and you know, my my songwriter friends, we swapped songs

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Speaker 1: as as time went on and as people started becoming famous.

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Speaker 1: You know, uh, they've hit the road. We never see

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Speaker 1: each other. And Los Angeles says, you know, is a

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Speaker 1: much more you know, geographically spread out kind of scene.

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Speaker 1: So the little pockets of living up in the Hollywood Hills,

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Speaker 1: you know, Laurel Canyon, great example, gets used a lot better,

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Speaker 1: was a real deal. Um, that kind of change and

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Speaker 1: people started moving out to the valley or to the

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Speaker 1: beach or whatever, or they're just on a Jettera tour

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Speaker 1: bus somewhere. When I moved to Nashville in immediately it

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Speaker 1: was like, holy cow, this community thing really reminds me

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Speaker 1: of what it was like in l A in the

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Speaker 1: late sixties and early seventies. Um so, and I love

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Speaker 1: that and I still I still believe that that exists

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Speaker 1: to a large degree. You know, Okay, let's go back

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Speaker 1: to the record. So he decided to do Dylan, you

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Speaker 1: had certain trucks cut, you were finishing times. They are

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Speaker 1: a change, and did you have to do more recording?

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Speaker 1: And how did you ultimately choose is what songs to do?

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Speaker 1: The sonctuous is an interesting one. You know, his catalog

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Speaker 1: has hundreds of songs in it, and they're all great. Uh.

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Speaker 1: The the sort of acid test for us was if

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Speaker 1: we sounded good singing and playing them, you know, we started.

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Speaker 1: You know, there's so many of Dylan. So many of

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Speaker 1: Dylan's tunes to me sound great with an individual singing

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Speaker 1: them in terms of like cover land, um. And then

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Speaker 1: there are others that you know have maybe bigger, wider

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Speaker 1: chorus is more anthemic. Uh so we we know, we

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Speaker 1: just started breaking it down and we weren't you know,

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Speaker 1: we ended up with a period that really kind of

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Speaker 1: starts in the sixties and ends in like the mid

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Speaker 1: late seventies in his catalog. That wasn't by design. Those

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Speaker 1: were just the tunes that landed the best with us.

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Speaker 1: So we got in with you know, we got we

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Speaker 1: started with about eighties songs and by the time we

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Speaker 1: got to the studio, we whittled it down to about

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Speaker 1: thirty or forty. Then we started playing them and the

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Speaker 1: stuff again that that really you know, stuck to the

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Speaker 1: wall were the ones we stayed with. And so what

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Speaker 1: are some of your favorites on the album? Oh? Man,

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Speaker 1: my favorites. I mean it's really I love the times

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Speaker 1: they're changing. I gotta start with that. I mean that

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Speaker 1: that came out so great, and I love I love

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Speaker 1: the generational and and just you know that the just

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Speaker 1: you know, different voices coming from different different rooms and

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Speaker 1: it was just, I don't know, kill me. I'm very

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Speaker 1: fond of that. Uh. I shall be released with our

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Speaker 1: friends Larkin Poe, Rebecca and Megan Level. Those sisters are

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Speaker 1: just they're incredible and they came in and sang and

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Speaker 1: make and Megan also played lap steel guitar. Beautiful Job

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Speaker 1: Girl from the North Country, which features actually my son Jamie,

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Speaker 1: who's been in the band for you know, we got

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Speaker 1: the last year, but he started playing with us in Uh.

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Speaker 1: He sang lead on that, so you know, the father

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Speaker 1: son thing is deep. You know, we got the blood

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Speaker 1: harmony going. And I love that track. Ross Holmes, our

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Speaker 1: field player and Bob Carpenter, uh, who played accordion on

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Speaker 1: that track, just created this kind of Celtic cinematic landscape. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And I just I just love it for that reason.

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Speaker 1: And plus it's a great song. I love the tune

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Speaker 1: Country Pie, which is when I was surprised you did that,

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Speaker 1: because you know, nothing's really obscure, but that's not something

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Speaker 1: that comes to mind of the average person. No, it

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Speaker 1: does not. And but actually Bob Carpenter brought that up.

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Speaker 1: You know, I remembered it in passing from Nashville Skyline.

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Speaker 1: But it was one of those tunes like Randy Day

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Speaker 1: Women twelve and thirty five where they're just having a blast.

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Speaker 1: And he said, well, you know, if what if we

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Speaker 1: cut it, I don't know try to harken back to

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Speaker 1: the jug band days, which totally landed well with me

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Speaker 1: and Jimmy because we were the jug Me and Fat

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Speaker 1: and we were the drug band guys. And we ended

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Speaker 1: up recording it live in the studio. We sat around

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Speaker 1: one microphone and kind of moved in for our solos,

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Speaker 1: and it just was so much fun. It was. It

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Speaker 1: was really cool and I love it because it does

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Speaker 1: it sounds like jug band music with a little gypsy

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Speaker 1: jazz thrown in on the fiddle, the violin um, and

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Speaker 1: it's just it's a Dylan rob you know. He has

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Speaker 1: a great sense of humor, clearly, that's for sure. So

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Speaker 1: the album is done, how do you get a label involved?

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Speaker 1: That was? This is beyond, This is behind the scenes.

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Speaker 1: This is where guys like our manager, Brian Panics, and

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Speaker 1: our other manager. We've got three of them, Jason Hanky,

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Speaker 1: who's great, and Ken Levitan, who is that you know,

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Speaker 1: the head honcho over there at Victor Management. They put

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Speaker 1: their heads together and they sent around, They sent some

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Speaker 1: tunes around. We had a little amount a handful of

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Speaker 1: stuff that we had finished up, and uh, we ended

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Speaker 1: up with these folks up in New York called m

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Speaker 1: R I, which is interesting. We all went m A right,

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Speaker 1: that's perfect for a bunch of old Now is that

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Speaker 1: the m R I that's part of Megaphors? It is yep. Well,

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Speaker 1: Megaphord has got a long history of show of hard

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Speaker 1: rock stuff. I know, they did put out Sammy Kershaw Records, etcetera.

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Speaker 1: So so you make a deal with the m R I.

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Speaker 1: Needless to say, the landscape is completely different. There are

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Speaker 1: so many people playing. What are your expectations. Well, first off,

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Speaker 1: it's a partnership with our little imprint which is m

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Speaker 1: g dB Records. Um, we just you know, the fact

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Speaker 1: that they love the record really helped, you know, and

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Speaker 1: they want they pointed up Pony depth with some you

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Speaker 1: know promotion money and publicity money that really helped you know. Uh,

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Speaker 1: and they have a great distribution, uh team, So we're

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Speaker 1: really happy to be over there. It's funny my son Jamie,

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Speaker 1: who's like, you know, he and Ross Holmes are the

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Speaker 1: kids in our band. Um relative to all of us

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Speaker 1: especially they're uh, you know, Jamie is like m R.

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Speaker 1: I love that, you know, because they did the early

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Speaker 1: Metallica records, if I believe think you know, and it's

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Speaker 1: like this is so cool Dad, So yeah, I love that.

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Speaker 1: But they you know, they've they've done a bunch of stuff.

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Speaker 1: They I think they got there. You know, they got

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Speaker 1: their toes in the jam band world as well, and

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Speaker 1: all of it made sense. That's like, as you know,

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Speaker 1: anything goes in the world we live in. As far

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Speaker 1: as records, now, we've done it up and down every

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Speaker 1: which away, you know. So but it's it's just fun

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Speaker 1: to be putting out a record. Okay, let's go back

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Speaker 1: to the beginning. So you're born in Detroit, you end

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Speaker 1: up in Long Beach filling those details, Well, my dad

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Speaker 1: when I was eight years old, my dad was in

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Speaker 1: he started in the building car he was you know

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Speaker 1: that dad was several generations of Detroit guys. So he

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Speaker 1: was in a car business building them. Actually he was

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Speaker 1: an engineer and he was also an aeronautical engineer, so

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Speaker 1: he was like, you know, knew how to build an

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Speaker 1: airplane basically. So he got into the aircraft business. And

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Speaker 1: we moved to Phoenix in nineteen fifty when I was

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Speaker 1: eight years old and fifty five, and that was a

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Speaker 1: great place to grow up. I mean it was you know,

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Speaker 1: we were all like, you know, all the cowboys in

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Speaker 1: the movies and TV, and like there's all this desert

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Speaker 1: and sawaro cacti and cactuses and it was it was

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Speaker 1: really fun and you know, but it was kind of

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Speaker 1: like that period of my life was kind of like

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Speaker 1: being an army brat because but then my dad got

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Speaker 1: a job offer about six years later in uh In, Colorado,

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Speaker 1: So we moved to Littleton, Colorado, and uh he worked

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Speaker 1: for Martin Marietta back then, and then a couple of

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Speaker 1: years later he got offered a job with North American

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Speaker 1: Aircraft in uh. I believe they were based out of Downy, Um, California,

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Speaker 1: so home of the carpenters. And that's right exactly. And

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Speaker 1: I got some carpenter stories, but you don't need him.

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Speaker 1: Uh great folks, Uh, but he uh yes, So we

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Speaker 1: moved up. We picked up and left Colorado and moved

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Speaker 1: to kind of inland because I love the beach. But

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Speaker 1: we you know, the first morning I woke up in

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Speaker 1: Downy it was like, oh man, look at that fog,

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Speaker 1: look at that concrete. Where's the beach, where's the trees?

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Speaker 1: Because I just left Colorado, by the way, so I

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Speaker 1: was a little bummed out. Then we moved across town.

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Speaker 1: We were renting a house when we moved across town

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Speaker 1: to North Long Beach, and uh, I went to Jordan

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Speaker 1: High School, North Long Beach, California. Okay, filling in some details.

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Speaker 1: How many kids in the family. I had three brothers. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: well I had two more brothers. Sorry, And where were

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Speaker 1: you in the hierarchy? I was a middle kid, Okay.

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Speaker 1: With all that traveling, you know, either you end up

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Speaker 1: isolated as a kid, or you feel that you you

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Speaker 1: get the skill to fit in. And did you get

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Speaker 1: that skill? Did that help you ultimately in the music world? Well,

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Speaker 1: you know, first day of any new school for any

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Speaker 1: kid anywhere, I don't, you know, regardless of their social

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Speaker 1: skill set, it's tough, you know. Uh, But I think

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Speaker 1: I think the first day that I went to Jordan's

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Speaker 1: I met this kid named Bruce Kunkle, who ended up

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Speaker 1: being one of the founding members of the Dirt Band,

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Speaker 1: and we hit it off. In North Jordan High was

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Speaker 1: kind of sounds like a movie. I mean, it's it's

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Speaker 1: like Rebel without a cause. I think I think of

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Speaker 1: the I can't remember what was this lad? Was a

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Speaker 1: Jim Stark? Was that the name of the James Dean character.

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Speaker 1: I think it was. I want to say, I don't remember, yeah,

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Speaker 1: you know, and sorry, i'd look it up, but you know, anyways,

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Speaker 1: but I remember James Dean's character just come into that

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Speaker 1: new school, you know, and he's the outsider, and you

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Speaker 1: got kind of the you know, we'd call him the socias.

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Speaker 1: You know that the absolutely remember that you got. Okay,

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Speaker 1: now we're speaking the same language, Bob, the socials and

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Speaker 1: the greasers. And also throw in the surfers also, so

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Speaker 1: even though I'd never surfed, I became one. I became

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Speaker 1: a surfer, you know U And Bruce was one of

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Speaker 1: those kids. So we bonded. We started talking. It's like, hey, man,

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Speaker 1: you got a guitar, and yeah, I got a guitar.

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Speaker 1: I don't really know how to play it. This is

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Speaker 1: me talking to Bruce and he said, well I do.

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Speaker 1: So we were like also folkies. We love acoustic music.

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Speaker 1: So he showed me some chords and he showed me

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Speaker 1: where the chords went to, what part of a song,

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Speaker 1: and it was like the clouds parted. Man, it was

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Speaker 1: such a it was a huge moment for me. It

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Speaker 1: was an epiphany. And we you know, we became great pals.

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Speaker 1: Right then give us a year. This is nineteen sixty.

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Speaker 1: I think it started in the fall of sixty one, Okay,

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Speaker 1: and this is when the folk boom is really starting

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Speaker 1: to rage. Oh yeah, ultimately hooting Nanny on TV, etcetera. Okay,

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Speaker 1: so you start playing guitars with Bruce tell us the

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Speaker 1: next step in your musical evolution. We were like and

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Speaker 1: we were in the musical evolution. It was it was

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Speaker 1: kind of sample. I can't remember. Also, I had an

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Speaker 1: older brother, my brother Mike, and he would bring he

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Speaker 1: brought home at Kingston Trio Record and he brought home

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Speaker 1: he might have done that while we're still living in Littleton, Colorado,

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Speaker 1: kingson Tira Trio record, Uh, Peter, Paul and Mary. I

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Speaker 1: loved both of those groups. I mean they were then.

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Speaker 1: Joan Bayaz and Joan Bayez was like my gateway drug

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Speaker 1: because she was on Vanguard Records, and Vanguard Records always

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Speaker 1: advertised their other artists and their other releases on the

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Speaker 1: inner sleeve of the vinyl. So number one is I

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Speaker 1: love Jones voice, still love her voice. But she recorded

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Speaker 1: with a band called the Green Bar Boys, a great

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Speaker 1: bluegrass band. UH appeared on several several tracks on her records,

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Speaker 1: and that was like, man, I liked that music. That's

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Speaker 1: kind of cool. I've never really heard blue grass, so

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Speaker 1: she got me into that. But then I started looking

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Speaker 1: at these pictures and there's this guy Doc Watson on

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Speaker 1: the back of the record. Yeah, and there's Mississippi John

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Speaker 1: Hurt on the back of the record. And I'm like, oh,

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Speaker 1: both this is interesting, Claire, I think Clarence. Actually, I'm

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Speaker 1: trying to remember. There was another label called folk Ways,

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Speaker 1: which was another huge deal for us as folk puppies,

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Speaker 1: you know. Uh. That created kind of a deeper dive.

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Speaker 1: And then also Bruce and I weren't afraid to like

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Speaker 1: hit we neither of us had a driver's license at

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Speaker 1: this point, like fifteen. We weren't afraid like hitchhike down

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Speaker 1: to the Golden Bear in Huntington Beach was which was

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Speaker 1: a huge club in the sort of fledgling folk rock

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Speaker 1: and uh folk music, uh circuit, so we could see folks,

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Speaker 1: you know, or go all the way up to l

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Speaker 1: A and go to the Ash Grove, which was really

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Speaker 1: our hang as well. This is you can see people

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Speaker 1: like I got to sit ten ft away from Mississippi

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Speaker 1: John Hurt, you know, and watch that guy play when

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Speaker 1: I was sixteen, uh, and that was life changing for me.

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Speaker 1: Same deal with Doc Watson, same deal with Bill Monroe,

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Speaker 1: the New Law City Ramblers, you know down in long

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Speaker 1: A lot of those folks, oh Man, Sunny Terry and

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Speaker 1: Brownie McGhee two of my absolute favorites. A lot of

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Speaker 1: those folks would you know, play the ash Grove and

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Speaker 1: getting the car and drive down to Huntington's Beach and

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Speaker 1: play the Golden Bear as well. So you can see

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Speaker 1: him twice in the course of two or three weeks.

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Speaker 1: Lightning Hopkins, Merle Travis, it was it was man kid

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Speaker 1: in the candy store, and the irony was I mean,

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Speaker 1: I shouldn't say the irony, but that the interesting thing

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Speaker 1: for me as a kid, how fortunate we were, as

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Speaker 1: these surfer kids from l A getting to hear, getting

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Speaker 1: to have this experience that we didn't grow up in

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Speaker 1: Kentucky or in the Mississippi Delta or in the you know,

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Speaker 1: the hills in North Carolina and have those back porch experiences.

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Speaker 1: And yet there we were getting to see our heroes

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Speaker 1: up close. It was really great. Okay, so you're immersed

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Speaker 1: in the Sceme tell me more about your particular playing

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Speaker 1: and the Mason element of your career. Well, you know,

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Speaker 1: we at the tail end of my high school. Uh,

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Speaker 1: when I was a senior in high school, me and

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Speaker 1: my buddy Bruce in another couple of pals of mine

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Speaker 1: start had a jug band called the Illegitimate Jug Band

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Speaker 1: because we thought that was a cute name. Plus we

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Speaker 1: didn't have a joke. So okay. But for those of

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Speaker 1: us who were around back then, jug bands were a thing.

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Speaker 1: Of course on the East Coast you had the gym

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Speaker 1: Queskin jug Band and School Loving School Queskin was like

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Speaker 1: the Beatles. Okay, So explain for people who missed that

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Speaker 1: scene what a jug band was. Well, you know, musically,

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Speaker 1: you take a lot of the mountaineer roots, country blues

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Speaker 1: I'm talking about acoustic blues and ragtime music, and you

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Speaker 1: throw them all into a cattle kettle, you know, and

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Speaker 1: you at this gumbo. Uh. That's what jug band music

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Speaker 1: list us. And it was again the question jug band

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Speaker 1: were like they were so their imaginations were broad and wide,

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Speaker 1: and their talent was deep. I mean questing himself, great

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Speaker 1: guitar player, singer, Uh, Jeffrey Mulder, his future wife Maria

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Speaker 1: Dematto I believe her name was when she before they

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Speaker 1: got married yet Maria Mulder, Oh my gosh, Fritz Frisch, Richmond,

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Speaker 1: the guy that played upright, I mean sorry Washtub Base

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Speaker 1: and jugg Gregor jug player, uh mel Lyman on harmonica.

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Speaker 1: I mean, they were they were so good, just killed us.

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Speaker 1: So we learned a bunch of their tunes right away.

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Speaker 1: And then the Love and Spoonful came along, you know,

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Speaker 1: and there here here, these guys were writing their own

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Speaker 1: music and kind of you know, I mean, to me,

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Speaker 1: the two bands that I love the best in the

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Speaker 1: mid sixties American bands were the Birds on the West

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Speaker 1: Coast in the Spoonful on the East coast. They brought

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Speaker 1: it off from me and again me and Kunkle, you know,

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Speaker 1: we stuck out our thumbs and hitchhicked up to Hollywood

403
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Speaker 1: to see both the Birds and the Spoonful play at

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Speaker 1: this club called The Trip. That was an amazing experience

405
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Speaker 1: as well. You know, here's these kids, you know. A

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Speaker 1: year later, the Dirt Band were opening at the Golden

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Speaker 1: Bear for the Love of Spoonful, which is pretty cool, okay,

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Speaker 1: but you u you get together with two friends and

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Speaker 1: you form a band under what the impossible drug being,

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Speaker 1: if I remember correctly, and take it up from there

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Speaker 1: as the old legitimate jug band. But then, you know,

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Speaker 1: and a couple of months later, I'm going to college,

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Speaker 1: which was really brief Long Beach Community Community College, which

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Speaker 1: we call a long was Long Beach City College. We

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Speaker 1: all call it Long Beach Shitty College because you know

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Speaker 1: it made sense. Uh. And first semester, you know, I

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Speaker 1: spent more time sitting on the common with my acoustic guitar,

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Speaker 1: hanging out with these folks that are really just meeting there.

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Speaker 1: You know. Uh, it was so you know, it was

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Speaker 1: like a snapshot of of young folkies sitting on the

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Speaker 1: lawn ditching school. And I met this guy named Ralph

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Speaker 1: Barr And I met a kid named Les Thompson. I

423
00:25:21,520 --> 00:25:24,480
Speaker 1: met a kid named Jimmy Fadden Bruce Kunkle. By the way,

424
00:25:24,480 --> 00:25:27,160
Speaker 1: it was going to another school because he got better

425
00:25:27,200 --> 00:25:30,080
Speaker 1: grades than me. He went to Long Beach State College. Um,

426
00:25:31,400 --> 00:25:37,760
Speaker 1: and uh, so here's Bruce Bruce across town. But Ralph

427
00:25:37,800 --> 00:25:41,560
Speaker 1: and Les and Jimmy and I'm leaving somebody out jeus h,

428
00:25:42,520 --> 00:25:46,920
Speaker 1: it'll come to me. Uh anyway, so we're sitting around

429
00:25:46,920 --> 00:25:49,080
Speaker 1: and we're talking about where do you guys hang out. Well,

430
00:25:49,080 --> 00:25:52,720
Speaker 1: there's this guitar store in Lung Beach called McCabe's, and

431
00:25:52,720 --> 00:25:54,480
Speaker 1: there were two of them, the famous one that you're

432
00:25:54,640 --> 00:25:56,880
Speaker 1: you know, which is of the San Monica But yeah,

433
00:25:56,960 --> 00:25:58,639
Speaker 1: and there were there were two. At one point there

434
00:25:58,640 --> 00:26:00,760
Speaker 1: were three of them. There was one that was in

435
00:26:00,800 --> 00:26:02,680
Speaker 1: the Ash Grove and I think they lived they lived

436
00:26:02,680 --> 00:26:04,560
Speaker 1: in the True Bodover for a little while, and the

437
00:26:04,600 --> 00:26:07,880
Speaker 1: one that's been in Santa Monica forever. And there's Long

438
00:26:07,920 --> 00:26:11,399
Speaker 1: Beach McCabe. So we started hanging out after school or

439
00:26:11,480 --> 00:26:15,159
Speaker 1: ditching school and hanging out at McCabe's. And you know,

440
00:26:15,400 --> 00:26:18,399
Speaker 1: they were the guys. The proprietors were really kind to

441
00:26:18,480 --> 00:26:20,760
Speaker 1: us and let us drink their coffee and sit around

442
00:26:20,760 --> 00:26:23,320
Speaker 1: and pull guitars off the wall, and we all learned

443
00:26:23,359 --> 00:26:27,840
Speaker 1: a few skills as guitar repairman as well. So we're

444
00:26:27,880 --> 00:26:30,040
Speaker 1: sitting around and we're going, well, we got a bunch

445
00:26:30,080 --> 00:26:33,240
Speaker 1: of guys, why don't we have a band? Why not

446
00:26:33,280 --> 00:26:36,080
Speaker 1: start a band? Was like, well, none of us really

447
00:26:36,119 --> 00:26:38,920
Speaker 1: wanted to dive into like allectric guitars based and drums.

448
00:26:39,000 --> 00:26:42,840
Speaker 1: We love the Beatles like everybody, but you know, we

449
00:26:42,840 --> 00:26:47,920
Speaker 1: we were that was we were really acoustic snobs. So well,

450
00:26:47,960 --> 00:26:49,760
Speaker 1: and I said, hey, how about a joke band? You

451
00:26:49,760 --> 00:26:51,680
Speaker 1: guys ever played jug band music? And then yeah, we

452
00:26:51,760 --> 00:26:54,520
Speaker 1: like question. I said, Ah, so fun, it's really great.

453
00:26:54,640 --> 00:26:57,560
Speaker 1: I'll call my buddy Bruce up. So me and Bruce

454
00:26:57,600 --> 00:27:02,960
Speaker 1: and Less and Jimmy and rap uh got together and

455
00:27:03,119 --> 00:27:06,360
Speaker 1: you know, oh and eventually this guy, Jackson Brown joined

456
00:27:06,400 --> 00:27:08,840
Speaker 1: the band. I should point out that was the sixth guy.

457
00:27:09,520 --> 00:27:14,640
Speaker 1: Uh we uh so we just went to my mom's

458
00:27:14,640 --> 00:27:19,040
Speaker 1: garage and started, uh you know, practicing for nothing. By

459
00:27:19,040 --> 00:27:21,879
Speaker 1: the way, because we weren't playing any gigs. There's a

460
00:27:21,880 --> 00:27:26,240
Speaker 1: little club in southern California called the Paradox, which if

461
00:27:26,280 --> 00:27:29,440
Speaker 1: you know the song the Barricades of Heaven Jackson song

462
00:27:29,800 --> 00:27:33,159
Speaker 1: he name checks it, and a bunch of us you

463
00:27:33,200 --> 00:27:35,399
Speaker 1: know kids hung out in that club. Is a really

464
00:27:35,440 --> 00:27:38,359
Speaker 1: tiny place, but they had a talent contest going on.

465
00:27:38,680 --> 00:27:41,960
Speaker 1: So the jug Our jug Band, which we a long

466
00:27:42,040 --> 00:27:44,359
Speaker 1: story about the name, but if you want to hear it,

467
00:27:44,400 --> 00:27:46,760
Speaker 1: I'll tell you in a minute. We jumped up there

468
00:27:46,760 --> 00:27:48,959
Speaker 1: and kind of made up a name and jumped up

469
00:27:48,960 --> 00:27:51,520
Speaker 1: and started playing these talent contests, and when they kept

470
00:27:51,600 --> 00:27:55,320
Speaker 1: carrying us over a week, one week two, you know, Uh,

471
00:27:55,480 --> 00:27:58,640
Speaker 1: there was no one number, by the way, it was

472
00:28:00,119 --> 00:28:05,360
Speaker 1: it was yeah, anyways, it wasn't the voice. Um, well

473
00:28:05,359 --> 00:28:08,280
Speaker 1: what just because I can't remember where was the paradox.

474
00:28:08,400 --> 00:28:12,800
Speaker 1: The paradox was in the city of Orange, California, right

475
00:28:12,800 --> 00:28:17,240
Speaker 1: next to Tustin, California. So uh, as we jokingly said,

476
00:28:17,280 --> 00:28:21,399
Speaker 1: it was behind the Orange Curtain, right of course, you know.

