Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Sets podcast.
Speaker 1: My guest today is Lowell Paul S Yes, Paul of
Speaker 1: Peter Paul and Mary No. How you doing good? Pool?
Speaker 1: I heard Pool so like, you must be an East
Speaker 1: Coast kind of guy. You know, it's funny. I'm from Connecticut,
Speaker 1: and people from Connecticut think that they don't have an accent.
Speaker 1: But you've just proven that that's untrue. Well, I used
Speaker 1: to be, uh mid East Coast. I was born in Maryland,
Speaker 1: lived born in Baltimore, lived in Maryland for quite a
Speaker 1: few years before moving to the Midwest. But when you
Speaker 1: moved to the Midwest, they say, most uh disc jockeys
Speaker 1: and radio people come from the Midwest because they lose
Speaker 1: their accent. And to a large extent, I think that's true.
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't hear that I have an accent,
Speaker 1: except if I have to pronounce the word M I
Speaker 1: l K. Peter used to rag me all the time.
Speaker 1: Let's say, I'll take a glass of milk. He said, exactly,
Speaker 1: there's a knee in there that we don't have on
Speaker 1: the East Coast. Yeah, that's right. I spent a summer
Speaker 1: in Chicago in sixty nine, which makes me an antique.
Speaker 1: But they called soda pop, which was a new thing
Speaker 1: for Uh. Yeah, okay, you're in. Egg creams were a
Speaker 1: new thing to me when I moved to New York.
Speaker 1: That's very much a New York thing. I mean I
Speaker 1: had heard about them, but I grew up in Connecticut,
Speaker 1: fifty miles from New York, and you certainly just couldn't
Speaker 1: run around get an egg cream in Fairfield, Connecticut or
Speaker 1: Bridgeport right next to it. But right now you're in Maine.
Speaker 1: I am. I'm on the coast, beautiful little town that
Speaker 1: I am reluctant to give you the title of because
Speaker 1: many people will to move here, uh and obscure the
Speaker 1: quaintness of the village. But yeah, I live in Blue Hill, Maine.
Speaker 1: I have for the past forty seven years with my wife,
Speaker 1: Betty of fifty seven years, and we brought our three
Speaker 1: children up here. Uh. Followed it back to the Earth
Speaker 1: movement really in the late sixties early seventies. Absolutely, Yeah,
Speaker 1: which on top of we're licking our wounds after the
Speaker 1: Vietnam War protests. Yeah, yes, Well, the desire I think
Speaker 1: of every human heart is to get to the essence
Speaker 1: of what life is all about. And it's hard to
Speaker 1: do that when you're being shaken around in New York City.
Speaker 1: So we were very happy to move here. Life was simpler.
Speaker 1: We had to abandon some of the niceties, but then
Speaker 1: we found, you know, deeper niceties. And it's been and
Speaker 1: of course, you know, pandemic notwithstanding, Uh, it's been very
Speaker 1: easy to travel. Most of my work was on a stage.
Speaker 1: If it wasn't in Ohio, it was in San Francisco
Speaker 1: or Utah or Chicago. So it didn't really make any
Speaker 1: difference where my home base was. Okay, how far from
Speaker 1: Boston are you? Uh, five hour drive? Okay, so what's
Speaker 1: the nearest main city, Bangor? That's where the airport. Oh
Speaker 1: you're way up there, Bangor. Oh you have w I
Speaker 1: went on a canoe trip on the Alagash once again.
Speaker 1: That was but we flew to Bangor and then he
Speaker 1: had to take like a four four hour bus ride.
Speaker 1: People have no idea how large Maine really is. That's true,
Speaker 1: that's true. You get to go far north is but boy,
Speaker 1: it is beautiful. Uh. You know, there are what a
Speaker 1: million people in the whole state. Uh, and I would say,
Speaker 1: fully a quarter of them living in the Portland area.
Speaker 1: So uh, I think that accounts for the reason that
Speaker 1: people are so friendly to one another because there's a
Speaker 1: few of us. We're so happy to see each other.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, another human being. Uh, it's it's great
Speaker 1: and I'm yes, you're right. We are really up here.
Speaker 1: It's almost in down what you've considered down east. Okay,
Speaker 1: So the water never gets warm where you are, not
Speaker 1: really okay? And how many people are in the town
Speaker 1: of Blue Hill about in the summertime it swells to
Speaker 1: maybet Okay, so at least a decent number. You're not
Speaker 1: there twiddling your fingers alone. So you say you've been
Speaker 1: married for fifty seven years, and that's also you've lived
Speaker 1: your life to a great degree on the road. The
Speaker 1: combination doesn't always work. So what is the secret to success? Well,
Speaker 1: it's a combination of friendship. Now that that may sound
Speaker 1: lightweight when you're trying to describe a marriage relationship, but
Speaker 1: the fact is Benny and I went to high school
Speaker 1: together in Michigan, and though we never dated then, we
Speaker 1: knew of each other for various reasons. She was a
Speaker 1: knockout dream queen cheerleader and a year behind me and
Speaker 1: I was the local rock and roll kid with my
Speaker 1: own rhythm and blues band in high school. And we met.
Speaker 1: Get this bob in the distance, We'll hear a drum roll?
Speaker 1: We met. We met by chance coming out of a
Speaker 1: subway in New York City some eight years later, and
Speaker 1: I said, Betty bannered and she said, no, old stookey,
Speaker 1: and her date said, you know, we really got to
Speaker 1: get moving along. And I said, that's all right, I'll
Speaker 1: walk with you to the wherever you're going. So that
Speaker 1: beginner relationship, but the challenges of being on the road
Speaker 1: and maintaining a relationship were many, and I wasn't always
Speaker 1: equal to the task. The first ten years. We're filled
Speaker 1: with so much success and so much work. I mean, honestly,
Speaker 1: we did three hundred shows a year, three hundred shows
Speaker 1: in one year, and that's you know. We're tried to
Speaker 1: shoehorn in record albums, television appearances, publicity, travel itself. You know,
Speaker 1: a half day to get there, in a half day
Speaker 1: to get back. So a remarkable wife who has raised
Speaker 1: now three daughters with me, Uh, you can understand why
Speaker 1: we would want to get out of the city and
Speaker 1: simplify our life. And frankly, if it hadn't been for
Speaker 1: a deep longing to know who I was and what
Speaker 1: this thing called living was all about, I wouldn't have
Speaker 1: taken the spiritual turn that I took in the late sixties,
Speaker 1: which really changed my life. Gave me a whole perspective
Speaker 1: on what really has value, you know, other human beings,
Speaker 1: and also a desire to be authentic. I grew up
Speaker 1: as an only child, so I could be authentic to myself.
Speaker 1: But what did it mean to be authentic to the world? Uh?
Speaker 1: Does that mean telling the truth all the time? Well,
Speaker 1: passing through the gate of marijuana, one can be overly
Speaker 1: authentic with people, and I tended to be a little
Speaker 1: excessive the first uh oh say, ten twelve years of
Speaker 1: my life. But ultimately I have been very blessed to
Speaker 1: discover the language of metaphor, which is what songwriting is
Speaker 1: all about, and realized that everybody has a spiritual sense.
Speaker 1: They just need to be acquainted with it. You know,
Speaker 1: the atheist who denies God really is very hard pressed
Speaker 1: to deny love. And yet if you read the Bible,
Speaker 1: you see that Paul says that God is loved, and
Speaker 1: if you interact normally in your life. You begin to
Speaker 1: recognize the value of love in your own life, whether
Speaker 1: it's interpersonal or whether it's kind of faith that tomorrow
Speaker 1: will be a better time. So all of those things
Speaker 1: factored into how I've been able to enjoy this marriage
Speaker 1: with this beautiful woman that I married, still enjoy a
Speaker 1: companionship with my children. Uh. There's a lot of humor,
Speaker 1: a lot of laughter. Um. Some of it, uh, you
Speaker 1: know is hard pressed. Some of it particularly in these
Speaker 1: contested times in which we live, where we're taught by
Speaker 1: our leaders to mistrust that which we read, and we
Speaker 1: end up um carrying that over into a mistrust of
Speaker 1: each other or a cynicism. That's more of a challenge
Speaker 1: than it used to be. But at the core of it, Bob,
Speaker 1: I swear, if you can retain your compassion for your
Speaker 1: fellow human beings, for your fellow citizens, Um, you can
Speaker 1: make a go of it. You can turn lemons into lemonade,
Speaker 1: and you can create hope where there has been fear
Speaker 1: and distrusted. Okay, let's talk about this spiritual You can't
Speaker 1: see the air quotes on the podcast conversion. Uh. This
Speaker 1: is not uncommon with musical artists traveling people were almost
Speaker 1: you know, they're in partaking of substances and all of
Speaker 1: a sudden they find themselves on the floor and they
Speaker 1: have a transformative moment. Was that how it happened to you?
Speaker 1: Or was an evolution? How did the light go on? Um?
Speaker 1: You know, I think once again, if I can refer
Speaker 1: to being an only child, there's an inner dialogue going
Speaker 1: on all the time because I didn't have brothers and
Speaker 1: sisters to have that dialogue with. So there's a refutation,
Speaker 1: a kind of distrust that's built into the character of
Speaker 1: only child because he doesn't really know what's dependable. And
Speaker 1: so this whole barrel of fame and fortune that landed
Speaker 1: on me in nineteen sixty was increasingly more difficult to
Speaker 1: figure out personal worth from. Uh. If I was standing
Speaker 1: in line with Betty waiting to go into a movie
Speaker 1: and the manager saw and recognize me, say, oh, Mr Stukey,
Speaker 1: come out, come out you You don't you don't have
Speaker 1: to wait? You start to take these or Mr Stucky,
Speaker 1: we we have a table. I don't have a reservation. Wait,
Speaker 1: it's okay, we have a we have a table for you.
Speaker 1: Oh Mr Stukey, here could come here? You begin to
Speaker 1: believe your own press clipics, and that becomes a very empty,
Speaker 1: hollow existence because you have to make a choice. You
Speaker 1: are either going to start believing it and buying into it,
Speaker 1: or if you're trying to be real, you're going to
Speaker 1: stick with people who are truth tellers, like my wife
Speaker 1: or that little piece of conscience that you hung onto
Speaker 1: since you were a little kid that told you it
Speaker 1: was bad to take that piece of candy from the
Speaker 1: five in time and you say, okay, well it's bad
Speaker 1: to borrow on other people's awarenesses. Uh, I just want
Speaker 1: to be a citizen. So it wasn't really a drug
Speaker 1: problem that brought me to my knees. It was more
Speaker 1: of a soul problem. Um. I just really needed to
Speaker 1: know if there was some direction in life that was
Speaker 1: valuable with a capital V. And you know, I don't
Speaker 1: know if you want to hear the whole story, but
Speaker 1: I was backstage in Austin, um in Abilene, Texas and
Speaker 1: a kid, and I'm going through these changes. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm asking myself, what's life all out? My god? You know,
Speaker 1: I want to be on the on the right side.
