WEBVTT - Jimmy Buffett and Mac McAnally 0:00:08.640 --> 0:00:12.160 Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Sets podcast. 0:00:12.520 --> 0:00:16.480 My guest today are Jimmy Buckett and Matt mcinally. We 0:00:16.640 --> 0:00:22.920 worked together and separately and make a great team. Gentlemen. Hello, Okay, 0:00:22.960 --> 0:00:25.560 let's let's talk with you. Mac. Where exactly are you 0:00:25.720 --> 0:00:29.480 right now? I'm in the Attic in Nashville, Tennessee. Uh, 0:00:29.560 --> 0:00:32.159 in a little overdub room where I try to make 0:00:32.240 --> 0:00:35.600 joyful noise. It's a regular place for me. Yeah. Do 0:00:35.640 --> 0:00:38.560 you live in Nashville or uh? You have a house 0:00:38.600 --> 0:00:44.080 in Mississippi, Alabama between here and Muscle Shoals, Alabama. My, uh, 0:00:45.080 --> 0:00:47.239 just cross pollin ad a couple of a couple of 0:00:47.280 --> 0:00:51.480 recording studios with beds in them. And for those who 0:00:51.479 --> 0:00:55.520 were uninitiated, how far is Muscle Shoals from Nashville? It's 0:00:55.560 --> 0:00:57.800 about two and a half hours, or maybe a third 0:00:57.840 --> 0:00:59.800 of a song if you're writing, you know, I tend 0:00:59.800 --> 0:01:02.520 to drive with my knees and play a mandolin back 0:01:02.560 --> 0:01:05.040 and forth and so. But but it's about a two 0:01:05.080 --> 0:01:08.200 and a half hour regular drive. And Jimmy, where are 0:01:08.240 --> 0:01:11.920 you right now? I am in sag Harbor, New York, 0:01:12.000 --> 0:01:15.920 Bob at my house here, summer house, and have you 0:01:16.120 --> 0:01:20.240 the entire coronavirus house now, well that's my question. Have 0:01:20.280 --> 0:01:23.120 you been there the whole time during since March in 0:01:23.160 --> 0:01:27.080 the lockdown? No? Actually, I got locked down in California 0:01:27.120 --> 0:01:29.840 for about almost three and a half months. I was 0:01:30.319 --> 0:01:33.520 visiting my kids when it all happened, and there two 0:01:33.600 --> 0:01:36.160 of my children are living out there, and we have 0:01:36.200 --> 0:01:38.679 a house out there to where my wife likes to 0:01:38.720 --> 0:01:41.880 go for like January April, so we were there, so 0:01:41.959 --> 0:01:45.679 we just stayed and then we came back here in May. 0:01:46.360 --> 0:01:50.000 And to what degree are you social distancing lockdown quarantining 0:01:50.040 --> 0:01:53.600 near in sag Harbor. I am. I'm at a bubble here, 0:01:53.760 --> 0:01:55.760 but it's a bit it's a pretty cool bubble, so 0:01:55.800 --> 0:01:57.680 I can do things that I want to do. You know, 0:01:57.800 --> 0:02:00.840 it's kind of like being at camp. But to me, 0:02:00.880 --> 0:02:03.920 it's like, uh, you know, I've been talking about taking 0:02:03.920 --> 0:02:06.600 a year off for forty two years, but this is 0:02:06.640 --> 0:02:10.200 not what I intended to do. But you know, there 0:02:10.240 --> 0:02:12.720 are some silver linings in it that my kids are 0:02:12.720 --> 0:02:16.640 all here and I probably wouldn't see them this much 0:02:16.680 --> 0:02:19.320 ever for the rest of my life. And it's been 0:02:19.400 --> 0:02:23.960 great and uh and busy, and thanks to zoom and 0:02:24.000 --> 0:02:26.120 to Matt, we've been doing a lot of stuff out 0:02:26.120 --> 0:02:28.520 of this is a model my studio here in tach Harvard. 0:02:28.760 --> 0:02:30.520 So we're doing a lot of zoom and the stuff 0:02:30.520 --> 0:02:34.960 from Marguet Redeville Radio and margat Revill TV. Now you 0:02:35.040 --> 0:02:39.120 mentioned camp. Did you go to summer camp? Yes, nothing 0:02:39.160 --> 0:02:45.280 like this. Summer camp to me was in what Bellefontaine, Mississippi, 0:02:45.320 --> 0:02:49.920 and a in a mosquito infested by you with the 0:02:49.960 --> 0:02:52.800 dormitory with ex World War two beds in it. You know. 0:02:53.040 --> 0:02:55.079 But I would look into my Boy Scout magazine and 0:02:55.200 --> 0:02:59.359 see these beautiful pictures of camps in Vermont and Maine. 0:03:00.040 --> 0:03:03.000 You had to sell Rick magazines to win a win 0:03:03.080 --> 0:03:06.480 a trip to those camps. I never made it. So 0:03:06.840 --> 0:03:08.600 one of my kids went off to one of those 0:03:08.639 --> 0:03:11.800 camps up here. You know, we dropped them off. I'm 0:03:11.840 --> 0:03:16.480 gonna stay at least have breakfast because it looks really good. Okay, 0:03:16.480 --> 0:03:18.119 So the camp you went to, was it a boy 0:03:18.160 --> 0:03:23.560 Scout camp? No, it was a Catholic school camp, Camp Gravolin. Yeah. 0:03:23.800 --> 0:03:27.440 It was like where all the parochial schools but from 0:03:27.520 --> 0:03:32.040 Mobile to Pascagoula to like Buluxie that's where you all 0:03:32.040 --> 0:03:36.560 went camping. And were there girls there? Yes, there were, 0:03:37.880 --> 0:03:41.720 and wrote life is just a time. No, there's a 0:03:41.800 --> 0:03:44.160 there's a top much. Cousin Baxter went to camp with me, 0:03:44.480 --> 0:03:46.640 but he got homestick after two days and I stayed 0:03:46.640 --> 0:03:48.720 the whole two weeks because I knew I had a 0:03:48.760 --> 0:03:52.200 little more sensitive benchure than he did. Well, I always felt, 0:03:52.240 --> 0:03:54.480 you know, I would someone said you want to go 0:03:54.520 --> 0:03:56.440 to summer camp for the rest of your life, I'd 0:03:56.520 --> 0:04:00.560 make that deal. But that's where I had my first 0:04:00.640 --> 0:04:05.040 real experiences with girls. How about you? No, No, this 0:04:05.240 --> 0:04:09.200 is tackling, Bob. Come on, you know this is another 0:04:09.320 --> 0:04:13.400 day in another time. I waited till I finished high 0:04:13.400 --> 0:04:16.200 school and moved to New Orleans in the French border, 0:04:16.560 --> 0:04:18.680 and I didn't and I made up for a lot 0:04:18.680 --> 0:04:22.360 of lost time. Well that begs the question, what's your 0:04:22.440 --> 0:04:29.160 view on Catholicism today? Well, uh, you know, I gotta 0:04:29.240 --> 0:04:33.240 say to this about that um being taught by the 0:04:33.400 --> 0:04:37.240 Sisters of Mercy and then the Jesuit's. Uh. They had 0:04:37.320 --> 0:04:40.120 kind of a superiority complex to the other orders in 0:04:40.160 --> 0:04:42.920 the Catholic Church, and they were educators and they were 0:04:43.000 --> 0:04:45.960 warrior priests, so I went along with it for a while. 0:04:46.320 --> 0:04:51.279 But then not now to what degreed you believe you're 0:04:51.360 --> 0:04:56.480 negatively inhibited or affected by your Catholic upbringing. Uh, let's 0:04:56.520 --> 0:04:59.880 see the good things. Where when we were alter boys, 0:05:00.200 --> 0:05:05.320 we had had a friend Ricky Benson, and we they 0:05:05.360 --> 0:05:08.919 they encourage you to have contest to say, you know, 0:05:09.040 --> 0:05:11.360 served as many masses as you could, you can win 0:05:11.440 --> 0:05:14.560 a Red Shandy second baseman's and mid for doing it, 0:05:14.640 --> 0:05:17.800 and I want it. And we served more masses during 0:05:17.839 --> 0:05:20.840 went than anyone. And then we got good at funerals, 0:05:20.839 --> 0:05:23.160 and so we got out of school to go serve funerals. 0:05:23.160 --> 0:05:25.720 So I was already making a high stuff anyway about it. 0:05:26.680 --> 0:05:29.920 Red shandyd you you who pronounced it better than I did? 0:05:30.120 --> 0:05:33.200 Were you a big baseball player as a second baseman? 0:05:33.240 --> 0:05:36.479 Red Shandy says, one of my heroes, Red Shandyson and 0:05:36.600 --> 0:05:38.960 Henry Aaron was from Mobile, so of course he was 0:05:39.000 --> 0:05:42.160 a big hero. I just remember was in nineteen sixty 0:05:42.279 --> 0:05:45.440 two with Bobby Richardson. You know, caught the lines right 0:05:45.480 --> 0:05:49.680 from the Pirates to in the World Series. Yeah, yeah, exactly. 0:05:49.880 --> 0:05:54.279 Well yeah, okay, So Mac, what you do during the 0:05:54.279 --> 0:06:00.320 summer growing up well, we uh we raised catfish uh 0:06:00.480 --> 0:06:03.960 in Mississippi is uh so we were We were farmers 0:06:03.960 --> 0:06:06.200 on several levels. We had about a five acre garden 0:06:06.240 --> 0:06:08.480 because my dad, you know, was sadistic that way. It's 0:06:08.480 --> 0:06:10.360 a lot of bending over, a lot of full of 0:06:10.440 --> 0:06:14.279 peanuts and potatoes. But we we raised cat fishings and 0:06:14.320 --> 0:06:15.880 that kind of took the joy out of fishing for 0:06:16.000 --> 0:06:19.880 me for the most part, because my dad would volunteer. Oh, Michael, 0:06:19.960 --> 0:06:21.800 go down the hill and catch a mess of fish 0:06:21.839 --> 0:06:23.840 for Mrs Woodruff and dress him and bring him up 0:06:23.839 --> 0:06:26.039 there and put them in the refrigerator. And that's that's 0:06:26.040 --> 0:06:28.080 a few hours work. That that sort of takes a 0:06:28.080 --> 0:06:31.400 little bit of the joy out of fishing. So consequently 0:06:31.800 --> 0:06:34.040 I took a guitar down the hill and entertained myself 0:06:34.080 --> 0:06:37.520 with that, mostly me in the shade, avoiding serious work 0:06:37.800 --> 0:06:40.800 playing guitar. That was pretty much my my childhood. I 0:06:40.839 --> 0:06:44.479 actually worked on a farm picking vegetables. Two days. That 0:06:44.520 --> 0:06:48.279 was enough for me. It's not where where was the farm, Bob. 0:06:48.600 --> 0:06:51.000 This was in Fairfield, Connecticut. You know, you need a 0:06:51.000 --> 0:06:53.479 summer job. Remember the guy next to me had a 0:06:53.480 --> 0:06:57.120 transistor in his pocket. But never again. I didn't even 0:06:57.120 --> 0:06:59.520 get paid the second day. I just went home. Forget 0:06:59.560 --> 0:07:04.680 it about raising raising catfish? Was that your father's mean business? Now, 0:07:04.880 --> 0:07:06.680 my dad was a school teacher and my mom was 0:07:06.720 --> 0:07:09.920 a gospel piano player, and he was a terrible business man. 0:07:10.000 --> 0:07:12.160 We raised catfish and gave him away. I don't think 0:07:12.160 --> 0:07:14.880 we ever sold a catfish, not one single catfish. He 0:07:15.000 --> 0:07:17.160 just had. You just had me dressed him like I 0:07:17.240 --> 0:07:20.320 was the entire staff, and and give him away. So 0:07:20.320 --> 0:07:22.280 so patients. I learned a lot of patients from my 0:07:22.360 --> 0:07:26.680 dad A little bit slower. How do you raise catfish? Well, 0:07:26.760 --> 0:07:29.080 you you go down to a to a lake that 0:07:29.160 --> 0:07:31.720 you either have or you made man made. We we 0:07:31.800 --> 0:07:34.320 hit an artesian well looking for a lake and made 0:07:34.320 --> 0:07:36.480 a couple of little lakes on the We had maybe 0:07:36.560 --> 0:07:40.720 thirty five forty acres and uh and and you you 0:07:40.760 --> 0:07:43.680 put catfish fingerlings in there and you feed them puring 0:07:43.760 --> 0:07:46.200 a catfish chow, which was another one of my chores. 0:07:46.760 --> 0:07:50.000 And uh and at that point, fishing is not really 0:07:50.040 --> 0:07:52.520 hard because they will just follow my ass around. You know. 0:07:52.680 --> 0:07:54.200 All I gotta do is walk around the lake and 0:07:54.240 --> 0:07:57.640 there's a dark cloud of catfish following me everywhere. I go, 0:07:57.960 --> 0:07:59.760 I could throw a raw treble hook out there and 0:07:59.800 --> 0:08:01.520 catch three fish on it. It was not really a 0:08:01.560 --> 0:08:03.960 great challenge other than I knew I was gonna have 0:08:04.000 --> 0:08:05.600 to dress him and give them to anybody, So I 0:08:05.640 --> 0:08:07.640 didn't even really want to catch him in the first place. 0:08:07.680 --> 0:08:10.840 But that's, you know, another story. But that's that's how 0:08:10.880 --> 0:08:13.040 it works. If you're in a catfish child, you gotta 0:08:13.080 --> 0:08:15.960 you gotta have it. Okay. So how many kids were 0:08:15.960 --> 0:08:18.880 there in your family. I was the oldest of three. 0:08:18.920 --> 0:08:21.960 I had two younger sisters, and uh, and I kind 0:08:21.960 --> 0:08:23.800 of was I kind of tormented them. I was probably 0:08:23.840 --> 0:08:28.480 not a good big brother. Uh Mississippi tradition, I'm guessing, uh, well, 0:08:28.640 --> 0:08:32.080 not big from Mississippi. What what is the tradition with 0:08:32.120 --> 0:08:37.280 older brothers. Well, I know that I pretty much they've 0:08:37.320 --> 0:08:39.720 come to like me in as an adult, my sisters, 0:08:39.720 --> 0:08:42.080 but it took a long time, took a few decades. 0:08:43.600 --> 0:08:46.199 I remember I remember spreading my baby sisters fingers out 0:08:46.200 --> 0:08:47.720 on the table with a dart and just kind of 0:08:47.720 --> 0:08:50.720 going between her fingers super fast, like like it was 0:08:51.440 --> 0:08:54.040 pulp fiction or something like that. And I said, if 0:08:54.040 --> 0:08:58.040 you don't move, it's gonna be fine, uh this, you know, 0:08:58.080 --> 0:09:01.000 I thought I knew this guy really did. Well, I'm 0:09:01.000 --> 0:09:02.920 just bring I'm bringing out some bad stuff, you know. 0:09:02.960 --> 0:09:07.439 But you aread cat cat child and sticking Darcia. I 0:09:07.679 --> 0:09:10.840 I was the oldest of three and had two sisters. 0:09:11.559 --> 0:09:16.400 That's nice to mom. Well I'm nice now, I know. Okay, 0:09:16.440 --> 0:09:19.600 since we're into this. Your two sisters, mac or how 0:09:19.679 --> 0:09:23.080 much younger than you? They're each were stacked in three 0:09:23.160 --> 0:09:27.480 year increments. So I'm I'm three years and six years 0:09:27.480 --> 0:09:31.439 older than my sisters, and you, Jimmy, I am two 0:09:31.520 --> 0:09:34.520 years older than my oldest sister and ten years older 0:09:34.520 --> 0:09:38.040 than my younger sister. Well, this begs the question. Usually 0:09:38.080 --> 0:09:42.199 the oldest, never mind a male, is the family favorite, 0:09:42.520 --> 0:09:45.559 and all the hopes and dreams of the parents are 0:09:45.640 --> 0:09:47.760 in the oldest and their supportive It was that your 0:09:47.800 --> 0:09:53.880 experience of the oldest of the oldest female. My my 0:09:54.120 --> 0:09:58.440 oldest sister was the dream girl. And uh, I was 0:09:58.480 --> 0:10:04.960 supposed to go and followed the buffet NaN's uh uh 0:10:05.200 --> 0:10:07.800 calling of going to the sea, and I was supposed 0:10:07.840 --> 0:10:12.160 to gone to the you know, enaval academy. That didn't 0:10:12.160 --> 0:10:17.400 work out. Okay, so you're the middle kid now, that's 0:10:17.400 --> 0:10:19.120 what I thought. But all the hopes and dreams were 0:10:19.120 --> 0:10:22.640 in the middle, sister, that pigs the pigs. The question 0:10:22.679 --> 0:10:27.200 who dominated your family at home? Your father, your mother, Well, 0:10:27.240 --> 0:10:29.680 it was kind of a mixer. And my mother worked. 0:10:30.160 --> 0:10:33.920 She worked, She ran labor relations at a shipyard and mobile. 0:10:34.000 --> 0:10:37.120 My dad was a project engineer home building ships. So 0:10:37.480 --> 0:10:41.120 they both worked and uh, we were banging, you know, 0:10:41.640 --> 0:10:45.280 so they kind of shared these. My father was a 0:10:45.360 --> 0:10:49.679 disciplinary and my mother was the artist. Okay, and were 0:10:49.720 --> 0:10:51.600 you this was a different era where you kind of 0:10:51.600 --> 0:10:53.959 a free range kid, where we were troublemaker, were a 0:10:53.960 --> 0:10:57.200 goody goody. Now I was like I was still you know, 0:10:57.240 --> 0:10:59.080 I was still an altar boy until I was like 0:10:59.160 --> 0:11:01.440 in high school. And know, I didn't I didn't do 0:11:01.559 --> 0:11:03.920 much and we spent a lot of time. I had 0:11:03.960 --> 0:11:05.959 no brothers, like I said, So I had cousins in 0:11:06.040 --> 0:11:10.280 Pascor Google. Uh, two cousins, the three actually, and I 0:11:10.320 --> 0:11:13.000 would go down to where my grandfather and grandmother lived 0:11:13.000 --> 0:11:15.120 and all the cousins would would go there. It was 0:11:15.160 --> 0:11:18.600 only but you know, my dad was from Pasca Google 0:11:18.640 --> 0:11:21.600 and my mom from Gulfport, so I had family in 0:11:21.640 --> 0:11:24.000 close proximity. But it was all on the Gulf coast, 0:11:24.040 --> 0:11:26.280 so we did a lot of moving between that, and 0:11:26.320 --> 0:11:28.520 then we go over and meet and see the wicked 0:11:28.559 --> 0:11:31.400 part of the family married into an Italian kind of 0:11:31.679 --> 0:11:36.319 low rent mafia group in New Orleans. Okay, And were 0:11:36.360 --> 0:11:42.480 you a good student? I made two a's, uh, and 0:11:42.480 --> 0:11:45.960 in high school it wasn't that interested in. One of 0:11:46.000 --> 0:11:50.000 them was an art and that was the the semester 0:11:50.080 --> 0:11:53.240 that we did float decoration from Marty Grath and type 0:11:53.880 --> 0:11:55.559 I did. I made a and type in him and 0:11:55.640 --> 0:11:58.560 a and float decoration. So that probably it says a 0:11:58.600 --> 0:12:01.000 little about me. Hey, And that was the best course 0:12:01.040 --> 0:12:03.960 I took in high school in retrospect with computers, just 0:12:04.120 --> 0:12:07.400 for just once again for the ignorant northerners, of which 0:12:07.440 --> 0:12:14.120 I include myself. How far is momobile from New Orleans? Okay? 0:12:14.559 --> 0:12:17.240 Going back to you, Mac, So your father was a teacher. 0:12:17.280 --> 0:12:21.760 What did he teach? Uh? You know it? I kind 0:12:21.800 --> 0:12:24.880 of caught it in a in a poor loop. He was. 0:12:24.960 --> 0:12:27.120 He was the elementary school principle when I was in 0:12:27.240 --> 0:12:30.600 elementary school, So I was what was that like being 0:12:30.679 --> 0:12:33.840 the son of the principle. I was watched, I was 0:12:33.920 --> 0:12:38.440 watched really close Uh, and I got beat up by 0:12:38.440 --> 0:12:40.079 about twenty kids the first day that I went to 0:12:40.160 --> 0:12:43.880 school because and then then once once they've realized my 0:12:43.960 --> 0:12:48.240 dad was the principal, it didn't never happen again. But uh, 0:12:48.360 --> 0:12:50.600 all the way through school, he would move up. You know, 0:12:51.040 --> 0:12:53.360 he moved up to Junior High when I went to 0:12:53.440 --> 0:12:55.800 junior High, and then he was a sister principal high 0:12:55.800 --> 0:12:58.720 school when I was in high school. And I I 0:12:58.800 --> 0:13:01.080 actually dropped out of high school to put to play 0:13:01.080 --> 0:13:03.560 in a band when I was in the lefth grade. 0:13:03.679 --> 0:13:06.000 And and I had to had to make a presentation 0:13:06.080 --> 0:13:10.120 to my dad to get permission. Uh, as a teacher, 0:13:10.280 --> 0:13:11.680 that was a pretty good deal. I had a little 0:13:11.720 --> 0:13:15.920 pie chart I had, you know it was it didn't 0:13:16.040 --> 0:13:20.040 I had a little pie chart? Yeah? Yeah, okay. And 0:13:20.080 --> 0:13:23.240 at what point did your father okay when you sold that? 0:13:23.800 --> 0:13:26.720 Was it like I'm done or if this doesn't work out, 0:13:26.720 --> 0:13:30.319 I'm coming back. No? No, Honestly, I wouldn't have done 0:13:30.360 --> 0:13:32.600 it without his permission because I knew he was going 0:13:32.640 --> 0:13:35.120 to catch the hell for me dropping out of school 0:13:35.480 --> 0:13:38.680 because you know, I was a teacher's kid. You're not 0:13:38.720 --> 0:13:42.079 supposed to drop out of school. You know, but I am. 0:13:42.120 --> 0:13:45.559 Probably if you talk to musicians every day, Bob, you're 0:13:45.800 --> 0:13:47.680 you're not going to talk to very many that are 0:13:47.840 --> 0:13:50.560 what their parents wanted them to be. I'm a musician. 