477
00:28:21,800 --> 00:28:25,000
Speaker 1: So we were hanging out there and and uh there

478
00:28:25,080 --> 00:28:27,200
Speaker 1: was a guy that met named Steve Noonan that hung

479
00:28:27,200 --> 00:28:30,520
Speaker 1: out there who was among the first guys I knew

480
00:28:30,640 --> 00:28:35,320
Speaker 1: that actually wrote his own songs, Uh Jackson who I

481
00:28:35,680 --> 00:28:39,520
Speaker 1: met Jackson when he was fifteen years old. I was sixteen. Um.

482
00:28:40,160 --> 00:28:43,760
Speaker 1: And uh, the guy Greg Copeland, who was a great

483
00:28:43,800 --> 00:28:47,400
Speaker 1: poet and it was a fine lyricist, and he, you know,

484
00:28:47,520 --> 00:28:50,560
Speaker 1: has shown up on a lot of Steve's Steve Steve

485
00:28:50,720 --> 00:28:55,400
Speaker 1: uh sorry Noonan's records. Uh and I Jack Jackson and

486
00:28:55,400 --> 00:28:58,000
Speaker 1: he wrote them together as well. And Tim Buckley, the

487
00:28:58,040 --> 00:29:01,520
Speaker 1: great Tim Buckley. Those guys are hanging out and there's

488
00:29:01,800 --> 00:29:07,120
Speaker 1: you know, Mary McCaslin and Jennifer Warrens and uh a

489
00:29:07,200 --> 00:29:10,000
Speaker 1: lot of cool acts came and played there. It was.

490
00:29:10,160 --> 00:29:12,200
Speaker 1: It was a good comedy room too. You see, people

491
00:29:12,240 --> 00:29:15,840
Speaker 1: like Pat Paulson, this kid named Steve Martin showed up

492
00:29:15,840 --> 00:29:19,360
Speaker 1: there once in a while. But uh uh so we

493
00:29:19,480 --> 00:29:21,760
Speaker 1: kind of, you know, that's kind of where we honed

494
00:29:21,760 --> 00:29:24,840
Speaker 1: our skills. Was was the paradox. It is also the

495
00:29:24,840 --> 00:29:27,800
Speaker 1: first place that they actually paid us to play, which

496
00:29:28,120 --> 00:29:33,560
Speaker 1: which was May nineteen sixty six. Okay, at this point,

497
00:29:33,640 --> 00:29:35,920
Speaker 1: is it the nitty Gwitty Dirt Band? Yeah, it is,

498
00:29:36,120 --> 00:29:39,200
Speaker 1: it is, So tell us the story of the name. Well,

499
00:29:39,280 --> 00:29:41,320
Speaker 1: you know, we're sitting around trying to come up with

500
00:29:41,320 --> 00:29:43,880
Speaker 1: a name that didn't sound like everybody else's, you know,

501
00:29:43,920 --> 00:29:48,000
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, the Grateful Dead, We're Mother Something's

502
00:29:48,200 --> 00:29:52,200
Speaker 1: mother and Warlocks whatnot. But before the Warlocks there there

503
00:29:52,320 --> 00:29:56,280
Speaker 1: was a jug band name too. There there's something yeah

504
00:29:56,320 --> 00:30:00,560
Speaker 1: I can't either, but it's there on the Google or

505
00:30:00,560 --> 00:30:04,560
Speaker 1: the wiki. Yeah, you know, and the jug band thing

506
00:30:04,640 --> 00:30:08,400
Speaker 1: was it was a deal. Um, so we didn't want

507
00:30:08,440 --> 00:30:10,800
Speaker 1: to call ourselves a jug band. That maybe that carried

508
00:30:10,880 --> 00:30:13,440
Speaker 1: over from illegitimate, but it was like one of the

509
00:30:13,480 --> 00:30:15,360
Speaker 1: guys the thing was Ralph Barr said, how about the

510
00:30:15,400 --> 00:30:19,120
Speaker 1: dirt band, because dirt really made sense to us. You know.

511
00:30:19,680 --> 00:30:23,640
Speaker 1: We all had these dusty cowboy boots and uh, it

512
00:30:23,880 --> 00:30:28,360
Speaker 1: just kind of, I don't know, it's like depression era tunes.

513
00:30:28,920 --> 00:30:32,400
Speaker 1: You're seeing these the sort of Woody Guthrie era black

514
00:30:32,400 --> 00:30:35,160
Speaker 1: and white photos in your head, and a lot of

515
00:30:35,200 --> 00:30:38,840
Speaker 1: that music came up from that era, the thirties. So

516
00:30:39,280 --> 00:30:41,160
Speaker 1: that was great. So we're the dirt band for about

517
00:30:41,160 --> 00:30:45,080
Speaker 1: a week once again in my mom's garage. Um, and

518
00:30:45,120 --> 00:30:48,680
Speaker 1: I was going the tail end of my college career.

519
00:30:48,880 --> 00:30:52,800
Speaker 1: I was in a political science class and my professor

520
00:30:52,920 --> 00:30:55,840
Speaker 1: said something about let's just get right down to the

521
00:30:55,960 --> 00:30:58,720
Speaker 1: real nitty gritty, and I'm like, I don't. I didn't

522
00:30:58,720 --> 00:31:02,200
Speaker 1: hear another word he said. And I came into the

523
00:31:02,200 --> 00:31:04,880
Speaker 1: next rehearsal I went, I got it, you know, because

524
00:31:04,920 --> 00:31:07,120
Speaker 1: the nitty gritty just sounded like the sound of a

525
00:31:07,200 --> 00:31:09,880
Speaker 1: washboard to me. Plus they had this great sort of

526
00:31:10,640 --> 00:31:13,080
Speaker 1: getting right down to it, you know, and in terms

527
00:31:13,120 --> 00:31:16,160
Speaker 1: of nitty gritty, dirt band kind of worked. I can't

528
00:31:16,200 --> 00:31:21,560
Speaker 1: say it real fast or after midnight, you know, but it's, uh,

529
00:31:21,640 --> 00:31:24,480
Speaker 1: it's stuck. So there you go, Naty goody dirt band.

530
00:31:24,520 --> 00:31:26,960
Speaker 1: Love it or hate it there it is okay, so

531
00:31:27,000 --> 00:31:32,520
Speaker 1: you're getting paid at the paradox. What's the next step. Well, um,

532
00:31:32,600 --> 00:31:34,320
Speaker 1: we had a couple of different guys that were this

533
00:31:34,400 --> 00:31:37,240
Speaker 1: started sniffing around to be managers. There was a guy

534
00:31:38,000 --> 00:31:41,200
Speaker 1: named Billy James that was Jackson Brown's friend. Who was

535
00:31:41,360 --> 00:31:44,040
Speaker 1: you know Billy's I think he probably have heard of Billy.

536
00:31:44,240 --> 00:31:48,360
Speaker 1: Billy was in an our man at Columbia Records, and

537
00:31:49,240 --> 00:31:51,800
Speaker 1: he he has some ends in the record biz and

538
00:31:51,840 --> 00:31:54,440
Speaker 1: he was starting to manage folks. I think he was

539
00:31:54,520 --> 00:31:58,480
Speaker 1: kind of managing Jackson on the side. And then, uh,

540
00:31:58,640 --> 00:32:02,920
Speaker 1: Jackson was out to leave the band and this mutual

541
00:32:02,920 --> 00:32:06,640
Speaker 1: friend of all of ours, John McEwen, uh, started playing

542
00:32:06,680 --> 00:32:10,200
Speaker 1: with us. And John's brother was a fleet Bill McEwen

543
00:32:10,360 --> 00:32:13,480
Speaker 1: was a fledgling manager at that point. He had a

544
00:32:13,520 --> 00:32:15,320
Speaker 1: couple of acts, a couple of folk acts he was

545
00:32:15,360 --> 00:32:18,360
Speaker 1: working with. You know, he hadn't really busted into the

546
00:32:18,360 --> 00:32:21,960
Speaker 1: big time, but he he was enthusiastic, a really hard

547
00:32:22,000 --> 00:32:27,320
Speaker 1: working guy. So we went with Bill um and he uh,

548
00:32:27,480 --> 00:32:29,760
Speaker 1: you know, we made a little demo at gold Star

549
00:32:29,840 --> 00:32:34,200
Speaker 1: Studios up in Hollywood, I know, right, and uh, we

550
00:32:34,240 --> 00:32:37,040
Speaker 1: started going around. We would actually remember we went to

551
00:32:37,280 --> 00:32:40,280
Speaker 1: Capitol Records in I think the guy's name was al

552
00:32:40,360 --> 00:32:44,080
Speaker 1: Do Lory, who's an a and our guy. Uh, we

553
00:32:44,120 --> 00:32:45,959
Speaker 1: did a little demo for them, a little kind of

554
00:32:45,960 --> 00:32:51,600
Speaker 1: audition in the studio. The Dirt Band were really popular

555
00:32:51,640 --> 00:32:54,120
Speaker 1: at this point, I mean in southern California, lines around

556
00:32:54,120 --> 00:32:57,360
Speaker 1: the block. We're doing three sets to night Fridays and

557
00:32:57,400 --> 00:33:00,320
Speaker 1: Saturdays at the Paradox. Then we started playing down at

558
00:33:00,320 --> 00:33:03,040
Speaker 1: the Golden Bear song. We had not yet made it

559
00:33:03,120 --> 00:33:06,480
Speaker 1: up to Hollywood. But and what what was the material?

560
00:33:06,560 --> 00:33:09,160
Speaker 1: Originals were covers, Oh, it is all covers we wrote.

561
00:33:09,160 --> 00:33:11,680
Speaker 1: We wrote a couple of kind of jug bandison. Well,

562
00:33:12,240 --> 00:33:15,360
Speaker 1: this guy, the former member of our band, Jackson Brown,

563
00:33:15,960 --> 00:33:18,240
Speaker 1: has some great He wrote a song called Melissa that

564
00:33:18,360 --> 00:33:21,400
Speaker 1: was a great jug band tune. He had another one

565
00:33:21,440 --> 00:33:24,280
Speaker 1: called It's been Reigning here in Long Beach, great jug

566
00:33:24,320 --> 00:33:28,200
Speaker 1: band tune. So we started cutting Jackson stuff, but not cutting,

567
00:33:28,240 --> 00:33:31,000
Speaker 1: but learning because at this point we're not really recording.

568
00:33:32,320 --> 00:33:35,800
Speaker 1: So the repertoire a lot of Jim Quest and stuff,

569
00:33:35,840 --> 00:33:37,760
Speaker 1: a lot of you know, we got into some of

570
00:33:37,800 --> 00:33:42,360
Speaker 1: the like original stuff like the Memphis Jug Band, and

571
00:33:42,760 --> 00:33:45,440
Speaker 1: you know, we found a way to sort of uh,

572
00:33:46,280 --> 00:33:49,040
Speaker 1: you know, assimilate some sort of you know, skiffle band

573
00:33:49,120 --> 00:33:52,120
Speaker 1: songs and string band songs from the twenties and thirties

574
00:33:52,440 --> 00:33:55,320
Speaker 1: and incorporate them into our style now with John McEwan

575
00:33:55,400 --> 00:33:57,600
Speaker 1: on the five string banjo. We even did a couple

576
00:33:57,680 --> 00:34:00,480
Speaker 1: of bluegrass members but with a wash board in the

577
00:34:00,480 --> 00:34:04,160
Speaker 1: Washington base as a rhythm section. So these kids, again,

578
00:34:04,280 --> 00:34:07,240
Speaker 1: the kids are really god man. We got when Jackson

579
00:34:07,320 --> 00:34:10,799
Speaker 1: was still in the band, our friend and Moses who

580
00:34:10,840 --> 00:34:14,680
Speaker 1: was the editor at Tiger Beat magazine, which was Tiger

581
00:34:14,719 --> 00:34:19,880
Speaker 1: Beat was there was no Rolling Stone. So I remember, right,

582
00:34:20,360 --> 00:34:23,440
Speaker 1: my mom cut out this couple of pages from Tiger

583
00:34:23,480 --> 00:34:25,920
Speaker 1: Beat because there's a picture of us with Jackson and

584
00:34:26,000 --> 00:34:28,839
Speaker 1: the band, and they're writing about the doors as well,

585
00:34:28,880 --> 00:34:31,120
Speaker 1: and they're writing about the Buffalo sprankfields, just to give

586
00:34:31,120 --> 00:34:35,680
Speaker 1: you context. All there were we're team magazines and sing

587
00:34:35,680 --> 00:34:38,400
Speaker 1: Out magazine for the folkies of course, you know. But

588
00:34:38,719 --> 00:34:42,640
Speaker 1: h so we're getting this, there's this like buzz about

589
00:34:42,640 --> 00:34:47,360
Speaker 1: our band. So finally, after being courted by not a

590
00:34:47,400 --> 00:34:50,879
Speaker 1: half a dozen record companies, we uh, we ended up

591
00:34:50,920 --> 00:34:55,960
Speaker 1: at Liberty Records. Now Liberty was already part of them.

592
00:34:55,960 --> 00:35:00,279
Speaker 1: My Capital are still independent with Simon Waronker. I think

593
00:35:00,360 --> 00:35:04,560
Speaker 1: that they were I think it was Liberty Imperial. We're going,

594
00:35:04,640 --> 00:35:08,160
Speaker 1: of course we are Imperial records. Fats Domino were like,

595
00:35:08,200 --> 00:35:12,040
Speaker 1: I mean, we all had Liberty and Imperial Records in

596
00:35:12,120 --> 00:35:15,920
Speaker 1: our collections as kids, so we're pretty impressed, you know.

597
00:35:16,000 --> 00:35:18,520
Speaker 1: So they signed us. The first thing they did welcome

598
00:35:18,560 --> 00:35:21,520
Speaker 1: to the music business, was you guys are great, Let's

599
00:35:21,600 --> 00:35:28,600
Speaker 1: change everything. So the one one of the things that

600
00:35:28,600 --> 00:35:31,120
Speaker 1: that we got with a producer named Dallas Smith more

601
00:35:31,160 --> 00:35:35,719
Speaker 1: on Dallas in a minute. But they wanted us. They

602
00:35:35,719 --> 00:35:38,680
Speaker 1: didn't like they didn't think no anybody would buy the

603
00:35:38,800 --> 00:35:41,279
Speaker 1: jug band music. And we're going, wait a minute, have

604
00:35:41,440 --> 00:35:44,040
Speaker 1: you heard the Love and Spoonful? And they're yeah, but

605
00:35:44,920 --> 00:35:50,279
Speaker 1: they're they're electric. So how about some folk rock? You know,

606
00:35:50,400 --> 00:35:52,640
Speaker 1: folk rock was a big deal. You had the Birds,

607
00:35:53,160 --> 00:35:55,440
Speaker 1: and you had you know, and you had the Springfield

608
00:35:56,360 --> 00:35:59,640
Speaker 1: and you had the Turtles at the Association doing a

609
00:35:59,680 --> 00:36:02,080
Speaker 1: little of that as well. There's this this thing, right

610
00:36:02,640 --> 00:36:06,480
Speaker 1: and we're like, okay, we can sing those songs, but

611
00:36:06,640 --> 00:36:09,120
Speaker 1: we're a jug band. Can we do both? There? Like sure?

612
00:36:09,680 --> 00:36:11,759
Speaker 1: So we went in the studio. First day we walked in.

613
00:36:11,800 --> 00:36:14,279
Speaker 1: There's about a half a dozen session guys there. We're

614
00:36:14,320 --> 00:36:18,200
Speaker 1: all freaking out going what you know, what what if

615
00:36:18,239 --> 00:36:21,919
Speaker 1: we do? We're all still cocky teenagers, I might add.

616
00:36:22,560 --> 00:36:24,759
Speaker 1: And and some of these session guys were amazing and

617
00:36:24,800 --> 00:36:27,239
Speaker 1: we became friends over the years. These are guys like

618
00:36:27,320 --> 00:36:30,880
Speaker 1: the Wrecking Crew. Those guys are there. It's amazing. And

619
00:36:30,960 --> 00:36:34,440
Speaker 1: we met Leon Russell through that, we met our buddy

620
00:36:35,239 --> 00:36:39,680
Speaker 1: what's his name, sorry, from Bred David Gates. David Gates.

621
00:36:39,920 --> 00:36:44,440
Speaker 1: David Gates arranged this, arranged His first string arranging job

622
00:36:44,920 --> 00:36:47,239
Speaker 1: was on Buy for Me the Rain, So we'll get

623
00:36:47,280 --> 00:36:49,080
Speaker 1: to that in a in a second. So our first

624
00:36:49,120 --> 00:36:52,919
Speaker 1: album totally schizophrenic half of his jug band, the other

625
00:36:52,960 --> 00:36:56,960
Speaker 1: half is folk rock songs. Steve Noonan our buddy from

626
00:36:57,000 --> 00:37:02,080
Speaker 1: the Paradox, Jackson Brown. Both of them attributed songs um

627
00:37:02,640 --> 00:37:04,600
Speaker 1: and well. I think we actually did a couple of

628
00:37:05,000 --> 00:37:09,160
Speaker 1: uh Bruce kunkle Uh. There was a song called song

629
00:37:09,280 --> 00:37:11,840
Speaker 1: to Utah, who was his girlfriend who would become his

630
00:37:11,880 --> 00:37:14,759
Speaker 1: first wife as well. We did that and it was

631
00:37:15,440 --> 00:37:17,080
Speaker 1: it was fun. I mean, none of the music. I'm

632
00:37:17,120 --> 00:37:19,439
Speaker 1: not embarrassed by any of the music, although we sound

633
00:37:19,520 --> 00:37:22,800
Speaker 1: so like like we're ten when I hear it. I

634
00:37:22,880 --> 00:37:25,680
Speaker 1: was saying, we are singing. So did they let you

635
00:37:25,760 --> 00:37:29,240
Speaker 1: play on the album? Or we played on every track?

636
00:37:29,400 --> 00:37:31,160
Speaker 1: We played on every track, but it would be like

637
00:37:31,200 --> 00:37:33,880
Speaker 1: the six of us and a bass player and a drummer,

638
00:37:34,520 --> 00:37:36,920
Speaker 1: and you know, we're wailing away and all of a sudden,

639
00:37:36,920 --> 00:37:39,200
Speaker 1: it's like here play an electric twelve string Ralph or

640
00:37:39,239 --> 00:37:44,360
Speaker 1: Buddy Ralph bar Um John played banjo. You know, we

641
00:37:44,640 --> 00:37:46,640
Speaker 1: kind of process that he put a mute on it.

642
00:37:46,719 --> 00:37:49,600
Speaker 1: That made it some a little different kind of I

643
00:37:49,600 --> 00:37:52,560
Speaker 1: don't a little more psychedelic. So also there was that

644
00:37:52,680 --> 00:37:56,360
Speaker 1: everything was psychedelic. So the Dirt Band, all of a sudden,

645
00:37:56,520 --> 00:38:00,319
Speaker 1: that didn't hurt our popularity at all. The is that

646
00:38:00,400 --> 00:38:03,640
Speaker 1: loved us for our jug band music loved by From

647
00:38:03,680 --> 00:38:07,640
Speaker 1: Me the Rain as well. So our record was a

648
00:38:07,719 --> 00:38:10,360
Speaker 1: top ten single up and down the West Coast and

649
00:38:10,520 --> 00:38:12,480
Speaker 1: up and down the East Coast. I remember because he

650
00:38:12,640 --> 00:38:17,360
Speaker 1: cousin Brucey Morraw, Bruce Morrow, you know, uh played our records.

651
00:38:17,400 --> 00:38:19,000
Speaker 1: You know a lot of my friends that grew up

652
00:38:19,040 --> 00:38:21,400
Speaker 1: on the East coast, like you heard by From Me

653
00:38:21,480 --> 00:38:24,000
Speaker 1: the Rain on the radio or the West coast. There's

654
00:38:24,000 --> 00:38:27,400
Speaker 1: another story. The record actually got banned, so that killed

655
00:38:27,440 --> 00:38:31,239
Speaker 1: it at another if you want to hear the story, yeah, yeah,

656
00:38:32,480 --> 00:38:36,120
Speaker 1: well uh. The B side of the song was a

657
00:38:36,160 --> 00:38:39,160
Speaker 1: song called candy Man, which was written by the late

658
00:38:39,160 --> 00:38:43,400
Speaker 1: great Reverend Gary Davis. In the In the song it

659
00:38:43,520 --> 00:38:46,000
Speaker 1: said I'd do anything in this god almighty world to

660
00:38:46,040 --> 00:38:48,600
Speaker 1: have my candy Man home. So set that aside for

661
00:38:48,640 --> 00:38:50,800
Speaker 1: a second. Had nothing to do with Buy from Me

662
00:38:50,840 --> 00:38:54,239
Speaker 1: the Rain. The A side, Uh, there's a guy that

663
00:38:55,600 --> 00:38:58,560
Speaker 1: There was a program director somewhere in the either the

664
00:38:58,600 --> 00:39:02,520
Speaker 1: southern US or the Midwest, the work for a station

665
00:39:02,560 --> 00:39:05,760
Speaker 1: that was part of a big chain of stations owned

666
00:39:05,800 --> 00:39:08,520
Speaker 1: by a guy, Mr McClendon. I believe his name was

667
00:39:08,560 --> 00:39:13,640
Speaker 1: Gordon McClendon. Let's get this. Program director comes home one

668
00:39:13,760 --> 00:39:17,520
Speaker 1: night and his daughters in her bedroom with her little,

669
00:39:17,640 --> 00:39:23,359
Speaker 1: you know, miniature fort rpm record player, and through the

670
00:39:23,400 --> 00:39:28,040
Speaker 1: door he sings these long haired British guys singing, let's

671
00:39:28,080 --> 00:39:31,520
Speaker 1: spend the night together. You know, flings opened the door.

672
00:39:31,680 --> 00:39:36,359
Speaker 1: What the you know? What? How? What who is this?

673
00:39:36,880 --> 00:39:40,080
Speaker 1: You know? He comes into the station the next day,

674
00:39:40,600 --> 00:39:45,320
Speaker 1: gets on the horn and it's like there's this terrible

675
00:39:45,400 --> 00:39:49,359
Speaker 1: disease going through our you know, coming at us. From

676
00:39:49,400 --> 00:39:54,360
Speaker 1: the airways. You know, these this horrible you know, breaking

677
00:39:54,440 --> 00:39:58,680
Speaker 1: down the Moray's of America. The Rolling Stones were at

678
00:39:58,719 --> 00:40:02,080
Speaker 1: the front of it. So he calls his boss, Mr.

679
00:40:02,160 --> 00:40:05,560
Speaker 1: McClinton and says, we gotta do something about this. So

680
00:40:05,680 --> 00:40:11,600
Speaker 1: they they banned Let's Spend the Night Together. They banned

681
00:40:11,640 --> 00:40:17,000
Speaker 1: Strawberry Fields slash Penny Lane. They banned Devil with a

682
00:40:17,040 --> 00:40:20,000
Speaker 1: Blue Dress by Mitch Rider in the Detroit Wheels, and

683
00:40:20,040 --> 00:40:23,680
Speaker 1: they banned by from Me the Rain slash Candy Man

684
00:40:24,280 --> 00:40:27,400
Speaker 1: by the Dirt Band because we were blaspheming saying we

685
00:40:27,520 --> 00:40:35,239
Speaker 1: got almighty World, which you know, okay, and just well,

686
00:40:35,320 --> 00:40:38,560
Speaker 1: Newsweek magazine and Time both wrote about it, and we

687
00:40:38,600 --> 00:40:42,960
Speaker 1: thought pretty cool company Beatles Stones, Mitch Rider and us,

688
00:40:43,120 --> 00:40:46,479
Speaker 1: you know. But unfortunately, in terms of the business side

689
00:40:46,520 --> 00:40:50,759
Speaker 1: of things, the A side of the record didn't do

690
00:40:50,840 --> 00:40:53,759
Speaker 1: it there, you know, it was an innocent victim here.

691
00:40:53,880 --> 00:40:56,120
Speaker 1: So our record at that point, I think is around

692
00:40:57,040 --> 00:40:59,759
Speaker 1: forty it's in the mid forties. With a bullet, we'll

693
00:40:59,760 --> 00:41:02,640
Speaker 1: get ads were climbing the charts. Like I said, the

694
00:41:02,680 --> 00:41:07,400
Speaker 1: popularity is growing from the coast inward. The next you know,

695
00:41:07,520 --> 00:41:11,920
Speaker 1: forty five with a bullet one week with a parachute.

696
00:41:11,960 --> 00:41:15,640
Speaker 1: The next week dropped like a rock, done Gone. So

697
00:41:15,920 --> 00:41:18,279
Speaker 1: that was kind of depressing, but again, welcome to the

698
00:41:18,360 --> 00:41:22,439
Speaker 1: music business. And as we know, here we go. This

699
00:41:22,480 --> 00:41:26,120
Speaker 1: is how radio can work. And censorship. Okay, before we

700
00:41:26,200 --> 00:41:28,880
Speaker 1: continue the story of the band, what did your parents

701
00:41:29,000 --> 00:41:33,120
Speaker 1: say about you dropping out of community college and pursuing

702
00:41:33,160 --> 00:41:37,080
Speaker 1: this career. They really they were incredibly supportive. And I

703
00:41:37,080 --> 00:41:40,239
Speaker 1: should point out my dad was the fourth and four

704
00:41:40,280 --> 00:41:46,080
Speaker 1: generations of West Point graduates, so whoa, whoa whoa. Okay, yeah, yeah,

705
00:41:46,320 --> 00:41:49,120
Speaker 1: and also a peace nick I might add. My dad

706
00:41:49,280 --> 00:41:51,640
Speaker 1: was you know, he went to World War two and

707
00:41:51,719 --> 00:41:55,440
Speaker 1: came home with shell shock PTSD and A and A

708
00:41:55,640 --> 00:41:58,720
Speaker 1: and a shirt full of metals, including a purple heart.