Speaker 1: I want me on the good side. Now. Parenthetically, I
Speaker 1: have to insert here something that you already know. When
Speaker 1: you're out in the world and there's a chance to
Speaker 1: do good, whether it's feeding or housing the homeless, or
Speaker 1: whether it's protesting the war in Vietnam, or whether it's
Speaker 1: marching for human rights, there is a sense of participation
Speaker 1: in something that's bigger than yourself and something that's good. So,
Speaker 1: notwithstanding those kind of uh encouragements, one asks oneself, well, okay,
Speaker 1: but these are just actions. I want to be connected
Speaker 1: with these actions. I want to have a sense of
Speaker 1: familial participation in the betterment of the world. Where do
Speaker 1: I find that? So flat? And parentheses flash flash back
Speaker 1: to uh Adelene, Texas. Kid comes up to me backstage.
Speaker 1: There's nobody around, you know. Um, security is pretty good
Speaker 1: at concerts and usually people don't you know, are not
Speaker 1: allowed backstage. So I'm back there tuning the guitar and
Speaker 1: there's his kids standing there and he says, can I
Speaker 1: talk to you? I say, well, yeah, I'll look for
Speaker 1: you after. Okay, I'm a little busy right now. But
Speaker 1: as those things go, and one tries to be true
Speaker 1: to one's word. When the show was over, I've tried
Speaker 1: to look for him, and sure enough, there he was,
Speaker 1: so in the midst of a bunch of people, maybe
Speaker 1: a half dozen of them, handing me albums to sign
Speaker 1: and pictures and telling me about the last time that
Speaker 1: they saw the trio. I turned to the kid and say,
Speaker 1: what was it you wanted to talk to me about?
Speaker 1: And he says, I want to talk to you about
Speaker 1: the Lord. And I don't know the The bottom dropped
Speaker 1: out of reality and I go, oh, okay, well hang
Speaker 1: on just a second. But my heart is going chapboom,
Speaker 1: chiboom chi boom, because it's like an answer to prayer.
Speaker 1: You know, where did this guy come from and what
Speaker 1: gives him the audacious right to say that he wants
Speaker 1: to talk to me about the Lord? So we get
Speaker 1: so the crowd clears out, and he says, I think
Speaker 1: we should go someplace where we can talk. I say, well, sure, well,
Speaker 1: let's go back to my hotel room. Hearts still going
Speaker 1: bum bum bum bump. But now I'm beginning to think, Hey,
Speaker 1: I'm a star here. Okay, I got I got a reputation,
Speaker 1: I've got I've got knowledge of the world. I've I've
Speaker 1: I've smoked dope, I've I've read Edgar Casey I I
Speaker 1: understand the complexity of things. So as we climb into
Speaker 1: the back of his pickup truck this friends are driving,
Speaker 1: I turned to when they say, so, what do you
Speaker 1: think about reincarnation, you know, trying to level out the
Speaker 1: balance of our spiritual experiences, And he says, well, it
Speaker 1: may or may not be true, but I think we
Speaker 1: have more important things to talk about tonight, don't you.
Speaker 1: So we go back to the hotel room and I'm
Speaker 1: fussing all around. I'm you know, would you like a coke?
Speaker 1: The want me to open the window, anything but confront
Speaker 1: what it is this kid's possibly gonna say, and he says,
Speaker 1: I think we should pray, And at that moment he
Speaker 1: hits the floor on his knees. His friends hit the
Speaker 1: floor on their knees, and so I do too. And
Speaker 1: all he said, Bob was, I think no one wants
Speaker 1: to say thank you Lord for getting me backstage without
Speaker 1: into the concert, without a ticket, backstage without to pass,
Speaker 1: And I think no one wants to talk to you.
Speaker 1: And I just started to cry because in that moment
Speaker 1: I realized how disenfranchised I was from the core of belief.
Speaker 1: And that was the transformative moment for me. Uh. After that,
Speaker 1: I can't say that, you know, I moved as beatifically
Speaker 1: as Saint Francis. I was really kind of a bore
Speaker 1: and and I was antagonistic. I was aggressive, I was
Speaker 1: I was a Jesus freak. Uh for about two years
Speaker 1: before I learned the language or readopted the language of
Speaker 1: metaphor and could speak about my faith and what had
Speaker 1: happened to me in terms that other people could understand,
Speaker 1: maybe even sympathize with, maybe even emulate. But when you
Speaker 1: use labels to describe your situation, you're adopting somebody else's descriptions. Uh.
Speaker 1: And they don't always sit well, they're not personalized. Uh So,
Speaker 1: over these past what forty years or so, forty to
Speaker 1: fifty years, I've learned the language of an inclusiveness in
Speaker 1: terms of expressing my faith. Um So, the transformation didn't stop, uh,
Speaker 1: you know in nineteen nineteen seventy. It began in nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy and I'm still I'm still going through a matter
Speaker 1: of fact, this do you want to? Can I do
Speaker 1: a little song for you? Well, the only issue is
Speaker 1: the rights issue. Who wrote the song? Okay, Well we'recovered.
Speaker 1: There's this guy named Stooky that used to sing with
Speaker 1: Peter Paul Mary. He wrote this song, okay, and you
Speaker 1: own the song and I owned the song out Okay,
Speaker 1: then you can say just say you're giving us permission. Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm giving you permission, but I'm wondering if maybe uh yeah,
Speaker 1: so I'll just do a little bit of it. But
Speaker 1: you'll get the idea. So let's talk about love with
Speaker 1: the capital L When was the last time you've heard it?
Speaker 1: Spell with the emphasis in the proper place. Well, let's
Speaker 1: talk about love in the upper case. Some might call
Speaker 1: it amazing grace or the author of time and space.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about love, love, love, love love. You may
Speaker 1: recall this situation change your heart you hadn't seen were
Speaker 1: Love's the only explanation for a miracle that sets somebody free?
Speaker 1: Who is? Let's talk about love with capital litt. Not
Speaker 1: talking about witchcraft or a magic spell or hain't keep
Speaker 1: painkre in a cheap motel. No talk love, love, love love.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that I love you anymore or any less.
Speaker 1: I'm just saying that there's more here then we are
Speaker 1: usually willing to confessis it. Let's talk about love where
Speaker 1: it all begin Yeah, love love love like I'm master plan.
Speaker 1: If you believe, then raise you and let's talk about love.
Speaker 1: Love love, love love love with the capitol hel WHOA,
Speaker 1: So how were you? That's for a couple of things. Hey,
Speaker 1: how old is that song? Six months? Maybe? Wow? You
Speaker 1: still got it? Secondly, you still have your voice when
Speaker 1: many people, you know, they get older in their voice. Subsides,
Speaker 1: any special trick or just you know, God helped you out. Uh,
Speaker 1: that's a nice way to put the question. Doubtless there's
Speaker 1: some assistance from h you know, having faith. Uh, but
Speaker 1: uh no, I don't. I haven't smoked since August fourteen.
Speaker 1: And you may ask why I remember that date so specifically.
Speaker 1: I was driving with a friend, Jim Mason, who produced
Speaker 1: a couple of Poco albums, and there was a cigarette.
Speaker 1: There was a cigarette lighter whole but no cigarette lighter
Speaker 1: in the run rental car that he was driving, and
Speaker 1: we both had cigarettes, and I took that as a sign,
Speaker 1: so I reached over, took the cigarette out of his mouth,
Speaker 1: out of my mouth, through it out the window, and
Speaker 1: I said August fourteenth, nineteen seventy, the day Noel Stookey
Speaker 1: and Jim Mason stopped smoking. Well, unfortunately it was true
Speaker 1: for me, but you know, you can't make truth for
Speaker 1: somebody else. He went back to it eventually quit. But
Speaker 1: so I think not smoking has helped a lot. I
Speaker 1: still drink a fair amount. I mean, you'd like to
Speaker 1: have margarita in the evening and maybe a glass of
Speaker 1: wine with dinner. Um, my wife certainly keeps me on
Speaker 1: the straight and narrow in terms of nutrition. You know,
Speaker 1: lots of veggies and and I'm living in the country, Bob.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's laid back here, and you have the pandemic.
Speaker 1: Didn't lay me. Didn't lay me back any further. I'd
Speaker 1: be lying in bed. But uh, it's very comfortable and
Speaker 1: very inspiring to be here. Okay, speaking of inspiration, we
Speaker 1: live in an era very different from the one you
Speaker 1: came up in. Well, if you came up, it was
Speaker 1: a monoculture. If you were successful, everybody knew your name,
Speaker 1: whereas today it's really a cornucopy of stuff. So how
Speaker 1: do you keep your inspiration to create? Mm hmm, Well,
Speaker 1: I've I've always been you know, I have to confess
Speaker 1: that I'm not a writer who writes for remuneration. That's
Speaker 1: why folk music was so great for me, because it's
Speaker 1: an institution that uh, that depends on people articulating concerns
Speaker 1: of the day. Um. They don't write for money. They
Speaker 1: write because it had to be said. So I really
Speaker 1: am a cathartic writer. That is to say, I don't
Speaker 1: sit down like a backrack and generate music every day
Speaker 1: because it's a discipline that I feel I have to obey.
Speaker 1: I really respond to the particular moment or the particular concern.
Speaker 1: I mean when I did when I did impeachable to
Speaker 1: the tune of Unforgettable that went viral on YouTube and Facebook,
Speaker 1: I was responding to what I felt were flagrant UH
Speaker 1: offenses by Donald Trump, and I thought that they would
Speaker 1: be traceable to UH to Russia. That that investigation went
Speaker 1: by the bye when Mueller was removed from the opportunity
Speaker 1: to take it to its finality along with Comey, and
Speaker 1: and then I wrote, Uh. I wrote a song called
Speaker 1: I Will stand Uh. You know that open the election
Speaker 1: is over. Some say what's done, it's done. Well, that's
Speaker 1: easier if your side is one. Um, so why don't
Speaker 1: we just work together? And I said, well, there are
Speaker 1: a list of things that I'm not going to work
Speaker 1: together on and I sang a song with about nine
Speaker 1: of them. And there's also reinforcement, you know. Uh. For instance,
Speaker 1: if I was creating totally in a vacuum, UM, I'd
Speaker 1: probably have a more difficult time sustaining it. But when
Speaker 1: you go in front of anywhere from fifteen to people
Speaker 1: and you make a statement musically, you're going to find
Speaker 1: out pretty quickly if the audience agrees with it. Now
Speaker 1: they may one think it's entertaining h, in which case
Speaker 1: the applause will be light and smattering, or they may
Speaker 1: think that it's moving, in which case you will get
Speaker 1: a very pronounced, heavy applause at the end of it,
Speaker 1: like I sometimes do for the two new verses I
Speaker 1: wrote to America they're beautiful. Or sometimes you will get
Speaker 1: and a response that you just hadn't planned on, like
Speaker 1: people standing up in the middle of what you're singing about,
Speaker 1: or cheering uh in the middle of a verse because
Speaker 1: they agree so strongly with what's being said and the
Speaker 1: manner in which it's being said. So those encouragements keep
Speaker 1: me going. But to return to your original question, I
Speaker 1: basically write in response to that which I see needs articulation. Okay,
Speaker 1: what I have to ask, because you're talking about politics,
Speaker 1: you're talking about today's world, I must ask, as a
Speaker 1: resident of Maine, why did Susan Collins get reelected? Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, aside from all the impressive moneys that were
Speaker 1: spent to degrade her opponent, because actually there's two sides
Speaker 1: to that street. There was a lot of impressive moneies
Speaker 1: that were spent to degrade Susan Collins. Essentially, the reasoning
Speaker 1: behind the deposition of Susan Collins was that she was
Speaker 1: Trump's lapdog. Um that anything Trump wanted she voted for.