0:13:51.120 --> 0:13:53.280 That is what my parents wanted me to be. They 0:13:53.360 --> 0:13:57.000 probably envisioned that I would be a youth minister or 0:13:57.120 --> 0:13:59.439 music minister at a church somewhere when they but they 0:13:59.440 --> 0:14:01.280 wanted me to a musician from the time I hit 0:14:01.320 --> 0:14:04.600 the ground. One one of my grandmothers said he's got 0:14:04.600 --> 0:14:07.080 the call to preach, which is, you know, a noble 0:14:07.160 --> 0:14:09.679 thing in North Mississippi. But the other grandmother, which I'm 0:14:09.760 --> 0:14:12.320 very grateful for, said no, he's got the call to 0:14:12.360 --> 0:14:17.800 preach music. The second grandmother, we're just about the same age. 0:14:17.840 --> 0:14:20.320 So to what degree were you affected by the Beatles 0:14:20.640 --> 0:14:23.920 or were you a big musician already before that? Well, 0:14:25.000 --> 0:14:27.080 we we were in sort of a valley, and I 0:14:27.120 --> 0:14:29.040 didn't really have much in the way of radio except 0:14:29.040 --> 0:14:31.400 we could get radio late at night, so I never 0:14:31.520 --> 0:14:35.120 I didn't hear we did gospel music at church, we 0:14:35.240 --> 0:14:38.080 did played gospel music at the house my mom. That's 0:14:38.080 --> 0:14:40.320 how we entertained ourselves. We were one of the last 0:14:40.600 --> 0:14:44.080 families in my hometown to get a television. So our 0:14:44.200 --> 0:14:47.400 entertainment in the evening, maybe three nights a week, was 0:14:47.640 --> 0:14:49.920 my mom would start playing piano, and our neighbors would 0:14:49.960 --> 0:14:52.720 just come over to the house with whatever instruments they had. 0:14:52.760 --> 0:14:55.200 They didn't necessarily fit together. It's just literally like the 0:14:55.240 --> 0:14:58.720 old joyful noise biblical thing. It might be a dulcimmer in, 0:14:58.760 --> 0:15:03.760 a soprano, saxophone, disparent instruments, just all clanging and smoking 0:15:03.760 --> 0:15:07.520 cigarettes and drinking coffee and singing songs. That's that's what 0:15:07.640 --> 0:15:09.760 happened in my house, like two or three nights a week. 0:15:09.800 --> 0:15:14.000 So actually, my first record I ever bought was Let 0:15:14.000 --> 0:15:15.840 It Be. In the Beatles had already broken up when 0:15:16.880 --> 0:15:21.720 you know, you know I got a Beatles. Yeah, mine 0:15:21.720 --> 0:15:24.120 went backwards. I started with Let It Be and went backwards, 0:15:24.200 --> 0:15:27.000 you know, because I was late to the game. I've 0:15:27.040 --> 0:15:29.280 been playing music. I mean I was playing. I was 0:15:29.320 --> 0:15:32.320 playing in bars before I had ever even really heard 0:15:32.360 --> 0:15:35.960 a lot of the songs that we were playing. Okay, 0:15:35.960 --> 0:15:41.040 were you a good student? Uh? I was a ridiculously 0:15:41.080 --> 0:15:43.720 good student until about the seventh grade, and when I 0:15:43.760 --> 0:15:46.080 was thirteen, I started playing in Honky talks at the 0:15:46.080 --> 0:15:48.920 State line. I played in church up till then and 0:15:48.960 --> 0:15:52.320 from thirteen. My my home county is a dry county. 0:15:52.320 --> 0:15:55.560 There was no legal alcohol sales, No, no honky talks. No, 0:15:55.720 --> 0:15:58.800 you couldn't buy a beer untilteen. You couldn't buy a 0:15:58.840 --> 0:16:01.920 beer in my hometown. But since you wrote about it, 0:16:02.000 --> 0:16:05.920 where is your hometown? Well, uh, Bell Mint, Mississippi, the 0:16:06.000 --> 0:16:09.360 very northeast corner of Mississippi is my hometown, not far 0:16:09.400 --> 0:16:12.000 from Tupelo, where Elvis came from. A matter of fact, 0:16:12.080 --> 0:16:14.480 we're we're sort of cousin in laws. Elvis and I. 0:16:14.720 --> 0:16:20.480 My aunt Maverine mcinally married Flavis Presley. A little bit slower, 0:16:21.040 --> 0:16:25.600 tell that part again. Well, Flavius Pressley, who was the 0:16:25.640 --> 0:16:30.280 first cousin of Elvis, married my aunt Maverin mcinnally. Uh, 0:16:30.520 --> 0:16:32.680 And so we were sort of cousin in laws, like, 0:16:32.760 --> 0:16:35.600 which is not rare in North Mississippi. Pretty much everybody 0:16:37.600 --> 0:16:39.720 we are cousins. Yeah, we've run back, Yeah we have. 0:16:39.840 --> 0:16:43.600 We have we have a blood connection, which is also Mississippi. 0:16:43.960 --> 0:16:48.080 But at any rate, Uh, Tupelo is where Elvis came from. Uh. 0:16:48.240 --> 0:16:50.400 But he got all the he had all the musical 0:16:50.400 --> 0:16:52.520 ambition in the family. I got maybe a little bit 0:16:52.520 --> 0:16:55.000 of the talent, but it was left, when did you 0:16:55.040 --> 0:16:58.360 start playing an instrument? In what instrument was that? It 0:16:58.400 --> 0:17:02.160 was piano first for me and my mom was she 0:17:02.320 --> 0:17:05.240 was a great gospel piano player, and she played both 0:17:05.320 --> 0:17:08.200 by ear and and the old fashioned shape notes, which 0:17:08.240 --> 0:17:09.800 is a whole that you could do a whole other 0:17:09.840 --> 0:17:12.520 podcast on shape notes. Sometimes I don't even know what 0:17:12.560 --> 0:17:16.119 that is? What is that? Uh? They there was a 0:17:16.160 --> 0:17:18.760 shape for every note of do REMI fossil la t do. 0:17:19.320 --> 0:17:21.800 There's a there's a triangle is dough and you know 0:17:22.560 --> 0:17:26.760 there's a different shape. And so it's very similar to 0:17:26.800 --> 0:17:30.320 the Nashville number system basically, like like if you're in 0:17:30.359 --> 0:17:32.960 the key of C, C is one in Nashville, and 0:17:33.040 --> 0:17:35.600 C F and G is one, four and five. Well, 0:17:35.640 --> 0:17:38.120 the shape notes, you can look at the shape notes 0:17:38.160 --> 0:17:39.920 and you can play in any key. It doesn't matter 0:17:40.000 --> 0:17:43.280 if you're looking at if the triangle is one, you 0:17:43.280 --> 0:17:45.280 can just you can just look at those shapes and play. 0:17:45.359 --> 0:17:48.119 My my mother played that way, but she wanted me 0:17:48.200 --> 0:17:52.320 to learn traditional classical, so she put me in what 0:17:52.359 --> 0:17:55.439 was to me much more boring piano lessons because she 0:17:55.480 --> 0:17:57.679 wanted me to learn correctly in a way that she 0:17:57.760 --> 0:18:00.960 felt like she had not. And I took those from 0:18:01.000 --> 0:18:04.359 like the fourth grade to about the sixth grade. And 0:18:04.400 --> 0:18:07.639 then I negotiated the guitar because you can take the 0:18:07.640 --> 0:18:10.680 guitar to the lake, and we didn't have air conditioning 0:18:10.680 --> 0:18:13.560 in our house and I wanted out. Uh So the 0:18:13.560 --> 0:18:17.360 guitar was a good trade. And and you know went 0:18:17.400 --> 0:18:23.280 from there. Okay, two questions. Were you a popular kid? No? No, 0:18:23.359 --> 0:18:26.800 I was an alien? Uh So are you more of 0:18:26.840 --> 0:18:28.439 a loner? Are you a guy who fits in with 0:18:28.440 --> 0:18:31.439 a group or what? I like everybody. I've always kind 0:18:31.480 --> 0:18:34.680 of gotten along with everybody. But but I honestly say 0:18:34.680 --> 0:18:36.560 I never really felt so much like I fit in. 0:18:36.680 --> 0:18:40.439 I wasn't part of any click. Uh And I and 0:18:40.480 --> 0:18:43.520 I Jimmy will tell you I'm pretty easily entertained. You 0:18:43.560 --> 0:18:45.879 can you can leave me on a porch for a 0:18:45.920 --> 0:18:48.280 week and I won't do anything. You said, find something 0:18:48.320 --> 0:18:51.879 to eat? You know, pretty bad. But he he won't 0:18:51.960 --> 0:18:57.800 wear a hat. And what is the what's behind that mac? Well, 0:18:57.840 --> 0:19:02.680 it's it's twofold one. As I an enormous head. I'm 0:19:02.680 --> 0:19:04.560 a big guy. They wanted me to play football in 0:19:04.640 --> 0:19:07.120 junior high school, and the high school did not own 0:19:07.119 --> 0:19:08.880 a helmet that would go on my head. I had 0:19:08.880 --> 0:19:11.520 this sort of tearful meeting with the coach. The high 0:19:11.520 --> 0:19:13.320 school coach came in there and said, son, you're a 0:19:13.320 --> 0:19:14.880 big boy, and we'd like to have you out there 0:19:14.880 --> 0:19:17.080 on the defensive line if you can get any one 0:19:17.080 --> 0:19:19.160 of these high school helmets on that junior high head 0:19:19.200 --> 0:19:21.200 of yours, I want you out there on the field. 0:19:21.720 --> 0:19:24.000 And uh, And sure enough, I sat there in the 0:19:24.040 --> 0:19:25.920 high school locker room when I pushed as hard as 0:19:25.920 --> 0:19:28.359 I could on every helmet at Belmont High School loaned 0:19:28.680 --> 0:19:32.359 and I got one down to maybe my forehead, and 0:19:32.400 --> 0:19:34.399 the fast face mask was actually all the way up 0:19:34.400 --> 0:19:36.359 above my hairline. And I go running out on the 0:19:36.359 --> 0:19:40.160 field and he's like, no, that's not on. I'm sorry son. 0:19:41.240 --> 0:19:43.639 I couldn't play football even in junior high because there 0:19:43.680 --> 0:19:45.840 was no helmet that would go on my head. Now, 0:19:46.000 --> 0:19:48.600 if someone sees you now, you do have quite a 0:19:48.640 --> 0:19:51.600 head of hair, quite a bush. Yeah, we had crew 0:19:51.600 --> 0:19:53.320 cuts back then, and it's the same. It might as 0:19:53.320 --> 0:19:55.879 well say spaulding up there is. It's just a big round. 0:19:56.720 --> 0:19:59.360 I would love to say there's a brain in there. 0:19:59.400 --> 0:20:02.440 That's the it matches it. But it's just grizzle. It's 0:20:02.480 --> 0:20:04.679 just a big hit full of gristle. And then just 0:20:04.760 --> 0:20:07.399 one final question on this topic. You played Hockey Talks. 0:20:07.920 --> 0:20:10.240 We always here and we see in movies even the 0:20:10.240 --> 0:20:13.840 Blues Brothers of the chicken wire and people throwing stuff. 0:20:14.200 --> 0:20:18.720 Is that real? I never had the chicken Go ahead, 0:20:18.760 --> 0:20:22.920 Jimy go, you take the first one. I'll take one too, Yes, yes, 0:20:23.600 --> 0:20:26.720 and uh I wrote I wrote it in a song 0:20:26.800 --> 0:20:29.879 called the pastor Google Run one time about because I 0:20:30.000 --> 0:20:33.480 had one of my uncles was a merchant seaman and 0:20:34.480 --> 0:20:36.520 he was kind of a little a bit of a 0:20:36.600 --> 0:20:39.200 wild person. And so he got off of a boat 0:20:39.280 --> 0:20:43.720 one time and came in two mobile and said, and 0:20:44.200 --> 0:20:46.720 as my dad saw, I said, well he maybe you 0:20:46.760 --> 0:20:49.280 need Jimmy to take to try to be the rest 0:20:49.320 --> 0:20:52.560 of the way at Pasca Google. These were in those days, 0:20:52.600 --> 0:20:56.440 and so I thought, and he had like a Triumph 0:20:56.880 --> 0:21:00.359 t R three because in whether it was stole owner 0:21:01.040 --> 0:21:02.679 or there, or they were after me or whatever. But 0:21:02.800 --> 0:21:05.560 I drove him to that and in the state line 0:21:05.600 --> 0:21:07.760 he stopped at every bar and that was the first 0:21:07.760 --> 0:21:11.240 place I saw chicken waring a bar in front of 0:21:11.240 --> 0:21:15.120 a van. And it's the first place where the guy 0:21:15.280 --> 0:21:17.879 there was a drunken there. I'll never forget this. And 0:21:17.920 --> 0:21:21.560 they threw the guy out and he came back with 0:21:21.640 --> 0:21:26.520 the chainsaw. I started cutting the bar whoa, and we 0:21:27.160 --> 0:21:31.840 got into Triumph and I drove him home. And I've 0:21:31.880 --> 0:21:36.639 been behind chicken wear too, Yes, spat Muse Louisiana and 0:21:36.640 --> 0:21:39.320 I can remember that yet, Mac, you wanted to add 0:21:39.359 --> 0:21:41.679 that or did Jimmy cover cover that? Well? No, I'm 0:21:41.680 --> 0:21:44.720 gonna add a little bit because it's it's it relates 0:21:44.760 --> 0:21:48.560 to him. I after after growing up only in church, 0:21:49.680 --> 0:21:51.320 I've never been to a hockey talnk. You had to 0:21:51.320 --> 0:21:53.480 go across the Tennessee line to get the one, which 0:21:53.480 --> 0:21:56.720 is about an hour away. I was thirteen. This guy 0:21:56.760 --> 0:21:59.280 came to our house and knocked on the door and 0:21:59.359 --> 0:22:02.199 introduced him off to my parents and told him that 0:22:02.320 --> 0:22:05.240 he had a band called Dean and the Reefers. Get that, Jimmy, 0:22:05.280 --> 0:22:06.960 that was the first band I was ever remember I 0:22:06.960 --> 0:22:12.000 of Dean and You were not my first reefer band. Yeah, 0:22:11.800 --> 0:22:14.720 the thirteen years old and he he had heard that 0:22:14.760 --> 0:22:16.720 I was a good piano player, and his piano player 0:22:16.760 --> 0:22:19.160 had quit. I was actually not a good piano player, 0:22:19.200 --> 0:22:21.359 but he had heard I was, and he made a 0:22:21.359 --> 0:22:24.000 pitch to my parents to let me play five nights 0:22:24.000 --> 0:22:26.520 a week at Iron City, Tennessee, at a place called 0:22:26.560 --> 0:22:29.560 the Circle E Club. And I had to go through 0:22:29.640 --> 0:22:32.120 muscle shoals to get there. But at any rate, I'm 0:22:32.200 --> 0:22:34.440 I'm figuring my my dad's about to throw this guy 0:22:34.440 --> 0:22:36.679 off the porch. Because my parents had never been to 0:22:36.720 --> 0:22:41.320 a honkey talk, We're never ever gonna go. All the 0:22:41.400 --> 0:22:43.199 years I played honkey talks, so they would never come 0:22:43.240 --> 0:22:44.760 and hear me play. They wouldn't walk in the door 0:22:44.800 --> 0:22:47.240 of one of those places. They were very religious. It 0:22:47.320 --> 0:22:50.119 was not their deal. And I'm thinking they're about to 0:22:50.160 --> 0:22:53.159 kick this guy out. But he he kept talking and 0:22:53.200 --> 0:22:55.119 he said, well, I'm a good Christian man, and I know, 0:22:55.720 --> 0:22:57.920 I know you want your boy to be a musician. 0:22:57.960 --> 0:22:59.879 He needs to learn to play with other musicians. And 0:23:00.000 --> 0:23:02.480 I will drive down here and pick him up, and 0:23:02.520 --> 0:23:05.199 I'll take him up to Tennessee and i'll bring him 0:23:05.240 --> 0:23:08.000 home and I'll make sure he behaves himself and uh, 0:23:08.040 --> 0:23:10.320 and I'll pay him two hundred and fifty dollars a week. 0:23:10.560 --> 0:23:14.239 And I was thirteen years old in nineteen seventy, and 0:23:14.280 --> 0:23:16.320 that was more money than my dad was making teaching 0:23:16.359 --> 0:23:20.600 school in Mississippi in nineteen seventies, more money than my 0:23:20.600 --> 0:23:25.160 mom was making at the Wrangler factory in Belmont making 0:23:25.200 --> 0:23:29.520 blue jeans. And something in that guy's presentation made an 0:23:29.520 --> 0:23:32.280 impression on my parents. And that Friday night, I was 0:23:32.320 --> 0:23:34.440 at the Circle E Club in Iron City, Tennessee, wearing 0:23:34.440 --> 0:23:37.199 a lime green leisure suit that was a hand me 0:23:37.240 --> 0:23:41.040 down from George Jones's band that did not fit, and 0:23:41.040 --> 0:23:42.760 I was playing songs that I've never heard in my 0:23:42.800 --> 0:23:46.040 life on the piano. And although I didn't have chicken 0:23:46.080 --> 0:23:49.119 wire there, there were live chainsaws in that club. There 0:23:49.119 --> 0:23:50.600 were a couple of guys that would rev up their 0:23:50.680 --> 0:23:53.000 chainsaw instead of applauding at the end of the song. 0:23:53.640 --> 0:23:58.199 So I was afraid, you know, I was. I was. 0:23:58.400 --> 0:24:00.200 It was like deliverance or something. I was a ready 0:24:00.200 --> 0:24:01.840 to get off stage. We would take a break and 0:24:01.880 --> 0:24:04.359 I would just go hide behind the piano and uh 0:24:04.440 --> 0:24:07.040 and wait un till he's played again. But but I 0:24:07.080 --> 0:24:08.960 made two or fifty bucks a week, got home about 0:24:08.960 --> 0:24:10.840 two thirty in the morning, and got up and went 0:24:10.880 --> 0:24:16.040 to school. Of seventh thirty in the seventh grade. Wow, Jimmy, 0:24:16.280 --> 0:24:22.720 So you went to Catholic school. Yeah, all twelve years. Okay, 0:24:22.760 --> 0:24:27.199 what kind of student were you? I was. I was 0:24:27.240 --> 0:24:30.359 an average student. And there there's something I loved history, 0:24:30.520 --> 0:24:33.520 and I would things that I that inspired me. I 0:24:33.600 --> 0:24:37.040 like I like in English, I like reading. I like 0:24:37.240 --> 0:24:39.639 reading all the classics. And so then that was my 0:24:39.760 --> 0:24:42.400 mother was the reader and the family and she at 0:24:42.400 --> 0:24:44.440 that point wanted me to be a you know, another 0:24:44.560 --> 0:24:49.200 Mississippi literary person, I think, because she adored the people 0:24:49.240 --> 0:24:52.479 like you do are wealthy and uh and and William 0:24:52.560 --> 0:24:55.320 Farker and people like that, and she made us read them. 0:24:55.400 --> 0:24:57.359 And then you know, and then the and the music 0:24:57.400 --> 0:24:59.560 you listen to is your parents music, because this is 0:24:59.600 --> 0:25:03.840 before there even and so they had great musical taste. 0:25:03.880 --> 0:25:08.440 And you know, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Rosemary Clooney, people 0:25:08.480 --> 0:25:10.720 like that that I heard. But Frank Sinatra I really 0:25:10.760 --> 0:25:14.200 liked as a kid. And then my grandfather would bring 0:25:14.240 --> 0:25:16.800 him all records because he was still a captain of 0:25:16.320 --> 0:25:20.880 a steamship and he his run was from New Orleans 0:25:20.920 --> 0:25:24.960 to uh down to the Caribbean to Argentina and Brazil, 0:25:25.359 --> 0:25:29.440 and he loved Clipso and Bossanova music, and he'd buy 0:25:29.520 --> 0:25:32.040 albums down there and bring them to my mom. And 0:25:32.119 --> 0:25:35.760 so that's where I first heard Caribbean music, was those 0:25:35.800 --> 0:25:39.120 records my grandfather broke back to my mother. And at 0:25:39.119 --> 0:25:42.760 what point did you start playing an instrument? I didn't 0:25:42.760 --> 0:25:45.000 play the guitar until I went to I went off 0:25:45.080 --> 0:25:47.600 my first year in college to Harvard University of Plays 0:25:47.680 --> 0:25:49.560 I did not want to go to, and i'd I'd 0:25:49.600 --> 0:25:52.680 blown the whole thing with the Naval Academy and uh, 0:25:52.800 --> 0:25:55.880 well wait, how serious was this Naval Academy thing? Well, 0:25:55.880 --> 0:25:58.639 it was serious in my parents eyes, but obviously not 0:25:58.720 --> 0:26:01.480 in seriously it should have been. And I, you know, 0:26:01.800 --> 0:26:05.080 the good news now is, uh, I'm kind of a 0:26:05.560 --> 0:26:10.040 part time uh instructor on on offshore sailing as as 0:26:10.080 --> 0:26:13.199 like what they call auxiliary at the Naval Academy. So 0:26:13.240 --> 0:26:15.680 I kind of I went from not men here to 0:26:15.840 --> 0:26:19.440 get in to being a sailing teacher there. So I'm good. 0:26:25.520 --> 0:26:28.680 Did you actually applied? Yes, you had to have a 0:26:28.720 --> 0:26:31.240 congressional appointment in those days, which I think you still did, 0:26:31.240 --> 0:26:33.760 and that was all politics, do it? You know? My? 0:26:34.080 --> 0:26:36.120 You know my? Like I said, my mom and dad 0:26:36.160 --> 0:26:38.440 worked at the ship, right, they knew some people had connections, 0:26:38.440 --> 0:26:40.639 but I blew it on the tests. And then so 0:26:41.119 --> 0:26:43.879 I went away to Auburn. What what what? What before 0:26:43.880 --> 0:26:47.520 you get there? You want to go to the Naval Ecademy. Yeah, 0:26:47.560 --> 0:26:52.520 but I guess not bad enough, huh. And so I 0:26:52.600 --> 0:26:55.560 wound up at Auburn, and um, you know, it's one 0:26:55.560 --> 0:26:58.159 of those first things. And I still was a pretty 0:26:58.200 --> 0:27:00.360 shy guy there. I mean, I you know, I went 0:27:00.400 --> 0:27:02.760 to one of those pledge parties plitched, you know, in 0:27:02.840 --> 0:27:06.840 the opening of school at this fraternity house, and there 0:27:06.880 --> 0:27:10.399 was a guy playing guitar, and all the girls were 0:27:10.720 --> 0:27:14.680 rather interested in what he was singing. And I noticed that. 0:27:14.960 --> 0:27:18.560 And and so when it when it came time to 0:27:18.720 --> 0:27:21.400 you know, pledge of fraternity, I knew nobody there. Knew 0:27:21.400 --> 0:27:24.480 nothing about the fraternity system because we never had those 0:27:24.520 --> 0:27:28.040 in in in Catholic school. So I said, you know, 0:27:28.240 --> 0:27:30.680 this guy was playing the guitar. I like this place. 0:27:30.720 --> 0:27:34.840 I'll pledge here. So ironically enough, when I did, they 0:27:35.119 --> 0:27:38.080 they gave you a room assignment in the house. And 0:27:38.320 --> 0:27:40.880 my room assignments wound up being with the guy named 0:27:40.920 --> 0:27:43.760 Johnny young Blood who was the guy playing on the guitar. 