709
00:41:59,400 --> 00:42:03,160
Speaker 1: But you know, when we got into Vietnam, he was like,

710
00:42:03,239 --> 00:42:05,279
Speaker 1: I started talking about it right away. I was like,

711
00:42:05,360 --> 00:42:07,680
Speaker 1: I don't want to go, you know, blah blah blah.

712
00:42:07,719 --> 00:42:10,359
Speaker 1: So none of us did. How did you get out?

713
00:42:10,840 --> 00:42:14,080
Speaker 1: I got because I flunked my physical uh you know,

714
00:42:14,719 --> 00:42:16,640
Speaker 1: and like the rest of the guys in the band,

715
00:42:16,760 --> 00:42:19,719
Speaker 1: we were lucky enough to to be able to get

716
00:42:19,760 --> 00:42:23,200
Speaker 1: around it, you know, hooker Crook. We didn't want to go.

717
00:42:23,640 --> 00:42:25,759
Speaker 1: I had friends that were two years older than me

718
00:42:25,800 --> 00:42:29,239
Speaker 1: in high school that never came home, and I was

719
00:42:29,280 --> 00:42:33,080
Speaker 1: like this, and then of course it wasn't World War two,

720
00:42:33,560 --> 00:42:35,600
Speaker 1: it wasn't signed up here as like what is this

721
00:42:35,600 --> 00:42:42,520
Speaker 1: war about? And that was just you know, unbelievable, you know,

722
00:42:42,719 --> 00:42:45,160
Speaker 1: and that's a that's a you know, you're conflicted. We're

723
00:42:45,160 --> 00:42:48,640
Speaker 1: all conflicted being from that generation about our buddies who

724
00:42:48,640 --> 00:42:52,600
Speaker 1: went off there and fought in Vietnam and why we

725
00:42:52,600 --> 00:43:02,120
Speaker 1: were so lucky to not have to go. Okay, So

726
00:43:02,160 --> 00:43:04,920
Speaker 1: the first record is all of a sudden installed. What

727
00:43:05,040 --> 00:43:09,239
Speaker 1: happens after that? Uh? First record installed? Then we did

728
00:43:09,280 --> 00:43:11,799
Speaker 1: it that, We did a second record. The first river

729
00:43:12,000 --> 00:43:16,160
Speaker 1: was eponymous, you know, dirt band on a sitting on

730
00:43:16,200 --> 00:43:20,800
Speaker 1: a steam shovel, get it, dirt band um. The second

731
00:43:20,840 --> 00:43:25,680
Speaker 1: record was called Ricochet, kind of using the same formula again.

732
00:43:26,480 --> 00:43:30,160
Speaker 1: We put out a single called Truly Right that was

733
00:43:30,239 --> 00:43:34,400
Speaker 1: written by uh, this group called Maston and Brewer, and

734
00:43:34,440 --> 00:43:37,560
Speaker 1: the brewer was Mike Brewer who came to fame later

735
00:43:37,600 --> 00:43:40,719
Speaker 1: as part of Brewer and Shipley. Really cool song. They

736
00:43:40,760 --> 00:43:43,759
Speaker 1: had the same vibe as they would later. You know,

737
00:43:43,800 --> 00:43:46,560
Speaker 1: we're just barely denting the charts. I think we gotta

738
00:43:46,600 --> 00:43:50,560
Speaker 1: pass because we'd have some popularity. Bruce Kunkle left at

739
00:43:50,560 --> 00:43:52,759
Speaker 1: the in the middle of that record. He wanted to

740
00:43:52,800 --> 00:43:56,680
Speaker 1: go electric. He he become a a real fan and

741
00:43:56,760 --> 00:43:59,600
Speaker 1: devote of the mothers of invention. He want. He was

742
00:43:59,680 --> 00:44:04,640
Speaker 1: a really imaginative cat still is really great guy, but uh,

743
00:44:04,920 --> 00:44:07,560
Speaker 1: he moved on and Chris Darrow at the after that

744
00:44:07,640 --> 00:44:11,839
Speaker 1: album came out, Chris Darrow joined up. This is late sixties, um,

745
00:44:12,800 --> 00:44:14,440
Speaker 1: And if you want to talk about Christophers I got

746
00:44:14,480 --> 00:44:17,319
Speaker 1: I'm happy to but well, yeah, you know, he's sort

747
00:44:17,360 --> 00:44:19,719
Speaker 1: of the unsungen here. We're sort of zel Us in

748
00:44:19,760 --> 00:44:21,680
Speaker 1: a million acts. How did you know Chris just from

749
00:44:21,680 --> 00:44:25,000
Speaker 1: hanging out? So we were fans of the Mad Mountain

750
00:44:25,080 --> 00:44:27,800
Speaker 1: Ramblers and the Dry City Scat Band, which is another

751
00:44:28,280 --> 00:44:30,879
Speaker 1: band that Chris was in, and then he and Dave

752
00:44:31,560 --> 00:44:34,520
Speaker 1: and and uh Solomon Feldhouse started a band, a guy

753
00:44:34,560 --> 00:44:38,480
Speaker 1: named Max Buddha started this great band called the Kaleidoscope,

754
00:44:38,560 --> 00:44:43,560
Speaker 1: who are legendary early world music. Played all kinds of stuff.

755
00:44:43,560 --> 00:44:46,560
Speaker 1: They are electric and acoustic, and you used like East

756
00:44:46,640 --> 00:44:51,239
Speaker 1: Indian instruments like the d and the size and but

757
00:44:51,400 --> 00:44:55,120
Speaker 1: also like you know, altric guitars and banjo and electric

758
00:44:55,160 --> 00:44:58,600
Speaker 1: fiddle and crazy god, what a great band. So Chris

759
00:44:58,640 --> 00:45:02,600
Speaker 1: had just left the Kaleidoscope and we bumped into him

760
00:45:02,600 --> 00:45:04,879
Speaker 1: somewhere and he said, man, you guys looking for another guy.

761
00:45:04,920 --> 00:45:08,279
Speaker 1: We're like yeah, and he said, I'd love to play

762
00:45:08,320 --> 00:45:11,080
Speaker 1: with you guys. He was kind of into jumping back

763
00:45:11,120 --> 00:45:13,640
Speaker 1: into the acoustic world again. As soon as he got

764
00:45:13,640 --> 00:45:17,080
Speaker 1: in the band. You know, he started playing fiddle and

765
00:45:17,120 --> 00:45:20,000
Speaker 1: that's kind of where the Cajun thing that influence in

766
00:45:20,000 --> 00:45:23,000
Speaker 1: our band came up. He has some really good original

767
00:45:23,040 --> 00:45:26,920
Speaker 1: tunes and I remember and we did we did an

768
00:45:26,920 --> 00:45:32,120
Speaker 1: album called Rare Junk, uh that you know about this time,

769
00:45:32,160 --> 00:45:34,480
Speaker 1: I should point out, you know, we're still having no

770
00:45:34,640 --> 00:45:37,279
Speaker 1: luck in the studio, although on on Rare Junk they

771
00:45:37,280 --> 00:45:41,480
Speaker 1: finally let us record our jug band songs by ourselves,

772
00:45:42,200 --> 00:45:44,480
Speaker 1: you know, with the caveat that we had to do

773
00:45:44,560 --> 00:45:47,840
Speaker 1: like three songs that had a room full of musicians,

774
00:45:47,880 --> 00:45:51,440
Speaker 1: sometimes a horn section or a string section. So we said, okay,

775
00:45:51,600 --> 00:45:54,320
Speaker 1: we'll do that, but just kind of leave us alone, please,

776
00:45:54,480 --> 00:45:56,560
Speaker 1: and they were like, we don't care. You're not selling records.

777
00:45:58,640 --> 00:46:01,360
Speaker 1: So we you know, we made a little foray into

778
00:46:01,400 --> 00:46:03,680
Speaker 1: what we might call a country rock. We recorded a

779
00:46:03,760 --> 00:46:06,439
Speaker 1: cover of Reason to Believe, the great Tim Harden song.

780
00:46:07,080 --> 00:46:10,320
Speaker 1: Our buddy Bernie Leaden came in and played acoustic guitar

781
00:46:10,480 --> 00:46:15,360
Speaker 1: on that. That's how that was our association with Bernie started.

782
00:46:15,840 --> 00:46:18,440
Speaker 1: You know, I'm glad that we sort of you know,

783
00:46:18,719 --> 00:46:21,120
Speaker 1: I look at those records now as our kind of

784
00:46:21,280 --> 00:46:27,600
Speaker 1: farm team training earn while you learn experience with our band. Um, okay,

785
00:46:27,640 --> 00:46:31,120
Speaker 1: let's stay with the earn. Will you learn? Needless to say,

786
00:46:31,160 --> 00:46:33,759
Speaker 1: in that era, having a record deal put you in

787
00:46:33,800 --> 00:46:38,960
Speaker 1: a completely different class from everybody else. So how did

788
00:46:38,960 --> 00:46:43,600
Speaker 1: you feel about yourself? How was the band surviving monetarily?

789
00:46:44,200 --> 00:46:47,400
Speaker 1: How often were you playing live? What kind of money?

790
00:46:47,520 --> 00:46:50,520
Speaker 1: What was going on? I couldn't even tell you about

791
00:46:50,520 --> 00:46:52,400
Speaker 1: the kind of money. I really don't have a concept now,

792
00:46:52,440 --> 00:46:57,920
Speaker 1: I can't. I just remember, Uh. At one point we

793
00:46:57,920 --> 00:46:59,880
Speaker 1: were this is by from and the Reins a hit, right,

794
00:47:00,560 --> 00:47:05,760
Speaker 1: So we had a really uh we had a booking

795
00:47:05,800 --> 00:47:09,279
Speaker 1: agent that had a really great imagination and they decided

796
00:47:10,239 --> 00:47:12,200
Speaker 1: I think it was a p A at the time. Gosh,

797
00:47:12,200 --> 00:47:14,200
Speaker 1: I can't even remember. I believe it was. We've been

798
00:47:14,239 --> 00:47:16,279
Speaker 1: with all of them at some point in another, some

799
00:47:16,480 --> 00:47:20,880
Speaker 1: settled letters um and they sent us up to San Francisco.

800
00:47:20,960 --> 00:47:23,160
Speaker 1: We played the film More by the Way a couple

801
00:47:23,160 --> 00:47:25,640
Speaker 1: of times. The first time was with a band called

802
00:47:25,719 --> 00:47:29,319
Speaker 1: Clear Light and also Blue Cheer, who were built as

803
00:47:29,360 --> 00:47:32,560
Speaker 1: the world's loudest rock and roll and they were, I

804
00:47:32,600 --> 00:47:35,319
Speaker 1: mean they were, they were amazing, So I understand we

805
00:47:35,400 --> 00:47:37,400
Speaker 1: had probably the quietest band they had ever played the

806
00:47:37,400 --> 00:47:43,200
Speaker 1: film More Us jug Band, Nobody's Plugged In and Blue Cheer,

807
00:47:44,880 --> 00:47:47,680
Speaker 1: you know which was It was fun. Man. We went

808
00:47:47,719 --> 00:47:50,040
Speaker 1: to San Francisco. I still got a film More poster.

809
00:47:50,160 --> 00:47:54,560
Speaker 1: We headlined that gig and it was really cool. And

810
00:47:54,560 --> 00:47:59,120
Speaker 1: then a few weeks later are Are The aforementioned agent

811
00:47:59,320 --> 00:48:02,480
Speaker 1: said want you guys to play at the Basin Street West,

812
00:48:02,520 --> 00:48:07,840
Speaker 1: which is a jazz club in San Francisco and opening

813
00:48:07,960 --> 00:48:13,680
Speaker 1: for the great legendary organist, Mr Jimmy Smith. Okay, that

814
00:48:13,800 --> 00:48:16,560
Speaker 1: made no sense at all, but they were doing they had.

815
00:48:16,719 --> 00:48:19,600
Speaker 1: They also represented Jefferson Airplane and and I think the

816
00:48:19,640 --> 00:48:23,440
Speaker 1: Airplane played on a bill with Gosh, I can't remember,

817
00:48:23,640 --> 00:48:26,760
Speaker 1: you know, maybe it was Miles Davis. It was also

818
00:48:26,920 --> 00:48:30,040
Speaker 1: just kind of wacky. The one thing that came out

819
00:48:30,040 --> 00:48:32,440
Speaker 1: of the Basin Street West gig that I really dug.

820
00:48:33,880 --> 00:48:36,239
Speaker 1: There was a band called the Blues Project that was

821
00:48:36,280 --> 00:48:39,759
Speaker 1: playing the film War that week, and that included a

822
00:48:39,760 --> 00:48:43,840
Speaker 1: guy named Steve Katz. Uh, Danny was what was Danny's

823
00:48:43,920 --> 00:48:49,000
Speaker 1: name the guitar player, sorry, uh, Jenny Calb and Al Cooper.

824
00:48:49,600 --> 00:48:53,439
Speaker 1: So Alan, Danny and Steve came in probably to see

825
00:48:53,520 --> 00:48:57,080
Speaker 1: Jimmy Smith play, but being ex Folky's all of them

826
00:48:57,080 --> 00:49:00,520
Speaker 1: as well, they dug the jug band music and Al

827
00:49:00,800 --> 00:49:03,960
Speaker 1: we really we became fast friends with Al. That still

828
00:49:04,280 --> 00:49:08,880
Speaker 1: remains to this day. So you know, that would that

829
00:49:08,920 --> 00:49:11,279
Speaker 1: would be that just became an ongoing thing and it

830
00:49:11,400 --> 00:49:13,400
Speaker 1: was great. That was the coolest thing about it, getting

831
00:49:13,440 --> 00:49:16,600
Speaker 1: to meet Al big fans of everything he ever did,

832
00:49:17,360 --> 00:49:20,480
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, and then we live and learn.

833
00:49:20,600 --> 00:49:23,279
Speaker 1: So we're by the way, we couldn't afford to stay

834
00:49:23,320 --> 00:49:26,680
Speaker 1: in San Francisco while we're playing the Basin Street. We

835
00:49:26,760 --> 00:49:30,160
Speaker 1: lived across the bridge in Mill Valley at this in

836
00:49:30,239 --> 00:49:35,799
Speaker 1: this little fucking motel called the Fireside In. It's the

837
00:49:35,840 --> 00:49:39,960
Speaker 1: first place I ever heard gunfire, actual real gun fire

838
00:49:40,280 --> 00:49:44,839
Speaker 1: outside motel room. One night. We were so I mean,

839
00:49:45,440 --> 00:49:48,520
Speaker 1: at this point, we really were like down to season stamps,

840
00:49:48,719 --> 00:49:53,080
Speaker 1: literally and we had no money because it was I

841
00:49:53,120 --> 00:49:57,400
Speaker 1: can't remember why. I just remember Jimmy Fadden, Jimmy Fadden's

842
00:49:57,440 --> 00:50:01,880
Speaker 1: little brother, Terry, God bless him. Jimmy calls Terry and

843
00:50:01,880 --> 00:50:04,160
Speaker 1: we said, you gotta get Terry up here. We need

844
00:50:04,200 --> 00:50:09,000
Speaker 1: a roadie. So Terry came up and the first thing

845
00:50:09,040 --> 00:50:15,080
Speaker 1: we said to him was do you have any cash?

846
00:50:15,080 --> 00:50:18,719
Speaker 1: And Terry he was this, he's still around. He's just

847
00:50:18,800 --> 00:50:22,560
Speaker 1: the best guy, really great kid. So yes, he loaned

848
00:50:22,640 --> 00:50:25,160
Speaker 1: us the twenty bucks that he had and we bought

849
00:50:25,160 --> 00:50:27,520
Speaker 1: some groceries, you know, a lot of peanut butter sandwiches.

850
00:50:27,719 --> 00:50:31,000
Speaker 1: We actually got into fried cheerios, which were pretty good.

851
00:50:31,040 --> 00:50:34,000
Speaker 1: You know. It was, you know, anything, we're scrambling. But

852
00:50:34,440 --> 00:50:38,200
Speaker 1: cool thing about hanging out in in Mill Valley was

853
00:50:38,280 --> 00:50:42,360
Speaker 1: right next to Saucelito. There was a club. I believe

854
00:50:42,440 --> 00:50:44,960
Speaker 1: the club was called the Arc. It wasn't like a

855
00:50:45,080 --> 00:50:47,319
Speaker 1: river boat or a house, and it was the art.

856
00:50:47,400 --> 00:50:50,160
Speaker 1: It was like a I think they bought one of

857
00:50:50,160 --> 00:50:53,320
Speaker 1: those old you know what do you call those wheels,

858
00:50:53,400 --> 00:50:59,160
Speaker 1: paddle wheel steamships, and it was docked so you walked

859
00:50:59,200 --> 00:51:01,799
Speaker 1: onto this, you across the little plank and that you're

860
00:51:01,840 --> 00:51:04,680
Speaker 1: in this club. Well, we saw a Moby Gray play

861
00:51:04,719 --> 00:51:08,879
Speaker 1: there a bunch because we were you know, we were

862
00:51:08,880 --> 00:51:11,640
Speaker 1: only playing weeks, so we'd have like Moby Grapes playing

863
00:51:11,680 --> 00:51:14,359
Speaker 1: for three nights and we're like, that's the best band

864
00:51:14,360 --> 00:51:17,359
Speaker 1: we've ever heard, and this electric thing is pretty cool

865
00:51:17,480 --> 00:51:21,160
Speaker 1: by the way, you know. So they were they were

866
00:51:21,200 --> 00:51:24,440
Speaker 1: a perfect example of like taking a bunch of guys

867
00:51:25,400 --> 00:51:28,960
Speaker 1: most of them started in folk music and really took

868
00:51:30,320 --> 00:51:33,320
Speaker 1: I don't know, maybe the song sense. There was something

869
00:51:33,360 --> 00:51:35,759
Speaker 1: about it that was just different. And they what a

870
00:51:35,760 --> 00:51:42,480
Speaker 1: great band, you know, mysterious, legendary, cool, cool group. You know.

871
00:51:42,520 --> 00:51:44,839
Speaker 1: At the same time we're we're doing these festivals, were

872
00:51:44,840 --> 00:51:47,279
Speaker 1: playing with the Jefferson Airplane again and playing with the

873
00:51:47,360 --> 00:51:52,840
Speaker 1: Doors a bunch uh the Buffalo Springfield. I remember playing

874
00:51:52,880 --> 00:51:57,719
Speaker 1: with an early version of Stepping Wolf. Um. It was

875
00:51:57,760 --> 00:52:00,120
Speaker 1: really cool, you know. In our jug band day, I

876
00:52:00,200 --> 00:52:02,680
Speaker 1: might add, when we were playing places like the Ash Grove,

877
00:52:02,760 --> 00:52:09,080
Speaker 1: we opened for Lightning Hopkins, Memphis, Slim Good, Lord uh

878
00:52:09,360 --> 00:52:13,680
Speaker 1: Man's lipscumb Sonny Terry, and Brownie McGhee again. So we're

879
00:52:13,800 --> 00:52:16,600
Speaker 1: learning a lot. This is like school for us. A

880
00:52:16,600 --> 00:52:20,240
Speaker 1: lot of the great bluegrass acts again, New Lost City Ramblers,

881
00:52:20,239 --> 00:52:22,280
Speaker 1: whom I loved, and they were an old timey group

882
00:52:22,600 --> 00:52:26,279
Speaker 1: that included uh what what was his name? John Cohen?

883
00:52:26,360 --> 00:52:32,560
Speaker 1: I love John Cohen and uh Pece Seeger's brother Mike Seegar. Ridiculous.

884
00:52:32,760 --> 00:52:36,360
Speaker 1: I mean that the as sponges. We were so lucky.

885
00:52:36,520 --> 00:52:39,480
Speaker 1: You know, we're absorbing all this stuff. But also, you know,

886
00:52:39,560 --> 00:52:42,480
Speaker 1: we're hearing these kids are these guys that used to

887
00:52:42,520 --> 00:52:44,919
Speaker 1: hang around and play folk music in the back room

888
00:52:45,120 --> 00:52:48,319
Speaker 1: became this band called the Rising Suns, which was Ray

889
00:52:48,400 --> 00:52:52,360
Speaker 1: Cooter and Taj Mahal. So we're like, oh yeah again,

890
00:52:52,960 --> 00:52:58,279
Speaker 1: they're taking this influence in this gift um and turn

891
00:52:58,360 --> 00:53:01,920
Speaker 1: it into their electrifying So we started. You know, we

892
00:53:02,040 --> 00:53:04,759
Speaker 1: bought a bass and and a half. I bought a

893
00:53:04,840 --> 00:53:07,880
Speaker 1: drum kit. I should point out real quickly that we

894
00:53:08,000 --> 00:53:11,080
Speaker 1: made this movie. We were in this film for three minutes,

895
00:53:11,360 --> 00:53:14,000
Speaker 1: but it took us three months to do it in

896
00:53:14,120 --> 00:53:17,719
Speaker 1: the woods and the wilds of Oregon. The film was

897
00:53:17,760 --> 00:53:22,000
Speaker 1: called Painter Wagon Major motion picture, actually the most expensive

898
00:53:22,040 --> 00:53:24,600
Speaker 1: film up to that point that had ever been made

899
00:53:24,600 --> 00:53:32,120
Speaker 1: by Hollywood. Saw it. Oh yeah, you know what, it's

900
00:53:32,160 --> 00:53:33,960
Speaker 1: a lot of fun to watch now, But it was

901
00:53:34,080 --> 00:53:37,640
Speaker 1: Lee Marvin, this guy that had been making these spaghetti

902
00:53:37,680 --> 00:53:44,719
Speaker 1: westerns named Clint Eastwood, and this great actress, uh, the

903
00:53:44,760 --> 00:53:48,600
Speaker 1: great late grade Jeane Sieberg. There was this crazy part

904
00:53:48,680 --> 00:53:51,360
Speaker 1: for her because she'd done all these amazing sort of

905
00:53:51,520 --> 00:53:56,480
Speaker 1: artie films, you know. Uh, she was a serious, serious actor.

906
00:53:57,680 --> 00:54:01,880
Speaker 1: So there we are. We're playing a drug band. Basically

907
00:54:02,120 --> 00:54:04,080
Speaker 1: we were, you know, it was all these mining was

908
00:54:04,120 --> 00:54:07,080
Speaker 1: the gold rushing California. That was the premise. So it's

909
00:54:07,120 --> 00:54:11,120
Speaker 1: all these uh you know, these miners up you know,

910
00:54:11,239 --> 00:54:15,560
Speaker 1: and we're slogging through these mining gold mining, you know,

911
00:54:15,640 --> 00:54:18,840
Speaker 1: trying to pan for gold or dig these tunnels. And

912
00:54:19,880 --> 00:54:22,600
Speaker 1: it's a comedy, a musical. And we did this song

913
00:54:22,640 --> 00:54:27,840
Speaker 1: called hand Me Down that Cannabians. And we were up

914
00:54:27,840 --> 00:54:29,600
Speaker 1: there for three months. There's a bunch of guys from

915
00:54:29,640 --> 00:54:33,279
Speaker 1: southern California. Three months in a town the population was

916
00:54:33,320 --> 00:54:36,560
Speaker 1: about I think, I don't know me, I'm exaggerating just

917
00:54:36,600 --> 00:54:40,160
Speaker 1: because I can. And we had nothing to do. We

918
00:54:40,160 --> 00:54:44,239
Speaker 1: were so bored, and we started kind of getting at

919
00:54:44,280 --> 00:54:46,920
Speaker 1: each other and you know, picking on each other things

920
00:54:46,920 --> 00:54:49,799
Speaker 1: that we didn't care about. We started caring about that

921
00:54:49,880 --> 00:54:52,640
Speaker 1: we didn't like, and there was this tug and pull

922
00:54:52,640 --> 00:54:57,920
Speaker 1: about musical direction. Well, I remember Chris and I that summer,

923
00:54:59,120 --> 00:55:01,360
Speaker 1: and I might you a little off on my timeline,

924
00:55:01,400 --> 00:55:07,480
Speaker 1: but Sweetheart of the Rodeo was out and music from

925
00:55:07,520 --> 00:55:10,839
Speaker 1: Big Pink was out, and I heard music from Big

926
00:55:10,880 --> 00:55:13,399
Speaker 1: Pink and I didn't want to play guitar ever again.