Speaker 1: Well that's you know, Maine is not a totally liberal state.
Speaker 1: I mean, I were very I can't speak for the Natives,
Speaker 1: but they're all straight shooters as far as I'm concerned.
Speaker 1: You know, they're really honest, god fearing if you work hard.
Speaker 1: I mean, they're the American ethic underlined. And Susan Collins
Speaker 1: has been there for most of them, most of the time.
Speaker 1: And like I was telling your engineer before, a lot
Speaker 1: of Trump's success is not because of who he is,
Speaker 1: but the fact that people who voted for him are
Speaker 1: single issue voters, and the people that voted for Susan
Speaker 1: Collins were single issue, you know. They they wanted to
Speaker 1: support somebody who is more anti abortion than she is
Speaker 1: pro life uh she uh or pro choice. They wanted
Speaker 1: to support somebody that they knew, uh, particularly in this
Speaker 1: cacophony of political um chaos that was echoing all around us.
Speaker 1: And like I said, the issues were pretty angrily ignored
Speaker 1: so that character assassination could take place. And she had
Speaker 1: more bucks, and I think she made her point about
Speaker 1: Gideon's family to the point where, you know, people bought
Speaker 1: into it. Well, and then I don't want to go
Speaker 1: someplace that I don't knew about. I'm going to stick
Speaker 1: with Susan. But I had a bumper. I had a
Speaker 1: bumper sticker on the back of my truck that said
Speaker 1: bye bye Susan. That was a big popular side. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's go back to the beginning. So what did your
Speaker 1: parents do for a living? You were an only child. Yeah,
Speaker 1: my dad was a really a mechanical engineer with a
Speaker 1: very clever uh. He is very clever, hands on kind
Speaker 1: of guy. Uh. He worked for the Gates Rubber Company
Speaker 1: during the war years and then had a couple of
Speaker 1: promotions that took us to Michigan one and then to Pennsylvania,
Speaker 1: where living ninety miles from New York City just made
Speaker 1: me thirsty to move to the city. Eventually, in in
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty nine, my mom was ah. She was a
Speaker 1: cashier at a restaurant where my dad used to go
Speaker 1: and play the pinball machine and he would come up
Speaker 1: to her. He would come up to her and ask
Speaker 1: her for a change, and she would hand him a
Speaker 1: bunch of nickels, and he became known as Nick. That
Speaker 1: was his nickname. She came from the St. Aubrey family,
Speaker 1: had actually an uncle I think who designed Juliet Prison uh,
Speaker 1: the architecture for Juliet Prison. Um. She was a very gracious, lovely,
Speaker 1: lovely woman, UM, spiritual in her own way. Former Catholic.
Speaker 1: Dad was a former Mormon UM, but they both had
Speaker 1: to leave their religions to get married. For dad it
Speaker 1: was the second marriage UM. And they brought me up
Speaker 1: in the country in a little town called Dorsey, Maryland,
Speaker 1: about halfway between Baltimore and Washington, and that that was
Speaker 1: a great experience for me. I mean we've you know,
Speaker 1: farmed with a horse pulling a plow. I had woods
Speaker 1: out behind and a lake up on top of a
Speaker 1: mountain and um and a handful of friends. And I
Speaker 1: say that in in a positive way. I had five
Speaker 1: of the closest buddies you could ever want. We did
Speaker 1: everything together and explored together, played games together, imagined together.
Speaker 1: I even had a circus uh in my garage where
Speaker 1: I put the cat under an orange crate and dragged
Speaker 1: her around in a wagon. And uh, my friends were,
Speaker 1: you know, the strong man. My friends were selling lemonade.
Speaker 1: My friends were, uh the ringmaster. Um. And then I
Speaker 1: had and once again returning to the theme of being
Speaker 1: an only child, I had all of the imagination in
Speaker 1: the world available to me. Um. My parents were really
Speaker 1: really supportive all the time. And my dad had a
Speaker 1: four string tenor guitar, uh, which I thought it was
Speaker 1: just a big uku lele as I grew up, but
Speaker 1: then discovered that it could be tuned like a yuku lele.
Speaker 1: And that's really where I began loving making music. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and did you take any lessons? How did you ultimately
Speaker 1: become a performer and more of a rock and roll performer. Uh? Well,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm I'm fourteen, fifteen years old. How can
Speaker 1: you not be a rock and roll performer. That's what
Speaker 1: you're hearing, you know. Well, my mom, I mean you
Speaker 1: want to be kind of hip. So but I'll tell
Speaker 1: you hip was not Elvis Presley to me, who I
Speaker 1: just tried to imitate. Their hip was the Pontiac African
Speaker 1: American record store because it was rhythm and blues, it
Speaker 1: was the doo wop. It was the street music that
Speaker 1: really got to me. And we had a group in
Speaker 1: high school called the Birds of Paradise Um. We wrote
Speaker 1: our own theme song, the Birds of pit Rudize do
Speaker 1: wah are here to say Hello? Do doo wah? The
Speaker 1: only way they know do do wah is with song.
Speaker 1: There were five of us drummer, bass player and three
Speaker 1: singers and uh and my guitar and we we were
Speaker 1: busy and we put out an album. I mean that
Speaker 1: was unheard of for a high school group. In ninet.
Speaker 1: We pressed our own album and sold it in the
Speaker 1: high school with some original songs that are still embarrassing
Speaker 1: to me when I hear them. Yeah, so you graduate
Speaker 1: from high school, what's the next step? Well, I always
Speaker 1: I had a job, part time job in a camera
Speaker 1: shop in Birmingham, Michigan, and I made movies UM with
Speaker 1: my friends in Birmingham. UM. This was after the move
Speaker 1: to Michigan, and took that knowledge with me to New York.
Speaker 1: But I'll tell you, I don't know how many times
Speaker 1: in your life, Bob, you have walked in through the
Speaker 1: door expecting one kind of response, received another, and then
Speaker 1: recognized it was Hey, that's a heck of a lot
Speaker 1: better the response than the one I was expecting. I
Speaker 1: answered an ad in the New York Times for what
Speaker 1: I thought would be a camera shop job, and it
Speaker 1: turned out the guy, uh said, I'm sorry. He said,
Speaker 1: you're applying for your experience is all on a camera shop.
Speaker 1: This is for a photo copier job, selling photo cop
Speaker 1: her machines. And went, oh, he said, but wait just
Speaker 1: a minute, and he walked into the back room. And
Speaker 1: it turns out that this was the beginning of a
Speaker 1: Uni bath, which was a single chemical process for the
Speaker 1: three stages that are usually required to process negatives from
Speaker 1: photographic film. And we worked with the jet propulsion lab.
Speaker 1: Only way I got the job worked with the jet
Speaker 1: propulsion lab and went down to the village to play
Speaker 1: chess one day and or one night with some friends
Speaker 1: in the business, and the table was gone where we
Speaker 1: usually played chess, and they were constructing a stage. I said,
Speaker 1: what's going on and he said, oh, we're we're gonna
Speaker 1: have entertainment here in the village, which was pretty new
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty nine. I mean there were poets that
Speaker 1: stood up, but there were no stages. Uh. And I said, well,
Speaker 1: what do you have to do to entertain here? Remembering
Speaker 1: that I was, hey, a nascent rock and roll star.
Speaker 1: He said, we'll come down an audition. So in my
Speaker 1: three piece Brooks Brothers suit, I went down to Greenwich
Speaker 1: Village and did the Mickey Mouse Song as a rock
Speaker 1: and roll tune and like m I c kuy you
Speaker 1: got it? Who's the leader? Do do wah of the bay?
Speaker 1: And anyway, they thought I was weird enough that they
Speaker 1: hired me. And one thing that to another. I always
Speaker 1: loved Jonathan Winners, you know the sound effects. I was
Speaker 1: doing sound effects in high school. The moment I realized
Speaker 1: I could abuse a microphone for fun and profit, I
Speaker 1: went for it. So I was doing traffic noises and
Speaker 1: the probably the most famous sound effect that I did
Speaker 1: in the village was the American Standard, which I would
Speaker 1: introduce as a song and then do the flush of
Speaker 1: an of a toilet. Can you still do that? Yes?
Speaker 1: I can, but I don't know if this Mike will
Speaker 1: let me. It was, I did get the handle, I went,
Speaker 1: and then sure, very good, very good. Okay, So you're
Speaker 1: a jack of all trades down there in the village.
Speaker 1: I was. I was, and I was a good I
Speaker 1: think I was a good choice for that. I was
Speaker 1: a everything from a major d to a comedian, to
Speaker 1: a songwriter to the master of ceremonies. Because no, really,
Speaker 1: no serious artist actually wanted to get up and introduce
Speaker 1: another artist. I mean, they might do it as a
Speaker 1: tale and to their performance, but they didn't want to
Speaker 1: do it as a constant. But I was. I was
Speaker 1: fine with that, um because of my uh, I don't know,
Speaker 1: my predilection for wanting to make nice. So when Albert
Speaker 1: Grossman came in and said, uh, have you ever thought
Speaker 1: of being in a group Albert Grossman going on to
Speaker 1: become the manager of Dylan Jimmy of in Genesee and
Speaker 1: Uh the band, Uh, I said, well, no, I got
Speaker 1: a few things I want to do my myself. Evidently,
Speaker 1: at the result of that uh meeting, he went back
Speaker 1: to Peter and said, well, he said no, but I
Speaker 1: think he will. I guess that's what made Albert what
Speaker 1: Albert was, and he was right. The turning point came
Speaker 1: in Mary's apartment after about five months of rehearsal, where
Speaker 1: we had taken come up with about six tunes on
Speaker 1: the subposition that maybe if Albert liked them, he'd we
Speaker 1: could be in a group. And the words out of
Speaker 1: Albert were, will have you thought about a name for
Speaker 1: the group? And yeah? And we said yeah, I'm even
Speaker 1: thinking about the Willows. And he said, well, how about
Speaker 1: if Nold changes his name, we could we could call
Speaker 1: the group Peter, Paul and Mary. Well, I don't know
Speaker 1: if you're familiar with a song called the ten th
Speaker 1: year Old Man. I know you talk about the comedy routine. No, no, no,
Speaker 1: I'm talking about the song of the folk song I
Speaker 1: was born about ten thousand years ago. Actually I don't
Speaker 1: know it. Okay, Well, I'll give you a little verse.
Speaker 1: And there's nothing in this world that I don't know.
Speaker 1: Get Ready, here comes the alliteration. I saw Peter Paul
Speaker 1: and os is playing ring around the roses, and I'll
Speaker 1: look at the guy that says it isn't. So it's
Speaker 1: a cute song talks about the development of world history.
Speaker 1: But the Peter Paul and was already there on our lips.
Speaker 1: But I recognized, oh my gosh, I am I'm not
Speaker 1: going to be a carry Wizanowski. You know, no one
Speaker 1: is Carrie Grant later or whatever. I'm I want to
Speaker 1: hang onto my name. But then it occurred to me,
Speaker 1: I never did like my middle name of Carol. So
Speaker 1: I'll tell you what, Albert, I'll take it on as
Speaker 1: a middle name, not knowing that my middle name is
Speaker 1: gonna take me on and take me out because from
Speaker 1: there on there's a funny thing that happens when you
Speaker 1: get interviewed. You know, somebody sits down and says, so
Speaker 1: tell me, Paul. Now they've already assumed something about you,
Speaker 1: which for most people would not be a handicap, but
Speaker 1: for me, I wanted to defend the fact that Noel
Speaker 1: was my first name. But it became immediately obvious that
Speaker 1: the question they were asking me it was more important
Speaker 1: then straightening them out as to what my first name was.