0:27:44.200 --> 0:27:47.119 So he I walked in the room, I show him 0:27:47.119 --> 0:27:49.639 a little and you know, they bought guitars and I 0:27:49.880 --> 0:27:53.280 kind of faith seeing Elvis songs and my parents parties 0:27:53.359 --> 0:27:56.760 or Marty raw Thing, but I never really played until 0:27:56.800 --> 0:27:58.680 I got to know Johnny young Blood And I said, 0:27:58.720 --> 0:28:00.240 how do you do that? How do you do And 0:28:00.240 --> 0:28:02.440 he said, I only know three course G, C, and D, 0:28:02.480 --> 0:28:05.560 and I would teach me those cords and that's about 0:28:05.560 --> 0:28:07.439 all I'll learned it all and with those three chords, 0:28:07.640 --> 0:28:13.640 and it worked out, and Johnny young Wood was ironically enough, uh, 0:28:13.680 --> 0:28:16.080 I was clear. I was, you know, doing some other 0:28:16.160 --> 0:28:18.960 chores around her, cleaning out guests and things that we're 0:28:18.960 --> 0:28:21.399 doing now. And I looked through a whole stack of 0:28:21.480 --> 0:28:23.120 letters that I had because I always used to keep 0:28:23.119 --> 0:28:25.680 all the letters, and I had letters from Johnny Youngwood 0:28:25.960 --> 0:28:29.200 because by that time he had had a little trouble 0:28:29.240 --> 0:28:32.240 in his life and had an alcohol problem and and 0:28:33.480 --> 0:28:36.160 was up and was in jail from anslaughter, but then 0:28:36.720 --> 0:28:39.080 cleaned up around the program in prison, and I got 0:28:39.160 --> 0:28:41.240 letters from him there. I don't know if he's still 0:28:41.240 --> 0:28:43.920 allowed now, but I'm gonna find out. I read that 0:28:44.400 --> 0:28:48.040 three days ago. Okay, your dream of going to the 0:28:48.080 --> 0:28:52.480 academy is dashed. Prior to picking up the guitar, did 0:28:52.520 --> 0:28:54.240 you have a vision what you wanted to do with 0:28:54.280 --> 0:28:57.880 your life? No, I knew. I knew I was in 0:28:57.920 --> 0:29:00.560 serious trouble because I did not tell my parents. I 0:29:00.640 --> 0:29:04.080 flunked out in the UH after in the middle of 0:29:04.120 --> 0:29:07.640 the second quarter. I knew it was not gonna happen. 0:29:07.920 --> 0:29:10.400 And by then I was playing with Johnny, and Johnny 0:29:10.640 --> 0:29:14.920 had had gigs in Panama City, so I kind of 0:29:14.960 --> 0:29:16.560 made a deal with him. I said, you know, the 0:29:16.680 --> 0:29:19.200 little bit of money my parents were sending me for school, 0:29:19.520 --> 0:29:22.120 I said, I'll let them keep sending it to you 0:29:22.240 --> 0:29:23.880 and I'll split it with it, but I'm gonna go 0:29:23.920 --> 0:29:25.760 down to Panama Sit and try to get into junior 0:29:25.800 --> 0:29:29.000 college down there because Vietnam was bubbling up and I 0:29:29.000 --> 0:29:32.280 can work down there. So that was my motus Opperremdi 0:29:32.680 --> 0:29:35.920 and uh it did not work out, and I kept 0:29:36.040 --> 0:29:40.200 trying it out at other junior colleges, UH that, and 0:29:40.200 --> 0:29:43.800 and finally it wasn't happening, and I knew I had 0:29:43.840 --> 0:29:46.280 to go home and face my father. And I drove 0:29:46.760 --> 0:29:49.560 normally I'd always drive Highway Downy along the coast because 0:29:49.560 --> 0:29:51.800 that's where all my family lived. But I was so 0:29:51.880 --> 0:29:54.520 depressed about what was happening. I said, I'm gonna go 0:29:54.600 --> 0:29:57.200 home and join the Marines and go to Vietnam. I'm 0:29:57.240 --> 0:30:01.040 just blown everything. And Uh. On the way there, on 0:30:01.080 --> 0:30:04.520 the back road US eleven, I went to stop light 0:30:04.600 --> 0:30:06.240 and I look up and I see a sign says 0:30:06.280 --> 0:30:10.880 Pearl River Junior College. And there's this very charming and 0:30:11.160 --> 0:30:15.040 very pretty girl walking through the cross walk and smiled 0:30:15.080 --> 0:30:18.239 and wait at me. I went, I don't know, So 0:30:18.280 --> 0:30:21.400 I pulled in. I went to the admissions that what 0:30:21.480 --> 0:30:22.959 does it what does it take to get in here? 0:30:22.960 --> 0:30:26.800 And they said a point five nine overall, and I went, 0:30:27.360 --> 0:30:29.959 I got a point six and it was It turns 0:30:29.960 --> 0:30:32.920 out it was a flunky school for everybody from l 0:30:33.000 --> 0:30:35.959 s U or Old Miss or anybody. So they were 0:30:35.960 --> 0:30:38.480 in junior college to stay out of Vietnam. And I 0:30:38.560 --> 0:30:40.840 signed up and I went to Pearl River Junior College 0:30:41.320 --> 0:30:43.600 and there was a guy there I started playing with. 0:30:43.640 --> 0:30:47.560 So I continued playing there, met people, then went to 0:30:47.600 --> 0:30:50.560 the University of Southern Mississippi just up the road, and 0:30:50.600 --> 0:30:53.320 by then I've been in New Orleans kind of playing 0:30:53.360 --> 0:30:56.640 and hoot Danny Knights for free, you know, for for 0:30:57.080 --> 0:31:00.760 the pickup nights. And I at that point New Orleans 0:31:00.840 --> 0:31:02.280 is already in there, and I knew that's what I 0:31:02.320 --> 0:31:06.880 wanted to do. Then, Okay, were you a popular kid 0:31:06.920 --> 0:31:12.560 in school? Kind of but not? You know, I was okay, 0:31:12.600 --> 0:31:15.240 but I wasn't like kind of running then. I wasn't 0:31:15.280 --> 0:31:17.720 a class blown and I wasn't an a student, so 0:31:17.800 --> 0:31:21.040 I was somewhere in the middle. Now, okay, so what 0:31:21.160 --> 0:31:24.600 point in this his era do you decide that you 0:31:24.640 --> 0:31:30.600 want to be a musician professionally? I knew. I knew 0:31:30.600 --> 0:31:33.320 it because I was working by that time. We had 0:31:33.360 --> 0:31:37.080 a band and we were we were working. Uh very 0:31:37.200 --> 0:31:40.960 I was gonna tell the Beatles story I had was that, 0:31:41.240 --> 0:31:43.880 Uh I was, I was working on Bourbon Street and 0:31:43.960 --> 0:31:47.000 in the folk group. And when the Sergeant Pepper came 0:31:47.040 --> 0:31:51.040 out and by that time, I'm at school in Hattsburg, Mississippi, 0:31:51.080 --> 0:31:54.080 but basically living in New Orleans and driving back and forth. 0:31:55.280 --> 0:31:59.840 And uh, Sergeant Pepper came out and we bought it, 0:32:00.040 --> 0:32:02.240 and we and we said, you know, we gotta chank, 0:32:02.280 --> 0:32:05.480 we gotta become a folk rock band, and we bought 0:32:05.480 --> 0:32:08.800 the Sergeant Pepper album and we said, all right, here's 0:32:08.840 --> 0:32:11.640 the plan. We're gonna drop acid to night and learn 0:32:11.680 --> 0:32:15.120 this entire album and go in and audition the next 0:32:15.160 --> 0:32:17.160 day to the club owner and say we want to 0:32:17.200 --> 0:32:20.640 play next store at the Gunga then and and be 0:32:20.800 --> 0:32:22.360 it because we knew they had an opening for a 0:32:22.400 --> 0:32:25.840 band there, and so we did it. We staid, and 0:32:26.040 --> 0:32:31.560 then back at school, well a little bit lower. Hey, 0:32:31.800 --> 0:32:34.400 did you smoke a lot of dope and drop a 0:32:34.440 --> 0:32:39.320 lot of acid before this? Uh? Not. I didn't smoke 0:32:39.360 --> 0:32:42.360 a lot of week because I never smoked cigarettes. But yeah, 0:32:42.560 --> 0:32:44.920 during that time, yeah, I took a little acid at 0:32:44.920 --> 0:32:46.760 the time. But then you know, then I kind of 0:32:47.400 --> 0:32:52.920 you know, that's enough of that. But the fun thing 0:32:53.080 --> 0:32:55.400 was that at this point I was day to a 0:32:55.520 --> 0:32:57.640 girl in the theater department, and I knew that there 0:32:57.640 --> 0:33:00.480 were costumes in the theater department. So after we learned 0:33:00.520 --> 0:33:04.280 the album, we drove back to Pettisburg. She gave me 0:33:04.400 --> 0:33:07.160 the key and we went in and borrowed outfits that 0:33:07.360 --> 0:33:10.440 looked similar to what the Beatles had on. Sergeant Pepper 0:33:10.880 --> 0:33:13.360 put those outfits on, who ran back to New Orleans 0:33:13.360 --> 0:33:17.719 audition and got the job, and you played Sergeant Pepper. 0:33:18.640 --> 0:33:22.320 Yes everything, We played the entire album. We became a 0:33:22.560 --> 0:33:26.400 very popular Beatles cover band, and we started playing fraternity 0:33:26.440 --> 0:33:29.640 parties all through that part of the South. Okay, you 0:33:29.760 --> 0:33:35.800 graduated from college, yet how do you stay out of Vietnam? Um? 0:33:35.840 --> 0:33:38.959 At that time you had to fill out forms for deferments, 0:33:38.960 --> 0:33:41.880 you know. And uh, and and by that time I 0:33:42.400 --> 0:33:44.600 started flying. I had two roommates who were in r 0:33:44.720 --> 0:33:48.440 RTC at the Mississippi Southern, and they were flying in 0:33:48.560 --> 0:33:52.720 a little a little airport in Hannisburgh, English flying Service 0:33:53.200 --> 0:33:56.240 because it was part of the Navy program. So I could, 0:33:56.520 --> 0:33:58.360 and I was making a little little money then, and 0:33:58.400 --> 0:34:00.120 I wanted to find my dad was a fly or 0:34:00.160 --> 0:34:02.719 in the war. And uh, he was the only one 0:34:02.760 --> 0:34:05.000 that didn't go to see you. He flew. And so 0:34:05.800 --> 0:34:07.680 I started flying a little bit. And so when it 0:34:07.720 --> 0:34:12.719 came around, Uh, what happened was I was late for registering, 0:34:12.719 --> 0:34:14.560 and you had a register for the draft in and 0:34:15.000 --> 0:34:17.600 this girl in the office admissions helf has just gave 0:34:17.680 --> 0:34:19.239 me all the forms. And I looked at him, and 0:34:19.239 --> 0:34:22.520 I thought, man, that's I'm not supposed to be filling 0:34:22.560 --> 0:34:25.680 this app that that's the uh, that's the selecting service 0:34:25.719 --> 0:34:28.120 for him. I filled it out. It was this was 0:34:28.280 --> 0:34:32.480 nineteen sixty eight and it put expected data graduation. I'm 0:34:32.480 --> 0:34:35.480 supposed to graduate and six at the end of sixty eight, 0:34:35.800 --> 0:34:40.080 I put in nineteen seventy two, and I just I 0:34:40.120 --> 0:34:43.960 forgot about and nothing ever happened, you know. But the 0:34:44.000 --> 0:34:46.240 thing of it was, by that time I was playing 0:34:46.239 --> 0:34:49.759 in a bar in Hattisburg and Camp Shelby had a 0:34:49.840 --> 0:34:54.160 had a jungle warfare training facility there and there were 0:34:54.200 --> 0:34:56.960 people coming back from Vietnam who were training people to 0:34:57.040 --> 0:35:01.200 go and they became clientele and this are and that's 0:35:01.200 --> 0:35:03.400 the first time because I was always thinking what they 0:35:03.440 --> 0:35:05.200 get caught. I can fly now and I will go 0:35:05.239 --> 0:35:06.799 and they want you don't go there. And that's the 0:35:06.840 --> 0:35:08.839 first time I heard soldiers telling me not to go 0:35:08.880 --> 0:35:12.160 to war. And so that was a very there's a 0:35:12.480 --> 0:35:15.520 there's a chapter in the first book or for Vietnam Mississippi, 0:35:15.840 --> 0:35:20.200 and that's what it was about. So by that time, Okay, 0:35:20.200 --> 0:35:23.200 I get ready to graduate. A call comes in to 0:35:23.280 --> 0:35:24.960 go to the office and there's the head of our 0:35:25.000 --> 0:35:30.719 OTC with my form that I had forge and he said, 0:35:31.239 --> 0:35:32.880 not only am I going to see that, you go 0:35:33.560 --> 0:35:35.320 uh into the arm I'll make sure you're in the 0:35:35.360 --> 0:35:37.520 infantry and you go to the front lines to Vietnam 0:35:37.560 --> 0:35:40.200 for full inness off. And I went hell with that. 0:35:40.320 --> 0:35:43.239 So I went over to the naval recruiter, passed the 0:35:43.280 --> 0:35:46.560 task as I've flown some to go to officer candidate school. 0:35:46.600 --> 0:35:48.000 Said if I'm gonna go, I want to go as 0:35:48.040 --> 0:35:50.920 a flyer, and so I passed that. Went for the 0:35:50.920 --> 0:35:53.920 physical wound up. I had a peptic ulcer pod from 0:35:53.960 --> 0:35:56.040 drinking too much in New Orleans when I was eighteen 0:35:56.680 --> 0:35:58.520 and I was one. While that was it. I never 0:35:58.560 --> 0:36:02.040 saw another thing there just was lucky for you. Wow, 0:36:02.160 --> 0:36:04.560 you were really lucky. And then I went right back 0:36:04.560 --> 0:36:06.800 to New Ords and just kept playing. Oh yeah, it 0:36:06.880 --> 0:36:09.480 was like the greatest day in your life. That point 0:36:09.520 --> 0:36:12.880 you've been okay, going back to you back you're playing 0:36:12.960 --> 0:36:18.360 piano in this band, but a right, you would really 0:36:18.719 --> 0:36:21.520 viewed yourself more as a guitarist. At what point do 0:36:21.640 --> 0:36:25.680 you start writing songs and at what point do you say, hey, 0:36:25.800 --> 0:36:27.839 I want to be a singer songwriter or what do 0:36:27.920 --> 0:36:34.360 you say to yourself? Well, I was Jimmy says he 0:36:34.400 --> 0:36:36.880 was a bashful kid. I would have been competitively bashful. 0:36:36.880 --> 0:36:41.520 I was really bashful and uh, and I gotta say 0:36:41.520 --> 0:36:44.360 to you also, Jimmy, I was in Dean and the Reefers. 0:36:44.480 --> 0:36:46.880 But the interesting thing about Dean and the Reefers is 0:36:46.880 --> 0:36:49.960 a Dean, the lead singer, did not know what reefer was. 0:36:51.120 --> 0:36:53.520 He just thought it was a cool word. He was 0:36:54.120 --> 0:36:57.120 extremely straight laced, with a crew cut, and you know, 0:36:57.160 --> 0:37:00.520 butch wax on his hair, and and he had Dean 0:37:00.600 --> 0:37:03.000 and the Reefers painted on our van. And he could 0:37:03.040 --> 0:37:05.200 never figure out why all the long hairs gave us 0:37:05.239 --> 0:37:07.359 the peace sign when we drove by, Like why did 0:37:07.360 --> 0:37:11.520 they do that? You know? He had a different observation. Yeah, 0:37:11.560 --> 0:37:16.680 but uh, but my I was I wanted to be 0:37:16.680 --> 0:37:18.959 a guitar player, but I couldn't be. If you knew 0:37:18.960 --> 0:37:21.319 the notes on a piano, you were sort of the 0:37:21.320 --> 0:37:24.200 piano player. And in bands up there because everybody played guitar, 0:37:24.480 --> 0:37:28.040 and whoever was the worst guitar player played bass. That's 0:37:28.080 --> 0:37:31.040 just the way it went. You heard the old Willie 0:37:31.040 --> 0:37:33.960 Nelson line. Ray Ray Price asked, Willie said, can you 0:37:34.000 --> 0:37:39.440 play bass? And Willy said can't? Everybody? Uh, in reality 0:37:39.600 --> 0:37:42.319 that not many people can play bass, but but it 0:37:42.360 --> 0:37:45.560 was perceived that anybody could play bass. Back then. I 0:37:45.560 --> 0:37:48.440 I would play piano, and when we took a break, 0:37:48.719 --> 0:37:50.480 I would sit down behind the piano and pull out 0:37:50.520 --> 0:37:54.040 my acoustic guitar and and and try to practice fingerpicking 0:37:54.040 --> 0:37:58.239 when I was at these nightclub gigs and just the 0:37:58.280 --> 0:38:02.360 physics of doing that. Uh. The guys from muscle shows, 0:38:02.360 --> 0:38:05.160 the muscle shows, Rhythm section, guys that Roger Hawkins and 0:38:05.280 --> 0:38:09.719 David Hood and those classic musicians, if they wanted to 0:38:09.719 --> 0:38:11.879 play live, they had to go to the Tennessee Line too. 0:38:11.920 --> 0:38:14.640 They went up above the honky Tonks. They would come 0:38:14.680 --> 0:38:17.640 up there and sit in That's how I met those guys. 0:38:18.120 --> 0:38:21.000 And they would come and say this idiot kids sitting 0:38:21.040 --> 0:38:23.480 behind the piano playing acoustic guitar on the breaks. They 0:38:23.560 --> 0:38:26.200 just come and see what I was doing, and and 0:38:26.280 --> 0:38:28.080 they decided that I could play a little bit. And 0:38:28.080 --> 0:38:30.239 they said, hey, man, would you would you like to 0:38:30.239 --> 0:38:34.360 play in some studios? Shoot you out? And I didn't 0:38:34.440 --> 0:38:36.520 you know, I knew what was going on in muscle shows, 0:38:36.520 --> 0:38:38.840 but at that time, for all the music that was 0:38:38.840 --> 0:38:41.640 happening in muscle shows, there wasn't really a dedicated acoustic 0:38:41.640 --> 0:38:45.920 guitar player. Uh, And so they said, well, you know, 0:38:46.000 --> 0:38:47.360 give us your number and we'll call you and you 0:38:47.480 --> 0:38:50.240 come play some acoustic guitar. And you know, Dwayne Almand 0:38:50.239 --> 0:38:52.200 had already gone from there, but there were great guitar 0:38:52.239 --> 0:38:55.240 players there. Pete Carr was there, and and uh, Tippy 0:38:55.360 --> 0:38:58.560 Armstrong and Eddie Hinton and Larry Byron from Stepping Wolfe 0:38:58.640 --> 0:39:01.000 was still in in in town. But there wasn't an 0:39:01.040 --> 0:39:05.080 acoustic player. So I started at fifteen. I started playing 0:39:05.719 --> 0:39:09.320 Muscle Shoals sessions as an acoustic player, and I didn't 0:39:09.320 --> 0:39:11.200 know what in the hell I was doing, but I 0:39:11.239 --> 0:39:13.919 was in the in the presence of some people who 0:39:13.960 --> 0:39:15.920 really did. I got to work with Rick Hall, and 0:39:15.920 --> 0:39:18.600 I got to work with Terry Woodford, Clayton Ivy and 0:39:18.600 --> 0:39:22.040 and Jerry Wexler, and great record producers came to Muscle 0:39:22.080 --> 0:39:24.160 Shoals and I got to sit at the feet of 0:39:24.160 --> 0:39:27.920 those guys and just be a sponge. And I didn't. 0:39:28.920 --> 0:39:31.040 I was too bashful to say I want to be 0:39:31.080 --> 0:39:33.319 a songwriter or a singer or the guy in the 0:39:33.360 --> 0:39:36.960 middle of the stage. And to this day, I'm extremely 0:39:37.000 --> 0:39:39.520 grateful to have this guy over here in the zoom 0:39:39.600 --> 0:39:42.600 meeting to stand next to and uh and draft off 0:39:42.640 --> 0:39:45.480 of in the in the NASCAR sense of drafting, because 0:39:45.840 --> 0:39:48.600 Jimmy has that kind of ambition that I was born without. 0:39:49.239 --> 0:39:51.680 My ambition is just to make music and try to 0:39:51.719 --> 0:39:53.760 make it a little bit better tomorrow than I did today. 0:39:53.920 --> 0:39:57.399 That's what drives me. And the fact that I get 0:39:57.440 --> 0:40:00.840 to to be a coral reefer. Uh men. And and 0:40:01.000 --> 0:40:04.560 in the cracks of Jimmy schedule say the little things 0:40:04.560 --> 0:40:06.879 that pop in my head every few years and and 0:40:07.040 --> 0:40:09.239 go play a solo show and sing that to the 0:40:09.360 --> 0:40:11.480 listening room full of folks that want to hear. That 0:40:12.200 --> 0:40:14.239 makes me about as lucky a guy as I could 0:40:14.239 --> 0:40:16.959 possibly be for for what I like, I wouldn't change 0:40:16.960 --> 0:40:21.080 anything about my life. So, Jimmy, were you always ambitious? 0:40:23.160 --> 0:40:25.920 I think so? I mean, yeah, I learned, you know, 0:40:26.440 --> 0:40:29.840 because after that kind of you know, we I was 0:40:29.880 --> 0:40:32.319 always you know, taught to the industrious. And I did 0:40:32.600 --> 0:40:35.360 small jobs because I wanted my independence in my own money. 