927
00:55:13,440 --> 00:55:16,920
Speaker 1: I wanted to play drums. I wanted to play drums

928
00:55:17,000 --> 00:55:20,319
Speaker 1: like Leo on Hell you know, and and Ringo was

929
00:55:20,360 --> 00:55:22,719
Speaker 1: really getting into that Tom Phil thing that he did,

930
00:55:22,760 --> 00:55:26,520
Speaker 1: so well, uh you know. I I've learned how to

931
00:55:26,520 --> 00:55:28,480
Speaker 1: play drums from one of the guys that played in

932
00:55:28,520 --> 00:55:30,960
Speaker 1: the Mothers of Invention, a guy named Denny Bruce, who

933
00:55:31,000 --> 00:55:33,319
Speaker 1: was kind enough to show me how to play along

934
00:55:33,360 --> 00:55:37,840
Speaker 1: to first record Ruby Tuesday. Um, good Bye Ruby Tuesday

935
00:55:37,880 --> 00:55:41,080
Speaker 1: by Da Dad Da dadda Dada, that Snare Phil and

936
00:55:41,120 --> 00:55:42,960
Speaker 1: that was it. Man. I wanted to learn drums, and

937
00:55:43,040 --> 00:55:46,520
Speaker 1: Chris is going, hey, man, we need to take the

938
00:55:46,520 --> 00:55:50,440
Speaker 1: band in a country rock direction. This thing is so happening,

939
00:55:50,920 --> 00:55:53,160
Speaker 1: you know, he says, my buddies, like Chris HILLMTT was

940
00:55:53,200 --> 00:55:56,520
Speaker 1: one of Chris Chris Darrow's buddies. So these guys are

941
00:55:56,560 --> 00:55:59,080
Speaker 1: doing this thing. It's so cool. And the birds and

942
00:55:59,120 --> 00:56:02,480
Speaker 1: like they hire Clarence White now, who's playing this great

943
00:56:02,560 --> 00:56:06,880
Speaker 1: b bender guitar, telecaster and everything shifting the place are

944
00:56:06,920 --> 00:56:09,799
Speaker 1: shift in here musically, and it made sense because we

945
00:56:09,840 --> 00:56:12,319
Speaker 1: all love country music, we love blue grass, and we

946
00:56:12,320 --> 00:56:16,120
Speaker 1: were just getting a little tired of making records for

947
00:56:16,400 --> 00:56:19,200
Speaker 1: a company that didn't really care about Joe band music anyways,

948
00:56:19,280 --> 00:56:21,320
Speaker 1: and we were kind of ready to move on in general.

949
00:56:22,360 --> 00:56:26,040
Speaker 1: So we got back to l a after after three

950
00:56:26,040 --> 00:56:29,000
Speaker 1: months in Oregon, which was lovely, by the way, except

951
00:56:29,000 --> 00:56:31,520
Speaker 1: for the part that we were so just bored stiff,

952
00:56:32,640 --> 00:56:36,839
Speaker 1: and we got our record companies like, you know, you guys,

953
00:56:36,840 --> 00:56:38,719
Speaker 1: have one more record on your deal, Let's do a

954
00:56:38,719 --> 00:56:42,360
Speaker 1: live album. We're like whatever, Sure, So we played the

955
00:56:42,360 --> 00:56:46,279
Speaker 1: Tributor for a week. Well, our opening act was this

956
00:56:46,320 --> 00:56:52,000
Speaker 1: band called Pogo, and Poco was Poco before you know,

957
00:56:52,120 --> 00:56:55,439
Speaker 1: Walt Kelly the Cartoonists, decided that he's going to sue

958
00:56:55,480 --> 00:56:59,800
Speaker 1: them if they didn't change their name Poco original lineup.

959
00:57:00,760 --> 00:57:03,400
Speaker 1: For me, honestly, I never saw the Beatles play, but

960
00:57:03,440 --> 00:57:05,400
Speaker 1: I felt like I was in the Cavern Club watching

961
00:57:05,440 --> 00:57:09,799
Speaker 1: the Beatles play. They were so damn good. I mean,

962
00:57:09,800 --> 00:57:13,680
Speaker 1: the harmonies were ridiculous and I was a fan already

963
00:57:13,719 --> 00:57:16,720
Speaker 1: of Richie Furres from the Buffalo Springfields. You got Ritchie,

964
00:57:17,160 --> 00:57:19,920
Speaker 1: you got Jim Messina on guitar, you had the great

965
00:57:20,040 --> 00:57:23,920
Speaker 1: Randy Meisner on bass and high high harmony, and George

966
00:57:23,960 --> 00:57:27,400
Speaker 1: Grantham singing drummer. I'm like, yep, George Grantham singing drummer,

967
00:57:28,040 --> 00:57:31,760
Speaker 1: Levin Helm singing drummer. That's the thing I filed that away.

968
00:57:31,840 --> 00:57:35,320
Speaker 1: So we're opening for Poco Dirt Band. Honestly at this

969
00:57:35,360 --> 00:57:37,840
Speaker 1: point we're on our last legs and the opening act

970
00:57:38,880 --> 00:57:42,760
Speaker 1: is the Beatles. So they would come off stage every

971
00:57:42,840 --> 00:57:45,640
Speaker 1: night and they're high five in each other and they're

972
00:57:45,680 --> 00:57:48,440
Speaker 1: just whoop, whoop, whoop, and the nicest guys I might add,

973
00:57:48,600 --> 00:57:52,520
Speaker 1: you know, and we're just like, we're struggling to try

974
00:57:52,600 --> 00:57:57,040
Speaker 1: to play some kind of sort of country rock, folk

975
00:57:57,160 --> 00:58:00,320
Speaker 1: rock stuff. The one thing that worked was working really

976
00:58:00,360 --> 00:58:04,680
Speaker 1: well was a Cajun song called Alligator Man. I played drums,

977
00:58:04,800 --> 00:58:07,760
Speaker 1: Chris Darrow played uh fiddle on it, and it was

978
00:58:07,800 --> 00:58:11,240
Speaker 1: really a Cajun rock tune. That thing would end up

979
00:58:11,280 --> 00:58:14,880
Speaker 1: mattering a few months later. So at the end of

980
00:58:14,920 --> 00:58:18,320
Speaker 1: that run, super depressed, we're like, what are we going

981
00:58:18,400 --> 00:58:20,240
Speaker 1: to do with the band. The band's tugging and pulling

982
00:58:20,280 --> 00:58:23,480
Speaker 1: in different directions. Uh, you know, some of the guys

983
00:58:23,520 --> 00:58:26,440
Speaker 1: wanted to sort of do the country rock thing. You know,

984
00:58:26,760 --> 00:58:28,960
Speaker 1: Chris and I are talking to each other going, we

985
00:58:29,000 --> 00:58:32,280
Speaker 1: can't really pull this off, you know, we it's not

986
00:58:33,320 --> 00:58:36,720
Speaker 1: And then our buddy Ralph bar and his wife Holly

987
00:58:36,960 --> 00:58:39,880
Speaker 1: wanted to do like a folk duo thing, and their

988
00:58:40,000 --> 00:58:42,640
Speaker 1: friend Dwayne Almand was going to produce a record on him.

989
00:58:43,400 --> 00:58:47,920
Speaker 1: So they're drifting over here. There was some you know,

990
00:58:48,040 --> 00:58:51,720
Speaker 1: business arguments about whether or not we're with the right

991
00:58:51,800 --> 00:58:55,720
Speaker 1: manager or not, as it just got toxic, and Chris

992
00:58:55,760 --> 00:58:57,880
Speaker 1: and I are gone, man, let's just start. Let's just

993
00:58:58,000 --> 00:59:01,040
Speaker 1: let's walk away from this thing. So we did, you know,

994
00:59:01,680 --> 00:59:04,040
Speaker 1: not a lot of arguments somebody had. Everybody was just

995
00:59:04,120 --> 00:59:06,640
Speaker 1: tired and burned out, as burnout as you can be

996
00:59:06,680 --> 00:59:11,160
Speaker 1: at twenty one. Um, So Chris and I started this

997
00:59:11,240 --> 00:59:14,280
Speaker 1: band and it was me and him and uh, this

998
00:59:14,440 --> 00:59:17,920
Speaker 1: great drummer named John Ware who would go on to

999
00:59:18,040 --> 00:59:21,720
Speaker 1: be the drummer for the first National Band and Emmy

1000
00:59:21,760 --> 00:59:26,480
Speaker 1: Lou Harris's Hot band. Johnny Ware terrific drummer, great guy.

1001
00:59:26,520 --> 00:59:31,960
Speaker 1: Another art student from Claremont where Chris lived, uh and

1002
00:59:32,120 --> 00:59:35,080
Speaker 1: John London on base and John London whose real name

1003
00:59:35,080 --> 00:59:37,720
Speaker 1: was John Keeney. He grew up his best friend was

1004
00:59:37,760 --> 00:59:40,880
Speaker 1: Michael Nesmith. So John had been working on the set

1005
00:59:40,880 --> 00:59:44,800
Speaker 1: of The Monkeys as as Michael stand in, and he'd

1006
00:59:44,800 --> 00:59:47,440
Speaker 1: been playing in a band called the Lewis and Clark Expedition,

1007
00:59:47,520 --> 00:59:52,000
Speaker 1: which was Michael one of Michael Murphy's Martin Murphy's first bands.

1008
00:59:52,000 --> 00:59:54,320
Speaker 1: So these guys are cool, man. We we started working

1009
00:59:54,360 --> 00:59:56,040
Speaker 1: up tunes and it's fun, and Chris and I are

1010
00:59:56,080 --> 00:59:58,200
Speaker 1: writing a bunch of songs. Johnny Ware wrote a couple

1011
00:59:58,760 --> 01:00:01,320
Speaker 1: and it was like we're often running. It was like

1012
01:00:01,400 --> 01:00:03,800
Speaker 1: country rock cool, and I'm trying to come up with

1013
01:00:03,840 --> 01:00:07,280
Speaker 1: a country rock band I name, and it's like, how

1014
01:00:07,320 --> 01:00:10,720
Speaker 1: about buck Wheat buckwheats a cool, cool sound meaning buck

1015
01:00:10,720 --> 01:00:15,800
Speaker 1: Wheat not the Little Rascal's character, uh or wheat straw,

1016
01:00:16,200 --> 01:00:19,040
Speaker 1: or like, how about I don't know, Southern Pacific. That's

1017
01:00:19,040 --> 01:00:24,480
Speaker 1: a pretty good name. Nobody liked that, so uh So

1018
01:00:24,680 --> 01:00:28,480
Speaker 1: Chris and John, being way hipper than I were, said,

1019
01:00:28,600 --> 01:00:32,200
Speaker 1: how about the Corvettes? Totally ironic? That does not sound

1020
01:00:32,360 --> 01:00:34,960
Speaker 1: nothing can sound further from a country rock band name,

1021
01:00:35,160 --> 01:00:37,640
Speaker 1: and I'm like, okay, these guys are a couple of

1022
01:00:37,680 --> 01:00:41,200
Speaker 1: years a couple of years older, far far hipper than

1023
01:00:41,240 --> 01:00:44,120
Speaker 1: I was. I went cool, what are the corvettes? And

1024
01:00:44,120 --> 01:00:50,160
Speaker 1: then John London he brought Chris Derrek. I sorry. John

1025
01:00:50,240 --> 01:00:54,160
Speaker 1: London brought Michael Nasmith into one of our rehearsals, and

1026
01:00:54,240 --> 01:00:56,840
Speaker 1: Michael has been hired as a producer. He got a

1027
01:00:56,840 --> 01:01:00,720
Speaker 1: production deal with Dot Records. He says, I want to

1028
01:01:00,760 --> 01:01:03,520
Speaker 1: sign you guys to a deal, a singles deal. So

1029
01:01:03,560 --> 01:01:06,640
Speaker 1: we cut some sides with Michael, which was really fun.

1030
01:01:07,280 --> 01:01:10,000
Speaker 1: Got to know him really well, really great cat, one

1031
01:01:10,040 --> 01:01:13,960
Speaker 1: of my favorite people ever. We're starving. They put out

1032
01:01:13,960 --> 01:01:16,520
Speaker 1: a single I think, and it didn't really stick, and

1033
01:01:16,520 --> 01:01:18,520
Speaker 1: they put they started to put out another one, and

1034
01:01:18,640 --> 01:01:22,920
Speaker 1: out of the blue, our dear friend Linda ron Stat

1035
01:01:23,160 --> 01:01:26,880
Speaker 1: calls us up. She's you know, the Stone Ponies are

1036
01:01:26,880 --> 01:01:30,360
Speaker 1: broken up. She's now a solo act. She said, I

1037
01:01:30,440 --> 01:01:32,520
Speaker 1: need a band. Would you guys be my band? She

1038
01:01:32,640 --> 01:01:34,920
Speaker 1: loved the way Chris, she loved the way John and

1039
01:01:35,040 --> 01:01:38,360
Speaker 1: John the rhythm section was great. We were friends. She

1040
01:01:38,480 --> 01:01:41,040
Speaker 1: was kind to me. Bee. I'm like, I wasn't bringing

1041
01:01:41,040 --> 01:01:42,680
Speaker 1: a whole lot, but I was a good harmony singer.

1042
01:01:43,040 --> 01:01:45,840
Speaker 1: And then Chris's fiddle. She loved that Cajun fiddle thing.

1043
01:01:46,040 --> 01:01:48,840
Speaker 1: And Chris Blay lead guitar really well. So it's Linda

1044
01:01:48,920 --> 01:01:53,040
Speaker 1: Ronstat and the Corvetts. We hit the road and man, wow,

1045
01:01:53,880 --> 01:01:56,520
Speaker 1: it was amazing for a thousand reasons, one being we

1046
01:01:56,560 --> 01:01:59,360
Speaker 1: all had giant crushes on Linda, of course because he's

1047
01:01:59,440 --> 01:02:02,520
Speaker 1: Lenda Ron's that and one of the greatest singers that

1048
01:02:02,680 --> 01:02:07,440
Speaker 1: ever lived. And so I'm learning to sing harmony with

1049
01:02:07,520 --> 01:02:11,440
Speaker 1: Linda and this is really cool. And we're doing songs

1050
01:02:11,520 --> 01:02:16,160
Speaker 1: like silver Threads and gold Needles and oh, different drum

1051
01:02:16,280 --> 01:02:19,400
Speaker 1: every night. She had a song called some of Shelley's

1052
01:02:19,400 --> 01:02:22,960
Speaker 1: Blues that Michael wrote that I just loved. We're saying

1053
01:02:23,000 --> 01:02:26,400
Speaker 1: a long long time. You know, she's god. She took

1054
01:02:26,440 --> 01:02:30,000
Speaker 1: the only Daddy that Will walk the line great whale

1055
01:02:30,000 --> 01:02:32,360
Speaker 1: and Jennings song turned it into only Mama that will

1056
01:02:32,360 --> 01:02:35,320
Speaker 1: walk the line, and she mean it was just killer.

1057
01:02:35,360 --> 01:02:37,720
Speaker 1: We The only time I ever played with the whiskey

1058
01:02:37,920 --> 01:02:43,160
Speaker 1: was in Linda's band, So this is really fun. And uh,

1059
01:02:43,320 --> 01:02:45,400
Speaker 1: several months go by, I think, you know, I think

1060
01:02:45,400 --> 01:02:48,320
Speaker 1: it's around six months. We're doing the corvettes, and Linda

1061
01:02:49,120 --> 01:02:53,600
Speaker 1: and I ran into John McEwen at a Poco show

1062
01:02:53,800 --> 01:02:58,240
Speaker 1: ironically at the Golden Bear, and we looked at each

1063
01:02:58,280 --> 01:03:01,600
Speaker 1: other and said we could do this. Let's give it

1064
01:03:01,640 --> 01:03:06,440
Speaker 1: another shot. So we called up Les Thompson who was

1065
01:03:06,480 --> 01:03:08,480
Speaker 1: in immediately he just as long as I get to

1066
01:03:08,480 --> 01:03:11,160
Speaker 1: play electric bass, yes, less you can play electric bass.

1067
01:03:11,360 --> 01:03:13,840
Speaker 1: Turned into a really good bass player, great bass player

1068
01:03:13,840 --> 01:03:16,840
Speaker 1: by then, and Jimmy Fadden who was also picking up

1069
01:03:16,880 --> 01:03:19,200
Speaker 1: the drums. So Jimmy and I are both playing drums,

1070
01:03:19,520 --> 01:03:22,400
Speaker 1: and Jimmy was becoming a really great allectric guitar player

1071
01:03:22,720 --> 01:03:26,760
Speaker 1: along as his legendary harp skills as well great harmonica player.

1072
01:03:27,400 --> 01:03:29,240
Speaker 1: But we're like, we need to singing drummer. We all

1073
01:03:29,280 --> 01:03:31,800
Speaker 1: agree we need to leve on or we needed George

1074
01:03:31,800 --> 01:03:35,919
Speaker 1: Grantham and uh a friend of ours and Mitral friend

1075
01:03:35,920 --> 01:03:38,560
Speaker 1: of ours knew this guy Jimmy Ibson who had just

1076
01:03:38,760 --> 01:03:43,880
Speaker 1: moved out to California. He was from Philadelphia, went to

1077
01:03:43,920 --> 01:03:47,160
Speaker 1: school in Newcastle, Indiana, and moved out to l A

1078
01:03:47,280 --> 01:03:50,240
Speaker 1: to become a star. And he was having the kind

1079
01:03:50,240 --> 01:03:53,600
Speaker 1: of experience that the rest of us were. You know,

1080
01:03:54,320 --> 01:03:57,520
Speaker 1: so if he's been playing you know, these pick up gigs.

1081
01:03:57,600 --> 01:04:00,760
Speaker 1: His his roommate was this guy named Kevin Kelly, one

1082
01:04:00,800 --> 01:04:03,440
Speaker 1: of his roommates who was playing with that version of

1083
01:04:03,480 --> 01:04:07,200
Speaker 1: the Birds. And then he had another roommate later on

1084
01:04:07,360 --> 01:04:11,439
Speaker 1: named Danny Danny Lotomoser, who was a folk rock kind

1085
01:04:11,440 --> 01:04:16,400
Speaker 1: of guy. So mutual friends. We got introduced to Ibby.

1086
01:04:16,560 --> 01:04:18,720
Speaker 1: We called him maybe because we had two Jimmy's at

1087
01:04:18,720 --> 01:04:23,600
Speaker 1: this point. Uh, and he comes over, we play drums

1088
01:04:23,640 --> 01:04:26,640
Speaker 1: with us. Were like, this is really great, and he's like, well,

1089
01:04:26,720 --> 01:04:30,240
Speaker 1: let's stick around after class. We're already impressed by his drumming.

1090
01:04:30,760 --> 01:04:33,600
Speaker 1: Everybody splits. Me and Jimmy are sitting there with a

1091
01:04:33,600 --> 01:04:36,280
Speaker 1: couple of acoustic guitars and he's a really good guitar player,

1092
01:04:36,320 --> 01:04:38,520
Speaker 1: I come to find out. And we already knew he

1093
01:04:38,560 --> 01:04:42,880
Speaker 1: could sing, but we started singing Everly Brothers songs and

1094
01:04:42,880 --> 01:04:46,120
Speaker 1: it's like, oh man, we got It's like I gotta fill,

1095
01:04:46,280 --> 01:04:48,800
Speaker 1: I gotta don However, you know, we would switched back

1096
01:04:48,840 --> 01:04:51,840
Speaker 1: and forth and I was in heaven. Man, this is

1097
01:04:51,880 --> 01:04:56,280
Speaker 1: like become my favorite singer, well next to Linda that

1098
01:04:56,400 --> 01:04:59,120
Speaker 1: I'd ever sung with. And we had this thing. We

1099
01:04:59,160 --> 01:05:02,880
Speaker 1: had this bland that was like like brothers singing together.

1100
01:05:03,720 --> 01:05:05,720
Speaker 1: Turned out if he could play the bass, he could

1101
01:05:05,720 --> 01:05:07,720
Speaker 1: play a lectric guitar, he could play a little bit

1102
01:05:07,760 --> 01:05:10,760
Speaker 1: of clarinet, a little bit of pianos like man, and

1103
01:05:10,880 --> 01:05:15,160
Speaker 1: he writes songs. So he'sa Meanwhile, what's happened to Chris

1104
01:05:15,240 --> 01:05:20,320
Speaker 1: Daryl Chris darrells? He Chris stayed with Linda the Corvettes.

1105
01:05:20,360 --> 01:05:23,040
Speaker 1: Bernie Letton came in and took my place in the Corvettes.

1106
01:05:23,400 --> 01:05:26,520
Speaker 1: So this is the first time Bernie who eventually you

1107
01:05:26,560 --> 01:05:29,800
Speaker 1: know the deal. Bernie stays in the band, played with

1108
01:05:29,840 --> 01:05:32,600
Speaker 1: the Corvette for a while, then he went off and

1109
01:05:32,720 --> 01:05:35,680
Speaker 1: played with the Burrito Brothers for a while. Chris continued

1110
01:05:35,960 --> 01:05:38,200
Speaker 1: playing in that group, and then he got us. He

1111
01:05:38,320 --> 01:05:42,200
Speaker 1: got signed I believe again either to you A or

1112
01:05:43,160 --> 01:05:47,120
Speaker 1: Liberty EO By Perhaps I'm sorry I have a little

1113
01:05:47,160 --> 01:05:50,680
Speaker 1: brain fire here. But he had a solo deal and

1114
01:05:50,800 --> 01:05:54,400
Speaker 1: made some really really great records, among them artist Proof,

1115
01:05:54,480 --> 01:05:57,800
Speaker 1: which is my favorite. I think he became friends. He

1116
01:05:57,840 --> 01:06:00,520
Speaker 1: and Peter Asher became friends. Chris ended up and fiddle

1117
01:06:00,560 --> 01:06:04,360
Speaker 1: on Sweet Baby. James uh Our buddy John London from

1118
01:06:04,400 --> 01:06:08,280
Speaker 1: the Corvets played bass on Shoot. He played bass on

1119
01:06:08,280 --> 01:06:12,640
Speaker 1: on the song Sweet Baby James on that record. Meanwhile,

1120
01:06:13,120 --> 01:06:16,200
Speaker 1: John Lennon and John Ware started a Bama John with

1121
01:06:16,280 --> 01:06:19,800
Speaker 1: Michael Nesmuth. So so you got the two Johnnies and

1122
01:06:19,880 --> 01:06:22,439
Speaker 1: Mike Nesmuth. They got the first national band going, which

1123
01:06:22,440 --> 01:06:25,680
Speaker 1: it was another one of the great underrated country rock

1124
01:06:25,720 --> 01:06:29,880
Speaker 1: bands of all time. I think, uh so, yeah, so

1125
01:06:29,920 --> 01:06:35,000
Speaker 1: the Dirt band re kind of re uh imagined as

1126
01:06:35,040 --> 01:06:38,680
Speaker 1: this country rock band. And then how do you wind?

1127
01:06:40,000 --> 01:06:43,600
Speaker 1: You rehearse? Now your deal is done with Liberty? So

1128
01:06:43,720 --> 01:06:46,640
Speaker 1: what happens? Well, my deal I was done with Liberty

1129
01:06:46,680 --> 01:06:48,360
Speaker 1: because I had to get out of my record deal.

1130
01:06:48,480 --> 01:06:51,360
Speaker 1: They still had me under contract, and I pulled a

1131
01:06:51,400 --> 01:06:56,560
Speaker 1: trick on them and got out of that. I called

1132
01:06:56,640 --> 01:06:59,680
Speaker 1: up the president of Liberty Records and I kept calling

1133
01:06:59,720 --> 01:07:01,800
Speaker 1: him and call him. There's no email back then. I

1134
01:07:01,800 --> 01:07:04,760
Speaker 1: couldn't slide a note under his door because security wouldn't

1135
01:07:04,800 --> 01:07:07,200
Speaker 1: let me through. And I'm like, because I wanted to

1136
01:07:07,240 --> 01:07:10,360
Speaker 1: sign this deal with Dot Records with Mike Nesmuth and

1137
01:07:10,560 --> 01:07:15,280
Speaker 1: his I believe it was Bud Dane, and I kept

1138
01:07:15,280 --> 01:07:18,040
Speaker 1: calling and They're like, Nat, who who's this calling? He'll

1139
01:07:18,040 --> 01:07:20,400
Speaker 1: call you back. Never called. So finally I got on

1140
01:07:20,440 --> 01:07:23,720
Speaker 1: there and they said who's calling and I said, um,

1141
01:07:23,720 --> 01:07:28,720
Speaker 1: Tommy Boys. Tommy Boys and Bobby Hart wrote Last Train

1142
01:07:28,800 --> 01:07:32,440
Speaker 1: to Clarksville. They were huge hit singers, his huge his

1143
01:07:32,640 --> 01:07:37,440
Speaker 1: songwriters in l A. At the point, but gets on

1144
01:07:37,480 --> 01:07:40,120
Speaker 1: the phone Tommy, how are you, babe? And I'm like,

1145
01:07:40,160 --> 01:07:42,560
Speaker 1: I'm great, And then I listened for a couple of

1146
01:07:42,600 --> 01:07:45,080
Speaker 1: more minutes of small talk. I said, actually, this is

1147
01:07:45,160 --> 01:07:47,919
Speaker 1: Jeff Hannah and he goes, oh, Jeff, how are you doing?

1148
01:07:47,960 --> 01:07:50,360
Speaker 1: What are you up to? Long time no speak. He says,

1149
01:07:50,400 --> 01:07:52,040
Speaker 1: I'm actually kind of trying to get out of my

1150
01:07:52,080 --> 01:07:55,560
Speaker 1: record deal, and he goes, no problem, come by tomorrow.