Speaker 1: So Paul took me over for about ten or twelve years,
Speaker 1: and then after the spiritual change and having my own
Speaker 1: life one Peter Paulmary took seven years off for good
Speaker 1: behavior between nineteen seventy and nineteen seventy eight. When I
Speaker 1: came back to the group, I said, okay, let's use
Speaker 1: my full name now, I'm no old Paul Stucky. However
Speaker 1: you want to couch that that's who That's who I am.
Speaker 1: That's that's fine, but I need to have my first
Speaker 1: name happening. So okay, So okay, we jumped through a
Speaker 1: few things. There, you're you're there, You change the name.
Speaker 1: Tell us about the agreement for Albert to actually manage you,
Speaker 1: how you selected the initial songs, how you got a
Speaker 1: record deal? In what happened there? Wow? Okay, well down
Speaker 1: down in the weeds a little bit more. Um. Albert
Speaker 1: was handling Peter as a solo artist and felt that
Speaker 1: Peter's voice deserved a better setting. Uh, So he wanted
Speaker 1: to create a group. The first member of the group
Speaker 1: that he thought of was Mary Travers, whose picture was
Speaker 1: hanging up on the wall. Peter said, who's that? Uh in? Uh?
Speaker 1: Is he Young's Folklore Center in Greenwich Village? And Albert
Speaker 1: looked up and knew who she was because she had
Speaker 1: sung with the with Harry Bell Foddi singers and Uh
Speaker 1: and Pete Seeger of the song Swappers, And he said,
Speaker 1: that's Mary Travers. He said she'd be good if you
Speaker 1: could get her to work, and we to this day.
Speaker 1: Mary passed away in two thousand nine. But to this day,
Speaker 1: Peter and I still don't know if what Albert meant
Speaker 1: was if you can get her to focus, or if
Speaker 1: he meant if you could because she has a small child,
Speaker 1: she'd she would consider going into, you know, a career,
Speaker 1: but none the us. She was already on board. I
Speaker 1: had already declined working in a group because I had
Speaker 1: some things I wanted to do by myself. And I
Speaker 1: was commuting to Boston to sing up at Club forty
Speaker 1: seven in between Joan Baez and Tom Rush appearances up there. Uh,
Speaker 1: and Betty, my wife, had moved to Boston, so we
Speaker 1: saw each other up there. Uh. That was another reason
Speaker 1: for me to find a job up there. But anyway,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm back in the apartment in New York. It's uh,
Speaker 1: it's midweek. The phone rings. Then it's Mary on the phone,
Speaker 1: and she says, I've got this guy over here who's
Speaker 1: visiting and we're wondering if we can come over and
Speaker 1: sing some songs. Well, you know, you put it like that. Oh,
Speaker 1: so I had worked up a solo tune for Mary
Speaker 1: to sing a Single Girl, which eventually made it on
Speaker 1: a record. Actually, and a Single Girl is sort of
Speaker 1: symbolic of the way that the tunes came to the trio.
Speaker 1: In the beginning. I'd say at least half of our
Speaker 1: repertoire was drawn on, uh, folk music's history. Whether they
Speaker 1: were gospel tunes, whether they were tunes by Pete Seeger
Speaker 1: or Woody Guthrie, or whether they were songs like the
Speaker 1: Golden Vanity, you know that had been in the in
Speaker 1: the folk ballads lexicon for you know, a hundred years. Uh,
Speaker 1: but we could not agree. This is a wonderful moment.
Speaker 1: We're in my apartment, Peter, Mary and I and we
Speaker 1: know I know by this time that Peter's represented by
Speaker 1: Peter represented by Albert, and we want to see if
Speaker 1: we could sing together. And we're not related. We ain't
Speaker 1: no everly brothers, so we don't have that familial vibe
Speaker 1: that occurs when people are the same family and genetic
Speaker 1: background make harmonies. So we're kind of fishing around. But
Speaker 1: every song we come up with, everybody's got a different
Speaker 1: version of Such was the way of folk music in
Speaker 1: the late fifties early sixties until we landed on Mary
Speaker 1: had a little lamb, Little lamb. So first Mary took
Speaker 1: the melody, Peter and I sang harmony. Then Peter took
Speaker 1: the melody, Mary and I sang harmony. Then I took
Speaker 1: the melody Peter and Mary sang harmony. And no matter
Speaker 1: which way we sliced or diced it, it sounded like
Speaker 1: a group. Uh. There was a and I was just looking,
Speaker 1: you know, it's funny. Uh. Timing is everything, And I
Speaker 1: was just watching an old video of Mary singing. Uh.
Speaker 1: The other day was a light one candle that Peter
Speaker 1: had written. Uh, and we sat. We didn't have to
Speaker 1: modulate for the woman to sing, you know, we didn't
Speaker 1: have to change to another key as sometimes it's often
Speaker 1: done for choruses. Mary's vocal range was quite white, as
Speaker 1: was mine, as was Peters, so we were able to
Speaker 1: make a sound that. Uh. We would trade leads all
Speaker 1: the time. We I think that was and and isn't
Speaker 1: it curious in retrospect talking about walking in through the
Speaker 1: door expecting one thing and leaving with another. That we
Speaker 1: were named Peter, Paul and Mary, which meant the three
Speaker 1: individuals who lent their voices to each other for performances
Speaker 1: also had these moments in the sun where they would
Speaker 1: come out and do solo performances. Peter would sing two songs,
Speaker 1: bring me out. I would do some comedy, sing a song.
Speaker 1: I'd bring Mary out. She douced two songs. Then the
Speaker 1: group would reassemble to finish the concert. So there was
Speaker 1: a kind of continuity, and it showed up not only
Speaker 1: in as the group went on, not only in song selection,
Speaker 1: but the way that our harmonies came together. They were
Speaker 1: not additional harmonies, that is to say, we could sing uh,
Speaker 1: pronouncing the words at the same time. But we more
Speaker 1: and more began to fall into the gospel kind of
Speaker 1: shout and answer, you know, where one would sing a
Speaker 1: lead and we Mary and I might answer Peter or
Speaker 1: Peter was beautiful at creating alternative counterabilodies. Sometimes it got
Speaker 1: to the point where we would write a whole other
Speaker 1: song and then lay that in against a traditional song.
Speaker 1: So are we We kept each other interested in what
Speaker 1: we were doing by virtue of bringing our individual choices
Speaker 1: and surprising each other with our songs selections. And then
Speaker 1: Peter and I as the mid sixties came, began to
Speaker 1: create more and more original material. So that's okay. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Would would the group have been as successful if Albert
Speaker 1: was not the manager? Probably not. Uh. Albert had a
Speaker 1: philosophy that it was quite righteous in nature. Uh. It
Speaker 1: was a little bit of concealment because Albert was a
Speaker 1: great Uh. Albert had great taste, and so he knew
Speaker 1: the value of things before other people could see the
Speaker 1: value of things. So when he went to Warner Brothers,
Speaker 1: for instance, uh, who were at that point there own
Speaker 1: Warner Brothers Records was housed in a closet hut on
Speaker 1: the Burbank lots, the film lots, and I think they
Speaker 1: had maybe Bill Cosby and uh uh Bob Newhart. That
Speaker 1: was about it. Oh, and they had the ever least
Speaker 1: I think. But they were looking for new material. But
Speaker 1: they weren't willing to go Uh. They weren't willing to
Speaker 1: let the artist control their own material. They wanted to
Speaker 1: dictate what the songs were. They wanted to assign a producer.
Speaker 1: Albert said, no, no no, no, no, I'm gonna do that.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you what, though, you give us a single
Speaker 1: record deal, just one record. We don't need three records.
Speaker 1: You know, we're not going to sign a long deal.
Speaker 1: Just give us one record and the right to do
Speaker 1: whatever we want and the budget for that, and then
Speaker 1: we'll see where it goes from there. Help needless to say,
Speaker 1: the first album went through the roof. Peter, Paul and
Speaker 1: Mary were established. We had Lemon Tree, we had if
Speaker 1: I had a hammer the end. The music suited the times.
Speaker 1: But to put a caper on the description of Albert,
Speaker 1: his capacity to recognize the value of what he had
Speaker 1: to bargain with was kind of an invisible leverage. That
Speaker 1: is to say, he would go to a promoter, uh
Speaker 1: and say we would like to do the London Palladium,
Speaker 1: or we would like to do Constitution Hall in Washington,
Speaker 1: d C. And the promoters say, well, uh, you know
Speaker 1: I can't I can't give you ten dollar guarantee. And
Speaker 1: I would say, oh, we don't want to guarantee, we
Speaker 1: just want of the ticket sales. So he was always
Speaker 1: on the comp not on the take. So he got
Speaker 1: a reputation for being a hard nosed businessman, but actually
Speaker 1: he just had great faith in what he thought was
Speaker 1: a coming attraction. So you know, an eight percent turned
Speaker 1: out to be twenty four tho dollars who needed the
Speaker 1: guarantee and that you know, I'm just making those numbers up,
Speaker 1: but relatively you understand what I'm saying. He was able
Speaker 1: to negotiate great terms for us no matter where we went,
Speaker 1: and he was our manager for the first ten eleven
Speaker 1: years of our lives. And probably the greatest coup that
Speaker 1: he pulled off was when the trio recorded their individual
Speaker 1: solo albums in the early evanies. He negotiated that those records,
Speaker 1: the those tapes, those master tapes, would revert to the
Speaker 1: artists as their property, that Warner Brothers was only leasing them,
Speaker 1: and so both Peter, Mary and myself had those records
Speaker 1: as our own property. They came back to us. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Albert was pretty pretty amazing guy. And what it's it's
Speaker 1: very ironic being the cuisine, being the culinary artiste. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, he was really he really understood good food,
Speaker 1: had a restaurant and would's not called the Bear. And
Speaker 1: how ironic that he should die die on an airplane
Speaker 1: headed for London. Uh. And the first question that most
Speaker 1: people had was before or after the meal. He was
Speaker 1: a delightful man. Uh, with a great giggle. That's what
Speaker 1: I remember most about how he used to go. He
Speaker 1: would never laugh out loud, he would go yeah, okay. Now,
Speaker 1: Dylan ultimately fell out with him over money. Uh do
Speaker 1: you I would ask a what percentage did he take in? Uh?
Speaker 1: Do you feel comfortable with the deal? And how things
Speaker 1: the financial accountings? Well? For us? Mind you, Albert put
Speaker 1: us together. So the fact that he, in his office
Speaker 1: took it was absolutely proper as far as we were concerned.