0:40:35.400 --> 0:40:37.000 So you know, I've worked in I was a bag 0:40:37.000 --> 0:40:39.480 boy horse store on Mode lawns and that as a kid. 0:40:40.880 --> 0:40:45.040 And uh and you know when when when school came along, 0:40:45.120 --> 0:40:47.160 I could I could work again in the shipyard, but 0:40:47.239 --> 0:40:48.760 I was going off to school and make some decent 0:40:48.800 --> 0:40:50.480 money to help my parents because they were trying to 0:40:50.520 --> 0:40:54.359 trying to send me to school. So but the thing 0:40:54.400 --> 0:40:58.640 of it was when I started playing, um, yeah, I 0:40:59.640 --> 0:41:01.960 kind of had more ambition than the other people I 0:41:02.000 --> 0:41:04.279 was playing with. So it kind of made me the 0:41:04.400 --> 0:41:07.040 leader because I would get stuff together. I wouldn't do 0:41:07.120 --> 0:41:09.719 the set list. I would, you know, I would say, 0:41:09.760 --> 0:41:12.640 these are the songs we ought to be playing. And 0:41:12.680 --> 0:41:15.279 then you know, when it when it came time to 0:41:15.320 --> 0:41:17.439 have a real band and we were going to really 0:41:17.480 --> 0:41:20.000 go for this, I was still kind of working at 0:41:20.120 --> 0:41:22.080 this show. You know, I had like real jobs then, 0:41:22.120 --> 0:41:25.200 and so I had I had actually a credit at 0:41:25.200 --> 0:41:27.759 the music store and mobile. So when we started to 0:41:27.760 --> 0:41:31.720 do this, I said, well, we're gonna need a sound system, 0:41:31.840 --> 0:41:35.799 and uh, everybody else had went well, I'm very I said, well, 0:41:37.000 --> 0:41:39.280 I'll I'll get and I went on and I applied 0:41:39.320 --> 0:41:41.680 for a loan and I got a book full and 0:41:41.680 --> 0:41:43.759 I got a credit that was a Bogan p A 0:41:43.800 --> 0:41:46.200 system and I bought and I said, well, I bought 0:41:46.200 --> 0:41:48.080 the A system. So that I'm gonna have to be 0:41:48.200 --> 0:41:49.759 the leader of the band because I'm not gonna let 0:41:49.760 --> 0:41:51.919 you all break my p A system and I gotta 0:41:51.920 --> 0:41:55.439 pay for it. And so you know, I liked being 0:41:55.480 --> 0:41:58.839 the leader of the band and it worked out. Okay. 0:41:58.840 --> 0:42:00.960 A couple of questions. While you were playing in New 0:42:01.080 --> 0:42:03.440 Orleans and in this era after college, do you ever 0:42:03.480 --> 0:42:07.720 have a day gig? Uh in New Orleans? No? I played, 0:42:08.000 --> 0:42:10.680 h I played, you know, I played honors other you know, 0:42:11.440 --> 0:42:13.640 the only thing I had to I could make extra 0:42:13.680 --> 0:42:15.680 money by when we were off. We played a half 0:42:15.680 --> 0:42:18.320 hour on half hour off, you know, like nine to 0:42:18.560 --> 0:42:21.239 nine at night at two in the morning. But I 0:42:21.280 --> 0:42:23.640 could get it making extra money going out and being 0:42:23.640 --> 0:42:25.640 the barker on the street on Bourbon Street. And I 0:42:25.680 --> 0:42:29.600 think that kind of that kind of sharpened my edge 0:42:29.719 --> 0:42:32.200 or being a shameless performer because you had to be 0:42:32.239 --> 0:42:38.200 shanless go out into that. But I had fifty extra week. Yeah, absolutely, 0:42:38.239 --> 0:42:40.080 I could never do that like the guy standing on 0:42:40.120 --> 0:42:44.319 the corner in the subway outfits, etcetera. So at what 0:42:44.480 --> 0:42:47.360 point does it turn from a band into a singer 0:42:47.440 --> 0:42:52.799 songwriter thing? For me? Yeah? Yeah, for you, Jimmy, well, 0:42:53.160 --> 0:42:58.080 everything to have the band broke up as they do, 0:42:58.239 --> 0:43:02.000 as they will, and the band oca and uh, so 0:43:02.920 --> 0:43:06.680 I still had made connections with agents that booked some 0:43:06.760 --> 0:43:09.279 of these other bands playing, which this was like the 0:43:09.360 --> 0:43:12.839 big when folk music was still big and and folk 0:43:12.960 --> 0:43:15.800 rock was big. These two clubs, and you gotta remember 0:43:15.800 --> 0:43:17.960 at that time Bourbon Street was just about as much 0:43:18.040 --> 0:43:21.359 music given out, more so on Bourbon Street as you know, 0:43:22.360 --> 0:43:27.239 strip joints and beer parlors, because Pete Fountain Alhert had 0:43:27.239 --> 0:43:32.240 a club there. Uh you know, um and the Neville 0:43:32.280 --> 0:43:36.560 Brothers were playing at the Ivanhoe. Uh Preservation Hall was there. 0:43:37.520 --> 0:43:41.719 Um Allen Toussaint had a stuck Cosmo Studios downtown. So 0:43:41.760 --> 0:43:44.120 there was a lot more music that was going on 0:43:44.120 --> 0:43:47.319 on that street. So I was immersed in and I 0:43:47.440 --> 0:43:49.520 loved that stuff. So when the band broke up, I 0:43:49.560 --> 0:43:52.680 mean I immediately went back down there and tried to 0:43:52.680 --> 0:43:55.920 get a job in a band, and I played drums 0:43:55.960 --> 0:43:57.799 one night in the band. They fired me after the 0:43:57.800 --> 0:44:00.160 first step, and I remember I was playing local up 0:44:00.200 --> 0:44:03.920 by Sergio Mendez, and that's I thought I was doing 0:44:03.960 --> 0:44:06.759 a good job. And because I played drums and the 0:44:06.840 --> 0:44:12.120 third grade marching bandage, so Anyway, I had connections up there, 0:44:12.680 --> 0:44:16.279 and I had been't doing solo gigs, and so I 0:44:16.400 --> 0:44:21.160 found that this booker up in Minnesota that could put 0:44:21.160 --> 0:44:24.840 me on the road doing doing stuff. And I played 0:44:25.320 --> 0:44:28.440 that and then those those shows when I could. Then 0:44:28.480 --> 0:44:31.840 I went back to Mobile when I graduated from college, 0:44:32.120 --> 0:44:34.400 kind of figure out what what else to do, and 0:44:34.440 --> 0:44:36.080 I got a job at a bar called the Adimal 0:44:36.160 --> 0:44:40.600 Sims Hotel, in a hotel right downtown Mobile, and I'm 0:44:41.000 --> 0:44:44.319 uh again. I was following a friend of mine who 0:44:44.400 --> 0:44:46.200 had worked in New Orleans together and he's the one 0:44:46.200 --> 0:44:48.359 that brought me up to kind of jam. Next thing 0:44:48.400 --> 0:44:50.520 I knew when he left town. I had the job 0:44:50.719 --> 0:44:53.279 and I've worked there for almost a year and I 0:44:53.400 --> 0:44:56.240 created a following this as a solo act and people 0:44:56.840 --> 0:44:59.880 my parents friends at first within you know, it was 0:45:00.000 --> 0:45:03.400 on a soul out every night and uh, and that 0:45:03.480 --> 0:45:06.640 kind of worked. I was And from there I wanted 0:45:06.680 --> 0:45:09.359 to make a record to sell in the bar, and 0:45:09.360 --> 0:45:13.320 I went into a little uh record coming Audiomobile Records, 0:45:13.360 --> 0:45:16.160 and this guy Milton Brown heard me play and said 0:45:16.200 --> 0:45:19.480 that's pretty good, and he had Nashville connections, and Milton 0:45:19.520 --> 0:45:22.120 eventually took me to Nashville to do demos there, and 0:45:22.200 --> 0:45:25.680 that's how I got to Nashville. Okay, what was the 0:45:25.800 --> 0:45:28.719 dream at this point, Since we've established you're a very 0:45:28.760 --> 0:45:35.719 ambitious person. I wanted to be the next modern Lightfoot. Okay, 0:45:35.800 --> 0:45:38.200 let's go back to you. Mac. You know you're very 0:45:38.280 --> 0:45:41.239 humble guy. But at a very young age, you get 0:45:41.440 --> 0:45:43.759 you get record deals. You're making records, so you may 0:45:43.800 --> 0:45:49.239 be Bashville, but something is happening. Well, but the way 0:45:49.280 --> 0:45:52.719 I got a record deal isn't just ridiculous. Because we're 0:45:52.760 --> 0:45:55.960 sitting We're sitting in muscle shows and I'm I'm the 0:45:56.000 --> 0:45:59.120 acoustic player on a on a session and the artist 0:45:59.200 --> 0:46:01.239 misses a plane in doesn't show up. So we're just 0:46:01.280 --> 0:46:03.439 a band sitting in a studio with nothing to do. 0:46:03.719 --> 0:46:06.759 And they start asking, Okay, who's since we're here, let's 0:46:06.800 --> 0:46:09.600 cut something. Who's got a song? And all the other 0:46:09.640 --> 0:46:12.160 guys were the regular guys. I was the new guy, 0:46:12.480 --> 0:46:14.480 and they had already cut everything they had they had 0:46:14.480 --> 0:46:17.440 already cut, so they said you got any songs? And I, 0:46:17.920 --> 0:46:19.680 being the way I am, I said no, I don't 0:46:19.680 --> 0:46:22.360 have anything. And they went around the room about three times. 0:46:22.400 --> 0:46:25.640 I said no three times kind of biblically and then uh, 0:46:25.680 --> 0:46:29.400 this this engineer, Steve Moore was the engineer in the 0:46:29.440 --> 0:46:31.760 studio and he had played in a couple of bands 0:46:31.800 --> 0:46:33.640 with me, and he says, this guy or here is 0:46:33.680 --> 0:46:35.799 just bashful. I know he got songs. I know he 0:46:35.880 --> 0:46:40.480 writes songs. And they made me play a song, and uh, 0:46:40.520 --> 0:46:42.680 and I pulled up my guitar and I played this 0:46:42.719 --> 0:46:44.560 little song called It's a Crazy World that I wrote 0:46:44.560 --> 0:46:47.560 when I was sixteen, and they went, jeez, we're just 0:46:47.560 --> 0:46:50.520 gonna make a record on you. That was it. I 0:46:51.320 --> 0:46:53.320 played a song for them that I had never played 0:46:53.360 --> 0:46:55.439 for my parents. I had never done a gig, I'd 0:46:55.480 --> 0:46:57.959 never been in a and I'd never played a gig 0:46:57.960 --> 0:47:00.760 and sung a lead vocal as me in my life anywhere. 0:47:00.800 --> 0:47:03.600 My sisters had never heard that song, and all of 0:47:03.680 --> 0:47:06.160 a sudden they cut a record on me and went 0:47:06.160 --> 0:47:10.000 to l A and got a record deal. And I 0:47:10.040 --> 0:47:13.080 mean it took about three Old Testament miracles Daisy chain 0:47:13.160 --> 0:47:15.160 together for me to have a record deal, because I 0:47:15.400 --> 0:47:18.600 would have never gone anywhere and asked anybody to listen 0:47:18.640 --> 0:47:21.399 to me and said, you know, even though I wasn't 0:47:21.400 --> 0:47:23.600 that far from Nashville, I never would have gone to Nashville. 0:47:23.840 --> 0:47:27.479 The fact that I could go to Muscle Shoals, which 0:47:27.520 --> 0:47:30.040 was forty minutes from my hometown and and fail and 0:47:30.080 --> 0:47:32.719 be back home by supper time made the physics of 0:47:32.760 --> 0:47:36.799 it more workable for me. And and somehow or other, 0:47:36.840 --> 0:47:38.640 I got a record deal and and they put out 0:47:38.680 --> 0:47:40.400 It's a Crazy World as the first single, and that 0:47:40.480 --> 0:47:44.480 was a chart record. And and I'm riding around the 0:47:44.480 --> 0:47:47.480 country and my granddad's hand me down overalls with a 0:47:47.520 --> 0:47:50.160 Scottish afro, a pretty easy to spot, might as well 0:47:50.200 --> 0:47:53.280 have been on Mars. But I was in l A 0:47:53.280 --> 0:47:55.840 at the Larramattage with this room that came with a 0:47:55.880 --> 0:47:59.319 Bentley and a driver. Nobody in my family had ever 0:47:59.360 --> 0:48:01.520 been driven by a driver, and nobody in my family 0:48:01.560 --> 0:48:04.040 had ever been on a plane. I mean they when 0:48:04.040 --> 0:48:05.520 I when I flew to l A to sign the 0:48:05.520 --> 0:48:08.120 record deal, they like broke out into prayer groups, wondering 0:48:08.760 --> 0:48:10.960 whether I was gonna crash on the way out there 0:48:11.239 --> 0:48:13.080 or get killed by the folks in Los Angeles. One 0:48:13.120 --> 0:48:16.440 of those two things was almost a certainty. And so 0:48:16.719 --> 0:48:19.200 it was it was sort of like Marco Polo, you 0:48:19.239 --> 0:48:24.440 know who played you that record? Bob Who, Uh, Howard 0:48:24.520 --> 0:48:29.600 Stark and Jay Lasker. Wow, ready for this? Yeah, I'm 0:48:30.440 --> 0:48:34.240 my ears are open. Uh. So I was doing okay 0:48:34.280 --> 0:48:38.640 by then and uh him Al was on ABC Dunhill. 0:48:38.680 --> 0:48:40.640 They signed me in Nashville. Didn't know what to do 0:48:40.719 --> 0:48:42.799 with me, but they got a corp. Donnyhue, I don't 0:48:42.800 --> 0:48:44.799 know if you ever ran into corp. He kind of 0:48:44.800 --> 0:48:48.399 took a liking to me. And uh and and I 0:48:48.440 --> 0:48:52.120 was in Key West by that time, living you have 0:48:52.239 --> 0:48:55.840 a bar gig in the daytime, were working on cocktails 0:48:56.040 --> 0:48:58.920 perfect were cocktail out of five to nine. And then 0:48:58.960 --> 0:49:01.040 I go out and raise hell and I get up 0:49:01.080 --> 0:49:04.600 on a fishing boat and worked forward to working offshore, 0:49:04.680 --> 0:49:07.040 charter fishing and playing at a bar. So I didn't 0:49:07.080 --> 0:49:09.319 want to go anywhere else. And this guy said we 0:49:09.440 --> 0:49:11.120 need to come up to New York. And I went 0:49:11.160 --> 0:49:14.560 and played, uh Sam Hoods Max's Kansas City and the 0:49:14.600 --> 0:49:16.880 next thing I knew, they took me to l A. 0:49:17.000 --> 0:49:19.680 They signed me, and you know, and Jim Croachy was 0:49:19.719 --> 0:49:22.480 still going there at the time, and uh, you know 0:49:22.520 --> 0:49:26.240 they were they were kind of I wasn't a little 0:49:26.239 --> 0:49:28.719 bit slower. How do you get from Key West to 0:49:28.760 --> 0:49:34.360 New York. I was, I was told I was called 0:49:34.360 --> 0:49:36.680 because I did White Sport Cone, a pink crust station. 0:49:36.719 --> 0:49:39.840 We did the album in Nashville for three days and 0:49:39.880 --> 0:49:44.600 eleven thousand dollars, and I saved some money and got 0:49:44.640 --> 0:49:47.319 the key West, paid off my student loans, and bought 0:49:47.400 --> 0:49:51.200 boat and so I figured that was my insurance policy. 0:49:51.400 --> 0:49:53.000 So I was down there and living the life when 0:49:53.000 --> 0:49:55.239 I get a call from Corbe Donohue, astead of Artist 0:49:55.280 --> 0:49:58.520 Relations at ABC. Doniel said, this is not a country record. 0:49:58.600 --> 0:50:01.560 This is really good and we want to get behind this. 0:50:01.680 --> 0:50:04.359 We're taking over from from l A. So they didn't 0:50:04.360 --> 0:50:06.640 know what to do with in the Nashville and so, 0:50:08.000 --> 0:50:11.200 long story short, had a nice run there with when 0:50:11.320 --> 0:50:15.520 Jay and Howard were running ABC Dunhill and then they 0:50:15.560 --> 0:50:18.520 got fired and then they had what was it the 0:50:18.560 --> 0:50:23.120 name of the audio Ariel Ariola America, Ariola America. So 0:50:23.239 --> 0:50:25.640 I just was, you know, I was. I was doing 0:50:25.640 --> 0:50:27.759 well then, but I'd always go see those guys because 0:50:27.800 --> 0:50:32.279 Jay Lasker was the guy said Jimmy, you know, yeah, 0:50:32.320 --> 0:50:34.560 we're gonna we're gonna try to take your money from it. 0:50:34.680 --> 0:50:36.440 Your job is to find out how we're doing it, 0:50:38.760 --> 0:50:41.880 and so I had a great relationship with those guys, 0:50:41.960 --> 0:50:44.680 you know, and and I went to see them and 0:50:44.719 --> 0:50:46.640 they said, come in here, come in. You gotta hear this. 0:50:46.719 --> 0:50:49.040 You know, you're the next Jim Approach. This is the 0:50:49.160 --> 0:50:52.200 next Yu And they played me It's a Crazy World 0:50:52.239 --> 0:50:54.759 and that Mac that album with him and those overalls 0:50:54.760 --> 0:50:59.040 on it, and I went, that that kid write songs 0:50:59.080 --> 0:51:01.200 like William Flinger a book. I gotta find out where 0:51:01.200 --> 0:51:02.560 he is. And they said he's trying to miss a 0:51:02.680 --> 0:51:06.240 simpy like you. And I went, I went in search 0:51:06.320 --> 0:51:10.799 of back back and now I found him. Okay, in 0:51:10.960 --> 0:51:16.919 this peripatetic journey. You get married? What's going on there? 0:51:17.000 --> 0:51:22.600 How old were you when you got married? Yeah? What Jimmy, Jimmy? Oh? 0:51:22.680 --> 0:51:26.839 I was was I was? I think twenty one or something. 0:51:26.960 --> 0:51:29.839 You know. I've been a crazy musician and I thought 0:51:29.840 --> 0:51:32.920 I needed a stable the Catholic girl to settle me down. 0:51:33.680 --> 0:51:36.120 And I knew a sus and then I was going 0:51:36.160 --> 0:51:39.640 to Nashville and uh, she was my girlfriend at the 0:51:39.680 --> 0:51:41.760 time that she's gone off to be a t wh Stewards. 0:51:41.840 --> 0:51:45.319 And I drove from Mobile to Kansas City and asked 0:51:45.320 --> 0:51:47.799 her to marry me and come back. You know, by 0:51:47.840 --> 0:51:49.560 the time we got married, went, oh, that wasn't such 0:51:49.600 --> 0:51:53.879 a good idea. But she's a great girl. We were 0:51:53.960 --> 0:51:57.080 last we went to Nashville together. She wound up working 0:51:57.120 --> 0:51:59.080 in the music business and actually wound up being a 0:52:00.040 --> 0:52:04.560 pretty big executive with Capital and was married to Bob Mercer. 0:52:04.560 --> 0:52:08.640 I don't remember Bob Mercer Frum who ran Capital, but uh, 0:52:08.719 --> 0:52:11.520 we we have. We stayed in touch and then you know, 0:52:12.160 --> 0:52:14.200 after that was over, then best when I went to 0:52:14.280 --> 0:52:20.120 key West. How long were you actually together? Two years? Okay, 0:52:20.160 --> 0:52:25.600 how did it end? Uh? It ended? Let's say it 0:52:25.680 --> 0:52:30.160 ended amicably after the event that ended it because by 0:52:30.280 --> 0:52:33.160 that time I was also working for Billboard. Then you know, 0:52:33.200 --> 0:52:34.839 I had to get a had to get a day 0:52:34.920 --> 0:52:37.160 job there. And when I out answered an ad in 0:52:37.160 --> 0:52:41.120 the National Banner and said journalism degree needed the reporter 0:52:41.239 --> 0:52:43.600 I want, I got a journalism degree and it was 0:52:43.640 --> 0:52:46.200 Billboard Magazine and I went to work for Bill Williams, 0:52:46.200 --> 0:52:49.000 the southern eritor Billboard and taught me more about how 0:52:49.040 --> 0:52:52.120 the music business is stacked against you and anything. That's 0:52:52.160 --> 0:52:56.920 where I learned about the music there. So you know, um, 0:52:57.120 --> 0:53:01.000 Margie was working at Capitol Records. I was there and uh, 0:53:01.080 --> 0:53:03.839 and that that's you know, and then so we were 0:53:04.040 --> 0:53:06.120 we were kind of, you know, when we're getting along, 0:53:06.280 --> 0:53:11.480 and it was Jerry Jeff Walker came to town and 0:53:11.520 --> 0:53:14.000 a friend of mine was hosting him, who worked at 0:53:14.040 --> 0:53:16.640 ascap Of course, we went out to the bar that 0:53:16.760 --> 0:53:22.120 night and Jerry Jeff wound up at my house and uh, 0:53:22.600 --> 0:53:25.520 and it was not a very uh, it was a 0:53:25.640 --> 0:53:29.320 very good waking up call from my life at the time. 0:53:29.320 --> 0:53:31.400 And so we kind of knew we were kind of 0:53:31.400 --> 0:53:33.880 going in separate ways, and so I was trying to 0:53:33.920 --> 0:53:37.200 be nice. But at that time, everybody had a Mercedes 0:53:37.600 --> 0:53:40.200 in Nashville. I wanted to look good, so I bought 0:53:40.239 --> 0:53:44.160 a old Mercedes that we shared. So part of the 0:53:44.200 --> 0:53:46.920 deal was I said, you know, I'm I'll send you 0:53:46.960 --> 0:53:49.160 some half of whatever I make. Now we'll figure out. 0:53:49.200 --> 0:53:51.200 We had no kids, and she wanted to stay there. 0:53:51.239 --> 0:53:52.719 I was gonna go to Key West and try to 0:53:52.760 --> 0:53:56.879 find work, and uh, so I borrowed I said, kind 0:53:56.880 --> 0:53:59.279 of borrow the car for one more night and just 0:53:59.360 --> 0:54:02.440 before I leave down so I went out my friend 0:54:02.440 --> 0:54:04.760 Tod Andrews, who played in Mother Earth at that time, 0:54:05.440 --> 0:54:08.319 and as we were, I was kind of sneaking home 0:54:08.400 --> 0:54:12.359 to get out. I opened the door and a car 0:54:12.440 --> 0:54:15.640 came by and knocked the driver's side door off of 0:54:15.680 --> 0:54:20.400 the car. And I'm still kind of drunk from night before. 0:54:20.880 --> 0:54:24.319 I went out until we went somewhere, found duck tape 0:54:24.360 --> 0:54:26.480 and disc gleen and I taped it up and left 0:54:26.560 --> 0:54:29.160 the note there said I'm really sorry about this, but 0:54:29.200 --> 0:54:30.879 I'll send you some money when I gets to working. 0:54:31.120 --> 0:54:34.960 Us and I went to Fariva and then we eventually 0:54:35.000 --> 0:54:45.480 got a divorce, and uh, but we remained friends. Okay, back, Uh, 0:54:45.960 --> 0:54:49.440 So you get a record deal, and during act you 0:54:49.640 --> 0:54:52.759 have some success. You have Minimum Love that is a 0:54:53.320 --> 0:54:57.960 hit with a radio charting track with Geffen. You continue 0:54:58.000 --> 0:55:00.120 to put out solo record, You have some success us 0:55:00.160 --> 0:55:03.800 on the country chart. You know, at that point do 0:55:03.880 --> 0:55:06.440 you see yourself as an act? At that point do 0:55:06.520 --> 0:55:08.920 you see yourself as a side man? What's going through 0:55:08.960 --> 0:55:14.160 your head? Well, you know, I also married young and 0:55:14.280 --> 0:55:18.279 had and was having kids, and I tried to Uh, well, 0:55:18.320 --> 0:55:20.000 let's slow down a little bit. How old were you 0:55:20.080 --> 0:55:22.799 when you got married? I was I was two weeks 0:55:22.840 --> 0:55:25.959 from twenty one. I was I was short of twenty one. Okay, 0:55:25.960 --> 0:55:28.640 A couple of questions. How experienced in that realm were 0:55:28.719 --> 0:55:30.520 you when you got I was not very experienced in 0:55:30.600 --> 0:55:33.840 that realm. Uh, as evidenced by the fact that I 0:55:33.920 --> 0:55:38.600 got married two weeks from twenty one. But but how 0:55:38.680 --> 0:55:41.880 long did that last? That lasted twenty three years because 0:55:42.040 --> 0:55:46.279 we were both really stubborn. Uh. She's she's awesome, and 0:55:46.360 --> 0:55:49.120 were We still do family vacations together with the kids 0:55:49.160 --> 0:55:52.239 and everything. She's amazing. But uh okaykay wait, waitit, so 0:55:52.360 --> 0:55:57.719 did she get remarried? No? Did you get remarried? Both 0:55:57.880 --> 0:56:01.759 both have a significant other. But but everybody, everybody hangs out. 0:56:01.800 --> 0:56:04.239 We do family meals and birthdays and holidays and all that. 0:56:04.360 --> 0:56:07.680 And how many kids? I've got three daughters, And how 0:56:07.760 --> 0:56:11.840 old are they? Let's see, thirty eight, thirty three, and 0:56:12.000 --> 0:56:16.600 thirty Okay, are they on the family payroll or the independent? Uh? 0:56:17.200 --> 0:56:21.320 My youngest daughter is production assistant for FOR. I occasionally 0:56:21.320 --> 0:56:23.360 am in what I called the produce section as in 0:56:23.719 --> 0:56:27.640 Mr Buffet's records, to be a co producer for for 0:56:27.800 --> 0:56:30.120 for Jimmy's records. She but she you know, she works 0:56:30.160 --> 0:56:33.360 for several producers here in town. Busier than me, and 0:56:33.440 --> 0:56:35.800 she occasionally books her old man on a on a session. 