1151
01:07:56,200 --> 01:07:59,560
Speaker 1: You know, he signed a paper let let me go. Yeah,

1152
01:07:59,560 --> 01:08:01,800
Speaker 1: I was was worth anything to him, but it was

1153
01:08:01,840 --> 01:08:05,439
Speaker 1: a sweet thing to do. I appreciated that. So Bill

1154
01:08:05,520 --> 01:08:11,160
Speaker 1: McEwen again, we go play the Troubadour and uh, people

1155
01:08:11,280 --> 01:08:14,280
Speaker 1: like this, they liked this band. We Meanwhile, we rehearsed

1156
01:08:14,320 --> 01:08:17,479
Speaker 1: for like three months. Les Thompson's dad had was at

1157
01:08:17,600 --> 01:08:22,680
Speaker 1: Sea Bring jukebox distributor, and we rehearsed in his in

1158
01:08:22,760 --> 01:08:26,360
Speaker 1: his warehouse in Long Beach. So we were a wood

1159
01:08:26,400 --> 01:08:27,760
Speaker 1: shed and it was like I think it was the

1160
01:08:27,800 --> 01:08:30,360
Speaker 1: first time since my mom's garage that we really would

1161
01:08:30,439 --> 01:08:33,920
Speaker 1: shed it and it was fun. Man Jimmy Everson's bringing

1162
01:08:33,960 --> 01:08:36,559
Speaker 1: in songs by this kid that he met at a

1163
01:08:36,600 --> 01:08:40,840
Speaker 1: party named Kenny Loggins. We recorded four Kenny songs and

1164
01:08:40,880 --> 01:08:42,880
Speaker 1: nobody had ever heard by the way or heard of

1165
01:08:43,200 --> 01:08:46,080
Speaker 1: at that point. Did a couple of you know, originals.

1166
01:08:46,080 --> 01:08:48,000
Speaker 1: I there was a song that I used to sing

1167
01:08:48,000 --> 01:08:50,760
Speaker 1: with the Corvettes called The Cure that ended up on

1168
01:08:50,800 --> 01:08:54,360
Speaker 1: the record. But a lot of covers Randy Newman living

1169
01:08:54,360 --> 01:09:00,639
Speaker 1: Without You, Um, shoot, who else do we cover? Michael

1170
01:09:00,720 --> 01:09:03,759
Speaker 1: Nesmuth So Michelle's Blues. That's one of the first songs

1171
01:09:04,120 --> 01:09:06,760
Speaker 1: I learned to sing with Linda and I worked it

1172
01:09:06,840 --> 01:09:09,879
Speaker 1: up with Jimmy Ibbotson and him singing lead, me singing harmony,

1173
01:09:09,920 --> 01:09:14,479
Speaker 1: and that fit really well. Um, you know, and I

1174
01:09:14,880 --> 01:09:16,639
Speaker 1: whatever we did, Buddy, how we did, we were huge

1175
01:09:16,640 --> 01:09:19,200
Speaker 1: Buddy Holly fans. We did Ray Van on that record,

1176
01:09:19,520 --> 01:09:23,880
Speaker 1: an old blues tune called travel and Mood some bluegrass.

1177
01:09:23,960 --> 01:09:26,760
Speaker 1: We did the Great Earl Scrugs instrumental called Randy Lynn

1178
01:09:26,840 --> 01:09:31,880
Speaker 1: Rag Clinch Mountain Backstep, Ralph Stanley tune. You know, it

1179
01:09:32,000 --> 01:09:35,280
Speaker 1: was a it was a a mash up you know,

1180
01:09:35,320 --> 01:09:45,599
Speaker 1: the dirt band was always instill our eclectic. Okay, So

1181
01:09:45,640 --> 01:09:47,800
Speaker 1: how did you end up pack on Liberty and how

1182
01:09:47,840 --> 01:09:51,760
Speaker 1: did Bill mceuwan end up being the producer? Well, that

1183
01:09:51,880 --> 01:09:54,200
Speaker 1: was one of the deals. When Bill came back into

1184
01:09:54,240 --> 01:09:57,960
Speaker 1: the picture. He had matured as a manager and as

1185
01:09:57,960 --> 01:10:00,720
Speaker 1: a producer and he just kind us. He went to

1186
01:10:00,800 --> 01:10:03,600
Speaker 1: these guys that said, look, come see these guys at

1187
01:10:03,680 --> 01:10:06,519
Speaker 1: Drew Badur and we you know, they still hired us

1188
01:10:06,560 --> 01:10:08,400
Speaker 1: because they liked us when we were a drug band.

1189
01:10:09,040 --> 01:10:12,519
Speaker 1: He came in and love the band, and Bill said,

1190
01:10:12,560 --> 01:10:14,920
Speaker 1: here's the deal. I want to produce him and they

1191
01:10:14,920 --> 01:10:19,160
Speaker 1: were like, well, okay, fine, cut a couple of sides.

1192
01:10:19,360 --> 01:10:21,920
Speaker 1: We cut a couple of sides. They loved it. So

1193
01:10:21,960 --> 01:10:24,720
Speaker 1: he stayed on and Bill remained our producer through I

1194
01:10:24,760 --> 01:10:27,600
Speaker 1: don't know four albums I think uh. And he was

1195
01:10:27,640 --> 01:10:34,679
Speaker 1: a great managed, superman and incredibly and a visionary musically,

1196
01:10:34,800 --> 01:10:37,439
Speaker 1: you know, and he knew his stuff. He knew to

1197
01:10:37,560 --> 01:10:40,479
Speaker 1: use good mix. He got a great engineer, engineer Mr

1198
01:10:40,560 --> 01:10:44,400
Speaker 1: Dino Lapis, who was a staff engineer at World Pacific

1199
01:10:44,439 --> 01:10:46,240
Speaker 1: and Liberty and a couple of these studios where we

1200
01:10:46,280 --> 01:10:49,840
Speaker 1: started out. But he knew how he wanted the band

1201
01:10:49,880 --> 01:10:52,560
Speaker 1: to sound. He wanted to record this stuff. Well, he

1202
01:10:52,640 --> 01:10:56,439
Speaker 1: wanted the drums and bass and the alleged guitar and

1203
01:10:56,760 --> 01:11:02,040
Speaker 1: you know, the acoustic instruments. Great vintage gear wasn't vantaged

1204
01:11:02,080 --> 01:11:05,519
Speaker 1: back then, but really great analog gear. And that record

1205
01:11:05,560 --> 01:11:09,759
Speaker 1: signed awesome, I thought, you know, so we were proud

1206
01:11:09,800 --> 01:11:12,040
Speaker 1: of what we were doing. And at the tail end

1207
01:11:12,080 --> 01:11:14,880
Speaker 1: of the sessions, you know, we found this other song,

1208
01:11:16,520 --> 01:11:20,120
Speaker 1: Mr bo Jangles. Okay, but how did you how did

1209
01:11:20,120 --> 01:11:24,400
Speaker 1: he make a deal with Liberty which you've just gotten off. Uh,

1210
01:11:25,000 --> 01:11:28,519
Speaker 1: he just said we're gonna start from scratch. It started

1211
01:11:28,560 --> 01:11:30,720
Speaker 1: because Bud Dane loved the band. He loved this new

1212
01:11:30,760 --> 01:11:33,920
Speaker 1: incarnation of the band. So they wanted to sign us.

1213
01:11:33,960 --> 01:11:38,799
Speaker 1: Because just as folk rock and and sort of whatever

1214
01:11:38,880 --> 01:11:42,320
Speaker 1: jug band music were popular in sixty seven, now it's

1215
01:11:42,400 --> 01:11:46,720
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy and like country rocks, the thing, baby, you know,

1216
01:11:46,800 --> 01:11:50,360
Speaker 1: the Palomino Club is jumping in North Hollywood. The Trouger

1217
01:11:50,400 --> 01:11:53,679
Speaker 1: is now home to you know this band, Long Branch,

1218
01:11:53,760 --> 01:11:58,880
Speaker 1: Penny Whistle, uh and Poke Poco. Now the Burrito Brothers

1219
01:11:58,880 --> 01:12:01,960
Speaker 1: would come by now and again play and it was

1220
01:12:02,400 --> 01:12:05,120
Speaker 1: it was a thing uh, you know, even even the

1221
01:12:05,720 --> 01:12:10,519
Speaker 1: singer songwriter stuff, Lynda's stuff, Jackson Brown had just gotten signed,

1222
01:12:11,439 --> 01:12:17,559
Speaker 1: uh Dan Fogelberg. This new vibe was very much in

1223
01:12:17,720 --> 01:12:21,080
Speaker 1: line with the country rock stuff. So they wanted to

1224
01:12:21,160 --> 01:12:23,479
Speaker 1: jump on that bat that bandwagon, and they we played

1225
01:12:23,520 --> 01:12:26,240
Speaker 1: him a couple of tracks, played them Ravan and Shelley's Blues,

1226
01:12:26,280 --> 01:12:29,360
Speaker 1: I think, and they loved them both. So so you

1227
01:12:29,479 --> 01:12:34,599
Speaker 1: find Mr. Bo Jangles, Yeah, uh, never heard the song

1228
01:12:34,760 --> 01:12:38,040
Speaker 1: in my life. Didn't know who Jerry Jeff was. We were.

1229
01:12:38,160 --> 01:12:40,479
Speaker 1: I was coming home from rehearsal one night and I

1230
01:12:40,600 --> 01:12:44,160
Speaker 1: heard I'm driving I lived, and I think I lived

1231
01:12:44,160 --> 01:12:46,800
Speaker 1: in Seal Beach, driving a few miles from Long Beach

1232
01:12:46,840 --> 01:12:49,400
Speaker 1: to Seal Beach, got my radio on his FM radio,

1233
01:12:49,560 --> 01:12:53,800
Speaker 1: old school, no back, announcing they'd play fifteen songs without

1234
01:12:53,880 --> 01:12:58,479
Speaker 1: telling you who it was, and I heard, probably flipping

1235
01:12:58,520 --> 01:13:01,600
Speaker 1: the dial, I heard probably the last two verses in

1236
01:13:01,640 --> 01:13:05,519
Speaker 1: the last chorus of Mr. Bo Jangles. But as soon

1237
01:13:05,560 --> 01:13:07,560
Speaker 1: as I heard it, I pulled the car off the

1238
01:13:07,640 --> 01:13:10,640
Speaker 1: road and you know, shut shut the engine off so

1239
01:13:10,680 --> 01:13:13,280
Speaker 1: I could really hear it great, And I was really

1240
01:13:13,320 --> 01:13:15,439
Speaker 1: got this lump in my throat hearing this story about

1241
01:13:15,439 --> 01:13:17,920
Speaker 1: this old guy and his dog, and the melody was

1242
01:13:18,040 --> 01:13:22,439
Speaker 1: beautiful and a great I mean, a compelling story. So

1243
01:13:22,800 --> 01:13:27,799
Speaker 1: next day I came running into the warehouse and I'm like, guys,

1244
01:13:28,800 --> 01:13:30,880
Speaker 1: you know, basically, I'm like, I got the final piece

1245
01:13:30,960 --> 01:13:33,320
Speaker 1: to the puzzle here, Guys. I heard this great song.

1246
01:13:34,360 --> 01:13:38,000
Speaker 1: And we have started using an accordion and mandolin as

1247
01:13:38,040 --> 01:13:42,400
Speaker 1: well together on our records. And we started talking about

1248
01:13:42,439 --> 01:13:44,200
Speaker 1: we were big fans of the band, and the band

1249
01:13:44,240 --> 01:13:47,360
Speaker 1: had done that on the song Old Rocking Chair on

1250
01:13:47,439 --> 01:13:50,080
Speaker 1: the on their uh, their second album, the Brown album,

1251
01:13:50,800 --> 01:13:54,120
Speaker 1: and I like, we started talking about that would really

1252
01:13:54,120 --> 01:13:57,240
Speaker 1: be the way to do this acoustic guitars. We brought

1253
01:13:57,280 --> 01:13:59,720
Speaker 1: in this kid named Russ Kunkle to to sort of

1254
01:13:59,760 --> 01:14:03,920
Speaker 1: set about the drums, and uh, Jimmy Fadden had a

1255
01:14:03,960 --> 01:14:06,320
Speaker 1: really great drum arrangement, but you know he was he

1256
01:14:06,360 --> 01:14:09,200
Speaker 1: was mad enough to like hand the sticks to Russ

1257
01:14:09,280 --> 01:14:11,760
Speaker 1: for that one. We all did that, you know, we did.

1258
01:14:11,800 --> 01:14:15,680
Speaker 1: We We occasionally have session guys come in because they

1259
01:14:15,720 --> 01:14:21,879
Speaker 1: played better in the studio. So we cut the song. Uh,

1260
01:14:22,000 --> 01:14:24,679
Speaker 1: Jimmy Everson, I didn't finish my story, so Jimmy Everson

1261
01:14:24,720 --> 01:14:28,000
Speaker 1: immediately went that's Mr Bo Jangles When I said, what's

1262
01:14:28,040 --> 01:14:31,000
Speaker 1: this song called? He had a forty five rpm in

1263
01:14:31,040 --> 01:14:35,320
Speaker 1: the trunk of his car under the spare tire, scratched

1264
01:14:35,439 --> 01:14:40,160
Speaker 1: all the hell, and so we we stacked We stacked

1265
01:14:40,200 --> 01:14:42,760
Speaker 1: pennies on the needle of the record player to get

1266
01:14:42,760 --> 01:14:46,960
Speaker 1: it to track better. Actually misheard a couple of the lyrics,

1267
01:14:47,400 --> 01:14:50,720
Speaker 1: which we recorded it that way, you know, later on

1268
01:14:50,800 --> 01:14:52,640
Speaker 1: became a huge hit with the wrong words in a

1269
01:14:52,680 --> 01:14:55,519
Speaker 1: couple of places. But Jerry Jeff, whom we met later

1270
01:14:56,080 --> 01:14:58,280
Speaker 1: forgave us because the sold a million copies. He was

1271
01:14:58,320 --> 01:15:04,400
Speaker 1: a happy camper, you know. So um yeah, So we

1272
01:15:04,400 --> 01:15:06,880
Speaker 1: we put the whole album together. Bill McEwen had this

1273
01:15:07,080 --> 01:15:10,519
Speaker 1: cool idea where he left a lot of the in

1274
01:15:10,680 --> 01:15:14,200
Speaker 1: studio chatter and count offs and laughter and just the

1275
01:15:14,280 --> 01:15:17,080
Speaker 1: fun stuff. He left a lot of that on the record,

1276
01:15:17,160 --> 01:15:21,200
Speaker 1: which we really dug you know. It was like, uh,

1277
01:15:21,320 --> 01:15:24,679
Speaker 1: the curtain being pulled back a little bit. And later

1278
01:15:24,680 --> 01:15:27,200
Speaker 1: on our fans really dug it as well. And he

1279
01:15:27,280 --> 01:15:29,800
Speaker 1: actually had this recording of this old guy, this guy

1280
01:15:30,280 --> 01:15:33,600
Speaker 1: who was his wife's uncle, Charlie, that he had recorded

1281
01:15:34,520 --> 01:15:39,080
Speaker 1: on a portable two track recorder years before in in

1282
01:15:39,479 --> 01:15:44,240
Speaker 1: Up in northern California, Uncle Charlie talking and playing the guitar,

1283
01:15:45,520 --> 01:15:48,120
Speaker 1: and he brought us to his house and he said,

1284
01:15:48,120 --> 01:15:50,040
Speaker 1: I want to play you guys something, and we little

1285
01:15:50,160 --> 01:15:53,200
Speaker 1: joint pass it around, lowered the lights, and Bill had

1286
01:15:53,240 --> 01:15:57,640
Speaker 1: this amazing you know. He had a great stereo and

1287
01:15:57,680 --> 01:16:00,240
Speaker 1: I know you're a lover of this stuff, the ack

1288
01:16:00,320 --> 01:16:05,000
Speaker 1: Apps voice of the theater speakers, and we're just like

1289
01:16:05,120 --> 01:16:07,880
Speaker 1: leaning back in the chair like the old jbl ad,

1290
01:16:07,960 --> 01:16:12,000
Speaker 1: you know. And he played he played Uncle Charlie into Mr.

1291
01:16:12,120 --> 01:16:15,639
Speaker 1: Bo Jangles, this guy talking and then a dog starts

1292
01:16:15,640 --> 01:16:18,519
Speaker 1: singing and then he cuts right to that boom ba

1293
01:16:18,560 --> 01:16:22,559
Speaker 1: dabba dabba guitar figure and we're like in tears. This

1294
01:16:22,640 --> 01:16:25,599
Speaker 1: is like I don't know how he came up with it,

1295
01:16:25,640 --> 01:16:28,519
Speaker 1: but it was a genius move. So we love it,

1296
01:16:28,520 --> 01:16:30,599
Speaker 1: and we're like thinking, we're thinking, but yeah, that's not

1297
01:16:30,680 --> 01:16:32,960
Speaker 1: the hit. It's gonna be some in Jelly's Blues, or

1298
01:16:33,000 --> 01:16:35,559
Speaker 1: it's gonna be house A Through Corner, or it's gonna

1299
01:16:35,600 --> 01:16:38,360
Speaker 1: be Ray Van. So we put our single out. We

1300
01:16:38,400 --> 01:16:40,400
Speaker 1: put out Shelley's Blues. I think it was the first single,

1301
01:16:42,080 --> 01:16:45,200
Speaker 1: and it's going up the charts. That's doing pretty pretty good.

1302
01:16:45,200 --> 01:16:47,920
Speaker 1: And now we started touring. We're touring on We're playing

1303
01:16:47,960 --> 01:16:52,519
Speaker 1: college campuses. Man, I just watched that Carlin documented I

1304
01:16:52,600 --> 01:16:55,240
Speaker 1: hadn't know if you saw it or not. Oh man,

1305
01:16:55,479 --> 01:16:58,439
Speaker 1: huge fan of George's, but in that moment that came,

1306
01:16:58,479 --> 01:17:00,320
Speaker 1: you know, when he's like, I don't want us saying

1307
01:17:01,200 --> 01:17:06,120
Speaker 1: to a bunch of disinterested people eat eating their dinners

1308
01:17:06,320 --> 01:17:09,760
Speaker 1: and drinking cocktails in these buttoned up, you know kind

1309
01:17:09,760 --> 01:17:14,680
Speaker 1: of casinos or dinner theaters. I want to play two

1310
01:17:14,720 --> 01:17:16,559
Speaker 1: kids going. I want to play the kids that are

1311
01:17:16,600 --> 01:17:19,880
Speaker 1: like us, you know, they were the same sensibility. So

1312
01:17:19,920 --> 01:17:25,640
Speaker 1: we started playing college campuses and these folks are loving us,

1313
01:17:25,640 --> 01:17:28,839
Speaker 1: and we're like, we found this audience. The record starts selling,

1314
01:17:29,400 --> 01:17:31,800
Speaker 1: but the single starting to lose its legs a little bit.

1315
01:17:32,320 --> 01:17:36,160
Speaker 1: All of a sudden, the station in Shreveport, Louisiana, late

1316
01:17:36,240 --> 01:17:40,040
Speaker 1: night Chuck starts playing Mr. Bo Jangles and the phones

1317
01:17:40,120 --> 01:17:43,040
Speaker 1: light up. These people want to hear this song. They're

1318
01:17:43,080 --> 01:17:48,360
Speaker 1: just like, you're regardless of the fact that's a four

1319
01:17:48,439 --> 01:17:52,599
Speaker 1: minute waltz, can't dance to it about an old guy

1320
01:17:52,640 --> 01:17:57,320
Speaker 1: and a dog. It's it's landing, it's resonating with people.

1321
01:17:57,720 --> 01:18:01,240
Speaker 1: Super compelling, and we get this call. Then it starts

1322
01:18:01,280 --> 01:18:04,200
Speaker 1: spreading in these other FM stations again late night where

1323
01:18:04,200 --> 01:18:07,719
Speaker 1: it's free form radio, they start playing it. Record Comany

1324
01:18:07,800 --> 01:18:11,320
Speaker 1: calls us, we're gonna pull Shelley's Blues and you're We're

1325
01:18:11,360 --> 01:18:13,720
Speaker 1: like what, and yeah, we're gonna put out Mr. Bo

1326
01:18:13,840 --> 01:18:18,439
Speaker 1: Jangles and we're going, oh geez, we're screwed. They're never

1327
01:18:18,479 --> 01:18:21,759
Speaker 1: gonna and we will love the song, make no mistake

1328
01:18:21,840 --> 01:18:24,799
Speaker 1: about that. Well, we'll figure our careers over their planning.

1329
01:18:25,520 --> 01:18:31,000
Speaker 1: They're they're gonna go with this, you know, this slow

1330
01:18:31,520 --> 01:18:35,760
Speaker 1: song and story song. People have to pay attention. We

1331
01:18:35,760 --> 01:18:38,280
Speaker 1: were so wrong, you know, as my wife likes to say,

1332
01:18:38,560 --> 01:18:42,759
Speaker 1: we had our elbows on the pulse of America. Totally

1333
01:18:42,800 --> 01:18:47,160
Speaker 1: missed it. So they put it out. Things stayed on

1334
01:18:47,200 --> 01:18:50,200
Speaker 1: the charts for several months, had slow burned, but a

1335
01:18:50,320 --> 01:18:53,040
Speaker 1: good in the best kind of way, you know, slowly

1336
01:18:53,080 --> 01:18:56,160
Speaker 1: going up the charts. Got up to number nine, stayed

1337
01:18:56,200 --> 01:18:58,800
Speaker 1: there for a couple of weeks. Really actually, I mean

1338
01:18:58,880 --> 01:19:02,320
Speaker 1: really the biggest single ever, had sold a million copies.

1339
01:19:03,160 --> 01:19:05,880
Speaker 1: Finally got to talk to Jerry Jeff on the telephone

1340
01:19:05,920 --> 01:19:09,400
Speaker 1: one night. You know, we're all drunk and you know,

1341
01:19:09,680 --> 01:19:14,360
Speaker 1: backslapping on the phone. He decided to move to Austin, Texas.

1342
01:19:14,520 --> 01:19:17,840
Speaker 1: I think he felt like this kind of this gave

1343
01:19:17,960 --> 01:19:22,559
Speaker 1: him another It really turned up his self confidence and

1344
01:19:22,640 --> 01:19:25,360
Speaker 1: it was happening, you know. I think he was on

1345
01:19:25,360 --> 01:19:26,800
Speaker 1: his way to l A. And he made a left

1346
01:19:26,840 --> 01:19:29,400
Speaker 1: turn and went to Austin. And the rest is Austin

1347
01:19:29,560 --> 01:19:32,600
Speaker 1: history for sure. And we became buddies. We played a

1348
01:19:32,640 --> 01:19:37,080
Speaker 1: bunch over the years. Love playing with Jerry Jeff. But yeah, there,

1349
01:19:37,120 --> 01:19:39,599
Speaker 1: it was there. It was that album and you know,

1350
01:19:39,800 --> 01:19:42,320
Speaker 1: and that led to other stuff down the road for us.

1351
01:19:43,000 --> 01:19:45,400
Speaker 1: Um So how do you ultimately put together? Will the

1352
01:19:45,439 --> 01:19:49,920
Speaker 1: circle be unbroken? Direct link to Mr bo Jangles. We're

1353
01:19:49,960 --> 01:19:53,320
Speaker 1: playing these tours and uh, we start playing in the

1354
01:19:53,360 --> 01:19:55,320
Speaker 1: South and we're all kind of kids, you know, long

1355
01:19:55,400 --> 01:19:58,280
Speaker 1: haired kids from l A. We're going are They're gonna

1356
01:19:58,320 --> 01:20:00,200
Speaker 1: beat the ship out of us? Down there is like

1357
01:20:00,320 --> 01:20:04,519
Speaker 1: easy Rider. I was like, no, there was some of

1358
01:20:04,520 --> 01:20:09,519
Speaker 1: that going on, and make no mistake, but uh, we're

1359
01:20:09,520 --> 01:20:13,439
Speaker 1: playing these college campuses and it was so cool. So

1360
01:20:13,479 --> 01:20:19,520
Speaker 1: we're playing Vanderbilt University and there's this kid named Gary Scruggs.

1361
01:20:19,520 --> 01:20:23,800
Speaker 1: Gary Scruggs was Earl Scruggs as oldest son. He and

1362
01:20:23,880 --> 01:20:27,920
Speaker 1: his his brother Stephen Randy, they're hearing Mr. Bo Jangles

1363
01:20:27,960 --> 01:20:30,240
Speaker 1: on the radio and there they become fans of the band.

1364
01:20:30,760 --> 01:20:33,040
Speaker 1: Sees the Uncle Charlie album, pulls it out of the

1365
01:20:33,040 --> 01:20:36,439
Speaker 1: bend and he's looking at the back of the record

1366
01:20:36,479 --> 01:20:41,960
Speaker 1: and he goes, WHOA, there's Randy Lynn Rag that my

1367
01:20:42,040 --> 01:20:46,639
Speaker 1: dad wrote about my little brother Randy. This instrumental takes

1368
01:20:46,680 --> 01:20:49,880
Speaker 1: it home. They love the album. So to get his

1369
01:20:50,040 --> 01:20:53,320
Speaker 1: dad interested, he plays Randy Lynn Ragg for for Earl.