Speaker 1: Not only that the success was of the group was
Speaker 1: so large and so immediate that uh, you know, I
Speaker 1: think we would have had to develop some kind of
Speaker 1: animosity much much later, you know, maybe when the money
Speaker 1: was running out, or or our career tends turned south,
Speaker 1: which it never did. Um. We did leave Albert after
Speaker 1: the time off for good behavior, but but he had
Speaker 1: so many other irons in the fire by that time,
Speaker 1: he really didn't need us anymore. And I think Bobby's
Speaker 1: falling out with Albert was more question of the publishing
Speaker 1: than it was how Albert was handling his career. Uh yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: So how did you decide to do The first hit
Speaker 1: was if I Had a Hammer? So, how did you
Speaker 1: decide to do that? No? No, No, first hit was
Speaker 1: Lemon Try. Lemon Try was on. It was just on
Speaker 1: the Peter Polymery album and Buck Herron Young DJ out
Speaker 1: of Oakland. Um, I can't remember the KF e W
Speaker 1: k B E GO. I don't know what the radio
Speaker 1: station was. Anyway, he pulled it off, made it the
Speaker 1: single of the week or something. A couple of other
Speaker 1: radio stations picked up on it, and you know, the
Speaker 1: charts were into meant then, I mean Billboard and cash
Speaker 1: Box they were the only charts around maybe Bill Gavin's Report. Uh.
Speaker 1: And so people would see what Lemon Try? What is that?
Speaker 1: Who are these people? Give me? Give me that album,
Speaker 1: let me hear that. And so we went up to
Speaker 1: we were top thirty with Lemon Try. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: fame acceptance is quite often built on a previous record,
Speaker 1: and certainly it was in this case. And though Lemonry
Speaker 1: was not a political statement, it's certainly set up the
Speaker 1: visibility of the group, so that in nineteen sixty two
Speaker 1: sixty three, when the foment about civil rights was happening, Uh,
Speaker 1: if I Had a Hammer was uh, you know, became
Speaker 1: a calling card. Uh. It's timing was expressive of a
Speaker 1: lot of the sentiment that was felt across the country.
Speaker 1: And you know, we were we were the right people
Speaker 1: at the right time, with the right message and following
Speaker 1: that to be able to because of Albert's handling of
Speaker 1: Dylan and the opportunity to hear Dylan's tunes before anybody
Speaker 1: else heard them. When we heard Don't Think Twice and
Speaker 1: Blowing in the Wind one night backstage at the Gate
Speaker 1: of Horne in Chicago, we wanted to do both the
Speaker 1: tune and as you well know, Blowing in the Wind
Speaker 1: not only became number two hit, uh, following If I
Speaker 1: Had a Hammer, but also has gone on to become
Speaker 1: a classic done by you know, tons of performers and
Speaker 1: always has a certain residence among uh those people who
Speaker 1: still fight for human rights world around. Okay, so when
Speaker 1: you say you heard it backstage on an ascetator, was
Speaker 1: what was going on? Hunt? No on an estate? Yeah. Now,
Speaker 1: for those people don't know what an ascetate is, you
Speaker 1: know that's like a vinyl gone early. Uh. It requires
Speaker 1: a needle on cutting a groove. Uh. And as the
Speaker 1: sound comes out the groove move sideways and up and down,
Speaker 1: lateral and vertical. And then when you put a needle
Speaker 1: on that play back through an amplified process, you get
Speaker 1: you get what was recorded. So, yes, it was an
Speaker 1: ascetate played on a turntable at the bar and at
Speaker 1: the gate of Horn. But Albert was managing Dylan. So
Speaker 1: was it just a matter of him, uh feeding you
Speaker 1: these songs or was it a whole cabal with Albert
Speaker 1: and his acts that you were in it together and
Speaker 1: you had a relationship with Dylan, you were the same
Speaker 1: scene or were you really in different verticals? That's interesting.
Speaker 1: You probably believe a lot of other conspiracy theories to write.
Speaker 1: Believe me on the opposite of a conspiracy. Okay, well, no,
Speaker 1: there was no conspiracy involved. There was just a you know,
Speaker 1: a parallel of themes, you know, I mean, like I said,
Speaker 1: these are the times in which we lived. And uh,
Speaker 1: you know, my first contact with Bobby as a passing
Speaker 1: artist was when I was master of ceremonies in Greenwich
Speaker 1: Village and Bobby came in to do a set and
Speaker 1: he at that time the first time through the gaslight. Uh,
Speaker 1: he sang mostly, Uh, what do he got three tunes
Speaker 1: and he had a voice very much that suited what
Speaker 1: he got three tunes, and then he went away to
Speaker 1: go on tour I think I think it was in
Speaker 1: New Jersey, and he came back maybe a couple of
Speaker 1: months later and asked if he could do a set,
Speaker 1: and I, kind of being in charge of the entertainment,
Speaker 1: I said yeah, sure of course, and he got up
Speaker 1: on stage and he did a song about, uh, Buffalo,
Speaker 1: I can't remember what not Buffalo writers Buffalo, I don't know.
Speaker 1: There's a song about a guy that gets a job
Speaker 1: out in the west, uh, skinning buffalo, buffalo skinner. That's
Speaker 1: what it was. Uh. But these were totally different lyrics.
Speaker 1: The original lyric was about how the buffalo skinner goes
Speaker 1: to get paid and they give him skins and he says, well,
Speaker 1: I can't do anything with this. I gotta eat. And
Speaker 1: the guy says, take it to the general store and
Speaker 1: trade in the skins and he'll give you the food. Oh.
Speaker 1: So that's this is told to a plaintive three chord
Speaker 1: folk melody, right, that's the traditional tune. Dylan comes back
Speaker 1: from two months in New Jersey singing at a folk
Speaker 1: club and he starts playing the chords behind Buffalo Skinner,
Speaker 1: only he's talking about a guy that's gone to work
Speaker 1: at this chess folk club in New Jersey. That's what
Speaker 1: the lyric is about, and the fact that when he
Speaker 1: comes to get his payroll, the the owner of the
Speaker 1: of the chess club, gives him a chess set instead
Speaker 1: of money. And he says, what am I supposed to
Speaker 1: do with this? And he says, take it to the bartender.
Speaker 1: So he goes to the bar and he's orders a
Speaker 1: beer and he pays him mcking and gets two ponds
Speaker 1: on a rook and return. Now the moment I saw that,
Speaker 1: you know, um, And that was a revelation to me.
Speaker 1: Here was somebody who understood in a more significant level
Speaker 1: the abstract of folk music, that it had the capacity
Speaker 1: to inform tell a story, but that it was timeless,
Speaker 1: that the that the arrangement was conceivably just an opportunity
Speaker 1: to voice more contemporary concerns. So two days later, I
Speaker 1: don't know if you remember, but a ferry runs a
Speaker 1: ground in New York City, in New York Harbor in
Speaker 1: the Hudson River. Because counterfeit tickets were printed for a
Speaker 1: bare mountain picnic, and too many people got on board
Speaker 1: the ship. They refused to believe that they were counterfeit,
Speaker 1: and the ship sank. And the irony of that was
Speaker 1: not lost on the person who wrote the news article.
Speaker 1: And I handed the article to Dylan, who was there
Speaker 1: for the weekend. The next night he came in and
Speaker 1: does the talking Bear Mountain Picnic Massacre blues. So two
Speaker 1: days later or thereabouts, I say to Albert, you gotta
Speaker 1: come down and hear this guy. He is a genius.
Speaker 1: So that was Albert's I think, first contact with Dylan,
Speaker 1: our first awareness of Dylan. But they were a great couple.
Speaker 1: I mean, Dylan moved right into Woodstock and what a
Speaker 1: great synergy between him and Robbie and and uh, you
Speaker 1: know the band. I mean, what a great, great group
Speaker 1: of musicians and thinkers. And the Basement tapes are just
Speaker 1: so lovely. Um and you know, an inspiration once again
Speaker 1: for being authentic. You know, find find the best way
Speaker 1: in your own voice to speak to that which concerns you,
Speaker 1: and you'll include a lot of people, because I think
Speaker 1: people can they just sense the truth. It's like what
Speaker 1: Richard Nixon was not. Okay, let's go back to that era.
Speaker 1: I'm old enough to be aware. Most people only read
Speaker 1: about it in books. But prior to the Beatles, there
Speaker 1: was a huge folk scene, even to the point there
Speaker 1: was a TV show puting in You've You've referenced the
Speaker 1: fact that there was a scene in Greenwich Village once
Speaker 1: again legendary, but it was happening when most people were
Speaker 1: not aware. Needless to say, with your success, you were
Speaker 1: kings and queen of that scene. What was it like
Speaker 1: in the folk world at that time, Well, don't forget
Speaker 1: speaking of kings, the King has done trio who were
Speaker 1: out the door early maybe two years prior to us,
Speaker 1: uh with folk music. But it was kind of good
Speaker 1: time folk music. It was, you know, let's all get
Speaker 1: together and have a u a great time singing together.
Speaker 1: Um to have a couple of years, let's have a party,
Speaker 1: let's uh sing uh Waltz Matilda, let's sing you know
Speaker 1: songs that we all know. Well that was that was good.
Speaker 1: But this was a different kind of music, and so
Speaker 1: the folks scenes sort of changed, bent in that direction
Speaker 1: and augured uh for a a more concerned lyric in
Speaker 1: general that in now the folks scene itself. Okay, I
Speaker 1: mean there was the Kingston's. There was John Stewart, who
Speaker 1: brought arguably to the Kingston's a kind of political conscience
Speaker 1: that they hadn't had since Dave Guard left the group. Um,
Speaker 1: there was the Brandywine Singers. There was you know, uh
Speaker 1: the Brothers Four. There were uh, you know, Entrudy. And
Speaker 1: then there were the soloists. I mean there was Joan An,
Speaker 1: there was Judy Collins, there was um, you know, I
Speaker 1: the mind cannot really I can't fully embrace the breadth. Uh.
Speaker 1: It was just such a wide variety of artists who
Speaker 1: little by little made there made their statements through the
Speaker 1: medium of folk music, and folk music began to have
Speaker 1: its effect on pop music because here were here were DJs.
Speaker 1: You know, they were used to playing lush ballads by
Speaker 1: Bert Backrack, and now they were playing a guitar and
Speaker 1: harmonica and a guy singing what is this? But you know,
Speaker 1: where is the Where's the luster? Where's the glamour? Where's
Speaker 1: And eventually that desire for a more uh how shall
Speaker 1: I say, a more arresting sound began to manifest itself
Speaker 1: in rock and roll and the lyrics subsequently, we're uh
Speaker 1: inspired in rock and roll? You know I can't get
Speaker 1: no satisfaction in a sense was a far cry from
Speaker 1: what the world needs now is love sweet love. Yeah. So,
Speaker 1: folk music's impact on pop music in the mid sixties
Speaker 1: triggered the release of a variety. To me, one of
Speaker 1: the main uh, main changes occurred when James Taylor UH
Speaker 1: came on the scene because his ability to blend a
Speaker 1: beautifully played acoustic guitar with piano drums. UH kind of
Speaker 1: was the middle ground, you know, once again we could
Speaker 1: have pretty music that spoke to very personal relations, that
Speaker 1: had a broader conscience to it. And then of course
Speaker 1: the Beatles arrived with Please Please Me, and the Stones continued,
Speaker 1: and then we were into the Loving Spoonful and even
Speaker 1: to this day, as a matter of fact, I'm holding
Speaker 1: up your people can't see it, but I'm holding up
Speaker 1: an album that says, hope rises. This is a this
Speaker 1: is a album that contains fifteen new artists because a
Speaker 1: lot of people uh. And I'm sure it's something that
Speaker 1: you will ask later in this interview. Where can we
Speaker 1: hear music that pertains to the times and the crises
Speaker 1: in which we live now? And that music is there,
Speaker 1: but the niche for their for its expression as narrowed considerably.