0:56:35.840 --> 0:56:38.640 But uh, but I've got one that one in the business, 0:56:38.719 --> 0:56:41.720 and uh and and one at the moment, a journalist 0:56:41.760 --> 0:56:46.200 and a nurse. So I got all three gainfully employed daughters. Okay, 0:56:46.280 --> 0:56:48.080 so you were telling a story before I interrupt you 0:56:48.160 --> 0:56:51.320 toy to slow down, so you get married and you 0:56:51.400 --> 0:56:56.000 were talking yes, uh and I the nice thing about 0:56:56.080 --> 0:56:58.640 muscle shows is that you you know, you could play 0:56:58.760 --> 0:57:01.759 most everything that came to and still have time too 0:57:02.440 --> 0:57:04.759 to write songs for yourself and go out on the road. 0:57:05.200 --> 0:57:07.600 And it was the pace of that worked pretty well. 0:57:07.719 --> 0:57:11.680 But when when the kids started coming, uh, I kind 0:57:11.680 --> 0:57:14.000 of wanted to be homeboar, and so I kind of 0:57:14.120 --> 0:57:16.360 I stopped doing really much in the way of road. 0:57:16.400 --> 0:57:18.560 And I was always, I don't want to say, a 0:57:18.640 --> 0:57:22.520 reluctant performer because I like it, but uh but but 0:57:22.680 --> 0:57:26.640 I always I really liked the studio, I really like 0:57:26.800 --> 0:57:28.680 record and I like it writing and arranging, and I 0:57:28.840 --> 0:57:31.880 sort of felt more like that was my calling. And 0:57:32.840 --> 0:57:35.080 uh so I stayed home and watched the kids grow 0:57:35.200 --> 0:57:40.240 up and and made records less frequently, and and started 0:57:40.440 --> 0:57:44.680 writing songs for other people because my My contracts that 0:57:44.760 --> 0:57:47.000 I had signed were such that I was never gonna 0:57:47.080 --> 0:57:51.040 make enough money to pay the electric bill. Jimmy could 0:57:51.440 --> 0:57:55.200 he could elaborate on the No. Nobody taught me about contracts. 0:57:56.000 --> 0:57:59.160 I was. I signed one that's on the wall of 0:57:59.240 --> 0:58:01.080 a lot of lawyers, like watch out, or this can 0:58:01.160 --> 0:58:02.840 happen to you. It's got my name on it. But 0:58:03.040 --> 0:58:08.400 uh at any rate, uh Uh. Being home and watching 0:58:08.440 --> 0:58:10.560 the kids grow up, I started writing songs that other 0:58:10.640 --> 0:58:13.440 people began to record, and I had some hit records 0:58:13.520 --> 0:58:15.760 and and made a living kind of as a songwriter 0:58:15.920 --> 0:58:19.439 publisher and and sitting around and making records for people. 0:58:19.480 --> 0:58:22.040 A couple of my friends started saying, well, you help 0:58:22.120 --> 0:58:25.200 me produce this. We and I've been around studios so 0:58:25.360 --> 0:58:28.880 long at that point to be a relatively young guy. Uh. 0:58:29.520 --> 0:58:31.960 It turns out I knew most of the things that 0:58:32.040 --> 0:58:34.760 you needed to know to at least half as producer 0:58:34.840 --> 0:58:37.720 record and became kind of a record producer. And I 0:58:37.800 --> 0:58:44.120 didn't really do much traveling until Jimmy called, Okay, the 0:58:44.600 --> 0:58:47.920 songs that you wrote that were hits. Two questions, how 0:58:47.960 --> 0:58:50.120 did you get them to the artists? Indeed, deal own 0:58:50.160 --> 0:58:53.640 them out writers or a publisher involved. Early on, there 0:58:53.680 --> 0:58:56.040 was a publisher involved, and then and then later on 0:58:56.240 --> 0:59:00.360 it was my policing company. But uh, it uh oddly 0:59:00.480 --> 0:59:02.840 enough that the beginning of it came out of uh 0:59:03.160 --> 0:59:05.480 when I went out to meet with David Geffen, when 0:59:05.520 --> 0:59:07.200 I signed the deal with Geffen Records and he was 0:59:07.280 --> 0:59:10.320 just starting Geffen. He had, as a matter of fact, 0:59:10.440 --> 0:59:12.640 my contract. I was the first artist. I was before 0:59:12.720 --> 0:59:15.000 John Lennon or or Elton John or any of the 0:59:15.040 --> 0:59:18.880 folks that he signed there. My contract says too and 0:59:19.080 --> 0:59:22.480 as yet unnamed joint venture between Warner Brothers and David Geffen. 0:59:22.520 --> 0:59:24.320 He didn't know it was going to be Geffen Records yet. 0:59:24.720 --> 0:59:28.200 But uh, but I met with him at his house 0:59:29.040 --> 0:59:33.840 and he said, uh, something I'll never forget, actually, because 0:59:33.880 --> 0:59:36.520 nobody had ever said anything like this to me. He said, 0:59:36.600 --> 0:59:39.560 I think you are a real artist, and I would 0:59:39.640 --> 0:59:42.520 like to be an old fashioned patron of the arts. 0:59:42.600 --> 0:59:45.680 I would like to be associated with you, and whatever 0:59:45.800 --> 0:59:47.800 you do, I'll never tell you what to do. I'll 0:59:47.840 --> 0:59:49.560 never tell you how to do it. I just want 0:59:49.560 --> 0:59:51.800 to be connected to it. So you go home and 0:59:51.880 --> 0:59:56.160 do whatever you do. And nobody had ever said anything 0:59:56.280 --> 0:59:58.320 like that to me. At that time, I had people saying, 0:59:58.400 --> 1:00:00.080 we want you to be the next Jackson Brown, or 1:00:00.120 --> 1:00:02.680 we want you to be the next whatever. Uh, we'd 1:00:02.760 --> 1:00:04.560 like for you to dress this way and you know, 1:00:04.720 --> 1:00:07.440 and cut your hair this way, and uh, and I 1:00:07.760 --> 1:00:10.000 did not. You can, and jim You'll tell you this. 1:00:10.120 --> 1:00:12.520 You can ask me to do anything and I'll do it. 1:00:13.440 --> 1:00:15.960 You can tell me to do exactly the right thing, 1:00:16.080 --> 1:00:18.479 and I'm probably not going to. I just don't take 1:00:19.160 --> 1:00:22.800 direct authority very well. Uh, But Geffen said, go do 1:00:22.960 --> 1:00:26.200 what you do, and and I went home and just 1:00:26.320 --> 1:00:28.680 had this burst of songwriting. And some of those songs 1:00:28.720 --> 1:00:31.360 were country songs, and I didn't have a country record deal, 1:00:31.760 --> 1:00:34.640 so I was playing on a lot of country records 1:00:34.640 --> 1:00:38.280 and and so by virtue of that, occasionally people say 1:00:38.320 --> 1:00:40.960 you have any songs? And sometimes people would just cut 1:00:41.000 --> 1:00:42.640 a song off one of my albums, which happened a 1:00:42.680 --> 1:00:45.040 few times. Jimmy did that with It's My Job. That 1:00:45.160 --> 1:00:50.320 was our first connection. But uh, but people, I had 1:00:50.440 --> 1:00:52.320 a couple of songs, and Alabama cut a song of 1:00:52.400 --> 1:00:54.960 mine called Old Flame and had a number one record. 1:00:55.240 --> 1:00:57.160 And then after after you have a number one record, 1:00:57.440 --> 1:00:59.760 other people say, what do you got and I would 1:00:59.800 --> 1:01:02.000 give them a song, and and I had some more 1:01:02.120 --> 1:01:04.960 number one records, and and all of a sudden that 1:01:05.600 --> 1:01:08.120 I was making actual money. You know that that was 1:01:08.640 --> 1:01:11.640 you know, put me up legitimately into the middle class 1:01:11.680 --> 1:01:14.680 of muscle shows Alabama. And uh. And I could stay 1:01:14.720 --> 1:01:17.840 home and watch the kids. And and I also like 1:01:19.160 --> 1:01:21.480 it's sort of it was Pavlovian for me. And from 1:01:21.560 --> 1:01:23.760 that point forward, if I wrote something that sounded like 1:01:23.840 --> 1:01:27.320 a hit, I would rather give it to one of 1:01:27.400 --> 1:01:29.800 my friends that has a personal trainer and a bus 1:01:29.960 --> 1:01:33.160 or an airplane and some ambition that I don't have. Uh, 1:01:33.440 --> 1:01:35.480 And it works out better for everybody. I got to 1:01:35.480 --> 1:01:37.720 watch my kids grow up in a way that no 1:01:38.000 --> 1:01:41.560 really unemployed person gets to spend as much time with 1:01:41.640 --> 1:01:43.240 their kids as I did. You would have to be 1:01:43.400 --> 1:01:46.640 unemployed or or a trustafarian, you know, to be able 1:01:46.680 --> 1:01:48.520 to see your kids like I did growing up. So 1:01:48.640 --> 1:01:51.920 I was really blessed in that way. You have a 1:01:52.080 --> 1:01:55.120 country hit with back where I come from, and then 1:01:55.360 --> 1:01:58.840 ultimately Kenny Chesney covers it. How do you how do 1:01:58.920 --> 1:02:00.800 you have the solo record? Then how does he come 1:02:00.840 --> 1:02:06.240 to cover it? Uh? You know, the solo record was 1:02:07.360 --> 1:02:09.640 I was writing some songs and Jim Ed Norman at 1:02:09.680 --> 1:02:13.720 Warner Brothers Records. Uh, we got to be friends. And 1:02:14.520 --> 1:02:18.720 the bad record deal that I had signed got drug 1:02:18.760 --> 1:02:22.080 across several label deals. But it ended in a way 1:02:22.200 --> 1:02:24.720 that the guys that had signed me to this horrible 1:02:24.760 --> 1:02:28.040 record deal had had taken a budget from David Geffen 1:02:28.120 --> 1:02:30.400 to make an album and they blew it and then 1:02:30.440 --> 1:02:33.960 they filed bankruptcy. So I owed, I owed a record 1:02:34.160 --> 1:02:40.400 that I couldn't make, and and jim Ed Norman. I 1:02:40.520 --> 1:02:42.440 saw the bind that I was in. I couldn't finish 1:02:42.480 --> 1:02:44.520 my obligation to them to get out of this production 1:02:44.560 --> 1:02:47.720 deal that I had signed, and I owed David Geffen 1:02:47.760 --> 1:02:49.600 a record, and jim Ed Norman came to me and 1:02:49.760 --> 1:02:52.880 David Geffen to Geffor together and said, if I let 1:02:53.040 --> 1:02:55.040 Mac Mac make his pop album that he owes you, 1:02:55.520 --> 1:02:57.200 will you let me make a country out? Will you 1:02:57.320 --> 1:02:59.520 loan him to me like a cup of sugar and 1:03:00.120 --> 1:03:02.760 and let me make let me make a country album 1:03:02.800 --> 1:03:04.520 on him with these other songs he's got that we 1:03:04.600 --> 1:03:08.040 think our hits, and and Geffen's like, yeah, I always 1:03:08.120 --> 1:03:10.080 knew he listened to him talk. I always knew he's 1:03:10.160 --> 1:03:12.400 you know, he's got this country thing. I mean, Geffen 1:03:12.440 --> 1:03:17.680 thought the Eagles were country anyway. Uh, But so so 1:03:17.880 --> 1:03:20.080 Jim ed let me make my last pop album my 1:03:20.160 --> 1:03:23.880 obligation to Geffen Records. He gave me the Wonder Brothers 1:03:23.920 --> 1:03:27.880 studio and my my just departed. Buddy and Alan Shulman 1:03:27.920 --> 1:03:29.680 and myself went in there and made that record. I 1:03:29.720 --> 1:03:32.760 played pretty much everything and Alan recorded it. And and 1:03:32.840 --> 1:03:35.160 at the same time we made the album Simple Life 1:03:35.200 --> 1:03:37.600 that had back where I come from and down the road, 1:03:37.800 --> 1:03:41.160 and that album was full of songs I honestly probably 1:03:41.240 --> 1:03:45.160 never intended to sing myself. But over the years, the 1:03:45.320 --> 1:03:48.760 the eleven songs on that album have been recorded like 1:03:49.000 --> 1:03:51.360 thirty nine times. I've had thirty nine cuts from that 1:03:51.520 --> 1:03:54.920 one album, uh, with various you know, some number one 1:03:54.960 --> 1:03:57.480 records and a bunch of album cuts. And and Kenny 1:03:58.600 --> 1:04:00.600 at that Kenny told me this. I didn't know it 1:04:00.720 --> 1:04:04.120 till later, but Kenny cut a record and Barry Beckett 1:04:04.120 --> 1:04:06.280 Fromussele Shuls was producing Kenny, and he gave him a 1:04:06.320 --> 1:04:08.680 copy of That Life, that Simple Life album of mind. 1:04:09.160 --> 1:04:12.320 And Kenny had to drive to Canada to play a 1:04:12.400 --> 1:04:14.320 gig and the only thing he had in his car 1:04:14.560 --> 1:04:17.920 was that that record, and he learned that album. He 1:04:18.080 --> 1:04:21.800 pretty much memorized it, and and he he recorded back 1:04:21.840 --> 1:04:24.400 Where I Come From that Barry Beckett produced it on him, 1:04:24.920 --> 1:04:29.240 and we became buddies after that, and and then from 1:04:29.320 --> 1:04:31.280 that we he and I did a duet of down 1:04:31.320 --> 1:04:33.120 the Road that was a number one record later on, 1:04:33.320 --> 1:04:36.240 like twenty years later. Uh. That that was also on 1:04:36.360 --> 1:04:39.320 that same album. And he's he's just been a great 1:04:39.440 --> 1:04:42.640 advocate of a couple of my best songs. And anybody 1:04:42.680 --> 1:04:44.600 that knows Kenny knows what a great guy is. So 1:04:45.440 --> 1:04:48.320 I've had between David Geffen and Jimmy Buffett and and 1:04:48.440 --> 1:04:51.760 Chesney as well, and and jim ed Norman and David Geffen, 1:04:51.800 --> 1:04:57.760 I've I've been I've been so shepherded. Uh, in the 1:04:57.840 --> 1:05:00.920 context of my total ineptitude about business, I've been very 1:05:01.000 --> 1:05:05.040 shepherded through the business. And I'm so grateful for that 1:05:05.200 --> 1:05:07.480 because there's not many other ways that I could possibly 1:05:07.520 --> 1:05:11.880 be here talking to you guys. Okay, So, Jimmy, how 1:05:11.920 --> 1:05:16.360 do you end up deciding you want Mac in the band? Um? 1:05:17.240 --> 1:05:21.840 I knew that day the the Jay and Howard played 1:05:21.840 --> 1:05:23.919 me the record I got and they gave me the record. 1:05:24.000 --> 1:05:29.320 I went on and then I started going to two 1:05:29.560 --> 1:05:32.400 friends I knew and said connections I had in Nashville, 1:05:33.040 --> 1:05:35.120 and said, who is this where is this guy? You know? 1:05:35.360 --> 1:05:38.560 And and now now because I didn't really know because 1:05:38.600 --> 1:05:40.680 the time, it took a long time to get him 1:05:40.720 --> 1:05:42.680 to come to work for me, and I, you know, 1:05:42.880 --> 1:05:45.240 I had kind of sherry picked some people and we 1:05:45.480 --> 1:05:48.959 we've done some band reconstruction and and the first person 1:05:49.080 --> 1:05:51.680 I really wanted in my band was Michael Uvely because 1:05:51.760 --> 1:05:53.520 you know, he had worked for Jerry WEXLERND and I 1:05:53.640 --> 1:05:55.440 met him in Miami when he was part of the 1:05:55.520 --> 1:06:01.040 Dixie Flyers and and uh and he and he eventually 1:06:01.040 --> 1:06:03.040 he was working with Chris and Read at that time. 1:06:03.120 --> 1:06:06.120 And then uh, he came to work for me. So 1:06:06.320 --> 1:06:08.520 I had Utly in there. And I wanted him because 1:06:08.520 --> 1:06:13.200 he was such a solid person experience, like Max said, 1:06:13.280 --> 1:06:16.120 And I I didn't know then that Mac had been 1:06:16.160 --> 1:06:18.280 in the studio since he was fifteen. But I learned 1:06:18.280 --> 1:06:22.280 pretty quickly and and I we just you know, I 1:06:22.320 --> 1:06:24.040 got him on the phone, I got a number, and 1:06:24.120 --> 1:06:26.960 I said, you know, if you ever want to come play, 1:06:26.960 --> 1:06:29.200 and it was a while and he'd come out two 1:06:29.200 --> 1:06:32.440 shows occasionally to see us in the band. And and 1:06:32.600 --> 1:06:34.160 then you know, now I know that he wanted to 1:06:34.160 --> 1:06:36.360 stay at home with with with with his kids more 1:06:36.440 --> 1:06:39.080 than that, but he was, you know, and I couldn't 1:06:39.160 --> 1:06:42.600 quite understand why didn't work in the Croprim band go 1:06:42.720 --> 1:06:45.280 on the road. And now I know because he wanted 1:06:45.320 --> 1:06:46.840 to stay at home and raising his kids, you know, 1:06:47.160 --> 1:06:51.920 and me me having that nomad gene, you know, Uh, 1:06:52.800 --> 1:06:54.880 it bothered you. It gets in the way of some 1:06:55.040 --> 1:06:58.040 things at that time, like so um and we just 1:06:58.320 --> 1:07:00.320 I stayed in contact with him, but there was no 1:07:00.480 --> 1:07:02.560 pressure to do it, and I said, if you want, 1:07:02.640 --> 1:07:04.840 you know, you know, come out and try it, if 1:07:04.880 --> 1:07:06.600 you want to do it, and then makes some extra money, 1:07:06.640 --> 1:07:09.000 and uh, we could really use you because I knew 1:07:09.040 --> 1:07:11.800 how good a songwriter he was and how the good 1:07:11.800 --> 1:07:14.720 of a range and just but I've also seen him 1:07:15.920 --> 1:07:17.680 do solo gigs. I go him to some of the 1:07:17.800 --> 1:07:20.400 solo gigs and he you know, that's one thing he 1:07:21.040 --> 1:07:24.000 as we all know, he's a very shy man. And uh, 1:07:24.800 --> 1:07:29.560 but he's probably one of the top solo performers I've 1:07:29.600 --> 1:07:32.200 ever seen take a stage and with an audience and 1:07:32.360 --> 1:07:35.640 know how to work an audience and has more ability 1:07:36.160 --> 1:07:39.520 on a guitar than I could ever possibly uh have. 1:07:39.800 --> 1:07:43.320 And I was in awe of his solo performances and 1:07:43.360 --> 1:07:44.960 I didn't want him to. I said, you know, you 1:07:45.040 --> 1:07:47.000 just go do that whatever, because you're good at it. 1:07:47.200 --> 1:07:50.280 And and uh, but if you want to come playing 1:07:50.320 --> 1:07:52.640 the band, we love to have. But I think that's 1:07:52.680 --> 1:07:55.480 the where it went. It is. And to how many 1:07:55.600 --> 1:07:58.680 years before? Did you ask before he became a permanent 1:07:59.000 --> 1:08:03.040 member of the band, I'd have to ask the uh, 1:08:04.240 --> 1:08:09.160 my wing man here, how how long you know it 1:08:09.320 --> 1:08:11.520 was at while there? But uh, but you know we 1:08:11.680 --> 1:08:14.360 did we did a little thing during the band transition. 1:08:14.440 --> 1:08:16.599 We did a thing together called the living Room Tour 1:08:17.080 --> 1:08:21.519 in nine nine and uh and and my last my 1:08:21.840 --> 1:08:24.800 my youngest daughter was born in eighty nine. And but 1:08:25.000 --> 1:08:27.160 we in the winter of eighty nine we went out 1:08:27.160 --> 1:08:29.120 and did you know, half dozen shows or what We 1:08:29.240 --> 1:08:31.920 rehearsed and did a half dozen shows there and just 1:08:32.080 --> 1:08:35.000 the two of us with living room furniture, and uh, 1:08:35.479 --> 1:08:38.960 you remember, Jimmy, we're following Hunter Thompson around. He used 1:08:38.960 --> 1:08:41.559 our set on a couple of those shows. Playing colleges 1:08:41.600 --> 1:08:44.799 and theaters and uh, and that was just a blast. 1:08:44.960 --> 1:08:48.400 You know. I always knew, and I think Jimmy always 1:08:48.439 --> 1:08:50.400 knew we we were going to get along and that 1:08:50.720 --> 1:08:53.160 that we were going to be of used to one another. 