1370
01:20:54,439 --> 01:20:57,479
Speaker 1: Earl hears it and it's like that boy can play

1371
01:20:57,520 --> 01:21:00,360
Speaker 1: that five string and that band's sounds pretty good. Never

1372
01:21:00,400 --> 01:21:05,360
Speaker 1: heard a washboard on it, Glad Scruggs record. So with

1373
01:21:05,479 --> 01:21:10,120
Speaker 1: that as the hook, Gary, who knew the dean at Vanderbilt,

1374
01:21:10,840 --> 01:21:12,439
Speaker 1: set up a meet and greet for us and the

1375
01:21:12,439 --> 01:21:17,760
Speaker 1: Scruggs family and John McEwen, especially as just shaken in

1376
01:21:17,840 --> 01:21:20,920
Speaker 1: his boots so stoked that he's gonna meet Earl Scruggs,

1377
01:21:21,000 --> 01:21:24,720
Speaker 1: but also his hero is gonna be watching, so we

1378
01:21:24,800 --> 01:21:27,799
Speaker 1: knew they were there. We played our set. We actually

1379
01:21:28,439 --> 01:21:31,600
Speaker 1: killed it. It was a really good set, went backstage,

1380
01:21:31,760 --> 01:21:34,080
Speaker 1: toweled off a little bit and in comes to Scruggs

1381
01:21:34,080 --> 01:21:39,639
Speaker 1: family and we're hanging out and immediately this is like

1382
01:21:40,240 --> 01:21:44,960
Speaker 1: long lost family these folks. The bond the friendships became

1383
01:21:45,040 --> 01:21:49,000
Speaker 1: lifelong friendships. From that moment, we you know, finally talked

1384
01:21:49,040 --> 01:21:51,200
Speaker 1: to Earl into playing a song on the five string.

1385
01:21:51,280 --> 01:21:55,519
Speaker 1: And it was a great night, you know, and Louise

1386
01:21:55,680 --> 01:21:59,400
Speaker 1: Louise Scruggs, one of the great figures in the music business,

1387
01:21:59,680 --> 01:22:04,080
Speaker 1: went the pioneering women in the music business, and who

1388
01:22:04,160 --> 01:22:07,800
Speaker 1: was Earl's manager as well. You know, we just had

1389
01:22:07,840 --> 01:22:10,439
Speaker 1: a great time. And when we bonded on music and

1390
01:22:10,720 --> 01:22:13,400
Speaker 1: Earl had just started the Earl Scruggs review had left

1391
01:22:13,479 --> 01:22:17,479
Speaker 1: Lester Flat Flat Scruggs had broken up, and Earls wants

1392
01:22:17,520 --> 01:22:19,560
Speaker 1: to play country rock kind of you know, with the

1393
01:22:19,600 --> 01:22:24,639
Speaker 1: blue gass sensibility as well. So he's on his way

1394
01:22:24,640 --> 01:22:26,680
Speaker 1: out the door after a couple hours of hanging out

1395
01:22:26,680 --> 01:22:28,600
Speaker 1: and he says, well, if you boys would ever like

1396
01:22:28,720 --> 01:22:30,600
Speaker 1: to do some recording, I'd love to get in the

1397
01:22:30,640 --> 01:22:34,760
Speaker 1: studio with you. He closes the door and we're what

1398
01:22:34,960 --> 01:22:40,160
Speaker 1: just happened. Earl Scruggs invited us to record. You know.

1399
01:22:40,160 --> 01:22:42,520
Speaker 1: It turned out that he was friends with the birds already,

1400
01:22:42,520 --> 01:22:47,160
Speaker 1: and you know, the music community in Nashville was not

1401
01:22:47,840 --> 01:22:52,479
Speaker 1: his conservative and if you're painting in broad strokes, sure,

1402
01:22:52,840 --> 01:22:55,120
Speaker 1: it seemed like everything was Roy Acuff and the grand

1403
01:22:55,120 --> 01:22:57,280
Speaker 1: old opry, you know, and it was kind of the

1404
01:22:57,280 --> 01:23:00,599
Speaker 1: country polity and thing. As far as country music mainstream

1405
01:23:00,680 --> 01:23:03,720
Speaker 1: was going on, it was pretty commercial, not a lot

1406
01:23:03,760 --> 01:23:09,760
Speaker 1: of acoustic based stuff. A few months later, um Bill

1407
01:23:09,840 --> 01:23:11,599
Speaker 1: McKuen called each of us and he said, I got

1408
01:23:11,680 --> 01:23:17,120
Speaker 1: an idea. He said, what if we take Earl's idea

1409
01:23:17,160 --> 01:23:20,200
Speaker 1: of you guys recording with him and expand the concept

1410
01:23:20,800 --> 01:23:25,040
Speaker 1: to where it's you guys and your influences get in

1411
01:23:25,080 --> 01:23:28,960
Speaker 1: the studio, we're the band, and we're playing with guys

1412
01:23:29,000 --> 01:23:33,320
Speaker 1: like Girl. We started talking about the wet if Stock, Watson, Merle, Travis,

1413
01:23:33,360 --> 01:23:36,439
Speaker 1: who we already knew because of our jug band days.

1414
01:23:36,479 --> 01:23:38,680
Speaker 1: We opened from Merle at the Ash Grove in l A.

1415
01:23:39,800 --> 01:23:44,080
Speaker 1: And uh, you know, these different ideas. We wanted to

1416
01:23:44,080 --> 01:23:46,120
Speaker 1: get Bill Monroe he did not want to play on

1417
01:23:46,160 --> 01:23:49,639
Speaker 1: the record, and Bill McEwen and John, both of them

1418
01:23:49,640 --> 01:23:53,000
Speaker 1: were fans of the great Lucrass singer Jimmy Martin. So

1419
01:23:53,040 --> 01:23:55,000
Speaker 1: he said, well, let's let's try to get Jimmy Martin.

1420
01:23:56,560 --> 01:24:00,320
Speaker 1: So me and John were we read our bands moved

1421
01:24:00,320 --> 01:24:03,400
Speaker 1: from l A to Colorado. Now this is early seventy one,

1422
01:24:03,600 --> 01:24:06,719
Speaker 1: Spring of seventy one. The Earl Scruggs review is playing

1423
01:24:06,760 --> 01:24:11,160
Speaker 1: a club called to Lagi in uh In Bowlder, Colorado.

1424
01:24:12,000 --> 01:24:16,640
Speaker 1: And I was gonna say, your buddy Chuck Moore as

1425
01:24:16,680 --> 01:24:19,040
Speaker 1: your friend, and I love Chucky, one of my one

1426
01:24:19,040 --> 01:24:21,680
Speaker 1: of my favorite people in the world. First time we

1427
01:24:21,720 --> 01:24:25,080
Speaker 1: met Chuck, he's running in the place Earl Scruggs reviews

1428
01:24:25,120 --> 01:24:27,880
Speaker 1: playing there. We'd already played there some so we were pals.

1429
01:24:28,000 --> 01:24:29,760
Speaker 1: We could walk in for free. In the back door.

1430
01:24:30,400 --> 01:24:32,599
Speaker 1: Earl's playing there. We watched the said it was great.

1431
01:24:33,080 --> 01:24:35,519
Speaker 1: John offers to drive Earl back to the hotel. I'm

1432
01:24:35,520 --> 01:24:38,040
Speaker 1: in the back seat of the car. John turns to

1433
01:24:38,080 --> 01:24:41,840
Speaker 1: Earl and said, says haltingly because he's so nervous. He's like,

1434
01:24:42,080 --> 01:24:47,360
Speaker 1: would you would you consider actually playing on our record?

1435
01:24:48,560 --> 01:24:51,720
Speaker 1: And Earle took a second and said I'd be proud to.

1436
01:24:52,640 --> 01:24:57,519
Speaker 1: And we're like dumb struck. Go back to the hotel,

1437
01:24:57,600 --> 01:24:59,360
Speaker 1: hang out with Earl and the kids against some more

1438
01:25:00,000 --> 01:25:03,120
Speaker 1: picked till the wee hours I went home, John stuck

1439
01:25:03,160 --> 01:25:07,519
Speaker 1: around for a while longer. I think over the course, now,

1440
01:25:07,640 --> 01:25:09,280
Speaker 1: this is what Gary told me, and this is what

1441
01:25:09,360 --> 01:25:11,360
Speaker 1: Earle actually wrote in his book. He said, over the

1442
01:25:11,360 --> 01:25:15,280
Speaker 1: course of the evening, Earl mentioned why not can get

1443
01:25:15,360 --> 01:25:17,920
Speaker 1: some of the other old timers. This is before Bill

1444
01:25:17,960 --> 01:25:20,200
Speaker 1: had called us, by the way, so I don't know

1445
01:25:20,720 --> 01:25:23,559
Speaker 1: who had the idea. It doesn't really matter at this point,

1446
01:25:23,600 --> 01:25:26,920
Speaker 1: does it. But what does matter is that Earl agreed

1447
01:25:26,960 --> 01:25:29,800
Speaker 1: to do it. And he was so cool and so

1448
01:25:29,880 --> 01:25:35,760
Speaker 1: gracious and so forward thinking in terms of music. So

1449
01:25:36,000 --> 01:25:39,599
Speaker 1: with Earl Scruggs, we had Earl in our pocket. Now.

1450
01:25:39,880 --> 01:25:42,759
Speaker 1: Next week John went to see Doc and Merle Watson

1451
01:25:42,800 --> 01:25:47,160
Speaker 1: at the same club in Boulder, Too Loggy. John asked

1452
01:25:47,200 --> 01:25:50,960
Speaker 1: Doc if he'd be interested. He said, hey, Doc, we're

1453
01:25:50,960 --> 01:25:54,720
Speaker 1: doing a record with Earl Scruggs, which how would you feel?

1454
01:25:54,760 --> 01:25:58,080
Speaker 1: And Doc was like, yeah, anything if Earl's on and

1455
01:25:58,120 --> 01:26:01,320
Speaker 1: I'm in. And to his credit, Murrell Watson, the late

1456
01:26:01,320 --> 01:26:05,600
Speaker 1: Great Murrell Watson, doc son great guitarist, said you know,

1457
01:26:06,160 --> 01:26:08,320
Speaker 1: he said, you know, Daddy, I played some of their

1458
01:26:08,360 --> 01:26:11,360
Speaker 1: stuff and you really like their singing as well. So

1459
01:26:11,520 --> 01:26:14,920
Speaker 1: again the second generation the same as it was with

1460
01:26:15,000 --> 01:26:17,880
Speaker 1: Earl and his family. His kids loved the band, brought

1461
01:26:18,000 --> 01:26:22,000
Speaker 1: him in. Doc's kid loved the band, so you got

1462
01:26:22,040 --> 01:26:25,120
Speaker 1: already it's we're setting kind of a tone for the record,

1463
01:26:25,120 --> 01:26:31,040
Speaker 1: which is this multi generational thing. After that, we got

1464
01:26:31,080 --> 01:26:33,639
Speaker 1: on the horn with Louise Scruggs and she and Earl

1465
01:26:33,760 --> 01:26:38,080
Speaker 1: authored to you know, um opened some doors for us

1466
01:26:38,120 --> 01:26:42,080
Speaker 1: when we came to Nashville. Meanwhile, Bill mcwhen with John

1467
01:26:42,120 --> 01:26:44,879
Speaker 1: and Toe went and had a meeting with our president

1468
01:26:44,920 --> 01:26:48,200
Speaker 1: of Liberty Records, who was a guy at that point

1469
01:26:48,320 --> 01:26:52,120
Speaker 1: named Mike Stewart. We got this top tanks top ten

1470
01:26:52,240 --> 01:26:55,679
Speaker 1: single Mr. Bo Jangles on the chart. Bill and John

1471
01:26:55,760 --> 01:26:57,080
Speaker 1: came in there and said, we want to cut a

1472
01:26:57,080 --> 01:27:02,360
Speaker 1: bluegrass record, and my set, uh okay, let me get

1473
01:27:02,400 --> 01:27:04,960
Speaker 1: this right. You got you don't want to follow up

1474
01:27:05,160 --> 01:27:09,240
Speaker 1: Uncle Charlie with a another country rock record. We do,

1475
01:27:09,760 --> 01:27:12,080
Speaker 1: but first we want to do this bluegrass record. And

1476
01:27:12,120 --> 01:27:16,920
Speaker 1: he said, well, I think the budget was like seventeen

1477
01:27:17,000 --> 01:27:20,240
Speaker 1: grands something and it was under twenty tho dollars. I'll

1478
01:27:20,240 --> 01:27:24,799
Speaker 1: give you, you you know, seventeen thousand to make the record.

1479
01:27:25,439 --> 01:27:30,200
Speaker 1: Odd figure and Bill and John are like done, great,

1480
01:27:30,560 --> 01:27:33,760
Speaker 1: So we go to Nashville. He said, I think you

1481
01:27:33,760 --> 01:27:36,280
Speaker 1: guys are crazy, but I trust your instincts because boj

1482
01:27:36,320 --> 01:27:38,679
Speaker 1: Angles is a big hit, you know, and Shelley's Blues

1483
01:27:38,680 --> 01:27:41,920
Speaker 1: did pretty good, and how Supo Corner did pretty good.

1484
01:27:41,920 --> 01:27:44,479
Speaker 1: We saw some albums and we kind of got you know,

1485
01:27:44,680 --> 01:27:47,719
Speaker 1: we have our foot in the door at radio now.

1486
01:27:48,840 --> 01:27:51,800
Speaker 1: So we went to Nashville. We we hung out with

1487
01:27:51,800 --> 01:27:55,960
Speaker 1: the Scruggs family. We're meeting all these great folks. Jody Mafis,

1488
01:27:55,960 --> 01:27:59,559
Speaker 1: who was the drummer from the Scruggs Review, his dad.

1489
01:27:59,800 --> 01:28:03,160
Speaker 1: His parents were Joe and Rosalie Mathis, who were legendary

1490
01:28:03,200 --> 01:28:06,880
Speaker 1: pickers from the Grand Old Opry and the UH and

1491
01:28:06,920 --> 01:28:09,920
Speaker 1: the Louisiana Hayride as well. And it was like, man,

1492
01:28:11,200 --> 01:28:13,760
Speaker 1: this is so cool. We're meeting all these folks who

1493
01:28:13,760 --> 01:28:17,000
Speaker 1: are not what we're thinking. By the way, next generation

1494
01:28:17,040 --> 01:28:22,360
Speaker 1: folks that pretty much invented the genre. Got to point out,

1495
01:28:22,400 --> 01:28:26,320
Speaker 1: this is like fifties and sixties, and they like us

1496
01:28:26,320 --> 01:28:28,679
Speaker 1: and they want to hang out with us. We're spending

1497
01:28:28,800 --> 01:28:32,479
Speaker 1: all day at the Scrugs family's house, just picking and

1498
01:28:32,560 --> 01:28:36,679
Speaker 1: hanging out. Meanwhile, Earls brought in the great Vassar clements

1499
01:28:36,680 --> 01:28:39,559
Speaker 1: on fiddle and the great Junior Husky on electric bass.

1500
01:28:40,360 --> 01:28:45,080
Speaker 1: Remember John Sanda too early says, who's this fiddle player?

1501
01:28:45,200 --> 01:28:49,479
Speaker 1: Vassar kind of name is well and he goes. Earl said, well,

1502
01:28:49,479 --> 01:28:52,760
Speaker 1: that's his name is Vassar Clemens. And John said was

1503
01:28:52,800 --> 01:28:58,880
Speaker 1: he any good? And Earl said he'll do great story

1504
01:28:59,160 --> 01:29:01,880
Speaker 1: and that was classic us, by the way, never lost

1505
01:29:01,920 --> 01:29:07,960
Speaker 1: that teenage cockiness about like so and and uh. We

1506
01:29:08,040 --> 01:29:11,759
Speaker 1: wanted to get the great Flatt and scrugs doboro player

1507
01:29:12,080 --> 01:29:14,640
Speaker 1: Josh Graves, but he was playing with Lester Flatt and

1508
01:29:14,720 --> 01:29:17,960
Speaker 1: Lester wouldn't let him play on the record. Unfortunately, later

1509
01:29:18,000 --> 01:29:20,080
Speaker 1: on we finally got to record song with Josh and

1510
01:29:20,080 --> 01:29:25,880
Speaker 1: went amazing. But we got uh, legendary country picker Mr

1511
01:29:26,080 --> 01:29:28,280
Speaker 1: Norman Blake agreed to come in and play do bro.

1512
01:29:28,439 --> 01:29:33,639
Speaker 1: So we got this band that includes you know, Junior

1513
01:29:33,760 --> 01:29:38,680
Speaker 1: on upright basse uh and Vasser on fiddle. And by

1514
01:29:38,720 --> 01:29:41,800
Speaker 1: the way, these guys were like again, instant pals, the

1515
01:29:41,840 --> 01:29:45,400
Speaker 1: coolest cats, and they they didn't you know, they thought

1516
01:29:45,439 --> 01:29:47,160
Speaker 1: nothing to hang in a bunch with a bunch of

1517
01:29:47,240 --> 01:29:51,000
Speaker 1: hippies from l A or the mountains of Colorado, and

1518
01:29:51,080 --> 01:29:53,360
Speaker 1: we just bonded with the music, and they were also

1519
01:29:53,479 --> 01:29:56,360
Speaker 1: like wise cracking guys, and most of the session guys

1520
01:29:56,360 --> 01:29:59,479
Speaker 1: I've ever met in life have been the funniest people

1521
01:29:59,479 --> 01:30:04,160
Speaker 1: I've ever met, you know. Uh, So we rehearsed for

1522
01:30:04,200 --> 01:30:06,240
Speaker 1: about a week. I think, you know, maybe it's I

1523
01:30:06,400 --> 01:30:07,840
Speaker 1: don't know, maybe it's a little shorter. We went to

1524
01:30:07,920 --> 01:30:11,479
Speaker 1: Jimmy Martin's house. Louis Louise Scruggs helped us get Jimmy

1525
01:30:11,520 --> 01:30:15,240
Speaker 1: on board, and uh we went to his house and

1526
01:30:15,320 --> 01:30:17,800
Speaker 1: learned how to sink some proper bluegrass harmony for the

1527
01:30:17,840 --> 01:30:20,680
Speaker 1: sessions that we were going to do with him. And

1528
01:30:21,560 --> 01:30:24,120
Speaker 1: here comes Monday, and we got in the studio and

1529
01:30:24,160 --> 01:30:26,960
Speaker 1: we recorded. I guess I think for five days. I

1530
01:30:27,200 --> 01:30:31,160
Speaker 1: believe it was all you know for audio files. We

1531
01:30:31,280 --> 01:30:36,880
Speaker 1: recorded quarter inch thirty ips live analog tape and it

1532
01:30:37,040 --> 01:30:39,720
Speaker 1: sounded like a million it was so good. But you

1533
01:30:39,920 --> 01:30:42,680
Speaker 1: burned through tape quickly that way, and tape wasn't cheap

1534
01:30:42,720 --> 01:30:45,600
Speaker 1: even back then. We're at Woodland Sounds Studios, one of

1535
01:30:45,600 --> 01:30:49,960
Speaker 1: the great studios, legendary, still there today, thank goodness, because

1536
01:30:50,560 --> 01:30:53,679
Speaker 1: Gillian Welsh and David Rawlings saved the place. They bought

1537
01:30:53,680 --> 01:30:55,280
Speaker 1: it when it looked like it was going to get

1538
01:30:55,400 --> 01:30:57,880
Speaker 1: hit by the wreck and ball. God bless them and

1539
01:30:57,960 --> 01:31:01,920
Speaker 1: I love them so much. Um So we walked into

1540
01:31:01,960 --> 01:31:05,559
Speaker 1: Woodlands set up and man, we set up set us

1541
01:31:05,600 --> 01:31:08,240
Speaker 1: up in a circle so there weren't a bunch of

1542
01:31:09,320 --> 01:31:13,120
Speaker 1: baffles separating the musicians. You know, typically you don't want

1543
01:31:13,160 --> 01:31:15,240
Speaker 1: that bleed. You don't want to hear the banjo in

1544
01:31:15,280 --> 01:31:18,639
Speaker 1: the bass players Mike, or the washboard and the guitar

1545
01:31:18,680 --> 01:31:21,120
Speaker 1: players Mike. But we would just go, okay, Jeff face

1546
01:31:21,200 --> 01:31:24,479
Speaker 1: the wall when you play the washboard. You know. We

1547
01:31:24,600 --> 01:31:27,160
Speaker 1: figured it all out and it sounded so good. The

1548
01:31:27,200 --> 01:31:32,600
Speaker 1: little the cross talk between instruments actually added to the

1549
01:31:32,600 --> 01:31:35,120
Speaker 1: the musical integrity of the record. Plus we could see

1550
01:31:35,120 --> 01:31:39,479
Speaker 1: each other, so this is like backporch stuff and it

1551
01:31:39,600 --> 01:31:42,640
Speaker 1: was so much fun and visual accues. We're mixing the

1552
01:31:42,680 --> 01:31:47,240
Speaker 1: record as as musicians, not as you know, the mixed

1553
01:31:47,240 --> 01:31:51,400
Speaker 1: down later and Bill McEwen ran a separate tape machine

1554
01:31:51,720 --> 01:31:56,240
Speaker 1: that caught all captured all those conversations, all those you know,

1555
01:31:56,400 --> 01:32:00,720
Speaker 1: starts and stops, and you know, we we recorded all

1556
01:32:00,760 --> 01:32:03,080
Speaker 1: this music and jump back on the bus a few

1557
01:32:03,160 --> 01:32:14,080
Speaker 1: days later and left it to build all those tapes Okay,

1558
01:32:14,120 --> 01:32:17,400
Speaker 1: it ends up coming out as a triple records set.

1559
01:32:18,120 --> 01:32:20,800
Speaker 1: Trying to think would even have that many records? All

1560
01:32:21,240 --> 01:32:25,000
Speaker 1: all things must pass? How did the record company agree

1561
01:32:25,040 --> 01:32:28,600
Speaker 1: to have three records? And then the record started to

1562
01:32:28,640 --> 01:32:31,680
Speaker 1: do this slow burn? What was the perspective from the inside.

1563
01:32:32,200 --> 01:32:36,040
Speaker 1: From the inside, they were still you know, they and

1564
01:32:36,120 --> 01:32:38,640
Speaker 1: we did manage I might add to get Roy a

1565
01:32:38,720 --> 01:32:41,040
Speaker 1: coff on board, by the way, after he heard some

1566
01:32:41,080 --> 01:32:43,320
Speaker 1: of the music he was in, so like, yeah, we

1567
01:32:43,439 --> 01:32:46,679
Speaker 1: got the king of country music and mother Mabel Carter

1568
01:32:46,760 --> 01:32:51,280
Speaker 1: who came in with Earl scrugs that that connection. So

1569
01:32:51,360 --> 01:32:54,559
Speaker 1: the record companies like, yeah, okay, it's a bluegrass album.

1570
01:32:54,600 --> 01:32:59,880
Speaker 1: They asked, got three five songs as pretty long, live

1571
01:33:00,000 --> 01:33:03,760
Speaker 1: out of talking, a lot of blue grass, a lot

1572
01:33:03,760 --> 01:33:09,439
Speaker 1: of where's the hit, no hits? Well, so Bill did.

1573
01:33:09,560 --> 01:33:18,000
Speaker 1: They allowed him the latitude to go get a ah,

1574
01:33:18,479 --> 01:33:20,759
Speaker 1: to go do some mock that you get to show

1575
01:33:20,800 --> 01:33:23,439
Speaker 1: them some of the artwork that he was doing with Dean,

1576
01:33:23,520 --> 01:33:26,240
Speaker 1: our friend Dean Torrance, who know Dean from Dana Jeane

1577
01:33:26,280 --> 01:33:29,719
Speaker 1: Beach Boys, all that great guy, amazing graphic artists as well.

1578
01:33:30,160 --> 01:33:32,479
Speaker 1: So Dean and Bill got in there and started designing

1579
01:33:32,479 --> 01:33:35,559
Speaker 1: this stuff, and it was like, I think he showed

1580
01:33:35,600 --> 01:33:38,360
Speaker 1: them kind of a rough. He played him the record,

1581
01:33:38,360 --> 01:33:40,880
Speaker 1: but showed him a rough of the visuals for the record.

1582
01:33:41,880 --> 01:33:45,680
Speaker 1: And they said, okay again because we're burning it up.

1583
01:33:45,720 --> 01:33:48,599
Speaker 1: We're selling tickets in concert. You know, our our rep

1584
01:33:48,680 --> 01:33:52,840
Speaker 1: is still pretty good. And they said, fine, as long

1585
01:33:52,880 --> 01:33:56,559
Speaker 1: as you deliver another studio record within the next six months.

1586
01:33:56,640 --> 01:34:01,280
Speaker 1: And we did. But this, you know, meantime several months

1587
01:34:01,320 --> 01:34:03,920
Speaker 1: go by. This is like we've gone from summer into

1588
01:34:03,960 --> 01:34:07,200
Speaker 1: the summer of seventy one to the spring of seventy two,

1589
01:34:07,240 --> 01:34:11,439
Speaker 1: and Bill after months of you know, putting together the

1590
01:34:11,479 --> 01:34:16,120
Speaker 1: package and do all that editing, of conversations that went

1591
01:34:16,280 --> 01:34:21,240
Speaker 1: like beautifully you know, gosh, I mean seamlessly into the

1592
01:34:21,280 --> 01:34:25,880
Speaker 1: tracks on the record. Uh, it finally comes out and

1593
01:34:26,720 --> 01:34:30,160
Speaker 1: like you said, slow Burn, that's a record literally that

1594
01:34:31,160 --> 01:34:34,040
Speaker 1: I think we took out an adder two and billboard

1595
01:34:34,120 --> 01:34:36,560
Speaker 1: or you know what a cash box Back then, I

1596
01:34:36,600 --> 01:34:39,479
Speaker 1: don't think radio and Records was even up and running yet.