Speaker 1: I mean, there are many slices of opportunity now and
Speaker 1: what Music to Life does has done is to sponsor
Speaker 1: these artists in their separate communities and to encourage them
Speaker 1: to record and to use music as part of the
Speaker 1: everyday outreach to their communities. But we'll talk about that later.
Speaker 1: Um anyway, mhm. The fact that I brought it up
Speaker 1: is part of the awareness that styles of music have
Speaker 1: less to do with the success of the lyric than
Speaker 1: they used to. Uh. You know, there was a time
Speaker 1: when country and Western was hillbilly. You know, there was
Speaker 1: a time when hip hop and rap was nothing but anger.
Speaker 1: There was a time, you know when bossa Nova was
Speaker 1: a lush rather than pointed. Uh So, these changes I
Speaker 1: think came about to a large part because they were
Speaker 1: encouraged by folk musics encouragement to speak to those events
Speaker 1: that we share as a world community. But you know,
Speaker 1: from the outside, not being a maker of this music,
Speaker 1: what do I know, everyone wherever you went there was
Speaker 1: a guitar and you sang these songs. They were sung
Speaker 1: at summer camps, etcetera. And in addition, there was a
Speaker 1: lot of you know, even when Kennedy was there. There
Speaker 1: were a lot of political issues, certainly starting with what
Speaker 1: was going on in Cuba. It seemed from the outside
Speaker 1: that the folk artists had their finger on the pulse
Speaker 1: and we're singing to move sentiment in a certain direction.
Speaker 1: Did it feel like that on the inside? Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean by nineteen sixty three for sure. Standing on the
Speaker 1: steps of the Lincoln Memorial with the Dr. King, I've
Speaker 1: referred to it many times. You know. Mary turned to
Speaker 1: Peter and said, Hope is palpable. Okay, that begs the question.
Speaker 1: I gotta say, although Obama ran on Hope you know
Speaker 1: a number of years ago, two thousand and eight, as
Speaker 1: someone who's seen it seen at all, Contract asked, I
Speaker 1: don't want to sound like a college question. Contrast and
Speaker 1: compare the vibe in the American mentality then as opposed
Speaker 1: to today. I think there was some resistance to the
Speaker 1: human rights movement, particularly as it UH presented itself in
Speaker 1: the UH as a challenge to the white racists in
Speaker 1: the South UH and that it wasn't. But the overall
Speaker 1: effectiveness of that movement, of the civil rights movement was
Speaker 1: that it expressed a desire for America to get righteous, Uh,
Speaker 1: to be inclusive, as its history has indicated. It was
Speaker 1: give me retired, your poor, your masses yearning to be free.
Speaker 1: This was this was a chance to go on public
Speaker 1: record as the encouragement, and that then morphed into Oh,
Speaker 1: I see we can as a large group get together
Speaker 1: and in if not influence people's opinions, we can at
Speaker 1: least express our own in numbers that would encourage them
Speaker 1: to discover what the true facts behind this are. And
Speaker 1: so that's when it morphed into the the anti war movement. Uh.
Speaker 1: It was a natural chain of events, I think, uh
Speaker 1: in a sense empowered large groups of people to make statements,
Speaker 1: and the music was a thread that ran through all
Speaker 1: of that. Okay, but today, do you believe that we
Speaker 1: are off course? Or we can only self correct and
Speaker 1: have hope? And where is music's place in today's consciousness? Well,
Speaker 1: you know you're talking to Mr Hopeful here. I mean,
Speaker 1: I I am loathed to despair. I mean, I see
Speaker 1: inequities still, but I know that in my own life, uh,
Speaker 1: I've seen change. So I can't help but feel that
Speaker 1: everybody's life has the possibility to change. And I know
Speaker 1: that we're at longer heads uh conceptually with many of
Speaker 1: the people who back Donald Trump. Oh, but I can't
Speaker 1: help but feel that when we discover the larger issue,
Speaker 1: and that is one of respect and compassion, we will
Speaker 1: ultimately be joined again. Now, you can't legislate compassion, You
Speaker 1: can only invite it by being compassionate yourself. You can't
Speaker 1: legislate forgiveness. But you know, taking a page of Mandela's
Speaker 1: handling of APARTHEIDU, you can have public forums where people
Speaker 1: voice their concerns and are, if not assuaged, at least
Speaker 1: aware that reconciliation is possible. Because every human life has value.
Speaker 1: So the the hope that we will begin to consider
Speaker 1: the larger inspiration for the human uh, for the human experience. Ah,
Speaker 1: it goes on. Um. That's why you know the song
Speaker 1: I sang to you before about love with the capital L.
Speaker 1: That's that is the awareness. Uh. Sure the atheists will
Speaker 1: not accept the G word, you know, but if they've
Speaker 1: ever been in love, then they have an inkling of
Speaker 1: what it is that can draw us together. And that
Speaker 1: means that you know, the better angels in us UH
Speaker 1: begins to embrace and include our fellow human beings. I
Speaker 1: think town halls. You know, actually, they're going to become
Speaker 1: a very important aspect because on a local level, they
Speaker 1: will allow us to voice concerns that relate directly to
Speaker 1: our lives, and then we're gonna be able to translate
Speaker 1: that into a larger picture. Okay, let's go back to
Speaker 1: the six season our timeline. The Beatles come along, they
Speaker 1: wipe out a zillion acts, very few sustain. Okay, the
Speaker 1: Beach Boys sustained, the four seasons sustained, but ultimately Peter
Speaker 1: Paul Mary end up having a couple of gigantic kits.
Speaker 1: One is I dig rock and roll music? Can you
Speaker 1: tell us the story of that? Yeah, Yeah, I got
Speaker 1: a I got a great friend. I think I mentioned
Speaker 1: him earlier, Jim Mason, who reduced a couple of things
Speaker 1: for Poco. I was introduced to him by Dave Dixon,
Speaker 1: who was the voice of Norman Normal in a cartoon
Speaker 1: that I did for Warner Brothers. Um, Jim Mason came in,
Speaker 1: sat down in the living room of uh, Dave Dixon's
Speaker 1: living room where we used to in New York City
Speaker 1: on Jane Street, and Uh, he said, I got a
Speaker 1: new tune for you, and he sang datandan that with
Speaker 1: the most inane lyrics you've ever heard in your life
Speaker 1: about my girl. She left me on a Thursday, and
Speaker 1: I wonder if she ever cared, you know, that kind
Speaker 1: of thing. And I when it got all done, I
Speaker 1: looked at Jim and I said, that's the hippest piece
Speaker 1: of music to the most banallyps I've ever heard in
Speaker 1: my life. And he said, well, what do you think
Speaker 1: it's about. And so between the three of us we
Speaker 1: started writing I did and roll music. Now we just
Speaker 1: went through this period of time where I did my
Speaker 1: toilet for you in a couple of sound effects. So
Speaker 1: I love to mimic uh. And this was we knew
Speaker 1: all the people that we were making. By this time,
Speaker 1: we had Peter Mary and I had met the Beatles
Speaker 1: on the set of Hard Days Night, uh, and I
Speaker 1: loved I mean ever since, Please Please Me. I was
Speaker 1: blown away by their harmonic inventions and their recordings. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know. And Donovan bless his bless his soul, was
Speaker 1: was part folky too. I mean he came to a
Speaker 1: couple of Newport folk festivals, uh, and was the one
Speaker 1: guy from that era who always, I don't know, our
Speaker 1: paths seemed to cross all the time and nicest, nicest
Speaker 1: man um but with a very distinctive singing style. And
Speaker 1: of course there was the Mamas and the Papas, Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: the John Phillips signature stuff and Mary newcasts really well.
Speaker 1: And so we put this thing together almost like in secret.
Speaker 1: I mean it was like we went into the laboratory.
Speaker 1: Peter played guitar and recorded it backwards, so we get
Speaker 1: that muss you know, that backwards sound. I imitated Donovan's voice,
Speaker 1: we did Mary did the oh yeah, the tagline for
Speaker 1: the Moms and the Papas. And here's the funny story.
Speaker 1: We're in Australia when the test pressing comes through. Well
Speaker 1: we don't have any way to play a test pressing.
Speaker 1: We're in a hotel, you know. So we go to
Speaker 1: the local record store and we put it on and
Speaker 1: we asked if we can borrow one of the booths,
Speaker 1: and the guy says, yeah, I'll just leave the door open.
Speaker 1: So we left the door open. We play it and
Speaker 1: he says to us, who's who's that? Who's that saying?
Speaker 1: And we said it's Peter, Paul and Mary because he
Speaker 1: didn't he didn't recognize us, and he said well, that
Speaker 1: will never sell. So that was and that was a
Speaker 1: remarkable UH comeback. But that's not the true irony. The
Speaker 1: true irony is leaving on a jet plane, which happened
Speaker 1: in ninev just before the group took its seven years
Speaker 1: off for good behavior. And that irony was based on
Speaker 1: the the lament and the angst that was shared by
Speaker 1: so many families and their sons and their daughters and
Speaker 1: the soldiers returning to or departing for the war in Vietnam. Uh.
Speaker 1: John Denver's tune was just touched so many buttons at
Speaker 1: that point, and that that tune was on an album
Speaker 1: that was released two years earlier that had I did
Speaker 1: rock and roll music on. I remember that because you know,
Speaker 1: in UH youth groups, religious youth groups, myself, I was involved.
Speaker 1: Album seven teen hundred was a big deal. We always
Speaker 1: sang leaving on in Jepline. Then what it was ultimately
Speaker 1: a hit was such a surprise. But I have to
Speaker 1: ask those of us number it was called album seventeen
Speaker 1: hundred because was number seventeen hundred in the Warner Brothers catalog.
Speaker 1: Who came up with that. Our idea was to try
Speaker 1: to escape the title, and we just wanted the number
Speaker 1: of the album to be the title, and we were
Speaker 1: thinking he was gonna be like or you know, two
Speaker 1: thousand twelve or whatever. We didn't care. We just wanted
Speaker 1: that was our idea. That was Peter, Mary and I said,
Speaker 1: let's just have the number. We told that the Warners
Speaker 1: Warner said fine. So when seventeen hundred came out, we said,
Speaker 1: seventeen hundred, that'sn't even number. What's so memorable about that?
Speaker 1: And you got the word album in front of it.
Speaker 1: We didn't want that, but it turned out not to
Speaker 1: matter because hundred head really quite a few major turning
Speaker 1: point tunes for us. By that time. Peter and I
Speaker 1: were generating a lot of the material. Um, I don't
Speaker 1: I don't remember what was on that album specifically, besides
Speaker 1: I did rock and home music. But I think it
Speaker 1: might have had the song was Love, It might have
Speaker 1: had him, It might have had might have had the
Speaker 1: House song on it. There were those were mine. I
Speaker 1: think I think the great Mandela was on it. Peter's
Speaker 1: anti war tune. Yeah, that was a end. It was
Speaker 1: the last of the albums done by Phil Ramon, who was,
Speaker 1: you know, a production genius. Uh he he did come
Speaker 1: back and do a album that disappeared quickly called Reunion.