1:08:53.720 --> 1:08:57.200 Me and because he has a zillion ideas and and 1:08:57.320 --> 1:09:00.080 he's got all this talent and all this inner g 1:09:00.600 --> 1:09:04.439 and and and I my nature is is I'm a 1:09:04.520 --> 1:09:07.479 little bit more of a finished carpenter. So so sometimes 1:09:07.520 --> 1:09:09.800 the idea is that that Jimmy has it are great 1:09:09.840 --> 1:09:11.720 and gets up and running, I can I can sit 1:09:11.760 --> 1:09:16.040 there and and spackle for a while and maybe put 1:09:16.080 --> 1:09:17.880 a little bit better shine at the end of him 1:09:18.200 --> 1:09:20.639 because I was there. So we provide a great service 1:09:20.680 --> 1:09:23.960 to one another, because he just generates all this energy 1:09:24.360 --> 1:09:26.400 and and and I'm kind of a one track mine. 1:09:26.439 --> 1:09:28.439 Who can you know, I'll sit there for the next 1:09:28.680 --> 1:09:30.320 two and a half months and and try to make 1:09:30.360 --> 1:09:32.880 it this much better or whatever. So we got a 1:09:32.960 --> 1:09:36.080 good team. And do you remember what year you became 1:09:36.160 --> 1:09:40.240 full time coral reefers? Uh? You know, we went out 1:09:40.240 --> 1:09:42.479 and did the live album Feeding Frenzy, and then I 1:09:42.920 --> 1:09:45.679 think it was ninety five was my first full time 1:09:45.840 --> 1:09:47.920 year and I don't know if you remember what you 1:09:47.960 --> 1:09:50.719 actually asked me, Jimmy, but you said, if you're ready 1:09:50.720 --> 1:09:52.360 to come out, and your kids can come out. My 1:09:52.479 --> 1:09:54.760 kids are gonna come out. I only want you to 1:09:54.800 --> 1:09:56.920 play two songs and the intermission of the show. That's 1:09:56.920 --> 1:09:58.560 all I want. That's all you gotta do is just 1:09:58.640 --> 1:10:01.240 come out. We'll do two acoustics songs together in the 1:10:01.320 --> 1:10:04.439 middle of the show. And I don't believe I've been 1:10:04.520 --> 1:10:07.439 off stage since then, except the except the weekend I 1:10:07.520 --> 1:10:10.680 had the heart attack. Uh, had to cancel one. But 1:10:11.640 --> 1:10:14.360 I like to play. I would rather play than stand 1:10:14.400 --> 1:10:15.880 on the side of the stage and wait to play. 1:10:16.000 --> 1:10:17.760 But but he initially asked me just to play a 1:10:17.800 --> 1:10:20.360 couple of histic songs in the middle. UH, And I 1:10:20.479 --> 1:10:22.360 was and I was honored about that. But but I 1:10:22.680 --> 1:10:25.280 love to play, So I'm really happy to get And 1:10:25.360 --> 1:10:28.760 the Coral Reefer Band and and team and crew is 1:10:29.040 --> 1:10:31.839 second family. They are my second family, and I wouldn't 1:10:31.920 --> 1:10:34.880 change the thing about any of them. So, Jimmy, what 1:10:35.040 --> 1:10:37.400 motivates you to go on the road, and obviously not 1:10:37.520 --> 1:10:41.840 during the COVID era. What keeps you going in that avenue? Um? 1:10:43.479 --> 1:10:47.080 I think Mom it's just that having been so lucky 1:10:47.240 --> 1:10:51.320 to have learned from people before and mistakes. It's like 1:10:52.040 --> 1:10:54.840 we're talking about about Geffen and uh, you know, I 1:10:55.080 --> 1:10:58.040 always bring my sea Geff and I bring Mac up 1:10:58.120 --> 1:11:01.719 to me. He smiled. He's still has a warm place 1:11:01.800 --> 1:11:04.120 in his heart. And I thought, I think it's pretty 1:11:04.160 --> 1:11:07.639 amazing that somebody is as successful as David has been. 1:11:08.560 --> 1:11:12.320 I saw that artist in Matt, you know that that's 1:11:12.479 --> 1:11:14.880 that says something about both of them to me, and 1:11:15.280 --> 1:11:18.800 knowing them both pretty well, I like the fact that 1:11:18.920 --> 1:11:21.800 how in the hell David, Geffen and mc mcilly get 1:11:21.840 --> 1:11:25.920 in a room again, that's pretty cool, so you know, 1:11:26.240 --> 1:11:30.760 and uh, it was it was just the as it 1:11:30.920 --> 1:11:33.920 as it went on, the fact that it was to 1:11:34.080 --> 1:11:38.880 me performers. If you're a performer and cam wright and 1:11:39.040 --> 1:11:42.200 sing that, that's okay. But learning to be a performer 1:11:42.439 --> 1:11:46.320 was what got me there. And two years of working 1:11:46.360 --> 1:11:49.400 on Bourbon Street. I couldn't have learned that in any 1:11:49.560 --> 1:11:54.560 finishing school or music school ever, because I knew that, 1:11:55.240 --> 1:11:58.760 you know, I had learned to to have to play 1:11:58.920 --> 1:12:02.320 when you don't want to play, and uh, and have 1:12:02.479 --> 1:12:05.040 to play things you don't want to really do because 1:12:05.080 --> 1:12:06.360 you want to do your own stuff. But if you 1:12:06.479 --> 1:12:10.200 do own stuff, they will fire you. So that that 1:12:10.439 --> 1:12:13.479 gauntlet of performing, that that I was lucky enough to 1:12:13.760 --> 1:12:16.200 get into an eye and I knew that if I 1:12:16.240 --> 1:12:18.640 could make my way up the ladder of success in 1:12:18.760 --> 1:12:22.280 that little locale and to the top club in New 1:12:22.439 --> 1:12:25.960 Orleans from from then you know, a hooting and United singer. 1:12:26.920 --> 1:12:29.519 You know, That's all I really wanted to do at 1:12:29.560 --> 1:12:31.160 that time, because I thought, well, that's pretty good and 1:12:31.200 --> 1:12:33.360 people have come here. You're making good money and people 1:12:33.360 --> 1:12:35.680 are coming and to see you. But that's what it 1:12:35.800 --> 1:12:38.439 is when you when you start performing. To me like that, 1:12:38.640 --> 1:12:41.920 you connect with an audience, uh, in a true and 1:12:42.000 --> 1:12:46.400 authentic way. It's not something that's that's put on television 1:12:46.479 --> 1:12:51.639 and you create something. Uh. I think that audiences can 1:12:51.960 --> 1:12:55.920 can can connect you know, as someone said, it goes 1:12:56.000 --> 1:12:59.240 in here as well as here, it goes heart as 1:12:59.320 --> 1:13:02.760 well as your years. And and I think that that's 1:13:02.840 --> 1:13:06.000 what keeps me out there is you have the success. 1:13:06.160 --> 1:13:08.720 You know, the part the part about the success I 1:13:08.880 --> 1:13:11.240 learned a Nationville from Bill Williams and others that the 1:13:11.439 --> 1:13:14.120 music business basically as such sacked against you, and you 1:13:14.240 --> 1:13:17.559 better hold onto as much of your own creative stuff 1:13:17.560 --> 1:13:21.080 as you can, and that that you know, that worked 1:13:21.120 --> 1:13:23.800 well for me and I never and then, you know, 1:13:24.200 --> 1:13:26.320 I didn't want to rent a piano from a promoter 1:13:26.439 --> 1:13:28.720 who charged me back for it. I bought one and 1:13:28.760 --> 1:13:30.960 put it in a bus and paid for it in 1:13:31.400 --> 1:13:34.360 in about two months and sold it to Billy Joel 1:13:34.439 --> 1:13:36.560 for timing tim grant. He sold it back to me. 1:13:36.720 --> 1:13:39.479 It's in the studio Key West now, So you learn 1:13:39.600 --> 1:13:42.200 those things come along. But it's part of the fun 1:13:42.280 --> 1:13:44.720 of doing it to me, you know. And so there's 1:13:44.760 --> 1:13:46.280 some nights you have to play and you have to 1:13:46.360 --> 1:13:49.080 play hurt, but you don't ever ever show it. And 1:13:49.240 --> 1:13:53.479 that's that's that's what real performers do. And it's still 1:13:53.560 --> 1:13:56.360 and in this day and time, we simply have nothing 1:13:56.400 --> 1:13:58.960 to prove out there anymore. So for me for a 1:13:59.040 --> 1:14:01.599 good time and having Mac and having only my friends, 1:14:01.720 --> 1:14:06.160 my my compadres, my wingman who I can take I 1:14:06.240 --> 1:14:09.240 can take orders from and and and will because I 1:14:09.320 --> 1:14:12.320 know they know more about certain aspects of this than 1:14:12.400 --> 1:14:15.000 I do. You know, I can, I can certain I 1:14:15.040 --> 1:14:17.840 can start some ship. Then they can make something out 1:14:17.880 --> 1:14:21.400 of it, you know, And uh, having that and the 1:14:21.520 --> 1:14:25.000 camaraderie of like Max said, the band is our second family. 1:14:25.960 --> 1:14:28.760 And uh now we have nothing to prove. So all 1:14:28.840 --> 1:14:32.479 I want to do is is make things that people 1:14:32.520 --> 1:14:35.799 that really like what we do can add to their collection. 1:14:36.160 --> 1:14:39.000 You know, I've got I've got a segment of the 1:14:39.080 --> 1:14:41.160 following and called the Church of Buffet that doesn't think 1:14:41.160 --> 1:14:43.880 we did anything worth the ships. And since nineteen forty two, 1:14:44.040 --> 1:14:46.840 I mean since nineteen seventy five or something, you know that, 1:14:47.160 --> 1:14:49.000 But the Church of Buffet they're still there for that. 1:14:49.280 --> 1:14:51.160 I love having that, you know, you don't you know 1:14:51.520 --> 1:14:54.479 they're they're still fans of certain things, and you know, 1:14:54.600 --> 1:14:56.880 but I think it's an artist you have to evolve, 1:14:56.960 --> 1:14:58.720 but you've got to try to say true to who 1:14:58.800 --> 1:15:01.479 you are. It's just simply tried to do that. And 1:15:01.520 --> 1:15:04.560 I've been very lucky, and I've got people around me 1:15:04.720 --> 1:15:07.679 from you know, a lot of friends and band members, 1:15:08.120 --> 1:15:11.360 my my lovely wife Jane, who who keeps try us 1:15:11.400 --> 1:15:14.000 to keep a tight collar on me, but sometimes I 1:15:14.040 --> 1:15:17.320 can leggle loose. But all of that, all of that 1:15:17.479 --> 1:15:20.400 is part of this. And I don't see any you 1:15:20.479 --> 1:15:23.000 know anything. I can't wait to get back and I 1:15:23.080 --> 1:15:25.880 tell people, you know, there there will be an end 1:15:25.920 --> 1:15:27.720 to this at some point, you know. And I've been 1:15:27.800 --> 1:15:31.000 lucky enough to uh to have the success that I 1:15:31.080 --> 1:15:33.120 can take care of the people around me, my band 1:15:33.200 --> 1:15:35.120 and my crew and stuff. As we go through this 1:15:35.600 --> 1:15:38.400 and wiggle our way through. Where can we play? What's it? 1:15:38.560 --> 1:15:42.920 What's gonna be left for us to do until we 1:15:43.000 --> 1:15:44.800 can get back on that stage and do the show 1:15:44.880 --> 1:15:48.360 that people really like, you know, and so that that's 1:15:48.400 --> 1:15:50.360 what we're working on now. And just you know, and 1:15:51.120 --> 1:15:54.000 you know, so you know, there's everbody's got ideas, and 1:15:54.120 --> 1:15:56.320 you know, it's hard to kind of think about doing 1:15:56.360 --> 1:15:58.400 shows without people, but you may have to do them. 1:15:58.479 --> 1:16:01.320 But I can remember with great audiences, and in behalf 1:16:01.360 --> 1:16:02.920 to I'll up there and do it to remember them. 1:16:02.920 --> 1:16:04.920 And I'll do a show for two people as well 1:16:05.000 --> 1:16:06.960 as twenty thou people. I'll give him the same show. 1:16:07.360 --> 1:16:09.800 So that's that's I gotta I gotta interject and brag 1:16:09.960 --> 1:16:13.439 on this guy a little bit. That's what he has 1:16:13.560 --> 1:16:16.800 from building that muscle, playing playing bar gigs, good and 1:16:16.880 --> 1:16:19.720 bad bar gigs. You you have to have both of 1:16:19.760 --> 1:16:23.280 those things. There's no treadmill that teaches that entertainers that 1:16:23.360 --> 1:16:25.479 you can't build that muscle any other way than by 1:16:25.800 --> 1:16:29.240 succeeding and failing on stage. And I will say about 1:16:29.320 --> 1:16:33.600 Jimmy because I'm a solo performer as as he was, 1:16:34.120 --> 1:16:39.599 to the fact, the fact that he cut his teeth 1:16:39.680 --> 1:16:42.120 in those small rooms making everybody feel like that they 1:16:42.200 --> 1:16:45.679 got something personal and unique in that room has has 1:16:45.760 --> 1:16:48.519 developed into him being able to sit there in front 1:16:48.560 --> 1:16:51.120 of thirty five thousand people and make them go home 1:16:51.240 --> 1:16:56.600 thinking they got a unique, individual, intimate performance. And and 1:16:56.920 --> 1:16:59.400 that's a trick. But I don't know anybody else that 1:16:59.520 --> 1:17:01.680 can do I don't know another magician that can make 1:17:01.720 --> 1:17:05.760 thirty five thou people feel like they just saw a 1:17:05.880 --> 1:17:09.400 small gathering, private concert that was just for them. And 1:17:09.520 --> 1:17:12.000 he can do that, and he can repeat it, he 1:17:12.120 --> 1:17:14.120 can and and he can do it on a good day, 1:17:14.160 --> 1:17:15.479 and he can do it on a bad day when 1:17:15.479 --> 1:17:18.080 he's when he's got a sore throat, doesn't It's it's 1:17:18.120 --> 1:17:21.639 no different. And yeah, I'm proud to know him because 1:17:21.680 --> 1:17:24.560 of that, because I don't think anybody else in the 1:17:24.640 --> 1:17:28.160 business does that. Okay, So, Jimmy, how do you decide 1:17:28.160 --> 1:17:32.200 after seven years to make a new album? Well, it was. 1:17:33.080 --> 1:17:35.920 We had talked about it because there were some other 1:17:36.040 --> 1:17:38.800 busy things that I wanted to do. The Broadway thing 1:17:39.040 --> 1:17:42.240 was something that came to me with and my mother 1:17:42.360 --> 1:17:45.439 had taken me as a kid to see every road 1:17:45.479 --> 1:17:48.880 show of Broadway and she was she played any Name 1:17:49.120 --> 1:17:52.840 and uh and Mobile Theater Guil, she was Bloody Mary 1:17:52.880 --> 1:17:54.960 and South Pacific and I had to go see those 1:17:54.960 --> 1:17:58.400 shows and I really liked musical theater thanks to her. 1:17:59.040 --> 1:18:01.640 So off I go, and somebody tells you they want 1:18:01.680 --> 1:18:03.599 to take you to Broadway. I want hell, yeah, I'm 1:18:03.600 --> 1:18:05.920 gonna try that. You know. I knew what was up 1:18:05.960 --> 1:18:08.360 there too. It wasn't like this is gonna be ruffles 1:18:08.400 --> 1:18:12.920 and flourishes, because they were not to jukebox musicals was 1:18:13.000 --> 1:18:16.080 the term that was already being spread around. But I 1:18:16.240 --> 1:18:19.360 wanted to try it. And so that took about five 1:18:19.479 --> 1:18:23.439 years of a lot of work on getting the getting 1:18:23.479 --> 1:18:26.479 the writers to the show to get from yeah we're 1:18:26.479 --> 1:18:28.280 gonna do it, so yeah we got the money to 1:18:28.400 --> 1:18:30.280 yeah we got the cast, so oh we got to 1:18:30.360 --> 1:18:35.080 rewrite this. That was like five years of steady work 1:18:35.520 --> 1:18:38.400 as well as going out on the road. So you know, 1:18:38.600 --> 1:18:41.479 and most of my creative energies was going to that. 1:18:41.720 --> 1:18:43.800 So I didn't feel I had really good songs at 1:18:43.840 --> 1:18:45.280 that time, and I just didn't want to put out 1:18:45.640 --> 1:18:48.439 anything just to go fill the gap. Okay, before we 1:18:48.600 --> 1:18:51.760 move on, what did you learn from doing the Broadway 1:18:51.880 --> 1:18:56.559 show and what are your thoughts about it now? Well, 1:18:57.000 --> 1:19:00.639 I was very happy with it. I would uh when 1:19:00.680 --> 1:19:03.200 I do it again, Yeah, I probably would have somebody 1:19:03.240 --> 1:19:05.360 asked me to do it. Uh. But the thing of 1:19:05.439 --> 1:19:09.200 it was, again, it regardless of what you know, it was, 1:19:09.400 --> 1:19:11.240 it was a critic. It was not a critical because 1:19:11.560 --> 1:19:14.360 success in New York. But everybody, the politicicket of that 1:19:14.439 --> 1:19:16.800 show loved that show because it was happy and it 1:19:17.000 --> 1:19:20.000 was fun. And but I knew that going the end 1:19:20.080 --> 1:19:22.040 and we were gonna you know. But the thing of 1:19:22.120 --> 1:19:25.640 it was we we played for almost nine months on Broadway, 1:19:25.800 --> 1:19:28.840 and uh and when we came out we had two years. 1:19:28.920 --> 1:19:31.080 I knew we would work on the road, would work 1:19:31.560 --> 1:19:35.160 so and it was working very very well. Uh when 1:19:35.400 --> 1:19:38.040 when we had to shut it down Albuquerquin, New Mexico 1:19:38.080 --> 1:19:41.160 because of COVID. So um, and I still love the 1:19:41.240 --> 1:19:43.320 theater and I'm I'm invested in a couple of shows 1:19:43.439 --> 1:19:46.040 now and I still love. I love the fact of 1:19:46.120 --> 1:19:49.280 it is that there's so much talent and those kids 1:19:49.439 --> 1:19:54.280 that don't really make a lot of money, and the dedication. Uh. 1:19:54.400 --> 1:19:56.360 And it was my friend Frank Marshall, you know who's 1:19:56.560 --> 1:20:01.519 my partner, my long friend, movie producer. Yeah, he hired people. 1:20:02.160 --> 1:20:05.880 I could so many people whose careers he made. He 1:20:06.040 --> 1:20:09.400 went to New York to find actors, not movie stars. 1:20:09.520 --> 1:20:11.920 That's what he told me and so and then when 1:20:11.960 --> 1:20:15.920 we go through the process of auditioning, there's so much 1:20:16.080 --> 1:20:18.240 more talent there than I ever thought about having in 1:20:18.439 --> 1:20:21.240 my little finger. I just I'm an admiration of that. 1:20:21.880 --> 1:20:24.280 And I love those kids and how hard they were 1:20:24.840 --> 1:20:29.559 for so little Okay, so now once you pass that hump, 1:20:29.960 --> 1:20:33.200 you say it's time to make a new record. How 1:20:33.280 --> 1:20:39.479 does Paul Breedy become a part of this? Yeah? Uh, 1:20:40.080 --> 1:20:45.960 Paul Gray came came to us through Martin and Mark. Okay, 1:20:46.000 --> 1:20:48.320 I'll start from the beginning. Jimmy, is there anybody you 1:20:48.400 --> 1:20:56.679 don't know? Let's see, I want to know, not really know. Okay, 1:20:56.720 --> 1:21:00.800 So how do you know Martin Boffler? I I know him, 1:21:01.280 --> 1:21:03.160 know him from the fact that I was a huge, 1:21:03.360 --> 1:21:07.000 huge fan and at one point time he had passed through. 1:21:07.200 --> 1:21:10.360 We we did the Volcano album in George Martin studio 1:21:10.479 --> 1:21:12.880 in Montserrat, and we were the only American band to 1:21:12.960 --> 1:21:15.960 ever go down there. But mccargan did an album there, 1:21:16.080 --> 1:21:19.640 Clapton did an album there, and and our strikes my 1:21:19.760 --> 1:21:23.839 brothers in arms when we met there somewhere in an occasion. 1:21:24.000 --> 1:21:28.919 And then he was using musicians and his bands from Nashville, 1:21:29.080 --> 1:21:31.519 great players that we all know that our friends and Max, 1:21:31.960 --> 1:21:34.960 and he's a great admirer of Max too. So uh, 1:21:35.160 --> 1:21:37.719 I think we met the first time through chet Atkins, 1:21:37.920 --> 1:21:41.400 who I knew pretty well in those days, and and 1:21:41.520 --> 1:21:43.920 we just became friends and state in touch with each other. 1:21:44.640 --> 1:21:47.479 And so when when we started to go over to 1:21:47.920 --> 1:21:50.000 you know, we every year, we almost ten years, we 1:21:50.080 --> 1:21:52.720 played Paris every year and just for the fun out 1:21:52.800 --> 1:21:55.760 it and and but the shows became like things people 1:21:55.800 --> 1:21:58.639 had to have other bucket list. So we know, hadn't 1:21:58.640 --> 1:22:00.960 played England in a while, so we went to London 1:22:01.040 --> 1:22:03.280 and we hadn't played Dublin, and I wanted to play 1:22:03.560 --> 1:22:06.720 because the Irish would come to to the shows in 1:22:06.840 --> 1:22:10.000 Paris and hang banners over the balcony going and they 1:22:10.120 --> 1:22:12.360 sit there in the middle of Finns when everybody's going 1:22:12.439 --> 1:22:15.680 completely crazy and like this, and with a sign on 1:22:15.760 --> 1:22:18.680 a flight said, the Irish are patiently waiting. And they 1:22:18.760 --> 1:22:22.960 got to me and I went, I'm coming. So we went. 1:22:23.520 --> 1:22:26.640 So where we went, Um, you had to have an 1:22:26.720 --> 1:22:29.720 opening act and so and I knew that like going 1:22:29.760 --> 1:22:32.479 to Australia or New Zealand, you take local acts on 1:22:32.560 --> 1:22:34.840 there and it's a great thing, you know, for people 1:22:34.880 --> 1:22:39.000 to support their local talents. And so I didn't know 1:22:39.040 --> 1:22:42.200 whether they needed one or not in Dublin. So I 1:22:42.400 --> 1:22:44.639 just was in touch with I was talking to Mark 1:22:44.680 --> 1:22:46.920 about something else, and you know, we worked at his 1:22:47.040 --> 1:22:50.880 studio over there and stayed in touch. And I said, 1:22:51.280 --> 1:22:53.120 you know, you know my band and you know me 1:22:53.200 --> 1:22:54.600 and you know what we do. And I said, we 1:22:54.720 --> 1:22:57.719 had to have an opening act, Uh to go to Dublin. 1:22:57.840 --> 1:23:01.519 Before I finished the sentence, he said, Paul eighty. Now 1:23:01.600 --> 1:23:04.680 I've heard about Paul Brady from Bonnie Ray and they 1:23:05.000 --> 1:23:08.640 wrote some things together and then he was he was 1:23:08.720 --> 1:23:13.320 in Nashville. Uh, who does he stay with? Mack? Uh? 1:23:14.240 --> 1:23:17.200 He stays with Jerry Douglas somebody Jr. Bara Douglas is 1:23:17.240 --> 1:23:19.320 a good buddy, so I knew a little about him, 1:23:19.360 --> 1:23:21.560 but I didn't know the depth of his material. So 1:23:21.640 --> 1:23:24.120 I started getting it. I went up on Spotify and 1:23:24.160 --> 1:23:26.760 I got a Paul Brady Settlers and by this time, 1:23:26.800 --> 1:23:30.280 I'm now in California, kind of running around and driving 1:23:30.360 --> 1:23:32.560 back and forth listening to and I went this, I 1:23:32.720 --> 1:23:34.840 felt the same way everybody when I heard Paul Brady 1:23:34.960 --> 1:23:38.679 song where I did when I heard uh Mac's first album. 