1597
01:34:39,600 --> 01:34:45,120
Speaker 1: Who's cash cash box and Billboard? And the f M

1598
01:34:45,240 --> 01:34:49,559
Speaker 1: DJ's college stations especially who had nobody's telling him what

1599
01:34:49,640 --> 01:34:53,320
Speaker 1: to play? They started playing Doc Watson doing Tennessee stud.

1600
01:34:53,400 --> 01:34:56,559
Speaker 1: You know, that's my favorite you know what, I knew

1601
01:34:56,600 --> 01:34:59,080
Speaker 1: that and it's one of my favorite songs of the record.

1602
01:34:59,280 --> 01:35:01,680
Speaker 1: And if you can imagine, I mean, I gotta just

1603
01:35:01,720 --> 01:35:05,080
Speaker 1: say I told you earlier. You know. I'm I'm fifteen,

1604
01:35:05,160 --> 01:35:08,280
Speaker 1: sixteen years old listening to Doc Watson play the guitar

1605
01:35:08,320 --> 01:35:13,120
Speaker 1: and sing lifetime hero of Mine and I'm leaning visual

1606
01:35:13,160 --> 01:35:16,439
Speaker 1: literally we didn't have a separate Mike. I'm leaning over

1607
01:35:16,560 --> 01:35:22,160
Speaker 1: Doc's shoulder singing harmony on Tennessee stud. He's like, where's

1608
01:35:22,200 --> 01:35:26,880
Speaker 1: that harmony? Man? You know now, I'm like over here, ah,

1609
01:35:26,920 --> 01:35:29,280
Speaker 1: you know, and that's I got that. Such a great track.

1610
01:35:29,360 --> 01:35:34,640
Speaker 1: Jimmy Fadden invassor Clemence at fiddle. That's amazing what they

1611
01:35:34,640 --> 01:35:38,360
Speaker 1: played on that. So college picks up on it. Yeah,

1612
01:35:38,400 --> 01:35:40,240
Speaker 1: they pick up on that, and they're playing you know,

1613
01:35:40,439 --> 01:35:44,800
Speaker 1: Lost Highway that was feature Jimmy it Wasson and and

1614
01:35:44,800 --> 01:35:48,320
Speaker 1: and Honky talking with Fadden and they're playing all these

1615
01:35:48,360 --> 01:35:52,160
Speaker 1: great scrub stuff Nashville Blues, you know, of course, the

1616
01:35:52,160 --> 01:35:54,640
Speaker 1: title track Will the Circle Be Unbroken? I saw the

1617
01:35:54,760 --> 01:35:59,400
Speaker 1: Light with Roy Acuff and people are listen, man, if

1618
01:35:59,400 --> 01:36:02,000
Speaker 1: I had a any for every and people from the

1619
01:36:02,120 --> 01:36:07,639
Speaker 1: rock and roll side years later. I didn't like country music,

1620
01:36:08,040 --> 01:36:11,280
Speaker 1: you know, the southern kids, that was their parents music.

1621
01:36:11,800 --> 01:36:15,439
Speaker 1: So they just, you know, they just didn't want to know.

1622
01:36:15,520 --> 01:36:19,360
Speaker 1: You a little rebellion, rock and roll, that's ours. Country music,

1623
01:36:19,640 --> 01:36:24,400
Speaker 1: bluegrass that's yours. Right here come these long Hairs all

1624
01:36:24,400 --> 01:36:28,640
Speaker 1: of a sudden. The music looks like the Buffalo Springfield,

1625
01:36:29,320 --> 01:36:31,960
Speaker 1: but it sounds like this other stuff. And here's these

1626
01:36:32,000 --> 01:36:36,280
Speaker 1: young guys singing and playing along. Somehow, whatever influence we

1627
01:36:36,400 --> 01:36:41,640
Speaker 1: might have had to help sort of expose those artists. Look,

1628
01:36:41,240 --> 01:36:45,639
Speaker 1: I'm not stupider. Yeah, I'm humbled enough to know that

1629
01:36:46,160 --> 01:36:49,920
Speaker 1: mother maybe ill Carter kids, it's Earl scruggskis is roy Aka.

1630
01:36:51,240 --> 01:36:54,240
Speaker 1: But you know they a lot of the younger generation

1631
01:36:54,360 --> 01:36:58,879
Speaker 1: weren't into that music. Doc Watson's folk boom career had

1632
01:36:58,680 --> 01:37:03,519
Speaker 1: had cooled off a little it. But man, I'm so

1633
01:37:03,600 --> 01:37:06,599
Speaker 1: proud after the fact that that that might have had

1634
01:37:06,640 --> 01:37:10,520
Speaker 1: a hand in that and also expanded the world of bluegrass.

1635
01:37:10,800 --> 01:37:13,439
Speaker 1: Those festivals changed, and we can talk about that later

1636
01:37:13,479 --> 01:37:17,400
Speaker 1: if you want, But back then bluegrass festivals were strictly traditional.

1637
01:37:18,360 --> 01:37:21,200
Speaker 1: Then acts like the Earl Scruggs Review, the Dirt Band,

1638
01:37:21,280 --> 01:37:25,679
Speaker 1: John Hartford New Grass Revival. They start showing up. It's

1639
01:37:25,720 --> 01:37:29,280
Speaker 1: like the dope smokers showed up, you know, or at

1640
01:37:29,360 --> 01:37:33,800
Speaker 1: least started smoking dope in front of people. There's some

1641
01:37:33,840 --> 01:37:38,960
Speaker 1: blue grass bands that okay, let's jump forward. You ultimately

1642
01:37:39,000 --> 01:37:43,080
Speaker 1: do two more of those, uh will the circle be unbroken? Records?

1643
01:37:43,479 --> 01:37:46,840
Speaker 1: You then start to have soft rock success at the

1644
01:37:46,960 --> 01:37:51,240
Speaker 1: end of the seventies. My favorite of your recorded songs,

1645
01:37:51,280 --> 01:37:54,280
Speaker 1: you have Harmony, which I really love your a co

1646
01:37:54,439 --> 01:37:58,320
Speaker 1: writer on. Then how do you decide to have go

1647
01:37:58,479 --> 01:38:03,320
Speaker 1: to Nashville, cracked the country market, have a string of

1648
01:38:03,439 --> 01:38:07,360
Speaker 1: hit and then ultimately go to Russia. That's a lot,

1649
01:38:07,479 --> 01:38:10,559
Speaker 1: that's unpacking a lot, but quickly I should I should

1650
01:38:10,800 --> 01:38:12,960
Speaker 1: give a shout out to Bob Carpenter. But yeah, my

1651
01:38:13,000 --> 01:38:15,720
Speaker 1: co writer on Harmony, and I think it's that's the

1652
01:38:15,760 --> 01:38:18,559
Speaker 1: first time you ever wrote about us. My buddy George

1653
01:38:18,560 --> 01:38:22,040
Speaker 1: Massenberg came into the studio and said, do you read

1654
01:38:22,040 --> 01:38:24,400
Speaker 1: the Leftist Letter? And I said, what's that? And he

1655
01:38:24,479 --> 01:38:26,840
Speaker 1: showed it to me and I subscribed, And you know,

1656
01:38:27,560 --> 01:38:29,679
Speaker 1: and you were so kind. That wasn't even a single

1657
01:38:29,680 --> 01:38:32,960
Speaker 1: lot I don't think should have been. And I wrote that, Yeah,

1658
01:38:33,280 --> 01:38:35,800
Speaker 1: very proud of that song Nicolette Larson bless her Heart.

1659
01:38:36,000 --> 01:38:38,800
Speaker 1: She sang on that as well. But yeah, so that

1660
01:38:38,880 --> 01:38:40,920
Speaker 1: was on the Make a Little Magic album. We did that,

1661
01:38:41,000 --> 01:38:43,880
Speaker 1: and Nikki sang on that, and we we'd had that

1662
01:38:43,960 --> 01:38:48,799
Speaker 1: hit American Dream with Linda. Well, both those songs. This matters,

1663
01:38:49,000 --> 01:38:51,200
Speaker 1: this part of it. They became pop is both of them.

1664
01:38:51,240 --> 01:38:54,000
Speaker 1: It was like our first big hits since bo j Angles.

1665
01:38:55,240 --> 01:38:58,240
Speaker 1: They also charted on the country charts without any real

1666
01:38:58,320 --> 01:39:01,240
Speaker 1: effort on our part, but they I guess, you know,

1667
01:39:01,960 --> 01:39:04,880
Speaker 1: the country radio was now opening up a bit. There

1668
01:39:04,880 --> 01:39:10,519
Speaker 1: were bands like Alabama. They were making a big splasher radio.

1669
01:39:10,600 --> 01:39:13,640
Speaker 1: And I remember somebody playing me an Alabama record and

1670
01:39:13,640 --> 01:39:16,560
Speaker 1: I'm like, yeah, I get that. It's got sort of

1671
01:39:16,600 --> 01:39:19,880
Speaker 1: an Eagles vibe or a dirt band vibe or Burrito's vibe.

1672
01:39:20,120 --> 01:39:23,800
Speaker 1: It's the California. It's the California country rock that we

1673
01:39:23,880 --> 01:39:27,040
Speaker 1: were playing in the seventies. Only now they're making these

1674
01:39:27,040 --> 01:39:31,439
Speaker 1: records on music Row. So we went, we went to Nashville.

1675
01:39:31,560 --> 01:39:36,160
Speaker 1: We made a record with a great producer, Mr Norbert Putnam,

1676
01:39:36,439 --> 01:39:39,960
Speaker 1: who had done you know who was a legendary session

1677
01:39:40,040 --> 01:39:42,479
Speaker 1: guy here for years. He was part of that you

1678
01:39:42,479 --> 01:39:46,320
Speaker 1: know the Nashville Cats, the early six one five guys,

1679
01:39:46,400 --> 01:39:49,960
Speaker 1: you know. And he had produced our buddy Jimmy Buffett

1680
01:39:50,040 --> 01:39:52,280
Speaker 1: and and our friend Dan Vogelberg as well, made great

1681
01:39:52,320 --> 01:39:55,880
Speaker 1: records with them. So we cut that. We cut the

1682
01:39:55,960 --> 01:39:58,400
Speaker 1: song Dance Little Gene that was written by my buddy

1683
01:39:58,479 --> 01:40:03,840
Speaker 1: Jimmy Ivison. Then we went in the studio also with

1684
01:40:04,360 --> 01:40:07,679
Speaker 1: Richard Landis to cut some more tracks. Three more tracks

1685
01:40:07,720 --> 01:40:10,799
Speaker 1: cut in l A. So we got in the studio

1686
01:40:10,840 --> 01:40:12,880
Speaker 1: cut some stuff and he had just had this big

1687
01:40:12,960 --> 01:40:17,440
Speaker 1: hit of what was the song, Oh Angel of the Morning,

1688
01:40:17,479 --> 01:40:19,559
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, God, And that's a great record, by the way,

1689
01:40:19,560 --> 01:40:23,000
Speaker 1: I love Juice Newton Killer made a brilliant record on it,

1690
01:40:23,479 --> 01:40:25,600
Speaker 1: and he kind of using that formula with us. And

1691
01:40:25,640 --> 01:40:27,400
Speaker 1: we did the song called Shot full of Love that

1692
01:40:27,479 --> 01:40:31,360
Speaker 1: you said recorded. We did Andrew Gold song called Heartaches

1693
01:40:31,400 --> 01:40:34,680
Speaker 1: and Heartaches. We did a again. This is where we're

1694
01:40:34,680 --> 01:40:37,320
Speaker 1: getting at least have an opinion about the cover songs.

1695
01:40:37,560 --> 01:40:41,760
Speaker 1: Um Marshall Crenshaw song called Mary Anne. We cut those

1696
01:40:41,800 --> 01:40:45,599
Speaker 1: three songs, went back to Nashville. And this is, by

1697
01:40:45,640 --> 01:40:47,919
Speaker 1: the way, this is now we're still on Liberty Records,

1698
01:40:48,000 --> 01:40:49,880
Speaker 1: so we're not we're getting we got the guys in

1699
01:40:50,040 --> 01:40:51,800
Speaker 1: l A that are kind of calling the shots for

1700
01:40:51,840 --> 01:40:54,439
Speaker 1: their country music career. So they want to put out

1701
01:40:54,439 --> 01:40:58,520
Speaker 1: the Richard Landis stuff, you know, sort of in partnership

1702
01:40:58,600 --> 01:41:04,400
Speaker 1: with the the that which is now Liberty Nashville. Uh.

1703
01:41:04,520 --> 01:41:06,720
Speaker 1: And we didn't really know those folks. Great folks, Jim

1704
01:41:06,760 --> 01:41:10,599
Speaker 1: Fogel song, great record guy. So they put out Shot

1705
01:41:10,640 --> 01:41:12,800
Speaker 1: full of Love. Then it becomes the top fifteen hit

1706
01:41:12,880 --> 01:41:14,799
Speaker 1: for the band, and we're like, this is pretty cool.

1707
01:41:15,520 --> 01:41:19,160
Speaker 1: But then same thing happened, like Mr. Bo Jangles Station

1708
01:41:19,240 --> 01:41:22,559
Speaker 1: starts spinning Dance Little Jeane, which was a song that

1709
01:41:23,400 --> 01:41:25,880
Speaker 1: was kind of like buried in the record. So they

1710
01:41:25,920 --> 01:41:29,479
Speaker 1: started playing Dance Little Gene. But they thought, well, maybe

1711
01:41:29,520 --> 01:41:31,759
Speaker 1: we need to remix it and put a steel guitar

1712
01:41:31,920 --> 01:41:35,040
Speaker 1: on it, which we loved. And our friend Larry Sasser,

1713
01:41:36,040 --> 01:41:38,639
Speaker 1: who was a great session guy, came in and put

1714
01:41:38,720 --> 01:41:41,839
Speaker 1: and put steel on it, and we did a remix

1715
01:41:41,920 --> 01:41:45,040
Speaker 1: with these two young producers, Paul Whorley and Marshall Morgan.

1716
01:41:46,320 --> 01:41:48,920
Speaker 1: They put they took that version of Dance Little Gene,

1717
01:41:49,000 --> 01:41:51,439
Speaker 1: went to radio with it and became the Dirt Band's

1718
01:41:51,479 --> 01:41:56,760
Speaker 1: first top ten country single, and at that point Chuck Morris,

1719
01:41:57,160 --> 01:42:02,240
Speaker 1: uh had become our manager, and he's he become buddies

1720
01:42:02,280 --> 01:42:05,000
Speaker 1: with Jim Ed Norman who was running Warner Brothers. And

1721
01:42:05,040 --> 01:42:10,000
Speaker 1: we're like, oh my gosh, finally because we were the

1722
01:42:10,680 --> 01:42:14,160
Speaker 1: bunny was the we idolized the bunny. You know all

1723
01:42:14,160 --> 01:42:17,920
Speaker 1: those you know, all those acts on Warner Brothers that

1724
01:42:17,960 --> 01:42:21,639
Speaker 1: we were crazy about, including Ray Cooter and your Bonny

1725
01:42:21,800 --> 01:42:25,559
Speaker 1: Rate and Jah in the early days, uh, you know,

1726
01:42:25,600 --> 01:42:29,280
Speaker 1: in the offshoots everything, everything that was on Electra and

1727
01:42:29,640 --> 01:42:34,200
Speaker 1: you know later on uh Asylum. So and here's Jim

1728
01:42:34,320 --> 01:42:38,120
Speaker 1: Ed Doorman, who I met through my new friend Don

1729
01:42:38,160 --> 01:42:41,760
Speaker 1: Handily years ago. And so Jim Ed been you know,

1730
01:42:41,840 --> 01:42:44,559
Speaker 1: he'd been arranging strings with those guys and he came

1731
01:42:44,600 --> 01:42:48,560
Speaker 1: from Texas when they were called Shiloh, that band California.

1732
01:42:49,240 --> 01:42:52,400
Speaker 1: So Jim as the record company prisoner, Like how cool?

1733
01:42:53,240 --> 01:42:55,720
Speaker 1: What could be cooler? And then our new buddies, Caul

1734
01:42:55,760 --> 01:42:58,960
Speaker 1: Warley and Marshall Morgan, we're going to produce us. We

1735
01:42:59,080 --> 01:43:02,200
Speaker 1: got in the studio and had a man an awesome

1736
01:43:02,240 --> 01:43:05,640
Speaker 1: string of top ten singles with those guys. It was

1737
01:43:05,680 --> 01:43:09,240
Speaker 1: like one after the other, you know. Unfortunately, Warner Brothers

1738
01:43:09,280 --> 01:43:12,439
Speaker 1: never wanted to go deeper than three singles, which was

1739
01:43:12,760 --> 01:43:15,759
Speaker 1: I think kind of stupid. You know. Joe Glani changed

1740
01:43:15,800 --> 01:43:18,160
Speaker 1: that later with our c A and they went five deep,

1741
01:43:18,439 --> 01:43:20,000
Speaker 1: because you make an album and they want you to

1742
01:43:20,040 --> 01:43:24,479
Speaker 1: record five singles and then the rest is yours. So

1743
01:43:25,280 --> 01:43:28,120
Speaker 1: the other two songs that didn't get recorded, we're typically

1744
01:43:28,160 --> 01:43:32,160
Speaker 1: stuff that those are radio songs, you know, again the

1745
01:43:32,200 --> 01:43:34,639
Speaker 1: record bills. But I love those albums that we made

1746
01:43:34,680 --> 01:43:37,320
Speaker 1: with with Marshall and Paul and there, you know, we're

1747
01:43:37,360 --> 01:43:42,080
Speaker 1: recording our own stuff and having you know, we're rolling

1748
01:43:42,160 --> 01:43:45,800
Speaker 1: in it. We'd never had this consistency at radio ever

1749
01:43:46,360 --> 01:43:49,439
Speaker 1: because rock and roll that's a that's a fish, that's

1750
01:43:49,479 --> 01:43:53,200
Speaker 1: a fickle mistress there. You know, like Chris Rock said,

1751
01:43:53,400 --> 01:43:58,440
Speaker 1: here today, gone today. You're having all the success in Nashville,

1752
01:43:58,640 --> 01:44:01,439
Speaker 1: how do you end up going to Rush show? Well,

1753
01:44:01,520 --> 01:44:06,800
Speaker 1: Russia happened just before Nashville. We were a man, this

1754
01:44:06,880 --> 01:44:09,320
Speaker 1: is so strange. We were we were in the middle

1755
01:44:09,360 --> 01:44:11,800
Speaker 1: of that sort of you'll call it yacht rock now

1756
01:44:11,840 --> 01:44:14,120
Speaker 1: if you choose to period where we had to make

1757
01:44:14,160 --> 01:44:17,760
Speaker 1: a little magic and American dream and you know, we

1758
01:44:17,880 --> 01:44:21,200
Speaker 1: all had sun tans and Hawaiian shirts on our records

1759
01:44:21,200 --> 01:44:25,479
Speaker 1: and we were pretty swave trying to emulate Don Johnson,

1760
01:44:25,560 --> 01:44:29,800
Speaker 1: I think more than you know anybody else as far

1761
01:44:29,840 --> 01:44:33,400
Speaker 1: as the visuals went. We uh, so we're making these

1762
01:44:33,400 --> 01:44:36,680
Speaker 1: records and but we're still playing the same circuit. You know.

1763
01:44:36,720 --> 01:44:39,400
Speaker 1: People were fans of the Dirt Band from you know,

1764
01:44:39,439 --> 01:44:41,560
Speaker 1: not only American Dream and make a Little Magic, but

1765
01:44:41,720 --> 01:44:47,240
Speaker 1: also from uh uh, the country rock stuff. So we're playing.

1766
01:44:47,920 --> 01:44:54,439
Speaker 1: We were playing in Washington, d c h. And we

1767
01:44:54,560 --> 01:44:56,800
Speaker 1: get it. We play there and a couple of days

1768
01:44:56,920 --> 01:44:59,360
Speaker 1: later we got this. Our manager Bill got a phone

1769
01:44:59,360 --> 01:45:02,280
Speaker 1: call from somebody said they were from the State Department

1770
01:45:03,400 --> 01:45:06,599
Speaker 1: and he just laughed and hung up on him because

1771
01:45:06,640 --> 01:45:10,080
Speaker 1: we're right, you got a wrong number or you're pranking us.

1772
01:45:11,280 --> 01:45:14,479
Speaker 1: So they keep doing it. He keeps hanging out. Finally

1773
01:45:14,800 --> 01:45:17,080
Speaker 1: accept the phone and said what do you want? And

1774
01:45:17,120 --> 01:45:20,880
Speaker 1: they said, we represent the State Department and we are

1775
01:45:21,000 --> 01:45:26,360
Speaker 1: part of a cultural cultural exchange program and we're interested

1776
01:45:26,400 --> 01:45:29,400
Speaker 1: in the Dirt Band doing a tour of the Soviet Union.

1777
01:45:29,400 --> 01:45:34,240
Speaker 1: This is sevent and we kind of said why us

1778
01:45:34,240 --> 01:45:36,280
Speaker 1: because they looked at a bunch of acts that Beach

1779
01:45:36,280 --> 01:45:38,680
Speaker 1: Boys wanted to go there, and they were like that

1780
01:45:38,800 --> 01:45:40,559
Speaker 1: we could think of a lot of examples that might

1781
01:45:40,600 --> 01:45:42,479
Speaker 1: have made more sense. But what they liked about our

1782
01:45:42,520 --> 01:45:45,840
Speaker 1: band was we covered a lot of music. There was

1783
01:45:45,920 --> 01:45:48,320
Speaker 1: rock and roll, but there was also some country music,

1784
01:45:48,439 --> 01:45:52,080
Speaker 1: you know, multi culturists. We had an African American in

1785
01:45:52,080 --> 01:45:55,880
Speaker 1: our band, the great Jackie Clark Uh, which is you know,

1786
01:45:55,960 --> 01:45:58,519
Speaker 1: I'm trying to figure this out from the Soviet game.

1787
01:45:58,640 --> 01:46:03,880
Speaker 1: Doesn't matter, great musician, great cat at. They said, do

1788
01:46:03,880 --> 01:46:05,800
Speaker 1: you have a female singer in your baby? So we

1789
01:46:05,840 --> 01:46:07,880
Speaker 1: do not. But so we asked a friend of ours

1790
01:46:07,880 --> 01:46:11,040
Speaker 1: from mass and Jan Garrett to come take part, you know,

1791
01:46:11,200 --> 01:46:14,120
Speaker 1: so she tore over us as well, and we didn't.

1792
01:46:14,240 --> 01:46:16,920
Speaker 1: We went and did this tour of the Soviet Union

1793
01:46:17,400 --> 01:46:22,920
Speaker 1: um and we got there first of May. May day.

1794
01:46:22,960 --> 01:46:27,160
Speaker 1: Literally look out the window overlooking Red Square and there's

1795
01:46:27,200 --> 01:46:31,759
Speaker 1: all this, you know WHOA We're seeing missiles going through

1796
01:46:31,880 --> 01:46:35,479
Speaker 1: Red Square and a lot of marching going on, and

1797
01:46:35,520 --> 01:46:38,680
Speaker 1: a lot of guys in overcoats, you know who are

1798
01:46:38,720 --> 01:46:43,040
Speaker 1: following us. This is the KGB followed us everywhere we went.

1799
01:46:43,600 --> 01:46:45,880
Speaker 1: It was kind of crazy because there was no communication.

1800
01:46:46,000 --> 01:46:49,920
Speaker 1: We had no there's no internet, so the only way

1801
01:46:49,960 --> 01:46:53,000
Speaker 1: we could make calls back home was by ordering literally

1802
01:46:53,160 --> 01:46:57,479
Speaker 1: ordering a phone call at x one hours like three

1803
01:46:57,560 --> 01:47:02,080
Speaker 1: days ahead, and we're having to send a telegram man

1804
01:47:02,200 --> 01:47:05,679
Speaker 1: old school say, I mean a carrier pigeon back home

1805
01:47:06,479 --> 01:47:09,720
Speaker 1: so our friends, your family could get the message that

1806
01:47:09,760 --> 01:47:13,160
Speaker 1: we're gonna be make sure you pick up the phone. Also,

1807
01:47:13,240 --> 01:47:17,200
Speaker 1: no answering machines, so we can talk for like three

1808
01:47:17,240 --> 01:47:22,360
Speaker 1: minutes meantime. Though this is pretty fascinating to us, you know,

1809
01:47:22,439 --> 01:47:25,400
Speaker 1: we're like, this is myself and Jimmy Fadden and John

1810
01:47:25,439 --> 01:47:27,840
Speaker 1: McEwen and our buddy Jackie Clark, who, by the way,

1811
01:47:27,880 --> 01:47:31,599
Speaker 1: came from the icon Tina Tina the Icon Tina Turner review,

1812
01:47:32,200 --> 01:47:36,920
Speaker 1: great musician and Jackie played his ass off gud. He

1813
01:47:37,000 --> 01:47:40,679
Speaker 1: was a great guitar player, singer, bass player, played piano

1814
01:47:40,720 --> 01:47:45,719
Speaker 1: as well. Came from a church gospel background amazing, loved

1815
01:47:45,800 --> 01:47:49,519
Speaker 1: wearing a cowboy hat and dressing in nudis suits and

1816
01:47:49,600 --> 01:47:52,600
Speaker 1: like Manuel cluing, which I got a giant kick out of,

1817
01:47:52,680 --> 01:47:54,960
Speaker 1: we all did. We all bought a bunch of suits

1818
01:47:54,960 --> 01:47:57,960
Speaker 1: from Manuel's our buddy John Cable, who was a friend

1819
01:47:58,000 --> 01:48:00,760
Speaker 1: of ours from Colorado. They were on board for I

1820
01:48:00,800 --> 01:48:02,400
Speaker 1: don't know about a year and a half. Jackie and

1821
01:48:02,479 --> 01:48:08,840
Speaker 1: John so we started this tour and we went to

1822
01:48:08,920 --> 01:48:14,479
Speaker 1: Soviet Georgia, drank moonshine with the kind of this guy's

1823
01:48:14,600 --> 01:48:18,800
Speaker 1: like kind of a godfather figure in and he was

1824
01:48:18,880 --> 01:48:23,160
Speaker 1: the mayor of this time. What was the name of it,

1825
01:48:23,479 --> 01:48:29,639
Speaker 1: shoot Deblisi, I think anyway, Uh, if I got that wrong, sorry, folks,

1826
01:48:29,680 --> 01:48:33,040
Speaker 1: I'm not looking at my history book. So drank moonshine

1827
01:48:33,080 --> 01:48:35,640
Speaker 1: with him, which was fun. We've got Yeah. So we

1828
01:48:35,680 --> 01:48:38,240
Speaker 1: had a couple of days off, played in Georgia. That

1829
01:48:38,320 --> 01:48:40,880
Speaker 1: was really great, just getting hot, by the way, hot

1830
01:48:40,920 --> 01:48:44,519
Speaker 1: and muggy nowhere conditioning in the Soviet Union. So we're like, yeah,

1831
01:48:44,520 --> 01:48:47,840
Speaker 1: we're torn in the south again. Here's Georgia. Here's Georgia.