Speaker 1: Oh no, not the Reunion album. He did the one
Speaker 1: after that, Lifelines Live Lifelines and Lifelines Live where we
Speaker 1: uh reconnected in the early eighties with John Sebashian and
Speaker 1: Dave Van Rock and Odetta and Richie Havens and u
Speaker 1: uh Susan Werner a lot of our friends Emmy Lou
Speaker 1: Harris to do an album songs. Okay tell me the
Speaker 1: story though, was too much of nothing because I was
Speaker 1: on the Basement Tapes and was unknown the Basement Teams album.
Speaker 1: There have been a number of iterations, but the original
Speaker 1: double album was not out yet, so most people did
Speaker 1: not know the song. And this not only was a
Speaker 1: Dylan song, the ultimate arrangement was different and it had
Speaker 1: very modern recording productions. Yep. Well you know, we got
Speaker 1: we got better at setting the tunes and we also
Speaker 1: had access to really brilliant musicians that slide guitar and
Speaker 1: too much of nothing is just I mean, there is
Speaker 1: always an attempt when you're producing a piece of lyrical
Speaker 1: music to have the music joined the lyrics, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: as an additive, to be part of what's being said.
Speaker 1: Not only suit the mood, but maybe even embellish the
Speaker 1: character a little bit. Sometimes it gets out of hand,
Speaker 1: you overshoot. I can remember there are sometimes where I
Speaker 1: used to play some color chords to a Woody Guthrie tune.
Speaker 1: By color chords, I mean like a major seventh, you know,
Speaker 1: We're diminished or something that Peter would go, you can't
Speaker 1: play that, said, why not? He said, that's not what
Speaker 1: the song is about. And I you know, you understand
Speaker 1: on a certain level you have to capitulate to what
Speaker 1: the song is trying to say. But on too much
Speaker 1: of nothing, you know, the embellishment really suited it. Uh.
Speaker 1: We had a great drummer. I don't remember what his
Speaker 1: name was, but uh yeah, too much a nothing can
Speaker 1: make a man feel ill at ease, and as certainly
Speaker 1: as the time in which we live now, and that's
Speaker 1: for sure. Okay, Ultimately the group separates and everybody puts
Speaker 1: out a solo album. Uh, you're the only one who
Speaker 1: has a hit, and it's a pretty big hit, the
Speaker 1: wedding song. And then ultimately you even donate the income
Speaker 1: from that song and start a foundation. Can you tell
Speaker 1: us all that? Yeah, well, you know, the creation of
Speaker 1: the song was I had gone through a real spiritual turnaround.
Speaker 1: Peter saw that, uh, we are you know, we are
Speaker 1: still a trio, but it's getting a little lobbily because
Speaker 1: I'm beginning to proselytize on stage and really challenging the
Speaker 1: uh the Jewish audience, because I haven't learned the language
Speaker 1: of inclusiveness yet. And and yet Peter approaches me and says,
Speaker 1: you know, Mary Beth and I are getting married, and
Speaker 1: we would love you to bless our wedding with the song.
Speaker 1: And I've said this from stage before, you know. I
Speaker 1: I knew that I wasn't authorized to dispense blessings, but
Speaker 1: I knew where I could get one. So so I
Speaker 1: prayed for the song and the and the prayer was
Speaker 1: unique insofar as it was not give me a song
Speaker 1: for Peter's wedding. It was how would you capital why
Speaker 1: manifest yourself at Peter's wedding? And the lyric was, I
Speaker 1: am now to be among you at the calling of
Speaker 1: your hearts. Rest assured this bozo, which I changed the
Speaker 1: troubador is acting, is acting on my part anyway. The
Speaker 1: lyric came so quickly, I, you know, could barely write it.
Speaker 1: Down and you've heard these stories from other songwriters before
Speaker 1: where it just flows, but it was direct answer to prayer.
Speaker 1: So flash forward nine months later, I've recorded it on
Speaker 1: a solo album. The trio is no longer together, and
Speaker 1: I am driving to New York, back to the Rye
Speaker 1: House from Scarsdale. I think I can't remember, maybe we
Speaker 1: were visiting somebody in New Hampshire. But anyway, I've kind
Speaker 1: of make a decision about publishing. Every one of the
Speaker 1: tunes is Scott. You know. I'm doing a tune by
Speaker 1: Bill Hughes called Meanings Will Change. I've you know, I've
Speaker 1: written a lot of the tunes that are on the album,
Speaker 1: but there's this tune that I can't really incredibly except
Speaker 1: the authorship of because I prayed for it. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, they had a category in songwriting that said
Speaker 1: good Steward. Maybe I'll qualify, you know, but they don't
Speaker 1: allow that in publishing. Either wrote it or you didn't
Speaker 1: write it. So as I'm driving, I turned to Betty
Speaker 1: and I say, you know, I ain't gonna give this tune.
Speaker 1: I'm going to give this tune to a foundation and
Speaker 1: then so that way the money's will still come in
Speaker 1: there won't be a new portion the Warner Brothers parking
Speaker 1: a lot that knowns that belongs to some executive because
Speaker 1: he didn't have to pay out the money for the publishing.
Speaker 1: The money will go to not now mind you, this
Speaker 1: is still just a track on an album. I don't
Speaker 1: know that it's gonna go you know, platinum as a
Speaker 1: single or become a mainstay for weddings. Uh. So I
Speaker 1: gave it to the public Domain Foundation, made sure that
Speaker 1: everybody knew that that's where the money should go. And
Speaker 1: you know what, the Public Domain Foundation fostered the Music
Speaker 1: to Life Organization, which now supports young singer songwriters all
Speaker 1: over America in their various communities. It also, you know,
Speaker 1: in that process, uh supported a lot of other charities too.
Speaker 1: And the nice thing about it, U was I got
Speaker 1: to choose who the charities were because it was such
Speaker 1: a homespun foundation. I mean, yeah, I gave you know,
Speaker 1: public Domain Foundation gave thirty dollars to Oxfam, which a
Speaker 1: lot of people know the works of. But it also
Speaker 1: gave like forty one dollars and thirty four cents to
Speaker 1: a church in Alabama to get its roof fixed. That
Speaker 1: kind of flexibility was just a joy to me. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, and people didn't know where to apply to
Speaker 1: the foundation. But the Moneys went for you know, for
Speaker 1: good causes. And I felt like I had made a statement.
Speaker 1: And the song continues to make a statement. Okay, you know,
Speaker 1: you can't talk about the music business without talking about
Speaker 1: the money. What do we know back then? You know,
Speaker 1: contrat tickets could be a dollar fifty records could be
Speaker 1: two dollars and fifty cents. You didn't write a lot
Speaker 1: of these songs now, one level economics were different. There
Speaker 1: was more of a middle class. We didn't have billionaires.
Speaker 1: So I guess it's you know, a multipart question, which
Speaker 1: was a did you see the money? Could you live
Speaker 1: with a lifestyle you were comfortable with? Do you felt
Speaker 1: feel like you were ripped off when the heyday was done?
Speaker 1: Was there any money coming in? Oh, that's such an
Speaker 1: uninformed question, Bob. We'll lay it on, criticize, we go
Speaker 1: for it. Oh yeah, I mean, well, let's work backwards.
Speaker 1: Even today, from Warner Brothers Publishing or New World Publishing,
Speaker 1: which is my own, or Peters I think it's Silver
Speaker 1: Dawn Publishing. We get accountings. They come in the form
Speaker 1: of two inch thick uh pieces of paper, a two
Speaker 1: inch stack of papers typed out by a computer that says,
Speaker 1: for instance, too much of nothing Singapore point zero zero
Speaker 1: one to five cents. These things add up, and when
Speaker 1: you're talking about a worldwide release, they had up to
Speaker 1: a considerable amount of money. So even to this date,
Speaker 1: I probably just my part of it. And I'm you know,
Speaker 1: I didn't have puff the magic dragon. You know, I
Speaker 1: didn't have I would say the lion's share of the publishing.
Speaker 1: But even to this date, I'm well into five figures
Speaker 1: uh publishing moneys that come in quarterly. Um So, I'm
Speaker 1: just blessed beyond belief, really, And I think most people
Speaker 1: who had record deals from the sixties who are revisited
Speaker 1: for nostalgia purposes or revisited because an advertising campaign wants
Speaker 1: to use their music the ask cap and after and
Speaker 1: all of the unions that have protected artists these past
Speaker 1: years have done their work very well. And to the
Speaker 1: extent that you earn in royalty, uh, you get a
Speaker 1: pretty fair shake from the world around you. Um So
Speaker 1: I have I have no complaints, no quarrel with the
Speaker 1: way that the money's were played out. There probably are
Speaker 1: horror stories based on unscrupulous managers, you know, or unscrupulous
Speaker 1: companies who had you sign on a dotted line in
Speaker 1: invisible length that went away or went through a shredder
Speaker 1: or into some offshore account. But for the most part,
Speaker 1: the people that we dealt with were very upright, very
Speaker 1: uh yeah, very honorable folks. And most of the music industry,
Speaker 1: I think, is that way. Well, as I say, there's
Speaker 1: certainly horror stories. Thank god it wasn't down in your
Speaker 1: neck of the woods. Let's go to the Music to
Speaker 1: lie when. So, when did you start Music to Life
Speaker 1: And what is the mission you sort of generally said,
Speaker 1: and what are the activities of the organization? For asking
Speaker 1: because that is a contemporary thing and most people like
Speaker 1: to dwell in the land of nostalgia. When they talked
Speaker 1: to a a former member of Peter, Paul and Mary,
Speaker 1: the fact is, as I mentioned before, folk music has
Speaker 1: an ongoing life, and that means that there are writers,
Speaker 1: singer songwriters out there who are writing about contemporary events,
Speaker 1: contemporary concerns, and they are a group of songwriters nationally
Speaker 1: and probably even worldwide. Now that an organization called Music
Speaker 1: to Life that was begun by my daughter Elizabeth Sunday
Speaker 1: Stooky UH support but the evolution is interesting, and it's
Speaker 1: interesting because most people can identify with the beginnings easier
Speaker 1: than they can with where it has come. In the beginning,
Speaker 1: there were folk festivals and at these folk festivals there
Speaker 1: would be singer songwriters. One of the primary folk festivals
Speaker 1: was in Texas in the little town called Cerville. And
Speaker 1: every year, beginning in the late hundreds, UH, Elizabeth, my
Speaker 1: daughter and I would scan anywhere between three hundred and
Speaker 1: five hundred applicants to be included on an album called
Speaker 1: Music to Life, and UH an appear at the Silver
Speaker 1: Thorn Theater. UH as one of ten finalists who would
Speaker 1: receive receive awards. Those were curious concerts UH beginning. Then
Speaker 1: First of all, they were recorded live and released later
Speaker 1: as an album. But what what what year was in
Speaker 1: the beginning, But it went on until two thousand six,
Speaker 1: two thousand nine, actually I think it was the last
Speaker 1: one UM, and they supported and encouraged singer songwriters to
Speaker 1: speak about UH contemporary concerns. UM. The it was recorded live, UH.