1:23:39.400 --> 1:23:41.840 And I said, I gotta get in touch with him. 1:23:42.040 --> 1:23:45.400 And then uh Mark gave me his number and I 1:23:45.600 --> 1:23:49.840 called him and I said, you know, Martin Novel gave 1:23:49.880 --> 1:23:51.479 you your number and I said, he said, oh yeah, 1:23:51.479 --> 1:23:54.040 I know, as I just got back from New Zealand, 1:23:54.520 --> 1:23:56.880 and I said, you know, we're coming to Dublin. We're 1:23:56.880 --> 1:24:01.280 playing one night at at the Olympia in uh I Love. 1:24:01.360 --> 1:24:03.160 We need an opening act and I would just luck 1:24:03.240 --> 1:24:04.840 for you to open for us there. And I heard 1:24:04.920 --> 1:24:06.840 him laughing on the phone. And this is the first 1:24:06.840 --> 1:24:09.200 time I ever spoken to him. We did shange email 1:24:10.080 --> 1:24:12.880 and he said, well, you know, Jilly, uh last time 1:24:12.920 --> 1:24:17.240 I Plater did ten nights there. Oh you don't open 1:24:18.240 --> 1:24:23.280 you know, I'm going, you know, and he just laughed. 1:24:23.320 --> 1:24:24.880 He said, but maybe I could do a joke up 1:24:24.960 --> 1:24:27.880 on that, you know. And then by that time I 1:24:28.080 --> 1:24:34.080 heard the songs and there's incredible, unbelievable, unbelievable material. And 1:24:34.240 --> 1:24:36.760 then so he we did. We went over and he 1:24:36.920 --> 1:24:39.360 opened for us, He came, he did a couple of 1:24:39.439 --> 1:24:43.280 songs in the show, and uh, and then I was 1:24:43.400 --> 1:24:45.719 just then at that point and knew about the material, 1:24:45.840 --> 1:24:49.479 and I said, up, it inspired me to go back 1:24:49.560 --> 1:24:51.880 to start writing stuff again. I had a lot of 1:24:51.960 --> 1:24:54.160 stuff there that I thought was pretty good stuff. But 1:24:54.360 --> 1:24:56.960 listening to him and going back and listening to a 1:24:57.040 --> 1:25:02.080 couple of us earlier um uh uh Mac albums and 1:25:02.439 --> 1:25:05.400 earlier novel albums and earlier Gordon life. But I went 1:25:05.479 --> 1:25:07.719 back and listen to those guys that I really wanted 1:25:07.760 --> 1:25:10.240 to be like a write like, a play like and 1:25:10.720 --> 1:25:14.200 it got me going again. And so I started churning 1:25:14.240 --> 1:25:16.760 out some some pretty good stuff for this and as 1:25:17.000 --> 1:25:19.519 as well as and then Paul sent me a song 1:25:19.640 --> 1:25:22.439 called out the Lotty Donard w wasn't finished and uh, 1:25:22.680 --> 1:25:25.519 we finished it together. So it is now like you know, 1:25:25.600 --> 1:25:27.320 it's one of those people you meet once and you 1:25:27.400 --> 1:25:30.560 know them for fifty years. Well, you know, I know 1:25:30.680 --> 1:25:32.720 him an email and he sent me the world is 1:25:32.760 --> 1:25:34.839 what you make it. And I was on my computer 1:25:35.040 --> 1:25:37.439 and on a different screen I had to and I said, wait, wait, 1:25:37.479 --> 1:25:40.720 what's going on here? Really cracked me up? Well, that 1:25:40.960 --> 1:25:43.120 that song was that song got to me. You know, 1:25:43.280 --> 1:25:45.720 that is a great I mean to me, what I 1:25:46.160 --> 1:25:50.639 like in a song. It's a very very strong point 1:25:50.720 --> 1:25:53.160 of thing to say, but it is it is. It 1:25:53.360 --> 1:25:56.360 is uh is presented and in a fashion and it's 1:25:56.360 --> 1:25:59.600 a great song and you're gonna wind up listening to 1:25:59.720 --> 1:26:01.840 it and later on going man that there's a lot 1:26:01.920 --> 1:26:04.160 of me that there are a lot of media that though, 1:26:04.280 --> 1:26:06.200 you know, which is that? To me is what Bob 1:26:06.280 --> 1:26:08.600 Marley is so great. He was a political force, but 1:26:08.760 --> 1:26:11.360 he gave it to you in the really wonderful songs 1:26:11.439 --> 1:26:14.680 that had you know, people singing before they knew what 1:26:14.760 --> 1:26:17.080 he was talking about. And I think Paul writes the 1:26:17.160 --> 1:26:21.439 same way. Okay, so Mike and Mac produced the record. 1:26:22.200 --> 1:26:24.479 What does that mean? Were you really hands off? What 1:26:24.680 --> 1:26:28.640 was the process there? I know what I know what 1:26:28.800 --> 1:26:30.960 I do best, and I know what they do best, 1:26:31.160 --> 1:26:33.640 you know, And as producers we've done this for a 1:26:33.720 --> 1:26:36.120 long time, and you know, it's it's to us, it's 1:26:36.160 --> 1:26:39.080 an extension of writing a settlers for a show. Now 1:26:39.640 --> 1:26:41.479 it's you've got to have a certain amount of energy 1:26:41.520 --> 1:26:44.080 and for a certain amount of recognition and a show. 1:26:44.760 --> 1:26:48.120 And so I looked at, you know, getting a song 1:26:48.280 --> 1:26:52.040 one together because I wanted it to be a project 1:26:52.160 --> 1:26:56.320 and and uh, the the original title was gonna be 1:26:56.400 --> 1:26:59.360 slack Tied because I've written the song slack Tied and uh, 1:27:00.200 --> 1:27:03.160 and then you know, we wound up another title. But 1:27:03.600 --> 1:27:07.479 we started writing together and Paul was in the mix, 1:27:07.800 --> 1:27:12.440 and it just kind of felt really good the preparation 1:27:12.960 --> 1:27:16.719 and now but you know, and this is before coded time, 1:27:16.960 --> 1:27:20.040 and but we were all exchanging kind of ideas and 1:27:20.320 --> 1:27:23.400 songs were coming together. So I put together what I 1:27:23.560 --> 1:27:26.400 thought were the best songs to do going to the 1:27:26.479 --> 1:27:30.200 studio in the fourteen or sixteen tracks, and we hadn't 1:27:30.240 --> 1:27:32.879 been a studio with our band and their people. Everybody. 1:27:32.960 --> 1:27:35.640 This band can play way above what is required for 1:27:35.720 --> 1:27:38.840 Jimmy Buffett songs, and I, you know, I dine out 1:27:38.920 --> 1:27:41.040 on that because you get them in the studio and 1:27:41.160 --> 1:27:44.400 they can really shine, but they stay they stay true 1:27:44.439 --> 1:27:47.080 to you know what people like to hear us play, 1:27:47.560 --> 1:27:49.600 and it's just a great experience to go into the 1:27:49.720 --> 1:27:53.280 studio with these musicians you've been with us for you know, 1:27:53.400 --> 1:27:56.840 from Robert Greenwich to Eric Darthan and mac Ugly to 1:27:57.000 --> 1:28:00.840 the Mayo Brothers. I mean, it's an amazing lucky guy. 1:28:00.920 --> 1:28:02.639 I am that you're standing in front of that band. 1:28:02.960 --> 1:28:05.160 But everybody was really in the same mood to go 1:28:05.280 --> 1:28:07.320 in and do this, and we cut how many sixteen 1:28:07.360 --> 1:28:13.320 tracks in four days? I think, yep, ye, you're behind 1:28:13.360 --> 1:28:15.599 the board. What are you doing as a producer on Jimmy? 1:28:15.720 --> 1:28:17.439 I'm not behind the board. I'm sitting on a guitar. 1:28:17.560 --> 1:28:24.280 You don't you don't want me. There's there's no empty 1:28:24.360 --> 1:28:29.439 hands in the studio. Everybody's playing something. So what is 1:28:29.520 --> 1:28:35.200 your role other than playing on Jimmy's record. Well, because 1:28:35.320 --> 1:28:38.040 we're writers and we like from from the from the 1:28:39.240 --> 1:28:42.840 German nation of these songs, Jimmy and I and and 1:28:43.000 --> 1:28:46.479 Utly are sending, we're sending things around. There's you know, 1:28:46.560 --> 1:28:49.960 they're parcel songs are going for for a while, you know, 1:28:50.360 --> 1:28:52.960 as they're being written, and some of them weren't written 1:28:53.360 --> 1:28:56.640 until we didn't weren't finished until in the studio too. 1:28:57.040 --> 1:29:01.360 But the the love jury of of being a Coral 1:29:01.439 --> 1:29:04.920 Reefer is the fact that that band can go in 1:29:05.600 --> 1:29:08.679 and create and listen and play at the same time. 1:29:08.840 --> 1:29:11.640 And we we we were confident going in that we 1:29:11.760 --> 1:29:13.800 had we had the great the shell of a really 1:29:13.840 --> 1:29:16.400 good album. You know, we had we had the cornerstone 1:29:16.520 --> 1:29:21.320 songs that the you know and and I think you 1:29:21.400 --> 1:29:24.599 know we Jimmy, because of the nature of the business 1:29:24.680 --> 1:29:26.120 the last few years, there was a couple of times 1:29:26.160 --> 1:29:27.519 he said, I don't know if people are even gonna 1:29:27.560 --> 1:29:31.160 make albums anymore, and I go, you, you got fans 1:29:31.280 --> 1:29:34.360 that want them. I still, you know, I grew up 1:29:34.439 --> 1:29:36.360 listening to albums sitting in the middle of a sofa 1:29:36.400 --> 1:29:40.880 holding an album cover, double folded out. And I don't 1:29:41.000 --> 1:29:43.840 multitask if I'm listening to music. I'm listening to music. 1:29:43.920 --> 1:29:46.360 I'm not sweeping the floor and listening to music. I 1:29:46.479 --> 1:29:49.519 listened to an album, and I still want that, even 1:29:49.560 --> 1:29:52.479 though I know there's a whole generation that maybe has 1:29:52.560 --> 1:29:54.200 never even done it. I still want it to be 1:29:54.320 --> 1:29:56.720 an album. I want there to be a thread. And 1:29:56.880 --> 1:29:58.679 we have that in common, he and I and ugly 1:29:58.840 --> 1:30:02.920 the same way. So we were we were conscious about 1:30:03.080 --> 1:30:07.120 that in product from the very beginning, and to have 1:30:07.280 --> 1:30:09.560 it all come together kind of in a hurry, you 1:30:09.600 --> 1:30:12.240 still get that rush of energy. There's there's still a 1:30:12.320 --> 1:30:14.280 couple of brand new songs, and then there's some things 1:30:14.320 --> 1:30:16.160 that we've been looking forward to cutting for four or 1:30:16.200 --> 1:30:19.680 five months because we've been working and polishing, so so 1:30:19.840 --> 1:30:23.800 you you get different levels of gratification from that, the 1:30:23.880 --> 1:30:27.439 cornerstone pieces and the brand new pieces that like, you know, 1:30:27.920 --> 1:30:30.679 slack Tide wasn't actually finished until the very last day, 1:30:31.080 --> 1:30:34.400 so and and that was the album title, and it 1:30:34.520 --> 1:30:37.439 just kept getting better and kept getting better until until 1:30:37.479 --> 1:30:39.920 I get chill bumps thinking about the actual track going 1:30:39.960 --> 1:30:42.760 down right now, just telling you guys about it. Uh 1:30:43.360 --> 1:30:45.719 And and Jimmy was there. There's there's some chill bumps 1:30:45.800 --> 1:30:49.120 on that, you know, and coming from the whole band. 1:30:49.200 --> 1:30:52.920 And and the fact that it was it was hypothetical 1:30:53.080 --> 1:30:55.760 until it was magical, and and the fact that we 1:30:55.920 --> 1:30:58.800 got to experience that, and you know in a little 1:30:58.840 --> 1:31:02.200 concrete block building and Key West, I will not ever forget. 1:31:02.360 --> 1:31:06.040 So you know, me being in what I call the 1:31:06.080 --> 1:31:09.599 produce section is mainly me just having a whole bunch 1:31:09.640 --> 1:31:11.960 of joy at being in the proximity of well made 1:31:12.080 --> 1:31:16.000 music played by phenomenal musicians. Well, I gotta tell you 1:31:16.120 --> 1:31:19.120 about when you get out of the studio, you just 1:31:19.520 --> 1:31:22.000 you hand something over there. It's life, he said, He's 1:31:22.080 --> 1:31:25.720 the he's the Finnish guy, you know. And somebody's got 1:31:25.840 --> 1:31:28.679 to do the vocal comps, somebody's got to do the mastering. 1:31:28.760 --> 1:31:31.280 Somebody do that. I just I put it in their 1:31:31.400 --> 1:31:34.800 hands and they called me if they need anything, because 1:31:34.800 --> 1:31:38.080 I trust them they know what to do with with that. Because, 1:31:38.720 --> 1:31:42.760 as as Max said, you make magic in in a 1:31:42.840 --> 1:31:45.400 studio like that, and we're not the only ones that 1:31:45.520 --> 1:31:49.320 do it, but that's there's something about camaraderie and music 1:31:49.439 --> 1:31:53.000 together that you can if you can do that once 1:31:53.120 --> 1:31:55.639 or twice in your life. And I've been lucky enough, 1:31:55.760 --> 1:31:57.400 I think they do it four or five times on 1:31:57.520 --> 1:32:01.240 records that were truly magical. And this one album well, 1:32:01.280 --> 1:32:04.760 and and there's there's a really almost a generation of 1:32:04.920 --> 1:32:08.519 artists who who don't have that as part of their experience, 1:32:08.560 --> 1:32:11.360 sitting in a room full of phenomenal musicians playing and 1:32:11.560 --> 1:32:14.519 listening at the same time. That doesn't happen as much 1:32:14.560 --> 1:32:16.600 as it used to happen. Well, I don't want to 1:32:16.640 --> 1:32:18.760 say that. I mean, really that's almost almost like a 1:32:18.840 --> 1:32:23.479 lost art. Anyway, simultaneously you're working on and you put 1:32:23.520 --> 1:32:26.840 out an album just very recently. How long have you 1:32:26.960 --> 1:32:30.040 been working on that and what were your thoughts? Well, 1:32:31.200 --> 1:32:34.360 my records traditionally are are kind of spackled into a 1:32:34.439 --> 1:32:37.679 schedule of other things that I'm doing. Uh, And it's 1:32:37.760 --> 1:32:40.600 just just as well for me, because I considered a 1:32:40.640 --> 1:32:43.360 luxury that I don't make a record based on having 1:32:43.760 --> 1:32:45.760 a tour that I have to support, or a record 1:32:45.840 --> 1:32:49.200 deal deadline that I have to make, or or you know, 1:32:49.920 --> 1:32:52.000 as as Jimmy does, which I'm grateful that he does, 1:32:52.360 --> 1:32:56.200 a pile of employees that you have to make viable 1:32:56.360 --> 1:33:00.120 business wise. I only make a record when I when 1:33:00.160 --> 1:33:02.479 I think maybe I've collected enough things that I have 1:33:02.640 --> 1:33:05.200 something to say, and and that usually takes three or 1:33:05.240 --> 1:33:07.559 four years of life for me to cook down into 1:33:07.640 --> 1:33:11.000 a reduction sauce of thirty forty minutes of music. That's 1:33:11.080 --> 1:33:13.720 the way it historically has worked for me. That Uh, 1:33:14.080 --> 1:33:18.679 this particular record is uh. We we started cutting tracks 1:33:18.720 --> 1:33:22.519 I think June of last year, and of the twelve songs, 1:33:23.560 --> 1:33:26.360 I think nine are are just myself and Eric Darkin, 1:33:26.360 --> 1:33:28.719 who's our percussionist in the Coral Reefer Band. My show, 1:33:29.000 --> 1:33:32.080 my life show these days is just the two of us. 1:33:32.439 --> 1:33:34.360 I'll do half an hour by myself and then bring 1:33:34.520 --> 1:33:37.400 Eric up and and we you know, we we make 1:33:37.439 --> 1:33:39.479 a fair amount of noise for two guys. It's sort 1:33:39.520 --> 1:33:42.200 of impressive what we're able to do from a stage. 1:33:42.240 --> 1:33:45.200 But but the record itself, at the core is the 1:33:45.240 --> 1:33:48.599 two of us. He added some percussion that's more than 1:33:48.680 --> 1:33:50.519 he can play at once, and I might play a 1:33:50.560 --> 1:33:53.160 bass in another couple of guitars and and and some 1:33:53.520 --> 1:33:55.920 harmony vocals, but it's really the core of it is 1:33:56.000 --> 1:33:57.600 just the two of us. There's one track that's the 1:33:57.920 --> 1:34:00.720 whole Coral Reefer band, and and one acts an old demo, 1:34:00.880 --> 1:34:05.280 But but in general it's it's it's us and and 1:34:05.439 --> 1:34:09.360 the pandemic. As bad as it is for for on 1:34:09.520 --> 1:34:13.800 so many levels, it actually afforded me the opportunity to 1:34:14.000 --> 1:34:16.240 to finish this one out in the same way that 1:34:16.280 --> 1:34:19.720 I finished Jimmy's Out. Sometimes sometimes I hurry mine, but 1:34:19.840 --> 1:34:22.479 this one because because I was sitting around here at 1:34:22.520 --> 1:34:26.040 the house. I got to I got to a stay 1:34:26.080 --> 1:34:29.200 true to my original perception that it be primarily simple 1:34:30.080 --> 1:34:33.040 just myself and Eric and be. I got to I 1:34:33.120 --> 1:34:35.640 got to really you know, I had to sing some 1:34:35.760 --> 1:34:38.680 high harmonies that God never intended me to sing, uh, 1:34:39.200 --> 1:34:41.400 because I'm the only guy in the damn house, and 1:34:41.520 --> 1:34:43.160 I and I got to play some bass that I 1:34:43.200 --> 1:34:45.559 should probably shouldn't have played. But but on the other hand, 1:34:46.560 --> 1:34:49.120 it is it is me and probably closer to my 1:34:49.800 --> 1:34:52.360 total vision of the of these songs than I usually 1:34:52.439 --> 1:34:54.439 get to do on a record. I was I was 1:34:54.520 --> 1:34:58.040 afforded some time that that I don't always have. So 1:34:58.160 --> 1:35:01.519 I feel pretty good about this record being similar to 1:35:01.600 --> 1:35:04.400 what it was in my head when the songs were born. Now, 1:35:04.800 --> 1:35:10.439 what are your expectations in terms of reaching audience? You know, 1:35:11.360 --> 1:35:15.800 for me, Bob, from the beginning, I just wanted out 1:35:15.840 --> 1:35:20.479 of my head into some other storage medium. You know, 1:35:21.479 --> 1:35:25.120 I'm thank God for binary code because I got terrible handwriting. 1:35:25.400 --> 1:35:27.280 I never wrote songs down in the beginning. I just 1:35:27.320 --> 1:35:29.080 figured if I couldn't remember them, I didn't have the 1:35:29.200 --> 1:35:31.120 right to inflict them on any any of the public. 1:35:31.520 --> 1:35:35.960 But you know, I'm I'm in my sixties. I'm not 1:35:36.040 --> 1:35:38.200 gonna I'm not gonna buy a tour or or get 1:35:38.240 --> 1:35:41.040 a personal trainer or or a tour bus or but 1:35:41.160 --> 1:35:44.080 I'm gonna play shows. I've got some folks who who 1:35:44.240 --> 1:35:47.479 like what I do, and I can you know, it's 1:35:47.560 --> 1:35:49.760 It's not an enormous group of folks, but it's enough 1:35:49.800 --> 1:35:51.479 folks that I can make a living just doing that. 1:35:52.080 --> 1:35:54.640 If if that's but I don't want to do just that. 1:35:54.800 --> 1:35:56.400 I don't want to just be a mac artist. I 1:35:56.439 --> 1:35:58.120 want to be a coral reefer. And I want to 1:35:58.160 --> 1:36:00.559 play on George Strait albums and kenn each As the albums. 1:36:00.560 --> 1:36:04.600 I want to strump beside my buddies. So my particular 1:36:04.720 --> 1:36:07.200 life works so that I could do those things at 1:36:07.280 --> 1:36:10.000 that level, and I can play awesome little listening rooms 1:36:10.040 --> 1:36:14.360 and small theaters and and get whatever self aggrandizement that 1:36:14.439 --> 1:36:16.000 comes from being in the middle of the stage and 1:36:16.080 --> 1:36:18.719 having somebody overly brag on me every once in a while. 1:36:19.120 --> 1:36:24.160 That's that's cool. But I don't I don't anticipate a 1:36:24.280 --> 1:36:27.920 mass audience or I don't pine for one. I'm really 1:36:27.960 --> 1:36:30.559 grateful for folks that connect and that my songs mean 1:36:30.680 --> 1:36:33.840 something too, and I'm super grateful that that I can 1:36:33.920 --> 1:36:36.800 be the rhythm guitarists in the Coral Reefer band and 1:36:37.040 --> 1:36:40.200 and and play on other folks records as well, and 1:36:40.280 --> 1:36:42.040 still write a song for somebody and every once in 1:36:42.080 --> 1:36:45.639 a while, Like I said, I have the ideal life 1:36:45.680 --> 1:36:48.960 for the way that I'm built. Okay, just one question 1:36:49.040 --> 1:36:51.320 relative to that. Once you get it out of your head, 1:36:51.360 --> 1:36:53.040 you put it on the record, you ever listen to 1:36:53.120 --> 1:37:00.400 it again? Uh? If I gotta relearn it, like about 1:37:00.400 --> 1:37:01.800 to have to learn how to play some of this 1:37:01.920 --> 1:37:04.160 tough live, I gotta go listen to it again. What 1:37:04.280 --> 1:37:06.479 it's What the hill did I do sitting up there? 