1832
01:48:48,520 --> 01:48:53,720
Speaker 1: Next thing we play in uh yet a van. I

1833
01:48:53,760 --> 01:49:00,240
Speaker 1: believe it was in uh in Armenia soccer stadium. Five

1834
01:49:00,240 --> 01:49:04,720
Speaker 1: thousand people inside, ten thousand people outside trying to get in.

1835
01:49:05,240 --> 01:49:07,759
Speaker 1: There was a riot. I don't there was a riot.

1836
01:49:07,800 --> 01:49:11,640
Speaker 1: I don't think anybody got hurt. But we're gone. And

1837
01:49:11,720 --> 01:49:13,519
Speaker 1: by the way, we had heard from the jump that

1838
01:49:14,160 --> 01:49:16,960
Speaker 1: these folks aren't gonna respond to your music if they

1839
01:49:16,960 --> 01:49:21,240
Speaker 1: don't clap loudly. Understand, these people are rushing the stage,

1840
01:49:21,320 --> 01:49:25,160
Speaker 1: standing on their seats, going nuts. Crazy bunch of folks

1841
01:49:25,160 --> 01:49:27,120
Speaker 1: in our media. We were loving it because it felt

1842
01:49:27,160 --> 01:49:30,680
Speaker 1: like rock and roll us. We're playing as loud as

1843
01:49:30,840 --> 01:49:33,120
Speaker 1: that our little p a that we brought with us

1844
01:49:33,160 --> 01:49:38,839
Speaker 1: it could stand. Uh. We played Latvia, which was great,

1845
01:49:39,160 --> 01:49:41,720
Speaker 1: and that was the one place that was kind of

1846
01:49:41,760 --> 01:49:46,400
Speaker 1: the least Soviet of the Soviet Union. I mean everywhere

1847
01:49:46,479 --> 01:49:51,599
Speaker 1: so far Georgia and you're and Armenia is pretty shut down.

1848
01:49:51,960 --> 01:49:55,160
Speaker 1: You know. The the authorities did not want us talking

1849
01:49:55,200 --> 01:50:00,160
Speaker 1: to fans. They didn't want folks hearing about America, honestly know,

1850
01:50:00,479 --> 01:50:03,200
Speaker 1: and they would detain them. They'd throw them in jail,

1851
01:50:03,640 --> 01:50:06,200
Speaker 1: you know, if you know, for a couple of days.

1852
01:50:06,240 --> 01:50:08,680
Speaker 1: If they were lucky. Some of them were beaten. We

1853
01:50:08,800 --> 01:50:14,040
Speaker 1: find out later, which awful. We go to Latvia all

1854
01:50:14,040 --> 01:50:20,080
Speaker 1: of a sudden, you know, people are dressing hipper, the

1855
01:50:20,160 --> 01:50:23,200
Speaker 1: women are wearing makeup, and it was like it looked

1856
01:50:23,240 --> 01:50:26,320
Speaker 1: like Europe to us. It didn't because the Soviet Union

1857
01:50:26,479 --> 01:50:29,800
Speaker 1: was really great. That that country was in black and

1858
01:50:29,840 --> 01:50:34,479
Speaker 1: white literally, um, and Armenia was kind of crazy, but

1859
01:50:34,520 --> 01:50:39,479
Speaker 1: again still you know, feeling that kind of Eastern European

1860
01:50:39,560 --> 01:50:43,240
Speaker 1: oppression at that point. But Latvia, we come to find out,

1861
01:50:43,320 --> 01:50:47,479
Speaker 1: fought back hard. You know, they were like Ukraine during

1862
01:50:47,520 --> 01:50:51,240
Speaker 1: World War two, is right now. And then they pull

1863
01:50:51,320 --> 01:50:54,880
Speaker 1: us aside and we toast. We'd you know say, basically

1864
01:50:55,640 --> 01:50:59,360
Speaker 1: screw bres Well. We drank a little laka. Uh. We

1865
01:50:59,400 --> 01:51:02,120
Speaker 1: had a great time with them, they were wonderful. Then

1866
01:51:02,160 --> 01:51:04,040
Speaker 1: we went to the Soviet Union and again you know,

1867
01:51:04,120 --> 01:51:08,440
Speaker 1: our our our guides are emissaries who really sweet interpreters,

1868
01:51:08,720 --> 01:51:11,519
Speaker 1: really really fine folks because you know, they were used

1869
01:51:11,560 --> 01:51:15,559
Speaker 1: to dealing with with creatives, with artsy FARTSI people because

1870
01:51:15,560 --> 01:51:17,800
Speaker 1: they had they were doing ballet and different you know,

1871
01:51:18,240 --> 01:51:23,759
Speaker 1: different tours with a cultural exchange. There again pulling us aside.

1872
01:51:23,800 --> 01:51:26,000
Speaker 1: They're not gonna really you know, they're not going to

1873
01:51:26,120 --> 01:51:28,640
Speaker 1: be that excited. You know, don't be offended if they

1874
01:51:28,920 --> 01:51:33,879
Speaker 1: do the golf clap, you know. So they're rushing the stage,

1875
01:51:33,960 --> 01:51:36,880
Speaker 1: you know, they're coming up and throwing bouquets of flowers

1876
01:51:36,880 --> 01:51:42,120
Speaker 1: on the stage, and we're smirking because we were used

1877
01:51:42,160 --> 01:51:45,120
Speaker 1: to entertaining people and you know, kind of getting a

1878
01:51:45,240 --> 01:51:48,160
Speaker 1: rise out of them. So we love that. So we

1879
01:51:48,240 --> 01:51:53,280
Speaker 1: played in uh, I guess it was Leningrad went back

1880
01:51:53,280 --> 01:51:55,559
Speaker 1: to my we closed it out of Moscow. We did it.

1881
01:51:55,960 --> 01:52:01,680
Speaker 1: We did it. Uh a TV broadcast to hundreds of

1882
01:52:01,800 --> 01:52:07,040
Speaker 1: millions of people, one station, one TV, one channel. So

1883
01:52:07,080 --> 01:52:10,360
Speaker 1: that was pretty great. That was fun. Um. And then

1884
01:52:10,400 --> 01:52:12,280
Speaker 1: we got back on a plane and went back home.

1885
01:52:12,320 --> 01:52:16,120
Speaker 1: And this is after a month there. And I remember

1886
01:52:16,160 --> 01:52:19,640
Speaker 1: we had a layover in in Belgium and Brussels and

1887
01:52:19,720 --> 01:52:23,760
Speaker 1: just remember walking off that plane just like, oh my gosh,

1888
01:52:23,880 --> 01:52:27,200
Speaker 1: everything's in technicolor. Again. I felt like latvia, you know,

1889
01:52:28,120 --> 01:52:31,639
Speaker 1: it's like you want to coke with ice, Yeah, because

1890
01:52:31,680 --> 01:52:36,360
Speaker 1: again we're sweating to the hits. It was a long tour.

1891
01:52:36,439 --> 01:52:40,559
Speaker 1: We were all really homesick, and uh, it was. It

1892
01:52:40,680 --> 01:52:43,880
Speaker 1: was pretty remarkable. It had a huge impact on us,

1893
01:52:44,560 --> 01:52:49,080
Speaker 1: you know, as people. Okay, looking back at this amazing career,

1894
01:52:49,160 --> 01:52:54,320
Speaker 1: how have you done financially? You know, we kinda I

1895
01:52:54,320 --> 01:52:57,240
Speaker 1: mean honestly through the early years, ay, I should say

1896
01:52:57,320 --> 01:52:59,920
Speaker 1: part of it, we didn't give a crap but make

1897
01:53:00,040 --> 01:53:02,880
Speaker 1: and money. So if we had, if we had, if

1898
01:53:02,920 --> 01:53:06,640
Speaker 1: we had enough dough to buy some groovy clothes, you know,

1899
01:53:06,840 --> 01:53:11,559
Speaker 1: maybe a jacket from North Beach leather in l a

1900
01:53:11,920 --> 01:53:16,360
Speaker 1: or a cool pair of cowboy boothe you know, everybody

1901
01:53:16,400 --> 01:53:19,679
Speaker 1: got their favorite jeans and they didn't cost thirty bucks

1902
01:53:19,760 --> 01:53:25,040
Speaker 1: back then much less. Um, keep us in some cool

1903
01:53:25,160 --> 01:53:29,439
Speaker 1: shirts long as the families were fed, you know, and

1904
01:53:29,439 --> 01:53:31,920
Speaker 1: and stuff didn't cost very much. I didn't. I didn't

1905
01:53:31,920 --> 01:53:35,120
Speaker 1: buy my first new car until I was almost thirty.

1906
01:53:35,200 --> 01:53:38,200
Speaker 1: I think, so we're poking along. As long as we

1907
01:53:38,240 --> 01:53:41,679
Speaker 1: get to play, we're cool. We didn't start. I didn't

1908
01:53:41,720 --> 01:53:45,479
Speaker 1: notice till Bob Carpenter and I and our friend Richard Hathaway,

1909
01:53:45,479 --> 01:53:47,920
Speaker 1: who was playing in our band in nineteen eight as well.

1910
01:53:48,640 --> 01:53:53,200
Speaker 1: We co wrote Make a Little Magic, and those checks

1911
01:53:53,240 --> 01:53:57,240
Speaker 1: were big, and this is pop music, and I was like, man,

1912
01:53:57,800 --> 01:54:01,760
Speaker 1: we all loved writing songs. But I didn't realize like

1913
01:54:01,880 --> 01:54:06,400
Speaker 1: our friends, you know, from the Drubadour, who are seeing

1914
01:54:06,439 --> 01:54:10,760
Speaker 1: some substantial coin from you know, Jackson's records and the

1915
01:54:10,800 --> 01:54:18,120
Speaker 1: Eagles records. JD. Souther. Uh oh, yeah, that's kind of

1916
01:54:18,640 --> 01:54:22,160
Speaker 1: kind of cool. So we got lucky and we wrote

1917
01:54:22,200 --> 01:54:25,200
Speaker 1: this hit song and we got signed to Ask Gap

1918
01:54:25,200 --> 01:54:29,559
Speaker 1: and they actually had signing bonuses unrecoupable, So yeah, it

1919
01:54:29,680 --> 01:54:31,599
Speaker 1: was kind of kind of up. The Anny a little bit,

1920
01:54:31,720 --> 01:54:33,200
Speaker 1: had a little money in the bank, has so much

1921
01:54:33,240 --> 01:54:36,440
Speaker 1: money that I didn't know anything about you know, it's

1922
01:54:36,440 --> 01:54:38,920
Speaker 1: ten ninety nine cash, so I didn't put anything aside

1923
01:54:38,920 --> 01:54:43,600
Speaker 1: for taxes to pay my taxes. I'm like, what what taxes?

1924
01:54:45,000 --> 01:54:47,040
Speaker 1: Got a huge bill. Actually had to take a loan

1925
01:54:47,080 --> 01:54:48,840
Speaker 1: out with my folks at the end of that year.

1926
01:54:48,960 --> 01:54:52,880
Speaker 1: That never happened again, God bless them. But I was like, yeah,

1927
01:54:52,960 --> 01:54:55,680
Speaker 1: you make you can make money writing songs, because again,

1928
01:54:55,880 --> 01:54:58,400
Speaker 1: we're making why don't we were? I think we're paying

1929
01:54:58,400 --> 01:55:02,640
Speaker 1: ourselves a salary. I guess enough to enough to live on.

1930
01:55:03,040 --> 01:55:06,400
Speaker 1: But it wasn't a huge amount of money. And uh,

1931
01:55:06,440 --> 01:55:10,560
Speaker 1: you know when we got um, the records were all

1932
01:55:11,440 --> 01:55:14,720
Speaker 1: cross collateralized, so we have a hit record that would

1933
01:55:14,760 --> 01:55:16,839
Speaker 1: go into the next record that might be a stiff

1934
01:55:17,240 --> 01:55:19,040
Speaker 1: So all the money kind of evened out, and like

1935
01:55:19,120 --> 01:55:21,360
Speaker 1: the average was, you know, hey, here's a here's a

1936
01:55:21,360 --> 01:55:24,800
Speaker 1: couple hundred, here's a couple of grand maybe. So we

1937
01:55:24,880 --> 01:55:28,440
Speaker 1: did honestly, man, you know, we got paid for doing this.

1938
01:55:28,840 --> 01:55:32,920
Speaker 1: That was our attitude. How lucky are we? But as

1939
01:55:32,960 --> 01:55:37,160
Speaker 1: we got you know, as we started raising families, um,

1940
01:55:37,280 --> 01:55:39,800
Speaker 1: we you know, and then started making some of this

1941
01:55:39,960 --> 01:55:43,520
Speaker 1: right songwriting income, it became a little different game. We

1942
01:55:43,600 --> 01:55:47,520
Speaker 1: did not live in palaces. Uh. I mean, I'd like

1943
01:55:47,600 --> 01:55:51,400
Speaker 1: to say that the peaks and the valleys were less

1944
01:55:51,400 --> 01:55:54,160
Speaker 1: extreme in our band, and I think I'm grateful for that,

1945
01:55:54,280 --> 01:55:58,600
Speaker 1: because we didn't fall off of Everest, you know, and

1946
01:55:58,680 --> 01:56:01,680
Speaker 1: land way down into f Valley. It was always it

1947
01:56:01,720 --> 01:56:04,320
Speaker 1: was always a little hill and then the car cruises

1948
01:56:04,320 --> 01:56:08,720
Speaker 1: down the backside. So I think we were you know,

1949
01:56:08,800 --> 01:56:10,760
Speaker 1: we were pretty seasoned by the time we were in

1950
01:56:10,800 --> 01:56:14,160
Speaker 1: our mid thirties and came to Nashville. And then again

1951
01:56:14,200 --> 01:56:16,280
Speaker 1: we're right in half the hits, two thirds of the

1952
01:56:16,320 --> 01:56:19,640
Speaker 1: hits it country your radio, so they're starting to pass

1953
01:56:19,680 --> 01:56:22,840
Speaker 1: that mailbox money again. It's pretty cool, and we got

1954
01:56:22,960 --> 01:56:27,200
Speaker 1: and we got this. The career made sense now. And

1955
01:56:27,480 --> 01:56:30,200
Speaker 1: you know, Bob, you came up in a time where

1956
01:56:31,200 --> 01:56:36,720
Speaker 1: nothing was genre specific, you know, and I those those

1957
01:56:36,480 --> 01:56:39,400
Speaker 1: those FM stations. I love the bit that you wrote

1958
01:56:39,400 --> 01:56:43,280
Speaker 1: about the Raspberries. The other day. Hearing your songs on

1959
01:56:43,320 --> 01:56:45,720
Speaker 1: AM was like, that's pretty cool. FM was where the

1960
01:56:45,760 --> 01:56:49,480
Speaker 1: fun was. Flatt and Scruggs. Literally I heard Earl Scruggs

1961
01:56:49,480 --> 01:56:54,839
Speaker 1: and Lester Flat segueing into Foxy Lady by Jimmie Hendricks

1962
01:56:54,840 --> 01:57:00,440
Speaker 1: on FM radio, especially college radios so cool. But now

1963
01:57:01,680 --> 01:57:04,800
Speaker 1: country music sign FM and rock and roll and you

1964
01:57:04,920 --> 01:57:08,440
Speaker 1: got the A O R charts and we found this

1965
01:57:08,480 --> 01:57:11,000
Speaker 1: home and country music. They were so welcoming, and I

1966
01:57:11,080 --> 01:57:15,480
Speaker 1: tell you they liked They liked us because twelve years

1967
01:57:15,480 --> 01:57:19,120
Speaker 1: earlier we had done Will the Circle Be Unbroken? So

1968
01:57:19,160 --> 01:57:21,360
Speaker 1: they thought these guys are legit. They don't have to

1969
01:57:21,440 --> 01:57:24,320
Speaker 1: prove to us that they love country music, because we

1970
01:57:24,400 --> 01:57:27,520
Speaker 1: know they did because they made a record with Roy

1971
01:57:27,520 --> 01:57:31,520
Speaker 1: Acuff and Mother Maybell Carter and Roy I'm Sorry and

1972
01:57:31,640 --> 01:57:35,840
Speaker 1: and Earl Scruggs. So uh, we had our foot in

1973
01:57:35,880 --> 01:57:38,040
Speaker 1: the door. And they and again they had placed some

1974
01:57:38,080 --> 01:57:43,760
Speaker 1: of the popists, you know, Magic and American Dream. So

1975
01:57:43,800 --> 01:57:46,760
Speaker 1: we're lucky we got he had great producers. We always

1976
01:57:47,120 --> 01:57:50,200
Speaker 1: had an ear towards outside material because as much as

1977
01:57:50,200 --> 01:57:52,640
Speaker 1: we loved writing songs and we were all good at it,

1978
01:57:52,920 --> 01:57:57,280
Speaker 1: I'm proud of the songwriters in our band. Um, if

1979
01:57:57,280 --> 01:57:59,320
Speaker 1: we heard a song like stand a Little Rain that

1980
01:57:59,400 --> 01:58:02,840
Speaker 1: was written by our buddies Don Schlitz and Donney Lowry,

1981
01:58:02,960 --> 01:58:07,360
Speaker 1: we weren't going to not cut that great song. Rodney Krawll,

1982
01:58:07,480 --> 01:58:10,520
Speaker 1: who had written American Dream, he comes with in with

1983
01:58:10,560 --> 01:58:14,640
Speaker 1: a song called Long Hard Road the share Propper's dream,

1984
01:58:15,000 --> 01:58:18,200
Speaker 1: great tune, and you could hear that song on Americana

1985
01:58:18,320 --> 01:58:25,520
Speaker 1: Radio now very easily. Rodney's skills are profound. So that

1986
01:58:25,600 --> 01:58:27,600
Speaker 1: was the first number one our band ever had. We

1987
01:58:27,680 --> 01:58:29,640
Speaker 1: never had a number one record until we put out

1988
01:58:29,640 --> 01:58:32,840
Speaker 1: A Long Hard Road Country Radio. But we had this

1989
01:58:32,960 --> 01:58:35,560
Speaker 1: run and we got you know, like all of us,

1990
01:58:35,640 --> 01:58:37,840
Speaker 1: we got a little spoiled with it. It's like we're

1991
01:58:37,840 --> 01:58:39,760
Speaker 1: gonna put out a single, it's gonna go to number

1992
01:58:39,800 --> 01:58:43,800
Speaker 1: one or top ten or top five. That started falling

1993
01:58:43,840 --> 01:58:46,080
Speaker 1: off a little bit towards the end of the country career,

1994
01:58:46,160 --> 01:58:49,880
Speaker 1: the radio career, i should say. But man, country music

1995
01:58:49,920 --> 01:58:53,760
Speaker 1: fans are loyal. And when you combine the country music

1996
01:58:53,800 --> 01:58:59,720
Speaker 1: fans from the eighties into the nineties with um our,

1997
01:59:00,120 --> 01:59:02,560
Speaker 1: you know, the country rock fans and the bluegrass fans

1998
01:59:02,560 --> 01:59:05,560
Speaker 1: from the seventies, that makes for a really, really great

1999
01:59:05,600 --> 01:59:08,160
Speaker 1: fan fan base and a really loyal one. And we

2000
01:59:08,240 --> 01:59:13,360
Speaker 1: love those folks. They've stuck with us. Okay, So you're

2001
01:59:13,400 --> 01:59:16,200
Speaker 1: one of the few bands who sustained in excess of

2002
01:59:16,240 --> 01:59:21,080
Speaker 1: fifty years and had hits and success in different genres

2003
01:59:21,120 --> 01:59:23,840
Speaker 1: at different times. There are bands on the road that

2004
01:59:23,920 --> 01:59:25,640
Speaker 1: you know, had huge hits at the end of the

2005
01:59:25,680 --> 01:59:28,600
Speaker 1: sixties and seven. He's never had any other action and

2006
01:59:28,640 --> 01:59:32,200
Speaker 1: they're touring on that. Whereas you've had these multi successes

2007
01:59:32,560 --> 01:59:35,920
Speaker 1: in as I say, in different areas. Do you feel

2008
01:59:36,560 --> 01:59:40,760
Speaker 1: that the Nati Guitty Dirt Band gets enough respect? Would

2009
01:59:40,760 --> 01:59:44,000
Speaker 1: you like a victory lap to impress people on success

2010
01:59:44,520 --> 01:59:47,680
Speaker 1: or you're just chugging along, little engine that could. As

2011
01:59:47,720 --> 01:59:50,640
Speaker 1: long as you can play and the fans come, you're happy. Honestly,

2012
01:59:51,480 --> 01:59:54,880
Speaker 1: We're so grateful to be the little engine that could

2013
01:59:55,200 --> 01:59:58,480
Speaker 1: and keep making records and have fans that allow us

2014
01:59:58,520 --> 02:00:00,720
Speaker 1: to do anything. And listen, man, we made some we've

2015
02:00:00,760 --> 02:00:02,960
Speaker 1: recorded some tunes or tracks, and I'm not going to

2016
02:00:03,080 --> 02:00:06,360
Speaker 1: mention that. I was just like, what were we thinking

2017
02:00:08,360 --> 02:00:11,040
Speaker 1: back way back when? Some of them during the jug

2018
02:00:11,040 --> 02:00:13,480
Speaker 1: band era, some of them during the yacht rock era.

2019
02:00:14,080 --> 02:00:18,240
Speaker 1: But I'm really proud of everything, especially that we've done

2020
02:00:18,280 --> 02:00:21,680
Speaker 1: since you know, the early eighties till now um and

2021
02:00:21,720 --> 02:00:25,440
Speaker 1: the and the seventies records kind of leap frog and backwards.

2022
02:00:26,520 --> 02:00:31,480
Speaker 1: I I you know, our fans allow us the latitude

2023
02:00:31,480 --> 02:00:35,360
Speaker 1: to try anything, and I'm so grateful for that. Well, Jeff,

2024
02:00:35,440 --> 02:00:37,800
Speaker 1: this has been amazing. You know, as I say, we

2025
02:00:37,880 --> 02:00:40,000
Speaker 1: really could have gone on for a couple more hours,

2026
02:00:40,360 --> 02:00:44,520
Speaker 1: going into detail about the second and third will the

2027
02:00:44,560 --> 02:00:50,000
Speaker 1: Circle be unbroken, records, the yacht rock era, and of

2028
02:00:50,040 --> 02:00:54,480
Speaker 1: course the temporary change of the name and the changing

2029
02:00:54,560 --> 02:00:57,600
Speaker 1: cast of characters. But I think we've come to the

2030
02:00:57,720 --> 02:01:01,200
Speaker 1: end of the feeling we've known for today. All right, man,

2031
02:01:01,280 --> 02:01:04,080
Speaker 1: thank you, Thank you so much. I want to thank

2032
02:01:04,120 --> 02:01:06,600
Speaker 1: you so much. And you really illuminated stuff, even for me.

2033
02:01:06,640 --> 02:01:10,320
Speaker 1: You really made the southern California scene come alive. And

2034
02:01:10,760 --> 02:01:13,680
Speaker 1: I wasn't here until the seventies, and I've read about

2035
02:01:13,720 --> 02:01:15,839
Speaker 1: this stuff, but to talk to someone who was actually

2036
02:01:15,920 --> 02:01:19,360
Speaker 1: there and go to the paradox, etcetera. You really, you

2037
02:01:19,400 --> 02:01:23,360
Speaker 1: know these stories I've heard and haven't heard, you really illuminated.

2038
02:01:23,400 --> 02:01:25,400
Speaker 1: So in any event, I want to thank you so much.

2039
02:01:25,520 --> 02:01:29,360
Speaker 1: Thank you. Bob Gays talking about until next time. This

2040
02:01:29,440 --> 02:01:30,520
Speaker 1: is Bob left Sins