Speaker 1: The CD was released didn't really make much money, but
Speaker 1: it was great to go on record as having uh
Speaker 1: encouraged these singer songwriters. Well over the course of that
Speaker 1: period of time, my daughter Liz begin to understand that
Speaker 1: many of these artists didn't do the music just because
Speaker 1: it was a hip thing to do. They did it
Speaker 1: because they were factoring as a lifestyle into the community
Speaker 1: and concerned with homelessness, concerned with the environment, concerned with
Speaker 1: So the music wasn't only to be sung at a
Speaker 1: rubber chicken benefit dinner. It was actually could be used
Speaker 1: with a group of people as a kind of an
Speaker 1: anthem for them. So by community sponsorship, Uh, they for instance,
Speaker 1: in Austin, Texas, now there's a homeless group that gathers
Speaker 1: weekly and they make up songs together. Um. They sing together.
Speaker 1: They have more of a sense of family than they
Speaker 1: ever could isolated as you would imagine they would be. Um.
Speaker 1: The they're singing in prisons now. UM. So that music
Speaker 1: becomes kind of educational and a collective tool for the
Speaker 1: movement itself. Um. And to that end, my daughter Liz
Speaker 1: has started the Activist Artist program, which these two of
Speaker 1: the two of the people on this album are activist artists.
Speaker 1: The others are still on the point where they're commenting
Speaker 1: on the circumstances, but uh, not taking a role in
Speaker 1: the community yet, So we raise money, we mentor them. Uh.
Speaker 1: The most one of the local guys, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: Miles Bullen down in Portland, Maine. It was a former
Speaker 1: addict and we support him on a monthly basis and
Speaker 1: he deals with high schools. I mean he has to
Speaker 1: do it because of the pandemic. Now you know through
Speaker 1: zoom or through uh you know, through online methods. But
Speaker 1: we support these artists and their involvement in their neighborhoods
Speaker 1: as they bring their message of hope and their Yeah,
Speaker 1: they bring their message of hope through music to their
Speaker 1: their fellow citizens. Okay, now you recently put out an album,
Speaker 1: and how high hands on are you personally? Well, you
Speaker 1: know that that brings That's a good question, and it
Speaker 1: brings to mind the fact that I didn't properly answer
Speaker 1: the question about the earlier aspect of who chose these
Speaker 1: songs to go on this album? Out of the three
Speaker 1: to five hundred tunes that was a great cast at
Speaker 1: Kathy Mattea, Judy Collins, Tom Chapin, Tom Paxton, A lot
Speaker 1: of the folkis uh served on a board that analyzed
Speaker 1: and listened to these tunes. So this same concept now
Speaker 1: came to bear on these fifteen tunes. Uh. My involvement,
Speaker 1: aside from being one of the judges, was two sequence.
Speaker 1: I'm from the old school. I'll bet you are too.
Speaker 1: I When I put a record on, I love to
Speaker 1: hear what the next tune is going to be. And
Speaker 1: I mean it's part of what makes radio so fascinating.
Speaker 1: If the disc jockey is really good, then he tells
Speaker 1: a story with the songs that he tends to program.
Speaker 1: So sequencing was important to me on this album. Hope
Speaker 1: rises Um. That was probably a major contribution. Uh. The
Speaker 1: fact is the I would say fully a dozen of
Speaker 1: the fifteen tunes were selected just by quantitatively, uh saying
Speaker 1: this song spoke spoke to me on a scale of
Speaker 1: zero to ten. This was a nine, or this is
Speaker 1: an eight and a half, or this was a But
Speaker 1: three of the songs, and I can't remember which ones
Speaker 1: they are, but three of the songs are on the
Speaker 1: album because well they damn well should be. It was
Speaker 1: one of those Okay, everybody gets a personal vote at
Speaker 1: some point, you know, you get the it's the opposite
Speaker 1: of a veto, it's a must have so uh so
Speaker 1: it was mostly a democratic process that brought the songs together.
Speaker 1: But the there's a great deal of excitement, and you
Speaker 1: know what really knocks me out. These are fifteen very
Speaker 1: diverse started. I mean we're talking hip hop, we're talking reggae,
Speaker 1: we're talking uh, we're talking folky, we're talking lots of echo,
Speaker 1: we're talking no echo, we're talking spare, we're talking to lush,
Speaker 1: And I don't you know, I'd like to claim credit
Speaker 1: that because of the sequencing, you're drawn into it. But
Speaker 1: the nicest compliment that we've gotten so far is that
Speaker 1: people can put on the record and they can play
Speaker 1: the entire record and they're not put off by any
Speaker 1: of the changes. I mean, as diverse as all of
Speaker 1: these tracks are, they flow one to another. Now one's
Speaker 1: got a secretly hope that the reason for that is
Speaker 1: because the intention is selling the tune, that the caring
Speaker 1: that these artists have is being expressed in a way
Speaker 1: that's subliminal, and you just can't help but warmly respond
Speaker 1: to it. Now, needless to say, the landscape in society,
Speaker 1: in the music world is completely different from when you
Speaker 1: guys came up in the early sixties. So when we
Speaker 1: talk about this type of music, I'll use labels, which
Speaker 1: you know, don't really nail it, but message music, music
Speaker 1: that might you know, reflect society or want to push
Speaker 1: it into a certain degree. Many people who have been
Speaker 1: around felt that we'd see a surge of this music
Speaker 1: after the surge when we had a rack war in
Speaker 1: the earlier part of the century. But what we know
Speaker 1: is that no specific uh, social commentary, anti war political
Speaker 1: song has come top of mind and society. So I
Speaker 1: must ask you, is that a matter of the breath
Speaker 1: of music today and that it's almost hard to have
Speaker 1: anything heard by everybody? Or are we lacking the one
Speaker 1: specific writer or artist who will make something definitive and
Speaker 1: then start a new movement. I think both of those
Speaker 1: possibilities are true. For instance, uh, and we will remind
Speaker 1: you of Bruce Springsteen and his important position in bringing
Speaker 1: two the public mind issues and perspectives on the way
Speaker 1: that we live our lives together. Whether that whether he
Speaker 1: enacted it through his you know, ten thousand people in
Speaker 1: an in an arena, or whether he does it on Broadway,
Speaker 1: So and and Lady Gaga, you know, uh, to a
Speaker 1: certain extent, But these Lady Gaga is perhaps more niche
Speaker 1: in in terms of what she is expressing. Uh, but
Speaker 1: nonetheless So that's why that's why the the other possibility
Speaker 1: that you introduced is also correct. There are just so
Speaker 1: many fragments of musical opportunity that exists now for artists
Speaker 1: that they have to pick their particular community to speak to.
Speaker 1: There is not going to be one. I mean, unless
Speaker 1: the Messiah is going to arrive and be accompanied by
Speaker 1: a twelve piece band and bring a whole different kind
Speaker 1: of music that everybody immediately recognizes as the answer to
Speaker 1: all of the foibles of humankind, that's not gonna happen
Speaker 1: in the way that we were able to accept music
Speaker 1: of the civil rights movement, music of the anti apartheid movement,
Speaker 1: music of the environmental movement. I mean, these are, uh,
Speaker 1: they're bigger than splinters, they're probably even planks, But they're
Speaker 1: not an entire house interesting metaphor. Okay, Uh, just to
Speaker 1: cover one thing before, because we're gonna have to wrap
Speaker 1: it up, you have to go, and we've gone at length.
Speaker 1: Do you ever get tired of singing these legendary songs?
Speaker 1: I do have a little trouble with puff the magic Dragon.
Speaker 1: Um though, you know, sometimes just in defense of the
Speaker 1: poor dragon who's maligned for his a parent or alleged
Speaker 1: association with drugs, I don't mind standing up for the
Speaker 1: poor little guy, uh, you know, and setting the record
Speaker 1: straight that he is really just a song about a
Speaker 1: kid who's coming of age. Uh. It's what Tom Paxson
Speaker 1: had a great line for this, Bob. He said, it's
Speaker 1: all right to look at the past, you just don't
Speaker 1: want to be caught staring at it. And to the
Speaker 1: extent that I'm still writing new tunes and embracing tunes
Speaker 1: by other artists that speak to the here and now. Ah,
Speaker 1: I feel like it's important to include some songs of
Speaker 1: the past, but it's also important to register the fact
Speaker 1: that we are living temporarily and that there is a
Speaker 1: possible future before us that has a brighter light, uh
Speaker 1: than the than the world that we're living in now.
Speaker 1: I'm that note of optimism. I don't think I can
Speaker 1: add anything more, Nol. This has been fantastic. You're very erudite,
Speaker 1: very articulate. You can speak as well as saying I
Speaker 1: really appreciate you spending the time, Bob. I was not
Speaker 1: looking forward to this at all, two hours out of
Speaker 1: my life was not the kind of thing that I
Speaker 1: wanted to do. And you are an irascible, wonderful old
Speaker 1: host who brought the best out of my history. I
Speaker 1: enjoyed so much, uh this time with you. And once again,
Speaker 1: to make that analogy, I entered this door with an expectation,
Speaker 1: and I am leaving with a far greater excitement than
Speaker 1: I thought I would have. Thank so much for having me.
Speaker 1: Well to use that old Yiddish expression, I'm veelling even
Speaker 1: though people can't see it on the screen, but you know,
Speaker 1: you have to understand. You know, there's a huge thought
Speaker 1: that today's society, youngsters don't have a sense of history.
Speaker 1: They talk about baseball players not knowing the people before.
Speaker 1: But for those of us who live through this era, okay,
Speaker 1: not only is it a thrill to speak with you,
Speaker 1: but I am aware. I mean, the the folk era
Speaker 1: has been distilled essentially to Dylan going to electric a Newport. Okay,
Speaker 1: you know, forgetting the whole essence of what was going on,
Speaker 1: not that that was not important, the relative to the
Speaker 1: scene at large, which is much larger, and the fact
Speaker 1: that you can talk about it and put it in
Speaker 1: context is certainly thrilling to me. And I'm not I'm
Speaker 1: not exaggerating. It's like, you know, if we had more time,
Speaker 1: what was it really like? I mean, I grew up
Speaker 1: only fifty miles away. I'll tell you something that you'll get,
Speaker 1: which most people won't. And then I was a freshman
Speaker 1: in high school and we're social studies. We were going
Speaker 1: to go on a trip, a field trip, and we're
Speaker 1: deciding where to go, and we were going to go
Speaker 1: to Sturbridge Village. You're aware of Sturbridge Village, right, that's
Speaker 1: you know, just over the line from Connecticut, Massachusetts. It's
Speaker 1: kind of like Williamsburg. People know better where it's, you know,
Speaker 1: a reenactment of the way life used to be. All
Speaker 1: of a sudden, the guy in the back, Steve Blink,
Speaker 1: he says, we can't go there. It's terrible, all the people,
Speaker 1: it's crowded, and we're all sitting there in classic you
Speaker 1: know what is he talking about? Sturbridge Village? And then
Speaker 1: somebody says, you mean Greenwich Village? Uh? And as I say,
Speaker 1: it was such a scene. You know, it's funny that
Speaker 1: you know, things happened. I wouldn't say, right under my
Speaker 1: nose because I was young at the time and I
Speaker 1: was not living in the city and I didn't have wheels.
Speaker 1: But these you all scenes fomented and you were right
Speaker 1: there at the epicenter, and as I say, once again,
Speaker 1: you can talk about it, which is very impressive to me.
Speaker 1: So maybe in a future day we can go deeper
Speaker 1: into some of those scenes. But thanks again so much
Speaker 1: for doing this. It was my pleasure. Thank you again.
Speaker 1: It was really fun. Til next time. This is Bob Left.
Speaker 1: Fans