1:37:06.960 --> 1:37:08.880 Or why did I? Why did I sing that? Now 1:37:08.920 --> 1:37:10.400 that I gotta go out and do it on the road, 1:37:12.240 --> 1:37:15.120 That's what I'm doing here too. But I'm I'm learning 1:37:15.240 --> 1:37:18.640 these songs very well, the ones that I wasn't that 1:37:18.800 --> 1:37:21.400 familiar with. I mean, if I got to do cussing Island, 1:37:21.439 --> 1:37:23.200 I gotta go and learn it again, you know. But 1:37:23.400 --> 1:37:25.479 that's a big mouthful. But you're gonna do it. We're 1:37:25.479 --> 1:37:27.400 gonna make you do it. But I gave the Mac 1:37:27.479 --> 1:37:29.439 album and listen, I took it out of the boat 1:37:29.520 --> 1:37:32.080 with my with some man and my daughter and her husband, Josh, 1:37:32.560 --> 1:37:34.880 and we gave him. We gave it worked very well 1:37:35.000 --> 1:37:37.200 on the boat. But I just I love the fact 1:37:37.280 --> 1:37:38.920 that I knew there was just the two of them, 1:37:39.000 --> 1:37:41.439 but it sounded that's what my kids are going. Boy, 1:37:42.400 --> 1:37:44.720 is that the band I went on one cut and 1:37:45.680 --> 1:37:48.519 you know the best of what Matt can really do. 1:37:48.760 --> 1:37:52.800 But you know, as the as the owner of mail 1:37:52.880 --> 1:37:55.200 Bowl Records, I'm glad that I'm in the same category 1:37:55.240 --> 1:37:57.160 as Dave Deaf that I let this man be an 1:37:57.240 --> 1:37:59.800 artist and didn't put any you know, do it when 1:37:59.840 --> 1:38:04.040 you turn it in, when you're finished, okay, flipping it 1:38:04.160 --> 1:38:06.840 over to you, Jimmy. Uh, the bit you may or 1:38:06.880 --> 1:38:09.120 may not have changed, sort of like the Joe Walsh's 1:38:09.760 --> 1:38:14.160 song Life is Good, but the scene is completely changed. 1:38:14.720 --> 1:38:18.000 The records in the Spotify Top fifty have never been 1:38:18.080 --> 1:38:21.320 so small and cultural impact, not like when the sixties 1:38:21.360 --> 1:38:23.800 said that you had to hit. Everybody knew it, so 1:38:24.320 --> 1:38:26.360 you said earlier, you have a good opinion on it. 1:38:26.439 --> 1:38:29.559 You're making this for your audience. But to what degree 1:38:29.680 --> 1:38:32.920 do you pine, if at all, for a larger impact, 1:38:33.000 --> 1:38:36.640 which is difficult for anybody, Never mind people irrelevant of 1:38:36.640 --> 1:38:41.040 the quality of the record, you know. You know, like 1:38:41.160 --> 1:38:43.640 I said, I'm seventy three now, and and I've been 1:38:43.720 --> 1:38:46.840 a lucky, lucky boy from from those early days, you know. 1:38:47.120 --> 1:38:52.400 And and uh again, it's like, there's not really much 1:38:52.479 --> 1:38:56.160 out there that I haven't done that I want to do. 1:38:56.640 --> 1:38:58.960 I want to go to space, that's the one thing 1:38:59.040 --> 1:39:01.200 I would like to do that. And I did you 1:39:01.320 --> 1:39:04.880 sign up for Virgin Galactic? I did? And uh and 1:39:05.200 --> 1:39:07.519 uh I've actually played a show for it, and uh, 1:39:08.040 --> 1:39:11.360 I had a deal with Richard Bramson and I got 1:39:12.400 --> 1:39:15.000 But anyway, but Johnny Glenn Win he was he was 1:39:15.080 --> 1:39:18.400 seventy seven and I'm seventy through. So I'm you know, 1:39:18.600 --> 1:39:22.400 that's that's like one thing. But as far as and 1:39:22.600 --> 1:39:24.840 you know, the way the business thing is is gone 1:39:24.880 --> 1:39:28.880 and stuff that was just a byproduct of a brand 1:39:29.160 --> 1:39:32.200 that was basically authentic in the beginning. And you know, 1:39:32.439 --> 1:39:35.000 you see so many other people trying to create something 1:39:35.080 --> 1:39:37.880 that's authentic. It doesn't happen that way. It's got to 1:39:38.000 --> 1:39:42.880 be authentic, you know, and and and so um, you know, 1:39:43.040 --> 1:39:46.120 there's not that much left to do. I'll tell you 1:39:46.200 --> 1:39:48.560 what I'm thinking about, right now is because of the 1:39:48.680 --> 1:39:52.479 roadblocks against that that have been put up by the 1:39:53.200 --> 1:39:56.679 COVID nineteen. The world that we live in, of music 1:39:56.800 --> 1:40:00.439 getting out there, of love music being played by bands 1:40:00.560 --> 1:40:04.280 and and clubs, you know, and I understand why you 1:40:04.400 --> 1:40:07.439 can't do it, but I'm also looking at how can 1:40:07.479 --> 1:40:10.840 you do it safely and reach your audience? And so 1:40:11.520 --> 1:40:15.080 I leaned back to for whatever reason, I'm the reason 1:40:15.120 --> 1:40:17.240 I started radio. Margaint read bills because it can never 1:40:17.320 --> 1:40:20.040 get on the radio. And I came back from Australia 1:40:20.120 --> 1:40:22.839 where I heard, you know, there were twelve radio stations 1:40:22.880 --> 1:40:25.760 in Australia in those days, but they programmed for what 1:40:26.040 --> 1:40:29.600 what the hours people were listening And I got that 1:40:29.720 --> 1:40:32.519 idea in my mind. And when when the Internet came 1:40:32.560 --> 1:40:34.960 out and I started seeing it radio stations, I went, 1:40:35.520 --> 1:40:37.160 We're just gonna do one of our own up there 1:40:37.160 --> 1:40:39.360 and find find out if anybody wants to listen, and 1:40:39.680 --> 1:40:42.800 they do, so, you know, with with that and with 1:40:43.120 --> 1:40:46.960 Margaint Red build TV. Right now, we're basically supplying those 1:40:47.040 --> 1:40:51.040 two entities we started fifteen twenty years ago with products 1:40:51.160 --> 1:40:54.040 like Max album comes out on that and then you know, 1:40:54.160 --> 1:40:58.040 we've got we've got we do wednesdayson Saturday nights and 1:40:58.160 --> 1:41:00.639 replaying shows so our au and so I know we're 1:41:00.680 --> 1:41:02.519 still out there. So my job right now is to 1:41:02.600 --> 1:41:05.880 stay in touch with the loyal parent head audience. And 1:41:06.640 --> 1:41:09.120 I get sneaky, got sneaky things that I can go 1:41:09.240 --> 1:41:13.479 out and do, like uh, you know other people are 1:41:13.680 --> 1:41:16.400 you get on other people's tracks. And it didn't hurt 1:41:16.439 --> 1:41:18.840 that Alan Jackson asked me to come come played all 1:41:18.880 --> 1:41:24.080 five o'clock somewhere and and there's something else coming out 1:41:24.160 --> 1:41:27.960 now that you get people that are doing duets and 1:41:28.080 --> 1:41:30.560 being honored by other people. That's enough to kind of 1:41:30.760 --> 1:41:34.560 stay uh, to stay current, you know, and and not 1:41:34.800 --> 1:41:38.120 have just your audience to be people your age. And 1:41:38.360 --> 1:41:41.880 I think we we have gone generational by just being 1:41:41.920 --> 1:41:44.000 who we are and people being able to play their 1:41:44.120 --> 1:41:47.519 music for their kids. And we're like four fits generation 1:41:47.560 --> 1:41:49.000 and we see it in the shows when we go 1:41:49.120 --> 1:41:51.960 out there, and so I'm just gonna still keep doing 1:41:52.080 --> 1:41:54.760 that in the limited way that we have we are 1:41:54.880 --> 1:41:57.960 able to do it now waiting for that day. I mean, 1:41:58.000 --> 1:42:00.639 I'm not going back until people going to parking lot 1:42:01.080 --> 1:42:03.640 and tail game, because that's part of the show. I mean, 1:42:03.720 --> 1:42:05.120 un two of you do that, it's a half as 1:42:05.200 --> 1:42:07.639 show as far as I concerned, because people aren't getting 1:42:07.680 --> 1:42:09.760 the bank or the buck that they want. And when 1:42:09.800 --> 1:42:12.280 it's safe to do that and we can do it, 1:42:12.800 --> 1:42:14.800 you know, we'll go back and do big shows. In 1:42:14.880 --> 1:42:17.880 the meantime, Like Max said, you know, we both have 1:42:18.000 --> 1:42:21.439 avitability to play solo or with smaller bands. You know, 1:42:21.840 --> 1:42:24.479 I'm looking at that very very closely because I love 1:42:24.560 --> 1:42:27.040 to do it, and because that's all you can do now. 1:42:27.479 --> 1:42:29.439 And if you don't have an audience, we better in 1:42:29.760 --> 1:42:32.360 a club then you got one up online. So I'm 1:42:32.439 --> 1:42:36.440 looking at being able to utilize what's what it's available 1:42:36.520 --> 1:42:39.080 to us now in order to get back to where 1:42:39.439 --> 1:42:41.200 until we can get back to where we want to be, 1:42:41.960 --> 1:42:45.120 this question go on, mac I was just gonna interject though, 1:42:45.160 --> 1:42:49.160 that in in the context of of whether you want 1:42:49.479 --> 1:42:51.920 a larger audience or not. He did. He did just 1:42:52.040 --> 1:42:53.920 have the number one country album with Life on the 1:42:53.960 --> 1:42:56.920 Flip Side, and the number two pop album behind Lady Gaga. 1:42:57.000 --> 1:43:01.400 Who's who's not you know, you know she she's no slout, 1:43:01.479 --> 1:43:06.000 She's amazing. But uh, but the folks, at the point 1:43:06.080 --> 1:43:08.479 Jimmy is in his career that are that are having 1:43:09.479 --> 1:43:12.040 number two pop albums and number one country albums. Uh 1:43:12.479 --> 1:43:15.280 are are rare. I'll be surprised if too many, too 1:43:15.320 --> 1:43:19.439 many folks get to match that. Okay, uh both of 1:43:19.520 --> 1:43:22.040 you grew up in the South, and needless to say, 1:43:22.520 --> 1:43:24.600 from when you were little children is not today. But 1:43:24.800 --> 1:43:28.200 what does the rest of the country not understand about 1:43:28.280 --> 1:43:34.599 the South? WHOA, that's you got about eight hours. I'll 1:43:34.640 --> 1:43:37.519 tell you the one thing they don't understand that there's 1:43:37.640 --> 1:43:42.000 more Souths than you can possibly imagine. It's not one place. 1:43:42.760 --> 1:43:46.240 And as a traveling musician, I know Matt knows that, 1:43:46.360 --> 1:43:49.240 and I know that, and that would be the one 1:43:49.280 --> 1:43:52.200 thing about it is like you know, living in the 1:43:52.280 --> 1:43:55.000 Northeast as long as I have, you know, New York 1:43:55.120 --> 1:43:59.000 is not New York. New York is boroughs and neighborhoods. 1:43:59.439 --> 1:44:02.360 So they people tend to think of the South as 1:44:02.479 --> 1:44:05.720 a place. And you know, and if you go back 1:44:05.800 --> 1:44:09.080 to the Civil rights movement started in the South, you know, 1:44:09.360 --> 1:44:12.800 out of brave people like mar lud King and John 1:44:12.880 --> 1:44:16.599 Lewis and and you know, and John Siginfaller a good 1:44:16.640 --> 1:44:20.040 friend of ours. And I admire those people because I 1:44:20.200 --> 1:44:22.400 was I was brought up by my parents, not to 1:44:22.479 --> 1:44:26.800 heke and what Mac, Do you have anything to add 1:44:26.800 --> 1:44:31.679 to that about people not knowing about the South, Well, 1:44:34.000 --> 1:44:36.519 I think, uh, you know, through through the things that 1:44:36.600 --> 1:44:39.759 we've done poorly and the things that we've done correctly 1:44:39.880 --> 1:44:43.599 over the years and learned hopefully from mistakes, uh, slower 1:44:43.640 --> 1:44:46.080 than we should have learned. The one thing that that 1:44:46.439 --> 1:44:51.520 comes out of here is because the South as segregated 1:44:51.560 --> 1:44:54.960 as schools where the South has been generally rural and 1:44:55.200 --> 1:45:00.960 and not necessarily affluent. I believe that that people from 1:45:01.000 --> 1:45:03.480 the South have a sense of community that's not necessarily 1:45:03.520 --> 1:45:05.439 all over the world. I think it's spread. That part 1:45:05.520 --> 1:45:08.439 spreads well that what's Jimmy's talking about their South in 1:45:08.520 --> 1:45:10.840 the rest of the world, those folks that have gone 1:45:10.880 --> 1:45:14.320 out have have represented the best of what the South 1:45:14.439 --> 1:45:17.320 has in a good way, whether it be literature arts. 1:45:18.160 --> 1:45:21.840 I joke about spare time being the major export of Mississippi. Uh, 1:45:22.479 --> 1:45:25.640 but uh, it kinda is. But but you look at 1:45:25.720 --> 1:45:29.240 what's come from that. Uh. And And as you said, Jimmy, 1:45:29.280 --> 1:45:32.599 I I although Mississippi doesn't have a great total track 1:45:32.720 --> 1:45:35.719 record in regard to civil rights, a lot of civil 1:45:35.840 --> 1:45:38.320 rights was born out of it. In my particular family, 1:45:39.200 --> 1:45:43.559 we're just so wonderful, and in saying that we were, 1:45:43.640 --> 1:45:46.280 you know, nobody's better than anybody else. We all need 1:45:46.360 --> 1:45:48.280 one another, we all have a use for one another, 1:45:48.560 --> 1:45:50.560 and we all have an obligation to one another to 1:45:50.680 --> 1:45:53.200 make everything work. And you can see that in a 1:45:53.280 --> 1:45:56.000 small town, in a small community in a way, sometimes 1:45:56.040 --> 1:45:58.280 it might not be so obvious in a in a 1:45:58.400 --> 1:46:00.360 pile of millions of people. You know, if you if 1:46:00.400 --> 1:46:02.880 you're sitting in New York City, which I love New 1:46:02.960 --> 1:46:05.280 York City, but if you walk out the door and 1:46:05.400 --> 1:46:07.200 you decide you're gonna punch out the first person that 1:46:07.280 --> 1:46:10.080 comes down the street, there may literally be no repercussion 1:46:10.160 --> 1:46:12.200 from that. But if you go out the door in 1:46:12.280 --> 1:46:14.160 a small town and you punch the first person, not 1:46:14.280 --> 1:46:16.960 only do you know that person and you know their 1:46:17.000 --> 1:46:19.800 family and your family and how those two family intersects. 1:46:21.920 --> 1:46:23.960 You see the effects of your accents. You see the 1:46:24.000 --> 1:46:26.240 effects of what you do, and you see how it's 1:46:26.280 --> 1:46:28.720 better to get along than to not get along. Even 1:46:28.760 --> 1:46:30.439 if there's some of those folks as you don't care for, 1:46:31.000 --> 1:46:33.000 it's better to get along than not get along. And 1:46:33.080 --> 1:46:37.960 that that as just a singular, abiding message would would 1:46:38.320 --> 1:46:40.559 benefit the world a lot right now, If every if 1:46:40.600 --> 1:46:42.400 everybody took a little bit more of a grip of that, 1:46:42.840 --> 1:46:46.759 I think it'd be we'd be better off than we are. Okay, 1:46:46.800 --> 1:46:50.479 needless to say, we have a very fractured country. And 1:46:51.320 --> 1:46:56.920 uh so, Jimmy, hey, do you believe music has a 1:46:57.040 --> 1:47:01.639 part in this forthcoming election and bringing our country together? 1:47:02.320 --> 1:47:06.400 And I don't mean to be all kumbaya, but nettles 1:47:06.439 --> 1:47:08.280 to say we grew up. We could we could point 1:47:08.280 --> 1:47:10.040 out that people are on the other team now, they're 1:47:10.120 --> 1:47:13.720 music fans that are both on both sides of the fence. One, 1:47:13.840 --> 1:47:17.080 to what degree do you feel an obligation to go 1:47:17.280 --> 1:47:20.040 on the record? Do you feel it works? To what 1:47:20.200 --> 1:47:23.719 degree you inhibited? Because obviously your entire audience doesn't feel 1:47:23.760 --> 1:47:29.519 the same way. Yeah, you know, I've always been uh 1:47:29.760 --> 1:47:32.519 you know, my politics. I've never taken on the stage 1:47:32.520 --> 1:47:35.800 because I believe that there's a place oasis is are 1:47:35.880 --> 1:47:40.240 there for reasons people to rest and uh and I 1:47:40.400 --> 1:47:44.240 believe that that's what we are. And everybody tends to 1:47:44.320 --> 1:47:47.479 go into the political world of it, but uh, music 1:47:47.760 --> 1:47:51.479 is is the universal language. I've I've I've lived it, 1:47:51.520 --> 1:47:54.760 I've experienced it. I've going around the world, uh and 1:47:54.960 --> 1:47:57.280 play places where I can sing in other languages and 1:47:57.360 --> 1:47:59.360 where I can or I can I can listen to 1:47:59.479 --> 1:48:01.160 songs that I don't know what they're saying, but I 1:48:01.280 --> 1:48:04.760 love what it's the way it's making me feel. And uh, 1:48:05.479 --> 1:48:07.639 you know, it's to a degree. You know, I think 1:48:07.760 --> 1:48:11.040 there's been a little too many celebrities getting into the 1:48:11.080 --> 1:48:13.280 political world. And then you know, in the beginning it 1:48:13.360 --> 1:48:17.000 was pretty interesting. And and of course politicians want your 1:48:17.040 --> 1:48:20.840 audiences because they think they're there's uh and I've done 1:48:20.920 --> 1:48:23.880 that and uh, you know, but my polife were like 1:48:23.960 --> 1:48:25.680 I said, I was raised not to hate in the 1:48:25.760 --> 1:48:29.479 South by my my mother and uh and and friends 1:48:29.560 --> 1:48:32.640 around her. She worked in labor relations in a shipyard 1:48:32.960 --> 1:48:36.840 to was segregated. So I came up that way, and uh, 1:48:37.280 --> 1:48:39.920 I'm gonna stay that way. And yeah, I'm gonna go. 1:48:40.120 --> 1:48:42.160 I'm gonna go do work I always have in the past. 1:48:42.280 --> 1:48:44.439 But you know, if you don't like it, I don't 1:48:44.479 --> 1:48:49.080 see how I'd like to see less equating politics with music. Uh. 1:48:49.680 --> 1:48:53.160 You know that sounds weird because protests songs have gone 1:48:53.160 --> 1:48:57.280 out there, but and done, done good. But in this climate, 1:48:57.479 --> 1:49:01.200 you know, there's has to be some agreement on something 1:49:01.360 --> 1:49:04.160 which there's a very little degree on. But I think 1:49:04.200 --> 1:49:08.479 people can agree on bands and probably their favorite baseball, football, 1:49:08.600 --> 1:49:11.160 or basketball team. And if that's what we got, that's 1:49:11.200 --> 1:49:15.520 our job right now. Well, gentlemen, this has been wonderful. 1:49:16.280 --> 1:49:19.240 We've explored stuff that certainly I wasn't aware of, and 1:49:19.360 --> 1:49:21.920 I really thank you for taking time out of your 1:49:22.040 --> 1:49:27.120 day to appear and tell us your stories. Well, yeah, 1:49:27.200 --> 1:49:31.519 thank you for being Bob Lester's absolutely and I also 1:49:31.640 --> 1:49:34.160 want to want to thank you, Bob for for for 1:49:34.680 --> 1:49:38.559 the the letter last week, the kind words and uh, 1:49:38.960 --> 1:49:41.840 because as you know at this point you you're bound 1:49:41.920 --> 1:49:43.840 to know how terrible of a self promotor I am. 1:49:43.880 --> 1:49:47.240 So the fact that you're helping is much appreciated from 1:49:47.280 --> 1:49:50.479 the mcinally daughters for sure and myself as well. That's uh, 1:49:50.840 --> 1:49:53.120 it comes straight from the heart. I mean, it's you 1:49:53.240 --> 1:49:55.280 look for things to connect with, you know. It's kind 1:49:55.280 --> 1:49:57.880 of like people say, kids today have a really short 1:49:57.880 --> 1:50:01.599 attention spin no, they just have an incredibly good ship detector. 1:50:01.880 --> 1:50:04.439 They go no, no, no, and if they find something 1:50:04.520 --> 1:50:09.040 they like, like a series, I'll watch all day I 1:50:09.160 --> 1:50:13.200 am looking for those tracks, and when I find a track, 1:50:13.640 --> 1:50:16.040 I will literally play it out infinitum. I made a 1:50:16.080 --> 1:50:19.200 Spotify playlist of those three tracks. When Hiking in the 1:50:19.280 --> 1:50:23.160 Mountains played only those three tracks. They set a mood. 1:50:23.680 --> 1:50:25.720 I will play them into the ground. You'll get a 1:50:25.800 --> 1:50:30.000 few thousands of a penny from Spotify for me, but 1:50:30.120 --> 1:50:35.559 it's certainly hit me emotionally. Well. That's music is one 1:50:35.560 --> 1:50:37.280 of the only things in the world that can make 1:50:37.400 --> 1:50:39.960 bad good. It can turn bad into good, and we 1:50:40.080 --> 1:50:42.080 get to be associated with that. And I know I 1:50:42.160 --> 1:50:44.280 know from your letters over the years that you're passionate 1:50:44.360 --> 1:50:47.519 about it. I know that this guy in the in 1:50:47.600 --> 1:50:50.120 the florally in the pretty shirt. You got a pretty 1:50:50.120 --> 1:50:53.519 shirt there, Jimmy, that guy, I must to him. Yeah, 1:50:53.560 --> 1:50:55.880 it's not a costume. And I know what it means 1:50:55.920 --> 1:50:57.960 to me, and I know how grateful that I am 1:50:58.040 --> 1:51:00.960 that we all get to talk about it and go 1:51:01.080 --> 1:51:03.040 out and do it again tomorrow. Thanks so much for 1:51:03.160 --> 1:51:05.800 doing this. Until next time. This is Bob left Sex